266 



THE LAKE REGIONS OF CENTRAL AFRICA. 



and consequently less of its normal consequences, fiscs 

 and massacres, than in any other region between the 

 Atlantic and the Indian Ocean. "Arrow-heads" em- 

 ployed every art of wild diplomacy to relieve me of as 

 much cloth as possible. I received, when encamped at 

 the Ziwa, a polite message declaring his desire to see 

 white men ; but — " the favour of the winds produces 

 dust " — I was obliged to acknowledge the compliment 

 with two cottons. On arrival at his head-quarters I was 

 waited upon by an oily cabinet of Wazirs and elders, 

 who would not depart without their " respects " — four 

 cottons. The next demand was made by his favourite 

 wife, a peculiarly hideous old princess with more 

 wrinkles than hairs, with no hair black and no tooth 

 white, and attended by ladies in waiting as unpre- 

 possessing as herself: she was not to be dismissed with- 

 out a fee of six cottons. At last, accompanied by a mob 

 of courtiers, who crowded in like an African House 

 of Commons, appeared in person the magnifico. He 

 was the only Sultan that ever entered my tent in Ugogo 

 — pride and a propensity for strong drink prevented 

 other visits. He was much too great a man to call 

 upon the Arab merchants, but in our case curiosity 

 had mastered state considerations. Magomba was a 

 black and wrinkled elder, drivelling and decrepid, with 

 a half-bald head from w T hose back and sides depended 

 a few straggling corkscrews of iron gray : he wore a 

 coat of castor-oil and a " Barsati " loin-cloth, which 

 grease and use had changed from blue to black. A few 

 bead strings decorated his neck, large flexible anklets 

 of brass wire adorned his legs, solid brass rings, single 

 and in coils, which had distended his earlobes almost to 

 splitting, were tied by a string over his cranium, 

 and his horny soles were defended by single-soled 



