chap, in.] THE SUGAR-CANE INDIGENOUS. 329 
papyrus rushes, that made the march very fatiguing. 
In one of these muddy bottoms one of my riding oxen 
that was ill, stuck fast, and we were obliged to abandon 
it, intending to send a number of natives to drag it 
out with ropes. On arrival at a village, our guide 
started about fifty men for this purpose, while we con¬ 
tinued our journey. 
That evening we reached a village belonging to a 
headman, and very superior to most that we had passed 
on the route from M rooli: large sugar-canes of the 
blue variety were growing in the fields, and I had seen 
coffee growing wild in the forest in the vicinity. I 
was sitting at the door of the hut about two hours after 
sunset, smoking a pipe of excellent tobacco, when I 
suddenly heard a great singing in chorus advancing 
rapidly from a distance towards the entrance of the 
courtyard. At first I imagined that the natives 
intended dancing, which was an infliction that I 
wished to avoid, as I was tired and feverish ; but in a 
few minutes the boy Saat introduced a headman, who 
told me that the riding ox had died in the swamp 
where he had stuck fast in the morning, and that the 
natives had brought his body to me. “ What \” I 
replied, “ brought his body, the entire ox, to me ?” 
“ The entire ox as he died is delivered at your door,” 
answered the headman ; “I could not allow any of 
your property to be lost upon the road. Had the body 
of the ox not been delivered to you, we might have 
been suspected of having stolen it.” I went to the 
entrance of the courtyard, and amidst a crowd of 
natives I found the entire ox exactly as he had died. 
They had carried him about eight miles on a litter, 
which they had constructed of two immensely long 
posts with cross-pieces of bamboo, upon which they 
had laid the body. They would not eat the flesh, and 
seemed quite disgusted at the idea, as they replied that 
“ it had died.” 
It is a curious distinction of the Unyoro people, that 
they are peculiarly clean feeders, and will not touch 
