160 
THE COUNTRY OF UHIA. 
be permitted. When once in the chiefs power, he 
demanded half their ivory as a tax. Provisions were 
very dear; they resisted, they complained, all to no 
purpose ; and they were told to cultivate the soil if they 
chose, but that they would not be allowed to depart 
till the demand was paid. Eumanika interfered and 
got them out of the trouble, otherwise they would 
have been detained there for many months. In Ugogo 
and Unyamuezi the chief claims a tusk of every ele- 
phant found dead or killed ; he gets the tusk from the 
cheek that lies nearest the ground. There is no such 
law in Karague. Amongst the curiosities in tusks, 
we heard of one so large that it could not be carried 
to the coast, and that one elephant had been seen with 
four tusks ! Both stories, like those about fences be- 
ing made of them in some countries, are, of course, 
among the fables of the natives. 
Between Karague and the Victoria Nyanza there is 
a country called Uhia or Mohia, whose people are 
traders to the north. They also bring coffee to Kar- 
ague for sale in bundles covered with plantain-leaf, 
containing two handfuls, which they sell very dearly 
at one necklace of beads. It takes a handful to make 
a pint of very inferior coffee, as the bean, when the 
loose husk is taken off, is not larger than half a grain 
of rice. In this state the natives chew it as a sailor 
does tobacco. It is pleasant, inducing saliva, and 
leaving a comfortable flavour in the mouth. When 
our store of tea and coffee was consumed, we found 
this, when roasted and infused for drinking, a substi- 
tute, but very inferior, because the bean had not been 
allowed to come to perfection when it was pulled. 
The natives do not make use of it as we do, but refresh 
