From the many villages on the heights around
Zimbabwe came every day crowds of natives, bringing
provisions for sale, and we held a
regular market in our camp. By this
means we got as many cocks and hens
as we wanted, eggs, milk, honey, and
sweet potatoes ; then they would bring
us tomatoes, the largest I have ever
seen, chillies, capers, rice, and monkey
nuts. Some of these, I am told on
excellent authority, are distinct pro-
HATCHET ducts of the JSTew World, the seeds of
which must have originally been brought
by Dutch, Portuguese, and Spanish traders and given
in exchange for the commodities of the country;
now they form an integral part of the diet of these
people and prove to us how the ends of the world
were brought together long before our time.
These daily markets were times of great excitement
for us, for, besides giving us an insight into their
ways and life, we found it an excellent time to acquire
for a few beads their native ornaments. In carving
their knives they aTe particularly ingenious. The
sheath of these knives generally ends in a curious conventional
double foot; the handle too seems intended
to represent a head. Here again it would appear that
they take the human form as a favourite basis for a
design.
Also their snuff-boxes are many and varied in
form; some are made of reeds decorated with black
geometrical patterns, some of hollowed-out pieces
of wood decorated with patterns and brass wire,
also they have their grease-holders similarly decorated,
all pointing to a high form of ingenuity.
They were very glad to get good English powder
from u s ; but, nevertheless, before this advent of the
CARVED KNIVES
white man they made a sort of gunpowder of their
own, reddish in colour and not very powerful, specimens
of which we acquired. The art must have been
learnt from the Portuguese traders and passed up
country from one village to another. From a species