Chap. XIV. CONDUCT OF THE AJAWA. 397 



specimen of a human fiend, stands grouped with those by 

 whom the slave-traders are employed, and with all the 

 workers of sin and misery in more highly-favoured lands, 

 an awful picture to the All-seing Eye. 



We arrived at Katosa's village on the 15th October, 

 and found about thirty young men and boys in slave- 

 sticks. They had been bought by other agents of the 

 Arab slavers, still on the east side of the Shire. They 

 were resting in the village, and their owners soon removed 

 them. The weight of the goree seemed very annoying 

 when they tried to sleep. This taming instrument is kept 

 on, until the party has crossed several rivers and all hope 

 of escape has vanished from the captive's mind. 



On explaining to Katosa the injury he was doing in 

 selling his people as slaves, he assured us that those whom 

 we had seen belonged to the Arabs, and added that he had 

 far too few people already. He said he had been living in 

 peace at the lakelet Pamalombe ; that the Ajawa, or 

 Machinga, under Kainka and Karamba, and a body of 

 Babisa, under Maonga, had induced him to ferry them 

 over the Shire; that they had lived for a considerable 

 time at his expense, and at last stole his sheep, which 

 induced him to make his escape to the place where he now 

 dwelt, and in this flight he had lost many of his people. 

 His account of the usual conduct of the Ajawa quite 

 agrees with what these people have narrated themselves, 

 and gives but a low idea of their moral tone. They have 

 repeatedly broken all the laws of hospitality by living for 

 months on the bounty of the Manganja, and then, by a 

 sudden uprising, overcoming their hosts, and killing or 

 chasing them out of their inheritances. The secret of 

 their success is the possession of firearms. There were 

 several of these Ajawa here again, and on our arrival they 

 proposed to Katosa that they should leave ; but he replied 

 that they need not be afraid of us. They had red beads 



