with smoke, and no chimney. Along its length there
ran a high inclined bench, on which cow-skins were
spread for men to take their siesta. Some huge drums
were hung in one comer, and logs smouldered on the
ground. The young men of the village gathered at
the club-house to get the news. They smoked, pulled
out each other’s eyelashes and eyebrows, filed their
teeth, and cut their marks of caste on the face or temples.
Dances would take place in the space in front
of it, either by day or night. The regular Wezee dance
is as follows :—A strip of bark or cow-skin is laid on
the ground, and aline of men, the tallest in the centre,
stand on it; the drums commence, a howling song joins
in, and with hands on their haunches and heads bent
down, they thump in unison with their feet. Female
spectators look on silently from behind, and men in
front join in the chorus. A shout of laughter, or burst
of admiration, winds up each dance, and never was
there a more truly primitive scene of joyous riot.
Our Seedees had a much better performance, which
they went through to the music of their voices, hands,
and feet. Two stood in the centre of a ring, kicking
high at one another like Frenchmen, clapping
hands and dodging about most ingeniously, while the
mob pang a lively song, clapped hands and stamped,
all keeping perfect time, and enjoying it with the
most thorough good-humour. They also had a favourite
teetotum game. Two sides were formed facing each
other, and all sitting on the ground. Each had before
him a stump of Indian com and a teetotum of gourd
in his hand. The object was to knock over with the
spinning-totum the adversaries’ stump, and the efforts
on each occasion caused immense merriment.
In a "Wezee village there are few sounds to disturb
one’s night re st: the traveller’s horn, and the reply to
it from a neighbouring village, an accidental alarm,
the chirping of crickets, and the cry from a sick child,
however, occasionally broke upon the stillness of our
nights. Waking early, the first sounds we heard were
the crowing of cocks, the impatient lowing of cows,
the bleating of calves, and the chirping of sparrows
and a few other unmusical birds. The pestle and mortar
shelling com would soon after be heard, or the
cooing of wild pigeons in the grove of palms. The
huts were shaped like corn-stacks, supported by bare
poles, 15 feet high, and 15 to 18 feet in diameter; sometimes
their grass roofs would be protected from sparks
by “ michans,” or frames of Indian-eom stalks ; there
were no carpets; all of them were unswept, and dark
as the hold of a ship. A few earthen jars, made like
the Indian “ gurrah,” for boiling vegetables or their
stirabout, tattered skins, an old bow and arrow, some
cups of grass, some gourds, perhaps a stool, constituted
the whole of the furniture. Grain was housed in
bandboxes of bark, and goats or calves had free access
over the house. The goat-skins worn by the Usagara
natives differed from their neighbours in Unyanyembe,
being neatly dressed, so as to leave an edging of fur
upon them. The cotton-cloth of the country, or a
piece of soiled calico, generally covered the loins of the
women. We saw here a man wearing the skin of a
new antelope, the Nzoe, afterwards discovered in the ■
Karague Lake.
A description of one of the sultans will suffice to
give a general impression of the appearance, manners,
customs, &c., of the three Wezee clans we had passed