I observed three different kinds of oars in use, the long, the short, and the hunting-oars. The last are the exclusive property of the king, and in common with some of the others, form part of the tribute. The long oars are over ten feet, the short about six feet long, and are made of stout straight stems; at their paddle ends the short are usually broader than the long, and have their extremities run out to a point instead of being cut straight off; both these kinds are occasionally carved or branded with ornamental designs, although not so often as the hunting-oars. These hunting-oars have a forked end, and are bound together by an iron clamp across them, to keep them from splitting; they are generally about ten feet long; the principal time for using them is during floods, when they are brought out for letshwe and puku chasing.

Tobacco-pipes are of two kinds, the one that is least elaborate being of more common use in the west of the country, the other in the south. The former is not unlike a Turkish pipe, consisting of a straight stem about a yard long, of the thickness of a man’s thumb, occasionally carved, attached to a small clay bowl, that is likewise generally decorated with carved devices. The second form differs from the first solely in having a calabash for a stem, the smaller end of which constitutes the mouthpiece. A native rarely forgets his pipe, even on his shortest journeys, especially if he is travelling with a white man, and carries his tobacco in a little cotton or leather bag that is tied to his mantle or waistbelt. For longer journeys the dacha-pipe is an indispensable companion; the water reservoirs of these exhibit an infinite variety of form. Dacha is composed of the dried leaves of a kind of hemp, which is planted round nearly all the South African huts; when smoked through water it is slightly intoxicating in its effects. The pipes consist of three parts; the bowl, the stem, and the horn containing the water, the broad end of the horn forming the mouthpiece by which the smoke is inhaled. An inclination to cough is induced by the inhalation, and the more violent the tendency the greater the enjoyment.

Although snuff-boxes of home manufacture, as well as those introduced by white men, are found throughout South Africa, I nowhere saw such a variety as amongst the Marutse. The materials utilized for this purpose are almost too diversified to enumerate; ivory, hippopotamus tusks, the bones of animals and birds, stag’s horn, rhinoceros horn, claws, snakes’ skins, leather, wood, reeds, gourd shells, and any fruit husks that were either globular or oval; besides all these, not a few metal boxes were to be met with that were of foreign make, and had been brought into the country by Europeans.

The boxes made of ivory most frequently have small circular patterns burnt in, and they are attached to the mantle or bracelet by a string of beads, a piece of bast, or a strap; they were, as far as I could judge, used exclusively by the upper classes. The most like them were the boxes made of rhinoceros horn. Both kinds have only one small aperture at the top, while those of the Bechuanas have a second opening at the bottom.

Of all the kinds, that which struck me as most simple is made of reeds and the bones of birds; it is the sort commonly used by boys and young girls; but another form, hardly less simple, is that in ordinary use amongst the Makalakas, made of the horns of animals, either wild or domestic, and nearly always more or less carved; undoubtedly, however, the kind which is most frequently to be seen consists merely of fruit-shells, and of which four or five at once are often attached by a strap to the mantle, all of them polished carefully into a shining black, or a dark violet or plum colour. The most elaborate carvings appear to be lavished on the wooden boxes, which are worn by the Mamboë and Manansas, but the poorer classes amongst these often carry their snuff in little cotton or leather bags.

Indispensable as I have said the dacha-pipe is to the native on his longer journeys, and his tobacco-pipe when he leaves home at all, yet no necessity of life is so absolutely requisite to him as his snuff-box, and whether at work or at leisure, at home or abroad, sleeping or waking, he never fails to have it within reach.

Besides snuff-boxes, amulets and cases for charms are continually worn as ornaments, the materials of which they are composed being of the most heterogeneous character, and in addition to the variety already enumerated, comprising teeth, scales, tortoiseshell, husks, seeds, feathers, grass, and tallow.

Amongst metal ornaments, besides rings, bracelets, and anklets, I saw a good many earrings of iron, copper, and brass; gold I never saw. The iron and copper articles were partly produced from the native smelting-furnaces, and partly composed of the wire introduced by Europeans; all the brass things were made of imported metal. Foreign jewellery was rarely worn in its original form, but the material was almost invariably melted down, and reproduced in a design to suit the taste of the country. Nothing in this way is in greater requisition than the anklets, of which the queens and the wives of men of rank wear from two to eight on each leg. The poorer classes have their bracelets and anklets generally made of iron, and do not wear so many of them. It is comparatively rare to see any made of copper. Ordinarily only one or two rings are worn on each foot, but the wives of the koshi and kosanas are not unfrequently to be seen with four. As the king makes a rule of buying all the best and strongest imported wire for himself, the subjects have to be satisfied with the inferior qualities; the result is that all the good jewellery is found near Sesheke and in the Barotse, and amongst the tributary Makalakas and Matongas, and its quality degenerates altogether in the more remote east and north-east countries, where it is seldom anything better than what is produced from the native iron. The little earrings, whether of iron, brass, or copper, hardly differ at all from those of the Bechuanas.

Not a few ornaments are made of bone and ivory; amongst these again bracelets and anklets predominate. All rings in ivory are turned upon a lathe, and made precisely to fit the part on which they are to be worn; their finish is little short of faultless, and even when left plain, without any carvings, they are really elegant examples of workmanship. I obtained a few of them as curiosities, but only with great difficulty. Ivory is also worked up into little oblong cases, bars, and disks, that are fastened to the hair by bast strings passed through the holes with which they are perforated. Hair-pins in great variety are made from bone and hippopotamus ivory, and trinkets of all sizes are cut out of the tips of large horns and the thicker substance of the horns of the gazelle; they are either twisted into the hair, or strung together to form bracelets. The delicate long-toothed combs of the Marutse are a striking illustration of their skill, and amongst the finest specimens of wood-carving in all South Africa.

