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Title: The Lake Regions of Central Africa - A Picture of Exploration, Vol. 1
Author: Burton, Richard Francis, Sir
Language: English
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Transcriber’s Notes
Text printed in italics has been transcribed _between underscores_,
bold face text =between equal signs=. Small capitals have been changed
to ALL CAPITALS. Superscript text is represented by ^{text}.
More Transcriber’s Notes may be found at the end of this text.
THE
LAKE REGIONS OF CENTRAL AFRICA
VOL. I.
LONDON
PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO.
NEW-STREET SQUARE
[Illustration: THE IVORY PORTER.]
THE
LAKE REGIONS OF CENTRAL AFRICA
A PICTURE OF EXPLORATION
BY
RICHARD F. BURTON
Capt. H. M. I. Army: Fellow and Gold Medallist of the Royal
Geographical Society
“_Some to discover islands far away_”--_Shakspere_
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. I.
LONDON LONGMAN, GREEN, LONGMAN, AND ROBERTS 1860
_The right of translation is reserved_
TO
MY SISTER,
MARIA STISTED,
THESE PAGES ARE AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED
PREFACE.
I had intended this record of personal adventure to appear immediately
after my return to Europe, in May 1859. The impaired health, the
depression of spirits, and worse still the annoyance of official
correspondence, which to me have been the sole results of African
Exploration, may be admitted as valid reasons for the delay.
In April, 1860, the Royal Geographical Society of Great Britain honoured
me by publishing a detailed paper, forming the XXIXth Volume of their
Journal, from which the topographical descriptions contained in the
following pages have, with their kind permission, been extracted. I have
now attempted to combine with geography and ethnology, a narrative of
occurrences and an exposition of the more popular and picturesque points
of view which the subject offers.
When I communicated to my friends the publishers certain intentions of
writing an exclusively “light work,” they protested against the project,
stating that the public appetite required the addition of stronger meat.
In compliance, therefore, with their suggestion, I have drawn two
portraits of the same object, and mingled the gay with the graver
details of travel, so as to produce an antipathetic cento.
Modern “hinters to travellers” direct the explorer and the missionary to
eschew theory and opinion. We are told somewhat peremptorily that it is
our duty to gather actualities not inferences--to see and not to think,
in fact, to confine ourselves to transmitting the rough material
collected by us, that it may be worked into shape by the professionally
learned at home. But why may not the observer be allowed a voice
concerning his own observations, if at least his mind be sane and his
stock of collateral knowledge be respectable?
I have not attempted to avoid intruding matters of a private and
personal nature upon the reader; it would have been impossible to avoid
egotism in a purely egotistical narrative. The official matter, however,
has been banished into Appendix II. In publishing it, my desire is to
avoid the possibility of a charge being concealed in the pigeon-holes of
the India House, to be produced, according to custom, with all the
effect of a surprise whenever its presence is convenient. I know the
conditions of appealing from those in office to a higher tribunal--the
Public. I well know them and I accept them. _Avant tout, gentilhomme!_
I have spoken out my feelings concerning Captain Speke, my companion in
the Expedition which forms the subject of these pages. The history of
our companionship is simply this:--As he had suffered with me in purse
and person at Berberah, in 1855, I thought it but just to offer him the
opportunity of renewing an attempt to penetrate into Africa. I had no
other reasons. I could not expect much from his assistance; he was not a
linguist--French and Arabic being equally unknown to him--nor a man of
science, nor an accurate astronomical observer. The Court of Directors
officially refused him leave of absence; I obtained it for him by an
application to the local authorities at Bombay. During the exploration
he acted in a subordinate capacity; and as may be imagined amongst a
party of Arabs, Baloch, and Africans, whose languages he ignored, he was
unfit for any other but a subordinate capacity. Can I then feel
otherwise than indignant, when I find that, after preceding me from Aden
to England, with the spontaneous offer, on his part, of not appearing
before the Society that originated the Expedition until my return, he
had lost no time in taking measures to secure for himself the right of
working the field which I had opened, and that from that day he has
placed himself _en evidence_ as the _primum mobile_ of an Expedition, in
which he signed himself “surveyor,”--_cujus pars minima fuit_?
With deference to the reader’s judgment, I venture to express a hope
that whatever of unrefinement appears in these pages, may be charged to
the subject. It has been my duty to draw a Dutch picture, a
cabaret-piece which could not be stripped of its ordonnance, its boors,
its pipes, and its pots. I have shirked nothing of the unpleasant
task,--of recording processes and not only results; I have entered into
the recital of the maladies, the weary squabbles, and the vast variety
of petty troubles, without which the _coup d’œil_ of African adventure
would be more like a Greek Saint in effigy--all lights and no
shade--than the chapter of accidents which it now is.
The map and the lists of stations, dates, &c., have been drawn upon the
plan adopted by Mr. Francis Galton, F.R.G.S. The outline of Africa, the
work of Mr. Weller, F.R.G.S., contains the latest and the best
information concerning the half-explored interior of the Continent. The
route-map has been borrowed by permission from the laborious and
conscientious compilation of Mr. Findlay, F.R.G.S., accompanying the
paper forwarded by me to the Royal Geographical Society. The latter
gentleman has also kindly supplied a profile of the country traversed,
showing the Eastern limits of the Great Depression, and the
“elevated-trough formation” of Central Africa.
In conclusion, I would solicit forbearance in all that concerns certain
errors of omission and commission scattered through these pages. The
migratory instinct is now hurrying me towards the New World: I have,
therefore, been obliged to content myself with a single revise.
10th April,
E.I.U.S. Club, 14 St. James’s Square.
DATES OF JOURNEYING.
1856| September |Left England.
|2nd December |Sailed from Bombay.
|19th December |Arrived at Zanzibar Island.
1857|6th January |Left Zanzibar the first time.
|14th June |Left Zanzibar the second time.
|27th June |Set out from Kaole on the coast.
|7th November |Arrived at Unyanyembe of Unyamwezi.
1858|14th February |Reached Ujiji on the Tanganyika Lake.
|26th April |Arrived at Uvira on the North of the Tanganyika
| |Lake.
|26th May |Left Ujiji.
|19th June |Returned to Unyanyembe.
|26th September|Left Unyanyembe.
1859|3rd February |Reached Konduchi on the coast.
|4th March |Landed at Zanzibar Island.
|4th May |Left Aden.
|20th May |Landed at Southampton.
LIST STASIMETRIC AND HYPSOMETRIC.
NAMES OF KHAMBI OR STAGES MADE BY THE EAST AFRICAN EXPEDITION, AND
HEIGHTS OF THE SEVERAL CRUCIAL STATIONS.
FIRST REGION.
+-----+------------------------------------------------+-----+
| | FROM KAOLE ON THE COAST TO ZUNGOMERO, CHIEF | |
| | DISTRICT OF K’HUTU. | |
+-----+------------------------------------------------+-----+
| | |H. M.|
| 1 | Kaoli to Mgude or Kuingani | 1 30|
| 2 | Kuingani to Bomani | 1 30|
| 3 | Bomani to Mkwaju la Mvuani | 0 30|
| 4 | Mkwaju to Nzasa (of Uzaramo) | 3 20|
| 5 | Nzasa to Kiranga-Ranga | 6 0|
| 6 | Kiranga-Ranga to Tumba Ihere | 3 30|
| 7 | Tumba Ihere to Muhonyera | 4 40|
| 8 | Muhonyera to Sagesera | 2 45|
| 9 | Sagesera to Tunda | 7 0|
| 10 | Tunda to Dege la Mhora | 2 30|
| 11 | Dege la Mhora to Madege Madogo | 3 0|
| 12 | Madege Madogo to Kidunda | 3 0|
| 13 | Kidunda to Mgeta Ford | 7 0|
| 14 | Mgeta Ford to Kiruru in K’hutu | 6 0|
| 15 | Kiruru to Dut’humi | 6 40|
| 16 | Dut’humi to Bakera | 2 0|
| 17 | Bakera to Zungomero | 7 0|
+-----+ +-----+
| ☉17 | |67 55|
+-----+------------------------------------------------+-----+
|Kaole, Latitude, South, 6° 25′ Longitude, East, 38° 51′.|
|Zungomero, „ 7° 27′ „ 37° 22′.|
| Altitude of Zungomero, 330 feet above sea level. Average |
| altitude of First Region, by B. P. Therm., 230 feet. |
+------------------------------------------------------------+
SECOND REGION.
+---+----------------------------------------------------------+------+
| | FROM ZUNGOMERO, OVER THE MOUNTAINS OF USAGARA, | |
| | TO UGOGI. | |
+---+----------------------------------------------------------+------+
| | | H. M.|
| 1|Zungomero to Mzizi Mdogo (in Usagara) | 5 0|
| 2| Mzizi Mdogo to Chya K’henge | 4 30|
| 3|Chya K’henge to Rufuta River | 4 30|
| 4|Rufuta River (up the Goma Pass) to Mfu’uni | 1 50|
| 5|Mfu’uni to “Overshot Nullah” | 6 10|
| 6|“Overshot Nullah” to Zonhwe | 2 0|
| 7|Zonhwe to Muhama | 4 45|
| 8|Muhama to Makata | 6 30|
| 9|Makata to Myombo River | 4 30|
| 10|Myombo River to Mbumi | 4 30|
| 11|Mbumi to Kadetamare | 5 55|
| 12|Kadetamare to Muinyi | 8 10|
| 13|Muinyi to Nidabi | 4 50|
| 14|Nidabi to Rumuma | 5 30|
| 15|Rumuma to Marenga Mk’hali | 3 30|
| 16|Marenga Mk’hali to ☉ in Jungle | 5 0|
| 17|Jungle to Inenge | 4 0|
| 18|Inenge to first gradient of Rubeho Pass | 6 30|
| 19|First gradient to second gradient ditto | 2 0|
| 20|Second gradient to summit of Rubeho | 1 45|
| 21|Summit to ☉ one quarter of the way down the counterslope | 3 0|
| 22|From ☉ on slope to ☉ below half-way | 5 0|
| 23|From ☉ below half-way to Ugogi at the base | 4 0|
+---+ +------+
|☉23 + 27 (carried forward) = 33 ☉’s 103 25|
| Carried forward, 67 55|
| ------+
| Total hours from the coast to Ugogi 171 20|
+---------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Rubeho Pass, (about) Latitude, South, 6° 38′ Longitude, East, 36° 19′|
|Ugogi, „ 6° 40′ „ 36° 6′|
| Altitude of Rubeho summit, 5700. Altitude of Ugogi at Western |
| Counterslope, by B. P. Therm. 2770. |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------+
THIRD REGION.
+------------+------------------------------------------------+------+
| | FROM UGOGI, THROUGH MARENGA MK’HALI, UGOGO, | |
| | AND MGUNDA MK’HALI, TO TURA OF UNYAMWEZI. | |
+------------+------------------------------------------------+------+
| | | H. M.|
| ☉ 1|Ugogi to ☉ in Jungle | 4 0|
| { 2|Jungle to Marenga Mk’hali (second of that name) | 4 40|
|Marenga { 3|Marenga Mk’hali to ☉ in Jungle | 4 10|
|Mk’hali.{ 4|☉ in Jungle to ☉ in Jungle | 5 0|
| { 5|☉ in Jungle to Ziwa or tank (on frontier of | |
| { |Ugogo) | 2 0|
| { 6|Ziwa to Kifukuru | 3 0|
| { 7|Kifukuru to ☉ in Jungle | 5 40|
| { 8|☉ in Jungle to Kanyenye | 1 25|
| { 9|Kanyenye to Kanyenye of Magomba | 2 45|
|Ugogo. { 10|Kanyenye of Magomba to ☉ in Jungle | 5 0|
| { 11|☉ in Jungle to K’hok’ho | 7 40|
| { 12|K’hok’ho to Mdaburu | 6 20|
| { 13|Mdaburu to ☉ in Jungle of Mgunda Mk’hali | 6 30|
| { 14|Mgunda Mk’hali to Mabunguru | 6 0|
| { 15|Mabunguru to Jiwe la Mkoa | 7 0|
|Mganda { 16|Jiwe la Mkoa to Kirurumo | 3 10|
|Mk’hali.{ 17|Kirurumo to Jiweni of Uyanzi | 4 30|
| { 18|Jiweni to Mgongo Thembo | 2 20|
| { 19|Mgongo Thembo to ☉ Tura Nullah | 7 0|
| { 20|☉ Tura Nullah to Tura in Unyamwezi | 5 30|
+------------+ +------+
| ☉20 + 33 (carried forward) = 53. 93 40|
| Carried forward 171 20|
| -------+
| Total hours from the coast to Tura 265 0|
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Eastern limit of Tura, Latitude, South, 5° 27′ Longitude, East, 34°.|
|Altitude, by Bath. Thermometer, 4125 feet. |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
FOURTH REGION.
+----------+------------------------------------------+-------------+
| | THROUGH UNYAMWEZI, UGARA, UWENDE, AND | |
| | UVINZA, TO FORD OF MALAGARAZI RIVER. | |
+----------+------------------------------------------+-------------+
| | | H. M. |
| 1|Eastern limit of Tura to Western Tura. | 1 30 |
| 2|Western Tura to Kwale Nullah | 6 30 |
| 3|Kwale Nullah to Eastern Rubuga | 5 45 |
| 4|Eastern Rubuga to Western Rubuga | 2 40 |
| 5|Western Rubuga to Ukona | 2 15 |
| 6|Ukona to Kigwa | 5 5 |
| 7|Kigwa to Hanga village | 6 30 |
| 8|Hanga to Kazeh (Arab ☉) | 5 0 |
| 9|Kazeh to Zimbili Hill | 1 40 |
| 10|Zimbili to Yombo | 2 0 |
| 11|Yombo to Pano (clearing in Jungle) | 4 0 |
| 12|Pano to Eastern Mfuto | 1 40 |
| 13|Eastern Mfuto to Western Mfuto | 2 0 |
| 14|Western Mfuto to Eastern Wilyankuru | 6 30 |
| 15|Eastern Wilyankuru to Central Wilyankuru | 2 50 |
| 16|Central Wilyankuru to Western Wilyankuru | 2 0 |
| 17|Western Wilyankuru to Masenge | 2 30}Expe- |
| 18|Masenge to Eastern Kirira | 2 0}dition|
| 19|Eastern Kirira to Western Kirira | 3 0}sepa- |
| 20|Western Kirira to Eastern Msene | 4 0}rated.|
| 21|Eastern Msene to Western Msene (Arab ☉) | 2 0 |
| 22|Western Msene to Mbhali | 1 30 |
| 23|Mbhali to Sengati | 2 0 |
| 24|Sengati to Sorora or Solola | 0 45 |
| 25|Sorora to Ukungwe | 2 15 |
| 26|Ukungwe to Panda | 1 50 |
| 27|Panda to Kajjanjeri | 1 30 |
| 28|Kajjanjeri to Eastern Usagozi | 3 45 |
| 29|Eastern Usagozi to Western Usagozi | 1 0 |
| 30|Western Usagozi to Masenga of Wagara | 2 0 |
| 31|Masenga to Mukozimo of Wawende | 2 45 |
| 32|Mukozimo to Uganza of Wanyamwezi | 3 15 |
| {33|Uganza to Usenye of Wavinza | 4 0 |
| {34|Usenye to Rukunda | 2 20 |
|Uvinza.{35|Rukunda to Wanyika | 3 0 |
| {36|Wanyika to Unyanguruwwe | 4 50 |
| {37|Unyanguruwwe to Ugaga on the Malagarazi | |
| |River | 3 0 |
+----------+ +-------------+
| ☉ 37 + 53 (carried over) = 90 110 30 |
| Carried forward 265 0 |
| --------------+
| Total hours from coast to Malagarazi River 375 30 |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Kazeh Latitude, South, 5° 1′. Longitude, East, 33° 3′.|
|Malagarazi Ferry. „ 5° 7′. „ 31° 13′.|
| Altitude of Kazeh, by Bath Therm. 3490 feet. |
| „ Usenye „ 3190 „ |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
FIFTH REGION.
+----+---------------------------------------------------+------+
| | FROM THE MALAGARAZI FERRY TO UKARANGA ON THE | |
| | TANGANYIKA LAKE. | |
+----+---------------------------------------------------+------+
| | | H. M.|
| 1|Ugaga on left to Mpete on right hand | 0 25|
| 2|Mpete to Kinawani | 5 20|
| 3|Kinawani to ☉ in Jungle | 5 25|
| 4|☉ in Jungle to Jambeho | 1 40|
| 5|Jambeho to Salt pans of Rusugi River | 5 15|
| 6|Salt pans to ☉ in Jungle | 4 20|
| 7|☉ in Jungle to Ruguvu River | 3 30|
| 8|Ruguvu River to Unguwwe River | 4 40|
| 9|Unguwwe River to ☉ in Jungle | 7 35|
| 10|☉ in Jungle to Ukaranga on Lake | 6 35|
+----+ +------+
|☉ 10 + 90 (carried forward) = 100 44 45|
| Carried forward 375 30|
| ------+
| Total hours from the coast to the Tanganyika Lake 420 25|
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
|Ukaranga, Latitude, South, 4° 58′. Longitude, East, 30° 3′ 30″.|
| Altitude by Bath Therm. 1850. |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
The distance from Kaole to Ujiji is of 540 rectilinear geographical
miles: or in statute miles, allowing one for windings of the road, thus:
From Kaole to Kazeh, statute miles 520
From Kazeh to Ujiji, „ 276
---
796
Add one fifth for detour--159 miles 159
---
Total of statute miles 955
Assuming the absolute time of travelling to be 420 hours, this will give
a marching rate of 2·27 miles per hour.
CONTENTS
OF
THE FIRST VOLUME.
Page
CHAPTER I.
We quit Zanzibar Island in Dignified Style 1
CHAP. II.
Zanzibar and the Mrima explained 28
CHAP. III.
Transit of the Valley of the Kingani and the Mgeta Rivers 41
CHAP. IV.
On the Geography and Ethnology of the First Region 100
CHAP. V.
Halt at Zungomero, and Formation of the Caravan 127
CHAP. VI.
We cross the East African Ghauts 158
CHAP. VII.
The Geography and Ethnology of the Second Region 225
CHAP. VIII.
We succeed in traversing Ugogo 241
CHAP. IX.
The Geography and Ethnography of Ugogo--the Third Region 294
CHAP. X.
We enter Unyamwezi, the Far-famed Land of the Moon 313
CHAP. XI.
We conclude the Transit of Unyamwezi 375
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
IN
THE FIRST VOLUME.
CHROMOXYLOGRAPHS.
The Ivory Porter _Frontispiece._
Zanzibar Town from the Sea _to face page_ 1
A Town on the Mrima „ 28
Explorers in East Africa „ 127
The East African Ghauts „ 158
View in Unyamwezi „ 313
WOODCUTS.
The Wazaramo Tribe 41
Party of Wah’hutu Women 100
A village in K’hutu. The Silk Cotton Tree 157
Sycomore Tree in the Dhun Ugogi 158
Maji ya W’heta, or the Jetting Fountain in K’hutu 225
Ugogo 241
Usagara Mountains, seen from Ugogo 294
Ladies’ Smoking Party 313
African House Building 375
[Illustration: ZANZIBAR TOWN FROM THE SEA.]
THE
LAKE REGIONS OF CENTRAL AFRICA.
CHAPTER I.
WE QUIT ZANZIBAR ISLAND IN DIGNIFIED STYLE.
At noon, on the 16th of June, 1857, the corvette Artémise, after the
usual expenditure of gunpowder which must in Eastern lands announce
every momentous event, from the birth of a prince to the departure of a
bishop, slowly gliding out of Zanzibar harbour, afforded us a farewell
glance at the whitewashed mosques and houses of the Arabs, the
cadjan-huts, the cocoa-grown coasts, and the ruddy hills striped with
long lines of clove. Onwards she stole before a freshening breeze, the
balmy breath of the Indian Ocean, under a sun that poured a flood of
sparkling light over the azure depths and the bright green shallows
around, between the “elfin isles” of Kumbeni, with its tall trees, and
Chumbi, tufted with dense thickets, till the white sandstrip mingled
with the blue ocean, the gleaming line of dwarf red cliff and scaur
dropped into the water’s edge, the land faded from emerald to brown, and
from brown to hazy purple, the tufts of the trees seemed first to stand
out of, then to swim upon, the wave, and as evening, the serenest of
tropical evenings, closed in over sky, earth, and sea, a cloud-like
ridge, dimly discernible from our quarter, was all that remained of
Zanzibar.
I will not here stay the course of my narrative to inform the reader
that Zanzibar is not, as the Cyclopædias declare, “an island of Africa,
governed by a king who is subject to the Portuguese;” that it is not, as
the Indian post-offices appear to believe, a part of the Persian Gulf;
nor, as homekeeping folk, whose notions of African geography are
somewhat dim and ill-defined, have mentally determined, a rock in the
Red Sea, nor a dependency of the Niger, nor even an offshoot of the Cape
of Storms.
The Artémise is a kind of “Jackass-frigate,” an 18-gun corvette,
teak-built in Bombay, with a goodly breadth of beam, a slow sailer, but
a sure. In the days of our deceased ally, Sayyid Said, the misnamed
“Imaum of Muscat,” she had so frequently been placed by his Highness at
the disposal of his old friend Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton, that she had
acquired the sobriquet of “the Balyuz or Consul’s yacht.” On this
occasion she had been fitted up for a cruise to the mainland; her yards,
usually struck, had been swayed up and thrown across; her top spars had
been transferred from the hold to their proper place; her ropes and
rigging, generally hanging in tatters about her sticks, had been
carefully overhauled; her old sails had been bent, and her usual crew, a
few slaves that held their own with difficulty against a legion of rats
and an army of cockroaches, had been increased to its full complement of
twenty men. His Highness the Sayyid Majid, who after the demise of his
father had assumed the title of “Sultan of Zanzibar and the Sawahil,”
came on board accompanied by his four brothers, of whom two--Sayyids
Jamshid and Hamdan--died of small-pox before our return, and one--Sayyid
Barghash--has lately become a state prisoner at Bombay, to bid what
proved a last adieu to his father’s friend. At the same time His
Highness honoured me, through his secretary, Ahmed bin Nuuman, more
generally known as Wajhayn, or “Two-faces,” with three letters of
introduction, to Musa Mzuri, the Indian doyen of the merchants settled
at Unyamwezi, to the Arabs there resident, and to all his subjects who
were travelling into the interior.
The Artémise conveyed the _personnel_ and the _matériel_ of the East
African Expedition, namely, the two European members--my companion and
myself--two Portuguese, or rather half-caste Goanese “boys,” two Negro
gun-carriers, the Seedy Mubarak Mombai (Bombay), and Muinyi Mabruki, his
“brother,” and finally, eight so-called “Baloch” mercenaries, a guard
appointed by the Sultan to accompany me. Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton, at
that time Her Majesty’s consul and Hon. East India Company’s agent at
Zanzibar, though almost lethargic from the effects of protracted
illness--he lived only in the evening--had deemed it his duty to land us
upon the coast, and to superintend our departure from the dangerous
seaboard. He was attended by Mr. Frost, the apothecary attached to the
consulate, whose treatment for a fatal liver-complaint appeared to
consist of minute doses of morphia and a liberal diet of sugar.
By Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton’s advice, I ventured to modify the scheme of
the East African Expedition, as originally proposed by the Expeditionary
Committee of the Royal Geographical Society of London. In 1855, M.
Erhardt, an energetic member of the hapless “Mombas Mission,” had on his
return to London offered to explore a vast mass of water, about the size
of the Caspian, which, from the information of divers “natives,” he had
deposited in slug or leech shape in the heart of Intertropical Africa,
thus prolonging the old “Maravi,” or “Moravim Lake” of Portuguese
travellers and school atlases, to the north of the equator, and thus
bringing a second deluge upon sundry provinces and kingdoms thoroughly
well known for the last half century. He had proposed to land, with an
outfit of 300 dollars[1], at Kilwa, one of the southern ports of the
Zanzibar mainland, to hire a score of Wasawahili porters, to march with
a caravan upon the nearest point of his own water, and to launch an
adventurous canoe upon a lake which, according to his map, could not be
traversed under twenty-five days. Messrs. Erhardt and Krapf, of the
“Mombas Mission,” spent, it is true, a few hours at Kilwa, where they
were civilly entreated by the governor and the citizens; but they
egregiously deceived themselves and others, when they concluded that
they could make that place their ingress-point. Lieut. Christopher,
I.N., who visited the East African coast in 1843, wisely advised
explorers to avoid the neighbourhood of Kilwa. Wisely, I repeat: the
burghers of that proud old settlement had, only a year before my
arrival, murdered, by means of the Wangindo savages, an Arab merchant
who ventured to lay open the interior.
[1] The sum was wholly inadequate. M. Erhardt has, I have been told,
expended as much on a week’s march from Pangani Town to Fuga. The
smallest of Wasawahili pedlars would hardly deem an outfit of 300
dollars sufficient. M. Erhardt was, even according to his own reduced
ideas of distance, to march with twenty followers 400 miles, and to
explore a lake 300 miles in breadth and of unknown length. In 1802,
when cloth and beads were twice their present value in Africa, the
black Pombeiros sent by M. Da Costa, superintendent of the “Cassangi
Factory,” carried with them for the necessary expenses and presents,
goods to the value of nearly 500_l._ M. Erhardt’s estimate was highly
injurious to future travellers: either he knew the truth, and he
should have named at once a reasonable estimate, or he was ignorant of
the subject, and he should have avoided it. The consequence of his
proposal was simply this:--With 5000_l._ instead of 1000_l._, the
limited sum of the Government grant, the East African Expedition could
have explored the whole central area; nothing but the want of supplies
caused their return at the time when, after surmounting sickness,
hardship, and want of discipline amongst the party, they were ready to
push to the extreme end.
At the same time I had laid before the Council of the Royal Geographical
Society my desire to form an expedition primarily for the purpose of
ascertaining the limits of the “Sea of Ujiji, or Unyamwezi Lake,” and
secondarily, to determine the exportable produce of the interior, and
the ethnography of its tribes. I have quoted exactly the words of the
application. In these days every explorer of Central Africa is supposed
to have set out in quest of the coy sources of the White Nile, and when
he returns without them, his exploration, whatever may have been its
value, is determined to be a failure. The Council honoured my plans with
their approval. At their solicitation, the Foreign Office granted the
sum of 1000_l._ for the outlay of the exploration, and the defunct Court
of Directors of the late East India Company, who could not be persuaded
to contribute towards the expenses, generously allowed me two years’
leave of absence from regimental duty, for the purpose of commanding the
Expedition. I also received instructions to report myself to his
Excellency the Lord Elphinstone, then Governor of Bombay, and to
Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton, from whose influence and long experience much
was expected.
When the starting-point came to be debated, the Consul strongly objected
to an Expedition into the interior _viâ_ Kilwa, on account of the
opposition to be expected at a port so distant from the seat of
government, where the people, half-caste Arabs and Wasawahili, who are
under only a nominal control, still retained a strong predilection for
protection, and a violent hostility to strangers. These reasons led him
to propose my landing upon the coast opposite Zanzibar, and to my thence
marching with a strong escort, despatched by the Arab prince, through
the maritime tribes, whose cruel murder of M. Maizan, the first European
known to have penetrated beyond the sea-board, was yet fresh in the
memories of men. This notion was accepted the more readily, as during my
short preliminary sojourn at Zanzibar, I had satisfactorily ascertained
from Arab travellers that the Maravi or Kilwa Lake is distinct from the
“Sea of Ujiji;” that the former is of comparatively diminutive
dimensions; that there is no caravan route between the two; and
therefore that, by exploring the smaller, I should lose the chance of
discovering the larger water. Moreover, the general feeling of the
Zanzibarites--of the Christian merchants, whom I had offended by
collecting statistics about copal-digging, ivory, and sesamum--of the
Bhattias or Hindus of Cutch, who systematically abuse the protection of
the British flag to support the interest of the slave trade--of the
Arabs, who remembered nothing but political intrigue in the explorations
of the “Mombas Mission,” and the lamentable result of Dr. Krapf’s
political intrigues--and of the Africans generally, who are disposed to
see in every innovation some new form of evil--had been conveyed to my
ears explicitly enough to warrant my apprehensions for the success of
the Expedition, had I insisted upon carrying out the project proposed by
M. Erhardt.
I must here explain, that before my departure from England, the Church
Missionary Society had supplied me, after a personal interview in
Salisbury Square, with a letter to their _employé_, M. Rebmann, the last
remnant of that establishment at Mombasah, which had, it is said,
expended about 12,000_l._ with the minimest of results. The missionaries
had commenced operations with vigour, and to the work of conversion they
had added certain discoveries in the unknown lands of the interior,
which attracted the attention of European geographers. Unhappily Dr.
Krapf, the principal, happened to commit himself by the following
assertion:--“The Imaum of Muskat has not an inch of ground on the coast
between the Island of Wassin and the Pangani River; this tract, in fact,
belonging to King Kmeri of Usumbara, down from 4° 30′ to 5° 30′ S. The
tract, which is very low, is inhabited by the Wasegua tribes, and is the
chief slave-market for supplying Zanzibar.”
This “information,” put forth in the Journal of the Royal Geographical
Society (vol. i. p. 203), was copied into the Proceedings (vol. xxiii.
p. 106), with the remark, that the territory alluded to was a “supposed
possession” of the Imaum. Orientals are thin-skinned upon questions of
land; the assertion was directly opposed to fact, and the jealousy of
the rival representatives at Zanzibar each on his own side, exaggerated
its tendency. Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton, who felt his influence sapped by
this error on the part of his protégé, had reported the facts to his
government. Dr. Krapf had quitted the scene of his labours and
discoveries, but his Highness the Sultan and the sadat, or court,
retained a lively remembrance of the regretable incident. Before the
arrival of the Expedition, “Muhiyy-el-Din,” the Shafei Kazi of the
island, had called upon Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton, probably by direction
of his superiors, and had received an answer, fortified by an oath, that
the Expedition was wholly independent of “Dutchmen,” as the missionaries
were called by the Zanzibarites. I was compelled, somewhat unwillingly,
to dispense with urging M. Rebmann’s presence. By acting in any other
way I should have lost the assistance of the consul, and the Arabs, with
a ready display of zeal, would have secured for me an inevitable
failure.
At six P.M. on Wednesday, the 17th of June, 1857, the Artémise cast
anchor off Wale Point, a long, low bush-grown sandspit, about
eighty-four miles distant from the little town of Bagamoyo. Our
sailing-master, Mohammed bin Khamis, anchored in deep water, throwing
out double the length of chain required. For this prudence, however,
there was some reason. The road-steads are open; the muddy bottom
shelves gradually, almost imperceptibly; the tides retire ten or eleven
feet, and a strong gale, accompanied by the dangerous raz de marée, or
rollers from seaward, especially at the seasons of the syzygies, with
such a shore to leeward, is justly dreaded by the crews of square-rigged
vessels.
There is a something peculiarly interesting in the first aspect of the
“Mrima,” the hill-land, as this portion of the African coast is called
by the islanders of Zanzibar. On one side lies the Indian Ocean,
illimitable towards the east, dimpled with its “anerithmon gelasma,” and
broken westward by a thin line of foam, creaming upon the whitest and
finest of sand, the detritus of coralline and madrepore. It dents the
coast deeply, forming bays, bayous, lagoons, and backwaters, where,
after breaking their force upon bars and black ledges of sand and rock,
upon diabolitos, or sun-stained masses of a coarse conglomerate, and
upon strong weirs planted in crescent shape, the waters lie at rest in
the arms of the land like sheets of oil. The points and islets formed by
these sea-streams are almost flush with the briny surface, yet they are
overgrown with a profuse vegetation, the result of tropical suns and
copious showers, which supply the want of rich soil. The banks of the
backwaters are lined with forests of white and red mangrove. When the
tide is out, the cone-shaped root-work supporting each tree rises naked
from the deep sea-ooze; parasitical oysters cluster over the trunks at
water-level, and between the adults rise slender young shoots, tipped
with bunches of brilliant green. The pure white sand is bound together
by a kind of convolvulus, whose large fleshy leaves and lilac-coloured
flowers creep along the loose soil. Where raised higher above the ocean
level, the coast is a wall of verdure. Plots of bald old trees, bent by
the regular breezes, betray the positions of settlements which,
generally sheltered from sight, besprinkle the coast in a long
straggling line, like the suburbs of a populous city. Of these, thirteen
were counted in a space of three miles. The monotony of green that
clothes the soil is relieved in places by dwarf earth-cliffs and scaurs
of rufous hue--East Africa is mostly a red land--and behind the
foreground of littoral or alluvial plain, at a distance varying from
three to five miles, rises a blue line of higher level, conspicuous even
from Zanzibar Island, the sandy raised beach now the frontier of the
wild men. To this sketch add its accompaniment; by day, the plashing of
the wave, and the scream of the gull, with the perpetual hum and buzz of
insect life; and, after sunset, the deep, dead silence of a tropical
night, broken only by the roar of the old bull-crocodile at his
resting-time, the qua-qua of the night-heron, and the shouts and shots
of the watchmen, who know from the grunts of the hippopotamus,
struggling up the bank, that he is quitting his watery home to pay a
visit to their fields.
We were delayed ten days off Wale Point by various preliminaries to
departure. Said bin Salim, a half-caste Arab of Zanzibar, who, sorely
against his will, was ordered by the prince to act as Ras Kafilah, or
caravan-guide, had, after ceaseless and fruitless prayers for delay,
preceded us about a fortnight, for the purpose of collecting porters.
The timid little man, whose nerves were shaken to weeping-point by the
terrors of the way, and by the fancy that, thus cooperating with the
exploration, he was incurring the hatred of his fellows, had “taken the
shilling,” in the shape of 500 dollars, advanced from public funds by
the consul, with a promise of an ample reward in hard coin, and a gold
watch, “si se bene gesserit:” at the same time Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton
had warned me against trusting to a half-caste. Accompanied by a Cutch
Banyan of the Bhattia caste, by name Ramji--of whom more anon--he had
crossed over, on the 1st of June, to the main-land, and had hired a gang
of porters, who, however, hearing that their employer was a Muzungu, a
“white man,” at once dispersed, forgetting to return their hire. About
one hundred and seventy men were required; only thirty-six were
procurable. The large amount of carriage was necessitated by the bulky
and ponderous nature of African specie, cotton cloth, brass-wire, and
beads, of which a total of seventy loads was expended in one year and
nine months. Moreover, under the impression that “vert and venison”
abounded in the interior, I had provided ammunition for two years,--ten
thousand copper-caps of sizes, forty boxes, each restricted, for
convenience of porterage, to forty pounds, and containing ball, grape,
and shot, six fire-proof magazines, and two small barrels of fine
powder, weighing in total fifty pounds, together with four ten-pound
kegs of a coarser kind for the escort,--in all, two hundred rounds for
each individual of the party. This supply was deemed necessary on
account of the immense loss to which ammunition is subjected by theft
and weather in these lands.
On the second day after anchoring off Wale Point, a native boat brought
on board the Artémise Ladha Damha, the collector of customs at Zanzibar,
who, in compliment to Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton, of old his friend and
patron, had torn himself from his beloved occupations to push the
departure of the Expedition. Ladha, hearing that the Arab merchants had
hastened to secure their gangs before corrupted by the more liberal
offers of the “white men,”--“Pagazi,” or porters, being at that time
scarce, because the caravans from the interior had not yet reached the
coast,--proposed to send forward the thirty-six fellows hired by Said
bin Salim, with orders to await the arrival of their employer at
Zungomero, in the land of K’hutu, a point situated beyond the plundering
maritime tribes. These men carried goods to the value of 654 dollars
German crowns (each 4_s._ 2_d._), and they received for hire 124
dollars; rations, that is to say, 1·50 lbs. of grain per diem, not
included: they preferred to travel with the escort of two
slave-musketeers rather than to incur the fancied danger of accompanying
a “Muzungu,” though followed by a well-armed party. For the personal
baggage and the outfit necessary for crossing the maritime region, which
reached by waste the figure of 295 dollars, asses were proposed by Ladha
Damha: Zanzibar and the mainland harbours were ransacked, and in a short
time thirty animals, good, bad, and indifferent, were fitted for the
roads with large canvas bags and vile Arab packsaddles, composed of
damaged gunny-bags stuffed with straw. It was necessary to leave behind,
till a full gang of porters could be engaged, the greater part of the
ammunition, the iron boat which had proved so useful on the coasting
voyage to Mombasah, and the reserve supply of cloth, wire, and beads,
valued at 359 dollars. The Hindus promised faithfully to forward these
articles, and received 150 dollars for the hire of twenty-two men, who
were to start in ten days. Nearly eleven months, however, elapsed before
they appeared; caravan after caravan came up from the coast, yet the
apathetic Bhattias pretended want of porters as the cause of their
delay. Evidently my preparations were hurriedly made; strong reasons,
however, urged me on,--delay, even for a few days, might have been
fatal.
During the brief detention off Wale Point, the latitudes and longitudes
of the estuary of the Kingani, the main artery of these regions, and of
the little settlements Bagamoyo and Kaole,--strongly against the advice
of Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton, who declared that by such proceedings the
Expedition was going to the bad,--were laid down by my companion: a
novice lunarian, he was assisted by Mohammed bin Khamis, who had read
his “Norie” in England. Various visits to the hippopotamus haunts
produced little beyond the damaging of the corvette’s gig, which,
suddenly uplifted from the water upon the points of two tusks, showed
two corresponding holes in her bottom. Nor did I neglect to land as
often as possible at Kaole, the point of departure upon the mainland,
for the purpose of making sketches with the pen and pencil, of urging on
preparations, and of gathering those items of “bazar-gup,” _i. e._,
tittle-tattle, that represents the labours of the “fourth estate” in
Eastern lands.
The little settlement of “Kaole”--an abbreviation of Kaole Urembo,
meaning literally, in the ancient dialect of the coast, “to show
beauty”--is the normal village-port in these regions, which, from
Mombasah southwards to Kilwa, still ignore a town of masonry. You land,
when the tide is out, upon half a mile of muddy sand, and if a “swell,”
you are carried by four men upon the Kitanda--cot or cartel--which is
slung along the side of your craft. Arrived at the strip of dry ground
that marks the limit of the tide, you are let down, and amidst the
shouts of the men, the shrieks of the women, and the naïve remarks of
the juvenile population, you ascend by a narrow footpath, worn through
the thick jungle and through the millet-fields which press upon the
tattered palisade, a dwarf steep bank, on whose summit the settlement
lies. Inside the fence are a dozen pent-roofed houses, claret-chests of
wattle and dab, divided into three or more compartments by dwarf
party-walls of the same material: each messuage is jealously separated
from its neighbour by large enclosed “compounds” or court-yards
appropriated to the women and children. The largest timber is that of
the mangrove; the flying thatch-roof, so raised that, though windows are
unknown, the interior enjoys tolerable ventilation, is of jauli, or rude
cocoa-plaits, and under the long and projecting eaves, which rest upon
strong perpendiculars, are broad earth-benches, divided by the entrance,
and garnished with mats: these form the shops and sitting-rooms of the
settlement. Some houses have a partial second story, like a ship’s bunk,
a planking supported by rafters, and used as a store-closet or a
dormitory. Around the larger habitations cluster masses of hovels, and
the characteristic African haycock-huts. With closed doors in still
weather, these dens are unendurable to a European; the people, however,
fearing thieves and wild beasts, never fail to barricade themselves
within at night. The only attempt at masonry in the settlement is the
“Gurayza,” or fort, a square of lime and coralline, with store-rooms for
the Banyan’s goods below, and provided with a crenelled terrace for
watchmen.
In the “garrison-towns” the soldiers and their families form the
principal part of the population. These men, who call themselves Baloch,
are, with few exceptions, originally from Mekran, and from the lowlands
about Guadel. Many of them have been born and bred in Arabia. In former
days their fathers migrated from their starving homes to Maskat, in the
Arab dows which visited their ports, to buy horses, and to collect
little cargoes of wheat and salt. In Arabia they were fakirs, sailors,
porters, and day-labourers, barbers, date-gleaners, asinegos, beggars,
and thieves. Sultan Bin Hamid, the father of the late Sayyid Said, first
conceived the bright idea of putting matchlocks into their hands, and of
dubbing them Askar, or soldiers, as a slight upon his less docile
compatriots. The son of Sultan followed his sire’s plan, and succeeded
in dividing and ruling by means of the antipathy prevailing between the
more disciplinable mercenary and the unruly Arab subject. The Baloch
are, however, rather hated than feared. They hang, say the Semites,
their benefits behind their backs, whilst they wear their grievances in
full view, woman-like, upon their breasts. Loud in debate, and turbulent
in demeanour, they are called by the Arabs a “light folk,” and are
compared to birds fluttering and chirruping round a snake. Abject slaves
to the Great Gaster, they collect in swarms round a slaughtered goat,
and they will feast their eyes for hours on the sight of a rice-bag.
When in cantonment on the island or the coast, they receive as pay from
2·50 to 5 dollars per mensem; when in the field or on outpost duty, a
“batta” of 10 dollars;--a sensible system, which never allows them to
become, like the Indian Sepoy, independent. They are not averse to
active service, as, when so employed, they have full permission to “pill
and poll.” In camp they are commanded by a jemadar, who, assisted by a
“moollah,”--some wretch who has retained, as sole traces of his better
days, a smattering of reading, writing, and arithmetic,--robs them and
his government with the recklessness of impunity. Thus the jemadar, or
C. O., who also dispenses promotion, is a man having authority.
Similarly our colonels in India, by superior position and allowances,
commanded the respect of their men before centralisation, falling upon
the land like a pestilence, systematically monopolised all power, and
then rained blame upon those who had lost it. These Baloch are a tame
copy of the Turkish Bashi Buzuk, or “mad-cap,” far inferior as
desperadoes to the Kurd and Arnaut. They live the life of the
Anglo-Indian soldier of the past generation, drinking beer when they can
“come by it,” smoking, chatting, and arguing; the younger wrestle,
shoot, and exchange kit; and the silly babbling patriarchs, with white
beards and venerable brows, tell wondrous tales of scenes long gone by,
and describe to unbelieving ears the ice and snow, the luscious fruits
and the sweet waters of the mountains and valleys of far Balochistan.
The other items of the population are the Wamrima[2]--Western Negroids
of a mixed Arab and African descent, who fringe the shore in a thin
line. These “coast-clans” support themselves in idleness and comparative
luxury, by amicably plundering the down-caravans, and by large
plantations of cereals and vegetables, with which they, or rather their
slaves, supply the island of Zanzibar, and even the shores of Arabia.
The Wamrima are an ill-conditioned race; they spend life in eating,
drinking, and smoking, drinking and dancing, visits, intrigue, and low
debauchery. They might grow cotton and coffee, and dig copal to almost
any extent; but whilst a pound of grain remains in bin, no man will
handle a hoe. The feminine part of the community is greatly superior in
number to the masculine, and this leads to the usual result: on a “Siku
ku” or fête-day, the ladies of the village, with yellow pigment over
their faces and their woolly heads, perform in their cups
impromptu-dances upon the open, enter a stranger’s house as if it were
their own, and call for something to drink, as if they had been educated
at Cremorne, or the Rue Cadet. The Wamrima are ruled by Diwans, or
headmen, locally called “Chomwi;” these officials are subject to
Zanzibar, and their numbers are everywhere in inverse ratio to the
importance of the places. The Chomwi enjoys the privileges of “dash,”
fines and extortions; he has also certain marks of distinction. For
instance, he is authorised to wear turbands and the wooden pattens
called by the Arabs “kabkab;” he may also sit upon cots, chairs, and the
mkeka, a fine dyed mat; whereas a commoner venturing upon such display
would infallibly be mulcted in goats or cattle. At the Ngoma Ku or great
dance, which celebrates every event in this land of revelry, only the
Chomwi may perform the morris with drawn sword before the admiring
multitude. A subject detected in intrigue with the wife of a headman
must, under penalty of being sold, pay five slaves; the fine is reduced
to one head in the case of a plebeian. With this amount of dignity the
Diwan naturally expects to live, and to support his family with the fat
of the land, and without sweat of brow. When times are hard, he
organises a kidnapping expedition against a weaker neighbour, and fills
his purse by selling the proceeds. But his income is derived chiefly
from the down-caravans bringing ivory and slaves from Unyamwezi and the
far interior. Though rigidly forbidden by the Prince of Zanzibar to
force caravans to his particular port, he sends large armed parties of
his kinsmen and friends, his clients and serfs, as far as 150 and 200
miles inland, where they act less like touters than highwaymen. By every
petty art of mercantile diplomacy,--now by force, then by fraud, by
promises, or by bribes of cloth and sweetmeats,--they induce the caravan
to enter the village, when the work of plunder begins. Out of each
Frasilah (thirty-five lbs. avoirdupois) of ivory, from eight to fourteen
dollars are claimed as duties to the Government of Zanzibar; the
headmen, then, demand six dollars as their fee, under various technical
names, plus one dollar for “ugali” or porridge--the “manche,”--and one
dollar for the use of water--the “pour boire.” The owner of the tusk is
then handed over to the tender mercies of the Banyan, from whom the
Diwan has received a bribe, called his “rice”; and the crafty Hindu buys
for eighteen to twenty dollars an article worth, at Zanzibar, fifty. If
the barbarian be so unwise as to prefer cash, being intellectually unfit
to discriminate between a cent and a dollar, he loses even more than if
he had taken in barter the coarse and trashy articles provided for him
by the trade. An adept at distinguishing good from bad cloth and a
cunning connoisseur in beads of sorts, he has yet no choice: if he
reject what is worthless, he must return home with his ivory and without
an investment. Such is an outline of the present system. It is nowhere
the same in its details; but everywhere the principle is one--the loss
is to the barbarian, and the profits are to the coast-clans, the Wamrima
and their headmen. Hence the dislike to strangers and the infinite
division into little settlements, where people might be expected to
prefer the comfort and safety of large communities. The 10th article of
the commercial treaty, concluded on the 31st May, 1839, between Her
Majesty’s Government and His Highness Sayyid Said of Muscat and
Zanzibar, secured to the possessors of the Mrima a monopoly in the
articles of ivory and gum-copal on that part of the east coast of Africa
from the port of Tangata (Mtangata), situated in about 5½° S. lat. to
the port of Quiloa (Kilwa) lying in about 7° S. of the equator. It is
not improbable that the jealousy of European nations, each fearing the
ambitious designs of its neighbour, brought about this invidious
prohibitionist measure.
[2] It must be borne in mind, that, in the Kisawahili and its
cognates, the vowel _u_ prefixed to a root, which, however, is never
used without some prefix, denotes, through a primary idea of
causality, a country or region, as Uzaramo, the region of Zaramo. Many
names, however, exceptionally omit this letter, as the Mrima, K’hutu,
Fuga, and Karagwah. The liquid _m_, or, before a vowel and an
aspirated h, _mu_, to prevent hiatus, being probably a synæresis of
_M_tu, a man, denotes the individual, as Mzaramo, a man or woman of
Zaramo. When prefixed to the names of trees, as has been instanced, it
is evidently an abbreviation of Mti, a tree. The plural form of _m_
and _mu_ is Wá, a contraction of Wátu, men, people; it is used to
signify the population, as Wamrima, the “coast-clans,” Wazaramo, the
people or tribe of Zaramo, and Wasawahíli (with a long accent upon the
penultimate, consonant with the spirit of the African language, and
contrary to that of the Arabic), the population of the Sawahil.
Finally, the syllable _ki_--prefixed to the theoretical root--denotes
anything appertaining to a country, as the terminating _ish_ in the
word English. It especially refers in popular usage to language, as
Kizaramo, the language of Zaramo; Kisawahíli, the language of the
Sawahil, originally called Ki-ngozi, from the district of Ngozi, on
the Ozi River. It has been deemed advisable to retain these terse and
concise distinctions, which, if abandoned, would necessitate a weary
redundance of words.
Besides the Baloch and the Wamrima, the settlements usually contain a
few of the “Washenzi” or barbarians from the interior, who visit them to
act as day-labourers, and who sometimes, by evincing a little disrespect
for the difference between the “mine” and the “thine,” leave their heads
to decorate tall poles at the entrance. The Wazaramo tribe send, when
there is no blood-feud, numbers to Kaole, where they are known by their
peculiar headdress, a single or a double line of pips or dilberries of
ochre and grease surrounding the head. They regard the stranger with a
wild and childish stare, and whenever I landed, they slunk away from me,
for reasons which will appear in the course of this narrative. The list
of floating population concludes with a few Banyans,--there are about
fifty in Kaole and its vicinity--a race national as the English, who do
their best to import into Eastern Africa the cows and curries, the
customs and the costumes, of Western India.
The first visit to Kaole opened up a vista of unexpected difficulties.
My escort had been allowed to leave the Artémise, and their comrades in
arms had talked them half-crazy with fear. Zahri, a Baloch, who had
visited Unyamwezi, declared that nothing less than 100 guards, 150 guns,
and several cannon could enable them to fight a way through the perils
of the interior. Tulsi, the Banyan, warned them that for three days they
must pass amongst savages, who sit on trees and discharge poisoned
arrows into the air with such dexterity that they never fail to fall
upon the travellers’ pate; he strongly advised them therefore, under
pain of death, to avoid trees--no easy matter in a land all forest. Then
the principal Chomwi assured them that the chiefs of the Wazaramo tribe
had sent six several letters to the officials of the coast forbidding
the white man to enter their country. Ladha Damha also obscurely hinted
that the Wazaramo might make caches of their provisions in the jungle,
and that the human stomach cannot march without feeding. Divers dangers
of the way were incidentally thrown in: I learned for the first time
that the Kargadan or rhinoceros kills 200 men, that armies of elephants
attack camps by night, and that the craven hyæna does more damage than
the Bengal tiger. In vain I objected that guns with men behind them are
better than cannon backed by curs, that mortals can die but once, that
the Wazaramo are unable to write, that rations might be carried where
not purchaseable, and that powder and ball have been known to conquer
rhinoceroses, elephants, and hyænas. A major force was against me.
Presently the cause of intimidation crept into sight. The Jemadar and
the eight Baloch detached by His Highness the Sayyid Majid of Zanzibar
could not march without a reinforcement of four others, afterwards
increased by a fifth in the person of an “Ustad,” a tailor-boy. The
garrison of Kaole having no employment, was ready, with the prospect of
the almighty dollar, to march anywhere on this side of Jehannum. The
perils of the path rendered it absolutely necessary that we should be
escorted by a temporary guard of thirty-four men and their Jemadar
Yaruk: and they did not propose to do the good deed gratis. Ramji, the
Banyan clerk of the customs at Zanzibar, had a number of slaves whom he
called his “sons;” they were “eating off their heads” in idleness at
Zanzibar. He favoured me by letting out ten of these youths at the rate
of thirty dollars ahead for a period of six months: for the same sum
every man might have been purchased in the market. When asses were
proposed ass-men were necessary; in the shortest space of time five were
procured, and their pay for the whole journey was fixed at thirty
dollars, about twice the sale-value of the article. I cannot plead
guilty to not having understood the manœuvre,--a commercial speculation
on the part of the rascal Ramji. Yet at times,--need I say it?--it is
good to appear a dupe. It is wise, when your enemies determine you to be
that manner of sable or ermine contrivance into which ladies insert
their fair hands, to favour the hypothesis. I engaged the men, I paid
the men, and mentally I chronicled a vow that Ramji should in the long
run change places with me.
Presently Mr. Frost with brow severe and official manner, informed me
that the state of Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton’s health forbade a longer stay
near the coast. To this there was no reply: I contented myself with
remarking once more that morphia appeared a curious cure for a confirmed
liver complaint, and I made preparations for landing at once. Mr. Frost
replied that the doses of morphia were very “little ones,”--an excuse
which, according to Capt. Marryat, has been urged under somewhat
dissimilar circumstances by the frail ancilla. I confided to Mr. Frost’s
care two MSS. addressed through the Foreign Office, one to Mr. John
Blackwood, the other to Dr. Norton Shaw, of the Royal Geographical
Society. As the former arrived in safety, whilst the latter,--a detailed
report concerning the commerce and capabilities of Zanzibar,--was lost,
I cannot help suspecting that it came somehow to an untimely end.
Lieutenant-Colonel Hamerton had repeatedly warned me that by making
inquiries into the details of profit I was exciting the jealousy of the
natives and the foreigners of Zanzibar. According to him the mercantile
community was adopting the plan which had secured the foul murder of M.
Maizan: the Christians had time and opportunity to alarm the Banyans,
and the latter were able to work upon the Wasawahíli population. These
short-sighted men dreaded that from throwing open the country,
competition might result: Oriental-like, thinking only of the moment, of
themselves, they could not perceive that the development of resources
would benefit all concerned in their exploitation. There were, however,
honourable exceptions, amongst whom I am bound to mention M. Bérard,
agent to Mess. Rabaud, frères, of Marseilles, who by direction of his
employers offered me every manner of assistance; and the late M. Sam.
Masury, a Salem merchant, to whose gratuitous kindness I was indebted
for several necessaries when separated from civilisation by one half of
Africa. They contrasted sharply with the rest of the community: in the
case of a certain young gentleman, Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton was,--he
informed me,--compelled to threaten a personal chastisement, unless he
ceased to fill native ears with his malignant suspicions.
The weary labour of verifying accounts and of writing receipts duly
concluded, I took a melancholy leave of my warm-hearted friend
Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton, upon whose form and features death was written
in legible characters. He gave me his last advice, to march straight
ahead despising “walnut and velvet-slipper men,” who afford opinions,
and conciliating the Arabs as much as possible. Then he spoke of
himself: he looked forward to death with a feeling of delight, the
result of his religious convictions; he expressed a hope that if I
remained at Kaole, he might be buried at sea; and he declared himself,
in spite of my entreaties, determined to remain near the coast until he
heard of our safe transit through the lands of the dreaded Wazaramo.
This courage was indeed sublime! Such examples are not often met with
amongst men!
After this affecting farewell, I took leave of the Artémise and landed
definitively at Kaole. The Baloch driving the asses were sent off to the
first station on the road westwards, headed by my companion, on the same
evening, lest a longer sojourn in the lands of semi-civilisation should
thoroughly demoralise them. The Wanyamwezi porters, whose open faces and
laughing countenances strongly prepossessed me in their favour, had
already passed beyond their centre of attraction, the coast. I spent
that evening with Ladha Damha, inside the gloomy Gurayza. He lectured me
for the last time upon my development of what the French cartomantiste
calls “la bosse de la témérité.” Might not the Sahib be a great Sahib in
his own land--Cutch or Guzerat? Are there not other great Sahibs there,
A--Sahib and B--Sahib, for instance, who only kill pigs and ignore the
debtor and creditor side of an account in Guzeratee?
I must mention that, on the morning of the same day, I was present at a
conversation held by the Ladha, the respectable collector of the
customs, with the worthy Ramji, his clerk. I had insisted upon their
inserting in the estimate of necessaries the sum required to purchase a
boat upon the “Sea of Ujiji.”
“Will he ever reach it?” asked the respectable Ladha, conveying his
question through the medium of Cutchee, a dialect of which, with the
inconsequence of a Hindu, he assumed me to be profoundly ignorant.
“Of course not,” replied the worthy Ramji; “what is he that he should
pass through Ugogi?” (a province about half way.)
At the moment I respected their “sharm,” or shame, a leading organ in
the oriental brain, which apparently has dwindled to inconsequential
dimensions amongst the nations of the West. But when Ladha was alone, I
took the opportunity to inform him that I still intended to cross Ugogo,
and to explore the “Sea of Ujiji.” I ended by showing him that I was not
unacquainted with Cutchee, and even able to distinguish between the
debits and the credits of his voluminous sheets.
During the conversation, the loud wail of death rang wildly through the
grave-like stillness of night. “O son, hope of my life! O brother,
dearest of brothers! O husband! O husband!” these were the cries which
reached our ears. We ran to the door of the Gurayza. The only son of the
venerable Diwan Ukwere, who had been ascending the Kingani river on a
mercantile expedition, with five slaves, had been upset by a vengeful
hippopotamus, and, with two of his attendants, had lost his life.
“Insaf Karo! be honest!” said the Banyan, with whom I had had many
discussions as to whether it be lawful or unlawful to shoot the
hippopotamus, “and own that this is the first calamity which you have
brought upon the country by your presence.”
I could only reply with the common-places of polemics. Why should Ladha,
who by purchasing their spoils encouraged the destruction of herds of
elephants, object to the death of a “creek-bull”? and why should the man
who would not kill the “creek-bull” be ready to ruin a brother-man for
making a better bargain about its tusks? Ladha received these futile
objections contemptuously, as you would, right reverend father, were I
to suggest that you, primate and spiritual peer, are not exactly
following in the footsteps of certain paupers whom you fondly deem to
have been your prototypes,--your exemplars.
When Ladha left, my spirits went with him. In the solitude and the
silence of the dark Gurayza, I felt myself the plaything of misfortune.
At Cairo I had received from the East India House an order to return to
London, to appear as a witness on a trial by court-martial then pending.
The missive was, as usual, so ineptly worded, that I did not think
proper to throw overboard the Royal Geographical Society--to whom my
services had been made over--by obeying it: at the same time I well knew
what the consequences would be. Before leaving Egypt, an interview with
the Count d’Escayrac de Lauture, had afforded me an opportunity of
inspecting an expedition thoroughly well organised by His Highness Said
Pacha, of military predilections, and the contrast between an Egyptian
and an English exploration impressed me unpleasantly. Arrived at Aden, I
had enlisted the services of an old and valued friend, Dr. Steinhaeuser,
civil surgeon at that station: a sound scholar, a good naturalist, a
skilful practitioner, endowed, moreover, with even more inestimable
personal qualities, his presence would have been valuable in a land of
sickness, skirmishes, and sporting adventures, where the people are ever
impressed with the name of “medicine-man,” and in a virgin field
promising subjects of scientific interest. Yet though recommended for
the work by his Excellency the Governor of Bombay, Dr. Steinhaeuser had
been incapacitated by sickness from accompanying me: I had thus with me
a companion and not a friend, with whom I was “strangers yet.” The
Persian war had prevented the fitting-out of a surveying vessel, ordered
by the Court of Directors to act as a base of operations upon the
African coast; no disposable officer of the Indian navy was to be found
at the Presidency; and though I heard in Leadenhall Street of an
“Observatory Sergeant” competent to conduct the necessary astronomical
and meteorological observations, in the desert halls of the great
Bungalow at Colaba only a few lank Hindus met my sight. Nor was this
all. His Highness the late Sayyid Said, that estimable ally of the
English nation, had for many years repeatedly made the most
public-spirited offers to his friend Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton. He was
more than once upon the point of applying for officers selected to map
the caravan routes of Eastern Africa, and he professed himself willing
to assist them with men, money, and the weight of his widely extended
influence. This excellent prince had died forty days before the
Expedition arrived at Zanzibar. Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton, also, whose
extraordinary personal qualities enabled him to perform anything but
impossibilities amongst the Arabs, was compelled by rapidly failing
health, during my stay at Zanzibar, to lead a recluse life, which
favoured the plans of my opponents. Finally, as Indian experience taught
me, I was entering the unknown land at the fatal season, when the
shrinking of the waters after the wet monsoon would render it a hotbed
of malaria.
The hurry of departure, also, had caused a necessary neglect of certain
small precautions, which, taken in time, save much after trouble. I
should have shunned to have laid down limits of space and time for the
Expedition, whereas my friend and adviser had specified the “Sea of
Ujiji.” I intended to have drawn out every agreement in an official
form, registered at the Consulate, and specifying all particulars
concerning rations and presents for the escort, their ammunition, and
their right of sporting--that is to say, of scaring the game before it
could be shot--their reward for services, and their punishments for ill
conduct. Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton’s state of health, however, rendered
him totally unfit for the excitement of business; and, without his
assistance, a good result was not to be expected from measures so
unfamiliar, and therefore so unpalatable, to the people whom they most
concerned.
Excuse, amiable reader, this lengthy and egotistical preface to a volume
of adventure. Do not think that I would invert the moral of the
Frog-fable, by showing that what is death to you, may become fun to me.
As we are to be companions--not to say friends--for an hour or two, I
must put you in possession of certain facts, trivial in themselves, and
all unworthy of record, yet so far valuable, that they may enable us to
understand each other. _Au reste_, to quote the ballad so much admired
by the Authoress of “Our Village”:--
“The Pindar of Wakefield is my style,
And what I list I write;
Whilom a clerk of Oxenford,
But now--a banished wight.”
CHAP. II.
ZANZIBAR AND THE MRIMA EXPLAINED.
The history of the word Zanzibar is curious. Its Persian origin proves
that the Iranians were in early days a more maritime people than Vincent
and other writers imagine. Zanzibar, signifying Nigritia, or Blackland,
is clearly derived from the “Zang,” in Arabic Zanj, a negro, and “bar,”
a region. This Zangbar was changed by the Arabs, who ignore in writing
the hard _g_, into Zanjíbár; they still, however, pronounce Zangbar, and
consider it synonymous with another popular expression, “Mulk el Zunuj,”
or “the Land of the Blacks.” Thus the poet sings,--
فسميت ملك الزنوج جميعها
“And it hath been called Land of the Blacks, all of it.”
Traces of the word may be found in the earliest geographers.
Ptolemy records a Zingis or Zingisa, which, however, with his customary
incorrectness, he places north of the equator. According to Cosmas
Indicopleustes, the Indian Ocean beyond Barbaria is called Zingium.
“Sinus Barbaricus” seems to have been amongst the Romans the name of the
belt of low land afterwards known as “Zanzibar,” and it was inhabited by
a race of Anthropophagi, possibly the fathers of the present “Wadoe”
tribe. In more modern times the land of the Zunuj has been mentioned by
a host of authors, El Novayri and others.
[Illustration: A TOWN ON THE MRIMA.]
The limits of Zanzibar,--a word indiscriminately applied in former times
to the coast, the island, and even to the principal town,--are variously
laid down by geographers. Usually it is made to extend from Cape
Delgado, in S. lat. 10° 41′ to the equator, or more strictly to S. lat.
0° 15′, at the mouth of the Vumbo, or the Webbe Ganana, which appears in
our maps under the deceptive corruptions “Juba” and “Govind,” from the
Somali “Gob,” a junction, and “Gob-wen,” a large junction. Mr. Cooley
(Inner Africa Laid Open, p. 111) corrects the great error of the
Portuguese historian, de Barros, who has made the embouchure of the
Obi--in Somali Webbe, meaning any river,--the demarcation line between
“Ajan” on the north, and “Zanguebar” in the south, and has placed the
mouth of that stream in 9° N. lat., which would extend Zanzibar almost
to Cape Guardafui. Asiatic authors, according to M. Guillain, (Documents
sur l’Histoire, &c. de l’Afrique Orientale. Première partie, p. 213)
vary in opinion concerning the extent of the “land of the Zunuj” and its
limits; some, as El Masudi, make it contain the whole country, including
Sofala, between the embouchure of the Juba River (S. lat. 0° 15′) and
Cape Corrientes (S. lat. 23° 48′): others, like El Idrisi and Ibn Said,
separate from it Sofala. In local and modern usage the word Zanjibar is
generally confined to the chief town upon the island, the latter being
called by Arabs, as well as by the Negroids, Kisiwa, “insula,” in
opposition to the Barr el Moli, a barbarised Semitic term for the
continent.
As usual throughout these lands, where comprehensive geographical names
are no longer required, there is no modern general word for East Africa
south of the equator. The term “Sawahil,” or “the shores,” in present
parlance is confined to the strip of coast beyond the half-Somali
country, called from its various ports,--Lamu, Brava, and Patta,--Barr
el Banadir, or Harbour-land. The “Sawahil” extend southwards to
Mombasah, below which the coast suddenly falling flat, is known as Mrima
or the Hill, and its people as Wamrima, the “hill-men.” It is limited on
the south by the delta of the Rufiji River, whose races are termed Watu
wa Rufiji, Rufiji clans, or more shortly, Warufiji.
The country properly called the Mrima has no history beyond its name,
whilst the towns immediately to the north and south of it,--Mombasah and
Kilwa,--have filled many a long and stirring page. The Arab geographers
preceding the Portuguese conquest mention only five settlements on the
coast between Makdishu (Magadoxo) and Kilwa, namely, Lamu, Brava, Marka,
Malindi (Melinda), and Mombasah. In Captain Owen’s charts, between
Pangani and the parallel of Mafiyah (Monfia Island) not a name appears.
The fringe of Moslem Negroids inhabiting this part of the East African
coast is called by the Arabs Ahl Maraim, and by themselves Wamrima, in
opposition to the heathen of the interior. These are designated in mass
the Washenzi--conquered or servile--properly the name of a Helot race in
the hills of Usumbara, but extended by strangers to all the inner races.
The Wasawahili, or people of the Sawahil, Mulattos originally African,
but semiticised, like the Moplahs of Malabar, by Arab blood, are in
these days confined to the lands lying northwards of Mombasah, to the
island of Zanzibar, and to the regions about Kilwa.
The Mrima is peopled by two distantly connected families, the half-caste
Arabs and the Coast-Clans. The former are generally of Bayazi or Khariji
persuasion; the latter follow the school of el Shafei; both, though the
most imperfect of Moslems, are fanatical enough to be dangerous. They
own a nominal allegiance to the suzerain of Zanzibar, yet they are
autonomous and free-spoken as Bedouins, when removed a few miles from
the coast, and they have a rooted aversion to the officials of the local
government, whom they consider their personal enemies. Between them and
the pure Arabs of Oman, who often traverse, but who now never settle
upon the Mrima, there is a repugnance increased by commercial jealousy;
they resent the presence of these strangers as an intrusion, and they
lose no opportunity of thwarting and discouraging them from travelling
into the interior. Like their ancestors, they dislike Europeans
personally, and especially fear the Beni Nar, or Sons of Fire,--the
English--“hot as the Ingrez,” is in these lands a proverb. In their many
Riwayat, Hadisi, and Ngoma--tales, traditions, and songs--they predict
the eventual conquest of the country that has once felt the white man’s
foot.
The half-caste Arab is degenerate in body and mind; the third generation
becomes as truly negroid as the inner heathen. Even Creoles of pure
blood, born upon the island and the coast of Zanzibar, lose the high
nervous temperament that characterises their ancestors, and become, like
Banyans, pulpy and lymphatic. These mestiços, appearing in the land of
their grandsires, have incurred the risk of being sold as slaves. The
peculiarity of their physiognomy is the fine Semitic development of the
upper face, including the nose and nostrils, whilst the jaw is
prognathous, the lips are tumid and everted, and the chin is weak and
retreating. The cranium is somewhat rounded, and it wants the length of
the Negroid’s skull. Idle and dissolute, though intelligent and cunning,
the coast-Arab has little education. He is sent at the age of seven to
school, where in two or three years he accomplishes the Khitmah, or
perlection of the Koran, and he learns to write a note in an antiquated
character, somewhat more imperfect than the Cufic. This he applies to
the Kisawahili, and as nothing can be less fitted for the Semitic
tongues than the Arabic syllabarium, so admirably adapted to its proper
sphere, his compositions require the deciphering of an expert. A few
prayers and hymns conclude the list of his acquirements. His
mother-tongue knows no books except short treatises on Bao, or geomancy,
and specimens of African proverbial wisdom. He then begins life by
aiding his father in the shop or plantation, and by giving himself up to
intoxication and intrigue. After suffering severely from his
excesses--in this climate no constitution can bear up against
over-indulgence long continued--at the age of seventeen or eighteen, he
takes unto himself a wife. Estranged from the land of his forefathers,
he rarely visits Zanzibar, where the restraints of semi-civilisation,
the decencies of oriental society, and the low estimation in which the
black skin is held, weary and irritate him. His point of honour seems to
consist chiefly in wearing publicly, in token of his Arab descent, a
turban and a long yellow shirt, called El Dishdasheh.
The Wamrima, or coast-clans, resemble even more than the half-caste
Arabs their congeners the Washenzi. The pure Omani will not acknowledge
them as kinsmen, declaring the breed to be Aajam, or gentiles. They are
less educated than the higher race, and they are more debauched,
apathetic, dilatory, and inert; their favourite life is one of sensual
indolence. Like the Somal, they appear to be unfitted by nature for
intellectual labour; of the former people there is but one learned man,
the Shaykh Jami of Harar, and the Kazi Muhiyy-el-Din of Zanzibar is the
only literato amongst the Wasawahili. Study, or indeed any tension of
the mind, seems to make these weak-brained races semi-idiotic. They
cannot answer Yes or No to the simplest question. If, for example, a man
be asked the place of his tribe, he will point to a distance, though
actually living amongst them; or if questioned concerning some
particular of an event, he will detail everything but what is wanted. In
the earlier days of exploration, I have repeatedly collected the diwans,
and, after a careful investigation and comparison of statements, have
registered the names and distances of the stages ahead. These men,
though dwelling upon the threshold of the regions which they described,
and being in the habit of traversing them every year, yet could hardly
state a single fact correctly; sometimes they doubled, at other times
they halved, the distance; they seldom gave the same names, and they
almost always made a hysteron-proteron of the stations. The reader may
gather from this sample some idea of the difficulties besetting those
who would collect information concerning Africa from the Africans. It
would not have happened had an Arab been consulted. I soon resolved to
doubt for the future all Wasawahili, Wamrima, Washenzi, and slaves, and
I found no reason for regretting the resolution.
The Wamrima are of darker complexion, and are more African in
appearance, than the coast Arabs. The popular colour is a dull yellowish
bronze. The dress is a fez, or a Surat-cap; a loin-cloth, which among
the wealthy is generally an Arab check or an Indian print, with a
similar sheet thrown over the shoulders. Men seldom appear in public
without a spear, a sword, or a staff; and priding themselves upon the
possession of umbrellas, they may be seen rolling barrels, or otherwise
working upon the sands, under the luxurious shade. The women wear a
tobe, or long cloth, wrapped tightly round the body, and extending from
beneath the arms to the ankles; it is a garb ungraceful as was the
European “sacque” of bygone days. It spoils the figure by depressing
instead of supporting the bosom, and it conceals none of its
deficiencies, especially the narrowness of the hips. The Murungwana, or
free-woman, is distinguished from the slave-girl, when outside the
house, by a cloth thrown over the head. Like the women of the Bedouins
and of the Persian Iliyat, even the matrons of the Mrima go abroad
unmasked. Their favourite necklace is a string of shark’s teeth. They
distend the lobes of the ears to a prodigious size, and decorate them
with a rolled-up strip of variously-dyed cocoa-leaf, a disk of wood, a
plate of chakazi or raw gum-copal, or, those failing, with a betel-nut
or with a few straws. The left wing of the nose is also pierced to admit
a pin of silver, brass, lead, or even a bit of manioc-root. The hair,
like the body, is copiously anointed with cocoa-nut or sesamum oil. Some
shave the head wholly or partially across the brow and behind the ears;
others grow their locks to half or full-length, which rarely exceeds a
few inches. It is elaborately dressed, either in double-rolls rising
like bear’s ears on both sides of the head, or divided into a number of
frizzly curls which expose lines of scalp, and give to the head the
appearance of a melon. They have also a propensity for savage
“accroche-cœurs,” which stand out from the cheek bones, stiffly twisted
like young porkers’ tails. In early youth, when the short, soft, and
crisp hair resembles Astrachan wool, when the muscles of the face are
smoothly rounded, and when the skin has that life and texture, and the
countenance has that vivacity and amiability which belong only to the
young, many of the girls have a pretty piquancy, a little minois
chiffonné, a coquettishness, a natural grace, and a caressing look,
which might become by habit exceedingly prepossessing. In later life,
their charms assume that peculiar solidity which is said to characterise
the beauties of Mullingar, and as a rule they are shockingly ugly. The
Castilian proverb says that the English woman should be seen at the
window, the French woman on the promenade, and the Spanish woman
everywhere;--the African woman should be seen nowhere, or in the dark.
The children mostly appear in the graceful costume of the Belvidere
Apollo; not a few of them have, to the European eye, that amusing
prettiness which we admire in pug-pups.
The mode of life in the Mrima is simple. Men rise early and repair to
either the shop, the boat, or the plantation,--more commonly they waste
the morning in passing from house to house “ku amkía,”--to salute
neighbours. They ignore “manners”: they enter abruptly with or without
the warning cry of “Hodi! Hodi!” place their spears in the corner, and
without invitation squat and extend themselves upon the floor till
wearied with conversation they take “French leave.” Life, to the
European so real and earnest, is with them a continued scene of
drumming, dancing, and drinking, of gossip, squabble, and intrigue. The
favourite inebrients are tembu or cocoa toddy, and mvinyo, its
distillation, pombe or millet-beer, opium, Bhang, and sometimes foreign
stimulants purchased at Zanzibar. Their food is mostly ugali, the thick
porridge of boiled millet or maize flour, which represents the “staff of
life” in East Africa: they usually feed twice a day, in the morning and
at night-fall. They employ the cocoa-nut extensively: like the Arabs of
Zanzibar, they boil their rice in the thick juice of the rasped albumen
kneaded with water, and they make cakes of the pulp mixed with the flour
of various grains. This immoderate use of the fruit which, according to
the people, is highly refrigerant, causes, it is said, rheumatic and
other diseases. A respectable man seen eating a bit of raw or undressed
cocoa-nut would be derided by his fellows. They chew tobacco with lime,
like the Arabs, who, under the influence of Wahhabi tenets, look upon
the pipe as impure, and they rarely smoke it like the Washenzi.
The Wamrima as well as the Wasawahili are distinguished by two national
peculiarities of character. The first is a cautiousness bordering upon
cowardice, derived from their wild African blood; the second is an
unusual development of cunning and deceitfulness, which partially
results from the grafting of the semi-civilised Semite upon the Hamite.
The Arabs, who are fond of fanciful etymology, facetiously derive the
race-name “Msawahili” from “Sawwá hílah,”[3] _he played a trick_, and
the people boast of it, saying, “are we not Wasawahili?” that is “artful
dodgers.” Supersubtle and systematic liars, they deceive when duller men
would tell the truth, the lie direct is no insult, and the offensive
word “muongo!” (liar) enters largely into every dialogue. They lie like
Africans, objectlessly, needlessly, when sure of speedy detection, when
fact would be more profitable than falsehood; they have not discovered
with the civilised knave, that “honesty is the best policy;” they lie
till their fiction becomes subjectively fact. With them the lie is no
mental exertion, no exercise of ingenuity, no concealment, nor mere
perversion of the truth: it is apparently a local instinctive
peculiarity in the complicated madness of poor human nature. The most
solemn and religious oaths are with them empty words; they breathe an
atmosphere of falsehood, manœuvre, and contrivance, wasting about the
mere nothings of life--upon a pound of grain or a yard of
cloth--ingenuity of iniquity enough to win and keep a crown. And they
are treacherous as false; with them the salt has no signification, and
gratitude is unknown even by name.
[3] Dr. Krapf, in the Preface to his “Outlines of the Kisuahelí
Language,” deduces the national name from Síwá, ’a hílah, which would
mean exactly the reverse of astute--“without guile.” He has made other
curious linguistic errors: he translates, for instance, the
“Quilimancy” River--the ancient name for the Ozi or Dana--“water from
the mountain,” after a Germanic or Indo-European fashion, whereas, in
the Zangian languages, the compound word would, if admissible, signify
“a mountain of water.” It is curious that the learned and accurate Mr.
Cooley, who has charged Dr. Krapf with “puerile etymologies,” should
have fallen into precisely the same error. In the “Geography of
N’yassi,” p. 19, “Mazingia” is rendered the “road or land along the
water,” but Májí Njíá, if the elision of the possessive affix ya be
allowed in prose as in poetry--Májí Njíá for Májí ya Njíá--would mean
only the “water of the road.” As a specimen of Dr. Krapf’s discoveries
in philology the following may suffice. In his vocabulary of the
Engutuk Eloikob or Kikuafi dialect, he derives Olbitir, a _pig_, from
the Arabic El Batrah, a _young ass_, or from El Basir, a _sharp-seeing
dog_!
Though partially Arabised, the Wamrima, as well as the Wasawahili,
retain many habits and customs derived from the most degraded of the
Washenzi savagery. Like the Wazegura heathen of Eastern Africa, and the
Bangala of the Kasanji (Cassange) Valley, in the West, the uncle sells
his nephews and nieces by an indefeasible vested right, with which even
the parents cannot interfere. The voice of society even justifies this
abomination. “What!” exclaim the people, “is a man to want when his
brothers and sisters have children?” He is thus encouraged in doing, on
the slightest pretext, that of which the heathen rarely approve, except
to save themselves from starvation. At the same time the Wamrima,
holding the unchastity of woman as a tenet of belief, consider the
sister’s son--the “surer side”--the heir, in preference to the son. They
have many superstitions, and before all undertakings they consult a
pagan Mganga or medicine-man. If the K’hunguru or crow caws from the
house-top, a guest is coming; if a certain black bird cries “chee!
chee!” in front of a caravan, the porters will turn back, saying that
there is blood on the road, and they will remain four or five days till
the “chika! chika!” of the partridge beats the “General.” An even number
of wayfarers met in early morning is a good omen, but an odd number, or
the bark of the Mbweha--the fox--before the march, portends misfortune.
Strong minds of course take advantage of these and a thousand other
follies of belief, and when there is not, as in civilised countries, a
counteracting influence of scepticism, the mental organisation of the
people becomes a mass of superstitious absurdities.
The chief industry of the Mrima, namely the plundering of caravans, has
already been alluded to; it will here be described with somewhat more of
detail. The industrious and commercial nations near Kilwa and the
southern regions delay but a few days on the coast; the Wanyamwezi, on
the line now to be described, will linger there from three to six
months, enjoying the dear delights of comparative civilisation. Many old
campaigners have so far overcome their barbarous horror of water
travelling, which has been increased by tales of shipwreck and drowning,
as to take boat and carry their ivory to the more profitable market in
this land of Zanzibar, where the Wanyamwezi occupy their own quarter.
Arrived within two marches of the coast-town, the head of the caravan
calls a halt till the presents promised by an escort of touters have
arrived and have been approved of. He then delays as long as possible,
to live gratis upon those with whom he proposes to deal. After a time,
the caravan enters in stately procession, a preliminary to the usual
routine of commercial operations. Having settled the exorbitant claims
of the village headmen and the charges of the Zanzibar Government, which
are usually levied in duplicate by the local authorities, the barbarian
has recourse to the Indian Banyan. Bargains are usually concluded at
night: to a civilised man the work would be an impossible trial of
patience. A lot of two hundred tusks is rarely sold under four months.
Each article is laid upon the ground, and the purchaser begins by
placing handsome cloths, technically called “pillows,” under the point
and bamboo of the tusk, and by covering its whole length with a third;
these form the first perquisites of the seller. After a few days, during
which rice and ghee, sugar and sweetmeats, must be freely supplied,
commences the chaffering for the price. The Banyan becomes excited at
the ridiculous demand of his client, screams like a woman, pushes him
out of doors, and receives a return of similar treatment with interest.
He takes advantage of his knowledge that the African in making a bargain
is never satisfied with the first offer, however liberal; he begins with
a quarter of the worth, then he raises it to one-half, and when the
barbarian still hesitates he throws in some flashy article which turns
the scale. Any attempt at a tariff would be contemptuously rejected by
both parties. The African delights in bargaining, and the Indian having
brighter wits relies upon them for a profit, which the establishment of
fair prices would curtail. It were in vain to attempt any alteration in
this style of doing “business;” however despicable it may appear in the
London market, it is a time-honoured institution in East Africa.
[Illustration: The Wazaramo Tribe.]
CHAP. III.
TRANSIT OF THE VALLEY OF THE KINGANI AND THE MGETA RIVERS.
It was a gallant sight to see the Baloch, as with trailed matchlocks,
and in bravery of shield, sword, and dagger, they hurried in Indian file
out of the Kaole cantonments, following their blood-red flag and their
high-featured, snowy-bearded chief, the “Shaib Mohammed,”--old Mohammed.
The band, “like worms,” as they expressed its numbers, which amounted to
nearly a hundred, about one-third of the venerable Jemadar’s command,
was marching forth to bid us farewell, in token of respect, at Mgude or
Kuingani, “the cocoa-plantation near the sea.” It is a little
settlement, distant an hour and a half’s walk from Kaole: hither my
companion had preceded me, and hence we were to make our second
departure. Accompanied by Said bin Salim, Valentine my Goanese servant,
three Baloch, and two slaves, I followed in the wake of the main body,
bringing up the rear of the baggage on three Unyamwezi asses bought that
morning at the custom-house. The animals had been laden with difficulty:
their kicking and plunging, rearing and pawing, had prevented the nice
adjustment of their packs, and the wretched pads, which want of time had
compelled me to take, instead of panels or pack-saddles, loosely girthed
with rotten coir rope, could not support a heap of luggage weighing at
least 200 lbs. per load. On the road they rushed against one another;
they bolted, they shied, and they threw their impediments with such
persistence, that my servant could not help exclaiming, “Unká nám
gadha”--“Their name _is_ jackass.” At last, as the sun neared the salt
sea, one of these half-wild brutes suddenly sank, girth-deep, in a patch
of boggy mire, and the three Baloch, my companions, at once ran away,
leaving us to extricate it as best we could. This little event had a
peculiar significancy to one about to command a party composed
principally of asses and Baloch.
The excitement of finding myself on new ground, and the peculiarities of
the scenery, somewhat diverted melancholy forebodings. Issuing from the
little palisade of Kaole, the path winds in a south-westerly direction
over a sandy soil, thick with thorns and bush, which in places project
across the way. Thence ascending a wave of ground where cocoas and the
wild arrow-root flourish, it looks down upon park land like that
described by travellers in Kaffraria, a fair expanse of sand veiled with
humus, here and there growing rice, with mangoes and other tall trees,
regularly disposed as if by the hand of man. Finally, after crossing a
muddy grass-grown swamp, and a sandy bottom full of water when rain has
been heavy, the path, passing through luxuriant cultivation, enters
Kuingani. Such is the “nakl,” or preparatory-stage of Arab travellers,
an invariable first departure, where porters who find their load too
heavy, or travellers who suspect that they are too light, can return to
Kaole and re-form.
The little settlement of Kuingani is composed of a few bee-hive
huts, and a Bandani or wall-less thatched roof--the village
palaver-house--clustering orderless round a cleared central space.
Outside, cocoas, old and dwarfed, mangoes almost wild, the papaw, the
cotton shrub, the perfumed Rayhan or Basil, and a sage-like herb, the
sugarcane, and the Hibiscus called by the Goanese “Rosel,” vary the
fields of rice, holcus, and “Turiyan,” or the Cajanus Indicus. The
vegetation is, in fact, that of the Malabar coast; the habitations are
peculiarly African.
The 28th of June was a halt at Kuingani, where I was visited by Ramji
and two brother Bhattias, Govindji and Kesulji. The former was equipped,
as least becomes the Banyan man, with sword, dudgeon, and assegai. But
Ramji was a heaven-made soldier; he had taken an active part in the
military operations directed by His Highness the late Sayyid Said
against the people of the mainland, and about thirteen years ago he
defended Kaole against a host of Wazaramo, numbering, it is said, 3,000
men, when, lacking balls, he had loaded his honeycombed cannon and his
rusty matchlocks with pointed sticks. The Europeans of Zanzibar called
him “Rush,”--the murderer. His fellow-countrymen declared him to be a
“sharp practiser,” who had made a reputation by spending other people’s
money, and I personally had proofs which did not allow me to doubt his
“savoir faire.”
The nights at Kuingani were not pleasant. The air was stifling, the
mosquitoes buzzed without intermission, and I had neglected to lay in
“essence of pennyroyal” against certain other plagues. On the second
evening, seeing by the hang-dog look of my Jemadar that he was
travailing in mind, I sent for a Mganga or medicine-man, and having
previously promised him a Surat skull-cap for a good haul of prophecy, I
collected the Baloch to listen. The Mganga, a dark old man, of superior
rank, as the cloth round his head and his many bead necklaces showed,
presently reappeared with a mat-bag containing the implements of his
craft. After taking his seat opposite to me he demanded his fee--here,
as elsewhere, to use the words with which Kleon excited the bile of
Tiresias,
“Το μαντικον γαρ παν φιλαργυρον γενος;”
--without which prediction would have been impossible. When
gratified he produced a little gourd snuff-box and indulged himself with
a solemn and dignified pinch. He then drew forth a larger gourd which
contained the great medicine, upon which no eye profane might gaze: the
vessel, repeatedly shaken, gave out a vulgar sound as if filled with
pebbles and bits of metal. Presently, placing the implement upon the
ground, Thaumaturges extracted from the mat-bag two thick goat’s horns
connected by a snake-skin, which was decorated with bunches of
curiously-shaped iron bells; he held one in the left hand, and with the
right he caused the point of the other to perform sundry gyrations, now
directing it towards me, then towards himself, then at the awe-struck
bystanders, waving his head, muttering, whispering, swaying his body to
and fro, and at times violently rattling the bells. When fully primed
with the spirit of prophecy, and connected by ekstasis with the ghosts
of the dead, he spake out pretty much in the style of his brotherhood
all the world over. The journey was to be prosperous. There would
be much talking, but little killing.--Said bin Salim, in chuckling
state, confessed that he had heard the same from a Mganga consulted
at Zanzibar.--Before navigating the sea of Ujiji a sheep or
a parti-coloured hen should be killed and thrown into the
lake.--Successful voyage.--Plenty of ivory and slaves.--Happy return to
wife and family.
This good example of giving valuable advice was not lost upon Mr. Rush
Ramji. He insisted upon the necessary precautions of making a strong
kraal and of posting sentinels every night; of wearing a kerchief round
the head after dark, and of avoiding the dangerous air of dawn; of not
eating strange food, and of digging fresh wells, as the Wazaramo bewitch
water for travellers; of tethering the asses, of mending their ropes,
and of giving them three lbs. of grain per diem. Like the medical
directions given to the French troops proceeding to China, the counsel
was excellent, but impracticable.
The evening concluded with a nautch. Yusuf, a Baloch, produced a
saringi--the Asiatic viol--and collected all the scamps of the camp with
a loud scraping. Hulluk, the buffoon, acted dancing-girl to perfection.
After the normal pantomime, somewhat broadly expressed, he did a little
work in his own character; standing on his head with a peculiar
tremulousness from the hips upwards, dislocating his person in a sitting
position, imitating the cry of a dog, cat, ape, camel, and slave-girl,
and finally reproducing me with peculiar impudence before my face. I
gave him a dollar, when, true to his strain, he at once begged another.
