114 LIVINGSTONE'S LAST JOURNALS. [Chap. Y, 



used here by the Manyuema to dye viranibos and ornament 

 faces and heads.* I sent my people oyer to the other side 

 to cut wood to build a house for me ; the borrowed one 

 has mud walls and floors, which are damp, foul, smelling, and 

 unwholesome. I shall have grass walls, and grass and reeds 

 on the floor of my own house ; the free ventilation will keep 

 it sweet. This is the season called Masika, the finishing 

 rains, which we have in large quantities almost every night, 

 and I could scarcely travel even if I had a canoe ; still it is 

 trying to be kept back by suspicion, and by the wickedness 

 of the wicked. 



Some of the Arabs try to be kind, and send cooked food 

 every day : Abed is the chief donor. I taught him to 

 make a mosquito-curtain of thin printed calico, for he had 

 endured the persecution of these insects helplessly, except 

 by sleeping on a high stage, when they were unusually bad. 

 The Manyuema often bring evil on themselves by being 

 untrustworthy. For instance, I paid one to bring a large 

 canoe to cross the Lualaba, he brought a small one, 

 capable of carrying three only, and after wasting some hours 

 we had to put off crossing till next day. 



8th April. — Every headman of four or five huts is a 

 mologhwe, or chief, and glories in being called so. There 

 is no political cohesion. The Ujijian slavery is an ac- 

 cursed system ; but it must be admitted that the Manyuema, 

 too, have faults, the result of ignorance of other people : 

 their isolation has made them as unconscious of danger 

 in dealing with the cruel stranger, as little dogs in the 



* The reader will best judge of the success of the experiment by looking 

 at a specimen of the writing. An old sheet of the Standard newspaper, 

 made into rough copy-books, sufficed for paper in the absence of all other 

 material, and by writing across the print no doubt the notes were toler- 

 ably legible at the time. The colour of the decoction used instead of ink 

 has faded so much that if Dr. Livingstone's handwriting had not at all 

 times been beautifully clear and distinct it would have been impossible 

 to decipher this part of his diary. — Ed. 



