He, Like The Rest Of
The Porters In The Caravan, Wore A Shirt Of Fig-Tree Bark Called
Mbugu.
As I shall have frequently to use this word in the course
of the Journal, I may here give an explanation of its meaning.
The porter here mentioned told me that the people about the
equator all wore this kind of covering, and made it up of
numerous pieces of bark sewn together, which they stripped from
the trees after cutting once round the trunk above and below, and
then once more down the tree from the upper to the lower circular
cutting. This operation did not kill the trees, because, if they
covered the wound, whilst it was fresh, well over with plaintain-
leaves, shoots grew down from above, and a new bark came all over
it. The way they softened the bark, to make it like cloth, was
by immersion in water, and a good strong application of a mill-
headed mallet, which ribbed it like corduroy. [FN#10] Saim told
me he had lived ten years in Uganda, had crossed the Nile, and
had traded eastward as far as the Masai country. He thought the
N'yanza was the sources of the Ruvuma river; as the river which
drained the N'yanza, after passing between Uganda and Usoga, went
through Unyoro, and then all round the Tanganyika lake into the
Indian Ocean, south of Zanzibar. Kiganda, he also said, he knew
as well as his own tongue; and as I wanted an interpreter, he
would gladly take service with me.
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