Note 50 — Chapter XIII · THE HARVEST OF KNOWLEDGE

“This kind of lock and key,” says the late Rev. D. C. Scott (Cyclopædic Dictionary of the Mang’anja Language, s.v., mfungulo), “is common among the Ambo branch of the Mang’anja” (living between the Ruo junction and the sea), “and is a wooden key about a foot long, with three teeth; it is passed in between the wall-post and upright door-stick (kapambi) inside, and the teeth fit into notches and lift the bolts; only the Ambo can make them and they lock their door thus behind them, carrying the key with them when they go to any short distance from their house.” (See also svv. Funga and Mtengo: “mitengo ya Ambo, the Ambos’ stick keys.”) The ordinary method of fastening the door (chitseko) is by cross-bars, slipped in between the door and the side posts. The following passage from Mr. Charles Doughty’s Travels in Arabia Deserta seems to show that this Ambo form of lock and key must have been borrowed, directly or indirectly, from the Arab settlers on the coast—doubtless at a remote period, as it seems to be no longer in use among the latter. “The fastening, as in all Arabic places, is a wooden lock; the bolt is detained by little pegs falling from above into apposite holes, the key is a wooden stele, some have them of metal, with teeth to match the holes of the lock, the key put in under, you strike up the pegs and the slot may be withdrawn” (Vol. I, p. 143).—[Tr.]