H. A. Junod[40] gives a melancholy picture of old age, especially for the leading man of the tribe. His wives die, his glory fades, his crown loses its luster and if it is scratched or broken he cannot repair it, he is forsaken, less respected, and often only a burden unwillingly supported. “The children laugh at him. If the cook sends them to their lonely grandfather with his share of food in the leaky old hut, the young rascals are capable of eating it on the way, pretending afterwards that they did what they were told.” When, between two huts, under the shelter of the woods the old man warms his round-shouldered back in the rays of the sun, lost in some senile dream, his former friends point to him and say, “It is the bogie man, the ogre.” Mature people show little more consideration for the old than do the young ones. Junod knew personally an old man and woman who, when their children moved to another part of the country, were left under a roof with no sides, without food, and were almost imbecile. “In times of war old people die in great numbers. During the movements of panic they are hidden in the woods, in the swamps or palm trees, while all the able-bodied population runs away. They are killed by the enemy, who spare no one, or they die in their hiding places of misery and hunger. Thus the evening of life is very sad for the poor Thonga.” There are, however, children who to the end show devotion to their parents. Those old people are most to be pitied who fall to the charge of remote relatives.