Length 81⁄2, breadth 51⁄2 lines.
Testa ovata, solida, pallide fusca, zonis 2 nigricantibus aliquando notata; spira apertura breviore; anfractibus planulatis, lineis 6 fuscis spiralibus et costis tuberculatis ornatis; apertura antice sinuata; labro simplici; labio calloso.
P.S. July 27th.—In addition to the foregoing shells, several others were collected by Capt. Speke, when employed, under the command of Capt. Burton, in exploring Central Africa in the years 1856-9; these were deposited in the first instance with the Geographical Society, and are now transferred to the British Museum.
A specimen of Ampullaria (Lanistes) sinistrorsa, Lea, and odd valves of two species of Unio, both smooth and olive-coloured, were picked up in the Ugogo district, an elevated plateau in lat. 6° to 7° S., long. 34° to 35° E.
A large Achatina, most nearly related to A. glutinosa, Pfr., is the “common snail” of the region between lake Tanganyika and the east coast. Fossil specimens were obtained in the Usagara district, at a place called Marora, 3000 feet above the sea, overlooking the Lufiji River, where it intersects the coast range (lat. 7° to 8° S., long. 36° to 36° E.).
Another common land snail of the same district is the well known “Bulimus caillaudi, Pfr.,” a shell more nearly related to Achatina than Bulimus.
Captain Speke also found a solitary example of Bulimus ovoideus, Brug., in a musjid on the island of Kiloa (lat. 9° S., long. 39° to 40° E.). This species is identical with B. grandis, Desh., from the island of Nosse Bé, Madagascar, and very closely allied to B. liberianus, Lea, from Guinea.
[5] Captain Balfour, H.M.I.N., who kindly supplied me with a list of necessaries for sail-making and other such operations on the Lake. I had indented upon the Engineers’ Stores, Bombay, for a Massey’s patent or self-registering log, which would have been most useful had the people allowed it to be used. Prevented by stress of business from testing it in India, I found it at sea so thoroughly defective, that it was returned from whence it came by the good aid of Captain Frushard, then commanding the H.E.I.C.’s sloop of war Elphinstone. I then prepared at Zanzibar, a line and a lead, properly hollowed to admit of its being armed, and this safely reached the Tanganyika Lake. It was not useless but unused: the crew objected to its being hove, and moreover—lead and metal are never safe in Central Africa—the line, which was originally short, was curtailed of one half during the first night after our departure from Kawele. It is by no means easy to estimate the rate of progress in these barbarous canoes barbarously worked. During the “spirts” when the paddler bends his back manfully to his task, a fully-manned craft may attain a maximum of 7 to 8 miles per hour: this exertion, however, rarely exceeds a quarter of an hour, and is always followed by delay. The usual pace, when all are fresh and cool, is about 4 to 5 miles, which declines through 4 and 3 to 21⁄2, when the men are fatigued, or when the sun is high. The medium, therefore, may be assumed at 4 miles for short, and a little more than 2 miles an hour for long trips, halts deducted.
On the 14th April, a cruise of four hours conducted us to Wafanya, a settlement of Wajiji mixed with Warundi. Leaving this wretched mass of hovels on the next day, which began with a solemn warning from Sayfu—a man of melancholic temperament—we made in four hours Wafanya, the southern limit of Urundi, and the only port in that inhospitable land still open to travellers. Drawing up our canoes upon a clear narrow sandstrip beyond the reach of the surf, we ascended a dwarf earth-cliff, and pitching our tents under a spreading tree upon the summit, we made ourselves as comfortable as the noisy, intrusive, and insolent crowd, assembled to stare and to laugh at the strangers, would permit. The crew raised their boothies within a stone-throw of the water, flight being here the thought ever uppermost in their minds.
The people of this country are a noisy insolent race, addicted, like all their Lakist brethren, to drunkenness, and, when drunk, quarrelsome and violent. At Wafanya, however, they are kept in order by Kanoni, their mutware or minor chief, subject to “Mwezi,” the mwami or sultan of Urundi. The old man appeared, when we reached his settlement, in some state, preceded by an ancient carrying his standard, a long wisp of white fibre attached to a spear, like the Turkish “horse-tail,” and followed by a guard of forty or fifty stalwart young warriors armed with stout lance-like spears for stabbing and throwing, straight double-edged daggers, stiff bows, and heavy, grinded arrows. Kanoni began by receiving his black-mail—four cloths, two coil-bracelets, and three fundo of coral beads: the return was the inevitable goat. The climate of Wafanya is alternately a damp-cold and a “muggy” heat; the crews, however, if numerous and well armed, will delay here to feed when northward bound, and to lay in provisions when returning to their homes. Sheep and fine fat goats vary in value from one to two cloths; a fowl, or five to six eggs, costs a khete of beads; sweet potatoes are somewhat dearer than at Ujiji; there is no rice, but holcus and manioc are cheap and abundant, about 5 lbs. of the latter being sold for a single khete. Even milk is at times procurable. A sharp business is carried on in chikichi or palm-oil, of which a large earthen pot is bought for a cloth; the best paddles used by the crews are made at Wafanya; and the mbugu, or bark-cloth, is bought for four to ten khete, about one third of the market-price at Ujiji. Salt, being imported from Uvinza, is dear and scarce: it forms the first demand for barter, and beads the second. Large fish is offered for sale, but the small fry is the only article of the kind which is to be purchased fresh. The country owes its plenty, according to the guides, to almost perennial showers.