fish, some being stewed in their own oil, and others, after they have been dried in the sun, being broiled on ashes. The kinds that are stewed are those known among the Zambesi tribes as tshi-mo, tshi-gvatshimshi, and tshi-mashona, all rapacious fish, except the hard-lipped inquisi, being disliked by them. I rarely saw them eat the common flat-headed sheat-fish; they avoid it chiefly because its flesh is so often perforated by a parasite, a sort of spiral worm about an inch long, not unlike a trichina. A great many fish, after being sun-dried, are kept for months, and then packed in baskets and sent to the north for sale.
When we had finished our repast, several servants brought bowls of water, with which the inner circle were expected to moisten their lips. After our primitive method of feeding, it was quite necessary that we should get rid of the grease from our fingers; and to assist us in this, one of the servants brought a platter containing about twenty dirty little green balls of the size of a walnut. The king and the courtiers each took one and rubbed it over their hands, which they afterwards washed. When it came to my turn to help myself to one of the balls, my curiosity to know of what it consisted provoked very general amusement. By the king’s direction Jan Mahura, the interpreter, called out to me, “Smell them, sir,” and I was at once aware that they were of the nature of soap. After washing, Blockley and I dried our hands upon our pocket-handkerchiefs, but Sepopo and his officers scraped the moisture off their fingers with their “libekos.” The outer ranks of the assembly merely rubbed their hands on the dry sand.
