The next case that I had to judge was somewhat difficult. Chief Mpigwa having appeared at the Barza (Durbar), a man stepped up to complain of him, because he withheld two cows that belonged to his tribe. Mpigwa explained that the man had married a girl belonging to his tribe and had paid two cows for her, that she had gone to his house, and in course of time had become a mother, and had borne three children to her husband. The man died, whereupon his tribe accused the woman of having contrived his death by witchcraft, and drove her home to her parents. Mpigwa received her into the tribe with her children, and now the object of complaint was the restoration of the two cows to the husband’s tribe. “Was it fair,” asked Mpigwa, “after a woman had become the mother of three children in the tribe to demand the cattle back again after the husband’s death, when they had sent the woman and her infants away of their own accord?” The decision upheld Mpigwa in his views, as such conduct was not only heartless and mean, but tended to bring the honoured custom of marriage contracts into contempt. The women have control within the house, and over the products of the dairy and the field. It is the man’s duty to build the house, tend and milk the cattle, repair the fence, and provide the clothing, which is naturally scanty; but it is the woman who cultivates the field, makes the butter, and does the marketing. Butter and milk must be purchased from her, as well as the provisions. It is an universal custom in Africa. The dress of the men consists generally of a single goat-skin, which depends from the left shoulder. It is varied with antelope-hide with the hair scraped off, excepting a margin of three or four inches wide round the borders. The wives are clothed with cow-hides, which are often beautifully tanned and soft: slave women, in the absence of a goat-skin, wear a strip of leather round the waist, from which a narrow piece of bark cloth depends in front and back, or a very limited apron. Girls up to a marriageable age travel about publicly in complete nudity, while boys over ten years old are rarely seen without a kid-skin, aping the adult: on occasions of rejoicing each woman bears in her girdle at the back a bunch of green leaves, corn or sugar-cane leaves, or a piece of banana frond. The favourite wives of chiefs, or “medicine women,” “witches,” are also entitled like the great chiefs to wear a leopard-skin, or in lieu of that, cat or monkey-skins. It seems to be a pretty general idea that leopard or lion skins prove rank and dignity. If a stranger expresses a doubt that a chief is only a person of low rank, he points to his leopard-skin and asks, “How can I possess this, then?” [Illustration: A PAGE FROM MR. STANLEY’S NOTE-BOOK.] [Illustration: MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS OF THE BALEGGA.]