66 A HUNTER'S WANDERINGS ch. 



a crane's feather, which waves gracefully in the air. 

 This feather war-dress is most becoming, and makes 

 even an undersized, ugly savage look well, and as 

 the greater part of the Matabele are physically a fine 

 tall race of men, they look magnificent, and when 

 standing in a semicircle round their king, with their 

 large ox-hide shields in front of them, must present, 

 I should think, as imposing a spectacle as any race of 

 savagres in the world. 



The young girls wear round their hips the 

 brightest-coloured calicoes that they can manage to 

 get hold of, which never, however, reach to their 

 knees, the rest of their persons being nude. With 

 their merry, pleasant faces, and upright shapelv 

 figures, they formed the prettiest, if not the most 

 imposing, portion of the spectacle. 



The dancing lasted three days, during which time 

 a great many oxen were slaughtered for the assembled 

 people, and immense quantities of beer were drunk. 

 The third day was the most interesting. In the large 

 outer kraal the four thousand beplumed warriors 

 stood in a large semicircle about six deep, all of them 

 continually humming a low chant, and every now 

 and then bringing their right feet in unison to the 

 ground with a stamp. At intervals, amidst applaud- 

 ing shouts, some well-known brave, after being 

 called upon by name, would rush out of the ranks 

 and show how he had killed his enemies, going 

 through a pantomime of how he warded off the hostile 

 blows with his shield, and at last delivered the death- 

 stab with his fatal assegai. Every downward thrust 

 made with the assegai represented a life taken, and 

 at every stab the warriors all hummed out with one 

 accord the word " Jee." One man I watched had seven- 

 teen lives to account for, another fifteen, and so on. 



