524 TOWN LIFE. 



with Zanzibar, and furnished the means of sending out letters ; 

 but they were no society for Dr. Livingstone. 



The country, though beautiful, presented few features of 

 sufficient interest to engage one so long a time. In connection 

 with the tediousness of this delay, the doctor says : 



" There is nothing interesting in a heathen town. All are 

 busy in preparing food or clothing, mats or baskets, whilst the 

 women are cleaning or grinding their corn, which involves 

 much hard labor. They first dry this in the sun, then put it 

 into a mortar, and afterwards with a flat basket clean off the 

 husks and the dust, and grind it between two stones ; the next 

 thing is to bring wood and water to cook it. Now and then a 

 little relief was afforded by some occurrence a little out of the 

 ordinary. The weather was quite cool part of the while, 

 although the hot season, which comes earlier than in the more 

 southern country by some months, was beginning in May, and 

 the people frequently set fire to their frail huts by the careless 

 use of that dangerous agent. On one occasion the chief was 

 aroused and threatened to burn his own house and all his prop- 

 erty because the people stole from it, but he did not proceed so 

 far : it was probably a way of letting the Arab dependents know 

 that he was aroused." 



The leading feature of the place was the slave-trading, as it 

 is wherever these Arabs have penetrated. Of this trade, as 

 existing here, the doctor says: 



" Slaves are sold here in the same open way that the business 

 is carried on in Zanzibar slave-market. A man goes about 

 calling out the price he wants for the slave, who walks behind 

 him ; if a woman, she is taken into a hut to be examined in a 

 state of nudity. 



" Slavery is a great evil wherever I have seen it. A poor 

 old woman and child are among the captives. The boy, about 

 three years old, seems a mother's pet. His feet are sore from 

 walking in the sun. He was offered for two fathoms, and his 

 mother for one fathom ; he understood it all, and cried bitterly, 

 clinging to his mother. She had, of course, no power to help 

 him ; they were separated at Karungu afterwards." 



" The above," writes the editor of the " Last Journals," who 

 was familiar with the country, " is an episode of every-day occur- 



S 



