tna:IAID=c11443349

The Mandala Company was founded in 1878 and the main Mandala House - which still stands was built in 1882. So it looks as if this temporary structure was erected between those dates. see www.societyofmalawi.org/mandalahouse.html

This photo was almost certainly taken in 1886 by Consul Hawes so the building of Mandala House in 1882 did not see the immediate demolition of the temporary structure.

As Mandala House, photo 108-39, was the manager's house and this bulding was the store and European clerks' quarters there seems no reason why the two couldn't have existed at the same time.

Nowadays referred to as the "magololo"

The Makololo were not "indigenous" to Malawi, i.e. not part of the Maravi people who, according to oral history, arrived from the Luba country of the upper Congo in the 15th century. They were originally part of the Southern Sotho. Driven from their homeland in what is now the Free State province of South Africa during the Nguni migrations of the early 19th century, they eventually found themselves cornered between the Zambezi and Chobe rivers, where they established their dominance. David Livingstone encountered them there in 1851 and became friendly with them. The resulting long association led to the arrival of a number of them as porters with Livingstone at the initial U.M.C.A. mission at Magomero in 1861. They were with him when he first sighted "Lake Nyassa". The Makololo then followed Livingstone to the Lower Shire where they remained and established their dominance.

Mponda was a Yao chief whose village was on the west bank of the Shire just north of the present town of Mangochi, formerly Fort Johnston. The original Fort Johnston was built on the east bank opposite Mponda's during a campaign by Harry Johnston to subdue Yao slave traders. Mponda's was later the site of a well-known U.M.C.A. mission.