116 THE LAKE REGIONS OF CENTRAL AFRICA. 



Great rejoicings ushered in the end of our outward- 

 bound voyage. Crowds gathered on the shore to gaze at 

 the new merchants arriving at Uvira, with the usual 

 concert, vocal and instrumental, screams, shouts, and 

 songs, shaums, horns, and tom-toms. The captains of 

 the two canoes performed with the most solemn gravity 

 a bear-like dance upon the mat-covered benches, which 

 form the "quarter-decks," extending their arms, pirouet- 

 ting upon both heels, and springing up and squatting 

 down till their hams touched the mats. The crews, 

 with a general grin which showed all their ivories, 

 rattled their paddles against the sides of their canoes in 

 token of greeting, a custom derived probably from the 

 ceremonious address of the Lakists, which is performed 

 by rapping their elbows against their ribs. Presently 

 Majid and Bekkari, two Arab youths sent from Ujiji by 

 their chief, Said bin Majid, to collect ivory, came out to 

 meet me ; they gave me, as usual, the news, and said 

 that having laid in the store of tusks required, they 

 intended setting out southwards on the morrow. We 

 passed half the day of our arrival on the bare landing- 

 place, a strip of sand foully unclean, from the effect 

 of many bivouacs. It is open to the water and backed 

 by the plain of Uvira ; one of the broadest of these edges 

 of gently-inclined ground which separate the Lake from 

 its trough of hills. Kannena at once visited the 

 Mwami or Sultan Maruta, who owns a village on a 

 neighbouring elevation ; this chief invited me to his 

 settlement, but the outfit was running low and the 

 crew and party generally feared to leave their canoes. 

 We therefore pitched our tents upon the sand, and pre- 

 pared for the last labour, that of exploring the head of 

 the Lake. 



We had now reached the " ne plus ultra," the north- 



