46 



FROM THE COAST TO KILIMANJARO 



Coun t Teleki told me later that the caravan had been three 

 times attacked by bees, and each time at the cry of 6 Njuki ' (bees) 

 the wildest confusion prevailed. The last attack was the worst, 

 as the number of the bees was very much greater. He himself 

 escaped with three stings, but these three were dangerously 

 near his eyes. 



The little Washenzi village of Lewa is 487 feet above the 

 sea-level, on a low spur of Mount Tongwe. The huts of the 

 natives rose from amidst a dense thicket of thorn-bushes and 

 interlaced plants ; and the village was further protected on the 

 side of the caravan route by a palisade with one strong gate, 

 forming the sole entrance to the settlement. Our camp was 

 pitched quite close to this gate, and commanded a beautiful 

 view of Mount Tongwe and the distant lowlands. 



This is the kind of camping-place, close to a village, which 

 the Wangwana 1 love, for in such an one they can procure easily 

 and cheaply all that the country supplies. 



The Zanzibari delights, above all things, in playing the part 

 of a grand seignior and making the natives wait upon him. So 

 it was here. The people of the village provided huts, their 

 wives brought food, did the cooking, &c, in short, waited 

 hand and foot on the Zanzibari, whilst the latter amused them- 

 selves and drank pombe, or banana wine. The men soon became 

 wildly excited, and the noise of revelry from the village was 

 perpetual. We should not have minded this much if it had not 

 led to trouble. A number of saucy fellows bent on mischief 

 surrounded the cattle we were taking with us as reserve stock, 

 and, after chasing them about, flung them to the ground and 

 played all manner of rough tricks on them. Then — we could 

 scarcely believe our eyes — we saw blood flowing in streams from 



1 1 Wangwana' signifies in Swahili the free, in contradistinction to the ' Watuma, 

 or slaves ; but the word is also wrongly used to describe themselves by members of 

 caravans consisting almost entirely of slaves. 



