Few people, I fancy, will know where Masasi is, yet those interested in the Colonies might well be acquainted with its situation, for in its own small way it is quite a civilizing centre. The English Mission^[6] has been at work here for nearly the third of a century, and, since the suppression of the rebellion, a native corporal with a dozen black German soldiers has been gallantly maintaining his ground, in a boma specially built for the purpose, in case of any renewed warlike impulses on the part of the interior tribes.

I preferred to take up my quarters with the soldiers, not from any hostility to religion, but because the two clergymen at the mission station, about an hour’s walk from us, are both advanced in years, and it would be unfair to trouble them with visitors. Besides their station was burnt down during the rebellion, so that they are leading for the moment a more idyllic than agreeable life in their former cattle-shed. In spite of this, the two old gentlemen, as I had every opportunity of convincing myself in the course of two long visits, enjoy extraordinarily good health. Archdeacon Carnon, the younger of the two, in particular, took as lively an interest in the German Emperor and his family as if he lived in a London suburb, instead of in a negro village at the ends of the earth. Canon Porter seems to be failing a little, but this is only to be expected as he is getting on for eighty and has been in the country nearly thirty years.^[7] In former days I understand that he studied the ethnology of his district (inhabited by Wanyasa, Wayao, and Wamakonde) very thoroughly, so that up to yesterday I had great hopes of profitable results from my intercourse with him and his more active colleague. But in this I was disappointed. At the ceremonious, and, I must say, sumptuous breakfast which the two clerical gentlemen set before us two worldlings, Ewerbeck and me, whenever I began to speak about the inhabitants of the neighbourhood and their tribal affinities, the conversation was invariably diverted towards the Emperor and his family! He must have made a truly extraordinary impression on other nations.

However, our business is with the native African, not with the white intruder, even though he should come in the peaceful guise of the missionary.

My landing at Lindi of itself implied the main course of my journey. A glance at the map of East Africa shows that the extreme south-eastern corner of our colony, considered with regard to population, stands out like an island from the almost uninhabited country surrounding it. The region north of the Middle, and partly also of the Upper Rovuma is (as Lieder, the geologist, whose early death is such a loss to science, described it) a silent pori for hundreds of miles, extending far beyond the Umbekuru and into the hinterland of Kilwa—an uninhabited wilderness, where not a single native village speaks of the large and peaceable population found here by Roscher, Livingstone and Von Der Decken nearly half-a-century ago. Only a narrow strip running parallel to the coast some distance inland connects this island of population with the north, while another, much more scantily peopled, runs up the Rovuma to the Nyasa country.

Being thus cut off from surrounding tribes, the south-east—i.e., the Makonde Plateau, the Lukuledi Valley north of it, and the wide plain to the west of these highlands—forms a compact, well-defined whole, an ideal sphere of work for one who, like myself, has only a limited time at his disposal, but wishes the work done in this time to be as far as possible complete. The Wamwera, whom I had in view in the first instance, have had, to my great regret, to be postponed for the present. I left Lindi on July 11th, with the Imperial District Commissioner, Mr. Ewerbeck. Ngurumahamba, the first noticeable place on the Lukuledi road, still bears the impress of the Coast—there is even a stone house among the huts of the Waswahili; but on the second day we reach the Yao tribe at Mtua. Here we first come in touch with the far interior, for these are the advance guard of the great migration which brought this vigorous and energetic race about the middle of the last century from its old home south-east of Lake Nyasa towards the shores of the Indian Ocean, and which is still going on. As to the way in which these migrations are accomplished, we are apt to be misled by the picture—no doubt a very incorrect one—which has remained in our minds from our school-days, in connection with the migration par excellence—the great westward movement of our own forefathers. We think of men, horses, and waggons, a dense, compact wave of people, rolling on slowly but irresistibly across the countries lying in its track. Here we find nothing of the sort. It is true that these Mtua Yaos are not typical of their tribe in this respect, as they were rescued from the Wangoni, further north, on the eastern shore of Nyasa, about ten years ago by Captain Engelhardt, and transferred to this settlement. But otherwise the immigration of foreign (though still African) elements takes place, here in the south, quietly and almost imperceptibly—a band, a horde, a group of families, sometimes, but not always, under the command of a chief, appears one fine day, hoes a piece of land at a suitable place in the pori, builds a few airy huts, and the immigration is complete. Conflicts, more or less sanguinary, between the aborigines and the intruders may have occurred—may even have been the rule—in former times; nothing of the kind seems to happen to-day. Whether the native has become more tolerant, or the firm hand of the German Government, to whom every accession of population must be welcome, has produced a change in his views, I am compelled to leave undecided.

