Sewing is now done almost everywhere with European needles, which are very much in demand. Nine times out of ten, the requests of your carriers desiring extra tips, or of casual beggars (whom, however, I never found either as numerous or as troublesome as frequently represented), were for needles or soap (_sopo_ or _sabao_ according as British or Portuguese influence predominated in the experience of the speaker). Native needles and awls are either iron, or sharpened bamboo splinters; I have once or twice seen these, but the large ones, for thatching, are still in common use. Many men sew very neatly; they have an ingenious way of mending holes in their calicoes which is not like our darning, but consists in button-holing round the edge of the hole and continuing round and round inward, till it is filled up. Some seemed to aim at decorative effect, as in darning a blue cloth with red thread. The more artistic kinds of sewing, and such flights as the cutting out and making of Arab shirts, have probably been learnt on the coast, or from men who have been there; but the men, in general, are neat-fingered and take to these things almost instinctively, while to their wives, who are gathered into sewing classes at the missions, by way of making them ‘womanly,’ they are mostly pain and grief. One of a husband’s duties is to sew his wife’s calico; if he neglects this it is held to be a sufficient ground for divorce. It is curious to notice the sort of convention that has grown up about these things. Originally, I suppose, these and similar occupations were looked on as light and elegant relaxations for gentlemen who came back weary from the wars, or from hunting, or from a six months’ trip to the coast, and so gradually became exclusively appropriated to them. I once in my ignorance asked an old woman if she could make me a basket, and she replied in a slightly shocked tone that it was _nchito ya amuna_—men’s work. I imagine, though I never heard the point raised, that it would be little if at all short of improper for a man to set about making pots. The word _ruka_, ‘to weave,’ is used both for the weaving of cloth and the making of mats and baskets; but in these last there is a certain distinction observed, _ruka_ being applied to what is properly woven or inter-plaited, while another word, _pika_, describes the plaiting of the _nkokwe_, where the strands all run one way, and are twined in and out between the uprights, but the rows are not linked into one another. There is also a kind of mat made with bundles of reeds laid side by side and connected by strips of cane twined in and out between them in pairs. This process is called by English basket-makers ‘pairing,’ as distinct from ‘weaving.’