THE KIRANGOZI, OR CARAVAN GUIDE. 



347 



behind ; he also wears some wonderful head-dress, the 

 spoils of a white and black " tippet-monkey," or the 

 barred skin of a wild cat, crowning the head, bound 

 round the throat, hanging over the shoulders, and 

 capped with a tall cup-shaped bunch of owl's feathers, 

 or thegorgeous plumes of the crested crane. His insignia 

 of office are the kipungo or fly-flapper, the tail of some 

 beast which he affixes to his person as if it were a 

 natural growth, the kome, or hooked iron spit, decor- 

 ated with a central sausage of parti-coloured beads, and 

 a variety of oily little gourds containing snuff, simples, 

 and " medicine," for the road, strapped round his waist. 

 He leads the caravan, and the better to secure the obe- 

 dience of his followers he has paid them in a sheep or a 

 goat, the value of which he will recover by fees and su- 

 periority of rations — the head of every animal slaughtered 

 in camp and the presents at the end of the journey are 

 exclusively his. A man guilty of preceding the Kiran- 

 gozi is liable to fine, and an arrow is extracted from his 

 quiver to substantiate his identity at the end of the 

 march. Pouring out of the kraal in a disorderly mob, 

 the porters stack their goods at some tree distant but a 

 few hundred yards, and allow the late, the lazy, and the 

 invalids to join the main body. Generally at this con- 

 juncture the huts are fired by neglect or mischievousness. 

 The khambi, especially in winter, burns like tinder, and 

 the next caravan will find a heap of hot ashes and a 

 few charred sticks still standing. Yet by way of con- 

 trast the Pagazi will often take the trouble to denote 

 by the usual signposts to those following them that 

 water is at hand. Here and there a little facetiousness 

 appears in these erections, a mouth is cut in the tree- 

 trunk to admit a bit of wood, simulating a pipe, with 

 other representations still more waggish. 



