450 LIFE OF DA YID LIVINGSTONE, LL.D. 



some are seen to wear red or blue hood-cloths. The male costume of the 

 lower orders is confined to softened goat, sheep, deer, leopard, or monkey- 

 skins, tied at two corners like a little apron, passed over the right or left 

 shoulder, with the flaps open at one side, and with tail and legs dangling in 

 the wind. Women who cannot afford cloth use, as a substitute, a narrow kilt 

 of fibre or skin, and some were seen with a tassel of fibre, or a leafy twig, 

 depending from a string bound round the waist, and displaying the nearest 

 approach to the original fig-leaf. At Ujiji people are observed, for the first 

 time, to make extensive use of the macerated tree-bark, which supplies the 

 place of cotton in Urundi, Karagwah, and the northern kingdoms. This arti- 

 cle, technically called ' mbugu,' is made from the inner bark of the various 

 trees. The trunk of the full-grown tree is stripped of its integument twice or 

 thrice, and is bound with plantain-leaves till a finer growth is judged fit for 

 manipulation. This bark is carefully removed, steeped in water, macerated, 

 kneaded, and pounded with clubs and battens to the consistency of a coarse 

 cotton. Palm-oil is then spurted upon it from the mouth, and it acquires the 

 colour of chamois-leather. The Wajiji obtain the mbugu mostly from Urundi 

 and Uvira. They are fond of striping it with a black, vegetable mud, so as 

 to resemble the spoils of leopards and wild cats, and they favour the delusion 

 by cutting the edge into long strips, like the tails and other extremities of 

 wild beasts. The price of the mbugu varies according to size, from six to 

 twelve strings of beads. Though durable, it is never washed ; after many 

 months' wear, the superabundance of dirt is removed by butter or ghee. 



"Besides common brass girdles and bracelets, armlets and :mklets, masses 

 of white porcelain, blue glass, and large ' pigeon-egg ' beads, and hundreds 

 of the iron-wire circlets, called sambo, worn with ponderous brass or copper 

 rings round the lower part of the leg, above the foot, the Wajiji are distin- 

 guished from tribes not on the lgke by necklaces of shells — small pink 

 bivalves strung upon a stout fibre. Like their Lakist neighbours, they 

 ornament the throat with disks, crescents, and strings of six or seven cones, 

 fastened by the apex, and depending to the breast. Made of the whitest 

 ivory, or of the teeth, not the tusks, of the hippopotamus, these dazzling 

 ornaments effectively set off the shining, dark skin. Another peculiarity 

 among these people is, a pair of iron pincers, or a piece of split wood, ever 

 hanging round the neck ; nor is its use less remarkable than its presence. 

 The Lakists rarely chew, smoke, or take snuff, according to the manner of 

 the rest of mankind. Every man carries a little half-gourd, or a diminutive 

 pot of black earthenware, nearly full of tobacco ; when inclined to indulge, 

 he fills it with water, expresses the juice, and from the palm of his hand 

 snuffs it up into his nostrils. The pincers serve to close the exit, otherwise 

 the nose must be corked by the application of finger and thumb. Without 

 much practice, it is difficult to articulate during the retention of the dose, 



