‘The football played at Kota Kota has scarcely more in common with Association than with Rugby or any other known rules. Indeed, the distinguishing peculiarity of the game would seem to be its gay immunity from any rules or restrictions whatever. No limit is apparently set to the extent of the ground, to the period of time to be covered, or to the number of those who participate in the game. The spectators may and do join in when and where they please, and continue to play as long as they can stand or see. The ball, once fairly committed to the mêlée, disappears for good. So, of course, does any man who has the misfortune to tumble down in a scrimmage. The goal-posts are rickety superfluities, a mere concession to appearances, heeded by nobody and nearly always prostrated at the first rush. The same abundant energy and the same lack of restraint are noticeable wherever these Central African natives take to any European game, and they take to European games of the rougher sort very readily indeed. I have seen them at Blantyre clubbing one another on the head, under pretence of playing hockey, just as they rend one another to pieces at Kota Kota under pretence of playing football. It is, however, only fair to add that they show great activity, enthusiasm, and pluck; nor is there much reason to doubt that they might develop into really sound players, if they could only be induced to adopt a coherent system and a somewhat more chastened style.’ Games are very often played by moonlight; some of these come rather under the heading of dances, and _vice versâ_. In fact, the words _sewera_, ‘to play,’ and _bvina_, ‘to dance,’ are used interchangeably; on one occasion, when the drums boomed all night long from Chona’s kraal, and the dancing was still going on at 8 A.M., we were told that ‘it was the Angoni playing.’ As the drums are an essential feature of the dance, this moonlight diversion becomes trying for the hearer in the vicinity of European settlements, where empty tins can be got hold of and made to do duty in the orchestra. The boarders at the Blantyre girls’ school used to let off their superfluous gaiety by drumming on the zinc baths used in the laundry, and this was permitted, within limits, lest worse should befall.