1872.] AFEICAN CHILDREN'S TOYS. 227 



outside; the inside is benefited somewhat, but the power 

 will probably remain incomplete, as it now is. 



3rd August. — Visited Salem bin Seff, who is ill of fever. 

 They are hospitable men. Called on Sultan bin Ali and 

 home. It is he who effected the flight of all the Baganda 

 pagazi, by giving ten strings of beads to Motusi to go and 

 spread a panic among them by night ; all bolted. 



4th August. — Wearisome waiting, and the sun is now 

 rainy at mid-day, and will become hotter right on to the 

 hot season in November, but this delay may be all for the 

 best. 



5th August. — Visited Nkasiwa, and recommended sham- 

 pooing the disabled limbs with oil or flour. He says that 

 the pain is removed. More Baganda have come to Kwihara, 

 and will be used for the Mirambo war. 



In many parts one is struck by the fact~of the children 

 having so few games. Life is a serious business, and amuse- 

 ment is derived from imitating the vocations of \th.e parents 

 — hut building, making little gardens, bows and arrows, 

 shields and spears. Elsewhere boys are very ingenious little 

 fellows, and have several games ; they also shoot birds with 

 bows, and teach captured linnets to sing. They are expert 

 in making guns and traps for small birds, and in making and 

 using bird-lime. They make play guns of reed, which go off 

 with a trigger and spring, with a cloud of ashes for smoke. 

 Sometimes they make double-barrelled guns of clay, and 

 have cotton-fluff as smoke. The boys shoot locusts with 

 small toy guns very cleverly. A couple of rufous, brown- 

 headed, and dirty speckle-breasted swallows appeared to-day 

 for the first time this season, and lighted on the ground. 

 This is the kind that builds here in houses, and as far south 

 as Shupanga, on the Zambesi, and at Kuruman. Sun-birds 

 visit a mass of spiders' web to-day ; they pick out the young 

 spiders. Nectar is but part of their food. The insects in 

 or at the nectar could not be separated, and hence have been 



