VILLAGES BEYOND THE LONAJE. 329 



ever in doubt and dread in these gloomy recesses of the forest, 

 and that they were striving to propitiate, by their offerings, some 

 superior beings residing there. 



The dress of the Balonda men consists of the softened skins of 

 small animals, as the jackal or wild cat, hung before and behind 

 from a girdle round the loins. The dress of the women is of a 

 nondescript character ; but they were not immodest. They stood 

 before us as perfectly unconscious of any indecorum as we could 

 be with our clothes on. But, while ignorant of their own defi- 

 ciency, they could not maintain their gravity at the sight of the 

 nudity of my men behind. Much to the annoyance of my com- 

 panions, the young girls laughed outright whenever their backs 

 were turned to them; 



After crossing the Lonaje, we came to some pretty villages, 

 embowered, as the negro villages usually are, in bananas, shrubs, 

 and manioc, and near the banks of the Leeba we formed our en- 

 campment in a nest of serpents, one of which bit one of our men, 

 but the wound was harmless. The people of the surrounding vil- 

 lages presented us with large quantities of food, in obedience to 

 the mandate of Shinte, without expecting any equivalent. One 

 village had lately been transferred hither from the country of Ma- 

 tiamvo. They, of course, continue to acknowledge him as para- 

 mount chief; but the frequent instances which occur of people 

 changing from one part of the country to another, show that the 

 great chiefs possess only a limited power. The only peculiarity 

 we observed in these people is the habit of plaiting the beard into 

 a three-fold cord. 



The town of the Balonda chief Cazembe was pointed out to 

 us as lying to the X.E. and by E. from the town of Shinte, and 

 great numbers of people in this quarter have gone thither for 

 the purpose of purchasing copper anklets, made at Cazembe's, 

 and report the distance to be about five days' journey. I made 

 inquiries of some of the oldest inhabitants of the villages at 

 which we were staying respecting the visit of Pereira and 

 Lacerda to that town. An old gray-headed man replied that 

 they had often heard of white men before, but never had seen 

 one, and added that one had come to Cazembe when our informant 

 was young, and returned again without entering this part of the 

 country. The people of Cazembe are Balonda or Baloi, and 



