The women complain because the proportions between the sexes are so changed now that they are not valued as they deserve.  The majority of the real Makololo have been cut off by fever.  Those who remain are a mere fragment of the people who came to the north with Sebituane.  Migrating from a very healthy climate in the south, they were more subject to the febrile diseases of the valley in which we found them than the black tribes they conquered.  In comparison with the Barotse, Batoka, and Banyeti, the Makololo have a sickly hue.  They are of a light brownish-yellow color, while the tribes referred to are very dark, with a slight tinge of olive.  The whole of the colored tribes consider that beauty and fairness are associated, and women long for children of light color so much, that they sometimes chew the bark of a certain tree in hopes of producing that effect.  To my eye the dark color is much more agreeable than the tawny hue of the half-caste, which that of the Makololo ladies closely resembles.  The women generally escaped the fever, but they are less fruitful than formerly, and, to their complaint of being undervalued on account of the disproportion of the sexes, they now add their regrets at the want of children, of whom they are all excessively fond.

The Makololo women work but little.  Indeed, the families of that nation are spread over the country, one or two only in each village, as the lords of the land.  They all have lordship over great numbers of subjected tribes, who pass by the general name Makalaka, and who are forced to render certain services, and to aid in tilling the soil; but each has his own land under cultivation, and otherwise lives nearly independent.  They are proud to be called Makololo, but the other term is often used in reproach, as betokening inferiority.  This species of servitude may be termed serfdom, as it has to be rendered in consequence of subjection by force of arms, but it is necessarily very mild.  It is so easy for any one who is unkindly treated to make his escape to other tribes, that the Makololo are compelled to treat them, to a great extent, rather as children than slaves.  Some masters, who fail from defect of temper or disposition to secure the affections of the conquered people, frequently find themselves left without a single servant, in consequence of the absence and impossibility of enforcing a fugitive-slave law, and the readiness with which those who are themselves subjected assist the fugitives across the rivers in canoes.  The Makololo ladies are liberal in their presents of milk and other food, and seldom require to labor, except in the way of beautifying their own huts and court-yards.  They drink large quantities of boyaloa or o-alo, the buza of the Arabs, which, being made of the grain called holcus sorghum or “durasaifi”, in a minute state of subdivision, is very nutritious, and gives that plumpness of form which is considered beautiful.  They dislike being seen at their potations by persons of the opposite