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
