276 



THE LAKE REGIONS OF CENTRAL AFRICA. 



" cloths with names," eight domestics, eight blue cottons, 

 and thirty strings of coral beads. Not contented with 

 this, he demanded two Arab checks, and these failing, a 

 double quantity of beads, and another domestic. I 

 compromised the affair with six feet of crimson broad- 

 cloth, an article which I had not produced, as the Coast- 

 Arabs, who owned none, declared that such an offering 

 would cause difficulties in their case. But as they 

 charged me double and treble prices for the expensive 

 cloths which the Sultan required, and which, as they * 

 had been omitted in our outfit, it was necessary to pur- 

 chase from them, I at length thought myself justified in 

 economising by the only means in my power. The 

 fiery-tempered Coast-Arabs left K'hok'ho with rage in 

 their hearts and curses under their tongues. These 

 men usually think outside their heads, but they know 

 that in Ugogo the merest pretext — the loosing a hot 

 word, touching a woman, offending a boy, or taking in 

 vain the name of the Sultan — infallibly leads to being 

 mulcted in cloth. 



I was delighted to escape from the foul strip of crowded 

 jungle in which we had halted. A down-caravan of 

 Wanyamwezi had added its quotum of discomfort to 

 the place. Throughout the fiery day we were stung by 

 the Tzetze, and annoyed by swarms of bees and perti- 

 nacious gadflies. On one occasion an army of large 

 poisonous siyafu, or black pismire, drove us out of the 

 tent by the wounds which it inflicted between the 

 fingers and on other tender parts of the body, before a 

 kettle of boiling water persuaded them to abandon us. 

 These ant-fiends made the thin-skinned asses mad with 

 torture. The nights were cold and raw, and when we 

 awoke in the morning we found some valuable article 

 rendered unserviceable by the termites. K'hok'ho was 



