Of the kind of houses that I have been describing the king has three for his own use; they are surrounded by an oval fence, and form the centre of several circles of homesteads, the nearest circle containing eight residences for the queens, built in the Masupia style like ovens, and accommodating two or three ladies apiece; beyond these are placed the storehouse, the culinary offices, and the huts for the royal musicians; the fourth and outer circle consisting of the huts for all the servants of both sexes, and containing likewise the council-hall, which is fitted up very much in European fashion. Ordinarily the chiefs would have their abodes in a wide circle outside the court, but here in New Sesheke, where the royal buildings are bounded on one side by the river, the dwellings are arranged in a semicircle, the ground assigned to each being very accurately marked out. For protection against wild beasts the entrance to the king’s courtyard is closed every night by a strong palisade of reeds.
The second kind of huts, which I have specified as the cylindrical, are chiefly used by a branch tribe of the Marutse. If the walls of these are cemented at all, it is only on the inside, and they are rarely more than about eleven feet in diameter; their tops, however, are occasionally decorated with ornaments made of wood, grass, or straw.
The other description of huts, the gabled, have a low doorway generally in the middle, opposite the entrance to the courtyard, and their reed-roof projects, so as to form an eave that serves to throw off the rain. In the larger erections of this kind, the gable is supported by stakes, and the interior is divided by matting into two apartments, the larger being used for sleeping in, and the other as a reception-room. Any enclosure larger than usual would often be found to contain two of these huts. The more wealthy inhabitants sometimes have a detached granary as well, and chiefs not unfrequently provide themselves with an additional erection which serves as a consultation hall. As a general rule the courtyards are oval, and the principal building exactly faces the entrance.
I should say that two-thirds of the Marutse in Sesheke live in houses such as I have here described, under their chief Maranzian. The huts of the Mabunda people are in many respects not unlike them, but they are shorter and broader, with flatter roofs, and the courtyards in which they stand are quadrilateral instead of oval, composed of stakes about six feet high, driven into the ground five feet or less apart, and connected by a fence of reeds braced on to strong cross-poles.
Besides the three principal houses of the king’s residences, I noticed within the enclosure three small huts, one of which served the double purpose of bath-room and laboratory. It had a straw roof about two feet in diameter, supported on thin stakes, and in the centre was a post five feet high, covered all over with a most promiscuous collection of articles; there were antelopes’ horns, bones, strings of coral, calabash baskets of herbs, bags of poison used for executions, magical instruments in great variety made of wood or ivory, scales of pangolins and crocodiles, a number of snakes’ skins, and a lot of rags. The floor was strewn with miscellaneous things of a similar character, and up in the roof was a small medicine-chest, which had been a present from a Portuguese trader. Several musical instruments were hanging against the sides of the hut. An immense wooden tub was brought in every evening, in which Sepopo took his bath.
In front of the laboratory-hut stood another, with a roof in the form of a prism; this was devoted to the reception of any deformed elephants’ tusks, and to the storing of the many vessels containing the different charms employed by the king when he went out hunting.
Beyond this again was another hut, also with a prism-shaped roof supported by the stem of a tree, where was deposited a collection of elephants’ tails, trophies of the number of animals that had been killed in the neighbourhood; it was also the place of security for a large number of assegais, the finest and best made in the country.
Between the huts and the high reed fence there were several wooden stands holding the clay vessels, and gourds containing the ordinary hunting-charms; and whatever court I entered I never failed to notice a branch of a tree or small dry stem planted in the ground, where the master of the house hung the skulls of antelopes or the upper vertebræ of the larger mammalia as trophies of his prowess. After a hunter’s death these are always placed upon his grave.
While walking along the river side on the 26th, I saw a crocodile rise from the river and snap at a man in a canoe. Fortunately he observed his danger in time, and managed to save himself by leaping on to the sandy bank.
During this day the king gave a Mabunda dance in my honour—a performance of so objectionable a character that the negroes themselves are quite conscious of its impropriety, and refuse to dance it except in masks. In their ideas of music the Marutse-Mabundas seem to be comparatively well advanced. It is quite true, indeed, that in the skilful handling of their instruments they are surpassed by some of the tribes on the east coast, who have more constant intercourse with the Portuguese, and in singing they are not a match for the Matabele Zulus; but here was the first instance that I found of a king with a private band composed entirely of native artistes. Altogether the band consisted of twenty men, but it was very rarely that more than eight or ten of them performed at the same time, the rest being kept in reserve for the night. There were several drummers among them, who played with the palms of their hands or with their fingers upon long conical or cylindrical kettle-drums, over which they walked astride, or upon double drums in the shape of an hour-glass, which were suspended from their necks by a strap. The principal instruments were the myrimbas, or calabash pianos, which were carried in the same way as the double-drums. The two royal zither-players very seldom performed together. All the musicians were obliged to be singers as well, having to screech out the king’s praises between the intervals in the music, or to the muffled accompaniment of their instruments.