In consequence of this, Lumeresi daily assembled his grey-beards and had councils of war in his drum-house; but though his subjects sent to him constantly for troops, he would not assist them.
Another caravan then arrived (31st) from Karague, in which I found an old friend, of half Arab breed, called Saim, who whilst I was residing with Sheikh Snay at Kaze on my former expedition, taught me the way to make plantain-wine.

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.