These Fringes Are About Six Or Eight Inches Long.
The Matrons Wear In Addition A Skin Cut Like The Tails Of The Coatee
Formerly Worn By Our Dragoons.
The younger girls wear the waist-belt
exhibited in the woodcut, ornamented with shells, and have the
fringes only in front.
Marauding parties of Batoka, calling
themselves Makololo, have for some time had a wholesome dread of
Sinamane's "long spears." Before going to Tette our Batoka friend,
Masakasa, was one of a party that came to steal some of the young
women; but Sinamane, to their utter astonishment, attacked them so
furiously that the survivors barely escaped with their lives.
Masakasa had to flee so fast that he threw away his shield, his
spear, and his clothes, and returned home a wiser and a sadder man.
Sinamane's people cultivate large quantities of tobacco, which they
manufacture into balls for the Makololo market. Twenty balls,
weighing about three-quarters of a pound each, are sold for a hoe.
The tobacco is planted on low moist spots on the banks of the
Zambesi; and was in flower at the time we were there, in October.
Sinamane's people appear to have abundance of food, and are all in
good condition. He could sell us only two of his canoes; but lent us
three more to carry us as far as Moemba's, where he thought others
might be purchased. They were manned by his own canoe-men, who were
to bring them back. The river is about 250 yards wide, and flows
serenely between high banks towards the North-east.
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