influence on the turbulent, war-loving Wanyamwezi has
been most marked. Tuga Moto, Mirambo’s son, now
reigns in his father’s place, and received Mr. Decle with
perfect courtesy and in a way most unusual to natives.
One of the curiosities of this place is a necklace of
human teeth, all of which have been extracted from the
heads of Arabs slain by Mirambo in the war 1872-76.
In remarking upon the characteristics and customs of
the Wanyamwezi, Mr. Decle again shows his talents for
stringing together ethnological facts in a pleasing manner.
His sentences are not clogged with native names and
words, consequently, such chapters look clean and attractive,
and invite perusal.
Of his march to Tabora, the once great entrepôt of the
Arabs in Central Africa, Mr. Decle remembers little, as
nearly the whole time he was lying in a hammock in a
semi-conscious state. This settlement will be remembered
by readers of African books as the refitting place of many
African explorers, such as Burton and Speke, Speke and
Grant, Livingstone and Stanley, Cameron and Dillon, &c.
Since the advance of the Belgians up the Congo it has
lost its importance, and only a few Arabs cling to it.
At the latter end of August, 1893, Mr. Decle struck
northward to gain the shores of the Victoria Nyanza.
The traveller has often been the victim of misadventures
at every stage of his journey. He has suffered greatly
from thirst and starvation, he has oft been in danger from
wild beasts- and wild men, but on this stage we find him
tortured by jiggers and ticks, put to flight by swarms of
wild bees, and much disturbed by vermin. It is wonderful
how the jiggers have spread across the continent. In the
sixties they were first brought to St. Paul de Loanda
along with some lumber from Brazil. In the eighties the
Congo Expeditions carried them up the Congo. The
Emin Relief Expedition conveyed them through the
Great Forest to Kavalli. In 1891-2 the Soudanese of
Emin brought them to Uganda, and just about the same
XX
time Tippu Tib’s Manyema carried them to Ujiji and
East Africa, and the Arabs of Ujiji imported them to
Nyasaland.
During this journey Mr. Decle had opportunities of
viewing the German military stations at Muanza, Bukoba
and Ukerewe, and reflects severely on the German
methods of civilizing as pursued by the non-commissioned
officers. He cites several instances of excessive
abuse of authority, and according to him the worst
practices of the aboriginal chiefs, or slave-trading Arabs,
were innocent compared to the barbarities perpetrated
by Germans intoxicated with power. Fortunately about
the time that the whipping business which he daily
witnessed was beginning to pall on him, the expected
boats arrived, and he was enabled to depart across Lake
Victoria.
The description ofi the fourth stage of his journey
embraces nearly a half of Mr. Decle’s book. It begins
with his trip to Uganda, and ends with his exit out of
Africa at Mombasa. He precedes his adventures in
Uganda with a rtsumt of the events that led to the
British occupation, and this leads to the account of how
he became involved in “ Roddy” Owen’s brilliant dash
upon Unyoro. The whole chapter is exciting, as with
his accustomed easy style he glides along from adventure
to incident, smoothly blending instruction with interest,
and never allows a paragraph to lag. Anyone who has
doubts regarding the causes by which Emin’s old troops
fell in the esteem of the English officials in Uganda, need
but glance at a few pages of Chapter XIX. There he will
find that the alertness of Major Owen and the firmness
of Captain Macdonald saved Uganda from the fate of
Emins old province of Equatoria. Troops which had so
long enjoyed their own sweet wills could not possibly be
depended upon for long, but they received their first
lessons of discipline from Owen and Macdonald, and if
the control of them is always as firm there will be no
occasion to repeat it. Xxi