40 BADEMA TRIBE. Chap. II. 



The state of insecurity in which the Baderna tribe live 

 is indicated "by the habit of hiding their provisions in the 

 hills, and keeping only a small quantity in their huts; 

 they strip a particular species of tree of its bitter bark, to 

 which both mice and monkeys are known to have an 

 antipathy, and, turning the bark inside out, sew it into 

 cylindrical vessels for their grain, and bury them in holes 

 and in crags on the wooded hill-sides. By this means, 

 should a marauding party plunder their huts, they save a 

 supply of corn. They " could give us no information, and 

 they had no food ; Chisaka's men had robbed them a few 

 weeks before." 



" Never mind," said our native Portuguese, " they will 

 sell you plenty when you return, they are afraid of you 

 now, as yet they do not know who you are." We slept 

 under trees in the open air, and suffered no inconvenience 

 from either mosquitoes or dew : and no prowling wild 

 beast troubled us ; though one evening, while we were 

 here, a native sitting with some others on the opposite 

 bank was killed by a leopard. 



One of the Tette slaves, who wished to be considered a 

 great traveller, gave us, as we sat by our evening fire, an 

 interesting account of a strange race of men whom he had 

 seen in the interior ; they were only three feet high, and 

 had horns growing out of their heads ; they lived in a 

 large town and had plenty of food. The Makololo pooh- 

 poohed this story, and roundly told the narrator that he 

 was telling a downright lie. " We come from the interior," 

 cried out a tall fellow, measuring some six feet four, " are 

 we dwarfs? have we horns on our heads?" and thus they 

 laughed the fellow to scorn. But he still stoutly .main- 

 tained that he had seen these little people, and had 

 actually been in their town; thus making himself the 

 hero of the traditional story, which before and since 

 the time of Herodotus has, with curious persistency, 



