THE INHOSPITABLE WAEOTDI. 



107 



fortable as the noisy, intrusive, and insolent crowd, as- 

 sembled to stare and to laugh at the strangers, would 

 permit. The crew raised their boothies within a stone- 

 throw of the water, flight being here the thought ever 

 uppermost in their minds. 



The people of this country are a noisy insolent race, 

 addicted, like all their Lakist brethren, to drunkenness, 

 and, when drunk, quarrelsome and violent. At Wafanya, 

 however, they are kept in order by Kanoni, their mut- 

 ware or minor chief, subject to " Mwezi," the mwami or 

 sultan of Urundi. The old man appeared, when we 

 reached his settlement, in some state, preceded by an 

 ancient carrying his standard, a long wisp of white fibre 

 attached to a spear, like the Turkish " horse-tail," and 

 followed by a guard of forty or fifty stalwart young war- 

 riors armed with stout lance-like spears for stabbing and 

 throwing, straight double-edged daggers, stiff bows, and 

 heavy, grinded arrows. Kanoni began by receiving 

 his black-mail — four cloths, two coil-bracelets, and three 

 fundo of coral beads : the return was the inevitable 

 goat. The climate of Wafanya is alternately a damp- 

 cold and a "muggy" heat; the crews, however, if 

 numerous and well armed, will delay here to feed when 

 northward bound, and to lay in provisions when return- 

 ing to their homes. Sheep and fine fat goats vary in 

 value from one to two cloths ; a fowl, or five to six eggs, 

 costs a khete of beads ; sweet potatoes are somewhat 

 dearer than at Ujiji ; there is no rice, but holcus and 

 manioc are cheap and abundant, about 5 lbs. of the 

 latter being sold for a single khete. Even milk is at 

 times procurable. A sharp business is carried on in 

 chikichi or palm-oil, of which a large earthen pot is 

 bought for a cloth ; the best paddles used by the crews 

 are made at Wafanya ; and the mbugu, or bark-cloth, 



