MEETING OF CARAVANS. 



209 



rice, a few pounds of salt, and a goat, in exchange 

 for a little perfumed snuff and assafcetida, which after 

 a peculiar infusion is applied to wounds, and which, ad- 

 ministered internally, is considered a remedy for many 

 complaints. I was allured to buy a few yards of rope, 

 indispensable for packing the animals. The number of 

 our asses being reduced from thirty to fifteen, and the 

 porters from thirty- six to thirty, it was necessary to 

 recruit. The Arabs sold two Wanyamwezi animals for 

 ten dollars each, payable at Zanzibar. One proved 

 valuable as a riding ass, and carried me to the Central 

 Lake, and back toUnyanyembe: the other, though capon- 

 ized and blind on the off-side, had become by bad treat- 

 ment so obstinate and so cleverly vicious, that the Baloch 

 called him " Shaytan yek-cham," or the u one-eyed 

 fiend : " he carried, besides sundries, four boxes of am- 

 munition, weighing together 160 pounds, and even under 

 these he danced like a deer. Nothing was against him 

 but his character : after a few days he was cast adrift -in 

 the wilderness of Mgunda M'khali, because no man 

 dared to load and lead him. Knowing that the Arab 

 merchants upon this line hold it a point of honour to 

 discourage, by refusing a new engagement, the down- 

 porters in their proclivity to desert, and believing that 

 it was a stranger's duty to be even stricter than they 

 are, I gave most stringent orders that any fugitive 

 porter detected in my caravan should be sent back a 

 prisoner to his employers. But the Coast- Arabs and 

 the Wasawahili ignore this commercial chivalry, and 

 shamelessly offer a premium to " levanters : " moreover, 

 in these lands it is hard to make men understand the 

 rapport between sayings and doings. Seven or eight 

 fellows, who secretly left the party, were sent back ; 

 one, however, was taken on without my knowledge. 

 vol. i. p 



