Our course on the 5th was a steady ascent, E.N.E., to Kibwiga, at the foot of the Denny range, Nsinda Mountain now bearing N.N.W. Opposite to the village was Kinya-magara mountain. In the triangular valley between these mountains the first herds of the Wanyankori were discovered.

EXPEDITION WINDING UP THE GORGE OF KARYA-MUHORO.
EXPEDITION WINDING UP THE GORGE OF KARYA-MUHORO.

We travelled in very close and compact order on the 7th up the pass between the ranges of Kinya-magara and Denny, and having gained the altitude of 6160 feet, the summit of Kinya-magara, and felt uncommonly chilled by the cold winds, we descended 800 feet down the eastern slope of the range to the chief village of Masakuma, the Governor of the Lake Province of Ankori.

We found Masakuma to be a genial old fellow. With all our doings with the Wara-Sura he was well acquainted, and at a great and ceremonious meeting in the afternoon he insisted that we should tell our story, that his sub-chiefs and elders might hear how the Wanyoro were beaten at Mboga, Utuku, Awamba, Ukonju, Usongora, and were clean swept from Toro. “There,” said he, “that is the way the thieves of Unyoro should be driven from all the lands which they have plundered. Ah, if we had only known what brave work was being done we should have gone as far as Mruli with you,” which sentiment was loudly applauded.

The women of the chief then came out dressed with bead-worked caps and bead tassels, and a thick roll of necklaces and broad breast-ornaments of neat bead-work, and paid us the visit of ceremony. We had to undergo many fine compliments for the good work we had accomplished, and they begged us to accept their expressions of gratitude. “Ankori is your own country in future. No subject of Antari will refuse the right hand of fellowship, for you proved yourselves to be true Wanyavingi.”

Then the elders, grey-haired, feeble men, smitten with age, and in their dotage advanced, and said, with the two hands spread out, palm upward, “We greet you gladly. We see to-day, for the first time, what our fathers never saw, the real Wachwezi, and the true Wanyavingi. Look on them, oh people; they are those who made Kabba Rega run. These are they of whom we heard that the Wara-Sura at the sight of them showed their backs, and fled as though they had wings to their feet.”

Little did we anticipate such a reception as this from Ankori when we debated, on the evening of July 3rd, what road we should take. And though the terms Wachwezi and Wanyavingi did not seem to be very euphonious, they were clearly titles of honour, and were accompanied with an admiring regard from the chief Masakuma to the half-nude slave women, who carried water and performed chores all day.

On the following day over 300 bunches of bananas and several pots of banana wine were brought us as our rations during our stay. Deputations from the neighbouring settlements also came, and the story of the chase of the Wara-Sura, and the deliverance of the Salt Lakes were retold them by Masakuma, and we were publicly thanked again for our services. Indeed, considering how many tribes were affected by our interference, we were not surprised at the general joy manifested. The story was the “open sesame” to the riveted attention and affection of the Wanyankori.

Near sunset the runners despatched to the capital reappeared with a message from the king’s mother, which, though diplomatic, was well understood by us. It ran as follows:—

“Masakuma will furnish you with guides to show you the road to Karagwé. Food will be given you at every camp so long as you are in Ankori. Goats and cattle will be freely given to you. Travel in peace. The king’s mother is ill now, but she hopes she will be well enough to receive you when you again revisit the land. For from to-day the land is yours, and all that is in it. Antari, the king, is absent on a war, and as the king’s mother is ill and confined to her bed, there is none worthy to receive you.”

It appeared that at the capital our prowess and numbers had been exaggerated, from the reports of Bevwa and Kakuri; our long column in single file was also imposing. The terrible Maxim machine gun also contributed a moral influence, and the fact that the Wanyoro, or Wara-Sura, had been chased out of so many countries, and that Ruigi, King of Kitagwenda, had also spoken in our favour, coupled with the nature of the service which had caused so many canoe cargoes of salt to be disposed of at small cost; and, therefore, though the royal family were disposed to be cordial and kind, they were not wholly without fear that the party which had marched through southern Unyoro might in some manner be a danger to Ankori.

Poor king’s mother; had she known how secretly glad I was with the best message that I received in all Africa, she need not have entertained any anxiety respecting the manner in which her message would be received. For though we were tolerably well supplied with native cloth and beads, we were poor in gifts worthy of royalty of such pretensions as those of Ankori.

The country is said to be infested with lions and leopards, but we had heard nothing of them during the night. A hyæna, however, broke into our campfold on the first night at Masakuma’s, and dragged away a goat.

Two days’ short marches of four and three-quarters and three hours respectively, enabled us to reach Katara on the 11th of July. Our road had led through a long winding valley, the Denny range on our right and the Ivanda on our left. The streamlets we now crossed were the sources of the Rusango, which, flowing north towards the Edwin Arnold Mt., meet the Mpanga flowing south from the Gordon Bennett and Mackinnon Cones. The Mpanga we crossed as we marched parallel with the eastern shore of the Lake Albert Edward.

Soon after arrival in camp two Waganda Christians named Samuel and Zachariah, with an important following, appeared by the permission of Antari. After greeting us, they said they wished to impart some information if I could grant them a quiet hour. Expectant of the usual praises of their king Mwanga, which every loyal Mganda, as I knew him, was very prone to utter, we deferred the interview until evening. They delivered a packet of gunpowder and percussion caps, the property of a Manyuema, to me, which they had picked up on the road. This act was in their favour, and I laid it down near my chair, but within a few minutes it had been abstracted by a light-fingered Moslem.

When evening came Zachariah took upon himself to relate a narrative of astonishing events which had occurred in Uganda last year. King Mwanga, the son of Mtesa, had proceeded from bad to worse, until the native Mohammedans had united with the Christians, who are called “Amasia,” to depose the cruel tyrant because of his ruthless executions. The Christians were induced to join the Mohammedans—proselytes of the Arab traders—unanimously, not only because of Mwanga’s butcheries of their co-religionists, but because he had recently meditated a wholesale massacre of them. He had ordered a large number of goats to be carried on an island, and he had invited the Christians to embark in his canoes for their capture. Had they accepted his invitation, his intention had been to withdraw the vessels after the disembarkation, and to allow them to subsist on the goats, and afterwards starve. But one of the pages betrayed his purposes, and warned the Christian chiefs of the king’s design. Consequently they declined to be present.

