fifteen wooden keys, each of which is two or three inches broad,
and fifteen or eighteen inches long; their thickness is regulated
according to the deepness of the note required: each of the keys has a
calabash beneath it; from the upper part of each a portion is cut off to
enable them to embrace the bars, and form hollow sounding-boards to the
keys, which also are of different sizes, according to the note required;
and little drumsticks elicit the music. Rapidity of execution seems much
admired among them, and the music is pleasant to the ear. In Angola the
Portuguese use the marimba in their dances.

When nine speakers had concluded their orations, Shinte stood up, and so
did all the people. He had maintained true African dignity of manner all
the while, but my people remarked that he scarcely ever took his eyes
off me for a moment. About a thousand people were present, according to
my calculation, and three hundred soldiers. The sun had now become hot;
and the scene ended by the Mambari discharging their guns.

18TH. We were awakened during the night by a message from Shinte,
requesting a visit at a very unseasonable hour. As I was just in the
sweating stage of an intermittent, and the path to the town lay through
a wet valley, I declined going. Kolimbota, who knows their customs best,
urged me to go; but, independent of sickness, I hated words of the night
and deeds of darkness. "I was neither a hyaena nor a witch." Kolimbota
thought that we ought to conform to their wishes in every thing: I
thought we ought to have some choice in the matter as well, which put
him into high dudgeon. However, at ten next morning we went, and were
led into the courts of Shinte, the walls of which were woven rods, all
very neat and high. Many trees stood within the inclosure and afforded a
grateful shade. These had been planted, for we saw some recently put
in, with grass wound round the trunk to protect them from the sun. The
otherwise waste corners of the streets were planted with sugar-cane and
bananas, which spread their large light leaves over the walls.

The Ficus Indica tree, under which we now sat, had very large leaves,
but showed its relationship to the Indian banian by sending down shoots
toward the ground. Shinte soon came, and appeared a man of upward of
fifty-five years of age, of frank and open countenance, and about
the middle height. He seemed in good humor, and said he had expected
yesterday "that a man who came from