166 GRAVEYARDS. CHAP. VL 



planting and protecting various fruit and oil-seed yielding 

 trees of the country. No other tribe either plants or 

 abstains from cutting down fruit trees, but here we saw 

 some which had been planted in regular rows, and the 

 trunks of which were quite two feet in diameter. The 

 grand old Mosibe, a tree yielding a bean with a thin red 

 pellicle, said to be very fattening, had probably seen two 

 hundred summers. Dr. Kirk found that the Mosibe is 

 peculiar, in being allied to a species met with only in the 

 West Indies. The Motsikiri, sometimes called Mafuta, 

 yields a hard fat, and an oil which is exported from In- 

 hambane. It is said that two ancient Batoka travellers 

 went down as far as the Loangwa, and finding the Macaa 

 tree (Jujube or zisyphus) in fruit, carried the seed all the 

 way back to the great Falls, in order to plant them. Two 

 of these trees are still to be seen there, the only specimens 

 of the kind in that region. 



The Batoka had made a near approach to the custom of 

 more refined nations and had permanent graveyards, either 

 on the sides of hills, thus rendered sacred, or under large 

 old shady trees ; they reverence the tombs of their ances- 

 tors, and plant the largest elephants' tusks, as monuments 

 at the head of the grave, or entirely enclose it with the 

 choicest ivory. Some of the other tribes throw the dead 

 body into the river to be devoured by crocodiles, or, sew- 

 ing it up in a mat, place it on the branch of a baobab, or 

 cast it in some lonely gloomy spot, surrounded by dense 

 tropical vegetation, where it affords a meal to the foul 

 hyenas ; but the Batoka reverently bury their dead, and 

 regard the spot henceforth as sacred. The ordeal by the 

 poison of the muave is resorted to by the Batoka, as well 

 as by the other tribes ; but a cock is often made to stand 

 proxy for the supposed witch. Near the confluence of the 

 Kafue the Mambo, or chief, with some of his headmen, 

 came to our sleeping-place with a present ; their foreheads 



