In general, the Bantu have everywhere much the same system of government: the same features can nearly always be traced, even when modified by local circumstances. The Anyanja, when they first became known to Europeans, lived in small villages (as they do now), each under the control of its own head-man. A district, containing a large number of villages, was ruled by a sub-chief: such were Chinsunzi and Kankomba, in the Shiré Highlands, in 1861; and over the whole country was the Paramount Chief, or _Rundo_ (_Lundu_), who at the same period was Mankokwe.[31] Mankokwe’s dominions appear to have extended from Lake Chilwa to the Shiré, and down the latter river as far as the Ruo; below the Ruo was another paramount chief, Tingani. Above the confluence of the Shiré and the Zambezi, between Kebrabasa and Zumbo, were two other independent Nyanja chiefs, Sandia and Mpende. All these chiefs seem at one time to have been ‘united under the government of their great chief, Undi, whose empire extended from Lake Shirwa to the River Loangwa; but after Undi’s death it fell to pieces, and a large portion of it on the Zambezi was absorbed by their powerful southern neighbours, the Banyai.’[32] This process has been repeated over and over again in the history of Africa. The Anyanja, being an agricultural (and on the whole a peaceable) people, kept up no national life outside their little village communities, but tended more and more to what German historians call _Particularism_. Consequently, they were unable to withstand the shock of an invasion; and their organisation, such as it was, went to pieces before the onslaught of Yaos, Makololo, and Angoni.