MIRIALI'S WINDOWLESS 'PALACE' 



115 



of Ms notorious neighbour, Mandara, whom, as a matter of 

 pohcy, he had bought for 300 cows. Miriah had shown better 

 taste in the choice of his slave-girls than in that of his wives, 

 for they were pretty little things, even from the European point 

 of view. They were charmingly confiding with us, nestling up 

 to us like young kittens, and pushing up the sleeves of our 

 shirts to look at our white skin. They were all most anxious 

 to serve us, and one of them persistently held up rather a big 

 looking-glass opposite to us ; but of all their endearing chatter- 

 ing the chief refrain was ' kilengele.' The wives were all 

 wrapped in long purple mantles, whilst the girls wore the 

 simple but picturesque costume, represented on page 117, 

 common to all unmarried women of the Kilimanjaro district. 

 We would gladly have lingered much longer with them, but 

 Miriali was impatient to take us on to see his palace, of which 

 he appeared to be not a little proud. It greatly resembled the 

 negro huts of Zanzibar, and was, in fact, built by men from 

 the coast, many of whom attach themselves like parasites to 

 all the Kilimanjaro chieftains. Like the worthy burghers of old 

 with their town-hall, the architects had forgotten the windows, 

 so that it was quite dark inside. But Miriali had brought with 

 him a couple of fine candles, so to please him we crept after 

 him through all his apartments. The most beautiful thing 

 about the house was its site, for it commanded a grand view 

 of the country south of Kilimanjaro. We therefore gladly sat 

 down here and enjoyed a positively idyllic hour gazing at the 

 scene spread out before us. 



At our feet squatted Miriali's wives and slave-girls, who 

 dragged themselves nearer and nearer to us, whispering every 

 now and then a soft ' kilengele ' in our ears. The chief himself was 

 drinking pombe, a sour and weak concoction made from eleusine^ 



^ The eleusine so often mentioned by the author is a cereal native to East 

 Africa. — Trans. 



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