130 
SHOOT THIEVES. 
people cover the body and arms with artificially raised 
solid blisters, in circles, waves, or lines. Their address, 
when it suited them, was that of cringing politeness, 
showing great respect every morning ; but they could 
also be boisterous and insolent. The Wasui race can 
seldom be induced to carry loads ; but amongst them 
numerous Wezees, driven from their homes by the 
Watuta, reside, and the traveller receives aid from 
them. A M sui will carry a load on his head, but not 
upon the shoulder. On coming into camp to see the 
novelties, all the better class had a gourd of pombe in 
one hand, and generally chewed coffee-beans. Eound 
their ankles was a profusion of wires, generally more 
upon one leg than another. One stranger I saw 
wearing round his neck a flat piece of stone, which I 
thought to be malachite. 
In this country we were more troubled by thieves 
than we had been aoy where else. After sunset our 
porters when beyond camp were assaulted, and their 
cloth coverings torn from them. At night they made 
several attempts to get inside our ring-fence of thorns, 
and the thefts became so numerous that we had to shoot 
two or three found plundering. The people rather 
approved of our doing this, and complimented us on 
being so alert and watchful during the night. They 
seemed generally to be an industrious people, with 
comfortable " crofts" round their houses. 
The Walinga are workers in iron, scarcely distin- 
guishable in dress from the Wasui. Their furnaces 
are in the heart of the forest ; charcoal and lumps of 
iron cinder (like a coarse sponge, and of a " blue bottle" 
colour) usually mark the spot ; and four lads, squatting 
under a grass roof with a double-handled bellows each, 
