CAIRO TO KISUMU village to village. Most of them are small, a dozen huts or so forming a good-sized settlement.

The roof usually projects beyond the walls of the hut, covering a sort of veranda, a part of which is inclosed. There are poles outside supporting the roof of the veranda.

The huts are usually built around an open space and are joined by fences of rough limbs and roots, so that each collection of huts forms a stockade in which the animals belonging to the village can be kept at night. Sometimes a village may be made of a number of such circles, each collection of huts belonging to one family. One of the shacks is for the polygamous husband and one for each of his wives.

Let us go inside one of the houses. We stoop low as we enter. The floor is of mud, with a few skins scattered over it. The skins are the sleeping places. Notice that little pen at the back, littered with dirt. That is where the goats sleep. The chickens are put in that tall basket over there in the corner and are covered up until morning.

Except for a few pots, there is practically no furniture. The cooking is done in clay vessels over that fire in the centre of the hut, and the food is served in small baskets, the men eating first and the women taking what is left.

Outside each house, under the veranda, is the mill of the family, which consists of a great stone with a hole chipped out of the centre. The women grind Indian corn or sor¬ ghum seed in such mills, pounding or rubbing the grain with a second stone just a little smaller than the hole. In the grinding, bits of the stone come off and are mixed with the meal, often causing chronic indigestion.

Some of the older Kavirondo villages are nothing but cemeteries. The people are superstitious and want to be 300