In outward appearance these Yaos can scarcely be distinguished from the Swahilis of the coast. The women are dressed in precisely the same kind of kanga (calico printed in brightly-coloured patterns, and manufactured in Holland), as the Coast women, though not so neatly and fashionably as the girls at Dar es Salam, where the patterns in vogue change faster than even at Paris. They also wear the same coquettish little pin in the left nostril as the Coast ladies. Of Indian origin, this kipini, called chipini in Yao, has conquered the whole east coast of Africa, and is spreading, as a symbol of higher culture and refinement, among the more progressive tribes of the interior. In its simplest form a mere cylinder of pith, the better specimens are made—according to the means of the wearer—of ebony, tin, or silver. The ebony pins are almost always very tastefully inlaid with tin. To our notions, the chipini hardly beautifies the human countenance; but once the beholder is accustomed to its effect, it becomes quite pretty and attractive, lending a coquettish touch to the brown face it adorns.

The more distant hinterland inhabited by the Wamwera contrasts very unfavourably with the well-cultivated zone near the coast. The condition of Nyangao, the Benedictine Mission station, is a symptom of all the misery which the rebellion so short-sightedly conjured up by the natives has brought on this part of Africa. Up to the summer of 1905, the Fathers and Sisters here were peacefully engaged in their work of evangelizing and teaching, when the poison of the majimaji (magic water) idea spread to the Rondo Plateau and the central Lukuledi Valley. Before the unsuspicious missionaries had even any thought of coming disaster, it was already upon them. After fighting desperately for their lives, and losing one of the Sisters, the whole staff had to fly, and all the extensive buildings were destroyed by the rebels. The present state of Nyangao is shown in the accompanying photograph. Three of the Fathers (whose acquaintance I had the pleasure of making on board the Prinzregent), have ventured back to their old station, and, living in the house formerly occupied by the Sisters, surrounded by heaps of ruins, have courageously and indefatigably taken up their work once more.

The Majimaji rebellion still forms the principal topic of conversation at native camp-fires, though the Lindi District has long been at peace again. Its origin belongs to the most interesting phenomena in military history, showing, as it does, the general and almost instantaneous amalgamation of the severed fragments of a race under the influence of a superstitious notion, once it has gained a hold and welded them into a unit animated by a common and fervid enthusiasm. So far as one can gather at present, the idea underlying the rising was that of shaking off the white man’s yoke by means of a concerted effort on the part of the whole native population. Without dawa, i.e., charms of some sort, such a rising would have been difficult, if not impossible to bring about, and thus the instigators of this disastrous war had recourse to the dawa of the “magic water.” As to this, several versions are current. According to one, the real ringleader was a man living near the Pangani Rapids on the Rufiji, who taught that he was commissioned by the Almighty, and communicated with Him by means of a serpent which had its abode in the river. This serpent had told him to make all the men drink the water of the hot springs at Kimambare, which would give them strength and courage to drive the Germans into the sea, and at the same time render them invulnerable to European bullets.

