Some of these jungle islets are infested with gangs of banditti, who seldom fail to take advantage of the weakness of a single wayfarer, more especially if he be a Mgwana, a freeman of Zanzibar, as every negro resident of the island of Zanzibar is distinguished by the Washensi natives of the interior.

I should estimate the population of Ukwere, allowing about 100 villages to this territory (which is not more than thirty miles square, its bounds on the south being the Rufu river, and on the north the river Wami), at not more than 5000 souls. Were all these banded together under the command of one chief, the Wakwere might become a powerful tribe.

After the Wakwere we come to the Wakami, a remnant of a once grand nation which occupied the lands from the Ungerengeri to the Great Makata River. Frequent wars with the Wadoe and the Waseguhha

have reduced them to a narrow belt of country, ten rectilinear miles across, which may be said to be comprised between Kira Peak and the stony ridge bounding the valley of the Ungerengeri on the east, within a couple of miles from the east bank of the river.

They are as numerous as bees in the Ungerengeri valley. Its unsurpassed fertility has been a great inducement to retain for these people the distinction of a tribe. By the means of a spy-glass one may see, as he stands on that stony ridge looking down into the fair valley, clusters of brown huts visible amid bosky clumps, fulness and plenty all over the valley, and may count easily over a hundred villages.

From Ukami we pass to Southern Udoe, and find a warlike, fine-looking people, with a far more intelligent cast of features, and a shade lighter than the Wakami and Wakwere a people who are full of traditions of race, a people who have boldly rushed to war upon the slightest encroachment upon their territories, and who have bravely defended themselves against the Waseguhha and Wakami, as well as against nomadic marauders from Uhumba.

Udoe, in appearance, is amongst the most picturesque countries between the sea and Unyanyembe. Great cones shoot upward above the everlasting forests, tipped by the light fleecy clouds, through which the warm glowing sun darts its rays, bathing the whole in sunlight, which brings out of those globes of foliage which rise in tier after tier to the summits of the hills, colors which would mock the most ambitious painter's efforts at imitation. Udoe first evokes the traveller's love of natural beauty after leaving the sea: her roads lead him up along the sharp spines of hilly whence he may look down upon forest-clad

slopes, declining on either side of him into the depths of deep valleys, to rise up beyond into aspiring cones which kiss the sky, or into a high ridge with deep concentric folds, which almost tempt one to undergo much labor in exploring them, for the provoking air of mystery in which they seem to be enwrapped. Supposing a Byron saw some of these scenes in Udoe, he would be inclined to say,—

Morn dawns; and with it stern Udoe's hills,
Dark Uruguru's rocks, and Kira's peak,
Robed half in mist, bedewed with various rills,
Arrayed in many a dun and purple streak.

And how true each word would be!

What a tale this tribe could relate of the slavetraders' deeds! Attacked by the joint forces of the Waseguhha from the west and north, and the slavetraders of Whinde and Sa'adani from the east, the Wadoe have seen their wives and little ones carried into slavery a hundred times, and district after district taken from their country and attached to Useguhha. For the people of Useguhha were hired to attack their neighbours the Wadoe by the Whinde slave-traders, and were also armed with muskets and supplied with ammunition by them to effect large and repeated captures of Wadoe slaves. The people of this tribe, especially women and children, so superior in physique and intelligence to the servile races by which they were surrounded, were eagerly sought for as concubines and domestics by the lustful Mohammedans.

This tribe we first note to have distinctive tribal marks-by a line of punctures extending lengthwise on each side of the face, and a chipping of the two inner sides of the two middle teeth of the upper row.

The arms of this tribe are similar to the arms of the

R

Wakami and Wakwere, and consist of a bow and arrows, a shield, a couple of light spears or assegais, a long knife, a handy little battleaxe, and a club with a large knob at one end of it, which latter is dexterously swung at the head of an enemy, inflicting a stunning and sometimes a fatal blow.

Emerging from the forests of Mikeseh we enter the territory of the Waseguhha, or Wasegura,* as the Arabs wrongly call this country. Useguhha extends over two degrees in length, and its greatest breadth is ninety geographical miles. It has two main divisions, that of Southern Useguhha from Uruguru to the Wami

*All the interior tribes know this tribe as the Waseguhha, and none other. Burton adopts the Arabic corrupted term Wasegura. Krapf, New, Wakefield and myself have adopted the native pronunciation, Waseguhha.

River, and Northern Useguhha, under the chieftain Moto, from the Wami River to Umagassi and Usumbara.

In the rise of this tribe into prominence and power, we have an example before us of the vicissitudes which the barbarian races have experienced during ages. Thirty years ago the Waseguhha were limited to a narrow belt of country between the Wasambara and the Wadoe. The Wadoe were the supreme race east of the Usagara mountains, but the slave-traders, bringing ruin with them, betrayed them into the hands of organized banditti, consisting of renegade Wamrima, runaway slaves, offenders against the law of Zanzibar, convicts, and kidnappers, which infested the forests between Usagara and the sea. These bands made war on some of the sub-tribes of the Wadoe, and since the slaves of this tribe were in great demand, and were readily bought owing to their beauty of form, their fine physique and general superiority, these raids against the tribe increased until in a few years the Wadoe were almost driven entirely away from the fair valleys and beauteous country of the Ungerengeri. Foremost among these raiders was the notorious Kisabengo, whom I have already traced through his nefarious career, to the time of his establishing his stronghold, Simbamwenni, near the Ungerengeri.

Mostly all the Waseguhha warriors are armed with muskets, and the Arabs supply them with enough ammunition, in return for which they attack Waruguru, Wadoe, and Wakwenni, to obtain slaves for the Arab market, and it is but five years since the Waseguhha organized a successful raid into the very heart of the Wasagara mountains, during which they desolated the populated portions of the Makata plain, capturing over