EAST AFRICA AND ITS BIG GAME. 
114 
and posting scouts in all directions to give timely 
notice of any attack. With the assistance of the Wa- 
maSame on the other side of the Kiboso and the 
W’Arusha below, he is now able to keep Sina fairly 
in check and to hold his own. 
Mandara has many wives, aged from fourteen years 
upwards, and when he gets tired of a few, passes them 
over in marriage to his head men. I asked Mr. Fitch 
whether the head men approved of this mark of royal 
favour, and he declared they were perfectly satisfied, as 
the present of a wife was always accompanied by the 
additional gift of one or two cows. Ilis method of 
punishing an offending subject is somewhat arbitrary, 
though very simple. On any provocation, however 
slight, he orders some of his people to seize the 
offenders’ cattle and plantation and divide everything 
amongst themselves ; this the greedy simpletons readily 
do, without considering how soon it may be their 
turn to be treated in the same manner. 
There are always a certain number of naturalised 
natives of other tribes living in Moci, for whenever a 
young and able-bodied man wishes to become a settler, 
it is only necessary that he should bring Mandara a 
present of joombe and proffer a request to become one 
of his subjects; thereupon he receives an order to seize 
the plantation of some old man who is commanded by 
“royal letters patent” to clear out and make room for 
the younger and more useful warrior. These pleasant 
little ways of Mandara cause him to be much feared, and 
it was amusing to sec how the crowd of natives, who at 