The other version current in Usagara, in the north of the Colony, says nothing of the serpent or the hot water, but states that the sorcerers began by ordering large beer-drinkings in every village. When the pombe had produced its effect, the villagers were initiated into the conspiracy, and received their dawa, of whose composition no details are given, but which, in this case also, was supposed to possess the power of making them invulnerable, so that the bullets of the Germans would simply be changed into water as soon as they left the rifle-barrel. The Majimaji soon discovered, in the course of numerous battles that this was not the case, but nevertheless, the fanaticism of these natives, who, under a murderous fire, charged up to within a spear’s length of the machine-guns—the bumbum, as they call them—is truly astonishing.

From the coast to a little beyond Nyangao the character of the vegetation is essentially different from that which we find farther west. The greater part of the road (the barabara, in the carriers’ jargon, that is to say, the path cut to the regulation width on which all the long-distance traffic takes place) runs as far as Nyangao through thick scrub from 10 to 15 feet high, from which rise here and there single trees of twice or three times that height. Several times in the course of the day’s march the traveller comes across large open spaces in the bush on either side of the path. It is clear from the absence of underwood and the presence of charred stumps that this is old cultivated ground—no doubt the sites of former villages. But where are the huts and where the people who once hoed their gardens here? Here we find a typical touch of African history, more especially in recent times, when its primitive conditions have been modified by the modern plantation system with its demand for labour and the necessity for a native military force. Originally and in himself the African is by no means shy, on the contrary, he is inquisitive and fully alive to the attractions of town life and social intercourse. But he cannot stand having his private affairs interfered with. Every caravan of inland natives on their way to the coast, whether to sell their supplies of wax, tobacco or what not, or to engage themselves as labourers to some European, considered that they had a natural right to expect food and drink from the villagers along their route. Even the caravan of a white man is apt to make the same sort of demands on the villagers. How often have I seen my men scatter at every halt, to ask for some service or other—perhaps merely the loan of a gourd dipper—at one or other of the straggling huts, which may be half-a-mile apart. However good-natured and obliging the native may be, he cannot put up with an indefinite continuance of such disturbances to the quiet of his home life, and therefore prefers to pull down his huts and build new ones in the bush at a distance from the main road, where they can only be reached by narrow side paths.

Anthropologically speaking, one might take the Wamwera for Indians, such is the lustrous copper tone of their skins. At first I thought that this marked redness of tint was a peculiarity of the tribe, but have since met with many individuals of exactly the same shade among the Makua of Hatia’s, Nangoo and Chikugwe, and a few among the Yaos at this place and those at Mtua, and Mtama. In fact, it seems to me very difficult to do any really satisfactory anthropological work here—the types are too much mixed, and it is impossible to tell from any man’s features the tribe to which he belongs. Probably, indeed, there is no distinction of race at all, for Wamwera, Wangindo, Wayao, Makonde, Matambwe and Makua alike belong to the great sub-group of the East African Bantu. This is one additional reason, when time is so precious, for giving to anthropology even less attention than I had originally planned. Let the gentlemen come out here themselves with their measuring instruments, compasses and poles—we ethnographers have more urgent work to attend to.

The Wamwera are just now in a deplorable condition. The whole of this tribe was concerned in the rising, and though refusing to acknowledge defeat in battle after battle, were ultimately forced to take refuge in the bush. The mere fact of living for months without shelter in the rainy season would of itself cause suffering enough; and when we add that they have had no harvest, being unable to sow their crops at the beginning of the rains, it can readily be understood that numbers must have perished. Now that most of the ringleaders have been secured and sent down to the coast, the survivors are gradually coming forth from their hiding-places. But what a spectacle do the poor creatures present! encrusted more thickly than usual with dirt, emaciated to skeletons, suffering from skin-diseases of various kinds, with inflamed eyes—and exhaling a nauseous effluvium. But at least they are willing to face the white man—a sign of newly-established confidence in our rule which must not be undervalued.

