river, we were daily, sometimes hourly, fording
or crossing the tributaries of the Luama.
Adjoining Ubujwe is Uhyeya, inhabited by a
tribe who are decidedly a scale lower in humanity
than their ingenious neighbours. What
little merit they possess seems to have been
derived from commerce with the Wabujwe. The
Wahyeya are also partial to ochre, black paints,
and a composition of black mud, which they
mould into the form of a plate, and attach to
the back part of the head. Their upper teeth
are filed, “ out of regard to custom,” they say,
and not from any taste for human flesh.
When questioned as to whether it was their
custom to eat of the flesh of people slain in
battle, they were positive in their denial, and
protested great repugnance to such a diet,
though they eat the flesh of all animals except
that of dogs.
Simple and dirt-loving as these poor people
were, they were admirable for the readiness
with which they supplied all our wants, voluntarily
offering themselves, moreover, as guides
to lead us to Uvinza, the next country we had
to traverse.
Uvinza now seems to be nothing more than
a name of a small district which occupies a
small basin of some few miles square. At a
former period it was very populous, as the
many ruined villages we passed through proved.
The slave-traders, when not manfully resisted,
leave broad traces wherever they go.
A very long march from Kagongwe in Uvinza
brought us to the pleasant basin of Uhombo,
remarkable for its fertility, its groves of Guinea-
palms, and its beauty. This basin is about six
miles square, but within this space there is
scarcely a two-acre plot of level ground to be
seen. The whole forms a picture of hill-tops,
slopes, valleys, hollows, and intersecting ridges
in happy diversity. Myriads of cool, clear streams
course through, in time united by the Lubangi
into ^a pretty little river, flowing westerly to the
Luama. It was the most delightful spot that we
had seen. As the people were amiable, and
disposed to trade, we had soon an abundance
of palm-butter for cooking, sugar-cane, fine goats
and fat chickens, sweet potatoes, beans, peas,
nuts, and manioc, millet and other grain for
flour, ripe bananas for dessert, plantain and palm
wines for cheer, and an abundance of soft, cool,
clear water to drink!
Subsequently we had many such pleasant experiences;
but as it was the first, it deserves a
more detailed description.
Travellers from Africa have often written about
African villages, yet I am sure few of those at
home have ever comprehended the reality. I
now propose to lay it before them in this sketch
of a village in the district of Uhombo. The