PUBLIC RELIGIOUS SERVICE. 205 



dislike being seen 'at their potations by persons of the opposite 

 sex. They cut their woolly hair quite short, and delight in 

 having the whole person shining with butter. Their dress is a 

 kilt reaching to the knees; its material is ox- hide, made as soft 

 as cloth. It is not ungraceful. A soft skin mantle is thrown 

 across the shoulders when the lady is unemployed, but when 

 engaged in any sort of labor she throws this aside, and works 

 in the kilt alone. The ornaments 'most coveted are large brass 

 anklets as thick as the little finger, and armlets of both brass 

 and ivory, the latter often an inch broad. The rings are so heavy 

 that the ankles are often blistered by the weight pressing down ; 

 but it is the fashion, and is borne as magnanimously as tight 

 lacing and tight shoes among ourselves. Strings of beads are 

 hung around the neck, and the fashionable colors being light green 

 and pink, a trader could get almost any thing he chose for beads 

 of these colors. 



At our public religious services in the kotla, the Makololo 

 women always behaved with decorum from the first, except at 

 the conclusion of the prayer. When all knelt down, many of 

 those who had children, in following the example of the rest, bent 

 over their little ones ; the children, in terror of being crushed to 

 death, set up a simultaneous yell, which so tickled the whole as- 

 sembly there was often a subdued titter, to be turned into a hearty 

 laugh as soon as they heard Amen. This was not so difficult to 

 overcome in them as similar peccadilloes were in the case of the 

 women farther south. Long after we had settled at Mabotsa, 

 when preaching on the most solemn subjects, a woman might be 

 observed to look round, and, seeing a neighbor seated on her dress, 

 give her a hunch with the elbow to make her move off; the other 

 would return it with interest, and perhaps the remark, ''Take the 

 nasty thing away, will you ?" Then three or four would begin to 

 hustle the first offenders, and the men to swear at them all, by way 

 of enforcing silence. 



Great numbers of little trifling things like these occur, and 

 would not be worth the mention but that one can not form a 

 correct idea of missionary work except by examination of the 

 minutiae. At the risk of appearing frivolous to some, I shall con- 

 tinue to descend to mere trifles. 



The numbers who attended at the summons of the herald, who 



