The aspect of the country is here very curious, the high level plateau (it is about 5,000 feet above sea level) is, as it were, closely sown for miles around with rugged granite kopjes, some only fifty feet high, whilst others reach an elevation of several hundred feet. They are very evenly arranged, too, as if they were the pieces for a cyclopean game of chess. Through this region we passed, and at the eastern end of it we reached our destination, Chipunza’s kraal, where we proposed to halt for a day or two. Chipunza’s is a very large village, built on a gentle rise on the right bank of the Rusapi River, with huts packed away into all sorts of snug corners amongst the rocks. Immediately below these, and within easy reach of the river, we pitched our tents. It was a great disappointment to us to be able to get no meat here. Our meals, which were composed entirely of things farinaceous, were growing exceedingly monotonous, and we almost hated the sight of the porridge-pot, which turned up with unvarying regularity. As against this, the air at Chipunza’s was the finest I have ever breathed, exhilarating like draughts of champagne. When we reached the village we found the ladies of Chipunza with their bark blankets tied tight around them, for it was chilly, seated in picturesque and strange groups amongst the rocks, busily engaged in a still stranger occupation. They were burning little heaps of cowdung, and then spreading the results on the rocks to cool. Not understanding what they were about we approached them, when, to our surprise, an old crone picked up a lump of this delectable material, put it into her mouth and consumed it with evident satisfaction, muttering, as she saw our unfeigned surprise, ‘Salt, salt; good, good!’ and then we realised that here they use the extract of nitre from the ash as their substitute for salt, the commodity of life for which they have the greatest craving, but which it is hardest to obtain. In the afternoon we went to pay a visit to the chief, who received us in a sort of inner fortress surrounded by a wall, through an opening in which, about three feet high, and covered with large slabs of stone, we had to creep. He is a grey-haired, refined-looking man, with manners very like, and not the least inferior to, an Arab sheikh. He sat surrounded by his councillors, and we all set to work to clap hands vigorously. By this time my wife had learnt to clap hands in the female fashion, namely, crosswise, whereas previously she had disgraced herself by clapping like a man, with the fingers straight upon one another; but, of course, the intricacies of savage etiquette can only be acquired by practice.