114 TRADE AND COMMERCE.

about five months by land, opportunities for the sale of ivory and slaves afforded by this route, the settlement of Arabs in the country itself, with agents in Kardgwa and Unyamweézi, and subsequently on the lake, influenced, of course, the markets of the country. Quantities of goods, chiefly manufactured articles, woven materials of all kinds, clothes, weapons, ammunition, copper, and brass were brought from Zanzibar, and found ready customers among a people who have a passion for dress and finery as well as for arms. At the same time the need of a currency was created, and the cowrie-shell, named in Kisuaheli kauri or hete, in Kiganda and Kinyoéro simbi, was chosen to meet the need.

These shells had long before penetrated into the interior of the continent from the east coast, and passing from tribe to tribe, had been employed in various kinds of worked and ornamental articles. Girdles and head-dresses made of them were valued objects. They are still found among the eastern tribes of the Latika, Shuli, Lango, and Waséga, all of whom slice off the rounded backs of the shells, and fix them on leather or felt, with the cut side outwards, or place the whole shell in the plaits of their high coiffures. But the introduction of cowries as coin among the Negroes was reserved for the Arabs, and the Waeinda were very soon taught this use of them. From that time till the present day cowrie money has been current, and both in Uganda and Unyoro even small purchases can be made with them. After the backs have been ground off, the shells are threaded in hundreds on a string of bast; five such strings are equivalent to a Maria Theresa thaler, a standard of value fixed ‘by the Arabs themselves, but often subject to slight variations. ‘This coinage answers very well, for large or rather costly articles, and the price is constant; thus, a fat goat costs 1200 to 1500 cowries, a sheep 1000 to 1200, a packet of salt from Unyoro, containing about 4 lbs., 1000, a packet of eleusine corn, also from Unydro (scarcely any corn is grown | in Uganda), about 400 to 600, an ox 6000 to 7000. The strings are divided into halves of fifty each for objects of smaller value, these again into five parts of ten each, and then comes the smallest division of five pieces. Dried fish cost from 10 to 20, according to their size, a bunch of ordinary bananas