134 LIFE OF DA VID LIVINGSTONE, LL.D. 



were all but unknown in their transactions with each other, and the relations 

 between the members of each tribe were conducted with primitive simplicity and 

 justice. In all ages and at all times, wherever slavery exists and is fostered 

 by white men, the vices of civilization, without its virtues, become rampant. 



Kabompo, Shinte's town, stands in a pleasant green valley with a limpid 

 brook running through it. The town was embowered in trees, and the huts were 

 well built, and had square walls (the first he had seen), and circular roofs. The 

 streets were straight, and each hut had its patch of ground, in which tobacco, 

 sugar-cane, and bananas were carefully cultivated, the whole being surrounded 

 by a straight fence of upright poles a few inches apart, with grass, or leafy 

 branches interwoven between. Outside these fences trees of the Ficus Indica 

 family, which they hold in veneration, form a grateful shade. Two native 

 Portuguese traders, and a large number of Mambari were in the town, dealing 

 in their wares, and trading in human flesh. For the first time the Makololo 

 men saw slaves in chains. " They are not men," they exclaimed, "who treat 

 children so." 



Shinte gave Livingstone a grand reception in the Kotla, or place of 

 assemblage. About a hundred women were present ; this was the first occa- 

 sion in which he had seen women present in the Kotla on a formal or state 

 occasion. A party of musicians, consisting of three drummers and four per- 

 formers on the marimba, filled up the intervals with music. The marimba 

 ' ' consists of two bars of wood placed side by side, here quite straight, but 

 farther north, bent round so as to resemble half the tire of a carriage wheel ; 

 across these are placed about fifteen wooden keys, two or three inches broad, 

 and fifteen inches long ; their thickness is regulated according to the deepness 

 of the note required ; each of the keys has a calabash beneath it ; from the 

 upper part of each a portion is cut off to enable them to embrace the bars, and 

 form hollow sounding-boards to the keys; and little drumsticks elicit the 

 music. Rapidity of execution seems much admired among them, and the 

 music is pleasant to the ear." 



After a man had imitated "the most approved attitudes observed in actual 

 fight, as of throwing one javelin, receiving another on the shield, springing 

 to one side to avoid a third, running backwards and forwards, leaping, etc. 

 Sambanza (Manenko was indisposed) and the spokesman of Nyamoana, stalked 

 backwards and forward before Shinte, giving him a full and true account, so 

 far as they knew, of the white man and his object in passing through the 

 country, recommending him to receive him well and send him on his way. 

 Several speakers among his own headmen also delivered orations, the women 

 bursting into a plaintive melody between each. This over, Shinte stood up, 

 and the reception was at an end. The power and standing of Shinte among 

 the Balonda chiefs was borne out by the numbers present, there being about 

 a thousand people and three hundred armed men." 



