I
noticed that the slave would press noses with any one he met,
indifferently either before or after his master the chief. Although
among these savages the chief has absolute power of life and death
over his slave, yet there is an entire absence of ceremony between
them. Mr. Burchell has remarked the same thing in Southern Africa
with the rude Bachapins. Where civilisation has arrived at a
certain point, complex formalities soon arise between the different
grades of society: thus at Tahiti all were formerly obliged to
uncover themselves as low as the waist in presence of the king.
The ceremony of pressing noses having been duly completed with all
present, we seated ourselves in a circle in the front of one of
the-hovels, and rested there half an hour. All the hovels have
nearly the same form and dimensions, and all agree in being
filthily dirty. They resemble a cow-shed with one end open, but
having a partition a little way within, with a square hole in it,
making a small gloomy chamber. In this the inhabitants keep all
their property, and when the weather is cold they sleep there. They
eat, however, and pass their time in the open part in front. My
guides having finished their pipes, we continued our walk.
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