MAHAGI STATION. 149 an aloe with white-striped leaves is grown, which in Uganda and Unyéro is always employed in incantations. The granaries _are usually cylindrical, but the lower segments of some are hemispherical and rest on a stand. ‘Their covers, which are movable, are of the usual shape. Numbers of closely woven, very roomy, skittle-shaped weir-baskets and fish-spears betoken an active pursuit of fishery, while the absence of hunting trophies indicates no great love of sport. The weapons we _saw were lances, a sort of broad-bladed axe with a sharp spike projecting from the back, and knives of various forms; specimens of each of them were collected. Every woman carries a small crescent-shaped knife attached to her girdle by a leather thong.

All the women were diligently engaged in household work, one of their duties being to beat and clean the freshly gathered eleusine corn with a wooden mallet or club. Besides fetching water and cooking, weeding and carrying away the rubbish, reaping and bringing in the harvest, and the manufacture of all kinds of crockery, pipe-bowls included, devolve solely upon the women. The men build the houses, till the fields, fish and hunt, milk the cows and goats, and smoke. A singular kind of pipe is much used; a very long stem has a slit made in the side at its lower end, into which a green leaf rolled into the shape of a funnel is pushed and is filled with tobacco. A fresh leaf is used for each pipeful, and the quantity of tobacco used each time is but small. Tobacco is largely grown in the mountains, and is brought here to be exchanged for dried fish.

About ten minutes’ walk to the south of this village the lake is joined by Khor Erra, a never-failing stream of cold water. The high grass near this khor is the haunt of a rare crake, Ortygometra egregia, a bird extremely like the small waterhen in its habits. All the land between the station and this village, to the south of which lie three other zertbas subject to the same chief, was very well cultivated, and this year’s second crop of durrah was just ripe. Maize, red and white durrah, eleusine, sesame, a little tobacco, a kind of cucumber, and near the station bamia (Hibiscus esculentus, called wéka in the Sudan), and ground nuts have been planted here. Bananas are not found, except, perhaps, in the more sheltered side valleys.