226 
In the Heart of Africa 
around an open space. In some of the villages I counted forty 
huts, in front of which the men and women were idly squatting. 
Their clothing is of a most primitive description, the men wear¬ 
ing an almost invisible loin cloth, whilst the women have only 
a narrow string of beads round their hips for adornment. Large, 
flat wooden discs pierce their upper lips, and give the women a 
most peculiar appearance. This extremely strange custom is said 
to date back to slave-driving times, when women who were thus 
disfigured were spared by the cruel Arabs as worthless for 
slaves. Plausible as this supposition may appear, it requires 
proof. For the present it can only be regarded as a mere asser¬ 
tion. The cultivation of bananas and bataten (sweet potatoes) 
was prodigous, and rich harvests lay in the villages. We received 
a whole armful of potatoes for an old bottle. 
At Bunya, a small military station, which, like all such 
places, consisted of a few huts and a store-house for Europeans, 
Lieutenant Boy ton reported himself. Boy ton, who was a 
Swedish officer, and afterwards in the Congolese service for some 
years, had been ordered to accompany us in place of Lieutenant 
Veriter, who had been recalled. 
We now wended our steps towards the heights through the 
Bawisha and Bakumu country, past the stations of Quadingo 
and Kitambala. Just before reaching the latter place the narrow 
path widened out into a small, well-kept barrabarra^ which owes 
its existence to the skill of a Belgian engineer and had only been 
completed a few months. This road led from Kilo to Mahagi, 
the sole Belgian outpost on Lake Albert, and had been con¬ 
structed with a view to subsequent automobile traffic. It, how¬ 
ever, proved itself unserviceable, on account of sinking subsoil, 
and had to be abandoned. In its place the Congo Government 
has decided to construct a great automobile route from Kilo to 
Nsabe, on the western shores of Lake Albert. This road is to 
be made from a point lying opposite to Nsabe, on the eastern 
bank of the lake in British territory, on to Entebbe. As a matter 
of fact, the first 130 miles were finished in the spring of 1909. 
The Mombasa-Entebbe-Kilo stretch of road will be made negoti- 
