A village may have from twenty to five hundred huts in it, and even more. The rows of houses are generally built in parallel lines to the river; and a head-man possesses one or more lines, according to the size of his family or clan. He may have many wives, slaves and their wives, “pawns,” and dependents, and consequently own several rows of houses; or he may be the eldest of several brothers who with their wives, slaves, etc., jointly own several rows of dwellings. The former head-man is a greater man than the latter, he has more prestige in the town, and has greater influence in its palavers, for such a man is the head of a powerful family, each unit of which may number more than the brothers, their wives, and slaves put together. The _mboka_ = village, town, locality, may consist of from 20 to 150 families, numbering anything up to 2000 or 3000 people, or it may mean only one or two families not numbering more than 50 or 60 people; but it does not matter how large or how small the _mboka_ is, it is independent, self-governing, and recognizes no over-lord. There is the head of the family, whose word is law to his own relatives and immediate dependents living in his section of the town. Then there are the heads of the families who meet together to arrange the affairs of the town, and to decide on any course of action in relation to the neighbouring towns. Some are heads of larger and richer families than others; and such men necessarily have more influence, and their words carry greater weight than the utterances of poorer and smaller men. The lives of the people are rendered pleasant, or otherwise, according to the temper and ambitions of these head-men. The various families forming a town live, as a rule, at peace with each other; and if there is a dispute they try to settle it by “holding a palaver.” But if the quarrel develops into a fight, then sticks are the weapons used, as guns and spears are rarely, if ever, brought out in these miniature “civil wars.” They combine as a whole against a common foe. The family that causes the quarrel leads the van in a war, and if only the offended family attacks the offending family, the other families of the offender’s town stand armed ready to defend their dependents and property, should the offenders prove unable to repulse the attack. But if the offended family brings the several families of its town to attack the offenders, then the other head-men and their followers will join to repel the attack, for it is no longer a quarrel between two families of different towns, but a fight between town and town. Thus a family combines to fight a family, and a town to fight a town, and I have known one case in which a district joined its forces to fight a district. [Illustration: