626 BANTU NEGROES 



humped type, while the western Kaffirs and the Hottentots possessed the 

 big long-horned ox. Humped cattle in Africa are more characteristic of 

 the low-lying, well-wooded regions, whereas the long-horned, straight-hacked 

 cattle flourish best in grass-lands and on lofty plateaux. The third breed 

 which is found in the Dark Continent is the ordinary Mauritanian ox of 

 ^'orth Africa, never seen south of the Sahara. This is the most common 

 modern type in Egypt, and is a sub-species of ox nearly allied to Southern 

 European breeds of cattle, of which the Jersey is a dwarfed example. In 

 ancient Egypt we know from the paintings and sculj^tures that all these 

 three types — the jMauritanian, the straight-backed and long-horned, and 

 the humped zebu — were present. 



Thirteen years ago the cattle plague, which devastated so much of East 

 Central Africa, swept through Ankole and carried off three-fourths of the 

 cattle. The Bahima, who then depended almost exclusively on their 

 cattle for food, perished from starvation in great numbers, and the 

 following year still more of them died from a visitation of smallpox, 

 which proved very fatal to them in their weakened condition. Lieutenant 

 Mundy states that from the information given to him by intelligent 

 Bahima, he believes the Hima population and their stock of cattle at the 

 present day to be not more than a third of what they were fourteen 

 years ago. 



The Bahima live in collections of ten to twenty houses inside a strong 

 fence built of thorn bushes or euphorbia. These hedges have two or 

 three entrances, which are blocked up at night by logs or thorn branches. 

 The young calves usually sleep inside the houses, and when very young 

 are kept within the people's dwellings all through the day. When the 

 men who are guarding the cattle take them to the water in the evening, 

 they (as already s-tated) plaster their faces and bodies with white clay, 

 and at the same time stiffen their hair with mud into separate lumps. 

 This mud is left on the head for days, until it gradually falls off in dust. 



The unmarried men sleep to the number of ten or twelve in one 

 house. A chief, or a man of any wealth or importance, always has a 

 number of young boys attached to his household. It is the universal 

 custom for the boys of poor people, when they reach the age of eight 

 or nine, to leave their parents and attach themselves to the following of 

 some chief or rich man, who feeds and clothes them in return for their 

 services. They sleep in the chiefs house or houses, separated from the- 

 bed of the principal occupant by a screen. The ordinary Muhima hut 

 is an untidy affair, round in shape, constructed of sticks and wattle, with 

 a loosely thatched roof and one or two low doorways. Some of the chiefs'^ 

 houses are plastered with mud on the outside of the wattle framework, 

 and are lined inside with closely arranged sticks or reeds, which from 