All accounts and receipts being finally duly settled with the Hindus,
the last batch of three donkeys having arrived, and the baggage having
been laden with great difficulty, I shook hands with old Mohammed and
the other dignitaries, and mounting my ass, gave orders for immediate
departure from Kuingani. This was not effected without difficulty: every
one and everything, guide and escort, asses and slaves, seemed to join
in raising up fresh obstacles. Four P.M. sped before we turned out of
the little settlement. Among other unpleasant occurrences, Rahmat, a
Baloch knave, who had formed one of my escort to Fuga, levelled his long
barrel, with loud “Mimí ná pigá” (I am shooting him), when his company
was objected to. His Jemadar, Yaruk, seized the old shooting-iron, which
was probably unloaded, and Rahmat, with sotto-voce snarls and growls,
slunk back to his kennel. A turbaned Negroid, who appeared on the path,
was asked to point out the way, and, on his refusal, my bull-headed
slave Mabruki struck him on the face, when, to the consternation of all
parties, he declared himself a Diwan. The blow, according to the
Jemadar, would infallibly lead to bloodshed.
After a second short march of one hour and a half, we pitched tents and
obtained lodgings in Bomani, “the Stockade,” a frontier village, but
within the jurisdiction of Bagamoyo. On this road, which ascended the
old sea-beach, patches of open forest and of high rank grass divided
cultivated clearings, where huts and hamlets appeared, and where modest
young maidens beckoned us as we passed. The vegetation is here partly
African, partly Indian. The Mbuyu,--the baobab, Adansonia digitata,
monkey-bread, or calabash, the Mowana of the southern and the Kuka of
the northern regions,--is of more markedly bulbous form than on the
coast, where the trunk is columnar; its heavy extremities, depressed by
the wind, give it the shape of a lumpy umbrella shading the other wild
growths. There appear to be two varieties of this tree, similar in bole
but differing in foliage and in general appearance. The normal Mbuyu has
a long leaf, and the drooping outline of the mass is convex; the rarer,
observed only upon the Usagara Mountains, has a small leaf, in colour
like the wild indigo, and the arms striking upwards assume the
appearance of a bowl. The lower bottoms, where the soil is rich, grow
the Mgude, also called Mparamusi (Taxus elongatus, the Geel hout or
Yellow-wood of the Cape?) a perfect specimen of arboreal beauty. A tall
tapering shaft, without knot or break, straight and clean as a main-mast
forty or forty-five feet in height, and painted with a tender
greenish-yellow, is crowned with parachute-shaped masses of vivid
emerald foliage, whilst sometimes two and even three pillars spring from
the same root. The Mvumo,--a distorted toddy tree, or Hyphæna allied to
the Daum palm of Egypt and Arabia,--has a trunk rough with the drooping
remnants of withered fronds, above which it divides itself into branches
resembling a system of Y’s. Its oval fruit is of a yellowish red, and
when full-sized it is as large as a child’s head; it is eaten even
unripe by the people, and is said to be the favourite food of the
elephant. Pulpless, hard, and stringy, it has, when thoroughly mature, a
slight taste of gingerbread, hence it is also called the
Gingerbread-tree. The Ukhindu or brab, of whose fronds mats and the
grass kilts worn by many of the tribes are made, flourishes throughout
the country, proving that the date-tree might be naturalised. The Nyara
or Chamærops humilis, the dwarf fan-palm or palmetto of Southern Europe,
abounds in this maritime region. The other growths are the Mtogwe and
the Mbungo-bungo, varieties of the Nux vomica; the finest are those
growing in the vicinity of water. The fruit contains within its hard
rind, which, when ripe, is orange-coloured, large pips, covered with a
yellow pulp of a grateful agro-dolce flavour, with a suspicion of the
mango. The people eat them with impunity; the nuts, which contain the
poisonous principle, being too hard to be digested. The Mtunguja (the
Punneeria coagulans of Dr. Stocks), a solanaceous plant called by the
Indians Jangli bengan, or the wild egg-plant, by the South Africans
Toluane, and by the Baloch Panír, or cheese, from the effect of the
juice in curdling milk, is here, as in Somaliland, a spontaneous growth
throughout the country. The same may be said of the castor plant, which,
in these regions, is of two kinds. The Mbono (Jatropha curcas?) is the
Gumpal of Western India, a coarse variety, with a large seed; its fetid
oil, when burnt, fouls the lamp; yet, in Africa, it is used by all
classes as an unguent. The Mbarika, or Palma Christi, the Irindi of
India, is employed in medicine. The natives extract the oil by toasting
and pounding the bean, adding a little hot water and skimming off what
appears upon the surface. The Arabs, more sensibly, prefer it
“cold-drawn.” These plants, allowed to grow unpruned, often attain the
height of eighteen to twenty feet.
The 30th June was another forced halt, when I tasted all the bitterness
that can fall to the lot of those who explore regions unvisited by their
own colour. The air of Bomani is stagnant, the sun fiery, and clouds of
mosquitoes make the nights miserable. Despite these disadvantages, it is
a favourite halting-place for up-caravans, who defer to the last the
evil days of long travel and short rations. Though impressed with the
belief, that the true principle of exploration in these lands is to push
on as rapidly and to return as leisurely as possible, I could not
persuade the Baloch to move. In Asia, two departures usually suffice; in
Africa there must be three,--the little start, the great start, and the
start κατ’ εξοχην. Some clamoured for tobacco--I gave up my cavendish;
others for guitar-strings--they were silenced with beads; and all, born
donkey-drivers, complained loudly of the hardship and the indignity of
having to load and lead an ass. The guide, an influential Mzaramo,
promised by the Banyans Ladha and Ramji, declined, after receiving
twenty dollars, to accompany the Expedition, and from his conduct the
Baloch drew the worst of presages. Much ill-will was shown by them
towards the European members of the Expedition. “Kafir end, márá bandirá
na khenen” (they are infidels and must not carry our flag)--it was
inscribed with the usual Moslem formula--was spoken audibly enough in
their debased Mekrani to reach my ears: a faithful promise to make a
target of the first man who might care to repeat the words, stopped that
manner of nuisance. Again the most childish reports flew about the camp,
making these jet-bearded and fierce-eyed hen-hearts faint with fears.
Boxes had been prepared by the barbarians for myself, and gates had been
built across the paths to arrest my party. P’hazi Mazungera, M. Maizan’s
murderer, had collected a host that numbered thousands, and the Wazaramo
were preparing a levée _en masse_. To no purpose I quoted the Arab’s
proverb--“the son of fifty dieth not at thirty”; all _would_ be heroic
victims marching to gory graves. Such reports did real damage: the
principal danger was the tremulous alacrity with which the escort
prepared upon each trivial occasion for battle and murder, and sudden
death. At one place a squabble amongst the villagers kept the Baloch
squatting on their hams with lighted matches from dusk till dawn. At
another, a stray Fisi or Cynhyæna entering the camp by night, caused a
confusion which only the deadliest onslaught could have justified. A
slave hired on the road, hearing these horrors, fled in dismay; this,
the first of desertions, was by no means the last. The reader may
realise the prevalence and the extent of this African traveller’s bane
by the fact that during my journey to Ujiji there was not a soul in the
caravan, from Said bin Salim the Arab, to the veriest pauper, that did
not desert or attempt to desert.
Here, at the first mention of slaves, I must explain to the reader why
we were accompanied by them, and how the guide and escort contrived to
purchase them. All the serving-men in Zanzibar Island and on the coast
of E. Africa are serviles; the Kisawahili does not contain even a word
to express a hired domestic. For the evil of slave-service there was no
remedy: I therefore paid them their wages and treated them as if they
were freemen. I had no power to prevent Said bin Salim, the Baloch
escort, and the “sons of Ramji,” purchasing whomever they pleased; all
objections on my part were overruled by, “we are allowed by our law to
do so,” and by declaring that they had the permission of the consul. I
was fain to content myself with seeing that their slaves were well fed
and not injured, and indeed I had little trouble in so doing, as no man
was foolish enough to spoil his own property. I never neglected to
inform the wild people that Englishmen were pledged to the suppression
of slavery, and I invariably refused all slaves offered as return
presents.
The departure from Bomani was effected on the 1st of July with some
trouble; it was like driving a herd of wild cattle. At length, by
ejecting skulkers from their huts, by dint of promises and threats, of
gentleness and violence, of soft words and hard words, occasionally
backed by a smart application of the “Bakur”--the local “cat”--by
sitting in the sun, in fact by incessant worry and fidget from 6 A. M.
to 3 P. M., the sluggish and unwieldy body acquired some momentum. I had
issued a few marching orders for the better protection of the baggage:
two Baloch were told off for each donkey, one to lead, the other to
drive; in case of attack, those near the head of the file, hearing the
signal, three shots, were to leave their animals and to hurry to the
front, where my companion marched, whilst the remainder rallied round my
flag in the rear: thus there would have been an attacking party and a
reserve, between which the asses would have been safe. The only result
of these fine manœuvres was, that after a two-mile tramp through an
umbrageous forest in which caravans often lose the way, and then down an
easy descent across fertile fields, into a broken valley, whose further
side was thick with luxuriant grass, tall shrubs, and majestic trees, a
confused straggling line,--a mere mob of soldiers, slaves, and
asses,--arrived at the little village of Mkwaju la Mvuani,--the
“Tamarind in the rains.”
The settlement is composed as usual of a few hovels and a palaver-house,
with a fine lime-tree, the place of lounging and gossip, grain-husking,
and mat-weaving, in the open centre. Provisions and rough muddy water
being here plentiful, travellers often make a final halt to polish their
weapons, and to prepare their minds for the Wazaramo. It is the last
station under the jurisdiction of Bagamoyo; from Changahera, the crafty
old Diwan, I obtained the services of his nephew Muinyi Wazírá, who
received seventeen dollars as an inducement to travel in the interior,
and was at once constituted linguist and general assistant to Said bin
Salim. The day passed as usual, a snake was killed, and a gun-shot heard
in the distance supplied conversation for some hours. The “sons of
Ramji” carefully lost half a dozen of the axes, bill-hooks, and dibbles,
with which they had been supplied, fearing lest they might be called
upon to build the Síwá or Bomá, the loose thorn-fence with which the
halting-place ought to be surrounded before the night, and 7 P. M. had
passed before I could persuade the Baloch to catch, tether, and count
the asses. One of the escort, Ismail, was attacked with dysentery and
required to be mounted, although we were obliged by the want of carriage
to wend our way on foot. During the last night, Said bin Salim had taken
charge of three Wanguru porters, who, freshly trapped by Said el
Hazrami, had been chained _pro tempore_ to prevent desertion. The Arab
boasted that he was a bad sleeper, but bad sleepers are worse watchers,
because when they do sleep they sleep in earnest. The men were placed
for the night in Said’s tent, surrounded by his five slaves, yet they
stole his gun, and carrying off an axe and sundry bill-hooks,
disappeared in the jungle. The watchful Said, after receiving many
congratulations on his good fortune--fugitive slaves sometimes draw
their knives across the master’s throat or insert the points into his
eyes--sent off his own attendants to recover the fugitives. In the
jungle, however, search was of scant avail: the Wanguru feared that if
caught by the Baloch, they would lose their ears; three days would
enable them to reach their own country; and their only risk was that if
trapped by the Washenzi before their irons--a valuable capture to the
captors--could be removed, they might again be sold to some travelling
trader. As the day wore on, Said’s face assumed a deplorable expression:
his slaves had not appeared, and though several of them were muwallid or
born in his father’s house, and one was after a fashion his
brother-in-law, he sorely dreaded that they also had deserted. He was
proportionably delighted when in the dead of the night, entering Mkwaju
la Mvuani, they reported ill-success; and though I could little afford
the loss, I was glad to get rid of this chained and surly gang.
On the next day we began loading for the third and final departure,
before dawn, and at 7.30 A. M. were on the dew-dripping way. Beyond the
settlement a patch of jungle led to cultivated grounds belonging to the
villagers, whose scattered and unfenced abodes were partially concealed
by dense clumps of trees. The road then sweeping parallel with the river
plain, which runs from N.W. to S.E., crossed several swamps, black muddy
bottoms covered with tall thick rushes and pea-green paddy, and the
heavily laden asses sunk knee-deep into the soft soil. Red copalliferous
sand clothed the higher levels. On the wayside appeared for the first
time the Khambi or substantial kraals, which evidence unsafe travelling
and the unwillingness of caravans to bivouac in the villages. In this
region they assumed the form of round huts and long sheds or boothies of
straw or grass supported by a framework of rough sticks firmly planted
in the ground and lashed together with bark-strips. The whole was
surrounded with a deep circle of thorns which--the entrance or entrances
being carefully closed at nightfall, not to reopen until dawn--formed a
complete defence against bare feet and naked legs. About half-way a
junction of the Mbuamaji road was reached, and the path became somewhat
broader and less rough. Passing on the right, a hilly district, called
Dunda or “the Hill,” the road fell from the ancient sea-beach into the
alluvial valley of the Kinganí River; presently rising again, it entered
the settlement of Nzasa, a name interpreted “level ground.”
Nzasa is the first district of independent Uzaramo. My men proceeded to
occupy the Bandani, in the centre of the hamlet, when Said bin Salim,
discovering with the sharp eye of fear a large drum, planted in
readiness for the war-signal or the dance-signal, hurried about till he
had turned all hands out of the village into a clump of trees hard by, a
propitious place for surprise and ambuscade. Here I was visited by three
P’hazi or headmen, Kizaya, Tumba Ihere or the “poison gourd,” and Kombe
la Simba or the “lion’s hide.” They came to ascertain whether I was
bound on peaceful errand or--as the number of our guns suggested--I was
marching to revenge the murder of my “brother” Muzungu. Assured of our
unwarlike intentions, they told me that I must halt on the morrow and
send forward a message to the next chief. As this plan invariably loses
three days,--the first being a _dies non_, the second being expended in
dispensing exoteric information to all the lieges squatting in solemn
conclave, whilst on the third the real message is privily whispered into
the chieftain’s ear,--I replied through Said that I could not be bound
by their rules, but was ready to pay for their infraction. During the
debate upon this fascinating proposal for breaking the law, Yusuf, one
of the most turbulent of the Baloch, drew his sword upon an old woman
because she refused to give up a basket of grain. She rushed, with the
face of a black Medusa, into the assembly, and provoked not very
peaceable remarks concerning the peaceful nature of our intentions. When
the excitement was allayed, the principal P’hazi began to ask what had
brought the white man into their country, and in a breath to predict the
loss of their gains and commerce, their land and liberty. “I am old,”
pathetically quoth the P’hazi, “and my beard is grey, yet I have never
beheld such a calamity as this!” “These men,” replied Said, “neither buy
nor sell; they do not inquire into price, nor do they covet profit.
Moreover,” he pursued, “what have ye to lose? The Arabs take your best,
the Wasawahili your second best, and your trifling tribute is reduced to
a yoke of bullocks, a few clothes, or half a dozen hoes.” An extravagant
present--at that time ignorance of the country compelled me to intrust
such matters to the honesty of Said bin Salim--opened the headmen’s
hearts: they privily termed me Murungwana Sana, a real free-man, the
African equivalent for the English “gentleman,” and they detached Kizaya
to accompany me as far as the western half of the Kingani Valley. At 4
P. M. a loud drumming collected the women, who began to perform a dance
of ceremony with peculiar vigour. A line of small, plump,
chestnut-coloured beings, with wild beady eyes, and a thatch of
clay-plastered hair, dressed in their loin-cloths, with a profusion of
white disks, bead necklaces, a little square bib of beads called a
t’hando, partially concealing the upper bosom, with short coils of thick
brass wire wound so tightly round the wrists, the arms above the elbows,
and the fat ankles, that they seemed to have grown into the flesh,
and,--hideous perversion of taste!--with ample bosoms tightly corded
down, advanced and retired in a convulsion of wriggle and contortion,
whose fit expression was a long discordant howl, which seemed to
“Embowel with outrageous noise the air.”
I threw them a few strings of green beads, which for a moment
interrupted the dance. One of these falling to the ground, I was
stooping to pick it up when Said whispered hurriedly in my ear, “Bend
not; they will say ‘he will not bend even to take up beads!’”
In the evening I walked down to the bed of the Kingani river, which
bisects a plain all green with cultivation,--rice and holcus, sweet
potato and tobacco,--and pleasantly studded with huts and hamlets. The
width of the stream, which here runs over a broad bed of sand, is about
fifty yards; it is nowhere fordable, as the ferry-boat belonging to each
village proves, and thus far it is navigable, though rendered dangerous
by the crocodiles and the hippopotami that house in its waters. The
colour is tawny verging upon red, and the taste is soft and sweet, as if
fed by rain. The Kingani, like all streams in this part of the
continent, is full of fish, especially a dark-green and scaleless
variety (a Silurus?) called Kambari, and other local names. This great
“miller’s thumb” has fleshy cirri, appears to be omnivorous, and tastes
like animal mud. The night was rendered uncomfortable to the Baloch by
the sound of distant drums, which suggested fighting as well as
feasting, and by the uproar of the wild men, who, when reconnoitred by
the scouts, were found to be shouting away the hippopotami.
In the hurry and the confusion of loading on the next morning one ass
was left behind, and the packs were so badly placed that the fatigue of
marching was almost doubled by their repeated falls. Whilst descending
the well-wooded river terrace, my portion of the escort descried an
imaginary white flag crossing the grassy valley below. This is the sign
of a Diwan’s expedition or commando: it is unwisely allowed by the
Arabs, whose proper colours are a plain blood-red. After marching a few
miles over undulating ground, open and parklike, and crossing rough and
miry beds, the path disclosed a view verging upon the pretty. By the way
side was planted the peculiarly African Mzimu or Fetiss hut, a penthouse
about a foot high, containing, as votive offerings, ears of holcus or
pombe-beer in a broken gourd. There, too, the graves of the heathen met
the eye. In all other parts of East Africa a mouldering skull, a
scattered skeleton, or a few calcined bones, the remains of wizards and
witches dragged to the stake, are the only visible signs of man’s
mortality. The Wazaramo tombs, especially in the cases of chiefs,
imitate those of the Wamrima. They are parallelograms, seven feet by
four, formed by a regular dwarf paling that encloses a space cleared of
grass, and planted with two uprights to denote the position of head and
feet. In one of the long walls there is an apology for a door. The
corpse of the heathen is not made to front any especial direction;
moreover the centre of the oblong has the hideous addition of a log
carved by the unartistic African into a face and a bust singularly
resembling those of a legless baboon, whilst a white rag tied turbanwise
round the head serves for the inscription “this is a man.” The Baloch
took notice of such idolatrous tendency by spitting and by pronouncing
certain national anathemas, which literally translated might sound
unpleasant in Europeans’ ears. The abomination of iconism is avoided in
the graves of Moslem travellers: they are usually cleared ovals, with
outlines of rough stone and a strew of smooth pebbles, according to the
custom of the Wasawahili. Several stumps of wood planted in the earth
show that the corpse faces Mecca, and, as amongst the Jinga of Western
Africa, the fragments of a china bowl or cup lying upon the ground are
sacred to the memory of the departed. In Zanzibar Island, also, saucers,
plates, and similar articles are mortared into the tombstones.
The number of these graves made the blackness of my companions pale.
They were hurrying forward with sundry “la haul!” and with boding shakes
of the head, when suddenly an uproar in the van made them all prepare
for action. They did it characteristically by beginning with begging for
ranjak--priming powder. Said bin Salim, much excited, sent forward his
messmate Muinyi Wazira to ascertain the cause of the excitement. One
Mviraru, the petty lord of a neighbouring village, had barred the road
with about a dozen men, demanding “dash,” and insisting that Kizaya had
no right to lead on the party without halting to give him the news. My
companion, who was attended only by “Bombay,” his gun-carrier, and a few
Baloch, remarked to the interferers that he had been franked through the
country by paying at Nzasa. To this they obstinately objected. The
Baloch began to light their matches and to use hard words. A fight
appeared imminent. Presently, however, when the Wazaramo saw my flag
rounding the hill-shoulder with a fresh party, whose numbers were
exaggerated by distance, they gave way; and finally when Muinyi Wazira
opened upon them the invincible artillery of his tongue, they fell back
and stood off the road to gaze. The linguist returned to the rear in
great glee, blowing his finger tips, as if they had been attached to a
matchlock, and otherwise deriding the overboiling valour of the Beloch,
who, not suspecting his purport, indulged in the wildest outbreak of
boasting, offering at once to take the whole country and to convert me
into its sultan. Towards the end of the march we crossed a shallow,
salt, bitter rivulet, flowing cold and clear towards the Kingani River.
On the grassy plain below noble game--zebra and koodoo--began to appear;
whilst guinea-fowl and partridge, quail, green-pigeon, and the cuculine
bird, called in India the Malabar-pheasant, became numerous. A track of
rich red copalliferous soil, wholly without stone, and supporting black
mould, miry during the rains, and caked and cracked by the potent suns
of the hot season, led us to Kiranga-Ranga, the first dangerous station
in Uzaramo. It is the name of a hilly district, with many little
villages embosomed in trees, overlooking the low cultivated bottoms
where caravans encamp in the vicinity of the wells.
Before establishing themselves in the kraal at Kiranga-Ranga, the two
rival parties of Baloch,--the Prince’s permanent escort and the
temporary guard sent by Ladha Damha from Kaole--being in a chronic state
of irritability, naturally quarrelled. With the noise of choughs
gathering to roost they vented their bile, till thirteen men belonging
to a certain Jemadar Mohammed suddenly started up, and without a word of
explanation set out on their way home. According to Said bin Salim, the
temporary guard had determined not to proceed beyond Kiranga-Ranga, and
this desertion was intended as a preliminary to others by which the
party would have lost two-thirds of its strength. I at once summoned the
Jemadars, and wrote in their presence a letter reporting the conduct of
their men to the dreaded Balyuz, the consul, who was supposed to be
still anchored off Kaole. Seeing the bastinado in prospect, the Jemadar
Yaruk shouldered his sabre, slung his shield over his arm, set out in
pursuit of the fugitives, and soon succeeded in bringing them back. He
was a good specimen of the true Baloch mountaineer--a tall, gaunt, and
large-boned figure, with dark complexion deeply pitted by small-pox,
hard, high, and sun-burnt features of exceeding harshness; an armoury in
epitome was stuck in his belt, and his hand seemed never to rest but
upon a weapon.
The 4th of July was a halt at Kiranga-Ranga. Two asses had been lost,
the back-sinews of a third had been strained, and all the others had
been so wearied by their inordinate burdens, to which on the last march
the meat of a koodoo, equal in weight to a young bullock, had been
superadded, that a rest was deemed indispensable. I took the opportunity
of wandering over and of prospecting the country. The scene was one of
admirable fertility; rice, maize, and manioc grew in the rankest and
richest crops, and the uncultivated lands bore the Corindah bush
(Carissa Carandas), the salsaparilla vine, the small whitish-green
mulberry (the Morus alba of India), and the crimson flowers of the
Rosel. In the lower levels near the river rose the giants of the forest.
The Mparamusi shot up its tall head, whose bunchy tresses rustled in the
breeze when all below was still. The stately Msufi, a Bombax or
silk-cotton tree, showed as many as four or five trunks, each two to
three feet in diameter, rising from the same roots; the long tapering
branches stood out stiffly at right angles from the bole; and the
leaves, instead of forming masses of foliage, were sparsely scattered in
small dense growth. The Msukulio, unknown to the people of Zanzibar, was
a pile of dark verdure, which dwarfed the finest oaks and elms of an
English park. No traces of game appeared in the likeliest of places;
perhaps it preferred lurking in the tall gross grass, which was not yet
in a fit state to burn.
At Kiranga-Ranga the weather began to be unpropitious. The Mcho’o, the
heavy showers which fall between the Masika or vernal, and the Vuli or
autumnal rains, set in with regularity, and accompanied us during the
transit of the maritime plain. I therefore refused to halt more than one
day, although the P’hazi or chiefs of the Wazaramo showed, by sending
presents of goats and grain, great civility--a civility purchased,
however, by Said bin Salim at the price of giving to each man whatever
he demanded; even women were never allowed to leave the camp
unpropitiated. I was not permitted in this part to enter the villages,
although the Wazaramo do not usually exclude strangers who venture upon
their dangerous hospitality. Girls are appointed to attend upon them,
and in case of sickness or accident happening to any one in the
settlement, they are severely interrogated concerning the morality of
the guest, and an unfavourable account of it leads to extortion and
violence. The Wazaramo, like the Wagogo, and unlike the other East
African tribes, are jealous of their women; still “damages” will act, as
they have acted in other lands, as salve to wounded honour and broken
heart.
On the 5th of July we set out betimes, and traversing the fields around
Kiranga-Ranga, struck through a dense jungle, here rising above, there
bending into the river valley, to some stagnant pools which supply the
district with water. The station, reached in 3^{hrs} 30′, was called
Tumba Ihere, after the headman, who accompanied us. Here we saw cocos
emerging from a fetid vegetation, and for the last time the Mwembe or
mango, a richly foliaged but stunted tree which never attains the
magnificent dimensions observed at Zanzibar. Several down-caravans were
halted at Tumba Ihere; the slaves brought from the interior were tied
together by their necks, and one obstinate deserter was so lashed to a
forked pole with the bifurcation under his chin, that when once on the
ground he could not rise without assistance. These wretches scarcely
appeared to like the treatment; they were not, however, in bad
condition. The Wanyamwezi porters bathed in the pools and looked at us
without fear or shame. Our daily squabble did not fail to occur. Riza, a
Baloch, drew his dagger on one of Said bin Salim’s “children,” and the
child pointed his Tower-musket at the Baloch; a furious hubbub arose;
the master, with his face livid and drawn like a cholera patient’s,
screamed shrilly as a woman, and the weapons returned to their proper
places bloodless as those wielded by Bardolph, Nym, and ancient Pistol.
My companion began to suffer from the damp heat and the reeking miasma;
he felt that a fever was coming on, and the fatigue of marching under
these circumstances prevented our mustering the party. The consequence
was, that an ass laden with rice disappeared,--it had probably been led
out of the road and unburdened by the Baloch;--whilst axes, cords, and
tethers could nowhere be found when wanted.
On the next morning we left Tumba Ihere, and tramped over a red land
through alternate strips of rich cultivation and tangled jungle, which
presently opened out into a forest where the light-barked Msandarusi, or
copal-tree, attains its fullest dimensions. This is one of the richest
“diggins,” and the roadsides are everywhere pitted with pockets two or
three feet deep by one in diameter. Rain fell in huge drops, and the
heaviness of the ground caused frequent accidents to the asses’ loads.
About noon we entered the fine grain-fields that gird the settlements of
Muhogwe, one of the most dreaded in dreaded Uzaramo. In our case,
however, the only peril was the levée _en masse_ of the fair sex in the
villages, to stare, laugh, and wonder at the white men. “What should you
think of these whites as husbands?” asked Muinyi Wazira of the crowd.
“With such things on their legs?--Sivyo!--not by any means!”--was the
unanimous reply, accompanied with peals of merriment.
Beyond Muhogwe all was jungle and forest, tall trees rising from red
copalliferous sand, and shading bright flowers, and blossoming shrubs.
After crossing a low mud overgrown with rush and tiger-grass, and a
watercourse dotted with black stagnant pools, we ascended rising
well-forested ground, and lastly debouched upon the kraals of Muhonyera.
The district of Muhonyera occupies the edge of the plateau forming the
southern terrace of the Kingani River; and the elevated sea-beach is
marked out by lines of quartsoze pebbles running along the northern
slope of the hill upon which we encamped. Water is found in seven or
eight reedy holes in the valley below; it acquires from decomposed
vegetation an unnaturally sweet and slimy taste. This part of the
country, being little inhabited by reason of its malarious climate,
abounds in wild animals. The guides speak of lions, and the cry of the
Fisi or Cynhyæna was frequently heard at night, threatening destruction
to the asses. The Fisi, the Wuraba of the Somal, and the Wilde Honde of
the Cape, is the wolf of Africa, common throughout the country, where it
acts as scavenger. Though a large and powerful variety, it seldom
assaults man, except when sleeping, and then it snatches a mouthful from
the face, causing a ghastlier disfigurement even than the scalping of
the bear. Three asses belonging to the Expedition were destroyed by this
beast; in all cases they were attacked by night with a loud wrangling
shriek, and the piece of flesh was raggedly torn from the hind quarter;
after affording a live rump-steak, they could not be driven like Bruce’s
far-famed bullock. These, however, were the animals brought from
Zanzibar; that of Unyamwezi, if not tied up, defends itself successfully
against its cowardly assailant with teeth and heels, even as the zebra,
worthy of Homeric simile, has, it is said, kept the lion at bay. The
woods about Muhonyera contain large and small grey monkeys with black
faces; clinging to the trees they gaze for a time at the passing caravan
imperturbably, till curiosity being satisfied, they slip down and bound
away with long plunging leaps, like a greyhound at play. The view from
the hill-side was suggestive. The dark green plain of sombre monotony,
with its overhanging strata of mist-bank and dew-cloud, appeared in all
the worst colours of the Oude Tirhai and the Guzerat jungles. At that
season, when the moisture of the rainy monsoon was like poison distilled
by the frequent bursts of fiery sunshine, it was a valley of death for
unacclimatised travellers. Far to the west, however, rose Kidunda, “the
hillock,” a dwarf cone breaking the blurred blue line of jungle, and
somewhat northward of it towered a cloud-capped azure wall, the
mountain-crags of Duthumi, upon which the eye, long weary of low levels,
rested with a sensation of satisfaction.
It was found necessary to halt a day at Muhonyera: according to some
authorities no provisions were procurable for a week; others declared
that there were villages on the road, but were uncertain whether rations
could be purchased. Said bin Salim sent Ambari, a favourite slave, back
to buy grain at Muhogwe, whence he had hurried us on in fear of the
Wazaramo; and the youth, after wasting a day, returned on the evening of
the 2nd July with about sixty lbs.,--a poor supply for eighty-eight
hungry bodies. This proceeding naturally affronted the Baloch, who
desired for themselves the perquisites proceeding from the purchases.
Two of their number, Yusuf and Salih Mohammed, came to swear officially
on the part of their men that there was not an ounce of grain in camp.
Appearing credulous, I paid them a visit about half an hour afterwards;
all their shuffling and sitting upon the bags could not conceal a store
of about 100 lbs. of fine white rice, whose quality,--the Baloch had
been rationed at Kaole with an inferior kind,--showed whence it came.
After repairing the “boma,” or fenced kraal,--it had been burnt down, as
often happens, by the last caravan of Wanyamwezi,--I left my companion,
who was prostrate with fever, and went out, gun in hand, to inspect the
country, and to procure meat, that necessary having fallen short. The
good P’hazi, Tumba Ihere, accompanied me, and after return he received
an ample present for his services, and departed. The Baloch employed
themselves in cleaning their rusty matchlock-barrels with a bit of
kopra,--dried cocoa-nut meat,--in weaving for themselves sandals, like
the spartelle of the Pyrenees, with green palmetto-leaves; in preparing
calabash fibre for fatilah or gun-matches, and in twisting cords for the
asses. The best material is supplied by an aloetic plant, the Hig or
Haskul of Somaliland, here called by the Arabs Bag, and by the natives
Mukonge. The Mananazi, or pine-apple, grows wild as far as three marches
from the coast, but its fibrous qualities are unknown to the people.
Ismail, the invalid Baloch, was the worse for remedies; and two other
men gave signs of breaking down.
During the first week, creeping along at a slug’s pace, we heard the
booming of the Artémise’s evening gun, an assurance that refuge was at
hand. Presently these reports ceased. Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton, seized
with mortal sickness, had left Kaole suddenly, and he died on board the
Artémise on the 5th July, shortly after his return to Zanzibar. The
first letters announcing the sad event were lost: with characteristic
African futility the porter despatched with the parcel from the island,
finding that the Expedition had passed on to the mountains of Usagara,
left his charge with a village headman, and returned to whence he came.
Easterns still hold that
“Though it be honest, it is never good,
To bring bad news.”
The report, spread by a travelling trader, was discussed throughout
the camp, but I was kept in ignorance of it till Khudabakhsh, a Baloch,
who had probably been deputed by his brethren to ascertain what effect
the decease of the consul would have upon me, “hardened his heart,” and
took upon himself the task of communicating the evil intelligence. I was
uncertain what to believe. Said bin Salim declared, when consulted, that
he fully trusted in the truth of the report, but his reasons were
somewhat too Arabo-African to convince me. He had found three pieces of
scarlet broadcloth damaged by rats,--an omen of death; and the colour
pointed out the nationality of the departed.
The consul’s death might have proved fatal to the Expedition, had its
departure been delayed for a week. The court of Zanzibar had required
the stimulus of a strong official letter from Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton,
before it would consent, as requested by the Foreign Office, “to procure
a favourable reception on the coast, and to ensure the protection of the
chiefs of the country” for the travellers. The Hindus, headed by Ladha
Damha, showed from first to last extreme unwillingness to open up the
rich regions of copal and ivory to European eyes: they had been deceived
by my silence during the rainy season at Zanzibar into a belief that the
coast-fever had cooled my ardour for further adventure; and their
surprise at finding the contrary to be the case was not of a pleasant
nature. The home-sick Baloch would have given their ears to return, they
would have turned back even when arrived within a few marches from the
Lake. Said bin Salim took the first opportunity of suggesting the
advisability of his returning to Zanzibar for the purpose of completing
carriage. I positively refused him leave; it was a mere pretext to
ascertain whether His Highness the Sayyid Majid had or had not, in
consequence of our changed position, altered his views.
Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton’s death, however, was mourned for other than
merely selfish considerations. His hospitality and kindness had indeed
formed a well-omened contrast with my unauspicious reception at Aden in
1855, before my departure to explore the Eastern Horn of Africa, when
the coldness of some, and the active jealousy of other political
authorities, thwarted all my projects, and led to the tragic disaster at
Berberah.[4] Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton had received two strangers like
sons, rather than like passing visitors. During the intervals between
the painful attacks of a deadly disease, he had exerted himself to the
utmost in forwarding my views; in fact, he made my cause his own. Though
aware of his danger, he had refused to quit, until compelled by
approaching dissolution, the post which he considered his duty to hold.
He was a loss to his country, an excellent linguist, a ripe oriental
scholar, and a valuable public servant of the old Anglo-Indian school;
he was a man whose influence over Easterns, based upon their respect for
his honour and honesty, his gallantry and determination, knew no bounds;
and at heart a “sad good Christian,”--the Heavens be his bed!
[4] Capt. R. L. Playfair, Madras Artillery and First Assistant Pol.
Resident, Aden, in a selection from the records of the Bombay
Government, (No. 49, new series, Bombay, printed for Government, at
the Education Society Press, Byculla, 1859,) curiously misnamed “A
History of Arabia Felix or Yemen,” transports himself, in a
“supplementary chapter,” to East Africa, and thus records his
impressions of what happened in the “Somali Country:”--
1855.--“During the afternoon of the same day (the 18th of April),
three men visited the camp, _palpably as spies_, and as such, _the
officers of the Expedition were warned against them by their native
attendants_. Heedless of this warning, they retired to rest at night
in the fullest confidence of security, and without having taken any
extra, _or even ordinary means_, to guard against surprise.”
The italics are my own: they designate mistatements unpardonable in an
individual whose official position enabled him to ascertain and to
record the truth. The three men were represented to me as spies, who
came to ascertain whether I was preparing to take the country for the
Chief Shermarkay, then hostile to their tribe, not as spies to spy out
the weakness of my party. I received no warning of personal danger.
The “ordinary measures,” that is to say, the posting of two sentinels
in front and rear of the camp during the night were taken, and I
cannot blame myself because they ran away.
I will not stop to inquire what must be the value of Capt. Playfair’s
193 pages touching the history of Yemen, when in five lines there are
three distinct and wilful deviations from fact.
I am well aware that after my departure from Aden, in 1855, an inquiry
was instituted during my absence, and without my knowledge, into the
facts of the disaster which occurred at Berberah. The “privileged
communication” was, I believe, in due course, privily forwarded to the
Bombay Government, and the only rebuke which this shuffling proceeding
received was from a gentleman holding a high and honourable position,
who could not reconcile himself to seeing a man’s character stabbed in
the back.
On the 8th of July we fell into what our Arab called Wady el Maut and
Dar el Jua--the Valley of Death and the Home of Hunger--the malarious
river-plain of the Kingani River. My companion was compelled by sickness
to ride, and thus the asses, now back-sore and weak with fatigue,
suffered an addition of weight, and a “son of Ramji” who was upon the
point of deserting openly required to be brought back at the muzzle of
the barrel. The path descending into a dense thicket of spear grass,
bush, and thorny trees based on sand, with a few open and scattered
plantations of holcus, presently passed on the left Dunda Nguru, or
“Seer-fish-hill,” so called because a man laden with such provision had
there been murdered by the Wazaramo. After 2^{hrs}. 45′ a ragged
camping-kraal was found on the tree-lined bank of a half-dry Fiumara, a
tributary of the neighbouring Kingani: the water was bad, and a mortal
smell of decay was emitted by the dark dank ground. It was a wild day.
From the black brumal clouds driven before furious blasts pattered
rain-drops like musket-bullets, splashing the already saturated ground.
The tall stiff trees groaned and bent before the gusts; the birds
screamed as they were driven from their perching places; the asses stood
with heads depressed, ears hung down, and shrinking tails turned towards
the weather, and even the beasts of the wild seemed to have taken refuge
in their dens. Provisions being unprocurable at “Sagesera,” the party
did what men on such occasions usually do--they ate double quantities. I
had ordered a fair distribution of the rice that remained, consequently
they cooked all day. Yusuf, a Jemadar of inferior rank, whose friends
characterised him as “sweet of tongue but bitter at heart,” vainly came
to beg, on plea of hunger, dismissal for himself and his party; and
another Baloch, Wali, reported as uselessly that a sore foot would
prevent him advancing.
Despite our increasing weakness, we marched seven hours on the 9th of
July, over a plain wild but prodigiously fertile, and varied by patches
of field, jungle and swamp, along the right bank of the Kingani river,
to another ragged old kraal, situated near a bend in the bed. This day
showed the ghost of an adventure. At the “Makutaniro,” or junction of
the Mbuamaji trunk-road with the other lines branching from various
minor sea-ports, my companion, who was leisurely proceeding with the
advance guard, found his passage barred by about fifty Wazaramo standing
across the path in a single line that extended to the travellers’ right,
whilst a reserve party squatted on the left of the road. Their chief
stepping to the front and quietly removing the load from the foremost
porter’s head, signalled the strangers to halt. Prodigious excitement of
the Baloch, whose loud “Hai, hui!” and nervous anxiety contrasted badly
with the perfect _sang froid_ of the barbarians. Presently, Muinyi
Wazira coming up, addressed to the headman a few words, promising cloth
and beads, when this African modification of the “pike” was opened, and
the guard moved forward as before. As I passed, the Wazaramo stood under
a tree to gaze. I could not but admire the athletic and statuesque
figures of the young warriors and their martial attitude, grasping in
one hand their full-sized bows, and in the other sheaths of grinded
arrows, whose black barbs and necks showed a fresh layer of poison.
At Tunda, “the fruit,” so called from its principal want, after a night
passed amidst the rank vegetation, and within the malarious influence of
the river, I arose weak and depressed, with aching head, burning eyes,
and throbbing extremities. The new life, the alternations of damp heat
and wet cold, the useless fatigue of walking, the sorry labour of
waiting and re-loading the asses, the exposure to sun and dew, and last,
but not least, of morbific influences, the wear and tear of mind at the
prospect of imminent failure, all were beginning to tell heavily upon
me. My companion had shaken off his preliminary symptoms, but Said bin
Salim, attacked during the rainy gusty night by a severe Mkunguru or
seasoning-fever, begged hard for a halt at Tunda--only for a day--only
for half a day--only for an hour. Even this was refused. I feared that
Tunda might prove fatal to us. Said bin Salim was mounted upon an ass,
which compelled us to a weary trudge of two hours. The animals were
laden with difficulty; they had begun to show a predilection for lying
down. The footpath, crossing a deep nullah, spanned a pestilential
expanse of spear-grass, and a cane, called from its appearance
Gugu-mbua, or the wild sugar plant, with huge calabashes and natural
clearings in the jungle, where large game appeared. After a short march
I saw the red flag of the vanguard stationary, and turning a sharp
corner found the caravan halted in a little village, called from its
headman Ba̓ńá Dirungá. This was premature. I had ordered Muinyi Wazira
to advance on that morning to Dege la Mhora, the “large jungle-bird,”
the hamlet where M. Maizan’s blood was shed. Said and Wazira had
proposed that we should pass it ere the dawn of the next day broke; the
advice was rejected, it was too dangerous a place to show fear. The two
diplomatists then bethought themselves of another manœuvre, and led me
to Ba̓ńá Dirungá, calling it Dege la Mhora.
We halted for a day at the little hamlet, embosomed in dense grass and
thicket. On our appearance the villagers fled into the bush, their
country’s strength; but before nightfall they took heart of grace and
returned. The headman appeared to regard us with fear, he could not
comprehend why we carried so much powder and ball. When reassured he
offered to precede us, and to inform the chief of the “large
jungle-bird” that our intentions had been misrepresented,--a proposal
which seemed to do much moral good to Said, the Jemadar, and Wazira.
On the eleventh day after leaving Kaole I was obliged to mount by a
weakness which scarcely allowed me to stand. After about half an hour,
through a comparatively open country, we passed on the left a
well-palisaded village, belonging formerly to P’hazi Mazungera, and now
occupied by his son Hembe, or the “wild buffalo’s horn.” Reports of our
warlike intentions had caused Hembe to “clear decks for action;” the
women had been sent from the village, and some score of tall youths,
archers and spearmen, admirably appointed, lined the hedges, prepared,
at the levelling of the first matchlock, to let loose a flight of
poisoned arrows, which would certainly have dispersed the whole party. A
halt was called by the trembling Said, who at such conjunctures would
cling like a woman to my companion or to me. During the few minutes’
delay the “sons of Ramji,” who were as pale as blacks could be, allowed
their asses to bump off half a dozen loads. Presently Hembe, accompanied
by a small guard, came forward, and after a few words with Wazira and
Said, the donkey from which I had not dismounted was hurried forward by
the Baloch. Hembe followed us with a stronger escort to Madege Madogo,
the next station. Illness served me as an excuse for not receiving him:
he obtained, however, from Said a letter to the headmen of the coast,
bespeaking their good offices for certain of his slaves sent down to buy
gunpowder.
An account of the melancholy event which cut short at Dege la Mhora the
career of the first European that ever penetrated beyond this portion of
the coast may here be inserted.
M. Maizan, an _enseigne de vaisseau_, and a pupil of the Polytechnic
School, after a cruise in the seas off Eastern Africa, conceived, about
the end of 1843, the project of exploring the lakes of the interior, and
in 1844 his plans were approved of by his government. Arrived at
Bourbon, he was provided with a passage to Zanzibar, in company with M.
Broquant, the Consul de France, newly appointed after the French
Commercial Treaty of the 21st Nov. 1844, on board the corvette Le
Berceau, Capitaine, afterwards Vice-Admiral, Romain Desfossés,
commanding. At the age of twenty-six M. Maizan had amply qualified
himself by study for travel, and he was well provided with outfit and
instruments. His “kit,” however, was of a nature calculated to excite
savage cupidity, as was proved by the fact that his murderer converted
the gilt knob of a tent-pole into a neck ornament, and tearing out the
works of a gold chronometer, made of it a tobacco-pouch. He has been
charged with imprudence in carrying too much luggage--a _batterie de
déjeuner_, a _batterie de dîner_, and similar superfluities. But he had
acted rightly, when bound upon a journey through countries where outfit
cannot be renewed, in providing himself with all the materials for
comfort. On such explorations a veteran traveller would always attempt
to carry with him as much, not as little as possible,--of course
prepared to abandon all things, and to reduce himself, whenever the
necessity might occur, to the “_simple besace du pélerin_.” It is easy
to throw away a superfluity, and the best preparation for severe
“roughing it,” is to enjoy ease and comfort whilst attainable.
But M. Maizan fell upon evil times at Zanzibar. Dark innuendos
concerning French ambition--that nation being even suspected of a desire
to establish itself in force at Lamu, Pangani, and other places on the
coast of East Africa--filled Hindu and Hindi with fear for their
profits. These men influenced the inhabitants of the island and the
sea-coast, who probably procured the co-operation of their wild brethren
in the interior. For the purpose of learning the Kisawahili, M. Maizan
delayed nearly eight months at Zanzibar, and, seeing a French vessel
entering the harbour, he left the place precipitately, fearing a recall.
Vainly also M. Broquant had warned him against his principal confidant,
a noted swindler, and Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton had cautioned him to no
purpose that his glittering instruments and his numerous boxes, all of
which would be supposed to contain dollars, were dangerous. He visited
the coast thrice before finally landing, thus giving the Wasawahili time
and opportunity to mature their plans. He lowered himself in the eyes of
the Arabs by “making brotherhood” with a native of Unyamwezi. Finally,
fearing Arab apathy and dilatoriness, he hastened into the country
without waiting for the strong armed escort promised to him by His
Highness the late Sayyid Said.
These were grave errors; but they were nothing in comparison with that
of trusting himself unarmed, after the fatal habit of Europeans, and
without followers, into the hands of an African chief. How often has
British India had to deplore deaths “that would have dimmed a victory,”
caused by recklessness of danger or by the false shame which prevents
men in high position from wearing weapons where they may be at any
moment required, lest the safe mediocrities around them should deride
such excess of cautiousness!
After the rains of 1845 M. Maizan landed at Bagamoyo, a little
settlement opposite the island of Zanzibar. There leaving the forty
musketeers, his private guard, he pressed on, contrary to the advice of
his Mnyamwezi brother, escorted only by Frédérique, a Madagascar or
Comoro man, and by a few followers, to visit P’hazi Mazungera, the chief
of the Wákámbá, a subtribe of the Wazaramo, at his village of Dege la
Mhora. He was received with a treacherous cordiality, of which he
appears to have been completely the dupe. After some days of the most
friendly intercourse, during which the villain’s plans were being
matured, Mazungera, suddenly sending for his guest, reproached him as he
entered the hut with giving away goods to other chiefs. Presently
working himself into a rage, the African exclaimed, “Thou shalt die at
this moment!” At the signal a crowd of savages rushed in, bearing two
long poles. Frédérique was saved by the P’hazi’s wife: he cried to his
master to run and touch her, in which case he would have been under her
protection; but the traveller had probably lost presence of mind, and
the woman was removed. The unfortunate man’s arms were then tightly
bound to a pole lashed crosswise upon another, to which his legs and
head were secured by a rope tied across the brow. In this state he was
carried out of the village to a calabash-tree, pointed out to me, about
fifty yards on the opposite side of the road. The inhuman Mazungera
first severed all his articulations, whilst the war-song and the drum
sounded notes of triumph. Finding the sime, or double-edged knife,
somewhat blunt, he stopped, when in the act of cutting his victim’s
throat, to whet the edge, and, having finished the bloody deed, he
concluded with wrenching the head from the body.
Thus perished an amiable, talented, and highly educated man, whose only
fault was rashness--too often the word for enterprise when Fortune
withholds her smile. The savage Mazungera was disappointed in his
guest’s death. The object of the torture was to discover, as the Mganga
had advised, the place of his treasures, whereas the wretched man only
groaned and implored forgiveness of his sins, and called upon the names
of those friends whose advice he had neglected. The P’hazi then
attempted to decoy from Bagamoyo the forty musketeers left with the
outfit, but in this he failed. He then proceeded to make capital of his
foul deed. When Snay bin Amir, a Maskat merchant,--of whom I shall have
much to say,--appeared with a large caravan at Dege la Mhora, Mazungera
demanded a new tribute for free passage; and, as a threat, he displayed
the knife with which he had committed the murder. But Snay proved
himself a man not to be trifled with.
Frédérique returned to Zanzibar shortly after the murder, and was
examined by M. Broquant. An infamous plot would probably have come to
light had he not fled from the fort where he was confined. Frédérique
disappeared mysteriously. He is said now to be living at Marungu, on the
Tanganyika Lake, under the Moslem name of Muhammádí. His flight served
for a pretext to mischievous men that the prince was implicated in the
murder: they also spread a notoriously false report that Mazungera, an
independent chief, was a vassal of the suzerain of Zanzibar.
In 1846 the brig-of-war Le Ducoüedic, of the naval division of Bourbon,
M. Guillain, Capitaine de Vaisseau, commanding, was charged, amongst
other commercial and political interests, with insisting upon severe
measures to punish the murderers. In vain His Highness Sayyid Said
protested that Mazungera was beyond his reach; the fact of the
robber-chief having been seen at Mbuamaji on the coast after the murder
was deemed conclusive evidence to the contrary. At length the Sayyid
despatched up-country three or four hundred musketeers, mercenaries, and
slaves, under command of Juma Mfumbi, the late, and Bori, the present,
Diwan of Saadani. The little troop marched some distance into the
country, when they were suddenly confronted by the Wazaramo, commanded
by Hembe, the son of Mazungera, who, after skirmishing for a couple of
days, fled wounded by a matchlock-ball. The chief result of the
expedition was the capture of a luckless clansman who had beaten the
war-drum during the murder. He was at once transferred to Zanzibar, and
passed off by these transparent African diplomatists as P’hazi
Mazungera. For nearly two years he was chained in front of the French
Consulate; after that time he was placed in the fort heavily ironed to a
gun under a cadjan shed, where he could hardly stand or lie down. The
unhappy wretch died about a year ago, and Zanzibar lost one of its
lions.
After the slaughter of M. Maizan the direct route through Dege la Mhora
was long closed, it is said, and is still believed, by a “ghul,” a
dragon or huge serpent, who, of course, was supposed to be the
demon-ghost of the murdered man. The reader will rejoice to hear that
the miscreant Mazungera, who has evaded human, has not escaped divine
punishment. The miserable old man is haunted by the P’hepo or spirit of
the guest so foully slain: the torments which he has brought upon
himself have driven him into a kind of exile; and his tribe, as has been
mentioned, has steadily declined from its former position with even a
greater decline in prospect. The jealous national honour displayed by
the French Government on the occasion of M. Maizan’s murder has begun to
bear fruit.
Its sensitiveness contrasts well with our proceedings on similar
occasions. Rahmat, the murderer of Captain Milne, still wanders free
over the hills in sight of Aden. By punishing the treacherous slaughter
of a servant of Government, the price of provisions at the coal-hole of
the East would have been raised. Au Ali, the murderer of Lieut. Stroyan,
is still at large in the neighbourhood of Berberah, when a few dollars
would have brought in his head. The burlesque of a blockade,--Capt.
Playfair, in a work previously characterised, has officially mistermed
it, to the astonishment of Aden, “a rigid blockade,” a “severe
punishment,” and so forth,--was considered sufficient to chastise the
Somal of Berberah for their cowardly onslaught on strangers and guests;
and though the people offered an equivalent for the public and private
property destroyed by them, the spirit of Centralisation, by an exercise
of its peculiar attributes, omniscience and omnipresence, decided that
the indemnity, which in such cases is customary throughout the East,
must not be accepted, because--forsooth!--it was not deserved by the
officers. This is a new plan, a system lately adopted by the nation once
called “la plus orgueilleuse et la plus perilleuse”--to win and preserve
respect in lands where prestige is its principal power. The Arabs of
Yemen have already learned from it to characterise their invaders as
Sahib Hilah,--a tricky, peddling manner of folk. They--wiser men than
we--will not take upon themselves the pains and penalties of
subject-hood, without its sole counterweight, the protection of their
rulers, in cases where protection is required.
At Madege Madogo, the “little birds,” so called in contradistinction to
its western and neighbouring district, Madege Makuba, the “great birds,”
we pitched tent under a large sycamore; and the Baloch passed a night of
alarms, fancying in every sound the approach of a leopard, a
hippopotamus, or a crocodile. On the 13th July, we set out after dawn,
and traversing forest, jungle, and bush, chequered with mud and morass,
hard by the bending and densely-wooded line of the Kingani River,
reached in three hours’ march an unwholesome camping-ground, called from
a conspicuous landmark Kidunda, the “little hill.” Here the scenery is
effective. The swift, yellow stream, about fifty yards broad, sweeps
under tall, stiff earth-works, ever green with tangled vegetation and
noble trees. The conical huts of the cultivators are disposed in
scattered patches to guard their luxuriant crops, whilst on the northern
bank the woody hillock, and on the southern rising ground, apparently
the ancient river-terrace, affect the sight agreeably after the
evergreen monotony of the river-plain. A petty chief, Mvirama,
accompanied by a small party of armed men, posted himself near the
cantonment, demanding rice, which was refused with asperity. At this
frontier station the Wazaramo, mixed up with the tribes of Udoe, K’hutu,
and Usagara, are no longer dreaded.
From Kidunda, the route led over sandy ground, with lines and scatters
of water-worn pebbles, descended the precipitous inclines of sandstone,
broken into steps of slabs and flags, and crossed the Manyora, a rough
and rocky Fiumara, abounding in blocks of snowy quartz, grey and pink
syenites, erratic boulders of the hornblende used as whetstones, and
strata of a rude sandstone conglomerate. Thence it spanned grass, bush,
and forest, close to the Kingani, and finally leaving the stream on the
right hand, it traversed sandy soil, and, ascending a wave of ground,
abutted upon the Mgeta or rivulet, a large perennial influent, which,
rising in the mountains of Duthumi, drains the head of the River-valley.
This lower portion of the Mgeta’s bed was unfordable after the heavy
rains: other caravans, however, had made a rude bridge of trees, felled
on each side, lashed with creepers, and jammed together by the force of
the current. The men perched upon the trunks and boughs, tossed or
handed to one another the loads and packages, whilst the asses, pushed
by force of arm down the banks, were driven with sticks and stones
across the stream. Suddenly a louder cry than usual arose from the mob;
my double-barrelled elephant-gun found a grave below the cold and
swirling waters. The Goanese Gaetano had the courage to plunge in; the
depth was about twelve feet; the sole was of roots and loose sand, and
the stream ran with considerable force. I bade farewell to that gun;--by
the bye it was the second accident of the kind that had occurred to
it;--the country people cannot dive, and no one ventures to affront the
_genius loci_, the mamba or crocodile. I found consolation in the
thought that the Expedition had passed without accident through the most
dangerous part of the journey. In 18 days, from the 27th of June, to the
14th of July, I had accomplished, despite sickness and all manner of
difficulties, a march of 118 indirect statute miles, and had entered
K’hutu, the safe rendezvous of foreign merchants.
Resuming our march on the 15th July, we entered the “Doab,”[5] on the
western bank of the Mgeta, where a thick and tangled jungle, with
luxuriant and putrescent vegetation, is backed by low, grassy grounds,
frequently inundated. Presently, however, the dense thicket opened out
into a fine park country, peculiarly rich in game, where the calabash
and the giant trees of the seaboard gave way to mimosas, gums, and
stunted thorns. Large gnus, whom the porters regard with a wholesome
awe, declaring that they are capable of charging a caravan, pranced
about, pawing the ground, and shaking their formidable manes; hartebeest
and other antelopes clustered together on the plain, or travelled in
herds to slake their thirst at the river. The homely cry of the
partridge resounded from the brake, and the guinea-fowls looked like
large bluebells upon the trees. Small land-crabs took refuge in the pits
and holes, which made the path a cause of frequent accidents; whilst
ants of various kinds, crossing the road in close columns, attacked man
and beast ferociously, causing the caravan to break into a halting,
trotting hobble, ludicrous to behold. Whilst crossing a sandy Fiumara,
Abdullah, a Baloch, lodged by accident four ounces of lead, the contents
of my second elephant-gun, in the head of an ass. After a march of six
hours we entered Kiruru, a small, ragged, and muddy village of Wak’hutu,
deep in a plantation of holcus, whose tall, stiff canes nearly swept me
from the saddle. The weather was a succession of raw mist, rain in
torrents, and fiery sunbursts; the land appeared rotten, and the jungle
smelt of death. At Kiruru I found a cottage, and enjoyed for the first
time an atmosphere of sweet warm smoke. My companion remained in the
reeking, miry tent, where he partially laid the foundation of the fever
which threatened his life in the mountains of Usagara.
[5] This useful word, which means the land embraced by the bifurcation
of two streams, has no English equivalent. “Doab,” “Dhun” (Dhoon),
“Nullah,” and “Ghaut,” might be naturalised with advantage in our
mother tongue.
Despite the danger of hyænas, leopards, and crocodiles to an
ass-caravan, we were delayed by the torrents of rain and the depth of
the mud for two days at Kiruru. According to the people, the district
derives its name “palm leaves,” from a thirsty traveller, who, not
knowing that water was near, chewed the leaves of the hyphæna-palm till
he died. One of the Baloch proposed a “Hammam,”--a primitive form of the
“lamp-bath,” practised in most parts of Central Asia,--as a cure for
fever: he placed me upon one of the dwarf stools used by the people, and
under the many abas or hair-cloaks with which I was invested he
introduced a bit of pottery containing live coal and a little
frankincense. At Kiruru I engaged six porters to assist our jaded
animals as far as the next station. The headman was civil, but the
people sold their grain with difficulty.
On the 18th July we resumed our march over a tract which caused sinking
of the heart in men who expected a long journey under similar
circumstances. Near Kiruru the thick grass and the humid vegetation,
dripping till midday with dew, rendered the black earth greasy and
slippery. The road became worse as we advanced over deep thick mire
interlaced with tree-roots through a dense jungle and forest, chiefly of
the distorted hyphæna-palm, in places varied by the Mparamusi and the
gigantic Msukulío, over barrens of low mimosa, and dreary savannahs cut
by steep nullahs. In three places we crossed bogs from 100 yards to a
mile in length, and admitting a man up to the knee; the porters plunged
through them like laden animals, and I was obliged to be held upon the
ass. This “Yegea Mud,” caused by want of water-shed after rain, is
sometimes neck-deep; it never dries except when the moisture has been
evaporated by sun and wind during the middle of the Kaskazi or N. E.
monsoon. The only redeeming feature in the view was a foreground of
lovely hill, the highlands of Dut’humi, plum-coloured in the distance
and at times gilt by a sudden outburst of sunshine. Towards the end of
the march, I forged ahead of the caravan, and passing through numerous
villages, surrounded by holcus-fields, arrived at a settlement tenanted
by Sayf bin Salim, an Arab merchant, who afterwards proved to be a
notorious “mauvais sujet.” A Harisi from Birkah in Oman, he was a tall
thin-featured venerable-looking man, whose old age had been hurried on
by his constancy to pombe-beer. A long residence in Unyamwezi had
enabled him to incur the hostility of his fellow-merchants, especially
one Salim bin Said el Sawwafi, who, with other Arabs, persuaded Mpagamo,
an African chief, to seize upon Sayf, and after tying him up in full
view of the plundering and burning of his store-house, to drive him out
of the country. Retreating to Dut’humi, he had again collected a small
stock in trade, especially of slaves, whom he chained and treated so
severely that all men predicted for him an evil end. “Msopora,” as he
was waggishly nicknamed by the Wanyamwezi, instantly began to backbite
Said bin Salim, whom he pronounced utterly unfit to manage our affairs;
I silenced him by falling asleep upon a cartel placed under the cool
eaves of a hut. Presently staggered in my companion almost too ill to
speak; over-fatigue had prostrated his strength. By slow degrees, and
hardly able to walk, appeared the Arab, the Baloch, the slaves and the
asses, each and every having been bogged in turn. On this occasion
Wazira had acted guide, and used to “bog-trotting,” he had preferred the
short cut to the cleaner road that rounds the swamps.
At Dut’humi we were detained nearly a week; the malaria had brought on
attacks of marsh fever, which in my case lasted about 20 days; the
paroxysms were mild compared with the Indian or the Sindhian type, yet,
favoured by the atonic state of the constitution, they thoroughly
prostrated me. I had during the fever-fit, and often for hours
afterwards, a queer conviction of divided identity, never ceasing to be
two persons that generally thwarted and opposed each other; the
sleepless nights brought with them horrid visions, animals of grisliest
form, hag-like women and men with heads protruding from their breasts.
My companion suffered even more severely, he had a fainting-fit which
strongly resembled a sun-stroke, and which seemed permanently to affect
his brain. Said bin Salim was the convalescent of the party; the two
Goanese yielded themselves wholly to maladies, brought on mainly by hard
eating, and had they not been forced to rise, they would probably never
have risen again. Our sufferings were increased by other causes than
climate. The riding asses having been given up for loads, we were
compelled, when premonitory symptoms suggested rest, to walk, sometimes
for many miles in a single heat, through sun and rain, through mud and
miasmatic putridities. Even ass-riding caused over-fatigue. It by no
means deserves in these lands the reputation of an anile exercise, as it
does in Europe. Maître Aliboron in Africa is stubborn, vicious and
guilty of the four mortal sins of the equine race, he shies and
stumbles, he rears and runs away: my companion has been thrown as often
as twice in two hours. The animals are addicted to fidgetting, plunging
and pirouetting when mounted, they hog and buck till they burst their
frail girths, they seem to prefer holes and hollows, they rush about
pig-like when high winds blow, and they bolt under tree-shade when the
sun shines hot. They must be led, or, ever preferring the worst ground,
they disdain to follow the path, and when difficulties arise the slave
will surely drop the halter, and get out of harm’s way. If a pace
exceeding two miles an hour be required, a second man must follow and
flog each of these perfect slugs during the whole march. The roundness
of their flanks, the shortness of their backs, and their want of
shoulder, combine to make the meagre Arab packsaddle unsafe for anything
but a baboon or a boy, whilst the straightness and the rigidity of their
goat-like pasterns render the pace a wearisome, tripping hobble. We had,
it is true, Zanzibari riding-asses, but the delicate animals soon chafed
and presently died; we were then reduced to the Koroma or half-reclaimed
beast of Wanyamwezi. The laden asses gave us even more trouble. The
slaves would not attend to the girthing and the balancing of
parcels--the great secret of donkey-loading--consequently the burdens
were thrown at every mud or broken ground: the unwilling Baloch only
grumbled, sat down and stared, leaving their Jemadars with Said bin
Salim and ourselves to reload. My companion and I brought up the rear by
alternate days, and sometimes we did not arrive before the afternoon at
the camping ground. The ropes and cords intended to secure the herd were
regularly stolen, that I might be forced to buy others: the animals were
never pounded for the night, and during our illness none of the party
took the trouble to number them. Thus several beasts were lost, and the
grounding of the Expedition appeared imminent and permanent. The result
was a sensation of wretchedness, hard to describe; every morning dawned
upon me with a fresh load of cares and troubles, and every evening
reminded me as it closed in, that another and a miserable morrow was to
dawn. But “in despair,” as the Arabs say, “are many hopes;” though
sorrow endured for the night--and many were “white” with anxiety--we
never relinquished the determination to risk everything, ourselves
included, rather than to return unsuccessful.
Dut’humi, one of the most fertile districts in K’hutu, is a plain of
black earth and sand, choked with vegetation where not corrected by the
axe. It is watered by the perennial stream of the same name, which,
rising in the islands, adds its quotum to the waters of the Mgazi, and
eventually to the Mgeta and the Kingani Rivers. In such places
artificial irrigation is common, the element being distributed over the
fields by hollow ridges. The mountains of Dut’humi form the northern
boundary of the plain. They appear to rise abruptly, but they throw off
southerly lower eminences, which diminish in elevation till confounded
with the almost horizontal surface of the champaign; the jagged broken
crests and peaks argue a primitive formation. Their lay is to the
N.N.W.; after four days’ journey, according to the guides, they
inosculate with the main chain of the Usagara Mountains, and they are
probably the southern buttress of Ngu, or Nguru, the hill region
westward of Saadani. This chain is said to send forth the Kingani River,
which, gushing from a cave or fissure in the eastern, is swollen to a
large perennial stream by feeders from the southern slopes, whilst the
Mgeta flows from the western face of the water-parting, and circles the
southern base. The cold temperature of these cloud-capped and rainy
crags, which never expose their outlines except in the clearest weather,
affects the plains; by day bleak north-east and north-west gusts pour
down upon the sun-parched Dut’humi, and at night the thermometer will
sink to 70°, and even to 65° F. Water is supposed to freeze upon the
highlands, yet they are not unhealthy; sheep, goats, and poultry abound;
betel-pepper grows there, according to the Arabs, and, as in the
lowlands, holcus and sesamum, manioc and sweet-potatoes (Convolvulus
batata), cucumbers, the turai (Luffa acutangula), and beans, plantains,
and sugar-cane, are plentiful. The thick jungle at the base of the hills
shelters the elephant, the rhinoceros in considerable numbers, the gnu,
and the koodoo, which, however, can rarely be found when the grass is
high; a variety of the ngole--a small Dendraspis--haunts the patriarchs
of the forest, and the chirrup of the mongoose, which the people enjoy,
as Europeans do the monotonous note of the cricket, is heard in the
brakes at eventide. This part of the country, about six hours’ march
northward from Dut’humi, is called the Inland Magogoni; and it is
traversed by the “Mdimu” nullah, which falls into the Mgeta River. The
fertile valleys in the lower and southern folds are inhabited by the
Wákumbáku(?),[6] and by the Wásuop’hángá tribes; the higher elevations,
which apparently range from 3000 to 4000 feet, by the Waruguru. They are
compelled to fortify themselves against the cold and the villanous races
around them. The plague of the land is now one Kisabengo, a Mzegura of
low origin, who, after conquering Ukami, a district extending from the
eastern flank of the Dut’humi hills seawards, from its Moslem diwan,
Ngozi, _alias_ Kingaru, has raised himself to the rank of a Shene
Khambi, or principal headman. Aided by the kidnapping Moslem coast clans
of Whinde, a small coast town opposite the island of Zanzibar, and his
fellow tribemen of Uzegura, he has transferred by his frequent commandos
almost all the people of Ukámí, chiefly Wásuop’hángá and Wárúgúrú, to
the slave-market of Zanzibar, and, thus compelled to push his
depredations further west, he has laid waste the lands even beyond the
Mukondokwa river-valley. The hill tribes, however, still receive
strangers hospitably into their villages. They have a place visited even
by distant Wazaramo pilgrims. It is described as a cave where a P’hepo
or the disembodied spirit of a man, in fact a ghost, produces a terrible
subterraneous sound, called by the people Kurero or Bokero; it arises
probably from the flow of water underground. In a pool in the cave women
bathe for the blessing of issue, and men sacrifice sheep and goats to
obtain fruitful seasons and success in war. These hill-races speak
peculiar dialects, which, according to the guides, are closely connected
with Kik’hutu.
[6] This unsatisfactory figure of print will often occur in these
pages. Ignorance, error, and causeless falsehood, together with the
grossest exaggeration, deter the traveller from committing himself to
any assertion which he has not proved to his own satisfaction.
Despite the bad name of Dut’humi as regards climate, Arabs sometimes
reside there for some months for the purpose of purchasing slaves
cheaply and to repair their broken fortunes for a fresh trip to the
interior. This keeps up a perpetual feud amongst the chiefs of the
country, and scarcely a month passes without fields being laid waste,
villages burnt down, and the unhappy cultivators being carried off to be
sold.
At Dut’humi a little expedition was sent against Manda, a petty chief,
who, despite the presence of the Sayyid’s troops, had plundered a
village and had kidnapped five of the subjects of Mgota, his weaker
neighbour. I had the satisfaction of restoring the stolen wretches to
their hearths and homes, and two decrepid old women that had been
rescued from slavery thanked me with tears of joy.
This easy good deed done, I was able, though with swimming head and
trembling hands, to prepare accounts and a brief report of proceedings
for the Royal Geographical Society. These, together with other papers,
especially an urgent request for medical comforts and drugs, especially
quinine and narcotics, addressed to Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton, or, in case
of accidents, to M. Cochet, Consul de France, were entrusted to Jemadar
Yaruk, whom, moreover, I took the liberty of recommending to the prince
for the then vacant command of the Bagamoyo garrison. The escort from
Kaole, reduced in number by three desertions, was dismissed. All the
volunteers had been clamouring to return, and I could no longer afford
to keep them. Besides the two supplies of cloth, wire, and beads, which
preceded, and which were left to follow us, I had been provided by Ladha
Damha with a stock of white and blue cottons, some handsome articles of
dress, 20,000 strings of white and black, pink, blue, and green, red and
brown porcelain-beads, needles, and other articles of hardware, to
defray transit-charges through Uzarama. This provision, valued at 295
dollars, should have carried us to the end of the third month; it lasted
about three weeks. Said bin Salim, to whom it had been entrusted, had
been generous, through fear, to every half-naked barbarian that chose to
stretch forth the hand of beggary; moreover, whilst too ill to
superintend disbursements, he had allowed his “children,” aided by the
Baloch and the “sons of Ramji,” to “loot” whatever they could seize and
secrete. Ladha Damha, unable to complete our carriage, had hit upon the
notable device of converting eighteen pieces of American domestics into
saddle-cloths for the asses: the stuff was used at halts as bedding by
the Baloch and others; and,--a proof that much had fallen into wrong
hands,--the thirteen men composing our permanent guard, increased the
number of their laden asses from two to five; moreover, for many weeks
afterwards, the “sons of Ramji” could afford to expend four to five
cloths upon a goat. On the 21st July the escort from Kaole departed with
a general discharge of matchlocks. Their disappearance was hailed as a
blessing; they had pestered me for rations, and had begged for asses
till midnight. They were the refuse of their service; they thought of,
they dreamed of, nothing but food; they would do no work; they were
continually attempting violence upon the timid Wak’hutu, and they seemed
resolved to make the name of Baloch equally hateful and contemptible.
I had been careful to bring from Zanzibar four hammocks, which, slung to
poles, formed the conveyance, called by the Indians “manchil;” by the
Portuguese “manchila;” and in West Africa “tipoia.” Sayf bin Salim
agreed for the sum of ten dollars to hire his slaves as porters for
ourselves and our outfit. On the 24th July, feeling strong enough to
advance, we passed out of the cultivation of Dut’humi. Crossing a steep
and muddy bed, knee-deep even in the dry season, we entered fields under
the outlying hillocks of the highlands. These low cones, like similar
formations in India, are not inhabited; they are even more malarious
than the plains, the surface is rocky, and the woodage, not ceasing as
in higher elevations, extends from base to summit. Beyond the
cultivation the route plunges into a jungle, where the European
traveller realises every preconceived idea of Africa’s aspect, at once
hideous and grotesque. The general appearance is a mingling of bush and
forest, which, contracting the horizon to a few yards, is equally
monotonous to the eye and palling to the imagination. The black greasy
ground, veiled with thick shrubbery, supports in the more open spaces
screens of tiger and spear-grass, twelve and thirteen feet high, with
every blade a finger’s breadth; and the towering trees are often clothed
from root to twig with huge epiphytes, forming heavy columns of densest
verdure, and clustering upon the tops in the semblance of enormous
bird’s nests. The foot-paths, in places “dead,”--as the natives
say,--with encroaching bush, are crossed by llianas, creepers and
climbers, thick as coir-cables, some connecting the trees in a curved
line, others stretched straight down the trunks, others winding in all
directions around their supports, frequently crossing one another like
network and stunting the growth of even the vivacious calabash, by coils
like rope tightly encircling its neck. The earth, ever rain-drenched,
emits the odour of sulphuretted hydrogen, and in some parts the
traveller might fancy a corpse to be hidden behind every bush. To this
sad picture of miasma the firmament is a fitting frame: a wild sky,
whose heavy purple nimbi, chased by raffales and chilling gusts,
dissolve in large-dropped showers; or a dull, dark grey expanse, which
lies like a pall over the world. In the finer weather the atmosphere is
pale and sickly; its mists and vapours seem to concentrate the rays of
the oppressive “rain-sun.” The sensation experienced at once explains
the apathy and indolence, the physical debility, and the mental
prostration, that are the gifts of climates which moist heat and damp
cold render equally unsalubrious and uncomfortable. That no feature of
miasma might be wanting to complete the picture, filthy heaps of the
rudest hovels, built in holes in the jungle, sheltered their few
miserable inhabitants, whose frames are lean with constant intoxication,
and whose limbs, distorted by ulcerous sores, attest the hostility of
Nature to mankind. Such a revolting scene is East Africa from central
K’hutu to the base of the Usagara Mountains.
Running through this fetid flat the path passed on the left sundry
shallow salt-pits which, according to the Arabs, are wet during the dry
and dry during the wet season. Presently after breaking through another
fence of holcus, whose cane was stiffer than the rattans of an Indian
jungle, we entered, and found lodgings in Bakera, a pretty little hamlet
ringed with papaws and plantains, upon which the doves disported
themselves. Here, on our return in 1859, a thick growth of grass waved
over the ground-marks of hearth and roof-tree. The African has a
superstitious horror of stone walls; he is still a semi-nomade, from the
effects of the Wandertrieb, or man’s vagabond instinct, uncurbed by the
habits of civilisation. Though vestiges of large and stable habitations
have been discovered in the barbarous Eastern Horn, in these days,
between the parallels of Harar and the ruined Portuguese towns near
the Zambezi Rivers, inner Africa ignores a town of masonry. In
our theoretical maps, the circlets used by cartographers to denote
cities serve only to mislead; their names prove them to be
Saltanats--lordships, districts or provinces.
Resuming our course on the next day through hollows and rice-swamps,
where almost every ass fell or cast its load, we came after a long tramp
to the nearest outposts of the Zungomero district; here were several
caravans with pitched tents, piles of ivory and crowds of porters. The
gang of thirty-six Wanyamwezi, who had preceded us, having located
themselves at a distant hamlet, we resumed our march, and presently were
met by a number of our men headed by their guard, the two “sons of
Ramji.” Ensued a general sword and spear play, each man with howls and
cheers brandished his blade or vibrated his missile, rushing about in
all directions, and dealing death amongst ideal foes with such action as
may often be observed in poultry-yards when the hens indulge in a little
merry pugnacity. The march had occupied us four weeks, about double the
usual time, and the porters had naturally began to suspect accidents
from the Wazaramo.
Zungomero, the head of the great river-valley, is a plain of black earth
and sand, prodigiously fertile. It is enclosed on all sides except the
eastern, or the line of drainage; northwards rise the peaks of Dut’humi;
westwards lie the little Wigo hills and the other spurs of Usagara,
uncultivated and uninhabited, though the country is populous up to their
feet; and southwards are detached cones of similar formation, steep,
rocky, and densely wooded. The sea-breeze is here strong, but beyond its
influence the atmosphere is sultry and oppressive; owing to maritime
influences the kosi, or south-west wind, sometimes continues till the
end of July. The normal day, which varies little throughout the year,
begins with the light milky mist which forms the cloud-ring; by degrees
nimbi and cumuli come up from the east, investing the heights of
Dut’humi, and, when showers are imminent, a heavy line of stratus
bisects the highlands and overlies the surface of the plain. At the
epochs of the lunar change rain falls once or twice during the day and
night, and, when the clouds burst, a fiery sun sucks up poison from the
earth’s putridity. The early nights are oppressive, and towards the dawn
condensation causes a copious deposit of heavy dew, which even the
people of the country dread. A prolonged halt causes general sickness
amongst the porters and slaves of a caravan. The humidity of the
atmosphere corrodes everything with which it comes in contact; the
springs of powder-flasks exposed to the damp snap like toasted quills;
clothes feel limp and damp; paper, becoming soft and soppy by the loss
of glazing, acts as a blotter; boots, books, and botanical collections
are blackened; metals are ever rusty; the best percussion caps, though
labelled waterproof, will not detonate unless carefully stowed away in
waxed cloth and tin boxes; gunpowder, if not kept from the air, refuses
to ignite; and wood becomes covered with mildew. We had an abundance of
common German phosphor-matches, and the best English wax lucifers; both,
however, became equally unserviceable, the heads shrank and sprang off
at the least touch, and the boxes frequently became a mere mass of
paste. To future travellers I should recommend the “good old plan;” a
bit of phosphorus in a little phial half full of olive oil, which serves
for light as well as ignition. When accompanied by matchlock-men,
however, there is no difficulty about fire; their pouches always contain
a steel and flint, and a store of cotton, or of the wild Bombex, dipped
in saltpetre or gunpowder solution.
Yet Zungomero is the great Bandárí or centre of traffic in the eastern,
as are Unyanyembe and Ujiji in the middle and the western regions. Lying
upon the main trunk-road, it must be traversed by the up and
down-caravans, and, during the travelling season, between June and
April, large bodies of some thousand men pass through it every week.
Kilwa formerly sent caravans to it, and the Wanyamwezi porters have
frequently made that port by the “Mwera road.” The Arab merchants
usually pitch tents, preferring them to the leaky native huts, full of
hens and pigeons, rats and mice, snakes and lizards, crickets and
cockroaches, gnats and flies, and spiders of hideous appearance, where
the inmates are often routed by swarms of bees, and are ever in imminent
danger of fires. The armed slaves accompanying the caravan seize the
best huts, which they either monopolise or share with the hapless
inmates, and the porters stow themselves away under the projecting eaves
of the habitations. The main attraction of the place is the plenty of
provisions. Grain is so abundant that the inhabitants exist almost
entirely upon the intoxicating pombe, or holcus-beer,--a practice
readily imitated by their visitors. Bhang and the datura plant, growing
wild, add to the attractions of the spot. The Bhang is a fine large
species of the Cannabis Indica, the bang of Persia, the bhang of India,
and the benj of Arabia, the fasukh of northern, and the dakha of
southern Africa. In the low lands of East Africa it grows before every
cottage door. As in hot climates generally, the fibre degenerates, and
the plant is only valued for its narcotic properties. The Arabs smoke
the sun-dried leaf with, and the Africans without tobacco, in huge
waterpipes, whose bowls contain a quarter of a pound. Both ignore the
more luxurious preparations, momiya and hashish, ganja and sebzi, charas
and maajun. Like the “jangli” or jungle (wild)-bhang of Sindh, affected
by kalandars, fakirs, and other holy beggars, this variety, contracting
the muscle of the throat, produces a violent whooping-cough, ending in a
kind of scream, after a few long puffs, when the smoke is inhaled; and
if one man sets the example the others are sure to follow. These
grotesque sounds are probably not wholly natural; even the boys may be
heard practising them; they appear to be a fashion of “renowning it”; in
fact, an announcement to the public that the fast youths are smoking
bhang. The Datura stramonium, called by the Arabs and by the Wasawahili
“muranhá,” grows in the well-watered plains; it bears a large whitish
flower and a thorn-apple, like that of India. The heathen, as well as
their visitors, dry the leaves, the flowers, and the rind of the
rootlet, which is considered the strongest preparation, and smoke them
in a common bowl or in a water-pipe. This is held to be a sovereign
remedy against zik el nafas (asthma) and influenza; it diminishes the
cough by loosening the phlegm. The Washenzi never make that horrible use
of the plant known to the Indian dhaturiya, or datura-poisoners: many
accidents, however, occur from ignorance of its violent narcotism. Meat
is scarce: the only cattle are those driven down by the Wanyamwezi to
the coast; milk, butter, and ghee are consequently unprocurable. A sheep
or a goat will not cost less than a shukkah, or four cubits of
domestics, here worth twenty-five cents. The same will purchase only two
fowls; and eggs and fruit--chiefly papaws and plantains, cocos and
limes--are at fancy prices. For the shukkah eight rations of unhusked
holcus, four measures of rice--which must here be laid in by those
travelling up-country--and five cakes of tobacco, equal to about three
pounds, are generally procurable. Thus the daily expenditure of a large
caravan ranges from one dollar to one dollar fifty cents’ worth of cloth
in the Zanzibar market. The value, however, fluctuates greatly, and the
people will shirk selling even at any price.
The same attractions which draw caravans to Zungomero render it the
great rendezvous of an army of touters, who, whilst watching for the
arrival of the ivory traders, amuse themselves with plundering the
country. The plague has now spread like a flight of locusts over the
land. The Wak’hutu, a timid race, who, unlike the Wazaramo, have no
sultan to gather round, are being gradually ousted from their ancient
seats. In a large village there will seldom be more than three or four
families, who occupy the most miserable hovels, all the best having been
seized by the touters or pulled down for firewood. These men--slaves,
escaped criminals, and freemen of broken fortunes, flying from misery,
punishment, or death on the coast--are armed with muskets and sabres,
bows and spears, daggers and knobsticks. They carry ammunition, and thus
are too strong for the country people. When rough language and threats
fail, the levelled barrel at once establishes the right to a man’s house
and property, to his wife and children. If money runs short, a village
is fired by night, and the people are sold off to the first caravan. In
some parts the pattering of musketry is incessant, as it ever was in the
turbulent states of Independent India. It is rarely necessary to have
recourse to violence, the Wak’hutu, believing their tyrants to be
emissaries, as they represent themselves, from His Highness the Sultan,
and the chief nobles of Zanzibar, offer none but the most passive
resistance, hiding their families and herds in the bush. Thus it happens
that towards the end of the year nothing but a little grain can be
purchased in a land of marvellous fertility.
As has been mentioned, these malpractices are severely reprobated by His
Highness the Sultan, and when the evil passes a certain point remedial
measures are taken. A Banyan, for instance, is sent to the coast with
warnings to the Diwans concerned. But what care they for his empty
words, when they know that he has probably equipped a similar party of
black buccaneers himself? and what hope can there be of reform when
there is not an honest man in the country to carry it out? Thus the
Government of Zanzibar is rendered powerless;--improvement can be
expected only from the hand of Time. The Wak’hutu, indeed, often
threaten a deputation to entreat the Arab Sultan for protection in the
shape of a garrison of Baloch. This measure has been retarded for sound
reasons: no man dares to leave his house for fear of finding it a ruin
on his return; moreover, he would certainly be shot if the touters
guessed his intention, and, even if he escaped this danger, he would
probably be sold, on the way to the coast, by his truculent neighbours
the Wazaramo. Finally, if they succeeded in their wishes, would not a
Baloch garrison act the part of the man who, in the fable, was called in
to assist the horse against the stag? The Arabs, who know the temper of
these mercenaries, are too wise ever to sanction such a “dragonnade.”
The reader will readily perceive that he is upon the slave-path, so
different from travel amongst the free and independent tribes of
Southern Africa. The traffic practically annihilates every better
feeling of human nature. Yet, though the state of the Wak’hutu appears
pitiable, the traveller cannot practise pity: he is ever in the dilemma
of maltreating or being maltreated. Were he to deal civilly and
liberally with this people he would starve: it is vain to offer a price
for even the necessaries of life; it would certainly be refused because
more is wanted, and so on beyond the bounds of possibility. Thus, if the
touter did not seize a house, he would never be allowed to take shelter
in it from the storm; if he did not enforce a “corvée,” he must labour
beyond his strength with his own hands; and if he did not fire a village
and sell the villagers, he might die of hunger in the midst of plenty.
Such in this province are the action and reaction of the evil.
[Illustration: Party of Wak’hutu Women.]
CHAP. IV.
ON THE GEOGRAPHY AND ETHNOLOGY OF THE FIRST REGION.
Before bidding adieu to the Maritime Region, it will be expedient to
enter into a few details concerning its geography and ethnology.[7]
[7] Those who consider the subject worthy of further consideration are
referred, for an ampler account of it, to the Journal of the R.
Geographical Society, vol. xxix. of 1860.
The first or maritime region extends from the shores of the Indian Ocean
in E. long. 39° to the mountain-chain forming the land of Usagara in E.
long. 37° 28′; its breadth is therefore 92 geographical miles, measured
in rectilinear distance, and its mean length, bounded by the waters of
the Kingani and the Rufiji rivers, may be assumed at 110. The average
rise is under 4 feet per mile. It is divided into two basins; that of
the Kingani easterly, and westward that of the Mgeta stream with its
many tributaries; the former, which is the principal, is called the land
of Uzaramo; the latter, which is of the second order, contains the
provinces of K’hutu, by the Arabs pronounced Kutu, and Uziraha, a minor
district. The natives of the country divide it into the three lowlands
of Tunda, Dut’humi, and Zungomero.
The present road runs with few and unimportant deviations along the
whole length of the fluviatile valleys of the Kingani and the Mgeta.
Native caravans if lightly laden generally accomplish the march in a
fortnight, one halt included. On both sides of this line, whose greatest
height above the sea-level was found by B. P. therm. to be 330 feet,
rises the rolling ground, which is the general character of the country.
Its undulations present no eminences worthy of notice; near the sea they
are short and steep, further inland they roll in longer waves, and
everywhere they are covered with abundant and luxuriant vegetation, the
result of decomposition upon the richest soil. In parts there is an
appearance of park land; bushless and scattered forests, with grass
rising almost to the lower branches of the smaller thorns; here and
there clumps and patches of impassable shrubbery cluster round knots and
knolls of majestic and thickly foliaged trees. The narrow footpaths
connecting the villages often plunge into dark and dense tunnels formed
by overarching branch and bough, which delay the file of laden porters;
the mud lingering long after a fall of rain in these low grounds fills
them with a chilly clammy atmosphere. Merchants traverse such spots with
trembling; in these, the proper places for ambuscade, a few determined
men easily plunder a caravan by opposing it in front or by an attack in
rear. The ways are often intersected by deep nullahs and water-courses,
dry during the hot season, but unfordable when rain falls. In the many
clearings, tobacco, maize, holcus, sesamum, and ground-nuts, manioc,
beans, pulse, and sweet potatoes flourish; the pine-apple is a weed, and
a few cocos and mangoes, papaws, jack-fruit, plantains, and limes are
scattered over the districts near the sea. Rice grows abundantly in the
lower levels. The villages are hidden deep in the bush or grass: the
crowing of the cocks heard all along the road, except in the greater
stretches of wilderness, proves them to be numerous; they are, however
small and thinly populated. The versant, as usual in maritime E. Africa,
trends towards the Indian Ocean. Water abounds even at a distance from
the rivers; it springs from the soil in diminutive runnels and lies in
“shimo” or pits, varying from surface-depth to 10 feet. The
monsoon-rains, which are heavy, commence in March, about a month earlier
than in Zanzibar, and the duration is similar. The climate of the higher
lands is somewhat superior to that of the valley, but it is still hot
and oppressive. The formation, after passing from the corallines, the
limestones, the calcareous tuffs, and the rude gravelly conglomerates of
the coast, is purely primitive and sandstone: erratic blocks of fine
black hornblende and hornblendic rock, used by the people as whetstones
and grinding-slabs, abound in the river-beds, which also supply the clay
used for pottery. The subsoil is near the sea a stiff blue loam, in the
interior a ruddy quartzose gravel; the soil is a rich brown or black
humus, here and there coated with, or varied by, clean white sand, and
in some parts are seams of reddish loam. Fresh-water shells are
scattered over the surface, and land-crabs burrow in the looser earths
where stone seldom appears. Black cattle are unknown in the maritime
region, but poultry, sheep, and goats are plentiful: near the jungle
they are protected from the leopards or ounces by large wooden huts,
like cages, raised on piles for cleanliness.
