556 BASHUKULOMPO HAIR-DRESSING. Chap. XXVII. 



Cazenibe, refeiTing, no doubt, to Pereira, Lacerda, and others, 

 who have visited that chief. 



The streams in this part are not perennial ; I did not observe 

 one suitable for the purpose of irrigation. There is but little 

 wood ; here and there you see large single trees, or small clumps 

 of evergreens, but the abundance of maize and ground-nuts we met 

 with, shows that more rain falls than in the Bechuana country, 

 for there they never attempt to raise maize, except in damp 

 hollows on the banks of rivers. The pasturage is very fine for 

 both cattle and sheep. My own men, who know the land 

 thoroughly, declare that it is all garden-ground together, and 

 that the more tender grains, which require richer soil than the 

 native corn, need no care here. It is seldom stony. 



The men of a village came to our encampment, and, as they 

 followed the Bashukulompo mode of dressing their hair, we had 

 an opportunity of examining it for the first time. A circle of 

 hair at the top of the head, eight inches or more in diameter, is 

 woven into a cone eight or ten inches high, with an obtuse apex, 

 bent, in some cases, a little forward, giving it somewhat the 

 appearance of a helmet. Some have only a cone, four or five 

 inches in diameter at the base. It is said that the hair of ani- 

 mals is added, but the sides of the cone are woven something like 

 basket-work. The headman of this village, instead of having 

 his brought to a point, had it prolonged into a wand, which 

 extended a full yard from the crown of his head. The hair on 

 the forehead, above the ears, and behind, is all shaven off, so 

 they appear somewhat as if a cap of liberty were cocked upon the 

 top of the head. After the weaving is performed it is said to be 

 painful, as the scalp is drawn tightly up ; but they become used 

 to it. Monze informed me that all his people were formerly 

 ornamented in this way, but he discouraged it. I wished him to 

 discourage the practice of knocking out the teeth, too, but he 

 smiled, as if in that case the fashion would be too strong for him, 

 as it was for Sebituane. 



Monze came on Monday morning, and, on parting, presented 

 us with a piece of a buffalo which had been killed the day 

 before by lions. We crossed the rivulet Makoe, which runs west- 

 ward into the Kafue, and went northwards in order to visit 

 Semalembue, an influential chief there. We slept at the village 



