the Arab depot of Nyangwe neither Frank nor
I had suffered the slightest indisposition.
Nyangwe is the extreme westernmost locality
inhabited by the Arab traders from Zanzibar.
It stands in east longitude 26° 16', south latitude
40 15', on the right or eastern side of the
Lualaba, on the verge of a high and reddish
bank rising some forty feet above the river, with
clear open country north along the river for a
distance of three miles, east some ten miles,
south over seventy miles, or as far as the confluence
of the Luama with the Lualaba. The town
called Nyangwe is divided into two sections.
The northern section has for its centre the
quarters of Muini Dugumbi, the first Arab arrival
here (in 1868); and around his house are the
commodious quarters of his friends, their families
and slaves— in all, perhaps, 300 houses. The
southern section is separated from its neighbour
by a broad hollow, cultivated and sown with
rice for the Arabs. When the Lualaba rises to
its full amplitude, this hollow is flooded. The
chief house of the southern half of Nyangwe
is the large and well-built clay banda of Sheikh
Abed bin Salim. In close neighbourhood to this
are the houses and huts of those Arab Wa-
ngwana who prefer the company of Abed bin
Salim to Muini Dugumbi. Abed showed me his
spacious courtyard, wherein he jealously guards
his harem of thirty fine, comely, large-eyed
roct., 1876.-1 THE ARABS OF NYANGW&. 15 1
L Nyangwe. J
wpmen. He possesses two English hens which
came from India, and several chickens of mixed
breed, two dozen tame pigeons, and some guinea-
fowls j; in his store-room were about sixty or
seventy tusks, large and small.
Between the two foreign chiefs of Nyangwe
there is great jealousy. Each endeavours to be
recognized by the natives as being the most
powerful. Dugumbi is an east coast trader of
Sa’adani, a half-caste, a vulgar, coarse-minded
old man of probably seventy years of age, with
a negroid nose and a negroid mind. Sheikh
Abed is a tall, thin old man, white-bearded,
patriarchal in aspect, narrow-minded, rather peevish
and quick to take offence, a thorough
believer in witchcraft, and a, fervid Muslim.
Close to Abed’s elbows of late years has been
the long-nosed young Arab Mohammed bin Sayid,
superstitious beyond measure, of enormous cunning
and subtlety, a pertinacious beggar, of keen
trading instincts, but in all matters outside trade
as simple as a child. He offered, for a consideration
and on condition that I would read the
Arabic Koran, to take me up and convey me
to any part of Africa within a day. By such
unblushing falsehoods he has acquired considerable
influence over the mind of Sheikh Abed.
The latter told me that he was half afraid of
him, and that he believed Moharhmed was an
extraordinary man. I asked the silly old Sheikh