COWRIE MONEY 41 



commonly buys anything, though I have paid boys 

 at the rate of one shell apiece for beetles. From 

 three to ten shells will buy an egg, and one string 

 of a hundred shells, having a value of about a penny 

 farthing, is the usual price for a chicken. These 

 prices sound cheap enough, but the Uganda egg is 

 bad ninety-nine times out of a hundred, and the 

 chicken is generally no bigger than a blackbird. It 

 has been suggested that the African fowl lays bad 

 eggs, but I believe that there is no scientific authority 

 for this statement. In the towns and big stations 

 one has litde or no use for these shells ; it is when 

 one goes on a journey — 'on safari,' to use the local 

 expression— that they begin to become important 

 for the daily business of buying food. 



In spite of its many attendant drawbacks, there 

 are perhaps worse ways of travelling than with 

 porters in Uganda, always provided that you are 

 not in a hurry, and are content to take two weeks 

 over a journey that an express train would cover in 

 as many hours. The most important part of this 

 manner of travelling is the start, which can hardly 

 be made too early. If there is a moon and the road 

 is good, it is a pleasant thing to start off at one or 

 two o'clock in the morning, and finish the day's 

 march about the time when people at home are 

 beginning to think of breakfast. It is cool up to 

 eight o'clock, and the porters march along without 

 stopping to rest under every tree, as they like to do 

 when the sun is high. Even when there is no moon 



