Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/79

Rh wider questions of early mentality and the interaction of cultures that still puzzle us. I commend the subject to M. Nourry's further study.

important monograph on a tribe in Northern Rhodesia is the result of the collaboration of two writers, a missionary and a magistrate. It is much to be regretted that the latter, Captain Dale, died as the result of illness, contracted in war service, before the work in which he took a leading share was published. The missionary is often tied down by engagements at his station, and sees only one side of native life. The magistrate brings to the work a more intimate acquaintance with the people on the practical side, and is able to use the experience gained by periodical tours and the study of the more seamy side of native life gained in the course of judicial work.

The Ba-ila, formerly known as the Mashukulumbe, were visited by Livingstone, and Selous in the course of his hunting expeditions saw much of them. They derive their name from their distinctive coiffure, being known as those with "a built-up mass of hair," to the adornment of which, as appears from many photographs, they devote enormous care. They are supposed to have been originally emigrants from the Southern Sudan, but they now constitute a conglomerate of many different peoples, forming a fighting, aggressive community, occupying the fertile plains watered by the Kafue river, about one hundred miles north of Victoria Falls. Early explorers describe them as a savage, treacherous race, but the writers of this work, while fully noticing the defects of their character, do not despair of their improvement under strict but sympathetic government. Their country abounds in game, and sport is one of their chief occupations, the only drawback being malaria, spread by a plague of mosquitoes which infest the low-lying lands at certain seasons. At present they number about 100,000 souls, and,