Ao MRULI TO EUBAGA IN UGANDA. 



cloth, and here and there a dracsena. As soon as the fig-trees 

 are stripped, they are wrapped round with a sheath of banana 

 leaves, in order to preserve them from insects, and to promote 

 the process of regrowth in the bark, which takes place by 

 means of the bundles of fibres that run out from the remaining 

 bark above and below. The bark may be employed for this 

 purpose until the tree is two and a half to three years old, but 

 as a rule the same tree is only stripped twice. The first time 

 it produces a thick coarse cloth, the second time a uniformly 

 finer one. White-flowering, rose-tinted tobacco (Nicotiana vir- 

 giniana) is universally cultivated near the houses. Its light- 

 green leaves are a span long, of a sharp, aromatic odour, and 

 the entire shrub grows to a height of about three feet. Special 

 stands of about a foot high, made of dry wood, are erected for 

 the gourd tendrils. White and yellow flowering species are 

 very plentiful, and the fruit is used for eating, and for an 

 innumerable variety of vessels, the leaves being eaten as a 

 vegetable. Spoons are cut out of the rind of the fruit. 



Late in the evening I received a visit from a lady. She 

 was still a young woman, with stolid, expressionless face, but 

 remarkably beautiful small feet and hands. She was attired 

 in coloured goat-skins, richly decorated with small stones, 

 horns, and cowrie shells, and arrived playing on a small gourd 

 containing many holes. She belongs to a class of homeless 

 wanderers — gipsies, I may call them — who are constantly met 

 with throughout Unyoro and Uganda, and who appear to be 

 the remainder of a distinct tribe. They resemble gipsies in the 

 vagabond life they lead, in their practice of sooth-saying, and in 

 the manufacture of all kinds of amulets and charms, as also in 

 their love for music. 



When we continued our way next morning, the dew-be- 

 sprinkled banana groves shone beneath a brilliant blue expanse 

 of sky. There is really something very fascinating on a 

 morning like this amidst such surroundings. Mreko, who 

 had probably not got up enough " steam," had remained be- 

 hind, and so we were soon obliged to halt amongst huts and 

 banana groves to wait for him. The place is named Duero, 

 and its neat huts, often with projecting tripartite gables, 

 nestle in the midst of extensive plantations. The red durrah 



