the light of a
lamp made of a rag wick floating in native butter in a calabash. From
time to time he was called upon to witness the wonderful evolutions,
manoeuvres, and mock fights in the camp. The men were solely soldiers;
the women did all the work, planting maize, weeding corn, and herding
cattle, and thus the more wives a man had the more slaves he could
employ. Every wife had a value, and could only be obtained from her
father for a certain price in cattle, varying according to his rank. If
the full rate were not paid, she remained, as well as her children, the
property of her father or the head of her family. The king, having the
power to help himself, had an establishment of ninety women, who on gala-
days, or when his army was going to take the field, were drawn up in a
regiment, all wearing two long feathers on the top of their heads, a veil
of strings of coloured beads over their faces, bead skirts, and brass
rings over their throats and arms; these beads being the current coin of
the traders. They approached and retreated in files, flourishing their
arms like bell-ringers, while they sang:--

"Arise, vulture,
Thou art the bird that eateth other birds."

These were, however, not wives, only female slaves. Either from jealousy
of possible sons growing up, or from the desire not to be considered as
in the ranks of the _umpagati_--elders or married men--neither Charka nor
Dingarn would marry, and no man could take a wife without the king's
permission. Dingarn wore his head closely shaven, whereas the married
trained their woolly hair to fasten over a circle of reed, so as to look
much as if they had an inverted saucepan on their heads. Besides this
they wore nothing but a sort of apron of skin before and behind, except
when gaily arrayed in beads, or ornaments of leopard's fur and teeth, for
dancing or for battle. Their wealth was their cattle, and their mealie
or maize grounds; their food, beef, mealies, and curdled milk; their
drink, beer, made of maize; their great luxury, snuff, made of dried
dacca and burnt aloes, and taken from an ivory spoon. Though sometimes
acting with great cruelty, and wholly ignorant, they were by no means a
dull or indolent people; they were full of courage and spirit, excellent
walkers and runners, capable of learning and of thinking, and with much
readiness to receive new ideas.

The presents arrived, and the red cloak, made of the long scarlet nap
often