. A few minutes later, while Jantje and 'Nkuku were superintending
the watering of the oxen, some half-dozen women, carrying baskets poised
upon their heads, were seen approaching from the village. When,
somewhat later, these women arrived at the wagon, the leader of them
announced that the contents of the baskets, consisting of green mealie
cobs, sugar cane, eggs, sweet potatoes, half a dozen shockingly skinny
chickens, milk, and _joala_ (a kind of native beer) were a present from
the headman of the village to the strangers. (Six months earlier the
travellers would have laughed incredulously at the idea of liquids being
conveyed in baskets; but now they took it quite as a matter of course,
for they had by this time grown quite familiar with the native basket,
so exquisitely woven out of grass as to be quite impervious to leakage).
They accepted the gift with a few words--but not too many--of thanks,
and then, desirous of creating a good impression upon the Makolo as
early as might be, they directed the women to wait, and, going to the
wagon, took from their store of "notions" a few yards of gaudily printed
cotton stuff, two or three yards of brass wire, half a dozen empty two-
ounce tobacco tins decorated with gilt and coloured lettering, in the
style familiar to all devotees of the weed, a small wooden box
containing about a pint of mixed beads, and to each of the smiling and
expectant basket-bearers a special present for herself, consisting of a
necklet of large particoloured beads, the remaining gifts being of
course for the headman in return for his present. The necklets Dick and
Grosvenor personally clasped round the shapely, bronze-tinted throats of
the recipients, to the intense delight of the latter, and then the
damsels took their departure, smiling to such an extent as to display
every tooth in their heads. Presently, when they were a few yards from
the wagon, they burst into song, the burden of their lay being the
magnificent generosity, enormous wealth, and splendid personality of the
visitors.

About an hour before sunset that same day another party made its
appearance, approaching from the village. On this occasion it consisted
of men only, some twenty in number, which, upon their arrival at the
wagon, proved to be the headman of the village and his retinue, all
unarmed.

The party halted at a distance of some ten paces from the spot where
Dick and Grosvenor sat before their open tent, and as they