MIEIALI IN GALA COSTUME 



181 



sound of reiterated shouts of admiring delight. One old fellow 

 was specially amusing. He came up just as the last touches 

 had been put and Miriali, with sword, shield, and spear, was 

 stepping forth in self-conscious pride. ' Ha ! ' he cried several 

 times, ' Ha ! a lion ! ' — then — ' No, not a lion ! our own Mangi 

 (chief) ! Oh Mangi ! ' he went on, ' thou art like a lion,' and in 

 his excitement he hopped round and round his Mangi for a 

 bit, and then went before him shouting, ' The lion comes ! the 

 lion comes ! ' to the clearing where the whole population of 

 Marangu was assembled. The dance already described was 

 then gone through again, the guns, loaded almost to bursting 

 with powder, going off every now and then. The dancers stepped 

 out of the circle to fire, pointing their weapons to the ground, 

 stretched out as far as possible in front of them, springing into 

 the air as they pulled the triggers. Then they resumed their 

 places in the circle, with as proud an air as if they had 

 performed some feat of valour in making all this noise. We 

 then saw the warriors start as if on the war-path to meet a 

 real foe. This they did in the skirmishing order we are 

 familiar with in Europe, one or another skirmisher rushing 

 out of the line every now and then with a terrible cry to dart 

 upon an imaginary enemy, fire at him and spring back into 

 the ranks as cpiickly as possible. This game went on till all 

 the powder was exhausted. 



At Miriali's request we photographed him with his chief 

 warriors grouped about him, and then went with him to his hut, 

 where his three wives, wearing new bright red handkerchiefs, 

 and his three slave-girls standing in a row were waiting with a 

 meal ready for us, consisting of well-cooked slices of beef served 

 on wooden sticks. Miriali told his wives they could begin to 

 eat whilst he went to take off his grand clothes, and all the 

 women squatted down, one of them acting as hostess, and cut- 

 ting off slices of meat, which she handed to her companions. 



