much as to say, "Beat that, if you can!" Not knowing
what answer to make, the defendant took his snuff-box out of his left
ear and solaced himself with three or four huge pinches. I started the
hypothesis that Mamusa might once have had a _tendresse_ for the old
gentleman, and might have bestowed these cows upon him as a love-gift;
but this idea was scouted, even by the defendant, who said gravely,
"Kafir women don't buy lovers or husbands: we buy the wife we want."
A Kafir girl is exceedingly proud of being bought, and the more she
costs the prouder she is. She pities English women, whose bride-grooms
expect to receive money instead of paying it, and considers a dowry as
a most humiliating arrangement.

I wish I could tell you how Mamusa's cows have finally been disposed
of, but, although it has occupied three days, the case is by no
means over yet. I envy and admire Mr. S----'s untiring patience and
unfailing good-temper, but it is just these qualities which make
his Kafir subjects (for they really consider him as their ruler) so
certain that their affairs will not be neglected or their interests
suffer in his hands.

Whilst I was listening to Tevula's oratory my eyes and my mind
sometimes wandered to the eager and silent audience, and I amused
myself by studying their strange head-dresses. In most instances the
men wore their hair in the woven rings to which I have alluded, but
there were several young men present who indulged in purely fancy
head-dresses. One stalwart youth had got hold of the round cardboard
lid of a collar-box, to which he had affixed two bits of string, and
tied it firmly but jauntily on one side of his head. Another lad had
invented a most extraordinary decoration for his wool-covered pate,
and one which it is exceedingly difficult to describe in delicate
language. He had procured the intestines of some small animal, a lamb
or a kid, and had cleaned and scraped them and tied them tightly, at
intervals of an inch or two, with string. This series of small clear
bladders he had then inflated, and arranged them in a sort of bouquet
on the top of his head, skewering tufts of his crisp hair between, so
that the effect resembled a bunch of bubbles, if there could be such
a thing. Another very favorite adornment for the head consisted of a
strip of gay cloth or ribbon, or of even a few bright threads,
bound tightly like a fillet across the brows and confining a tuft of
feathers over one ear; but I sus