“At about one p.m., the African, unless otherwise employed, returns to his hut to eat the most substantial and the last meal of the day, which has been cooked by his women. Eminently gregarious, however, he often prefers the Iwanza as a dining room, where his male children, relatives, and friends meet during the most important hour of the twenty-four. With the savage and the barbarian food is the all and all of life, food is his thought by day, food is his dream by night. The civilized European who never knows hunger nor thirst without the instant means of gratifying every whim of appetite, can hardly conceive the extent to which his wild brother’s soul is swayed by stomach; he can scarcely comprehend the state of mental absorption in which the ravenous human animal broods over the carcase of an old goat, the delight which he takes in superintending every part of the cooking process, and the jealous eye with which he regards all who live better than himself. After eating, the East African invariably indulges in a long fit of torpidity from which he awakes to pass the afternoon as he did the forenoon, chatting, playing, smoking, and chewing sweet earth. Towards sunset all issue forth to enjoy the coolness; the men sit outside the Iwanza, whilst the women and the girls, after fetching water for household wants from the well, collecting in a group upon their little stools, indulge in the pleasures of gossiping and the pipe. This hour, in the more favoured parts of the country, is replete with enjoyment. As the hours of darkness draw nigh, the village doors are carefully closed, and after milking his cows, each peasant retires to his hut, or passes his time squatting round the fire with his friends in the Iwanza. He has not yet learned the art of making a wick, and of filling a bit of pottery with oil. When a light is wanted he ignites a stick of the oleaginous msásá-tree--a yellow, hard, close-grained, and elastic wood with few knots, much used in making spears, bows, and walking staves--which burns for a quarter of an hour with a brilliant flame. He repairs to his hard couch before midnight and snores with a single sleep till dawn. For thorough enjoyment, night must be spent in insensibility, as the day is in inebriety, and though an early riser he avoids the ‘early to bed’ in order that he may be able to slumber through half the day.