— from Rubunga and Urangi on the left, and
Gunji and Upoto on the right. In light, swift,
elegant canoes, of the caique pattern, the people
brought fresh and dried fish," snails, oysters,
mussels, dried dog-meat, live dogs] and goats
bananas, plantains, robes of grass cloth, cassava
tubers, flour, and bread of the consistence of
sailor’s “ duff,” spears, knives, axes, hatchets,
b^lls, irqn bracelets and girdles, in fact every!
thing that is saleable or purchasable on the
shores of the Livingstone. The knives were'
singular specimens of the African smith’s art,,
being principally of a waving sickle-shaped
pattern, while the principal men carried brass-1
handled weapons, 18 inches long, double-edged,
and rather wide-pointed, with two blood channels
along the centre of the broad blade, while near
the hilt the blade was pierced by two quarter-
circular holes, while the top of the haft was
ornamented with the fur of the otter.
The aborigine^ dress their hair with an art
peculiar to the Warua and Waguha, which consists
in wearing it in tufts on the back of the
head, and fastening it with elegantly shaped iron
hairpins a fashion which also obtains among
many kitchenmaids in England. Tattooing is
carried to excess, every portion of the skin
bearing punctured marks, from the roots of the
hair down to the knees. Their breasts are like
hieroglyphic parchment charts, marked with
rpeb. 9, ‘877-1 HIGH ART IN TATTOOING. 1_ Rubunga. I
r a i s e d figures, ledges, squares, circles, wavy
lines tuberose knots, rosettes, and every conceivable
design. No colouring substance had
been introduced into these incisions and punctures;
the cuticle had simply been tortured and irritated
by the injection of some irritants or air. Indeed
some of the glossy tubercles, which contained
air, were as large as hens’ eggs. As many as
six thin ledges marked the foreheads from temple
to temple, as many ran down each cheek, w ie
from lower -eyelid to base of septum curved
wavy lines; the chin showed, rosettes, the neck
seemed goitrous with the large vesicular protuberances,
while, the front parts of their bodies
afforded broad fields upon which the native artist
had d isp la y ed . the exuberant fertility o f his
p-enius T o such an extent is this fashion came
that the people are hideously deformed, many
o f them having quite unnatural features and
ticcks.
To add to the atrocious bad taste of these
aborigines, their necklaces consisted of human,
gorilla, and crocodile teeth, in such quantity in
many cases that little or nothing could be seem
of the neck. A few possessed polished boars
tusks, with the points made to meet from each
Blood-brotherhood was a beastly cannibalistic
ceremony with these p e o p le / y e t much soug t
after, whether for the satisfaction of their thirs