SULTAN NJASA. 



199 



the general body contenting themselves with a goat- 

 skin flap somewhat like a cobbler's apron tied over 

 one shoulder, as we sling a game-bag. Their orna- 

 ments are zinc and brass earrings in rolls, which 

 distend the ear-lobe, bangles, or armlets of similar 

 metal, and iron chains with oblong links as anklets. 

 Their arms are bows and arrows, assegais with long 

 lanceated heads, and bull-hide shields, three feet 

 long by one broad, painted black and red in per- 

 pendicular stripes. I was visited by their Sultan 

 Njasa, a small grizzled old man, with eyes reddened by 

 liquor, a wide mouth, a very thin beard, a sooty skin, 

 and long straggling hair, " a la malcontent." He was 

 attired in an antiquated Barsati, or blue and red In- 

 dian cotton, tucked in at the waist, with another 

 thrown over his shoulders, and his neck was decked 

 with many strings of beads. He insisted upon making 

 " sare " or brotherhood with Said bin Salim, who being 

 forbidden by his law to taste blood, made the uncon- 

 scientious Muinyi Wazira his proxy. The two brothers 

 being seated on the ground opposite each other, with 

 legs well to the fore, one man held over their heads a 

 drawn sword, whilst another addressed to them alter- 

 nately a little sermon, denouncing death or slavery as 

 the penalty for proving false to the vow. Then each 

 brother licked a little of the other's blood, taken with 

 the finger from a knife-cut above the heart, or rather 

 where the heart is popularly supposed to be. The Sul- 

 tan then presented to the Muinyi, in memoriam, a neat 

 iron chain-anklet, and the Muinyi presented to the Sultan 

 a little of our cloth. 



The climate of Rumuma was new to me, after the in- 

 cessant rains of the maritime valley, and the fogs and 

 mists of the Rufuta Range. It was, however, in ex- 



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