Page 37 - The Diary of A. H. W. Behrens

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Uncle Schütze was the missionary of the Müden station. We once visited him on foot, father, myself and one of the boys.
It took us about 5 hours. On the way back we were resting under a large thorn tree and were eating something. I lent back against the stem but discovered that it was full of black ants. When I looked up, I saw that there was a big snake lying in the branches. We looked for stones and threw them at the snake until it slid down a branch that was hanging down and into the veld until it got stuck between two tree trunks where we then killed it. It was a green mamba, boomslang, 9 foot long.
On another occasion father and I were invited by Chief Pakade to celebrate new year in his kraal that was made up of many huts in a circle and a large cattle kraal in the middle. He had brewed much beer and had slaughtered an ox. But the main thing was a big dance of his regiments, an impressive spectacle that I can still remember very vividly until today. First, there was a regiment with weapons, spears and knobkieries, with white shields made of dry ox skin, with white ox tails around the knees, body and neck, everything in white, about 100 men, danced, jumped, sang and praised the chief and then