Page:South Africa (1878 Volume 2).djvu/296

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make me think for a moment that it was kept as a show hat; but those which we afterwards visited, though not perhaps equal to the first in neatness, were too nearly so to have made much precaution necessary. The hut was round as are all the huts, but had a door which required no stooping. A great portion of the centre,—though not quite the centre,—was occupied by a large immoveable round bin in which the corn for the use of the family is stored. There was a chair, and a bed, and two or three settees. If I remember right, too, there was a gun standing against the wall. The place certainly looked as though nobody was living in it. Sapena afterwards took us to his own hut which was also very spacious, and here we were seated on chairs and had Kafir beer brought to us in large slop-bowls. The Kafir beer is made of Kafir corn, and is light and sour. The Natives when they sit down to drink swallow enormous quantities of it. A very little sufficed with me, as its sourness seemed to be its most remarkable quality. There were many Natives with us but none of them drank when we did. We sat for ten minutes in Sapena's house, and then were taken on to that of the King. I should say however that in the middle of Sapena's hut there stood a large iron double bedstead with mattras which I was sure had come from Mr. Heal's establishment in Tottenham Court Road.

Round all these huts,—those that is belonging to the royal family and those no doubt of other magnates,—there is a spacious courtyard enclosed by a circular fence of bamboo canes, stuck into the ground perpendicularly, standing close to each other and bound together. The way into