CLOTH. 



149 



which composes their Honga — " blackmail " or dash — 

 amongst their followers. 



The people of East Africa, when first visited by the 

 Arabs, were satisfied with the coarsest and flimsiest 

 Kaniki imported by the Banyans from Cutch. When 

 American merchants settled at Zanzibar, Kaniki yielded 

 before the advance of " Merkani," which now supplies 

 the markets from Abyssinia to the Mozambique. But 

 the wild men are fast losing their predilection for a 

 stuff which is neither comfortable nor durable, and in 

 many regions the tribes satisfied with goat-skins and 

 tree barks, prefer to invest their capital in the more at- 

 tractive beads and wire. It would evidently be advan- 

 tageous if England or her colonies could manufacture 

 an article better suited to the wants of the country than 

 that now in general use ; but as long as the Indian 

 short-stapled cotton must be used, there is little proba- 

 bility of her competing with the produce of the New 

 World. 



In Eastern Africa cotton cloth is used only for wear. 

 The popular article is a piece of varying breadth but 

 always of four cubits, or six feet, in length : the braca of 

 Portuguese Africa, it is called by the Arabs, shukkah, 

 by the Wasawahili, unguo, and in the far interior 

 upande or lupande. It is used as a loin-wrapper, and is 

 probably the first costume of Eastern Africa and of 

 Arabia. The plate borrowed from Montfaucon's edition 

 of the " Topographia Christiana," by Dr. Vincent (Part 

 I. Appendix to the Periplus) shows the Shukkah, to be 

 the general dress of Ethiopians, as it was of the Egypt- 

 ians, and the spear their weapon. The use of the Shukkah 

 during the Meccan pilgrimage, when the devotees cast 

 off such innovations as coats and breeches for the na- 



ii 3 



