Many natives now have guns, usually flint-locks, which have come into the country through the Portuguese trade. I remember examining one of these guns belonging to a Ntumbi villager; it was immensely long in the barrel and had ‘Tower’ and ‘G.R.’ engraved on the lock. They imply the elsewhere obsolete powder-horn, which one sometimes sees very neatly carved, and where a more advanced stage of weapon has been reached, the percussion-caps are carried in the hollowed head of a club made of some hard wood, which receptacle has an opening fitted with a lid or stopper on one side, and a small hole at the top through which they can be shaken out one by one. The Yaos observe a certain amount of ritual before starting on a hunting expedition, or, in fact, any journey; this is fully detailed in _Africana_. The man intending to set out goes to his chief, who consults the oracle of the _ufa_ cone on his behalf, and tells him to defer the journey, if the answer is unfavourable. Dreams are also, as already stated, much relied on in deciding matters of this sort, and unfavourable omens, such as kicking against a stump, or meeting a snake, may send the party back even after it has started. If all is well, however, the chief gives the applicant a talisman to keep him safe—either a thread to be tied round his head or arm, or a small vessel of oil to be carried with him. While he is absent, his wife must not bathe, nor anoint herself with oil, nor even wash her face, and if she has a dream during this period, must be very careful about presenting an offering to the spirits. The Angoni sometimes hunt with dogs—a better class of animals than the miserable, yelping mongrels which infest the villages. A boy who sold me a pair of tusks of the bush pig (_Potamochoerus_, a smaller and lighter animal than the European wild boar) told me with great pride that the _nguluwe_ had been killed by his dog. This same dog, if I remember rightly, once attended school with his master—I suppose to keep him out of harm’s way, as an impi of the Machinga was supposed to be on the war-path. He was black, about the size of a small setter, with longer and rougher hair than most of the village dogs (which look like remote and degenerate descendants of fox-terriers, and are white or yellow, or both mixed), and in shape he was more like an Eskimo dog than anything else I can think of. He had on a hide collar, and was led by a string, and altogether seemed valued and well treated. Some young men in one of these same villages told me that they hunted elephants with dogs ‘in Chekusi’s country,’ and usually lost a great many. Men carry whistles, made of a small buck’s horn, to call dogs with.