196 ACROSS AFEICA. [Chap. 



April, mented with beads, and lash it to the back in the same manner 

 ^^''^- as infants are usually carried in their country. Children are 

 reared at the breast until two or three years of age, and I saw 

 one alternately sucking at nature's fount and a pombe reed ; so 

 that they may literally be said to imbibe the taste for poml)c 

 with their mother's milk. 



Long knobbed walking-sticks were used by the chief and his 

 wives, and beads and wire were common. 



We went on to Kirumbu on the Mivito, where cotton is man- 

 ufactured, nearly a third of the jDopulation wearing clothes of 

 native make. It is coarse stuff, something like superior gunny- 

 bag, and the patterns are checks, after the style of large shep- 

 herd's plaid with black stripes near the border, all having fringe. 

 As I sighted land at the end of the lake, I hoped another 

 day's pulling would be all that was necessary before turning. 

 But we wanted food, the small villages not supj^lying enough, 

 and even Makukira being drawn almost blank. Camping that 

 night near a village in the river Kisungi, we were again disap- 

 pointed at finding food scarce and expensive. Yet when Dr. 

 Livingstone was here on his last journey, only about fifteen or 

 sixteen months previously, I am told provisions were plentiful, 

 and the people had many goats. Parties of Wanyamwezi and 

 others had, however, carried off not only the goats, but many 

 people also. 



The slave-trade is spreading in the interior, and will continue 

 to do so until it is either put down with a strong hand, or dies 

 a natural death from tlie total destruction of the population. 

 At present events are tending toward depopulation ; for the 

 Arabs, who had only jjcnetrated Manyuema a few years, already 

 had a settlement close to Nyangwd, from which parties are able 

 to ffo slave-huntiiii!; still farther afield. The head chief of this 

 place lives four days' journey inland ; but at Mikisungi there 

 was a chief named Mpara Gwina, whom I called u})()n. He 

 was old, and perfectly white-haired, and his office did not seem 

 profitable, for he was certainly the worst dressed of the people. 

 His forehead and hair were daubed with vermilion, yellow, and 

 white powder, the pollen of flowers. A tribal mark of raised 

 cuts formed a blotch on each temple, and he wore a frontlet of 

 beads. 



