Hamed Was In Despair.

Nine doti of first-class cloths, worth $25 in Unyanyembe, for half a chukka's worth of grain, was, as he thought, an absurd demand; but then if he did not pay it, what would become of the hundred dollars' worth of donkeys?

He proceeded to the Sultan to show him the absurdity of the damage claim, and to endeavour to make him accept one chukka, which would be more than double the worth of what grain the donkeys had consumed. But the Sultan was sitting on pombe; he was drunk, which I believe to be his normal state - too drunk to attend to business, consequently his deputy, a renegade Mnyamwezi, gave ear to the business. With most of the Wagogo chiefs lives a Mnyamwezi, as their right-hand man, prime minister, counsellor, executioner, ready man at all things save the general good; a sort of harlequin Unyamwezi, who is such an intriguing, restless, unsatisfied person, that as soon as one hears that this kind of man forms one of and the chief of a Mgogo sultan's council, one feels very much tempted to do damage to his person. Most of the extortions practised upon the Arabs are suggested by these crafty renegades. Sheikh Hamed found that the Mnyamwezi was far more obdurate than the Sultan - nothing under nine doti first-class cloths would redeem the donkeys. The business that day remained unsettled, and the night following was, as one may imagine, a very sleepless one to Hamed. As it turned out, however, the loss of the donkeys, the after heavy fine, and the sleepless night, proved to be blessings in disguise; for, towards midnight, a robber Mgogo visited his camp, and while attempting to steal a bale of cloth, was detected in the act by the wide-awake and irritated Arab, and was made to vanish instantly with a bullet whistling in close proximity to his ear.

From each of the principals of the caravans, the Mnyamwezi had received as tribute for his drunken master fifteen doti, and from the other six caravans six doti each, altogether fifty-one doti, yet on the next morning when we took the road he was not a whit disposed to deduct a single cloth from the fine imposed on Hamed, and the unfortunate Sheikh was therefore obliged to liquidate the claim, or leave his donkeys behind.

After travelling through the corn-fields of Pembera Pereh we emerged upon a broad flat plain, as level as the still surface of a pond, whence the salt of the Wagogo is obtained. From Kanyenyi on the southern road, to beyond the confines of Uhumba and Ubanarama, this saline field extends, containing many large ponds of salt bitter water whose low banks are covered with an effervescence partaking of the nature of nitrate. Subsequently, two days afterwards, having ascended the elevated ridge which separates Ugogo from Uyanzi, I obtained a view of this immense saline plain, embracing over a hundred square miles. I may have been deceived, but I imagined I saw large expanses of greyish-blue water, which causes me to believe that this salina is but a corner of a great salt lake.

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