Manenko was a tall, strapping woman about twenty, distinguished by a profusion of ornaments and medicines hung round her person; the latter are supposed to act as charms.  Her body was smeared all over with a mixture of fat and red ochre, as a protection against the weather; a necessary precaution, for, like most of the Balonda ladies, she was otherwise in a state of frightful nudity.  This was not from want of clothing, for, being a chief, she might have been as well clad as any of her subjects, but from her peculiar ideas of elegance in dress.  When she arrived with her husband, Sambanza, they listened for some time to the statements I was making to the people of Nyamoana, after which the husband, acting as spokesman, commenced an oration, stating the reasons for their coming, and, during every two or three seconds of the delivery, he picked up a little sand, and rubbed it on the upper part of his arms and chest.  This is a common mode of salutation in Londa; and when they wish to be excessively polite, they bring a quantity of ashes or pipe-clay in a piece of skin, and, taking up handfuls, rub it on the chest and upper front part of each arm; others, in saluting, drum their ribs with their elbows; while others still touch the ground with one cheek after the other, and clap their hands.  The chiefs go through the manoeuvre of rubbing the sand on the arms, but only make a feint at picking up some.  When Sambanza had finished his oration, he rose up, and showed his ankles ornamented with a bundle of copper rings; had they been very heavy, they would have made him adopt a straggling walk.  Some chiefs have really so many as to be forced, by the weight and size, to keep one foot apart from the other, the weight being a serious inconvenience in walking.  The gentlemen like Sambanza, who wish to imitate their betters, do so in their walk; so you see men, with only a few ounces of ornament on their legs, strutting along as if they had double the number of pounds.  When I smiled at Sambanza’s walk, the people remarked, “That is the way in which they show off their lordship in these parts.”

Manenko was quite decided in the adoption of the policy of friendship with the Makololo which we recommended; and, by way of cementing the bond, she and her counselors proposed that Kolimbota should take a wife among them.  By this expedient she hoped to secure his friendship, and also accurate information as to the future intentions of the Makololo.  She thought that he would visit the Balonda more frequently afterward, having the good excuse of going to see his wife; and the Makololo would never, of course, kill the villagers among whom so near a relative of one of their own children dwells.  Kolimbota, I found, thought favorably of the proposition, and it afterward led to his desertion from us.