146 



THE LAKE REGIONS OF CENTRAL AFRICA. 



ally rattling wooden clappers, and capering cause- 

 lessly like madmen, present a savage and horrid ap- 

 pearance. Honourable women wear long tobes of 

 American domestics from below the arms to the ankles ; 

 they are followed by hosts of female slaves, and pre- 

 serve an exceptionally modest and decorous demeanour. 

 Their features are of the rounded African type of 

 beauty. Their necks and bosoms support a profusion 

 of sofi and other various- coloured beads ; their fore- 

 heads are bound with frontlets, fillet-like bands of 

 white and coral porcelain, about three fingers deep, a 

 highly becoming ornament probably derived from Ka- 

 ragwah ; and those who were seen by the Expedition 

 invariably walked about with thin staves five or six 

 feet long, pointed and knobbed as the walking-sticks of 

 ancient Egypt. 



At the northern extremity of the Urundi sea-face, 

 and at the head of the Tanganyika, lies the land of 

 Uzige ; it is rarely visited except by the Lakist traders. 

 This people, who, like their neighbours, cannot exist 

 without some form of traffic, have, it is said, pursued 

 the dows of the earlier Arab explorers with a flotilla of 

 small canoes ; it is probable that negro traders would 

 be better received. In their country, according to the 

 guides, six rivers fall into the Tanganyika in due order 

 from the east : the Kuryamavenge, the Molongwe, the 

 Karindira, the Kariba, the Kibaiba, and westernmost 

 the Eusizi or Lusizi. The latter is the main drain of 

 the northern countries, and the best authorities, that is 

 to say those nearest the spot, unanimously assert that 

 it is an influent. 



The races adjoining Uzige, namely, the Wavira on 

 the north-western head of the Tanganyika, and their 

 southern neighbours, the Wabembe cannibals, have 



