THE WAZARAM0. 



117 



name. There must be many hundred Sayyid Saids and 

 Sayyid Majids now in the country ; and as during the 

 eighteen months' peregrination of the East African Expe- 

 dition every child born on and near the great trunk-line 

 was called Muzungu — the "white" — the Englishman 

 has also left his mark in the land. The period of ablacta- 

 tion, as in South Africa, is prolonged to the second or third 

 year : may this account, in part, for the healthiness of the 

 young and the almost total absence of debility and de- 

 formity ? Indeed, the nearest approach to the latter is 

 the unsightly protrusion of the umbilical region, some- 

 times to the extent of several inches, owing to ignorance 

 of proper treatment ; but, though conspicuous in child- 

 hood, it disappears after puberty. Women retain the 

 power of suckling their children to a late age, even when 

 they appear withered grandames. Until the child can 

 walk without danger, it is carried by the mother, not 

 on the hip, as in Asia, but on the bare back for warmth, 

 a sheet or skin being passed over it and fastened at 

 the parent's breast. Even in infancy it clings like a 

 young simiad, and the peculiar formation of the African 

 race renders the position easier by providing a kind of seat 

 upon which it subsides ; the only part of the body exposed 

 to view is the little coco-nut head, with the small, round, 

 beady black eyes in a state of everlasting stare. Finally, 

 the " kigogo," or child who cuts the two upper incisors 

 before the lower, is either put to death, or is given away 

 or sold to the slave-merchant, under the impression that 

 it will bring disease, calamity, and death into the house- 

 hold. The Wasawahili and the Zanzibar Arabs have 

 the same impressions : the former kill the child; the lat- 

 ter, after a Khitmah or perlection of the Koran, make 

 it swear, by nodding its head if unable to articulate, 



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