;o8 THE LIVING RACES OF MANKIND 



stand and rest with her hands on her thighs. 

 Presently the king walked in the midst of his 

 plumed army to the open ground outside the 

 kraal, and performed a portion of the ceremony, 

 which consists in throwing an assegai and then 

 running forward and picking it up again. As 

 he did this all the warriors ran forward as well, 

 striking the insides of their shields at the 

 same time with the butt-ends of their assegais, 

 and producing a noise literally like thunder." 



THE MASHONAS. 



The only important tribe in the British 

 South Africa Company's territories south of 

 the Zambesi which has survived the Matabili 

 invasion is the Mashona. Thanks to the 

 abundance of safe retreats among the granite 

 hills of their country, they have escaped the 

 partial extinction that has befallen their neigh- 

 bours and cousins, the Banyai and Makalaka; 

 but they have been so greatly reduced, that, 

 though they occupy 100,000 square miles 

 of territory, they only number about 200,000 

 persons. 



The Mashonas are peaceful and indus- 

 trious; they are laborious agriculturists, and 

 raise large crops of grain, including maize and 

 rice. They keep herds of small cattle, flocks 

 of goats, and large numbers of fowls. Their 

 houses are circular thatched huts, which are 

 perched for safety in the least accessible places 

 on the kopjes or granite crags: for the 

 Mashonas were weaker than their enemies the 

 Matabili; and as they had no military organi- 

 sation, but lived in small communities under 

 local chiefs, and never combined for defence, 



they had no chance of successfully resisting the Matabili raids. 



The Mashonas are skilled smiths, and make excellent iron assegais, battle-axes, and hoes. 



They play a musical instrument like the marimba of "West Africa: the Mashonaland form of 



this " piano " contains twenty iron keys on a small board, which is placed inside a calabash to 



act as a sounding-board. 



The Mashonas kill elephants either by hamstringing them when they are asleep with a 



broad-bladed axe, or by stabbing them between the shoulder-blades with a very heavy assegai 



from an ambush in a tree. 



THE PEOPLE OF LORENZO MARQUEZ. 



Portuguese territories in East Africa south of the Zambesi are occupied by four groups 

 of Negroes. The dominant people are the Gaza, who are a clan of Zulus. They take their 

 name from a Swazi chief named Gaza, who was sent with a Zulu army to drive the Portuguese 

 from Delagoa Bay. In this attempt he failed. As he dared not return to Zululand, he led his 



Plioto by .Mr. II'. E:ierton fry. 



TWO MASHONA MEN. 



