366 I DE A OP FEMALE BEAUTY. 



forest, the owner would give it a beating, by way of teach, 

 ing it not to be guilty of crowing at unseasonable hours. 



The women here are in the habit of piercing the upper 

 lip and gradually enlarging the orifice until they can insert 

 a shell. The lip then appears drawn out beyond the per- 

 pendicular of the nose, and gives them a most ungainly 

 aspect. Sekwebu remarked, " These women want to make 

 their mouths like those of ducks;" and, indeed, it does 

 appear as if they had the idea that female beauty of lip 

 had been attained by the Ornithorhynchus paradoxus alone. 

 This custom prevails throughout the country of the Maravi, 

 and no one could see it without confessing that fashion had 

 never led women to a freak more mad. We had rains now 

 every day, and considerable cloudiness ; but the sun often 

 burst through with scorching intensity. All call out against 

 it then, saying, "Oh, the sun-! that is rain again." It is 

 worth noticing that my companions never complained of 

 the heat while on the highlands;, but when we descended 

 into the lowlands of Angola, and here also, they began to 

 fret on account of it. I myself felt an oppressive steami- 

 ness in the atmosphere which I had not experienced on 

 the higher lands. 



As the game was abundant and my party very large, I 

 had still to supply their wants with the gun. We slaugh- 

 tered the oxen only when unsuccessful in hunting. We 

 always entered into friendly relations with the head-men 

 of the different villages, and they presented grain and other 

 food freely. One man gave a basinful of rice, — the first 

 we met with in the country. It is never' seen in the in- 

 terior. He said he knew it was " white man's corn," and, 

 when I wished to buy some more, he asked me to give him 

 a slave. This was the first symptom of the slave-trade on 

 this side of the country. The last of these friendly head 

 men was named Mobala ; and, having passed him in peace, 

 we had no anticipation of any thing else; but after a few 

 hours we reached Selole or Chilole, and found that he not 

 only considered us enemies, but had actually sent an ex- 