Several hours’ hard marching from Nyangao bring us to the residence of “Sultan” Hatia. He is the fourth of his name on this tiny throne of the Makua. The grave of his predecessor, Hatia III, lies in a deep cave on the Unguruwe mountain. This mountain is really a promontory of the Makonde plateau projecting far into the Lukuledi plain. It is visible from the road for several days before we reach it, with its gleaming red cliff-face, which might fitly be described as the emblem of the whole Central Lukuledi region. It also plays a great part in the myths and legends of the local tribes. The traditions of the past had already gathered round it before the burial of Hatia III; but now that the dead chief rests in a dark ravine forbidden to every profane footstep, from the toil and turmoil of his life, the Unguruwe has become in popular belief a sanctuary where, on moonlight nights, Hatia rises from his grave, and assembles the ghosts of his subjects round him for the dance.

Hatia IV had returned to his capital just before our arrival, having had some months’ leisure on the coast, in which to think over the consequences of the rising. He impressed me as a broken man, physically in no better case than his subjects; moreover he was no better lodged, and certainly no better provided with food than they. On the day of our halt at his village, he was more than ordinarily depressed. A few hours previously a lion, whose impudence has made him famous throughout the country, had in broad daylight dragged a woman out of a hut, not far from the chief’s dwelling. The prints of the enormous paws were still quite clear in the sand, so that we could track the robber right round the hut in which a man with his wife and child had been sitting at their ease. The great brute had suddenly sprung on the woman who was sitting next the door. Her husband tried to hold her, but was weak from illness, and could offer no effectual resistance. Though for some time the poor creature’s shrieks, “Nna kufa! Nna kufa!”—“I die! I die!”—could be heard in the bush, growing fainter and fainter, no one could come to her help, for the people have been deprived of their guns since the rising, and even if they had had them, there was no ammunition, the importation of this having been stopped some time ago.

The nephew and heir of Hatia IV is to take the part of avenger. He is a handsome, jet-black youth with a small frizzled moustache on his upper lip, and an enviably thick growth of woolly hair on his scalp. Armed with a rifle, of which he is unconscionably proud, he has come with us from Lindi in order to deliver his people from the plague of lions. Such an expression is, in truth, no exaggeration as far as this place is concerned. It is said that the whole length of the road from Nyangao to Masasi has been divided between four pairs of lions, each of which patrols its own section, on the look-out for human victims. Even the three missionaries at Nyangao are not safe; Father Clement, when out for a walk, not long ago, suddenly found himself face to face with a huge lion, who, however, seemed quite as much startled by the incident as the good Father himself.

After examining the architecture of the present Wamwera huts, I can easily understand how the lion at Hatia’s could drag the woman out from the interior. Anyone desirous of studying the evolution of the human dwelling-house could very well see its beginnings here. Most of these dwellings are nothing more or less than two walls, consisting of bundles of grass roughly tied together, and leaning against each other in a slanting position. The addition of gable-ends marks quite a superior class of house. Besides this, the Wamwera have been compelled to build their huts, such as they are, in the untouched jungle, since they have lost all they had, even the necessary implements for tillage and for clearing the bush. Their villages, containing their only possessions of any value, were of course levelled with the ground by our troops. The lion is shy of open spaces, but feels at home in the pori, which he looks upon as his natural hunting-ground, and where he can creep unseen close up to a hut before making his deadly spring.

One point I must not forget. Even before leaving Lindi, my mouth had watered at the descriptions I heard of the extraordinary appearance presented by the Wamwera women. But I find that these descriptions come far short of the reality. The famous Botocudos of Brazil with their labrets are nothing to the southern tribes of German East Africa. I had long known that the Makonde plateau and the whole surrounding country belong to the region of the pelele, or lip ring, but I have never come across a good illustration of earlier date than my own. The accompanying reproductions of photographs will show the nature of this extraordinary decoration more clearly than any description.

