314 THE LAKE REGIONS OF CENTRAL AFRICA. 



sequently the material always remains half-raw. 

 Usually the colour becomes lamp-black ; in Usagara, 

 however, the potter's clay burns red, like the soil — the 

 effect of iron. A cunning workman will make in a day 

 four of these pots, some of them containing several 

 gallons, and their perfect regularity of form, and often 

 their picturequeness of shape, surprise the stranger. 

 The best are made in Ujiji, Karagwah, and Ugunda : 

 those of Unyamwezi are inferior, and the clay of 

 Zanzibar is of all the worst* 



There are many kinds of pots which not a little 

 resemble the glazed jars of ancient Egypt. The ukango, 

 which acts as vat in fermenting liquor, is of the greatest 

 dimensions. The mtungi is a large water-vessel with a 

 short and narrow neck, and rounded at the bottom so 

 as to be conveniently carried on the head. The chungu, 

 or cooking-pot, has a wide and open mouth ; it is of 

 several varieties, large and small. The mkungu is a 

 shallow bowl, precisely like those made at the tomb of 

 Moses, and now familiar to Europe. At Ujiji and on 

 the Lake they also manufacture smaller vessels, with 

 and without spouts. 



In a country where pottery is scarce and dear, the 

 buyu or Cucurbita lagenaria supplies every utensil 

 except those used for cooking ; its many and various 

 adaptations render it a valuable production. The 

 people train it to grow in the most fantastic shapes, 

 and ornament it by tatooing with dark paint, and by 

 patterns worked in brass tacks and wires ; where it 

 splits, it is artistically sewn together. The larger kinds 

 serve as well-buckets, water-pots, travelling- canteens, 

 churns, and the sounding-boards of musical instrument : 

 a hookah, or water-pipe, is made by distorting the neck, 

 and the smaller varieties are converted into snuff-boxes, 



