MINOR PREPARATIONS. 



203 



cotton-tape, which in these climates is better than 

 either reims or cord. To save my eyes the spectacle of 

 moribund fowls, suspended to a porter's pole, two light 

 cages were made after the fashion of the country, with 

 bent and bound withes. The metal plates, pots, and 

 pans were furbished, and a damaged kettle was mended 

 by a travelling tinker : the asses' saddles and halters 

 were repaired, and, greatest luxury of all, a brace of 

 jembe or iron hoes was converted into two pairs of solid 

 stirrups, under the vigilant eye of Snay bin Amir. A 

 party of slaves sent to Msene brought back fifty-four 

 jembe, useful as return-presents and blackmail on the 

 clown-march : they paid, however, one cloth for two, 

 instead of four. Sallum bin Hamid, the " papa " of the 

 Arabs, sold for the sum of forty dollars a fine half-bred 

 Zanzibar she-a^s and foal — there is no surer method of 

 procuring a regular supply of milk on Eastern journeys. 

 My black and white beads being almost useless, he also 

 parted with, as a peculiar favour, seventeen or eighteen 

 pounds of pink-porcelains for forty dollars, and with a 

 Frasibah of coffee, and a similar quantity of sugar for 

 eighty dollars, equal to sixteen pounds sterling. On 

 the 14th July the last Arab caravan of the season left 

 Unyanyembe, under the command of Sayf bin Said el 

 Wardi. As he obligingly offered to convey letters and 

 any small articles which I wished to precede me, and 

 knowing that under his charge effects were far safer 

 than with our own people, I forwarded the useless and 

 damaged surveying instruments, certain manuscripts, 

 and various enclosures of maps, field and sketch- 

 books, together with reports to the Royal Geographical 

 Society. 



This excitement over I began to weary of Kazeh. 

 Snay bin Amir and most of the Arabs had set out on an 

 expedition to revenge the murder of old Silim — an 



