The women are not handsome. Their heads are shaved, and around their bald pates they wear a band of beads or shells.
Living peaceably and not even fishing, they devote all their time to the cultivation of maize and other kinds of vegetable food.
They make excellent butter and drink great quantities of milk.
At the time we make their acquaintance they are greatly disturbed.
The chief has called together all the tribe, and a strange-looking gathering it is.
The men stood round the chief in a circle, the women taking positions outside.
The chief called for silence, and instantly every man shouted: “Mkrasi! mkrasi!” which being interpreted means: “We obey, we obey.”
The chief, looking very wrinkled with his innumerable tattoo marks, adopted the catechetical method of addressing his people.
“Where does the river come from?” he asked, and a deputy chief answered:
“From the innermost parts of the earth.”