The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-12-04

And sc Kwaneet and Nakeesa, too, quilted the open veldt and the waterless forest and lived temporarily on the banks of the upper Tamalakan, north east of Lake Ngami.
 One morning Kwaneet came back to their camp with a piece of welcome news, Half a mile away he had found the carcass of a fat zebra, Killed by lion quite recently, and only quarter deVoured. Here was ready made feast without the trouble of hunting, Nakeesa had two children now; her elder boy, by SinilSwe, a precocious lit tie Bushman imp, could toddle alone; her younger, Kwaneet's son, she still carried, They set off together along the river which was now swarming with bird life. Roseate flamingoes and ibises, lovely egrets, storks, and cranes and herons, were to be seen decking the shallows Charming jacanas with chestnut plumage, white and golden gorgets,, long legs, and the slenderest spidery feet, ran in little troops up the thinnest film of floating vegetation. Great spur-heeled Senegal cuckoos flap ped heavily from one reed-bed to an- other. Duck, geese, widgeon, and teal thronged the spreading waters and clamored necessarily. A hippopota- mus or two blew in the distance; slug gish crocodiles hoated, log-like yet watchful, in middle stream. For the Masarwas, who love the dry deserts; and shun the haunts even of black mankind, all this wealth of river-life seemed very welcome and very nov el change. But then there was kraal of Makobas within five miles, which was a drawback.
 It was not long before they came up to the dead zebra, which lay in little opening from the river, surrounded by dense bush Kwaneet went first. He walked up to the carcass and stopped to examine it. As he did so there was a fierce gutteral growl from the bush nearest to him, a lightning-like flash of a yellow body, and in an instant he lay there beside the zebra, great yell low maned lion standing over him. The brute stood with barred teeth, snarling in fiercest wrath. Kwaneet had driven him from his prey that morning, it Is true, but he had bided his time, and now his revenge had come. For once the Masarwa had made a miscalcula- ton. As a rule the lion, driven from its prey in daylight, will steal away without showing fight. This particular lion happened to be very hungry and very daring; there were not many hun- ters in that country and so Kwan eet had suffered.
 But in the instant that the lion made his rush and stood over the Masarwa, many thoughts thronged into Nakeesa's s brain. Her man there, from whom she had received so many kindnesses, and with whom she had lived so hap pily-nay, for Bushwoman so merrily Hay there in dire peril. Surely his life was better than hers? Surely she could strike blow for him? Her babes, herself, all other things were forgotten; she must save Kwaneet, the best, the kindliest, and bravest hunter of all that wilderness. She had Kwan- eet's assegai upon her shoulder. With this she ran in upon the lion, and with all her force drove home the blade deep into it's ribs.
 The wound was not a mortal one at the moment-and the enraged brute turned instantly upon Nakeesa, struck her to earth, and then fastened his teeth with a hideous, crunching sound deep in the bones of her neck. For a good half minute it continued this dead ly work, then, noticing the year-old child, crying in the back of the wo- man cloak, it gripped that also be- tween it's teeth and put an end to it.. Meanwhile, Kwaneet almost uninjured by the lions first rush, had crawled away unnoticed, and, with Nakeesa's s elder lad, regained a place of safety So Nakeesa lay there dead by the river, her days of toll and of pleasure all ended She had shown two great extremes of evil and gool in her nine- teen years of existence. She had re- fused to save the life of Sinikwe (the man who treated her i'll, and whom she loathed) from the puff -adder-an | act as good as murder, most men will say. And fer Kwaneet, who had treat ed her with some kindliness, and whom she loved with as much love as a Ma sarwa is capable of, she had given her whole being-life itselI. She could do no more
 As for Kwaneet, having satisfied him. self without much emotion, at later l period of the day, of the death of his wife and child, and having taken as much zebra meat as the lion ha1 left. he went his way. Nakeesa's elder child-now three years old-was, of l course, a perfectly useless encumbrance to him. He therefore sold the boy 10 some Batauana people for a new | assegai, and soon after returned to his desert life.
 Nakeesa's bones are long since scat tered, broken, and devoured by the beasts of the desert; but her skull, a little, round. smooth skull, lies there yellow and discolored in the far swamps of the Tamalakan river. Her poor squalid, desert love story can scarcely be said to point a moral, or even adorn a tale. It merely affords one .nore instance of the complex na- ture of the human neart-of human emotions-even in the crudest and most savage aspect of African life.-H. A. | Brydel in LongmanS