94 THE LAKE REGIONS OF CENTRAL AFRICA. 



170 khete of blue glass-beads, and forty of coral-porce- 

 lains, locally three times more valuable than whites or 

 greens. Sayfu, the interpreter, was as extravagantly 

 paid in eight cloths and twenty-seven pounds of white 

 and blue-porcelains. After abundance of dispute it was 

 settled that the crews should consist of fifty-five men, 

 thirty-three to the larger and twenty-two to the smaller 

 canoe. It was an excess of at least one-half, who went 

 for their own profit, not for our pleasure. When this 

 point was conceded, we were kindly permitted to take 

 with us the two Goanese, the two black gun-carriers, and 

 three Baloch as an escort. The latter were the valiant 

 Khudabakhsh, whom I feared to leave behind ; Jelai, the 

 mesti90-Mekrani ; and, thirdly, Riza, the least mutinous 

 and uncivil of the party. 



Before departure it will be necessary to lay before the 

 reader a sketch of our conveyance. The first aspect 

 of these canoes made me lament the loss of Mr. Francis' 

 iron boat: regrets, however, were of no avail. Quo- 

 cumque modo — rem ! was the word. 



The Baumrinden are unknown upon the Tanganyika 

 Lake, where the smaller craft are monoxyles, generally 

 damaged in the bow by the fishermen's fire. The larger 

 are long, narrow " matumbi," or canoes, rudely hollowed 

 with the axe — the application of fire being still to be 

 invented, — in fact, a mere log of mvule, or some 

 other large tree which abound in the land of the Wa- 

 goma, opposite Ujiji. The trunks are felled, scooped 

 out in loco, dragged and pushed by man-power down 

 the slopes, and finally launched and paddled over to 

 their destination. The most considerable are composed 

 of three parts — clumsy, misshapen planks, forming, 

 when placed side by side, a keel and two gunwales, 



