192 SALT-MAKING— MOUNTAINS. Chap. IX, 



hippopotamus, who dreads a trap. His extreme caution is- 

 taken advantage of by the women, who hang, as a minia- 

 ture trap-beam, a kigelia fruit with a bit of stick in 

 the end. This protects the maize, of which he is excessively 

 fond. 



The women are accustomed to transact business for them- 

 selves. They accompany the men into camp, sell their own 

 wares, and appear to be both fair traders, and modest sensible 

 persons. Elsewhere they bring things for sale on their heads, 

 and, kneeling at a respectful distance, wait till their husbands 

 or fathers, who have gone forward, choose to return, and to 

 take their goods, and barter for them. Perhaps in this parti- 

 cular, the women here occupy the golden mean between the 

 Manganja hill-tribes and the Jaggas of the north, who live on 

 the mountain summits near Kilimanjaro. It is said that at 

 the latter place the women do all the trading, have regular 

 markets, and will on no account allow a man to enter the 

 market-place. 



The quantity of hippopotamus meat eaten by our men 

 made some of them ill, and our marches were necessarily 

 short. After three hours' travel on the 13th, we spent the 

 remainder of the day at the village of Chasiribera, on a 

 rivulet flowing through a beautiful valley to the north, which 

 is bounded by magnificent mountain-ranges. Pinkwe, or 

 Mbingwe, otherwise Moeu, forms the south-eastern angle 

 of the range. On the 16th June we were at the flourish- 

 ing village of Senga, under the headman Manyame, which 

 lies at the foot of the mount Motemwa. Nearly all 

 the mountains in this country are covered with open 

 forest and grass, in colour, according to the season, green 

 or yellow. Many are between 2000 and 3000 feet high, with 

 the sky line fringed with trees ; the rocks show just suffi- 



