158 MODE OF SALUTATION. 



water-carriage, she represented that her brother did not 

 live near the river, and, moreover, there was a cataract in 

 front, over which it would be difficult to convey the canoes. 

 She was afraid, too, that the Balobale, whose country lies 

 to the west of the river, not knowing the objects for which 

 we had come, would kill us. To my reply that I had been 

 so often threatened with death if I visited a new tribe 

 that I was now more afraid of killing any one than of 

 being killed, she rejoined that the Balobale would not kill- 

 mo, but the Makololo would all be sacrificed as their ene- 

 mies. This produced considerable effect on my companions, 

 and inclined them to the plan of ISTyamoana, of going to 

 the town of her brother rather than ascending the Leeba. 

 The arrival of Manenko herself on the scene threw so 

 much weight into the scale on their side that I was forced 

 to yield the point. 



Manenko was a tall, strapping woman about twenty, dis- 

 tinguished by a profusion of ornaments and medicines hung 

 round her person; the latter are supposed to act as charms. 

 Her body was smeared all over with a mixture of fat and 

 red ochre, as a protection against the weather; a necessary 

 precaution, for, like most of the Balonda ladies, she was 

 otherwise in a state of frightful nudity. This was not from 

 want of clothing; for, being a chief, she might have been 

 as well clad as any of her subjects, but from her peculiar 

 ideas of elegance in dress. When she arrived with her 

 husband, Sambanza, they listened for some time to the 

 statements I was making to the people of Nyamoana, after 

 which the husband, acting as spokesman, commenced an 

 oration, stating the reasons for their coming; and, during 

 every two or three seconds of the delivery, he picked up a 

 little sand and rubbed it on the upper part of Irs arms 

 and chest. This is a common mode of salutation in Lomia; 

 and when they wish to be excessively polite they bring 

 a quantity of ashes or pipe-clay in a piece of skin, and, 

 taking up bandfuls, rub it on the chest and upper front 

 part of each arm ; others, in saluting, drum their ribs with 