As a rule, the fluviatile valleys resemble in most points the physical
features of the coast and island of Zanzibar: the general aspect of the
country, however--the expression of its climate--undergoes some
modifications. Near the sea, the basin is a broad winding line,
traversed by the serpentine river, whose bed is now too deep for change.
About the middle expanse stony ridges and rocky hills crop out from the
rolling ground, and the head of the valley is a low continuous plain. In
many places, especially near the estuary, river-terraces, like road
embankments, here converging, there diverging, indicate by lines and
strews of water-worn pebbles and sea-shells the secular uprise of the
country and the declension of the stream to its present level. These
raised seabeaches at a distance appear crowned with dwarf rounded cones
which, overgrown with lofty trees, are favourite sites for settlements.
In the lower lands the jungle and the cultivation are of the rankest and
most gigantic description, the effect of a damp, hot region, where
atmospheric pressure is excessive. The grass, especially that produced
by the black soils in the swamps and marshes, rises to the height of
12-13 feet, and serves to conceal runaway slaves and malefactors: the
stalks vary in thickness from a goose-quill to a man’s finger. The
larger growths, which are so closely planted that they conceal the soil,
cannot be traversed without paths, and even where these exist the
traveller must fight his way through a dense screen, receiving from time
to time a severe blow when the reeds recoil, or a painful thrust from
some broken and inclined stump. Even the horny sole of the sandal-less
African cannot tread these places without being cut or staked, and
everywhere a ride through these grass-avenues whilst still dripping with
the cold exhalations of night, with the sun beating fiercely upon the
upper part of the body, is a severe infliction to any man not in perfect
health. The beds of streams and nullahs are sometimes veiled by the
growth of the banks. These crops spring up with the rains, and are
burned down by hunters, or more frequently by accident, after about a
month of dry weather; in the interim fires are dangerous: the custom is
to beat down the blaze with leafy boughs. Such is the variety of species
that in some parts of the river-valleys each day introduces the
traveller to a grass before unseen. Where the inundations lie long, the
trees are rare, and those that exist are slightly raised by mounds above
the ground to escape the destructive effects of protracted submergence:
in these places the decomposed vegetation exhales a fetid odour. Where
the waters soon subside there are clumps of tall shrubbery and seams of
forest rising on extensive meadows of grassy land, which give it the
semblance of a suite of natural parks or pleasure-grounds, and the
effect is not diminished by the frequent herds of gnu and antelope
prancing and pacing over their pastures.
The climate is hot and oppressive, and the daily sea-breeze, which
extends to the head of the Mgeta valley, is lost in the lower levels.
About Zungomero rain is constant, except for a single fortnight in the
month of January; it seems to the stranger as if the crops must
infallibly decay, but they do not. At most times the sun, even at its
greatest northern declination, shines through a veil of mist with a
sickly blaze and a blistering heat, and the overcharge of electricity is
evidenced by frequent and violent thunder-storms. In the western parts
cold and cutting breezes descend from the rugged crags of Dut’humi.
The principal diseases of the valley are severe ulcerations and fevers,
generally of a tertian type. The “Mkunguru” begins with coldness in the
toes and finger-tips; a frigid shiver seems to creep up the legs,
followed by pains in the shoulders, severe frontal headache, hot eyes,
and a prostration and irritability of mind and body. This preliminary
lasts for one to three hours, when nausea ushers in the hot stage: the
head burns, the action of the heart becomes violent, thirst rages, and a
painful weight presses upon the eyeballs: it is often accompanied by a
violent cough and irritation. Strange visions, as in delirium, appear to
the patient, and the excitement of the brain is proved by unusual
loquacity. When the fit passes off with copious perspiration the head is
often affected, the ears buzz, and the limbs are weak. If the patient
attempts to rise suddenly, he feels a dizziness, produced apparently by
a gush of bile along the liver duct: want of appetite, sleeplessness and
despondency, and a low fever, evidenced by hot pulses, throbbing
temples, and feet painfully swollen, with eruptions of various kinds,
and ulcerated mouth, usher in the cure. This fever yields easily to mild
remedies, but it is capable of lasting three weeks.
A multitude of roads, whose point of departure is the coast, form a
triangle and converge at the “Makutaniro,” or junction-place, in Central
Uzaramo. The route whose several stations have been described is one of
the main lines running from Kaole and Bagamoyo, in a general southwest
direction, till it falls into the great trunk road which leads directly
west from Mbuamaji. It is divided into thirteen caravan stages, but a
well-girt walker will accomplish the distance in a week.
No apology is offered for the lengthiness of the ethnographical
descriptions contained in the following pages. The ethnology of Africa
is indeed its most interesting, if not its only interesting feature.
Everything connected with the habits and customs, the moral and
religious, the social and commercial state of these new races, is worthy
of diligent observation, careful description, and minute illustration.
There is indeed little in the physical features of this portion of the
great peninsula to excite the attention of the reader beyond the
satisfaction that ever accompanies the victory of truth over fable, and
a certain importance which in these “travelling times,”--when man
appears rapidly rising to the rank of a migratory animal,--must attach
to discovery. The subject, indeed, mostly banishes ornament. Lying under
the same parallels with a climate whose thermical variations know no
extremes, the succession of alluvial valley, ghaut, table-land, and
shelving plain is necessarily monotonous, the soil is the same, the
productions are similar, and the rocks and trees resemble one another.
Eastern and central inter-tropical Africa also lacks antiquarian and
historic interest, it has few traditions, no annals, and no ruins, the
hoary remnants of past splendour so dear to the traveller and to the
reader of travels. It contains not a single useful or ornamental work, a
canal or a dam is, and has ever been, beyond the narrow bounds of its
civilisation. It wants even the scenes of barbaric pomp and savage
grandeur with which the student of occidental Africa is familiar. But
its ethnography has novelties: it exposes strange manners and customs,
its Fetichism is in itself a wonder, its commerce deserves attention,
and its social state is full of mournful interest. The fastidiousness of
the age, however, forbidding ampler details, even under the veil of the
“learned languages,” cripples the physiologist, and robs the subject of
its principal peculiarities. I have often regretted that if Greek and
dog-Latin be no longer a sufficient disguise for the facts of natural
history, human and bestial, the learned have not favoured us with a
system of symbols which might do away with the grossness of words.
The present tenants of the First Region are the Wazaramo, the Wak’hutu,
and their great sub-tribe, the Waziraha; these form the staple of
population,--the Wadoe and the Wazegura being minor and immigrant
tribes.
The Wazaramo are no exception to the rule of barbarian maritime races:
they have, like the Somal, the Gallas, the Wangindo, the Wamakua, and
the Cape Kafirs, come into contact with a civilisation sufficiently
powerful to corrupt without subjugating them; and though cultivators of
the ground, they are more dreaded by caravans than any tribe from the
coast to the Lake Region. They are bounded eastward by the thin line of
Moslems in the maritime regions, westward by the Wak’hutu, northward by
the Kingani River, and on the south by the tribes of the Rufiji. The
Wazaramo, or, as they often pronounce their own name, Wazalamo, claim
connection with the semi-nomade Wakamba, who have, within the last few
years, migrated to the north-west of Mombasah. Their dialect, however,
proves them to be congeners of the Wak’hutu, and distinct from the
Wakamba. As in East Africa generally, it is impossible to form the
remotest idea of the number of families, or of the total of population.
The Wazaramo number many sub-tribes, the principal of which are the
Wákámbá and the Wáp’hangárá.
These negroids are able-bodied men, tall and straight, compared with the
Coast-clans, but they are inferior in development to most of the inner
tribes. The complexion, as usual, varies greatly. The chiefs are often
coal-black, and but few are of light colour. This arises from the
country being a slave-importer rather than exporter; and here, as among
the Arabs, black skins are greatly preferred. The Mzaramo never
circumcises, except when becoming a “Mháji,” or Moslem convert; nor does
this tribe generally tattoo, though some adorn the face with three long
cicatrized cuts, like the Mashali of Mecca, extending down each cheek
from the ear-lobes to the corners of the mouth. Their distinctive mark
is the peculiarity of dressing their hair. The thick wool is plastered
over with a cap-like coating of ochreish and micaceous clay, brought
from the hills, and mixed to the consistency of honey with the oil of
the sesamum or the castor-bean. The pomatum, before drying, is pulled
out with the fingers to the ends of many little twists, which circle the
head horizontally, and the mass is separated into a single or a double
line of knobs, the upper being above, and the lower below, the ears,
both look stiff and matted, as if affected with a bad plica polonica.
The contrast between these garlands of small red dilberries and the
glossy black skin is, however, effective. The clay, when dry, is washed
out with great trouble by means of warm water--soap has yet to be
invented--and by persevering combing with the fingers. Women wear the
hair-thatch like men; there are, however, several styles. It is usually
parted in the centre, from the crinal front-line to the nape of the
neck, and allowed to grow in a single or double dense thatch, ridging
the head breadthwise from ear to ear: this is coloured or not coloured,
according to the wearer’s taste. Some of the Wazaramo, again, train
lumps of their wool to rise above the region of cautiousness, and very
exactly simulate bears’ ears. The face is usually lozenge-shaped, the
eyes are somewhat oblique, the nose is flat and patulated, the lips
tumid and everted, the jaw prognathous, and the beard, except in a few
individuals, is scanty. The sebaceous odour of the skin amongst all
these races is overpowering: emitted with the greatest effect during and
after excitement either of mind or body, it connects the negroid with
the negro and separates him from the Somal, the Galla, and the Malagash.
The expression of countenance is wild and staring, the features are
coarse and harsh, the gait is loose and lounging; the Arab strut and the
Indian swagger are unknown in East Africa. The Wazaramo tribe is rich in
albinos; three were seen by the Expedition in the course of a single
day. They much resemble Europeans of the leucous complexion; the face is
quite bald; the skin is rough, and easily wrinkles in long lines, marked
by a deeper pink; the hair is short, sharp-curling, and coloured like a
silk-worm’s cocoon, and the lips are red. The eyes have grey pupils and
rosy “whites:” they appear very sensitive to light, and are puckered up
so as to distort the countenance. The features are unusually plain, and
the stature appears to range below the average. The people who have no
prejudice against them, call these leucœthiops Wazungu, “white men.”
The Wazaramo tribe is wealthy enough to dress well: almost every man can
afford a shukkah or loin-cloth of unbleached cotton, which he stains a
dirty yellow, like the Indian gerua, with a clay dug in the subsoil.
Their ornaments are extensive girdles and bead necklaces of various
colours, white disks, made from the base of a sea-shell, and worn single
on the forehead or in pairs at the neck. A massy ring of brass or zinc
encircles the wrist. The decoration peculiar to the tribe, and common to
both sexes, is the mgoweko, a tight collar or cravat, 1 to 1·50 inches
broad, of red and yellow, white and black beads, with cross-bars of
different colours at short intervals. Men never appear in public without
an ostentatious display of arms. The usual weapons, when they cannot
procure muskets, are spears, bows, and arrows, the latter poisoned, and
sime, or long knives like the Somali daggers, made by themselves with
imported iron. The chiefs are generally seen in handsome attire;
embroidered Surat caps bound with a tight snowy turban of a true African
shape, which contrasts well with black skins and the short double-peaked
beards below. The body-garment is a loin-cloth of showy Indian cotton or
Arab check; some prefer the long shirt and the kizbao or waistcoat
affected by the slaves at Zanzibar. The women are well dressed as the
men--a circumstance rare in East Africa. Many of them have the tibia
bowed in front by bearing heavy water-pots at too early an age; when not
burdened they have a curious mincing gate, they never veil their faces,
and they show no shame in the presence of strangers. The child is
carried in a cloth at the back.
The habitations of the Wazaramo are far superior in shape and size to
those of K’hutu, and, indeed, to any on this side of Unyamwezi. Their
buildings generally resemble the humbler sort of English cow-house, or
an Anglo-Indian bungalow. In poorer houses the outer walls are of holcus
canes, rudely puddled; the better description are built of long and
broad sheets of Myombo and Mkora bark, propped against strong uprights
inside, and bound horizontally by split bamboos tied outside with
fibrous cord. The heavy pent-shaped roof often provided with a double
thatch of grass and reeds, projects eaves, which are high enough to
admit a man without stooping; these are supported by a long cross bar
resting on perpendiculars, tree-trunks, barked and smoothed, forked
above, and firmly planted in the ground. Along the outer marginal length
of this verandah lies a border of large logs polished by long sittings.
The interior is dark and windowless, and party-walls of stiff grass-cane
divide it into several compartments. The list of furniture comprises a
dwarf cartel about 4 feet long by 16 inches broad, upon which even the
married couple manages to make itself comfortable; a stool cut out of a
single block, a huge wooden mortar, mtungi or black earthen pots,
gourds, ladles of cocoa-nut, cast-off clothes, whetstones, weapons,
nets, and in some places creels for fishing. Grain is ground upon an
inclined slab of fine-grained granite or syenite, sometimes loose, at
other times fixed in the ground with a mud plaster; the classical
Eastern handmill is unknown in this part of Africa. The inner roof and
its rafters, shining with a greasy soot, in wet weather admit drenching
lines of leakage, and the only artifice applied to the flooring is the
tread of the proprietors. The door is a close hurdle of parallel
holcus-straw bound to five or six cross-bars with strips of bark. In a
village there will be from four to twelve “bungalows;” the rest are the
normal haycock and beehive hut of Africa. Where enemies are numerous the
settlements are palisaded; each has, moreover, but a single entrance,
which is approached by a narrow alley of strong stockade, and is guarded
by a thick planking that fits into a doorway large enough to admit
cattle.
The Wazaramo are an ill-conditioned, noisy, boisterous violent, and
impracticable race. A few years ago they were the principal obstacle to
Arab and other travellers entering into East Africa. But the seizure of
Kaole and other settlements by the late Sayyid of Zanzibar has now given
strangers a footing in the land. After tasting the sweets of gain, they
have somewhat relented; but quarrels between them and the caravans are
still frequent. The P’házi, or chief of the district, demands a certain
amount of cloth for free passage from all merchants on their way to the
interior; from those returning he takes cattle, jembe, or iron hoes,
shokah or hatchets, in fact, whatever he can obtain. If not contented,
his clansmen lie in ambush and discharge a few poisoned arrows at the
trespassers: they never have attempted, like the Wagogo, to annihilate a
caravan; in fact, the loss of one of their number causes a general
panic. They have hitherto successfully resisted the little armies of
touters that have almost desolated K’hutu, and they are frequently in
hostilities with the coast settlements. The young men sometimes set out
on secret plundering expeditions to Bagamoyo and Mbuamaji, and enter the
houses at night by mining under the walls. The burghers attempt to
defeat them by burying stones and large logs as a foundation, but in
vain: their superior dexterity has originated a superstitious notion
that they possess a peculiar “medicine,” a magic spell called “Ugumba,”
which throws the household into a deep trance. When a thief is caught
_in flagrante delicto_, his head soon adorns a tall pole at the entrance
of the settlement: it is not uncommon to see half a dozen bloody or
bleached fragments of humanity collected in a single spot. When disposed
to be friendly the Wazaramo will act as porters to Arabs, but if a man
die his load is at once confiscated by his relatives, who, however,
insist upon receiving his blood-money, as if he had been slain in
battle. Their behaviour to caravans in their own country depends upon
the strangers’ strength; many trading bodies therefore unite into one
before beginning the transit, and even then they are never without fear.
The Wazaramo chiefs are powerful only when their wealth or personal
qualities win the respect of their unruly republican subjects. There are
no less than five orders in this hereditary master-class. The P’hazi is
the headman of the village, and the Mwene Goha is his principal
councillor; under these are three ranks of elders, the Kinyongoni, the
Chúmá, and the Káwámbwá. The headman, unless exceptionally influential,
must divide amongst his “ministry” the blackmail extorted from
travellers. The P’hazi usually fills a small village with his wives and
families; he has also large estates, and he personally superintends the
labour of his slave-gangs. He cannot sell his subjects except for two
offences--Ugoni or adultery, and Ucháwe or black magic. The latter crime
is usually punished by the stake; in some parts of the country the
roadside shows at every few miles a heap or two of ashes with a few
calcined and blackened human bones mixed with bits of half-consumed
charcoal, telling the tragedy that has been enacted there. The prospect
cannot be contemplated without horror; here and there, close to the
larger circles where the father and mother have been burnt, a smaller
heap shows that some wretched child has shared their terrible fate, lest
growing up he should follow in his parents’ path. The power of
conviction is wholly in the hands of the Mgángá or medicine-man, who
administers an ordeal called Bága or Kyápo by boiling water. If the hand
after being dipped show any sign of lesion, the offence is proven, and
the sentence is instantly carried into execution.
Instinctively conscious of their moral wants, the Washenzi throughout
this portion of East Africa have organised certain customs which have
grown to laws. The first is the Sáre or brother oath. Like the “manred”
of Scotland, the “munh bola bhai” of India, and similar fraternal
institutions amongst most of the ancient tribes of barbarians in whom
sociability is a passion, it tends to reconcile separate interests
between man and man, to modify the feuds and discords of savage society,
and, principally, to strengthen those that need an alliance. In fact, it
is a contrivance for choosing relations instead of allowing Nature to
force them upon man, and the flimsiness of the tie between brothers born
in polygamy has doubtless tended to perpetuate it. The ceremony, which
is confined to adults of the male sex, is differently performed in the
different tribes. Amongst the Wazaramo, the Wazegura, and the Wasagara,
the two “brothers” sit on a hide face to face, with legs outstretched to
the front and overlapping one another; their bows and arrows are placed
across their thighs, whilst a third person, waving a sword over their
heads, vociferates curses against any one that may “break the
brotherhood.” A sheep is then slaughtered, and its flesh, or more often
its heart, is brought roasted to the pair, who, having made with a
dagger incisions in each other’s breasts close to the pit of the
stomach, eat a piece of meat smeared with the blood. Among the
Wanyamwezi and the Wajiji the cut is made below the left ribs or above
the knee; each man receives in a leaf his brother’s blood, which, mixed
with oil or butter, he rubs into his own wound. An exchange of small
presents generally concludes the rite. It is a strong tie, as all men
believe that death or slavery would follow its infraction. The Arabs, to
whom the tasting of blood is unlawful, usually perform it by proxy. The
slave “Fundi,” or fattori, of the caravans become brothers, even with
the Washenzi, whenever they expect an opportunity of utilising the
relationship.
The second custom is more peculiar. The East African dares not
appropriate an article found upon the road, especially if he suspect
that it belongs to a fellow tribeman. He believes that a “Kigámbo,” an
unexpected calamity, slavery or death, would follow the breach of this
custom. At Zungomero a watch, belonging to the Expedition, was picked up
by the country people in the jungle, and was punctually returned, well
wrapped round with grass and leaves. But subsequent experience makes the
traveller regret that the superstition is not of a somewhat more
catholic and comprehensive character.
The religion of the East African will be treated of in a future page.
The Wazaramo, like their congeners, are as little troubled with ceremony
as with belief. In things spiritual as in things temporal they listen to
but one voice, that of “Ádá,” or custom. The most offensive scoffer or
sceptic in Europe is not regarded with more abomination than the man who
in these lands would attempt to touch a jot or tittle of Ádá.
There are no ceremonies on birth-occasions and no purification of women
amongst these people. In the case of abortion or of a still-born child
they say, “he hath returned,” that is to say, to home in earth. When the
mother perishes in childbirth, the parents claim a certain sum from “the
man that killed their daughter.” Neither on the continent nor at
Zanzibar do they bind with cloth the head of the new-born babe. Twins,
here called Wápáchá, and by the Arabs of Zanzibar, Shukúl (شكول) are
usually sold or exposed in the jungle as amongst the Ibos of West
Africa. If the child die, an animal is killed for a general feast, and
in some tribes the mother does a kind of penance. Seated outside the
village, she is smeared, with fat and flour, and exposed to the derision
of people who surround her, hooting and mocking with offensive jests and
gestures. To guard against this calamity, the Wazaramo and other tribes
are in the habit of vowing that the babe shall not be shaved till
manhood, and the mother wears a number of talismans, bits of wood tied,
with a thong of snake’s skin, round her neck, and beads of different
shapes round her head. When carrying her offspring, which she rarely
leaves alone, she bears in her hand what is technically called a
kirangozi, a “guide” or “guardian,” in the form of two sticks a few
inches in length, bound with bands of particoloured beads. This article,
made up by the Mgángá or medicine-man, is placed at night under the
child’s head, and is carried about till it has passed the first stage of
life. The kirangozi is intended to guard the treasure against the
malevolent spirits of the dead; that almost universal superstition, the
Evil Eye, though an article of faith amongst the Arabs, the Wasawahili,
and the Wamrima, is unknown to the inner heathen.
A name is given to the child without other celebration than a debauch
with pombe: this will sometimes occur at the birth of a male, when he is
wanted. The East Africans, having few national prejudices, are fond of
calling their children after Arabs and other strangers: they will even
pay a sheep for the loan of a merchant’s name. There must be many
hundred Sayyid Saids and Sayyid Majids now in the country; and as during
the eighteen months’ peregrination of the East African Expedition every
child born on and near the great trunk-line was called Muzungu--the
“white”--the Englishman has also left his mark in the land. The period
of ablactation, as in South Africa, is prolonged to the second or third
year: may this account, in part, for the healthiness of the young and
the almost total absence of debility and deformity? Indeed, the nearest
approach to the latter is the unsightly protrusion of the umbilical
region, sometimes to the extent of several inches, owing to ignorance of
proper treatment; but, though conspicuous in childhood, it disappears
after puberty. Women retain the power of suckling their children to a
late age, even when they appear withered grandames. Until the child can
walk without danger, it is carried by the mother, not on the hip, as in
Asia, but on the bare back for warmth, a sheet or skin being passed over
it and fastened at the parent’s breast. Even in infancy it clings like a
young simiad, and the peculiar formation of the African race renders the
position easier by providing a kind of seat upon which it subsides; the
only part of the body exposed to view is the little coco-nut head, with
the small, round, beady black eyes in a state of everlasting stare.
Finally, the “kigogo,” or child who cuts the two upper incisors before
the lower, is either put to death, or is given away or sold to the
slave-merchant, under the impression that it will bring disease,
calamity, and death into the household. The Wasawahili and the Zanzibar
Arabs have the same impressions: the former kill the child; the latter,
after a Khitmah or perlection of the Koran, make it swear, by nodding
its head if unable to articulate, that it will not injure those about
it. Even in Europe, it may be remembered, the old prejudice against
children born with teeth is not wholly forgotten.
Amongst the Wazaramo there is no limitation to the number of wives,
except the expense of wedding and the difficulty of supporting a large
establishment. Divorce is signified by presenting to the wife a piece of
holcus-cane: if a sensible woman she at once leaves the house, and, if
not, she is forced to leave. There is no more romance in the affair even
before marriage than in buying a goat. The marriageable youth sends a
friend to propose to the father: if the latter consents, his first step
is, not to consult his daughter--such a proceeding would be deemed the
act of a madman--but to secure for himself as many cloths as possible,
from six to twelve, or even more, besides a preliminary present which
goes by the name of kiremba (kilemba), his “turban.” This, however, is a
kind of settlement which is demanded back if the wife die without issue;
but if she bear children, it is preserved for them by their
grand-parents. After the father the mother puts in her claim in behalf
of the daughter; she requires a kondáví, or broad parti-coloured band of
beads worn round the waist and next the skin; her mukájyá or loin-cloth,
and her wereko, or sheet in which the child is borne upon the back. In
the interior the settlement is made in live-stock, varying from a few
goats to a dozen cows. This weighty point duly determined, the husband
leads his wife to his own home, an event celebrated by drumming,
dancing, and extensive drunkenness. The children born in wedlock belong
to the father.
When a man or a woman is at the point of death, the friends assemble,
and the softer sex sometimes sings, howls, and weeps: the departing is
allowed to depart life upon the kitanda, or cartel. There is, however,
little demonstrative sorrow amongst these people, and, having the utmost
dread of disembodied spirits, all are anxious to get rid of the corpse
and its appertainings. The Wazaramo, more civilised than their
neighbours, bury their dead stretched out and in the dress worn during
life: their graves have already been described.
The “industry” of Usaramo will occupy but few sentences. Before the
great rains of the year set in the land must be weeded, and scratches
must be made with a hoe for the reception of seed. The wet season
ushers in the period for copal digging: the proceeds are either
sold to travelling traders, or are carried down to the coast in
mákándá--mat-sacks--of light weight, and are sold to the Banyans.
Bargaining and huckstering, cheapening and chaffering, are ever the
African’s highest intellectual enjoyments, and he does not fail to
stretch them to their utmost limits. After the autumnal rains during the
Azyab, or the north-east monsoon, the grass is fired, when the men
seizing their bows, arrows, and spears, indiscriminately slaughter beast
and bird--an operation which, yearly repeated, accounts in part for the
scarcity of animal life so remarkable in this animal’s paradise. When
all trades fail, the Mzaramo repairs to the coast, where, despite his
bad name, he usually finds employment as a labourer.
Next in order to the maritime Wazaramo are the Wak’hutu, to whom many of
the observations upon the subject of their more powerful neighbours
equally apply. Their territory extends from the Mgeta River to the
mountains of Usagara, and in breadth from the Dut’humi Highlands to the
Rufiji River.
The Wak’hutu are physically and, apparently, mentally a race inferior to
the Wazaramo; they are very dark, and bear other marks of a degradation
effected by pernicious climatory conditions. They have no peculiar
tattoo, although individuals raise complicated patterns in small
cicatrices upon their breasts. The popular head-dress is the
clay-coating of the Wazaramo, of somewhat modified dimensions; and some
of them, who are possibly derived from the Wahiao and other southern
clans, have a practice--exceptional in these latitudes--of chipping
their incisors to sharp points, which imitate well enough the armature
of the reptilia. Their eyes are bleared and red with perpetual
intoxication, and they seem to have no amusements but dancing and
singing through half the night. None but the wealthier can afford to
wear cloth; the substitute is a kilt of the calabash fibre, attached by
a cord of the same material to the waist. In women it often narrows to a
span, and would be inadequate to the purposes of decency were it not
assisted by an underclothing of softened goatskin; this and a square of
leather upon the bosom, which, however, is often omitted, compose the
dress of the multitude. The ornaments are like those of the Wazaramo,
but by no means so numerous. The Wak’hutu live poorly, and, having no
ghee, are contented with the oil of the sesamum and the castor-bean with
their holcus porridge. The rivers supply them with the usual mud-fish;
at times they kill game. Their sheep, goats, and poultry they reserve
for barter on the coast; and, though bees swarm throughout the land, and
even enter the villages, they will not take the trouble to make hives.
As on the Mrima, the proportion of chiefs to subjects seems to increase
in the inverse ratio of what is required. Every district in K’hutu has
its P’hazi or headman, with his minister the Mwene Goha, and inferior
chiefs, the Chándumé, the Muwinge, and the Mbárá. These men live chiefly
upon the produce of their fields, which they sell to caravans; they are
too abject and timid to insist upon the blackmail which has caused so
many skirmishes in Uzaramo; and the only use that they make of their
power is to tyrannise over their villages, and occasionally to organise
a little kidnapping. With the aid of slavery and black magic they render
their subjects’ lives as precarious as they well can: no one, especially
in old age, is safe from being burnt at a day’s notice. They are civil
to strangers, but wholly unable to mediate between them and the tribe.
The Wak’hutu have been used as porters; but they have proved so
treacherous, and so determined to desert, that no man will trust them in
a land where prepayment is the first condition of an agreement. Property
amongst them is insecure: a man has always a vested right in his
sister’s children; and when he dies his brothers and relations carefully
plunder his widow and orphans.
The dirty, slovenly villages of the Wak’hutu are an index of the
character of the people. Unlike the comfortable cottages of the
coast, and the roomy abodes of the Wazaramo, the settlements of
the Wak’hutu are composed of a few straggling hovels of the humblest
description--with doors little higher than an English pigsty, and eaves
so low that a man cannot enter them except on all fours. In shape they
differ, some being simple cones, others like European haystacks, and
others like our old straw beehives. The common hut is a circle from 12
to 25 feet in diameter; those belonging to the chiefs are sometimes of
considerable size, and the first part of the erection is a cylindrical
framework composed of tall stakes, or the rough trunks of young trees,
interwoven with parallel and concentric rings of flexible twigs and
withies, which are coated inside and outside with puddle of red or grey
clay. In some a second circle of wall is built round the inner cylinder,
thus forming one house within the other. The roof, subsequently added,
is of sticks and wattles, and the weight rests chiefly upon a central
tree. It has eaves-like projections, forming a narrow verandah, edged
with horizontal bars which rest upon forked uprights. Over the sticks
interwoven with the frame, thick grass or palm-fronds are thrown, and
the whole is covered with a coat of thatch tied on with strips of tree
bark. During the first few minutes of heavy rain, this roofing, shrunk
by the parching suns, admits water enough to patch the interior with
mud. The furniture of the cottages is like that of the Wazaramo; and the
few square feet which compose the area are divided by screens of wattle
into dark pigeon-holes, used as stores, kitchen, and sleeping-rooms. A
thick field of high grass is allowed to grow in the neighbourhood of
each village, to baffle pursuers in case of need; and some cottages are
provided with double doorways for easier flight. In the middle of the
settlement there is usually a tall tree, under which the men lounge upon
cots scarcely large enough for an English child; and where the slaves,
wrangling and laughing, husk their holcus in huge wooden mortars. These
villages can scarcely be called permanent: even the death of a chief
causes them to be abandoned, and in a few months long grass waves over
the circlets of charred stakes and straw.
The only sub-tribe of the Wak’hutu which deserves notice is the
Waziráhá, who inhabit the low grounds below the Mabruki Pass, in the
first parallel of the Usagara Mountains. They are remarkable only for
having beards somewhat better developed than in the other Eastern races:
in sickly appearance they resemble their congeners.
Remain for consideration the Wadoe and the Wazegura. The proper habitat
of the Wadoe is between the Watondwe or the tribes of Saadani, on the
littoral, and the Wak’hwere, near K’hutu, on the west; their northern
frontier is the land of the Wazegura, and their southern the Gama and
the Kingani Rivers. Their country, irrigated by the waters of the Gama,
is plentiful in grain, though wanting in cattle; they export to Zanzibar
sorghum and maize, with a little of the chakazi or unripe copal.
The Wadoe once formed a powerful tribe, and were the terror of their
neighbours. Their force was first broken by the Wakamba, who, however,
so weakened themselves, that they were compelled to emigrate in mass
from the country, and have now fixed themselves in a region about 14
marches to the north-west of Mombasah, which appears to have been
anciently called that of the Meremongao. During this struggle the Wadoe
either began or, what is more likely, renewed a practice which has made
their name terrible even in African ears. Fearing defeat from the
Wakamba, they proceeded, in presence of the foe, to roast and devour
slices from the bodies of the fallen. The manœuvre was successful; the
Wakamba could dare to die, but they could not face the idea of becoming
food. Presently, when the Wazegura had armed themselves with muskets,
and the people of Whinde had organised their large plundering
excursions, the Wadoe lost all power. About ten years ago Juma Mfumbi,
the late Diwan of Saadani, exacted tribute from them, and after his
death his sons succeeded to it. In 1857, broken by a famine of long
continuance, many Wadoe fled to the south of the Kingani River, and
obtained from the Wazaramo lands near Sagesera and Dege la Mhora.
The Wadoe differ greatly in colour and in form. Some are tall,
well-made, and light-complexioned Negroids, others are almost black.
Their distinctive mark--in women as well as men--is a pair of long cuts
down both cheeks, from the temple to the jaw; they also frequently chip
away the two inner sides of the upper central incisors, leaving a small
chevron-shaped hole. This however is practised almost throughout the
country. They are wild in appearance, and dress in softened skins,
stained yellow with the bark and flowers (?) of the mimosa. Their arms
are a large hide-shield, spears, bows, and arrows, shokah or the little
battle-axe, the sime-knife, and the rungu or knobstick. They are said
still to drink out of human skulls, which are not polished or prepared
in any way for the purpose. The principal chief is termed Mweme: his
privy councillors are called Mákungá (?), and the elders M’áná Miráo
(?). The great headmen are buried almost naked, but retaining their
bead-ornaments, sitting in a shallow pit, so that the forefinger can
project above the ground. With each man are interred alive a male and a
female slave, the former holding a mundu or billhook wherewith to cut
fuel for his lord in the cold death-world, and the latter, who is seated
upon a little stool, supports his head in her lap. This custom has been
abolished by some of the tribes: according to the Arabs, a dog is now
buried in lieu of the slaves. The subdivisions of the Wadoe are numerous
and unimportant.
The Wazegura, who do not inhabit this line of road, require some
allusion, in consequence of the conspicuous part which they have played
in the evil drama of African life. They occupy the lands south of the
Pangani River to the Cape of Utondwe, and they extend westward as far as
the hills of Nguru. Originally a peaceful tribe, they have been rendered
terrible by the possession of fire-arms; and their chiefs have now
collected large stores of gunpowder, used only to kidnap and capture the
weaker wretches within their reach. They thus supply the market of
Zanzibar with slaves, and this practice is not of yesterday. About
twenty years ago the Wazegura serfs upon the island, who had been
cheaply bought during a famine for a few measures of grain, rose against
their Arab masters, retired into the jungle, and, reinforced by
malefactors and malcontents, began a servile war, which raged with the
greatest fury for six months, when the governor, Ahmed bin Sayf,
maternal uncle to His Highness the late Sayyid Said, brought in a body
of mercenaries from Hazramaut, and broke the force of this Jacquerie by
setting a price upon their heads, and by giving the captives as prizes
to the captors. The exploits of Kisabengo, the Mzegura, have already
been alluded to. The Arab merchants of Unyanyembe declare that the road
will never be safe until that person’s head adorns a pole: they speak
with bitterness of heart, for he exacts an unconscionable “blackmail.”
The Wazegura are in point of polity an exception to the rule of East
Africa: instead of owning hereditary sultans, they obey the loudest
tongue, the most open hand, and the sharpest spear. This tends
practically to cause a perpetual blood-feud, and to raise up a number of
petty chiefs, who, aspiring to higher positions, must distinguish
themselves by bloodshed, and must acquire wealth in weapons, especially
fire-arms, the great title to superiority, by slave-dealing. The only
occasion when they combine is an opportunity of successful attack upon
some unguarded neighbour. Briefly, the Wazegura have become an
irreclaimable race, and such they will remain until compelled to make a
livelihood by honest industry.
[Illustration: EXPLORERS IN EAST AFRICA.]
CHAP. V.
HALT AT ZUNGOMERO, AND FORMATION OF THE CARAVAN.
I halted to collect carriage and to await the arrival of the twenty-two
promised porters for about a fortnight at that hot-bed of pestilence,
Zungomero, where we nearly found “wet graves.” Our only lodging was
under the closed eaves of a hut built African-fashion, one abode within
the other. The roof was a sieve, the walls were systems of chinks, and
the floor was a sheet of mud. Outside the rain poured pertinaciously, as
if K’hutu had been situated in the “black north” of Hibernia; the
periodical S. and S.W. winds were raw and chilling, the gigantic
vegetation was sopped to decay, and the tangled bank of the Mgeta River,
lying within pistol-shot of our hovels, added its quotum of miasma. The
hardships of a march in inclement weather had taken effect upon the
Baloch guard: expecting everything to be done for them they endured
seven days of wet and wind before they could find energy to build a
shed, and they became almost mutinous because left to make shelter for
themselves. They stole the poultry of the villagers like gipsies, they
quarrelled violently with the slaves, they foully abused their temporal
superior, Said bin Salim, and three of the thirteen were accused of
grossly insulting the women of the Wak’hutu. The latter charge, after
due investigation, was “not proven:” we had resolved, in case of its
being brought home, severely to flog the culprits or to turn them out of
camp.
On the 27th July, Sayf bin Salim returned to Dut’humi with his gang of
thirty slaves, who also had distinguished themselves by laying violent
hands on sheep, goats, and hens. Their patroon had offered to carry our
baggage half-way over the mountains to Ugogo, for a sum of sixty
dollars; thinking his conditions exorbitant, I stipulated for conveyance
the whole way. He refused, declaring that he was about to organise
another journey up-country. I doubted his assertion, as he was known to
have audaciously defrauded Musa Mzuri, an Indian merchant, who had
entrusted him with a large venture of ivory at Kazeh: yet he spoke
truth; nearly a year afterwards we met him on his march to the “Sea of
Ujiji.” During his visit he had begged for drugs, tea, coffee, sugar,
spices, everything, but the stores were already far wasted by the
improvidence of the Goanese, who seemed to think that they were living
in the vicinity of a bazar. To punish me for not engaging his gang, he
caused the desertion of nine porters hired at Dut’humi, by declaring
that I was bearing them into slavery. As they carried off, in addition
to half their pay, sundry sundries and Muinyi Wazira’s sword, I sent
three slave-musketeers to recover the stolen goods per force if
necessary. With respect to the cloth, Sayf bin Salim wrote back to say
that as I could well afford the loss of a few “domestics,” he would not
compel the fugitives to restore it: at the same time that he did himself
the honour to return the sword, which I might want. This man proved
himself the sole “base exception” to the hospitality and the
courteousness of the Omani Arabs. I forwarded an official complaint to
H. M. the Sayyid Majid, but the arm of Zanzibar has not yet reached
K’hutu.
At Zungomero five fresh porters were engaged, making up the whole party
to a total of 132 souls. They were drafted into the men of Muinyi
Wazira, whose open indulgence in stingo had made his society at meals
distasteful to Moslem sticklers for propriety. He was an able
interpreter, speaking five African dialects, which is not, however, in
these lands a remarkable feat, and when sober, he did at first the work
of three men. But linguists are a dangerous race, as the annals of old
India prove:--I doubt a bilingual Eastern man, and if he can speak three
languages I do not doubt him at all. Moreover, true to his semi-servile
breed--his dam was a Mzaramo slave, and his sire a half-caste
Wawahili--he began well and he finished badly. His deep undying fondness
for pombe or holcus beer, kept him in alternate states of maudlin apathy
or of violent pugnacity. He had incurred heavy debts upon the coast.
After his arrival at Unyamwezi, letters were sent urging upon the Arabs
his instant arrest, but fortunately for him the bailiff and the jailor
are not, as the venerable saying declares the schoolmaster to be,
abroad. Muinyi Wazira, however, did not sight the Sea of Ujiji in my
service, and his five messmates, who each received 15 dollars’ worth of
cloth for the journey thither and back, were not more fortunate.
Before marching from Zungomero into the mountains I will order, for the
reader’s inspection, a muster of the party, and enlist his sympathies in
behalf of the unhappy being who had to lead it.
Said bin Salim may pass on: he has been described in Blackwood
(February, 1858) and he scarcely deserves a second notice. He is
followed by his four slaves, including the boy Faraj, who will presently
desert, and without including his acting wife, the lady Halimah. That
young person’s pug-dog countenance and bulky charms seem to engross
every thought not appropriated to himself. One day, however, my ears
detect the loud voice of wail proceeding from the lady Halimah,
accompanying methinks the vigorous performance of a stick; the
peccadillo was--but I eschew scandal and request the lady to advance.
My companion’s gun carrier, Seedy Mubarak Bombay, a negro from Uhiao,
has twice been sketched in Blackwood (March, 1858 and September, 1859),
he also requires no further celebrity. My henchman, Muinyi Mabruki, had
been selected by his fellow-tribeman Bombay at Zanzibar; he was the
slave of an Arab Shaykh, who willingly let him for the sum of 5 dollars
per mensem. Mabruki is the type of the bull-headed negro, low-browed,
pig-eyed, pug-nosed, and provided by nature with that breadth and power,
that massiveness and muscularity of jaw, which characterise the most
voracious carnivors. He is at once the ugliest and the vainest of the
party: his attention to his toilette knows no limit. His temper is
execrable, ever in extremes, now wild with spirits, then dogged,
depressed, and surly, then fierce and violent. He is the most unhandy of
men, he spoils everything entrusted to him, and presently he will be
forbidden to engage in any pursuit beyond ass-leading and tent-pitching.
These worthies commenced well. They excited our admiration by braving
noon-day suns, and by snoring heavily through the rawest night with
nothing to warm them but a few smouldering embers. In an evil hour
compassion-touched, I threw over their shoulders a pair of English
blankets, which in the shortest time completely demoralised them. They
learned to lie a-bed o’ mornings, and when called up their shrugged
shoulders and shrinking forms were wrapped tightly round, lest the
breath of dawn should visit them too roughly. Idleness marked them for
her own: messmates and sworn brothers; they made at the halt huts out of
hail, lest they should be called to do work. As a rule, however,
Englishmen have the art of spoiling Eastern servants: we begin with the
utmost stretch of exertion, and we expect this high pressure system to
last. Of course the men’s energies are soon exhausted, their indolence
and apathy contrast with their former activity; we conceive dislikes to
them, and we end by dismissing them. This, however, was not the case
with Bombay and Mabruki. They returned with us to Zanzibar, and we
parted _à l’aimable_, especially with the former, who, after a somewhat
protracted fit of the “blue devils,” became once more, what he before
had been, a rara avis in the lands, an active servant and an honest man.
Regard for the Indian perusers of these pages, who know by experience
how “banal” a character is the half-caste oriental Portuguese, prevents
my offering anything but a sketch of Valentine A. and Gaetano B. I had
hired them at Bombay for Co.’s rs. 20 per mensem, besides board and
lodging. Scions of that half Pariah race which yearly issues from Goa,
Daman and Diu to gather rupees as “cook boys,” dry-nurses, and
“buttrels,” in wealthy British India, the hybrids had their faults: a
pride of caste, and a contempt for Turks and heathen, heretics and
infidels, which often brought them to grief; a fondness for acting
triton amongst the minnows; a certain disregard for the seventh
commandment, in the matter of cloth and clothes, medicines and
provisions; a constitutional repugnance to “Signior Sooth;” a
wastefulness of other men’s goods, and a peculiar tenacity of their own;
a deficiency of bodily strength and constitutional vigour; a voracity
which induced indigestion once a day; and, finally, a habit of frequent
phlebotomy which, deferred, made them sick. They had also their merits.
Valentine was a good specimen of the neat-handed and ready-witted
Indian: in the shortest time he learned to talk Kisawahili sufficiently
for his own purposes, and to read a chronometer and thermometer
sufficiently for ours: he had, however, one blemish, an addiction to
“fudging,” which rendered the severest overseeing necessary. A “Davy do
a’ things,” he was as clever at sewing a coat as at cooking a curry.
Gaetano had a curious kind of tenderness when acting nurse, and,
wonderful to relate, an utter disregard for danger: he would return
alone through a night-march of jungle to fetch his forgotten keys, and
would throw himself into an excited mob of natives with a fearlessness
which, contrasted with his weakly body, never failed to turn their wrath
into merriment. He suffered severely from the secondaries of fever,
which, in his case, as in his master’s, assumed a cerebral form. At
Msene he was seized with fits resembling epilepsy; and as he seemed
every month to become more addle-headed and scatter-brained, more dirty
and untidy, more wasteful and forgetful, more loath to work without
compulsion, and more prone to start and feed the fire with ghee when it
was the scarcest of luxuries, I could not but attribute many of his
delinquencies to disease.
The Baloch are now to appear. My little party were servants of His
Highness the Sayyid Majid of Zanzibar, who had detached them as an
escort upon the usual “deputation-allowance” of ten dollars per mensem.
They had received the command of their master to accompany me wherever I
might please to march, and they had been rendered responsible to him for
the safety of my person and property. As has been mentioned, Lieut.-Col.
Hamerton had advanced to them before departure a small sum for outfit,
and had promised them, on condition of good conduct, an ample reward on
the part of H. M.’s Government after return to Zanzibar. These men were
armed with the usual matchlock, the Cutch sabre,--one or two had
Damascus blades,--the Indian hide-targe, decorated with its usual
tinsel, the long khanjar or dagger, extra matches, flints and steels,
and toshdan, or ammunition pouches, sensibly distributed about their
persons.
The Jemadar Mallok led from Zanzibar seven warriors of fame, yclept
severally, Mohammed, Shahdad, Ismail, Belok, Abdullah, Darwaysh, and the
Seedy Jelai; at Kaole he persuaded to follow his fortunes, Khudabakhsh,
Musa, Gul Mohammed, Riza, and Hudul a tailor boy.
The Jemadar Mallok is a monocular, and the Sanscrit proverb declares:
“Rare a Kana (one-eyed man) is a good man and sound,
Rare a ladye gay will be faithful found.”
Mallok is no exception to this rule of the “Kana.” He is a man with
fine Italian features, somewhat disfigured by the small-pox: but his one
eye never looks you “in the face,” and there is an expression about the
mouth which forbids implicit trust in his honesty. He proclaims himself
to be somewhat fonder of fighting than of feeding, yet suspicious
circumstances led me to believe that he was one of those whom the Arabs
describe as “first at the banquet and last at the brawl.” He began with
a display of zeal and activity which died young; he lapsed, through
grumbling and discontent, into open insubordination as we progressed
westward, or from home; he became submissive and somewhat servile as we
returned to the coast, and when he took leave of me he shed a flood of
crocodile’s tears.
Mohammed is the Rish Safid, or greybeard of the caravan, and without a
greybeard no eastern caravan considers itself _en règle_. Of these
indispensable veterans I had two specimens; but of what use they were,
except to teach hot youth the cold caution of eld, I never could
divine,--_vieux soldat, vielle bête_. In the civilised regiment age is
not venerable in the private, as every grey hair is a proof that he has
not merited or has forfeited promotion; so in the East, where there is a
paucity of competitors in the race of fortune, the Rish Safid of humble
fortune may be safely set down as a fool or a foolish knave, and though
his escort is sought, he generally proves himself to be no better than
he should have been.
Mohammed’s body is apparently hard as a rock, his mind is soft as putty,
and his comrades, disappointed in their hopes of finding brains behind
those wrinkles, derisively compare him to a rotten walnut, and say
before his face, “What! grey hairs and no wits?” He has invested the
fifteen dollars advanced to him as outfit by Lieut.-Col. Hamerton, in a
slave-boy, whom presently he will exchange for a slave-girl, despite all
the inuendoes of his friends. He was at first a manner of peace-maker,
but soon my refusal to enlist and pay his slave as a hired porter acted
like Ithuriel’s spear. This veteran of fractious temper and miserly
habits ended, in a question of stinted rations, by drawing his sabre
upon and cutting at his Jemadar; an offence which I was compelled to
visit with a bastinado, inflicted out of the sight of man by the hand of
Khudabakhsh.
Shahdad is the Chelebi of the party, the fast young man. He is decidedly
not handsome. A figure short and _trapu_, a retrussed nose, small pigs’
eyes, a beard like a blackberry bush, and a crop of hair which,
projecting its wiry waves in a deep long curtain from beneath a
diminutive scarlet fez, makes his head appear top-heavy. Yet he does sad
havoc amongst female hearts by means of his zeze or guitar, half a gourd
with an arm to which is attached a single string, and by his lively
accompaniment is a squeaking falsetto, which is here as fascinating and
emollient to the sex as ever was the organ of Rubini in Europe. During a
lengthened sojourn at Bombay he has enlarged his mind by the acquisition
of the Hindostani tongue and of Indian trickery. He is almost the only
Eastern whom I remember that abused the poor letter H like a
thoroughbred Londoner. His familiarity with Anglo-Europeans, and his
experience touching the facility of gulling them, has induced in him a
certain proclivity for peculation, grumbling, and mutiny. His
brother--or rather cousin, for in these lands all fellow-tribesmen are
brethren--“Ismail” is a confirmed invalid, a man with a “broken mouth,”
deeply sunken cheeks, and emaciated frame, who, though earnestly
solicited to return eastwards, will persist in accompanying the party
till he falls a victim to a chronic malady in Unyamwezi.
Belok is our snob; a youth of servile origin, with coarse features, wide
mouth, everted lips, and a pert, or rather an impudent expression of
countenance, which, acting as index to his troublesome character, at
once prejudices the physiognomist against him. Belok’s comrades have
reason to quote the Arab saw, “Defend me from the beggar become wealthy,
and from the slave become a freeman!” He has invested his advance of
salary in a youth; and the latter serves and works for the rest of the
mess, who must patiently and passively endure the insolence of the
master for fear of losing the offices of the man. After the fashion of a
certain sort of fools, he applies the whole of his modicum of wit to
mischief-making, and he succeeds admirably where better men, whose
thoughts attempt a wider range, would fail. By his exertions the Baloch
became, in point of social intercourse, not unlike the passengers of a
ship bound on a long voyage: after the first month the society divides
itself into two separate and adverse cliques; after the second it breaks
up into little knots; and after the third it is a chequer-work of pairs
and solitaires. Arrived at the “Pond of Ugogo,” I was compelled to
address an official letter to Zanzibar, requesting the recal of Belok
and his coadjutor in mischief, Khudabakhsh.
Abdullah is the type of the respectable, in fact, of the good young man.
It is really pathetic to hear him recount, with accents broken by
emotion, the “tale full of waters of the eye,”--the parting of an only
son, who was led away to an African grave, from the aged widow his
mamma; to listen to her excellent advice, and to his no less excellent
resolves. He is capable of calling his bride elect, were such article a
subject ever to be mentioned amongst Moslems, “his choicest blessing.”
With an edifying mingling of piety and discipline, he never neglects the
opportunity of standing in prayer behind the Jemadar Mallok, whose
elevation to a superior grade--_honneur oblige!_--has compelled him to
rub up a superficial acquaintance with the forms of devotion. Virtue in
the abstract I revere; in the concrete I sometimes suspect. The good
young man soon justified this suspicion by repeatedly applying to Said
bin Salim for beads, in my name, which he converted to his own purposes.
Of Darwaysh little need be said. He is a youth about twenty-two years
old, with a bulging brow, a pair of ferret-eyes, a “peaky” nose, a thin
chin; in fact, with a face the quintessence of curiosity. He is the
“brother”--that is to say, the spy--of the Jemadar, and his principal
peculiarity is a repugnance to obeying an order because it is an order.
With this individual I had at first many a passage of words. Presently
prostrated in body and mind by severe disease, he obtained relief from
European drugs; and from that time until the end of the journey, he
conducted himself with a certain stiffness and decorum which contrasted
pleasantly enough with the exceeding “bounce” of his earlier career.
The Seedy Jelai calls himself a Baloch, though palpably the veriest
descendant of Ham. He resents with asperity the name of “Nigger,” or
“Nig”--Jupiter Tonans has heard of the offensive dissyllable, which
was a household word before the days of the Indian mutiny, but has
he heard of the more offensive monosyllable which was forced upon
the abbreviating Anglo-Saxon by the fatal necessity of requiring
to repeat the word so frequently? Jelai clothes his long lank
legs--cucumber-shinned and bony-kneed--in calico tights, which display
the full deformity of those members; and taking a pride in the length of
his mustachios, which distinguishes him from his African-born brethren,
he twists them _en croc_ like a hidalgo in the days of Gil Blas. The
Seedy, judging from analogy, ought to be brave, but he is not. On the
occasion of alarm in the mountains of Usagara, he privily proposed to
his comrades to “bolt” and leave us. Moreover, on the “Sea of Ujiji,”
where he was chosen as an escort, he ignobly deserted me.
Khudabakhsh was formed by nature to be the best man of the party; he has
transformed himself into the worst. A man of broad and stalwart frame,
with stern countenance, and a quietness of demeanour which usually
argues _sang-froid_ and persistency, his presence is in all points
soldier-like and prepossessing. But his temper is unmanageable: he
enters into a quarrel when certain of discomfiture; he is utterly
reckless,--on one occasion he amused himself by blowing a charge of
gunpowder into the calves of African warriors who were dancing in front
of him;--and lastly, his innate propensity for backbiting, intrigue, and
opposition to all authority, render him a dangerous member of the
Expedition. He herds with Belok, whose tastes lie in the same line: he
is the head and front of all mischief, and presently his presence will
become insupportable.
Musa, a tall, gaunt, and dark-brown old man, is the assistant Rish
Safid, or greybeard; in fact, the complement of “Greybeard Mohammed.”
After a residence of twenty years at Mombasah, he has clean forgotten
Persian; he speaks only a debased Mekrani dialect, and the Kisawahili,
which, as usual with his tribe, he prefers. An old soldier, he
compensates for want of youth and vigour by artfulness; an old
traveller--nothing better distinguishes in these lands the veteran of
the road from the griffin or greenhorn, than the careful and systematic
consideration of his comforts--he carries the lightest matchlock, he
starts in the cool of the morning, he presses forward to secure the best
quarters, and throughout he thinks only of himself. His character has a
want of wrath, which, despite his white hairs, causes him to be little
regarded. Greybeard Mohammed is considered a fool; Greybeard Musa, an
old woman. Yet he troubles himself little about the opinions of his
fellows, he looks well after his morning and evening meals, his ghee,
his pipe, and his sleeping mat; and knowing that he will last out all
the novices, with enviable philosophy he casts ambition to the winds.
Gul Mohammed is the most civilised man of the party. He has straight and
handsome features, of the old Grecian type, a reddish-brown skin--the
skin by excellence--and a Central-Asian beard of largest dimensions. His
mind is as civilised as his body; he is an adept after the fashion of
his tribe, in divinity especially, in medicine and natural history; and
when landing at Marka, he actually took the trouble to visit, for
curiosity, the Juba River. Unfortunately, “Gul Mohammed” is a mixture of
Baloch mountaineer-blood with the Sindhian of the plain, and the cross
is, throughout the East, renowned for representing the worst points of
both progenitors. Gul Mohammed is brave and treacherous, fair-spoken and
detractive, honourable and dishonest, good-tempered and bad-hearted.
Of the Baloch remain Riza, and Hudul, the tailor-boy: the former is a
kind of Darwaysh, utterly insignificant, but by no means so disagreeable
as his fellows: the only marking corporeal peculiarity of the latter is
a deficiency of skin; his mouth appears ever open, and his teeth
resemble those of an old rabbit. His mental organisation has its _petite
pointe_, its little twist; he is under the constant delusion that those
who speak in unknown tongues are employed specially in abusing him. His
first complaint was against the Goanese: as he could not understand a
word of their language, it was dismissed with some derision; he then
charged me to his comrades with his normal grievance, and in due time he
felt aggrieved by my companion.
A proper regard to precedence induces me now to marshal the “sons of
Ramji,” who acted as interpreters, guides, and war-men. They were armed
with the old “Tower-musket,” which, loaded with nearly an ounce of
powder, they never allowed to quit the hand; and with those antiquated
German-cavalry sabres which find their way over all the East: their
accoutrements were small leathern boxes, strapped to the waist, and huge
cow-horns, for ammunition. The most part called themselves Muinyi
(master), the title of an African freeman, because they had been
received in pawn by the Banyan Ramji from their parents or uncles, who
had forgotten to redeem the pledge, and they still claimed the honour of
noble birth. Of these there were eight men under their Mtu Mku, or chief
man, Kidogo--Anglicè, Mr. Little. Kidogo had preceded the Expedition,
escorting the detachment of thirty-six Wanyamwezi porters to Zungomero,
and he possessed great influence over his brother slaves, who all seemed
to admire and to be proud of him. He was by no means a common man.
“Natione magis quam ratione barbarus;” he had a fixed and obstinate
determination: amongst these puerile, futile African souls he was
exceptional as “a sage Sciote or a green horse.” His point of honour
consisted in the resolve that his words should be held as Median laws,
and he had, as the Africans say, a “large head,” namely, abundant
self-esteem, that blessed quality which makes man independent of his
fellows. Muinyi Kidogo is a short, thin, coal-black person, with a
something arguing gentle blood in his tribe, the Wadoe Cannibals; he has
a peaked beard, a bulging brow, close thin lips, a peculiar wall-eyed
roll of glance, and a look fixed, when unobserved, with a manner of
fascination which men felt. His attitude is always humble and
deprecatory, he drops his chin upon the collar of reflection, he rarely
speaks, save in dulcet tones, low, plaintive, and modulated; yet
agreeing in every conceivable particular, he never fails to introduce a
most pertinacious “but,” which brings him back precisely to his own
starting-point. The vehemence of his manner, and the violence of his
temper, win for him the fears of the porters; having a wife and children
in Unyamwezi, he knows well the languages, the manners, and the customs
of the people; he never hesitates, when necessary, to enforce his mild
commands by a merciless application of the staff, or to air his blade
and to fly at the recusant like a wild cat. In such moods, he is always
seized by his friends, and led forcibly away, as if dangerous. To insure
some regularity on the road, I ordered him to meet Said bin Salim and
Muinyi Wazira every evening at my tent, for a “Mashauri,” or palaver,
about the next day’s march and halt. The measure was rendered futile by
Kidogo, who soon contrived so to browbeat the others, that they would
not venture an opinion in his presence. As a chief, he would have been
in the right position; as a slave, he was falsely placed, because
determined not to obey. He lost no time in demanding that he and his
brethren should be considered Askári, soldiers, whose sole duty it was
to carry a gun; and he took the first opportunity of declaring that his
men should not be under the direction of the Jemadar. Having received
for answer that we could not all be Sultans, he retired with a
“Ngema”--a “very well,” accompanied by a glance that boded little good.
From that hour the “sons of Ramji” went wrong. Before, servilely civil,
they waxed insolent; they learned their power--without them I must have
returned to the coast--and they presumed upon it. They assumed the
“swashing and martial outside” of valiant men: they disdained to be
“mechanical;” they swore not to carry burdens; they objected to loading
and leading the asses; they would not bring up articles left behind in
the camp or on the road; they claimed the sole right of buying
provisions; they arrogated to themselves supreme command over the
porters; and they pilfered from the loads whenever they wanted the
luxuries of meat and beer; they drank deep; and on more than one
occasion they endangered the caravan by their cavalier proceedings with
the fair sex. It was “water-painting” to complain; they had one short
reply to all objections, namely, the threat of desertion. Preferring
anything to risking the success of the Expedition, I was reduced to the
bitter alternative of long-suffering, but it was with the hope of a
_revanche_ at some future time. The suffering was perhaps not wholly
patient. Orientals advise the traveller “to keep his manliness in his
pocket for braving it and ruffling at home.” Such, however, is not
exactly the principle or the practice of an Englishman, who recognises a
primary duty of commanding respect for himself, for his successors, and
for the noble name of his nation. On the return of the Expedition,
Kidogo proved himself a “serviceable villain,” but an extortionate;
anything committed to him was, as the Arabs say, in “ape’s custody,” and
the only remedy was to remove him from all power over the outfit.
Under the great Kidogo were the Muinyi Mboni, Buyuni, Hayja, and Jako;
these four took precedence as being the sons of Diwans, whilst the
commonalty was represented by the Muinyi Shehe, Mbaruko, Wulaydi, and
Khamisi.
The donkey-men, five in number, had been hired at the rate of thirty
dollars per head for the whole time of exploration. Their names were
Musangesi, Sangora, Nasibu, Hasani, and Saramalla. Of their natures
little need be said, except that they were a trifle less manageable than
the “sons of Ramji:” perfect models of servile humanity, obstinate as
asses and vicious as mules, gluttonous and lazy, noisy and overbearing,
insolent and quarrelsome as slaves.
Lowest in rank, and little above the asses even in their own estimation,
are the thirty-six Wanyamwezi Pagazi, or porters, who formed the
transport-corps. Concerning these men and their burdens, a few words of
explanation will be necessary.
In collecting a caravan the first step is to “make,” as the people say,
a “Khambi,” or kraal. The Mtongi, or proprietor of the goods, announces,
by pitching his tent in the open, and by planting his flag, that he is
ready to travel; this is done because amongst the Wanyamwezi a porter
who persuades others to enlist does it under pain of prosecution and
fine-paying if a death or an accident ensue. Petty chiefs, however, and
their kinsmen will bring with them in hope of promotion a number of
recruits, sometimes all the male adults of a village, who then recognise
them as headmen. The next step is to choose a Kirangozi or guide. Guides
are not a peculiar class; any individual of influence and local
knowledge who has travelled the road before is eligible to the post. The
Kirangozi must pay his followers to acknowledge his supremacy, and his
Mganga or medicine-man for providing him with charms and prophylactics.
On the march he precedes his porters, and any one who breaks this rule
is liable to a fine. He often undergoes abuse for losing the way, for
marching too far or not far enough, for not halting at the proper place,
and for not setting out at the right time. In return he enjoys the empty
circumstance of command, and the solid advantage of better food and a
present, which, however, is optional, at the end of the journey: he
carries a lighter load, and his emoluments frequently enable him to be
attended by a slave. The only way of breaking the perverse and
headstrong herd into a semblance of discipline, is to support the
Kirangozi at all conjunctures, and to make him, if possible, dole out
the daily rations and portion the occasional presents of meat.
At the preliminary Khambi the Mtongi superintends the distribution of
each Muzigo or load. The Pagazi or porters are mostly lads, lank and
light, with the lean and clean legs of leopards. Sometimes, however, a
herculean form is found with the bullet-head, the broad bull-like neck,
the deep wide chest, and the large strong extremities that characterise
the Hammal of Stamboul. There is usually a sprinkling of greybeards, who
might be expected, as the proverb is, to be “leaning against the wall.”
Amongst these races, however, the older men, who have learned to husband
their strength, fare better than their juniors, and the Africans, like
the Arabs, object to a party which does not contain veterans in beard,
age, and experience. In portioning the loads there is always much
trouble: each individual has his favourite fancy, and must choose, or,
at any rate, must consent to his burden. To load porters properly is a
work of skill. They will accept at the hand of a man who knows their
nature a weight which, if proposed by a stranger, would be rejected with
grunts of disgust. They hate the inconvenience of boxes, unless light
enough to be carried at both ends of a “Banghi”-pole by one man, or
heavy enough to be slung between two porters. The burden must never be
under a fair standard, especially when of that description that it
decreases by expenditure towards the end of the journey; a lightly-laden
man not only becomes lazy, he also makes his fellows discontented. The
nature of the load, however, causes an inequality of weight. Cloth is
tightly rolled up in the form of a huge bolster, five feet long by
eighteen to twenty-four inches in diameter, protected against wear and
weather by Makanda or coarse matting of brab-leaf, and corded over. This
bundle is fastened, for the purpose of preserving its shape and for
convenience of stacking, in a cradle of three or more flexible branches,
cut from a small tree below the place of junction, barked and trimmed,
laid along the length of the load, and confined at the open end by a
lashing of fibre-rope. Besides his weapons and marching kit, a man will
carry a pack of two Frasilah or seventy pounds, and this perhaps is the
maximum. Beads are placed in long, narrow bags of domestics, matted,
corded, and cradled in sticks like cloth; being a less elastic load,
they are more difficult to carry, and therefore seldom exceed fifty
pounds. Brass, and other wires, are carried in daur, khata, or circles,
lashed to both ends of a pole, which is generally the large midrib of a
palm-frond, with a fork cut in its depth at one extremity to form a base
for the load when stacked, and provided at the point of junction with a
Kitambara or pad of grass, rag, or leather. Wire is the lightest, as
ivory is the heaviest, of loads. The African porter will carry only the
smallest burdens upon his head, and the custom is mostly confined to
women and children. The merchants of course carry nothing but
themselves, except in extreme cases; but when the sudden sickness or the
evasion of a porter endangers the safety of his load, they shoulder it
without hesitation. The chief proprietor usually follows his caravan,
accompanied by some of his partners and armed slaves, to prevent the
straggling which may lead to heavy loss; he therefore often endures the
heat and tedium of the road longer than the rest of his party.
The loads of the Pagazi, it has appeared, are composed of beads, cloth,
and wire, which in this land of “round trade” or barter, supply the
wants of a circulating medium, and they severally represent copper,
silver, and gold. For a detailed notice, the reader is referred to the
appendix; in this place a few general remarks will suffice to set before
him the somewhat complicated use of the articles.
Of beads there are about 400 varieties, some of which have each three or
four different names. The cheapest, which form the staple of commerce,
are the Hafizi, Khanyera or Ushanga Waupe, a round white porcelain, the
price of which averages at Zanzibar 1 dollar per 5 or 6 lbs.
avoirdupois. The most expensive are the Samsam or Samesame, also called
Joho (scarlet cloth), Kimara-p’hamba (food-finishers), because a man
will part with his dinner to obtain them, and Kifunjyá-mji
(town-breakers), because the women will ruin themselves and their
husbands for them: these are the small coral-bead, scarlet enamelled
upon a white ground, they are of fifteen different sizes, and the value
at Zanzibar is from 13 to 16 dollars per 35 lbs. Beads are purchased
from the Banyan monopolisers unstrung, and are afterwards mounted by the
merchant upon T’hembe, or threads of palm-fibre; much depends for
success in sale upon the regularity and the attractiveness of the line.
The principal divisions are the bitil and the khete, which may represent
the farthing and the penny. The former is a single length from the tip
of the index to the wrist; the latter, which comprises four of the
former, is a double length round the thumb to the elbow-bone, or what is
much the same, twice the circumference of the throat. Ten khete compose
the fundo or knot, which is used in the larger purchases, and of these
from two to three were daily expended in our small expenses by the
Goanese servants, whilst the usual compensation for rations to an
African is a single khete. The utmost economy should be exercised in
beads: apparently exhaustless a large store goes but a little way, and a
man’s load rarely outlasts a month. It is difficult to divine what
becomes of these ornaments: for centuries ton after ton has been
imported into the country, they are by no means perishable substances,
and the people carry, like the Indians, their wealth upon their persons.
Yet not a third of the population was observed to wear any considerable
quantity; possibly the excessive demand in the lands outlying direct
intercourse with the coast, tends to disperse them throughout the vast
terra incognita of the central African basin.
The African preserves the instincts of infancy in the higher races. He
astonished the enlightened De Gama some centuries ago by rejecting with
disdain jewels, gold, and silver, whilst he caught greedily at beads and
other baubles, as a child snatches at a new plaything. To the present
day he is the same. There is something painfully ludicrous in the
expression of countenance, the intense and all-absorbing admiration, and
the greedy wistfulness with which he contemplates the rubbish. Yet he
uses it as a toy: after sacrificing perhaps his goat or his grain to
become the happy possessor of a khete, he will hang it round his neck
for a few days, and then, child-like, weary of the acquisition, he will
do his best to exchange it for another. In all bargains beads must be
thrown in, especially where women are concerned: their sisters of
civilisation would reproach themselves with an unconscious lapse into
the “nil admirari” doctrines so hateful to the muscular system of the
age, and with a cold indifference to the charms of diamonds and pearls,
could they but witness the effect of a string of scarlet porcelains upon
the high-born dames in Central Africa.
The cloths imported into East Africa are of three kinds, Merkani,
Kaniki, and “cloths with names.”
“Merkani,” in which we detect the African corruption of American, is the
article “domestics”--unbleached shirting and sheeting from the mills
near Salem. Kaniki, is the common Indian indigo dyed cotton. “Cloths
with names,” as they are called by the Africans, are Arab and Indian
checks, and coloured goods, of cotton or silk mixed with cotton. Of
these the most common is the Barsati, a dark blue cotton cloth with a
broad red stripe, which representing the dollar in the interior is
useful as presents to chiefs. Of double value is the Dabwani, made at
Maskat, a small blue and white check, with a quarter breadth of red
stripe, crossed with white and yellow: this showy article is invariably
demanded by the more powerful Sultans for themselves and their wives,
whilst they divide the Merkani and Kaniki, which composes their
Honga--“blackmail” or dash--amongst their followers.
The people of East Africa, when first visited by the Arabs, were
satisfied with the coarsest and flimsiest Kaniki imported by the Banyans
from Cutch. When American merchants settled at Zanzibar, Kaniki yielded
before the advance of “Merkani,” which now supplies the markets from
Abyssinia to the Mozambique. But the wild men are fast losing their
predilection for a stuff which is neither comfortable nor durable, and
in many regions the tribes satisfied with goat-skins and tree barks,
prefer to invest their capital in the more attractive beads and wire. It
would evidently be advantageous if England or her colonies could
manufacture an article better suited to the wants of the country than
that now in general use; but as long as the Indian short-stapled cotton
must be used, there is little probability of her competing with the
produce of the New World.
In Eastern Africa cotton cloth is used only for wear. The popular
article is a piece of varying breadth but always of four cubits, or six
feet, in length: the braça of Portuguese Africa, it is called by the
Arabs, shukkah, by the Wasawahili, unguo, and in the far interior upande
or lupande. It is used as a loin-wrapper, and is probably the first
costume of Eastern Africa and of Arabia. The plate borrowed from
Montfaucon’s edition of the “Topographia Christiana,” by Dr. Vincent
(Part I. Appendix to the Periplus) shows the Shukkah, to be the general
dress of Ethiopians, as it was of the Egyptians, and the spear their
weapon. The use of the Shukkah during the Meccan pilgrimage, when the
devotees cast off such innovations as coats and breeches for the
national garb of their ancestors, proves its antiquity throughout the
regions eastward of the Red Sea. On the African coast the Shukkah
Merkani is worth about 0·25 dollars = 1_s._ 0½_d._, in the interior it
rises to the equivalent of a dollar (4_s._ _2d._) and even higher. The
Kaniki is but little cheaper than the Merkani, when purchased upon the
sea-board; its increase of value in the interior, however, is by no
means in proportion to its prime cost, and by some tribes it is wholly
rejected. A double length of Shukkah, or twelve feet, the article worn
by women who can afford it, is called a Doti, and corresponds with the
Tobe of Abyssinia and of the Somali country. The whole piece of Merkani,
which contains from seven to eleven Doti, is termed a Jurah or Gorah.
After beads and piece-goods, the principal imports into Eastern Africa,
especially on the northern lines and in the western portion of the great
central route, are Masango or brass wires of large sizes, Nos. 4 and 5.
They are purchased at Zanzibar, when cheap, at 12, and when dear at 16,
dollars per Frasilah of 35 lbs. When imported up-country the Frasilah is
divided into three or four large coils, called by the Arabs “daur,” and
by the Africans “khata:” the object is convenience of attachment to the
porters’ banghy-poles. Arrived at Unyanyembe they are converted by
artisans into the kitindi, or coil-bracelet, a peculiarly African
decoration. It is a system of concentric circles extending from the
wrist to the elbow; at both extremities it is made to bulge out for
grace and for allowing the joints to play; and the elasticity of the
wire keeps it in its place. It weighs nearly 3 lbs., yet--“vanity knows
no sore”--the women of some tribes will wear four of these bulky
decorations upon their arms and legs. It is mostly a feminine ornament.
In the Lake Regions, however, men assume the full-sized armlet, and in
the mountains of Usagara their wrists, arms, and ankles are often
decorated with half and quarter lengths, which being without terminal
bulges, appear to compress the limbs painfully. At Unyanyembe the value
of a kitindi varies from two to four shukkah; at Ujiji, where the
ornament is in demand it rises to four or five.
The remainder of the live stock forming the _personnel_ of the caravan
is composed of asses. At Zanzibar I had bought five riding animals to
mount the chiefs of the party, including Said bin Salim and the Goanese.
The price varied from fifteen to forty dollars. Of the twenty-nine asses
used for carriage, only twenty remained when the muster was made at
Zungomero, and the rapid thinning of their numbers by loss, death and
accident began to suggest uncomfortable ideas.
The following “Equipment of the Expedition,” sent by me to Mr. Francis
Galton, the South African traveller, and bearing date, “Camp Zungomero
in Khutu, Sunday, 2nd August, 1857,” is here republished: it will assist
the reader in picturing to himself the mass of material which I am about
to drag over the mountains.
_Provisions, &c._--1 dozen brandy (to be followed by 4 dozen more); 1
box cigars; 5 boxes tea (each 6 lbs.); a little coffee; 2 bottles curry
stuff, besides ginger, rock and common salt, red and black pepper, one
bottle each, pickles, soap, and spices; 20 lbs. pressed vegetables; 1
bottle vinegar; 2 bottles oil; 20 lbs. sugar (honey is procurable in the
country).
_Arms and Ammunition_, including 2 smooth bores, 3 rifles, a Colt’s
carbine, and 3 revolvers, spare fittings, &c., and 3 swords. Each gun
has its leather bag with three compartments, for powder-flask, ball,
caps, patches, &c. 100 lbs. gunpowder (in 2 safety copper magazines and
others); 60 lbs. shot; 380 lbs. lead bullets, cast of hardened material
at the Arsenal, Bombay, placed in boxes 40 lbs. each for convenience of
carriage, also to serve as specimen boxes, and screwed down to prevent
pilfering; 20,000 copper caps; wadding.
The Baloch are armed with matchlocks, shields, swords, daggers and
knives. They have for ammunition--40 lbs. gunpowder (4 kegs); 1000 lead
bullets; 1000 flints for slaves’ muskets, and are to be followed by
about an equal quantity of ammunition.
_Camp Furniture._--1 sepoy’s rowtie; 1 small (gable-shaped) tent of two
sails joined, to cover and shelter property in this land of perpetual
rains; 1 table and chair; 1 tin Crimean canteen, with knives and forks,
kettle, cooking-pots, &c.; bedding, painted tarpaulin cover, 2 large
cotton pillows for stuffing birds, 1 air pillow, 2 waterproof blankets
(most useful), 1 Maltese blanket (remarkably good), and 2 other
blankets; 1 cork bed, with 2 pillows, 3 blankets, and mosquito net. The
Goanese have thick cotton padded mattresses, pillows, and blankets, and
all the servants have some kind of bedding. 3 solid leather portmanteaus
for clothes and books; 1 box, like an Indian petarah, for books; 1
patent leather bag for books, washing materials, diaries, drawing-books,
&c.; 1 small couriers’ bag, for instruments, &c.; 5 canvas bags for kit
generally; 3 mats, used as carpets.
_Instruments._--1 lever watch; 2 chronometers; 2 prismatic compasses,
slings, and stands; 1 ship’s azimuth compass; 2 pocket compasses; 1
pocket thermometer; 1 portable sun-dial; 1 rain gauge; 1 evaporating
dish; 2 sextants and boxes, with canvas bags to be slung over porters’
shoulders; 2 artificial horizons (with a little extra mercury, to be
followed by more); 1 pocket lens; 1 mountain barometer lent by Bombay
Geographical Society (very delicate); 3 thermometers; 1 measuring tape
(100 ft.); 1 sounding lead; 2 boiling thermometers; 1 box of
mathematical instruments; 1 glass; 1 telescope; 2 ft. rule with brass
slide; 1 pocket pedometer by Dixie; 1 parallel ruler.
_Stationery._--Foolscap paper; 1 ream common paper; 6 blank books; 3
Letts’ diaries; 2 dozen pencils; 6 pieces caoutchouc; 6 metallic note
books; 3 memorandum ditto; 1 box wafers and sealing wax; 2 field books;
steel pens; quill ditto; ink powder which makes up well without acid; 3
bottles ink; 1 bottle native ink; 2 sets meteorological tables, blank; 4
tin cylinders for papers (very bad, everything rusts in them); Nautical
Almanacs for 1857 and 1858; charts, Mr. Cooley’s maps; “Mombas mission
map”; skeleton maps; table of stars; account book; portfolio; wooden and
tin cylinders for pens, &c.
_Tools._--1 large turnscrew; 1 hand saw; 1 hammer; 20 lbs. nails; 1 hand
vice; 1 hone; 9 hatchets (as a rule every porter carries an axe); 2
files; 9 Jembe or native hoe; 9 Mas’ha or native dibbles; 1 cold chisel;
1 heavy hammer; 1 pair pincers. To be followed by 1 bench vice; 1 hand
ditto; 12 gimlets of sizes; 1 18-inch stone grinder, with spindle and
handle; 6 splitting axes; 12 augers of sizes; 2 sets centre-bits, with
stock; 12 chisels; 4 mortise chisels; 2 sets drills; 24 saw files; 6
files of sorts; 4 gouges of sizes; 50 lbs. iron nails; 2 planes, with 2
spare irons; 3 hand saws; screws. These things were expected to be
useful at the lakes, where carpenters are in demand.
_Clothing, Bedding, and Shoes._--Shirts, flannel and cotton; turbans and
thick felt caps for the head. (N.B. not looking forward to so long a
journey, we left Zanzibar without a new outfit; consequently we were in
tatters before the end, and in a climate where flannel fights half the
battle of life against death, my companion was compelled to invest
himself in overalls of American domestics, and I was forced to cut up
blankets into coats and wrappers. The Goanese also had laden themselves
with rags which would have been refused by a Jew; they required to be
re-clothed in Kaniki, or blue cotton. African travel is no favourable
opportunity for wearing out old clothes; the thorny jungles, and the
practice of packing up clothes wet render a double outfit necessary for
long journeys. The second should be carried packed up in
tin--flannel-shirts, trousers and stocks, at least six of each,--not to
be opened till required.
The best bedding in this country would be a small horsehair mattrass
with two blankets, one thick the other thin, and mosquito curtains that
would pack into the pillow. A simple carpet-bag without leathern or
other adjuncts, should contain the travelling clothes, and all the
bedding should roll up into a single bundle, covered with a piece of
waterproof canvass, and tightly bound with stout straps.
As regards shoes, the best would be ammunition boots for walking and
jack boots for riding. They must be of light colour, and at least one
size too large in England; they should be carefully protected from
external air which is ruinous to leather, and they must be greased from
time to time,--with fat not with oil--otherwise they will soon become so
hard and dry, that it is impossible to draw them on unless treated after
the Indian plan, viz. dipped in hot water and stretched with a stuffing
of straw.)
_Books and Drawing Materials._--Norie; Bowdich; Thompson’s ‘Lunar
Tables;’ Gordon’s ‘Time Tables;’ Galton’s ‘Art of Travel;’ Buist’s
‘Manual of Observation;’ Jackson’s ‘What to Observe;’ Jackson’s
‘Military Surveying;’ ‘Admiralty Manual;’ Cuvier’s ‘Animal Life;’
Prichard’s ‘History of Man;’ Keith’s ‘Trigonometry;’ Krapf’s ‘Kisuaheli
Grammar;’ Krapf’s ‘Kinika Testament;’ Amharic Grammar (Isenberg’s);
Belcher’s ‘Mast Head Angles;’ Cooley’s ‘Geography of N’yassi;’ and other
miscellaneous works; 1 paint-box complete, soft water colours; 1 small
ditto, with Chinese ink, sepia and Prussian blue; 2 drawing books; 1
large drawing book; 1 camera lucida.
_Portable domestic Medicine Chest._--Vilely made. Some medicines for
natives in packages. Application was made to Zanzibar for more quinine,
some morphia, Warburg’s drops, citric acid, and chiretta root.
_Miscellaneous._--10 pieces scarlet broad-cloth for presents (3
expended); 3 knives for servants; 4 umbrellas; 1 hank salmon gut; 1
dozen twisted gut; 1 lb. bees’ wax; courier’s box with brass clasps to
carry sundries on the road; 2 dozen penknives; 2000 fishing hooks; 42
bundles fishing line; 2 lanterns (policeman’s bull’s eye and common
horn); 2 iron ladles for casting lead; 1 housewife, with buttons,
needles, thread, silk, pins, &c.; 12 needles (sailor’s) and palms; 2
pair scissors; 2 razors; 1 hone; 2 pipes; 1 tobacco pouch; 1 cigar case;
7 canisters of snuff; 1 filter; 1 pocket filter; 1 looking-glass; 1
small tin dressing-case, with soap, nail-brush and tooth-brush (very
useful); brushes and combs; 1 union jack; arsenical paste for specimens;
10 steels and flints.
Life at Zungomero I have said was the acme of discomfort. The weather
was, as usual at the base of the mountains, execrable; pelting showers
descended in a succession, interrupted only by an occasional burst of
fiery sunshine which extracted steam from the thick covert of grass,
bush, and tree. The party dispersing throughout the surrounding
villages, in which it was said about 1000 travellers were delayed by the
inundations, drank beer, smoked bhang, quarrelled amongst themselves,
and by their insolence and violence caused continual complaints on the
part of the villagers. Both the Goanese being prostrated with mild
modifications of “yellow jack,” I was obliged to admit them into the
hut, which was already sufficiently populated with pigeons, rats, and
flies by day, and with mosquitos, bugs, and fleas, by night. At length
weary of waiting the arrival of the twenty-two promised porters, we
prepared our papers, which I committed to the confidential slave of a
coast Diwan, here dwelling as caravan-touter, for his uncle Ukwere of
Kaole. His name was somewhat peculiar, Chomwi la Mtu Mku Wambele, or the
“Headman Great Man of Precedence;”--these little Jugurthas have all the
titles of emperors, with the actual power of country squires;--he never
allowed himself to appear in public sober, and to judge from the list of
stations with which he obliged me--of eighteen not one was correct--I
hesitated to entrust his slave with reports and specimens. But the
Headman Great Man of Precedence did as he promised to do, and as his
charge arrived safely, I here make to him the “amende honorable.”
[Illustration: A village in K’hutu.
The Silk Cotton Tree.]
[Illustration: Sycomore in the Dhun of Ugogi.]
CHAP. VI.
WE CROSS THE EAST AFRICAN GHAUTS.
On the 7th August, 1857, the Expedition left Zungomero. We were martyred
by miasma; my companion and I were so feeble, that we could scarcely sit
our asses, and weakness had almost deprived us of the sense of hearing.
It was a day of severe toil. We loaded with difficulty, for the slaves
and porters did not assemble till past 8 A.M., and instead of applying
for their loads to Said bin Salim, every man ran off with the lightest
burden or the easiest ass.
[Illustration: THE EAST AFRICAN GHAUTS.]
From Central Zungomero to the nearest ascent of the Usagara Mountains is
a march of five hours. The route, emerging from the cultivated
districts, leaves to the right the Wigo Hills, so called, probably, from
the fishing weirs in the stagnant waters below, and in the Mgeta River,
which flows through the plain. On the left, and distant four or five
miles, is a straggling line of low cones: at the foot of one, somewhat
larger than its neighbours, rises the thermal spring known to the people
as the Maji ya W’heta, the Geyser, jetting-water, or _fontaine qui
bouille_. Its position is a gentle slope between the hill-base and a
dwarf Savannah which is surrounded by high walls of jungly forest, and
the water-shed is from south to north. The hot water boils and bubbles
out of a white sand, here and there stained and encrusted with oxide of
iron. Upon the surface lie caked and scaly sheets of calcareous tufa,
expressed by the spring, and around it are erratic boulders blackened
probably by the thermal fumes. The earth is dark, sometimes sandy, and
sprinkled over with fragments of quartzite and sandstone; in other
places a screen of brab-tree backs a bold expanse of ground,
treacherous, boggy, and unstable as water. The area is about 200 feet in
diameter, and the centre of ebullition is unapproachable, owing to the
heat and the instability of the soil. According to the guides, it is
subject to occasional eruptions, when the water bursts out with
violence, and fragments of lime are flung high in the air. Animals are
said to refuse it, and tales are told of wild beasts having been bogged
in the seething mire.
With the Mgeta thrown on the left hand, we passed by a path almost
invisible, through dense grass and trees, and presently we entered the
luxuriant cultivation surrounding the westernmost villages of K’hutu. As
the land beyond this point, for three long marches, lies barren, the
slaves and porters had comfortably housed themselves. The prospect of
another night in the plains made me desperate; I dislodged them, and
persuaded them to advance once more. The settlements were of the most
miserable description; many were composed of a few sticks lashed
together at the top, and loosely covered with a few armfuls of
holcus-cane. Here we sighted the cocoa-tree for the last time. The rats
were busy in the fields, and the plundered peasants were digging them
out for food. At almost every corner of the deeply-pitted path stood a
mtego, or trap for small birds, a cage of rush or split bamboo planted
in the ground near some corn, where a boy lies waiting till the prey
nibbles at the bait, and then creeping up, bars with his hand the little
doorway left in one of the sides. Beyond the villages the path forded
six times the sandy bed of the Mgeta, whose steep and slippery banks
supported dense screens of shrub and grass. Beyond the sixth passage,
the road falls into the gravelly river-shoals, with the stream flowing
in the other half of the course, under well-wooded masses of primitive
hill. After again thrice fording the cold and muddy water, which even in
the dry season is here ankle, there foot-deep, the road passed some
clearings where porcupines and the African red squirrel, a sturdy little
animal, with a long thick fur of dark brown, shot with green on the
back, and a bright red waistcoat, muzzle, and points, were observed.
About noon we diverged a few yards from the Mgeta, and ascended the
incline of the first gradient in Usagara, rising about 300 feet from the
plain below. This, the frontier of the second region, or ghauts, and the
debris encumbering the lowest escarpment, is called Mzizi Mdogo, or the
“Little Tamarind,” to distinguish it from the “Great Tamarind” station
which lies beyond. There was no vestige of building upon the spot--no
sight nor sound of man--the blood-feud and the infernal slave-trade had
made a howling desert of the land. We found, however, a tattered kraal
erected by the last passing caravan, and, spent with fatigue, we threw
ourselves on the short grass to rest. The porters and the asses did not
appear till the evening, when it became apparent that two of the latter
had been lost by their drivers, Hayja and Khamisi, sons of Ramji, who
preferred sitting in the shade, and chatting with passing caravans, to
the sore task of doing their duty. The animals were recovered on the
morrow, by sundry parties sent in search. During the fordings of the
Mgeta, however, they had not been unpacked; our salt and sugar,
therefore, had melted away; soap, cigars, mustard, and arsenical paste,
were in pulp; the tea was spoiled, the compressed vegetables presently
became musty, and the gunpowder in a fire-proof copper magazine was
caked like stale bread.
There was a wondrous change of climate at Mzizi Mdogo; strength and
health returned as if by magic; even the Goanese shook off the obstinate
bilious remittents of Zungomero. Truly delicious was the escape from the
nebulous skies, the fog-driving gusts, the pelting rain, the clammy
mists veiling a gross growth of fetor, the damp raw cold, rising as it
were from the earth, and the alternations of fiery and oppressive heat;
in fact, from the cruel climate of the river-valley, to the pure sweet
mountain-air, alternately soft and balmy, cool and reviving, and to the
aspect of clear blue skies, which lent their tints to highland ridges
well wooded with various greens. Dull mangrove, dismal jungle, and
monotonous grass, were supplanted by tall solitary trees, amongst which
the lofty tamarind rose conspicuously graceful, and a card-table-like
swamp, cut by a network of streams, nullahs, and stagnant pools, gave
way to dry healthy slopes, with short steep pitches, and gently shelving
hills. The beams of the large sun of the equator--and nowhere have I
seen the rulers of night and day so large--danced gaily upon blocks and
pebbles of red, yellow, and dazzling snowy quartz, and the bright
sea-breeze waved the summits of the trees, from which depended graceful
llianas, and wood-apples large as melons, whilst creepers, like vine
tendrils, rising from large bulbs of brown-grey wood, clung closely to
their stalwart trunks. Monkeys played at hide-and-seek, chattering
behind the bolls, as the iguana, with its painted scale-armour, issued
forth to bask upon the sunny bank; white-breasted ravens cawed when
disturbed from their perching-places; doves cooed on the well-clothed
boughs, and hawks soared high in the transparent sky. The field-cricket
chirped like the Italian cigala in the shady bush, and everywhere, from
air, from earth, from the hill slopes above, and from the marshes below,
the hum, the buzz, and the loud continuous voice of insect life, through
the length of the day, spoke out its natural joy. Our gipsy encampment
lay
“By shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.”
