The same super-rational method, as I have called it, applies to the
Monomotapan judgment of political ability; for here it is not what a
man has said or written, nor whether he has proved himself capable
of foreseeing certain events of moment to the State, it is not these
characters that determine his political career, but a mixture of other
indices, one of which is that his brothers shall be younger than himself,
another that when he speaks he shall strike the palm of his open left hand
with his clenched right hand in a particular manner by no means commonly
or easily acquired; another that he shall not wear at one and the same
time a coat which is bifurcated and a hat of hemispherical outline;
another that he shall keep silence upon certain types of foreigners who
frequent the markets of Monomotapa, and shall even pretend that they are
not foreigners but Monomotapans; and this index of statesmanship he must
preserve under all circumstances, even when the foreigners in question
cannot speak the Monomotapan language.
Some years ago it was required of every statesman that he should, for at
least so many times in any one year, extravagantly praise the virtues
of these foreign merchants, and particularly allude to their intensely
unforeign character; but this custom has recently fallen into abeyance,
and silence upon the subject is the most that is demanded.
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