sex.  They cut their woolly hair quite short, and delight in having the whole person shining with butter.  Their dress is a kilt reaching to the knees; its material is ox-hide, made as soft as cloth.  It is not ungraceful.  A soft skin mantle is thrown across the shoulders when the lady is unemployed, but when engaged in any sort of labor she throws this aside, and works in the kilt alone.  The ornaments most coveted are large brass anklets as thick as the little finger, and armlets of both brass and ivory, the latter often an inch broad.  The rings are so heavy that the ankles are often blistered by the weight pressing down; but it is the fashion, and is borne as magnanimously as tight lacing and tight shoes among ourselves.  Strings of beads are hung around the neck, and the fashionable colors being light green and pink, a trader could get almost any thing he chose for beads of these colors.

At our public religious services in the kotla, the Makololo women always behaved with decorum from the first, except at the conclusion of the prayer.  When all knelt down, many of those who had children, in following the example of the rest, bent over their little ones; the children, in terror of being crushed to death, set up a simultaneous yell, which so tickled the whole assembly there was often a subdued titter, to be turned into a hearty laugh as soon as they heard Amen.  This was not so difficult to overcome in them as similar peccadilloes were in the case of the women farther south.  Long after we had settled at Mabotsa, when preaching on the most solemn subjects, a woman might be observed to look round, and, seeing a neighbor seated on her dress, give her a hunch with the elbow to make her move off; the other would return it with interest, and perhaps the remark, “Take the nasty thing away, will you?” Then three or four would begin to hustle the first offenders, and the men to swear at them all, by way of enforcing silence.

Great numbers of little trifling things like these occur, and would not be worth the mention but that one can not form a correct idea of missionary work except by examination of the minutiae.  At the risk of appearing frivolous to some, I shall continue to descend to mere trifles.

The numbers who attended at the summons of the herald, who acted as beadle, were often from five to seven hundred.  The service consisted of reading a small portion of the Bible and giving an explanatory address, usually short enough to prevent weariness or want of attention.  So long as we continue to hold services in the kotla, the associations of the place are unfavorable to solemnity; hence it is always desirable to have a place of worship as soon as possible; and it is of importance, too, to treat such place with reverence, as an aid to secure that serious attention which religious subjects demand.  This will appear more evident when it is recollected that, in the very spot where we had been engaged in acts of devotion, half an hour