The pelele, or, as it is called in Kimwera, itona, is only worn by the women, but among them it is universal. It is a peg, in older persons even an actual disc, of ebony, or else of some light-coloured wood bleached snow-white with argillaceous earth, inserted in the upper lip, which is perforated and stretched to receive it. Of course, a disc the size of a two-shilling piece is not inserted all at once: the operation is very gradual and begins by piercing the lip, between a girl’s seventh and ninth year, with the end of a razor which is ground into the shape of an awl.^[8] The hole is kept open by inserting a foreign body of small size, such as a thin stalk of grass, or the like. It is then enlarged by adding another stalk at regular intervals; and after a time, a strip of palm-leaf rolled up into a spiral is substituted. This, being elastic, presses against the sides of the opening, and so, in due course renders it large enough to receive the first solid plug. Among the Wamwera the diameter of this varies from the thickness of a finger to the size of a florin; the older Makonde women, however, are said to have them twice as large. Naturally I am all impatience to see these people, whose country, moreover, is as yet a complete terra incognita, as far as science is concerned.

Not content with the itona, the old women sometimes wear a pin or peg in the lower lip, called nigulila. It is long and slender, ending in a round knob, and is intended to divert the eye from the withered skin and faded charms of the wearer.^[9] Discs or plugs inserted in the lobe of the ear are also very general. Furthermore, the countenance of these fair ones are covered with extraordinary scars which, at a distance, suggest that they must have passed their youth at a German university. On a close inspection it will be found that these are not scars, left by straight cuts, but consist of a multitude of small keloids arranged in various patterns. The patterns are made by parallel rows of small cuts (usually vertical), which have been prevented from healing by repeatedly opening them during the process of cicatrization. Thus in the course of weeks and months they take the form of conspicuous swellings which, in their totality, give a distinctive character to the whole physiognomy.

Even this is not enough to satisfy the craving of the Wamwera women for adornment. If the cloth draping chest and back slips aside for a moment, either through an incautious movement on the part of the wearer or through the inseparable baby being shifted from its usual place on its mother’s back to her hip—the astonished eye discovers that the surfaces thus revealed are adorned with markings similar to those on the face. Even the hips and upper part of the thighs are said to be covered with them. The ethnographer, reflecting on these and other queer manifestations of human vanity, may be tempted, perhaps, to indulge in a comfortable sense of superiority. But, after all, the fashion of wearing earrings is not quite extinct in Europe; and the advantages of the corset, considered as an aid to beauty, might be quite as much open to discussion as the African ornaments we have just been describing. I am alluding, of course, to those women who think that tight lacing improves the figure. Otherwise I am inclined to agree with Max Buchner of Munich, who thinks that some form of this article would be of great service to the women of all the less-clothed races among whom appliances for supporting the bust are unknown.

Up to the present, I have been able to see but little of the real life of the inland tribes, yet that little has been very interesting. On the march to Masasi I noticed that wherever the natives had taken an active part in the rebellion, the roads were in perfect order, while in the territory of the friendly tribes they were nearly impassable with high grass, and sometimes bushes. These allies of ours are now, secure in the consciousness of their past services, saying to themselves that they may take things easy for a time, as the “Mdachi” will surely consider their loyalty and make no very severe demands on them. Captain Ewerbeck, however, has been laying down the law with great precision and energy to the Akidas and Jumbes, the district chiefs and village headmen, who are responsible for order within their own districts.

One can enjoy magnificent spectacles by night in Africa. Sitting in front of my tent on the way here, or now, when I step out in front of the Baraza—the rest-house in which I have taken up my abode—I see, wherever I turn my eyes, the red glow of flames on the horizon. This is the burning of the grass—a custom practised by the Africans for thousands of years. It may be remembered that when Hanno, on his voyage from Carthage, sailed down the West coast of Africa, nothing produced such a deep and lasting impression of terror on himself and his crew as the streams of fire seen to flow down from the coast-ranges at night. In my opinion, which, of course, I do not consider decisive, these streams of fire were certainly not, as has so often been maintained, connected with any volcanic phenomena, but resulted from the processes still put into operation by the inhabitants of the Dark Continent every night during the dry season.

