114 TAVETA AND MOUNTS KILIMANJARO AND MERU 



cofiee and cigarettes. He tried both, and seemed to begin to 

 feel more at ease. He was, of course, accompanied by Ms very 

 numerous court, and his people squatted round us, taking the 

 greatest interest in our interview. Miriali, who was only about 

 twenty-four or twenty-five years old then, though he said he was 

 ahundred, was a ver}^ intelligent-looking young fellow, with very 

 little of the negro in his mobile features. According to the 

 custom of the country, he wore in the pierced lobe of the right 

 ear a round bit of wood some four inches long and about the 

 thickness of a lead-pencil, whilst in the unusually distended lobe 

 of the left was a decorated Avooden ring, some four inches in 

 diameter. Eound his neck he had only a string of blue beads. 



He seemed altogether simpler-minded than his people, and 

 we were able to converse with him in Kiswahili without an 

 interpreter. We had many a pleasant chat as he became more 

 at home with us. If we told him a story or explained anything 

 to him, he generally translated into Kijagga for the benefit of 

 his followers. Miriali was fond of talking, and was apparently 

 witty, for his sallies were constantly greeted with shouts of 

 merriment. 



As far as we could judge, the natives of Marangu were very 

 devoted to their young mcmgi, or chief; but of course his real 

 power depended upon the fighting-men of the community, and 

 waned or increased according to their good pleasure. 



In the afternoon Miriali invited us to go with him to his 

 quarters, and led us there by a different route to that taken 

 when we first arrived. Through a low, narrow plank door, we 

 came first to a little wood of banana-trees, then through a 

 second opening into an avenue of lofty drac^na, leading to a 

 group of huts surrounded by a strong palisade of sawn planks. 

 Then, without the .slightest embarrassment, our host's whole 

 harem — three wives and three slave-girls — came out to greet 

 us, one of the former being, as Miriali informed us, a daughter 



