140 FATE OF AFRICAN EMPIRES. CHAP. V. 



young men, having gone off at sunrise, shot a fine water- 

 buck, and down came the provision market to the lowest 

 figure ; they even became eager to sell, but our men were 

 angry with them for trying compulsion, and would not 

 buy. Black greed had outwitted itself, as happens often 

 with white cupidity ; and not only here did the traits of 

 Africans remind us of Anglo-Saxons elsewhere : the 

 notoriously ready world-wide disposition to take an unfair 

 advantage of a man's necessities shows that the same 

 mean motives are pretty widely diffused among all races. 

 It may not be granted that the same blood flows in all 

 veins, or that all have descended from the same stock ; but 

 the traveller has no doubt that, practically, the white 

 rogue and black are men and brothers. 



Pangola is the child or vassal of Mpende. Sandia and 

 Mpende are the only independent chiefs from Kebrabasa 

 to Zumbo, and belong to the tribe Manganja. The country 

 north of the mountains here in sight from the Zambesi is 

 called Senga, and its inhabitants Asenga, or Basenga, but 

 all appear to be of the same family as the rest of the Man- 

 ganja and Maravi. Formerly all the Manganja were 

 united under the government of their great chief, Undi, 

 whose empire extended from Lake Shirwa to the River 

 Loangwa ; but after Undi's death it fell to pieces, and a 

 large portion of it on the Zambesi was absorbed by their 

 powerful southern neighbours the Banyai. This has been 

 the inevitable fate of every African empire from time 

 immemorial. A chief of more than ordinary ability 

 arises and, subduing all his less powerful neighbours, 

 founds a kingdom, which he governs more or less wisely 

 till he dies. His successor not having the talents of the 

 conqueror cannot retain the dominion, and some of the abler 

 under-chiefs set up for themselves, and, in a few years, 

 the remembrance only of the empire remains. This, 

 which may be considered as the normal state of African 



