For three days and three nights the drums never ceased
to beat. In daytime the fun was fiercest, even "when thé
sun was at its greatest height, and cast down fiery rays
Upon the sprightly crowd, melting the fat in the glistening
locks of their woolly heads, so that it ran in oil all over
their bodies, and seemed to give them a zest for further
exertion ; for the men would vie one with another in the
violence of their wild diversion. The dance seemed to
partake of the character both of the breakdown and double
shuffle. Clouds of dust were raised.
Those men of the mountains who had come with me were
by far the best dancers. They stamped upon the ground
so wildly that it seemed as though their feet would burst.
Their , necks, too, appeared to be in danger, as they threw
their heads with impetuous force from right to left, and
vice versâ. The black man never could be happier. For
him the world was great and free ; or, as John more practically
said, “ de bellies is full, and dey feel glad—dey shall
all sleep soon.”
Groups of the revellers assembled under a small tree near
our hut, which afforded shelter during the day, and listened
to the stories of Karemba, who was now a man of some
importance, for he had been a great traveller, and, by dint
of practice, had become an orator and warbler of not a little
consequence. Among them were some ancient endunas,
who, doubtless, could tell some dreadful stones of the
white (?) men’s conquests in the great valley. They gave
forth long yarns to my boys, telling them how they had
travelled, how important they had been as young men, how
much they had done, how much they had seen, how the
church bells had rung in Kunyungwi on every seventh day ;
how the white men knelt before a cross surrounded by blazing
light to make crops to grow and rain to fall ; how the white
THE GREAT DANCE AT CHIBINGA.