The union of these two parties in the kingdom of Uganda was soon followed by a successful attempt to depose him. Mwanga resisted for a time with such as were faithful to him, but as his capitals, Rubaga and Ulagalla, were taken, he was constrained to leave the country. He departed in canoes to the south of Lake Victoria, and took refuge with Said bin Saif alias Kipanda, a trader, and an old acquaintance of mine in 1871, who was settled in Usukuma. Said, the Arab, however, ill-treated the dethroned king, and he secretly fled again, and sought the protection of the French missionaries at Bukumbi. Previous to this it appears that both English and French missionaries had been expelled from Uganda by Mwanga, and deprived of all their property except their underclothing. The French settled themselves at Bukumbi, and the English at Makolo’s, in Usambiro, at the extreme south end of Lake Victoria.

After Mwanga’s departure from Uganda, the victorious Moslem and Christian proselytes elected Kiwewa for their king. Matters proceeded smoothly for a time, until it was discovered that the Moslem party were endeavouring to excite hostility against the Christians in the mind of the new King. They were heard to insinuate that, as England was ruled by a queen, that the Christians intended to elevate one of Mtesa’s daughters on the throne occupied by Kiwewa. This king then leaned to the Moslems, and abandoned the Christians, but they were pleased to express their doubts of his attachment to them and their faith, and would not be assured of it unless he formally underwent the ceremony of circumcision. The necessity of this Kiwewa affected not to understand, and it was then resolved by the Moslems to operate on him by force, and twelve Watongoli (colonels) were chosen to perform the operation. Among these colonels was my gossip, Sabadu, to whom I was indebted for the traditional history of Uganda. Kiwewa was informed of their purpose, and filled his house with armed men, who, as the colonels entered the house, were seized and speared one by one. The alarm soon spread through the capital, and an assault was instantly made on the palace and its court, and in the strife Kiwewa was taken and slain.

The rebels then elected Karema to be King of Uganda, who was a brother of the slain Kiwewa and the deposed Mwanga, and he was the present occupant of the throne.

The Christians had repeatedly attacked Karema’s forces, and had maintained their cause well, sometimes successfully; but at the fourth battle they were sorely defeated, and the survivors had fled to Ankori to seek refuge with Antari, who, it was thought, would not disdain the assistance of such a force of fighting men in his various troubles with Mpororo and Ruanda. There were now about 2,500 Christians at Ankori’s capital, and about 2,000 scattered in Uddu.

Having heard that Mwanga had become a Christian, and been baptised by the French missionaries during his stay with them in Bukumbi, the Christians tendered their allegiance to him, and he came to Uddu to see them, in company with an English trader named Stokes; but, as the means of retaking the throne were small, Mwanga took possession of an island not far from the Murchison Bay, and there he remains with about 250 guns, while Stokes, it is believed, had returned to the coast with ivory to purchase rifles and ammunition at Zanzibar in the cause of Mwanga. Up to this date the mainland of Uganda was under Karema, while the islands recognised Mwanga, and the entire flotilla of Uganda, mustering several hundred canoes, was at the disposition of the latter.

They then informed me that their appearance in my camp was due to the fact that while at the capital they had heard of the arrival of white men, and they had been sent by their compatriots to solicit our assistance to recover the throne of Uganda for Mwanga.

Now, as this king had won an unenviable reputation for his excesses, debaucheries, his executions of Christians in the most vile and barbarous manner, and as he was guilty of causing Luba, of Usoga, to murder Bishop Hannington and massacre over sixty of his poor Zanzibari followers, though the story of Zachariah and Samuel was clear enough, and no doubt true, there were strong reasons why I could not at once place implicit credence in the conversion and penitence of Mwanga, or even accept with perfect faith the revelations of the converts. I had too intimate a knowledge of the fraudulent duplicity of Waganda, and their remarkable gifts for dissimulation, to rush at this prospective adventure; and even if I were inclined to accept the mission of reinstating Mwanga, the unfulfilled duties of escorting the Pasha, and his friend Casati, and the Egyptians, and their followers to the sea prohibited all thoughts of it. But to African natives it is not so easy to explain why their impulsive wishes cannot be gratified; and if Kiganda nature remained anything similar to what I was acquainted with in 1876, the Waganda were quite capable of intriguing with Antari to interrupt my march. No readers of my chapters on the Waganda in ‘Through the Dark Continent’ will doubt this statement. I therefore informed Zachariah and Samuel that I should think of the matter, and give them my final answer on reaching some place near the Alexandra Nile, where supplies of food could be found sufficient for the party which I should be obliged to leave behind in the event of my conforming to their wish, and that it would be well for them to go back to the Waganda, ascertain where Mwanga was at that time, and whether there was any news of Mr. Stokes.

At Katara, Mohammed Kher, an Egyptian officer, died. Abdul Wahid Effendi had chosen to remain behind at Kitega, and Ibrahim Telbass and his followers had, after starting from Kitega, vanished into the tall grass, and, it may be presumed, had returned to remain with his sick countryman.

Our people were now recovered somewhat from that epidemic of fevers which had prostrated so many of us. But the Pasha, Captain Casati, Lieutenant Stairs, and Mr. Jephson were the principal sufferers during these days. The night before we had slept at an altitude of 5,750 feet above the sea. The long Denny Range was 700 feet higher, and on this morning I observed that there was hoar frost on the ground, and during this day’s march we had discovered blackberries on the road bushes, a fruit I had not seen for two decades.

On a third march up the valley we had followed between Iwanda and Denny Range; we reached its extremity, and, crossing a narrow neck of land, descended into the basin of the Rwizi. By degrees the misty atmosphere of this region was clearing, and we could now see about five miles distance, and the contour of the pastoral plateau of Ankori. It was not by any means at its best. It was well into the droughty season. The dry season had commenced two months previously. Hilly range, steep cone, hummock, and plain were clothed with grass ripe for fire. The herds were numerous, and all as fat as prize cattle. In the valley between the Denny and Iwanda ranges, we had passed over 4,000 cattle of the long-horned species. The basin of the Rwizi, which we were now in, and which was the heart of Ankori, possessed scores of herds.

We camped at Wamaganga on the 11th. Its inhabitants consist of Watusi herdsmen and Wanyankori agriculturists. They represent the two classes into which the people of Ankori are divided, and, indeed, all the tribes of the pastoral regions, from the Ituri grass-land to Unyanyembe, and from the western shores of the Victoria Lake to the Tanganika. The Watusi women wore necklaces of copper bells, and to their ankles were attached circlets of small iron bells. The language was that of Unyoro, but there was a slight dialectic difference, and in their vocabulary they had an expressive word for gratitude. “Kasingi” was frequently used in this sense.