By night, the soothing murmurs of the stream at the hill’s base rose
mingled with the faint rustling of the breeze, which at times broken by
the scream of the night-heron, the bellow of the bull-frog in his swampy
home, the cynhyæna’s whimper, and the fox’s whining bark, sounded
through the silence most musical, most melancholy. Instead of the cold
night rain, and the soughing of the blast, the view disclosed a peaceful
scene, the moonbeams lying like sheets of snow upon the ruddy highlands,
and the stars hanging like lamps of gold from the dome of infinite blue.
I never wearied with contemplating the scene, for, contrasting with the
splendours around me, still stretched in sight the Slough of Despond,
unhappy Zungomero, lead-coloured above, mud-coloured below, wind-swept,
fog-veiled, and deluged by clouds that dared not approach these
Delectable Mountains.
During a day’s halt at this sanitarium fresh diversions agitated the
party. The Baloch, weary of worrying one another, began to try their
’prentice hands upon the sons of Ramji, and these fortified by the
sturdy attitude of Muinyi Kidogo, manfully resolved to hold their own.
The asses fought throughout the livelong night, and, contrary to the
custom of their genus, strayed from one another by day. And as,
“When sorrows come, they come not single spies,
But in battalions,”
Said bin Salim, who hated and was hated by the Baloch, on account
of their divided interests, began to hate and to be hated by the sons of
Ramji. His four children, the most ignoble of their ignoble race, were
to him as the apples of his eyes. He had entered their names as public
porters, yet, with characteristic egotism and self-tenderness, he was
resolved that they should work for none but their master, and that even
in this their labour should as much as possible fall upon the shoulders
of others. His tent was always the first pitched and his fire the first
built; his slaves were rewarded with such luxuries as ghee, honey, and
turmeric, when no one in camp, ourselves included, could procure them.
When all wanted clothes he clad his children out of the outfit as if it
had been his own, and, till strong remonstrances were made, large
necklaces of beads decked their sooty necks. On the return-march he
preferred to pay hire for three porters rather than to allow the fat
lazy knaves to carry a bed or a few gourds. They became of course
insolent and unmanageable--more than once they gave trouble by pointing
their muskets at the Baloch and the porters, and they would draw their
knives and stab at a man who refused to give up his firewood or his
hearth-stones, without incurring a word of blame from their master.
Encouraged by impunity they robbed us impudently; curry-stuff was soon
exhausted, the salt-bottles showed great gaps, and cigar-ends were
occasionally seen upon the road-side. The Goanese accused the slaves,
and the slaves the Goanese; probably both parties for once spoke the
truth.
Said bin Salim’s silly favouritism naturally aroused the haughty
Kidogo’s bile; the sons of Ramji, consequently, worked less than before.
The two worthies, Arab and African, never, however, quarrelled, no harsh
word passed between them; with smiles upon their faces, and a bitter
hate at heart, they confined themselves to all manner of backbiting and
talebearing. Said bin Salim sternly declared to me that he would never
rest satisfied until Kidogo’s sword was broken and his back was
scarified at the flagstaff of Zanzibar; but I guessed that this
“wrathful mouse and most magnanimous dove” would, long before his
journey’s end, have forgotten all his vengeance. Kidogo asserted that
the Muarabu or Arab was a green-horn, and frequently suggested the
propriety of “planting” him. At last this continual harping upon the
same chord became so offensive, that B’ana Saidi was forbidden to
pronounce the name of Muinyi Kidogo, and Muinyi Kidogo was ordered never
to utter the words B’ana Saidi before the exasperated leader of the
Expedition, who could not, like these squabblers, complain, resent,
forget and forgive, in the short space of a single hour.
We left Mzizi Mdogo on the 9th August, much cheered by the well-omened
appearance of a bird with red bill, white breast, and long
tail-feathers. The path ran over a succession of short steep hills with
a rufous-brown soil, dotted with blocks and stones, thinly veiled with
grass, and already displaying signs of aridity in the growth of aloetic
and thorny plants, the Cactus and the larger Asclepias, the Euphorbia or
Spurge-wort, and the stunted Mimosa. The Calabash, however, still rose a
stately tree, and there was a sprinkling of the fine Tamarinds which
have lent their name to the district. The Tamarind, called by the Arabs
of Zanzibar “Subar,” extends from the coast to the Lake Regions: with
its lofty stem, its feathery leaflets, and its branches spreading dark
cool shade, it is a beautiful feature in African landscape. The
acidulated fruit is doubtless a palliative and a corrective to bilious
affections. The people of the country merely peel and press it into bark
baskets, consequently it soon becomes viscid, and is spoiled by mildew;
they ignore the art of extracting from it an intoxicating liquor. The
Arabs, who use it extensively in cooking, steam, sun-dry, and knead it,
with a little salt and oil to prevent the effects of damp, into balls:
thus prepared and preserved from the air, it will keep for years.
On the way we were saddened by the sight of the clean-picked skeletons,
and here and there the swollen corpses, of porters who had perished in
this place of starvation. A single large body which had lost fifty of
its number by small-pox, had passed us but yesterday on the road, and
the sight of their deceased comrades recalled to our minds terrible
spectacles; men staggering on blinded by disease, and mothers carrying
on their backs infants as loathsome objects as themselves. The wretches
would not leave the path, every step in their state of failing strength
was precious; he who once fell would never rise again; no village would
admit death into its precincts, no relation nor friend would return for
them, and they would lie till their agony was ended by the raven and
vulture, the Fisi and the fox. Near every Khambi or Kraal I remarked
detached tents which, according to the guides, were set apart for those
seized with the fell disease. Under these circumstances, as might be
expected, several of our party caught the infection; they lagged behind
and probably threw themselves into some jungle, for the path when
revisited showed no signs of them.
We spent 4 hrs. 30′ in weary marching, occasionally halting to reload
the asses that threw their packs. Near the Mgeta River, which was again
forded six times, the vegetation became tall and thick, grasses
obstructed the path, and in the dense jungle on the banks of the stream,
the Cowhage (_Dolichos pruriens_,) and stiff reeds known as the “wild
sugar-cane,” annoyed the half-naked porters. Thus bounded and approached
by muddy and slippery, or by steep and stony inclines, the stream shrank
to a mountain torrent, in places hardly fifty feet broad; the flow was
swift, the waters were dyed by the soil a ruddy brown, and the bed was
sandy and sometimes rocky with boulders of primitive formation, streaked
with lines of snow-white quartz. Near the end of the marsh we ascended a
short steep staircase of rock and root, with a dwarf precipice
overhanging the river on the right, which was dangerous for the laden
beasts as they crawled like beetles up the path. At 3 P.M. we arrived at
a kraal called Cha K’henge--of the iguana, from the number of these
animals found near the stream. It was a delightful spot, equal to Mzizi
Mdogo in purity of air, and commanding a fair prospect of the now
distant Dut’humi Highlands.
The next day was a forced halt at Cha K’henge. Of two asses that had
been left behind one was recovered, the other was abandoned to its fate.
The animals purchased at Zanzibar were falling off visibly in condition.
Accustomed to a kind of grass which nowhere grows upon these sunburnt
hills, they had regular feeds of holcus, but that, as Said bin Salim
expressed himself, was only coffee to them. The Wanyamwezi asses,
however, managed to pick a sustenance from the rushes and from the
half-burned stubbles, when fortunate enough to find any. Sickness again
declared itself. Shahdad the Baloch bellowed like a bull with fever
pains, Gaetano complained that he was suffering tortures generally, two
of the Wanyamwezi were incapacitated by the symptoms preliminary to
small-pox from carrying their packs, and a third was prostrated by ague.
We started, however, on the next day for a long march which concluded,
the passage of the “Tamarind Hills.” Crossing a country broken by dry
nullahs, or rather ditches, we traversed a seam of forest with a deep
woody ravine on the right, and twice unpacked and reloaded the asses,
who lay down instead of breasting the difficulties: a muddy swamp full
of water-courses, and the high earth-banks of the Rufuta a Fiumara, here
dry during the hot season. Thence, winding along a hill-flank, to avoid
a bend in the bed, the path plunged into the sole of the Rufuta. This
main-drain of the lower gradients carries off, according to the guides,
the waters of the high ground around it into the Mgeta. The bed, which
varies from three to sixteen feet in breadth, serpentines abruptly
through the hills: its surface is either deep sand or clay, sopped with
water, which near the head becomes a thin fillet, ankle-deep, now sweet,
then salt: the mud is tinged in places with a solution of iron, showing,
when stagnant, prismatic and iridescent tints. Where narrowest, the tall
grasses of the banks meet across the gut, which, after a few yards of
short, sharp winding, opens out again. The walls are in some parts
earth, in others blocks of gray syenite, which here and there encumber
the bed: on the right, near the end of the stage, the hills above seem
to overhang the Fuimara in almost perpendicular masses of sandstone,
from whose chinks spring the gnarled roots of tall trees corded with
creepers, overgrown with parasites; and hung with fruits like footballs,
dangling from twines sometimes thirty feet long. The lower banks, where
not choked with rush, are overgrown with the brightest verdure, and with
the feathery bamboo rising and falling before the wind. The corpses of
porters were even more numerous than on the yester: our Muslems passed
them with averted faces and with the low “la haul!” of disgust, and a
decrepid old Mnyamwezi porter gazed at them and wept for himself. About
2 P.M., turning abruptly from the bed, we crawled up a short stony steep
strewed with our asses and their loads; and reaching the summit of a
dwarf cone near the foot of the “Goma Pass,” we found the usual outlying
huts for porters dying of small-pox, and an old kraal, which we made
comfortable for the night. In the extensive prospect around, the little
beehive villages of the Wakaguru and the Wakwivi, sub-tribes of the
Wasagara, peeped from afar out of the forest nooks on the distant
hill-folds. The people are rich in flocks and grain, but a sad
experience has taught them to shun intercourse with all strangers, Arabs
and Wasawahili, Wamrima and Wanyamwezi. In happier days the road was
lined with large villages, of which now not a trace remains.
A Boiling Point Thermometer by Cox, the gift of Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton,
and left with him by Captain, now Admiral Smyth, F. R. G. S., who had
used it in measuring the Andes, had been accidentally broken by my
companion at Cha K’henge. Arrived at Rufuta, I found that a second B. P.
by Newman, and a Bath-Thermometer by the same maker, had been torn so
violently from their box that even the well-soldered handles were
wrenched off. But a few days afterwards our third B. P. was rendered
useless by the carelessness of Gaetano. Thus, of the only three really
accurate hypsometrical instruments which we possessed,--the Barometer
had come to grief, and no aneroid had been sent from Bombay--not one was
spared to reach the Lake. We saved, however, two Bath-Thermometers
marked Newman, and Johnson and Co., Bombay, which did good service, and
one of which was afterwards corrected by being boiled at sea-level. I
may here observe that on such journeys, where triangulation is
impossible, and where the delicate aneroid and the Mountain Barometer
can scarcely be carried without accident, the thermometer is at present
the traveller’s stand-by. It abounds, however, in elements of error. The
elasticity of the glass, especially in a new instrument, causes the
mercury to subside below the graduated scale. The difference of level in
a covered “shaving-pot” and in an open pan exposed to the wind, will
sometimes amount to 1° F. = 500 feet: they therefore are in error who
declare that any vessel suffices for the purpose of boiling. Finally, in
all but the best instruments the air is not thoroughly expelled from the
tube: indeed some writers, Dr. Buist, for instance, actually advise the
error.
Another ass was left at Rufuta unable to stand, and anxiously eyeing its
stomach, whereby the Baloch conjectured that it was dying of a poisonous
grass. Having to ascend on the 12th August the Goma Pass of the Rufuta,
or the Eastern Range, I had arranged with Kidogo and the Kirangozi, or
guide, that the porters should proceed with their packs, and after
topping the hill, should return, for a consideration, to assist the
asses. None, however, reappearing, when the sun had risen a spear’s
length we set out, hugging the hill-flanks, with deep ravines yawning on
the right. Presently after passing through a clear forest of tall
scattered trees, between whose trunks were visible on both sides in
perspective, far below, long rolling tracts of well-wooded land broken
by ravines and cut by water-courses, we arrived at the foot of a steep
hill. The ascent was a kind of ramp, composed of earth-steps, clods
bound by strong tenacious roots, and thickly strewn with blocks of
schiste, micacious grit, and a sandstone showing the presence of iron.
The summit of this “kloof” was ascertained to rise 2,235 feet above
sea-level. It led to an easy descent along the flank of a hill
commanding on the left hand, below a precipitous foreground, a fine
bird’s-eye view of scattered cone and wavy ridge rising and falling in a
long roll, and on a scale decreasing till they settled into a line of
hazy-blue horizon, which had all the effect of a circumambient ocean. We
reached the remains of a kraal on the summit of a dwarf hill called
Mfu’uni, from the abundance of the Mfu’u tree, which bears an edible
apple externally like the smallest “crab,” but containing a stone of
inordinate proportions: below the encamping ground the Pagazi found a
runnel of pure water, which derived its name from the station. In former
times Mfu’uni was a populous settlement; the kidnapping parties from the
coast, and especially the filibusters of Whinde, have restored it to the
fox and the cynhyæna, its “old inhabitants.” I spent a sleepless night
in watching each star as it sank and set in its turn, piercing with a
last twinkle the thin silhouette of tall trees that fringed the hilly
rim of the horizon, and in admiring the hardness of the bull-headed
Mabruki, as he lay half-roasted by the fire and half-frozen by the cold
southern gale.
Rations had been issued at K’hutu to all hands for three days, the time
in which they expected to make the principal provisioning-place,
“Muhama.” They had consumed, as usual, their stores with the utmost
possible quickness; it was our fifth day, and Muhama was still a long
march distant. On the 13th August, therefore, in that hot haste which
promises cold speed, we loaded at dawn, and ascended the last step of
the pass by an easy path. The summit was thickly wooded; the hills were
crowned with trees; the ravines were a mass of tangled verdure; and from
the Dub (_Cynodon dactylon_, a nutritive and favourite food for cattle
in India) and other grasses arose a sickening odour of decay. A Scotch
mist, thick and raw, hung over the hill-tops, and about 10 P.M. a fiery
outburst of sunshine told severely upon hungry and fever-stricken men.
From the level table-summit of the range the route descended rapidly at
first, but presently stretching out into gentle slopes, totally unlike
the abrupt eastern or seaward face of the mountains: I counted twelve
distinct rises and fifteen falls, separated by tree-clad lines of
half-dried nullahs, which were choked with ill-savoured weeds. We halted
every quarter of an hour to raise and reload the asses; when on the
ground, they were invariably abandoned by the donkey-men. My companion’s
bedding was found near the path, where it had been left by its porter, a
slave given at Zungomero to Muinyi Wazira by his drunken brother. The
fellow had been sworn by his mganga, or medicine-man, not to desert, and
he had respected his oath for the long length of a week. A dispute with
another man, however, had irritated him: he quietly threw his burden,
and ran down the nearest steep, probably to fall into the hands of the
Wakwivi. As the rain-catching peaks were left behind, the slopes of dry
soil began to show sunburnt herbage and tufty grass. Signs of lions
appeared numerous, and the cactaceous and aloetic plants that live on
arid soil again met the eye. About noon we forded the little Zonhwe
River, a stream of sweet water here flowing westward, in a bed of mire
and grass, under high banks bearing a dense bush. Two hours afterwards I
suddenly came upon the advance-guard, halted, and the asses unloaded, in
a dry water-course, called in the map, from our misadventure, “Overshot
Nullah.” A caravan of Wanyamwezi had misdirected them, Muinyi Wazira had
in vain warned them of their error, he was overruled by Kidogo, and the
Baloch had insisted upon camping at the first place where they expected
to find a spring. Like all soft men, they were most impatient of thirst,
and nothing caused so much grumbling and discontent as the cry of “Maji
mb’hali!” (water is far!) That night, therefore, after a long march of
fifteen miles, they again slept supperless.
On the 14th of August we loaded early, and through spitting rains from
the south-east hills we marched back for two hours from the Overshot
Nullah to Zonhwe, the small and newly-built settlement which we had
missed on the preceding day. Several of the porters had disappeared
during the night. Men were sent in all directions for provisions, which
came in, however, slowly and scantily; and the noise made by the
slaves--they were pulling down Said bin Salim’s hut, which had
accidentally caught fire--frightened away the country-people. We were,
therefore, detained in this unwholesome spot for two days.
Zonhwe was the turning-point of the Expedition’s difficulties. Another
ass had died, reducing the number to twenty-three, and the Baloch, at
first contented with two, doubled their requirements, and on the 14th
August took a fifth, besides placing all their powder upon our
hard-worked animals. I therefore proposed to the Jemadar that the cloth,
the beads, and the other similar luggage of his men, should be packed,
sealed up, and inserted into the porters’ loads, of which several had
shrunk to half-weight. He probably thought the suggestion a ruse on my
part to discover the means by which their property had almost trebled
its quantity; his men, moreover, had become thoroughly weary of a
journey where provisions were not always obtainable, and they had
persuaded themselves that Lieut.-Col. Hamerton’s decease had left me
without support from the government of Zanzibar. After a priming with
opium, the monocular returned and reported that his men refused to open
their baggage, declaring their property to be “on their own heads.”
Whilst I was explaining the object of the measure, the escort appeared
in mass, and, with noise sufficient for a general action, ostentatiously
strewed their old clothes upon the ground, declaring that at Zanzibar
they were honourable men, and boasting that the Baloch were entrusted
with lacs of dollars by the Sayyid Said. Again I offered reasons, which,
as is the wont of the world in such cases, served only to make them more
hopelessly unreasonable. The Jemadar accused me of starving the party. I
told him not to eat abominations, upon which, clapping hand to hilt, he
theatrically forbade me to repeat the words. Being prostrated at the
time by fever, I could only show him how little dangerous he was by
using the same phrase half a dozen times. He then turned fiercely upon
the timid Said bin Salim, and having safely vented the excess of his
wrath, he departed to hold a colloquy with his men.
The debate was purposely conducted in so loud a tone that every word
reached my ears. Khudabakhsh, from first to last my evil genius and the
mainspring of all mischief, threatened to take “that man’s life,” at the
risk of chains for the remainder of his days. Another opined, that “in
all Nazarenes there is no good.” All complained that they had no
“hishmat” (respect!), no food, and, above everything, no meat.
Presently Said bin Salim was deputed by them to state that for the
future they would require one sheep per diem--men who, when at Zanzibar,
saw flesh probably once a year on the Eed. This being inadmissible, they
demanded three cloths daily instead of one. I would willingly have given
them two, as long as provisions continued scarce and dear, but the shade
of concession made them raise the number to four. They declared that in
case of refusal they would sleep at the village, and on the next day
would return to Zanzibar. Receiving a contemptuous answer, they marched
away in a body, noisily declaring that they were going to make instant
preparation for departure.
Such a proceeding on the part of several of these mercenaries was
inexcusable. They had been treated with kindness, and even indulgence.
They had hitherto never complained, simply because they had no cause for
complaint. One man, Ismail, who suffered from dysentery, had been
regularly supplied with food cooked by the Goanese; and even while we
dragged along our fevered frames on foot, he was allowed to ride an ass.
Yet the recreant never attempted a word of dissuasion, and deserted with
the rest.
After the disappearance of the Baloch, the Sons of Ramji were summoned.
I had privily ascertained from Said bin Salim the opinions of these men
concerning their leader: they said but little evil, complaining
principally of the Englishman’s “heat,” and that he was not wholly ruled
by their rascalities, whereas the Baloch in their private confabs never
failed to indulge in the choicest of Oriental Billingsgate. The slaves,
when they heard the state of the case, cheerfully promised to stand by
us, but on the same evening, assembled by Kidogo, they agreed to follow
the example of the escort on the first justifiable occasion. I did not
learn this till some days afterwards, and even if I had been told it on
the spot, it would have mattered little. My companion and I had made up
our minds, in case of the escort and the slaves deserting, to bury our
baggage, and to trust ourselves in the hands of the Wanyamwezi porters.
The storm, however,--a _brutum fulmen_--blew over with only noise.
A march was ordered for the next day--the 17th August. As the asses were
being loaded, appeared the one-eyed Jemadar, with Greybeard Musa and
Darwaysh, looking more crestfallen and foolish than they had ever looked
before. They took my hand with a polite violence, begged suppliantly for
a paper of dismissal to “cover their shame,” and declared that, so far
from deserting me, I was deserting them. As this required no reply, I
mounted and rode on.
The path fell easily westwards down a long grassy and jungly incline,
cut by several water-courses. About noon, I lay down half-fainting in
the sandy bed of the Muhama Nullah--the “Palmetto,” or “Fan-palm;” and
retaining Wazira and Mabruki, I urged the caravan forwards, that my
companion might send me back a hammock from the halting-place. Suddenly
appeared the whole body of deserters shouldering--as porters and asses
had been taken from them--their luggage, which outwardly consisted of
cloth, dirty rags, green skins, old earthen pots, and greasy gourds and
calabashes. They led me to a part of the nullah where stagnant water was
found, and showing abundant penitence, they ever and anon attempted
excuses, which were reserved for consideration. At 3 P.M., no hammock
appearing, I remounted, and pursued a path over rolling ground, with
masses of dwarf-hill flanking a low bottom, which renewed the scenery of
the “Slough of Despond”--Zungomero. Again the land, matted with putrid
grass, displayed the calabash and the hyphæna, the papaw and the
palmetto; the holcus and maize were of luxuriant dimensions, and deep
rat-holes, enlarged by the boy-hunters, broke the grassy path. I found
two little villages, inhabitated by Wangindo and Mandandu immigrants
from the vicinity of Kilwa. Then appeared on a hill-side the Kraal in
which the caravan had halted; the party had lost the road, and had been
dispersed by a swarm of wild bees, an accident even more frequent in
East Africa than in India.
Next morning the Baloch were harangued; they professed themselves
profoundly penitent, and attributing their unsoldier-like conduct to
opium, and to the Wiswas, the temptations of Sathanas, they promised to
reform. The promise was kept till we reached Ugogi. They were, however,
always an encumbrance; they did no good beyond creating an impression,
and “making the careless Æthiopians afraid.” I saw them, it is true, in
their worst colours. They held themselves to be servants of their
prince, and as no Eastern man can or will serve two masters, they
forfeited all claim to their sole good quality--manageability. As men,
they had no stamina; after a few severe marches they murmured that
“Famine, despair, thirst, cold, and heat,
Had done their work on them by turns.”
Their constitutions, sapped by long residence at Zanzibar, were
subject to many ailments, and in sickness they were softer than Indian
Pariahs. Under the slightest attack of fever, they threw themselves
moaning upon the ground; they were soon deterred by the sun from
bringing up the rear, and by night they would not keep watch or ward
even when in actual danger of robbery. Notwithstanding their affectation
of military carriage their bravery was more than problematical; they
were disciplined only by their fears. As men at arms, one and all
deserved to wear the wooden spoon: I saw the whole garrison of Kaole
firing for an hour, without effect, at a shell, stuck on a stick,
distant about a dozen paces: our party expended thirty pounds of
gunpowder without bagging a pair of antelope, and it was impossible to
trust them with ammunition; when unable to sell it, they wasted it upon
small birds. Ever claiming for themselves “hishmat,” or respect, they
forgot their own proverb that “courtesy hath two heads;” they complained
that they were not seated half the day in our tents, and the being “told
to depart,” when their terribly long visits rendered the measure
necessary, was a standing grievance. Like the lower races of Orientals,
they were ever attempting to intrude, to thrust themselves forwards, to
take an ell when an inch was offered; they considered all but themselves
fools, ready to be imposed upon by the flimsiest lie, by the shallowest
artifices. Gratitude they ignored; with them a favour granted was but an
earnest of favours to come, and one refusal obliterated the trace of a
hundred largesses. Their objects in life seemed to be eating, and buying
slaves; their pleasures, drinking and intrigue. Insatiable beggars were
they; noisy, boisterous, foul-mouthed knaves, swearers “with voices like
cannons;” rude and forward in manner, low and abusive in language, so
slanderous that for want of other subjects they would calumniate one
another, and requiring a periodical check to their presumption. I might
have spent the whole of my day in superintending the food of these
thirteen “great eaters and little runners.” Repeatedly warned, both by
myself and by my companion, that their insubordination would prevent our
recommending them for recompense at the end of the journey, they could
not check repeated ebullitions of temper. Before arrival at the coast
they seemed to have made up their minds that they had not fulfilled the
conditions of reward. After my departure from Zanzibar, however, they
persuaded Lieut.-Col. Hamerton’s successor to report officially to the
Government of Bombay “the claims of these men, the hardships they
endured, and the fidelity and perseverance they showed!”
At Muhama I halted three days, a delay which generally occurred before
long desert marches for which provisions are required. On the first,
Kidogo would bring about sixty pounds of grain; on the second, he would
disperse his men throughout the villages, and procure the 300 pounds
required for five marches; and on the third, he would cause it to be
husked and pounded, so as to be ready for the morrow. Three up-caravans,
containing a total of about 150 men, suffering severely from small-pox,
here passed us. One was commanded by Khalfan bin Muallim Salim and his
brother Id, coast Arabs, whom we afterwards met at two places. He told
me several deliberate falsehoods about the twenty-two porters that were
to follow us, for instance, that he had left them, halted by disease, at
Kidunda, in the maritime region, under the command of one Abdullah bin
Jumah, and thus he led me to expect them at a time when they had not
even been engaged. He and his men also spread reports in Ugogo and other
places where the people are peculiarly suspicious concerning the magical
and malignant powers of the “whites;” in fact, he showed all the bad
spirit of his bastard blood. At Muhama, the furthest point westward to
which the vuli or autumnal rains extend, the climate was still that of
the Rufuta Range, foggy, misty mornings, white rags of cloudbank from
the table-cloths outspread upon the heights, clear days, with hot suns
and chilling south winds, and raw dewy nights. I again suffered from
fever; the attack, after lasting seven days, disappeared, leaving,
however, hepatic complications, which having lasted uninterruptedly ten
months, either wore themselves out, or yielded to the action of acids,
narcotics, and stimulants tardily forwarded from Zanzibar. Here also
over-fatigue, in a fruitless shooting-excursion, combined with the
mephitic air of stagnant, weedy waters, caused a return of my
companion’s fever.
Two other Wanyamwezi porters were laid up with small-pox. One ass died
of fatigue, whilst a second torn by a hyæna, and a third too weak to
walk, were left, together with the animal that had been stung by bees,
in charge of Mpambe, headman of the Wangindo. Being now reduced to the
number of nineteen beasts, I submitted to Said bin Salim the
advisability of leaving behind wire and ammunition, either cached in the
jungle, as is the custom of these lands, or entrusted to the headman.
The Arab approved; Kidogo, however, dissented. I took the opinion of the
latter, he was positive that the effects once abandoned would never be
recovered, and that the headman, who appeared a kind of cunning idiot,
was not to be trusted. Some months afterwards I commissioned an Arab
merchant, who was marching towards the coast, to recover the asses left
in the charge of Mpambe; the latter refused to give them up, thus
proving the soundness of Kidogo’s judgment.
Having collected with difficulty--the land was sun-cracked, and the
harvest-store had been concealed by the people--some supplies, but
scarcely sufficient for the long desert tract, we began, on the 21st of
August, to cross the longitudinal plain that gently shelving westward
separates the Rufuta from the second, or Mukondokwa Range. The plain was
enclosed on all sides by low lines of distant hill, and cut by deep
nullahs, which gave more than the usual amount of trouble. The tall
Palmyra (_Borassus Flabelliformis_), whose majestic bulging column
renders it so difficult to climb, was a novel feature in the scenery.
This tree, the Mvumo of East Africa, and the Deleb-palm of the Upper
Nile, is scattered through the interior, extending to the far south. On
this line it is more common in Western Unyamwezi, where, and where only,
an intoxicating toddy is drawn from the cut frond, than elsewhere. The
country abounded in game, but we were both too weak to work--my
companion, indeed, was compelled to lag behind--and the Baloch, to whom
the guns were lent, returned empty-handed. Sign of the Mbogo (_Bos
Caffer_) here appeared; it is general in East Africa, especially upon
the river plains where water abounds. These wild cattle are fine
animals, somewhat larger than the common-sized English bullock, with
uniform dun skins, never parti-coloured like the tame herds, and with
thick black-brown horns, from twelve to thirteen inches broad at the
base, diverging outwards, and incurved at the points, which in large
specimens are distant about three feet from each other; they are
separated by a narrow channel, and this in age becomes a solid mass of
bone. The Mbogo is as dull of comprehension as it is fierce and
powerful; affecting particular spots, it will often afford several
chances of a successful shot to the Fundi--Shikari, or Chasseur--of a
caravan: the Africans kill it with arrows. The flesh, though considered
heating and bilious, is eaten, and the hide is preferred for thongs and
reins to that of the tame animal.
The approach to the kraal was denoted by a dead level of dry, caked, and
cracked mud, showing the subsidence of an extensive inundation. We
passed a large camping-ground, affected by down-caravans, on the near
side of the Makata, a long river-like “tank,” whose lay is E. by N. The
oozy banks of this water, which is said to flow after rains into the
Mukondokwa River, are fringed with liliaceous and other large aquatic
plants; the water, though dark, is potable. After fording the tank,
which was then breast-deep, we found on the further side the kraal used
by porters of up-caravans, who sensibly avoid commencing the day with
hard labour, and who fear that a sudden fall of rain might compel them
to intempestive halts. In such places, throughout the country, there are
two distinct khambi, one on each side of the obstacle, whether this be a
river, a pass, or a populous clearing; in the latter case, caravans
unload at the farther end of the cultivation, prepared to escape from a
fray into the jungle, without running the gauntlet of the villages. That
evening I tried to reduce the ever-increasing baggage of the sons of
Ramji, who added to the heaps piled upon the wretched asses, now
burdened with rations for several days, their drums and sleeping-hides,
and their cocks and hens, whilst they left the beds and the
cooking-utensils of the Goanese upon the ground. They informed me that
if our animals could not carry their property, they could not drive our
animals. The reply was significant. With some exertion of the “rascally
virtue”--Prudence--I retired.
The night was disturbed only by mosquitoes. These piping pests, however,
are less troublesome in this part of East Africa than might be expected
from the nature and the position of the country, and the bite has little
venom compared with those of the Mozambique, or even of Western India.
The common culex is a large variety, of brownish or dun colour; its
favourite breeding-places are the backwaters on the banks of rivers, and
the margins of muddy pools, and upon the creeks of the maritime regions,
and the Central Lakes.
Pursuing our march on the next day, I witnessed a curious contrast in
this strange African nature, which is ever in extremes, and where
extremes ever meet, where grace and beauty are seldom seen without a
sudden change to a hideous grotesqueness. A splendid view charmed me in
the morning. Above lay a sky of purest azure, flaked with fleecy
opal-tinted vapours floating high in the empyrean, and catching the
first roseate smiles of the unrisen sun. Long lines, one bluer than the
other, broken by castellated crags and towers of most picturesque form,
girdled the far horizon; the nearer heights were of a purplish-brown,
and snowy mists hung like glaciers about their folds. The plain was a
park in autumn, burnt tawny by the sun, patched with a darker hue where
the people were firing the grass--a party was at work merrily, as if
preparing for an English harvest-home--to start the animals, to promote
the growth of a young crop, and, such is the popular belief, to attract
rain. Calabashes, Palmyras, Tamarinds, and clumps of evergreen trees
were scattered over the scene, each stretching its lordly arms over
subject circlets of deep dew-fed verdure. Here the dove cooed loudly,
and the guinea-fowl rang its wild cry, whilst the peewit chattered in
the open stubble, and a little martin, the prettiest of its kind,
contrasted by its nimble dartings along the ground with the condor
wheeling slowly through the upper air. The most graceful of animals, the
zebra and the antelope, browsed in the distance: now they stood to gaze
upon the long line of porters, then, after leisurely pacing, with
retrospective glances, in an opposite direction, they halted motionless
for a moment, faced about once more to satiate curiosity, and lastly,
terrified by their own fancy, they bounded in ricochets over the plain.
About noon the fair scene vanished as if by enchantment. We suddenly
turned northwards into a tangled mass of tall fetid reeds, rank jungle
and forest, with its decaying trunks encroaching upon the hole-pierced
goat-track that zigzaged towards the Myombo River. This perennial stream
rises, according to the guides, in an elevation opposite to the
highlands of Dut’humi. It is about fifty feet broad at the ford,
breast-deep, and the swift brown waters swirl under a canopy of the
trees whose name it bears. The “Myombo” is a fine specimen of African
timber, apparently unknown to the people of Zanzibar, but extending
almost from the coast to the Lake Regions. The flower is greenish, with
the overpowering smell of the Indian jasmines; the fruit is a large pod,
containing ten or twelve long hard acorns, of a brown-black colour, set
in cups which resemble red sealing-wax. The coarse bark is used for
building huts and kraals, the inner fibre for “bast” and ropes, and the
wood makes what Easterns call a hot fire, lasting long, and burning well
out. After the fiery sun and the dry atmosphere of the plains, the
sudden effect of the dank and clammy chill, the result of exceeding
evaporation, under the impervious shades that line the river banks, was
overpowering. In such places one feels as if poisoned by miasma; a
shudder runs through the frame; and a cold perspiration, like the
prelude for a fainting-fit, breaks from the brow. Unloading the asses,
and fording the stream, we ascended the left bank, and occupied a kraal,
with fires still smoking, on its summit. Though another porter was left
behind with small-pox, I had little difficulty with the luggage on this
march: the more I worked the men, the harder they worked. Besides, they
seldom fell sick on the road, though often prostrated when halting, a
phenomenon which my companion explained by their hard eating and little
exercise when stationary, and which Said bin Salim more mercifully
attributed to the fatigue and exposure of the journey taking effect when
the excitement had passed away.
At dawn on the 23rd of August we resumed our journey, and in 4^{hrs} 30′
concluded the transit of the lateral plain, which separates the Rufuta
from the Mukondokwa Range. The path wound over a wintry land, green with
vegetation only in the vicinity of water. After struggling through a
forest of canes, we heard a ngoma, or large drum, which astonished us,
as we had not expected to find a village. Presently, falling into a
network of paths, we lost our way. After long wandering we came upon a
tobacco-field which the Baloch and the sons of Ramji had finished
stripping, and conducted by some Wanyamwezi who had delayed returning to
guide us, in order to indulge their love for drumming and plundering, we
arrived at the débris of a once flourishing village of Wasagara, called
Mbumi from its headman. A pitiable scene here presented itself. The huts
were torn and half-burnt, and the ground was strewed with nets and
drums, pestles and mortars, cots and fragments of rude furniture; and
though no traces of blood were observed, it was evident that a Commando
had lately taken place there. Said bin Salim opined this ruin to be the
work of Khalfan bin Salim, the youth who had preceded us from Muhama;
ever suspicious, he saw in it a plan adopted by the coast-Arab in order
to raise against us the people of the mountains. Kidogo, observing that
the damage was at least ten days’ old, more acutely attributed it to the
Moslem kidnappers of Whinde, who, aided by the terrible Kisabengo, the
robber-chief of Ukami, near K’hutu, harry the country with four or five
hundred guns. Two of the wretched villagers were seen lurking in the
jungle, not daring to revisit the wreck of their homes. Here again the
Demon of Slavery will reign over a solitude of his own creation. Can it
be that, by some inexplicable law, where Nature has done her best for
the happiness of mankind, man, doomed to misery, must work out his own
unhappiness? That night was spent at the deserted village by our men in
drumming, singing, and gleaning all that Khalfan’s gang had left; they
were, moreover, kept awake by fear lest they might be surprised by the
remnants of the villagers.
Late in the morning of the 24th of August, after losing another ass,
torn by a cynhyæna, we followed the path that leads from Mbumi along the
right bank of the Mukondokwa River to its ford. The marcescent
vegetation, and the tall, stiff, and thick-stalked grass, dripped with
dew, which struck cold as a freezing-mixture. The path was slippery with
mud, and man and beast were rendered wild by the cruel stings of a small
red ant and a huge black pismire. The former cross the road in dense
masses like the close columns of an army. They are large-headed, showing
probably that they are the defenders of the republic, and that they
perform the duties of soldiers in their excursions. Though they cannot
spring, they show great quickness in fastening themselves to the foot or
ankle as it brushes over them. The pismire, known to the people as the
“chungu-fundo,” or “siyafu” from the Arabic “siyaf,” is a horse-ant,
about an inch in length, whose bulldog-like head and powerful mandibles
enable it to destroy rats and mice, lizards and snakes. It loves damp
places upon the banks of rivers and stagnant waters; it burrows but
never raises hills, and it appears scattered for miles over the paths.
Like the other species, it knows neither fear nor sense of fatigue; it
rushes to annihilation without hesitating, and it cannot be expelled
from a hut except by fire or boiling water. Its bite, which is the
preamble to its meal, burns like a pinch with a red-hot needle; and when
it sets to work, twisting itself round and “accroupi” in its eagerness
for food, it may be pulled in two without relaxing its hold. The
favourite food of this pismire is the termite: its mortal enemy is a
large ginger-coloured ant, called from its painful wound “maji m’oto,”
or “hot-water.” In this foul jungle our men also suffered severely from
the tzetze. This fly, the torment of Cape travellers, was limited, by
Dr. Livingstone, to the regions south of the Zambezi river. A specimen,
brought home by me and submitted to Mr. Adam White, of the British
Museum, was pronounced by him to be a true Glossina morsitans, and Mr.
Petherick has fixed its limits about eight degrees north of the equator.
On the line followed by the Expedition, the tzetze was found extending
from Usagara westward as far as the Central Lakes; its usual habitat is
the jungle-strip which encloses each patch of cultivated ground, and in
the latter it is rarely seen. It has more persistency of purpose even
than the Egyptian fly, and when beaten off it will return half a dozen
times to the charge; it cannot be killed except by a smart blow, and its
long sharp proboscis draws blood even through a canvas hammock. It is
not feared by the naked traveller; the sting is as painful as that of an
English horsefly, and leaves a lasting trace, but this hard-skinned
people expect no evil consequences from it. In the vicinity of Kilwa it
was heard of under the name of “kipanga,” the “little sword.” It is
difficult to conceive the purpose for which this plague was placed in a
land so eminently fitted for breeding cattle and for agriculture, which
without animals cannot be greatly extended, except as an exercise for
human ingenuity to remove. Possibly at some future day, when the country
becomes valuable, the tzetze may be exterminated by the introduction of
some insectivorous bird, which will be the greatest benefactor that
Central Africa ever knew.
After about an hour’s march, the narrow tunnel in the jungle--it was so
close that only one ass could be led up and unloaded at a
time--debouched upon the Mukondokwa ford. The view was not unpleasing.
The swift brown stream was broadened by a branch-islet in its upper bed
to nearly a hundred yards, and its margins were fringed with rushes
backed by a screen of dense verdure and tall trees which occupied the
narrow space between the water and the hills. The descent and the
landing-place were equally bad. Slipping down the steep miry bank the
porters sank into the river breast-deep, causing not a little damage to
their loads: the ford now wetted the waist then the knee, and the
landing-place was a kind of hippopotamus-run of thick slushy mud,
floored with roots and branches, snags and sawyers, and backed by a
quagmire rendered passable only by its matwork of tough grass-canes laid
by their own weight. Having crossed over on our men’s backs, we ascended
a little rise and lay down somewhat in the condition of travelling Manes
fresh from the transit of the Styx. I ordered back Kidogo with a gang of
porters to assist Said bin Salim who was bringing up the rear: he
promised to go but he went the wrong way--forwards. Resuming our march
along the river’s left or northern bank, we wound along the shoulders
and the bases of hills, sometimes ascending the spurs of stony and
jungly eminences, where the paths were unusually rough and precipitous,
at other times descending into the stagnant lagoons, the reedy and rushy
swamps, and the deep bogs which margin the stream. After a total of six
hours we reached a kraal situated upon the sloping ground at the foot of
the northern walls which limit the grassy river basin: through this the
Mukondokwa flows in a dark turbid stream now narrowed to about forty
feet. The district of “Kadetamare” was formerly a provisioning station
where even cattle were purchaseable, a rare exception to the rule in the
smaller settlements of Usagara. I at once sent men to collect rations,
none, however, were procurable: meeting a small party that were bringing
grain from Rumuma, they learned that there was a famine in the land.
At Kadetamare the only pedometer, a patent watch-shaped instrument,
broke down, probably from the effects of the climate. Whilst carried by
my companion it gave a steady exaggerative rate, but being set to the
usual military pace of 30 inches, when transferred to the person of
“Seedy Bombay” and others, it became worse than useless, sometimes
showing 25 for 13 miles. I would suggest to future explorers in these
regions, as the best and the most lasting means of measuring distances,
two of the small wheelbarrow perambulators--it is vain to put trust in a
single instrument--which can each be rolled on by one man. And when
these are spoilt or stolen, timing with the watch, and a correct
estimate of the walking rate combined with compass-bearings, the mean of
the oscillations being taken when on the march, would give a
“dead-reckoning,” which checked by latitudes, as often as the cloudy
skies permit, and by a few longitudes at crucial stations, would afford
materials for a map approximating as nearly to correctness as could be
desired in a country where a “handful of miles” little matters. The
other instruments, though carefully protected from the air, fared not
better than the pedometer: with three pocket-chronometers and a valuable
lever-watch, we were at last reduced to find time by a sixpenny
sun-dial. Before the first fortnight after our second landing in Africa
had elapsed, all these instruments, notwithstanding the time and trouble
devoted to them by my companion, at Zanzibar, failed in their ratings
and became useless for chronometric longitudes. Two of them (Ed. Baker,
London, No. 863, and Barraud, London, No. 2/537), stopped without
apparent reason. A third, a first-rate article (Parkinson and Frodsham,
No. 2955), issued to me from the Royal Observatory Greenwich, at the
kind suggestion of Capt. Belcher, of the Admiralty, had its glass broken
and its second-hand lost by the blunderer Gaetano: we remedied that evil
by counting the ticks without other trouble than that caused by the odd
number,--5 to 2 seconds. This instrument also summarily struck work on
the 9th November, 1858, the day before we intended to have “made a night
of it” at Jiwe la Mkoa. This may serve as a warning for future
travellers to avoid instruments so delicate that a jolt will disorder
them--the hair-spring of the lever watch was broken by my companion in
jumping out of a canoe--and which no one but a professional can attempt
to repair. A box chronometer carried in a “petarah” by a pole swung
between two men so as to preserve its horizontality, might outlast the
pocket-instruments, yet we read in Capt. Owens celebrated survey of the
African coasts, that out of nine not one kept rate without fluctuations.
The best plan would be to purchase half-a-dozen sound second-hand
watches, carefully inspected and cleaned, and to use one at a time; if
gold-mounted, they would form acceptable presents to the Arabs, and
ultimately would prove economical by obviating the necessity of parting
with more valuable articles.
The break-down of the last chronometer disheartened us for a time.
Presently when our brains, addled by sun and sickness, had recovered
tone by a return to the Usagara sanitarium, we remembered a rough and
ready succedaneum for instruments. I need scarcely tell the reader that,
unhappily for travellers, the only means of ascertaining the longitude
of a place is by finding the difference between the local and Greenwich
times, and that this difference of time with certain corrections is
converted into distance of space. We split a 4 oz. rifle-ball, inserted
into it a string measuring 39 inches from the point of suspension to the
centre of the weight, and fixed it by hammering the halves together. The
loose end of the cord was attached to a three-edged file as a pivot, and
this was lashed firmly to the branch of a tree sheltered as much as
possible from the wind. Local time was ascertained with a sextant by
taking the altitude of a star or a planet; Greenwich time by a distance
between the star or planet and the moon, and the vibrations of our rude
pendulum did all that a watch could do, by registering the seconds that
elapsed between the several observations.
I am somewhat presuming upon the subject, but perhaps it may here be
better to chronicle the accidents which happened to the rest of our
instruments. We had two Schmalcalder’s compasses (H. Barron & Co., 26,
Oxenden Street), which, when the paste-board faces had been acclimatized
and no longer curled up against their glasses, did good service; one of
them was trodden upon by my companion, the other by a sailor during a
cruise on the lake. We returned with a single instrument, the gift of my
old friend Lieut.-General Monteith; it had surveyed Persia, and
outlasting two long excursions into Eastern Africa, it still outlives
and probably will outlive many of the showy articles now supplied by the
trade. Finally, a ship’s compass, mounted in gimbals for boat-work and
indented for upon the Engineer’s Stores, Bombay, soon became lumber, its
oscillations were too sluggish to be useful.
We left Kadetamare on the 25th August, to ascend the fluviatile valley
of the Mukondokwa. According to the guides this stream is the upper
course of the Kingani River, with which it anastomoses in Uzaramo(?) It
cuts its way through the chain to which it gives a name, by a
transversal valley perpendicular to the lay, and so conveniently
disposed that the mountains seem rather to be made for their drain than
the drain for its mountains. The fluviatile valley is apparently girt on
all sides by high peaks, with homesteads smoking and cattle grazing on
all sides. Crippled by the night-cold that rose from the river-bed, and
then wet through with the dew that dripped from the tall grass, we
traversed, within ear-shot of the frightened villagers who hailed one
another from the heights, some fields of grain and tobacco that had been
lately reaped. After an hour and a-half of marching we arrived at the
second ford of the Mukondokwa. Receiving less drainage than in the lower
bed, the stream was narrower and only knee-deep; the landing-place of
sloppy mud caused, however, many accidents to the asses, and on
inspecting our stores a few days afterwards we found them all soft and
mildewed. The reader will wonder that on these occasions we did not
personally inspect the proceedings of our careless followers. The fact
is we were physically and morally incapacitated for any exertion beyond
balancing ourselves upon the donkeys; at Kadetamare I had laid in
another stock of fever, and my companion had not recovered from his
second severe attack. After fording the Mukondokwa we followed the right
bank through cultivation, grass, and trees, up a gradually broadening
valley peculiarly rich in field-rats. The path then crossing sundry
swamps and nullahs, hill-spurs and “neat’s tongues,” equally rough
thorny and precipitous, presently fell into a river-reach where pools of
water, breast deep, and hedged in by impassable jungle and long runs of
slushy mire festering in a furious sun, severely tried the porters and
asses. Thence the road wound under the high hills to the South, whose
flanks were smoking with extensive conflagrations, whilst on the
opposite or left bank of the river, the opening valley displayed a
forest of palms and tall trees. About 2 P.M. I reached the ground, a
hutless circle of thorns, called by our people Muinyi: the rear-guard,
however, did not straggle in before 6 P.M., and the exhaustion of the
asses--seventeen now remained--rendered a day’s halt necessary.
During the last two marches the Baloch had been, they declared, without
grain; the sons of Ramji and the porters, more provident, had reserved a
small store, moreover they managed to procure a sheep from the next
station. On the morrow a party, headed by Muinyi Wazira, set out to
forage among the mountain settlements, bearing no arms in token of
peace. About noon they returned, and reported that at the sight of
strangers the people had taken to flight, after informing the party that
they were in the habit of putting to death all Murungwana or freemen
found trespassing off the road; however, that on this occasion the lives
of the strangers should be spared. But Ambari, a slave belonging to Said
bin Salim, presently tattled the true tale. The gallant foragers had not
dared to enter the village; when the war-cry flew from hamlet to hamlet,
and all the Wasagara, even the women and children, seized their spears
and stood to arms, they at once threw themselves into the jungle and
descended the hill with such unseemly haste that most of them bore the
wounds of thorns and stones. Two of Baloch, Riza and Belok, lit their
matches and set out proudly to provide themselves by their prowess; they
were derided by Kidogo: “Verily, O my brethren! ye go forth to meet men
and not women!” and after a hundred yards’ walk they took second
thoughts and returned. The Mukondokwa Mountains, once a garden, have
become a field for fray and foray; cruelty and violence have brutalised
the souls of the inhabitants, and they have learned, as several
atrocities committed since our passage through the country prove, to
wreak their vengeance upon all weaker than themselves.
On the 27th August we resumed our way under fresh difficulties. The last
march had cost us another ass. Muhinna, a donkey-driver, complaining of
fever, had been mounted by Kidogo without my permission, and had
summarily departed, thus depriving us of the services of a second,
whilst all were in a state of weakness which compelled them to walk at
their slowest pace. On the other hand, the men of the caravan, hungry
and suffering from raw south-east wind and the chilly cold, the result
not of low temperature but of humidity and extensive evaporation, were
for pushing forward as fast as possible. The path was painful, winding
along the shoulders of stony and bushy hills, with rough re-entering
angles, and sometimes dipping down into the valley of the Mukondokwa,
which, hard on the right, spread out in swamps, nearly two miles broad,
temporary where they depended upon rain, and permanent where their low
levels admitted of free infiltration. On the steep eminences to the left
of the path rose tall and thick the thorny aloetic and cactaceous growth
of arid Somaliland; the other side was a miniature of the marine
lagoons, the creeks, and the bayous of green Zanzibar. After three hours
of hard marching, the labour came to its crisis, where the path,
breaking off at a right angle from the river, wound up an insecure
ladder of loose earth and stones, which caused several porters and one
ass to lose their footing, and to roll with their loads through the
thorny bushes of the steep slope, near the off side, into the bed of
rushes below. Then leaving the river-valley on the right, we fell into a
Fiumara of deep loose sand, about a hundred yards broad, and occupying
the centre of a widening table-land. The view now changed, and the
“wady” afforded pleasant glimpses of scenery. Its broad, smooth and
glistening bed, dinted by the footprints of cattle, was bounded by low
perpendicular banks of stiff red clay, margined by mighty masses of
brilliant green tamarinds, calabashes, and sycomores, which stood
sharply out against the yellow stubbles beyond them. The Mkuyu or
sycomore in Eastern Africa is a magnificent tree; the bole, composed of
a pillared mass, averages from eight to ten feet in height, and the huge
branches, thatched with thick cool foliage, extend laterally,
overshadowing a circle whose perimeter, when the sun is vertical,
sometimes attains five hundred feet. The fruit, though eaten by
travellers, is a poor berry, all rind and seeds, with a slender title to
the name of fig. There are apparently two varieties of this tree,
resembling each other in general appearance, but differing in details.
The Mtamba has a large, heavy, and fleshy leaf; its fruit is not smooth
like that of the Mkuyu, but knobbed with green excrescences, and the
bole is loftier than the common sycomore’s trunk. The roots of the older
trees, rising above the earth, draw up a quantity of mould which, when
the wood is decayed or destroyed, forms the dwarf mounds that in many
parts encumber the surface of the country. Traces of extensive
cultivation--fields of bajri or panicum, the staple cereal which here
supplants the normal African holcus, or Kafir corn, and plantations of
luxuriant maize, of beans, of the vetch known as the voiandzeia
subterranea, of tobacco, and other plants--showed that this district is
beyond the reach of the coast-kidnappers. From the rising ground on the
left hand we heard the loud tattoo of the drum. The Baloch, choosing to
be alarmed, fired several shots, much to the annoyance of the irascible
Kidogo, who had laid down as a law that waste of powder in this region
was more likely to invite than to prevent an attack. As we ascended the
Fiumara it narrowed rapidly, and its head was encumbered with heaps of
boulders from which sprang a runnel of the sweetest water. The
camping-ground was upon the left bank of the bed. The guide called it
Ndábi, probably from a small gnarled tree here abundant, bearing a fruit
like a pale red currant, which tastes like sweetened gum dissolved in
dirty water. I lost no time in sending for provisions, which were scarce
and dear. Bombay failed in procuring a sheep, though the Baloch, by
paying six cloths, were more fortunate. One of Kidogo’s principles of
action, in which he was abetted by Said bin Salim, was to prevent our
buying provisions, however necessary, at high prices, fearing lest the
tariff thus established might become an “ada,” a precedent or custom for
future travellers, himself and others. We were, therefore, fain to
content ourselves and our servants with a little bajri and two eggs.
After a day’s halt at Ndabi we resumed the journey on the 29th August.
The path crossed a high and stony hill-shoulder, where the bleak raw air
caused one of the porters to lie down torpid like a frozen man. It then
stretched over gradually rising and falling ground to a dense bush of
cactaceæ and milk-bush, aloetic plants and thorns, based upon a surface
of brickdust-red. Beyond this point lay another plateau of wavy surface,
producing dwarfed and wind-wrung calabashes, and showing grain-fields
carefully and laboriously ridged with the hoe. Flocks and herds now
appeared in all directions. The ground was in some places rust-coloured,
in others dazzlingly white with a detritus of granite; mica glittered
like silver-filings in the sun, and a fine silky grass waved in the
wind, bleached clean of colour by the glowing rays. This plateau ended
in a descent with rapid slopes, over falls and steps of rock and boulder
into the basin of the Rumuma River. It is a southern influent, or a
bifurcation of the Mukondokwa, and it drains the hills to the south-west
of the Rumuma district, whereas the main stream, arising in the
highlands of the Wahumba or Wamusai, carries off the waters of the lands
on the west. Losing our way, we came upon this mountain-torrent, which
swirls through blocks and boulders under stiff banks of red earth
densely grown with brush and reeds; and to find the kraal we were
obliged to travel up the bed-side, through well-hoed fields irrigated by
raised water-courses. The khambi was badly situated in the dwarf hollow
between the river and the hills, and having lately been tenanted, as the
smoking embers showed, it was uncleanly in the extreme. It was
heart-breaking to see the asses that day. I left them to Said bin Salim,
who, with many others, did not appear till eventide.
Rumuma is a favourite resting-place with caravans, on account of the
comparative abundance of its supplies. I halted here two whole days, to
rest and feed the starving porters, and to repair the sacks, the
pack-saddles, and the other appointments of the asses. Here, for the
first time, the country people descended in crowds from the hills,
bringing fowls, hauling along small but beautifully formed goats, lank
sheep, and fine bullocks--the latter worth twelve cloths--and carrying
on their heads basket-platters full of the Voandzeia, bajri, beans, and
the _Arachis Hypogæa_. The latter is called by the Arabs Sumbul el
Sibal, or “Monkey’s Spikenard;” on the coast, Njugu ya Nyassa; in
Unyamwezi, Karanga or K’haranga, and further west, Mayowwa or Mwanza. It
is the Bhuiphali, or “earth-fruit” of India, and the Bik’han of
Maharatta land, where it is used by cheap confectioners in the place of
almonds, whose taste it simulates. Our older Cape travellers term it the
pig-nut. The plant extends itself along the surface of the ground, and
puts forth its fruit at intervals below. It is sown before the rains,
and ripens after six months,--in the interior about June. The Arabs fry
it with cream that has been slightly salted, and employ it in a variety
of rich dishes; it affords them also a favourite oil. The Africans use
it principally on journeys. The price greatly varies according to the
abundance of the article; when moderate, about two pounds may be
purchased for a “khete” of coral beads.
The Wasagara of Rumuma are short, black, beardless men. They wear their
hair combed off the forehead, and twisted into a fringe of little
pig-tails, which extend to the nape of the neck. Few boast of cloth, the
general body contenting themselves with a goat-skin flap somewhat like a
cobbler’s apron tied over one shoulder, as we sling a game-bag. Their
ornaments are zinc and brass earrings in rolls, which distend the
ear-lobe, bangles, or armlets of similar metal, and iron chains with
oblong links as anklets. Their arms are bows and arrows, assegais with
long lanceated heads, and bull-hide shields, three feet long by one
broad, painted black and red in perpendicular stripes. I was visited by
their Sultan Njasa, a small grizzled old man, with eyes reddened by
liquor, a wide mouth, a very thin beard, a sooty skin, and long
straggling hair, “_à la malcontent_.” He was attired in an antiquated
Barsati, or blue and red Indian cotton, tucked in at the waist, with
another thrown over his shoulders, and his neck was decked with many
strings of beads. He insisted upon making “sare” or brotherhood with
Said bin Salim, who being forbidden by his law to taste blood, made the
unconscientious Muinyi Wazira his proxy. The two brothers being seated
on the ground opposite each other, with legs well to the fore, one man
held over their heads a drawn sword, whilst another addressed to them
alternately a little sermon, denouncing death or slavery as the penalty
for proving false to the vow. Then each brother licked a little of the
other’s blood, taken with the finger from a knife-cut above the heart,
or rather where the heart is popularly supposed to be. The Sultan then
presented to the Muinyi, _in memoriam_, a neat iron chain-anklet, and
the Muinyi presented to the Sultan a little of our cloth.
The climate of Rumuma was new to me, after the incessant rains of the
maritime valley, and the fogs and mists of the Rufuta Range. It was,
however, in extremes. At night the thermometer, under the influence of
dewy gusts, sank in the tent to 48° F., a killing temperature in these
latitudes to half-naked and houseless men. During the day the mercury
ranged between 80° and 90° F.; the sun was fiery, whilst a furious south
wind coursed through skies purer and bluer than I had ever seen in
Greece or Italy. At times, according to the people, the hill-tops are
veiled, especially in the mornings and evenings, with thick nimbus,
vapours, and spitting clouds, which sometimes extend to the plain, and
discharge heavy showers that invariably cause sickness. Here my
companion once more suffered from an attack of “liver,” brought on, he
supposed, from over-devotion to a fat bullock’s hump. Two of the
Wanyamwezi porters were seized with preliminary symptoms of small-pox,
euphuistically termed by Said bin Salim “shurua,” or chicken-pox.
Several of the slaves, including the charming Halimah, were laid up; the
worst of all, however, was Valentine, who complained of an unceasing
racking headache, whilst his puffed cheeks and dull-yellow skin gave him
the look of one newly deceased. At length, divining his complaint, he
was cupped by a Mnyamwezi porter, and he recovered after the operation
strength and appetite.
The 2nd of September saw us _en route_ to Márengá Mk’hali, or the
“brackish water.” Fording the Rumuma above the spot where it receives
the thin supplies of the Márengá Mk’hali, we marched over stony hills
and thorny bushes, dotted with calabash and mimosa, the castor-shrub and
the wild egg-plant, and gradually rising, we passed into scattered
fields of holcus and bajri, pulse and beans. Here, for the first time,
bee-hives, called by the coast-people Mazinga, or cannons, from their
shape, hollowed cylindrical logs, closed with grass and puddle at both
ends, and provided with an oval opening in the centre, were seen hanging
to the branches of the foliaged trees. Cucumbers, water-melons, and
pumpkins grew apparently without cultivation. The water-melon, called by
the Arabs Johh, and by the Wasawahili Tikiti, flourishes throughout the
interior, where it is a favourite with the people. It is sown before the
rainy season, gathered after six months, and placed to ripen upon the
flat roofs of the villages. Like the produce of Kafir-land, it is hard,
insipid, fleshy, and full of seeds, having nothing but the name in
common with the delicious fruit of Egypt and Afghanistan. The Junsal, or
Boga, the pumpkin, is, if possible, worse than the water-melon. Its red
meat, simply boiled, is nauseously sweet; it is, however, considered
wholesome, and the people enjoy the seeds toasted, pounded, and mixed
with the “Mboga,” or wild vegetables, with which a veritable African
can, in these regions, keep soul and body together for six months. About
10 A.M., I found Khalfan’s caravan halted in a large kraal amongst the
villages, on the eastern hill above the “brackish water.” They were
loading for the march, and my men looked wistfully at the comfortable
huts; but their halt had been occasioned by small-pox, I therefore
hurried forwards across the streamlet to a wind-swept summit of an
opposite hill. The place was far from pleasant, the gusts were furious;
by night the thermometer showed 54° F., by day there was but scanty
shelter from the fiery sun, and the “Márengá Mk’hali,” which afforded
the only supplies of water, was at a considerable distance. Moreover our
umbrellas and bedding suffered severely from a destructive host of white
ants, that here became troublesome for the first time. The “Chunga
Mchwa,” or termite, abounds throughout the sweet red clay soils, and
cool damp places, avoiding heat, sand, and stone, and it acts like a
clearer and scavenger; without it, indeed, some parts of the country
would be impassable, and it is endowed with extraordinary powers of
destruction. A hard clay-bench has been drilled and pierced like a sieve
by these insects in a single night, and bundles of reeds placed under
bedding, have in a few hours been converted into a mass of mud; straps
were consumed, cloths and umbrellas were reduced to rags, and the mats
used for covering the servants’ sleeping-gear were, in the shortest
possible time, so tattered as to be unserviceable. Man revenges himself
upon the white ant, and satisfies his craving for animal food, which in
these regions becomes a principle of action,--a passion,--by boiling the
largest and fattest kind, and eating it as a relish with his insipid
ugali, or porridge. The termite appears to be a mass of live water. Even
in the driest places it finds no difficulty in making a clay-paste for
the mud-galleries, like hollow tree-twigs, with which it disguises its
approach to its prey. The phenomenon has been explained by the
conjecture that it combines by vital force the atmospheric oxygen with
the hydrogen evolved by its food. When arrived at the adult state, the
little peoples rise ready-winged, like thin curls of pipe-smoke,
generally about even-tide, from the ground. After a flight of a few
yards, the fine membranes, which apparently serve to disperse the
insects into colonies, drop off. In East Africa there is also a
semi-transparent brown ant, resembling the termite in form, but
differing in habits, and even exceeding it in destructiveness. It does
not, like its congener, run galleries up to the point of attack. Each
individual works for itself in the open air, tears the prey with its
strong mandibles, and carries it away to its hole. The cellular hills of
the termites in this country rarely rise to the height of three feet,
whereas in Somali-land they become dwarf towers, forming a conspicuous
feature in the view.
No watch was kept by the Baloch at Márengá Mk’hali, though we were then
in the vicinity of the bandit Wahumba. On the next day we were harangued
by Kidogo, who proceeded to expound the principles that must guide us
through the unsafe regions ahead. The caravan must no longer straggle on
in its usual disorder, the van must stop short when separated from the
main body, and the rear must advance at the double when summoned by the
sound of the Barghumi, or the koodoo-horn, which acts as bugle in
Eastern Africa. I thought, at the time, that Kidogo might as well
address his admonitions to the wind, and I thought rightly.
The route lay through the lateral plain which separates the Mukondokwa
or second, from the Rubeho or third parallel range of the Usagara
Mountains. At Márengá, Mk’hali, situated as it is under the lee of the
two eastern walls, upon which the humid N. E. and S. E. trade-winds
impinge, the eye no longer falls, as before, upon a sheet of monotonous
green, and the nose is not offended by the death-like exhalations of a
pestilent vegetation. The dew diminishes, the morning-cloud is rare upon
the hill-top, and the stratus is not often seen in the valley; rain,
moreover, seldom falls heavily, except during its single appointed
season. The climate is said to be salubrious, and the medium elevation
of the land, 2500 feet, raises it high above the fatal fever-level,
without attaining the altitudes where dysentery and pleurisy afflict the
inhabitants. For many miles beyond Márengá Mk’hali water is rarely
found. Caravans, therefore, resort to what is technically called a
“Tirikeza,” or afternoon march. In the Kisawahili, or coast-language,
“ku Tirikeza,” or “Tilikeza,” and in Kinyamwezi, “ku Witekezea,” is the
infinitive of a neuter verb signifying “to march after noon-day”; by the
Arabs it is corrupted into a substantive. Similarly the verb ku honga,
to pay “dash”, tribute, passage-money, or blackmail, becomes in the
mouths of the stranger, ku honga, or Honga. The tirikeza is one of the
severest inflictions that African travelling knows. At 11 A.M.
everything is thrown into confusion, although two or three hours must
elapse before departure; loads are bound up, kitchen-batteries are
washed and packed, tents are thrown, and stools are carried off by
fidgeting porters and excited slaves. Having drunk for the last time,
and filled their gourds for the night, the wayfarers set out when the
midday ends. The sun is far more severely felt after the sudden change
from shade, than during the morning marches, when its increase of heat
is slow and gradual. They trudge under the fireball in the firmament,
over ground seething with glow and reek, through an air which seems to
parch the eyeballs, and they endure this affliction till their shadows
lengthen out upon the ground. The tirikeza is almost invariably a
lengthy stage, as the porters wish to abridge the next morning’s march,
which leads to water. It is often bright moonlight before they arrive at
the ground, with faces torn by the thorns projecting across the jungly
path, with feet lacerated by stone and stub, and occasionally a leg
lamed by stumbling into deep and narrow holes, the work of field-rats
and of various insects.
We left Márengá Mk’hali at 1 P.M., on the 3rd September, and in order to
impressionise a large and well-armed band of the country people that had
gathered to stare at, to criticise, and to deride us, we indulged in a
little harmless sword-play, with a vast show of ferocity and readiness
for fight. The road lay over several rough, steep, and bushy ridges,
where the wretched asses, rushing away to take advantage of a yard of
shade, caused constant delays. The Wanyamwezi animals having a great
persistency of character, could scarcely be dislodged; and when they
were, they threw their loads in pure spite. After topping a little “col”
or pass, we came in sight of an extensive basin, bounded by distant blue
hills, to which the porters pointed with a certain awe, declaring them
to be the haunts of the fierce Wahumba. A descent of the western flank
led us to a space partially cleared by burning, when the cry arose that
men were lurking about. We then plunged into a thick bush of thorny
trees, based upon a red clayey soil caked into the semblance of a rock.
Contrary to expectation, when crossing a deep nullah trending
northwards, we found a little rusty, ochreish water, in one of the cups
and holes that dented the sandstone of the soles. Thence the path,
gradually descending, fell into a coarse scrub, varied with small open
savannahs, and broken, like the rest of the road, by deep, narrow
watercourses, which carry off the waters of the southern hills to the
northern lowlands. About 6 P.M., we came upon a cleared space in a thick
thorn-jungle, where we established ourselves for the night. The near
whine of the hyæna, and the alarm of the asses, made sleep a difficulty.
The impatience and selfishness of thirst showed strongly in the Baloch.
Belok had five large gourds full of water, perhaps three gallons, yet he
would not part with a palmful to the sick Ismail. That day I was
compelled to dismiss my usual ass-leader Shahdad, the zeze-player and
fracturer of female hearts, who preferring the conversation of his
fellows, dragged the animal through thorns and alongside of trees so
artistically, that my nether garments were soon in strips. I substituted
for him Musa the Greybeard, who, after a few days, begged, with bitter
tears, to be excused. It was his habit to hurry on towards the kraal and
shade, and the slow hobble of the ass detained him a whole hour in sore
discomfort. The task was then committed to the tailor-youth Hudul, who
lost no time in declaring that I had abused him--that he was a
Baloch--that he was not an asinego. Then I tried Abdullah,--the good
young man. I dismissed him because every day brought with it a fresh
demand for cloth or beads, gourds or sandals, for a “chit” to the
Balyuz--the Consul, or a general good character as regards honesty,
virtue, and the _et ceteras_. Finally the ass was entrusted to the
bull-headed slave Mabruki, who thinking of nothing but chat with his
“brother,” Seedy Bombay, and having that curious mania for command which
seems part of every servile nature, hurried my monture so recklessly,
that earth-cracks and rat-holes caused us twain many a severe fall. My
companion had entrusted himself to Bombay, who, though he did nothing
well rarely did anything very badly.
The 4th September began with an hour’s toil through the dense bush, to a
rapid descent over red soil and rocks, which necessitated frequent
dismounting,--no pleasant exercise after a sleepless night. Below, lay a
wide basin of rolling ground, surrounded in front by a rim of hills. It
was one of the many views which “catching the reflex of heaven,” and
losing by indistinctness the harshness of defined outline and the
deformity of individual feature, assume, viewed from afar, a peculiar
picturesqueness. Traces of extensive cultivation, flocks and herds, were
descried in the lower levels, which were a network of sandy nullahs; and
upon the rises, the regular and irregular square or oblong habitations,
called “Tembe,” were seen for the first time. Early September is, in
this region, the depth of winter. Under the burning, glaring sun, the
grass becomes white as the ground; the fields, stubbles stiff as
harrows, are stained only by the shadow of passing clouds; the trees,
except upon the nullah-banks, are gaunt and bare, the animals are
walking skeletons, and nothing seems to flourish but flies and white
ants, caltrops and grapple-plants. After crossing deep water-cuts
trending N.E. and N.N.E., we descended a sharp incline and a rough
ladder of boulders, and found a dirty and confined kraal, on the side of
a rocky khad[8] or ravine, which drains off the surplus moisture of the
westerly crags and highlands, and which affords sweet springs, that
cover the soil as far as they extend with a nutritious and succulent
grass. As this was to be a halting-place, a more than usually violent
rush was made by the Baloch, the sons of Ramji, and the porters, to
secure the best quarters. The Jemadar remaining behind with three of the
Wanyamwezi, who were unable to walk, did not arrive till after noon, and
my companion, suffering from a paroxysm of bilious fever, came in even
later. Valentine was weaker than usual, and Gaetano groaned more
frequently, “ang duk’hta”--body pains! To add other troubles, an ass had
been lost, and “Khamsin,”--No. 50--my riding-animal, had by breaking a
tooth in fighting incapacitated itself for food or drink: its feebleness
compelled me to transfer the saddle to the last of the Zanzibar
riding-asses, Siringe,--the Quarter-dollar--and Siringe, sadly
back-sore, cowering in the hams, and slipping from under me every few
minutes, showed present signs of giving in.
[8] The Indian “khad” is the deep rocky drain in hilly countries, thus
differing from the popular idea of a “ravine,” and from the nullah,
which is a formation in more level lands.
The basin of Inenge lies at the foot of the Rubeho or “Windy Pass,” the
third and westernmost range of the Usagara Mountains. The climate, like
that of Rumuma, is ever in extremes--during the day a furnace, and at
night a refrigerator--the position is a funnel, which alternately
collects the fiery sunbeams and the chilly winds that pour down from the
misty highlands. The villagers of the settlements overlooking the
ravine, flocked down to barter their animals and grain. Here, for the
first time since our departure from the coast, honey, clarified butter,
and, greatest boon of all, milk, fresh and sour, were procurable. The
man who has been restricted to a diet so unwholesome as holcus and
bajri, with an occasional treat of kennel-food,--broth and beans,--will
understand that the first unexpected appearance of milk, butter, and
honey formed an epoch in our journey.
The halt was celebrated with abundant drumming and droning, which lasted
half the night; it served to cheer the spirits of the men, who had
talked of nothing the whole day but the danger of being attacked by the
Wahumba. On the next morning arrived a caravan of about 400 Wanyamwezi
porters marching to the coast, under the command of Isa bin Hijji and
three other Arab merchants. An interchange of civilities took place. The
Arabs lacking cloth could not feed their slaves and porters, who
deserted daily, imperilling a valuable investment in ivory. The
Europeans could afford a small contribution of three Gorah or pieces of
domestics: they received a present of fine white rice, a few pounds of
salt, and a goat, in exchange for a little perfumed snuff and
assafœtida, which after a peculiar infusion is applied to wounds, and
which, administered internally, is considered a remedy for many
complaints. I was allured to buy a few yards of rope, indispensable for
packing the animals. The number of our asses being reduced from thirty
to fifteen, and the porters from thirty-six to thirty, it was necessary
to recruit. The Arabs sold two Wanyamwezi animals for ten dollars each,
payable at Zanzibar. One proved valuable as a riding ass, and carried me
to the Central Lake, and back to Unyanyembe: the other, though caponized
and blind on the off-side, had become by bad treatment so obstinate and
so cleverly vicious, that the Baloch called him “Shaytan yek-cham,” or
the “one-eyed fiend:” he carried, besides sundries, four boxes of
ammunition, weighing together 160 pounds, and even under these he danced
like a deer. Nothing was against him but his character: after a few days
he was cast adrift in the wilderness of Mgunda M’khali, because no man
dared to load and lead him. Knowing that the Arab merchants upon this
line hold it a point of honour to discourage, by refusing a new
engagement, the down-porters in their proclivity to desert, and
believing that it was a stranger’s duty to be even stricter than they
are, I gave most stringent orders that any fugitive porter detected in
my caravan should be sent back a prisoner to his employers. But the
Coast-Arabs and the Wasawahili ignore this commercial chivalry, and
shamelessly offer a premium to “levanters:” moreover, in these lands it
is hard to make men understand the _rapport_ between sayings and doings.
Seven or eight fellows, who secretly left the party, were sent back;
one, however, was taken on without my knowledge. Said bin Salim
persuaded the merchants to lend us the services of three Wanyamwezi, who
for sums varying from eight Shukkah to two cloths, and a coil large
enough to make three wire bracelets, undertook to carry packs as far as
Unyanyembe. Our Ras Kafilah had increased in Uzaramo his suite by the
addition of “Zawada,”--the “nice gift,” a parting present of the headman
Kizaya. She was a woman about thirty, with a black skin shining like a
patent-leather boot, a bulging brow, little red eyes, a wide mouth which
displayed a few long, strong, scattered teeth, and a figure considerably
too bulky for her thin legs, which were unpleasantly straight, like
ninepins. Her _morale_ was superior to her _physique_; she was a patient
and hard-working woman, and respectable in the African acceptation of
the term. She was at once married off to old Musangesi, one of the
donkey-men, whose nose and chin made him a caricature of our dear old
friend Punch. After detecting her in a lengthy walk, perhaps not
solitary, through the jungle, he was palpably guilty of such cruelty
that I felt compelled to decree a dissolution of the marriage. After
passing through sundry adventures she returned safely to Zanzibar,
where, for aught I know, she may still grace the harem of Said bin
Salim. At Inenge another female slave was added to the troop, in the
person of the lady Sikujui, “Don’t know,” a “mulier nigris dignissima
barris,” whose herculean person and virago manner raised her value to
six cloths and a large coil of brass wire. The channel of her upper lip
had been pierced to admit a disk of bone; her Arab master had attempted
to correct the disfigurement by scarification and the use of rock-salt,
yet the distended muscles insisted upon projecting sharply from her
countenance, like a duck’s bill, or the beak of an ornithorhyncus. This
truly African ornamentation would have supplied another instance to the
ingenious author of “Anthropometamorphosis.”[9] “Don’t know’s” morals
were frightful. She was duly espoused--as the forlorn hope of making her
an “honest woman”--to Goha, the sturdiest of the Wak’hutu porters; after
a week she treated him with a sublime contempt. She gave him first one,
then a dozen rivals; she disordered the caravan by her irregularities;
she broke every article entrusted to her charge, as the readiest way of
lightening her burden, and--“le moindre défaut d’une femme galante est
de l’être”--she deserted so shamelessly that at last Said bin Salim
disposed of her, at Unyanyembe, for a few measures of rice, to a
travelling trader, who came the next morning to complain of a broken
head.
[9] Anthropometamorphosis: Man-transformed: or the Artificial
Changeling, historically presented, In the mad and cruel Gallantry,
foolish Bravery, Ridiculous Beauty, filthy Finenesse, and loathsome
Loveliness of most NATIONS, fashioning and attiring their Bodies from
the mould intended by NATURE; with figures of these Transfigurations.
To which artificial and affected Deformations are added, all the
Native and National Monstrosities that have appeared to disfigure the
Humane Fabrick. With a VINDICATION of the Regular Beauty and Honesty
of NATURE. With an Appendix of the Pedigree of the ENGLISH GALLANT.
Scripsit J. B. Cognomento Chirosophus, M.D “In nova fert animus,
mutatas dicere formas.” London: Printed by William Hunt, Anno. Dom.
1653.
Isa bin Hijji did us various good services. He and his companions kindly
waited some days to superintend our preparations for crossing the Rubeho
Range. They supplied useful hints for keeping the caravan together at
different places infamous for desertion. They gave me valuable
information about Ugogo and Ujiji, and they placed at my disposal their
house at Unyanyembe. They “wigged” the Kirangozi, or guide, for
carelessness in not building a kraal-fence every night, and for not
bringing in, as the custom is, wood and water. Kidogo was reproved for
allowing his men to load our asses with their luggage, and the Baloch
for their continual complaints about food. The latter had long forgotten
the promises made at Muhama; they returned at every opportunity to their
old tactic, that of obtaining, by all manner of pretexts, as much cloth
and beads as possible, ostensibly for provisions, really for trading and
buying slaves. At Rumuma they declared that one cloth per diem starved
them. Said bin Salim sent them its value, about fifty pounds of beans,
and they had abundant rations of beef and mutton, but they could not eat
beans. At Inenge they wanted flour, and as the country people sold only
grain, they gave themselves up to despair. I sent for the Jemadar and
told him, in presence of the merchants, that, as a fitting opportunity
had presented itself, I was willing to weed the party, by giving
official dismissal to Khudabakhsh and Belok, to the invalid Ismail and
his musical “brother” Shahdad. All four, when consulted, declared that
they would die rather than blacken their faces by abandoning the “Haji
Abdullah;” that same evening, however, as I afterwards learned, they
wrote, by means of the Arabs, a heartrending complaint to their chief
Jemadar at Zanzibar, declaring that he had thrown them into the fire (of
affliction), and that their blood was upon his hands. My companion
prepared official papers and maps for the Secretary of the Royal
Geographical Society, and I again indented upon the Consul and the
Collector of Customs for drugs, medical comforts, and an extra supply of
cloth and beads, to the extent of 400 dollars, for which a cheque upon
my agents in Bombay was enclosed. The Arabs took leave of us on the 2nd
September. I charged them repeatedly not to spread reports of our
illness, and I saw them depart with regret. It had really been a relief
to hear once more the voice of civility and sympathy.
The great labour still remained. Trembling with ague, with swimming
heads, ears deafened by weakness, and limbs that would hardly support
us, we contemplated with a dogged despair the apparently perpendicular
path that ignored a zigzag, and the ladders of root and boulder, hemmed
in with tangled vegetation, up which we and our starving drooping asses
were about to toil. On the 10th September we hardened our hearts, and
began to breast the Pass Terrible. My companion was so weak that he
required the aid of two or three supporters; I, much less unnerved,
managed with one. After rounding in two places wall-like sheets of
rock--at their bases green grass and fresh water were standing close to
camp, and yet no one had driven the donkeys to feed--and crossing a
bushy jungly step, we faced a long steep of loose white soil and rolling
stones, up which we could see the Wanyamwezi porters swarming, more like
baboons scaling a precipice than human beings, and the asses falling
after every few yards. As we moved slowly and painfully forwards,
compelled to lie down by cough, thirst, and fatigue, the “sayhah” or
war-cry rang loud from hill to hill, and Indian files of archers and
spearmen streamed like lines of black ants in all directions down the
paths. The predatory Wahumba, awaiting the caravan’s departure, had
seized the opportunity of driving the cattle and plundering the villages
of Inenge. Two passing parties of men, armed to the teeth, gave us this
information; whereupon the negro “Jelai” proposed, fear-maddened--a
_sauve qui peut_--leaving to their fate his employers, who, bearing the
mark of Abel in this land of Cain, were ever held to be the head and
front of all offence. Khudabakhsh, the brave of braves, being attacked
by a slight fever, lay down, declaring himself unable to proceed, moaned
like a bereaved mother, and cried for drink like a sick girl. The rest
of the Baloch, headed by the Jemadar, were in the rear; they had
levelled their matchlocks at one of the armed parties as it approached
them, and, but for the interference of Kidogo, blood would have been
shed.
By resting after every few yards, and by clinging to our supporters, we
reached, after about six hours, the summit of the Pass Terrible, and
there we sat down amongst the aromatic flowers and bright shrubs--the
gift of mountain dews--to recover strength and breath. My companion
could hardly return an answer; he had advanced mechanically and almost
in a state of coma. The view from the summit appeared eminently
suggestive, perhaps unusually so, because disclosing a retrospect of
severe hardships, now past and gone. Below the foreground of giant
fractures, huge rocks, and detached boulders, emerging from a shaggy
growth of mountain vegetation, with forest glens and hanging woods,
black with shade gathering in the steeper folds, appeared, distant yet
near, the tawny basin of Inenge, dotted with large square villages,
streaked with lines of tender green, that denoted the water-courses,
mottled by the shadows of flying clouds, and patched with black where
the grass had been freshly fired. A glowing sun gilded the canopy of
dense smoke which curtained the nearer plain, and in the background the
hazy atmosphere painted with its azure the broken wall of hill which we
had traversed on the previous day.
Somewhat revived by the _tramontana_ which rolled like an ice-brook down
the Pass, we advanced over an easy step of rolling ground, decked with
cactus and the flat-topped mimosa, with green grass and bright shrubs,
to a small and dirty khambi, in a hollow flanked by heights, upon which
several settlements appeared. At this place, called the “Great Rubeho,”
in distinction from its western neighbour, I was compelled to halt. My
invalid sub. had been seized with a fever-fit that induced a dangerous
delirium during two successive nights; he became so violent that it was
necessary to remove his weapons, and, to judge from certain symptoms,
the attack had a permanent cerebral effect. Death appeared stamped upon
his features, yet the Baloch and the sons of Ramji clamoured to advance,
declaring that the cold disagreed with them.
On the 12th September the invalid, who, restored by a cool night, at
first proposed to advance, and then doubted his ability to do so, was
yet hesitating when the drum-signal for departure sounded without my
order. The Wanyamwezi porters instantly set out. I sent to recal them,
but they replied that it was the custom of their race never to return; a
well-sounding principle against which they never offended except to
serve their own ends. At length a hammock was rigged up for my
companion, and the whole caravan broke ground.
The path ran along the flank of an eminence, and, ascending a second
step, as steep but shorter than the Pass Terrible, placed us at the
Little Rubeho, or Windy Pass, the summit of the third and westernmost
range of the Usagara Mountains, raised 5,700 feet above the sea-level.
It is the main water-parting of this ghaut-region. At Inenge the trend
is still to the S.E.; beyond Rubeho the direction is S.W. Eventually,
however, the drainage of both slope and counter-slope finds its way to
the Indian Ocean, the former through the Mukondokwa and the Kingani, the
latter through the Rwaha and the Rufiji Rivers.
A lively scene awaited my arrival at the “Little Rubeho.” From a
struggling mass of black humanity, which I presently determined to be
our porters, proceeded a furious shouting and yelling. Spears and
daggers flashed in the sun, and cudgels played with a threshing movement
which promised many a broken head. At the distance of a few yards, with
fierce faces and in motionless martial attitudes, the right hand upon
the axe-handle stuck in the waist-belt, and the left grasping the bow
and two or three polished assegais, stood a few strong fellows, the
forlorn hope of the fray. In the midst of the crowd, like Norman
Ramsay’s troop begirt by French cavalry--to compare small things with
great--rose and fell the chubby, thickset forms of Muinyi Wazira and his
four Wak’hutu, who, undaunted by numbers, were dealing death to nose and
scalp. Charge! Mavi ya Gnombe (“Bois de Vache”) charge! On! Mashuzi
(“Fish Fry-soup”) on! Bite, Kuffan Kwema (“To die is good”) bite, Smite,
Na daka Mali (“I want wealth”) smite! At length, when
“Blood (t’was from the nose) began to flow,”
a little active interference rescued the five “enfans perdus.” The
porters had been fighting upon the question whether the men with
small-pox should, or should not, be admitted into the kraal, and Muinyi
Wazira and his followers, under the influence of potations which
prevented their distinguishing friend from foe, had proved themselves,
somewhat unnecessarily heroes. It is usually better to let these
quarrels work themselves out; if prematurely cut short, the serpent,
wrath, is scotched, not slain. A little “punishment” always cools the
blood, and secures peace and quiet for the future. Moreover, the busy
peacemaker here often shares the fate of M. Porceaugnac, and earns the
reward of those who, according to the proverb, in quarrels interpose. It
is vain to investigate, where all is lie, the origin of the squabble.
Nothing easier, as the Welsh justice was fond of declaring, than to
pronounce judgment after listening to one side of the question; but an
impartial hearing of both would strike the inquiring mind with a sense
of impotence. Perhaps it is not unadvisable to treat the matter after
the fashion adopted by a “police-officer,” a certain captain in the _X.
Y. Z._ army, who deemed it his duty to discourage litigiousness and
official complaints amongst the quarrelsome Sindhi population of
Hyderabad. The story is somewhat out of place; though so being, I will
here recount it.
Would enter, for instance, two individuals in an oriental costume
considerably damaged; one has a cloth carefully tied round his head, the
other has artificially painted his eye and his ear with a few drops of
blood from the nose. They express their emotions by a loud drumming of
the tom-tom accompanying the high-sounding Cri de Haro--Faryad! Faryad!
Faryad!--
“I’ll ‘Faryad’ yer, ye”----
After these, the usual appellatives with which the “native” was in those
days, on such occasions received, the plaintiff is thus addressed:--
“Well, you--fellow! your complaint, what is it?”
“Oh, Sahib! Oh, cherisher of the poor! this man who is, the same hath
broken into my house, and made me eat a beating, and called my ma and
sister naughty names, and hath stolen my brass pot, and--”
“Bas! bas! enough!” cries the beak; “tie him”--the defendant--“up, and
give him three dozen with thine own hand.”
The wrathful plaintiff, as may be imagined, is nothing loath. After
being vigorously performed upon by the plaintiff aforesaid, the
defendant is cast loose, and is in turn addressed as follows:--
“Well, now, you fellow! what say you?”
“Oh, my lord and master! Oh, dispenser of justice! what lies hath not
this man told? What abominations hath he not devoured? Behold (pointing
to his war-paint) the sight! He hath met me in the street; he hath
thrown me down; he hath kicked and trampled upon me; he hath--”
“Bas! enough!” again cries the beak: “tie him--the plaintiff--up, and
see if you can give _him_ a good three dozen.”
Again it may be imagined that the three dozen are well applied by the
revengeful defendant, and that neither that plaintiff nor that defendant
ever troubled that excellent “police-officer” again.
On Rubeho’s summit we found a single village of villanous Wasagara;
afterwards “made clean”--as the mild Hindu expresses the extermination
of his fellow-men--by a caravan in revenge for the murder of a porter.
We were delayed on the hill-top a whole day, despite the extreme
discomfort of all hands. Water had to be fetched from a runnel that
issued from a rusty pool shaded by tilted-up strata of sandstone, at
least a mile distant from camp. Rain fell daily, alternating with
eruptions of sun; a stream of thick mist rolled down the ravines and
hollows, and at night the howling winds made Rubeho their meeting-place.
