XXI A NATIVE DANCE 457 



we found great difficulty in getting him to move ; at 

 last, however, he stepped out all ready for the journey. 

 He wore a broad-brimmed straw hat, and a gaily- 

 coloured Portuguese cloth bound round his loins and 

 hanging to the ground all round him like a skirt ; 

 over his left shoulder he carried a strong lo-bore 

 muzzle-loading rifle, a present, as he told me, from 

 Lobengula, and in his right hand a battle-axe, made, 

 handle and blade, entirely of native Mashuna iron. 



This day we had a short but rather tedious journey 

 through a very rough hilly country, crossing one 

 very high and steep range ; we always kept a general 

 course of north-west, and followed a well-beaten 

 footpath leading to another of Lo Magondi's villages, 

 which we reached about four in the afternoon. That 

 night the people of the village gave a dance, in 

 honour of their chief's visit, and the teast they 

 anticipated, it we were successful amongst the 

 hippopotami. 



The infernal and monotonous tom-tomi ng (which, 

 when I was on the other side of the Zambesi, elicited 

 enough bad language from myself alone in the course 

 of six months to endanger the souls of at least fifty 

 men) was kept up with the usual accompaniment of 

 discordant yelling, and clapping of hands, until far 

 into the night. In all these performances that I 

 have seen, the men alone dance, the women and 

 girls stanciing round clapping their hands and singing. 

 Our boys, of course, all went and joined in the 

 fun. 



The following day we might easily have pushed on 

 and reached the pools in which- our guide expected we 

 should find the hippopotami, but he preferred to sleep 

 a few miles on this side, just where a tributary stream 

 ran into the Umfule, so that we might have the whole 



