PERSONAL EFFECTS 319 



time in use, assume a polish and colour which give 

 them the appearance of having been made of some 

 dark-coloured coppery metal. Spoons, platters, 

 and drinking cups are carved out of a variety of 

 woods, but do not display much in the way either 

 of originality of design or elegance of form. 



I am afraid the foregoing list may be taken as 

 almost exhausting the tale of the African's house- 

 hold effects, if one except a few curved-handled 

 drinking gourds, one or two palm-leaf mats for the 

 floor, and one or two wooden pillows ; but there 

 remain to be mentioned his field implements, which 

 consist of a hoe and an axe, and his weapons, 

 comprising a spear, a bow, and one or two rudely 

 fashioned arrows. Assegais, in the sense of 

 throwing spears, are not used, neither are knob- 

 kerries, nor any other weapon, if I except an 

 occasional cap-gun of archaic pattern, its barrel 

 exhausted to a dangerous degree, not so much by 

 the explosions of trade powder in its depths, as by 

 its unnatural and improper employment in the 

 distillation of spirituous and illicit beverages. 



On the rivers the canoes are of the familiar dug- 

 out type common to all South Central African 

 waterways, but occasionally on some of the remoter 

 streams one may still see the primitive bark boat, 

 or "Almadea," as the Portuguese call it. It is 

 made by peeling the bark of a large tree, of whose 

 name I am ignorant, from the trunk in one con- 

 tinuous piece about ten feet long. The ends are 

 then bent upward and inward, and are secured by 

 pegs of wood caulked with moist clay. The re- 

 mainder is then formed into the shape of the tree- 



