THE SULTAN. 



363 



the chiefs are wise enough to encourage the visits of 

 traders. 



A patriarchal or purely republican form of govern- 

 ment is unknown in East Africa. The Wasagara, it is 

 true, choose their chief like the Banyai of "Monomotapa," 

 but, once elected, he becomes a monarch. Loyalty — or, 

 to reduce it to its elements, veneration for the divinity 

 that hedges in a king — is a sentiment innate in the 

 African mind. Man, however, in these regions is not a 

 political animal; he has a certain instinctive regard for 

 his chief and a respect for his elders. He ignores, how- 

 ever, the blessings of duly limited independence and the 

 natural classification of humanity into superior and 

 inferior, and honours — the cheap pay of nations — are 

 unknown. He acknowledges no higher and lower social 

 strata. His barbarism forbids the existence of a learned 

 oligarchy, of an educated community, or of a church 

 and state, showing the origin of the connection between 

 the soul and body of society. Man being equal to man, 

 force being the only law and self the sole consideration, 

 mutual jealousy prevents united efforts and deadens 

 all patriotic spirit. No one cares for the public good ; 

 the welfare of the general must yield to the most con- 

 temptible individual interests ; civil order and security 

 are therefore unknown, and foreign relations cannot 

 exist. 



In the lowest tribes the chieftain is a mere nonentity, 

 " a Sultan,'' as the Arabs say, " within his own walls." 

 His subjects will boast, like the Somal, that he is " tan- 

 quam unus ex nobis ;" and they are so sensible of restraint 

 that " girdles and garters would be to them bonds and 

 shackles " metaphorically as well as literally. The posi- 

 tion of these Sultans is about equal to that of the diwans 

 of the Mrima ; their dignity is confined to sitting upon 



