XIIL] SALT -MAKING. 167 



Beyond the valley of the Malagarazi were high and rocky hills P'ebruary, 

 similar to those we had passed before crossing the river. i^"^*- 



At Itaga we halted a day to buy food, and j^artly because I 

 was ill with fever, and was also suffering from the effects of 

 Sambo having mixed the dough for my breakfast cakes with 

 castor-oil. 



While here, two more villages were reported to have been 

 destroyed by Mirambo, yet by all accounts he had no more than 

 a hundred and lifty tighting-men with him. Had the people 

 banded together, they could easily have thrashed him ; but they 

 were perpetually squabbling among themselves, and could there- 

 fore be attacked and destroyed piecemeal. 



Our next station was Lugowa, to reach which we had to pass 

 several villages and some muddy swamps, whence salt is pro- 

 cured in the following manner : A quantity of mud is placed 

 in a trough having at the bottom a square hole partially stop- 

 ped with shreds of bark, beneath which about half a dozen sim- 

 ilar vessels are placed, the upper one only containing mud. 

 Hot water is then poured into this topmost trough to dissolve 

 the salt with which the mud is impregnated, and the liquid, 

 being filtered by passing through the bark in the holes of the 

 lower troughs, runs out of the bottom one nearly clear. It is 

 then boiled and evaporated, leaving as a sediment a very good 

 white salt, the best of any I have seen in Africa. If the first 

 boiling does not produce a sufliciently pure salt, it is again dis- 

 solved and filtered, until the requisite purity is attained. 



This salt is carried far and wide. The whole district from 

 Lake Victoria Xyanza, round the south of Tanganjnka, much 

 of Manyuema, and south to the Euaha, is supplied by the pans 

 of Uvinza. There are some other-^)laces in these districts 

 where salt is produced, but that of Uvinza is so superior that it 

 always finds a ready sale. At parting, the old chief presented 

 me with a load of salt, which I acknowledged by a gift in re- 

 turn. 



At Lugowa I witnessed for the first time a curious method 

 of using tobacco, which prevails to a great extent at Ujiji. In- 

 stead of taking dry powdered snuif, according to the ordinary 

 custom, the people carry tobacco in a small gourd, and when 

 they wish to indulge in a " sneeshin," fill it with water, and. 