One of our men, whom we greatly regretted, died at this place of illness which ended in paralysis, and another, a Nubian, disappeared into the tall grass and was lost.

On the 12th we marched along the Rwizi, and after an hour and a half crossed the stream, which had now spread into a swamp a mile wide, overgrown with a flourishing jungle of papyrus. Our drove of cattle was lessened by twenty-four head in crossing this swamp. An hour’s distance from the terrible swamp we camped in the settlement of Kasari.

The King’s mother sent us four head, and the King three head of cattle and a splendid tusk of ivory, with a kindly message that he hoped he and I would become allied by blood-brotherhood. Among the messengers employed was a prince of the blood-royal of Usongora, a son of King Nyika, as pure a specimen of Ethiopic descent as could be wished. The messengers were charged to escort us with all honour, and to provide for our hospitable entertainment on the way.

Though it is very economical to be the guest of a powerful African king, it has its disadvantages, for the subjects become sour and discontented at the great tax on their resources. They contrive to vex us with complaints, some of which are fabricated. Our men also, emboldened by their privileges, assume far more than they deserve, or are entitled to in strict justice. They seized the milk of the Wanyankori, and it is considered to be a great offence for a person who is accustomed to eat vegetables to put his lips to a milk vessel, and a person who cooks his food is regarded as unfit to touch one, as it causes the death of cattle and other ill effects. Seven of our men were charged with these awful crimes, and the herdsmen, who are as litigious as the Aden Somalis, came in a white heat to prefer their complaints. It cost me some inconvenience to judge the people and soothe the wounded feelings provoked by such scandalous practices.

On the 14th we arrived at Nyamatoso, a large and prosperous settlement, situated at the northern base of the Ruampara range, when orders were issued to provide seven days’ rations of banana flour, because of the abundance of this fruit in the vicinity.

Mpororo is S.S.W. from this place. A few years ago Antari advanced and invaded it, and after several sanguinary encounters the people and their king became tributary to him. Ruanda begins from a line drawn to the W.S.W., and is ruled over by King Kigeri. Not much information could be gleaned respecting it, excepting that it was a large country, described as equal from Nyamatoso to Kafurro. The people were reported to be numerous and warlike, allowing no strangers to enter, or if they enter are not allowed to depart.

One of our officers, feeble from many fever attacks, animadverted fiercely against the Wanyankori on this day, and I repeat this incident to illustrate the different views men take of things, and how small events prejudice them against a race. He said, “Yesterday you know the sun was scorchingly hot, and the heat, the long march, and a slight fever, made me feel as if I would give anything for a drink of cool water. I came to that little village on the plain, and I asked a man, who was insolently regarding us, and standing before the door of his hut, to give me a little water to drink. Do you think he did so? He pointed to the swamp, and with his spear to the black ooze, as if to say, ‘There you are, help yourself to what you want!’ How can you call these people a fine race? I don’t understand where you get your ideas from. Is that fine, to refuse a man a drink of water? If that man had what he deserved—ah, well, it is no use talking.”

“My dear good fellow,” I answered, “have a little patience, and I will show you another view that might be taken of that man. Have you lost your pocket mirror? If you have, I will lend you mine, and you will see a most ungracious face, garnished with bristles, something like a thin copy of William de la Marck unshaved, half starved, and sick. Your eyes appear smaller than ever, and look lustreless and dead. Your lanky body is clothed in rags. When you were in London I was charmed with your appearance. Adonis was nothing to you, but now, alas! excuse me, we have all a most disgraceful appearance; but you, when you have a fever! Well, look in a glass, and examine yourself! Now this native saw such a man, with such an unlovely aspect, coming to him. How did you ask him? Did you give him one of your charming smiles, that would make a buffalo pause in his charge; I doubt it. You were tired, feverish, thirsty—you said imperiously, ‘Give me a drink of water,'—and your manner added—‘instantly or——.’ Why should he, a freeman, before his own doorway obey such a command? He did not know you from Adam, and probably your appearance suggested it would not be pleasant to cultivate your acquaintance. Are you going to join the clique of travellers who can never recognise the good that is in Africa and the Africans? To your utter confusion, unfortunate man, let me tell you the story of an occurrence that happened yesterday to one of your own personal friends. The man of whom he tells the story was probably a brother or a cousin of this same individual who has incurred your severe displeasure.

“This officer had a bad attack of fever; he was seized with a vertigo, he reeled, and sank in the grass by the wayside. The rear guard commander saw him not, and passed him by, little thinking a sick comrade lay fainting and almost unconscious near him. By-and-by a native warrior came armed with spear, bow, and arrows. He saw there was something in the grass. He went to the spot and saw one of our officers, helplessly lying before him. If he were a brute he might have driven that sharp spear of his into him, and we should have lost one of our number. But this man, listen, did nothing of the kind; and though he had never heard the story of the kindly Samaritan, went away, and in half-an-hour returned with a half-gallon, gourd filled with fresh and cool milk, and gave it to him to drink, and in a short time our friend rose up strengthened, and marched to camp to tell me the kindly story. No Red Cross official he; to the kindly sentiments of charity and mercy dinned into the ears of the English race for sixteen centuries he was an utter stranger. This is not like that English missionary who refused that Dutch captain, of whom we have heard, the drink of water, and therefore the race that can show one instance of such human kindness deserves to be called a fine race. Do you doubt the story? Here is our friend; ask him yourself.

“Besides, think of the hospitality we receive from them. A thousand men subsisting freely and gratuitously on the produce of their plantations, and their fields; plantains, beans, millet, sweet potatoes for food, tobacco to smoke, and a free road, without levy of tax or blackmail! How do you know that that man had not been vexed by many things before you came? Perhaps some of our men had gibed at him in scorn, or looted his house, or threatened his family just before you came. Come, try again. Go into any of these villages about here. Ask kindly and smilingly for anything—milk, butter, or tobacco—and I will guarantee you will not be refused.

“And remember again, this country has only lately been conquered by Antari. I am told that the king took forty women belonging to the chiefs hereabouts, and distributed them as gifts to his bravest warriors, and that all the principal chiefs were afterwards killed, and I do not wonder that they resent the king laying such a tax upon them as the provisioning of this multitude with us, and if you will observe the conduct of the king’s messengers you will find that it is very tyrannical and overbearing, and very little calculated to increase their estimation of us.”

