Chap. XIV. MEASURING CLOTH. 377 



Maravi. Several other detached granite hills have been 

 shot up on the plain, and many stockaded villages, all 

 owing allegiance to Muazi, are scattered over it. 



On our arrival, the chief was sitting in the smooth 

 shady place, called Boalo, where all public business is 

 transacted, with about two hundred men and boys around 

 him. We paid our guides with due ostentation. Masiko, 

 the tallest of our party, measured off the fathom of cloth 

 agreed upon, and made it appear as long as possible, by 

 facing round to the crowd, and cutting a few inches 

 beyond what his outstretched arms could reach, to show 

 that there was no deception. This was by way of adver- 

 tisement. The people are mightily gratified at having a 

 tall fellow to measure the cloth for them. It pleases them 

 even better than cutting it by a tape-line — though very 

 few men of six feet high can measure off their own length 

 with their outstretched arms. Here, where Arab traders 

 have been, the cubit called mokono, or elbow, begins to take 

 the place of the fathom in use further south. The measure 

 is taken from the point of the bent elbow to the end of the 

 middle finger. 



We found, on visiting Muazi on the following day, 

 that he was as frank and straightforward as could reason- 

 ably be expected. He did not wish us to go to the N.N.W., 

 because he carries on a considerable trade in ivory there. 

 We were anxious to get off the slave route, to people not 

 visited before by traders; but Muazi naturally feared, 

 that if we went to what is said to be a well-watered 

 country, abounding in elephants, we might relieve him of 

 the ivory which he now obtains at a cheap rate, and sells 

 to the slave-traders as they pass Kasungu to the east ; but 

 at last he consented, warning us that " great difficulty 

 would be experienced in obtaining food — a district had been 

 depopulated by slave wars — and a night or two must be 

 spent in it ; but he would give us good guides, who would 



