XXI INDUSTRIOUS NATIVES 455 



Eve were proof against all flattery, however delicately 

 or thickly it might have been laid on, for, according 

 to my experience, all Kafirs are alike in one thing, 

 however much they may differ in other particulars 

 — they will give nothing for nothing, and as little as 

 possible for sixpence. 



We now got a boy to show us the way to the 

 chief's kraal ; the path to it took us through another 

 villao^e, and across a larije extent of cultivated ijround. 

 The people seemed to be very industrious, cultivating 

 great quantities of Kafir corn, mealies, ground-nuts, 

 and a few sweet potatoes ; they had any amount of 

 vegetable food and lots of beer, and what they 

 seemed to wish for most was a good blow-out of 

 meat, fat if possible ; but meat in any shape — fat, 

 lean, fresh, or stinking — was evidently to them a 

 most coveted luxury. 



We found old Lo Magondi living in a small 

 village occupied apparently only by his own wives 

 and a few intimates, and perched upon the summit 

 of a very steep hill. 



When we reached the top, the old fellow, with 

 some of his sons and a councillor or two, was seated 

 on a bark mat with a huge pot of beer in front of 

 him ; two years previously, in 1878, having paid a 

 visit to one of his other towns, and he himself having 

 also brought some ivory to our waggons at Umfule 

 to sell, he soon remembered me, and at once offered 

 us beer and ground-nuts and made himself very 

 friendly. He was very much disappointed to find 

 that we had no trading goods with us, and begged 

 hard for a shirt, in order, as he put it, to show that 

 white men had visited him. 



At this little kraal we noticed a man weaving a 

 blanket on a native hand-loom and out of native 



