Then, while the vindictive little pigmies and half-tamed Bambuba enclosed it on the south and west, two powerful and savage tribes joined hands and claimed the district running north, right along to the western shores of the Albert Lake. These Babira and Balega people are very closely allied in features and customs, but the former are numerically very inferior. These have a peculiar practice, which I believe to be unique among Central African tribes, that is, the women bore a hole in their top lip and gradually increasing this until it is able to enclose a disc of wood two and even three inches in diameter. A Mubira woman came to call on us whose disc measured two and five-eight inches across. The size of the wood inserted proclaims the rank of the person. Peasants are only allowed to wear pieces of stick the same dimension as a match. The weight of the wood causes the lip to fall down over the mouth, and, in order to eat, it is necessary to lift up this shutter with one hand while the other conveys the food to the mouth. Frequently the lip breaks under the strain put upon it, in which case the disconnected ends are carried back and tied to the ear. While the Balega do not adopt this inhuman custom of their neighbours, they have not reached to their degree of civilisation in introducing clothing. The Balega women still groan under the weight of pounds of thick brass wire wound round their arms and legs. This is supplemented by a prodigious amount of beads. [Illustration: A MUBIRA LADY: AN AFTERNOON CALLER.] [Illustration: A NATIVE OF BALEGA: The first to be baptised of his race.] Until brought under Belgian rule these people refused to recognise allegiance to any power. Nominally they were under Bunyoro, for the King of that country years ago went across and laid waste the whole district plundering their sheep, cattle, and women. This was repeated by successive kinds till the people were compelled to yield to the claims of the Bunyoro. But their submission was compulsory and not permanent, so that when Bunyoro was troubled with civil war and outside foes the Balega ceased to be controlled by them. But the Bunyoro are very proud of a legend that relates how their King Ndohura, who conquered the Balega, while fighting them broke his stick and from it sprung up the Forest of Kirare. Returning from the war the same King is said to have slipped on a rock, and his footprint is to be seen to this day. These people are very clannish and insular. Children remain under their mothers’ roof until they marry. If, like the “old woman,” they lived in a shoe, the mother would need a fairly roomy one, for often her offspring number twenty to thirty. As a man possesses many wives he has a lively time trying to keep his children in hand. When the sons marry they bring their wives and build close to the old homestead, and generally continue to recognise the authority of their father, and no other.