ascending the Leeba. The arrival of
Manenko herself on the scene threw so much weight into the scale on
their side that I was forced to yield the point.

Manenko was a tall, strapping woman about twenty, distinguished by a
profusion of ornaments and medicines hung round her person; the latter
are supposed to act as charms. Her body was smeared all over with a
mixture of fat and red ochre, as a protection against the weather; a
necessary precaution, for, like most of the Balonda ladies, she was
otherwise in a state of frightful nudity. This was not from want of
clothing, for, being a chief, she might have been as well clad as any of
her subjects, but from her peculiar ideas of elegance in dress. When she
arrived with her husband, Sambanza, they listened for some time to
the statements I was making to the people of Nyamoana, after which the
husband, acting as spokesman, commenced an oration, stating the
reasons for their coming, and, during every two or three seconds of the
delivery, he picked up a little sand, and rubbed it on the upper part
of his arms and chest. This is a common mode of salutation in Londa; and
when they wish to be excessively polite, they bring a quantity of ashes
or pipe-clay in a piece of skin, and, taking up handfuls, rub it on the
chest and upper front part of each arm; others, in saluting, drum their
ribs with their elbows; while others still touch the ground with one
cheek after the other, and clap their hands. The chiefs go through the
manoeuvre of rubbing the sand on the arms, but only make a feint at
picking up some. When Sambanza had finished his oration, he rose up,
and showed his ankles ornamented with a bundle of copper rings; had they
been very heavy, they would have made him adopt a straggling walk. Some
chiefs have really so many as to be forced, by the weight and size,
to keep one foot apart from the other, the weight being a serious
inconvenience in walking. The gentlemen like Sambanza, who wish to
imitate their betters, do so in their walk; so you see men, with only
a few ounces of ornament on their legs, strutting along as if they
had double the number of pounds. When I smiled at Sambanza's walk, the
people remarked, "That is the way in which they show off their lordship
in these parts."

Manenko was quite decided in the adoption of the policy of friendship
with the Makololo which we recommended; and, by way of cementing the
bond, she and her counselors proposed that Kolimbota sho