The Expedition proceeded up a pass in the pastoral range of mountains called Ruampara, the western end of which I think abuts the line of hills that bound the Albert Edward basin, and divides the basin of the Rwizi from the Alexandra Nile, and after crossing several airy mountain tops, descended into the bowl-like valley of Rusussu, whence rises the stream Namianja. Here we halted three days to refresh the people.

Under date the 20th of July I find the following note in my diary:—

On the 21st we resumed our march, and proceeded to follow a road that ran down the valley parallel with the Namianja. Thistles of unusual size, some sunflowers, and blackberry bushes lined the path. The stream has three sources, a tiny thread of sweet water rising from a ferny recess, a pool of nitrous and sulphurous water, and a little pond of strong alkaline water. At the end of three hours’ march the stream was 5 feet wide, but its flavour was not much improved. Banana plantations alternated with cattle-folds along the path.

The next day we started at dawn to continue our journey down the Namianja Valley, which is narrow and winding, with spacious plats in the crooked lines of mountains. In an hour we turned sharply from E. by N. to S.E. by S. down another valley. Herd after herd of the finest and fattest cattle met us as they were driven from their zeribas to graze on the rich hay-like grass, which was green in moist places. After a short time the course deflected more eastward, until we gained the entrance of a defile, which we entered, to ascend in half an hour the bare breast of a rocky hill. Surmounting the naked hill, we crossed its narrow summit, and descended at once its southerly side, into a basin prosperous with banana plantations, pasture, and herds, and took refuge from the glaring and scorching sun in Viaruha village.

The rear-guard were disconcerted on leaving Namianja Valley by the hitherto peaceful natives turning out suddenly en masse with war-cries, and with very menacing gestures. They advanced to the attack twice, without, however, doing more than levelling their spears and threatening to launch them. On the third advance, conceiving that the guard must be terribly frightened by their numbers, they shot some eight or ten arrows, at which the Commander ordered a few harmless shots to be fired, and this sufficed to send them scampering with loud cries up the hills.

Close behind the rear-guard, but unknown to them, were advancing Uchunku, the Prince Royal of Ankori, and his escort of musketeers and spearmen, and a second deputation from the Waganda Christians. The Prince, in obedience to his father, was on his way to our camp to exchange blood and form a treaty with me. The Prince, hearing the shots, demanded to know the reason, and some of the Wahuma herdsmen, who had been spectators of the hostile play, explained, upon which the musketeers were sent in chase, killed two of the Wanyankori, and disarmed twenty of them.

At 2 P.M. Prince Uchunku and escort reached Viaruha, and instantly requested an interview. He was a sweet-faced, gentle looking boy of about thirteen or fourteen years old, a true Mhuma with the Abyssinian features. He was accompanied by his governor, or guardian, an officer in command of the spearmen and carbine-armed guards of the Prince. He gave us two large steers; one had such massive and long horns, that made it but a poor traveller, and had to be slaughtered for beef. The usual friendly speeches were exchanged, and after he had fairly satisfied his curiosity with viewing the strange sights in camp, it was arranged that the ceremony should take place on the next day.

On the 23rd the ceremony passed off with considerable éclat. The Zanzibaris, Soudanese, and Manyuemas were all under arms ready to salute the Prince with a few discharges from their rifles, at the face of the hill, about 400 yards away. The Maxim was also in order to assist with its automatic action.

The rite of blood brotherhood began with the laying of a Persian carpet, upon which the Prince and I took our seats cross-legged, with left hands clasped across the knees. The Professors of the Art advanced, and made an incision in each left arm, and then each Professor took a small portion of butter, and two leaflets, which served as platters, mixed it with our blood, and then exchanging the leaves, our foreheads were rubbed with the mixture. The ceremony was thus relieved of the repulsiveness which accompanies it when performed among the Congo tribes. Then the Prince, who was now my young brother, took me by the hand into my hut to smile and to look pleased. His young heart was made glad with some choice Cairene cloths, a necklace contributed by the Egyptian women and the Pasha, of fine large beads, which captured his affection by storm. His governor received a cow, and the guardsmen received an ox to feast themselves with beef, and the Prince had, in his turn, to give a fine goat to our Professor, for these offices, even in Congo land, are in high honour, and must receive handsome fees.

The rifles then fired five rounds each, to the boy’s great admiration, but the showers of the Maxim and the cloud of dust raised by the bullets on the face of the opposite hill simply sent him into ecstasies, and to prevent him crying his soul out in rapture, he laid his hand firmly over his mouth. Opinions differed as to the reason of his covering his mouth, and even in jest it is not good to be untruthful, but some said that he feared his fine teeth would be snapped in pieces by excessive chattering in terror, but I firmly maintain that it was from childlike wonder and pleasure.

At any rate, I was publicly recognised as a son of Ankori, to be hereafter permitted to range at will throughout the dominions of Antari, with right of residence, and free access to every plantation in the kingdom. Furthermore, the Prince swore in his father’s name, for so he was commanded, that all white men entering Ankori must have a recommendation from me, and then such kindness would be shown to them as would be shown to me personally. Only the cattle, goats, and weapons were exempted as private property, over which the king even has no right, except when they belong to criminals.

With the Prince of Ankori was a second deputation from the Waganda Christians. The result of my long cross-examination of them I embodied in the following entry in my journal:—

Zachariah and Samuel were now informed that, owing to the impossibility of leaving my charge, they had better trust to Mr. Stokes and Mr. Mackay, and that if I could explain matters to their English friends I would surely do so. Then, seeing that I was resolved on departure, five of the Christians begged to be permitted to accompany me to the sea, which permission was readily granted.

On the 24th, after winding in and out of several valleys, between various pastoral ranges, which were black from recent fires, as the grass everywhere was white with age and drought, we entered the valley of Mavona, to descend gradually amid a thin forest of acacia sprinkled with euphorbia, milkweed, thistles, and tall aloetic plants. The settlement of Mavona produced abundantly quite a variety of garden produce, such as peas, beans, tomatoes, potatoes, manioc, cucumbers, banigalls, bananas, and plantain.

The next day, continuing down the Mavona valley for four and a half hours, we suddenly came in sight of the Alexandra valley, and found that the long line of hills which winded S.S.E. was on the Karagwé side of the river. At this season the features of the land on both sides are very forbidding, and unrelieved by any patch of cultivation, and rendered more so by the fires, which have transformed every valley and hill into wastes of black ashes and desolateness.

