454 LIFE OF DA YID LIVINGSTONE, LL.D. 



cattle and poultry, grain, and vegetables. Bhang grows everywhere near the 

 settlement, and they indulge themselves in it immoderately. 



" The Watuta — a word of fear in these regions — are a tribe of robbers 

 originally settled upon the southern extremity of the Tanganyika Lake. 

 After plundering the lands of Marungu and Ufipa, whose cattle they almost 

 annihilated, the Watuta migrated northwards, rounding the eastern side of 

 the lake. . . Shortly afterwards they attacked Msene, and were only repulsed 

 by the matchlocks of the Arabs, after a week of hard skirmishing. In the 

 early part of 1858, they slew Ruhembe, the Sultan of Usui, a district north of 

 Unyanyembe, upon the march to Karagwah. In the latter half of the same 

 year, they marched upon Ujiji, plundered Gungu, and proceeded to attack 

 Kawele. The valiant Kannena, and all his men, fled to the mountains. The 

 Arab merchants, however, who were then absent on a commercial visit to 

 Uvira, returned precipitately to defend their depots, and, with large bodies of 

 slave-musketeers, beat off the invader. The lands of the Watuta are now 

 bounded, on the north by Utumbara ; on the south by Misene ; eastward by 

 the meridian of Wilyankuru ; and, westwards by the highlands of Urundi. 



"The Watuta, according to the Arabs, are a pastoral tribe, despising, like 

 the Wamasai and the Somal, such luxuries as houses and fields ; they wander 

 from place to place, camping under trees, over which they throw their mats, 

 and driving their herds and plundered cattle to the most fertile pasture- 

 grounds. The dress is sometimes a mbugu or bark-cloth ; more generally it 

 is confined to the humblest tribute paid to decency by the Kaffirs of the Cape, 

 and they have a similar objection to removing it. On their forays they move 

 in large bodies, women as well as men, with the children and baggage placed 

 on bullocks, and their wealth, in brass wire, twisted round the horns. Their 

 wives carry their weapons, and join it is said, in the fight. The arms are 

 two short spears, one in the right hand, the other in the left, concealed by a 

 large shield, so that they can thrust upwards unawares. Disdaining bows and 

 arrows, they show their superior bravery by fighting at close quarters, and 

 they never use the spear as a weapon to be thrown. In describing their 

 tactics the Arabs call them manceuverers. Their thousands march in four or 

 five extended lines, and attack, by attempting to envelope the enemy. There 

 is no shouting or war-cry, to distract the attention of the combatants : iron 

 whistles are used for the necessary signals. During the battle, the Sultan, or 

 chief, whose ensign is a brass stool, sits, attended by his forty or fifty elders, 

 in the rear ; his authority is little more than nominal, the tribe priding itself 

 upon autonomy (self-government.) The Watuta rarely run away, and take no 

 thought of their killed and wounded. They do not, like the ancient Jews, 

 and the Grallas and Abyssinians of the present day, carry off a relic of the slain 

 foe; in fact, the custom seems to be ignored south of the equator. The 

 Watuta have still, however, a wholesome dread of fire-arms, and the red flag 