Much has been written in our Colonial publications with regard to the benefit or injury to be derived from this grass-burning. Some condemn it as deleterious to the growth of trees, while others take the part of the natives and say that only by burning off the high grass and brushwood of the African forest at regular intervals can they possibly get the upper hand of the vermin, which would otherwise increase by myriads. Besides, it is said, the ashes are for the present the only manure that can be applied on a large scale. I do not feel justified in attempting a decision, but confine myself to admiring the magnificent effect of the near and distant fires, reflected in the most varied gradations of light and colour in the misty atmosphere. None of these fires, moreover, is dangerous to the traveller; where the flames seize a patch of completely dry grass, they rush along, it is true, with a noise like the crackling of musketry-fire; but otherwise, and indeed in general, the people have to keep up the conflagration by systematic kindling of the grass in fresh places. In any case they have the direction and extent of the fire fully under control.

This burning is, so far as I am enabled to judge, only possible where the remarkable form of vegetation prevails which characterizes the greater part of Africa, and covers the whole extent of the great plain on the west and north-west of the Makonde plateau. This is the “open bush and grass steppe” (lichte Baumgras-steppe) as it has been very appropriately named by the geologist Bornhardt. In fact, this form of vegetation is neither exclusively forest nor altogether steppe; it unites the characters of the two. Imagine a particularly neglected orchard, in some rural part of Germany (where I am sorry to say the farmers still pay far too little attention to this branch of cultivation), and fill up the spaces between the scattered apple, pear or plum trees, not with our modest German grass but with the African variety, two or three yards high and more like canes, mix this with underwood—thorny, but not very close—and finally bind together the tops of the trees (which are not very high—certainly none of them over forty feet—and all varieties having a sort of general resemblance to our maple) by means of a system of airy lianas. Having done all this, you have, without any further strain on the imagination, a fairly correct picture of what is here generally called pori, though in the North the name of “myombo forest” is more usually applied to it. During the rains, and just after them, this pori must undeniably have its charms,—in fact, Ewerbeck and his companion Knudsen are indefatigable in singing its praises as it appears in that season. Now, on the other hand, in July, it is anything but beautiful: it neither impresses us by the number and size of its trees, nor refreshes us with any shade whatever, nor presents the slightest variation in the eternal monotony which greets the traveller as soon as he leaves Nyangao and crosses to the right bank of the Lukuledi and from which he only escapes after a march of several weeks, high up on the Upper Rovuma. “So this is the exuberant fertility of the tropics, and this is what an evergreen primeval forest looks like!” I thought, after enjoying this spectacle for the space of a whole day. Just as with regard to the alleged want of appetite experienced by Europeans in the tropics, we ought to see that the general public is more correctly informed as to the supposed fertility of Equatorial Africa, and so saved from forming extravagant notions of the brilliant future in store for our colonies.

The pori becomes downright unpleasant wherever the owners of the country have just been burning it. To right and left of the road extends a thick layer of black or grey ashes, on which, here and there, lies a dead tree, steadily smouldering away. Now that there is no grass to obstruct the view, the eye ranges unhindered through what at other times is impenetrable bush. For the sportsman this state of things is a pleasure, as he can now see game at almost any distance; but for the traveller, especially if encumbered with a large caravan, it is nothing less than torture. This is not so much the case in the early morning, when the fine particles of dust are laid by the heavy dews; but, when the sun rises higher, marked differences of temperature are produced within a comparatively small area. Tramping on through the glowing heat of noon, suspecting no harm and intending none, the traveller suddenly sees something whirling in front of his feet—a black snake spinning round in a raging vortex, rises straight up, dances round him in coquettish curves, and then vanishes sideways behind the trees, with a low chuckle, as if in derision of the stranger and his immaculately clean khaki suit. The native followers have not suffered, being of the same colour as the insidious foe. But what is the aspect presented by the leader of the expedition! Though not guaranteed to wash, he presents a sufficiently close resemblance to a blackamoor, and under the circumstances, the faithful Moritz and Kibwana, as soon as we have reached camp, will have no more pressing task than to prepare the bath for their master and thoroughly soap him down from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot. And all this is the work of the pori whirlwind.

