84 NORTH-EAST AFRICA. 



berry, of whicli the Wa-Ganda make no infusions, using them merely for chewing 

 purposes. They rarely eat meat, as all the live stock, consisting of thin and bad 

 milch cows, goats, and fat-tailed sheep, belong to the Huma, who do not sell them. 

 On the shores of the lake, and on the islands, the inhabitants, mostly ichthyophagous, 

 find abundant nutriment in the multitude of fish abounding in the N'yanza. Nor 

 do the Wa-Ganda despise smaller creatures, readily eating termites and locusts, 

 and even chasing swarms of flies, which they capture by means of nets drawn quickly 

 through the air. 



Owing to the cool atmosphere of these central plateaux the "Wa-Ganda build 

 their dwellings more carefully than most other tribes of the continent, and these huts 

 are large enough to permit all domestic work being done within. They are nearly 

 always of the beehive type, consisting of a double hemisphere or dome of branches 

 supported by posts, and thickly thatched with straw of the so-called " tiger grass," 

 some eighteen or twenty feet long. Between the two roofs the air circulates freely, 

 keeping the interior of the cabin fresh and sweet. A sloping ledge of beaten earth 

 round the outside carries off the rainwater during the wet season. Many of the 

 houses have a low porch, under which they enter on all-fours. This, combined 

 with the custom of prostrating themselves before superiors, is the cause of the pouch- 

 like wrinkles that most of the natives have on their knees. Inside, the ground is 

 strewn with bundles of grass disposed in geometrical figures, which produce a 

 pleasing effect until the walls become blackened through the want of outlets for 

 the smoke. Recently the Arabs and the Europeans have constructed other and 

 larger houses, with gables and windows ; but the king has not permitted them to 

 erect stone buildings, none having a right to inhabit a grander house than the 

 king's palace. The national costume is also changing under the influence of 

 foreigners introducing new fashions. 



Amongst the Central African tribes the Wa-Nyoro and Wa-Ganda alone clothe 

 themselves from head to foot, pain of death even being the penalty for men or 

 women leaving their houses too scantily attired. Till recently the national costume 

 was the mhugn, a garment of bark stripped from a species of fig-tree (Jicus lucUa), 

 and beaten to render it supple. Over the mbugu the chiefs wore a robe, either an 

 ox-hide or made up of twenty or thirty skins of the little ntalaganya antelope, 

 which is no larger than a hare, and whose brown fur is remarkably beautiful. But 

 the Arab dress is gradually prevailing, even the poorer classes buying the hdik, the 

 shirt, the girdle, and the caftan, while the chiefs deck themselves with rich turbans 

 or with the Egyptian fez. Stockings and Turkish slippers are also replacing the 

 coarse buiïalo-skin sandals. Their arms are also supplied from Zanzibar, and the 

 Wa-Ganda warriors have already substituted modern rifles for the old-fashioned 

 spears and bows. The Egyptian Government has in vain forbidden the exportation 

 of small-arms to the Nyanza region, for these weapons continue to be imported from 

 other sources. 



The practice of polygamy is far more general amongst the Wa-Ganda than 

 amongst the Europeans and Asiatic Mohammedans, the chiefs having no limit to 

 the number of their wives, who are also their servants. The late King M'tesa is 



