ear the
doctor's basket of medicines. The doctor reproved him, and always spoke
in a whisper himself, glancing back to the basket as if afraid of being
heard by something therein. So much superstition is quite unknown in the
south, and is mentioned here to show the difference in the feelings of
this new people, and the comparative want of reverence on these points
among Caffres and Bechuanas.

Manenko was accompanied by her husband and her drummer; the latter
continued to thump most vigorously until a heavy, drizzling mist set in
and compelled him to desist. Her husband used various incantations and
vociferations to drive away the rain, but down it poured incessantly,
and on our Amazon went, in the very lightest marching order, and at a
pace that few of the men could keep up with. Being on ox-back, I kept
pretty close to our leader, and asked her why she did not clothe herself
during the rain, and learned that it is not considered proper for a
chief to appear effeminate. He or she must always wear the appearance
of robust youth, and bear vicissitudes without wincing. My men, in
admiration of her pedestrian powers, every now and then remarked,
"Manenko is a soldier;" and thoroughly wet and cold, we were all glad
when she proposed a halt to prepare our night's lodging on the banks of
a stream.

The country through which we were passing was the same succession of
forest and open lawns as formerly mentioned: the trees were nearly all
evergreens, and of good, though not very gigantic size. The lawns were
covered with grass, which, in thickness of crop, looked like ordinary
English hay. We passed two small hamlets surrounded by gardens of maize
and manioc, and near each of these I observed, for the first time,
an ugly idol common in Londa--the figure of an animal, resembling an
alligator, made of clay. It is formed of grass, plastered over with
soft clay; two cowrie-shells are inserted as eyes, and numbers of the
bristles from the tail of an elephant are stuck in about the neck. It is
called a lion, though, if one were not told so, he would conclude it to
be an alligator. It stood in a shed, and the Balonda pray and beat drums
before it all night in cases of sickness.

Some of the men of Manenko's train had shields made of reeds, neatly
woven into a square shape, about five feet long and three broad. With
these, and short broadswords and sheaves of iron-headed arrows, they
appeared rather ferocious. But the constant habit