410 CONFLAGRATIONS IN TIIE CAMP . [chap. xv„ 
vakeel to write a letter to Ibrahim, calling liim im¬ 
mediately to Kisoona, informing him that a large 
quantity of ivory was collected, which, should Eddrees 
create a disturbance, would be lost. On the following 
morning, four of my men started for Shooa, accompanied 
by a number of natives. 
Kisoona relapsed into its former monotony—the 
war with Fowooka being over, the natives, free from 
care, passed their time in singing and drinking; it was 
next to impossible to sleep at night, as crowds of 
people all drunk were yelling in chorus, blowing horns 
and beating drums from sunset until morning. The 
women took no part in this amusement, as it was the 
custom in Unyoro for the men to enjoy themselves in 
laziness, while the women performed all the labour 
of the fields. Thus they were fatigued, and glad 
to rest, while the men passed the night in up¬ 
roarious merriment. The usual style of singing was a 
rapid chaunt delivered as a solo, while at intervals the 
crowd burst out in a deafening chorus together with 
the drums and horns; the latter were formed of 
immense gourds which, growing in a peculiar shape, 
with long bottle necks, were easily converted into 
musical (?) instruments. Every now and then a cry 
of fire in the middle of the night enlivened the ennui 
O 
of our existence : the huts were littered deep with 
straw, and the inmates, intoxicated, frequently fell 
asleep with their huge pipes alight, which, falling in 
the dry straw, at once occasioned a conflagration. In 
such cases the flames spread from hut to hut with 
immense rapidity, and frequently four or five hundred 
huts in Kamrasfis large camp were destroyed by fire,, 
and rebuilt in a few days. I was anxious concerning 
my powder, as, in the event of fire, the blaze of the 
straw hut was so instantaneous that nothing could be 
saved : should my powder explode I should be entirely 
defenceless. Accordingly, after a conflagration in my 
neighbourhood, I insisted upon removing all huts within 
a circuit of thirty yards of my dwelling; the natives 
