546 
THE KILIMA NJARO EXPEDITION. 
milk that I was able to make cream, butter, and cheese 
in plenty. The oxen are not, as a rule, so large as the 
Cape breeds, and, indeed, come from quite another 
stock, being descendants of Asiatic humped variety— 
the zebu—introduced into Africa by the ancient 
Egyptians. The hides are held in such little account 
by the natives that they may be purchased for the 
merest trifle. As I have already mentioned, the Masai 
keep large herds of fine strong asses, which they are 
always ready to sell cheaply. 
Goats and sheep are most abundant. The goats are 
small, plump, and great milk-givers. The sheep 
belong to the fat-tailed variety, and offer really ex¬ 
cellent juicy, tender mutton. Those who have visited 
Usambara will agree with me that the mountain mutton 
of East Africa rivals in tenderness and shortness that 
furnished by the Welsh and Highland sheep. Like all 
African sheep, they are hairy and without wool. 
Fowls are not kept by the Masai, but are met with in 
great quantities on Victoria Nyanza, and among .all of 
the agricultural Bantu races. On Kilima-njaro they 
might be purchased at the rate of one ell of cloth each, 
averaging a cost, when the local value of cloth is esti¬ 
mated, of 2 id. each. In two days, at Mandara’s 
capital, I purchased eighty fowls. Some of them are 
a very handsome breed, pure white, with very long tail 
feathers in the male. Another variety is plump and 
dumpy, with exceedingly short legs. The hens are 
very good layers. 
The vegetable productions of the natives’ cultivation 
are the banana, the sweet potato, the edible arum root, 
the sugar-cane, Indian corn, mtama , or red millet, and 
many unnamed varieties of peas and beans. 
A little rice is grown in some districts, namely, at 
