Between this house and the last stand the grain stores, round giant basket-like things with thatched roofs. The largest ones are for holding the maize, and the small ones for storing away the beans. That low building there built of very strong poles is the goat house. It needs to be strong as the hyæna and leopard, and even the lion sometimes pay the village a visit at night. And woe betide the poor goats if a fierce leopard should get in among them. Not satisfied with killing and eating one he will tear open as many as he can, simply for the pure love of killing. The houses in the village are all much the same as that you have already read about and number about twenty. They are built here, there, and everywhere with no regard to plan or regularity. The corner of the verandah of this one projects out over the footpath, and we have actually to cross the verandah to get down to the well. The owner only laughs when we ask him why he built his house so near to, and partly upon the path. Some day he says he will hoe a new path to go round about his house. That is African all over. He will do things some day. He thinks the European mad to be such a slave to time. The owner of each house greets us with a smile, and we are well received by all except some of the old people who are really afraid of white people, and who, while glad to see them when they come to visit their village, are still more glad when they go away. We have gathered quite a crowd of little people about us, and they follow us round very respectfully, watching all we do, and looking at all we have on. Many of them you see suffer from ulcers. Here and there are patches of tobacco and sweet potatoes, but most of the gardens are outside the village proper. Their chief crops are maize, millet, sweet potatoes and cassava root. Paths twist about and cross one another in a marvellous manner. This one leads down to the stream, that to the next village; this to the graveyard in yonder thicket, a place shunned by the children, that to the hill. A white stranger promptly gets lost in African paths and has to give himself up to the guidance of the native. The whole country is a vast net-work of such snake-like paths, and I verily believe you could pass from one coast to the other along them. [Illustration: AN AFRICAN VILLAGE]