Mineral Point weekly tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1859-1868, 1864-02-10
THE FAT WOMEN CT AFRICA.
A Few Extracts from Captain Speke's jour-
nal of His Visit TO the Source of the Nile,

2I z "A =" oUA1IAN NJ AK AAAOlas
Few Extracts from Captain Speke's jour
nal of His Visit TO the Source of the Nile.
The history of the discovery of the source
of the Nile, ty Captain John Hanning Spoke,
has Just been published in England. The fol
lowing are a few extracts from the same
AN AFRICAN BEAUTY.
In the afternoon, as l heard from Musa that
the wives of the King and princes were fat
tened to such an extent that they could not
stand upright, paid nay respects to Wazezem,
the Kings eldest brother-who; having been
born before his father assembled his throne
did not come in the line of succeSSion-W:+h
the hope of being able to see for myself tn
truth of the story. There was no mistake
about. On entering the hut, | found the old
man and his chief wife sitting side by side, on
a bench of earth strewed witt grass, and par
titioned like stalls for sleeping apartments,
whilst In front of them were placed numerous
wooden pots of milk, and hanging from the
poles that supported the beehive shaped hut,
a large collection of bows six feet in length,
whilst below them were tied even larger
collection of spears, intermiXed with Il good
~ assortment OF heavy headed asSageS. / was
struck with no small surprise at the way he
received me, as well as with the eXtraordina-
ry dimensions, yet pleasing beauty, of the i'm
moderately fat fair one, his wife. She could
not rise, and so large were her arms that, be
tween the joints the flesh hung down like large
loose-stuffed puddings Then in came their
children, all models of the Abvssipian type of
beauty, and as polite in their manners as
thoroughbred gentlemen. They had heard Of
my picture books from the King, and adj wish
ed to see them; which they mo sooner did, to
their infinite delight, especially when they
recognized any of the animals, then the sub
ject was turned by my inquiring what they
did with so many milkpots. This was easily
explained by Wazezem himself, who, point
ing to his wife, said: = That is all the product
Of those pots; from early youth upward We
keep those pots to their mouths, as it is the
fashion at court to have very fat wives"
a BAsHFUL VIRGIN
After a long and amusing conversation
with Rumanika III the morning, | called on
one OF his SlsterS-ln law, married to an elder
brother who was born before Dagara ascend
ed TO the throne. She was another of those
wonders of obesity, unable to stand except
ing on all tours | was DESTROYS to obtain a
good view of her, and actually to measure
her, and induced her to give me facilities for
doing 50, by Offering in return to show her a
bit of my naked legs and arms. The bait
took as | wished it, and, after getting her to
sidle and wriggle into the middle of the hut,
did as | promised, and then took her dimen-
slOns as noted: Round the arm one foot
eleven inches; chest four feet four inches :;
thigh, two feet seven inches calf, one foot
seven inches; height, five feet eight inches
All of these are exact except the height and
l believe | could have got this more accurate
~ if | could have her laid on the floor. Not
knowing what difficulties | should have TO
contend with in such a piece of engineering
| tpipl IN hap hni,,bt ~ -,
This, after infinite exertions on the part of us
both, was accomplished, when she sank down
again, fainting, for her blood had rushed into
her head. Meanwhile the daughter, a lass Of
sixteen, sat stark naked before us sucking at
milk-pot, which the father kept her at
work by holding a rod in his hand, for as fat
tening is the first duty Of fashionable female
life, it must be duly enforced by the rod, if
necessary. l got up bit of filtration with
missy, and induced her to rise and shake
hands with me. Her features were lovely,
but her body was as round as ball
HOW CAPT. sPEKE GOT SOME WIVES.
The company now became jovial, when the
Queen improved it by making a significant
gesture, and with roars of laughter asking me
if | would like to be her son-in-Iaw, for she
had some beautiful daughters, either of the
Wahuma or Waganda breed. Rather stag
gered at first by this awful proposal, consul
ted Bombay what l should do with one if
got her. He, looking more to number one
than my convenience, said: "By all means
accept the offer, for if you don't like her, we
should and it would be Il good means of get
ting her out of this land of death, for all
black people love Zanzibar" The rest need
not be told; as a matter Of course | had to
appear very much gratifed, and as the bowl
went round all became uproagio8s | must
wait a day or two, however, that a proper Sc
lection might be made and when the mar
riage came off, / was to chain the fair enc
two or three days, until she became used 10
me, else, from mere fright, she might run
away.