( cxxi ) 



thrums or else with the whole head shaved save for two 

 ridges running in a spiral manner; they eat peas and beans 

 instead of banana, and live in queer little groups of houses — 

 perhaps half a dozen houses together, making a sort of small 

 clan, surrounded by a thorny ring of bushes, with a little extra 

 house for the evil spirits to live in ! The hill-sides are covered 

 with neat, allotment-like patches of peas and beans, while the 

 familiar banana plantations are quite absent. They are of 

 dirty habits, and far below the relatively clean and tidy 

 Baganda. But the most interesting people are the Batwa, 

 who live in the depths of the aforesaid dense bamboo forest, 

 and are never seen by any one unless by a party which has to 

 penetrate — when all they usually see is a poisoned arrow 

 sticking in the corpse of some one who has lagged behind ! 

 They occasionally raid their neighbours, who fear them much. 

 They are described as very small pigmies with long arms and 

 hairy chest and face, and are very little known, as they are 

 very retiring ! 



' l In all this long screed I've said nothing about the war ! 

 All is quiet at Kigezi just at present, but there have been two 

 or three local ' scraps ' along the frontier recently. One took 

 place about three hours away from here. A lot of the German 

 natives, unarmed save for spears, bows, arrows, etc., about a 

 thousand, surrounded and attacked one of the Belgian out- 

 posts. They had a medicine man with them, and a sacred 

 white sheep ! Things at one time might have been unpleasant, 

 till a lucky shot killed the medicine man, and the rest dis- 

 persed ! I wish I had been there, but as the place was sur- 

 rounded it would not have been possible to get there, and as 

 a matter of fact we weren't needed ! We know absolutely 

 nothing of what Smith-Dorrien and the Boers are doing, but 

 hope that some time an advance will be ordered from this part 

 of the line. So that I hope I may be enabled to send you 

 specimens from the plains still further south (Ruanda). 



" On a return journey from Kigezi to Kabale I saw on the 

 25th Feb. a^P. dardanus in the valley where the Amauris 

 [A. ellioti], new to me, with butter-yellow spots, and large 

 yellow area at base of h.-w. below, is so common. How nice 

 if the local $ cenea copied this— for echeria is not nearly so 



