At midday we reached Umgabe’s kraal and found our host only just recovering from the effects of drinking too much beer, and he had a relapse in the course of the afternoon to celebrate our arrival. He allotted us two huts, which we proceeded to have cleaned out. My wife and I occupied one, delightfully situated beneath a spreading cork tree; it was about twelve feet in diameter, and in the centre was the fireplace of cement with a raised seat by it on which the cook usually sits when stirring the pot. We spread our rugs where it appeared most level; but during the night, in spite of our candle, the rats careered about us to such an alarming extent that sleep was next to impossible, and we had ample time at our disposal for contemplating our abode. On one side was a raised place for the family jars, huge earthenware things covered with slabs of stone, containing meal, caterpillars, locusts, and other edibles. On the opposite side was a stable for the calves, which we were able to banish; but we could not so easily control the cocks and hens which came in at all the holes, nor the rats which darted amongst the smoke-begrimed rafters when day dawned. These blackened rafters of the roof the Makalangas use as cupboards, sticking therein their pipes, their weapons, their medicine phials, their tools, and their pillows, and we soon found that this was the place to look for all manner of curios; only the huts are so dark that it is impossible to see anything when there happen to be no holes in the walls. A low door three feet high is the only point for admitting light and air; consequently the huts are not only dark but odoriferous. Besides the walls, the Makalangas construct a primitive sort of cupboard out of the spreading branch of a tree tied round with bark fibre; this contains such things as they fear the rats may spoil. They are very ingenious in making things out of bark—long narrow bags for meal, hen coops in which to carry their poultry about, nets to keep the roofs on their granaries. Bark to them is one of the most useful natural products that they have. Umgabe’s kraal has as lovely a situation as can well be imagined. It is situated in a glade, buried in trees and vegetation, so that until you are in it you hardly notice the spot. Huge granite mountains rise on either side, completely shutting it in; a rushing stream runs through the glade, supplying the place with delicious water. Here is distinctly a spot where only man is vile; and the great fat chief, seated on the top of a rock, sodden with beer, formed one of the vilest specimens of humanity I ever saw.