Near evening we entered one of their tents.

The women set up a cry, 'Kiomi! Kiomi!' like a rising rookery.

Their eyes and teeth made such a flashing as when you dabble a hand in a dark waterpool.

The strange tongue they talked, with a kind of peck of the voice at a word, rapid, never high or low, and then a slide of similar tones all round,--not musical, but catching and incessant,--gave me an idea that I had fallen upon a society of birds, exceedingly curious ones.

They welcomed me kindly, each of them looking me in the face a bright second or so.