Yet neither would the sons of Ramji carry my companion’s hammock, nor
would Said bin Salim allow his children to be so burdened; moreover,
whatever measures one attempted with the porters, the other did his best
to thwart. “Men,” say the Persians, “kiss an ass for an object.” I
attempted with Kidogo that sweet speech which, according to Orientals,
is stronger than chains, and administered “goose’s oil” in such
quantities that I was graciously permitted to make an arrangement for
the transport of my companion with the Kirangozi.
On the 14th September, our tempers being sensibly cooled by the weather,
we left the hill-top and broke ground upon the counterslope or landward
descent of the Usagara Mountains. Following a narrow footpath that wound
along the hill-flanks, on red earth growing thick clumps of cactus and
feathery mimosa, after forty-five minutes’ march we found a kraal in a
swampy green gap, bisected by a sluggish rivulet that irrigated scanty
fields of grain, gourds, and water-melons, the property of distant
villagers. For the first time since many days I had strength enough to
muster the porters and to inspect their loads. The outfit, which was
expected to last a year, had been half exhausted in three months. I
summoned Said bin Salim, and passed on to him my anxiety. Like a
veritable Arab, he declared, without the least emotion, that we had
enough to reach Unyanyembe, where we certainly should be joined by the
escort of twenty-two porters. “But how do you know that?” I inquired.
“Allah is all-knowing,” replied Said; “but the caravan _will_ come.”
Such fatalism is infectious. I ceased to think upon the subject.
On the 15th September, after sending forward the luggage, and waiting as
agreed upon for the return of the porters to carry my companion, I set
out about noon, through hot sunshine tempered by the cool hill-breeze.
Emerging from the grassy hollow, the path skirted a well-wooded hill and
traversed a small savannah, overgrown with stunted straw and hedged in
by a bushy forest. At this point massive trees, here single, there in
holts and clumps, foliaged more gloomily than churchyard yews, and
studded with delicate pink-flowers, rose from the tawny sun-burned
expanse around, and defended from the fiery glare braky rings of emerald
shrubbery, sharply defined as if by the forester’s hand. The savannah
extended to the edge of a step which, falling deep and steep, suddenly
disclosed to view, below and far beyond the shaggy ribs and the dark
ravines and folds of the foreground, the plateau of Ugogo and its
Eastern desert. The spectacle was truly impressive. The vault above
seemed “an ample æther,” raised by its exceeding transparency higher
than it is wont to be. Up to the curved rim of the western horizon, lay,
burnished by the rays of a burning sun, plains rippled like a yellow sea
by the wavy reek of the dancing air, broken towards the north by a few
detached cones rising island-like from the surface, and zebra’d with
long black lines, where bush and scrub and strip of thorn jungle,
supplanted upon the watercourses, trending in mazy network southwards to
the Rwaha River, the scorched grass and withered canes-stubbles, which
seemed to be the staple growth of the land. There was nothing of
effeminate or luxuriant beauty, nothing of the flush and fulness
characterising tropical Nature, in this first aspect of Ugogo. It
appeared what it is, stern and wild,--the rough nurse of rugged
men,--and perhaps the anticipation of dangers and difficulties ever
present to the minds of those preparing to endure the waywardness of its
children, contributed not a little to the fascination of the scene.
After lingering for a few minutes upon the crest of the step, with
feelings which they will understand who after some pleasant
months--oases in the grim deserts of Anglo-Indian life--spent among the
tree-clad heights, the breezy lakes, and the turfy valleys of the
Himalayas and the Neilgherries, sight from their last vantage-ground the
jaundiced and fevered plains below, we scrambled down an irregular
incline of glaring red clay and dazzling white chalk, plentifully
besprinkled with dark-olive silex in its cherty crust. Below the descent
was a level space upon a long ridge, where some small villages of
Wasagara had surrounded themselves with dwarf fields of holcus, bajri,
and maize. A little beyond this spot, called the “Third Rubeho,” we
found a comfortless kraal on uneven ground, a sloping ledge sinking
towards a deep ravine.
At the third Rubeho we were delayed for a day--as is customary before a
“Tirikeza”--by the necessity of laying in supplies for a jungle march,
and by the quarrels of the men. The Baloch were cross as naughty
children, ever their case when cold and hungry: warm and full, they
become merry as crickets. The Kirangozi in hot wrath brought his flag to
Said bin Salim, and threatened to resign, because he had been preceded
on the last stage by two of the Baloch: his complaints of this highly
irregular proceeding were with difficulty silenced by force of beads. I
remarked, however, a few days afterwards, when travelling through Ugogo,
that the Kirangozi, considering himself in danger, applied to me for a
vanguard of matchlockmen. The sons of Ramji combined with the porters in
refusing to carry my companion, and had Bombay and Mabruki not shown
good-will, we might have remained a week in the acme of discomfort. The
asses, frightened by wild beasts, broke loose at night, and one was
lost. The atmosphere was ever in excesses of heat and cold: in the
morning, a mist so thick that it displayed a fog-rainbow--a segment of
an arch, composed of faint prismatic tints--rolled like a torrent down
the ravine in front: the sun, at noon, made us cower under the thin
canvas, and throughout the twenty-four hours a gale like a “vent de
bise,” attracted by the heat of the western plains, swept the encamping
ground.
Sending forward my invalid companion in his hammock, I brought up the
rear: Said bin Salim, who had waxed unusually selfish and surly,
furtively left to us the task; he wore only sandals--he could not travel
by night. Some of the Baloch wept at the necessity of carrying their
gourds and skins.
On the 17th September, about 2 P.M., we resumed the descent of the
rugged mountains. The path wound to the N.W. down the stony and bushy
crest of a ridge with a deep woody gap on the right hand: presently
after alternations of steep and step, and platforms patched with
odoriferous plants, it fell into the upper channel of the Mandama or the
Dungomaro, the “Devil’s Glen.” Dungomaro in Kisawahili is the proper
name of an evil spirit, not in the European but in the African
sense,--some unblessed ghost who has made himself unpopular to the
general;--perhaps the term was a facetiousness on the part of the sons
of Ramji.
It was a “via mala” down this great surface-drain of the western slopes,
over boulders and water-rolled stones reposing upon deep sand, and with
branches of thorny trees in places canopying the bed. After a march of
five hours, I found the porters bivouacking upon a softer spot, and with
difficulty persuaded four of the sons of Ramji to return and to assist
the weary stragglers: horns were sounded, and shots were fired to guide
the Baloch, who did not, however, arrive before 10 P.M.
On the 18th September, a final march of four hours placed us in the
plains of Ugogo. Leaving the place of the last night’s bivouac, we
pursued the line of the Dungomaro, occasionally quitting it where
boulders obstructed progress, and presently we came to its lower bed,
where perennial rills, exuding from its earth-walls and trickling down
its side, veiled the bottom with a green and shrubby perfumed
vegetation. As the plain was neared, the difficulties increased, and the
scenery became curious. The Dungomaro appeared a large crevasse in lofty
rocks of pink and gray granite, streaked with white quartz, and
pudding’d with greenstone and black horneblend; the sole, strewed with a
rugged layer of blocks, was side-lined with narrow ledges and terraces
of brown humus, supporting dwarf cactus and stunted thorny trees; whilst
high above towered stony wooded peaks, closing in the view on all sides.
Farther down the bed huge boulders, sunburnt, and stained by the courses
of rain-torrents, rose, perpendicularly as walls, to the height of one
hundred and one hundred and twenty feet, and there the flooring was a
sheet or slide of shiny and shelving rock, with broad fissures, and
steep drops, and cups, “potholes,” baths, and basins, filed and cut by
the friction of the gravelly torrents, regularly as if turned with the
lathe. Where water lay, deep mud and thick clumps of grass and reed
forced the path to run along the ledges at the sides of the base.
Gradually, as the angle of inclination became more obtuse, the bed
widened out, the tall stone-walls gave way to low earth-banks clad with
gum-trees; pits, serving as wells, appeared in the deep loose sand, and
the Dungomaro, becoming a broad, smooth Fiumara, swept away verging
southwards into the plain. Before noon, I sighted from a sharp turn in
the bed our tent pitched under a huge sycomore, on a level step that
bounded the Fiumara to the right. It was a pretty spot in a barren
scene, grassy, and grown with green mimosas, spreading out their
feathery heads like parachutes, and shedding upon the ground a filmy
shade that fluttered and flickered in the draughty breeze.
The only losses experienced during the scrambling descent, were a
gun-case, containing my companion’s store of boots, and a chair and
table. The latter, being indispensable on a journey where calculations,
composition, and sketching were expected, I sent, during the evening
halts, a detachment consisting of Muinyi Wazira, the Baloch, Greybeard
Musa, and a party of slaves, to bring up the articles, which had been
cache’d on the torrent bank. They returned with the horripilatory tale
of the dangers lately incurred by the Expedition, which it appeared from
them had been dogged by an army of Wasagara, thirsting for blood and
furious for booty:--under such circumstances, how could they recover the
chair and table? Some months afterwards an up-caravan commanded by a
Msawahili found the articles lying where we had left them, and delivered
them, for a consideration, to us at Unyanyembe. The party sent from
Ugogo doubtless had passed a quiet, pleasant day, dozing in the shade at
the nearest well.
[Illustration: Maji ya W’heta, or the Jetting Fountain in K’hutu.]
CHAP. VII.
THE GEOGRAPHY AND ETHNOLOGY OF THE SECOND REGION.
The second or mountain region extends from the western frontier of
K’hutu, at the head of the alluvial valley, in E. long. 37° 28′, to the
province of Ugogi, the eastern portion of the flat table-land of Ugogo,
in E. long. 36° 14′. Its diagonal breadth is 85 geographical and
rectilinear miles; and native caravans, if lightly laden, generally
traverse it in three weeks, including three or four halts. Its length
cannot be estimated. According to the guides, Usagara is a prolongation
of the mountains of Nguru, or Ngu, extending southwards, with a gap
forming the fluviatile valley of the Rwaha or Rufiji River, to the line
of highlands of which Njesa in Uhiao is supposed to be the culminating
apex: thus the feature would correspond with the Eastern Ghauts of the
Indian Peninsula. The general law of the range is north and south; in
the region now under consideration, the trend is from north by west to
south by east, forming an angle of 10° 12′ with the meridian. The
Usagara chain is of the first order in East Africa; it is indeed the
only important elevation in a direct line from the coast to western
Unyamwezi; it would hold, however, but a low grade in the general system
of the earth’s mountains. The highest point above sea-level, observed by
B. P. Therm., was 5,700 feet; there are, however, peaks which may rise
to 6,000 and even to 7,000 feet, thus rivalling the inhabited portion of
the Neilgherries. As has appeared, the chain, where crossed, was divided
into three parallel ridges by longitudinal plains.
Owing to the lowness of the basal regions at the seaward slope, there is
no general prospect of the mountains from the East, where, after
bounding the plains of K’hutu on the north, by irregular bulging lines
of rolling hill, the first gradient of insignificant height springs
suddenly from the plain. Viewed from the west, the counterslope appears
a long crescent, with the gibbus to the front, and the cusps vanishing
into distance; the summit is in the centre of the half-moon, whose
profile is somewhat mural and regular. The flanks are rounded lumpy
cones, and their shape denotes an igneous and primary origin,
intersected by plains and basins, the fractures of the rocky system.
Internally the lay, as in granitic formations generally, is irregular;
the ridges, preserving no general direction, appear to cross one another
confusedly. The slope and the counterslope are not equally inclined.
Here, as usual in chains fringing a peninsula, the seaward declivities
are the more abrupt; the landward faces are not only more elongated, but
they are also shortened in proportion as the plateau into which they
fall is higher than the mountain-plains from which they rise. To enter,
therefore, is more toilsome than to return.
From the mingling of lively colours, Usagara is delightful to the eye,
after the monotonous tracts of verdure which pall upon the sight at
Zanzibar and in the river valleys. The subsoil, displayed in the deeper
cuts and ravines, is either of granite, greenstone, schiste, or a coarse
incipient sandstone, brown or green, and outcropping from the ground
with strata steeply tilted up. In the higher elevations, the soil varies
in depth from a few inches to thirty feet; it is often streaked with
long layers of pebbles, apparently water-rolled. The colour is either an
ochreish brick-red, sometimes micaceous, and often tinted with oxide of
iron; or it is a dull grey, the debris of comminuted felspar, which,
like a mixture of all the colours, appears dazzlingly white under the
sun’s rays. The plains and depressions are of black earth, which after a
few showers becomes a grass-grown sheet of mire, and in the dry season a
deeply-cracked, stubbly savannah. Where the elevations are veiled from
base to summit with a thin forest, the crops of the greenstone and
sandstone strata appear through a brown coat of fertile humus, the decay
of vegetable matter. A fossil Bulimus was found about 3,000 feet above
sea-level, and large Achatinæ, locally called Khowa, are scattered over
the surface. On the hill-sides, especially in the lower slopes, are
strewed and scattered erratic blocks and boulders, and diminutive pieces
of white, dingy-red, rusty-pink, and yellow quartz, with large
irregularly-shaped fragments and small nodules of calcareous kunkur.
Where water lies deep below the surface, the hills and hill-plains are
clothed with a thin shrubbery of mimosas and other thorny gums.
Throughout Eastern Africa these forests are the only spots in which
travelling is enjoyable: great indeed is their contrast with the normal
features--bald glaring fields, fetid bush and grass, and monotonous
expanses of dull dead herbage, concealing swamps and water-courses,
hedged in by vegetation whose only varieties are green, greener, and
greenest. In these favoured places the traveller appears surrounded by a
thick wood which he never reaches, the trees thinning out as he
advances. On clear and sunny days the scenery is strange and imposing.
The dark-red earth is prolonged half-way up the tree-trunks by the
ascending and descending galleries of the termite: contrasting with this
peculiarly African tint, the foliage, mostly confined to the upper
branches, is of a tender and lively green, whose open fret-work admits
from above the vivid blue or the golden yellow of an unclouded sky. In
the basins where water is nearer the surface, and upon the banks of
water-courses and rivulets, the sweet and fertile earth produces a rich
vegetation, and a gigantic growth of timber, which distinguishes this
region from others further west. Usagara is peculiarly the land of
jungle-flowers, and fruits, whose characteristic is a pleasant acidity,
a provision of nature in climates where antiseptics and correctives to
bile are almost necessaries of life. They are abundant, but, being
uncultivated, the fleshy parts are undeveloped. In the plains, the air,
heavy with the delicious perfume of the jasmine (_Jasminum
Abyssinicum?_), with the strong odour of a kind of sage (_Salvia
Africana_, or _Abyssinica_?), and with the fragrant exhalations of the
mimosa-flowers, which hang like golden balls from the green clad boughs,
forms a most enjoyable contrast to the fetid exhalations of the Great
Dismal Swamps of the lowlands. The tamarind, everywhere growing wild, is
a gigantic tree. The Myombo, the Mfu’u, the Ndábi, and the Mayágeá, a
spreading tree with a large fleshy red flower, and gourds about eighteen
inches long and hanging by slender cords, are of unusual dimensions; the
calabash is converted into a hut; and the sycomore, whose favourite
habitat is the lower counterslope of Usagara, is capable of shading a
regiment. On the steep hill-sides, which here and there display signs of
cultivation and clearings of green or sunburnt grass, grow
parachute-shaped mimosas, with tall and slender trunks, and crowned by
domes of verdure, rising in tiers one above the other, like umbrellas in
a crowd.
The plains, basins, and steps, or facets of table-land found at every
elevation, are fertilised by a stripe-work of streams, runnels, and
burns, which anastomosing in a single channel, flow off into the main
drain of the country. Cultivation is found in patches isolated by thick
belts of thorny jungle, and the villages are few and rarely visited. As
usual in hilly countries, they are built upon high ridges and the slopes
of cones, for rapid drainage after rain, a purer air and fewer
mosquitoes, and, perhaps, protection from kidnappers. The country people
bring down their supplies of grain and pulse for caravans. There is some
delay and difficulty on the first day of arrival at a station, and
provisions for a party exceeding a hundred men are not to be depended
upon after the third or fourth marketing, when the people have exhausted
their stores. Fearing the thievish disposition of the Wasagara, who will
attempt even to snatch away a cloth from a sleeping man, travellers
rarely lodge near the settlements. Kraals of thorn, capacious circles
enclosing straw boothies, are found at every march, and, when burned or
destroyed by accident, they are rebuilt before the bivouac. The roads,
as usual in East Africa, are tracks trodden down by caravans and cattle,
and the water-course is ever the favourite Pass. Many of the ascents and
descents are so proclivitous that donkeys must be relieved of their
loads; and in fording the sluggish streams, where no grass forms a
causeway over the soft, viscid mire, the animals sink almost to the
knees. The steepest paths are those in the upper regions; in the lower,
though the inclines are often severe, they are generally longer, and
consequently easier. At the foot of each hill there is either a mud or a
water-course dividing it from its neighbour. These obstacles greatly
reduce the direct distance of the day’s march.
The mountains are well supplied with water, which tastes sweet after the
brackish produce of the maritime valley, and good when not rendered soft
and slimy by lying long on rushy beds. Upon the middle inclines the
burns and runnels of the upper heights form terraces of considerable
extent, and of a picturesque aspect. The wide and open sole, filled with
the whitest and cleanest sand, and retaining pools of fresh clear water,
or shallow wells, is edged by low steep ledges of a dull red clay, lined
with glorious patriarchs of the forest, and often in the bed is a
thickly wooded branch or shoal-islet, at whose upper extremity heavy
driftwood, arrested by the gnarled mimosa-clumps, and the wall of
shrubs, attests the violence of the rufous-tinted bore of waves with
which a few showers fill the broadest courses. Lower down the channels
which convey to the plains the surplus drainage of the mountains are
heaps and sheets of granite, with long reaches of rough gravel; their
stony walls, overrun with vegetation, tower high on either hand, and the
excess of inclination produces after heavy rains torrents like
avalanches, which cut their way deep into the lower plains. During the
dry season, water is drawn from pits sunk from a few inches to 20 feet
in the re-entering angles of the beds. Fed by the percolations of the
soil, they unite the purity of springs with the abundance of
rain-supplies,--a comfort fully appreciated by down-caravans after the
frequent tirikeza, or droughty afternoon-marches in the western regions.
The versant of the mountains varies. In the seaward and the central
sections streams flow eastward, and swell the Kingani and other rivers.
The southern hills discharge their waters south and south-west through
the Maroro River, and various smaller tributaries, into the “Rwaha,”
which is the proper name for the upper course of the Rufiji. In the
lateral plains between the ridges, and in the hill-girt basins, stagnant
pools, which even during the Masika, or rainy season, inundate, but will
not flow, repose upon beds of porous black earth, and engendering, by
their profuse herbage of reeds and rush-like grass, with the luxuriant
crops produced by artificial irrigation, a malarious atmosphere, cause a
degradation in the people.
The climate of Usagara is cold and damp. It has two distinct varieties,
the upper regions being salubrious, as the lower are unwholesome. In the
sub-ranges heavy exhalations are emitted by the decayed vegetation, the
nights are raw, the mornings chilly and misty, and the days are bright
and hot. In the higher levels, near the sources of the Mukondokwa River,
the climate suggests the idea of the Mahabaleshwar and the Neilgherry
Hills in Western India. Compared with Uzaramo or Unyamwezi, these
mountains are a sanatorium, and should Europeans ever settle in Eastern
Africa as merchants or missionaries, here they might reside until
acclimatised for the interior. The east wind, a local deflection of the
south-east trade, laden with the moisture of the Atlantic and the Indian
Oceans, and collecting the evaporation of the valley, impinges upon the
seaward slope, where, ascending, and relieved from atmospheric pressure,
it is condensed by a colder temperature; hence the frequent
precipitations of heavy rain, and the banks and sheets of morning-cloud
which veil the tree-clad peaks of the highest gradients. As the sun
waxes hot, the atmosphere acquires a greater capacity for carrying
water; and the results are a milky mist in the basins, and in the upper
hills a wonderful clearness broken only by the thin cirri of the higher
atmosphere. After sunset, again, the gradual cooling of the air causes
the deposit of a copious dew, which renders the nights peculiarly
pleasant to a European. The diurnal sea-breeze, felt in the slope, is
unknown in the counterslope of the mountains, where, indeed, the climate
is much inferior to that of the central and eastern heights. As in the
Sawalik Hills, and the sub-ranges of the Himalayas, the sun is burning
hot during the dry season, and in the rains there is either a storm of
thunder and lightning, wind and rain, or a stillness deep and
depressing, with occasional gusts whose distinct moaning shows the
highly electrical state of the atmosphere. The Masika, here commencing
in early January, lasts three months, when the normal easterly winds
shift to the north and the north-west. The Vuli, confined to the eastern
slopes, occurs in August, and, as on the plains, frequent showers fall
between the vernal and the autumnal rains.
The people of Usagara suffer in the lower regions from severe
ulcerations, from cutaneous disorders, and from other ailments of the
plain. Higher up they are healthier, though by no means free from
pleurisy, pneumonia, and dysentery. Fever is common; it is more acute in
the range of swamps and decomposed herbage, and is milder in the
well-ventilated cols and on the hill-sides. The type is rather a violent
bilious attack, accompanied by remittent febrile symptoms, than a
regular fever. It begins with cold and hot fits, followed by a copious
perspiration, and sometimes inducing delirium; it lasts as a quotidian
or a tertian from four to seven days; and though the attacks are slight,
they are followed by great debility, want of appetite, of sleep, and of
energy. This fever is greatly exacerbated by exposure and fatigue, and
it seldom fails to leave behind it a legacy of cerebral or visceral
disease.
The mountains of Usagara are traversed from east to west by two main
lines; the Mukondokwa on the northern and the Kiringawana on the
southern line. The former was closed until 1856 by a chronic famine, the
result of such a neighbourhood as the Wazegura and the people of Whinde
on the east, the Wahumba and the Wamasai northwards, and the Warori on
the south-west. In 1858 the mountaineers, after murdering by the vilest
treachery a young Arab trader, Salim bin Nasir, of the Bu Saidi, or the
royal family of Zanzibar, attempted to plunder a large mixed caravan of
Wanyamwezi and Wasawahili, numbering 700 or 800 guns, commanded by a
stout fellow, Abdullah bin Nasib, called by the Africans “Kisesa,” who
carried off the cattle, burned the villages, and laid waste the whole of
the Rubeho or western chain.
The clans now tenanting these East African ghauts are the
Wasagara,--with their chief sub-tribe the Wakwivi,--and the Wahehe; the
latter a small body inhabiting the south-western corner, and extending
into the plains below.
The limits of the Wasagara have already been laid down by the names of
the plundering tribes that surround them. These mountaineers, though a
noisy and riotous race, are not overblessed with courage: they will lurk
in the jungle with bows and arrows to surprise a stray porter; but they
seem ever to be awaiting an attack--the best receipt for inviting it. In
the higher slopes they are fine, tall and sturdy men; in the low lands
they appear as degraded as the Wak’hutu. They are a more bearded race
than any other upon this line of East Africa, and, probably from
extensive intercourse with the Wamrima, most of them understand the
language of the coast. The women are remarkable for a splendid
development of limb, whilst the bosom is lax and pendent.
The Wasagara display great varieties of complexion, some being almost
black, whilst the others are chocolate-coloured. This difference cannot
be accounted for by the mere effects of climate--level and temperature.
Some shave the head; others wear the Arab’s shushah, a kind of skull-cap
growth, extending more or less from the poll. Amongst them is seen, for
the first time on this line, the classical coiffure of ancient Egypt.
The hair, allowed to attain its fullest length, is twisted into a
multitude of the thinnest ringlets, each composed of two thin lengths
wound together; the wiry stiffness of the curls keeps them distinct and
in position. Behind, a curtain of pigtails hangs down to the nape; in
front the hair is either combed off the forehead, or it is brought over
the brow and trimmed short. No head-dress has a wilder nor a more
characteristically African appearance than this, especially when,
smeared with a pomatum of micaceous ochre, and decorated with beads,
brass balls, and similar ornaments, it waves and rattles with every
motion of the head. Young men and warriors adorn their locks with the
feathers of vultures, ostriches, and a variety of bright-plumed jays,
and some tribes twist each ringlet with a string of reddish fibre. It is
seldom combed out, the operation requiring for a head of thick hair the
hard work of a whole day; it is not, therefore, surprising that the
pediculus swarms through the land. None but the chiefs wear caps. Both
sexes distend the ear-lobe; a hole is bored with a needle or a thorn, it
is enlarged by inserting bits of cane, wood, or quills, increasing the
latter to the number of twenty, and it is kept open by a disk of brass,
ivory, wood, or gum, a roll of leaf or a betel-nut; thus deformed it
serves for a variety of purposes apparently foreign to the member; it
often carries a cane snuff-box, sometimes a goat’s-horn pierced for a
fife, and other small valuables. When empty, especially in old age, it
depends in a deformed loop to the shoulders. The peculiar mark of the
tribe is a number of confused little cuts between the ears and the
eyebrows. Some men, especially in the eastern parts of the mountains,
chip the teeth to points.
The dress of the Wasagara is a shukkah or loin-cloth, 6 feet long,
passed round the waist in a single fold,--otherwise walking would be
difficult--drawn tight behind, and with the fore extremities gathered
up, and tucked in over the stomach, where it is sometimes supported by a
girdle of cord, leather, or brass wire: it is, in fact, the Arab’s
“uzár.” On journeys it is purposely made short and scanty for
convenience of running. The material is sometimes indigo-dyed, at other
times unbleached cotton, which the Wasagara stain a dull yellow. Cloth,
however, is the clothing of the wealthy. The poor content themselves
with the calabash-“campestre” or kilt, and with the softened skins of
sheep and goats. It is curious that in East Africa, where these articles
have from time immemorial been the national dress, and where amongst
some tribes hides form the house, that the people have neither invented
nor borrowed the principles of rude tanning, even with mimosa-bark, an
art so well known to most tribes of barbarians. Immediately after
flaying, the stretched skin is pegged, to prevent shrinking, inside
upwards, in the sun, and it is not removed till thoroughly cleansed and
dried. The many little holes in the margin give it the semblance of
ornamentation, and sometimes the hair is scraped off, leaving a fringe
two or three inches broad around the edge: the legs and tail of the
animal are favourite appendages with “dressy gentlemen.” These skins are
afterwards softened by trampling, and they are vigorously pounded with
clubs: after a few days’ wear, dirt and grease have almost done the duty
of tanning. The garb is tied over either shoulder by a bit of cord or
simply by knotting the corners; it therefore leaves one side of the body
bare, and, being loose and ungirt, it is at the mercy of every wind. On
journeys it is doffed during rain, and placed between the burden and the
shoulder, so that, arrived at the encamping ground, the delicate
traveller may have a “dry shirt.”
Women of the wealthier classes wear a tobe, or double-length shukkah,
tightly drawn under the arms, so as to depress whilst it veils the
bosom, and tucked in at either side. Dark stuffs, indigo-dyed and Arab
checks, are preferred to plain white for the usual reasons. The dress of
the general is a short but decorous jupe of greasy skin, and a similar
covering for the bosom, open behind, and extending in front from the
neck to the middle of the body: the child is carried in another skin
upon the back. The poorest classes of both sexes are indifferently
attired in the narrow kilt of bark-fibre, usually made in the maritime
countries from the ukhindu or brab tree; in the interior from the
calabash. The children wear an apron of thin twine, like the Nubian
thong-garments. Where beads abound, the shagele, a small square napkin
of these ornaments strung upon thread, is fastened round the waist by a
string or a line of beads. There are many fanciful modifications of it:
some children wear a screen of tin plates, each the size of a man’s
finger: most of the very juniors, however, are simply attired in a cord,
with or without beads, round the waist.
The ornaments of the Wasagara are the normal beads and wire, and their
weight is the test of wealth and respectability. A fillet of blue and
white beads is bound round the head, and beads,--more beads,--appear
upon the neck, the arms, and the ankles. The kitindi, or coil of thick
brass wire, extends from the elbow to the wrist; others wear little
chains or thick bangles of copper, brass, or zinc, and those who can
afford it twist a few circles of brass wire under the knee. The arms of
the men are bows and arrows, the latter unpoisoned, but armed with
cruelly-barbed heads, and spines like fish-bones, cut out in the long
iron shaft which projects from the wood. Their spears and assegais are
made from the old hoes which are brought down by the Wanyamwezi
caravans; the ferule is thin, and it is attached to the shaft by a
cylinder of leather from a cow’s tail, drawn over the iron, and allowed
to shrink at its junction with the wood: some assegais have a central
swell in the shaft, probably to admit of their being used in striking
like the rungu or knobstick. Men seldom leave the house without a
billhook of peculiar shape--a narrow sharp blade, ending in a right
angle, and fixed in a wooden handle, with a projection rising above the
blade. The shield is rarely found on this line of East Africa. In
Usagara it is from three to four feet in length by one to two feet in
breadth, composed of two parallel belts of hardened skin. The material
is pegged out to stretch and dry, carefully cleaned, sometimes doubled,
sewn together with a thin thong longitudinally, and stained black down
one side, and red down the other. A stout lath is fastened lengthwise as
a stiffener to the shield, and a central bulge is made in the hide,
enabling the hand to grasp the wood. The favourite materials are the
spoils of the elephant, the rhinoceros, and the giraffe; the common
shields are of bull’s-hide, and the hair is generally left upon the
outside as an ornament, with attachments of zebra and cows’ tails. It is
a flimsy article, little better than a “wisp of fern or a herring-net”
against an English “clothyard:” it suffices, however, for defence
against the puny cane-arrows of the African archer.
As a rule, each of these villages has its headman, who owns, however, an
imperfect allegiance to the Mutwa or district chief, whom the Arabs call
“sultan.” The Mgosi is his wazir, or favourite councillor, and the
elders or headmen of settlements collectively are Wabáhá. Their
principal distinction is the right to wear a fez, or a Surat cap, and
the kizbáo, a sleeveless waistcoat. They derive a certain amount of
revenue by trafficking in slaves: consequently many of the Wasagara find
their way into the market of Zanzibar. Moreover, the game-laws as
regards elephants are here strictly in favour of the Sultan. An animal
found dead in his district, though wounded in another, becomes his
property on condition of his satisfying his officials with small
presents of cloth and beads: the flesh is feasted upon by the tribe, and
the ivory is sold to travelling traders.
The Wahehe, situated between the Wasagara and Wagogo, partake a little
of the appearance of both. They are a plain race, but stout and well
grown. Though to appearance hearty and good-humoured, they are
determined pilferers: they have more than once attacked caravans, and
only the Warori have prevented them from cutting off the road to Ugogo.
During the return of the Expedition in 1858 they took occasion to drive
off unseen a flock of goats; and at night no man, unless encamped in a
strong kraal, was safe from their attempts to snatch his goods. On one
occasion, being caught in flagrant delict, they were compelled to
restore their plunder, with an equivalent as an indemnity. They are on
bad terms with all their neighbours, and they unite under their chief
Sultan Bumbumu.
The Wahehe enlarge their ears like the Wagogo, they chip the two upper
incisors, and they burn beauty-spots in their forearms. Some men extract
three or four of the lower incisors: whenever an individual without
these teeth is seen in Ugogo he is at once known as a Mhehe. For
distinctive mark they make two cicatrised incisions on both cheeks from
the zygomata to the angles of the mouth. They dress like the Wagogo, but
they have less cloth than skins. The married women usually wear a jupe,
in shape recalling the old swallow-tailed coat of Europe, with kitindi,
or coil armlets of brass or iron wire on both forearms and above the
elbows. Unmarried girls amongst the Wahehe are known by their peculiar
attire, a long strip of cloth, like the Indian “languti or T-bandage,”
but descending to the knees, and attached to waistbelts of large white
or yellow porcelain or blue glass beads. Over this is tied a kilt of
calabash fibre, a few inches deep. The men wear thick girdles of brass
wire, neatly wound round a small cord. Besides the arms described
amongst the Wasagara, the Wahehe carry “sime,” or double-edged knives,
from one to two feet long, broadening out from the haft, and rounded off
to a blunt point at the end. The handle is cut into raised rings for
security of grip, and, when in sheath, half the blade appears outside
its rude leathern scabbard. The Tembe, or villages of the Wahehe, are
small, ragged, and low, probably to facilitate escape from attack. They
do business in slaves, and have large flocks and herds, which are,
however, often thinned by the Warori, whom the Wahehe dare not resist in
the field.
[Illustration: Ugogo.]
CHAP. VIII.
WE SUCCEED IN TRAVERSING UGOGO.
Ugogo, the reader may remember, was the ultimate period applied to the
prospects of the Exploration by the worthy Mr. Rush Ramji, in
conversation with the respectable Ladha Damha, Collector of Customs,
Zanzibar.
I halted three days at Ugogi to recruit the party and to lay in rations
for four long desert marches. Apparently there was an abundance of
provisions, but the people at first declined to part with their grain
and cattle even at exorbitant prices, and the Baloch complained of
“cleanness of teeth.” I was visited by Ngoma Mroma, _alias_ Sultan
Makande, a diwan or headman, from Ugogo, here settled as chief, and well
known on the eastern seaboard: he came to offer his good services. But
he talked like an idiot, he begged for every article that met his eye:
and he wished me--palpably for his own benefit--to follow the most
northerly of the three routes leading to Unyamwezi, upon which there
were not less than eight “sultans” described by Kidogo as being “one
hungrier than the other.” At last, an elephant having been found dead
within his limits, he disappeared, much to my relief, for the purpose of
enjoying a gorge of elephant-beef.
Ugogi is the half-way district between the coast and Unyanyembe, and it
is usually made by up-caravans at the end of the second month. The
people of this “no man’s land” are a mongrel race: the Wasagara claim
the ground, but they have admitted as settlers many Wahehe and Wagogo,
the latter for the most part men who have left their country for their
country’s good. The plains are rich in grain, and the hills in cattle,
when not harried, as they had been, a little before our arrival, by the
Warori. The inhabitants sometimes offer for sale milk and honey, eggs
and ghee, but--only the civilised rogue can improve by adulteration--the
milk falls like water off the finger, the honey is in the red stage of
fermentation, of the eggs there are few without the rude beginnings of a
chicken, and the ghee, from long keeping, is sweet above and bitter
below. The country still contains game, kanga, or guinea-fowls, in
abundance, the ocelot, a hyrax like the coney of the Somali country, and
the beautiful “silver jackal.” The elephant and the giraffe are
frequently killed on the plains. The giraffe is called by the Arabs
Jamal el Wahshí, a translation of the Kisawahili Ngamia ya Muytu, “Camel
of the Wild,” and throughout the interior Tiga or Twiga. Their sign is
often seen in the uncultivated parts of the country; but they wander
far, and they are rarely found except by accident; the hides are
converted into shields and saddle-bags, the long tufty tails into
“chauri,” or fly-flappers, and the flesh is a favourite food. At Ugogi,
however, game has suffered from the frequent haltings of caravans, and
from the carnivorous propensities of the people, who, huntsmen all,
leave their prey no chance against their nets and arrows, their pitfalls
and their packs of yelping curs.
Ugogi stands 2760 feet above sea level, and its climate, immediately
after the raw cold of Usagara, pleases by its elasticity and by its dry
healthy warmth. The nights are fresh and dewless, and the rays of a
tropical sun are cooled by the gusts and raffales which, regularly as
the land and sea-breezes of the coast, sweep down the sinuosities of
Dungomaro. As our “gnawing stomachs” testified, the air of Usagara had
braced our systems. My companion so far recovered health that he was
able to bring home many a brace of fine partridge, and of the fat
guinea-fowl that, clustering upon the tall trees, awoke the echoes of
the rocks as they called for their young. The Baloch, the sons of Ramji,
and the porters began to throw off the effects of the pleurisies and the
other complaints, which they attributed to hardship and exposure on the
mountain-tops. The only obstinate invalids were the two Goanese. Gaetano
had another attack of the Mukunguru, or seasoning fever, which, instead
of acclimatising his constitution, seemed by ever increasing weakness
and depression, to pave the way for a fresh visitation. Valentine, with
flowing eyes, pathetically pointed to two indurations in his gastric
region, and bewailed his hard fate in thus being torn from the
dearly-loved shades of Panjim and Margão, to fatten the inhospitable
soil of Central Africa.
Immediately before departure, when almost in despair at the rapid
failure of our carriage--the asses were now reduced to nine--I
fortunately secured, for the sum of four cloths per man, the services of
fifteen Wanyamwezi porters. In all a score, they had left at Ugogi their
Mtongi, or employer, in consequence of a quarrel concerning _the_ sex.
They dreaded forcible seizure and sale if found without protection
travelling homewards through Ugogo; and thus they willingly agreed to
carry our goods as far as their own country, Unyanyembe. Truly is
travelling like campaigning,--a pennyweight of luck is better than a
talent of all the talents! And if marriages, as our fathers used to say,
are made in the heavens, the next-door manufactory must be devoted to
the fabrication of African explorations. Notwithstanding, however, the
large increase of conveyance, every man appeared on the next march more
heavily laden than before:--they carried grain for six days, and water
for one night.
From Ugogi to the Ziwa or Pond, the eastern limits of Ugogo, are four
marches, which, as they do not supply provisions, and as throughout the
dry season water is found only in one spot, are generally accomplished
in four days. The lesser desert, between Ugogi and Ugogo, is called
Marenga M’khali, or the Brackish Water: it must not be confounded with
the district of Usagara bearing the same name.
We left Ugogi on the 22nd September, at 3 P.M., instead of at noon. As
all the caravan hurried recklessly forward, I brought up the rear
accompanied by Said bin Salim, the Jemadar, and several of the sons of
Ramji, who insisted upon driving the asses for greater speed at a long
trot, which, after lasting a hundred yards, led to an inevitable fall of
the load. Before emerging from Ugogi, the road wound over a grassy
country, thickly speckled with calabashes. Square Tembe appeared on both
sides, and there was no want of flocks and herds. As the villages and
fields were left behind, the land became a dense thorny jungle, based
upon a sandy red soil. The horizon was bounded on both sides by
gradually-thinning lines of lumpy outlying hill, the spurs of the Rubeho
Range, that extended, like a scorpion’s claws, westward; and the plain,
gently falling in the same direction, was broken only by a single
hill-shoulder and by some dwarf descents. As we advanced through the
shades--a heavy cloud-bank had shut out the crescent moon--our
difficulties increased; thorns and spiky twigs threatened the eyes; the
rough and rugged road led to many a stumble, and the frequent whine of
the cynhyæna made the asses wild with fear. None but Bombay came out to
meet us; the porters were overpowered by their long march under the
fiery sun. About 8 P.M., directed by loud shouts and flaring fires, we
reached a kraal, a patch of yellow grass, offering clear room in the
thorny thicket. That night was the perfection of a bivouac, cool from
the vicinity of the hills, genial from their shelter, and sweet as
forest-air in these regions ever is.
On the next day we resumed our labour betimes: for a dreary and thirsty
stage lay before us. Toiling through the sunshine of the hot waste I
could not but remark the strange painting of the land around. At a
distance the plain was bright-yellow with stubble, and brown-black with
patches of leafless wintry jungle based upon a brick-dust soil. A closer
approach disclosed colours more vivid and distinct. Over the ruddy plain
lay scattered untidy heaps of grey granite boulders, surrounded and
capped by tufts of bleached white grass. The copse showed all manner of
strange hues, calabashes purpled and burnished by sun and rain, thorns
of a greenish coppery bronze, dead trees with trunks of ghastly white,
and gums (the blue-gum tree of the Cape?) of an unnatural sky-blue, the
effect of the yellow outer pellicle being peeled off by the burning
rays, whilst almost all were reddened up to a man’s height, by the
double galleries, ascending and descending, of the white ants. Here too,
I began to appreciate the extent of the nuisance, thorns. Some were soft
and green, others a finger long, fine, straight and woody--they serve as
needles in many parts of the country--one, a “corking pin,” bore at its
base a filbert-like bulge, another was curved like a cock’s spur; the
double thorns, placed dos-à-dos, described by travellers in Abyssinia
and in the Cape Karroos, were numerous, the “wait-a-bit,” a dwarf
sharply bent spine with acute point and stout foundation, and a smaller
variety, short and deeply crooked, numerous and tenacious as fish-hooks,
tore without difficulty the strongest clothing, even our woollen Arab
“Abas,” and our bed-covers of painted canvas.
Travelling through this broom-jungle and crossing grassy plains, over
paths where the slides of elephants’ feet upon the last year’s muddy
clay showed that the land was not always dry, we halted after 11 A.M.
for about an hour at the base of a steep incline, apparently an offset
from the now distant Rubeho Range. The porters would have nighted at the
mouth of a small drain which, too steep for ascent, exposed in its rocky
bed occasional sand-patches and deep pools; Kidogo, however, forced them
forwards, declaring that if the asses drank of this “brackish water,”
they would sicken and die. His assertion, suspected of being a
“traveller’s tale,” was subsequently confirmed by the Arabs of
Unyanyembe, who declared that the country people never water their
flocks and herds below the hill; there may be poisonous vegetation in
the few yards between the upper and the lower pools, but no one offered
any explanation of the phenomenon.
Ascending with difficulty the eastern face of the step, which presented
two ladders of loose stones and fixed boulders of grey syenite,
hornblende, and greenstone, with coloured quartzes, micacious schistes,
and layers of talcose slate glittering like mother-o’-pearl upon the
surface, we found a half-way platform some 150 feet of extreme breadth.
Upon its sloping and irregular floor, black-green pools, sadly offensive
to more senses than one, spring-fed, and forming the residue of the
rain-water which fills the torrent, lay in muddy holes broadly fringed
with silky grass. Travellers drink without fear this upper Marenga
Mk’hali, which, despite its name, is rather soft and slimy, than
brackish, and sign of wild-beasts--antelope and buffalo, giraffe and
rhinoceros--appear upon its brink. It sometimes dries up in the heart of
the hot season, and then deaths from thirst occur amongst the porters
who, mostly Wanyanwezi, are not wont to practise abstinence in this
particular. “Sucking-places” are unknown to them, water-bearing bulbs
might here be discovered by the South African traveller; as a rule,
however, the East African is so plentifully supplied with the necessary
that he does not care to provide for a dry day by unusual means.
Ascending another steep incline we encamped upon a small step, the
half-way gradient of a higher level.
The 24th Sept. was to be a tirikeza: the Baloch and the sons of Ramji
spent the earlier half in blowing away gunpowder at antelope, partridge
and parrot, guinea-fowl and floriken, but not a head of game found its
way into camp. The men were hot, tired and testy, those who had wives
beat them, those who had not “let off the steam” by quarreling with one
another. Said bin Salim, sick and surly, had words concerning a
water-gourd with the brave Khudabakhsh, and the monocular Jemadar, who
made a point of overloading his porters, bitterly complained because
they would not serve him. At 2 P.M. we climbed up the last ladder of the
rough and stony incline, which placed us a few hundred feet above the
eastern half of the Lesser Desert. We took a pleasant leave of the last
of the rises; on this line of road, between Marenga Mk’hali and Western
Unyamwezi, the land, though rolling, has no steep ascents nor descents.
From the summit of the Marenga Mk’hali step we travelled till
sunset--the orb of day glaring like a fireball in our faces,--through
dense thorny jungle and over grassy plains of black, cracked earth, in
places covered with pebbles and showing extensive traces of shallow
inundations during the rains; in the lower lands huge blocks of
weathered granite stood out abruptly from the surface, and on both
sides, but higher on the right hand, rose blue cones, some single,
others in pairs like “brothers.” The caravan once rested in a thorny
coppice, based upon rich red and yellow clay whence it was hurriedly
dislodged by a swarm of wild bees. As the sun sank below the horizon the
porters called a halt on a calabash-grown plain, near a block of stony
hill veiled with cactus and mimosa, below whose northern base ran a
tree-lined Nullah where, they declared, from the presence of antelope
and other game, that water might be found by digging. Vainly Kidogo
urged them forwards declaring that they would fail to reach the Ziwa or
Pond in a single march; they preferred “crowing” and scooping up sand
till midnight to advancing a few miles, and some gourdsfull of dirty
liquid rewarded their industry.
On the morning of the 26th of September, I learned that we had sustained
an apparently irreparable loss. When the caravan was dispersed by bees,
a porter took the opportunity of deserting. This man, who represented
himself as desirous of rejoining at Unyamyembe, his patron Abdullah bin
Musa, the son of the well-known Indian merchant, had been engaged for
four cloths by Said bin Salim at Ugogi. The Arab with his usual
after-wit found out, when the mishap was announced, that he had from the
first doubted and disliked the man so much that he had paid down only
half the hire. Yet to the new porter had been committed the most
valuable of our packages, a portmanteau containing the Nautical Almanac
for 1858, the surveying books, and most of our paper, pens and ink. Said
bin Salim, however, was hardly to be blamed, his continual quarrels with
the Baloch and the sons of Ramji absorbed all his thoughts. Although the
men were unanimous in declaring that the box never could be recovered, I
sent back Bombay Mabruki and the slave Ambari with particular directions
to search the place where we had been attacked by bees; it was within
three miles, but, as the road was deemed dangerous, the three worthies
preferred passing a few quiet hours in some snug neighbouring spot.
At 1.30 P.M. much saddened by the disaster, we resumed our road and
after stretching over a monotonous grassy plain variegated with dry
thorny jungle, we arrived about sunset at a waterless kraal where we
determined to pass the night. Our supplies of liquid ran low, the
Wanyamwezi porters, who carried our pots and gourds, had drained them on
the way, and without drink an afternoon-march in this droughthy land
destroys all appetite for supper. Some of the porters presently set out
to fill their gourds with the waters of the Ziwa, thence distant but a
few miles; they returned after a four hours’ absence with supplies which
restored comfort and good humour to the camp.
Before settling for the night Kidogo stood up, and to loud cries of
“Maneno! maneno!”--words! words!--equivalent to our parliamentary hear!
hear! delivered himself of the following speech:--
“Listen, O ye whites! and ye children of Sayyidi Majidi! and ye sons of
Ramji! hearken to my words, O ye offspring of the night! The journey
entereth Ugogo--Ugogo (the orator threw out his arm westward). Beware,
and again beware (he made violent gesticulations). You don’t know the
Wagogo, they are ----s and ----s! (he stamped.) Speak not to those
Washenzi pagans; enter not into their houses (he pointed grimly to the
ground). Have no dealings with them, show no cloth, wire, nor beads
(speaking with increasing excitement). Eat not with them, drink not with
them, and make not love to their women (here the speech became a
scream). Kirangozi of the Wanyamwezi, restrain your sons! Suffer them
not to stray into the villages, to buy salt out of camp, to rob
provisions, to debauch with beer, or to sit by the wells!” And thus, for
nearly half an hour, now violently, then composedly, he poured forth the
words of wisdom, till the hubbub and chatter of voices which at first
had been silenced by surprise, brought his eloquence to an end.
We left the jungle-kraal early on the 26th September, and after hurrying
through thick bush we debouched upon an open stubbly plain, with herds
of gracefully bounding antelopes and giraffes, who stood for a moment
with long outstretched necks to gaze, and presently broke away at a
rapid, striding, camel’s-trot, their heads shaking as if they would jerk
off, their limbs loose, and their joints apparently dislocated. About 9
P.M. we sighted the much-talked of Ziwa. The Arabs, fond of “showing a
green garden,” had described to me at Inenge a piece of water fit to
float a man-of-war. But Kidogo, when consulted, had replied simply with
the Kisawahili proverb, “Khabari ya mb’hali;” _i. e._, “news from
afar;”--_a beau mentir qui vient de loin_. I was not therefore surprised
to find a shallow pool, which in India would barely merit the name of
tank.
The Ziwa, which lies 3,100 feet above the sea, occupies the lowest
western level of Marenga Mk’háli, and is the deepest of the many
inundated grounds lying to its north, north-east, and north-west. The
extent greatly varies: in September, 1857, it was a slaty sheet of
water, with granite projections on one side, and about 300 yards in
diameter; the centre only could not be forded. The bottom and the banks
were of retentive clay: a clear ring, whence the waters had subsided,
margined the pool, and beyond it lay a thick thorny jungle. In early
December, 1858, nothing remained but a surface of dry, crumbling, and
deeply-cracked mud, and, according to travellers, it had long, in
consequence of the scanty rains, been in that state. Caravans always
encamp at the Ziwa when they find water there. The country around is
full of large game, especially elephants, giraffes, and zebras, who come
to drink at night; a few widgeon are seen breasting the little waves;
“kata” (sand-grouse), of peculiarly large size and dark plumage, flock
there with loud cries; and at eventide the pool is visited by
guinea-fowl, floriken, curlews, peewits, wild pigeons, doves, and hosts
of small birds. When the Ziwa is desiccated, travellers usually encamp
in a thick bush, near a scanty clearing, about one mile to the
north-west, where a few scattered villages of Wagogo have found dirty
white water, hard and bad, in pits varying from twenty to thirty feet in
depth. Here, as elsewhere in eastern Africa, the only trough is a small
ring sunk in the retentive clayey soil, and surrounded by a little
raised dam of mud and loose stones. A demand is always made for
according permission to draw water--a venerable custom, dating from the
days of Moses. “Ye shall buy meat of them (the Edomites) for money, that
ye may eat; and ye shall also buy water of them for money, that ye may
drink.”--Deut. ii. 6. Yet as thirsty, like hungry men, are not to be
trifled with, fatal collisions have resulted from this inhospitable
practice. Some years ago a large caravan of Wanyamwezi was annihilated
in consequence of a quarrel about water, and lately several deaths
occurred in a caravan led by an Arab merchant, Sallum bin Hamid, because
the wells were visited before the rate of payment was settled. In
several places we were followed upon the march lest a gourd might be
furtively filled. To prevent exhaustion the people throw euphorbia,
asclepias, and solanaceous plants into the well after a certain hour,
and when not wanted it is bushed over, to keep off animals, and to check
evaporation.
At the Ziwa the regular system of kuhonga, or blackmail, so much dreaded
by travellers, begins in force. Up to this point all the chiefs are
contented with little presents; but in Ugogo tribute is taken by force,
if necessary. None can evade payment; the porters, fearing lest the road
be cut off to them in future, would refuse to travel unless each chief
is satisfied; and when a quarrel arises they throw down their packs and
run away. Ugogo, since the closing of the northern line through the
Wahumba and the Wamasai tribes, and the devastation of the southern
regions by the Warori, is the only open line, and the sultans have
presumed upon their power of stopping the way. There is no regular
tariff of taxes: the sum is fixed by the traveller’s dignity and outfit,
which, by means of his slaves, are as well known to every sultan as to
himself. Properly speaking, the exaction should be confined to the
up-caravans; from those returning a head or two of cattle, a few hoes,
or some similar trifle, are considered ample. Such, however, was not the
experience of the Expedition. When first travelling through the country
the “Wazungu” were sometimes mulcted to the extent of fifty cloths by a
single chief, and the Arabs congratulated them upon having escaped so
easily. On their downward march they pleaded against a second demand as
exorbitant as the first, adducing the custom of caravans, who are seldom
mulcted in more than two cows or a pair of jembe, or iron hoes; the
chiefs, however, replied that as they never expected to see white faces
again, it was their painful duty to make the most from them.
The kuhonga, however, is not unjust. In these regions it forms the
customs-dues of the government: the sultan receives it nominally, but he
must distribute the greater part amongst his family and councillors, his
elders and attendants. It takes the place of the fees expected by the
Balderabba of the Abyssinians, the Mogasa of the Gallas, the Abban of
the Somal, and the Ghafir and Rafik amongst the Bedouin Arabs, which are
virtually assertions of supremacy upon their own ground. These people
have not the idea which seems prevalent in the south, namely, that any
man has a right to tread God’s earth gratis as long as he does not
interfere with property. If any hesitation about the kuhonga be made,
the first question put to the objector will be, “Is this your ground or
my ground?” The practice, which is sanctioned by the customs of
civilised nations, is, however, vitiated in East Africa by the
slave-trade: it becomes the means of intrusion and extortion, of
insolence and violence. The Wagogo are an importing people, and they see
with envy long strings of what they covet passing through their
territory from the interior to the coast. They are strong enough to
plunder any caravan; but violence they know would injure them by cutting
off communication with the markets for their ivory. Thus they have
settled into a silent compromise, and their nice sense of self-interest
prevents any transgression beyond the bounds of reason. The sultans
receive their kuhonga, and the subjects entice away slaves from every
caravan, but the enormous interest upon capital laid out in the trade
still leaves a balance in favour of the merchants. The Arabs, however,
declaring that the evil is on the increase, propose many remedies--such
as large armed caravans, sent by their government, and heavy dues to be
exacted from those Wagogo who may visit the coast. But they are wise
enough to murmur without taking steps which would inevitably exacerbate
the evil. Should it pass a certain point, a new road will be opened, or
the old road will be reopened, to restore the balance of interests.
At the Ziwa we had many troubles. One Marema, the sultan of a new
settlement situated a few hundred yards to the north-west visited us on
the day of our arrival and reproving us for “sitting in the jungle,”
pointed out the way to his village. On our replying that we were about
to traverse Ugogo by another route, he demanded his Ada or customs,
which being newly-imposed were at once refused by Kidogo. The sultan, a
small man, a “mere thief,”--as a poor noble is graphically described in
these lands,--threatened violence, whereupon the asses were brought in
from grazing and were ostentatiously loaded before his eyes: when he
changed his tone from threats to beggary. Kidogo relenting gave him two
cloths with a few strings of beads, preferring this slender disbursement
to the chance of a flight of arrows during the night. His good judgment
was evidenced by the speedy appearance of the country-people, who
brought with them bullocks, sheep, goats and poultry, water-melons and
pumpkins, honey, butter-milk, whey and curded-milk, an abundance of
holcus and calabash-flour. The latter is made from the hard dry pulp
surrounding the bean-like seed contained in the ripe gourd: the taste is
a not unpleasant agro-dolce, and the people declare it to be
strengthening food, especially for children; they convert it into
porridge and rude cakes.
This abundance of provaunt caused a halt of four days at the Ziwa, and
it was spent in disputes between the great Said and the greater Kidogo.
The ostensible “bone of contention,” was cloth advanced by the former to
the porters--who claimed as their perquisite a bullock before entering
Ugogo--without consulting the hard-headed slave, who wounded in his
tenderest place of pride, had influence enough to halt the caravan. The
real cause of the dispute was kept from my ears till some months
afterwards, but secrets in this land are as the Arabs say, “Like musk,
murder, and Basrah-garlic,” they must out, and Bombay, who could never
help blurting forth the tacenda with the dicenda, at last accidentally
unveiled the mystery. Said had deferred taking overcharge of the outfit
from Kidogo till our arrival at the Ziwa, and the latter felt aggrieved
by the sudden yet tardy demand, which deprived him of the dignity and
the profits of stewardship. Sickness became rife in camp, the effect of
the cold night-winds and the burning suns, and as usual when men are
uncomfortable violent quarrels ensued. Again the officious Wazira, shook
the torch of discord by ordering Khamisi, an exceedingly drunken and
debauched son of Ramji, to carry certain bundles which usually graced
the shoulders of Goha, one of the Wak’hutu porters. When words were
exhausted Khamisi drew his blade upon Goha and was tackled by Wazira,
whilst Goha brought the muzzle of my elephant-gun to bear upon Khamisi
and was instantly collared by Bombay. Being thus “in chancery” both
heroes waxed so “exceedingly brave--particular,” that I was compelled to
cool their noble bile with a long pole. At length it became necessary to
make Kidogo raise his veto against the advance of the caravan. He did
not appear before me till summoned half-a-dozen times: when he at last
vouchsafed so to do I dragged rather than led him to the mat, where sat
in surly pride Said bin Salim, with the monocular Jemadar, and I ordered
the trio to quench with the waters of explanation the fire of anger.
After an apparently satisfactory arrangement Kidogo started up and
disappeared in the huts of his men; it presently proved that he had so
done for the purpose of proposing to his party, who were now the sole
interpreters, that to Said bin Salim, an ignoramus in such matters,
should be committed the weighty task of settling the amount of our
blackmail and presents with the greedy chiefs of Ugogo. Had the
mischievous project been carried into execution, we should have been
sufferers to some extent: lack of unanimity however caused the measure
to be thrown out. A march was fixed for the next day, when the bullock,
on this occasion the scape-grace, broke its tether and plunged into the
bush: it was followed by the Baloch and the porters, whose puny arrows,
when they alighted upon the beast’s stern, only goaded it forwards, and
at least threescore matchlock balls were discharged before one bullet
found its billet in the fugitive. The camp of course then demanded
another holiday to eat beef.
The reader must not imagine that I am making a “great cry,” about a
little matter. Four days are not easily spent when snowed-up in a
country inn, and that is a feeble comparison for the halt in East
Africa, where outfit is leaking away, the valuable travelling-time is
perhaps drawing to a close, health is palpably failing, and nothing but
black faces made blacker still by ill-humour and loud squabbles, meet
the eye and ear. Insignificant things they afterwards appear viewed
through the medium of memory, these petty annoyances of travel; yet at
the moment they are severely felt, and they must be resented
accordingly. The African traveller’s fitness for the task of exploration
depends more upon his faculty of chafing under delays and kicking
against the pricks, than upon his power of displaying the patience of a
Griselda or a Job.
On the 30th September, the last day of our detention at the Jiwa,
appeared a large caravan headed by Said bin Mohammed of Mbuamaji, with
Khalfan bin Khamis, and several other Coast-Arabs. They brought news
from the sea-board, and,--wondrous good fortune!--the portmanteau
containing books which the porter, profiting by the confusion caused by
the swarm of bees, had deposited in the long grass, at the place where I
had directed the slaves to seek it. Some difficulty was at first made
about restitution: the Arab law of “lakit,” or things trove, being
variable, complicated, and altogether opposed to our ideas. However, two
cloths were given to the man who had charge of it, and the Jemadar and
Said bin Salim were sent to recover it by any or all means. The
merchants were not offended. They consented to sell for the sum of
thirty-five dollars a strong and serviceable but an old and obstinate
African ass, which after carrying my companion for many a mile, at last
broke its heart when toiling up the steeps from whose summit the fair
waters of the Central Lake were first sighted. Moreover, they proposed
that for safety and economy the two caravans should travel together
under a single flag, and thus combine to form a total of 190 men. These
Coast-Arabs travelled in comfort. The brother of Said Mohammed had
married the daughter of Fundikira, Sultan of Unyanyembe, and thus the
family had a double home, on the coast and in the interior. All the
chiefs of the caravan carried with them wives and female slaves, negroid
beauties, tall, bulky and “plenty of them,” attired in tulip-hues,
cochineal and gamboge, who walked the whole way, and who when we passed
them displayed an exotic modesty by drawing their head-cloths over
cheeks which we were little ambitious to profane. They had a multitude
of Fundi, or managing men, and male slaves, who bore their personal bag
and baggage, scrip and scrippage, drugs and comforts, stores and
provisions, and who were always early at the ground to pitch, to
surround with a “pai,” or dwarf drain, and to bush for privacy, with
green boughs, their neat and light ridge-tents of American domestics.
Their bedding was as heavy as ours, and even their poultry travelled in
wicker cages. This caravan was useful to us in dealing with the Wagogo:
it always managed, however, to precede us on the march, and to
monopolise the best kraals. The Baloch and the sons of Ramji, when asked
on these occasions why they did not build a palisade, would reply
theatrically, “Our hearts are our fortification!”--methought a sorry
defence.
By Kidogo’s suggestion I had preferred the middle line through the
hundred miles of dreaded Ugogo: it was the beaten path, and infested
only by four Sultans, namely: 1. Myandozi of Kifukuru. 2. Magomba of
Kanyenye. 3. Maguru-Mafupi of K’hok’ho; and 4. Kibuya of Mdaburu. On the
1st October, 1857, we left the Ziwa late in the morning, and after
passing through the savannahs and the brown jungles of the lower levels,
where giraffe again appeared, the path crested a wave of ground and
debouched upon the table-land of Ugogo. The aspect was peculiar and
unprepossessing. Behind still towered in sight the Delectable Mountains
of Usagara, mist-crowned and robed in the lightest azure, with streaks
of a deep plum-colour, fronting the hot low land of Marenga Mk’hali,
whose tawny face was wrinkled with lines of dark jungle. On the north
was a tabular range of rough and rugged hill, above which rose three
distant cones pointed out as the haunts of the robber Wahumba: at its
base was a deep depression, a tract of brown brush patched with yellow
grass, inhabited only by the elephant, and broken by small outlying
hillocks. Southwards scattered eminences of tree-crowned rock rose a few
yards from the plain which extended to the front, a clearing of deep red
or white soil, decayed vegetation based upon rocky or sandy ground, here
and there thinly veiled with brown brush and golden stubbles: its
length, about four miles, was studded with square villages, and with the
stately but grotesque calabash. This giant is to the vegetable what the
elephant is to the animal world:--the Persians call it the
“practice-work of nature”--its disproportionate conical bole rests upon
huge legs exposed to view by the washing away of the soil, and displays
excrescences which in pious India would merit a coat of vermilion. From
the neck extend gigantic gnarled arms, each one a tree, whose thinnest
twig is thick as a man’s finger, and their weight causes them to droop
earthwards, giving to the outline the shape of a huge dome. In many
parts the unloveliness of its general appearance is varied by the
wrinkles and puckerings which, forming by granulation upon the oblongs
where the bark has been removed for fibre, give the base the appearance
of being chamfered and fluted; and often a small family of trunks, four
or five in number, springs from the same root. At that season all were
leafless; at other times they are densely foliaged, and contrasting with
their large timber and with their coarse fleshy leaf, they are adorned
with the delicatest flowers of a pure virgin-white, which, opening at
early dawn, fade and fall before eventide. The babe-tree issues from the
ground about one foot in diameter: in Ugogo, however, all those observed
were of middle age. The young are probably grubbed up to prevent their
encumbering the ground, and when decayed enough to be easily felled,
they are converted into firewood. By the side of these dry and leafless
masses of dull dead hue, here and there a mimosa or a thorn was
beginning to bear the buds of promise green as emeralds. The sun burned
like the breath of a bonfire, a painful glare--the reflection of the
terrible crystal above,--arose from the hot earth; warm Siroccos raised
clouds of dust, and in front the horizon was so distant, that, as the
Arabs expressed themselves, “a man might be seen three marches off.”
We were received with the drumming and the ringing of bells attached to
the ivories, with the yells and frantic shouts of two caravans halted at
Kifukuru: one was that of Said Mohammed, who awaited our escort, the
other a return “Safari,” composed of about 1,000 Wanyamwezi porters,
headed by four slaves of Salim bin Rashid, an Arab merchant settled at
Unyanyembe. The country people also flocked to stare at the phenomenon;
they showed that excitement which some few years ago might have been
witnessed in more polished regions when a “horrible murder” roused every
soul from Tweed banks to Land’s End; when, to gratify a morbid
destructiveness, artists sketched, literati described, tourists visited,
and curio-hunters met to bid for the rope and the murderer’s whiskers.
Yet I judged favourably of the Wagogo by their curiosity, which stood
out in strong relief against the apathy and the uncommunicativeness of
the races lately visited. Such inquisitiveness is amongst barbarians
generally a proof of improvability,--of power to progress. One man who
had visited Zanzibar could actually speak a few words of Hindostani, and
in Ugogo, and there only, I was questioned by the chiefs concerning
Uzungu “White-land,” the mysterious end of the world in which beads are
found under ground, and where the women weave such cottons. From the day
of our entering to that of our leaving the country, every settlement
turned out its swarm of gazers, men and women, boys and girls, some of
whom would follow us for miles with explosions of Hi!--i!--i! screams of
laughter and cries of excitement, at a long high trot,--most ungraceful
of motion!--and with a scantiness of toilette which displayed truly
unseemly spectacles. The matrons, especially the aged matrons, realised
Madame Pernelle’s description of an unpleasant female--
“Un peu trop forte en gueule et fort impertinente;”
and of their sex the old men were ever the most pertinacious and
intrusive, the most surly and quarrelsome. Vainly the escort attempted
to arrest the course of this moving multitude of semi-nude barbarity. I
afterwards learned that the two half-caste Arabs who had passed us at
Muhama, Khalfan and Id, the sons of Muallim Salim of Zanzibar, had,
whilst preceding us, spread through Ugogo malevolent reports concerning
the Wazungu. They had one eye each and four arms; they were full of
“knowledge,” which in these lands means magic; they caused rain to fall
in advance and left droughts in their rear; they cooked water melons and
threw away the seeds, thereby generating small-pox; they heated and
hardened milk, thus breeding a murrain amongst cattle; and their wire,
cloth, and beads caused a variety of misfortunes; they were kings of the
sea, and therefore white-skinned and straight-haired--a standing mystery
to these curly-pated people--as are all men who live in salt water; and
next year they would return and seize the country. Suspicion of our
intentions touching “territorial aggrandisement” was a fixed idea:
everywhere the value attached by barbarians to their homes is in inverse
ratio to the real worth of the article. Hence mountaineers are
proverbially patriotic. Thus the lean Bedouins of Arabia and the lank
Somal, though they own that they are starving, never sight a stranger
without suspecting that he is spying out the wealth of the land. “What
will happen to us?” asked the Wagogo; “we never yet saw this manner of
man!” But the tribe cannot now forfeit intercourse with the coast: they
annoyed us to the utmost, they made the use of their wells a daily
source of trouble, they charged us double prices, and when they brought
us provisions for sale, they insisted upon receiving the price of even
the rejected articles; yet they did not proceed to open outrage. Our
timid Arab, the Baloch, the sons of Ramji, and the porters humoured them
in every whim. Kidogo would not allow observations to be taken with a
bright sextant in presence of the mobility. He declined to clear the
space before the tent, as the excited starers, some of whom had come
from considerable distances, were apt under disappointment to wax
violent; and though he once or twice closed the tent-flaps, he would not
remove the lines of men, women, and children, who stretched themselves
for the greater convenience of peeping and peering, lengthways upon the
ground. Whenever a Mnyamwezi porter interfered, he was arrogantly told
to begone, and he slunk away, praying us to remember that these men are
“Wagogo.” Caravan after caravan had thus taught them to become bullies,
whereas a little manliness would soon have reduced them to their proper
level. They are neither brave nor well-armed, and their prestige rests
solely upon their feat in destroying about one generation ago a caravan
of Wanyamwezi--an event embalmed in a hundred songs and traditions. They
seemed to take a fancy to the Baloch, who received from the fair sex
many a little souvenir in the shape of a kid or a water-melon. Whenever
the Goanese Valentine was sent to a village he was politely and
hospitably welcomed, and seated upon a three-legged stool by the
headman; and generally the people agreed in finding fault with their
principal Sultans, declaring that they unwisely made the country hateful
to “Wakonongo,” or travellers. Fortunately for the Expedition several
scions of the race saw the light safely during our transit of Ugogo: had
an accident occurred to a few babies or calves, our return through the
country would have been difficult and dangerous. All received the name
of “Muzungu,” and thus there must now be a small colony of black “white
men” in this part of the African interior.
At Kifukuru I was delayed a day whilst settling the blackmail of its
Sultan Miyandozi. Said bin Salim, the Jemadar, and Kidogo called upon
him in the morning and were received in the gateway of a neat “Tembe,”
the great man disdaining to appear on so trivial an occasion. This
Sultan is the least powerful of the four; he is plundered by the Warori
tribes living to the south-west, and by his western neighbour, Magomba;
his subjects are poorly clad, and are little ornamented compared with
those occupying the central regions, where they have the power to detain
travellers and to charge them exorbitantly for grain and water. Yet
Miyandozi demanded four white and six blue shukkahs; besides which I was
compelled to purchase for him from the sons of Ramji, who of course
charged treble its value, a “Sohari” or handsome silk and cotton
loin-cloth. In return he sent--it appeared to be in irony--one kayla, or
four small measures of grain. The slaves of Salim bin Rashid obliged me
with a few pounds of rice, for which I gave them a return in gunpowder,
and they undertook to convey to Zanzibar a package of reports, indents,
and letters, which was punctually delivered. An ugly accident had nearly
happened that night; the Wanyamwezi porters managed to fire the grass
round a calabash tree, against which they had stretched their loads, and
a powder-magazine--fortunately fire-proof--was blackened and charred by
the flames. A traveller cannot be too careful about his ammunition in
these lands. I have seen a slave smoking a water pipe, tied for
convenience of carriage to a leaky keg of powder; and another in the
caravan of Salim bin Sayf of Dut’humi, resting the muzzle of his musket
against a barrel of ammunition, fired it to try its strength, and blew
himself up with several of his comrades.
On the 3rd October we quitted Kifukuru in the afternoon, and having
marched nearly six hours we encamped in one of the strips of waterless
brown jungles which throughout Ugogo divide the cultivated districts
from one another, and occupy about half the superficies of the land. The
low grounds, inundated during the rains, were deeply cracked, and my
weak ass, led by the purblind Shahdad, fell with violence upon my knee,
leaving a mixture of pain and numbness which lasted for some months. On
the next day we resumed our journey betimes through a thick rugged
jungle and over a rolling grassy plain, which extended to the frontier
of Kanyenye, where Sultan Magomba rules. The 5th October saw us in the
centre of Kanyenye, a clearing about ten miles in diameter. The surface
is a red tamped clayey soil, dotted with small villages, huge
calabashes, and stunted mimosas; water is found in wells or rather pits
sunk from ten to twelve feet in the lower lands, or in the sandy beds of
the several Fiumaras. Flocks and herds abound, and the country is as
cultivated and populous as the saline nitrous earth, and the scarceness
of the potable element, which often tarnishes silver like sulphur-fumes,
permits.
At Kanyenye I was delayed four days to settle blackmail with Magomba,
the most powerful of the Wagogo chiefs. He was on this, as on a
subsequent occasion, engaged in settling a cause arising from Uchawi or
Black Magic; yet all agree that in Ugogo, where, to quote the “Royal
Martyr’s” words,
“Plunder and murder are the kingdom’s laws,”
there is perhaps less of wizardhood and witchcraft, and consequently
less of its normal consequences, fiscs and massacres, than in any other
region between the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean. “Arrow-heads” employed
every art of wild diplomacy to relieve me of as much cloth as possible.
I received, when encamped at the Ziwa, a polite message declaring his
desire to see white men; but--“the favour of the winds produces dust”--I
was obliged to acknowledge the compliment with two cottons. On arrival
at his head-quarters I was waited upon by an oily cabinet of Wazirs and
elders, who would not depart without their “respects”--four cottons. The
next demand was made by his favourite wife, a peculiarly hideous old
princess with more wrinkles than hairs, with no hair black and no tooth
white, and attended by ladies in waiting as unprepossessing as herself:
she was not to be dismissed without a fee of six cottons. At last,
accompanied by a mob of courtiers, who crowded in like an African House
of Commons, appeared in person the magnifico. He was the only Sultan
that ever entered my tent in Ugogo--pride and a propensity for strong
drink prevented other visits. He was much too great a man to call upon
the Arab merchants, but in our case curiosity had mastered state
considerations. Magomba was a black and wrinkled elder, drivelling and
decrepid, with a half-bald head from whose back and sides depended a few
straggling corkscrews of iron gray: he wore a coat of castor-oil and a
“Barsati” loin-cloth, which grease and use had changed from blue to
black. A few bead strings decorated his neck, large flexible anklets of
brass wire adorned his legs, solid brass rings, single and in coils,
which had distended his earlobes almost to splitting, were tied by a
string over his cranium, and his horny soles were defended by
single-soled sandals, old, dirty, and tattered. He chewed his quid and
he expectorated without mercy; he asked many a silly question, yet he
had ever an eye to the main chance. He demanded and received five
“cloths with names,” which I was again compelled to purchase at an
exorbitant price from the Baloch and slaves, one coil of brass wire,
four blue cottons, and ten “domestics;” the total amounted to fifty
shukkahs, here worth at least fifty dollars, and exhausting nearly
two-thirds of a porter’s load. His return present was the leanest of
calves; when it was driven into camp with much parade, his son, who had
long been looking out for a fit opportunity, put in a claim for three
cottons.
Magomba before our departure exacted from Kidogo an oath that his
Wazungu would not smite the land with drought or with fatal disease,
declaring that all we had was in his hands. He boasted, and with truth,
of his generosity. It was indeed my firm conviction from first to last,
that in case of attack or surprise I had not a soul except my companion
to stand by me: all those who accompanied us could, and consequently
would, have saved their lives;--_we_ must have perished. We should have
been as safe with six as with sixty guns; but I would by no means apply
to these regions Mr. Galton’s opinion, “that the last fatal expedition
of Mungo Park is full of warning to travellers who propose exploring
with a large body of men.” For though sixty guns do not suffice to
prevent attack in Ugogo, 600 stout fellows armed with the “hot-mouthed
weapon” might march through the length and breadth of Central Africa.
During our four days’ detention at Kanyenye, I was compelled to waste
string after string of beads in persuading the people to water the
porters and asses. Yet their style of proceeding proved that it was
greed of gain, not scarcity of the element, which was uppermost in their
minds; they would agree to supply us with an unlimited quantity, and
then would suddenly gather round the well and push away the Wanyamwezi,
bidding them go and fetch more beads. All the caravan took the
opportunity of loading itself with salt. Whilst the halt lasted, my
companion brought in a fine-flavoured pallah and other antelopes, with
floriken, guinea-fowl, and partridge. Neither he nor I, however, had
strength enough, nor had we time, to attack the herds of elephants that
roam over the valley whose deep purple line separates the table-land of
Ugogo from the blue hills of the Wahumba to the north. And here,
perhaps, a few words concerning the prospects of sportsmen in this part
of Africa, may save future travellers from the mistake into which I
fell. I expected great things, and returned without realising a single
hope. This portion of the peninsula is a remarkable contrast to the line
traversed by Dr. Livingstone, where the animals standing within bow-shot
were so numerous and fearless, that the burden of provisions was often
unnecessary. In the more populous parts game has melted away before the
woodman’s axe and the hunters’ arrows: even where large tracks of jungle
abound with water and forage, the note of a bird rarely strikes the ear,
and during a long day’s march not a single large animal will be seen
from the beaten track. It is true that in some places, there is
“---- enough
Of beastes that be chaseable.”
The park lands of Dut’humi, the jungles and forests of Ugogi and
Mgunda Mk’hali, the barrens of Usukuma, and the tangled thickets of
Ujiji, are full of noble game,--lions and leopards, elephants and
rhinoceroses, wild cattle, giraffes, gnus, zebras, quaggas, and
ostriches. But these are dangerous regions where the sportsman often
cannot linger for a day. Setting aside the minor considerations of
miasma and malaria,--the real or fancied perils of the place, and the
want of food, or the difficulty of procuring water, would infallibly
cause the porters to desert. Here are no Cape-waggons, at once house,
store, and transport; no “Ships of the Desert,” never known to run away;
in fact there is no vehicle but man, and he is so impatient and
headstrong, so suspicious and timorous, that he must be humoured in
every whim. As sportsmen know, it is difficult to combine surveying
operations and collection of specimens with a pursuit which requires all
a man’s time; in these countries, moreover, no merely hunting-expedition
would pay, owing to the extraordinary expense of provisions and
carriage. Thus Venator will be reduced to use his “shooting-iron” on
halting days, and at the several periods of his journey, and his only
consolation will be the prospect of wreaking vengeance upon the
hippopotamus and the crocodile of the coast, if his return there be
entered in the book of Time. Finally, East Africa wants the vast variety
of animals, especially the beautiful antelopes, which enrich the lists
of the Cape Fauna. The tale of those observed in short: the horns of the
oryx were seen, the hartebeest and steinbok, the saltiana and the
pallah,--the latter affording excellent venison,--were shot. The country
generally produces the “Suiya,” a little antelope with reddish coat and
diminutive horns, about the size of an English hare, the swangura, or
sungula, an animal somewhat larger than the saltiana, and of which,
according to the people, the hind only has horns; and at K’hutu my
companion saw a double-horned antelope which he thought resembled the
“Chouka-singa,” (_Tetraceros Quadricornis_) of Nepaul. The species of
birds, also, are scarcely more numerous than the beasts; the feathered
tribe is characterised by sombreness of plumage, and their song is noisy
but not harmonious, unpleasant, perhaps because strange, to the European
ear.
On the 8th October appeared at Kanyenye a large down-caravan headed by
Abdullah bin Nasib, a Msawahili of Zanzibar, whose African name is
Kisesa. This good man began with the usual token of hospitality, the
gift of a goat, and some measures of the fine Unyanyembe rice, of which
return-parties carry an ample store: he called upon me at once with
several companions,--one of them surprised me not a little by an English
“good morning,”--and he kindly volunteered to halt a day whilst we wrote
reports and letters, life-certificates, and duplicate-indents upon
Zanzibar for extra supplies of drugs and medical comforts, cloth and
beads. The asses were now reduced to five, and as Magomba refused to
part with any of his few animals, at any price,--on the coast I had been
assured that asses were as numerous as dogs in Ugogo--Abdullah gave me
one of his riding-animals, and would take nothing for it except a little
medicine, and a paper acknowledging his civility. Several of the slaves
and porters had been persuaded by the Wagogo to desert, and Abdullah
busied himself to recover them. One man, who had suddenly deposited his
pack upon the path and had disappeared in the jungle during the noonday
halt, was pointed out by a woman to Kidogo, and was found lurking in a
neighbouring village, where the people refused to give him up. Abdullah
sent for Magomba’s four chief “ministers,” and persuaded them to render
active aid: they seized the fellow, took from him his wire and his nine
cloths, appropriated four, and left me five wherewith to engage another
porter. The deserter was of course dismissed, but the severity of the
treatment did not prevent three desertions on the next day.
The 10th October ushered in an ugly march. Emerging betimes from the
glaring white and red plains of Kanyenye, dotted with fields, villages,
and calabashes, we unloaded in a thin jungle of mimosa and
grass-bunches, near sundry pools, then almost dried up, but still
surrounded by a straggling growth of chamærops and verdurous thorns. The
bush gave every opportunity to the porters, who had dispersed in the
halt, to desert with impunity. In our hurried morning tramp, want of
carriage had caused considerable confusion, and at 2 P.M., when again
the word “load” was given for a tirikeza, everything seemed to go wrong.
Said bin Salim and the Jemadar hurried forwards, leaving me to manage
the departure with Kidogo, who, whilst my companion lay under a calabash
almost unable to move, substituted for his strong Mnyamwezi ass a
wretched animal unable to bear the lightest load. The Baloch Belok was
asked to carry our only gourd full of water; he pleaded sickness as an
excuse. And, when the rear of the caravan was about to march, Kidogo,
who alone knew the way, hastened on so fast that he left us to wander
through a labyrinth of elephants’ tracks, hedged in by thorns and
brambly trees, which did considerable damage to clothes and cutis.
Having at length found the way, we advanced over a broad, open, and
grassy plain, striped with southwards-trending sandy water-courses of
easy ascent and descent, and lined with a green aromatic vegetation, in
which the tall palm suggested a resemblance to the valley-plains of the
Usagara Mountains. As night fell upon us like a pall, we entered the
broken red ground that limits the flat westwards, and, ascending a dark
ridge of broken, stony, ground, and a dense thorn-bush, we found
ourselves upon a higher level. The asses stumbled, the men grumbled, and
the want of water severely tried the general temper.
From this cold jungle--the thermometer showed a minimum of 54° F.--we
emerged at dawn on the 11th October, and after three hours’ driving
through a dense bush of various thorns, with calabashes reddened by the
intense heat, and tripping upon the narrow broken path that ran over
rolling ground, we found the porters halted at some pits full of sweet
clear water. Here the caravan preserved a remarkable dead silence. I
inquired the cause. The Coast-Arabs who accompanied us were trying an
experiment, which, had it failed, would have caused trouble, expense,
and waste of time; they were attempting to pass without blackmail the
little clearing of Usek’he, which lay to the south of the desert-road,
and they knew that its Sultan, Ganza Mikono, usually posted a party upon
the low masses of bristling hill hard by, to prevent caravans evading
his dues. As no provisions were procurable in the jungle, it was judged
better to proceed, and the sun was in the zenith before we reached the
district of K’hok’ho. We halted under a spreading tree, near the
head-quarter village of its villanous Sultan, in an open plain of millet
and panicum-stubbles. Presently Kidogo, disliking the appearance of
things--the men, rushing with yells of excitement from their villages,
were forming a dense ring around us; the even more unmanageable old
women stared like _sages femmes_, and already a Mnyamwezi porter had
been beaten at the well--stirred us up and led the way to an open jungle
about a mile distant. There we were safe; no assailant would place
himself upon the plain, the Coast-Arabs were close at hand, and in the
bush we should have been more than a match for the Wagogo.
The Baloch, fatigued by the tedious marches of the last two days, had
surlily refused their escort to our luggage, as well as to ourselves.
When the camp was pitched, I ordered a goat to be killed; and, serving
out rations to the sons of Ramji and the porters, I gave them none, a
cruel punishment to men whose souls centered in their ingesta. The
earlier part of the evening was spent by them in enumerating their
grievances--they were careful to speak in four dialects, so that all
around might understand them, in discussing their plans of desertion,
and in silencing the contradiction of their commander, the monocular
Jemadar, who, having forsworn opium, now headed the party in opposition
to the mutineers. They complained that they were faint for want of
meat--the fellows were driving a bullock and half a dozen goats, which
they had purchased with cloth, certainly not their own. I had, they
grumbled, given them no ghee or honey, consequently they were obliged to
“eat dry”--they knew this to be false, as they had received both at
Kanyenye. We had made them march ten “Cos” in our eagerness to obtain
milk--they were the first to propose reaching a place where provisions
were procurable. The unmanageables, Khudabakhsh, Shahdad, and Belok,
proposed an immediate departure, but a small majority carried the day in
favour of desertion next morning. Kidogo and the sons of Ramji
ridiculed, as was their wont, the silly boasters with, “Of a truth,
brethren! the coast is far off, and ye are hungry men!” On the ensuing
day, when a night’s reflection had cooled down their noble bile, they
swallowed their words like buttered parsnips. I heard no more of their
plans, and in their demeanour they became cringing as before.
The transit of the K’hok’ho clearing, which is also called the Nyika, or
wilderness, is considered the nucleus of travellers’ troubles in Ugogo.
The difficulty is caused by its Sultan, M’ana Miaha, popularly known as
Maguru Mafupi, or Short-shanks. This petty tyrant, the most powerful,
however, of the Wagogo chiefs, is a toothache to strangers, who complain
that he cannot even plunder _à l’aimable_. He was described to me as a
short elderly man, nearly bald, chocolate-coloured, and remarkable for
the duck-like conformation which gave origin to his nickname. His dress
was an Arab check round his loins, and another thrown over his
shoulders. He becomes man, idiot, and beast with clockwork-regularity
every day; when not disguised in liquor he is surly and unreasonable,
and when made merry by his cups he refuses to do business. He is in the
habit of detaining Wanyamwezi caravans to hoe his fields, and he often
applies them to a _corvée_ of five or six days during the spring-time,
before he will consent to receive his blackmail.
We were delayed five days at K’hok’ho to lay in provisions for four
marches, and by the usual African pretexts, various and peculiar. On the
afternoon of arrival it would have been held indecent haste to trouble
His Highness. On the first morning His Highness’s spouse was unwell, and
during the day he was “sitting upon Pombe,” in other words, drinking
beer. On the second he received, somewhat scurvily, a deputation headed
by Said bin Salim, the Coast-Arab merchants, and the Jemadar. Two
Wazagira, or chief-councillors, did the palaver, which was conducted,
for dignity, outside the royal hovel. He declared that the two caravans
must compound separately, and that in my case he would be satisfied with
nothing under six porters’ loads. As about one-twelfth of his demand was
offered to him, he dismissed them with ignominy, affirming that he held
me equal to the Sayyid of Zanzibar, and accordingly that he should
demand half the outfit. The third day was spent by the Coast-Arabs in
haggling with the courtiers before His Highness, who maintained a solemn
silence, certainly the easiest plan; and the present was paraded, as is
customary on such occasions, in separate heaps, each intended for a
particular person, but Her Highness, justly offended by the flimsiness
of a bit of chintz, seized a huge wooden ladle and hooted and hunted the
offenders out of doors. After high words the Arabs returned, and
informed me that things were looking desperate. I promised assistance in
case of violence being offered to them,--a civility which they
acknowledged by sending a shoulder of beef. The fourth day was one of
dignified idleness. We received a message that the court was again
sitting upon Pombe, and we too well understood that His Highness, with
his spouse and cabinet, were drunk as drunk could be. On the morning of
the fifth day, a similar delaying process was attempted; but as the
testy Kidogo, who had taken the place of the tame Said, declared that
the morrow should see us march in the afternoon, the present was
accepted, and the two or three musket shots usual on such occasions
sounded the joyful tidings that we were at liberty to proceed. The
unconscionable extortioner had received one coil of brass wire, four
“cloths with names,” eight domestics, eight blue cottons, and thirty
strings of coral beads. Not contented with this, he demanded two Arab
checks, and these failing, a double quantity of beads, and another
domestic. I compromised the affair with six feet of crimson broadcloth,
an article which I had not produced, as the Coast-Arabs, who owned none,
declared that such an offering would cause difficulties in their case.
But as they charged me double and treble prices for the expensive cloths
which the Sultan required, and which, as they had been omitted in our
outfit, it was necessary to purchase from them, I at length thought
myself justified in economising by the only means in my power. The
fiery-tempered Coast-Arabs left K’hok’ho with rage in their hearts and
curses under their tongues. These men usually think outside their heads,
but they know that in Ugogo the merest pretext--the loosing a hot word,
touching a woman, offending a boy, or taking in vain the name of the
Sultan--infallibly leads to being mulcted in cloth.
I was delighted to escape from the foul strip of crowded jungle in which
we had halted. A down-caravan of Wanyamwezi had added its quotum of
discomfort to the place. Throughout the fiery day we were stung by the
Tzetze, and annoyed by swarms of bees and pertinacious gadflies. On one
occasion an army of large poisonous siyafu, or black pismire, drove us
out of the tent by the wounds which it inflicted between the fingers and
on other tender parts of the body, before a kettle of boiling water
persuaded them to abandon us. These ant-fiends made the thin-skinned
asses mad with torture. The nights were cold and raw, and when we awoke
in the morning we found some valuable article rendered unserviceable by
the termites. K’hok’ho was an ill-omened spot. There my ass “Seringe,”
sole survoice of the riding animals brought from Zanzibar, was so torn
by a hyæna that I was compelled to leave it behind. I was afterwards
informed that it had soon died of its wounds. The next mishap was the
desertion of the fifteen Wanyamwezi porters who had been hired and paid
at Ugogi. These men had slept in the same kraal with the somnolent sons
of Ramji, and had stealthily disappeared during the night. As usual,
though they carried off their own, they had left our loads behind, that
they might reach their homes with greater speed. They would choose a
jungle road, to avoid the danger of slavery, and living the while upon
roots and edible grasses, would traverse the desert separating them from
their country in three or four days. This desertion of fifteen men first
suggested to me that my weary efforts and wearing anxiety about carriage
were to a certain extent self-inflictions. Expecting to see half the
outfit left upon the ground, I was surprised by the readiness with which
it disappeared. The men seemed to behave best whenever things were
palpably at the worst; besides which, as easily as the baggage of 50
porters was distributed amongst 100, so easily were the loads of 100 men
placed upon the shoulders of 50. Indeed, the original Wanyamwezi gang,
who claimed by right extra pay for carrying extra weight, though
fiercely opposed to lifting up an empty gourd gratis, were ever docile
when a heavier pack brought with it an increase of cloth and beads.
