THE TEMBE. 



369 



people have apparently no predilection for the Indian 

 " Gobar the floor is of tamped earth, rough, uneven, 

 and unclean. The prism-shaped ceiling is composed of 

 rafters and thin poles gently rising from the long-walls 

 to the centre, where they are supported by strong hori- 

 zontals, which run the whole length of the house, and 

 these again rest upon a proportionate number of pillars, 

 solid forked uprights, planted in the floor. The ceiling 

 is polished to a shiny black with smoke, which winds its 

 way slowly through the door — smoke and grease are 

 the African's coat and small clothes, they contribute so 

 much to his health and comfort that he is by no means 

 anxious to get rid of them — and sooty lines depend 

 from it like negro- stalactites. 



The common enceinte formed by the houses is often 

 divided into various courts, intended for different 

 families, by the walls of the tenements, or by stout 

 screens, and connected by long wynds and dark alleys 

 of palisade-work. The largest and cleanest square 

 usually belongs to the headman. In these spaces cattle 

 are milked and penned ; the ground is covered with a 

 thick coat of the animals' earths, dust in the hot weather 

 and deep viscid mud during the rains : the impurity 

 must be an efficacious fomite of cutaneous and pectoral 

 disease. The villagers are fond of planting in the cen- 

 tral courts trees, under whose grateful shade the loom 

 is plied, the children play, the men smoke, and the 

 women work. Here, also, stands the little Mzimu, or 

 Fetiss-hut, to receive the oblations of the pious. Places 

 are partitioned off from the public ground, near the 

 houses, by horizontal trunks of trees, resting on forks, 

 forming pens to keep the calves from the cows at 

 night. In some villages huge bolsters of surplus grain, 

 neatly packed in bark and corded round, are raised on 



VOL. I. b B 



