WAJIJI SALUTATIONS. 585 



The human inhabitants who assert the claim of their nativity 

 in this splendid district, the Wajiji, are the peers of any tribe in 

 the land in those customs and characteristics which belong to 

 Africa. But thirty-five years ago Arab traders, who had 

 already established markets at Unyanyembe, penetrated their 

 country and were eager to appropriate the advantages which 

 were so apparent to be realized by establishing a market 

 on the shores of the beautiful inland sea ; and from that time 

 their country had become more and more a common ground for 

 all the surrounding tribes, tempted by the clothes arfd beads of 

 the Arabs. And the great market-place of their chief town is 

 a grand centre for many thousand square miles. The traveller 

 may see there "the agricultural and pastoral Wajiji themselves, 

 with their store of grain, their flocks and herds ; salt merchants, 

 from Uvinza ; ivory merchants from Uvira and Usowa ; canoe 

 makers from Ugomo and Uvundi; and peddlers from Zanzibar; 

 the representatives of a dozen different tribes engaged in noisy 

 chaffer and barter." The streets of this strange town invite 

 him to an exhibition of as various customs and tempers, and 

 the huts cover scenes in home life that represent an area of 

 many, many miles. The salutations of a people are among the 

 more conspicuous formalities, and the Wajiji are not behind the 

 foremost in fastidious observance of the formalities of their 

 society. It is a question whether a fashionable lady of our 

 country would survive the sight, if she should unexpectedly be- 

 hold a Ujiji belle making her bow to a gentleman on the street. 

 It is a liberal bow, an ardent, enthusiastic recognition ; there is 

 no mistaking it, no danger that the gallant will pass by anxiously 

 querying whether his lady noticed him. We are at a loss to 

 describe this bow. Imagine yourself a young Wajiji gentleman, 

 arrayed in your best robe of bark cloth, or your best lion skin, 

 loitering down the avenues of that tropical city, a tall black 

 Venus approaching you in the distance ; as she draws nearer, you 

 gaze with delight on the shining blackness, and wonder that 

 such grace is allowed to mortals. If you are a fortune hunter 

 your eye catches with covetous eagerness the splendid bands of 

 brass which she displays as carelessly as ever a fairer lady dis- 

 played her dainty hand with bejewelled fingers, and her exquisite 

 arm with glittering bracelet. If only beauty charms you, you 

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