THE HIGHLAND WILDERNESS 201 



clattered and the pipes droned. They advanced to the 

 wall of one of the houses, again and again chanting and 

 bowing before it; I was told this was a demand for drink. 

 They entered one house and danced in a ring around the 

 cooking-fire in the middle of the earth floor; I was told 

 that they were then reciting the deeds of mighty hunters 

 and describing how they brought in the game. They 

 drank freely from gourds and pannikins of a fermented 

 drink made from mandioc which were brought out to 

 them. During the first part of the dance the women re- 

 mained in the houses, and all the doors and windows were 

 shut and blankets hung to prevent the possibility of seeing 

 out. But during the second part all the women and girls 

 came out and looked on. They were themselves to have 

 danced when the men had finished, but were overcome 

 with shyness at the thought of dancing with so many 

 strangers looking on. The children played about with un- 

 concern throughout the ceremony, one of them throwing 

 high in the air, and again catching in his hands, a loaded 

 feather, a kind of shuttlecock. 



In the evening the growing moon shone through the 

 cloud-rack. Anything approaching fair weather always 

 put our men in good spirits; and the muleteers squatted 

 in a circle, by a fire near a pile of packs, and listened to 

 a long monotonously and rather mournfully chanted song 

 about a dance and a love-affair. We ourselves worked 

 busily with our photographs and our writing. There was 

 so much humidity in the air that everything grew damp 

 and stayed damp, and mould gathered quickly. At this 

 season it is a country in which writing, taking photographs, 

 and preparing specimens are all works of difficulty, at least 



