Chap. XI. POLITE TOBACCO-SMOKERS. 239 



ten years, nearly naked, were clothed and taken into the 

 Mission-house at Kolobeng as nurses to the children. In 

 a fortnight after, they hastily covered their bosoms, even 

 if one only passed through the sitting-room in which they 

 slept. Among Zulus the smaller the covering, the more 

 intense the shame on accidental exposure. 



Large quantities of tobacco are raised on the lower bank 

 of the Zambesi during the winter months, and the people are 

 perhaps the most inveterate smokers in the world. The pipe 

 is seldom out of their mouths, and they are as polite smokers 

 as any ever met with in a railway-carriage. When they 

 came with a present, although we were in their own country 

 they asked before lighting their pipes if we had any objec- 

 tion to their smoking beside us, which, of course, we never 

 had. They think that they have invented an improved 

 method of smoking ; a description of it may interest those 

 who are fond of the weed at home. They take a whiff, 

 puff out the grosser smoke, then, by a sudden inhalation, 

 contrive to catch and swallow, as they say, the real essence, 

 the very spirit of the tobacco, which in the ordinary way is 

 entirely lost. The Batoka tobacco is famed in the country 

 for its strength, and it certainly is both very strong and 

 very cheap : a few strings of beads will purchase enough 

 to last any reasonable man for six months. ' It caused 

 headache in the only smoker of our party, from its strength, 

 but this quality makes the natives come great distances to 

 buy it. 



The people above Kariba had never been visited before by 

 foreigners ; the chief of Koba, on being asked if any tradition 

 existed of strangers having formerly come into the country, 

 replied, " Not at all ; our fathers all died without telling us 

 that they had seen men like you. To-day I am exalted in 



