ATTRACTIONS OF ZUNGOMERO. 



95 



To future travellers I should recommend the "good 

 old plan ; " a bit of phosphorus in a little phial half full 

 of olive oil, which serves for light as well as ignition. 

 When accompanied by matchlock-men, however, there 

 is no difficulty about fire ; their pouches always contain 

 a steel and flint, and a store of cotton, or of the wild 

 Bombex, dipped in saltpetre or gunpowder solution. 



Yet Zungomero is the great Bandari or centre of 

 traffic in the eastern, as are Unyanyembe and Ujiji in 

 the middle and the western regions. Lying upon the 

 main trunk-road, it must be traversed by the up and 

 down-caravans, and, during the travelling season, be- 

 tween June and April, large bodies of some thousand 

 men pass through it every week. Kilwa formerly 

 sent caravans to it, and the Wanyamwezi porters have 

 frequently made that port by the " Mwera road." The 

 Arab merchants usually pitch tents, preferring them 

 to the leaky native huts, full of hens and pigeons, rats 

 and mice, snakes and lizards, crickets and cockroaches, 

 gnats and flies, and spiders of hideous appearance, where 

 the inmates are often routed by swarms of bees, and 

 are ever in imminent danger of fires. The armed slaves 

 accompanying the caravan seize the best huts, which 

 they either monopolise or share with the hapless in- 

 mates, and the porters stow themselves away under 

 the projecting eaves of the habitations. The main 

 attraction of the place is the plenty of provisions. 

 Grain is so abundant that the inhabitants exist almost 

 entirely upon the intoxicating pombe, or holcus-beer, — 

 a practice readily imitated by their visitors. Bhang 

 and the datura plant, growing wild, add to the attrac- 

 tions of the spot. The Bhang is a fine large species of 

 the Cannabis Indica, the bang of Persia, the bhang of 

 India, and the benj of Arabia, the fasukh of northern, 



