BOATING ON THE TANGANYIKA. 



101 



distance by their plantations of palm and plantain, and 

 by large spreading trees, from whose branches are sus- 

 pended the hoops and the drag-nets not in actual use, 

 and under whose shade the people sit propped against 

 their monoxyles, which are drawn high up out of danger 

 of the surf. There was no trade, and few provisions were 

 procurable at Kigari. We halted there to rest, and pitch- 

 ing a tent in the thick grass we spent a night loud with 

 wind and rain. 



Rising at black dawn on the 13th April, the crews 

 rowed hard for six hours between Kigari and another 

 dirty little fishing-village called Nyasanga. The set- 

 tlement supplied fish-fry, but neither grain nor vegeta- 

 bles were offered for sale. At this place, the frontier 

 district between Ujiji and Urundi, our Wajiji took leave 

 of their fellow-clansmen and prepared with serious 

 countenances for all the perils of expatriation. 



This is the place for a few words concerning boating 

 and voyaging upon the Tanganyika Lakes. The Wajiji, 

 and indeed all these races, never work silently or re- 

 gularly. The paddling is accompanied by a long mono- 

 tonous melancholy howl, answered by the yells and 

 shouts of the chorus, and broken occasionally by a shrill 

 scream of delight from the boys which seems violently to 

 excite the adults. The bray and clang of the horns, 

 shaums, and tomtoms, blown and banged incessantly 

 by one or more men in the bow of each canoe, made 

 worse by brazen-lunged imitations of these intruments 

 in the squeaking trebles of the younger paddlers, 

 lasts throughout the livelong day, except when terror 

 induces a general silence. These " Wana Maji " — 

 sons of water — work in "spirts," applying lustily to 

 the task till the perspiration pours down their sooty 

 persons. Despite my remonstrances, they insisted upon 



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