MATAKA'S COUNTRY. 849 



himself a Yao, as an interpreter. He made me very welcome as the second 

 white man he had seen, and asked me to turn up my sleeve and let them see 

 my arm, as hands and face had got burnt Arab colour. He offered us the 

 choice of two houses, and the men went to get one ready. I sat to be looked 

 at and talked over till they returned and conducted me, not without firing 

 of guns, to the house which they had chosen. Thither the town followed, and 

 Mataka sent us presents of food and pombe, or ukana, the native beer ; perhaps 

 barley water slightly fermented would best represent it to an English mind. 

 I like it in moderation, and Chuma made me with it and some flour I had 

 brought capital little loaves, which were very acceptable as a relief from the 

 endless rice and fowls, which are the staple food, and the weariness of every 

 European in tropical Africa. One man actually asked me whether we had 

 any fowls in England, for he had observed that all Englishmen ate so many 

 of them when in Africa. As though we any of us would if we could get any- 

 thing else ! However, at Mwembe we were in a land of plenty; we bought a 

 large goat, and an Arab settled in the town gave us another, and Mataka gave 

 us an ox, and we feasted on an abundance of peas, which grow here, but not 

 nearer to the coast, so that, if the truth be told, we all rather over-ate our- 

 selves and suffered for it. 



" On the day following our arrival, we made up a valuable present 

 for Mataka, and sent him my letters from Zanzibar from the Regent and 

 English Consul-Greneral. He seemed very well satisfied, and said we might 

 go anywhere we pleased, and make ourselves at home in his country. He 

 was anxious we should not then go on to the lake, as in so doing we should 

 probably make friends with his enemy Makanjila. At first he offered us a 

 place in the town, but afterwards got frightened and preferred we should set- 

 tle nearer the lake at Losewa. He gets much of his wealth from what he knew 

 we should hate and speak against, the sale of slaves, though Mponda, at the 

 outlet of the Shire, and Makanjila, are the chief slave sellers. As Mataka 

 represented it, he sold criminals, but of course he sells Makanjila's people 

 when he can get them, and his own born slaves, and a very small offence 

 suffices if the chief is in want of money. 



"I stayed in Mataka's country about a fortnight, when the continual 

 rains and the memory of the rivers behind us made me think it was high time 

 to return. I hoped to have gone down to the coast very light and very 

 quickly, but our men, finding that I had few burdens for them, bought such 

 a quantity of tobacco for themselves that they were more heavily loaded than 

 before. The Yaos use their tobacco almost exclusively in the form of snuff, 

 but Yao tobacco is specially valued in Zanzibar for chewing, and commands 

 a higher price there than any other sort. There seems to be no legitimate 

 commerce now between the Yaos and the coast except in tobacco and bhang 

 and a very little ivory , the elephants being nearly all killed off. Caravans 

 h 4 



