ROUND LAKE VICTORIA NYANZA. 
199 
Usoga. A good deal of diplomacy was employed 
between the natives and ourselves before a friendly 
intercourse w T as established, but we were finally success- 
ful in inducing the natives to exchange vegetable 
produce and a sheep for some of the blue glass beads 
called Mutunda. Neither men nor women wore any 
covering for their nakedness save a kirtle of green 
banana-leaves, which appeared to me to resemble in 
its exceeding primitiveness the fig-leaf costume of 
Adam and Eve. The men were distinguished, besides, 
by the absence of the upper and lower front teeth, 
and by their shaven heads, on which were left only 
irregular combs or crescents of hair on the top and 
over the forehead. While we were negotiating for food, 
a magnificent canoe, painted a reddish brown, came up 
from the western side of the village, but, despite the 
loud invitations tendered to them, the strangers kept 
on their way, and proceeded up the bay of Manyara. 
On the 25th, refreshed by the meat and vegetables 
we had purchased, we began our voyage along the 
northern coast of Lake Victoria, and, two hours later, 
were in conversation with the natives of Chaga or 
Sliaga, who informed us that Murambo, king of 
Usuguru, was also king of Chaga. I am unable to 
decide whether Chaga is a promontory or an island, 
but I believe that there is a narrow channel navigable 
for canoes (of the same nature as the Rugedzi* Channel) 
separating Chaga from the mainland. Between its 
southern point and Usuguru Island, there is a strait 
about three-quarters of a mile wide, through which we 
passed to Fisherman’s Island, where we rested for our 
noonday meal. At 2 p.m. we arrived, after an hour’s 
rowing, near Ngevi Island, and when close to it, we 
were compelled to take shelter from a furious nor’- 
wester. 
We had been at anchor scarcely ten minutes before 
we saw a small canoe, paddled by two men, boldly 
approach us from the shore of Ugamba, distant about 
* Bugedzi is the name of the narrow channel which separates Ukerewe 
from the mainland. 
