26 SHIRAMBA DEMBE. CHAP. I. 



not even cook his food in a pot which had contained 

 hippopotamus meat, preferring to go hungry till he 

 could find another; and yet he traded eagerly in the 

 animal's tusks, and ate with great relish the flesh of the 

 foul-feeding marabout. These hunters go out frequently 

 on long expeditions, taking in their canoes their wives and 

 children, cooking-pots, and sleeping-mats. When they 

 reach a good game district, they erect temporary huts on 

 the bank, and there dry the meat they have killed. They 

 are rather a comely-looking race, with very black smooth 

 skins, and never disfigure themselves with the frightful 

 ornaments of some of the other tribes. The chief declined 

 to sell a harpoon, because they could not now get the 

 milola bark from the coast on account of Mariano's war. 

 He expressed some doubts about our being children of the 

 same Almighty Father, remarking that "they could not 

 become white, let them wash ever so much." We made 

 him a present of a bit of cloth, and he very generously 

 gave us in return some fine fresh fish and Indian corn. 



The heat of the weather steadily increases during this 

 month (August), and foggy mornings are now rare. A 

 strong breeze ending in a gale blows up stream every 

 night. It came in the afternoon a few weeks ago, then 

 later, and at present its arrival is near midnight; it 

 makes our frail cabin-doors fly open before it, but con- 

 tinues only for a short time, and is succeeded by a dead 

 calm. Game becomes more abundant ; near our wooding- 

 places we see herds of zebras, both Burchell's and the 

 mountain variety, pallahs (Antelope melampus), waterbuck, 

 and wild hogs, with the spoor of buffaloes and elephants. 



Shiramba Dembe, on the right bank, is deserted; a 

 few old iron guns show where a rebel stockade once stood ; 

 near the river above this, stands a magnificent Baobab 

 hollowed out into a good-sized hut, with bark inside as 

 well as without. The old oaks in Sherwood Forest, when 



