his favourite wife, with a remark universally supposed to be so witty, that the whole assemblage, according to etiquette, burst into roars of laughter. Meanwhile one of the inferior chiefs took advantage of the noise to approach the king; and, clapping his hands gently without cessation as he spoke, said: “There was a man in my village, my lord king, too weak in his legs to hunt polocholo (game). It has pleased Nyamba (the great god) that all his wives should die; so that he can no longer procure any mabele (corn). This man has now come to settle here with you in Sesheke; but he is old, very old, and his relations are far away in the Barotse.” Sepopo nodded to signify that he quite understood the story. While he had been listening, his eye had again and again glanced towards a distant quarter, where the general crowd were gathered; and when the chief ceased to speak, the king cried out “Mashoku!” In an instant the executioner hastened towards him and received his commission to take care that the old man should no longer be permitted to be a burden to the neighbourhood.
Throughout the kingdom no one was more feared or more hated than the executioner Mashoku. He was a Mabunda; but the peculiar aptitude he had shown for his office had induced the king to raise him to the rank of a chieftain. He was over six feet high, and of a massive build; so ill-shaped, however, was his head, and so repulsive his cast of countenance, that I could never do otherwise than associate him in my mind with a hyæna.
Nothing could be more odious than the way in which Mashoku received his orders. Crawling up
