530 SAVAGE CUSTOMS OF BATOKA. Cuaf. XXVI. 



descend it, I found, after all the care I could bestow, that the 

 alterations I was able to make in the original native plan, were 

 very trifling. The general idea their map gave was wonder- 

 fully accurate; and now I give, in the larger map appended, 

 their views of the other rivers, in the hope that they may 

 prove helpful to any traveller who may pursue the investigation 

 farther. 



24:th. — We remained a day at the village of Moyara. Here 

 the valley in which the Lekone flows, trends away to the east- 

 ward, while our course is more to the N.E. The country is 

 rocky and rough, the soil being red sand, which is covered with 

 beautiful green trees, yielding abundance of wild fruits. The 

 father of Moyara was a powerful chief, but the son now sits among 

 the ruins of the town, with four or five wives and very few 

 people. At his hamlet a number of stakes are planted in the 

 ground; and I counted fifty-four human skulls hung on their 

 points. These were Matebele, who, unable to approach Sebituane 

 on the island of Loyela, had returned sick and famishing. 

 Moyara's father took advantage of their reduced condition, and, 

 after putting them to death, mounted their heads in the Batoka 

 fashion. The old man who perpetrated this deed now lies in the 

 middle of Ins son's huts, with a lot of rotten ivory over his grave. 

 One cannot help feeling thankful that the reign of such wretches 

 is over. They inhabited the whole of this side of the country, 

 and were probably the barrier to the extension of the Portuguese 

 commerce in this direction. When looking at these skulls, I 

 remarked to Moyara, that many of them were those of mere 

 boys. He assented readily and pointed them out as such. I 

 asked why his father had killed boys. " To show his fierceness," 

 was the answer. " Is it fierceness to kill boys ? " " Yes, they 

 had no business here." When I told him that this probably 

 would ensure his own death if the Matebele came again, he 

 replied, " When I hear of their coming I shall hide the bones." 

 He was evidently proud of these trophies of Ins father's ferocity, 

 and I was assured by other Batoka, that few strangers ever 

 returned from a visit to this quarter. If a man wished to curry 

 favour with a Batoka chief, he ascertained when a stranger was 

 about to leave, and waylaid him at a distance from the town, and 

 when he brought the head back to the chief, it was mounted as a 



