226 In the Heart of Africa 



around an open space. In some of the villages I counted forty 

 huts, in front of which the men and women were idly squatting. 

 Their clothing is of a most primitive description, the men wear- 

 ing an almost invisible loin cloth, whilst the women have only 

 a narrow string of beads round their hips for adornment. Large, 

 flat wooden discs pierce their upper lips, and give the women a 

 most peculiar appearance. This extremely strange custom is said 

 to date back to slave-driving times, when women who were thus 

 disfigured were spared by the cruel Arabs as worthless for 

 slaves. Plausible as this supposition may appear, it requires 

 proof. For the present it can only be regarded as a mere asser- 

 tion. The cultivation of bananas and bataten (sweet potatoes) 

 was prodigous, and rich harvests lay in the villages. We received 

 a whole armful of potatoes for an old bottle. 



At Bunya, a small military station, which, like all such 

 places, consisted of a few huts and a store-house for Europeans, 

 Lieutenant Boyton reported himself. Boyton, who was a 

 Swedish officer, and afterwards in the Congolese service for some 

 years, had been ordered to accompany us in place of Lieutenant 

 Veriter, who had been recalled. 



We now wended our steps towards the heights through the 

 Bawisha and Bakumu country, past the stations of Quadingo 

 and Kitambala. Just before reaching the latter place the narrow 

 path widened out into a small, well-kept barrabarra, which owes 

 its existence to the skill of a Belgian engineer and had only been 

 completed a few months. This road led from Kilo to Mahagi, 

 the sole Belgian outpost on Lake Albert, and had been con- 

 structed with a view to subsequent automobile traffic. It, how- 

 ever, proved itself unserviceable, on account of sinking subsoil, 

 and had to be abandoned. In its place the Congo Government 

 has decided to construct a great automobile route from Kilo to 

 Nsabe, on the western shores of Lake Albert. This road is to 

 be made from a point lying opposite to Nsabe, on the eastern 

 bank of the lake in British territory, on to Entebbe. As a matter 

 of fact, the first 130 miles were finished in the spring of 1909. 

 The Mombasa-Entebbe-Kilo stretch of road will be made negoti- 



