When This Addition Was Made To My Force, Of
Twelve Mules And Ten Hottentots, The Admiral Of The Station
Placed
The screw steam-corvette Brisk at my disposal, and we all
sailed for Zanzibar on the 16th July, under the
Command of
Captain A. F. de Horsey - the Admiral himself accompanying us, on
one of his annual inspections to visit the east coast of Africa
and the Mauritius. In five days more we touched at East London,
and, thence proceeding north, made a short stay at Delagoa Bay,
where I first became acquainted with the Zulu Kafirs, a naked set
of negroes, whose national costume principally consists in having
their hair trussed up like a hoop on the top of the head, and an
appendage like a thimble, to which they attach a mysterious
importance. They wear additional ornaments, charms, &c., of
birds' claws, hoofs and horns of wild animals tied on with
strings, and sometimes an article like a kilt, made of loose
strips of skin, or the entire skins of vermin strung close
together. These things I have merely noticed in passing, because
I shall hereafter have occasion to allude to a migratory people,
the Watuta, who dressing much in the same manner, extend from
Lake N'yassa to Uzinza, and may originally have been a part of
this same Kafir race, who are themselves supposed to have
migrated from the regions at present occupied by the Gallas. Next
day (the 28th) we went on to Europa, a small island of coralline,
covered with salsolacious shrubs, and tenanted only by sea-birds,
owls, finches, rats, and turtles.
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