to trade with them before they have been re-threaded securely. For this purpose you purchase on the coast a stout twine, made, I fancy, from the fibre of a Raphia palm, and then you set your men to work to re-thread all the beads. This task, of course, gives them immense opportunities for quiet pilfering, for the beads in their eyes are almost like coinage; so not only must you keep a sharp eye on the little groups of four or five merry black men who are so blithely slipping bead after bead along the yellow strings of palm-fibre, but each man’s lot must be carefully weighed before and after its transference from the old thread to the new. Even with every precaution some loss always takes place during the process, and a day or two after this task is over you are surprised and grieved to see one of your most trusted followers reeling about the streets of the coast town, drunk on the proceeds of the misappropriated beads. If you are likely to travel through countries ranged over by the Masai, large coils of iron wire must be taken, as these predatory people greatly value it, and turn it to many useful ends in their simple manufactures. Natives of all tribes in East Africa are also fond of copper and brass wire of every thickness, the very large sizes being coiled into bracelets or anklets, and the finer sorts used with much ingenuity to ornament gun-stocks, the hafts of knives, or the rods of spears. Finally, to this already extensive list of goods must be added a few sacks of cowries, barrels of trade gunpowder, tin boxes of percussion-caps, looking-glasses, large and small butchers’ knives, bells, mouse-traps, and cheap musical instruments; while as presents for chiefs of special importance, fancy articles have to be taken, such as musical-boxes, accordions, guns of superior make, playing-cards, fine snuff, and gaudy picture-books. I was myself provided with a huge roll of coloured plates from the _Graphic_ and other illustrated papers, which I found made a most satisfactory impression on chiefs of an æsthetic turn of mind, already cloyed with the cloth, beads, and brass wire of the ordinary trader. When all these wares had been selected, assorted, and packed, I had further to add to our encumbrances by purchases of food for myself and the men, as the country through which our journey lay was almost uninhabited and devoid of cultivation. For myself I added crates of potatoes and onions, and a dozen live fowls to my precious stock of preserved provisions; while for the men, large quantities of Indian corn and beans were bought. How easily fed these Swahili porters are! What other race would be content to trudge twenty miles a day with a burden of sixty pounds, and be regaled on nothing but maize and beans? [Illustration: Fig. 17.—The Shaws’ House, Kisolutini—the first Mission Station in East Africa. ]