“ locations ” of about twenty huts apiece, some distance
apart from one another. I started with my photographic
apparatus for one of these villages. When I came inside
it, I noticed a native of a quite different type to any I
had hitherto come across. His skin was as black as
ebony, and he was very muscular. His look was most
intelligent, and he was very quick in his movements and
exuberant in gesture. At the moment of my arrival
he had just lighted a “ dakka ” (Indian hemp) pipe.
This pipe consists of a horn filled with water. Into the
water descends a wooden tube surmounted by a clay bowl
in which the, tobacco is placed. By applying his hands
to the opening of the horn, leaving but a small interstice
whereto to apply his lips so as to inhale the smoke after it
had passed through the water, he filled his lungs with
smoke, which he inhaled with all his might and main in a
most laughable manner; then throwing back his head and
showing his eyes all bloodshot, he puffed out the smoke
from his mouth, coughing, gasping, almost suffocated—■
but triumphant. But hardly had the cough stopped when
he began again, even more violently than before. After
five or six repetitions he stopped to take breath. The
most curious part of the performance was that each
time that he stopped to take breath he commenced
spitting. Yet etiquette requires that this should be done
with great ceremony through a tube of straw. I must add
that the practice of smoking Indian hemp is followed by
most deplorable results. It produces at the time a
drunken excitement, followed by stupor, and those much
addicted to it soon suffer from regular delirium tremens.
The custom is found in every part of Africa I have visited.
The fellow was absolutely naked with the exception of a
narrow leather girdle, from which hung in front three wild
cats’ skins with a single skin behind. Round his neck he
wore an amulet, consisting of a bit of lizard skin forming
a little bag of about an inch square; the object of this,
he sweetly informed my. servant, was to make giris
love him. With most expressive and intelligible signs
he gave me to understand that he did not belong to that
part of the country, but that he was a Matabele—a bath-
servant of King Lobengula escaped a few months
previously because Lobengula wished to put him to
death. According to his story, one of the king’s wives
was one day in her hut about to take her bath, and called
one of the men-servants to assist her. Khantura (this
was the name of our gentleman) ventured to remark to
Mrs. Lo Ben that she ought to be ashamed of herself to
call a man to help her take her bath instead of summoning
one of her women. Of course the lady complained
to the King, her husband. Lobengula called Khantura
before him, who openly declared that the lady was the
mistress of the other attendant; whereupon the King
ordered him to be executed. Khantura, however, after
receiving a violent blow from a knobkerry on the back
of the head, was left for dead, but recovered and managed
to escape to John’s Staadt, in the British Protectorate;
and although the King had since then frequently sent
word to him that he had pardoned him, and that he
wished him to return, he knew his master too well to
trust him.
I asked him if he would like me to take his portrait.
He accepted with delight, and led me inside the village
to the court-yard of a hut, where about thirty men,
women, and children were assembled. The men were
squatting round an immense earthen vessel containing
Kafir beer, and received us in the most cordial manner.
Soon after they put their pots aside, and commenced
to dance, shrieking and brandishing their clubs about in
a most terrific manner. Their dance consists of one
long slow step forward with one foot, while they strike
the ground heavily with the heel of the other, singing
all the time in slow monotonous rhythm, interrupted by
formidable shouts. There was no instrumental accompaniment.
While this was going on I was preparing
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