340 THE LAKE REGIONS OF CENTRAL AFRICA. 



the desire of the employe to extract as much as he 

 can by presuming upon the wants of his employer. 

 In some years there is a glut of porters on the coast ; 

 when they are rare quarrels take place between the 

 several settlements, each attempting a monopoly of 

 enlistment to the detriment of its neighbours, and a 

 little blood is sometimes let. When the Wanyamwezi 

 began to carry, they demanded for a journey from 

 the coast to their own country six to nine dollars' 

 worth of domestics, coloured cloths, brass-wires, and 

 the pigeon's-egg bead called sungomaji. The rate of 

 porterage then declined ; the increase of traffic, how- 

 ever, has of late years greatly increased it. In 1857 it 

 was 10 dollars, and it afterwards rose to 12 dollars per 

 porter. In this sum rations are not included; the 

 value of these — which by ancient custom are fixed at 1 

 kubabah (about 1*5 lbs.) of grain per diem, or, that 

 failing, of manioc, sweet potatoes, and similar articles, 

 with the present of a bullock at the frontier — is subject 

 to greater variations, and is even less reducible to an 

 average than the porter's pay. It is needless to say 

 that the down-journey is less expensive than the up- 

 march, as the carriers rely upon a fresh engagement on 

 the coast. The usual hire from Unyanyembe would be 

 nine cloths, payable on arrival at the sea-port, where 

 each is worth 25 cents, or about 1 shilling. The Arabs 

 roughly calculate — the errors balancing one another — 

 that, rations included, the hire of a porter from the 

 coast to the Tanganyika Lake and back amounts to a 

 total of 20 dollars — 41. 3s. From the coast, Wan- 

 yamwezi porters will not engage themselves for a 

 journey westward of their own country ; at Unyan- 

 yembe they break up, and a fresh gang must be enlisted 

 for a march to the Tanganyika or to the Nyanza Lake. 



