One of the greatest discomforts from which I suffered at this time was the outcome of the peculiar musical taste of King Banda's subjects. Though I was then happily unaware of the fact, the period of the great annual festival, or Customs, was approaching, and the joy of the populace began to find vent in nocturnal concerts inordinately prolonged, the musical instruments consisting of tom-toms, each beaten by two, three, or four performers--according to the size of the tom- tom--with a monotony of cadence that soon became positively maddening, further aggravated by the discordant squealing of a number of flageolet- like instruments made of stout reeds.