PORTUGUESE EAST AFRICA 53 



captive owl, but as we had no earthly use for 

 the uncanny bird, we refrained from parting 

 with further supplies of " limbo " or calico. 

 The African native is at heart a great bargain 

 driver, and it was amusing to watch the people 

 at the villages feel and inspect the calico, measure 

 the stretches of cloth we offered, and then look 

 with careful and comparing eyes at the knives 

 or spears or axes they wished to dispose of. 

 The same process of lengthy consideration, accom- 

 panied by a great deal of haggling, always took 

 place over eggs and mealie meal, which we had 

 to purchase for our own natives. Sometimes 

 money was asked for instead of calico, and if a 

 sixpence was tendered, the village would gather 

 round and stare at and handle the coin until 

 satisfied as to its genuineness before the bargain 

 was struck. Invariably before commerce com- 

 menced, generosity was allowed a brief prelude. 

 A small basket of meal or an egg the size of a 

 ping-pong ball would be given to us. Of course 

 something was expected in return, and many a 

 handful of salt or pinch of tobacco we returned 

 for these customs. One afternoon, when on the 

 way to Kapsyiro's kraal, we had a very hard 

 and trying climb. At the top of the hill the 

 rise was crested by huge rocks, and how the 

 donkeys ever managed to scale them was, now 

 that I come to look back on the incident, a 

 veritable miracle. There were also, I remember, 

 some singularly ferocious thorns growing here- 

 abouts. They were truly devilish things, with a 

 kind of thorn growing within a thorn, and they 

 gripped clothes and flesh like a fish-hook. At 

 one of these villages we met a singularly enter- 

 taining individual in the person of an Indian 

 " Babu," who was trekking to SaHsbury. What 



