BEAUTY OF UNYAMWEZI. 



7 



The Land of the Moon, which is the garden of 

 Central Intertropical Africa, presents an aspect of 

 peaceful rural beauty which soothes the eye like a 

 medicine after the red glare of barren Ugogo, and the 

 dark monotonous verdure of the western provinces. 

 The inhabitants are comparatively numerous in the 

 villages, which rise at short intervals above their im- 

 pervious walls of the lustrous green milk-bush, with 

 its coral-shaped arms, variegating the well-hoed plains ; 

 whilst in the pasture-lands frequent herds of many- 

 coloured cattle, plump, round-barrelled, and high- 

 humped, like the Indian breeds, and mingled nocks of 

 goats and sheep dispersed over the landscape, suggest 

 ideas of barbarous comfort and plenty. There are few 

 scenes more soft and soothing than a view of Unyam- 

 wezi in the balmy evenings of spring. As the large 

 yellow sun nears the horizon, a deep stillness falls upon 

 earth : even the zephyr seems to lose the power of rust- 

 ling the lightest leaf. The milky haze of midday dis- 

 appears from the firmament, the flush of departing day 

 mantles the distant features of scenery with a lovely 

 rose-tint, and the twilight is an orange glow that burns 

 like distant horizontal fires, passing upwards through an 

 imperceptibly graduated scale of colours — saffron, yel- 

 low, tender green, and the lightest azure — into the dark 

 blue of the infinite space above. The charm of the 

 hour seems to affect even the unimaginative Africans, 

 as they sit in the central spaces of their villages, or, 

 stretched under the forest- trees, gaze upon the glories 

 around. 



In Unyamwezi water generally lies upon the surface, 

 during the rains, in broad shallow pools, which become 

 favourite sites for rice-fields. These little ziwa and 

 mbuga — ponds and marshes — vary from two to five 



B 4 



