XXVIII.] 



WOEKERS IN IRON. 



369 



not returned unless a heavy fine is paid, tlie excuse being that 

 it is an act of magic intended to cause tlie death of the owner 

 of the hut. If a tree which has been marked with fire should 

 be cut down for building in camp, similar demands are made ; 

 and so on through an unlimited category. 



Their dress is rude in the extreme, the men wearing leather 

 aprons, and the women a few small thongs like the Nubian 

 dress, or a tiny scrap of cloth. Their 

 hair is plaited into a kind of pat- 

 tern and plastered with mud and 

 oil, and looks almost as though 

 their head-dress were carved out of 

 wood. 



They import iron in large quan- 

 tities from Kibokwe, and work it 

 cunningly into arrow-heads of va- 

 rious fantastic forms and very pret- 

 tily ornamented hatchets. The 

 hatchets are also very ingeniously 

 contrived, the upper part of the 

 blade or tang being round, and it may be placed in the handle 

 to serve either as an adze or axe. 



At the moment of starting from Kafundango, I heard from 

 Bastian that he intended leaving the caravan and marching to- 

 ward Kassangi. 



By this time we were so far south, that to have accompanied 

 him would have added greatly to the distance, and, being short 

 of stores, I dared not risk making my journey longer than was 

 absolutely necessary. I therefore contented myself with giving 

 him letters addressed to the English consul at Loanda, with par- 

 ticulars of my movements, in the event of Bastian being able to 

 send them there. These letters were never delivered, and Bas- 

 tian either failed to reach his master, or the master thought it 

 advisable to suppress an Englishman's communication from the 

 interior. 



On this march we once again had the satisfaction of seeing 

 some cows, the first specimens of the bovine race that we had 

 met since leaving Ujiji. But my men and myself frequently 

 suffered severely from hunger, the people only consenting to 



August, 

 1875. 



UEAD-DRESS. 



