June.] 
SPEECH OF HANNO KOMO. 
91 
Komo brought us some sweet milk for breakfast ; 
on presenting it he called for the interpreter, 
when he said to us, through him — 
" I am a poor man, and all these people with 
me are poor men ; I never knew my parents, 1 
have only heard of them : these people are almost 
all children : I know the white men do not come 
to seek food as the other people do ; however, I 
should have given you a cow to eat, but they 
went away last night and could not be found ; 
but if they are found before you go, I will give 
you one, and when I come to Lattakoo I shall 
expect something." 
T'ky, the chief from another kraal, was there 
on purpose to attend the circumcision of a young 
man. It was the eldest son of Hanno Komo on 
whom this ceremony was to be performed. It is 
their custom first to plaster the youth over with 
cow-dung, excepting his mouth and eyes, when he ' 
is shut up in a house alone, trembling from dread 
of what may follow, of which he has been kept 
ignorant. He is afterwards taken out and 
washed, when they paint him over with white 
strokes, so that he resembles the zebra ; he is 
then shut up a second time. What other cere- 
monies are performed on the occasion I could not 
learn. , ^ 
