After a comfortable breakfast at tbe civilian mess
hut, and farewells to our kind friends at Port
Salisbury, my wife, Mr. Swan, and I started on our
three horses in pursuit of our donkeys, which had
started along the Manica road about an hour before.
These we soon caught up, and after a hot dusty ride of
about ten miles we pitched our tents about one hundred
yards from a large Kaffir village on a flat space,
hidden away amongst a sea of small granite boulders.
Here the women wore pretty chaplets of red and
white beads sewn on to snake-skins, and aprons and
necklets gaily decorated with the same ; the chief had
a splendid crop of long black hair. Beyond this the
village presented nothing fresh to our notice until
night fell, when our rest was disturbed for hours by
a series of hideous noises ¡ drums were beaten, dogs
were barking, men were howling like wild, beasts, and
when they ceased the women would take up their
refrain, guns were periodically let off, and everything
conceivable was done to render night hideous.
On rising next morning and inquiring the cause
of this nightmare, we were informed that a death
had taken place in the village, and that the inhabitants
were indulging in their accustomed wailing.
I was also told that in these parts they carefully tie
up the limbs of a dead man, his toes and his fingers
each separately, in cloths, prior to burial, whereas a
woman is only tied up in a skin, and her grave is of
no account".
At the village of Karadi we left the Manica road
and entered a very populous district with numerous
villages perched on the rocky heights, the inhabitants
of which were greatly excited at the sight of us, and
followed us for miles. This, we learnt, was Musung-
aikwa’s country. The women here had a distinct
TA TTOO ED WOMEN FROM C H IB l ’S, G A M B ID J l’S , AND K U N Z l’s CO U N T R IE S
tattoo mark of their own—namely, the lizard pattern,
which we have seen on the dollasses or divining-
tablets1 done in dots on their stomachs. Some of the
men, too, have the same device tattooed on them on
their chests and backs. This is the third distinctive
1 Chap. II.