EXTORTION AT UKARANGA. 



45 



season the land-road is barely practicable ; during and 

 after the wet monsoon the lake affords the only means 

 of passage, and the port of Ukaranga contains not a 

 single native canoe. The Fundi, therefore, wisely de- 

 termined that I should spend beads for rations and 

 lodgings amongst his companions, and be heavily 

 mulcted for a boat by them. Moreover, he instantly 

 sent word to Mnya Mtaza, the principal headman of 

 Ukaranga, who, as usual with the Lakist chiefs, lives in 

 the hills at some distance from the water, to come 

 instanter for his Honga or blackmail, as, no fresh fish 

 being procurable, the Wazungu were about to depart. 

 The latter manoeuvre, however, was frustrated by my 

 securing a conveyance for the morrow. It was an open 

 solid-built Arab craft, capable of containing thirty to 

 thirty -five men ; it belonged to an absent merchant, Said 

 bin Usman ; it was in point of size the second on the 

 Tanganyika, and being too large for paddling, its crew 

 rowed instead of scooping up the water like the natives. 

 The slaves, who had named four khete of coral beads as 

 the price of a bit of sun-dried "baccala," and five as 

 the hire of a foul hovel for one night, demanded four 

 cloths — at least the price of the boat — for conveying the 

 party to Kawele, a three hours' trip, I gave them 

 ten cloths and two coil-bracelets, or somewhat more 

 than the market value of the whole equipage, — a 

 fact which I effectually used as an argumentum ad 

 verecundiam. 



At eight a.m., on the 14th February, we began coasting 

 along the eastern shore of the lake in a north-westerly 

 direction, towards the Kawele district, in the land of 

 Ujiji. The view was exceedingly beautiful : 



"... the Hat sea shone like yellow gold 

 Fused in the sun," 



