238 
THE CATTLE OF THE COUNTRY. 
mitted to be taken by M'tessa. The dwellings were 
not different from those already described, but each 
had over its doorway a diamond-shaped charm of rush, 
hung horizontally, and generally stuck with feathers. 
The cattle seen in the low grazing country were 
almost "prize" animals. They were made hornless 
when young — not by sawing off the horns of grown- 
up animals, as still barbarously practised in Scotland, 
but by searing with a hot iron. They were most 
docile, handsome creatures. The general colour was 
grey, their faces and inside the ears black ; they had 
little or no hump, and were larger in bulk than an 
Ayrshire cow. The cowherds were the lanky Wa- 
huma, called here Waheema, who might be seen 
tending herds of several hundreds at a time. These 
people were never afraid to come out and look at 
our caravan, even when it passed their ring fences 
in a secluded tract of country several miles away 
from any cultivation. The Waganda, on the con- 
trary, on meeting us, would fly off the road, leaving 
whatever they might be carrying to be plundered by 
our followers. This difference in the two races is ac- 
counted for by the Wahuma never being made slaves, 
although their women are very much prized for their 
beauty as wives. M'tessa had given orders that we 
and our escort were to receive sixty cattle and ten 
loads of butter. Half-a-dozen cattle were first brought 
as an offering. Those made over to our Waganda dis- 
appeared the first night, and as ours, having been tied 
up, were all safe, we were called magicians. When 
the number was completed, our share was marked by 
squaring their tails, so as to distinguish them from 
those taken by the Waganda. During the night they 
