THE WATATURU. 



221 



and Unyanyembe, where, in 1858, a caravan, numbering 

 about 300 men, came in. Two small parties of this 

 people were also met at Tura ; they were small, dark, 

 and ugly savages, almost beardless, and not unlike the 

 " Thakur " people in Maharatta-land. Their asses, pro- 

 vided with neat saddle-bags of zebra skin, were better 

 dressed than the men, who wore no clothing except the 

 simplest hide-sandals. According to the Arabs this clan 

 affects nudity : even adult maidens dispense with the 

 usual skin-kilt. The men ignored bows and arrows, but 

 they were efficiently armed with long spears, double- 

 edged sime, and heavy hide shields. They brought 

 calabash or monkey-bread flour — in this country, as in 

 Ugogo, a favourite article of consumption — and a little 

 coarse salt, collected from the dried mud of a Mbuga or 

 swamp in the land of Iramba, to be bartered for holcus 

 and beads. Their language sounded to the unpractised 

 ear peculiarly barbarous, and their savage suspicious- 

 ness rendered it impossible to collect any specimens. 



At Kazeh, sorely to my disappointment, it was finally 

 settled, in a full conclave of Arabs, that we must return 

 to the coast by the tedious path with which we were 

 already painfully familiar. At Ujiji the state of our 

 finances had been the sole, though the sufficient obstacle 

 to our traversing Africa from east to west ; we might — 

 had we possessed the means — by navigating the Tan- 

 ganyika southwards, have debouched, after a journey of 

 three months, at Kilwa. The same cause prevented us 

 from visiting the northern kingdoms of Karagwah and 

 Uganda ; to effect this exploration, however, we should 

 have required not only funds but time. The rains there 

 setting in about September render travelling impossible ; 

 our two years' leave of absence were drawing to a close, 

 and even had we commanded a sufficient outfit, we were 



