122 TRADE AND COMMERCE.

request in Uganda, where a high price is given for it. The salt, which is occasionally imported from Uzinza, owing to the distance and its consequently higher price, cannot compete with that from Unyéro. The latter is usually of a dark grey colour and mixed with dust, but possessing a pure salt taste, and analysis proves it to be almost unadulterated chloride of sodium. In contrast to all other goods, salt, with very rare exceptions, is sold in Uganda for cash only, that is to say, for cowries. The price of the large packets varies with the quantity that happens to be in the market, although in small packets it is retailed at an almost constant rate. Besides salt, small quantities of fairly pure soda are occasionally brought from Uzinza; it is In great request as a remedy for colic and indigestion, notwithstanding its horrid taste, and is sold in diminutive packets for ten to twenty cowries.

I must here once more refer to iron, of which a very excellent quality is manufactured in all parts of Uganda and Unydro, the iron of the former country being softer than that of the latter. It is sometimes obtained from bog iron ore in lowlying lands, but usually from clay ironstone resembling roe or kidneys in its formation, and lying upon the granite. In certain places this ironstone proves extraordinarily rich, ¢.g., on the mountains round Kistga, in Unyoéro. The iron need not fear comparison with good European kinds.

The plastic clays of the country are most excellent, and are used in the manufacture of pottery, which is as durable as it is elegant, and sold everywhere in these countries at a ridiculously low price. Unlike other tribes, the potters among the northern Bantu are always men, and they manufacture small vessels for milk and for water—the exceptionally large gourdbottles are preferred to pitchers for large quantities of all kinds of lquids—and their fancy finds free scope in the manufacture of pipe-bowls of the most varied forms, which, in neatness of execution and originality of design, leave nothing to be desired. They are also uncommonly cheap, and are well suited for export.

Besides coffee, these countries yield much fine and excellent produce in resins, fruits, and woods, although no one has hitherto thought of turning them to account. Amongst these must be