“We (Dr. Livingstone and party) were honoured with a grand reception by Shinte about eleven o’clock. The native Portuguese and Mambari went fully armed with guns, in order to give Shinte a salute, their drummer and trumpeter making all the noise their very old instruments would produce. The kotla, or place of audience, was about a hundred yards square, and two graceful specimens of a species of banian stood near the end. Under one of these sat Shinte on a sort of throne covered with a leopard’s skin. He had on a checked jacket and a kilt of scarlet baize edged with green; many strings of large heads hung from his neck, and his limbs were covered with iron and copper armlets and bracelets; on his head he wore a helmet made of beads woven neatly together, and crowned with a great bunch of goose-feathers. Close to him sat three lads with large sheaves of arrows over their shoulders. “When we entered the kotla, the whole of Manenko’s party saluted Shinte by clapping their hands, and Sambanza did obeisance by rubbing his chest and arms with ashes. One of the trees being unoccupied I retreated to it for the sake of the shade, and my whole party did the same. We were now about forty yards from the chief and could see the whole ceremony. The different sections of the tribe came forward in the same way that we did, the head man of each making obeisance with ashes which he carried with him for the purpose; then came the soldiers, all armed to the teeth, running and shouting towards us, with their swords drawn and their faces screwed up so as to appear as savage as possible for the purpose, I thought, of trying whether they could not make us take to our heels. As we did not, they turned round towards Shinte and saluted him, then retired. When all had come and were seated, then began the curious capering usually seen in pictures. A man starts up, and imitates the most approved attitudes observed in actual fight, as of throwing one javelin, receiving another on the shield, springing on one side to avoid a third, running backwards or forwards, leaping, etc. This over, Sambanza and the spokesman of Nyamoana stalked backwards and forwards in front of Shinte, and gave forth in a loud voice all they had been able to learn either from myself or people of my past history and connection with the Makololo; the return of the captives, the wish to open the country to trade, etc. Perhaps he is fibbing, perhaps not--they rather thought he was; but as the Balonda had good hearts, and Shinte had never done harm to any one, he had better receive the white man well and send him on his way. Sambanza was gaily attired, and, besides a profusion of beads, had a cloth so long that a boy carried it after him as a train.