A FUNERAL FEAST 137 



us to see all the people going about armed. The 

 majority of them carried spears, while a good many- 

 carried a short bamboo bow and a quiver full of 

 arrows made of reeds pointed with curiously 

 fashioned tips of metal. The tedium of our delay 

 at Beni was enlivened (if it may be said without 

 disrespect to the departed) by the death of Kilongozi, 

 the big chief of the district. Many of his vassals 

 had assembled several days before in anticipation of 

 his death, and as soon as the event was announced 

 it was greeted with a chorus of shrieks and wails, 

 which resounded throughout the country, and 

 continued, with brief intervals, for several days. 



The chief was buried beneath the floor of his 

 house, about which his subjects, to the number of 

 more than a thousand, congregated in a dense 

 throng. During the first day they were fairly quiet, 

 and contented themselves with dancing slowly to 

 the tune of the inevitable drums and with firing off 

 guns at intervals. On the following days, inspired 

 by the 'pombe,' which they drank in immense 

 quantities, they were rather more boisterous in their 

 grief. The women, and some of the men, attired 

 themselves in a sort of very short ballet-dancer's 

 skirt made of banana leaves, in which they performed 

 some very quaint and intricate dances. Sometimes 

 the women would stand aside, and the crowd of 

 men, dividing into two opposite parties, would 

 perform a war-dance or mimic battle, shrieking and 

 howling like lunatics. Fortunately, etiquette forbids 



