Skin prevents any coloring matter being deposited
in these figures, but they love much to have the whole surface of their bodies
anointed with a comfortable varnish of oil. In their unassisted state
they depend on supplies of oil from the Palma Christi, or castor-oil plant,
or from various other oliferous seeds, but they are all
excessively fond of clarified butter or ox fat. Sheakondo's old wife
presented some manioc roots, and then politely requested
to be anointed with butter: as I had been bountifully supplied
by the Makololo, I gave her as much as would suffice, and as they have
little clothing, I can readily believe that she felt her comfort
greatly enhanced thereby.
The favorite wife, who was also present, was equally anxious for butter.
She had a profusion of iron rings on her ankles, to which were attached
little pieces of sheet iron, to enable her to make a tinkling as she walked
in her mincing African style; the same thing is thought pretty
by our own dragoons in walking jauntingly.
We had so much rain and cloud that I could not get a single observation
for either longitude or latitude for a fortnight. Yet the Leeba
does not show any great rise, nor is the water in the least discolored.
It is slightly black, from the number of mossy rills which fall into it.
It has remarkably few birds and fish, while the Leeambye swarms with both.
It is noticeable that alligators here possess more of the fear of man
than in the Leeambye.
