THE WORLD'S WONDERS. 157 



but every individual house is fortified by a stockaded courtyard. 

 The cattle are kept in large kraals and very carefully tended, 

 even to the lighting of fires to keep annoying insects from them. 

 The houses are bell-shaped, rising into a sharp-pointed cone, 

 twenty-five feet high, resting on a circular wall four feet in height. 

 The doorway is only two feet high, so that entrance is made by 

 crawling; the interior is clean, but unlighted by windows, the 

 only light received being through the door. 



A PLENTIFUL CROP OF DEAD MEN'S BONES. 



BAKER says he noticed, during the march from Latome, that 

 the vicinity of every town was announced by heaps of human 

 remains, bones and skulls, forming an incipient Golgotha within 

 a quarter of a mile of every village. Some of the bones were in 

 earthenware pots, generally broken ; others lay strewn here and 

 there ; while a heap in the centre showed that some form hau 

 originally been observed in their disposition. This was explained 

 by an extraordinary custom most rigidly observed by the 

 Latookas. Should a man be killed in battle the body is allowed 

 to remain where it fell, and is devoured by the vultures an.A 

 hyenas ; but should he die a natural death, he or she is buried in 



a shallow grave within a few feet of his own door, in the little 

 o 



courtyard that surrounds each dwelling. Funeral dances are 

 then kept up in memory of the dead for several weeks ; at the 

 expiration of which time, the body being sufficiently decomposed, 

 is exhumed. The bones are cleaned, and are deposited in 

 an earthenware jar, and carried to a spot near the tpwn, which is 

 regarded as the cemetery. 



The costume of the Latookas is simple enough, as they make 

 no effort to cover any part of the body, but infinite care is 

 bestowed upon the hair, which is trained to grow into the shape 

 of a helmet, the perfecting of which requires unremitting 

 attention for eight or ten years. Their weapons consist of the 

 lance, a powerful iron-headed mace, a long-bladed knife, and 

 an ugly iron bracelet, armed with knife-blades about four inches 

 in length by one-half inch broad ; this latter weapon is used to 



