112 SOCIAL MODE OF EATING. 



ferent joints are placed before Sekeletu, and he apportions 

 them among the gentlemen of the party. The whole is 

 rapidly divided by their attendants, cut into long strips, 

 and so many of these are thrown into the fires at once that 

 they are nearly put out. Half broiled and burning hot, 

 the meat is quickly handed round; every one gets a mouth- 

 ful, but no one except the chief has time to masticate. It 

 is not the enjoyment of eating they aim at, but to get as 

 much of the food into the stomach as possible during the 

 fehort time the others are cramming as well as themselves, 

 for no one can eat more than a mouthful after the others 

 have finished. They are eminently gregarious in their 

 eating; and, as they despise any one who eats alone, I 

 always poured out two cups of coffee at my own meals, so 

 that the chief, or some one of the principal men, might 

 partake along with me. They all soon become very fond 

 of coffee; and, indeed, some of the tribes attribute greater 

 fecundity to the daily use of this beverage. They were all 

 well acquainted with the sugarcane, as they cultivate it 

 in \he Barotse country, but knew nothing of the method 

 of extracting the sugar from it. They use the cane only 

 for chewing. Sekeletu, relishing the sweet coffee and bis- 

 cuits, of which I then had a store, said "he knew my heart 

 loved him by finding his own heart warming to my food." 

 He had been visited during my absence at the Cape by 

 Bome traders and Griquas, and "their coffee did not taste 

 half so nice as mine, because they loved his ivory and not 

 himself." This was certainly an original mode of dis- 

 cerning character. 



Sekeletu and I had each a little gipsy-tent in which to 

 sleep. The Makololo huts are generally clean, while those 

 of the Makalaka are infested with vermin. The cleanli- 

 ness of the former is owing to the habit of frequently 

 smearing the floors with a plaster composed of cow-dung 

 and earth. If we slept in the tent in some villages, the 

 mice ran over our faces and disturbed our sleep, or hungry 

 prowling dogs would eat our shoes and leave only the 



