86 
HARVEST AND FOOD. 
for all of them were in the fields before sunrise gather- 
ing the crop, or were doing varied works inside their 
enclosures. The women on the 3d June were clipping 
with a knife the tops of the sorghum, putting them 
into baskets, and carrying the whole on their heads to 
the village, where the grain, after being thoroughly 
sun-dried, was thrashed out by lines of men with long- 
handed rackets, as seen in the illustration, " Unyamuezi 
Harvest," of Speke's Journal. They sang and beat the 
grain to a chorus, winnowed it in the S.E. breeze, 
divided it into shares, and by the 1st of July all was 
housed for the year ; and porters, had they chosen, 
might have gone with us to Karague, but they preferred 
tasting the new year s grain. After the harvest, the 
poorer people were allowed to glean the potato, 
ground-nut, and grain fields, glad to have some refuse, 
as, should the previous season have been a poor one, 
they must have lived upon dried potato, or what wild 
herbs they could pick up. Our Seedees, all of whom 
except ten were away with Speke, could not afford to 
purchase a cow or goat, and they felt the want of meat 
considerably, but not to the extent that a European 
does. My gun almost daily provided a guinea-fowl or 
pigeon, and the Seeclees lived upon stirabout or fish ; 
while, clubbing their daily rations, they could afford to 
purchase a fowl, or by doing some office for the natives, 
such as sewing, &c, they always secured friends. The 
coin we at first used was rose-coloured beads, called 
" goolabee." These were great favourites ; and when 
exhausted, the price of everything rose to double — in 
fact, the new coinage of sea-green beads, or "magee 
bahr," was refused point-blank ; they wouldn't circulate. 
Pure whites, " Kanyera," were tried ; they also failed. 