However, the march on the 17th October had its trifling hardships. My
companion rode forward on the ass lately given to us by Abdullah bin
Nasib, whilst I, remaining behind and finding that no carriage could be
procured for two bags of clothes and shoes, placed them upon my animal
the Mnyamwezi bought at Inenge, inasmuch as it appeared somewhat
stronger than the half-dozen wretched brutes that flung themselves upon
the ground apparently too fagged to move. I had, however, overrated its
powers: it soon became evident that I must walk, or that the valuable
cargo must be left behind. Trembling with weakness, I set out to
traverse the length of the Mdáburu Jungle. The memory of that march is
not pleasant: the burning sun and the fiery reflected heat arising from
the parched ground--here a rough, thorny, and waterless jungle, where
the jasmine flowered and the frankincense was used for fuel; there a
grassy plain of black and sun-cracked earth--compelled me to lie down
every half-hour. The watergourds were soon drained by my attendant
Baloch; and the sons of Ramji, who, after reaching the resting-place,
had returned with ample stores for their comrades, hid their vessels on
my approach. Sarmalla, a donkey-driver, the model of a surly negro,
whose crumpled brow, tightened eyes and thick lips which shot-out on the
least occasion of excitement, showed what was going on within his head,
openly refused me the use of his gourd, and--thirst is even less to be
trifled with than hunger--found ample reason to repent himself of the
proceeding. Near the end of the jungle I came upon a party of the
Baloch, who, having seized upon a porter belonging to a large caravan of
Wanyamwezi that had passed us on that march, were persuading him, half
by promises and half by threats, to carry their sleeping mats and their
empty gourds. The strict and positive orders as regards enticing away
deserters which I had issued at Inenge, were looked upon by them, in
their all-engrossing egotism, as a mere string of empty words. I could
do nothing beyond threatening to report their conduct to their master,
and dismissing the man, who obviously stood in fear of death, with his
tobacco and hoes duly counted back to him. Towards the end of that long
march I saw with pleasure the kindly face of Seedy Bombay, who was
returning to me in hot haste, leading an ass, and carrying a few scones
and hard-boiled eggs. Mounting, I resumed my way, and presently arrived
at the confines of Mdáburu, where, under a huge calabash, stood our
tent, amidst a kraal of grass boothies, surrounded by a heaped-up ridge
of thorns.
Mdáburu is the first important district in the land of Uyanzi, which,
beginning from Western K’hok’ho, extends as far as Tura, the eastern
frontier of Unyamwezi-land. It is a fertile depression of brick-red
earth, bisected by a broad, deep, and sandy Fiumara, which, trending
southwards, supplies from five pits water in plenty even during the
driest season. It is belted on all sides by a dense jungle, over whose
dark brown line appeared the summits of low blue cones, and beyond them
long streaks of azure ridge, beautified by distance into the semblance
of a sea. We were delayed two days at this, the fourth and westernmost
district of Ugogo. It was necessary to lay in a week’s provision for the
party--ever a tedious task in these regions, but more especially in the
dead of winter--moreover, the Sultan Kibuya expected the settlement of
his blackmail. From this man we experienced less than the usual
incivility: by birth a Mkimbu foreigner, and fearing at that time wars
and rumours of wars on the part of his villanous neighbour, Maguru
Mafupi, he contented himself with a present which may be estimated at
nineteen cloths, whereas the others had murmured at forty and fifty.
However, he abated nothing of his country’s pretentious pride. A black,
elderly man, dressed in a grimy cloth, without other ornament but a
broad ivory bracelet covering several inches of his right wrist, he at
first refused to receive the deputation because his “ministers” were
absent; and during the discourse about the amount of blackmail, he sat
preserving an apathetic silence, outside his dirty lodging in the huge
kraal which forms his capital. The demand concluded with a fine
silk-cotton cloth, on the part of his wife; and when “ma femme” appears
on such occasions in these regions, as in others further west, it is a
sure sign that the stranger is to be taken in. As usual with the East
African chiefs, Kibuya was anxious to detain me, not only in order that
his people might profitably dispose of their surplus stores, but also
because the presence of so many guns would go far to modify the plans of
his enemies. His attempts at delay, however, were skilfully
out-manœuvred by Said bin Salim, who broke through all difficulties with
the hardihood of fear. The little man’s vain terrors made him put the
ragged kraal which surrounded us into a condition of defence, and every
night he might be seen stalking like a troubled spirit amongst the forms
of sleeping men.
At Mdáburu I hired two porters from the caravan that accompanied us; and
Said bin Salim began somewhat tardily to take the usual precautions
against desertion. He was ordered, before the disappearance of the
porters that levanted at K’hok’ho, to pack their hire in our loads, and
every evening to chain up the luggage heaped in front of our tent. The
accident caused by his neglect rendered him now quasi-obedient.
Moreover, two or three Baloch were told off to precede the line, and as
many to bring up the rear. The porters, as I have said, hold it a point
of honour not to steal their packs; but if allowed to straggle forwards,
or to loiter behind, they will readily attempt the recovery of their
goods by opening their burdens, which they afterwards abandon upon the
road. The Coast-Arabs, in return for some small shot, which is here
highly prized, assisted me by carrying some surplus luggage. Amongst
other articles, two kegs of gunpowder were committed to them: both were
punctually returned at Unyanyembe, where gunpowder sells at two cloths,
or half a Frasilah (17·5 lbs.) of ivory per lb; but the bungs had been
stove in, and a quarter of the contents had evaporated. The evening of
the second day’s halt closed on us before the rations for the caravan
were collected, and seventeen shukkah, with about a hundred strings of
beads, barely produced a sufficiency of grain.
From the Red Vale of Mdáburu three main lines traverse the desert
between Ugogo and Unyamwezi. The northernmost, called Njia T’humbi,
leads in a west-north-westerly direction to Usukuma. Upon this track are
two sultans and several villages. The central “Karangásá,” or “Mdáburu,”
is that which will be described in the following pages. The
southernmost, termed Uyánzi, sets out from K’hok’ho, and passes through
the settlements known by the name of Jiwe lá Singá. It is avoided by the
porters, dreading to incur the wrath of Sultan Kibuyá, who would resent
their omitting to visit his settlement, M’dáburu.
These three routes pass through the heart of the great desert and
elephant-ground “Mgunda Mk’hali”--explained by the Arabs to mean in
Kinyamwezi, the Fiery “Shamba” or Field. Like Marenga Mk’hali, it is a
desert, because it contains no running water nor wells, except after
rain. The name is still infamous, but its ill-fame rests rather upon
tradition than actuality; in fact, its dimensions are rapidly shrinking
before the torch and axe. About fifteen years ago it contained twelve
long stages, and several tirikeza; now it is spanned in eight marches.
The wildest part is the first half from Mdáburu to Jiwe lá Mkoa, and
even here, it is reported, villages of Wakimbu are rising rapidly on the
north and south of the road. The traveller, though invariably threatened
with drought and the death of cattle, will undergo little hardship
beyond the fatigue of the first three forced marches through the “Fiery
Field;” in fact, he will be agreeably surprised by its contrast with the
desert of Marenga Mk’hali.
From east to west the diagonal breadth of Mgunda Mk’hali is 140 miles.
The general aspect is a dull uniform bush, emerald-coloured during the
rains, and in the heats a network of dry and broom-like twigs. Except
upon the banks of nullahs--“rivers” that are not rivers--the trees, as
in Ugogo, wanting nutriment, never afford timber, and even the calabash
appears stunted. The trackless waste of scrub, called the “bush” in
Southern Africa, is found in places alternating with thin gum-forest;
the change may be accounted for by the different depths of water below
the level of the ground. It is a hardy vegetation of mimosas and gums
mixed with evergreen succulent plants, cactaceæ, aloes, and euphorbias:
the grass, sometimes tufty, at other times equally spread, is hard and
stiff; when green it feeds cattle, and when dry it is burned in places
by passing caravans to promote the growth of another crop.
The groundwork of Mgunda Mk’hali is a detritus of yellowish quartz, in
places white with powdered felspar, and, where vegetation decays,
brown-black with humus. Water-worn pebbles are sprinkled over the earth,
and the vicinity of Fiumaras abounds in a coarse and modern
sandstone-conglomerate. Upon the rolling surface, and towering high
above the tallest trees, are based the huge granitic and syenitic
outcrops before alluded to. The contrast between the masses and the
dwarf rises which support them at once attracts the eye. Here and there
the long waves that diversify the land appear in the far distance like
blue lines bounding the nearer superficies of brown or green. Throughout
this rolling table-land the watershed is to the south. In rare places
the rains stagnate in shallow pools, which become systems of mud-cakes
during the drought. At this season water is often unprocurable in the
Fiumaras, causing unaccustomed hardships to caravans, and death to those
beasts which, like the elephant and the buffalo, cannot long exist
without drinking.
On the 20th October we began the transit of the “Fiery Field,” whose
long broad line of brown jungle, painted blue by the intervening air,
had, since leaving K’hok’ho, formed our western horizon. The waste here
appeared in its most horrid phase. The narrow goat-path serpentined in
and out of a growth of poisonous thorny jungle, with thin, hard
grass-straw, growing on a glaring white and rolling ground; the view was
limited by bush and brake, as in the alluvial valleys of the maritime
region, and in weary sameness the spectacle surpassed everything that we
had endured in Marenga Mk’hali. We halted through the heat of the day at
some water-pits in a broken course; and resuming our tedious march early
in the afternoon, we arrived about sunset at the bed of a shallow
nullah, where the pure element was found in sand-holes about five feet
deep.
On the 2nd day we reached the large Mabunguru Fiumara, a deep and
tortuous gash of fine yellow quartzoze sand and sunburnt blocks of
syenite: at times it must form an impassable torrent, even at this
season of severe drought it afforded long pools of infiltrated
rain-water, green with weeds and abounding with shell-fish, and with the
usual description of Silurus. In the earlier morning the path passed
through a forest already beautified by the sprouting of tender green
leaves and by the blooming of flowers, amongst which was a large and
strongly perfumed species of jasmine, whilst young grass sprouted from
the fire-blackened remnants of the last year’s crop. Far upon the
southern horizon rose distant hills and lines, blue, as if composed of
solidified air, and mocking us by their mirage-likeness to the ocean.
Nearer, the ground was diversified by those curious evidences of igneous
action, which extend westward through eastern Unyamwezi, and northwards
to the shores of the Nyanza Lake. These outcrops of gray granite and
syenite are principally of two different shapes, the hog’s back and the
turret. The former usually appears as a low lumpy dome of various
dimensions; here a few feet long, there extending a mile and a half in
diameter: the outer coat scales off under the action of the atmosphere,
and in places it is worn away by a network of paths. The turret is a
more picturesque and changing feature. Tall rounded blocks and conical
or cylindrical boulders, here single, there in piles or ridges, some
straight and stiff as giant ninepins, others split as if an alley or a
gateway passed between them, rise abruptly and perpendicularly almost
without foundationary elevation, cleaving the mould of a dead plain,
or--like gypseous formations, in which the highest boulders are planted
upon the lowest and broadest bases--they bristle upon a wave of
dwarfish rocky hill. One when struck was observed to give forth a
metallic clink, and not a few, balanced upon points, reminded me of the
tradition-bearing rocking stones. At a distance in the forest, the
larger masses might be mistaken for Cyclopean walls, towers, steeples,
minarets, loggans, dwelling houses, and ruined castles. They are often
overgrown with a soft grass, which decaying, forms with the degradation
of the granite a thin cap of soil; their summits are crowned with tufty
cactus, a stomatiferous plant which imbibes nourishment from the oxygen
of the air; whilst huge creepers, imitating trees, project gnarled
trunks from the deeper crevices in their flanks. Seen through the forest
these rocks are an effective feature in the landscape, especially when
the sunbeams fall warm and bright upon their rounded summits and their
smooth sides, here clothed with a mildew-like lichen of the tenderest
leek-green, there yellowed like Italian marbles by the burning rays, and
there streaked with a shining black as if glazed by the rain, which,
collecting in cupfuls upon the steps and slopes, at times overflows,
coursing in mimic cataracts down the heights.
That march was a severe trial; we had started at dawn, we did not,
however, arrive at the Mabunguru Fiumara before noon, and our people
straggled in about eveningtide. All our bullet-moulds, and three boxes
of ammunition, were lost. Said bin Salim, the Jemadar, and three other
men had followed in the rear, driving on the “One-Eyed Fiend,” which,
after many a prank, lay down upon the ground, and positively declined to
move. The escort, disliking the sun, abandoned it at once to its fate,
and want of provisions, and the inordinate length of the marches,
rendered a halt or a return for the valuable load--four boxes of
ammunition--out of the question. An article once abandoned in these
deserts is rarely if ever recovered; the caravan-porters will not halt,
and a small party dares not return to recover it.
The 22nd October saw us at Jiwe la Mkoa, the half-way-house of Mgunda
Mk’hali. The track, crossing the rough Mabunguru Fiumara, passed over
rolling ground through a thorny jungle that gradually thinned out into a
forest; about 8 A.M. a halt was called at a water in the wilderness. My
companion being no longer able to advance on foot, an ass was unloaded,
and its burden of ammunition was divided, for facility of porterage,
amongst the sons of Ramji. After noon we resumed our march, and the
Kirangozi, derided by the rival guide of the Coast-Arabs’ caravan, and
urged forward by Kidogo, who was burning to see his wife and children in
Unyamwezi, determined to “put himself at the head of himself.” The
jungle seemed interminable. The shadows of the hills lengthened out upon
the plains, the sun sank in the glory of purple, crimson, and gold, and
the crescent-moon rained a flood of silvery light upon the topmost
twig-work of the trees; we passed a dwarf clearing, where lodging and
perhaps provisions were to be obtained, and we sped by water near the
road where the frogs were chanting their vesper-hymn; still far,--far
ahead we heard the horns and the faint march-cries of the porters. At
length, towards the end of the march, we wound round a fantastic mass of
cactus-clad boulders, and crossing a low ridge we found at its base a
single Tembe or square village of emigrant Wakimbu, who refused to admit
us. The little basin beyond it displayed, by “black jacks” and felled
tree-trunks, evidences of modern industry, and it extended to the Jiwe
or Rock, which gives its name to the clearing. We were cheered by the
sight of the red fires glaring in the Kraal, but my companion’s ass,
probably frightened by some wild beast to us invisible, reared high in
the air, bucked like a deer, broke his frail Arab girths, and threw his
invalid rider heavily upon the hard earth. Arrived at the Kraal, I found
every boothy occupied by the porters, who refused shelter until dragged
out like slaughtered sheep. Said bin Salim’s awning was as usual snugly
pitched; ours still lay on the ground. The little Arab’s “duty to
himself” appeared to attain a higher limit every stage; once comfortably
housed, he never thought of offering cover to another, and his children
knew him too well even to volunteer such a service to any one but
himself. On a late occasion, when our tent had not appeared, Said bin
Salim, to whom a message had been sent, refused to lend us one half of
the awning committed to him, a piece of canvas cut out to serve as a
tent and lug-sail. Bombay then distinguished himself by the memorable
words,--“If you are not ashamed of your master, be ashamed of his
servant!” which had the effect of bringing the awning and of making Said
bin Salim testily refuse the half returned to him.
Jiwe la Mkoa, or the Round Rock, is the largest of the many hogs’-backs
of grey syenite that stud this waste. It measures about two miles in
extreme diameter, and the dome rises with a gentle slope to the height
of 200 or 300 feet above the dead level of the plain. Tolerable water is
found in pits upon a swamp at its southern base, and well covered Mtego
or elephant traps, deep grave-like excavations, like the Indian “Ogi,”
prove dangerous to travellers; in one of these the Jemadar disappeared
suddenly, as if by magic. The smooth and rounded surface of the rock
displays deep hoof-shaped holes, which in a Moslem land would at once be
recognised as the Asr, or the footprints of those holy quadrupeds,
Duldul or Zu’l Jenah. In places the Jiwe, overgrown with scattered tufts
of white grass, and based upon a dusty surface blackened by torrent
rains, forcibly suggested to the Baloch the idea of an elderly negro’s
purbald poll.
We encamped close to the Jiwe, and in so doing we did wrong: however
pleasant may be the shadow of a tall rock in a thirsty land by day,
way-wise travellers avoid the vicinity of stones which, by diminished
radiation, retain their heat throughout the night. All caravans passing
through this clearing clamour to be supplied with provisions; our
porters, who, having received rations for eight days, which they
consumed in four, were no exceptions to the rule. As the single little
village of Jiwe la Mkoa could afford but one goatskin of grain and a few
fowls, the cattle not being for sale, and no calves having been born to
the herds, the porters proposed to send a party with cloth and beads to
collect provaunt from the neighbouring settlements. But the notable
Khalfan bin Khamis, the most energetic of the Coast-Arabs in whose
company we were travelling, would brook no delay: he had issued as usual
three days’ rations for a long week’s march, and thus by driving his
porters beyond their speed, he practised a style of economy usually
categorised by us at home as “penny-wise and pound-foolish.” His
marching was conducted upon the same principle; determining to save
time, he pushed on till his men began to flag, presently broke down, and
finally deserted.
At Jiwe la Mkoa the neck of the desert is broken: the western portion of
Mgunda Mk’hali has already thinned out. On the 23rd October, despite the
long march of the preceding day, Khalfan proposed a Tirikeza, declaring
that the heavy nimbus from the west, accompanied by a pleasant cold,
portended rain, and that this rain, like the “Choti Barsat” of India,
announces the approach of the great Masika, or vernal wet season.
Yielding to his reasons, we crossed the “Round Rock,” and passing
through an open forest of tall trees, with here and there an undulating
break, now yellow with quartz, then black with humus, we reached, after
about three hours, another clearing like Jiwe la Mkoa, which owes its
origin to the requirements of commerce. “Kirurumo” boasted of several
newly built Tembe of Wakimbu, who supplied caravans at an exorbitant
rate. The blackness of the ground, and the vivid green of vegetation,
evidenced the proximity of water. The potable element was found in pits,
sunk in a narrow nullah running northwards across the clearing; it was
muddy and abundant. On the next day the road led through a thin forest
of thorns and gums, which, bare of bush and underwood, afforded a broad
path and pleasant, easy travelling. Sign of elephant and rhinoceros,
giraffe and antelope, crossed the path, and as usual in such places, the
asses were tormented by the Tzetze. After travelling four hours and
thirty minutes, we reached a new settlement upon the western frontier of
Uganzi, called “Jiweni,” “near the stones,” from the heaps of block and
boulder scattered round pits of good water, sunk about three feet in the
ground. The Mongo Nullah, a deep surface-drain, bisects this clearing,
which is palpably modern. Many of the trees are barked previous to
felling, and others have fallen prostrate, apparently from the
depredations of the white ant. On the 25th, after another desert march
of 2 hrs. 20′ through a flat country, where the forest was somewhat
deformed by bush and brake, which in places narrowed the path to a mere
goat-track, we arrived at the third quarter of Mgunda Mk’hali. “Mgongo
T’hembo,” or the Elephant’s Back, derives its name from a long narrow
ridge of chocolate-coloured syenite, outcropping from the low forest
lands around it; the crest of the chain is composed of loose rocks and
large detached boulders. Like the other inhabited portions of Mgunda
Mk’hali, it is a recent clearing; numerous “black-jacks,” felled trees,
and pollarded stumps still cumber the fields. The “Elephant’s Back” is,
however, more extensive and better cultivated than any of its
neighbours,--Mdáburu alone excepted,--and water being abundant and near
the surface, it supports an increasing population of mixed Wakimbu and
Wataturu, who dwell in large substantial Tembe, and live by selling
their surplus holcus, maize, and fowls to travellers. They do not, like
the Wakimbu of Jiwe la Mkoa, refuse entrance to their villages, but they
receive the stranger with the usual niggard guest-rites of the
slave-path, and African-like, they think only of what is to be gained by
hospitality. Here I halted for a day to recruit and to lay in rations.
The length of the stages had told upon the men; Bombay had stumped
himself, several of the sons of Ramji, and two of Said bin Salim’s
children were unable to walk; the asses, throwing themselves upon the
ground, required to be raised with the stick, and all preferred rest
even to food. Mboni, one of the sons of Ramji, carried off a slave girl
from the camp of the Coast-Arabs; her proprietor came armed to recover
her, swords were drawn, a prodigious clash and clatter of tongue arose,
friends interfered, and blades were sheathed. Khalfan bin Khamis, losing
all patience at this delay, bade us adieu, promising to announce our
approach at Unyanyembe; about a week afterwards, however, we found him
in most melancholy plight, halted half-way, because his over-worked
porters had taken “French leave.”
We resumed our march on the 27th October, and after a slow and painful
progress for seven hours over a rolling country, whose soil was now
yellow with argile, then white with felspar, then black-brown with
humus, through thorny bush, and forest here opening out, there densely
closing in, we arrived at the “Tura Nullah,” the deepest of the many
surface drains winding tortuously to the S. W. The trees lining the
margin were of the noblest dimensions; the tall thick grass that hedged
them in showed signs of extensive conflagration, and water was found in
shallow pools and in deep pits beneath the banks, on the side to which
the stream, which must be furious during the rainy season, swings. When
halted in a clear place in the jungle, we were passed by a down caravan
of Wanyamwezi; our porters shouted and rushed up to greet their friends,
the men raised their right hands about a dozen times, and then clapped
palm to palm, and the women indulged in “vigelegele,” the African
“lulliloo,” which rang like breech-loaders in our ears.
On the next day we set out betimes through the forest, which, as usual
when nearing populous settlements, spread out, and which began at this
season to show a preponderance of green over brown. Presently we reached
a large expanse of yellow stover where the van had halted, in order that
the caravan might make its first appearance with dignity. Ensued a
clearing, studded with large stockaded villages, peering over tall
hedges of dark green milk-bush, fields of maize and millet, manioc,
gourds, and water-melons, and showing numerous flocks and herds,
clustering around the shallow pits. The people swarmed from their
abodes, young and old hustling one another for a better stare; the man
forsook his loom and the girl her hoe, and for the remainder of the
march we were escorted by a tail of screaming boys and shouting adults;
the males almost nude, the women, bare to the waist and clothed only
knee-deep in kilts, accompanied us, puffing pipes the while, with
wallets of withered or flabby flesh flapping the air, striking their
hoes with stones, crying “Beads! beads!” and ejaculating their wonder in
strident explosions of “Hi! hi!--Hui! ih!” and “Ha!--a!--a!” It was a
spectacle to make an anchorite of a man,--it was at once ludicrous and
disgusting.
At length the Kirangozi fluttered his red flag in the wind, and the
drums, horns, and larynxes of his followers began the fearful uproar
which introduces a caravan to the admiring “natives.” Leading the way,
our guide, much to my surprise,--I knew not then that such was the
immemorial custom of Unyamwezi,--entered uninvited and sans ceremony the
nearest large village; the long string of porters flocked in with bag
and baggage, and we followed their example. The guests at once dispersed
themselves through the several courts and compounds into which the
interior hollow was divided, and lodged themselves with as much regard
for self and disregard for their grumbling hosts as possible. We were
placed under a wall-less roof, bounded on one side by the bars of the
village palisade, and the mob of starers that relieved one another from
morning till night made me feel like the denizen of a menagerie.
[Illustration: Usagara Mountains, seen from Ugogo.]
CHAP. IX.
THE GEOGRAPHY AND ETHNOGRAPHY OF UGOGO,--THE THIRD REGION.
The third division of the country visited is a flat table-land extending
from the Ugogi “Dhun,” or valley, at the western base of the Wasagara
Mountains, in E. long. 36° 14′, to Tura, the eastern district of
Unyamwezi, in E. long. 33° 57′; occupying a diagonal breadth of 155
geographical rectilinear miles. The length from north to south is not so
easily estimated. The Wahumba and the Wataturu in the former, and the
Wahehe and Warori in the latter direction, are migratory tribes that
spurn a civilised frontier; according to the Arabs, however, the Wagogo
extend three long marches on an average to the north and four or five
southwards. This, assuming the march at 15 miles, would give a total of
120. The average of the heights observed is 3,650 feet, with a gradual
rise westwards to Jiwe la Mkoa, which attains an altitude of 4,200
feet(?).
The third region, situated to leeward of a range whose height compels
the south-east trades to part with their load of vapours, and distant
from the succession of inland seas, which, stationed near the centre of
the African continent, act as reservoirs to restore the balance of
humidity, is an arid, sterile land, a counterpart, in many places, of
the Kalahari and the Karroo, or South African desert-plains. The general
aspect is a glaring yellow flat, darkened by long growths of acrid,
saline, and succulent plants, thorny bush, and stunted trees, and the
colouring is monotonous in the extreme. It is sprinkled with isolated
dwarf cones bristling with rocks and boulders, from whose interstices
springs a thin forest of gums, thorns, and mimosas. The power of igneous
agency is displayed in protruding masses of granitic formation, which
rise from the dead level with little foundationary elevation; and the
masses of sandstone, superincumbent upon the primitive base in other
parts of the country, here disappear. On the north rises the long
tabular range of the Wahumba Hills, separated by a line of lower ground
from the plateau. Southwards, a plain, imperceptibly shelving, trends
towards the Rwaha River. There are no rivers in Ugogo: the periodical
rains are carried off by large nullahs, whose clay banks are split and
cut during the season of potent heat into polygonal figures like piles
of columnar basalt. On the sparkling nitrous salinas and the dull-yellow
or dun-coloured plains the mirage faintly resembles the effects of
refraction in desert Arabia. The roads are mere foot-tracks worn through
the fields and bushes. The kraals are small dirty circles enclosing a
calabash or other tree, against which goods are stacked. The boothies
are made of dried canes and stubble, surrounded by a most efficient
_chevaux de frise_ of thorn-boughs. At the end of the dry season they
are burnt down by inevitable accident. The want of wood prevents their
being made solidly, and for the same reason “bois de vache” is the usual
fuel of the country.
The formation of the subsoil is mostly sandstone bearing a ruddy sand.
The surface is in rare places a brown vegetable humus, extending but a
few inches in depth, or more generally a hard yellow-reddish ferruginous
clay covered with quartz nodules of many colours, and lumps of carbonate
of lime, or white and siliceous sand, rather resembling a well-metalled
road or an “untidy expanse of gravel-walk” than the rich moulds which
belong to the fertile African belt. In many parts are conical anthills
of pale red earth; in others ironstone crops out of the plain; and
everywhere fine and coarse grits abound. The land is in parts condemned
to perpetual drought, and nowhere is water either good or plentiful. It
is found in the serpentine beds of nullahs, and after rain in ziwa,
vleys, tanks, pools, or ponds, filled by a gentle gravitation, and
retained by a strong clay, in deep pits excavated by the people, or in
shallow holes “crowed” in the ground. The supplies of this necessary
divide the country into three great districts. On the east is Marenga
Mk’hali, a thick bush, where a few villages, avoided by travellers, are
scattered north and south of the road. The heart of the region is Ugogo,
the most populous and the best cultivated country, divided into a number
of small and carefully cultivated clearings by tracts of dense bush and
timberless woods, a wall of verdure during the rains, and in the hot
season a system of thorns and broomwork which serves merely to impede a
free circulation of the air. These seams of waste land appear strange in
a country populated of old; the Arabs, however, declare that the land is
more thinly inhabited than it used to be. Mgunda Mk’hali, the western
division, is a thin forest and a heap of brakey jungle. The few hills
are thickly clothed with vegetation, probably because they retain more
moisture than the plains.
The climate of Ugogo is markedly arid. During the transit of the
Expedition in September and October, the best water-colours faded and
hardened in their pans; India-rubber, especially the prepared article in
squares, became viscid, like half-dried birdlime; “Macintosh” was
sticking plaister, and the best vulcanized elastic-bands tore like brown
paper. During almost the whole year a violent east-wind sweeps from the
mountains. There are great changes in the temperature, whilst the
weather apparently remains the same, and alternate currents of hot and
cold air were observed. In the long summer the climate much resembles
that of Sindh; there are the same fiery suns playing upon the naked
surface with a painful dazzle, cool crisp nights, and clouds of dust.
The succulent vegetation is shrivelled up and carbonised by heat, and
the crackling covering of clayey earth and thin sand, whose particles
are unbound by dew or rain, rises in lofty whirling columns like
water-spouts when the north wind from the Wahumba Hills meets the gusts
of Usagara, which are soon heated to a furnace-breath by the glowing
surface. These “p’hepo” or “devils” scour the plain with the rapidity of
horsemen, and, charged with coarse grain and small pebbles, strike with
the violence of heavy hail. The siccity and repercussion of heat produce
an atmosphere of peculiar brilliancy in Ugogo: the milky haze of the
coast-climate is here unknown. The sowing season, at which time also
trees begin to bud and birds to breed, is about the period of the sun’s
greatest southern declination, and the diminution of temperature
displays in these regions the effects of the tepid winds and the warm
vernal showers of the European continent. There is no Vuli, and thus the
climate is unrefreshed by the copious tropical rains. About the middle
of November the country is visited by a few preliminary showers,
accompanied by a violent tramontana, and the vital principle which
appears extinct starts once more into sudden and excessive activity.
Towards the end of December the Masika, or rainy season, commences with
the wind shifting from the east to the north and north-east, blowing
steadily from the high grounds eastward and westward of the Nyanza Lake,
which have been saturated by heavy falls beginning in September. The
“winter” seldom exceeds the third month, and the downfall is desultory
and uncertain, causing frequent droughts and famine. For this reason the
land is much inferior in fertility to the other regions, and the cotton
and tobacco, which flourish from the coast to the Tanganyika Lake, are
deficient in Ugogo, whilst rice is supplanted by the rugged sorghum and
maize.
Arab and other travellers unaccustomed to the country at first suffer
from the climate, which must not, however, be condemned. They complain
of the tourbillons, the swarms of flies, and the violent changes from
burning heat to piercing cold, which is always experienced in that
region when the thermometer sinks below 60°-55° F. Their thin tents,
pitched under a ragged calabash, cannot mitigate the ardour of an
unclouded sun; the salt-bitter water, whose nitrous and saline deposits
sometimes tarnish a silver ring like the fumes of sulphur, affects their
health; whilst the appetite, stimulated by a purer atmosphere and the
coolness of the night air, is kept within due bounds only by deficiency
in the means of satisfying it. Those who have seen Africa further west,
are profuse in their praises of the climate on their return-march from
the interior. The mukunguru, or seasoning fever, however, rarely fails
to attack strangers. It is, like that of the second region, a violent
bilious attack, whose consequences are sleeplessness, debility, and
severe headaches: the hot fit compared with the algid stage is unusually
long and rigorous. In some districts the parexia is rarely followed by
the relieving perspiration; and when natural diaphoresis appears, it by
no means denotes the termination of the paroxysm. Other diseases are
rare, and the terrible ulcerations of K’hutu and Eastern Usagara are
almost unknown in Ugogo. There is little doubt that the land, if it
afforded good shelter, purified water, and regular diet, would be
eminently wholesome.
In the uninviting landscape a tufty, straggling grass, like living hay,
often raised on little mounds, with bald places between, thinly strewed
with bits of quartz and sandstone, replaces the tall luxuriant herbage
of the maritime plain, and the arboraceous and frutescent produce of the
mountains. The dryness of the climate, and the poverty of the soil, are
displayed in the larger vegetation. The only tree of considerable growth
is the calabash, and it is scattered over the country widely apart. A
variety of frankincense overspreads the ground; the bark is a deep
burnished bronze, whitened above with an incrustation, probably nitrous,
that resembles hoar-frost; and the long woody twigs are bleached by the
falling off of the outer integuments. The mukl or bdellium tree rises
like a dwarf calabash from a low copse. The Arabs declare this produce
of Ugogo (_Balsamodendron Africanum?_), to be of good quality. Rubbed
upon a stone and mixed with water it is applied with a pledget of cotton
to sluggish and purulent sores; and women use it for fumigation. The
Africans ignore its qualities, and the Baloch, though well acquainted
with the bdellium, gugal, or guggur, in their own country, did not
observe it in Ugogo. The succulent plants, cactus, aloe, and euphorbia,
will not burn; the air within them expands with heat, and the juices
gushing out extinguish the flame. Amongst various salsolæ, or saltworts,
the shrub called by the Arabs arak, the Capparis Sodata of Sindh and
Arabia, with its currant-like bunches of fruit, is conspicuous for its
evergreen verdure; the ragged and stunted mtungulu rains its apples upon
the ground; and the mbembu, in places sheltered from the sun, bears a
kind of medlar which is eagerly sought by the hungry traveller. The
euphorbiæ here rise to the height of 35 or 40 feet, and the hard woody
stem throws out a mass of naked arms, in the shape of a huge cap,
impervious to the midday sun.
Wild animals abound through these jungles, and the spoor lasts long upon
the crisp gravelly soil. In some districts they visit by night the
raised clay water-troughs of the cultivators. The elephant prefers the
thick jungle, where he can wallow in the pools and feed delicately upon
succulent roots and fruits, bark, and leaves. The rhinoceros loves the
dark clumps of trees, which guard him from the noonday sun, and whence
he can sally out all unexpected upon the assailant. The mbogo, or Bos
Caffer, driven from his favourite spots, low grassy plains bordering on
streams, wanders, like the giraffe, through the thinner forests. As in
Unyamwezi, the roar of the lion strikes the ear by night, and the cry of
the ostrich by day. The lion upon this line of Eastern Africa is often
heard, but rarely seen; on only two occasions its footprints appeared
upon the road. The king of beasts, according to the Arabs, is of
moderate stature: it seldom attains its maximum of strength, stature,
and courage, except in plain countries where game abounds, as in the
lands north of the Cape, or in hills and mountains, where cattle can be
lifted at discretion, as in Northern Africa. In Unyamwezi its spoils,
which are yellow, like those of the Arab lion, with a long mane, said to
hang over the eyes, and with a whitish tinge under the jaws, become the
property of the Sultan. The animal is more common in the high lands of
Karagwah than in the low countries; it has, however, attacked the mbogo,
or wild bull, and has destroyed cattle within sight of the Arabs at
Kazeh in Unyanyembe. The lion is rarely a man-eater; this peculiarity,
according to some writers, being confined to old beasts, whose worn
teeth are unfit for fight.
The “polygamous bird” was first observed on the Ugogo plateau; it
extends through Unyamwezi and Usukuma to Ujiji. The eggs are sold,
sometimes fresh, but more generally stale. Emptied and dried, they form
the principal circulating-medium between the Arab merchants and the
coffee-growing races near the Nyanza Lake, who cut them up and grind
them into ornamental disks and crescents. The young birds are caught,
but are rarely tamed. In Usukuma the bright and glossy feathers of the
old male are much esteemed for adorning the hair; yet, curious to say,
the bird is seldom hunted. Moreover, these East Africans have never
attempted to export the feathers, which, when white and uninjured, are
sold, even by the Somal, for 8 dollars per lb. The birds are at once
wild and stupid, timid and headstrong: their lengthened strides and
backward glances announce terror at the sight of man, and it is
impossible to stalk them in the open grounds, which they prefer. The
leopard and the cynhyæna, the koodoo and the different species of
antelope, are more frequently killed in these deserts than in any other
part of the line. Hog of reddish colour, and hares with rufous fur, are
sometimes started by caravans. The hyrax of the Somali country basks
upon the rocks and boulders, and the carapace of a small land-turtle,
called khasa, fastened to a branch, serves as a road-sign. The k’hwalu,
a small green parrot, with yellow shoulders, the upupa or hoopoe, a
great variety of fly-catchers, larks with jet-black heads and yellow
bodies, small bustards, hornbills, nightjars, muscicapæ, green pigeons,
sparrow-hawks, and small doves, are seen in every jungle. Near the
settlements the white-necked raven and the common chíl of India (Falco
cheela), attest the presence of man, as the monkey does the proximity of
water. The nest of the loxia swings to and fro in the fierce simoom; the
black Bataleur eagle of Somaliland, a splendid bird, towering shily in
the air, with his light under-plume gleaming like a silver plate, and
large vultures (condors?) flocking from afar, denote the position of a
dead or dying animal.
Until late years the Wagogo, being more numerous than they are now,
deterred travellers from traversing their country: in those early days
the road to Unyamwezi, running along the left or northern bank of the
Rwaha, through the Warori tribe, struck off near Usanga and Usenga. It
is related, when the first caravan, led by Jumah Mfumbi, the late Diwan
of Saadani, entered Ugogo, that the people, penetrated with admiration
of his corpulence, after many experiments to find out whether it was
real or not, determined that he was and must be the Deity. Moreover,
after coming to this satisfactory conclusion, they resolved that, being
the Deity, he could improve their country by heavy rains; and when he
protested against both these resolutions, they proposed to put him to
death. A succession of opportune showers, however, released him. By
degrees the ever-increasing insolence and violence of the Warori drove
travellers to this northern line, and the Wagogo learned to see
strangers without displaying this Lybian mania for sacrificing them.
Three main roads, leading from Western Usagara westward, cross the
Desert of Marenga Mk’hali. The most northern is called Yá Nyiká--of the
wilderness--a misnomer, if the assertion of the guides be correct that
it is well watered, and peopled by the subjects of eight sultans. The
central line, described in the preceding pages, is called, from its
middle station, Marenga Mk’hali: it is invariably preferred when water
is scarce. The southern road is termed Nyá Ngáhá, a continuation of the
Kiringwana route, previously alluded to: it has provisions, but the
people cause much trouble.
The superiority of climate, and probably the absence of that luxuriant
vegetation which distinguishes the eastern region, have proved
favourable to the physical development of the races living in and about
Ugogo. The Wagogo, and their northern neighbours the Wahumba, are at
once distinguishable from the wretched population of the alluvial
valleys, and of the mountains of Usagara; though living in lower
altitudes, they are a fairer race--and therefore show better blood--than
the Wanyamwezi. These two tribes, whose distinctness is established by
difference of dialect, will be described in order.
The Wagogo extend from the landward base of Usagara in direct distance
to Mdáburu a five days’ march: on the north they are bounded by the
Watáturu, on the south by the Wabena tribes; the breadth of their
country is computed at about eight stages. In the north, however, they
are mingled with the Wahumba, in the south-east with the Wahehe, and in
the south with the Warori.
The Wagogo display the variety of complexion usually seen amongst
slave-purchasing races: many of them are fair as Abyssinians; some are
black as negroes. In the eastern and northern settlements they are a
fine, stout, and light-complexioned race. Their main peculiarity is the
smallness of the cranium compared with the broad circumference of the
face at and below the zygomata: seen from behind the appearance is that
of a small half-bowl fitted upon one of considerably larger bias; and
this, with the widely-extended ears, gives a remarkable expression to
the face. Nowhere in Eastern Africa is the lobe so distended. Pieces of
cane an inch or two in length, and nearly double the girth of a man’s
finger, are so disposed that they appear like handles to the owner’s
head. The distinctive mark of the tribe is the absence of the two lower
incisors; but they are more generally recognised by the unnatural
enlargement of their ears--in Eastern Africa the “aures perforatæ” are
the signs, not of slavery, but of freedom. There is no regular tattoo,
though some of the women have two parallel lines running from below the
bosom down the abdomen, and the men often extract only a single lower
incisor. The hair is sometimes shaved clean, at others grown in
mop-shape--more generally it is dressed in a mass of tresses, as amongst
the Egyptians, and the skin, as well as the large bunch of corkscrews,
freely stained with ochre and micaceous earths, drips with ghee, the
pride of rank and beauty. The Wagogo are not an uncomely race: some of
the younger women might even lay claim to prettiness. The upper part of
the face is often fine, but the lips are ever thick, and the mouth
coarse; similarly the body is well formed to the haunches, but the lean
calf is placed peculiarly high up the leg. The expression of the
countenance, even in the women, is wild and angry; and the round eyes
are often reddened and bleared by drink. The voice is strong, strident,
and commanding.
Their superiority of clothing gives the Wagogo, when compared with the
Wasagara or the Wanyamwezi, an aspect of civilisation; a skin garment is
here as rare as a cotton farther west. Even the children are generally
clad. The attire of the men is usually some Arab check or dyed Indian
cotton: many also wear sandals of single hide. Married women are clothed
in “cloths with names,” when wealthy, and in domestics when poor. The
dress of the maidens under puberty is the languti of Hindostan, a kind
of T-bandage, with the front ends depending to the knees; it is
supported by a single or double string of the large blue glass-beads
called Sungomaji. A piece of coarse cotton cloth two yards long, and a
few inches broad, is fastened to the girdle behind, and passing under
the fork, is drawn tightly through the waistbelt in front; from the zone
the lappet hangs mid-down to the shins, and when the wearer is in rapid
motion it has a most peculiar appearance. The ornaments of both sexes
are kitindi, and bracelets and anklets of thick iron and brass-wires,
necklaces of brass chains, disks and armlets of fine ivory, the
principal source of their wealth, and bands of hide-strip with long
hair, bound round the wrists, above the elbows, and below the knees:
they value only the highest priced beads, coral and pink porcelains. As
usual the males appear armed. Some import from Unyamwezi and the
westward regions the long double-edged knife called sime, a “serviceable
dudgeon” used in combat or in peaceful avocations, like the
snick-an-snee of the ancient Dutch. Shields are unknown. The bow is
long: the handle and the horns are often adorned with plates of tin and
zinc, and the string is whipped round the extremities for strength. The
spear resembles that used by the Wanyamwezi in the elephant-hunt: it is
about four feet long, and the head is connected with a stout wooden
handle by an iron neck measuring half the length of the weapon. In
eastern Ugogo, where the Masai are near, the Wagogo have adopted their
huge shovel-headed spears and daggers, like those of the Somal. It is
the fashion for men to appear in public with the peculiar bill-hook used
in Usagara; and in the fields the women work with the large hoe of
Unyamwezi.
The villages of the Wagogo are square Tembe, low and mean-looking for
want of timber. The outer walls are thin poles, planted in the ground
and puddled with mud. The huts, partitioned off like ships’ bunks, are
exceedingly dirty, being shared by the domestic animals, dogs, and
goats. They are scantily furnished with a small stool, a cot of cow’s
hide stretched to a small framework, a mortar for grain, and sundry
gourds and bark corn-bins. About sunset all the population retires, and
the doors are carefully barricaded for fear of the plundering Wahumba.
At night it is dangerous to approach the villages.
The language of Ugogo is harsher than the dialects spoken by their
eastern and western neighbours. In the eastern parts the people
understand the Masai tongue. Many can converse fluently in the
Kisawahili, or coast-tongue. The people, however, despise all strangers
except the Warori and the Wahumba, and distinguish the Wanyamwezi by the
name of Wakonongo, which they also apply to travellers in general.
Within the memory of man one Kafuke, of Unyamwezi, a great merchant, and
a Mtongi or caravan leader, when traversing Ugogo with some thousands of
followers, became involved in a quarrel about paying for water. After
fifteen days of skirmishing, the leader was slain and the party was
dispersed. The effect on both tribes has lasted to the present day.
After the death of Kafuke no rain fell for some years--a phenomenon
attributed by the Wagogo to his powers of magic; and the land was almost
depopulated. The Wanyamwezi, on the other hand, have never from that
time crossed the country without fear and trembling. In the many wars
between the two tribes the Wagogo have generally proved themselves the
better men. This superiority has induced a brawling and bullying manner.
They call themselves Wáná Wádege, or sons of birds--that is to say,
semper parati. The Wanyamwezi studiously avoid offending them; and the
porters will obey the command of a boy rather than risk an encounter.
“He is a Mgogo,” said before the Bobadil’s face, makes him feel himself
forty times a man; yet he will fly in terror before one of the Warori or
the Wahumba.
The strength of the Wagogo lies in their comparative numbers. As the
people seldom travel to the coast, their scattered villages are full of
fighting men. Moreover, Uchawi or black magic here numbers few
believers, consequently those drones of the social hive, the Waganga, or
medicine-men, are not numerous. The Wagogo seldom sell their children
and relations, yet there is no order against the practice. They barter
for slaves their salt and ivory, the principal produce of the country.
No caravan ever passes through the country without investing capital in
the salt-bitter substance which is gathered in flakes efflorescing; from
the dried mud upon the surface of the Mbuga, or swampy hollows; the best
and the cheapest is found in the district of Kanyenye. It is washed to
clear it of dirt, boiled till it crystallises, spread upon clean and
smoothed ground, and moulded with the hands into rude cones about half a
foot in length, which are bought at the rate of 7-10 for a Shukkah, and
are sold at a high premium after a few days’ march. Ugogo supplies
western Usagara and the eastern regions of Unyamwezi with this article.
It is, however, far inferior to the produce of the Rusugi pits, in
Uvinza, which, on account of its “sweetness,” finds its way throughout
the centre of Africa. Elephants are numerous in the country: every
forest is filled with deep traps, and during droughthy seasons many are
found dead in the jungle. The country is divided into districts; the
tusks become the property of the Sultan within whose boundaries the
animal falls, and the meat is divided amongst his subjects. Ivory is
given in barter for slaves: this practice assures to caravans a hold
upon the people, who, having an active commerce with the coast, cannot
afford to be shut out from it. The Wagogo are so greedy of serviles that
every gang leaves among them some of its live stock--the principal want
of the listless and indolent cultivator. The wild captives bought in the
interior, wayworn and fond of change, are persuaded by a word to desert;
they take the first opportunity of slipping away from their masters,
generally stealing a weapon and a little cloth or rations for immediate
use. Their new masters send them off the road lest they should be
recognised and claimed: after a time a large hoe is placed in their
hands, and the fools feel, when too late, that they have exchanged an
easy for a hard life. The Wagogo sell their fellow tribe-men only when
convicted of magic; though sometimes parents, when in distress, part
with their children. The same is the case amongst their northern
neighbours, the Wamasai, the Wahumba, and the Wakwafi, who, however, are
rarely in the market, and who, when there, though remarkable for
strength and intelligence, are little prized, in consequence of their
obstinate and untameable characters;--many of them would rather die
under the stick than level themselves with women by using a hoe.
The Wagogo are celebrated as thieves who will, like the Wahehe, rob even
during the day. They are importunate beggars, who specify their long
list of wants without stint or shame; their principal demand is tobacco,
which does not grow in the land; and they resemble the Somal, who never
sight a stranger without stretching out the hand for “Bori.” The men are
idle and debauched, spending their days in unbroken crapulence and
drunkenness, whilst the girls and women hoe the fields, and the boys
tend the flocks and herds. They mix honey with their pombe, or beer, and
each man provides entertainment for his neighbours in turn. After midday
it would be difficult throughout the country to find a chief without the
thick voice, fiery eyes, and moidered manners, which prove that he is
either drinking or drunk.
The Arabs declaim against the Wagogo as a “curst,” ill-conditioned and
boisterous, a violent and extortionate race. They have certainly no idea
of manners: they flock into a stranger’s tent, squat before him, staring
till their curiosity is satisfied, and unmercifully quizzing his
peculiarities. Upon the road a mob of both sexes will press and follow a
caravan for miles. The women, carrying their babes in leopard-skins
bound behind the back, and with unveiled bosoms, stand or run, fiercely
shouting with the excitement of delight, and the girls laugh and deride
the stranger as impudently as boys would in more modest lands. Yet, as
has been said, this curiosity argues to a certain extent improvability;
the most degraded tribes are too apathetic to be roused by strange
sights. Moreover, the Wagogo are not deficient in rude hospitality. A
stranger is always greeted with the “Yambo” salutation. He is not driven
from their doors, as amongst the Wazaramo and Wasagara; and he is
readily taken into brotherhood. The host places the stool for his
guests, seating himself on the ground: he prepares a meal of milk and
porridge, and on parting presents, if he can afford it, a goat or a cow.
The African “Fundi” or “Fattori” of caravans are rarely sober in Ugogo.
The women are well disposed towards strangers of fair complexion,
apparently with the permission of their husbands. According to the
Arabs, the husband of the daughter is also _de jure_ the lover of her
mother.
The Sultan amongst the Wagogo is called Mtemi, a high title. He
exercises great authority, and is held in such esteem by his people,
that a stranger daring to possess the same name would be liable to
chastisement. The ministers, who are generally brothers or
blood-relations, are known as Wázágíra (in the singular Mzágírá), and
the councillors, who are the elders and the honourables of the tribe,
take the Kinyamwezi title “Wányápárá.”
The necessaries of life are dear in Ugogo. The people will rarely barter
their sheep, goats, and cows for plain white or blue cottons, and even
in exchange for milk they demand coral, pink, or blue glass beads. A
moderate sized caravan will expend from six to ten shukkah per diem. The
Wanyamwezi travelling-parties live by their old iron hoes, for which
grain is returned by the people, who hold the metal in request.
The Wahumba, by some called Wahumpa, is one of the terrible pastoral
nations “beyond the rivers of Æthiopia.” To judge from their dialect
they are, like the Wakwafi, a tribe or a subtribe of the great Masai
race, who speak a language partly South-African and partly
Semitico-African, like that of the Somal. The habitat of the Wahumba
extends from the north of Usagara to the eastern shores of the Nyanza or
Ukerewe Lake; it has been remarked that a branch of the Mukondokwa River
rises in their mountains. The blue highlands occupied by this pastoral
race, clearly visible, on the right hand, to the traveller passing from
Ugogo westwards, show where the ancient route from Pangani-town used to
fall into the main trunk-road of Unyamwezi. Having but little ivory,
they are seldom visited by travellers: their country, however, was
explored some years ago by an Arab merchant, Hamid bin Salim, for the
purpose of buying asses. He set out from Tura, in eastern Unyamwezi,
and, traversing the country of the wild Watatúru, arrived on the eighth
day at the frontier district I´ramba, where there is a river which
separates the tribes. He was received with civility; but none have since
followed his example.
The Wahumba are a fair and comely race, with the appearance of
mountaineers, long-legged, and lightly made. They have repeatedly
ravaged the lands of Usagara and Ugogo: in the latter country, near
Usek’he, there are several settlements of this people, who have
exchanged the hide-tent for the hut, and the skin for the cotton-cloth.
They stain their garments with ochreish earth, and their women are
distinguished by wearing Kitindi of full and half-size above and below
the elbows. The ear lobes are pierced and distended by both sexes, as
amongst the Wagogo. In their own land they are purely pastoral; they
grow no grain, despise vegetable food, and subsist entirely upon meat or
milk according to the season. Their habitations are hemispheres of
boughs lashed together and roofed with a cow’s hide; it is the primitive
dwelling-place, and the legs of the occupant protrude beyond the
shelter. Their arms, which are ever hung up close at hand, are
broad-headed spears of soft iron, long “Sine,” or double-edged daggers,
with ribbed wooden handles fastened to the blade by a strip of cow’s
tail shrunk on, and “Rungu,” or wooden knob-kerries, with double bulges
that weight the weapon as it whirls through the air. They ignore and
apparently despise the bow and arrows, but in battle they carry the
Pavoise, or large hide-shield, affected by the Kafirs of the Cape. The
Arabs, when in force, do not fear their attacks.
The Wahumba, like their congeners the Wakwafi, bandage the infant’s leg
from ankle to knee, and the ligature is not removed till the child can
stand upright. Its object is to prevent the development of the calf,
which, according to their physiology, diminishes the speed and endurance
of the runner. The specimens of Wahumba seen in different parts of Ugogo
showed the soleus and gastrocnemeius muscles remarkably shrunken, and
the projection of the leg rising close below the knee.
[Illustration: VIEW IN UNYAMWEZI.]
[Illustration: Ladies’ Smoking Party.]
CHAP. X.
WE ENTER UNYAMWEZI, THE FAR-FAMED LAND OF THE MOON.
The district of Tura, though now held, like Jiwe la Mkoa and Mgongo
T’hembo, by Wakimbu, is considered the eastern frontier of Unyamwezi
proper, which claims superiority over the minor neighbouring tribes.
Some, however, extend the “land of the moon” eastward as far as Jiwe la
Mkoa, and the porters when entering the “Fiery Field,” declare that they
are setting foot upon their own ground. The word “Tura,” pronounced by
the Wanyamwezi “Tula” or “Itula,” means “put down!” (scil. your pack):
as the traveller, whether from the east or from the west, will
inevitably be delayed for some days at this border settlement. Tula is
situated in S. lat. 5° 2′ and E. long. 33° 57′, and the country rises
4,000 feet above sea level. After the gloomy and monotonous brown
jungles and thorn forests of Mgunda Mk’hali, whose sinuous line of thick
jungle still girds the northern horizon, the fair champaign, bounded on
either hand by low rolling and rounded hills of primary formation, with
a succession of villages and many a field of holcus and sesamum, maize,
millet, and other cereals, of manioc and gourds, water melons and
various pulses, delights the sight, and appears to the African traveller
a Land of Promise.
The pertinacious Kidogo pressed me to advance, declaring the Wakimbu of
Tura to be a dangerous race: they appeared however a timid and ignoble
people, dripping with castor and sesamum oil, and scantily attired in
shreds of unclean cotton or greasy goat-skins. At Tura the last of the
thirty asses bought at Zanzibar paid the debt of nature, leaving us,
besides the one belonging to the Jemadar, but three African animals
purchased on the road. A few extra porters were therefore engaged. Our
people, after the discomforts of the bivouac, found the unsavoury
village a perfect paradise; they began somewhat prematurely to beg for
Bakhshish, and Muinyi Wazira requested dismissal on the plea that a
slave sent by him on a trading-expedition into the interior had, by
dying, endangered the safety of the venture. On the morning of the 30th
October Kidogo led us over the plain through cultivation and villages to
another large settlement on the western outskirt of the Tura district.
As I disappointed him in his hopes of a Tirikeza, he passed the night in
another Tembe, which was occupied by the caravans of Coast-Arabs and
their slave girls, to one of whom, said Scan. Mag., he had lost his
heart, and he punished me by halting through the next day. As we neared
the end of the journey the sons of Ramji became more restive under their
light loads; their dignity was hurt by shouldering a pack, and day after
day, till I felt weary of life, they left their burdens upon the ground.
However, on the 1st November, they so far recovered temper that the
caravan was able to cross the thin jungle, based upon a glaring white
soil, which divides the Tura from the Rubuga District. After a march of
6 hrs. and 30′, we halted on the banks of the Kwale or “Partridge”
Nullah, where, though late in the season, we found several long pools of
water. The porters collected edible bivalves and caught a quantity of
mud-fish by the “rough and ready” African process, a waist-cloth tied to
a pair of sticks, and used by two men as a drag-net. At Rubuga, which we
reached in 5 hrs. and 45′, marching over a plain of black earth, thinly
garnished with grass and thorn-trees, and then through clearings
overgrown with stubble, I was visited by an Arab merchant, Abdullah bin
Jumah, who, with a flying-caravan, had left Konduchi on the coast 2
months and 20 days after our departure. According to him his caravan had
lately marched thirty miles in the twenty-four hours: it was the
greatest distance accomplished in these regions; but the Arabs are fond
of exaggeration, the party was small and composed of lightly laden men,
and moreover it required two days’ rest after so unusual an exertion.
This merchant unwittingly explained a something which had puzzled me;
whenever an advance beyond Unyanyembe had been made the theme of
conversation, Said bin Salim’s countenance fell, and he dropped dark
hints touching patience and the power of Allah to make things easy.
Abdullah rendered the expression intelligible by asking me if I
considered the caravan strong enough to dare the dangers of the
road--which he grossly exaggerated--between Unyamwezi-Land and Ujiji. I
replied that I did, and that even if I did not, such bugbears should not
cause delay; Abdullah smiled, but was too polite to tell me that he did
not believe me.
A “doux marcher” of 2 hrs. 40′ on the 3rd November, led us to the
western limit of the Rubuga District. During the usual morning-halt
under a clump of shady milk-bush, I was addressed by Maura or Maula, the
Sultan of a large neighbouring village of Wanyamwezi: being a civilised
man and a coast-traveller, he could not allow the caravan of the
“Wazungu” to pass his quarters without presenting to him a bullock, and
extracting from him a little cloth. Like most chiefs in the “Land of the
Moon,” he was a large-limbed, gaunt, angular, tall old man, with a black
oily skin, seamed with wrinkles; and long wiry pigtails thickened with
grease, melted butter, and castor-oil, depending from the sides of his
purbald head. His dress--an old Barsati round the loins, and a grimy
Subai loosely thrown over the shoulders--was redolent of boiled
frankincense; his ankles were concealed by a foot depth of brass and
copper “Sambo,” thin wires twisted round a little bundle of elephant’s,
buffalo’s, or zebra’s hair; and he wore single-soled sandals, decorated
with four disks of white shell, about the size of a crown-piece, bound
to the thongs that passed between the toes and girt the heel. He
recognised the Baloch, greeted all kindly, led the way to his village,
ordered lodgings to be cleared and cleaned, caused the cartels or
bedsteads,--the first seen by us for many months,--to be vacated, and
left us to look for a bullock. At the village door I had remarked a rude
attempt at fashioning a block of wood into what was palpably intended
for a form human and feminine; the Moslems of course pronounced it to be
an idol, but the people declared that they paid no respect to it. They
said the same concerning the crosses and the serpent-like ornaments of
white ashes--in this land lime is unknown--with which the brown walls of
their houses were decorated.
We made bonne chère at Rubuga, which is celebrated for its milk and
meat, ghee and honey. On the wayside were numerous hives, the Mazinga or
“cannons,” before described; here however they were raised out of the
reach of the ants, white and black, upon a pair of short forked
supports, instead of being suspended from the branches of a tall tree.
My companion brought from a neighbouring swamp a fine Egyptian, or ruddy
goose, and a brace of crane-like water-fowl: these the Wanyamwezi
porters, expecting beef, disdained, because rejected by the Baloch, yet
at Inenge they had picked the carcase of a way-spent ass. Presently we
were presented by the Sultan with one of the fattest of his fine bulls;
it was indeed
“A grazier’s without and a butcher’s within;”
withal, so violent and unmanageable that no man could approach,
much less secure it: it rushed about the village like a wild buffalo,
scattering the people, who all fled except the Sultan, till it was
stopped dead in a most determined charge, with a couple of
rifle-bullets, by my companion. In return, Maula received a crimson
cloth and two domestics, after which he begged for everything, including
percussion caps, for which he had no gun. He appeared most anxious to
detain the caravan, and in the evening his carefully concealed reasons
leaked out--he wanted me to cure his son of fever, and to “put the
colophon” upon a neighbouring hostile chief. At 8 P.M., I was aroused by
my gun-carrier, Mabruki, who handed to me my Ferrara, and by the Baloch
Riza, who reported that the palisade was surrounded by a host of raging
blacks. I went out into the village, where the guard was running about
in a state of excitement which robbed them of their wits, and I saw a
long dark line of men sitting silently and peaceably, though armed for
fight, outside the strong stockade. Having caused our cloth to be safely
housed, and given orders to be awakened if work began, I returned to the
hut, determined to take leave of Sultan Maura and his quarrels on the
next day.
The porters were all gorged with beef, and three were “stale-drunk” with
the consequences of pombe; yet so anxious were they rendered by the
gathering clouds, and the spitting showers to reach their homes before
the setting in of the “sowing rains,” that my task was now rather to
restrain than to stimulate their ardour: the moon was resplendent, and
had I wished it, they would have set out at midnight. On the 4th
November we passed through another jungle-patch, to a village in the
fertile slopes of Ukona, where the Cannabis and the Datura, with its
large fetid flowers, disputed the ground with brinjalls and
castor-plants, holcus and panicum: tobacco grew luxuriantly, and
cotton-plots, carefully hedged round against the cattle, afforded
material for the loom, which now appeared in every village.
On the next day, we passed out of the fertile slopes of Ukona, and
traversed an open wavy country, streaked with a thin forest of Mimosa,
the Mtogwe or wood-apple, and a large quadrangular cactus. Beyond this
point, a tract of swampy low level led to the third district of Eastern
Unyamwezi, called Kigwa, or Mkigwa. We found quarters in a Tembe which
was half-burned and partly pulled down, to be re-erected.
The 6th November saw us betimes in the ill-omened Forest, that divided
us from the Unyanyembe district; it is a thin growth of gum-trees,
mimosas, and bauhinias, with tiers, earth-waves, and long rolling lines
of tawny-yellow hill--mantled with umbrella-shaped trees, and sometimes
capped with blocks and boulders--extending to a considerable distance on
both sides. The Sultan of Kigwa, one Manwa, has taken an active part in
the many robberies and murders which have rendered this forest a place
of terror, and the Arabs have hitherto confined themselves to threats,
though a single merchant complains that his slave-caravans have at
different times lost fifty loads of cloth. Manwa is aided and counselled
by Mansur, a Coast-Arab, who, horse-whipped out of the society of his
countrymen at Kazeh, for drunken and disorderly conduct, has become a
notorious traitor. Here also Msimbira, a Sultan of the Wasukuma, or
Northern Wanyamwezi, who has an old and burning hatred against the
Arabs, sends his plundering parties. On the 6th November the Baloch set
out at 1 A.M., we followed at 2.15 A.M.: they had been prevented from
obtaining beads on false pretences, consequently they showed temper, and
determined to deny their escort. Their beards were now in my hand, they
could neither desert nor refuse to proceed, but they desired to do me a
harm, and they did it. During the transit of the forest, an old porter
having imprudently lagged behind, was clubbed and cruelly bruised by
three black Mohawks, who relieved him of his load, a leathern
portmanteau, containing clothes, umbrellas, books, ink, journals, and
botanical collections. I afterwards heard that the highwaymen had
divided their spoils in the forest, and that separating into two
parties, they had taken the route homewards. On the way, however, they
were seized by a plundering expedition sent by Kitambi, the Sultan of
Uyuwwi, a district half a day’s march N.E. from Kazeh. The delict was
flagrant; the head of one robber at once decorated the main entrance of
Kitambi’s village, but the other two escaped Jeddart-justice with their
share of the plunder to his mortal enemy Msimbira. A present of a
scarlet waistcoat and four domestics recovered our clothes from Kitambi;
but Msimbira, threatening all the penalties of sorcery, abused,
plundered, and expelled Masud ibn Musallam el Wardi, an old Arab
merchant, sent to him from Unyanyembe for the purpose of recovering the
books, journals, and collections. The perpetual risk of loss discourages
the traveller in these lands; he never knows at what moment papers which
have cost him months of toil may be scattered to the winds. As regards
collections, future explorers are advised to abandon the hope of making
them on the march upwards, reserving their labour for the more leisurely
return. The precautions with which I prefaced our down-march may not be
useless as suggestions. My field and sketch-books were entrusted to an
Arab merchant, who preceded me to Zanzibar; they ran no other danger
except from the carelesness of the Consul who, unfortunately for me,
succeeded Lieut.-Col. Hamerton. My companion’s maps, papers, and
instruments, were committed to a heavy “petarah,” a deal-box with
pent-lid and hide-bound as a defence against rain, to be carried
“Mziga-ziga,” as the phrase is--suspended on a pole between the two
porters least likely to desert. I loaded one of the sons of Ramji with
an enamelled leathern bag, converted from a dressing-case into a
protection for writing and sketching materials; and a shooting-bag, hung
during the march over the shoulders of Nasiri, a Coast-Arab youth
engaged as ass-leader at Unyanyembe, contained my vocabularies,
ephemeris, and drawing-books.
Considering the conduct of the escort, I congratulated myself upon
having passed through the Kigwa forest without other accident. Two or
three days after our arrival at Kazeh several loads of beads were
plundered from a caravan belonging to Abdullah bin Salih. Shortly
afterwards Msimbira sent a large foraging party with a view to cutting
off the road: they allowed themselves to be surprised during sleep by
Mpagamo’s men, who slew twenty-five of their number and dispersed the
rest. This accident, however, did not cure their propensity for pillage;
on our return-march, when halted at a village west of the Kigwa forest,
a body of slaves passed us in hot haste and sore tribulation: they had
that day been relieved by bandits of all their packs.
Passing from the Kigwa forest and entering the rice-lands of the
Unyanyembe district we found quarters--a vile cow-house--in a large
dirty village called Hanga. The aspect of the land became prepossessing:
the route lay along a valley bisected by a little rivulet of sweet
water, whose course was marked by a vivid leek-green line; the slopes
were bright with golden stubble upon a surface of well-hoed field, while
to the north and south ran low and broken cones of granite blocks and
slabs, here naked, there clothed from base to brow with dwarf
parasol-shaped trees, and cactaceæ of gigantic size.
From this foul village I was urged by Kidogo to conclude by a tirikeza
the last stage that separated the caravan from Kazeh in Unyanyembe, the
place which he and all around him had apparently fixed as the final
bourne of the exploration. But the firmament seemed on fire, the porters
were fagged, and we felt feverish, briefly, an afternoon’s march was not
judged advisable. To temper, however, the wind of refusal, I served out
to each of the sons of Ramji five rounds of powder for blowing away on
entering the Arab head-quarters. All of course had that private store
which the Arabs call “El Akibah”--the ending; it is generally stolen
from the master and concealed for emergencies with cunning care. They
had declared their horns to be empty, and said Kidogo, “Every pedlar
fires guns here--shall a great man creep into his Tembe without a soul
knowing it?”
On the 7th November, 1857,--the 134th day from the date of our leaving
the coast--after marching at least 600 miles, we prepared to enter
Kazeh, the principal Bandari of Eastern Unyamwezi, and the capital
village of the Omani merchants. We left Hanga at dawn. The Baloch were
clothed in that one fine suit without which the Eastern man rarely
travels: after a few displays the dress will be repacked, and finally
disposed of in barter for slaves. About 8 A.M., we halted for stragglers
at a little village, and when the line of porters becoming compact began
to wriggle, snake-like, its long length over the plain, with floating
flags, booming horns, muskets ringing like saluting mortars, and an
uproar of voice which nearly drowned the other noises, we made a truly
splendid and majestic first appearance. The road was lined with people
who attempted to vie with us in volume and variety of sound: all had
donned their best attire, and with such luxury my eyes had been long
unfamiliar. Advancing I saw several Arabs standing by the wayside, they
gave the Moslem salutation and courteously accompanied me for some
distance. Amongst them were the principal merchants, Snay bin Amir, Said
bin Majid, a young and handsome Omani of noble tribe, Muhinna bin
Sulayman, who, despite elephantiasis, marched every year into Central
Africa, and Said bin Ali el Hinawi, whose short, spare, but well-knit
frame, pale face, small features, snowy beard, and bald head, surmounted
by a red fez, made him the type of an Arab old man.
I had directed Said bin Salim to march the caravan to the Tembe kindly
placed at my disposal by Isá bin Hijji, and the Arabs met at Inenge. The
Kirangozi and the porters, however, led us on by mistake (?) to the
house of “Musa Mzuri”--handsome Moses--an Indian merchant settled at
Unyanyembe for whom I bore an introductory letter, graciously given by
H. H. the Sayyid Majid of Zanzibar. As Musa was then absent on a
trading-journey to Karagwah, his agent, Snay bin Amir, a Harisi Arab,
came forward to perform the guest-rites, and led me to the vacant house
of Abayd bin Sulayman who had lately returned to Zanzibar.
After allowing me, as is the custom, a day to rest and to dismiss the
porters, who at once separated to their homes, all the Arab merchants,
then about a dozen, made the first ceremonious call, and to them was
officially submitted the circular addressed by the Prince of Zanzibar to
his subjects resident in the African interior. Contrary to the
predictions of others, nothing could be more encouraging than the
reception experienced from the Omani Arabs; striking, indeed, was the
contrast between the open-handed hospitality and the hearty good-will of
this truly noble race, and the niggardness of the savage and selfish
African--it was heart of flesh after heart of stone. A goat and a load
of the fine white rice grown in the country were the normal prelude to a
visit and to offers of service which proved something more than a mere
_vox et præterea nihil_. Whatever I alluded to, onions, plantains,
limes, vegetables, tamarind-cakes, coffee from Karagwah, and similar
articles, only to be found amongst the Arabs, were sent at once, and the
very name of payment would have been an insult. Snay bin Amir,
determining to surpass all others in generosity, sent two goats to us
and two bullocks to the Baloch and the sons of Ramji: sixteen years
before, he had begun life a confectioner at Maskat, and now he had risen
to be one of the wealthiest ivory and slave-dealers in Eastern Africa.
As his health forbade him to travel he had become a general agent at
Kazeh, where he had built a village containing his store-houses and his
depôts of cloth and beads, slaves and ivory. I have to acknowledge many
an obligation to him. Having received a “wakalat-namah,” or “power of
attorney” he enlisted porters for the caravan to Ujiji. He warehoused my
goods, he disposed of my extra stores, and, finally, he superintended my
preparations for the down-march. During two long halts at Kazeh he never
failed, except through sickness, to pass the evening with me, and from
his instructive and varied conversation was derived not a little of the
information contained in the following pages. He had travelled three
times between Unyamwezi and the coast, besides navigating the great Lake
Tanganyika and visiting the northern kingdoms of Karagwah and Uganda. He
first entered the country about fifteen years ago, when the line of
traffic ended at Usanga and Usenga, and he was as familiar with the
languages, the religion, the manners, and the ethnology of the African,
as with those of his natal Oman. He was a middle-aged man with somewhat
of the Quixotic appearance, high-featured, sharp and sunken-eyed, almost
beardless, light-coloured, tall, gaunt, and large-limbed. He had read
much, and, like an oriental, for improvement, not only for amusement: he
had a wonderful memory, fine perceptions and passing power of language.
Finally, he was the stuff of which friends are made; brave as all his
race, prudent withal, ready to perish for the “Pundonor,” and,--such is
not often the case in the East,--he was as honest as he was honourable.
Before proceeding with the thread of my narrative, the reader is
requested to bear with the following few lines upon the subject of
Unyanyembe.
Unyanyembe, the central and principal province of Unyamwezi, is, like
Zungomero in Khutu, the great Bandari or meeting-place of merchants, and
the point of departure for caravans which thence radiate into the
interior of Central Intertropical Africa. Here the Arab merchant from
Zanzibar meets his compatriot returning from the Tanganyika Lake and
from Uruwwa. Northwards well-travelled lines diverge to the Nyanza Lake,
and the powerful kingdoms of Karagwah, Uganda, and Unyoro; from the
south Urori and Ubena, Usanga and Usenga, send their ivory and slaves;
and from the south-west the Rukwa Water, K’hokoro, Ufipa, and Marungu
must barter their valuables for cottons, wires, and beads. The central
position and the comparative safety of Unyanyembe have made it the
head-quarters of the Omani or pure Arabs, who, in many cases, settle
here for years, remaining in charge of their depôts, whilst their
factors and slaves travel about the country and collect the items of
traffic. At Unyanyembe the merchants expect some delay. The porters,
whether hired upon the coast or at the Tanganyika Lake, here disperse,
and a fresh gang must be collected--no easy task when the sowing season
draws nigh.
Unyanyembe, which rises about 3480 feet above sea-level, and lies 356
miles in rectilinear distance from the eastern coast of Africa,
resembles in its physical features the lands about Tura. The plain or
basin of Ihárá, or Kwihárá, a word synonymous with the “Bondei” or
low-land of the coast, is bounded on the north and south by low,
rolling hills, which converge towards the west, where, with the
characteristically irregular lay of primitive formations, they are
crossed almost at right angles by the Mfuto chain. The position has been
imprudently chosen by the Arabs; the land suffers from alternate drought
and floods, which render the climate markedly malarious. The soil is
aluminous in the low levels--a fertile plain of brown earth, with a
subsoil of sand and sandstone, from eight to twelve feet below the
surface; the water is often impregnated with iron, and the higher
grounds are uninhabited tracts covered with bulky granite-boulders,
bushy trees, and thorny shrubs.
Contrary to what might be expected this “Bandari-district” contains
villages and hamlets, but nothing that can properly be termed a town.
The Mtemi or Sultan Fundikira, the most powerful of the Wanyamwezi
chiefs, inhabits a Tembe, or square settlement, called “Ititenya,” on
the western slope of the southern hills. A little colony of Arab
merchants has four large houses at a neighbouring place, “Mawiti.” In
the centre of the plain lies “Kazeh,” another scattered collection of
six large hollow oblongs, with central courts, garden-plots,
store-rooms, and outhouses for the slaves. Around these nuclei cluster
native villages--masses of Wanyamwezi hovels, which bear the names of
their founders.
This part of Unyanyembe was first colonised about 1852, when the Arabs
who had been settled nearly ten years at Kigandu of P’huge, a district
of Usukuma, one long day’s march north of Kazeh, were induced by
Mpagamo, to aid them against Msimbira, a rival chief, who defeated and
drove them from their former seats. The details of this event were
supplied by an actor in the scenes; they well illustrate the futility of
the people. The Arabs, after five or six days of skirmishing, were upon
the point of carrying the boma or palisade of Msimbira, their enemy,
when suddenly at night their slaves, tired of eating beef and raw
ground-nuts, secretly deserted to a man. The masters awaking in the
morning found themselves alone, and made up their minds for
annihilation. Fortunately for them, the enemy, suspecting an ambuscade,
remained behind their walls, and allowed the merchants to retire without
an attempt to cut them off. Their employer, Mpagamo, then professed
himself unable to defend them; when, deeming themselves insecure, they
abandoned his territory. Snay bin Amir and Musa Mzuri, the Indian,
settled at Kazeh, then a desert, built houses, sunk wells, and converted
it into a populous place.
It is difficult to average the present number of Arab merchants at
Unyanyembe who, like the British in India, visit but do not colonise;
they rarely, however, exceed twenty-five in number; and during the
travelling season, or when a campaign is necessary, they are sometimes
reduced to three or four; they are too strong to yield without fighting,
and are not strong enough to fight with success. Whenever the people
have mustered courage to try a fall with the strangers, they have been
encouraged to try again. Hitherto the merchants have been on friendly
terms with Fundikira, the chief. Their position, however, though partly
held by force of prestige, is precarious. They are all Arabs from Oman,
with one solitary exception, Musa Mzuri, an Indian Kojah, who is perhaps
in these days the earliest explorer of Unyamwezi. In July, 1858, an Arab
merchant, Silim bin Masud, returning from Kazeh to his home at Msene,
with a slave-porter carrying a load of cloth, was, though well armed and
feared as a good shot, attacked at a water in a strip of jungle westward
of Mfuto, and speared in the back by five men, who were afterwards
proved to be subjects of the Sultan Kasanyare, a Mvinza. The Arabs
organised a small expedition to revenge the murder, marched out with 200
or 300 slave-musketeers, devoured all the grain and poultry in the
country, and returned to their homes without striking a blow, because
each merchant-militant wished his fellows to guarantee his goods or his
life for the usual diyat, or blood-money, 800 dollars. This impunity of
crime will probably lead to other outrages.
The Arabs live comfortably, and even splendidly, at Unyanyembe. The
houses, though single-storied, are large, substantial, and capable of
defence. Their gardens are extensive and well planted; they receive
regular supplies of merchandise, comforts, and luxuries from the coast;
they are surrounded by troops of concubines and slaves, whom they train
to divers crafts and callings: rich men have riding-asses from
Zanzibar, and even the poorest keep flocks and herds. At Unyanyembe,
as at Msene, and sometimes at Ujiji, there are itinerant fundi, or
slave-artisans--blacksmiths, tinkers, masons, carpenters, tailors,
potters, and rope-makers,--who come up from the coast with Arab
caravans. These men demand exorbitant wages. A broken matchlock can be
repaired, and even bullets cast; good cord is purchaseable; and for
tinning a set of seventeen pots and plates five shukkah merkani are
charged. A pair of Arab stirrups are made up for one shukkah besides the
material, and chains for animals at about double the price. Fetters and
padlocks, however, are usually imported by caravans. Pack-saddles are
brought from Zanzibar: in caravans a man may sometimes be found to make
them. There is, moreover, generally a pauper Arab who for cloth will
make up a ridge-tent; and as most civilised Orientals can use a needle,
professional tailors are little required. Provisions are cheap and
plentiful; the profits are large; and the Arab, when wealthy, is
disposed to be hospitable and convivial. Many of the more prosperous
merchants support their brethren who have been ruined by the chances and
accidents of trade. When a stranger appears amongst them, he receives
the “hishmat l’il gharíb,” or the guest-welcome, in the shape of a goat
and a load of white rice; he is provided with lodgings, and is
introduced by the host to the rest of the society at a general banquet.
The Arabs’ great deficiency is the want of some man to take the lead.
About fifteen years ago Abdullah bin Salim, a merchant from Zanzibar,
with his body of 200 armed slaves, kept the whole community in
subjection: since his death, in 1852, the society has suffered from all
the effects of disunion where union is most required. The Arab, however,
is even in Africa a Pantisocrat, and his familiarity with the inferior
races around him leads to the proverbial consequences.
The houses of the Arabs are Moslem modifications of the African Tembe,
somewhat superior in strength and finish. The deep and shady
outside-verandah, supported by stout uprights, shelters a broad bench of
raised earthwork, where men sit to enjoy the morning cool and the
evening serenity, and where they pray, converse, and transact their
various avocations. A portcullis-like door, composed of two massive
planks, with chains thick as a ship’s cable--a precaution rendered
necessary by the presence of wild slaves--leads into the barzah, or
vestibule. The only furniture is a pair of clay benches extending along
the right and left sides, with pillow-shaped terminations of the same
material; over these, when visitors are expected, rush mats and rugs are
spread. From this barzah a passage, built at the angle proper to baffle
the stranger’s curiosity, leads into the interior, a hollow square or
oblong, with the several rooms opening upon a courtyard, which, when not
built round, is completely closed by a “liwan”--a fence of small
tree-trunks or reeds. The apartments have neither outward doors nor
windows: small bull’s-eyes admit the air, and act as loop-holes in case
of need. The principal room on the master’s side of the house has a
bench of clay, and leads into a dark closet where stores and merchandise
are placed. There are separate lodgings for the harem, and the domestic
slaves live in barracoons or in their own outhouses. This form of Tembe
is perhaps the dullest habitation ever invented by man. The exterior
view is carefully removed from sight, and the dull, dirty courtyard,
often swamped during the rains, is ever before the tenant’s eyes; the
darkness caused by want of windows painfully contrasts with the flood of
sunshine pouring in through the doors, and at night no number of candles
will light up its gloomy walls of grey or reddish mud. The breeze is
either excluded by careless frontage, or the high and chilling winds
pour in like torrents; the roof is never water-tight, and the walls and
rafters harbour hosts of scorpions and spiders, wasps and cockroaches.
The Arabs, however, will expend their time and trouble in building
rather than trust their goods in African huts, exposed to thieves and to
the frequent fires which result from barbarous carelessness: everywhere,
when a long halt is in prospect, they send their slaves for wood to the
jungle, and superintend the building of a spacious Tembe. They neglect,
however, an important precaution, a sleeping-room raised above the mean
level of malaria.
Another drawback to the Arab’s happiness is the failure of his
constitution: a man who escapes illness for two successive months boasts
of the immunity; and, as in Egypt, no one enjoys robust health. The
older residents have learned to moderate their appetites. They eat but
twice a-day--after sunrise, and at noon--the midday meal concluded, they
confine themselves to chewing tobacco or the dried coffee of Karagwah.
They avoid strong meats, especially beef and game, which are considered
heating and bilious, remaining satisfied with light dishes, omelets and
pillaus, harísah, firni, and curded milk, and the less they eat the more
likely they are to escape fever. Harisáh, in Kisawahili “boko-boko,” is
the roast beef--the _plat de résistance_--of the Eastern and African
Arab. It is a kind of pudding made with finely shredded meat, boiled
with flour of wheat, rice, or holcus, to the consistence of a thick
paste, and eaten with honey or sugar. Firni, an Indian word, is
synonymous with the muhallibah of Egypt, a thin jelly of milk-and-water,
honey, rice-flour, and spices, which takes the place of our substantial
northern rice-pudding. The general health has been improved by the
importation from the coast of wheat, and a fine white rice, instead of
the red aborigen of the country, of various fruits, plantains, limes,
and papaws; and of vegetables, brinjalls, cucumbers, and tomatos, which
relieve the indigenous holcus and maize, manioc and sweet-potato, millet
and phaseoli, sesamum and ground-nuts. They declare to having derived
great benefit from the introduction of onions,--an antifebral, which
flourishes better in Central than in Maritime Africa. The onion, so
thriving in South Africa, rapidly degenerates upon the island of
Zanzibar into a kind of houseleek. In Unyamwezi it is of tolerable size
and flavour. It enters into a variety of dishes, the most nauseous being
probably the sugared onion-omelet. In consequence of general demand,
onions are expensive in the interior; an indigo-dyed shukkah will
purchase little more than a pound. When the bulbs fail, the leaves
chopped into thin circles and fried in clarified butter with salt, are
eaten as a relish with meat. They are also inserted into marak or soups,
to disguise the bitter and rancid taste of stale ghee. Onions may be
sown at all seasons except during the wet monsoon, when they are liable
to decay. The Washenzi have not yet borrowed this excellent and healthy
vegetable from the Arabs. Garlic has also been tried in Unyanyembe, but
with less success; moreover, it is considered too heating for daily use.
As might be expected, however, amongst a floating population with many
slaves, foreign fruits and vegetables are sometimes allowed to die out.
Thus some enterprising merchant introduced into Unyanyembe the date and
the mkungu, bidam, or almond-tree of the coast: the former, watered once
every third day, promised to bear fruit, when, in the absence of the
master, the Wanyamwezi cut up the young shoots into walking-sticks.
Sugar is imported: the water-wanting cane will not thrive in arid
Unyanyembe, and honey must be used as a succedaneum. Black pepper,
universally considered cooling by Orientals, is much eaten with
curry-stuffs and other highly-seasoned dishes, whereas the excellent
chillies and bird-pepper, which here grow wild, are shunned for their
heating properties. Butter and ghee are made by the wealthy; humbler
houses buy the article, which is plentiful and good, from the
Wanyamwezi. Water is the usual beverage. Some Arabs drink togwa, a sweet
preparation of holcus; and others, debauchees, indulge in the sour and
intoxicating pombe, or small-beer.
The market at Unyanyembe varies greatly according to the quantity of the
rains. As usual in barbarous societies, a dry season, or a few
unexpected caravans, will raise the prices, even to trebling; and the
difference of value in grain before and after the harvest will be double
or half of what it is at par. The price of provisions in Unyamwezi has
increased inordinately since the Arabs have settled in the land.
Formerly a slave-boy could be purchased for five fundo, or fifty strings
of beads: the same article would now fetch three hundred. A fundo of
cheap white porcelain-beads would procure a milch cow; and a goat, or
ten hens its equivalent, was to be bought for one khete. In plentiful
years Unyanyembe is, however, still the cheapest country in East Africa,
and, as usual in cheap countries, it induces the merchant to spend more
than in the dearest. Paddy of good quality, when not in demand, sells at
twenty kayla (120lbs.) for one shukkah of American domestics; maize, at
twenty-five; and sorghum, here the staff of life, when in large stock,
at sixty. A fat bullock may be bought for four domestics, a cow costs
from six to twelve, a sheep or a goat from one to two. A hen, or its
equivalent, four or five eggs, is worth one khete of coral or pink
porcelain beads. One fundo of the same will purchase a large bunch of
plantains, with which máwá or plantain-wine, and siki or vinegar are
made; and the Wanyamwezi will supply about a pint of milk every morning
at the rate of one shukkah per mensem. A kind of mud-fish is caught by
the slaves in the frequent pools which, during the cold season, dot the
course of the Gombe Nullah, lying three miles north of Kazeh; and
return-caravans often bring with them stores of the small fry, called
Kashwá or Daga’a, from the Tanganyika Lake.
From Unyanyembe twenty marches, which are seldom accomplished under
twenty-five days, conduct the traveller to Ujiji, upon the Tanganyika.
Of these the fifth station is Msene, the great Bandari of Western
Unyamwezi. It is usually reached in eight days; and the twelfth is the
Malagarazi River, the western limit of the fourth region.
The traveller, by means of introductory letters to the Doyen of the Arab
merchants at Kazeh, can always recruit his stock of country
currency,--cloth, beads, and wire,--his requirements of powder and ball,
and his supply of spices, comforts, and drugs, without which travel in
these lands usually ends fatally. He will pay, it is true, about five
times their market-value at Zanzibar: sugar, for instance, sells at its
weight in ivory, or nearly one-third more than its weight in beads. But
though the prices are exorbitant they preserve the buyer from greater
evils, the expense of porterage, the risk of loss, and the trouble and
annoyance of personally superintending large stores in a land where
“vir” and “fur” are synonymous terms.
And now comfortably housed within a stone-throw of my new friend Shaykh
Snay bin Amir, I bade adieu for a time to the march, the camp, and the
bivouac. Perhaps the reader may not be unwilling to hear certain details
concerning the “road and the inn” in Eastern Africa; he is familiar from
infancy with the Arab Kafilah and its host of litters and camels,
horses, mules, and asses, but the porter-journeys in Eastern Africa have
as yet escaped the penman’s pen.
Throughout Eastern Africa made roads, the first test of progress in a
people, are unknown. The most frequented routes are foot-tracks like
goat-walks, one to two spans broad, trodden down during the travelling
season by man and beast, and during the rains the path in African
parlance “dies,” that is to say, it is overgrown with vegetation. In
open and desert places four or five lines often run parallel for short
distances. In jungly countries they are mere tunnels in thorns and under
branchy trees, which fatigue the porter by catching his load. Where
fields and villages abound they are closed with rough hedges, horizontal
tree-trunks, and even rude stockades, to prevent trespassing and
pilferage. Where the land is open, an allowance of one-fifth must be
made for winding: in closer countries this must be increased to
two-fifths or to one-half, and the traveller must exercise his judgment
in distributing the marches between these two extremes. In Uzaramo and
K’hutu the tracks run through tall grasses, which are laid by their own
weight after rains, and are burned down during the hot seasons: they
often skirt cultivated lands, which they are not allowed to enter, miry
swamps are spanned, rivers breast-deep, with muddy bottoms and steep
slippery banks, are forded, whilst deep holes, the work of rodents and
insects, render them perilous to ridden cattle. In Usagara the gradients
are surmounted either by beds of mountain torrents or by breasting steep
and stony hills, mere ladders of tree-root and loose stones: laden
animals frequently cannot ascend or descend them. The worst paths in
this region are those which run along the banks of the many streams and
rivulets, and which traverse the broken and thorny ground at the base of
the hills. The former are “thieves’ roads,” choked with long succulent
grass springing from slushy mud; the latter are continued rises and
falls, with a small but ragged and awkward watercourse at every bottom.
