364 THE ARAB DHOW. CHAP. XIII. 



vagance to burn the oil they obtain from the castor-oil 

 bean and other seeds, and also from certain fish, or in 

 fact to do anything with it but anoint their heads and 

 bodies. 



We arrived at Kota-kota Bay in the afternoon of the 

 10th September, 1863 ; and sat down under a magnificent 

 wild fig-tree with leaves ten inches long, by five broad, 

 about a quarter of a mile from the village of Juma ben 

 Saidi, and Yakobe ben Arame, whom we had met on the 

 Eiver Kaombe, a little north of this, in our first explora- 

 tion of the Lake. We had rested but a short time when 

 Juma, who is evidently the chief person here, followed 

 by about fifty people, came to salute us and to invite 

 us to take up our quarters in his village. The hut 

 which, by mistake, was offered, was so small and dirty, 

 that we preferred sleeping in an open space a few hundred 

 yards off. 



Juma afterwards apologized for the mistake, and pre- 

 sented us with rice, meal, sugar-cane, and a piece of 

 malachite. We returned his visit on the following day, 

 and found him engaged in building a dhow or Arab vessel, 

 to replace one which he said had been wrecked. This 

 new one was fifty feet long, twelve feet broad, and five 

 feet deep. The planks were of a wood like teak, here 

 called Timbati, and the timbers of a closer grained wood 

 called Msoro. The sight of this dhow gave us a hint 

 which, had we previously received it, would have pre- 

 vented our attempting to carry a vessel of iron past the 

 Cataracts. The trees around Katosa's village were Tim- 

 bati, and they would have yielded planks fifty feet long 

 and thirty inches broad. With a few native carpenters 

 a good vessel could be built on the Lake nearly as quickly 

 as one could be carried past the Cataracts, and at a vastly 

 less cost. Juma said that no money would induce him to 

 part with this dhow. He was very busy in transporting 



