Village Life in Pongo-land. 165 
enjoy a siesta, long and deep as that of Andine 
Mendoza; and they “kill time” as well as they 
can till evening. The men assemble in the club 
round the Nampolo-fire, where they chat and smoke, 
drink and doze; those who are Agriophagi or 
Xylobian Ethiopians, briefly called hunters, spend 
their days much like the race which Byron declared 
“ Merely born 
To hunt and vote, and raise the price of corn.”' 
The Pongo Venator is up with the sun, and, 
if not on horseback, at least he is on the traces of 
game; sometimes he returns home during the 
hours of heat, when he knows that the beasts seek 
the shady shelter of the deepest forests ; and, after 
again enjoying the “ pleasures of the chase,” he 
disposes of a heavy dinner and ends the day, 
sleep weighing down his eyelids and his brains 
singing with liquor. What he did yesterday that 
he does to-day, and what he does to-day that he 
shall do to-morrow ; his intellectual life is varied 
only by a visit to town, where he sells his choice 
skins, drinks a great deal too much rum, and 
makes the purchases, ammunition and so forth, 
which are necessary for the full enjoyment of 
home and country life. At times also he joins a 
party of friends and seeks some happier hunting 
ground farther from his campagne . 
Meanwhile the women dawdle through the day, 
