154 TAVETA AND MOUNTS KILIMANJARO AND MERU 



food, and we wanted donkeys. We were also anxious to buy 

 some ethnographical curiosities ; and the natives had not the 

 slightest idea of the value of time. Nothing in Africa tried 

 our patience and mettle more than this bartering with the 

 natives ; and it was worse here than anywhere else. It was 

 not as if we were dealing with absolutely savage tribes ; and 

 it was really surprising what cunning quite young children 

 could display. A few examples will suffice. Jumbe Kime- 

 meta, experienced old trader though he was, could only get one 

 donkey. Four times the price was fixed ; four times the owner 

 of the beast wanted to back out of his bargain. You may be 

 pretty sure that in nine cases out of ten the natives will bring 

 back the beads, or whatever the purchase-money is, at least five 

 times, the hours spent in negotiations being thus absolutely 

 wasted. And every transaction is watched by a crowd of 

 spectators, drawn together by curiosity or a desire to show off 

 their cleverness, so that, even if the buyer or seller is satisfied, 

 his friends are not. One does not like the colour of the stuff, 

 another thinks the price too low, and so on ad infinitum. 



Amongst the natives there are generally some few who make 

 it their special business to look after bartering, and traders try 

 to bribe them with a small present to vote on their side. The 

 usual result is, however, that bargains are at first apparently 

 concluded, only for the natives to begin their backing-out again 

 soon after, and the agent who took the bribe is nowhere to be 

 found. We wasted no end of stuffs, gunpowder, wire, &c, in 

 this way, not to speak of time and patience, gaining in the end 

 absolutely nothing by all our perseverance. 



The bad weather prevented our going far from camp, and 

 it was not until the last day of our stay with the Wameru that 

 the heavy clouds hiding the mountain cleared off and we were 

 able, though still only with the aid of glasses, to make out the 

 upper slopes and peak. We recognised the pyramidal form 



