THE DISTRICT OF ROHOMBO. 635 



were waiting for them to come up in order to make a formidable body to 

 cross Manyema; and though our traveller would, for various reasons, have 

 much preferred journeying alone, he was obliged to unite himself to the 

 party. The next country after Ubudjwa was Uhiya, where the people wore, 

 on the back of their heads, enormous leather chignons, with a piece like a 

 tongue sticking out behind, and indulged in tattooing in irregular and diver- 

 sified patterns. On leaving Uhiya they began to get into a hilly country, 

 the commencement of the offshoots of the mountains of Bambarre. Here 

 they came upon a people having other methods of personal decoration — they 

 pierced the centre cartilage of the nose, and ran straws through ; and worked 

 their hair into ridges or tufts, with small plaits along the top of them. Wood 

 carving was here carried to great perfection; and clay idols were common 

 outside the village. For some reason or other, which was not very obvious, 

 many of the villages had been lately deserted. 



A very hilly road now took the travellers to Rohombo, according to the 

 natives, the first district in Manyema; though geographically and ethnolo- 

 gically Manyema proper can only be said to commence on the northern side 

 of the Bambarre mountains. The population here was very dense, and the 

 roads were lined by black crowds, who had turned out to look at the strangers, 

 and especially at the white man. In this district oil palms were very nume- 

 rous, from which the natives made a wine which, when new, is very good 

 and refreshing, somewhat in its taste and exhilarating influence like ginger- 

 beer. The people climb the trees with a belt made to go round the tree and 

 themselves, something like the Tamils in Ceylon. Salt was in very great 

 demand here — all that the people get being brought from Ujiji by the traders, 

 as, since the Arabs have come here, the Warua, who used to do the trading, 

 have deserted the country. A man would cut and bring into camp a large 

 load of firewood for a pinch of salt, the size one usually puts on one's plate. 



Leaving Rohombo, they went over a rolling and fertile country, inter- 

 sected by many streams, all draining to the south-west, till they reach the 

 ascent of the Bambarre Mountains. These mountains stood up like a narrow 

 spire, with very declivitous sides, which gave the travellers a steep climb ; 

 and then, before they could reach the top, they had to camp in a deserted 

 village. The next morning they had another climb before surmounting the 

 crest ; and then, plunging into a mass of forest, they suddenly commenced 

 their descent amongst numbers of ravines and gullies, all crowded with enor- 

 mous trees. Some of the gorges were over a hundred and fifty feet deep, 

 and trees growing in their bottoms towered to an equal height above the head 

 of a person standing on the brink. It was truly a primeval forest, that had 

 never been desecrated by the hand of man. No sun or breeze reached the 

 dark, damp depths, and every tree seemed to try and force itself aloft into the 

 blue heaven, to get a sight of the life-giving sun. 



