326 THE LAKE REGIONS OF CENTRAL AFRICA. 



the coast or at the Tanganyika Lake, here disperse, and 

 a fresh gang must be collected — no easy task when the 

 sowing season draws nigh. 



Unyanyembe, which rises about 3480 feet above sea- 

 level, and lies 356 miles in rectilinear distance from the 

 eastern coast of Africa, resembles in its physical features 

 the lands about Tura. The plain or basin of Ihara, or 

 Kwihara, a word synonymous with the " Bondei " or 

 low-land of the coast, is bounded on the north and 

 south by low, rolling hills, which converge towards the 

 west, where, with the characteristically irregular lay of 

 primitive formations, they are "crossed almost at right 

 angles by the Mfuto chain. The position has been im- 

 prudently chosen by the Arabs ; the land suffers from 

 alternate drought and floods, which render the climate 

 markedly malarious. The soil is aluminous in the low 

 levels — a fertile plain of brown earth, with a subsoil of 

 sand and sandstone, from eight to twelve feet below the 

 surface ; the water is often impregnated with iron, and 

 the higher grounds are uninhabited tracts covered with 

 bulky granite-boulders, bushy trees, and thorny shrubs. 



Contrary to what might be expected this " Bandari- 

 district" contains villages and hamlets, but nothing that 

 can properly be termed a town. The Mtemi or Sultan 

 Fundikira, the most powerful of the Wanyamwezi chiefs, 

 inhabits a Tembe, or square settlement, called "Ititenya," 

 on the western slope of the southern hills. A little 

 colony of Arab merchants has four large houses at a 

 neighbouring place, " Mawiti." In the centre of the 

 plain lies " Kazeh," another scattered collection of six 

 large hollow oblongs, with central courts, garden-plots, 

 store-rooms, and outhouses for the slaves. Around these 

 nuclei cluster native villages — masses of Wanyamwezi 

 hovels, which bear the names of their founders. 



