310 THE LAKE REGIONS OF CENTRAL AFRICA. 



serted in a hole practised through a lump of lead or burn t 

 clay, like the Indian bhaunri ; the other is a thin bit of 

 wood, about 1*5 ft. long, with a crescent of the same 

 material on the top, and an iron hook to hold the thread. 

 The u tan da, or loom-frame differs from the vertical- 

 shaped article of West Africa. Two side-poles about 

 twelve feet long, and supported at the corners by four 

 uprights, are placed at an angle, enabling the workman to 

 stand to his work ; and the oblong is completed by two 

 cross-bars, round which the double line of the warp, or 

 longitudinal threads of the woven tissue, are secured. 

 The dimensions of the web vary from five to six feet 

 in length, by two to three broad. The weft, or transverse 

 thread, is shot with two or three thin laths, or spindles, 

 round which the white and coloured yarns are wound, 

 through the doubled warp, which is kept apart by 

 another lath passing between the two layers, and the 

 spindle is caught with the left hand as it appears at the 

 left side. Lastly, a lath, broader and flatter than the 

 others, is used to close the work, and to beat the thread 

 home. As the workman deems three hours per diem 

 ample labour, a cloth will rarely be finished under a 

 week. Taste is shown in the choice of patterns : they 

 are sometimes checks with squares, alternately black and 

 white, or in stripes of black variegated with red dyes 

 upon a white ground : the lines are generally broad in 

 the centre, but narrow along the edges, and the texture 

 not a little resembles our sacking. The dark colour is 

 obtained from the juice of the mzima-tree; it stains the 

 yarn to a dull brown, which becomes a dark mulberry, 

 or an Indian-ink black, when buried for two or three 

 days in the vegetable mud of the ponds and pools. The 

 madder-red is produced by boiling the root and bark of 

 a bush called mda'a ; an ochreish tint is also extracted 