In these small distresses of life on the march, the imperturbable cheerfulness of the natives is always a comfort. Among the Wamwera on the scene of the late rising, there was little inclination for dancing and merriment—the prevailing misery was too great; but everywhere else, before our camp was even half arranged, the inhabitants of the place had assembled in crowds, and the scene which ensued was always the same in its general features, though varying in detail. The negro has to dance. As the German, whenever anything lifts him out of the dead level of the workaday mood, feels irresistibly impelled to sing, so the African misses no opportunity of assembling for a ngoma. The word ngoma, in its original signification means nothing more than a drum; in an extended sense it denotes all festivities carried on to the sound of the drum. These festivities have an indisputable advantage over ours, in that the instrumental music, dancing, and singing are all simultaneous. The band drums, but also occasionally improvises songs, the audience standing round in a circle form the chorus and at the same time march round the band to the rhythm of the song. This is the usual picture, with all its strangeness so fascinating that the oldest residents in the coast towns do not think it beneath their dignity to honour this expression of aboriginal life by attending from time to time, if only for a few minutes. Other and less sophisticated whites are regular habitués at these festivals, and never let a Saturday evening pass—this being the day when ngomas are allowed by law—without standing for hours among the panting and perspiring crowd. One of these dances, executed by the women of every place I have so far visited, on every possible occasion, is peculiarly pleasing. It is called likwata (“clapping of hands”). A number of women and girls stand in a circle, facing inwards. Suddenly arms rise into the air, mouths open, feet twitch in unison, and all goes on in exact step and time; hand-clapping, singing and dancing. With the peculiar grace which characterizes all movements of native women, the whole circle moves to the right, first one long step, then three much shorter. The hand-clapping, in time and force, accurately follows the above rhythm, as does the song, which I shall presently reproduce. Suddenly, at a certain beat, two figures step out of the line of dancers—they trip in the centre of the circle, moving round one another in definite figures, the movements in which, unfortunately, are too rapid for the eye to follow—and then return to their fixed places in the circle to make way for two more solo artists. So the game goes on, without interruption or diminution of intensity, hour after hour, regardless of the babies who, tied in the inevitable cloth on their mothers’ backs, have gone through the whole performance along with them. In this confined, hot, and often enough dirty receptacle, they sleep, wake or dream, while the mother wields the heavy pestle, pounding the maize in the mortar, or grinds the meal on the stone, while she breaks the ground for sowing, hoes up the weeds or gathers in the crops, while she carries the heavy earthen water-jar on her head from the distant spring, and while, as now, she sways to and fro in the dance. No wonder if, under such circumstances, the native baby is thoroughly familiar with the national step and rhythm even before he has left the carrying-cloth and the maternal breast. The sight of tiny shrimps of three and four moving with absolute certainty through the mazes of the grown people’s dance, would almost of itself be worth the journey to East Africa.

And now come the very profound words accompanying this dance which seems so full of meaning and poetry. The spectator standing by and watching the varied and graceful movements of the women—perhaps working the cinematograph at the same time—is apt, in spite of all previous resolutions, to pay too little heed to the words sung. When, the dance over, he arranges the performers before the phonograph, he is tempted to believe that his ears have deceived him, so utterly inane are these words. I have made records of the likwata at a number of different places, but never succeeded in getting any other result than the following—

The reader will agree that no undue amount of intellect has been lavished on this ditty, but this is a trait common to all native songs here in the South. Even those acknowledged virtuosi, my Wanyamwezi, cannot do very much better in this respect. Here we have really every right to say, “We Wazungu are better singers after all!”