of water are always elevated above the cultivated plots, they will tap it at a convenient spot above the bed to be watered, and then

The food of the 1. Wooden Hoe.-2. Leather Honey Case.-3. Gourd.—

Wa-čaga is mostly

vegetable. Fish are

Horn.-6. Knife.

Fig. 77.-Čaga Utensils.

absent from the streams of their country; but, morever, like the Wa-taita, they think them unfit to eat, and of the same nature as serpents. They breed fowls in large numbers, but merely to sell to the passing caravans of traders from the coast, for they themselves abjure poultry as food, thinking it unwholesome and unmanly. Their other domestic animals are the ox, the goat, the sheep, and the dog, though the latter animal is rarely seen. The oxen are much valued. They belong to the humped Zebu breed prevalent throughout East Africa from the days of the ancient Egyptians. The goats are small and handsome, with poorly developed horns, drooping ears, and often two small appendages of skin in place of the ordinary

beard. The sheep are of large size, hairy, with fine dewlaps and drooping ears. The male has an enormously fat tail, developed to such an extent as to really impede his movements. A fine sheep may be bought for from four to eight yards of cloth, a fat goat for about the same cost, and a milch goat a trifle dearer.

Milk enters largely into the diet of the Wa-čaga, and they are also passionately fond of warm blood fresh from the throat of a newly-slaughtered animal. Whenever I killed an ox for my men-who being Mohammedans insisting on cutting its throat and letting it bleed to death-the Wa-čaga would assemble with their little wooden bowls, and as the animal lay in its death throes on the ground, the hot purple blood spurting at high pressure from the severed veins, the eager natives filled one after the other their wooden vessels and then stepped apart from the crowd to drink the coagulating gore with utter satisfaction and a gourmet's joy. They are great flesh-eaters when they can afford it, but, as I have already said, their main diet is vegetable. Among the plants grown for food are maize, sweet potatoes, yams, arums (Colocasia antiquorum), beans, peas, red millet, and the banana. Tobacco is also largely cultivated, and the natives chew it and consume it as snuff mixed with natron-salt. Honey is produced in immense quantities by the semiwild bees which make their hives in the wooden cases put up by the natives among the forest trees. A large barrelful may be bought for two yards of cloth.

The Wa-čaga inhabit the western, southern, and eastern slopes of Kilima-njaro. The northern side of the mountain is without any other inhabitants than roving bands of Masai. The principal Čaga states,

beginning on the west, are Šira, Kibonoto, Mačame, Uru, Kibošo, Mpokomo, Moši, Kirua, Kilema, Maranu, Mamba, Mwika, Msai, Rombo, Useri, and Kimangelia. Although these little states are perpetually quarrelling among themselves, they are nevertheless closely united by ties of blood and possess a common language, Ki-čaga, unless, indeed, the Warombo, as I have sometimes thought, speak a dialect of their own.

The inhabitants of Kahe (the country lying due south of Kilima-njaro in the plains of the Upper Ruvu), of Ugweno, and also, I am told, of Mount Méru, seem to resemble closely the Wa-čaga in language and in physical features. They were doubtless the same race not long since, but the invasion of the Masai split them up into different sections, and they became isolated in their coigns of refuge, some on the mountains, some in the marshy swamps. The Wa-gweno are a very timid set, and greatly afraid of witchcraft. Everything at all strange or incomprehensible is "usawi" (sorcery). They not only dread the Masai with all their hearts, but they also invest the little Lake Jipé, which lies at the foot of their mountains, with imaginary terrors, declaring they dare not fish on its banks or cross its waters in canoes, on account of an awful kelpy-like monster which dwells in the lake and sallies out to devour all who may approach the waterside. In vain do the Wa-taveita go and fish there fearlessly under the eyes of the Wa-gweno; these timorous folk nevertheless continue to avoid the lake wherein are present such boundless stores of food. I have no doubt that the legend of the water-monster arose from either the voracious crocodiles or the obstre

perous hippopotami which inhabit the waters of Jipé.

My readers may possibly have been disappointed to find in this chapter so little information as to peculiar customs or beliefs exhibited by the people it described. I can only say this want is not owing to any lack of probing or questioning on my part. I have come to the conclusion that whatever religious notions, mystic ceremonies, initiatory practices which the inhabitants of Kilima-njaro may have retained originally from

their ancestors and shared with their other existing relatives, have at the present time disappeared, or have been worn away by constant changes of abode, massacres, flights, and all the incidents of an anxious struggle for existence, which the fluctuating peoples of Eastern Equatorial Africa have, for the last few centuries, undergone. Those who may have read what I have previously written respecting African races on the Congo, in Angola, and elsewhere, will perceive that

I have often had to remark curious initiatory ceremonies, elaborate animistic belief displayed in burial customs, various modes of phallic worship, and obscure superstitions connected with eating or drinking. Scarcely any of these phases of savage religion, fancy, or folk-lore, have I encountered in the peoples who inhabit Kilima-njaro and its vicinity. I do not say they are non-existent, I merely mention that they have not come under my personal recognition, and if succeeding travellers are more fortunate than I in this particular, I shall conclude that in spite of my constant investigation these peculiarities have failed to display themselves to my perception.