LAKE FISHERY. 175 are called Rugoi and Kyente; across these, very steep paths lead to the country on the other side, and to Kabréga’s capital. In the opposite direction lies the gleaming lake, backed on the distant shore by a range of hills with a south-west trend.

The bay of Kibiro is rather shallow, and its waters are the haunt of vast shoals of fish, in consequence of which the natives are industrious fishers. In this pursuit they use large canoes hollowed out of bamboo stems, and frequently spend the entire day on the lake. Their oars are bamboo poles and a kind of shovel. In spite of this primitive and laborious mode of progression, these people, especially in favourable weather, not infrequently venture to cross the lake to Mahagi, for the purpose of selling fish; sometimes, indeed, leaving their boats under the care of Songa, they go over to the other side of the hills, where they find a better market for their wares. It sometimes happens, on these voyages across the lake, that the fishermen suffer much from sudden storms and bad weather, and many of them have gone to the bottom. The fish are generally so imperfectly dried—for although abundance of salt occurs everywhere, nobody thinks of using it for curing fish—that they give out a most unpleasant odour, but this does not seem to render them at all unpalatable to those who consume them. ‘This trade in dried fish is carried on in all the districts beyond the hills on both sides of the lake. The chief species of fish that I myself noticed were small Mormyrus and large Hydrocyon.

In the neighbourhood of Kibiro there is not a single square inch of cultivated land; consequently the place produces no corn, no vegetables, no bananas, &. Even sweet potatoes, which are an indispensable article of diet in other parts of Unyoro, are not planted here, and are only occasionally brought for sale in small quantities from beyond the hills; consequently, corn of all kinds is a very valuable present—in fact, the most valuable one can make; it is also a much-prized article for purposes of barter. All the necessaries of life required by the inhabitants of Kibiro are carried down the steep mountain paths on people’s heads; all the energies of the native population—that is, of the women, for the men are lazy and work