Pembera Pereh Is A Queer Old Man, Very Small, And Would Be Very Insignificant Were He Not The Greatest Sultan

In Ugogo; and enjoying a sort of dimediate power over many other tribes. Though such an important chief, he is

The meanest dressed of his subjects, - is always filthy, - ever greasy - eternally foul about the mouth; but these are mere eccentricities: as a wise judge, he is without parallel, always has a dodge ever ready for the abstraction of cloth from the spiritless Arab merchants, who trade with Unyanyembe every year; and disposes with ease of a judicial case which would overtask ordinary men.

Sheikh Hamed, who was elected guider of the united caravans now travelling through Ugogo, was of such a fragile and small make, that he might be taken for an imitation of his famous prototype "Dapper." Being of such dimensions, what he lacked for weight and size he made up by activity. No sooner had he arrived in camp than his trim dapper form was seen frisking about from side to side of the great boma, fidgeting, arranging, disturbing everything and everybody. He permitted no bales or packs to be intermingled, or to come into too close proximity to his own; he had a favourite mode of stacking his goods, which he would see carried out; he had a special eye for the best place for his tent, and no one else must trespass on that ground. One would imagine that walking ten or fifteen miles a day, he would leave such trivialities to his servants, but no, nothing could be right unless he had personally superintended it; in which work he was tireless and knew no fatigue.

Another not uncommon peculiarity pertained to Sheikh Hamed; as he was not a rich man, he laboured hard to make the most of every shukka and doti expended, and each fresh expenditure seemed to gnaw his very vitals: he was ready to weep, as he himself expressed it, at the high prices of Ugogo, and the extortionate demands of its sultans. For this reason, being the leader of the caravans, so far as he was able we were very sure not to be delayed in Ugogo, where food was so dear.

The day we arrived at Nyambwa will be remembered by Hamed as long as he lives, for the trouble and vexation which he suffered. His misfortunes arose from the fact that, being too busily engaged in fidgeting about the camp, he permitted his donkeys to stray into the matama fields of Pembera Pereh, the Sultan. For hours he and his servants sought for the stray donkeys, returning towards evening utterly unsuccessful, Hamed bewailing, as only an Oriental can do, when hard fate visits him with its inflictions, the loss of a hundred do dollars worth of Muscat donkeys. Sheikh Thani, older, more experienced, and wiser, suggested to him that he should notify the Sultan of his loss. Acting upon the sagacious advice, Hamed sent an embassy of two slaves, and the information they brought back was, that Pembera Pereh's servants had found the two donkeys eating the unripened matama, and that unless the Arab who owned them would pay nine doti of first-class cloths, he, Pembera Pereh, would surely keep them to remunerate him for the matama they had eaten.

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