PROSPECTS OF E. EQUATORIAL AFRICA . 
555 
they came to buy cloth from me. They had, of course, 
received this currency from the coast traders, but it 
only shows they are beginning to understand the value 
of money; nay, more, Mandara, the chief of Mosi, on 
Kilim a-njaro, wanted me to open a banking account 
for him at Zanzibar, and he had a distinct though 
crude idea of drawing cheques. Even the fiercest 
people here have wants for extraneous things that 
must be satisfied. Then again, if you introduce com¬ 
merce arid a ready market, you suppress the slave 
trade. Chiefs now sell their people into slavery be¬ 
cause the Arabs will not buy anything else, slaves 
being the most profitable investment for the coast 
trader; but once convince them—and Africans are 
much more practical than you think—that more money 
is to be gained by employing their serfs to cultivate 
the soil at home and produce food stuffs and other 
products for sale, and I am sure the expatriation of 
these wretched people will cease. Again, at the present 
moment one chief makes war against another to pro¬ 
cure prisoners and sell them as slaves, but commercial 
instinct will introduce peace by turning the sword 
into a reaping-hook, and covering the devastated 
fields with fair and marketable harvests. These people 
are well worthy of civilization—yes, even the fierce 
and roving Masai, who are already being softened 
wherever they impinge on the rendezvous of coast trade. 
I would suggest that in any undertaking to open up 
Eastern Equatorial Africa, Kilim a-njaro should be 
made the centre of operations, both on account of its 
fine climate and the placability of its inhabitants, and 
for the further reason that the intervening country 
between Kilima-njaro and the coast is quite safe for 
travelling. 
