‘When they separate, the wife takes away the few domestic utensils which she brought with her, none of which are used by the man.’ She does not return the cloth given her from time to time, because she is considered to have rendered an equivalent service by cooking his porridge. ‘In all separations, except for serious causes, the one party gives the other a token, which may be cloth, arrow-heads, beads, or such current money. The one that begins the strife and is the cause of the separation, pays the other.’ On the Lake, the ceremony of divorce is accomplished by the man breaking a reed before witnesses on both sides and declaring that he renounces his wife. The woman is not free till this is done. CHAPTER VII FUNERAL RITES Wailing and mourning. The grave. Inheritance. The cause of death. Ordeal. I have already mentioned the _Nkalango_ thickets or groves, where the Anyanja bury their dead. I have entered several of these, but saw no signs of recent use—or anything to indicate the nature of the place beyond a few broken pots—except in one case. This was at Blantyre; it lay at some distance from the main road, and, so far as I could see, no path led to it. Seeing it in the distance one day, when I was out by myself, and could discover nobody in sight whose feelings might be hurt, I determined to visit it. I only reached it after a struggle through burnt grass (it was in September) which blacked me all over, and a scramble across the dried-up bed of a stream. There may have been a more convenient access, but I doubt it, and fancy that a path would be cleared when wanted. It is not the native custom to visit the graves of dead friends, though, as we have seen, this does not imply that they are forgotten; on the contrary, communications from them are expected and even hoped for. But it is not at the grave they are sought; that is an uncanny place, haunted by other presences than that of the departed; and persons found there, or seen going thither, might expose themselves to serious suspicions.