During the 26th and 27th we were ferried across the river in four double sets of most uncouth canoes, and then the Ankori escort, the Waganda converts, were dismissed, having satisfied Antari, and each of our friends with such gifts as won their professions of gratitude.

The Alexandra Nile at this place was about 125 yards wide, and an average depth of nine feet, flowing three knots per hour in the centre.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

THE TRIBES OF THE GRASS-LAND.

The Wahuma are the exact opposite of the dwarfs. The latter are undersized nomads, adapted by their habits to forest life; the former are tall, finely-formed men, with almost European features, adapted from immemorial custom and second nature to life in pastoral lands only. Reverse their localities, and they pine and die. Take the Pigmies out of their arboreal recesses and perpetual twilight, and from their vegetable diet, and plant them on a grass-land open to the winds and the sunshine, feed them on beef and grain, and milk as you may, and they shrink with the cold and exposure, refuse their meat, and droop to death. On the other hand, deport the Wahuma into the woods, and supply them with the finest vegetables, and always with plenty of food, and the result is, that they get depressed, their fine brown-black colour changes into ashen gray, the proud haughty carriage is lost, they contract an aspect of misery, and die in despair and weariness. Yet these two opposites of humanity are called Bantu, or men, a term which is perfectly meaningless, and yet as old as the story of the Creation. In North America we see to-day Esquimaux, English, Irish, German, French and Spanish Americans, and Indians, and, after the scientific manner, we should call them Bantu. Interest in the various human families is not roused by comprehending them under such unphilosophical terms.

The Wahuma are true descendants of the Semitic tribes, or communities, which emigrated from Asia across the Red Sea and settled on the coast, and in the uplands of Abyssinia, once known as Ethiopia. From this great centre more than a third of the inhabitants of Inner Africa have had their origin. As they pressed southward and conquered the negro tribes, miscegenation produced a mixture of races; the Semitic became tainted with negro blood, the half-caste tribes inter-married again with the primitive race, and became still more degraded in feature and form, and in the course of ages lost almost all traces of their extraction from the Asiatic peoples. If a traveller only bears this fact in mind, and commences his researches from the Cape of Good Hope, he will be able easily, as he marches northward, to separate the less adulterated tribes from those who are so nearly allied to the true negro type as to bear classification as negroid. The kinky, woolly hair is common to all; but even in this there are shades of difference from that which is coarse almost as horse-hair, to that which rivals silken floss for fineness. The study of the hair may, however, be left; the great and engrossing study being the Caucasian faces under the negro hair. From among the Kaffirs, Zulus, Matabeles, Basutos, Bechuanas, or any other of the fierce South African tribes, select an ordinary specimen of those splendidly-formed tribes so ruthlessly denominated as negroes, and plant him near a West African, or Congoese, or Gabonese type, and place a Hindu between them, and having been once started on the right trail of discovery, you will at once perceive that the features of the Kaffir are a subtle amalgamation of the Hindu and West African types; but if we take a Mhuma of mature age, the relation to the Hindu will still more readily appear. Advancing across the Zambezi towards the watershed of the Congo and Loangwa, we observe among the tribes a confusion of types, which may be classed indifferently as being an intermediate family between the West African and the Kaffir; an improvement on the former, but not quite up to the standard of the latter. If we extend our travels east or west we will find this to be a far-spreading type. It embraces the Babisa, Barua, Balunda, and the tribes of the entire Congo basin; and to the eastward, Wachunga, Wafipa, Wakawendi, Wakonongo, Wanyamwezi, and Wasukuma. Among them, every now and then, we will be struck with the close resemblance of minor tribal communities to the finest Zulus, and near the eastern littoral we will see negroid West Africans reproduced in the Waiau, Wasagara, Wangindo, and the blacks of Zanzibar. When we return from the East Coast to the uplands bordering the Tanganika, and advance north as far as Ujiji, we will see the stature and facial type much improved. Through Ujiji we enter Urundi, and there is again a visible improvement. If we go east a few days we enter Uhha, and we are in the presence of twin-brothers of Zululand—tall, warlike creatures, with Caucasian heads and faces, but dyed darkly with the sable pigment. If we go east a little further, among those mixtures of pure negroes, with Kaffir type of ancient Ukalaganza, now called Usumbwa, we see a tall, graceful-looking herdsman with European features, but dark in colour. If we ask him what he is, he will tell us his occupation is herding cattle, and that he is a Mtusi, of the Watusi tribe. “Is there any country, then, called Utusi?” and he will answer “No; but he came from the north.” We advance to the north, and we find ourselves travelling along the spine of pastoral upland. We are in the Nilotic basin. Every streamlet trends easterly to a great inland sea called now the Victoria Nyanza, or westerly to the Albert Edward Nyanza. This upland embraces Ruanda, Karagwé, Mpororo, Ankori, Ihangiro, Uhaiya, and Uzongora, and all these tribes inhabiting those countries possess cattle; but the people are not all herdsmen. Many among them are devoted to agriculture. After journeying hither and thither, we are impressed with the fact that all those occupied with tending cattle are similar to that graceful Mtusi whom we met in Usumbwa, and who vaguely pointed to the north as his original home, and that all the agriculturists are as negroid in feature as any thick-lipped West Coast African. By dwelling among them, we also learn that the herdsmen regard those who till the soil with as much contempt as a London banking clerk would view the farm labourer. Still advancing to the north we behold an immense snowy range. It is an impassable barrier; we deflect our march to the west, and find this Mtusi type numerous, and stretching up to the foot of the mountains, and to dense, impenetrable forests unfit for the herding of cattle; and at once the Caucasian type ceases, and the negroid features, either coppery, black, or mixed complexion—the flat nose, the sunken ridge, and the projecting of the lower part of the face—are dumb witnesses that here the wave of superior races was arrested. We retrace our steps, ascend to the upland and skirt the snowy range eastward, and over a splendid grazing country called Toro, Uhaiyana, and Unyoro, we see the fine-featured herdsmen again in numbers attending their vast herds, and the dark flat-nosed negroid tilling the land with hoes, as we saw them further south. After passing the snowy range on its northern extremity, we proceed west across the flat grassy valley of the Semliki to other grassy uplands parallel with Unyoro, but separated from it by the Albert Nyanza; and over this pastoral region are living together, but each strictly adhering to his own pursuit, the herdsmen and the tillers of the soil. During our travels from Usumbwa the herdsmen have changed their names from Watusi to Wanyambu, Wahuma, Waima, Wawitu, and Wachwezi. That is, they have accepted these titles in the main from the agricultural class, but whether in Ankori, or among the Balegga and Bavira, or dwelling with the Waganda or in Unyoro, they call themselves Watusi, Wahuma, or Wachwezi. In Karagwé, Ankori, or Usongora, they are the dominating classes. Their descendants sit in the seat of power in Ihangiro, Uhaiya, Uganda, and Unyoro; but the people of these countries are an admixture of the Zulu and West African tribes, and therefore they are more devoted to agriculture. When, as for instance, tribes such as Waganda, Wasoga, and Wakuri have been left to grow up and increase in power and prosperity, we have but to look at the sea-like expanse of the Victoria Nyanza, and we see the reason of it. No further progress was possible, and the wave of migration passed westward and eastward, and overlapped these tribes, and in their progress southward dropped a few members by the way, to become absorbed by the members of the agricultural class, and to lose their distinctive characteristics.

