PRICES AT UVIRA. 



121 



fetches its weight in brass wire : here the merchant ex- 

 pects for every 1000 dollars of outfit to receive 100 

 farasilah (3500 lbs.) of large tusks, and his profit would 

 be great were it not counterbalanced by the risk and by 

 the expense of transport. The prices in the slave-mart 

 greatly fluctuate. When business is dull, boys under ten 

 years may be bought for four cloths and five fundo of 

 white and blue porcelains, girls for six shukkah, and as 

 a rule at these remote places, as Uvira, Ujipa, and Ma- 

 rungu, slaves are cheaper than in the market of IJjiji. 

 Adults fetch no price, they are notoriously intractable, 

 and addicted to desertion. Bark-cloths, generally in the 

 market, vary from one to three khete of coral beads. 

 The principal industry of the Wavira is ironware, the 

 material for which is dug in the lands lying at a little 

 distance westward of the lake. The hoes, dudgeons, and 

 small hatchets, here cos^ half their usual price at Ujiji. 

 The people also make neat baskets and panniers, not 

 unlike those of Normandy, and pretty bowls cut out 

 of various soft woods, light and dark: the latter are 

 also found, though rarely, at Ujiji and in the western 

 islets. 



A gale appeared to be brewing in the north — here 

 the place of storms — and the crews, fearing wind and 

 water, in the afternoon insisted upon launching their 

 canoes and putting out to sea at 10 a.m. on the 6th 

 May. After touching at the stages before described, 

 Muikamba, Ngovi and Murivumba of the anthropophagi, 

 we crossed without other accidents but those of weather 

 — the rainy monsoon was in its last convulsions — the 

 western branch or supplementary channel separating the 

 Lake from the island of Ubwari. Before anchoring at 

 Mzimu, our former halting-place, we landed at a steep 

 ghaut, where the crews swarmed up a ladder of rock, and 



