is required to bring them up to the required excellency in different matters, so that, when they return from the close seclusion in which they are kept, they have generally a number of scars to show on their backs.  These bands or regiments, named mepato in the plural and mopato in the singular, receive particular appellations; as, the Matsatsi—­the suns; the Mabusa—­the rulers; equivalent to our Coldstreams or Enniskillens; and, though living in different parts of the town, they turn out at the call, and act under the chief’s son as their commander.  They recognize a sort of equality and partial communism ever afterward, and address each other by the title of molekane or comrade.  In cases of offence against their rules, as eating alone when any of their comrades are within call, or in cases of cowardice or dereliction of duty, they may strike one another, or any member of a younger mopato, but never any one of an older band; and when three or four companies have been made, the oldest no longer takes the field in time of war, but remains as a guard over the women and children.  When a fugitive comes to a tribe, he is directed to the mopato analogous to that to which in his own tribe he belongs, and does duty as a member.  No one of the natives knows how old he is.  If asked his age, he answers by putting another question, “Does a man remember when he was born?” Age is reckoned by the number of mepato they have seen pass through the formulae of admission.  When they see four or five mepato younger than themselves, they are no longer obliged to bear arms.  The oldest individual I ever met boasted he had seen eleven sets of boys submit to the boguera.  Supposing him to have been fifteen when he saw his own, and fresh bands were added every six or seven years, he must have been about forty when he saw the fifth, and may have attained seventy-five or eighty years, which is no great age; but it seemed so to them, for he had now doubled the age for superannuation among them.  It is an ingenious plan for attaching the members of the tribe to the chief’s family, and for imparting a discipline which renders the tribe easy of command.  On their return to the town from attendance on the ceremonies of initiation, a prize is given to the lad who can run fastest, the article being placed where all may see the winner run up to snatch it.  They are then considered men (banona, viri), and can sit among the elders in the kotla.  Formerly they were only boys (basimane, pueri).  The first missionaries set their faces against the boguera, on account of its connection with heathenism, and the fact that the youths learned much evil, and became disobedient to their parents.  From the general success of these men, it is perhaps better that younger missionaries should tread in their footsteps; for so much evil may result from breaking down the authority on which, to those who can not read, the whole system of our influence appears to rest, that innovators ought to be made to propose their new measures as the Locrians did new laws—­with ropes around their necks.