Dancing is the one great dissipation of the Makalanga’s life; he will keep it up for hours without tiring at their great beer-drinking feasts, at weddings—nay, even at funerals. At these latter ceremonies they will not allow a white man to be present, so that what they do is still a mystery; but we heard repeatedly the incident festivities after a death had taken place—the shouting, the dancing, and the hideous din of the ‘tom-tom.’ One day a native turned up at our camp with some curious carrot-like roots in his hand. On enquiry as to what he was going to do with them he replied that he was going to a funeral, and that they chewed this root and spat it out—for it is poisonous—at these ceremonies. The natives call this root amouni. In our work at Zimbabwe we unwittingly opened several of their graves amongst the old ruins. The corpse had been laid out on a reed mat—the mat, probably, on which he had slept during life. His bowl and his calabash were placed beside him. One of these graves had been made in a narrow passage in the ancient walls on the fortress. We were rather horrified at what we had done, especially as a man came to complain, and said that it was the grave of his brother, who had died a year before; so we filled up the aperture and resisted the temptation to proceed with our excavations at that spot. After that the old chief Ikomo, whenever we started a fresh place, came and told us a relation of his was buried there. This occurring so often, we began to suspect, and eventually proved, a fraud. So we set sentiment aside and took scientific research as our motto for the future. In the tomb of a chief it is customary to place a bowl of beer, which is constantly replenished for the refreshment of the spirit, for they are great believers in making themselves agreeable to the departed, and at the annual sacrificial feast in honour of the dead meat and beer are always allotted to the spirits of their ancestors. One day as we were digging in a cave we came across the skeleton of a goat tied on to a mat with bark string; by its side was the carved knife, with portions of the goat’s hair still adhering to it. Here we had an obvious instance of sacrifice, a sacrifice which takes place, I believe, to avert some calamity—famine, war, or pestilence—which at the time threatens the community. The natives were very reticent on the point, but visibly annoyed at our discovery.