FASHION IN AFRICA. 
449 
•rdtnary ornament. The upper lip is pierced, and a pin 
inserted to keep the hole open. Then larger pins are used, 
until a hole large enough to contain a ring two inches in 
diameter is made. This process may take years before this 
result is reached. For the poorer classes, the rings are 
made of bamboo, for the rich of ivory or tin. The tin 
ones are often like a small dish, the ivory ones not unlike 
a napkin ring. No woman appears in public without it, 
except in times of mourning. When advised to throw 
them away, since it made them ugly, they answered : 
“Kodi! Really 1 It is the fashion.” An old chief, Chin- 
sunse, being asked why they wore such a thing, replied, 
with evident surprise: “For beauty, to be sure! Men 
have beards and whiskers ; women have none ; and what 
kind of creature would a woman be without whiskers, and 
without the pepele ? She would have a mouth like a man, 
and no beard ; ha ! ha ! ” On the Rovuma, men were 
found wearing the pepele. 
The Manganja brew beer, and drink it largely. Ths 
grain is made to vegetate, dried in the sun, and pounded 
into meal, then gently boiled. When new, it is sweet and 
refreshing. They have an ordeal, by drinking a poison, 
muave. Persons suspected of crime drink it; if the 
stomach rejects it, they are innocent; if not, they are 
guilty. Chiefs are not exempted from this ordeal. What 
the muave is, is not known ; the natives were reluctant to 
tell. They wear strips of palm leaf round the head, arms, 
neck, legs, and breast, as a sign of mourning for the dead; 
and keep them on until they drop oil' from decay. They 
believe in a supreme being, called Nipambe, or Morungo, 
and in a future state. 
Above the cataracts, the Shire is a broad deep river, 
with but little current. Lake Nyassa was discovered a 
little before noon, September 16th, 1859. Its southern end 
is in 14° 25' S. lat., and 35° 30' E. long. One of the great 
slave paths from the interior passes here, others cross the 
Shire a little below. The Manganja chiefs sell their 
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