tions. I am afraid that in recording my downright bad opinion of the native carriers-many of them professing Christians-which are to be found in the vicinity of the English missionary stations near Mombasa, I am giving pain to my very kind friends, the missionaries who labour in those parts. I am sorry for this, for I am aware, more than any one perhaps, how thoroughly deserving of respect and support is their unselfish work in those regions. But truth must be told, and in the interests of travellers who succeed me in these districts, I warn them never, if they can help it, to engage porters at Mombasa. Independently of all questions of religion-Mohammedan and Christian alike-the inhabitants of the Mombasa district are a thoroughly bad lot. It is hopeless to win them by kindness, or infuse a spirit of discipline by sternness. They are liars, cowards, thieves, and drunkards. They were so when Krapf, the earnest pioneer of Christian missions, first came among them; they are so still, after nearly forty years of evangelization. Why is it that men got from Zanzibar, Pangani, Mozambique, or elsewhere, should be so much superior? It must be some inherent fault in the local race, because the few men whom I obtained from the Mombasa missions that were not natives of Mombasa, but had been trained in the mission schools, turned out all that could be desired. However, being unaware of all this, I had already vicariously engaged the bulk of my porters at Mombasa, fearing to be disappointed at Zanzibar, as there is often a paucity of caravan-men in that place, owing to the constant demand. Even before I started for the interior, the true character of the Mombasa men began to dawn upon me, but I hesitated to take the extreme step of dismissing them and sending to Zanzibar for others, because this would, firstly, be very expensive, and secondly, for the reason that they were only engaged for one month to transport my goods to the mountain, and there leave me with my nucleus of thirty Zanzibaris. Moreover, I was feverishly anxious to leave Mombasa, feeling sure that I should never shake off the effects of my illness till I left the unhealthy coast; and without worrying myself about a change of men, I had quite sufficient hindrance and vexatious delay in the purchase and packing of the necessary goods for sale and barter in the interior. The great staple of East African trade and the chief currency of all countries lying inland, is "merikani," or American sheeting. I had to purchase several huge bales of this at Zanzibar and transport it to Mombasa, there to be split up into loads of five gora each. A "gora," or "jora," is about forty-two yards, and in sheeting of medium quality, weighs 12 lbs., so. that each load of five gora weighed 60 lbs., and was a fair burden for a single porter. There were many other kinds of "cloth" ("cloth" becomes in Africa a generic name for all dry goods) to be taken. "Kaniki," or indigo-dyed cotton; gaudy red handkerchiefs from Manchester looms; "bandeira," or Turkey-red; 66 kikoi," or handsomely bordered waistbands, fringed every two yards; richly dyed stuffs from Western India and the Persian Gulf, "maskati," "dubhani," "sabhai," &c. All these in common with the "merikani," had to be carefully divided into loads averaging 55 lbs. or 60 lbs. ; each load counted and catalogued in its amount to check the stealing of any of its contents, and then finally sewn up in a peculiar kind of grass matting, very strong, and almost impervious to rain. Next, the beads had to be considered. It was necessary to take with the expedition different kinds and colours, for in East Africa, as I remarked on the River Congo, there are most varied and capricious tastes to consult among the natives, and scarcely two villages concur in their canons of taste. Thus, you must take different sizes of blue bead, called by the Wa-swahili maji bahri, or " sea-water," for although an entire tribe may affect one shade of blue in their bead necklaces, yet each individual will have special opinion as to the correct size of the bead. Then there are large ruby-red beads and white ones, and tiny pink and medium-sized black, and transparent blue. When the beads are bought in sacks from the traders, they are only threaded on rotten, worthless thread, and it is impossible to trade with them before they have been re-threaded securely. For this purpose you purchase on the coast a stout twine, made, I fancy, from the fibre of a Raphia palm, and then you set your men to work to re-thread all the beads. This task, of course, gives them immense opportunities for quiet pilfering, for the beads in their eyes are almost like coinage; so not only must you keep a sharp eye on the little groups of four or five merry black men who are so blithely slipping bead after bead along the yellow strings of palm-fibre, but each man's lot must be carefully weighed before and after its transference from the old thread to the new. Even with every precaution some loss always takes place during the process, and a day or two after this task is over you are surprised and grieved to see one of your most trusted followers reeling about the streets of the coast town, drunk on the proceeds of the misappropriated beads. If you are likely to travel through countries ranged |