362 



THE LAKE REGIONS OF CENTRAL AFRICA. 



chical tribes are legitimists of the good old school, dis- 

 daining a novus homo ; and the consciousness of power 

 invests their princes with a certain dignity and majesty 

 of demeanour. As has been mentioned, some of the 

 Sultans whose rule has the greatest prestige, appear, from 

 physical peculiarities, to be of a foreign and a nobler 

 origin. 



In the aristocratical or semi-monarchical tribes, as the 

 Wanj^amwezi, the power of the Sultan depends mainly 

 upon his wealth, importance, and personal qualifications 

 for the task of rule. A chief enabled to carry out a 

 " fist-right " policy will raise himself to the rank of a 

 despot, and will slay and sell his subjects without mercy. 

 Though surrounded by a council varying from two to a 

 score of chiefs and elders, who are often related or 

 connected with him, and who, like the Arab shayks, 

 presume as much as possible in ordering this and forbid- 

 ding that, he can disregard and slight them. More 

 often, however, his authority is circumscribed by a rude 

 balance of power ; the chiefs around him can probably 

 bring as many warriors into the field as he can. When 

 weak, the sultan has little more authority than the 

 patell of an Indian village or the shaykh of a Bedouin 

 tribe. Yet even when the chief cannct command in his 

 own clan, he is an important personage to travelling 

 merchants and strangers. He can cause a quarrel, an 

 advance, or an assassination, and he can quiet brawls 

 even when his people have been injured. He can open 

 a road by providing porters, or bar a path by deterring 

 a caravan from proceeding, or by stopping the sale of 

 provisions. Thus it is easy to travel amongst races 

 whose chiefs are well disposed to foreigners, and the 

 utmost circumspection becomes necessary when the 

 headmen are grasping and inhospitable. Upon the whole, 



