and beautified by a moderately-sized rivulet, Kambira led his
followers towards a hamlet which lay close to the stream, nestled in a
woody hollow, and, like all other Manganja villages, was surrounded by
an impenetrable hedge of poisonous euphorbia--a tree which casts a deep
shade, and renders it difficult for bowmen to aim at the people inside.

In the immediate vicinity of the village the land was laid out in little
gardens and fields, and in these the people--men, women, and children,--
were busily engaged in hoeing the ground, weeding, planting, or
gathering the fruits of their labour.

These same fruits were plentiful, and the people sang with joy as they
worked. There were large crops of maize, millet beans, and ground-nuts;
also patches of yams, rice, pumpkins, cucumbers, cassava, sweet
potatoes, tobacco, cotton, and hemp, which last is also called "bang,"
and is smoked by the natives as a species of tobacco.

It was a pleasant sight for Kambira and his men to look upon, as they
rested for a few minutes on the brow of a knoll near a thicket of
bramble bushes, and gazed down upon their home. Doubtless they thought
so, for their eyes glistened, so also did their teeth when they
smilingly commented on the scene before them. They did not, indeed,
become enthusiastic about scenery, nor did they refer to the picturesque
grouping of huts and trees, or make any allusion whatever to light and
shade; no, their thoughts were centred on far higher objects than these.
They talked of wives and children, and hippopotamus-flesh; and their
countenances glowed--although they were not white--and their strong
hearts beat hard against their ribs--although they were not clothed, and
their souls (for we repudiate Yoosoof's opinion that they had none),
their souls appeared to take quiet but powerful interest in their
belongings.

It was pleasant also, for Kambira and his men to listen to the sounds
that floated up from the valley,--sweeter far than the sweetest strains
of Mozart or Mendelssohn,--the singing of the workers in the fields and
gardens, mellowed by distance into a soft humming tone; and the hearty
laughter that burst occasionally from men seated at work on bows,
arrows, fishing-nets, and such-like gear, on a flat green spot under the
shade of a huge banyan-tree, which, besides being the village workshop,
was the village reception-hall, where strangers were entertained on
arriving,--also the village green, where the pe