THE PAGAZI OR PORTERS. 



145 



if proposed by a stranger, would be rejected with grunts 

 of disgust. They hate the inconvenience of boxes, 

 unless light enough to be carried at both ends of a 

 " Banghi "-pole by one man, or heavy enough to be 

 slung between two porters. The burden must never 

 be under a fair standard, especially when of that de- 

 scription that it decreases by expenditure towards the 

 end of the journey; a lightly-laden man not only be- 

 comes lazy, he also makes his fellows discontented. The 

 nature of the load, however, causes an inequality of 

 weight. Cloth is tightly rolled up in the form of a 

 huge bolster, five feet long by eighteen to twenty-four 

 inches in diameter, protected against wear and weather 

 by Makanda or coarse matting of brab-leaf, and corded 

 over. This bundle is fastened, for the purpose of pre- 

 serving its shape and for convenience of stacking, in a 

 cradle of three or more flexible branches, cut from a 

 small tree below the place of junction, barked and 

 trimmed, laid along the length of the load, and 

 confined at the open end by a lashing of fibre-rope. 

 Besides his weapons and marching kit, a man will carry 

 a pack of two Frasilah or seventy pounds, and this 

 perhaps is the maximum. Beads are placed in long, 

 narrow bags of domestics, matted, corded, and cradled in 

 sticks like cloth ; being a less elastic load, they are more 

 difficult to carry, and therefore seldom exceed fifty 

 pounds. Brass, and other wires, are carried in daur, 

 khata, or circles, lashed to both ends of a pole, which is 

 generally the large midrib of a palm-frond, with a fork 

 cut in its depth at one extremity to form a base for the 

 load when stacked, and provided at the point of junc- 

 tion with a Kitambara or pad of grass, rag, or leather. 

 Wire is the lightest, as ivory is the heaviest, of loads. 



VOL. I. L 



