The Prices Of Provisions Here Being A Good Specimen Of What One
Has To Pay At This Season Of The Year, I Give A Short List Of
Them:
- Sixteen rations corn, two yards cloth; three fowls, two
yards cloth; one goat, twenty yards cloth; one cow, forty yards
cloth, - the cloth being common American sheeting.
Before we left
Mbumi, a party of forty men and women of the Waquiva tribe,
pressed by famine, were driven there to purchase food. The same
tribe had, however killed many of Mbumi's subjects not long
since, and therefore, in African revenge, the chief seized them
all, saying he would send them off for sale to Zanzibar market
unless they could give a legitimate reason for the cruelty they
had committed. These Waquiva, I was given to understand,
occupied the steep hills surrounding this place. They were a
squalid-looking set, like the generality of the inhabitants of
this mountainous region.
This march led us over a high hill to the Mdunhwi river, another
tributary to the Mukondokua. It is all clad in the upper regions
with the slender pole-trees which characterise these hills,
intermingled with bamboo; but the bottoms are characterised by a
fine growth of fig-trees of great variety along with high
grasses; whilst near the villages were found good gardens of
plantains, and numerous Palmyra trees. The rainy season being
not far off, the villagers were busy in burning rubble and
breaking their ground. Within their reach everywhere is the
sarsaparilla vine, but growing as a weed, for they know nothing
of its value.
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