From Usagara to Western Unyamwezi the roads lead through thick
thorn-jungle, and thin forests of trees blazed or barked along the
track, without hill, but interrupted during the rains by swamps and
bogs. They are studded with sign-posts, broken pots and gourds, horns
and skulls of game and cattle, imitations of bows and arrows pointing
towards water, and heads of holcus. Sometimes a young tree is bent
across the path and provided with a cross-bar; here is a rush gateway
like the yoke of the ancients, or a platform of sleepers supported by
upright trunks; there a small tree felled and replanted, is tipped with
a crescent of grass twisted round with bark, and capped with huge snail
shells, and whatever barbarous imagination may suggest. Where many roads
meet, those to be avoided are barred with a twig or crossed by a line
drawn with the foot. In Western Uvinza and near Ujiji, the paths are
truly vile, combining all the disadvantages of bog and swamp, river and
rivulet, thorn-bush and jungle, towering grasses, steep inclines,
riddled surface, and broken ground. The fords on the whole line are
temporary as to season, but permanent in place: they are rarely more
than breast-deep; and they average in dry weather a cubit and a half,
the fordable medium. There are but two streams, the Mgeta and the
Ruguvu, which are bridged over by trees; both could be forded higher up
the bed; and on the whole route there is but one river, the Malagarazi,
which requires a ferry during the dry season. Cross roads abound in the
populous regions. Where they exist not, the jungle is often impassable,
except to the elephant and the rhinoceros: a company of pioneers would
in some places require a week to cut their way for a single march
through the network of thorns and the stockade of rough tree-trunks. The
directions issued to travellers about drawing off their parties for
safety at night to rising grounds, will not apply to Eastern Africa; it
would be far easier to dig for themselves abodes under the surface.
It is commonly asserted in the island of Zanzibar that there are no
caravans in these regions. The dictum is true if the term be limited to
the hosts of camels and mules that traverse the deserts and the
mountains of Arabia and Persia. It is erroneous if applied to a body of
men travelling for commercial purposes. From time immemorial the
Wanyamwezi have visited the road to the coast, and though wars and
blood-feuds may have temporarily closed one line, another necessarily
opened itself. Amongst a race so dependent for comfort and pleasure upon
trade, commerce, like steam, cannot be compressed beyond a certain
point. Until a few years ago, when the extension of traffic induced the
country people to enlist as porters, all merchants traversed these
regions with servile gangs hired on the coast or island of Zanzibar, a
custom still prevailing on the northern and southern routes from the
sea-board to the lakes of Nyanza and Nyassa. Porterage, on the long and
toilsome journey, is now considered by the Wanyamwezi a test of
manliness, as the Englishman deems a pursuit or a profession necessary
to clear him from the charge of effeminacy. The children imbibe the
desire with their milk, and at six or seven years old they carry a
little tusk on their shoulders--instinctive porters, as pointer-pups are
hereditary pointers. By premature toil their shinbones are sometimes
bowed to the front like those of animals too early ridden. “He sits in
hut egg-hatching,” is their proverbial phrase to express one more
elegant--
“Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits.”
And they are ever quoting the adage that men who travel not are
void of understanding--the African equivalent of what was said by the
European sage: “The world is a great book, of which those who never
leave home read but a page.” Against this traditional tendency reasons
of mere hire and rations, though apparently weighty, are found wanting.
The porter will bargain over his engagement to the utmost bead, saying
that all men are bound to make the best conditions for themselves: yet,
after two or three months of hard labour, if he chance upon a caravan
returning to his home, a word from a friend, acting upon his innate
debility of purpose, will prevail upon him to sacrifice by desertion all
the fruits of his toil. On these occasions the porters are carefully
watched; open desertion would, it is true, be condemned by the general
voice, yet no merchant can so win the affections of his men that some
will not at times disappear. Until the gangs have left their homes far
behind, their presence seems to hang by a thread; at the least pretext
they pack up their goods and vanish in a mass. When approaching their
settlements--at the frontier districts of Tura and Mfuto, for
instance--their cloth and hire are taken from them, packed in the
employer’s bales, and guarded by armed slaves, especially at night, and
on the line of march. Yet these precautions frequently fail, and, once
beyond the camp limits, it is vain to seek the fugitive. In the act of
desertion they show intelligence: they seldom run away when caravans
first meet, lest their employer should halt and recover them by main
force, and, except where thieves and wild beasts are unknown, they will
not fly by night. The porter, however, has one point of honour; he
leaves his pack behind him. The slave, on the other hand, certainly robs
his employer when he runs away, and this, together with his
unwillingness to work and the trouble and annoyance which he causes to
his owner, counterbalances his superior dexterity and intelligence.
Caravans, called in Kisawahili safári (from the Arab safar, a journey)
and by the African rugendo or lugendo, “a going,” are rarely wanting on
the main trunk-lines. The favourite seasons for the upward-bound are the
months in which the greater and the lesser Masika or tropical rains
conclude--in June and September, for instance, on the coast--when water
and provisions are plentiful. Those who delay till the dry weather has
set in must expect hardships on the march; the expense of rations will
be doubled and trebled, and the porters will frequently desert. The
down-caravans set out in all seasons except the rainy; it is difficult
to persuade the people of Unyanyembe to leave their fields between the
months of October and May. They will abandon cultivation to the women
and children, and merrily take the footpath way if laden with their own
ivory, but from the merchant they will demand exorbitant wages, and even
then they will hesitate to engage themselves.
Porterage varies with every year and in every caravan. It knows but two
limits: the interest of the employer to disburse as little as possible
by taking every advantage of the necessities of his employé, and the
desire of the employé to extract as much as he can by presuming upon the
wants of his employer. In some years there is a glut of porters on the
coast; when they are rare quarrels take place between the several
settlements, each attempting a monopoly of enlistment to the detriment
of its neighbours, and a little blood is sometimes let. When the
Wanyamwezi began to carry, they demanded for a journey from the coast to
their own country six to nine dollars’ worth of domestics, coloured
cloths, brass-wires, and the pigeon’s-egg bead called sungomaji. The
rate of porterage then declined; the increase of traffic, however, has
of late years greatly increased it. In 1857 it was 10 dollars, and it
afterwards rose to 12 dollars per porter. In this sum rations are not
included; the value of these--which by ancient custom are fixed at 1
kubabah (about 1·5 lbs.) of grain per diem, or, that failing, of manioc,
sweet potatoes, and similar articles, with the present of a bullock at
the frontier--is subject to greater variations, and is even less
reducible to an average than the porter’s pay. It is needless to say
that the down-journey is less expensive than the up-march, as the
carriers rely upon a fresh engagement on the coast. The usual hire from
Unyanyembe would be nine cloths, payable on arrival at the sea-port,
where each is worth 25 cents, or about 1 shilling. The Arabs roughly
calculate--the errors balancing one another--that, rations included, the
hire of a porter from the coast to the Tanganyika Lake and back amounts
to a total of 20 dollars = 4_l._ 3_s._ From the coast, Wanyamwezi
porters will not engage themselves for a journey westward of their own
country; at Unyanyembe they break up, and a fresh gang must be enlisted
for a march to the Tanganyika or to the Nyanza Lake. It is impossible to
average the numbers of an East African caravan, which varies from half a
dozen to 200 porters, under a single Mundewa or merchant. In dangerous
places travellers halt till they form an imposing force; 500 is a
frequent figure, and even bodies of 1000 men are not rare. The only
limit to the gathering is the incapability of the country to fill more
than a certain number of mouths. The larger caravans, however, are slow
and cumbrous, and in places they exhaust the provision of water.
Caravans in East Africa are of three kinds. The most novel and
characteristic are those composed only of Wanyamwezi; secondly, are the
caravans directed and escorted by Wasawahili freemen or fundi (slave
fattori), commissioned by their patrons; and, lastly, those commanded by
Arabs.
The porter, called pagazi or fagazi--the former is the African, the
latter the ridiculous Arabised form of the word--corresponds with the
carregador of West Africa. The Wanyamwezi make up large parties of men,
some carrying their own goods, others hired by petty proprietors, who
for union and strength elect a head Mtongi, Ras Kafilah, or leader. The
average number of these parties that annually visit the coast is far
greater than those commanded by stranger-merchants. In the Unyamwezi
caravan there is no desertion, no discontent, and, except in certain
spots, little delay. The porters trudge from sunrise to 10 or 11 A.M.,
and sometimes, though rarely, they will travel twice a day, resting only
during the hours of heat. They work with a will, carrying
uncomplainingly huge tusks, some so heavy that they must be lashed to a
pole between two men--a contrivance technically called mziga-ziga. Their
shoulders are often raw with the weight, their feet are sore, and they
walk half or wholly naked to save their cloth for displays at home. They
ignore tent or covering, and sleep on the ground; their only supplies
are their country’s produce, a few worn-down hoes, intended at times to
purchase a little grain or to be given as blackmail for sultans, and
small herds of bullocks and heifers that serve for similar purposes if
not lost, with characteristic African futility, upon the road. Those who
most consult comfort carry, besides their loads and arms, a hide for
bedding, an earthen cooking pot, a stool, a kilindo or bark-box
containing cloth and beads, and perhaps a small gourd full of ghee. They
sometimes suffer severely from exposure to a climate which forbids long
and hard work upon short and hard fare. Malignant epidemics, especially
small-pox, often attack caravans as they approach the coast; generally,
however, though somewhat lean and haggard, the porters appear in better
condition than might be expected. The European traveller will repent
accompanying these caravans: as was said of a similar race, the Indians
of Guiana, “they will not deviate three steps from the regular path.”
Porters engaged by Arab Mtajiri or Mundewa--the former is the
Kisawahili, the latter is the Inner African term for a merchant or
travelling trader--are known by their superior condition; they eat much
more, work much less, and give far greater trouble to their commanders.
They expend part of the cloth and beads which they have received as hire
to procure for themselves occasional comforts; and on the down-journey
they take with them a few worn-down hoes to retain the power of
desertion without starving. The self-willed wretches demean themselves
with the coolest impudence; reply imperiously, lord it over their
leaders, regulate the marches and the halts, and though they work they
never work without loud complaints and open discontent. Rations are a
perpetual source of heart-burning: stinted at home to a daily mess of
grain-porridge, the porters on the line of march devote, in places where
they can presume, all their ingenuity to extort as much food as possible
from their employers. At times they are seized with a furore for meat.
When a bullock is slaughtered, the Kirangozi or guide claims the head,
leaving the breast and loin to the Mtongi or principal proprietor, and
the remainder is equally portioned amongst the khambi or messes into
which the gang divides itself. As has been remarked, the Arab merchant,
next to the Persian, is the most luxurious traveller in the East; a
veteran of the way, he well knows the effects of protracted hardship and
scarcity upon a wayfarer’s health. The European traveller, however, will
not enjoy the companionship of the Arab caravan, which marches by
instinct rather than by reason. It begins by dawdling over the
preliminaries; it then pushes hurriedly onwards till arrested by
epidemic or desertion; and finally it lingers over the end of the
journey, thus loosing time twice. This style of progress is fatal to
observation; moreover, none but a special caravan, consisting of slaves
hired for the purpose in the island of Zanzibar or on the coast, and
accompanied by their own Ahbab or patron--without whom they will obey no
employer, however generous or energetic--will enable the explorer to
strike into an unbeaten path, or to progress a few miles beyond the
terminus of a main trunk-road. The most enterprising of porters will
desert, leaving the caravan-leader like a water-logged ship.
Between these two extremes are the trading parties directed by the
Wasawahili, the Wamrima, and the slave Fundi--the Pombeiros of West
Africa--kindred souls with the Pagazi, understanding their languages and
familiar with their habits, manners, and customs. These “Safari” are
neither starved like those composed of Wanyamwezi, nor pampered like
those headed by the Arabs. There is less fatigue during the march, and
more comfort at the halting-place, consequently there are fewer cases of
disease and death. These semi-African Mtongi, hating and jealousing
Arabs and all strangers, throw every obstacle in their way, spread
reports concerning their magical and malevolent powers which are
dangerous amongst the more superstitious barbarians, they offer a
premium for desertion, and in fine, they labour hard though fruitlessly,
to retain their ancient monopoly of the profits derived from the
interior.
I will now describe the day’s march and the halt of the East African
caravan.
At 3 A.M., all is silent as the tomb, even the Mnyamwezi watchman nods
over his fire. About an hour later the red-faced apoplectic
chanticleer--there are sometimes half-a-dozen of them--the alarum of the
caravan, and a prime favourite with the slaves and porter, who carry him
on their banghy-poles by turns, and who drench him with water when his
beak opens under the sun,--flaps his wings and crows a loud salutation
to the dawn: he is answered by every cock and cockerel within ear-shot.
I have been lying awake for some time, longing for the light, and when
in health, for an early breakfast. At the first paling of the East, the
torpid Goanese are called up to build a fire, they tremble with the
cold--thermometrically averaging 60° F.--and they hurry to bring food.
Appetite somewhat difficult at this hour, demands a frequent change of
diet, we drink tea or coffee when procurable, or we eat rice-milk and
cakes raised with whey, or a porridge not unlike water-gruel. Whilst we
are so engaged, the Baloch chanting the spiritual songs which follow
prayers, squat round a cauldron placed upon a roaring fire, and fortify
the inner man with boiled meat and grain, with toasted pulse and
tobacco.
About such time, 5 A.M., the camp is fairly roused, and a little low
chatting becomes audible. This is a critical moment. The porters have
promised overnight, to start early, and to make a long wholesome march.
But, “uncertain, coy, and hard to please,” they change their minds like
the fair sex, the cold morning makes them unlike the men of the warm
evening, and perhaps one of them has fever. Moreover, in every caravan
there is some lazy, loud-lunged, contradictory and unmanageable fellow,
whose sole delight is to give trouble. If no march be in prospect, they
sit obstinately before the fire warming their hands and feet, inhaling
the smoke with everted heads, and casting quizzical looks at their
fuming and fidgety employer. If all be unanimous, it is vain to attempt
them, even soft sawder is but “throwing comfits to cows.” We return to
our tent. If, however, there be a division, a little active stimulating
will cause a march. Then a louder conversation leads to cries of Kwecha!
Kwecha! Pakia! Pakia! Hopa! Hopa! Collect! pack! set out! Safari! Safari
leo! a journey, a journey to-day! and some peculiarly African boasts,
P’hunda! Ngami! I am an ass! a camel! accompanied by a roar of bawling
voices, drumming, whistling, piping, and the braying of Barghumi, or
horns. The sons of Ramji come in a body to throw our tents, and to
receive small burdens, which, if possible, they shirk; sometimes Kidogo
does me the honour to inquire the programme of the day. The porters,
however, hug the fire till driven from it, when they unstack the loads
piled before our tents and pour out of the camp or village. My companion
and I, when well enough to ride, mount our asses, led by the gunbearers,
who carry all necessaries for offence and defence; when unfit for
exercise, we are borne in hammocks, slung to long poles, and carried by
two men at a time. The Baloch tending their slaves hasten off in a
straggling body, thinking only of escaping an hour’s sun. The Jemadar,
however, is ordered to bring up the rear with Said bin Salim, who is
cold and surly, abusive and ready with his rattan. Four or five packs
have been left upon the ground by deserters, or shirkers, who have
started empty-handed, consequently our Arab either double-loads more
willing men, or persuades the sons of Ramji to carry a small parcel
each, or that failing, he hires from some near village a few porters by
the day. This, however, is not easy, the beads have been carried off,
and the most tempting promises without pre-payment, have no effect upon
the African mind.
When all is ready, the Kirangozi or Mnyamwezi guide rises and shoulders
his load, which is ever one of the lightest. He deliberately raises his
furled flag, a plain blood-red, the sign of a caravan from Zanzibar,
much tattered by the thorns, and he is followed by a privileged Pagazi,
tom-toming upon a kettle-drum much resembling a European hour-glass. The
dignitary is robed in the splendour of scarlet broadcloth, a narrow
piece about six feet long, with a central aperture for the neck, and
with streamers dangling before and behind; he also wears some wonderful
head-dress, the spoils of a white and black “tippet-monkey,” or the
barred skin of a wild cat, crowning the head, bound round the throat,
hanging over the shoulders, and capped with a tall cup-shaped bunch of
owl’s feathers, or the gorgeous plumes of the crested crane. His
insignia of office are the kipungo or fly-flapper, the tail of some
beast which he affixes to his person as if it were a natural growth, the
kome, or hooked iron spit, decorated with a central sausage of
parti-coloured beads, and a variety of oily little gourds containing
snuff, simples, and “medicine,” for the road, strapped round his waist.
He leads the caravan, and the better to secure the obedience of his
followers he has paid them in a sheep or a goat, the value of which he
will recover by fees and superiority of rations--the head of every
animal slaughtered in camp and the presents at the end of the journey
are exclusively his. A man guilty of preceding the Kirangozi is liable
to fine, and an arrow is extracted from his quiver to substantiate his
identity at the end of the march. Pouring out of the kraal in a
disorderly mob, the porters stack their goods at some tree distant but a
few hundred yards, and allow the late, the lazy, and the invalids to
join the main body. Generally at this conjuncture the huts are fired by
neglect or mischievousness. The khambi, especially in winter, burns like
tinder, and the next caravan will find a heap of hot ashes and a few
charred sticks still standing. Yet by way of contrast the Pagazi will
often take the trouble to denote by the usual signposts to those
following them that water is at hand. Here and there a little
facetiousness appears in these erections, a mouth is cut in the
tree-trunk to admit a bit of wood, simulating a pipe, with other
representations still more waggish.
After the preliminary halt, the caravan, forming into the order of
march, winds, like a monstrous land-serpent, over hill, dale, and plain.
The Kirangozi is followed by an Indian file, those nearest to him, the
grandees of the gang, are heavily laden with ivories: when the weight of
the tusk is inordinate, it is tied to a pole and is carried
palanquin-fashion by two men. A large cowbell, whose music rarely ceases
on the march, is attached to the point which is to the fore; to the
bamboo behind is lashed the porter’s private baggage,--his earthen
cooking-pot, his water-gourd, his sleeping-mat, and his other
necessaries. The ivory-carriers are succeeded by the bearers of cloth
and beads, each man, poising upon either shoulder, and sometimes raising
upon the head for rest, packs that resemble huge bolsters, six feet long
by two in diameter, cradled in sticks, which generally have a forked
projection for facility of stacking and reshouldering the load. The
sturdiest fellows are usually the lightest loaded: in Eastern Africa, as
elsewhere, the weakest go to the wall. The maximum of burden may be two
farasilah, or seventy pounds, avoirdupois. Behind the cloth bearers
straggles a long line of porters and slaves, laden with the lighter
stuff, rhinoceros-teeth, hides, salt-cones, tobacco, brass wire, iron
hoes, boxes and bags, beds and tents, pots and water-gourds, mats and
private stores. With the Pagazi, but in separate parties, march the
armed slaves, who are never seen to quit their muskets, the women, and
the little toddling children, who rarely fail to carry something, be it
only of a pound weight, and the asses neatly laden with saddle-bags of
giraffe or buffalo-hide. A “Mganga” almost universally accompanies the
caravan, not disdaining to act as a common porter. The “parson” not only
claims, in virtue of his sacred calling, the lightest load; he is also a
stout, smooth, and sleek-headed man, because, as usual with his class,
he eats much and he works little. The rear is brought up by the master
or the masters of the caravan, who often remains far behind for the
convenience of walking and to prevent desertion.
All the caravan is habited in its worst attire, the East African derides
those who wear upon a journey the cloth which should be reserved for
display at home. If rain fall they will doff the single goat-skin hung
round their sooty limbs, and, folding it up, place it between the
shoulder and the load. When grain is served out for some days’ march,
each porter bears his posho or rations fastened like a large “bussel” to
the small of his back. Upon this again, he sometimes binds, with its
legs projecting outwards, the three-legged stool, which he deems
necessary to preserve him from the danger of sitting upon the damp
ground. As may be imagined, the barbarians have more ornament than
dress. Some wear the ngala, a strip of zebra’s mane bound round the head
with the bristly parti-coloured, hair standing out like a saint’s
“gloria:” others prefer a long bit of stiffened ox-tail, rising like a
unicorn’s horn, at least a foot above the forehead. Other ornaments are
the skins of monkeys and ocelots, rouleaus and fillets of white, blue,
or scarlet cloth, and huge bunches of ostrich, crane, and jay’s
feathers, crowning the head like the tufts of certain fowls. Their arms
are decorated with massive ivory bracelets, heavy bangles of brass or
copper, and thin circlets of the same metal, beads in strings and bands,
adorn their necks, and small iron bells, a “knobby” decoration, whose
incessant tinkling harmonises, in African ears, with the regular
chime-like “Ti-ti! Ti-ti! tang!” of the tusk-bells, and the loud broken
“Wa-ta-ta!” of the horns, are strapped below the knee or round the ankle
by the more aristocratic. All carry some weapon; the heaviest armed have
a bow and a bark-quiver full of arrows, two or three long spears and
assegais, a little battle-axe borne on the shoulder, and the sime or
dudgeon.
The normal recreations of a march are, whistling, singing, shouting,
hooting, horning, drumming, imitating the cries of birds and beasts,
repeating words which are never used except on journeys--a “chough’s
language, gabble enough and good enough”--and abundant squabbling; in
fact perpetual noise which the ear however, soon learns to distinguish
for the hubbub of a halt. The uproar redoubles near a village, where the
flag is unfurled and where the line lags to display itself. All give
vent to loud shouts, “Hopa! hopa!--go on! go on! Mgogolo!--a stoppage!
Food! food! Don’t be tired! The kraal is here--home is near! Hasten,
kirangozi--Oh! We see our mothers! We go to eat!” On the road it is
considered prudent as well as pleasurable to be as loud as possible, in
order to impress upon plunderers an exaggerated idea of the caravan’s
strength; for equally good reasons silence is recommended in the kraal.
When threatened with attack and no ready escape suggests itself, the
porters ground their loads and prepare for action. It is only
self-interest that makes them brave; I have seen a small cow, trotting
up with tail erect, break a line of 150 men carrying goods not their
own. If a hapless hare or antelope cross the path, every man casts his
pack, brandishes his spear, and starts in pursuit; the animal never
running straight is soon killed, and torn limb from limb, each negroid
helluo devouring his morsel raw. Sometimes a sturdy fellow “renowns it”
by carrying his huge burden round and round, like a horse being ringed,
and starts off at full speed. When two bodies meet, that commanded by an
Arab claims the road. If both are Wanyamwezi, violent quarrels ensue,
but fatal weapons, which are too ready at hand, are turned to more
harmless purposes, the bow and spear being used as whip and cudgel.
These affrays are not rancorous till blood is shed. Few tribesmen are
less friendly for so trifling an affair as a broken head; even a slight
cut or a shallow stab is little thought of; but, if returned with
interest, great loss of life may arise from the slenderest cause. When
friendly caravans meet, the two Kirangozis sidle up with a stage pace, a
stride, and a stand, and with sidelong looks prance till arrived within
distance; then suddenly and simultaneously “ducking,” like boys “giving
a back,” they come to logger-heads and exchange a butt violently as
fighting rams. Their example is followed by all with a rush and a crush,
which might be mistaken for the beginning of a faction, but it ends, if
there be no bad blood, in shouts of laughter. The weaker body, however,
must yield precedence and offer a small present as blackmail.
About 8 A.M., when the fiery sun has topped the trees and a pool of
water, or a shady place appears, the planting of the red flag, the
braying of a Barghumi, or koodoo’s horn, which, heard at a distance in
the deep forests, has something of the charm which endears the “Cor de
Chasse” to every woodman’s ear, and sometimes a musket-shot or two,
announces a short halt. The porters stack their loads, and lie or loiter
about for a few minutes, chatting, drinking, and smoking tobacco and
bhang, with the usual whooping, screaming cough, and disputing eagerly
about the resting-place for the day. On long marches we then take the
opportunity of stopping to discuss the contents of two baskets which are
carried by a slave under the eye of the Goanese.
If the stage be prolonged towards noon, the caravan lags, straggles, and
suffers sorely. The heat of the ground, against which the horniest sole
never becomes proof, tries the feet like polished-leather boots on a
quarter-deck in the dog-days near the Line, and some tribulation is
caused by the cry M’iba hapa!--thorns here! The Arabs and the Baloch
must often halt to rest. The slaves ensconce themselves in snug places;
the porters, propping their burdens against trees, curl up, dog-like,
under the shade; some malinger; and this, the opportunity preferred for
desertion, is an anxious hour to the proprietor; who, if he would do his
work “deedily,” must be the last in the kraal. Still the men rarely
break down. As in Indian marching, the African caravan prefers to end
the day, rather than to begin it, with a difficulty--the ascent of a
hill, or the fording of a stream. They prefer the strip of jungle at the
further end of a district or a plantation, for safety as well as for the
comfort of shade. They avoid the vicinity of rocks; and on desert plains
they occupy some slightly rising ground, where the night-cold is less
severe than in the lower levels.
At length an increased hubbub of voices, blended with bells, drums,
fifes, and horns, and sometimes a few musket-shots, announce that the
van is lodged, and the hubbub of the halt confirms the pleasing
intelligence that the journey is shortened by a stage. Each selfish body
then hurries forward to secure the best boothy in the kraal, or the most
comfortable hut in the village, and quarrels seem serious. Again,
however, the knife returns home guiltless of gore, and the spear is used
only as an instrument for sound belabouring. The more energetic at once
apply themselves to “making all snug” for the long hot afternoon and the
nipping night; some hew down young trees, others collect heaps of leafy
boughs; one acts architect, and many bring in huge loads of firewood.
The East African is so much accustomed to house-life, that the bivouac
in the open appears to him a hardship; he prefers even to cut out the
interior of a bush and to squat in it, the portrait of a comfortable
cynocephalus. We usually spread our donkey-saddles and carpets in some
shade, awaiting the arrival of our tents, and its erection by the
grumbling sons of Ramji; if we want a hut, we draw out the man in
possession like a badger,--he will never have the decency to offer it.
As a rule, the villagers are more willing to receive the upward-bound
caravans, than those who, returning, carry wealth out of instead of into
the country. Merchants, on account of their valuable outfits, affect,
except in the safest localities, the khambi rather than the village; the
latter, however, is not only healthier, despite its uncleanliness in
miasmatic lands, but is also more comfortable, plenty and variety of
provisions being more readily procured inside than outside. The Arab’s
khaymah is a thin pole or ridge-tent of flimsy domestics, admitting sun
and rain, and, like an Irish cabin, permitting at night the occupant to
tell time by the stars; yet he prefers it, probably for dignity, to the
boothy which, in this land of verdure and cool winds, is a far more
comfortable lodging.
The Wamrima willingly admit strangers into their villages; the Wazaramo
would do the same, but they are constantly at feud with the Wanyamwezi,
who therefore care not to avail themselves of the dangerous hospitality.
In K’hutu caravans seize by force the best lodgings. Throughout Eastern
Usagara travellers pitch tents in the dear central spaces, surrounded by
the round huts of the peasantry, under whose low and drooping eaves the
pagazi find shelter. In the western regions, where the Tembe or square
village prevails, kraals form the nighting-place. In Ugogo strangers
rarely enter the hamlets, the hovels being foul, and the people
dangerous. Throughout Eastern and Central Unyamwezi caravans defile into
the villages without hesitation. Some parties take possession of the
Iwanza or public-house; others build for themselves tabernacles of leafy
boughs, which they are expected to clear away before departure, and the
headman provides lodgings for the Mtongi. In Western Unyamwezi the doors
are often closed against strangers, and in Eastern Uvinza the people
will admit travellers to bivouac, but they will not vacate their huts.
In Western Uvinza, a desert like Marenga and Mgunda Mk’hali, substantial
khambi occur at short intervals. At Ujiji, the Sultan, after offering
the preliminary magubiko or presents, provides his guests with lodgings,
which, after a time sufficient for enabling them to build huts, they
must vacate in favour of new comers. In the other Lake Regions the
reception depends mainly upon the number of muskets in a caravan, and
the character of the headman and his people.
The khambi or kraal everywhere varies in shape and material. In the
eastern regions, where trees are scarce, wattle frames of rough sticks,
compacted with bark-fibre, are disposed in a circle; the forked
uprights, made higher behind and lower in front, to form a sloping roof,
support horizontal or cross poles, which are overlaid with a rough
thatch of grass or grain-cane. The central space upon which the boothies
open is occupied by one or more huts for the chiefs of the party; and
the outer circle is a loose fence of thorn branches, flimsy, yet
impassable to breech-less legs, unshod feet, and thin loose
body-garments. When a kraal must be built, rations are not served out
till enclosures made round the camp secure the cattle; if the leader be
dilatory, or unwilling to take strong measures, he may be a serious
loser. The stationary kraals become offensive, if not burnt down after a
few months. The Masika-kraal, as it is called, is that occupied only
during the rainy monsoon, when water is everywhere found. The vicinity
and the abundance of that necessary are the main considerations in
selecting the situation of encampments. The bark-kraals commence in
Uvinza, where trees abound, and extend to the Tanganyika Lake; some are
substantial, as the temporary villages, and may be a quarter of a mile
in circumference. The Lakist population carry with them, when
travelling, Karagwah or stiff mats of reed and rush; these they spread
over and fasten to a firmly-planted framework of flexible boughs, not
unlike a bird’s nest inverted, or they build a cone of strong canes, in
the shape of piled muskets, with the ends lashed together. It is curious
to see the small compass in which the native African traveller can
contract himself: two, and even three, will dispose their heads and part
of their bodies--leaving their lower limbs to the mercy of the
elements--under a matting little more than a yard square.
When lodgings in the kraal have been distributed, and the animals have
been off-packed, and water has been brought from the pit or stream, all
apply themselves to the pleasant toil of refection. Merrily then sounds
the breathless chant of the woman pounding or rubbing down grain, the
song of the cook, and the tinkle-tinkle of the slave’s pestle, as he
bends over the iron mortar from which he stealthily abstracts the
coffee. The fireplaces are three stones or clods, placed trivet-wise
upon the ground, so that a draught may feed the flame, they are far
superior to the holes and trenches of our camps and pic-nics. The tripod
supports a small black earthen pot, round which the khambi or little
knot of messmates perseveringly squat despite the stinging sun. At home
where they eat their own provisions they content themselves with a
slender meal of flour and water once a day. But like Spaniards, Arabs,
and all abstemious races, they must “make up for lost time.” When
provisions are supplied to them, they are cooking and consuming as long
as the material remains; the pot is in perpetual requisition, now filled
to be emptied, then refilled to be re-emptied. They will devour in three
days the rations provided for eight, and then complain loudly that they
are starved. To leave a favourable impression upon their brains, I had a
measure nearly double that generally used, yet the perverse wretches
pleading hunger, though they looked like aldermen by the side of the
lean bony anatomies whom they met on the road, would desert whenever met
by a caravan. After a time there will, doubtless, be a re-action; when
their beards whiten they will indulge in the garrulity of age; they will
recount to wondering youth the prodigality of the Muzungu, in filling
them with grain, even during the longest marches, and they will compare
his loads of cloth and beads with the half dozen “shaggy” cows and the
worn-out hoes, the sole outfit for presents and provisions carried by
caravans of “Young Africa.” If there be any delay in serving out
provisions, loud cries of Posho! p’hamba!--rations! food!--resound
through the camp; yet when fatigued, the porters will waste hours in
apathetic idleness rather than walk a few hundred yards to buy grain.
Between their dozen meals they puff clouds of pungent tobacco, cough and
scream over their jungle-bhang, and chew ashes, quids, and pinches of
red earth, probably the graves of white ants. If meat be served out to
them, it is eaten as a relish; it never, however, interferes with the
consumption of porridge. A sudden glut of food appears to have the
effect of intoxicating them. The Arabs, however, avoiding steady
rations, alternately gorge and starve their porters, knowing by
experience that such extremes are ever most grateful to the barbarian
stomach. The day must be spent in very idleness; a man will complain
bitterly if told to bring up his pack for opening; and general
discontent, with hints concerning desertion, will arise from the
mortification of a muster. On such occasions he and his fellows will
raise their voices,--when not half-choked by food--and declare that they
will not be called about like servants, and crouch obstinately round the
smoky fire, the pictures of unutterable disgust; and presently enjoy the
sweet savour of stick-jaw dough and pearl-holcus like small shot, rat
stews, and boiled weeds, which they devour till their “bulge” appears
like the crop of a stuffed turkey. Sometimes when their improvidence has
threatened them with a Banyan-day, they sit in a melancholy plight,
spitefully smoking and wickedly eyeing our cooking-pots; on these
occasions they have generally a goat or a bullock in store, and, if not,
they finesse to obtain one of ours. I always avoid issuing an order to
them direct, having been warned by experience that Kidogo or the
Kirangozi is the proper channel; which sorely vexes Valentine and Seedy
Bombay, whose sole enjoyment in life is command. I observed that when
wanted for extra-work, to remove thorns or to dig for water, that the
false alarm of Posho! (rations) summons them with a wonderful alacrity.
Moreover, I remarked that when approaching their country and leaving
ours--the coast--they became almost unmanageable and _vice versâ_ as
conditions changed.
My companion and I pass our day as we best can, sometimes in a bower of
leafy branches, often under a spreading tree, rarely in the flimsy tent.
The usual occupations are the diary and the sketch-book, added to a
little business. The cloth must be doled out, and the porters must be
persuaded, when rested, to search the country for rations,
otherwise--the morrow will be a blank. When a bullock is killed one of
us must be present. The porters receive about a quarter of the meat,
over which they sit wrangling and screaming like hyænas, till a fair
division according to messes is arrived at. Then, unless watched, some
strong and daring hand will suddenly break through the ring, snatch up
half a dozen portions and disappear at a speed defying pursuit; others
will follow his example, with the clatter and gesture of a troop of
baboons, and the remainder will retire as might be expected, grumbling
and discontented. Dinner at 4 P.M. breaks the neck of the day.
Provisions of some kind are mostly procurable, our diet, however, varies
from such common doings as the hard holcus-scone, the tasteless
bean-broth and the leathery goat-steak, to fixings of delicate venison,
fatted capon, and young guinea-fowl or partridge, with “bread sauce,”
composed of bruised rice and milk. At first the Goanese declined to cook
“pretty food,” as pasties and rissoles, on the plea that such things
were impossible upon the march; they changed their minds when warned
that persistence in such theory might lead to a ceremonious fustigation.
Moreover, they used to serve us after their fashion, with a kind of
“portion” on plates; the best part, of course, remained in the pots and
digesters; these, therefore, were ordered to do duty as dishes. When tea
or coffee is required in a drinkable state, we must superintend the
process of preparing it, the notions of the Goanese upon such subjects
being abominable to the civilised palate. When we have eaten our
servants take their turn; they squat opposite each other over a private
“cooking-pot” to which they have paid unremitting attention; they
stretch forth their talons and eat till weary, not satiated, pecking,
nodding, and cramming like two lank black pigeons. Being “Christians,”
that is to say, Roman Catholics, they will not feed with the heathenry,
moreover a sort of semi-European dignity forbids. Consequently Bombay
messes with his “brother” Mabruki, and the other slaves eat by
themselves.
When the wells ahead are dry the porters will scarcely march in the
morning; their nervous impatience of thirst is such that they would
exhaust all their gourds, if they expected a scarcity in front, and then
they would suffer severely through the long hot day. They persist,
moreover, upon eating before the march, under the false impression that
it gives them strength and bottom. In fact, whenever difficulties as
regards grain or drink suggest themselves, the African requires the
direction of some head-piece made of better stuff than his own. The
hardships of the tirikeza have already been described: they must be
endured to be realised.
Night is ushered in by penning and pounding the cows, and by tethering
the asses--these “careless Æthiopians” lose them every second day,--and
by collecting and numbering the loads, a task of difficulty where every
man shirks the least trouble. When there has been no tirikeza, when
provisions have been plentiful, and when there is a bright moonshine,
which seems to enliven these people like jackals, a furious drumming, a
loud clapping of hands, and a general droning song, summon the lads and
the lasses of the neighbouring villages to come out and dance and “make
love.” The performance is laborious, but these Africans, like most men
of little game, soon become too tired to work, but not too tired to play
and amuse themselves. Their style of salutation is remarkable only for
the excessive gravity which it induces; at no other time does the East
African look so serious, so full of earnest purpose. Sometimes a single
dancer, the village buffoon, foots a _pas seul_, featly, with head,
arms, and legs, bearing strips of hair-garnished cow-skin, which are
waved, jerked, and contorted, as if dislocation had occurred to his
members. At other times, a line or a circle of boys and men is formed
near the fire, and one standing in the centre, intones the song solo,
the rest humming a chorus in an undertone. The dancers plumbing and
tramping to the measure with alternate feet, simultaneously perform a
treadmill exercise with a heavier stamp at the end of every period: they
are such timists, that a hundred pair of heels sound like one. At first
the bodies are slowly swayed from side to side, presently as excitement
increases, the exercise waxes severe: they “cower down and lay out their
buttocks,” to use pedantic Ascham’s words, “as though they would shoot
at crows;” they bend and recover themselves, and they stoop and rise to
the redoubled sound of the song and the heel-music, till the assembly,
with arms waving like windmills, assumes the frantic semblance of a ring
of Egyptian Darwayshes. The performance often closes with a grand
promenade; all the dancers being jammed in a rushing mass, a _galop
infernale_, with the features of satyrs, and gestures resembling aught
but the human. When the fun threatens to become too fast and furious,
the song dies, and the performers, with loud shouts of laughter, throw
themselves on the ground, to recover strength and breath. The greybeards
look on with admiration and sentiment, remembering the days when they
were capable of similar feats. Instead of “bravo,” they ejaculate “Nice!
nice! very nice!” and they wonder what makes the white men laugh. The
ladies prefer to perform by themselves, and perhaps in the East, ours
would do the same, if a literal translation of the remarks to which a
ball always gives rise amongst Orientals, happened by misfortune to
reach their refined ears.
When there is no dancing, and the porters can no longer eat, drink, and
smoke, they sit by their fires, chatting, squabbling, talking and
singing some such “pure nectar” as the following. The song was composed,
I believe, in honour of me, and I frequently heard it when the singers
knew that it was understood. The Cosmopolitan reader will not be
startled by the epithet “Mbaya,” or wicked, therein applied to the
Muzungu. A “good white man,” would indeed, in these lands, have been
held an easy-going soul, a natural, an innocent, like the “buona
famiglia,” of the Italian cook, who ever holds the highest quality of
human nature to be a certain facility for being “plucked without
’plaining,” and being “flayed without flinching.” Moreover, despite my
“wickedness,” they used invariably to come to me for justice and
redress, especially when proximity to the coast encouraged the guide and
guards to “bully” them.
“Muzungu mbaya” (the wicked white man) goes from the shore,
(_Chorus_) Puti! Puti! (I can only translate it by “grub! grub!”)
We will follow “Muzungu mbaya.”
Puti! Puti!
As long as he gives us good food!
Puti! Puti!
We will traverse the hill and the stream,
Puti! Puti!
With the caravan of this great mundewa (merchant).
Puti! Puti! &c., &c.
The Baloch and the sons of Ramji quarrel, yell, roar, and talk of
eating--the popular subject of converse in these lands, as is beer in
England, politics in France, law in Normandy, “pasta” at Naples, and to
say no more, money everywhere--till a late hour. About 8 P.M., the small
hours of the country, sounds the cry lala! lala!--sleep! It is willingly
obeyed by all except the women, who must sometimes awake to confabulate
even at midnight. One by one the caravan sinks into torpid slumber. At
this time, especially when in the jungle-bivouac, the scene often
becomes truly impressive. The dull red fires flickering and forming a
circle of ruddy light in the depths of the black forest, flaming against
the tall trunks and defining the foliage of the nearer trees, illuminate
lurid groups of savage men, in every variety of shape and posture.
Above, the dark purple sky, studded with golden points, domes the earth
with bounds narrowed by the gloom of night. And, behold! in the western
horizon, a resplendent crescent, with a dim, ash-coloured globe in its
arms, and crowned by Hesperus, sparkling like a diamond, sinks through
the vast of space, in all the glory and gorgeousness of Eternal Nature’s
sublimest works. From such a night, methinks, the Byzantine man took his
device, the Crescent and the Star.
The rate of caravan-marching in East Africa greatly varies. In cool
moonlit mornings, over an open path, the Pagazi will measure perhaps
four miles an hour. This speed is reduced by a quarter after a short
“spurt,” and under normal, perhaps favourable, circumstances, three
statute miles will be the highest average. Throughout the journey it is
safe to reckon for an Indian file of moderate length--say 150 men--2·25
English miles, or what is much the same, 1·75 geographical miles per
hour, measured by compass from point to point. In a clear country an
allowance of 20 per cent, must be made for winding: in closer regions
40-50 per cent., and the traveller must exercise his judgment in
distributing his various courses between these extremes. Mr. Cooley
(Inner Africa Laid Open, p. 6) a “resolute,” and I may add a most
successful “reducer of itinerary distances,” estimates that the ordinary
day’s journey of the Portuguese missionaries in West Africa never
exceeded six geographical miles projected in a straight line, and that
on rare occasions, and with effort only, it may have extended to 10
miles. Dr. Lacerda’s porters in East Africa were terrified at the
thought of marching ordinarily 2·50 Portuguese leagues, or about 9·33
statute miles per day. Dr. Livingstone gives the exceedingly high
maximum of 2·50 to 3 miles an hour in a straight line, but his porters
were lightly laden, and the Makololo are apparently a far “gamer” race,
more sober and industrious, than the East Africans. Mr. Petherick, H.
M.’s Consul at Khartum, estimates his gangs to have marched 3·50 miles
per hour, and the ordinary day’s march at 8 hours. It is undoubted that
the negro races north of the equator far surpass in pedestrian powers
their southern brethren; moreover the porters in question were marching
only for a single day; but as no instruments were used, the average may
fairly be suspected of exaggeration. Finally Mr. Galton’s observation
concerning Cape travelling applies equally well to this part of Africa,
namely, that 10 statute or 6 rectilinear geographical miles per diem is
a fair average of progress, and that he does well who conducts the same
caravan 1,000 geographical miles across a wild country in six months.
I will conclude this chapter with a succinct account of the inn, that is
to say the village in East Africa.
The habitations of races form a curious study and no valueless guide to
the nature of the climate and the physical conditions to which men are
subject.
Upon the East African coast the villages, as has been mentioned, are
composed of large tenements, oblongs or squares of wattle and dab, with
eaves projecting to form a deep verandah and a thatched pent-roof,
approaching in magnitude that of Madagascar.
Beyond the line of maritime land the “Nyumba” or dwelling-house assumes
the normal African form, the circular hut described by every traveller
in the interior: Dr. Livingstone appears to judge rightly that its
circularity is the result of a barbarous deficiency in inventiveness. It
has, however, several varieties. The simplest is a loose thatch thrown
upon a cone of sticks based upon the ground, and lashed together at the
apex: it ignores windows, and the door is a low hole in the side. A
superior kind is made after the manner of our ancient bee hives; it is
cup-shaped with bulging sides, and covered with neat thatch, cut in
circles which overlap one another tile-fashion: at a distance it
resembles an inverted bird’s nest. The common shape is a cylindrical
framework of tall staves, or the rough trunks of young trees planted in
the earth, neatly interwoven with parallel and concentric rings of
flexible twigs and withies: this is plastered inside and outside with a
hard coat of red or grey mud; in the poorer tenements the surface is
rough and chinked, in the better order it is carefully smoothed and
sometimes adorned with rude imitations of life. The diameter averages
from 20 to 25, and the height from 7 to 15 feet in the centre, which is
supported by a strong roof-tree, to which all the stacked rafters and
poles converge. The roof is subsequently added, it is a structure
similar to the walls, interwoven with sticks, upon which thick grass or
palm-fronds are thrown, and the whole is covered with thatch tied on by
strips of tree-bark. It has eaves which projecting from two to six
feet--under them the inhabitants love to sit or sun shade
themselves--rest upon horizontal bars, which are here and there
supported by forked uprights, trees rudely barked. Near the coast the
eaves are broad and high: in the interior they are purposely made so low
that a man must creep in on all fours. The door-way resembles the
entrance to an English pig-sty, it serves, however, to keep out heat in
the hot season, and to keep in smoke and warmth during the rains and the
cold weather: the threshold is garnished with a horizontal log or board
that defends the interior from inundation. The door is a square of reeds
fastened together by bark or cord, and planted upright at night between
the wall and two dwarf posts at each side of the entrance: there is
generally a smaller and a secret door opposite that in use, and
jealously closed up except when flight is necessary. In the colder and
damper regions there is a second wall and roof outside the first,
forming in fact one house within the other.
About Central Usagara the normal African haystack-hut makes place for
the “Tembe” which extends westward, a little beyond Unyanyembe. The
Tembe, though of Hamitic origin, resembles the Utum of the ancients, and
the Hishan of the modern Hejaz, those hollow squares of building which
have extended through Spain to France and even to Ireland: it was,
probably, suggested to Africa and to Arabia by the necessity of defence
to, as well as lodging for, man and beast. It is to a certain extent, a
proof of civilisation in Eastern Africa: the wildest tribes have not
progressed beyond the mushroom or circular hut, a style of architecture
which seems borrowed from the indigenous mimosa tree.
Westward of Unyamwezi in Uvinza and about the Tanganyika Lake the round
hovel again finds favour with the people; but even there the Arabs
prefer to build for themselves the more solid and comfortable Tembe.
The haystack-hut has been described by a multitude of travellers: the
“Tembe,” or hollow village, yet awaits that honour.
The “Tembe” wants but the addition of white-wash to make it an effective
feature in African scenery: as it is, it appears from afar like a short
line of raised earth. Provided with a block-house at each angle to sweep
dead ground where fire, the only mode of attack practised in these
regions, can be applied, it would become a fort impregnable to the
Eastern African. The form is a hollow square or oblong, generally
irregular, with curves, projections, and semicircles; in the East
African Ghauts, the shape is sometimes round or oval to suit the
exigencies of the hill-sides and the dwarf cones upon which it is built.
On the mountains and in Ugogo, where timber is scarce, the houses form
the continued frontage of the building, which, composed of
mimosa-trunks, stout stakes, and wattle and dab, rarely exceeds seven
feet in height. In the southern regions of Usagara where the Tembe is
poorest, the walls are of clods loosely put together and roofed over
with a little straw. About Msene where fine trees abound, the Tembe is
surrounded by a separate boma or palisade of young unbarked trunks,
short or tall, and capped here and there with cattle-skulls, blocks of
wood, grass-wisps, and similar talismans; this stockade, in damper
places, is hedged with a high thick fence, sometimes doubled and
trebled, of peagreen milk-bush, which looks pretty and refreshing, and
is ditched outside with a deep trench serving as a drain. The cleared
space in front of the main passage through the hedges is often decorated
with a dozen poles, placed in a wide semicircle to support human skulls,
the mortal remains of ill-conducted boors. In some villages the
principal entrance is approached by long, dark and narrow lanes of
palisading. When the settlement is built purely for defence, it is
called “Kaya,” and its headman “Muinyi Kaya,” the word, however, is
sometimes used for “Boma” or “Mji,” a palisaded village in general. In
some parts of Unyamwezi there is a Bandani or exterior boothy, where the
men work at the forge, or sit in the shade, and where the women husk,
pound, and cook their grain.
The general roof of the Tembe is composed of mud and clay heaped upon
grass thickly strewed over a framework of rafters supported by the long
walls. It has, usually, an obtuse slope to the front and another to the
rear, that rain may not lie; it is, however, flat enough to support the
bark-bins of grain, gourds, old pots, firewood, water-melons, pumpkins,
manioc, mushrooms, and other articles placed there to ripen or dry in
the sun. It has no projecting eaves, and it is ascended from the inside
by the primitive ladder, the inclined trunk of a tree, with steps formed
by the stumps of lopped boughs, acting rings. The roof, during the
rains, is a small plot of bright green grass: I often regretted not
having brought with me a little store of mustard and cress. In each
external side of the square, one or two door-ways are pierced; they are
large enough to admit a cow, and though public they often pass through
private domiciles. They are jealously closed at sunset, after which hour
not a villager dares to stir from his home till morning. The outer doors
are sometimes solid planks, more often they are three or four heavy
beams suspended to a cross-bar passing through their tops. When the way
is to be opened they are raised from below and are kept up by being
planted in a forked tree-trunk inside the palisade: they are let down
when the entrance is to be closed, and are barred across with strong
poles.
The tenements are divided from one another by party-walls of the same
material as the exterior. Each house has, usually, two rooms, a “but”
and a “ben,” which vary in length from 20 to 50 feet, and in depth from
12 to 15: they are partitioned by a screen of corn-canes supported by
stakes, with a small passage left open for light. The “but,” used as
parlour, kitchen, and dormitory, opens upon the common central square;
the “ben” receives a glimmer from the doors and chinks, which have not
yet suggested the idea of windows: it serves for a sleeping and a store
room; it is a favourite place with hens and pigeons that aspire to be
mothers, and the lambs and kids in early infancy are allowed to pass the
night there. The inner walls are smeared with mud: lime is not
procurable in Eastern Africa, and the people have apparently no
predilection for the Indian “Gobar:” floor is of tamped earth, rough,
uneven, and unclean. The prism-shaped ceiling is composed of rafters and
thin poles gently rising from the long-walls to the centre, where they
are supported by strong horizontals, which run the whole length of the
house, and these again rest upon a proportionate number of pillars,
solid forked uprights, planted in the floor. The ceiling is polished to
a shiny black with smoke, which winds its way slowly through the
door--smoke and grease are the African’s coat and small clothes, they
contribute so much to his health and comfort that he is by no means
anxious to get rid of them--and sooty lines depend from it like
negro-stalactites.
The common enceinte formed by the houses is often divided into various
courts, intended for different families, by the walls of the tenements,
or by stout screens, and connected by long wynds and dark alleys of
palisade-work. The largest and cleanest square usually belongs to the
headman. In these spaces cattle are milked and penned; the ground is
covered with a thick coat of the animals’ earths, dust in the hot
weather and deep viscid mud during the rains: the impurity must be an
efficacious fomite of cutaneous and pectoral disease. The villagers are
fond of planting in the central courts trees, under whose grateful shade
the loom is plied, the children play, the men smoke, and the women work.
Here, also, stands the little Mzimu, or Fetiss-hut, to receive the
oblations of the pious. Places are partitioned off from the public
ground, near the houses, by horizontal trunks of trees, resting on
forks, forming pens to keep the calves from the cows at night. In some
villages huge bolsters of surplus grain, neatly packed in bark and
corded round, are raised on tall poles near the interior doors of the
tenements. Often, too, the insides of the settlements boast of
pigeon-houses, which in this country are made to resemble, in miniature,
those of the people. In Unyamwezi the centre is sometimes occupied by
the Iwanza, or village “public-house,” which will be described in a
future chapter.
In some regions, as in Ugogo, these lodgings become peculiarly offensive
if not burnt after the first year. The tramping of the owners upon the
roof shakes mud and soot from the ceiling, and the rains wash down
masses of earthwork heavy enough to do injury. The interior is a
menagerie of hens, pigeons, and rats, of peculiar impudence. Scorpions
and earwigs fall from their nests in the warm or shady rafters. The
former, locally termed “Nge,” is a small yellow variety, and though it
stings spitefully the pain seldom lasts through the day; as many as
three have dropped upon my couch in the course of the week. In Ugogo
there is a green scorpion from four to five inches long, which inflicts
a torturing wound. According to the Arabs the scorpion in Eastern Africa
dies after inflicting five consecutive stings, and commits suicide if a
bit of stick be applied to the middle of its back. The earwig is common
in all damp places, and it haunts the huts on account of the shade. The
insect apparently casts its coat before the rainy season, and the
Africans ignore the superstition which in most European countries has
given origin to its trivial name. A small xylophagus with a large black
head rains a yellow dust like pollen from the riddled woodwork;
house-crickets chirp from evening to dawn; cockroaches are plentiful as
in an Indian steamer; and a solitary mason-wasp, the “Kumbharni,” or
“potter’s wife” of western India--a large hymenopter of several
varieties, tender-green, or black and yellow, or dark metallic
blue--burrows holes in the wall, or raises plastered nests, and buzzes
about the inmates’ ears; lizards, often tailless after the duello,
tumble from the ceilings; in the darker corners spiders of frightful
hideousness weave their solid webs; and the rest of the population is
represented by tenacious ticks of many kinds, flies of sorts, bugs,
fleas, mosquitoes, and small ants, which are, perhaps, the worst plagues
of all. The Riciniæ in Eastern Africa are locally called Papazi, which
probably explains the “Pazi bug,” made by Dr. Krapf a rival in venom to
the Argas Persicus, or fatal “bug of Miana.” In Eastern Africa these
parasites are found of many shapes, round and oval, flat and swollen;
after suction they vary in size from microscopic dimensions to
three-quarters of an inch; the bite cannot poison, but the constant
irritation caused by it may induce fever and its consequences. A hut
infested with Papazi must be sprinkled with boiling water, and swept
clean for many weeks, before they will disappear. In the Tembe there is
no draught to disturb the smaller occupants, consequently they are more
numerous than in the circular cottage. Moreover, the people, having an
aversion to sleeping in the open air, thus supply their co-inhabitants
with nightly rations, which account for their fecundity.
The abodes, as might be expected, are poorly furnished. In Unyamwezi,
they contain invariably one or more “Kitanda.” This cartel, or bedstead,
is a rude contrivance. Two parallel lines of peeled tree-branches,
planted at wide intervals, support in their forks horizontal poles: upon
these is spread crosswise a layer of thick sticks, which forms the
frame. The bedding consists of a bull-hide or two, and perhaps a long,
coarse, rush-mat. It is impossible for any one but an African to sleep
upon these Kitanda, on account of their shortness, the hardness of the
material, and the rapid slope which supplies the want of pillows, and
serves for another purpose which will not be described. When removed, a
fractured pole will pour forth a small shower of the foul cimex: this
people of hard skins considers its bite an agreeable titillation, and,
what may somewhat startle a European, esteems its odour a perfume.
Around the walls depend from pegs neatly-plaited slings of fibrous cord,
supporting gourds and “vilindo”--neat cylinders, like small band-boxes,
of tree bark, made to contain cloth, butter, grain, or other provisions.
In the store-room, propped upon stones, and plastered over with clay for
preservation, are Lindo, huge corn-bins of the same material; grain is
ground upon a coarse granite slab, raised at an angle of 25°, about one
foot above the floor, and embedded in a rim of hard clay. The hearth is
formed of three “Mafiga,” or truncated cones of red or grey mud,
sometimes two feet high, and ten inches in diameter at the base: they
are disposed triangularly, with the apex to the wall, and open to the
front when the fire is made. The pot rests upon the tripod. The broom, a
wisp of grass, a bunch of bamboo splints, or a split fibrous root,
usually sticks in the ceiling; its work is left to the ants. From the
rafters hang drums and kettle-drums, skins and hides in every process,
and hooked twigs dangling from strings support the bows and arrows, the
spears and assegais. An arrow is always thrust into the inner thatch for
good luck: ivory is stored between the rafters, hence its dark ruddy
colour, which must be removed by ablution with warm blood; and the
ceiling is a favourite place for small articles that require
seasoning--bows, quivers, bird-bolts, knob-sticks, walking-canes,
reed-nozzles for bellows, and mi’iko or ladles, two feet long, used to
stir porridge. The large and heavy water-pots, of black clay, which are
filled every morning and evening by the women at the well, lie during
the day empty or half empty about the room. The principal article of
luxury is the “Kiti,” or dwarf stool, cut out of a solid block,
measuring one foot in height by six inches in diameter, with a concave
surface for convenience of sitting: it has usually three carved legs or
elbows; some, however, are provided with a fourth, and with a base like
the seat, to steady them. They are invariably used by the Sultan and the
Mganga, who disdain to sit upon the ground: and the Wamrima ornament
them with plates of tin let into the upper concaves. The woods generally
used for the Kiti, are the Mninga and the Mpingu. The former is a tall
and stately tree, which supplies wood of a dark mahogany colour, exuding
in life a red gum, like dragon’s blood: the trunk is converted into
bowls and platters, the boughs into rafters, which are, however, weak
and subject to the xylophagus, whilst of the heart are made spears,
which, when old and well-greased, resemble teak-wood. The Mpingu is the
Sisam of India, (Dalbergia Sissoo) here erroneously called by the Arabs
Abnus--ebony. The tree is found throughout Eastern Africa. The wood is
of fine quality, and dark at the core: the people divide it into male
and female; the former is internally a dark brick-dust red, whilst the
latter verges upon black: they make from it spears and axe-handles,
which soon, however, when exposed to the air, unless regularly greased,
become brittle. The massive mortar, for husking grain, called by the
people “Mchi,” is shaped exactly like those portrayed in the
interior-scenes of ancient Egypt: it is hewn out of the trunk of the
close-grained Mkora tree. The huge pestle, like a capstan-bar, is made
of the Mkorongo, a large tree with a fine-grained wood, which is also
preferred to others for rafters, as it best resists the attacks of
insects.
Such, gentle reader, is the Tembe of Central Africa. Concerning village
life, I shall have something to say in a future page. The scene is more
patent to the stranger’s eye in these lands than in the semi-civilised
regions of Asia, where men rarely admit him into their society.
[Illustration: African House Building.]
CHAP. XI.
WE CONCLUDE THE TRANSIT OF UNYAMWEZI.
I was detained at Kazeh from the 8th November to the 14th December,
1857, and the delay was one long trial of patience.
It is customary for stranger-caravans proceeding towards Ujiji to remain
six weeks or two months at Unyanyembe for repose and recovery from the
labours which they have, or are supposed to have, endured: moreover,
they are expected to enjoy the pleasures of civilised society, and to
accept the hospitality offered to them by the resident Arabs. In Eastern
Africa, I may again suggest, six weeks is as the three days’ visit in
England.
On the morning after our arrival at Kazeh, the gang of Wanyamwezi
porters that had accompanied us from the coast withdrew their hire from
our cloth-bales; and not demanding, because they did not expect,
bakhshish, departed, without a sign of farewell, to their homes in
Western Unyamwezi. The Kirangozi or guide received a small present of
domestics: his family being at Msene, distant five marches ahead, he
fixed, after long haggling, the term of fifteen days as his leave of
absence, after which he promised to join me with a fresh gang for the
journey to Ujiji.
The rest of the party apparently considered Unyanyembe, not Ujiji, the
end of the exploration; it proved in effect a second point of departure,
easier than Kaole only because I had now gained some experience.
Two days after our arrival, the Baloch, headed by their Jemadar,
appeared in full toilette to demand a “Hakk el Salamah,” or reward for
safe-conduct. I informed them that this would be given when they had
reached the end of the up-march. The pragmatical Darwaysh declared that
without bakhshish there would be no advance; he withdrew his words,
however, when my companion was called in to witness their being
committed to paper--a proceeding always unpalatable to the Oriental. The
Baloch then subsided into begging for salt and spices, and having
received more than they had probably ever possessed in their lives, they
privily complained of my parsimony to Said bin Salim. They then sent for
tobacco, a goat, gunpowder, bullets--all which they obtained. Their next
manœuvre was to extract four cloths for tinning their single copper pot
and for repairing the matchdogs and stocks of two old matchlocks. They
then sold a keg of gunpowder committed to their charge. They had
experienced every kindness from Snay bin Amir, from Sallum bin Hamid, in
fact, from all the Arab merchants of Kazeh. They lodged comfortably in
Musa Mzuri’s house, and their allowance, one Shukkah of domestics per
diem, enabled them to buy goats, sheep, and fowls--luxuries unknown in
their starving huts at Zanzibar. Yet they did not fail, with their foul
tongues, ever ready, as the Persians say, for “spitting at Heaven,” to
charge their kind hosts with the worst crime that the Arab
knows--niggardness.
On the 8th November, I had arranged with Kidogo, as well as with the
Kirangozi, to resume the march at the end of a fortnight. Ten days
afterwards I again sent for him to conclude the plans concerning the
journey: evidently something lay deep within his breast, but the
difficulty was to extract it. He began by requiring a present for his
excellent behaviour--he received, to his astonishment, four cloths. He
next demanded leave to visit his Unyamwezi home for a week, and was
unpleasantly surprised when it was granted. He then “hit the right nail
on the head.” The sons of Ramji, declaring that I had promised them a
bullock on arrival at Kazeh, had seized, hamstrung, and cut up a fine
fat animal sent to me by Sallum bin Hamid; yet Kidogo averred that the
alleged promise must be fulfilled to them. When I refused, he bluntly
informed me that I was quite equal to the task of collecting porters for
myself; I replied that this was his work and not mine. He left the house
abruptly, swearing that he would not trouble himself any longer, and,
moreover, for the future that his men should not carry the lightest
load, nor assist us even in threading beads. At last, on the 27th
November, I sent for Kidogo, and told him that the march was positively
fixed for the next week. After sitting for a time “_cupo concentrato_,”
in profound silence, the angry slave arose, delivered a volley of
rattling words with the most theatrical fierceness, and rushed from the
room, leaving the terrified Said bin Salim gazing upon vacancy like an
idiot. Accompanied by his followers, who were shouting and laughing, he
left the house, when--I afterwards heard--they drew their sabres, and
waving them round their heads, they shouted, for the benefit of Arabs,
“Tume-shinda Wazungu”--“We have conquered the Whites!” I held a
consultation with my hosts concerning the advisability of disarming the
recreant sons of Ramji. But Sallum bin Hamid, the “papa” of the colony,
took up the word, and, as usual with such deliberative bodies, the
council of war advised peace. They informed me that in Unyamwezi slaves
and muskets are the stranger’s sole protection, and as they were
unanimous in persuading me to temporise, to “swallow anger” till after
return, I felt bound, after applying for it, to be guided by their
advice. At the consultation, however, the real object which delayed the
sons of Ramji at Kazeh oozed out: their patroon, Mr. Rush Ramji, had
written to them that his and their trading outfit was on its way from
the coast; consequently, they had determined to await, and to make us
await, its arrival before marching upon Ujiji.
On the 14th November, the Masika or wet season, which had announced its
approach by premonitory showers and by a final burst of dry heat, set in
over the Land of the Moon with torrents of rain and “rain-stones,” as
hail is here called, and with storms of thunder and lightning, which
made it more resemble the first breaking of an Indian than the desultory
fall of a Zanzibar wet-monsoon. I was still under the impression that we
were encountering the Choti Barsat or Little Rains of Bengal and Bombay;
and curious to say, the Arabs of Unyanyembe one and all declared, even
after the wet-monsoon had reached its height, that the Masika in
Unyamwezi is synchronous with that of the island and the coast, namely,
in early April.
The Rains in Eastern Africa are, like the summer in England, the only
healthy and enjoyable season: the contrast between the freshness of the
air and the verdure of the scenery after the heat, dust, and desolation
that preceded the first showers, was truly luxurious. Yet the Masika has
many disadvantages for travellers. The Wanyamwezi, who were sowing their
fields, declined to act porters, and several Arab merchants, who could
not afford the expenditure required to hire unwilling men, were halted
perforce in and near Unyanyembe. The peasants would come in numbers;
offer to accompany the caravan; stand, stare, and laugh their vacant
laughs; lift and balance their packs; chaffer about hire; promise to
return next morning, and definitively disappear. With the utmost
exertion Snay bin Amir could collect only ten men, and they were all
ready to desert. Moreover, the opening of the Masika is ever unhealthy;
strangers suffer severely from all sudden changes of temperature;
Unyamwezi speedily became
“As full of agues as the sun in March.”
Another cause of delay became imminent; my companion was
comparatively strong, but the others were prostrated by sickness.
Valentine first gave in; he was nearly insensible for three days and
nights, the usual period of the Mukunguru or “Seasoning” of Unyamwezi--a
malignant bilious remittent--which left him weaker and thinner than he
had ever been before. When he recovered, Gaetano fell ill, and was soon
in the happy state of unconsciousness which distinguished all his
fevers. The bull-headed slave Mabruki also retired into private life,
and Bombay was laid up by a shaking ague, whilst the Baloch and the sons
of Ramji, who had led a life so irregular that the Arabs had frequently
threatened them with punishment, also began to pay the penalty of
excess.
Snay bin Amir was our principal doctor. An adept in the treatment,
called by his countrymen “camel-physic,” namely, cautery and similar
counter-irritants, he tried his art upon me when I followed the example
of the party. At length, when the Hummah, or hot fit, refused to yield
to its supposed specific, a coating of powdered ginger, he insisted upon
my seeing a Mganga, or witch, celebrated for her cures throughout the
country-side. She came, a wrinkled old beldame, with a greasy skin,
black as soot, set off by a mass of tin-coloured pigtails: her arms were
adorned with copper bangles like manacles, and the implement of her
craft was, as usual, a girdle of small gourds dyed red-black with oil
and use.
After demanding and receiving her fee in cloth, she proceeded to search
my mouth, and to inquire anxiously concerning poison. The question
showed the prevalence of the practice in the country, and indeed the
people, to judge from their general use of “Mithridates,” seem ever to
expect it. She then drew from a gourd a greenish powder, which was
apparently bhang, and having mixed it with water, she administered it
like snuff, causing a convulsion of sneezing, which she hailed with
shouts and various tokens of joy. Presently she rubbed my head with
powder of another kind, and promising to return the next day, she left
me to rest, declaring that sleep would cause a cure. The prediction,
however, was not fulfilled, nor was the promise. Having become wealthy,
she absconded to indulge in unlimited pombe for a week. The usual
consequences of this “seasoning,” distressing weakness, hepatic
derangements, burning palms, and tingling soles, aching eyes, and
alternate thrills of heat and cold, lasted, in my case, a whole month.
Our departure from Kazeh had now been repeatedly deferred. The fortnight
originally fixed for the halt had soon passed in the vain search for
porters. Sickness then delayed the journey till the 1st December, and
Snay bin Amir still opined that want of carriage would detain me till
the 19th of that month; he would not name the 18th, which was an unlucky
day. When they recovered from their ailments, the Jemadar and the Baloch
again began to be troublesome. All declared that a whole year, the term
for which they had been sent by their Prince, had elapsed, and therefore
that they had now a right to return. The period was wholly one of their
own, based perhaps upon an answer which they had received from
Lieut.-Col. Hamerton touching the probable duration of the Expedition,
“a year or so.” Even of that time it still wanted five months, but
nothing from myself or from Said bin Salim could convince men who would
not be convinced, of that simple fact. Ismail, the Baloch, who was dying
of dysentery, reported himself unable to proceed: arrangements were made
to leave him and his “brother” Shahdad--the fearful tinkling of whose
sleepless guitar argued that the sweet youth was in love--under the
charge of Snay bin Amir, at Kazeh. Greybeard Mohammed was sulking with
his fellows. He sat apart from them; and complaining that he had not
received his portion of food, came to me for dismissal, which was
granted, but not accepted. The Jemadar required for himself and the
escort a porter per man. When this was refused, he changed his tactics,
and began to lament bitterly the unavoidable delay. He annoyed me with
ceaseless visits, which were spent in harping upon the one string, “When
do we march?” At last I forbade all allusion to the subject. In wrath he
demanded leave, declaring that he had not come to settle in Africa, and
much “excessiveness” to the same effect. He was at last brought to his
senses by being summarily turned out of the house for grossly insulting
my companion. A reaction then ensued; the Baloch professed penitence,
and all declared themselves ready to march or to halt as I pleased. Yet,
simulating impatience to depart, they clung to the pleasures of Kazeh;
they secretly caused the desertion of the porters, and they never ceased
to spread idle reports, vainly hoping that I might be induced to return
to the coast.
Finally, Said bin Salim fulfilled at Kazeh Lieut.-Col. Hamerton’s acute
prophecy. The Bukini blood of his mother--a Malagash slave--got the
better of his Omani descent. I had long reformed my opinion concerning
his generosity and kindheartedness, hastily concluded during a short
cruise along the coast. “Man’s heart,” say the Arabs, “is known only in
the fray, and man’s head is known only on the way.” But though
high-flown sentiment and studied courtesy had disappeared with the first
days of hardship and fatigue, he preserved for a time the semblance of
respectability and respect. Presently, like the viler orders of
Orientals, he presumed upon his usefulness, and his ability to forward
the Expedition; the farther we progressed from our “_point d’appui_” the
coast, the more independent became his manner,--of course it afterwards
subsided into its former civility,--and an overpowering egotism formed
the motive of his every action. I had imprudently allowed him to be
accompanied by the charming Halimah. True to his servile origin, he
never seemed happy except in servile society, where he was “king of his
company.” At Kazeh, jealous of my regard for Snay bin Amir, and wearied
by long evening conversations, where a little “ilm” or knowledge in the
shape of history and divinity used to appear,--his ignorance and apathy
concerning all things but A. bin B., and B. bin C., who married his son
D. to the daughter of E., prevented his taking part in them,--he became
first sulky, and then “contrarious.” Formerly he was wont, on the usual
occasions, to address a word of salutation to my companion: this ceased,
and presently he would pass him as if he had been a bale of cloth. He
affected in society the indecorous posture of a European woman stretched
upon a sofa, after crouching for months upon his shins,--in fact he was,
as the phrase is, “trailing his jacket” for a quarrel.
Through timidity he had been profuse in expending the goods entrusted to
his charge, and he had been repeatedly reproved for serving out, without
permission, cloth and beads to his children. Yet, before reaching
Unyanyembe, I never had reason to suspect him of dishonesty or deceit.
At Kazeh, however, he was ordered to sell a keg of gunpowder, before his
slaves could purloin the whole. He reported that he had passed on the
commission to Snay bin Amir. I also forbade him to issue hire to porters
for a return-march from the Lake, having been informed that such was the
best way to secure their desertion; and the information proved true
enough, as twenty-five disappeared in a single night. He repeatedly
affirmed that he had engaged and paid them for the up-march only. When
he stood convicted of a double falsehood, he had _not_ spoken about the
gunpowder, and he _had_ issued whole hire to several of the porters, I
improved the occasion with a mild reproach. The little creature became
vicious as a weasel, screamed like a hyæna, declared himself no tallab
or “asker,” but an official under his government, and poured forth a
torrent of justification. I cut the same short by leaving the room--a
confirmed slight in these lands--and left him to rough language on the
part of Snay bin Amir. Some hours subsequently he recovered his temper,
and observed that “even husband and wife must occasionally have a gird
at each other.” Not caring, however, for a repetition of such
puerilities, I changed the tone of kindness in which he had invariably
been addressed, for one of routine command, and this was preserved till
the day of our final parting on the coast.
The good Snay bin Amir redoubled his attentions. His slaves strung in
proper lengths, upon the usual palm-fibre, the beads sent up loose from
Zanzibar; and he distributed the bales in due proportions for carriage.
Our lights being almost exhausted, he made for us “dips,” by ladling
over wicks of unravelled “domestics” the contents of a cauldron filled
with equal parts of hot wax and tallow. My servant, Valentine, who,
evincing uncommon aptitude for cooking, had as yet acquired only that
wretched art of burlesquing coarse English dishes which renders the
table in Western India a standing mortification to man’s palate, was
apprenticed to Mama Khamisi, a buxom housekeeper in Snay’s
establishment. There, in addition to his various Goanese
accomplishments--making curds and whey, butter, cheese, and ghee;
potting fish, pickling onions and limes, and preparing jams and jelly
from the pleasant and cooling rosel,--he learned the art of yeasting
bread with whey or sour bean-flour (his leathery scones of coarse meal
were an abomination to us); of straining honey, of preparing the
favourite “Kawurmeh,” jerked or smoked meat chipped up and soused in
ghee; of making Firni, rice-jelly, and Halwa, confectionery, in the
shape of “Kazi’s luggage,” and “hand-works:” he was taught to make ink
from burnt grain; and last, not least, the trick of boiling rice as it
should be boiled. We, in turn, taught him the various sciences of
bird-stuffing, of boiling down isinglass and ghee, of doctoring tobacco
with plantain, heeart, and tea leaves, and of making milk-punch, cigars,
and guraku for the hookah. Snay bin Amir also sent into the country for
plantains and tamarinds, then unprocurable at Kazeh, and he brewed a
quantity of beer and mawa or plantain-wine. He admonished the Baloch and
the sons of Ramji to be more careful, as regards conduct and
expenditure. He lent me valuable assistance in sketching the outlines of
the Kinyamwezi, or language of Unyamwezi, and by his distances and
directions we were enabled to lay down the Southern limits, and the
general shape of the Nyanza or Northern Lake, as correctly--and the maps
forwarded from Kazeh to the Royal Geographical Society will establish
this fact--as they were subsequently determined, after actual
exploration, by my companion. He took charge of our letters and papers
intended for home, and he undertook to forward the lagging gang still
expected from the Coast: as the future will prove, his energy enabled me
to receive the much wanted reserve in the “nick of time.”
At length, it became apparent that no other porters were procurable at
Kazeh, and that the restiff Baloch and the sons of Ramji disdaining
Cæsar’s “ite,” required his “venite.” I therefore resolved to lead them,
instead of expending time and trouble in driving them, trusting that old
habit, and that the difficulties attending their remaining behind would
induce them to follow me. After much murmuring, my companion preceded me
on the 5th December, and “made a Khambi,” at Zimbili, a lumpy hill, with
a north and south lay, and conspicuous as a landmark from the Arab
settlements, which are separated from it by a march of two hours. On the
third day I followed him, in truth, more dead than alive,--the wing of
Azrael seemed waving over my head,--even the movement of the Manchila
was almost unendurable. I found cold and comfortless quarters in a large
village at the base of Zimbili, no cartel was procurable, the roof
leaked, and every night brought with it a furious storm of lightning,
wind, and rain. By slow degrees, the Baloch began to drop in, a few of
the sons of Ramji, and the donkey-men followed, half-a-dozen additional
porters were engaged, and I was recovering strength to advance once
more, when the report that our long-expected caravan was halted at
Rubuga, in consequence of desertion, rendered a further delay necessary.
My companion returned to Kazeh, to await the arrival of the
reserve-supplies, and I proceeded onwards to collect a gang for the
journey westwards.
At 10 A.M., on the 15th December, I mounted the Manchila, carried by six
slaves, hired by Snay bin Amir, from Khamis bin Salim at the rate of
three pounds of white beads each, for the journey to Msene. After my
long imprisonment, I was charmed with the prospect, a fine open country,
with well-wooded hills rolling into blue distance on either hand. A two
hours’ ride placed me at Yombo, a new and picturesque village of
circular tents, surrounded by plantains and wild fruit-trees. The Mkuba
bears an edible red plum, which, though scanty of flesh, as usual, where
man’s care is wanting, was found by no means unpalatable. The Metrongoma
produces a chocolate-coloured fruit, about the size of a cherry: it is
eaten, but it lacks the grateful acid of the Mkuba. The gigantic Palmyra
or Borassus, which failed in the barren platform of Ugogo, here
re-appears, and hence extends to the Tanganyika Lake.
I halted two days at Yombo: the situation was low and unhealthy, and
provisions were procurable in homœopathic quantities. My only amusement
there was to watch the softer part of the population. At eventide, when
the labours of the day were past and done, the villagers came home in a
body, laden with their implements of cultivation, and singing a kind of
“dulce domum,” in a simple and pleasing recitative. The sunset hour, in
the “Land of the Moon,” is replete with enjoyments. The sweet and balmy
breeze floats in waves, like the draught of a fan; the sky is softly and
serenely blue; the fleecy clouds, stationary in the upper firmament, are
robed in purple and gold, and the beautiful blush, crimsoning the west,
is reflected by all the features of earth. At this time, all is life.
The vulture soars with silent flight, high in the blue expanse; the
small birds preen themselves for the night, and sing their evening
hymns; the antelopes prepare to couch in the bush; the cattle and flocks
frisk and gamble, whilst driven from their pastures; and the people busy
themselves with the simple pleasures that end the day. Every evening
there is a smoking party, which particularly attracts my attention. All
the feminine part of the population, from wrinkled grandmother to the
maiden scarcely in her teens, assemble together, and sitting in a circle
upon dwarf stools and logs of wood, apply themselves to their long
black-bowl’d pipes.
“Sæpe illæ long-cut vel short-cut flare tobacco
Sunt solitæ pipos.”
They smoke with an intense enjoyment, slowly and deeply inhaling
the glorious weed, and exhaling clouds from their nostrils; at times
they stop to cool the mouth with slices of raw manioc, or cobs of green
maize roasted in the ashes; and often some earnest matter of local
importance causes the pipes to be removed for a few minutes, and a
clamour of tongues breaks the usual silence. The pipe also requires
remark: the bowl is of imperfect material--the clay being
half-baked--but the shape is perfect. The African tapering cone is far
superior to the European bowl: the former gives as much smoke as
possible whilst the tobacco is fresh and untainted, and as little when
it becomes hot and unpleasant; the latter acts on the contrary
principle. Amongst the fair of Yombo, there were no less than three
beauties--women who would be deemed beautiful in any part of the world.
Their faces were purely Grecian; they had laughing eyes, their figures
were models for an artist, with--
“Turgide, brune e ritondette mamme,”
like the “bending statue that delights the world” cast in bronze.
The dress--a short kilt of calabash fibre,--rather set off than
concealed their charms, and though destitute of petticoat or crinoline
they were wholly unconscious of indecorum. It is a question that by no
means can be positively answered in the affirmative, that real modesty
is less in proportion to the absence of toilette. These “beautiful
domestic animals” graciously smiled when in my best Kinyamwezi I did my
devoir to the sex; and the present of a little tobacco always secured
for me a seat in the undress circle.
After hiring twenty porters--five lost no time in deserting--and
mustering the Baloch, of whom eleven now were present, I left Yombo on
the 18th December, and passing through a thick green jungle, with low,
wooded, and stony hills rising on the left hand, to about 4000 feet
above sea-level, I entered the little settlement of Pano. The next day
brought us to the clearing of Mfuto, a broad, populous, and fertile
rolling plain, where the stately tamarind flourished to perfection. A
third short march, through alternate patches of thin wood and field,
studded with granite blocks, led to Irora, a village in Western Mfuto,
belonging to Salim bin Salih, an Arab from Mbuamaji, and a cousin of
Said bin Mohammed, my former travelling companion, who had remained
behind at Kazeh. This individual, a fat, pulpy, and dingy-coloured
mulatto, appeared naked to the waist, and armed with bow and arrows: he
received me surlily, and when I objected to a wretched cow-shed outside
his palisade, he suddenly waxed furious: he raved like a madman, shook
his silly bow, and declared that he ignored the name of the Sayyid
Majid, being himself as good a “Sultan” as any other. He became pacified
on perceiving that his wrath excited nothing but the ridicule of the
Baloch, found a better lodging, sent a bowl of fresh milk wherein to
drown differences, and behaved on this and a subsequent occasion more
like an Arab Shaykh, than an African headman.
On the 22nd December my companion rejoined me, bringing four loads of
cloth, three of beads, and seven of brass wire: they formed part of the
burden of the twenty-two porters who were to join the Expedition ten
days after its departure from the coast. The Hindus, Ladha Damha and Mr.
Rush Ramji, after the decease of Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton, had behaved
with culpable neglect. The cloth was of the worst and flimsiest
description; the beads were the cheap white and the useless black--the
latter I was obliged to throw away; and as they sent up the supply
without other guard than two armed slaves, “Mshindo” and “Kirikhota,”
the consequence was that the pair had plundered _ad libitum_. No letters
had been forwarded, and no attention had been paid to my repeated
requests for drugs and other stores. My companion’s new gang, levied at
Kazeh, affected the greatest impatience. They refused to halt for a
day,--even Christmas day. They proposed double marches, and they
resolved to proceed by the straight road to Msene. It was deemed best to
humour them. They arrived, however, at their destination only one day
before my party, who travelled leisurely, and who followed the longer
and the more cultivated route.
We left Irora on the 23rd December, and marched from sunrise till noon
to the district of Eastern Wilyankuru. There we again separated. On the
next day I passed alone through the settlement called Muinyi Chandi,
where certain Arabs from Oman had built large Tembe, to serve as
barracoons and warehouses. This district supplies the adjoining
countries with turmeric, of which very little grows in Unyanyembe. After
this march disappeared the last of the six hammals who had been hired to
carry the hammocks. They were as unmanageable as wild asses, ever
grumbling and begging for “kitoweyo,”--“kitchen;”--constitutionally
unfitted to obey an order; disposed, as the noble savage generally is,
to be insolent; and, like all porters in this part of the world, unable
to carry a palanquin. Two men, instead of four, insisted upon bearing
the hammock; thus overburdened and wishing to get over the work, they
hurried themselves till out of breath. When one was fagged, the man that
should have relieved him was rarely to be found, consequently two or
three stiff trudges knocked them up and made them desert. Said bin
Salim, the Jemadar, and the Baloch, doubtlessly impressed with the
belief that my days were numbered, passed me on the last march without a
word--the sun was hot, and they were hastening to shade--and left me
with only two men to carry the hammock, in a dangerous strip of jungle
where, shortly afterwards, Salim bin Masud, an Arab merchant of Msene,
was murdered.
On Christmas day I again mounted ass, and passing through the western
third of the Wilyankuru district, was hospitably received by a wealthy
proprietor, Salim bin Said, surnamed, probably on account of his
stature, Simba, or the Lion, who had obtained from the Sultan Mrorwa
permission to build a large Tembe. The worthy and kind-hearted Arab
exerted himself strenuously to promote the comfort of his guest. He led
me to a comfortable lodging, placed a new cartel in the coolest room,
supplied meat, milk, and honey, and spent the evening in conversation
with me. He was a large middle-aged man, with simple, kindly manners,
and an honesty of look and words which rendered his presence exceedingly
prepossessing.
After a short and eventless march, on the 26th December, to Masenge, I
reached on the following day the little clearing of Kirira. I was
unexpectedly welcomed by two Arabs, Masud ibn Musallam el Wardi, and
Hamid bin Ibrahim el Amuri. The former, an old man of the Beni Bu Ali
clan, and personally familiar with Sir Lionel Smith’s exploits, led me
into the settlement, which was heaped round with a tall green growth of
milkbush, and placed me upon a cartel in the cool and spacious barzah or
vestibule of the Tembe. From my vantage-ground I enjoyed the pleasant
prospect of those many little miseries which Orientals--perhaps not only
Orientals--create for themselves by “ceremony” and “politeness.” Weary
and fagged by sun and dust, the Baloch were kept standing for nearly
half an hour before the preliminaries to sitting down could be arranged
and the party could be marshalled in proper order,--the most honourable
man on the left hand of the host, and the “lower class” off the dais or
raised step;--and, when they commenced to squat, they reposed upon their
shins, and could not remove their arms or accoutrements till especially
invited to hang them up. Hungry and thirsty, they dared not commit the
solecism of asking for food or drink; they waited from 9 A.M. till noon,
sometimes eyeing the door with wistful looks, but generally affecting an
extreme indifference as to feeding. At length came the meal, a mountain
of rice, capped with little boulders of mutton. It was allowed to cool
long before precedence round the tray was settled, and ere the grace,
“Bismillah,”--the signal to “set to,”--was reverentially asked by Said
bin Salim. Followed a preparation of curdled milk, for which spoons
being requisite, a wooden ladle did the necessary. There was much
bustling and not a little importance about Hamid, the younger host, a
bilious subject twenty-four or twenty-five years old, who for reasons
best known to himself assumed the style and title of Sarkal,--Government
servant. The meal concluded with becoming haste, and was followed by
that agreeable appearance of repletion which is so pleasing to the
Oriental Amphitryon. The Baloch returned to squat upon their shins, and
they must have suffered agonies till 5 P.M., when the appearance of a
second and a more ceremonious repast enabled them once more to perch
upon their heels. It was hard eating this time; the shorwa, or mutton
broth, thickened with melted butter, attracted admiration; the guests,
however, could only hint at its excellences, because in the East if you
praise a man’s meat you intend to slight his society. The _plat de
résistance_ was, as usual, the pillaw, or, as it is here called,
pulao,--not the conventional mess of rice and fowl, almonds and raisins,
onion-shreds, cardomoms, and other abominations, which goes by that name
amongst Anglo-Indians, but a solid heap of rice, boiled after being
greased with a handful of ghee--
(I must here indulge in a little digression. For the past century, which
concluded with reducing India to the rank of a British province, the
proud invader has eaten her rice after a fashion which has secured for
him the contempt of the East. He deliberately boils it, and after
drawing off the nutritious starch or gluten called “conjee,” which forms
the perquisite of his Portuguese or his Pariah cook, he is fain to fill
himself with that which has become little more nutritious than the
prodigal’s husks. Great, indeed, is the invader’s ignorance upon that
point. Peace be to the manes of Lord Macaulay, but listen to and wonder
at his eloquent words!--“The Sepoys came to Clive, not to complain of
their scanty fare, but to propose that all the grain should be given to
the Europeans, who required more nourishment than the natives of Asia.
The thin gruel, they said, which was strained away from the rice would
suffice for themselves. History contains no more touching instance of
military fidelity, or of the influence of a commanding mind.” Indians
never fail to drink the “conjee.” The Arab, on the other hand, mingles
with his rice a sufficiency of ghee to prevent the extraction of the
“thin gruel,” and thus makes the grain as palatable and as nutritious as
Nature intended it to be.)
--and dotted over with morsels of fowl, so boiled that they shredded
like yarn under the teeth. This repast again concluded with a bowl of
sweetened milk, and other entremets, for which both hosts amply
apologised; the house had lately been burned down, and honey had been
used instead of sugar. The day concluded with prayers, with a seance in
the verandah and with drinking fresh milk out of gourds--a state of
things which again demanded excuses. A multitude of “Washenzi” thronged
into the house, especially during the afternoon, to gaze at the Muzungu.
I was formally presented to the Sultan Kafrira, a tall and wrinkled
elder, celebrated for ready wits and spear. The sons of Ramji had often
looked in at the door whilst preparations for feeding were going on, but
they were not asked to sit down: the haughty host had provided them with
a lean goat, in return for which they privily expressed an opinion that
he was a “dog.” Masud, boasting of his intimacy with the Sultan
Msimbira, whose subjects had plundered our portmanteau, offered on
return to Unyanyembe his personal services in ransoming it. I accepted
with joy; but the Shaykh Masud, as afterwards proved, nearly “left his
skin” in the undertaking.
