lls of travel. I told the havildar when I came up to him at
Metaba what I had done, and that I was very much displeased with the
sepoys for compassing my failure, if not death; an unkind word had
never passed my lips to them: to this he could bear testimony. He
thought that they would only be a plague and trouble to me, but he
"would go on and die with me."

Stone boiling is unknown in these countries, but ovens are made in
anthills. Holes are dug in the ground for baking the heads of large
game, as the zebra, feet of elephants, humps of rhinoceros, and the
production of fire by drilling between the palms of the hands is
universal. It is quite common to see the sticks so used attached to
the clothing or bundles in travelling; they wet the blunt end of the
upright stick with the tongue, and dip it in the sand to make some
particles of silica adhere before inserting it in the horizontal
piece. The wood of a certain wild fig-tree is esteemed as yielding
fire readily.

In wet weather they prefer to carry fire in the dried balls of
elephants' dung which are met with--the male's being about eight
inches in diameter and about a foot long: they also employ the stalk
of a certain plant which grows on rocky places for the same purpose.

We bought a senze, or _Aulacaudatus Swindernianus_, which had been
dried over a slow fire. This custom of drying fish, flesh, and fruits,
on stages over slow fires, is practised very generally: the use of
salt for preservation is unknown. Besides stages for drying, the
Makonde use them about six feet high for sleeping on instead of the
damp ground: a fire beneath helps to keep off the mosquitoes, and they
are used by day as convenient resting-places and for observation.

Pottery seems to have been known to the Africans from the remotest
times, for fragments are found everywhere, even among the oldest
fossil bones in the country. Their pots for cooking, holding water and
beer, are made by the women, and the form is preserved by the eye
alone, for no sort of machine is ever used. A foundation or bottom is
first laid, and a piece of bone or bamboo used to scrape the clay or
to smooth over the pieces which are added to increase the roundness;
the vessel is then left a night: the next morning a piece is added to
the rim--as the air is dry several rounds may be added--and all is
then carefully smoothed off; afterwards it is thoroughly sun-dried. A
light fire of dried cow-dung, or corn-stalks, or str