264 NATIVE STYLE OF ORNAMENT. CHAP. X. 



year; yet the adjacent heights seem still well covered 

 with timber. 



The Lake people are by no means handsome : the 

 women are very plain ; and really make themselves 

 hideous by the means they adopt to render themselves 

 attractive. The pelele, or ornament for the upper lip, is 

 universally worn by the ladies ; the most valuable is of 

 pure tin, hammered into the shape of a small dish ; some 

 are made of white quartz, and give the wearer the 

 appearance of having an inch or more of one of Price's 

 patent candles thrust through the lip, and projecting 

 beyond the tip of the nose. 



In character, the Lake tribes are very much like other 

 people ; there are decent men among them, while a good 

 many are no better than they should be. They are open- 

 handed enough : if one of us, as was often the case, went 

 to see a net drawn, a fish was always offered. Sailing one 

 day past a number of men, who had just dragged their 

 nets ashore, at one of the fine fisheries at Pamalombe, we 

 were hailed and asked to stop, and received a liberal dona- 

 tion of beautiful fish. Arriving late one afternoon at a 

 small village on the lake, a number of the inhabitants 

 manned two canoes, took out their seine, dragged it, and 

 made us a present of the entire haul. The northern chief, 

 Marenga, a tall handsome man, with a fine aquiline nose, 

 whom we found living in his stockade in a forest about 

 twenty miles north of the mountain Kowirwe, behaved 

 like a gentleman to us. His land extended from Dambo 

 to the north of Makuza hill. He was specially generous, 

 and gave us bountiful presents of food and beer. " Do 

 they wear such things in your country? " he asked, point- 

 ing to his iron bracelet, which was studded with copper, 

 and highly prized. The Doctor said he had never seen 

 such in his country, whereupon Marenga instantly took it 

 off, and presented it to him, and his wife also did the same 



