62 
PRICE OF PROVISIONS. 
beds of the soil made, and the suckers or offshoots of 
the sweet potato planted there by bands of twenty 
or thirty villagers, shouting and singing the whole time. 
If our Seedees had to clean rice in the wooden mortar, a 
dozen hands would set about the work of two. It could 
not be done without those who worked beating time 
with the pestle to their song, the lookers-on clapping 
hands and stamping with their feet. The work and 
song never ceased till the rice was pounded almost 
into dust — such joyous, reckless creatures are these 
simple Africans ! Yams are grown upon mounds of 
earth placed all over a field, the branches of the plant 
trained up a stick, or more commonly allowed to crawl 
over the ground. They do not attain a great growth. 
Grain is housed under the eaves of stack-shaped huts, 
or a clustered mass of Indian corn may be seen sus- 
pended from the bough of a tree, as exhibited in the 
illustration of "Unyamuezi harvest," in Captain Speke's 
Journal. 
Provisions were all remarkably cheap upon this 
route. A fat cow was purchased for four fathoms of 
calico; another full-sized cow, and four small goats, 
were got for eight fathoms; a single sheep was dear 
at two fathoms; but three small goats were a bargain 
at the same price; a donkey was offered for fourteen, 
but he would have been dear at half the amount. For 
a fowl, one native demanded a charge of gunpowder, 
and would not sell it for anything else; another native 
led in a goat to camp, saying if we repaired his old 
flint-musket we should have the animal; he refused 
to bargain for anything else. For two quarts of im- 
pure honey, ten strings of common beads and a fathom 
of calico were asked, but not given. Milk was not 
