of their own. They kill oxen, which they cook in the
public places and begin to eat with the appearance of
the moon. Their most fashionable instrument of music,
besides the drum, is a kind of piano. On this they
can really perform airs of a kind, and that in four-time,
not five-time like the Arabs. The piano is often accompanied
by songs pitched very high, and sung through
the nose; the instrument consists of a square piece of
wood hollowed out, on which are fixed a number of
pieces of iron: it is played with both hands.
BOATS ON TH E ZAMBEZI AT KAZUNGOLA.
Their boats, as I have said, are dug out of the solid
trunk of a tree; each one of them has a crew of five,
the men rowing in a standing position, with oars about
10 feet long.
I
C H A P T E R V.
THE RETURN THROUGH THE DESERT
were at the beginning of December, and the
V V rains had started in right down earnest. My
provisions were nearly exhausted ; their inventory did
not take long to make. I found that one tin of corned
beef, two tins of sardines, one ounce of salt, and
10 lbs. of coffee constituted the whole of my stores.
My worldly possessions consisted besides of six yards
of unbleached calico and one pound of red beads.
These were my trading goods. My wardrobe was not
much more plentiful. I had the remnants of what had
been two flannel shirts, two under-vests, three pairs of
stockings—or rather of the legs of what had once been
stockings—a pair of knickerbockers, patched up with
samples of the various qualities of calico used in the
interior, and a hat that my boy had carefully placed
on the top of the fire to dry, a process by which one half
of the crown had been reduced to cinders, and which I
had been compelled to repair with a pad of cotton wool
between two pieces of calico. I also possessed one gaiter,
a broken pipe, and a very thin piece of “ Pears’ Soap.”
My only hair-brush and comb had attracted the kind
attention of the rats, and they had left very little of
them. Fortunately my razor was still in good order,
for during the whole of my trip I always shaved every
day, a beard being misery to me. In my saddlebags,
which never left me, were my notebooks and the forty
photographic plates that I had exposed and developed
87