556 
BASHUKULOMPO HAIE-DKESSING. Chap. XXVII. 
Cazembe, referring, no doubt, to Pereira, Lacerda, and others, 
who have visited that chief. 
The streams in this part are not perennial; I did not observe 
one suitable for the purpose of irrigation. There is but httle 
wood; here and there you see large single trees, or small clumps 
of evergreens, but the abundance of maize and ground-nuts we met 
with, shows that more rain falls than in the Bechuana country, 
for there they never attempt to raise maize, except in damp 
hollows on the banks of rivers. The pasturage is very fine for 
both cattle and sheep. My own men, who know the land 
thoroughly, declare that it is all garden-ground together, and 
that the more tender grains, which require richer soil than the 
native corn, need no care here. It is seldom stony. 
The men of a village came to our encampment, and, as they 
followed the Bashukulompo mode of dressing their hair, we had 
an opportunity of examining it for the first time. A chcle of 
hair at the top of the head, eight inches or more in diameter, is 
woven into a cone eight or ten inches high, with an obtuse apex, 
bent, in some cases, a httle forward, giving it somewhat the 
appearance of a helmet. Some have only a cone, four or five 
inches in diameter at the base. It is said that the hah of ani¬ 
mals is added, but the sides of the cone are woven something hke 
basket-work. The headman of this viUage, instead of having 
liis brought to a point, had it prolonged into a wand, wliich 
extended a full yard from the crown of his head. The hair on 
the forehead, above the ears, and beliind, is aU shaven off, so 
they appear somewhat as if a cap of hberty were cocked upon the 
top of the head. After the weaving is performed it is said to be 
painful, as the scalp is drawn tightly up; but they become used 
to it. Monze informed me that aU Ins people were formerly 
ornamented in this way, but he discouraged it. I wished him to 
discom’age the practice of knocking out the teeth, too, but he 
smiled, as if in that case the fashion would be too strong for him, 
as it was for Sebituane. 
Monze came on Monday morning, and, on parting, presented 
us with a piece of a buffalo which had been Idlled the day 
before by lions. We crossed the rivulet Makoe, which rmis west¬ 
ward into the Kafue, and went northwards in order to visit 
Semalembue, an influential chief there. We slept at the village 
