328 THE LAKE REGIONS OF CENTRAL AFRICA. 



dikira, the chief. Their position, however, though 

 partly held by force of prestige, is precarious. They 

 are all Arabs from Oman, with one solitary excep- 

 tion, Musa Mzuri, an Indian Kojah, who is perhaps 

 in these days the earliest explorer of Unyamwezi. In 

 July, 1858, an Arab merchant, Silim bin Masud, re- 

 turning from Kazeh to his home at Msene, with a slave- 

 porter carrying a load of cloth, was, though well armed 

 and feared as a good shot, attacked at a water in a strip 

 of jungle westward of Mfuto, and speared in the back 

 by five men, who were afterwards proved to be subjects 

 of the Sultan Kasanyare, a Mvinza. The Arabs or- 

 ganised a small expedition to revenge the murder, 

 marched out with 200 or 300 slave-musketeers, de- 

 voured all the grain and poultry in the country, and 

 returned to their homes without striking a blow, be- 

 cause each merchant-militant wished his fellows to 

 guarantee his goods or his life for the usual diyat, or 

 blood-money, 800 dollars. This impunity of crime will 

 probably lead to other outrages. 



The Arabs live comfortably, and even splendidly, at 

 Unyanyembe. The houses, though single-storied, are 

 large, substantial, and capable of defence. Their gar- 

 dens are extensive and well planted ; they receive regular 

 supplies of merchandise, comforts, and luxuries from 

 the coast ; they are surrounded by troops of concubines 

 and slaves, whom they train to divers crafts and call- 

 ings ; rich men have riding-asses from Zanzibar, and 

 even the poorest keep flocks and herds. At Unyan- 

 yembe, as at Msene, and sometimes at Ujiji, there are 

 itinerant fundi, or slave-artisans — blacksmiths, tinkers, 

 masons, carpenters, tailors, potters, and rope-makers, — 

 who come up from the coast with Arab caravans. 

 These men demand exorbitant wages. A broken 



