d on its shores, and large numbers of
young alligators were seen sunning themselves on the sandbanks with
their parents.

They had now reached the Balonda country, and received a visit from a
chieftainess, Manenko, a tall strapping woman covered with ornaments and
smeared over with fat and red ochre as a protection against the weather.
She invited them to visit her uncle Shinti, the chief of the country.

They set out in the midst of a heavy drizzling mist; on, however, the
lady went, in the lightest marching order. The doctor enquired why she
did not clothe herself during the rain; but it appeared that she did not
consider it proper for a chief to appear effeminate. The men, in
admiration of her pedestrian powers, every now and then remarked:
"Manenko is a soldier." Some of the people in her train carried shields
composed of reeds, of a square form, five feet long and three broad.
With these, and armed with broadswords and quivers full of iron-headed
arrows, they looked somewhat ferocious, but are in reality not noted for
their courage.

The doctor was glad when at length the chieftainess halted on the banks
of a stream and preparations were made for their night's lodging.

After detaining them several days she accompanied them on foot to
Shinti's town. The chief's place of audience was ornamented by two
graceful banyan-trees, beneath one of which he sat on a sort of throne
covered with a leopard-skin. He wore a checked shirt and a kilt of
scarlet baize, edged with green, numerous ornaments covering his arms
and legs, while on his head was a helmet of beads, crowned with large
goose feathers. At his side sat three lads with quivers full of arrows
over their shoulders.

Dr Livingstone took his seat under the shade of another tree opposite
to the chief, while the spokesman of the party, who had accompanied
them, in a loud voice, walking backwards and forwards, gave an account
of the doctor and his connection with the Makololo.

Behind the chief sat a hundred women clothed in red baize, while his
wife was seated in front of him. Between the speeches the ladies burst
forth into a sort of plaintive ditty. The party was entertained by a
band of musicians, consisting of three drummers and four performers on
the _marimba_, a species of piano. It consists of two bars of wood
placed side by side; across these are fixed fifteen wooden keys, each
two or three inches broad and about eighteen long, their thickness bei