The Purchase Was Accordingly Made, And Twenty-Two Sacks Of The Best Species Were Packed And Brought To Capt.

Webb's house, ready for transportation to Bagamoyo.

After the beads came the wire question. I discovered, after considerable trouble, that Nos. 5 and 6 - almost of the thickness of telegraph wire - were considered the best numbers for trading purposes. While beads stand for copper coins in Africa, cloth measures for silver; wire is reckoned as gold in the countries beyond the Tan-ga-ni-ka.* Ten frasilah, or 350 lbs., of brass-wire, my Arab adviser thought, would be ample. _________________ * It will be seen that I differ from Capt. Burton in the spelling of this word, as I deem the letter " y " superfluous. ________________

Having purchased the cloth, the beads, and the wire, it was with no little pride that I surveyed the comely bales and packages lying piled up, row above row, in Capt. Webb's capacious store-room. Yet my work was not ended, it was but beginning; there were provisions, cooking-utensils, boats, rope, twine, tents, donkeys, saddles, bagging, canvas, tar, needles, tools, ammunition, guns, equipments, hatchets, medicines, bedding, presents for chiefs - in short, a thousand things not yet purchased. The ordeal of chaffering and -haggling with steel-hearted Banyans, Hindis, Arabs, and half-castes was most trying. For instance, I purchased twenty-two donkeys at Zanzibar. $40 and $50 were asked, which I had to reduce to $15 or $20 by an infinite amount of argument worthy, I think, of a nobler cause.

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