Some Masters, Who Fail From Defect
Of Temper Or Disposition To Secure The Affections Of The Conquered People,
Frequently Find
Themselves left without a single servant, in consequence of
the absence and impossibility of enforcing a fugitive-slave law,
and
The readiness with which those who are themselves subjected
assist the fugitives across the rivers in canoes. The Makololo ladies
are liberal in their presents of milk and other food, and seldom require
to labor, except in the way of beautifying their own huts and court-yards.
They drink large quantities of boyaloa or o-alo, the buza of the Arabs,
which, being made of the grain called holcus sorghum or "durasaifi",
in a minute state of subdivision, is very nutritious,
and gives that plumpness of form which is considered beautiful.
They dislike being seen at their potations by persons of the opposite sex.
They cut their woolly hair quite short, and delight in having the whole person
shining with butter. Their dress is a kilt reaching to the knees;
its material is ox-hide, made as soft as cloth. It is not ungraceful.
A soft skin mantle is thrown across the shoulders when the lady is unemployed,
but when engaged in any sort of labor she throws this aside, and works
in the kilt alone. The ornaments most coveted are large brass anklets
as thick as the little finger, and armlets of both brass and ivory,
the latter often an inch broad. The rings are so heavy that the ankles
are often blistered by the weight pressing down; but it is the fashion,
and is borne as magnanimously as tight lacing and tight shoes among ourselves.
Strings of beads are hung around the neck, and the fashionable colors
being light green and pink, a trader could get almost any thing he chose
for beads of these colors.
At our public religious services in the kotla, the Makololo women always
behaved with decorum from the first, except at the conclusion of the prayer.
When all knelt down, many of those who had children, in following
the example of the rest, bent over their little ones; the children,
in terror of being crushed to death, set up a simultaneous yell,
which so tickled the whole assembly there was often a subdued titter,
to be turned into a hearty laugh as soon as they heard Amen.
This was not so difficult to overcome in them as similar peccadilloes were
in the case of the women farther south. Long after we had settled at Mabotsa,
when preaching on the most solemn subjects, a woman might be observed
to look round, and, seeing a neighbor seated on her dress,
give her a hunch with the elbow to make her move off; the other would
return it with interest, and perhaps the remark, "Take the nasty thing away,
will you?" Then three or four would begin to hustle the first offenders,
and the men to swear at them all, by way of enforcing silence.
Great numbers of little trifling things like these occur, and would not be
worth the mention but that one can not form a correct idea of missionary work
except by examination of the minutiae.
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