A MOEO chieftain's FUNEEAL. 
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quivers^ suspended by tlie neck^ and lying between tbe shoulders^ 
were supposed to have been exhausted of arrows. The last arrow 
is reluctantly parted with, and when discharged, a light javelin, 
held with the bow in the left hand, remains to defend the warrior 
whilst occupied in searching to replenish his quiver with the enemy's 
spent arrows. 
During the above proceedings, the tom-tom beaters were most 
indefatigable, and, for once in their lives, I can certify they worked 
hard. The perspiration flowed freely down their bodies, and those 
untarnished with a covering of ashes, adopted by intimate friends 
and relatives, shone brighter than the most polished ebony, whilst 
the derangement of the coats of mourning of the latter did not tell 
to their advantage, and resembled, in colour, bad imitations of the 
zebra. 
The procession again forming, it rounded a cattle-kraal, of which 
the deceased was a considerable proprietor. The wives, recovered 
from their exertions, again repeated their extraordinary feats j but 
when seized by their guardians, to my no small surprise they 
showed fight by sparring with clenched fists, and sending in a right 
or left-hander with such effect at the heads of their chaperones , that 
I could not withhold my approbation of their talent. Numbers, 
however, appearing against them, the combatants were conducted 
home, where the crowd kept up their wail and chant, varied only 
by an occasional dance by the females. 
The grave, having been finished, was not without its peculiarity : 
a slightly oval hole, two feet two inches wide by two feet six inches 
in length, had been dug five feet deep, whence, horizontally from 
its southern side, a vault, four feet wide by four feet six inches in 
length and eighteen inches in height, was excavated. Of a rather 
friable nature, but highly impregnated with oxide of iron and 
