DISCOVERY OF THE VICTOKIA X'YANZA. 89 



when fighting. This triumphal entry over, Kanoni 

 led us into his boma, and treated us with sour curd. 

 Then, at my request, he assembled his principal men 

 and greatest travellers to debate upon the iX'yanza. 

 One old man, shrivelled by age, stated that he had 

 travelled up the western shores of the N'yanza two 

 moons (sixty days) consecutively, had passed beyond 

 Karagwah into a country where coffee grows abun- 

 dantly, and is called Muanye". He described the shrub 

 as standing between two and three feet high, having 

 the stem nearly naked, but much branched above ; it 

 grows in large plantations, and forms the principal 

 article of food. The people do not boil and drink it 

 as we do, but pulverise and form it into porridge or 

 cakes. They also eat the berry raw, with its husk on. 

 The Arabs are very fond of eating these berries raw, 

 and have often given us some. They bring them 

 down from Uganda, where, for a pennyworth of beads, 

 a man can have his fill. When near these coffee 

 plantations, he (our informer) visited an island on the 

 lake, called Kitiri, occupied by the Watiri, a naked 

 lot of beings, who subsist almost entirely on fish and 

 coffee. The Watiris go about in large canoes like the 

 Tanganyika ones ; but the sea-travelling, he says, is 

 very dangerous. In describing the boisterous nature 

 of the lake, he made a rumbling, gurgling noise in his 

 throat, which he increased and diversified by pulling 

 and tapping at the skin covering the apple, and by 

 puffing and blowing with great vehemence indicated 



