We had to cross, in a canoe, a stream which flows past the village of Nyamoana.  Manenko’s doctor waved some charms over her, and she took some in her hand and on her body before she ventured upon the water.  One of my men spoke rather loudly when near the doctor’s basket of medicines.  The doctor reproved him, and always spoke in a whisper himself, glancing back to the basket as if afraid of being heard by something therein.  So much superstition is quite unknown in the south, and is mentioned here to show the difference in the feelings of this new people, and the comparative want of reverence on these points among Caffres and Bechuanas.

Manenko was accompanied by her husband and her drummer; the latter continued to thump most vigorously until a heavy, drizzling mist set in and compelled him to desist.  Her husband used various incantations and vociferations to drive away the rain, but down it poured incessantly, and on our Amazon went, in the very lightest marching order, and at a pace that few of the men could keep up with.  Being on ox-back, I kept pretty close to our leader, and asked her why she did not clothe herself during the rain, and learned that it is not considered proper for a chief to appear effeminate.  He or she must always wear the appearance of robust youth, and bear vicissitudes without wincing.  My men, in admiration of her pedestrian powers, every now and then remarked, “Manenko is a soldier;” and thoroughly wet and cold, we were all glad when she proposed a halt to prepare our night’s lodging on the banks of a stream.

The country through which we were passing was the same succession of forest and open lawns as formerly mentioned:  the trees were nearly all evergreens, and of good, though not very gigantic size.  The lawns were covered with grass, which, in thickness of crop, looked like ordinary English hay.  We passed two small hamlets surrounded by gardens of maize and manioc, and near each of these I observed, for the first time, an ugly idol common in Londa—­the figure of an animal, resembling an alligator, made of clay.  It is formed of grass, plastered over with soft clay; two cowrie-shells are inserted as eyes, and numbers of the bristles from the tail of an elephant are stuck in about the neck.  It is called a lion, though, if one were not told so, he would conclude it to be an alligator.  It stood in a shed, and the Balonda pray and beat drums before it all night in cases of sickness.

Some of the men of Manenko’s train had shields made of reeds, neatly woven into a square shape, about five feet long and three broad.  With these, and short broadswords and sheaves of iron-headed arrows, they appeared rather ferocious.  But the constant habit of wearing arms is probably only a substitute for the courage they do not possess.  We always deposited our fire-arms and spears outside a village before entering it, while the Balonda, on visiting us at our encampment, always came fully armed, until