THE MAKOA. 437 



simple entry which is found in the great traveller's journal — 

 " probably she was an orphan." His own children were far 

 away ; their mother had gone on to her rest ; he was toiling for 

 the redemption of Africa. Who knows with what depth of 

 feeling the great man, sitting in his lonely hut that night, wrote 

 the sad-sounding sentence about a poor little abandoned African 

 child? — "probably she was an orphan." Surely our hearts 

 ought not to be hard toward these unfortunate people. The 

 children of Africa may not have evinced the same talents, may 

 not indeed possess the same capacities as those about our fire- 

 side?, but they are children, needing tenderness and love. 



The Makoa, who occupy the section along the Rovuma, lived 

 in the southeast in former times, and "were distinguished by the 

 tattoo mark, which was in the shape of a half-moon. But since 

 they have lived in the Waiyau country, they have adopted marks 

 more like theirs. They are less scrupulous about their diet 

 than the Makonde. They eat the flesh of all such animals as 

 they esteem clean. They condemn that of the hyena and leop- 

 ard, or any beast which devours dead men. One of the most 

 prominent of the head men of this tribe, whose name was Chiri- 

 kaloma, informed Dr. Livingstone that they were the descend- 

 ants of an ancestor whose name was Mirazi, and that this was 

 properly the surname of the tribe. Near one of these villages 

 Livingstone observed a wand bent down and both ends inserted 

 into the ground : a lot of medicine, usually the bark of trees, is 

 buried beneath it. When sickness is in a village, the men pro- 

 ceed to the spot, wash themselves with the medicine and water, 

 creep through beneath the bough, then bury the medicine and 

 the evil influence together. This is also used to keep off evil 

 spirits, wild beasts, and enemies. The people do not seem as 

 superstitious either as some of the tribes that have come to our 

 notice. In the matter of deformities, for instance, Dr. Living- 

 stone was asking Chirikaloma about their treatment of albinos; 

 he assured the doctor that the Makoa never killed them. The 

 parental tenderness does not relinquish the child because of any 

 blemish, as in some other communities. Livingstone was told 

 of a child in this tribe which was deformed from his birth. He 

 had an abortive toe where his knee should have been ; some said 

 to his mother, " Kill him ; " but she replied, " How can I kill 



