First a gruel is made by stirring flour with cold water and then pouring boiling water into it. This is allowed to stand till evening and then malt is added. This has been previously prepared by leaving some grain in water till it sprouts, letting it dry in the sun and then pounding it. The mixture is left to stand overnight and then is a sweet, non-intoxicating beverage called _nyombe_ or _mtibi_. This is often drunk without further preparation; but if it is desired to make real beer, it is kept another day and then boiled for two hours, then poured off and left standing for two or three days more. It is now called _mlusu_, is highly intoxicating, and is not drunk unless in very small quantities. More malt is added, and on the next day more gruel is made, as at the beginning—perhaps twenty, thirty or more pots—according to the number of guests expected, and the _mlusu_ stirred into it, till all the pots are of the same strength. The beer is ready for use on the following day, after being strained. There are two kinds of strainers; one shaped like a bag, is made of palm-fibre; the other a flat basket of split bamboo. These large brewings are undertaken for funeral-feasts, hoeing-matches, or ‘bees,’ and on various other occasions; beer is also made for dances, or to celebrate the return of travellers, and sometimes, on the conclusion of a lawsuit, the loser pays the other party in beer. A Yao folk-tale relates how, after hearing both sides in a certain case, the judges decided, ‘You must just pay each other’—and the resulting conviviality must have lasted for at least a week. Moa does not, as a rule, keep more than three or four days; but the one family would begin their brewing three days after the other. On the last day of a ‘beer-drinking,’ porridge and perhaps fowls are cooked; but such solid food is not expected on the other days. [Illustration: GANG OF ANGONI AT MANDALA Note the sleeping-mats rolled up with the other luggage, and the man on the right roasting maize over the fire] [Illustration: NGURU HUT This is fairly typical for the whole of B.C.A., though the posts are unusually thick]