ARRIVAL AT MANDARA'A COURT. 
95 
ever met. He is a man whose portrait should be 
placed with certain others of his contemporaries, 
Rumanika, Mtesa,'the Kasongo, whose lineaments stand 
out sharply amid the obscurity of Savage Africa, and 
whose names, so associated with the pioneers of African 
exploration, will certainly not fall into oblivion. 
As far as we can trust to his own traditions as to 
his ancestry, it would appear that his grandfather was 
a younger brother of the ruling chief of Mpoko, or 
Mpokomo, a state lying to the west of Mosi. He 
seems to have been a great warrior, and protected his 
few subjects so zealously against the raids of the Masai 
(who at that time menaced the very existence of the 
V 
Caga mountaineers), that he formed them in time into 
a prosperous and thriving community. The origin or 
etymology of the name Mosi (pronounced in English 
££ Moshy ”) is not very clear. In the language of 
Taveita it means c£ smoke,” which, from the fact that 
at all times puffs of white smoke arising from the con¬ 
stant burning of weeds are to be observed, when the 
land is seen from the plains below, is a not improbable 
derivation ; still it may be more likely drawn from 
some term in Ki-caga, the language of the country. 
As it is sometimes pronounced Musi or Muzi, I thought 
it might have been akin to the common Bantu word 
v 
“ muji,” a town or settlement ; but as that term becomes 
<£ muri ” in Ki-caga, I am still at a loss. However this 
may be, Mosi is the well-known name on Kilima-njaro 
of the little state founded, as tradition goes, by Man- 
dara’s grandfather. This hero is supposed to have 
fallen in battle with the Masai, and his second—some 
say his third—son inherited the power. He strength¬ 
ened his position by marriage, and espoused several 
princesses of the reigning families in the vicinity of his 
