Impressions of North-East Rhodesia 



or the cattle before he gets his bride. How things 

 were managed in the old days we cannot say. 

 Amongst the warlike tribes a successful raid prob- 

 ably contributed a quid pro quo : the young man 

 now has a less dangerous if less exciting method. 

 He simply leaves his village in search of work, and 

 does not return until he has the price of No. i wife 

 in his belt; when his means and position entitle him 

 to purchase a second, off he goes again with the 

 laudable object of earning the purchase-money. 

 In fact, he is beginning to learn that whenever he 

 wants money for any purpose he has only to go to 

 the nearest boma, and he will easily get work. 



LABOUR MARKET. 



At Mpika, and subsequently, we examined to the 

 best of our ability the conditions that governed the 

 labour supply in that part of the country; and as 

 these conditions apply pretty generally to porter 

 transport throughout Africa, we will give the result 

 of our investigations, in the hope that the informa- 

 tion we gained may be of use to others. 



The absence of other distractions such as wars 

 has induced in many cases a liking for work and a 

 desire to amass money, the result being that nearly 

 every district has now more or less labour available, 

 the amount depending on the time of year and the 

 extent of the population, the nature of work they 

 are willing to undertake, and lastly on the calls of 

 the local labour market. We will now examine 

 these conditions as applied to the Mpika district. 



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