254 ANOINTING WITH BUTTER. 



maize, sweet potatoes, and yams, here called " lekdto," 

 but as yet we see only the outlying villages. 



The people who came with Sheakondo to our bivouac 

 had their teeth filed to a point by way of beautifying 

 them, though those which were left untouched were always 

 the whitest ; they are generally tattooed in various parts, 

 but chiefly on the abdomen : the skin is raised in small 

 elevated cicatrices, each nearly half an inch long and a 

 quarter of an inch in diameter, so that a number of them 

 may constitute a star, or other device. The dark colour 

 of the skin prevents any colouring matter being deposited 

 in these figures, but they love much to have the whole 

 surface of their bodies anointed with a comfortable varnish 

 of oil. In their unassisted state they depend on supplies 

 of oil from the Palma-Christi, or castor-oil-plant, or from 

 various other oliferous seeds, but they are all excessively 

 fond of clarified butter or ox fat. Sheakondo's old wife 

 presented some manioc-roots, and then politely requested 

 to be anointed with butter : as I had been bountifully 

 supplied by the Makololo, I gave her as much as would 

 suffice, and as they have little clothing, I can readily 

 believe that she felt her comfort greatly enhanced thereby. 



The favourite wife, who was also present, was equally 

 anxious for butter. She had a profusion of iron rings 

 on her ankles, to which were attached little pieces of sheet- 

 iron, to enable her to make a tinkling as she walked in 

 her mincing African style ; the same thing is thought 

 pretty by our own dragoons in walking jauntingly. 



We had so much rain and cloud, that I could not get 

 a single observation for either longitude or latitude for 

 a fortnight. Yet the Leeba does not show any great rise, 

 nor is the water in the least discoloured. It is slightly 

 black, from the number of mossy rills which fall into it. 

 It has remarkably few birds and fish, while the Leeambye 

 swarms with both. It is noticeable that alligators here 

 possess more of the fear of man than in the Leeambye. 

 The Balonda have taught them, by their poisoned arrows, 

 to keep out of sight. We did not see one basking in the 

 sun. The Balonda set so many little traps for birds, 

 that few appear. I observed, however, many (to me) 

 new small birds of song on its banks. More rain has 

 been falling in the east than here, for the Leeambye was 

 rising fast and working against the sandy banks so vigor- 

 ously, that a slight yellow tinge was perceptible in it. 



