PEICES AT UNYANYEMBE. 



333 



honey must be used as a succedaneum. Black pepper, 

 universally considered cooling by Orientals, is much 

 eaten with curry- stuffs and other highly-seasoned 

 dishes, whereas the excellent chillies and bird-pepper, 

 which here grow wild, are shunned for their heating 

 properties. Butter and ghee are made by the wealthy ; 

 humbler houses buy the article, which is plentiful and 

 good, from the Wanyamwezi. Water is the usual 

 beverage. Some Arabs drink togwa, a sweet prepara- 

 tion of holcus ; and others, debauchees, indulge in the 

 sour and intoxicating pombe, or small-beer. 



The market at Unyanyembe varies greatly accord- 

 ing to the quantity of the rains. As usual in bar- 

 barous societies, a dry season, or a few unexpected 

 caravans, will raise the prices, even to trebling ; and 

 the difference of value in grain before and after the 

 harvest will be double or half of what it is at par. The 

 price of provisions in Unyamwezi has increased inordi- 

 nately since the Arabs have settled in the land. For- 

 merly a slave-boy could be purchased for five fundo, or 

 fifty strings of beads: the same article would now fetch 

 three hundred. A fundo of cheap white porcelain-beads 

 would procure a milch cow ; and a goat, or ten hens its 

 equivalent, was to be bought for one khete. In plentiful 

 years Unyanyembe is, however, still the cheapest country 

 in East Africa, and, as usual in cheap countries, it 

 induces the merchant to spend more than in the dearest. 

 Paddy of good quality, when not in demand, sells at 

 twenty kayla (1201bs.) for one shukkah of American do- 

 mestics ; maize, at twenty-five ; and sorghum, here the 

 staff of life, when in large stock, at sixty. A fat bullock 

 may be bought for four domestics, a cow costs from 

 six to twelve, a sheep or a goat from one to two. 

 A hen, or its equivalent, four or five eggs, is worth 



