set for partridge, quail, Ac.; and if intended for soaring
birds, tbe noose is laid on the ground horizontally.
The animals are struck with spears and killed, and are
eaten by a ll; while the tendons are made into bowstrings,
the horns used as charms, and the skins rudely
dressed for wear.
Fish are rarely met with. On the coast, women
standing in a circle up to their waists in the sea use
their cloths as nets, and encircle small fish. Stake-
nets in the form of the letter U, turned in at the apices,
were seen. In the interior, upon the clear, gravel-
bottomed river M’gazee, a party of fishers were seen
wading down the stream, the men leading with hand-
nets, while boys in their rear thrust spears into the
holes in the banks. A number of slimy-looking fish,
18 to 20 inches long, had been caught, and were slung
by their heads to a cord tied round the waist, surrounding
the wearer like a Highland kilt.
The four native races were as follows:—
I. The Wamramo.—A smart, dressy (though nearly
naked), well-to-do-looking people, with a most self-
possessed air, and fond of ornaments in beads, sea-
shells, or tin. Their heads are covered with wool,
elongated with bark fibre into hanks, and their bodies
smeared with an oily pomade of red clay, which soon
soils their only covering—a cloth wrapped round the
loins. The dress of the women is slightly longer, but
they leave the neck and chest uncovered. Their arms
are spears, and bows and arrows, with a few flint-guns.
As they do not allow strangers to camp within their
villages, we saw few houses, but those into which we
were admitted were very tidy, with mud-and-wattle
walls and thatched roofs. The appearance of these
people was prepossessing. The attentions of the men
to their women were very marked. A man might be
seen in a field performing the office of hair-dresser to
his lady-love ; or, spear in hand, he would join a party
of women going to draw water, pitcher on head, and
escort them lest any of our camp should fall upon, steal,
or seduce them away. A very pretty girl and her beau
were coaxed to sit for their likenesses, and went away
with a smile; but two hideous old women screeched
at the pitch of their voices because they got but one
necklace of beads as payment for sitting before the
camera. This partly exhibits the boisterous nature
of the people: they killed a European named M.
Ma.i7.ttn, and I have no doubt that it was only the
warning guns fired by our Belooch guard .every night
that prevented an attack, for which, however, we were
not unprepared.
The villagers en route turned out to see the white
men; amongst them, during a single march, we saw
two albinos, one of whom had black woolly hair.
Again, of an afternoon, we considered it an extraordinary
occurrence if our camp was not thronged by
people, curious and well-conducted,, some bringing
their produce to barter. Women would sit at our
tent-doors suckling their infants while cracking jokes
at our expense. We saw no places of burial, but by
the roadside the skeleton of a traveller lay; and also
at other places single tombs, with large dolls of wood
or some broken bowls of delf, standing as immortelles
at one end of the graves, which were those of Seedees
from Zanzibar. The only superstitious observance we
noticed was in a field at the foot of a tre e ; a grass
model of a hut was erected for the rain-god, as our