The people who came with Sheakondo to our bivouac had their teeth filed to a point by way of beautifying them, though those which were left untouched were always the whitest; they are generally tattooed in various parts, but chiefly on the abdomen:  the skin is raised in small elevated cicatrices, each nearly half an inch long and a quarter of an inch in diameter, so that a number of them may constitute a star, or other device.  The dark color of the skin prevents any coloring matter being deposited in these figures, but they love much to have the whole surface of their bodies anointed with a comfortable varnish of oil.  In their unassisted state they depend on supplies of oil from the Palma Christi, or castor-oil plant, or from various other oliferous seeds, but they are all excessively fond of clarified butter or ox fat.  Sheakondo’s old wife presented some manioc roots, and then politely requested to be anointed with butter:  as I had been bountifully supplied by the Makololo, I gave her as much as would suffice, and as they have little clothing, I can readily believe that she felt her comfort greatly enhanced thereby.

The favorite wife, who was also present, was equally anxious for butter.  She had a profusion of iron rings on her ankles, to which were attached little pieces of sheet iron, to enable her to make a tinkling as she walked in her mincing African style; the same thing is thought pretty by our own dragoons in walking jauntingly.

We had so much rain and cloud that I could not get a single observation for either longitude or latitude for a fortnight.  Yet the Leeba does not show any great rise, nor is the water in the least discolored.  It is slightly black, from the number of mossy rills which fall into it.  It has remarkably few birds and fish, while the Leeambye swarms with both.  It is noticeable that alligators here possess more of the fear of man than in the Leeambye.  The Balonda have taught them, by their poisoned arrows, to keep out of sight.  We did not see one basking in the sun.  The Balonda set so many little traps for birds that few appear.  I observed, however, many (to me) new small birds of song on its banks.  More rain has been falling in the east than here, for the Leeambye was rising fast and working against the sandy banks so vigorously that a slight yellow tinge was perceptible in it.

One of our men was bitten by a non-venomous serpent, and of course felt no harm.  The Barotse concluded that this was owing to many of them being present and seeing it, as if the sight of human eyes could dissolve the poison and act as a charm.