398 THE LAKE KEGIONS OF CENTKAL AFEICA. 



plentiful enough to be exported. Magnificent palmyras, 

 baubinias and sycomores, plantains, and papaws, and a 

 host of wild fruit-trees, especially the tamarind, which 

 is extensively used, adorn the land. The other produc- 

 tions are onions, sweet potatoes, and egg-plants, which 

 are cultivated ; turmeric, brought from the vicinity ; 

 tomatos and bird-pepper, which grow wild ; pulse, 

 beans, pumpkins, water-melons, excellent mushrooms, 

 and edible fungi. Milk, poultry, honey, and tobacco 

 are cheap and plentiful. The currency at Msene in 

 1858 — the date is specified, as the medium is liable to 

 perpetual and sudden change, often causing severe losses 

 to merchants, who, after laying in a large outfit of 

 certain beads, find them suddenly unfashionable, and 

 therefore useless — was the "pipe-stem," white and blue 

 porcelain-beads, called sofi in the string, and indivi- 

 dually msaro. Of these ten were sufficient to purchase 

 a pound of beef. The other beads in demand were the 

 sungomaji, or pigeon-egg, the red-coral, the pink-por- 

 celain, and the shell-decorations called kiwangwa. The 

 cheaper varieties may be exchanged for grain and 

 vegetables, but they will not purchase fowls, milk, and 

 eggs. At this place only, the palmyra is tapped for 

 toddy; in other parts of East Africa the people are un- 

 able to climb it. The market at Msene is usually some- 

 what cheaper than that of Unyanyembe, but at times 

 the prices become very exorbitant. 



The industry of Msene is confined to manufacturing 

 a few cotton cloths, coarse mats, clay pipeheads, and 

 ironmongery. As might be expected from the consti- 

 tution of its society, Msene is a place of gross de* 

 bauchery, most grateful to the African mind. All, from 

 sultan to slave, are intoxicated whenever the material 

 is forthcoming, and the relations between the sexes are 



