" TI<OI,0 " AND ITS PUNISHMENT. 539 



and killed him close to the village of Mabotsa, and nothing 

 was done to her by the authorities. From having met 

 with no Albinos in Londa, I suspect they are there also 

 put to death. We saw one dwarf only in I,onda, and 

 brands on him showed he had once been a slave ; and 

 there is one dwarf woman at I/inyanti. The general 

 absence of deformed persons, is partly owing to their 

 destruction in infancy, and partly to the mode of life 

 being a natural one, so far as ventilation and food are 

 concerned. They use but few unwholesome mixtures 

 as condiments, and, though their undress exposes them to 

 the vicissitudes of the temperature, it does not harbour 

 vomites. It was observed, that, when smallpox and 

 measles visited the country, they were most severe on 

 the half-castes who were clothed. In several tribes a 

 child which is said to " tlola," transgress, is put to death. 

 " Tlolo," or transgression, is ascribed to several curious 

 cases. A child who cut the upper front teeth before the 

 under, was always put to death among the Bakaa, and, 

 I believe, also among the Bakwains. In some tribes, a 

 case of twins renders one of them liable to death ; and 

 an ox, which, while lying in the pen, beats the ground 

 with its tail, is treated in the same way. It is thought 

 to be calling death to visit the tribe. When I was 

 coming through I^onda, my men carried a great number 

 of fowls, of a larger breed than any they had at home. 

 If one crowed before midnight, it had been guilty of 

 -' tlolo," and was killed. The men often carried them 

 sitting on their guns, and, if one began to crow in a 

 forest, the owner would give it a beating, by way of 

 teaching it not to be guilty of crowing at unseasonable 

 hours. 



The women here are in the habit of piercing the upper 

 lip, and gradually enlarging the orifice until they can 

 insert a shell. The Up then appears drawn out beyond 

 the perpendicular of the nose, and gives them a most 

 ungainly aspect. Sekwebu remarked, " These women 

 want to make their mouths like those of ducks ; " and 

 indeed it does appear as if they had the idea that female 

 beauty of lip had been attained by the Ornithorhynchas 

 paradoxus alone. This custom prevails throughout the 

 country of the Maravi, and no one could see it without 

 confessing, that fashion had never led women to a freak 

 more mad. We had rains now every day, and considerable 



