THE NATIVES OF BRITISH EAST AFRICA 



cities, where they are now compelled to wear some kind 

 of covering. 



The men out in the country districts wear hardly any- 

 thing at all except a little loin cloth, but in the cities they 

 have adopted the Indian fashion of wearing muslin trou- 

 sers, looking much like pointed pyjamas, or else long night- 

 shirts, buttoned tightly around the neck and running down 

 as far as the ankles. If they can afford it they have these 

 shirts most beautifully embroidered. It is a strange-look- 

 ing scene to watch a couple of hundred men in these long 

 " nightshirts " coming out of a Mohammedan mosque, for 

 instance, but I have heard the men say — and I believe it — 

 that it is a most comfortable kind of clothing in a hot 

 climate. 



On my way out to British East Africa the first time, 

 several of our fellow-passengers had described the Swahili 

 to me as such a bad people that, at the time, I could hardly 

 believe it possible. One of them, who had spent many 

 years in East Africa, said: " You will find the Swahili a 

 people composed mostly of lazy, lying thieves." I thought 

 this statement terrible, but now, after many months' ex- 

 perience among them, I regret to say that it is not very 

 much exaggerated, if at all. In the first place, as Moham- 

 medans, they do not consider it at all wrong to lie to all not 

 Mohammedans ; and in the second place they do not seem to 

 care even if they lie to their " own brethren." As to steal- 

 ing, they seem to think, like the Greeks of old, that it is " all 

 right " to do so as long as they are not caught. According 

 to my experience, they are by far the most corrupt as well 

 as the laziest of all the lazy inhabitants of British East 

 Africa; for if the Swahili has his own way he will do 



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