When remonstrated with by the well-meaning missionaries on the absence of any attire, they are wont to reply: "Are we women or children, that we should fear the cold?
Our fathers needed no clothes, nor do we." They are keen hunters and trackers, essentially a warlike people, tall and good-looking, while the women also are of more than average height, and gracefully made.

What the men lack in clothes they make up for in their head-dress, which has been so often illustrated, and which is sometimes 5 feet in height.

It is the result of much care and trouble, and the cause of great pride to the wearer.

Ruled over by a number of small chiefs, they mostly own Lewanika as their paramount chief, and to him they pay tribute.

They are withal a curious, wild kind of people, but are now becoming less afraid of, and in consequence less hostile to, the white man, the first of whose race they saw in 1888, when Mr.Selous[48] penetrated into their country, and very nearly lost his life at their hands.