44 NATIVE MUSICIANS. Chap. II. 



same mountain, the familiar face of the onion-shaped one 

 opposite was at once recognised ; one point of view on the 

 talus of Mount Morumbwa was not more than 700 or 800 

 yards distant from the other, and they then completed the 

 survey of Kebrabasa from end to end. 



They did not attempt to return by the way they came, 

 but scaled the slope of the mountain on the north. It 

 took them three hours' hard labour in cutting their way 

 up through the dense thornbush which covered the ascent. 

 The face of the slope was often about an angle of 70°, yet 

 their guide Shokumbenla, whose hard, horny soles, resem- 

 bling those of elephants, showed that he was accustomed 

 to this rough and hot work, carried a pot of water for them 

 nearly all the way up. They slept that night at a well in 

 a tufaceous rock on the N.W. of Chipereziwa, and never 

 was sleep more sweet. 



A band of native musicians came to our camp one 

 evening, on our own way down, and treated us with their 

 wild and not unpleasant music on the Marimba, an instru- 

 ment formed of bars of hard wood of varying breadth and 

 thickness, laid on different-sized hollow calabashes, and 

 tuned to give the notes; a few pieces of cloth pleased 

 them, and they passed on. 



The rainy season of Tette differs a little from that of 

 some of the other intertropical regions; the quantity of 

 rain-fall being considerably less. It begins in November 

 and ends in April. During our first season in that place, 

 only a little over nineteen inches of rain fell. In an 

 average year, and when the crops are good, the fall 

 amounts to about thirty-five inches. On many days it 

 does not rain at all, and rarely is it wet all day; some days- 

 have merely a passing shower, preceded and followed by 

 hot sunshine ; occasionally an interval of a week, or even 

 a fortnight, passes without a drop of rain, and then the 

 crops suffer from the sun. These partial droughts happen 



