LIFE AT UNTANYEMBE. 



331 



is never water-tight, and the walls and rafters harbour 

 hosts of scorpions and spiders, wasps and cockroaches. 

 The Arabs, however, will expend their time and trouble 

 in building rather than trust their goods in African 

 huts, exposed to thieves and to the frequent fires which 

 result from barbarous carelessness : everywhere, when a 

 long halt is in prospect, they send their slaves for wood 

 to the jungle, and superintend the building of a spacious 

 Tembe. They neglect, however, an important precaution^ 

 a sleeping-room raised above the mean level of malaria. 



Another drawback to the Arab's happiness is the 

 failure of his constitution : a man who escapes illness 

 for two successive months boasts of the immunity; and, 

 as in Egypt, no one enjoys robust health. The older 

 residents have learned to moderate their appetites. 

 They eat but twice a-day — after sunrise, and at noon— 

 the midday meal concluded, they confine themselves to 

 chewing tobacco or the dried coffee of Karagwah. They 

 avoid strong meats, especially beef and game, which are 

 considered heating and bilious, remaining satisfied with 

 light dishes, omelets and pillaus, harisah, firni, and 

 curded milk, and the less they eat the more likely they 

 are to escape fever. Harisah, in Kisawahili "boko- 

 boko," is the roast beef — the plat de resistance — of the 

 Eastern and African Arab. It is a kind of pudding 

 made with finely shredded meat, boiled with flour of 

 wheat, rice, or holcus, to the consistence of a thick 

 paste, and eaten with honey or sugar. Firni, an Indian 

 word, is synonymous with the muhallibah of Egypt, a 

 thin jelly of milk-and-water, honey, rice-flour, and spices, 

 which takes the place of our substantial northern rice- 

 pudding. The general health has been improved by the 

 importation from the coast of wheat, and a fine white 

 rice, instead of the red aborigen of the country, of vari- 



