Page:Seven Years in South Africa v2.djvu/318

 tered the house the king asked me whether I had ever seen any Mashukulumbe; and understanding that I had not, he took me by the hand and introduced me to six men who were squatting on the ground. Their appearance was strange, and seemed to invite a careful scrutiny. Their skin was almost black, and their noses generally aquiline, though they had an effeminate cast of countenance, to be attributed very much to their lack of beard and to the sinking in of the upper lip. All hair was carefully removed from every part of their bodies, except the top of the skull, where it was mounted up in a very remarkable fashion.

The Mashukulumbe, Sepopo informed me, were the people who lived to the north and east of his territory; and the men who had now arrived were ambassadors who were sent every year to the Marutse court with complimentary presents, and who would go back in a few weeks carrying other presents in return. When at home they go perfectly naked, the women wearing nothing but a little leather strap, hung with bells and fastened round their waists. Their pride is their cozffure, which consists of a conical chignon that fits tight round the head, and is composed of vertical rolls or horizontal tiers, the tresses being most ingeniously plaited together, sometimes crossing and recrossing each other, sometimes kept quite parallel; the whole being finally matted together with gum, which gives it the appearance of really growing from the crown of the head. But this is by no means the case; the hair that is periodically shaved off the entire body, except from the patch of ten or twelve inches in circumference on the head, is all carefully preserved