EAS T AFRICA 165 
a sao hee tareer with the eilen cate bie beast 
at Mombasa, the starting-point. It is now of little use to go 
down to Zanzibar, since porters (for transport) are not allowed 
to engage themselves for up-country work. Everything can 
be done at and from Mombasa, where not only can all trade 
goods be purchased, packed into the regulation 65 lb. loads, 
each load numbered, and an invoice taken of it, but all the 
latest information about the most suitable quality and quantity 
__ of goods required for the countries about to be visited can be 
___ better obtained at Mombasa than elsewhere. 
To obtain the latest information with regard to the different 
kinds and qualities of cloth and beads is most important. 
Fashions change even in East Central Africa, and beads of a 
_ Certain colour or cloth of a certain quality, which were _per- 
_ haps in great demand one year, will not even be looked at the 
_ following year. Should the wrong kind of goods be taken up 
|__ by mistake, the natives, although they might be willing to ex- 
change their products for them, would only do so at such exor- 
_  bitant prices that a trip would have to be curtailed, and all 
sorts of annoyances and disappointments incurred on account 
_ Of the unlooked-for and ruinous expenditure of goods, unless 
_ others of the right kind were sent for from the coast, or could be 
_ procured from one of the stations near at hand. 
