moossah's watusi cowherds. 
51 
Moossah's cowherds were a very interesting set of 
people — so well-featured, tall, and generally superior 
to the Africans, that I took great interest in them. 
They were Watusi from Karague. There were ten 
men and women, all with woolly hair — the men leav- 
ing a crescent of it unshavecl. Their gums were 
blackened with a preparation from the tamarind-seed, 
powdered, roasted, and mixed into a paste with blue 
vitriol, and afterwards heated until fit for use. Their 
ornaments were large solid rings of brass upon the 
wrists, and iron rings, in masses, on their ankles. In 
walking they carried a bow and arrow, a staff, and long- 
stemmed pipe. The women were of a large stamp, 
with fine oval faces and erect figures, clad in well- 
dressed cow-skin from above their waists to their small 
feet. Their huts were quite different from any we 
had seen, being shaped like the half of an orange, and 
only five feet high, made of boughs, and covered with 
grass very neatly. There was but one door ; the hut 
had no chimney, the smoke finding its way through 
the light grass roof. I observed a portable Indian 
" choolah " or fireplace inside the hut, which was kept 
tidily floored with hay. 
These Watusi are a curious and distinct race. Pre- 
vious to milking the cows in the morning, they wash 
themselves, their teeth, and their wooden milk-ves- 
sels or gourds with the urine of the animal, as they 
consider there is some virtue in it, afterwards using 
fresh water for cleansing. They are allowed half the 
milk, and Moossah had his half milked into his own 
clean vessels in the morning at eight o'clock. It took 
the milk of two cows to fill one good-sized tin teapot. 
A cow's value was four or five dollars, though a first 
