Liongo's own, to which the three first were prefixed by Sheikh Abdallah as a sort of commentary. The long lines may be read consecutively, and make as good sense as the rest of the poem.
The most curious thing in this collection is perhaps the latter part of the tale of 'Sultan Majnun,' from p. 254, where every one present joins in singing the verses, if they may be so called, which besides are not in Swahili. The words niulaga for the Swahili nimeua, and nilawa for nalitoka, are such as occur in more than one mainland language. I have heard stories referred to and partly told in which the verse parts were in the Yao and the Nyamwezi languages. But it is a constant characteristic of popular native tales to have a sort of burden, which all join in singing. Frequently the skeleton of the story seems to be contained in these snatches of singing, which the story-teller connects by an extemporized account of the intervening history. Something similar is very common in the songs of the mainland peoples. Thus as Bishop Tozer and myself were descending the Zambesi in a canoe, the boatmen sang a favourite ditty, the burden of which is a wail over the ills caused by the wars of the Portuguese outlaw Mariano, or Matekenya. The chief boatman took up the solo part, and instead of the old verses made new ones on us, our losses, our generosity, and future intentions, of which unfortunately we understood but very little.
The late M. Jablonsky, who was for a long time acting French consul in Zanzibar, and who knew far more than any other European of the habits and superstitions of the people, had a large collection of native stories, which, however, he had unfortunately written down, not in Swahili, but in Polish, his reason being, as he told me, that he could translate their niceties of expression and familiar