Slaves make their bracelets and other ornaments, whether for the neck or feet, from the untanned skins of gnus, zebras, and antelopes, with the hair outside; the Masarwas also make headbands from the manes of zebras. Hair of all kinds, and the bristles of many animals, are worked up into tufts, fringes, bosses, balls, and pads, which are fastened to straps and bound round the chin for dancing; many of them are, however, used like the trinkets, for the decoration of the hair. Plumes of two or three handsome feathers are often fastened on the head, especially on such occasions as a visit to the royal residence, the festival dances, or expeditions either for hunting or for war. Amongst the Matabele people these plumes are a remarkably conspicuous feature, and I succeeded in procuring one which was considerably larger than the head of the man who had been accustomed to wear it.

Another art in which the Marutse excel is that of weaving grass, wood-fibre, bast, or straw, into the neatest of bracelets, in a way even superior to the Makalakas, who have the repute of being very adroit in work of this kind. The boys who do the greater part of this weaving are very particular in their choice of material, and will only gather certain kinds of grass at the right season, which, after being dyed most carefully yellow or crimson to suit their taste, they make up with great patience into elaborate designs; it is in this respect that their work is superior to that of the Makalakas, who although they are dexterous enough in manipulating the fibre, are comparatively indifferent to the quality of the substance they are weaving.

Threaded so as to be worn as bracelets, or fastened together in pairs so as to fit the back of the head, claws of birds and of many animals are used as ornaments, and I have known three small tortoise-shells placed in a row along the top of the skull. The little shells brought by the Portuguese, small round tarsus and carpus bones polished black, seeds, and small fruits with hard rinds, are further examples of the almost endless variety of decorations in which the Marutse-Mabundas delight.

Although several of the ornaments that have been introduced by the traders pass as currency, nothing in this respect can compare with beads, of which different tribes exhibit a preference for certain colours. Hereabouts the violet, the yellow, and the pink were reckoned as of no value at all; those which were most highly appreciated were the light and dark blue, after which rank the vermilion, Indian red, white, black, and green. The whole of these are of the kind of small beads about one-twentieth of an inch in diameter. Amongst the medium-sized beads, about one-fifth of an inch long, those seem to be most sought after which are variegated, or have white spots on a dark ground, but sulphur-coloured and green are likewise in good request. To every tribe alike the shape of the beads is quite a matter of indifference.

No matter how ill a traveller in the Marutse district may be, nor how many bearers he may require, if only he has a good stock of blue beads, he may always be sure of commanding the best attention and of securing the amplest services; his beads will prove an attraction irresistible to sovereign and subject, to man, woman, and child, to freeman and bondsman alike.

It may fairly be claimed for the Marutse that they have decidedly better taste in the use of beads as ornaments than any of the tribes south of the Zambesi. They avoid crowding them on to their lower extremities, like the Bakuenas and Bamangwatos, or huddling them round their necks and arms, like the Makalakas; but they string them, and arrange them with considerable grace on different parts of their body.

Nearly all the tribes bestowed great pains on the arrangement of their hair. Some of them combed it out regularly; others, the Mankoë for instance, whose hair was extra long, kept it powdered in a way that helped to set off their well-formed figures to advantage, and many plaited it into little tufts containing three or four tresses each; but I did not observe that any of them covered it with manganese, like the Bechuanas, or twisted it into a coronetted tier like the Zulus.

A good deal of ingenuity is exhibited in making playthings of clay for the young. Very often these take the shape of kishi dancers in various attitudes, or of hunters, or of animals, particularly those with horns, or of elephants and hippopotamuses. The clay selected for the purpose is dark in colour, and the puppets vary from two to five inches in length. Toys are likewise made of wood, especially by the Mabundas, spoons and sticks ornamented with figures being great favourites with the children.

Mats form another item in the native industry, and are used for different purposes, according to the material of which they are made—it may be of rushes, grass, straw, or reeds. They are always neatly finished off, and frequently have darker bands or borders of some sort woven into the pattern; in colour they are usually a bright yellow, and the ornamental part black or red.

Bolsters are carved of wood, and however primitive they might be in design, I saw many of which the details were very elaborate in execution. The stools in common use are simply short round blocks of wood, about ten or twelve inches high, and five or six inches broad, slightly curved at the top; but some of these were very laboriously carved, and stood upon carefully cut fluted pedestals. Wherever a man of rank goes it is part of his dignity to be followed by an attendant carrying his stool.

My list of the Marutse handicraft would hardly be complete if I omitted to mention the fly-flappers. These are made in two parts, the handle and the whisk; the handles are either wood, reed, hippopotamus, rhinoceros, or buffalo hide; or occasionally they are formed of the horns of a gazelle or a rhinoceros; the whisks are composed of the long hair of the withers or tails of animals, of manes or feathers, no material being more common than the tails of bullocks, gnus, and jackals. The brush is fastened either inside or outside the handle, with bast, grass, horsehair, or sinew; and in most cases the handle is carved, though sometimes it is decorated instead with rings of horsehair or bands of snake-skin.