As the traditions of Unyoro report that the Wachwezi came from the eastern bank of the Victoria Nile, we will cross that river, and we find that between us and Abyssinia there are no grand physical features such as great lakes or continuous ranges to bar the migration to the south of barbarous multitudes; that the soil is poor and the climate dry, and pasture unpromising, and that all the tribes are devoted to the rearing of cattle; that the indigenous races, such as we see in the Congo basin and near the littoral of east Africa, disparted by the waves of migrating peoples on their course south, have been so thoroughly extinguished by the superior Indo-African race that the vast area of the upland from the Victoria Nile to the Gulf of Aden simply repeats its long-established types, which we may call Galla, Abyssinian, Ethiopic, or Indo-African.[34] This too brief outline will serve to prepare the reader for knowing something more of the Wahuma, the true descendants of these Ethiopians, who have for fifty centuries been pouring over the continent of Africa east and west of the Victoria Nyanza in search of pasture, and while doing so have formed superior tribes and nations along their course, from the Gulf of Aden to the Cape of Good Hope—a vast improvement on the old primitive races of Africa.

I propose to illustrate the Wahuma by our experiences with those who recognised Kavalli as chief.

Looking westward from Kavalli’s we had a prospect of over 1,000 square miles. Though fairly populous in parts, the view was so immense that it suggested little of human presence except in the immediate foreground. Compared to the mountainous ridges and great swells of land, what were a few clusters of straw-coloured cotes, with generous spaces between showing the small arable plots of the Bavira soil-tillers? During the earlier days of our residence at Kavalli we enjoyed the free, uninterrupted, limitless view of pasture-land, swelling ridge, bold mountain, isolated hill, subsiding valleys, and extending levels. Undisturbed by anxiety from want of food, and satisfied with our diet of grass-land esculents and nourishing meat, it was exhilarating to the nerves to watch the countless grass blades stoop in broad waves before the gusty winds from the Nyanza, and see them roll and swerve in currents of varying green, after our long forest life.

Kavalli’s zeriba, wherein he herded his cattle and flocks every night, was in the centre of a gentle slope of turfy green. Constant browsing by the swarming herds of himself and Wahuma neighbours kept the grass short, and gave us unobstructed views and walks over delicious pasture. Even the tiny chicklings attendant on the mother hen might be numbered at a bowshot’s distance. Every few yards or so there rose an ant-hill from 3 to 12 feet high. They served happily enough for the herdsmen to keep watch over their herds and flocks of sheep and goats, and those near the kraals were the resort of the elders and gossips to discuss the events of the period. There at such times, in low converse with Kavalli and his aged men, I gained large insight into the local histories of the villages and tribes about him. Indeed, no more suitable spot could be found, for before us were mapped out nearly threescore districts.

Far to the west rose Pisgah, throned high above a hundred leagues of dark forest-land, and every yard of its contour distinct in delineation against the reddening sky. Lifted in lone majesty, a sombre mass, it attracted the attention in every pause of the conversation. From Pisgah, which to Kavalli was the end of the world, all beyond being fable and night, he would direct our gaze to Kimberri’s cones, a day’s march N.N.W. to the lofty peak of Kuka seen just behind, and then to the massy square-browed mount of Duki, and the flats below occupied by the Balungwa, of whose numerous herds he had much to say; and to Kavalli, be it remembered, there was no subject so worthy of talk as cattle. To the south of west a range of grassy mountains rose in Mazamboni’s country, and extending in a seemingly unbroken line to the verge of the gulf occupied by the Albert Lake, and its bordering plains, valleys, and terraces. The westerly portion is governed by Mazamboni, the easterly by Chief Komubi. The plain extending from the mountains as far as Kavalli is called Uzanza, and is occupied by the agricultural Bavira, who came originally from behind Duki, in the neighbourhood of Kuka Peak. Between Kavalli and Kimberri a great cantle of the plain is owned by warlike Musiri and his people.

Having dealt with the main feature of the land, Kavalli proceeds to unbosom himself. He is in danger of his life from Kadongo, who is an ally of Kabba-Rega, and he has an enemy in Katonza. Some years ago Kavalli possessed a village near the Nyanza, where his fishermen lived. Kadongo envied him the fine possession, and with Katonza and some raiders of Unyoro set upon Kavalli, burned his village, slew many of his people, and despoiled him of all his cattle in one night. Kavalli fled to Melindwa, and after awhile he returned to live with the Bavira, and by scraping a bit here and there, and making good bargains, he can show about eighty head of cattle to-day. He has received warning, however, that Kadongo will attack him again.

No sooner has Kavalli ceased his graphic recital wrongs endured, than Katto and Kalengé—Mazamboni’s brother and cousin—begin to detail the wrongs inflicted on them by Musiri. A brother and a sister, several relatives, and many friends have been slaughtered by relentless Musiri. The stories are given circumstantially with expressive action, and heighten the atrocious conduct of Musiri.

Then Gavira begins to relate how the Balegga of Mutundu, and Musiri, have ill-treated him. According to him, what few herds escaped the rapacious Wara-Sura during their periodic raids have been often thinned by the nocturnal cattle-lifters of Mutundu and Musiri, who steal alternately from him. “Ah,” says Gavira, “to-day it is the Wara-Sura, to-morrow it is Musiri, the day after Mutundu; we are continually flying to the hills from somebody.”

