210 THE LAKE REGIONS OF CENTRAL AFRICA. 



Said bin Salim persuaded the merchants to lend us the 

 services of three Wanyamwezi, who for sums varying from 

 eight Shukkah to two cloths, and a coil large enough 

 to make three wire bracelets, undertook to carry packs 

 as far as Unyanyembe. Our Ras Kafilah had increased 

 in Uzaramo his suite by the addition of " Zawada," — 

 the " nice gift," a parting present of the headman 

 Kizaya. She was a woman about thirty, with a black 

 skin shining like a patent-leather boot, a bulging brow, 

 little red eyes, a wide mouth which displayed a few long, 

 strong, scattered teeth, and a figure considerably too 

 bulky for her thin legs, which were unpleasantly straight, 

 like ninepins. Her morale was superior to her physique; 

 she was a patient and hard-working woman, and respect- 

 able in the African acceptation of the term. She was at 

 once married off to old Musangesi, one of the donkey- 

 men, whose nose and chin made him a caricature of our 

 dear old friend Punch. After detecting her in a lengthy 

 walk, perhaps not solitary, through the jungle, he was 

 palpably guilty of such cruelty that I felt compelled to 

 decree a dissolution of the marriage. After passing 

 through sundry adventures she returned safely to Zan- 

 zibar, where, for aught I know, she may still grace 

 the harem of Said bin Salim. At Inenge another female 

 slave was added to the troop, in the person of the lady 

 Sikujui, " Don't know," a " mulier nigris dignissima 

 barris," whose herculean person and virago manner 

 raised her value to six cloths and a large coil of brass 

 wire. The channel of her upper lip had been pierced to 

 admit a disk of bone ; her Arab master had attempted 

 to correct the disfigurement by scarification and the use 

 of rock-salt, yet the distended muscles insisted upon pro- 

 jecting sharply from her countenance, like a duck's bill, 

 or the beak of an ornithorhyncus. This truly African 



