280 
IN AFRICA 
over plentifully, were large numbers of children 
and babies and a few women. A gateway of tangled 
boughs led into the inclosure, while in one part of 
the village were the curious woven wickerwork 
granaries in which the community store of kaffir 
corn is kept. There were no street signs on the lamp 
posts, probably because there were no streets and 
no lamp posts. 
In the first village all the men were away, evi¬ 
dently waiting to see whether our visit was a hostile 
or a peaceful one. 
We soon established ourselves on a peace footing 
and after that the warriors began to appear out of 
the tall grass in large numbers from all points of 
the compass. They all carried spears and shields, 
neither of which they would sell for love or money. 
At least they wouldn’t for money. We resolved 
not to try the other unless the worst came to the 
worst and we had to fall back on it as a last des¬ 
perate measure. I suppose they didn’t know how 
soon they might need their weapons, and we heard 
that the sultan had just sent out a positive order 
forbidding them to sell their means of defense. 
The first procedure when entering a district 
where the natives may be unfriendly is to send out 
for the chief, or sultan, as he is known in Africa. 
There is always a sultan to preside over the des¬ 
tinies of his tribe and to take any money that hap¬ 
pens along. So we sent for the sultan, who was 
off in a neighboring village, so they said. After a 
long wait, during which we pitched our camp and 