Yet, gazing on the wonderfully pleasant scene of green grass-land before us, with not a cloud in the sky, and a drowsy restfulness everywhere, who could have supposed this Arcadia-like land was disturbed by contentions, enmities, and wars?

Most of the Wahuma now west of the Albert came from Unyoro, as they fled from the avaricious tyranny and avarice of its kings.

Old Ruguji, for instance, who is next neighbour to Kavalli, and whose forty head of cattle we rescued for him from Melindwa, was born in Unyoro, and remembers his great-grandfather, who must have been born about 1750 A.D. When he was ten years old (1829) Kuguji remembered Chowambi, father of Kamrasi, the father of Kabba Rega, sending to his great-grandfather for cattle. “At that time the Semliki River flowed into a large lagoon, called Katera, on the south-east side of the Lake. The Waganda were often prevented from crossing over to the Balegga countries because of those lagoons, but since the lagoons have been filled with mud, and the Semliki falls into the Lake, and as Kamrasi wanted cattle continually, and one day he took all, I took my women and children, when I was a young man, and came over here.”

“Have you had peace here, Ruguji?”

“See my scars; I have things to remind me of the Balegga and Melindwa, Musiri and the Wara-Sura. The Bavira also came from Kukaland, and they asked our permission while we were feeding our herds to come and live with us, but they have the big head also, and some day there will be trouble with them.”

The pasture-land lying between Lake Albert and the forest was subjected to much denudation by rain. Though the bosses of hills, ridges, dykes, bear an approximately uniform level, the intermediate ground varies greatly—it is highest of course as it approaches the Albert, and lowest towards the Ituri river, which drains nearly the whole of the area. It would be difficult, however, to find an absolutely level tract of any respectable extent, though a cursory view of it might decide otherwise. It is a complicated system of slope and counter-slope, supplying scores of tributary rivulets, brooks and stream, belonging to some main feeder of the Ituri.

The nature of the soil, being a loose sandy loam—loosened still more by hosts of burrowing beetles, which do the office of moles and earthworms—offers no resistance to the perpetual denuding of the surface by frequent furious and long-lasting rainstorms, despite its rich crops of grass. A visit to one of the streams after a rainstorm reveals how rapid is the process of destruction; and if we follow one of these smaller streams to the confluence with the main tributary, we shall see yet greater proofs of the havoc created in the face of the apparently smooth swells of land than would appear at first possible by a few hours’ heavy rain.

In the district in view from Kavalli I have estimated that the entire number of cattle cannot exceed 4,000 head. They are almost equal in size to English oxen, and are of a humpless breed, very different from the species south and east of Lake Victoria. The horns are of medium length, though there are some few distinguished for unusual length of their horns. The bulls, however, were well developed in the hump. The cattle of Usongora and Unyoro are mostly all of a hornless and humpless breed, and principally of a fawn colour; while those of Ankori have immensely long horns, and their hides are of variegated hue. It is said that the cattle are made hornless by burning them with fire, with a view to enable them to penetrate jungles. The owners mark their cattle on the ears with one or several cuts, by piercing or excision at the ends.

Kavalli informed me that large numbers of cattle are sometimes poisoned by plants, if they happened to be driven somewhere not generally haunted by them. Repeated burnings of the grass, however, render the herbage innocuous. The plains in the neighbourhood of the Lake are very fatal to the herds. In fifteen days a disease develops, with a running at the nostrils; the milk dries up, the coats begin to stare, the animal refuses to eat, and dies.

The old Wahuma have good veterinary knowledge perhaps, but many of their practices would not bear repeating. I wished to have some butter made with my ration of milk, and sent to borrow a churning gourd, and after the operation directed the servants to wash the vessel; but this produced a storm of reproaches. They believed water in the vessel to injure the cattle. Nor will they permit a person who eats cooked food to put his lips to any pot, basin, or gourd that is used in contact with their cows.

The sound of the churning was heard daily in a hut near my tent, and the operation was performed in a somewhat similar style to agitating a punkah, the milk gourd being suspended to the rafter of a house.

The milk yield of the cattle is very small considering the size of the cattle and the abundance of pasturage. The best milker does not furnish more than half a gallon per diem. Kavalli’s boys and young men were employed in milking our cattle. They invariably lashed the hind legs together, and brought the calf to its mother’s head; one hand held the wooden vessel and the other milked, and they appeared to leave but little for the hungry calves. The goats often gave us as much milk as an ordinary cow, but I have never observed that the natives cared for the fair supply they might have obtained from these useful animals.

Though a woman is as much a chattel in these lands as any article their lords may own, and is priced at from one to five head of cattle, she is held in honour and esteem, and she possesses rights which may not be overlooked with impunity. The dower stock may have been surrendered to the father, but if she be ill used she can easily contrive at some time to return to her parents, and before she be restored the husband must repurchase her, and as cattle are valuable, he is likely to bridle his temper. Besides, there is the discomfort of the cold hearth, and the chilly arrangement of the household, which soon serve to subdue the tyrant.

I was requested to adjudicate a case relating to marriage custom, between Kavalli on the one hand, owner of a slave girl, and Katonza, a Mhuma chief. The latter had sought Kavalli’s girl in marriage, and had paid two cows for her out of three that had been fixed as the price. Kavalli therefore detained the bride of Katonza, and this detention was the cause of his grievance. The price was not denied, and Katonza offered a plea that he feared the girl might not be surrendered by Kavalli if he paid the third cow. He was requested to put the cow into court, and in this manner the bride was forthcoming.

Kavalli brought another case to me for consideration. He was already five times married, and he desired a sixth wife. He had purchased her from the tribe of Bugombi, and her parents, having heard something to his prejudice, wished to compel a double payment, and would not deliver her to him. Whereupon I suggested to Kavalli that by giving another cow and a calf the matter might be arranged.

The next case that I had to judge was somewhat difficult. Chief Mpigwa having appeared at the Barza (Durbar), a man stepped up to complain of him, because he withheld two cows that belonged to his tribe. Mpigwa explained that the man had married a girl belonging to his tribe and had paid two cows for her, that she had gone to his house, and in course of time had become a mother, and had borne three children to her husband. The man died, whereupon his tribe accused the woman of having contrived his death by witchcraft, and drove her home to her parents. Mpigwa received her into the tribe with her children, and now the object of complaint was the restoration of the two cows to the husband’s tribe. “Was it fair,” asked Mpigwa, “after a woman had become the mother of three children in the tribe to demand the cattle back again after the husband’s death, when they had sent the woman and her infants away of their own accord?” The decision upheld Mpigwa in his views, as such conduct was not only heartless and mean, but tended to bring the honoured custom of marriage contracts into contempt.

