8S 
EAST AFRICA AND ITS BIG GAME. 
elapsed before he was able to get about. Hitherto 
we had been particularly lucky in our freedom from 
accidents : Jackson on bis march up was less fortunate, 
one of his men being seized by a lion and having 
his head terribly mauled. 
While arranging our business we went out in turn 
to shoot for the pot, and generally obtained a few 
guinea-fowl, florican (lesser bustard), partridges, and 
yellow-throated spur-fowl. Our men were in high 
spirits at this time, for Taveta to the Swahili is quite 
the gay Babylon of these parts, and numbers were in 
a state of perpetual drunkenness from the effects of 
l^oinbe, a popular native brew. This compound is 
made from bananas and mtavct boiled together and 
left to ferment for some days ; it appeared to me to 
have the double objection of being disagreeable in 
flavour and intoxicating in effect. 
The nights were occasionally enlivened by one of 
the topical dances peculiar to the Zanzibaris. The 
performers move in single file with a step something 
like that of our polka, accompanying the motion with 
an improvised chaunt. They are fantastically arrayed, 
some figuring in a head-dress comprising whole skins 
and feathers of a cock, others wearing startling red 
garments; a great many had attached to their ankles 
curious rattle-boxes made of plaited glass containing 
peas, and by stamping on the ground marked the 
time whenever the tune changed. 
Some years ago the Sultan of Zanzibar tried to 
repress this dance, because during the improvised 
