Page:Seven Years in South Africa v2.djvu/161

  but principally as a shelter from the wind. Some of the huts were made of grass as well as reeds. They were shaped like an oven, and consisted of two rooms and a verandah.

On a grass-plot near the middle of the settlement stood the council-hut, a conical roof of straw supported on a few not very substantial piles. Under it I noticed one of the morupas, or drums, that, as I afterwards learnt, are to be found in most Marutse and Masupia villages. The skin of the drum is pierced, and a short stick inserted into the opening, with another stick fixed transversely at its end, the whole instrument being a cylinder of about a foot to a foot and a half long. Their sound, which cannot be compared to anything much better than the creaking of new boots, is made by rubbing the stick with a piece of wet baobab-bast twisted round the hand of the performer. They are rarely brought into use except on occasions when the inhabitants are celebrating the return from a successful lion or leopard hunt with music and dancing.

Makumba himself, a dark skinned Masupia about forty years of age, received me very kindly. He was entertaining three other visitors, two English officers, Captain McLeod and Captain Fairly, and a Mr. Cowley, who had all come from Natal for the sake of some hunting. They had already obtained permission from Sepopo to enter his territory. They had sent him their presents, and were now on the point of returning to their waggon at Panda ma Tenka to complete all their preparations for their expedition. It subsequently transpired that they were greatly disappointed, and received anything but honourable treatment at the hands of the