Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 3.djvu/545

 U-NYAMEZI. 451 surrounding countries, bark garments are also prepared from the bast of the miombo plant. Kilemha (Kwihata, Mussamba), capital of U-Rua/ lying on one of the string of lakes traversed by the Lua-Laba, is merely a large village defended by a strong palisade. In this country, exposed to continual plundering expeditions of the secondary chiefs, of the slave-hunters, and even of the king himself, most of the villages are hidden away in the thickest part of the forests, and can be approached only by creeping on all fours under a long avenue of interlaced foliage terminating at a gateway defended by a chcmiix-de-frise. The people also take refuge in the lakes, such as that of Mohrya, 24 miles north-west of Kilemba, where are several lacustrine groups, w^hose inhabitants approach the land only to cultivate their fields and graze their goats. On Lake Kassali they utilise the floating islands of matted vegetation, on which they plant bananas and dwell with their flocks and poultry. But in the Mitumbo and Kunde Irunde hills, skirting the west and east banks of the Lu-Fira river, thousands of natives dwell in spacious caves, some of which are 20 miles long, forming with their innumerable ramifications vast under- ground cities occupied by whole tribes of troglodytes with their domestic animals. Tanganyika and M'uta N'zige. East of Lake Tanganyika the most extensive state is U-I^yamezi (U-Nyam- wezi), mentioned by the Portuguese and Pigafetta so early as the end of the sixteenth century, under the name of Munemugi, or "Land of the Moon." It occupies most of the lands watered by the Malagarazi and its affluents, and in the north-east it stretches beyond the divide into the Victoria ]N"yanza basin. U- J^yamezi is one of the pleasantest regions in Africa, diversified with low undulat- ing hills, wooded or grassy, and dotted over with numerous villages all surrounded with gardens, rice plantations, and well-cultivated farms. But the western districts are mostly swampy and insalubrious, especially after the rainy season. The best-known territory in U-I^yamezi is U-Nyambiembe, which is watered by the Gombe, chief affluent of the Malagarazi. Here pass most of the caravans between Tanganyika and the coast ; here Speke, Burton, Grant, Stanley, Cameron, and since then many other pioneers of African exploration, have resided for weeks and months together ; here also several religious missions have been established, and Germany, which has become the suzerain power, will doubtless soon be repre- sented in the country by political administrators. The Yua-I^yamezi, as all the local tribes are collectively called, appear to be related to the people of Garangaja, although enjoying a much higher culture than their neighbours, thanks to their long-established commercial relations with the Arabs. TsTevertheless most of them still practise the old systems of tattooing, and otherwise disfigure themselves by extracting the two lower incisors, or else filing them to an edge, and distending the lobe of the ears by the insertion of wooden discs, shells, or bits of ivory. They generally shave a part of the head, dressing the rest of the hair in numerous radiating points, which are extended by