72 



THE LAKE REGIONS OF CENTRAL AFRICA. 



neatly whipped with strips of rattan ; and jembe or 

 hoes. Of bells a dozen were purchased in March and 

 April of 1858 for two fundo of white beads. Jembe 

 and large sime averaged also two fundo. Of good 

 sambo 100, and of the inferior quality 200, were pro- 

 curable for a fundo. The iron is imported in a rough 

 state from Uvira. The value of a goat was one shuk- 

 kah, which here represents, as in Unyamwezi, twelve 

 feet, or double the length of the shukkah in other re- 

 gions, the single cloth being called lupande, or upande. 

 Sheep, all of a very inferior quality, cost somewhat 

 more than goats. A hen, or from five to six eggs, fetched 

 one khete of samesame, or red-coral beads, which are 

 here worth three times the quantity of white porcelain. 

 Large fish, or those above two pounds in weight, were 

 sold for three khete ; the small fry — the white bait of 

 this region — one khete per two pounds ; and diminutive 

 shrimps one khete per three pounds. Of plantains, a 

 small bunch of fifteen, and of sweet potatoes and yams 

 from ten to fifteen roots, were purchased for a khete ; 

 of artichokes, egg-plants, and cucumbers, from fifty to 

 one hundred. The wild vegetables generically called 

 mboga are the cheapest of these esculents. Beans, 

 phaseoli, ground-nuts, and the voandzeia, were expen- 

 sive, averaging about two pounds per khete. Eice 

 is not generally grown in Ujiji ; a few measures of fine 

 white grain were purchased at a fancy price from one 

 Sayfu bin Hasani, a pauper Msawahili, from the isle of 

 Chole, settled in the country. The sugar-cane is poor 

 and watery, it was sold in lengths of four or five feet for 

 the khete : one cloth and two khete purchased three 

 pounds of fine white honey. Tobacco was compara- 

 tively expensive. Of the former a shukkah procured a 

 bag weighing perhaps ten pounds. Milk was sold at 



