UNYAMUEZI WOMEN. 
69 
was invited to dine with us. We sent him a message 
at seven o'clock that the feast was prepared, but a re- 
ply came that he was " full," and could not be tempted 
even with a glass of rum. The following day he came 
to wish us good-bye, and left without any exchange of 
presents, being thus very different from the grasping 
race of Ugogo. 
The arms of the people consisted of spears, bows 
and arrows, and leather shields shaped like the figure 
8. Boys in the villages were fond of practising war, 
by pelting each other with Indian-corn stumps, using 
leather shields of defence. 
We had daily visits from the women of the country, 
who came in parties. They were copper-coloured and 
flat-featured, and wore round their necks a profusion 
of pendent bead necklaces of the colour of the moun- 
tain-ash berry; their ankles were concealed with 
masses of wire rings. For hours they sat silently be- 
fore us, smoking, nursing, and shampooing the limbs 
and necks of their infants ; some wore the heavy cloth 
of the country, others had soiled robes of calico. Young 
girls, many of them with pleasing faces and plump 
round figures, wore merely a diminutive cloth about 
their loins, and infants had a fringe of beads. These 
women were rarely accompanied by men, but on Speke 
having taken a woman's likeness, the husband re- 
quested him to write his (the husband s) name on the 
picture, so that the people of England might know 
whose wife she was ! We saw some decidedly hand- 
some N yambo girls on this route : their men at- 
tend upon cattle exclusively, while they stay at 
home doing household work, cooking, coquetting, and 
showing off their beautiful feet and ankles. Two, in 
