Next day we came to Namilanga, or “The Well of Joy”.  It is a small well dug beneath a very large fig-tree, the shade of which renders the water delightfully cool.  The temperature through the day was 104 Deg. in the shade and 94 Deg. after sunset, but the air was not at all oppressive.  This well received its name from the fact that, in former times, marauding parties, in returning with cattle, sat down here and were regaled with boyaloa, music, and the lullilooing of the women from the adjacent towns.

All the surrounding country was formerly densely peopled, though now desolate and still.  The old head man of the place told us that his father once went to Bambala, where white traders lived, when our informant was a child, and returned when he had become a boy of about ten years.  He went again, and returned when it was time to knock out his son’s teeth.  As that takes place at the age of puberty, he must have spent at least five years in each journey.  He added that many who went there never returned, because they liked that country better than this.  They had even forsaken their wives and children; and children had been so enticed and flattered by the finery bestowed upon them there, that they had disowned their parents and adopted others.  The place to which they had gone, which they named Bambala, was probably Dambarari, which was situated close to Zumbo.  This was the first intimation we had of intercourse with the whites.  The Barotse, and all the other tribes in the central valley, have no such tradition as this, nor have either the one or the other any account of a trader’s visit to them in ancient times.

All the Batoka tribes follow the curious custom of knocking out the upper front teeth at the age of puberty.  This is done by both sexes; and though the under teeth, being relieved from the attrition of the upper, grow long and somewhat bent out, and thereby cause the under lip to protrude in a most unsightly way, no young woman thinks herself accomplished until she has got rid of the upper incisors.  This custom gives all the Batoka an uncouth, old-man-like appearance.  Their laugh is hideous, yet they are so attached to it that even Sebituane was unable to eradicate the practice.  He issued orders that none of the children living under him should be subjected to the custom by their parents, and disobedience to his mandates was usually punished with severity; but, notwithstanding this, the children would appear in the streets without their incisors, and no one would confess to the deed.  When questioned respecting the origin of this practice, the Batoka reply that their object is to be like oxen, and those who retain their teeth they consider to resemble zebras.  Whether this is the true reason or not, it is difficult to say; but it is noticeable that the veneration for oxen which prevails in many tribes should here be associated with hatred to the zebra, as among the Bakwains; that this operation is performed at the same age that circumcision is in