32 FROM MRULI TO RUBAGA.

Kattyang beans also are extensively cultivated here. From this place we passed through a small swamp, up to our waists, and reached Bziggara, where we were to halt for a day’s rest.

The Uganda language possesses two words for tobacco— taba and mtérz; but I cannot at present decide whether mtért means Nicotiana rustica and taba exclusively NW. Tobacum or not. In Unydoro also we find two words for tobacco, namely, ¢dba and irkdbwé.

I was favoured by a visit from a minstrel. He was decked with the fleece of the long-haired Uséga goat, and disguised by a long white pointed beard, which partially concealed his mouth and only permitted him to mumble. After he had seated himself in the middle of a circle of spectators he began with supple fingers “to strike a chord” upon a seven-stringed guitar. A short prelude developed into a recitative of simple rhythm, praising the beads and the generosity of the white stranger. As the song proceeded, the long beard commenced reoular up and down movements, and it was very droll to see how the singer, bending his head to the right or to the left upon his shoulder, made his beard dance in time to the guitar. ‘The chief effect, however, was when he bent back his head upon his neck, so that the beard pointed directly upwards, in which position he gave forth a long gurgling r-r-r-r-r-r, to which the beard vibrated, invariably provoking peals of longcontinued laughter. The bard was rewarded by some glass beads, and by way of thanks he stretched himself flat upon the ground, and placing his open hands together, made the vertical movement of thanks, saying at the same time “ NVyanzig,” after the Waganda fashion.

The pleasures of the evening were indeed crowned by the festivities of night, for at midnight a tremendous thunderstorm broke over us, and as the rain came down in streaming torrents, my tent was overthrown by oxen who were frightened by the constant lightning. My people, as usual on such occasions, were sleeping the sleep of the just, and so there was nothing for it but, in the midst of heaven’s floods, to put my traps to rights myself as best I could.

I had hardly returned from shooting guinea-fowl—an occupation always possible here—when a troop of my porters