THE NEW MOON IN AFRICA. 47 
deed a fortress. As an additional protection trees had 
been cut down, and all the surrounding approaches had 
been thus blocked up. This village was situated on the 
top of a high hill. 
Interiorly the houses were divided by a bark parti- 
tion into two rooms; one the kitchen, where every body 
sits or lies down on the ground about the fire, smokes 
his pipe, and goes to sleep, while listening to the oth- 
ers. There also in the evening the harp is played. 
The other is the sleeping apartment. This one is per- 
fectly dark, and here are stored all their provisions, all 
their riches. ‘To ascertain how large a family any house- 
holder has, you have only to count the little doors which 
open into the various sleeping apartments: “So many 
dors, so many wives.” ‘These houses, like all the houses 
I had seen in the interior, were made of the bark of trees. 
There is nothing more disgusting than the toilet of 
one of these Mbondemo fellows, except it be the toilet of 
his wife. The women seem to lay on the oil and red 
earth thicker than their husbands. 
The third night after I arrived in that strange village 
there was a new moon. As soon as the shades of even- 
ing came no one talked except in an under-tone. The 
people hardly came out of their huts; all wassilent. In 
the evening the King came out of his house and danced 
along the street; his face and body were painted white, 
black, and red, and spotted all over with spots the size 
ofa peach. In the dim moonlight he had a frightful ap- 
pearance, which made me shudder at first, for I could 
not help thinking of the devil. -I asked him why he 
painted thus, but he only answered by Pages to the 
moon without speaking a word. 
