i83S.] RUBBING NOSES. 417 



on four posts ten or twelve feet above the ground, and on 

 which the produce of the field is kept secure from all 

 accidents. 



On coming- near one of the huts I was much amused by 

 seeing in due form the ceremony of rubbing, or, as it ought 

 to be called, pressing noses. The women, on our first 

 approach, began uttering something in a most dolorous 

 voice ; they then squatted themselves down and held up 

 their faces ; my companion standing over them, one after 

 another, placing the bridge of his nose at right angles to 

 theirs, and commenced pressing. This lasted rather 

 longer than a cordial shake of the hand with us ; and as 

 we vary the force of the grasp of the hand in shaking, so 

 do they in pressing. During the process they uttered 

 comfortable little grunts, very much in the same manner 

 as two pigs do, when rubbing against each other. I 

 noticed that the slave would press noses with any one he 

 met, indifferently either before or after his master the chief. 

 Although among these savages, the chief has absolute 

 power of life and death over his slave, yet there is an entire 

 absence of ceremony between them. Mr. Burchell has 

 remarked the same thing in Southern Africa, with the 

 rude Bachapins. Where civilisation has arrived at a 

 certain point, complex formalities arise between the 

 different grades of society : thus at Tahiti all were formerly 

 obliged to uncover themselves as low as the waist in the 

 presence of the king. 



The ceremony of pressing noses having been duly com- 

 pleted with all present, we seated ourselves in a circle in 

 the front of one of the hovels, and rested there half an 

 hour. All the hovels have nearly the same form and 

 dimensions, and all agree in being filthily dirty. They 

 , resemble a cow-shed with one end open, but having a 

 ' partition a little way within, with a square hole in it, 

 making a small gloomy chamber. In this the inhabitants 

 keep all their property, and when the weather is cold they 

 sleep there. They eat, however, and pass their time in the 

 open part in front. My guides having finished their pipes, 

 we continued our walk. The path led through the same 

 ^ undulating country, the whole uniformly clothed as before 

  with fern. On our right hand we had a serpentine river, 

 the banks of which were fringed with trees, and here and 

 there on the hillsides there was a clump of wood. The 

 o whole scene, in spite of its green colour, had rather a 



