454 A HUNTER'S WANDERINGS ch. 



gardens and deserted Kafir huts, and just over the 

 next ridge, we came upon a small kraal, which we 

 found to be one of Lo Magondi's outlying villages, 

 that august personage being a petty Mashuna chief, 

 holding his life and property at the caprice of the 

 Matabele king, Lobengula. 



Finding that our Kafirs had meat which they 

 were willing to sell for meal, ground-nuts, etc., the 

 villagers soon came trooping down to our camp, 

 intent upon barter. As they were tired of a con- 

 tinuous vegetable diet, and our boys were equally 

 tired of meat, the exchange was very brisk. 



The women usually brought the produce of their 

 gardens down themselves in very small baskets or 

 wooden plates, and then, sitting at a little distance 

 from us, gave them to some male friend to sell tor 

 them, keeping, however, a sharp eye on the whole 

 transaction, and assisting or hindering the barter 

 with a never-flagging tongue. 



Altogether, it was a noisy and amusing scene ; 

 the fashion of the huts and corn-bins, the tame 

 pigeons flying in and out of the public dovecot 

 (obtained from the Portuguese and found in every 

 kraal along the Zambesi) ; the arms and dress of the 

 men, and the wonderful way in which some of them 

 had frizzed and got up their hair, all recalled to my 

 mind a Banyai kraal on the banks of the Zambesi, 

 to which tribe, indeed, I have no doubt that these 

 people belong. 



At last the noise and bustle were over ; our boys 

 had sold all their meat, and obtained a fair supply of 

 meal and mealies ; still they were not satisfied, but 

 were now trying to blarney the girls into making 

 them presents of something more in the eating line. 

 As far as I could see, however, these daughters of 



