118 THE BONDS OF AFRICA 



noon the tantalizing vision of an inviting, crystal- 

 pure pool shimmering in the sunshine, away on 

 the far horizon, a mirage of Bangweolo. 



These great marsh lands, upon which David 

 Livingstone was the first white man to gaze, 

 are by no means devoid of animal life. Right 

 in their depths there dwells a primitive low 

 type of people named the Wa-Unga. They are 

 hideously ugly, and the majority of them seem 

 to be afflicted with sleeping sickness or syphilis. 

 Nearly every Wa-Unga it was my lot to come 

 in contact with had some terrible affection of 

 the eyes; they were either distorted and blood- 

 shot or had else been put out by the Awemba, 

 who, I believe, a few years ago, never lost an 

 opportunity of mutilating any member of these 

 curious people who was so unfortunate as to 

 come into contact with the savage lords of this 

 part of Central Africa. 



Little islands in the swamps afford the Wa- 

 Unga dry land whereon to build their huts and 

 sow their crops. The backwaters abound with 

 fishes, which are caught in well-woven nets, and 

 these enter extensively into the diet of the 

 swamp-dwellers. In places the marshes are 

 intersected in every direction by channels cut 

 by the Wa-Unga through the reeds. Every 

 settlement possesses a large number of dug-outs, 

 and where there are two or three Wa-Unga 

 villages situated close together, the scene in the 

 early morning, when the natives are punting 

 innumerable fishing canoes through the maze 

 of channels to the open water is suggestive of a 

 savage Venice. 



This is the habitat of that most handsome 

 antelope, the black lechwe, and here too the 



