203 ADVENTURES IN SOUTH AFRICA. 



solely by the men, a woman being never allowed to set 

 foot within the cattle-kraal. Polygamy is allowed, and 

 any man may keep as many wives as he pleases : the 

 wife, however, has in the first instance to be purchased. 

 Among tribes possessed of cattle, the price of a vidfe is 

 ten head of cattle j but among the poorer tribes a wifa 

 may be obtained for a few spades with which they cul- 

 tivate their fields. These spades, which are manufac- 

 tured by themselves, are fastened in the end of a long 

 shaft, and are used as our laborers use the hoe. Rows 

 of women may be seen digging together in the fields 

 singing songs, to which they keep time with their spades. 

 The name of the chief at Motito was Motchuara, a 

 subordinate of the great chief Mahura. He was very 

 anxious that I should remain a day with him, for the 

 purpose of trading in ostrich feathers and karosses; 

 but, being anxious to push forward, I resumed ray 

 march in the afternoon, and trekked on till near mid- 

 night, when I encamped in an extensive forest of gray 

 and ancient-looking cameel-dorn trees. These were 

 the finest I had yet seen in Africa, each tree assuming 

 a wide-spreading and picturesque appearance. They 

 were detached and in groups, like oaks in an English 

 deer-park. Many of them were inhabited by whole 

 colonies of the social grosbeak, a bird with whose won- 

 derful habitations the branches were loaded. These 

 remarkable birds, which are about the size and appear- 

 ance of the British green-finch, construct their nests and 

 live socially together under one common roof, the whole 

 fabric being formed of dry grass, and exhibiting at a 

 short distance the appearance of a haycock stuck up in 

 the tree. The entrances to the nests are from beneath. 

 They are built side by side, and when seen from below 

 resemble a honey-nomb. 



