MAHAGI STATION. 149 



an aloe with white-striped leaves is grown, which in Uganda 

 and Unyoro is always employed in incantations. The granaries 

 are usually cylindrical, but the lower segments of some are 

 hemispherical and rest on a stand. Their covers, which are 

 movable, are of the usual shape. Numbers of closely woven, 

 very roomy, skittle- shaped weir-baskets and fish-spears betoken 

 an active pursuit of fishery, while the absence of hunting 

 trophies indicates no great love of sport. The weapons we 

 saw were lances, a sort of broad-bladed axe with a sharp spike 

 projecting from the back, and knives of various forms ; speci- 

 mens of each of them were collected. Every woman carries a 

 small crescent-shaped knife attached to her girdle by a leather 

 thong. 



All the women were diligently engaged in household work, 

 one of their duties being to beat and clean the freshly gathered 

 eleusine corn with a wooden mallet or club. Besides fetch- 

 ing water and cooking, weeding and carrying away the rubbish, 

 reaping and bringing in the harvest, and the manufacture of all 

 kinds of crockery, pipe-bowls included, devolve solely upon the 

 women. The men build the houses, till the fields, fish and 

 hunt, milk the cows and goats, and smoke. A singular kind 

 of pipe is much used ; a very long stem has a slit made in the 

 side at its lower end, into which a green leaf rolled into the 

 shape of a funnel is pushed and is filled with tobacco. A fresh 

 leaf is used for each pipeful, and the quantity of tobacco used 

 each time is but small. Tobacco is largely grown in the 

 mountains, and is brought here to be exchanged for dried fish. 



About ten minutes' walk to the south of this village the 

 lake is joined by Khor Erra, a never-failing stream of cold 

 water. The high grass near this Ichor is the haunt of a rare 

 crake, Ortygometra egregia, a bird extremely like the small 

 waterhen in its habits. All the land between the station and 

 this village, to the south of which lie three other zeribas sub- 

 ject to the same chief, was very well cultivated, and this year's 

 second crop of durrah was just ripe. Maize, red and white 

 durrah, eleusine, sesame, a little tobacco, a kind of cucumber, 

 and near the station bamia (Hibiscus escidentus, called weka in 

 the Sudan), and ground nuts have been planted here. Bananas 

 are not found, except, perhaps, in the more sheltered side valleys. 



