436 
THE KILIMA-NTARO EXPEDITION. 
but offers independent features of its own. So much 
intercourse with traders from the coast seems to have 
slightly robbed them of originality, and in their modes 
of life and forms of belief they somewhat ape the Wa- 
swahili. Many of them are almost Mohammedans. I 
noticed one little detail as regards fire-making which 
is worth recording. To produce fire, which is done in 
the common African way by rapidly drilling a hard 
pointed stick into a small hole in a flat piece of wood, 
is the exclusive privilege of the men, and the secret is 
handed down from father to son, and never, under 
any conditions—so they say—revealed to women. I 
asked one man why that was. cc Oh,” he said, C£ if 
women knew how to make fire they would become our 
masters.” Nevertheless, without this drawback, the 
fair sex in Taveita have pretty much their own way. 
I have known one or two leading matrons who have 
always insisted on having their voice in the delibera¬ 
tions of the Wazee, or elders, who govern Taveita. I 
have referred to their laxity of conduct after marriage, 
but it springs so much from amiability of disposition 
that it can hardly be called vice. In short, a more 
kindly, sensible, considerate set of beings, I have 
never met than the Wa-taveita. 
The Wa-caga of Kilima-njaro do not altogether re¬ 
semble them. They are neither so pleasing in appearance 
nor in disposition. Sometimes they attain a fine stature, 
as in the case of Mandara, the chief of Mosi, but gene¬ 
rally they are short men. The women, however, are at 
times good-looking, and have well-proportioned figures. 
In fact, the ordinary rule amongst Africans is here re¬ 
versed, and the women are handsomer than the men. 
Amongst these people we again meet signs of marriage 
by capture, but in their case it does not seem to be as 
I have described in the Wa-taita, for the bridegroom 
