s on the hide of a zebra. Pieces of skin two or three
inches long and broad are detached, and allowed to heal in a dependent
position around the head--a strange style of ornament; indeed, it is
difficult to conceive in what their notion of beauty consists. The
women have somewhat the same ideas with ourselves of what constitutes
comeliness. They came frequently and asked for the looking-glass; and
the remarks they made--while I was engaged in reading, and apparently
not attending to them--on first seeing themselves therein, were
amusingly ridiculous. "Is that me?" "What a big mouth I have!" "My ears
are as big as pumpkin-leaves." "I have no chin at all." Or, "I would
have been pretty, but am spoiled by these high cheek-bones." "See how
my head shoots up in the middle!" laughing vociferously all the time
at their own jokes. They readily perceive any defect in each other, and
give nicknames accordingly. One man came alone to have a quiet gaze at
his own features once, when he thought I was asleep; after twisting his
mouth about in various directions, he remarked to himself, "People say I
am ugly, and how very ugly I am indeed!"

The Makololo use all the skins of their oxen for making either mantles
or shields. For the former, the hide is stretched out by means of pegs,
and dried. Ten or a dozen men then collect round it with small adzes,
which, when sharpened with an iron bodkin, are capable of shaving off
the substance of the skin on the fleshy side until it is quite thin;
when sufficiently thin, a quantity of brain is smeared over it, and
some thick milk. Then an instrument made of a number of iron spikes tied
round a piece of wood, so that the points only project beyond it, is
applied to it in a carding fashion, until the fibres of the bulk of it
are quite loose. Milk or butter is applied to it again, and it forms a
garment nearly as soft as cloth.

The shields are made of hides partially dried in the sun, and then
beaten with hammers until they are stiff and dry. Two broad belts of a
differently-colored skin are sewed into them longitudinally, and sticks
inserted to make them rigid and not liable to bend easily. The shield is
a great protection in their way of fighting with spears, but they
also trust largely to their agility in springing aside from the coming
javelin. The shield assists when so many spears are thrown that it is
impossible not to receive some of them. Their spears are light javelins;
and, judging fro