The March to Banza Nkulu. 
259 
shaking hands crosswise clap palms. Chico 
Furano kneels, places both “ferients” upon the 
earth and touches his nose-tip ; he then traces 
three ground-crosses with the Jovian finger; 
again touches his nose; beats his “ volae ” on the 
dust, and draws them along the cheeks ; then he 
bends down, applying firstly the right, secondly the 
left face side, and lastly the palms and dorsa of the 
hands to mother earth. Both superior and inferior 
end with the Sakila or batta-palmas, 1 three bouts 
of three claps in the best of time separated by the 
shortest of pauses, and lastly a “ tiger ” of four 
claps. The ceremony is more elaborate than the 
“ wallowings ” and dust-shovellings described by 
I bn Batuta at the Asiatic courts, by Jobson at 
Tenda,by Chapperton at Oyo,by Denham amongst 
the Mesgows, and by travellers to Dahome and to 
the Cazembe. Yet the system is virtually the same 
in these distant kingdoms, which do not know one 
another’s names. 
Chico Furano brought a Mundongo slave, a fine 
specimen of humanity, some six feet high, weighing 
perhaps thirteen stone, all bone and muscle, willing 
and hard-working, looking upon the Congo men 
as if they were women or children. He spoke 
a few words of Portuguese, and with the master’s 
1 This palm-clapping is often alluded to in “ O Muata Ca¬ 
zembe ” (pp.' 223 etpassim). 
