THE LAKE TRIBES. 449 



turbid greenish surface, and the aspect becomes menacing in the extreme. 

 . . . Judging from the eye the walls of the basin of the lake rise in an 

 almost continuous curtain, rarely waving and impacted, to from two to three 

 thousand feet above the water-level. The bay is almost due north and south, 

 and the form a long oval, widening in the central portions, and contracting 

 systematically at both extremities." 



The principal tribes in the lake region are the "Wajiji, the "Wavinza, the 

 Wakaranga, the Watuta, the Wabuha, and the Wahha. We give Captain 

 Burton's account of these tribes : — 



" The Wajiji are a lively race of barbarians, far sturdier than the tribes 

 to the eastward, with dark skins, plain features, and straight, strong limbs: 

 they are larger and heavier men than the Wanyamwezi, and the type, as it 

 approaches Central Africa, becomes rather negro than negroid. Their feet and 

 hands are rather flat, their voices are harsh and strident, and their looks, as 

 well as their manners, are independent even to insolence. The women, who 

 are held in high repute, resemble, and often excel their masters in rudeness 

 and violence : they think little of entering a stranger's hut in their cups and 

 of snatching up and carrying away any article which excites their admiration. 

 Many of both sexes and all ages are disfigured by the small-pox — the Arabs 

 have vainly taught them inoculation ; and there are few who are not affected 

 by boils and various eruptions ; there is also an inveterate pandemic itch, 

 which, according to their Arab visitors, results from a diet of putrid fish. 



" The tribe is extensively tatooed, probably as a protection against the 

 humid atmosphere and the chills of the Lake Region. Some of the chiefs have 

 ghastly scars raised by fire, in addition to large patterns marked upon their 

 persons — lines, circles, and rays of little cupping-cuts drawn down the back, 

 the stomach and the arms, like the tatoo of the Wangindo tribe, near Kilwa. 

 Both sexes like to appear dripping with oil ; and they manifestly do not hold 

 cleanliness to be a virtue. The head is sometimes shaved ; rarely the hair 

 is allowed to grow ; the most fashionable coiffure is a mixure of the two ; 

 patches and beauty-spots of the most eccentric shapes — buttons, crescents, and 

 galeated lines — being allowed to sprout either in the front, the sides, or the 

 back of the head, from a carefully-scraped scalp. Women, as well as men, are 

 fond of binding a wisp of white tree-fibre round their heads, like the ribbon 

 which confines the European wig. There is not a trace of mustachio or 

 whiskers in the country ; they are removed by the tweezers, and the climate, 

 according to the Arabs, is unfavourable to beards. For cosmetics, both sexes 

 apply, when they can procure such luxuries, red earth to the face, and over 

 the head a thick coating of chalk or mountain meal, which makes their black- 

 ness appear hideously grotesque. 



" The chiefs wear expensive stuffs, checks and cottons, which they extract 

 from passing caravans. Women of wealth affect the tobe or coast dress, and 



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