THE REDISCOVERED COUNTRY 173 



We adjourned to the shade. It turned out that the 

 young man was the sultan. The old fellow was his 

 father. Asked why thus, he repUed, through an in- 

 terpreter: 



" I am old and not strong, and Hke my chair and my 

 pipe, and not to work. So I make shaiiri with the 

 Deutsche that my son be sultan." Abdication, in 

 short.* 



We went into the matter of men and potio. Twelve 

 loads of potio promised, and seven men. This took two 

 hours of talk. It seems the Germans have undertaken 

 a new port at Musoma (on Victoria Nyanza), to take 

 the place of Shirati,! and they have sent their native 

 askaris in even this far and drafted all the ablebodied 

 men. They must require a lot, to have cast through 

 the thickly settled lake peoples to this remote place. 



The shanri was diversified by the time-honoured 

 rupee trick, the opera hat, and Bachelder's sword cane. 

 We also tried to buy the old man 's pipe. No go. At 

 last said the old man : 



''The great master, when he came to Shirati and 

 called in the sultans" (fifteen years ago, Cuninghame 

 says), "wanted to buy this pipe. But when I die then 

 my son will smoke it." 



* In view of subsequent similar arrangements I am inclined to think that 

 the German poHcy has been to depose the older chiefs in favour of their sons 

 in order that the government might the more readily handle them. As all 

 parties seem hai>py and satisfied with the arrangement — whatever it is— 

 the transfer must have been diplomatically made. 



t Owing to the encroachments of sleeping sickness at the latter port. 