The women have control within the house, and over the products of the dairy and the field. It is the man’s duty to build the house, tend and milk the cattle, repair the fence, and provide the clothing, which is naturally scanty; but it is the woman who cultivates the field, makes the butter, and does the marketing. Butter and milk must be purchased from her, as well as the provisions. It is an universal custom in Africa.

The dress of the men consists generally of a single goat-skin, which depends from the left shoulder. It is varied with antelope-hide with the hair scraped off, excepting a margin of three or four inches wide round the borders. The wives are clothed with cow-hides, which are often beautifully tanned and soft: slave women, in the absence of a goat-skin, wear a strip of leather round the waist, from which a narrow piece of bark cloth depends in front and back, or a very limited apron. Girls up to a marriageable age travel about publicly in complete nudity, while boys over ten years old are rarely seen without a kid-skin, aping the adult: on occasions of rejoicing each woman bears in her girdle at the back a bunch of green leaves, corn or sugar-cane leaves, or a piece of banana frond.

The favourite wives of chiefs, or “medicine women,” “witches,” are also entitled like the great chiefs to wear a leopard-skin, or in lieu of that, cat or monkey-skins. It seems to be a pretty general idea that leopard or lion skins prove rank and dignity. If a stranger expresses a doubt that a chief is only a person of low rank, he points to his leopard-skin and asks, “How can I possess this, then?”

A PAGE FROM MR. STANLEY’S NOTE-BOOK.
A PAGE FROM MR. STANLEY’S NOTE-BOOK.

MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS OF THE BALEGGA.
MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS OF THE BALEGGA.

In looking over Wilkinson’s ‘Ancient Egyptians’ the other day I was much struck with the conservative character of the African, for among the engravings I recognize in plate 459 the form of dress most common among the Wahuma, Watusi, Wanyambu, Wahha, Warundi, and Wanyavingi, and which were in vogue thirty-five centuries ago among the black peoples who paid tribute to the Pharaohs. The musical instruments also, such as are figured in plates 135, 136—a specimen of which is in the British Museum—we discovered among the Balegga and Wahuma, and in 1876 among the Basoga. The hafts of knives, the grooves in the blades and their form, the triangular decorations in plaster in their houses, or on their shields, bark clothes, boxes, cooking utensils, and in their weapons, spears, bows, and clubs; in their mundus, which are similar in form to the old pole-axe of the Egyptians, in the curved head-rests, their ivory and wooden spoons; in their eared sandals, which no Mhuma would travel without; in their partiality to certain colours, such as red, black, and yellow; in their baskets for carrying their infants; in their reed flutes; in the long walking-staffs; in the mode of expressing their grief, by wailing, beating their breasts, and their gestures expressive of being inconsolable; in their sad, melancholy songs; and in a hundred other customs and habits, I see that old Egyptian and Ethiopian characteristics are faithfully preserved among the tribes of the grass-land.

The boys have games similar to those of “marbles” and ball and backgammon with us. As the ancients bore their watering-pots for irrigating their fields, so the Wahuma convey the milk to their chiefs; and the oil of their castor berries, and butter, serve to perpetuate the custom of old antiquity in their ablutions; and in the respect paid to the elders and their chiefs by the modern youth of Inner Africa may be observed that reverence which was so often inculcated in the olden time. These people, having no literature, and undisturbed by advent of superior influences among them, have only learned what has been communicated to them by their parents, who had received from their progenitors such few functions and customs as were necessary for existence and preservation of their particular tribal distinctions. Thus the unlettered tribes of these long unknown regions are discovered to be practising such customs, habits and precepts, as must have distinguished the ancestors of the founders of the Pyramids in the dark prehistoric ages of Egypt.

No traces of any religion can be found among the Wahuma. They believe most thoroughly in the existence of an evil influence in the form of a man, who exists in uninhabited places as a wooded, darksome gorge, or large extent of reedy brake, but that he can be propitiated by gifts; therefore the lucky hunter leaves a portion of the meat, which he tosses, however, as he would to a dog, or he places an egg, or a small banana, or a kid-skin, at the door of the miniature dwelling which is always found at the entrance to the zeriba.

Every person wears a charm around the neck, or arm, or waist. They believe in “evil eyes” and omens, but are not so superstitious as the Waganda, probably because they are so scattered. Witchcraft is dreaded, and the punishment of a suspected person follows swiftly.

WEAPONS OF THE BALEGGA AND WAHUMA TRIBES.
WEAPONS OF THE BALEGGA AND WAHUMA TRIBES.

Poor Gaddo, a good-looking, faithful young fellow who accompanied Mr. Jephson as lake pilot to Mswa Station soon after his return to Kavalli’s village, was suspected of conspiring against his chief. Gaddo came to me and reported that he was in danger, and he was advised to remain in my camp until we should leave. The elders proceeded with a fowl to a distance of about a hundred yards beyond the camp, and opened the breast. They were seen whispering together over what they had discovered, and it was presently known that the jury had found Gaddo guilty of evil practices against Kavalli, and this was doom. As Gaddo was as guiltless as the babe unborn, a messenger was sent to the chief to say that if he were injured Kavalli would be held responsible. Yet Gaddo felt so uncomfortable in the vicinity of the village, as public opinion had already condemned him, that he sought to escape to Katonza’s by the lake, but on the brow of the plateau fate found him. It was reported circumstantially that while standing on a rock he had fallen over and broken his neck. It was very sad to hear the young wife and children and sisters wailing for the dead, and Kavalli was markedly good and amiable in those days.

The diet of the Wahuma is principally milk. The sale of their butter and hides now and then enables them to purchase sweet potatoes, millet, and bananas, but it is with a peculiar pride they say they are not “hoemen.” The sorghum of the tribes around them is of the red variety. The Indian corn, or maize, is of an inferior quality. It is planted in the latter part of February at the same period as the beans. In two months the latter are fit to be eaten. A month later the corn comes into ear, and in the fourth month it is mature. In September the millet is sown and is ripe for cutting in February. Every village owns extensive tracts planted with sweet potatoes, and along the edges of their plantain groves they grow colocassia, or helmia; but the latter are not favourites with strangers, as ignorance in the art of cooking them leaves them nauseous.