XIV 
RETURN TO LAKE RUDOLPH 
329 
The men, including this old gentleman and even Labugo 
himself often, used to go out daily with the cattle to protect 
them from marauders while grazing. They owned a good 
many, thanks partly no doubt to their recent victory over 
their invading neighbours and the consequent raiding of the 
vanquished enemy’s stock. This was indirectly advantageous 
to me, as I was able to buy milk, a rare luxury in Central 
Africa, the only nourishment I could take for about the first 
month of my illness ; indeed, if it had not been for that, I do 
not see how I could possibly have pulled through. 
I found it necessary to procure special calabashes for my 
portion to be milked into, or I could not drink the milk. 
The universal method of cleansing the utensil into which a 
cow is milked, among most Central African tribes, is by 
turning it upside down over a lighted stick of a particular 
kind, 1 thus confining the smoke, which is peculiarly pungent, 
and causing the vessel to absorb it. It then imparts its 
pungent flavour to the milk, which sometimes, after this treat¬ 
ment, fairly burns one’s throat. The owners of the cows 
objected to milking them into any tin or dish of European 
manufacture, declaring that their milk would dry up ; but I 
got over the difficulty by procuring new calabashes, which 
were sent with the payment for the milk always at milking¬ 
time and afterwards washed. Another luxury I was able to 
buy here was coffee ; and very good cofifee, too. It is not 
grown here, but procured from some natives living in the hills 
not far off, with whom those of Kere were on visiting terms. 
It cannot be grown very far away, because it is so cheap ; 
when any was brought for sale a string of beads would buy 
almost as much coffee as millet. It is dried in the cherry, 
but my cook easily cleaned it by pounding in a wooden 
mortar. The natives of all the little tribes around the head 
of the lake are very fond of it, though what pleasure they 
can get out of drinking it in the way they cook it I cannot 
imagine. The coffee, just as it is in the dry cherry, is boiled, 
