At every stroke of the enormous pestles the man looked as
if he would give way on all sides.
“ A savage entertainment indeed! ” I think I hear some
sympathetic reader exclaim. But, after all, similar amusements
may be seen any day in the gilded halls of great
cities, and in the lowly booths of villages in the heart of
dear old England.
Yes, the people who performed before us typified the
minstrels of primitive man, and yet their modes of amusement
-elosely resembled those which I had witnessed far
away at home: there were the archaic signs of the “ strong
man,” the musician, and the clown.
Feasting, too, is not essentially different from our own;
only the Kaffir never becomes bored with his paint and
feathers. If the reader has ever watched the progress
of one of our favourite dances—the Highland reel or
the popular schottische—from the outside of a thick plate-
glass window where not a note of music could be heard, he
cannot have failed, consciously or unconsciously, to be
much impressed with the universal similarity of human
efforts at enjoyment.
Social assemblies present many apt pictures. We
see, perhaps, an intensely erudite old gentleman—even a
cultured divine—feast, jump, and shout in obedience to all
the natural instincts which prompted his naked ancestors to
do exactly the same thing two thousand years ago. The old
gentleman, possibly, has a polished top to his head, is frozen
with pomp, and would think it terribly infra dig to run and
catch an omnibus; yet there he is jumping up and down,
frantically throwing his hands into the air, and opening his
mouth to give vent to vehement shouts of exultant savageness,
just as the wild tribes inhabiting the virgin forest or
roaming over the pathless desert have done ever since the
days of Adam.
When evening came I took my blanket and lay down
under the tree directly in front of the hut. Efforts to
get a little rest were at once interrupted by some women,
who made signs that I should not lie there, but should
go inside the hut, a den that quite baffles description,
through the sickening smell which came from putrifying
meat and other unsavoury articles.* But acting on their
advice I went in ; and as their was no light, I made up a
small fire in the centre of the floor. Unluckily it soon went
out. Then began a regular night-revel of vermin; they
ran or creeped in every direction. The bug’s bite was as
keen as the tsetse’s stab. Bats and white ants were doing
their utmost to demolish what little was left of the dilapidated
roof., One of the rats giving me a nasty bite on the
finger, I struck a match, and immediately the light revealed
the teeming life of the place. On the dark mud walls great
black and grey spiders were busily exploring, while cockroaches
and crickets moved about in whole battalions, the
former being especially numerous. This dingy hut reminded
me of the den so familiar in Boucicault’s half-forgotten
drama, “ The Streets of London.”
Shortly after I had rolled in my blanket on the floor,
for there was nothing else to rest upon, I heard a great deal
of shouting, varied by shrill and alarming screams. Very
soon the town was in a high state of excitement. As was
my custom, on occasions such as these, I ran out and
discovered Sakanii standing outside his residence, and
shouting at the top notes of his voice:
“ Bring your guns, guns; quick, bring your guns! ”
. Could it be an attack ? I ran back with all speed and,
* The women’s advice was owing to the wolves, which I have spoken
of as showing a propensity to run off with people’s noses and other portions
of their faces. .