between Uguha and Ubujwe, a country adjoining
the former north-westerly. The western portion
of Uguha, and south-eastern Ubujwe, is remarkable
for its forests of fruit-trees, of which there
are several varieties, called the Masuku, Mbembu
(or wood-apple), Singwe (wild African damson),
the Matonga (or nux-vomica), custard-apple, &c.
A large quantity of honey was also obtained.
Indeed, an army might subsist for many weeks
in this forest on the various luscious fruits it
contains. Our people feasted on them, as also
on the honey and buffalo meat, which I was
fortunate in obtaining.
Our acquaintance with the Wabujwe commenced
at Mukivingo, or Mulolwa’s, situated at the
confluence of the Rugumba with the Rubumba.
In these people we first saw the mild, amiable,
unso phisticated innocence of this part of Central
Africa, and their behaviour was exactly the reverse
of the wild, ferocious, cannibalistic races
the Arabs had described to us.
From our experience of them, the natives of
Rua, Uguha, and Ubujwe appear to be the elite
of the hair-dressed fashionables of Africa. Hairdressing
is indeed carried to an absurd perfection
throughout all this region, and among the
various styles I have seen, some are surpassing
in taste and neatness, and almost pathetic from
the carefulness with which poor wild nature
has done its best to decorate itself.
The Waguha and Wabujwe, among other characteristics,
are very partial to the arts of sculpture
and turning. They carve statues in wood,
which they set up in their villages. Their house-
doors often exhibit carvings resembling the
human face; and the trees in the forest between
the two countries frequently present specimens
of their ingenuity in this art. Some have also been
seen to wear wooden medals, whereon a rough
caricature of a man’s features was represented.
At every village in Ubujwe excellent wooden
bowls and basins of a very light wood (Ru-
biaceae), painted red, are offered for sale.
Between Kwaniwa’s village, Lambo, and Kundi,
we came to a hot stream issuing from a spring,
buried amid a mass of spear-grass and dwarf
papyrus. At the crossing the temperature was
106° Fahr., about twenty yards above it was
1150 Fahr. Those at Bath, in England, are from
1170 to 1200 Fahr.; at Ursprung, Baden, 15 3V 20
Fahr. These hot springs at Kwaniwa’s contain
considerable iron in solution, judging from the
ferruginous slime below and the ochreous tint
which rests on the plants and grass.
Beyond Kundi our journey lay across chains
of hills, of a conical or rounded form, which
enclosed many basins or valleys. While the Rugumba,
or Rubumba, flows north-westerly to the
east of Kundi, as far as Kizambala on the Luama