^{page 113 note 1} These are very numerous. I possess a copy of a manuscript belonging to Mzee bin Mahadhoo of Shela (I believe Captain Stigand has another), as well as a series taken down from the recitation of a blind scholar at Witu, also named Mzee (bin Risharo'l-Ausii). These are quite distinct from the poem printed in Steere's Swahili Tales (pp. 454–68).

^{page 113 note 2} Liongo seems to be a historical person who has attracted to himself one of the many versions of the Balder Myth (see appendix to the last volume of The Golden Bough); he was invulnerable to everything but a copper needle applied in one particular spot. But there is some uncertainty as to his date. Some say that he fought against the Wasegeju and the Portuguese (who were in alliance in 1589); others, whose authority seems fairly good, that Liongo's principality of Shaka (or rather that of his brother, for Liongo was not the actual chief) was conquered by Omar bin Muhammad, fifth Sultan of Pate, variously stated to have died in A.H. 745 (A.D. 1344) and to have reigned from.A.H. 740–95.

^{page 114 note 1} p. 88 of the octavo edition.

^{page 116 note 1} Grammaire des Dialectes Swahilis (Paris, 1909), p. 327.Google Scholar

^{page 118 note 1} In the Lama dialect (in which most of these poems are written), Ulendi, endi. Prom the verb tenda, “do,” “act.”

^{page 119 note 1} A few miles from Mombasa on the creek leading to Rabai.

^{page 119 note 2} Literally: “Poor (me)! my pigeon went away with (has been carried off by) the Arabs. Her foot was of silver, her wing of gold. Do not think that I have grown thin (from any ordinary cause: if I look ill, it is that) my life is cut off by trouble.” A different version, seemingly obtained at Zanzibar, or on the adjacent coast, is printed in Velten's Prosa und Poeaie der Suaheli (Berlin, 1907), p. 426.Google Scholar

^{page 120 note 1} A common saying, cf. Taylor's African Aphorisms, § 299, pp. 52–3. Tooffer a guest “bare water”, i.e. with no admixture of lime-juice, etc., or instead of tea, and without any accompanying food, is considered the extreme of stinginess and inhospitality.

^{page 120 note 2} Berlin (E. Felber), 1894.

^{page 121 note 1} Swahili Tales (Preface), pp. xi–xii.

^{page 122 note 1} Manga, on the Swahili coast, means “Arabia, especially the region of Muscat” (Krapf). Jiwe la Manga is a black and very hard stone, brought over in ballast by Maskati dhows and used as millstones, etc. By an easily understood confusion and transference of ideas, the Yaos and other inland peoples of Nyasaland use Manga to mean “the coast” (i.e. the East African littoral).

^{page 123 note 1} But see Maulvi Muhammad Ali's translation of these passages and note on them. (The Holy Qurân … with English translation and Commentary, Working, 1917, p.887.)

^{page 123 note 2} “… on whom he had sworn that he would inflict an hundred blows because she had absented herself from him when in need of her assistence or for her words” (p. 122)

^{page 125 note 1} My MS. comes from Lamu, in the region to which Liongo belongs; his principality of Shaka was near the present town of Kipini. The Rev. W. E. Taylor speaks (Dialects of Swahili, p. 95) of an “Utenzi of (i.e. about) Liongo”, but he gives no clue to the identity of this Utenzi. Elsewhere, no doubt by an oversight, he twice mentions (pp. 81, 94) a MS. of “the Utenzi of Liongo Fumo” in the British Museum, but this MS. (the only Swahili one in the library) is that of the Mashairi ya Liongo, mentioned in the text, as, indeed, Mr. Taylor points out (p. 94, n.).

^{page 127 note 1} Büuttner, Anthologie, pp. 149–75.