onstantly for troops,
he would not assist them.

Another caravan then arrived (31st) from Karague, in which I found an
old friend, of half Arab breed, called Saim, who whilst I was residing
with Sheikh Snay at Kaze on my former expedition, taught me the way to
make plantain-wine. He, like the rest of the porters in the caravan,
wore a shirt of fig-tree bark called mbugu. As I shall have frequently
to use this word in the course of the Journal, I may here give an
explanation of its meaning. The porter here mentioned told me that the
people about the equator all wore this kind of covering, and made it up
of numerous pieces of bark sewn together, which they stripped from the
trees after cutting once round the trunk above and below, and then once
more down the tree from the upper to the lower circular cutting. This
operation did not kill the trees, because, if they covered the wound,
whilst it was fresh, well over with plaintain-leaves, shoots grew down
from above, and a new bark came all over it. The way they softened
the bark, to make it like cloth, was by immersion in water, and a
good strong application of a mill-headed mallet, which ribbed it like
corduroy. [10] Saim told me he had lived ten years in Uganda, had
crossed the Nile, and had traded eastward as far as the Masai country.
He thought the N'yanza was the sources of the Ruvuma river; as the river
which drained the N'yanza, after passing between Uganda and Usoga, went
through Unyoro, and then all round the Tanganyika lake into the Indian
Ocean, south of Zanzibar. Kiganda, he also said, he knew as well as his
own tongue; and as I wanted an interpreter, he would gladly take service
with me. This was just what I wanted--a heaven-born stroke of luck. I
seized at his offer with avidity, gave him a new suit of clothes, which
made him look quite a gentleman, and arranged to send him next day with
a letter to Grant.

1st and 2d.--A great hubbub and confusion now seized all the place,
for the Watuta were out, and had killed a woman of the place who had
formerly been seized by them in war, but had since escaped and resided
here. To avenge this, Lumeresi headed his host, and was accompanied
by my men; but they succeeded in nothing save in frightening off their
enemies, and regaining possession of the body of the dead woman. Then
another hubbub arose, for it was discovered that three Wahuma women were
missing (2d); and, as they did not turn up again, Lumeresi suspected the