The climate of Kíríra is called by the Arabs a medicine. They vaunt its
virtues, which become apparent after the unhealthy air of Kazeh, and
after a delicious night spent in the cool barzah, I had no reason to
question its reputation. I arose in the morning wonderfully refreshed,
and Valentine, who had been prostrated with fever throughout the day,
became another man. Yet the situation was apparently unpropitious; the
Gombe Nullah, the main drain of this region, a line of stagnant pools,
belted with almost impassable vegetation, lies hard by, and the
background is an expanse of densest jungle.
Three short and eventless marches through thick jungle, with scattered
clearings, led me, on the 30th December, to the district of Msene, where
the dense wild growth lately traversed suddenly opens out and discloses
to the west a broad view of admirable fertility. Before entering the
settlements, the caravan halted, as usual, to form up. We then
progressed with the usual pomp and circumstance; the noise was terrific,
and the streets, or rather the spaces between the houses, were lined
with Negroid spectators. I was led to the Tembe of one Saadullah, a
low-caste Msawahili, and there found my companion looking but poorly.
Gaetano, his “boy,” was so excited by the scene, that he fell down in a
fit closely resembling epilepsy.
Msene, the chief Bandari of Western Unyamwezi, may be called the capital
of the Coast Arabs and the Wasawahili, who, having a natural antipathy
to their brethren of Oman, have abandoned to them Unyanyembe and its
vicinity. Of late years, however, the Omani merchants, having been
driven from the neighbouring districts by sundry murders into Msene, may
at times be met there to the number of four or five. The inhabitants are
chiefly Wasumbwá, a subtribe of the Wanyamwezi race. There is, however,
besides Arabs and Wasawahili, a large floating population of the
pastoral clan called Watosi, and fugitives from Uhha. In 1858 the chief
of Msene was the Sultan Masanza. Both he and Funza, his brother, were
hospitable and friendly to travellers, especially to the Arabs, who but
a few years ago beat off with their armed slaves a large plundering
party of the ferocious Watuta. This chief has considerable power, and
the heads of many criminals elevated upon poles in front of his several
villages show that he rules with a firm hand. He is never approached by
a subject without the clapping of hands and the kneeling which in these
lands are the honours paid to royalty. He was a large-limbed, gaunt, and
sinewy old man, dressed in a dirty Subai or Arab check, over a coating
of rancid butter, with a broad brass disk, neatly arabesqued, round his
neck, with a multitude of little pigtails where his head was not bald,
and with some thirty sambo or flexible wire rings deforming, as if by
elephantiasis, his ankles. Like the generality of sultans, he despises
beads as an article of decoration, preferring coils of brass or copper.
He called several times at the house occupied by the Expedition, and on
more than one occasion brought with him a bevy of wives, whose
deportment was, I regret to say, rather naïve than decorous.
Msene, like Unyanyembe, is not a town, but a mass of detached
settlements, which are unconscious of a regular street. To the
northwards lie the villages of the Sultan--Kwihángá and Yovu. These are
surrounded with a strong stockade, a deep moat, and a thick milk-bush
hedge, intended for defence. The interior is occupied by thatched
circular huts, divided by open squarelike spaces, and wynds and
alleys are formed by milk-bush hedges and palisades. There are distinct
places for the several wives, families, and slaves. The other
settlements--Mbugání (“in the wild”) and Mji Mpia (“new town”), the
latter being the place affected by the Wasawahili--cluster in a circle,
separated by short cross-roads, which after rain are ankle-deep in mud,
from Chyámbo, the favourite locale of the Coast Arabs. This settlement,
which contained in 1858 nine large Tembe and about 150 huts, boasts of
an African attempt at a soko or bazar, a clear space between the houses,
where, in fine weather, bullocks are daily slaughtered for food, and
where grain, vegetables, and milk are exposed for sale. At Msene a fresh
outfit of cloth, beads, and wire can be procured for a price somewhat
higher than at Unyanyembe. The merchants have small stores of drugs and
spices, and sometimes a few comforts, as coffee, tea, and sugar. The
latter is generally made of granulated honey, and therefore called
sukárí zá ásalí. The climate of Msene is damp, the neighbouring hills
and the thickly-vegetated country attracting an abundance of rain. It is
exceedingly unhealthy, the result doubtless of filth in the villages and
stagnant waters spread over the land. The Gombe Nullah, which runs
through the district, about six hours’ march from the settlements,
discharges after rain its superfluous contents into the many lakelets,
ponds, and swamps of the lowlands. Fertilised by a wet monsoon, whose
floods from the middle of October to May are interrupted only by bursts
of fervent heat, the fat, black soil manured by the decay of centuries,
reproduces abundantly anything committed to it. Flowers bloom
spontaneously over the flats, and trees put forth their richest raiment.
Rice of the red quality--the white is rare and dear--grows with a
density and a rapidity unknown in Eastern Unyamwezi. Holcus and millet,
maize and manioc, are plentiful enough to be exported. Magnificent
palmyras, bauhinias and sycomores, plantains, and papaws, and a host of
wild fruit-trees, especially the tamarind, which is extensively used,
adorn the land. The other productions are onions, sweet potatoes, and
egg-plants, which are cultivated; turmeric, brought from the vicinity;
tomatos and bird-pepper, which grow wild; pulse, beans, pumpkins,
water-melons, excellent mushrooms, and edible fungi. Milk, poultry,
honey, and tobacco are cheap and plentiful. The currency at Msene in
1858--the date is specified, as the medium is liable to perpetual and
sudden change, often causing severe losses to merchants, who, after
laying in a large outfit of certain beads, find them suddenly
unfashionable, and therefore useless--was the “pipe-stem,” white and
blue porcelain-beads, called sofi in the string, and individually msaro.
Of these ten were sufficient to purchase a pound of beef. The other
beads in demand were the sungomaji, or pigeon-egg, the red-coral, the
pink-porcelain, and the shell-decorations called kiwangwa. The cheaper
varieties may be exchanged for grain and vegetables, but they will not
purchase fowls, milk, and eggs. At this place only, the palmyra is
tapped for toddy; in other parts of East Africa the people are unable to
climb it. The market at Msene is usually somewhat cheaper than that of
Unyanyembe, but at times the prices become very exorbitant.
The industry of Msene is confined to manufacturing a few cotton cloths,
coarse mats, clay pipeheads, and ironmongery. As might be expected from
the constitution of its society, Msene is a place of gross debauchery,
most grateful to the African mind. All, from sultan to slave, are
intoxicated whenever the material is forthcoming, and the relations
between the sexes are of the loosest description. The drum is never
silent, and the dance fills up the spare intervals of carouse, till
exhausted nature can no more. The consequence is, that caravans
invariably lose numbers by desertion when passing through Msene. Even
household slaves, born and bred upon the coast, cannot tear themselves
from its Circean charms.
There was “cold comfort” at Msene, where I was delayed twelve days. The
clay roof of the Tembe was weed-grown like a deserted grave, and in the
foul patio or central court-yard only dirty puddles set in black mud met
the eye. The weather was what only they can realise who are familiar
with a “Rainy Monsoon.” The temptations of the town rendered it almost
impossible to keep a servant or a slave within doors; the sons of Ramji
vigorously engaged themselves in trading, and Muinyi Wazira in a
debauch, which ended in his dismissal. Gaetano had repeated epileptic
fits, and Valentine rushed into the room half-crying to show a white
animalcule--in this country called Funza--which had lately issued from
his “buff.” None of the half-caste Arabs, except I’d and Khalfan, sons
of Muallim Salim, the youths who had spread evil reports concerning us
in Ugogo and elsewhere, called or showed any civility, and the only Arab
at that time resident at Msene was the old Salim bin Masud. I received
several visits from the Sultan Masanza. His first greeting was, “White
man, what pretty thing hast thou brought up from the shore for me?” He
presented a bullock, and received in return several cloths and strings
of beads, and he introduced to us a variety of princesses, who returned
the salutes of the Baloch and others with a wild effusion. As
Christmas-day had been spent in marching, I hailed the opportunity of
celebrating the advent of the New Year. Said bin Salim, the Jemadar, and
several of the guard, were invited to an English dinner on a fair
sirloin of beef, and a curious succedaneum for a plum-pudding, where
neither flour nor currants were to be found. A characteristic trait
manifested itself on this occasion. Amongst Arabs, the remnants of a
feast must always be distributed to the servants and slaves of the
guests;--a “brass knocker” would lose a man’s reputation. Knowing this,
I had ordered the Goanese to do in Rome as the Romans do; and being
acquainted with their peculiarities, I paid them an unexpected visit,
where they were found so absorbed in the task of hiding, under pots and
pans, every better morsel from a crowd of hungry peerers that the
interruption of a stick was deemed necessary.
At length, on the 10th January, 1858, I left Msene with considerable
difficulty. The Kirangozi, or guide, who had promised to accompany me,
had sent an incompetent substitute, his brother, a raw young lad, who
had no power to collect porters. The sons of Ramji positively refused to
lend their aid in strengthening the gang. One of Said bin Salim’s
children, the boy Faraj, had fled to Kazeh. The bull-headed Mabruki was
brought back from flight only by the persuasion of his brother “Bombay,”
and even “Bombay,” under the influence of some negroid Neæra, at the
time of departure hid himself in his hut. All feared the march
westwards. A long strip of blue hill lying northwards ever keeps the
traveller in mind of the robber Watuta, and in places where the clans
are mixed, all are equally hostile to strangers. Villages are less
frequented and more meanly built, and caravans are not admitted beyond
the faubourgs--the miserable huts outlying the fences. The land also is
most unhealthy. After the rain, the rich dark loam becomes, like the
black soils of Guzerat and the Deccan, a coat of viscid mire. Above is a
canopy of cumulus and purple nimbus, that discharge their loads in
copious day-long floods. The vegetation is excessive, and where there is
no cultivation a dense matting of coarse grass, laid by wind and water
and decayed by mud, veils the earth, and from below rises a clammy
chill, like the thaw-cold of England, the effect of extreme humidity.
And, finally, the paths are mere lines, pitted with deep holes, and worn
by cattle through the jungle.
After an hour and thirty minutes’ march I entered Mb’hali, the normal
cultivator’s village in Western Unyamwezi;--a heap of dwarf huts like
inverted birds’ nests surrounding a central space, and surrounded by
giant heaps of euphorbia or milk-bush. Tall grasses were growing almost
up to the door-ways, and about the settlement were scattered papaws and
plantains; the Mwongo, with its damson-like fruit, the Mtogwe or
wood-apple tree, and the tall solitary Palmyra, whose high columnar
stem, with its graceful central swell, was eminently attractive. We did
not delay at Mb’hali, whence provisions had been exhausted by the
markets of Msene. The 11th January led us through a dense jungle upon a
dead flat, succeeded by rolling ground bordered with low hills and
covered with alternate bush and cultivation, to Sengati, another similar
verdure-clad village of peasantry, where rice and other supplies were
procurable. On the 12th January, after passing over a dead flat of
fields and of the rankest grass, we entered rolling ground in the
vicinity of the Gombe Nullah, with scattered huts upon the rises, and
villages built close to the dense vegetation bordering upon the stream.
Sorora or Solola is one of the deadliest spots in Unyamwezi; we were
delayed there, however, three long days, by the necessity of collecting
a two months’ supply of rice, which is rarely to be obtained further
west.
The non-appearance of the sons of Ramji rendered it necessary to take a
strong step. I could ill afford the loss of twelve guns, but Kidogo and
his men had become insufferable: moreover, they had openly boasted that
they intended to prevent my embarking upon the “Sea of Ujiji.” Despite
therefore the persuasions of the Jemadar and Said bin Salim, who looked
as if they had heard their death-warrants, I summoned the slaves, who
first condescended to appear on the 13th January--three days after my
departure,--informed them that the six months for which they were
engaged and paid had expired, and that they had better return and
transact their proprietor’s business at Kazeh. They changed, it is true,
their tone and manner, pathetically pleaded, as an excuse for their ill
conduct, that they were slaves, and promised in future to be the most
obedient of servants. But they had deceived me too often, and I feared
that, if led forwards, they might compromise the success of the
exploration. They were therefore formally dismissed, with a supply of
cloth and beads sufficient to reach Kazeh, a letter to their master, and
another paper to Snay bin Amir, authorising him to frank them to their
homes. Kidogo departed, declaring that he would carry off perforce, if
necessary, the four donkey-drivers who had been engaged and paid for the
journey to the “Sea of Ujiji” and back: as two of these men, Nasibu and
Hassani, openly threatened to desert, they were at once put in irons and
entrusted to the Baloch. They took oaths on the Koran, and, by strong
swearing, persuaded Said bin Salim and their guard to obtain my
permission for their release. I gave it unwillingly, and on the next
march they “levanted,” carrying off, as runaway slaves are wont to do, a
knife, some cloth, and other necessaries belonging to Sangora, a brother
donkey-driver. Sangora returning without leave, to recover his goods,
was seized, tied up, and severely fustigated by the inexorable Kidogo,
for daring to be retained whilst he himself was dismissed.
The Kirangozi and Bombay having rejoined at Sorora, the Expedition left
it on the 16th January. Traversing a fetid marsh, the road plunged into
a forest, and crossed a sharp elbow of the Gombe Nullah, upon whose
grassy and reedy banks lay a few dilapidated “baumrinden” canoes,
showing that at times the bed becomes unfordable. Having passed that
night at Ukungwe, and the next at Panda, dirty little villages, where
the main of the people’s diet seemed to be mushrooms resembling ours and
a large white fungus growing over the grassy rises, on the 18th January
we entered Kajjanjeri.
Kajjanjeri appeared in the shape of a circle of round huts. Its climate
is ever the terror of travellers: to judge from the mud and vegetation
covering the floors, the cultivators of the fields around usually retire
to another place during the rainy season. Here a formidable obstacle to
progress presented itself. I had been suffering for some days: the
miasmatic air of Sorora had sown the seeds of fresh illness. About 3
P.M., I was obliged to lay aside the ephemeris by an unusual sensation
of nervous irritability, which was followed by a general shudder as in
the cold paroxysm of fevers. Presently the extremities began to weigh
and to burn as if exposed to a glowing fire, and a pair of jack-boots,
the companions of many a day and night, became too tight and heavy to
wear. At sunset, the attack had reached its height. I saw yawning wide
to receive me
“those dark gates across the wild
That no man knows.”
The whole body was palsied, powerless, motionless, and the limbs
appeared to wither and die; the feet had lost all sensation, except a
throbbing and tingling, as if pricked by a number of needle points; the
arms refused to be directed by will, and to the hands the touch of cloth
and stone was the same. Gradually the attack seemed to spread upwards
till it compressed the ribs; there, however, it stopped short.
This, at a distance of two months from medical aid, and with the
principal labour of the Expedition still in prospect! However, I was
easily consoled. Hope, says the Arab, is woman, Despair is man. If one
of us was lost, the other might survive to carry home the results of the
exploration. I had undertaken the journey in the “nothing-like-leather”
state of mind, with the resolve either to do or die. I had done my best,
and now nothing appeared to remain for me but to die as well.
Said bin Salim, when sent for, declared, by a “la haul!” the case beyond
his skill; it was one of partial paralysis brought on by malaria, with
which the faculty in India are familiar. The Arab consulted a Msawahili
Fundi, or caravan-guard, who had joined us on the road, and this man
declared that a similar accident had once occurred to himself and his
little party in consequence of eating poisoned mushrooms. I tried the
usual remedies without effect, and the duration of the attack presently
revealed what it was. The contraction of the muscles, which were
tightened like ligatures above and below the knees, and those λυτα
γουνατα, a pathological symptom which the old Greek loves to specify,
prevented me from walking to any distance for nearly a year; the
numbness of the hands and feet disappeared even more slowly. The Fundi,
however, successfully predicted that I should be able to move in ten
days--on the tenth I again mounted my ass.
This unforeseen misfortune detained the caravan at Kajjanjeri till
porters could be procured for the hammock. On the 21st January four men
were with difficulty persuaded to carry me over the first march to
Usagozi. This gang was afterwards increased to six men, who severally
received six cloths for the journey to Ujiji; they all “bolted” eight
days after their engagement, and before completing half the journey.
These men were sturdier than the former set of Hammals, but being
related to the Sultan of Usagozi, they were even more boisterous,
troublesome, and insolent. One of them narrowly escaped a pistol bullet;
he ceased, however, stabbing with his dagger at the slave Mabruki before
the extreme measure became necessary.
Usagozi was of old the capital province of Unyamwezi, and is still one
of its principal and most civilised divisions. Some authorities make
Usagozi the western frontier of Unyamwezi, others place the boundary at
Mukozimo, a few miles to the westward; it is certain, however, that
beyond Usagozi the Wanyamwezi are but part-proprietors of the soil. The
country is laid out in alternate seams of grassy plains, dense jungle,
and fertile field. The soil is a dark vegetable humus, which bears
luxuriant crops of grain, vegetables, and tobacco; honey-logs hang upon
every large tree, cattle are sold to travellers, and the people are
deterred by the aspect of a dozen discoloured skulls capping tall poles,
planted in a semicircle at the main entrance of each settlement, from
doing violence to caravans. When I visited Usagozi it was governed by
“Sultan Ryombo,” an old chief “adorned with much Christian courtesy.”
His subjects are Wakalaganza, the noble tribe of the Wanyamwezi, mixed,
however with the Watosi, a fine-looking race, markedly superior to their
neighbours, but satisfied with leaky, ragged, and filthy huts, and large
but unfenced villages. The general dress of the Wakalaganza is
bark-cloth, stained a dull black.
We halted three days on the western extremity of the Usagozi district,
detained by another unpleasant phenomenon. My companion, whose blood had
been impoverished, and whose system had been reduced by many fevers, now
began to suffer from “an inflammation of a low type, affecting the whole
of the interior tunic of the eyes, particularly the iris, the choroid
coat, and the retina;” he describes it as “an almost total blindness,
rendering every object enclouded as by a misty veil.” The Goanese
Valentine became similarly afflicted, almost on the same day; he
complained of a “drop serene” in the shape of an inky blot--probably
some of the black pigment of the iris deposited on the front of the
lens--which completely excluded the light of day; yet the pupils
contracted with regularity when covered with the hand, and as regularly
dilated when it was removed. I suffered in a minor degree; for a few
days webs of flitting muscæ obscured smaller objects and rendered
distant vision impossible. My companion and servant, however,
subsequently, at Ujiji, were tormented by inflammatory ophthalmia, which
I escaped by the free use of “camel-medicine.”
Quitting Usagozi on the 26th January, we marched through grain fields,
thick jungle-strips, and low grassy and muddy savannahs to Masenza, a
large and comfortable village of stray Wagara or Wagala, an extensive
tribe, limiting Unyamwezi on the S. and S.E., at the distance of about a
week’s march from the road. On the 27th January, after traversing
cultivation, thick jungles, and low muddy bottoms of tall grass
chequered with lofty tamarinds, we made the large well-palisadoed
villages of the Mukozimo district, inhabited by a mixture of Wanyamwezi,
with Wagara from the S.E. and Wawende from the S.W. The headman of one
of these inhospitable “Kaya,” or fenced hamlets, would not house “men
who ride asses.” The next station was Uganza, a populous settlement of
Wawende, who admitted us into their faubourg, but refused to supply
provisions. The 29th January saw us at the populous and fertile clearing
of Usenye, where the mixed races lying between the Land of the Moon
eastward, and Uvinza westward, give way to pure Wavinza, who are
considered by travellers even more dangerous than their neighbours.
Beyond Usenye we traversed a deep jungle where still lingered remains of
villages which had been plundered and burned down by the Wawende and the
Watuta, whose hills rose clearly defined on the right hand. Having
passed the night at Rukunda, or Lukunda, on the 31st January we sighted
the plain of the Malagarazi River. Northwards of the road ran the
stream, and the low level of the country adjoining it had converted the
bottoms into permanent beds of soft, deep, and slippery mire. The rest
of the march was the usual country--jungle, fields, and grasses--and
after a toilsome stretch, we unpacked at the settlement of Wanyika.
At Wanyika we were delayed for a day by the necessity of settling
Kuhonga, or blackmail, with the envoys of Mzogera. This great man, the
principal Sultan of Uvinza, is also the Lord of the Malagarazi River. As
he can enforce his claims by forbidding the ferrymen to assist
strangers, he must be carefully humoured. He received about forty
cloths, white and blue, six Kitindi or coil bracelets, and ten Fundo (or
100 necklaces) of coral beads. It is equivalent in these lands to 50_l._
in England. When all the items had been duly palavered over, we resumed
our march on the 2nd February. The road, following an incline towards
the valley of the river, in which bush and field alternated with shallow
pools, black mud, and putrid grass, led to Unyanguruwwe, a miserable
settlement, producing, however, millet in abundance, sweet potatoes, and
the finest manioc. On the 3rd February we set out betimes. Spanning
cultivation and undulating grassy ground, and passing over hill-opens to
avoid the deeper swamps, we debouched from a jungle upon the
river-plain, with the swift brown stream, then about fifty yards broad,
swirling through the tall wet grasses of its banks on our right hand,
hard by the road. Upon the off side a herd of elephants, forming Indian
file, slowly broke through the reed-fence in front of them: our purblind
eyes mistook them for buffaloes. Northwards lay an expanse of card-table
plain, over which the stream, when in flood, debords to the distance of
two miles, cutting it with deep creeks and inlets. The flat is bounded
in the far offing by a sinuous line of faint blue hills, the haunts of
the Watuta; whilst, westward and southward, rises the wall-shaped ridge,
stony and wooded, which buttresses the left bank of the river for some
days’ journey down the stream. We found lodgings for the night in a
little village, called from its district Ugaga; we obtained provisions,
and we lost no time in opening the question of ferryage. The Sultan
Mzogera had sold his permission to cross the river. The Mutware, or
Mutwale, the Lord of the Ferry, now required payment for his canoes.
Whilst delayed at Ugaga by the scabrous question of how much was to be
extracted from me, I will enter into a few geographical details
concerning the Malagarazi River.
The Malagarazi, corrupted by speculative geographers to Mdjigidgi,--the
uneuphonious terminology of the “Mombas Mission Map,”--to “Magrassie”
and to “Magozi,” has been wrongly represented to issue from the Sea of
Ujiji. According to all travellers in these regions, it arises in the
mountains of Urundi, at no great distance from the Kitangure, or River
of Karagwah; but whilst the latter, springing from the upper
counterslope, feeds the Nyanza or Northern Lake, the Malagarazi, rising
in the lower slope of the equatorial range, trends to the south-east,
till it becomes entangled in the decline of the Great Central African
Depression--the hydrographical basin first indicated in his Address of
1852 by Sir Roderick I. Murchison, President of the Royal Geographical
Society of London.[10] Thence it sweeps round the southern base of
Urundi, and, deflected westwards, it disembogues itself into the
Tanganyika. Its mouth is in the land of Ukaranga, and the long
promontory behind which it discharges its waters, is distinctly visible
from Kawele, the head-quarters of caravans in Ujiji. The Malagarazi is
not navigable; as in primary and transition countries generally, the bed
is broken by rapids. Beyond the ferry, the slope becomes more
pronounced, branch and channel-islets of sand and verdure divide the
stream, and as every village near the banks appears to possess one or
more canoes, it is probably unfordable. The main obstacle to crossing it
on foot, over the broken and shallower parts near the rock-bars, would
be the number and the daring of the crocodiles.
[10] The following notice concerning a discovery which must ever be
remembered as a triumph of geological hypothesis, was kindly forwarded
to me by the discoverer:--
“My speculations as to the whole African interior being a vast watery
plateau-land of some elevation above the sea, but subtended on the
east and west by much higher grounds, were based on the following
data:--
“The discovery in the central portion of the Cape colony, by Mr. Bain,
of fossil remains in a lacustrine deposit of secondary age, and the
well-known existence on the coast of loftier mountains known to be of
a Palæozoic or primary epoch and circling round the younger deposits,
being followed by the exploration of the Ngami Lake, justified me in
believing that Africa had been raised from beneath the ocean at a very
early geological period; and that ever since that time the same
conditions had prevailed. I thence inferred that an interior network
of lakes and rivers would be found prolonged northwards from Lake
Ngami, though at that time no map was known to me showing the
existence of such central reservoirs. Looking to the west as well as
to the east, I saw no possibility of explaining how the great rivers
could escape from the central plateau-lands and enter the ocean except
through deep lateral gorges, formed at some ancient period of
elevation, when the lateral chains were subjected to transverse
fractures. Knowing that the Niger and the Zaire, or Congo, escaped by
such gorges on the west, I was confident that the same phenomenon must
occur upon the eastern coast, when properly examined. This hypothesis,
as sketched out in my ‘Presidential Address’ of 1852, was afterwards
received by Dr. Livingstone just as he was exploring the transverse
gorges by which the Zambesi escapes to the east, and the great
traveller has publicly expressed the surprise he then felt that his
discovery should have been thus previously suggested.”
The Lord of the Ferry delayed us at Ugaga by removing the canoes till he
had extracted fourteen cloths and one coil-bracelet,--half his original
demand. Moreover, for each trip the ferryman received from one to five
khete of beads, according to the bulk, weight, and value of the freight.
He was as exorbitant when we returned; then he would not be satisfied
with less than seven cloths, a large jar of palm oil, and at least three
hundred khete. On the 4th February we crossed to Mpete, the district on
the right or off bank of the stream. After riding over the river plain,
which at that time, when the rains had not supersaturated the soil, was
hard and dry, we came upon the “Ghaut,” a muddy run or clearing in the
thicket of stiff grass which crossed the stream. There we found a scene
of confusion. The Arabs of Kazeh had described the canoes as fine
barges, capable of accommodating fifty or sixty passengers. I was not,
however, surprised to find wretched “baumrinden”--tree-rind--canoes, two
strips of “myombo” bark, from five to seven feet in length, sown
together like a doubled wedge with fibres of the same material. The keel
was sharp, the bow and stern were elevated, and the craft was prevented
from collapsing by cross-bars--rough sticks about eighteen inches long,
jammed ladder-wise between the sides. When high and dry upon the bank,
they look not unlike castaway shoes of an unusual size. We entered
“gingerly.” The craft is crankier than the Turkish caïque, and we held
on “like grim death” to the gunwale with wetted fingers. The weight of
two men causes these canoes to sink within three or four inches of
water-level. An extra sheet of stiff bark was placed as a seat in the
stern; but the interior was ankle-deep in water, and baling was
necessary after each trip. The ferryman, standing amidships or in the
fore, poled or paddled according to the depth of the stream. He managed
skilfully enough, and on the return-march I had reason to admire the
dexterity with which he threaded the narrow, grass-grown and winding
veins of deep water, that ramified from the main trunk over the swampy
and rushy plains on both sides. Our riding asses were thrown into the
river, and they swam across without accident. Much to my surprise, none
of the bales were lost or injured. The ferrymen showed decision in
maintaining, and ingenuity in increasing, their claims. On the
appearance of opposition they poled off to a distance, and squatted,
quietly awaiting the effect of their decisive manœuvre. When the waters
are out, it is not safe to step from the canoe before it arrives at its
destination. The boatman will attempt to land his passenger upon some
dry mound emerging from deep water, and will then demand a second fee
for salvage.
END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.
LONDON
PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO.
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INDEX.
Abad bin Sulayman, rest of the party at the house of, at Kazeh, i.
323.
Abdullah, the Baloch, sketch of him, i. 136.
Abdullah bin Nasib, of Zanzibar, his kindness, i. 270.
Abdullah bin Jumah, and his flying caravan, i. 315.
Abdullah bin Salim of Kazeh, his authority there, i. 329.
Abdullah, son of Musa Mzuri, ii. 225, 226.
Ablactation, period of, in East Africa, i. 117.
Abrus precatorius used as an ornament in Karagwah, ii. 181.
Adansonia digitata, or monkey-bread of East Africa, peculiarity of,
i. 47.
Africa, Central, great depression of, i. 409; ii. 8.
African proverbs, i. 131.
Africans, a weak-brained people, i. 33.
Africans, East, their character and religion, ii. 324.
Albinos, frequency of, amongst the Wazaramo tribes, i. 109.
Description of them, 109.
Amayr bin Said el Shaksi, calls on Capt. Burton, ii. 228. His
adventures, 228.
Ammunition, danger of, in African travelling, i. 264.
Androgyne, the, ii. 159.
Animals, wild, of Uzaramo, i. 63. Of Dut’humi, 87. Of Zungomero, 95.
Of the Mrima, 103, 104. Of K’hutu, 160. Of the Usagara mountains, 162.
Of the plains beyond the Rufuta, 181, 183. Of Ugogi, 242. Of the road
to Ugogo, 247. In Ugogo, 300. Of Unyamwezi, ii. 15. Of Ujiji, 60.
Antelopes in the Doab of the Mgeta river, i. 81. In the Rufuta plains,
183. Of East Africa, 268, 269. On the Mgunda Mk’hali, 289. Of Ugogo,
i. 300.
Ant-hills of East Africa, i. 202, 203. In Unyamwezi, ii. 19. Clay of,
chewed in Unyamwezi, 28.
Anthropophagi of Murivumba, ii. 114.
Ants in the Doab of the Mgeta river, i. 82. Red, of the banks of
rivers in East Africa, 186. Maji m’oto, or “hot water” ants, 187. Near
the Marenga Mk’hali river, 201. Account of them, 202. Annoyance of, at
K’hok’ho, 276. Of Rubuga, 317. Of East Africa, 371. Of Unyamwezi,
ii. 19. Of Ujiji, 64.
Apples’ wood, at Mb’hali, i. 401.
Arab caravans, description of, in East Africa, i. 342.
Arab proverbs, i. 50, 86, 133, 135.
Arabs of the East coast of Africa, i. 30. The half-castes described,
32. Those settled in Unyanyembe, 323. History and description of their
settlements, 327. Tents of, on their march, 353.
Arachis Hypogæa, as an article of food, i. 198.
Arak tree in Ugogo, i. 300.
Archery in East Africa, ii. 301.
Armanika, Sultan of Karagwah, account of, ii. 183. His government,
183, 184. Besieged by his brother, ii. 224.
Arms of the Wazaramo, i. 110. Of the Wadoe, 124. Of the Baloch
mercenaries, 133. Of the “Sons of Ramji,” 140. Required for the
expedition, 152. Of the Wasagara tribe, 199, 237. Of the Wahehe, 240.
Of the Wagogo, 304. Of the Wahamba, 312. Of the porters of caravans,
350. Of the Wakimbu, ii. 20. Of the Wanzamwezi, 30. Of the Wajiji, 66.
Of the Wavinza, 75. Of the Watuta, 77. Of the people of Karagwah, 182.
Army of Uganda, ii. 189.
Artémise frigate, i. 1.
Atmosphere, brilliancy of the, in Ugogo, i. 297.
Asclepias in the Usagara mountains, i. 165.
Ashmed bin Nuuman, the Wajhayn or “two faces,” i. 3.
Assegais of the Wasagara tribe, i. 237. Of the Wanyamwezi, ii. 22. Of
East Africa generally, 301.
Ass, the African, described, i. 85. Those of the expedition, 151. Loss
of, 180. Fresh asses purchased from a down caravan, 209.
Asthma, or zik el nafas, remedy in East Africa for, i. 96.
Atheism, aboriginal, ii. 342.
Bakera, village of, i. 92.
Bakshshish, in the East, ii. 84, 85. The propriety of rewarding bad
conduct, 85. Influence of, ii. 172.
Balochs, the, of Zanzibar, described, i. 14. Their knavery, 85. Their
behaviour on the march, 127. Sketch of their character, 132. Their
quarrels with the “Sons of Ramji,” 163. Their desertion and return,
173. Their penitence, 177. Their character, 177, 178. Their discontent
and complaints about food, 212, 221. And proposed desertion, 273, 278.
Their bile cooled, 274. Their injury to the expedition, 319. Their
breakfast on the march, 345. Their manœuvres at Kazeh, 376. Their
desertion, ii. 111. Influenced by bakhshish, 217. Their quarrel with
the porters, 253. Doing “Zam,” ii. 276. Sent home, 277.
Bana Dirungá, village of, i. 71.
Banadir, Barr el, or harbour-land, geography of, i. 30.
Bangwe, islet of, in Lake Tanganyika, ii. 53. Described, 99.
Banyans, the, of the East Coast of Africa, i. 19.
Baobab Tree of East Africa, i. 47.
Barghash, Sayyid, of Zanzibar, a state prisoner at Bombay, i. 3.
Barghumi, the, of East Africa, ii. 294.
Bark-cloth, price of, at Uvira, ii. 121.
Basket making in East Africa, ii. 316.
Basts of East Africa, ii. 317.
Battle-axes of the Wanyamwezi, ii. 23. Of the East Africans, 307.
Bazar-gup, or tittle-tattle in the East, i. 12.
Bdellium Tree, or Mukl, of Ugogo, i. 299. Uses of, among the Wagogo,
300.
Beads, mode of carrying, in the expedition, i. 145. Account of African
beads of commerce, 146. Currency at Msene, 398. Those most highly
valued in Ujiji, ii. 72. Bead trade of Zanzibar, 390.
Bedding required for the expedition, i. 154.
Beds and bedding of the East Africans, i. 370.
Beef, roast, and plum-pudding at Msene, i. 400.
Bee-hives, seen for the first time at Marenga Mk’hali, i. 200. Their
shape, 200. Of Rubuga, 317.
Beer in East Africa, ii. 285. Mode of making it, 286.
Bees in K’hutu, i. 120. But no bee-hives, 120. Wild, attack the
caravan, i. 176, 248, 249. Annoyance of, at K’hok’ho, 276. Of East
Africa, ii. 287.
Beetles in houses at Ujiji, ii. 91, _note_. One in the ear of Captain
Speke, 91, _note_.
Belok, the Baloch, sketch of him, i. 135.
Bérard, M., his kindness, i. 22.
Berberah, disaster at, referred to, i. 68.
Bhang plant, the, in Zungomero, i. 95. Smoked throughout East Africa,
96. Effects produced by, 96. Used in Ujiji, ii. 70.
Billhooks carried by the Wasagara tribe, i. 238.
Birds, mode of catching them, i. 160. Scarcity of, in East Africa,
270. Of Ugogo, 300. Period of nidification and incubation of, ii. 13.
Of Unyamwezi, 16. Of Ujiji, 60.
Births and deaths amongst the Wazaramo, customs at, i. 115, 116, 118,
119.
Bivouac, a pleasant, i. 245.
Black Magic. See Uchawi.
Blackmail of the Wazaramo, i. 70, 113. Of the Wak’hutu, 121. Of the
Wazegura, 125. At Ugogo, 252. Account of the blackmail of East Africa,
253. At Kirufuru, 264. At Kanyenye, 265. In K’hok’ho, 274. At Mdaburu,
279. At Wanyika, 407. At Ubwari island, ii. 114.
Blood of cattle, drunk in East Africa, ii. 282.
Boats of the Tanganyika Lake, described, ii. 94.
Boatmen of the Tanganyika Lake, ii. 101.
Bomani, “the stockade,” village of, i. 47. Halt at, 47. Vegetation of,
47, 48. Departure from, 51.
Bombax, or silk cotton tree, of Uzaramo, i. 60.
Bonye fiumara, accident to a caravan in the, ii. 270.
Books required for the expedition, i. 155.
Borassus flabelliformis, or Palmyra tree, in the plains, i. 180. Toddy
drawn from, 181.
Bos Caffer, or Mbogo, in the plains of East Africa, i. 181. Described,
181. In Ugogo, 300.
Botanical collection stolen, i. 319. Difficulty of taking care of the
collection on the upward march, 320. Destroyed by damp at Ujiji,
ii. 81.
Boulders of granite on the Mgunda Mk’hali, i. 284. Picturesque effects
of the, 285, 286.
Bows and arrows of the Wagogo, i. 504. Of the Wanyamwezi, ii. 22. Of
the East Africans, 301. Poisoned arrows, 305.
Brab tree, or Ukhindu, of the Mrima, i. 48.
Breakfast in the caravan described, i. 345. An Arab’s, at Kazeh,
ii. 167.
Buffaloes on the road to Ugogo, i. 247. In Unyamwezi, ii. 15. On the
Rusugi river, ii. 40.
Bumbumu, Sultan, of the Wahehe, i. 239.
Burial ceremonies of the Wanyamwezi, ii. 25.
Burkene, route to, ii. 179.
Burton, Captain, quits Zanzibar Island, i. 1.
The personnel and materiel of the expedition, i. 3, 10, 11.
Smallness of the grant allowed by government, i. 4, _note_.
The author’s proposal to the Royal Geographical Society, i. 5.
Anchors off Wale Point, i. 8.
His difficulties, i. 19.
His MS. lost, i. 21.
Melancholy parting with Col. Hamerton, i. 22.
Lands at Kaole, i. 22.
Melancholy reflections, i. 24.
Transit of the valley of the Kingani and the Mgeta rivers, i. 41.
The first departure, i. 43, 46.
Tents pitched at Bomani, i. 51.
Delay the second, i. 49.
Departure from Bomani, i. 51.
Arrives at the village of Mkwaju la Mvuani, i. 52.
The third departure, i. 53.
Halt at Nzasa, in Uzaramo, i. 54.
Start again, i. 57.
First dangerous station, i. 59.
Second one, i. 63.
Adventure at Makutaniro, i. 70.
Author attacked by fever, i. 71.
Third dangerous station, i. 73.
Encamps at Madege Madogo, i. 79.
And at Kidunda, i. 79.
Loses his elephant-gun, i. 80.
Arrives at a place of safety, i. 81.
Enters K’hutu, i. 82.
Has a hammam, i. 82.
Thoroughly prostrated, i. 84.
His troubles, i. 86.
Prepares a report for the Royal Geographical Society, i. 89.
Advances from Dut’humi, i. 91.
Halts at Zungomero, i. 127.
Leaves Zungomero, i. 158.
Arrives at Mzizi Mdogo, i. 161.
Recovery of health at, i. 161.
Leaves Mzizi Mdogo, i. 165.
Halts at Cha K’henge, i. 167.
Desertion of the Baloch, i. 173.
Their return, i. 174.
Halts at Muhama, i. 178.
Again attacked by fever, i. 179.
Resumes the march, i. 180.
Contrasts in the scenery, i. 184.
Fords the Mukondokwa river, i. 188.
Reaches Kadetamare, i. 189.
Loss of instruments, i. 189.
Halts at Muinyi, i. 193.
Resumes the journey, i. 194.
Halts at Ndábi, i. 196.
Resumes the march and rests at Rumuma, i. 198.
Abundance of its supplies, i. 198.
Reaches Marenga Mk’hali, i. 203.
Approaches the bandit Wahumba, i. 203.
Leaves Marenga Mk’hali, i. 204.
Halts at the basin of Inenge, i. 208.
Wholesome food obtained there, i. 208.
Exchange of civilities with a down caravan, i. 208.
Painful ascent of the Rubeho, or Windy Pass, i. 213.
Halt at the Great Rubeho, i. 215.
Ascent of the Little Rubeho, i. 215.
Descent of the counterslope of the Usagara mountains, i. 219.
First view of the Ugogo mountains, i. 220.
Halts at the third Rubeho, i. 221.
Marches on the banks of the Dungomaro, i. 222.
Reaches the plains of Ugogo, i. 223.
Losses during the descent, i. 224.
Halts at Ugogi, i. 241.
Engages the services of fifteen Wanyamwezi porters, i. 244.
Leaves Ugogi, i. 244.
The caravan dislodged by wild bees, i. 248.
Loses a valuable portmanteau, i. 249.
Halts on the road for the night, i. 250.
Leaves the jungle-kraal, i. 250.
Sights the Ziwa, or Pond, i. 251.
Provisions obtained there, i. 255.
Recovery of the lost portmanteau, i. 257.
Joins another up-caravan, i. 257, 258.
Enters Ugogo, i. 259.
Astonishment of the Wagogo, i. 263.
Delayed at Kifukuru for blackmail, i. 264.
Leaves Kifukuru, i. 265.
Accident in the jungle, i. 265.
Interview with Magomba, sultan of Kanyenye, i. 266.
Hurried march from Kanyenye, i. 271.
Arrives at Usek’he and K’hok’ho, i. 272.
Difficulties of blackmail at K’hok’ho, i. 274.
Departs from K’hok’ho, i. 275.
Desertion of fifteen porters, i. 275.
Trying march in the Mdáburu jungle, i. 277.
Reaches Uyanzi, i. 279.
Traverses the Fiery Field, i. 283.
Arrives at the Mabunguru fiumara, i. 285.
Losses on the march, i. 285.
Reaches Jiwe la Mkoa, i. 286, 288.
And Kirurumo and Jiweni, i. 289.
Marches to Mgono T’hembo, i. 290.
Arrives at the Tura Nullah, i. 291.
And at the village of Tura, the frontier of Unyamwezi, i. 292, 313.
Proceeds into Unyamwezi, i. 314.
Halts at the Kwale nullah, i. 315.
Visited by Abdullah bin Jumah and his flying caravan, i. 315.
And by Sultan Maura, i. 316.
Reaches Ukona, i. 318.
Leaves Ukona and halts at Kigwa or Mkigwa, i. 319.
Enters the dangerous Kigwa forest, i. 319.
Loss of papers there, i. 319.
Reaches the rice-lands of the Unyamyembe district, i. 321.
Enters Kazeh in grand style, i. 322.
Hospitality of the Arabs there, i. 323.
Difficulties of the preparations for recommencing the journey,
i. 377.
Sickness of the servants, i. 379.
Author attacked by fever, i. 380.
Leaves Kazeh and proceeds to Zimbili, i. 386.
Proceeds and halts at Yombo, i. 386, 387.
Leaves Yombo and reaches Pano and Mfuto, i. 389.
Halts at Irora, i. 389.
Marches to Wilyankuru, i. 390.
Hospitality of Salim bin Said, i. 391.
And of Masid ibn Musallam el Wardi, at Kirira, i. 392.
Leaves Kirira, and marches to Msene, i. 395.
Delayed there, i. 399.
Marches to the village of Mb’hali, i. 401.
And to Sengati and the deadly Sorora, i. 401.
Desertions and dismissals at Sorora, i. 402.
Marches to Kajjanjeri, i. 403.
Detained there by dangerous illness, i. 403.
Proceeds and halts at Usagozi, i. 406.
Some of the party afflicted by ophthalmia, i. 406.
Quits Usagozi, and marches to Masenza, i. 406, 407.
Reaches the Mukozimo district, i. 407.
Spends a night at Rukunda, i. 407.
Sights the plain of the Malagarazi river, i. 407.
Halts at Wanyika, i. 407.
Settlement of blackmail at, i. 408.
Resumes the march, i. 408.
Arrives at the bank of the Malagarazi river, i. 408.
Crosses over to Mpete, i. 410.
Marches to Kinawani, ii. 35.
And to Jambeho, ii. 36.
Fords the Rusugi river, ii. 37.
Fresh desertions, ii. 38.
Halts on the Ungwwe river, ii. 40.
First view of the Tanganyika Lake, ii. 42.
Arrives at Ukaranga, ii. 44.
And at Ujiji, ii. 46.
Visits the headman Kannena, ii. 81.
Incurs his animosity, ii. 82, 84.
Ill effects of the climate and food of Ujiji, ii. 85.
Captain Speke sent up the Lake, ii. 87.
Mode of spending the day at Ujiji, ii. 87.
Failure of Capt. Speke’s expedition, ii. 90.
The author prepares for a cruise, ii. 93.
The voyage, ii. 99.
Halts and encamps at Kigari, ii. 101.
Enters the region of Urundi, ii. 101.
Reaches and halts at Wafanya, ii. 106.
Sails for the island of Ubwari, ii. 112.
Anchors there, ii. 113.
Leaves there and arrives at Murivumba, ii. 114.
Reaches the southern frontier of Uvira, ii. 115.
Further progress stopped, ii. 117, 119.
Returns, ii. 121.
Storm on the Lake, ii. 123.
Passes the night at Wafanya, ii. 123.
A slave accidentally shot there, ii. 124.
Returns to Kawele, ii. 124.
Improvement in health, ii. 129.
The outfit reduced to a minimum, ii. 130.
Arrival of supplies, but inadequate, ii. 132.
Preparations for the return to Unyanyembe, ii. 155.
The departure, ii. 157.
The return-march, ii. 160.
Pitches tents at Uyonwa, ii. 161.
Desertions, ii. 161.
Returns to the ferry of the Malagarazi, ii. 164.
Marches back to Unyanyembe, ii. 165.
Halts at Yombo, ii. 166.
Re-enters Kazeh, ii. 167.
Sends his companion on an expedition to the north, ii. 173.
His mode of passing time at Kazeh, ii. 173, 198.
Preparations for journeying, ii. 200.
Shortness of funds, ii. 221.
Outfit for the return, ii. 229.
Departs from Kazeh, ii. 231.
Halts at Hanga, ii. 232.
Leaves Hanga, ii. 240.
Returns through Ugogo, ii. 244.
The letters with the official “wigging,” ii. 247.
Takes the Kiringawana route, ii. 249.
Halts at a den of thieves, ii. 252.
And at Maroro, ii. 255.
Marches to Kiperepeta, ii. 256.
Fords the Yovu, ii. 258.
Halts at Ruhembe rivulet, ii. 261.
And on the Makata plain, ii. 262.
Halts at Uziraha, ii. 263.
Returns to Zungomero, ii. 264.
Proposes a march to Kilwa, ii. 265.
Desertion of the porters, ii. 266.
Engages fresh ones, ii. 267.
Leaves Zungomero, and resumes the march, ii. 276.
Re-enters Uzaramo, ii. 277.
And Konduchi, ii. 278.
Sights the sea, ii. 278.
Sets out for Kilwa, ii. 372.
Returns to Zanzibar, ii. 379.
Leaves Zanzibar for Aden, ii. 384.
Returns to Europe, ii. 384.
Butter in East Africa, ii. 284.
Cacti in the Usagara Mountains, i. 165. Of Mgunda M’Khali, 286.
Calabash-tree of East Africa, described, i. 147. In the Usagara
mountains, i. 164, 229. Magnificence of, at Ugogo, 260. The only large
tree in Ugogo, 299.
Camp furniture required for the expedition, i. 152.
Cannibalism of the Wadoe tribe, i. 123. Of the people of Murivumba,
ii. 114.
Cannabis Indica in Unyamwezi, i. 318.
Canoes built of mvule trees, ii. 147. Mode of making them, 147.
Canoes on the Malagarazi river, i. 409. On the “Ghaut,” 411.
Capparis sodata, verdure of the, in Ugogo, i. 300.
Carriage, cost of, in East Africa, ii. 414.
Caravans of ivory, i. 17. Slave caravans, 17, 62. Mode of collecting a
caravan in East Africa, 143. Attacked by wild bees, 4, 176. And by
small-pox, 179. In East Africa, description of, 337. Porters, 337-339.
Seasons for travelling, 339. The three kinds of caravan, 341. That of
the Wanyamwezi, 341. Those made up by the Arab merchants, 342. Those
of the Wasawahili, &c., 344. Sketch of a day’s march of an East
African caravan, 344. Mode of forming a caravan, 348. Dress of the
caravan, 349. Ornaments and arms worn by the porters, 349. Recreations
of the march, 350. Meeting of two caravans, 351. Halt of a caravan,
351. Lodgings on the march, 353. Cooking, 355, 356. Greediness of the
porters, 356, 357. Water, 359. Night, 359. Dances of the porters, 360.
Their caravan, 361, 362. Rate of caravan travelling, 362. Custom
respecting caravans in Central Africa, ii. 54. Those on the Uruwwa
route, 148. Accident to a, 270.
Carissa Carandas, the Corinda bush in Uzaramo, i. 60.
Carpentering in East Africa, ii. 309.
Carvings, rude, of the Wanyamwezi, ii. 26.
Castor plants of East Africa, i. 48. Mode of extracting the oil, 48.
Cats, wild, in Unyamwezi, ii. 15.
Cattle, horned, of Ujiji, ii. 59. Of Karagwah, 181.
Cattle trade of East Africa, ii. 413.
Cereals of East Africa, ii. 414.
Ceremoniousness of the Wajiji, ii. 69.
Ceremony and politeness, miseries of, in the East, i. 392.
Cha K’henge, halt of the party at, i. 167.
Chamærops humilis, or Nyara tree, of the Mrima, f. 48.
Chawambi, Sultan of Unyoro, ii. 198.
Chhaga, ii. 179.
Chiefs of the Wazaramo, i. 113.
Chikichi, or palm oil, trade in, at Wafanya, ii. 107.
Childbirth, ceremonies of, in Unyamwezi ii. 23. Twins, 23.
Children, mode of carrying, in Uzaramo, i. 110.
Children, Wasagara mode of carrying, i. 237.
Children, mode of carrying amongst the Wanyamwezi, ii. 22.
Children, education of, in Unyamwezi, ii. 23, 24.
Chomwi, or headman, of the Wamrima, i. 16. His privileges, 16, 17.
Chumbi, isle of, i. 1.
Chunga Mchwa, or ant, of the sweet red clay of East Africa, described,
i. 201, 202.
Chungo-fundo or siyafu, or pismires of the river banks of East Africa,
described, i. 186.
Chyámbo, the locale of the coast Arabs, i. 397.
Circumcision, not practised by the Wazaramo, i. 108. Nor in the
Unyamwezi, ii. 23.
Clay chewed, when tobacco fails, in Unyamwezi, ii. 28.
Climate of--
Bomani, i. 49.
Dut’humi, i. 89, 92.
East Africa, during the wet season, i. 379.
Inenge, i. 208.
Kajjanjeri, ii. 403.
Karagwah, ii. 180.
Kawele, ii. 130.
Kirira, i. 394.
Kuingani, i. 44.
Marenga Mk’hali, i. 203.
Mrima, i. 102, 104.
Msene, i. 400.
Mohama, i. 179.
Mzizi Mdogo, i. 161.
Rumuma, i. 199.
Sorora, i. 401.
Tanganyika Lake, i. 142.
Ugogo, i. 243, 259, 297.
Ujiji, ii. 81.
Unyamwezi, ii. 8-14.
Usagara, i. 221, 222, 231.
Wafanya, ii. 107.
Zungomero, i. 94, 127, 156, 161, 163.
Cloth, mode of carrying, in the expedition, i. 145. As an article of
commerce, 148.
Clothing required for the expedition, i. 154. Of travellers in East
Africa, ii. 201.
Clouds in Unyamwezi, ii. 12.
Cockroaches in houses in East Africa, i. 370.
Cocoa-nut, use of the, in East Africa, i. 36.
Cocoa-tree, its limits inland, i. 160.
Coffee, wild, or mwami, of Karagwah, ii. 180, 181, 187.
Commando, pitiable scene presented after one, i. 185.
Commerce of the Mrima, i. 39. Of Zungomero, 95. Of Uzaramo, 119. Of
Ugogo, 308. Of the Wanyamwezi, ii. 29. Of the Nyanza Lake, 215.
African, 224. Of Ubena, 270. Of Uvira, ii. 120. Of East Africa, 387.
Conversation, specimen of, in East Africa, ii. 243, 244.
Copal tree, or Msandarusi, of Uzaramo, i. 63.
Copal trade of East Africa, ii. 403.
Copper in Katata, ii. 148. In East Africa, 312.
Cotton in Unyamwezi, i. 318. In Ujiji, i. 57. In East Africa, 417.
Cowhage on the banks of the Mgeta river, i. 166.
Cowries of Karagwah, ii. 185. Of East Africa, 416.
Crickets of the Usagara mountains, i. 162. House, in East Africa,
i. 370.
Crocodiles of the Kingani river, i. 56. In Unyamwezi, ii. 15. In the
Sea of Ujiji, 60. Of the Ruche River, 158.
Crops of the Mrima, i. 102, _et seq_.
Cucumbers at Marenga Mk’hali, i. 201. Wild, of Unyanyembe, ii. 285.
Cultivation in the Mukondokwa hills, i. 196, 197. In the Usagara
mountains, 229.
Currency of East Africa, stock may be recruited at Kazeh, i. 334. Of
Msene, i. 398. Of Ujiji, ii. 73. Of Karagwah, 185. Of Ubena, 270.
Cynhyænas of Ugogo, i. 302. In Unyamwezi, ii. 15.
Cynocephalus, the, in Unyamwezi, ii. 15. The terror of the country,
15.
Dancing of the Wazaramo women, i. 55. African, described, 360;
ii. 291, 298.
Darwayash, the Baloch, sketch of him, i. 137.
“Dash,” i. 58. _See_ Blackmail.
Datura plant of Zungomero, i. 95. Smoked in East Africa, 96. In
Unyamwezi, 318.
Day, an African’s mode of passing the, ii. 289, 290.
Death, African fear of, ii. 331.
Defences of the Wazaramo, i. 111, 117.
Dege la Mhora, “the large jungle bird,” village of, i. 72. Fate of M.
Maizan at, 73.
Det’he, or Kidete of East Africa, ii. 293.
Devil’s trees of East Africa, ii. 353.
Dialects of the Wazaramo, i. 107. The Wagogo, 306. The Wahumba, 311.
The Wanyamwezi, ii. 5. The Wakimbu, 20. The Wanyamwezi, 30.
Diseases of the maritime region of East Africa, i. 105. Of the people
of Usagara, 233. Of Ugogo, 299. Of caravans in East Africa, 342. Of
Unyamwezi, ii. 11, 13, 14. Of East Africa, 318. Remedies, 321.
Mystical remedies, 352, 353.
Dishdasheh, El, or turban of the coast Arabs, i. 32.
Divorce amongst the Wazaramo, i. 118. Amongst the East Africans
generally, ii. 333.
Drawing materials required for the expedition, i. 155.
Dress, articles of, of the East Africans, i. 148. Of the Wamrima, 33,
34. Of the Wazaramo, 109. Of the Wak’hutu, 120. Of the Wasagara, 253.
Of the Wahete, 239. Of the Wagogo, 305. Of the Wahumba, 312. Of the
Wakalaganza, 406. Of the Wakimbu, ii. 20. Of the Wanyamwezi, 21. Of
the Wajiji, 64. Of the Warundi, 146. Of the Wavinza, 75. Of the
Watuta, 77. Of the Wabuta, 78. Of the people of Karagwah, 182. Of the
Wahinda, 220. Of the Warori, 271.
Dodges of the ferrymen, ii. 164, 165.
Dragon-flies in Unyamwezi, ii. 18.
Drinking-bouts in East Africa, ii. 295, 335.
Drinking-cups in East Africa, ii. 295.
Drums and drumming of East Africa, ii. 295.
Drunkenness of the Wazaramo, i. 118. Of the Wak’hutu, 120. And
debauchery of the people of Msene, 398. Prevalence of, near the Lake
Tanganyika, ii. 59. Of the Wajiji, 69.
Dogs, wild, in Unyamwezi, ii. 16. Pariah, in the villages of Ujiji,
60. Rarely heard to bark, 60.
Dolicos pruriens on the banks of the Mgeta river, i. 166.
Donkey-men of the expedition, i. 143.
Dub-grass in the Usagara mountains, i. 171.
Dunda, or “the Hill,” district of, i. 54.
Dunda Nguru, or “Seer fish-bill” i. 69.
Dungomaro, or Mandama, river, arrival of the caravan at the, i. 222.
Description of the bed of the, 223.
Dut’humi, mountain crags of, i. 65, 83, 86. Illness of the chiefs of
the expedition at, 84. Description of the plains of, 86.
Eagles, fish, of Ujiji, ii. 60.
Ear-lobes distended by the Wasagara, i. 235. And by the Wahehe, 239.
By the Wagogo, 304. And by the Wahumba, 312. Enlarged by the
Wanyamwezi, ii. 21.
Earth-fruit of India, i. 198.
Earthquakes in Unyamwezi, ii. 13.
Earwigs in East African houses, i. 370.
Ebb and flow of the Tanganyika Lake, ii. 143. Causes of, 143, 144.
Education of children in Unyamwezi, ii. 23, 24.
Eels of the Tanganyika Lake, ii. 68.
Eggs not eaten by the Wanyamwezi, ii. 29. Nor by the people of Ujiji,
59.
Elæis Guiniensis, or Mehikichi tree, in Ujiji, ii. 58.
Elephants at Dut’humi, i. 87. In Ugogi, 242. At Ziwa, or the Pond,
251. On the road to Ugogo, 247. On the Mgunda Mk’hali, 287, 289. In
Ugogo, 300. On the banks of the Malagarazi river, 408. In Unyamwezi,
ii. 15. Near the sea of Ujiji, 60. In East Africa, 297.
Elephant hunting in East Africa, ii. 298.
English, the, bow regarded in Africa, i. 31.
Erhardt, M., his proposed expedition to East Africa, i. 3.
Ethnology of East Africa, i. 106. Of the second region, 225, _et seq._
Euphorbiæ at Mb’hali, i. 401. In Ugogo, 300. In the Usagara mountains,
i. 165.
Evil eye unknown to the Wazaramo, i. 116.
Exorcism in East Africa, ii. 352.
Falsehood of the coast clans of East Africa, i. 37. General in East
Africa, ii. 328.
Faraj, sketch of him and his wife, the lady Halimah, i. 129.
Fauna of Ujiji, ii. 60.
Fetiss-huts of the Wazaramo described, i. 57. Of East Africa, 369;
ii. 346.
Fetissism of East Africa, ii. 341, _et seq._
Fever, marsh, cure in Central Asia for, i. 82. The author prostrated
by, 84. Delirium of, 84. Of East Africa generally described, 105. The
author and his companion again attacked by, at Muhama, 179. Common in
the Usagara mountains, 233. Seasoning fever of East Africa, generally,
379. Miasmatic, described, 403. Low type, 406. Seasoning fever at
Unyamwezi described, ii. 14.
Fire-arms and Gunpowder in East Africa, ii. 308.
Fires in Africa, ii. 259.
Fish of the Kingani river, i. 56. Of the Tanganyika Lake, ii. 59.
Varieties of, 67. Narcotised in Uzaramo, 67. At Wafanya, 108.
Considered as an article of diet in East Africa, 280.
Fishing in the Tanganyika Lake, ii. 66.
Fisi, or cynhyæna, of Uzaramo, i. 63. The scavenger of the country,
i. 64.
Flies in Unyamwezi, ii. 18. Fatal bite of one in, 19.
Flowers of Usagara, i. 328. At Msene, 397.
Fly, a stinging, the tzetze, i. 187.
Fog-rainbow in the Usagara mountains, i. 222.
Food of the Wamrima, i. 35. Of the Wazaramo, 56. Of the people of
Zungomero, 95, 96, 97. Of the Wak’hutu, 120. Of the expedition, 151,
198. Of the people of Marenga Mk’hali, 201. Of the Wagogo, 310, 311.
Of Rubuga, 317. Of Kazeh, 329. Of Arabs of, 331-334. Of Wilyanhuru,
392-394. Of Unyamwezi, ii. 28, 29. Of Ujiji, 70, 88. Of Karagwah, 180,
181. Of Uganda, 196, 197. Of the Warori tribe, 273. East Africa
generally, 280.
Fords in East Africa, i. 336.
Fowls not eaten by the Wanyamwezi, ii. 29. Nor by the people of Ujiji,
59.
Frankincense of Ugogo, i. 299.
Frogs in Unyamwezi, ii. 17. Night concerts of, 17. Of the sea of
Ujiji, 61.
Frost, Mr., of the Zanzibar consulate, i. 3, 21.
Fruits of East Africa, i. 48, 201. Of Usagara, 228. Of Yombo, 337. Of
Mb’hali, 401. Of Ujiji, ii. 58.
Fundi, or itinerant slave-artizans of Unyanyembe, i. 328. Caravans of
the, 344.
Fundikira, Sultan of Unyamwezi, notice of him, ii. 31.
Fundikira, Sultan of Ititenza, i. 326.
Funerals of the Wazaramo, i. 119. Of the Wadoe, 124.
Funza, brother of Sultan Matanza of Msene, i. 396.
Furniture of East African houses, i. 371. Kitanda, or bedstead, 371.
Bedding, 371. Of the houses of the Wanyamwezi, ii. 26.
Gadflies, annoyance of, at K’hok’ho, i. 276.
Gaetano, the Goanese servant, sketch of his character, i. 131. Taken
ill, 380. His epileptic fits at Msene, 395, 399.
Gama river, i. 123.
Gambling in East Africa, ii. 279.
Game in Uzaramo, i. 59, 71. In the Doab of the Mgeta river, 81. In
K’huta, 120. In the plains between the Rufuta and the Mukondokwa
mountains, 181. In Ugogi, 242. At Ziwa, or the Pond, 251. At Kanyenye,
268. Scarcity of, in East Africa generally, 268.
Ganza Mikono, sultan of Usek’he, i. 272.
Geography of the second region, i. 225, _et seq_. Of Ugogo, 295. Arab
oral, ii. 144-154.
Geology of the maritime region of East Africa, i. 102. Of the Usagara
mountains, 227. Of the road to Ugogo, 247. Of Mgunda Mk’hali,
i. 282-284. Of Ugogo, i. 295. Of Unyamwezi, ii. 6.
Ghost-faith of the Africans, ii. 344.
Gingerbread tree, described, i. 47.
Ginyindo, march to, ii. 253. Quarrel of the Baloch and porters at,
253.
Giraffes in Ugogi, i. 242. Native names of the, 242, 243. Use made of
them, 243. At Ziwa, or the Pond, 251. On the Mgunda Mk’hali, 289. In
Unyamwezi, ii. 15.
Girls of the Wanyamwezi, strange custom of the, ii. 24.
Gnus in the Doab of the Mgeta river, i. 81. At Dut’humi, 87.
Goats of Ujiji, ii. 59.
Goma pass, the, i. 168, 170.
Gombe, mud-fish in the nullah of, i. 334.
Gombe Nullah, i. 395, 397, 401, 403, ii. 8.
Goose, ruddy, Egyptian, i. 317.
Gourd, the, a musical instrument in East Africa, ii. 294.
Gourds of the Myombo tree in Usagara, i. 229.
Government of the Wazaramo, i. 113. Of the Wak’hutu, 120, 121. Of the
Wanyamwezi, ii. 31. Of the Wajiji, 71. Of the northern kingdoms of
Africa, 174. Mode of, in Uganda, 192. Forms of, in East Africa, 360.
Grain, mode of grinding, in East Africa, i. 111, 372. That of Msene,
397, 398. Of Ujiji, ii. 57.
Grapes, wild, seen for the first time, ii. 41.
Grasses of the swamps and marshes of the Mrima, i. 103, 104. The dub
of the Usagara mountains, 171.
Graveyards, absence of, in East Africa, ii. 25.
Ground-fish of the Tanganyika Lake, ii. 68.
Ground-nut oil in East Africa, ii. 285.
Grouse, sand, at Ziwa, i. 251.
Guest welcome, or hishmat l’il gharib, of the Arabs of Kazeh, i. 329.
Gugu-mbua, or wild sugar-cane, i. 71.
Guinea-fowls in the Doab of the Mgeta river, i. 81. Of the Rufuta
plains, 183. Of Ugogi, 242.
Guinea-palm of Ujiji, ii. 58.
Gul Mohammed, a Baloch of the party, sketch of him, i. 139. His
conversation with Muzungu Mbaya, ii. 244.
Gulls, sea, of the sea of Ujiji, ii. 60.
Gungu, district of, in Ujiji, ii. 53. Its former and present chiefs,
53. Plundered by the Watuta tribe, 76.
Hail-storms in Unyamwezi, ii. 10.
Hair, mode of dressing the, amongst the Wazaramo, i. 108. And the
Wak’hutu, 120. Wasagara fashions of dressing the, 234. Wagogo mode,
304. Amongst the Wanyamwezi, ii. 26. Wabuha mode of dressing the, 78.
And in Uganda, 189.
Halimah, the lady, sketch of, i. 129. Taken ill, 200. Returns home,
ii. 277.
Hamdan, Sayyid, of Zanzibar, his death, i. 2.
Hamerton, Lieut.-Col., his friendship with the late Sultan of
Zanzibar, i. 2. Interest taken by him in the expedition, 3. His
objections to an expedition into the interior _viâ_ Kilwa, 5. His
death, 66. His character, 69.
Hamid bin Salim, his journey to the Wahumba tribe, i. 311.
Hammals of the Wanyamwezi, character of the, ii. 162.
Hammam, or primitive form of the lamp-bath, i. 82.
Hanga, journey to, ii. 232. Difficulties with the porters there, 232.
Hartebeest in the Doab of the Mgeta river, i. 81.
Hawks of the Usagara mountains, i. 162.
Hembe, or “the wild buffalo’s horn,” his village, i. 72.
Hides, African mode of dressing, i. 236.
Hilal bin Nasur, his information respecting the southern provinces,
ii. 228.
Hippopotami on the east coast of Africa, i. 9, 12, 24, 56. In
Unyamwezi, ii. 15. In the Ruche river, 52, 158. In the sea of Ujiji,
60.
Hishmat l’il gharib, or guest welcome of the Arabs of Kazeh, i. 323,
329.
Hogs of Ugogo, i. 300.
Home, African attachment for, ii. 333.
Honey in Ujiji, ii. 59. Abundance of, in East Africa, 287. Two kinds
of, 288.
Houses of Kuingani, i. 43. The wayside, or kraals, 53, 181, 230. Of
the Wak’hutu, 97, 121. Of the Wazaramo, 110. Of the Wagogo, 306. Of
the Arabs in Unyanyembe, 328, 329. Of stone, ignored by Inner Africa,
93. Of the country beyond Marenga Mk’hali, called “Tembe,” 207. The
Tembe of the Wahete, 240. The Khambi or, Kraal, 354. The Tembe of the
Usagara, 366. Houses of East Africa generally described, 364, ii. 334.
Pests of the houses, i. 370. Furniture, 371. Of the Wanyamwezi,
ii. 26. Of Karagwah, 182, 183.
Hullak, the buffoon, i. 46.
Hunting season in East Africa, ii. 296.
Hyænas in Ugogo, i. 276. In Ujiji, ii. 60.
Hyderabad, story of the police officer of, i. 217.
Ibanda, second sultan of Ukerewe, ii. 214.
Id, son of Muallim Salim, his civility at Msene, i. 399.
Iguanas of the Usagara mountains, i. 162.
Ihara or Kwihara, physical features of the plain of, i. 326.
Ikuka of Uhehe, march to, ii. 252.
Illness of the whole party at Ujiji, ii. 85, 86.
Immigration in Central Africa, ii. 19.
Imports and exports in East Africa, ii. 387.
Indian Ocean, evening on the, i. 1. View of the Mrima from the, 8.
Industry, commercial, of the Wanyamwezi, ii. 29.
Inenge, basin of, i. 208. Halt at the, 208.
Influenza, the, in Unyamwezi, ii. 13.
Influenza, remedy in East Africa for, i. 96.
Inhospitality of Africans, ii. 131, 327.
Inhumanity of the Africans, ii. 329.
Insects in East Africa, i. 186, 187, 201, 202. In houses in East
Africa, 370. In Ujiji, ii. 61.
Instruments required for the expedition, i. 153. Breakage of, on the
road, 169. Accidents to which they are liable in East African travels,
189, 191.
Intellect of the East African, ii. 337.
Iron in Karagwah, ii. 185. In Urori, 27. And in Ubena, 27. Of East
Africa generally, 311.
Ironga, sultan of U’ungu, defeats the Warori, ii. 75.
Ironware of Uvira, ii. 121.
Irora, village of, i. 389. Halt at, 389. Sultan of, 389. Return to,
ii. 166.
Irrigation, artificial, in K’hutu, i. 86.
Isa bin Hijji, the Arab merchant, exchange of civilities with, i. 208,
211. Places a tembe at Kazeh at the disposal of the party, 323.
Isa bin Hosayn, the favourite of the Sultan of Uganda, ii. 193.
Ismail, the Baloch, illness of, i. 381.
Ititenya, settlement of, i. 326.
Ivory, caravan of, i. 17. Frauds perpetrated on the owners of tusks,
17. Mode of buying and selling in East Africa, 39. Touters of
Zungomero, 97. Mode of carrying large tusks of, 341, 348. Price of,
at Uvira, ii. 120, 121. Ivory of Ubena, 270. Trade in Ivory, 408.
Iwanza, or public-houses, in Unyamwezi, ii. 1, 27. Described, 27, 279,
285.
Iwemba, province of, ii. 153.
Jackal, silver, of Ugogi, i. 242.
Jambeho, arrival of the party at the settlements of, ii. 36.
Cultivation of, 36. Scarcity of food in, 36. Revisited, 163.
Jami of Harar, Shaykh, of the Somal, i. 33.
Jamshid, Sayyid, of Zanzibar, his death, i. 2.
Jasmine, the, in Usagara, i. 228.
Jealousy of the Wazaramo, i. 61.
Jelai, Seedy, the Baloch, sketch of him, i. 137.
Jezirah, island of, ii. 212.
Jiwe la Mkoa, or the round rock, arrival of the party at, i. 286.
Description of it, 287; ii. 242. Halt at, 242.
Jiweni, arrival of the expedition at, i. 289. Water at, 289.
Jongo, or millepedes, in Unyamwezi, ii. 18.
Jua, Dar el, or home of hunger, i. 69.
Juma Mfumbi, Diwan of Saadani, his exaction of tribute from the Wadoe,
i. 123.
Jungle, insect pests of the, i. 186. Fire in the jungle in summer,
ii. 163.
Jungle-thorn, on the road to Ugogo, i. 246. Near Kanyenye, 271.
Kadetamare, arrival of the party at, i. 189. Loss of instruments at,
189, 190.
Kaffirs of the Cape, date of their migration to the banks of the Kei,
ii. 5.
Kafuro, district of, in Karagwah, ii. 177.
Kajjanjeri, village of, arrival of the party at, i. 403. Deadly
climate of, 403.
Kannena, headman of Kawele, visit to, ii. 81. Description of him, 81.
His mode of opening trade, 82. His ill-will, 83, 84. Agrees to take
the party to the northern extremity of the lake, 93. His surly and
drunken conduct, 97. Starts on the voyage, 98. His covetousness, 109.
His extravagance, 120. His drunkenness and fate, 156.
Kanoni, sultan of the Wahha tribe, ii. 79.
Kanoni, minor chief of Wafanya, visit from, ii. 107. His blackmail,
107. Outrage committed by his people, 124.
Kanyenye, country of, described, i. 265. Blackmail at, 265. Sultan
Magomba of, 265.
Kaole, settlement of, described, i. 12, 13. The landing place of the
expedition, 22.
Karagwah, kingdom of, ii. 177. Extent of, 177. Boundaries of, 178.
Climate of, 180. People of, 181. Dress of, 182. Weapons of, 182.
Houses of, 182. Sultan of, 183. Government of, 183.
Karagwah, mountains of, ii. 48, 144, 177.
Kariba, river, ii. 146.
Karindira, river, ii. 146.
Karungu, province of, ii. 149.
Kasangare, a Mvinza sultan, his subjects, i. 328.
Kaskazi, or N. E. monsoon, i. 83.
Kata, or sand-grouse, at Ziwa, i. 251.
Katata, or Katanga, copper in, ii. 148.
Katonga, river, ii. 187.
Kawele, principal village of Ujiji, ii. 53. Attacked by the Watuta
tribe, ii. 76. Return of the expedition to, 126.
Kaya, or fenced hamlets, i. 407.
Kazeh, arrival at, i. 321, 322. Abdullah bin Salih’s caravan plundered
at, 321. Hospitality of the Arabs there, 323. Revisited, ii. 167.
Kazembe, sultan of Usenda, ii. 148. Account of him, 148.
Khalfan bin Muallim Salim, commands an up caravan, i. 179. His caravan
attacked by small-pox, 179, 201. His falsehoods, 179. Spreads
malevolent reports at Ugogo, 262.
Khalfan bin Khamis, his penny wise economy, i. 288. Bids adieu to the
caravan, 291. Overtaken half-way to Unyanyembe, 221. His civility at
Msene, 399.
Khambi, or substantial kraals, of the wayside described, i. 53, 134.
Khamisi, Muinyi, and the lost furniture, ii. 168.
K’hok’ho, in Ugogo, dangers of, i. 272, 274. Its tyrant sultan, 274.
Insect annoyances at, 276.
Khudabakhsh, the Baloch, sketch of him, i. 138. His threats to murder
the author, 174. His illness in the Windy Pass, 214. His conduct at
Wafanya, ii. 110. Reaches Kawele by land, 111.
K’hutu, expedition enters the country of, i. 86. Irrigation in, 86.
Hideous and grotesque vegetation of, 91. Climate of, 92. Salt-pits of,
92. Country of, described, 119. Roads in, 335. Return to, ii. 264.
Desolation of, 264.
K’hutu, river i. 86.
Kibaiba river, ii. 146.
Kibuga, in Uganda, distance from the Kitangure river to, ii. 186. Road
to, 186, 187. Described, 188.
Kibuya, sultan of Mdabura, blackmail of, i. 279. Description of him,
279.
Kichyoma-chyoma, “the little irons,” Captain Speke afflicted with,
ii. 234. The disease described, 320.
Kidogo, Muinyi, sketch of him, i. 140. His hatred of Said bin Salim,
164. His advice to the party at Marenga Mk’hali, 203. His words of
wisdom on the road to Ugogo, 250. His management, 254. His quarrel
with Said bin Salim, 255. Makes oath at Kanyenye, that the white man
would not smite the land, 267. Loses his heart to a slave girl, 314.
His demands at Kazeh, 377. Dismissed at Sorora, 402. Flogs Sangora,
403. Sent home, ii. 277.
Kidunda, or the “little hill,” camping ground of, i. 79. Scenery of,
79.
Kifukuru, delay of the caravan at, i. 264. Question of blackmail at,
264. Sultan of, 264.
Kigari, on the Tanganyika Lake, halt of the party at, ii. 101.
Kigwa, or Mkigwa, halt of the caravan at, i. 319. The ill-omened
forest of, 319. Sultan Manwa, 319.
Kikoboga, basin of, traversed, ii. 262.
Kikoboga river, ii. 263.
Kilwa, dangers of, as an ingress point, i. 4, 5.
Kimanu, the sultan of Ubena, ii. 270.
Kinanda, or harp, of East Africa, ii. 298.
Kinawani, village of, arrival of the caravan at, ii. 35.
Kindunda, “the hillock,” i. 64.
Kinganguku, march to, ii. 251.
Kingani river described, i. 56. Valley of the, 56. Hippopotami and
crocodiles of the, 56. Fish of the, 56. Its malarious plain, 69. Rise
of the, 87.
Kingfishers on the lake of Tanganyika, ii. 61.
Kipango, or tzetze fly, of East Africa, i. 187.
Kiperepeta, march to, ii. 256.
Kiranga-Ranga, the first dangerous station in Uzaramo, i. 59.
Kirangozi, guide or guardian, carried by mothers in Uzaramo, i. 116.
Kirangozi, or guide of the caravan, his wrath, i. 221. Description of
one, 346. Meeting of two, 351. His treatment of his slave girl,
ii. 161. His fear of travelling northward, 172.
Kiringawana mountains, i. 233.
Kiringawana route in the Usagara mountains described, ii. 249.
Kiringawana, sultan, ii. 258.
Kirira, halt of the party at, i. 392. Hospitality of an Arab merchant
at, 392-394. Climate of, 394.
Kiruru, or “palm leaves,” village of, i. 82.
Kirurumo, on the Mgunda Mk’hali, i. 289. Water obtained at, 289.
Kisanga, basin of, described, ii. 257.
Kisabengo, the chief headman of Inland Magogoni, i. 88. Account of his
depredations, 88.
Kisawahili language, remarks on the, i. 15, _note_; ii. 198.
Kisesa, sultan, his blackmail, ii. 114.
Kitambi, sultan of Uyuwwi, recovers part of the stolen papers, i. 320.
Kitangure, or river of Karagwah, i. 409; ii. 144, 177, 186.
Kiti, or stool, of East Africa, i. 373.
Kittara, in Kingoro, road to, ii. 187. Wild coffee of, 187.
Kivira river, ii. 197.
Kiyombo, sultan of Urawwa, ii. 147.
Kizaya, the P’hazi, i. 54. Accompanies the expedition a part of their
way, 55.
Knobkerries of Africa, ii. 306.
Kombe la Simba, the P’hazi, i. 54.
Konduchi, march to, ii. 274. Revisited, 276.
Koodoo, the, at Dut’humi, i. 87.
Koodoo horn, the bugle of East Africa, i. 203.
Kraals of thorn, in the Usagara mountains, i. 230. Of East Africa,
354.
Krapf, Dr., result of his mission, i. 6. His information, 7. His
etymological errors, 36, _note_.
Kuhonga, or blackmail, at Ugogo, i. 252. Account of the blackmail of
East Africa, 253.
Kuingani, “the cocoa-nut plantation near the sea,” i. 42. Described,
43. Houses of, 43. Climate of, 44.
Kumbeni, isles of, i. 1.
Kuryamavenge river, ii. 146.
Kwale, halt at the nullah of, i. 315.
Kwihanga, village of, described, i. 396.
Ladha Damha, pushes the expedition forward, i. 11. His conversation
with Ramji, 23.
Lakes,--Nyanza, or Ukerewe, i. 311, 409, ii. 175, 176, 179, 195.
Tanganyika, ii. 42, _et seq._; 134, _et seq._ Mukiziwa, ii. 147.
Lakit, Arab law of, i. 258.
Lamp-bath of Central Asia, i. 82.
Land-crabs in the Doab of the Mgeta river, i. 81.
Language of the Wagogo, i. 306. Of the Wahumba, 311. Of the
Wanyamwezi, ii. 5. Of the Wakimbu, 20. Of the Wanyamwezi, 30.
Specimens of the various dialects collected, 198. Of the East
Africans, 336.
Leeches in Unyamwezi, ii. 18.
Leopards in Ugogo, i. 302. In Unyamwezi, ii. 15.
Leucæthiops amongst the Wazaramo, i. 109.
Libellulæ in Unyamwezi, ii. 18.
Lions in Uzaramo, i. 63. Signs of, on the road, 172. In Ugogo, 300,
301. In Unyamwezi, ii. 15.
Lizards in the houses in East Africa, i. 371.
Locusts, or nzige, flights of, in Unyamwezi, ii. 18. Varieties of, 18.
Some considered edible, 18.
Lodgings on the march in East Africa, i. 353. In Ugogo, 354. In
Unyamwezi, 354. In Uvinza, 354. At Ujiji, 351.
Looms in Unyamwezi, i. 318; ii. 1.
Lues in East Africa, ii. 321.
Lunar Mountains, ii. 48, 144.
Lurinda, chief of Gungu, ii. 53. Supplies a boat on the Tanganyika
lake, 87. Enters into brotherhood with Said bin Salim, ii. 125.
Lying, habit of, of the African, ii. 328.
Mabruki, Muinyi, henchman in the expedition, sketch of the character
of, i. 130. His slave boy, ii. 162. His bad behaviour, 173.
Mabruki Pass, descent of the, ii. 263.
Mabunguru fiumara, i. 283. Shell-fish and Silurus of the, 284. Arrival
of the party at the, 285.
Macaulay, Lord, quoted, i. 393.
Machunda, chief sultan of Ukerewe, ii. 214.
Madege Madogo, the “little birds,” district of, i. 79.
Madege Mkuba, “the great birds,” district of, i. 79.
Magic, black, or Ucháwi, how punished by the Wazaramo, i. 113, 265.
Mode of proceeding for ascertaining the existence of, ii. 32. _See_
Mganga.
Magogoni, inland, country of, i. 87.
Magomba, sultan of Kanyenye, i. 265. Blackmail levied by, 265.
Interview with him and his court, 266. Description of him, 266.
Magugi, in Karagwah, ii. 177.
Maizan, M., his death, i. 6. Sketch of his career, 73.
Maji m’ote, or “hot water” ant, of East Africa, i. 187.
Maji ya W’heta, or jetting water, the thermal spring of, i. 159.
Return to, ii. 264.
Majid, Sayyid, sultan of Zanzibar, i. 2. Gives letters of introduction
to the author, 3.
Makata tank, i. 181. Forded by the expedition, 181. Return to, ii.
262.
Makata plain, march over the, ii. 261.
Makimoni, on the Tanganyika lake, ii. 126.
Makutaniro, adventures at, i. 69.
Malagarazi river, i. 334, 337. ii. 36, 39, 47, 49. First sighted by
the party, 407. Described, 408, 409. Courses of the, 409. Crossed,
410. Return of the party to the, 164.
Mallok, the Jemadar, sketch of his character and personal appearance,
i. 133. His desertion, and return, 173. Becomes troublesome, 381, 382.
His refusal to go northwards, ii. 172. Influence of bakhshish, 172.
Sent home, ii. 277.
Mamaletua, on the Tanganyika lake, halt of the party at, ii. 115.
Civility of the people of, 115.
M’ana Miaha, sultan of K’hok’ho, i. 272. Description of him, 274.
His extortionate blackmail, 274.
Mananzi, or pine-apple, of East Africa, i. 66.
Manda, the petty chief at Dut’humi, i. 89. Expedition sent against
him, 89.
Mandama, or Dungomaro, river, arrival of the caravan at the, i. 222.
Description of the bed of the, 223.
Mangrove forest on the east coast of Africa, i. 9. Of the Uzaramo, 62.
Manners and customs of the Wamrima, i. 35, 37. Of the Wasawahili, 37.
Of the Wazaramo, 108 _et seq._ Of the Wak’hutu, 120. Of the Wadoe,
124. Of the Wasagara, 235. Of the Wagogo, 309, 310. Of the Wahumba,
312. Of the Wanyamwesi, ii. 23. Of the Wambozwa, 152.
Mansanza, sultan of Msene, i. 396. His hospital, 396. His firm rule,
396. His wives, 396, 399. His visits to the author, 399.
Manufactures of Msene, i. 398.
Manyora, fiumara of, i. 80.
Manwa, Sultan of Kigwa, his murders and robberies, i. 319. His
adviser, Mansur, 319.
Maraim, Abd, or Washhenzi, the, i. 30.
Mariki, sultan of Uyonwa, ii. 78.
Marema, sultan, at the Ziwa, i. 254.
Marenga Mk’hali, or “brackish water,” river, i. 200, 201, 259. Climate
of, 203. Upper, water of the, 247, 271.
Maroro, basin of, its fertility, ii. 254. The place described, 255.
Maroro river, i. 231.
Marriage amongst the Wazaramo, i. 118. In Unyamwezi, ii. 24. In East
Africa generally, 332.
Marsh fever, i. 82, 84. Delirium of, 84.
Martins in the Rufuta plains, i. 183. In Unyamwezi, ii. 17.
“Marts,” custom of, in South Africa, ii. 54.
Marungu, land of, ii. 149. Provinces of, 149. Roads in, 149.
Description of the country, 150. History of an Arab caravan in, 151.
People of, 152.
Maruta, sultan of Uvira, ii. 116. Visit from his sons, 117.
Description of them, 117. His blackmail, 120.
Masenza, arrival of the party at the village of, i. 406, 407.
Masika, or rainy season, in the second region, i. 231, 232. Of East
Africa, 378.
Mason-wasps of the houses in East Africa, i. 370.
Masud ibn Musallam el Wardi, sent to Msimbira to recover the stolen
papers, i. 325. His hospitality, 392.
Masui, village of, ii. 229, 231.
Masury, M. Sam., his kindness to the author, i. 22.
Mat-weaving in East Africa, ii. 316.
Maunga Tafuna, province of, ii. 153.
Maura, or Maula, a sultan of the Wanyamwezi, i. 316. Visits the
caravan, 316. His hospitality, 316. Description of him, 316.
Mauta, Wady el, or Valley of Death, i. 69.
Mawa, or plantain wine, ii. 180, 197. Mode of making, 287.
Mawiti, colony of Arabs at, i. 326.
Mazinga, or cannons, bee-hives so called in the interior, i. 200.
Described, 200.
Mazita, account of, ii. 212.
Mazungera, P’hazi of Dege la Mhora, i. 75. Murders his guest, M.
Maizan, 75, 76. Haunted by the P’hepo, or spirit of his guest, 76.
Mbarika tree, or Palma Christi, of East Africa, i. 48.
Mbega, or tippet-monkey, in Unyamwezi, ii. 15.
Mb’hali, village of, described, i. 401.
Mbembu, a kind of medlar, in Ugogo, i. 300.
Mbogo, or Bos Caffer, in the plains of East Africa, i. 181. Described,
181. In Ugogo, 300. On the Rusugi river, ii. 40.
Mboni, son of Ramji, carries off a slave girl, i. 290.
Mbono tree of East Africa, i. 48.
Mbugani, “in the wild,” settlement of, described, i. 397.
Mbugu, or tree-bark, used for clothing in Ujiji, ii. 64. Mode of
preparing it, 64.
Mbumi, the deserted village, i. 185.
Mbungo-bungo tree, a kind of nux vomica, i. 48.
Mbuyu, or calabash tree, of East Africa, described, i. 47.
Mchikichi tree of Ujiji, ii. 58.
Mdaburu, trying march in the jungle of, i. 277, 278. Description of,
279.
Mdimu nullah, i. 88.
Meals at Ujiji, ii. 89. In East Africa, 280, 334.
Measures of length in East Africa, ii. 388.
Medicine chest required for the expedition, i. 155.
Melancholy, inexplicable, of travellers in tropical countries,
ii. 130.
Metrongoma, a wild fruit of Yombo, i. 387.
Mfu’uni, hill of, i. 170. Its former importance, 171.
Mfuto mountains, i. 326.
Mfuto, clearing of, i. 389.
Mganga, or medicine-man of East Africa, described, i. 38. His modus
operandi, 44; ii. 358. His office as a priest, 350. As a physician,
352. As a detector of sorcery, 356. As a rain-maker, 357. As a
prophet, 358. His minor duties, 359.
Mganga, or witch of East Africa, i. 380.
Mgazi river, i. 86.
Mgege fish of the Tanganyika Lake, ii. 67.
Mgeta river, the, i. 80, 159, 160, 166; ii. 268. Head of the, 80.
Mode of crossing the swollen river, 80. Pestilence of the banks of
the, i. 127. Fords of the, i. 336; ii. 268.
Mgongo T’hembo, the Elephant’s Back, arrival of the caravan at,
i. 290. Description of, 290. Inhabitants of, 290.
Mgude, or Mparamusi, tree, described, i. 47, 60, 83.
Mgute fish of the Tanganyika Lake, ii. 67.
Mgunda Mk’hali, or “the Fiery Field,” i. 281. Description of, 281,
282. Stunted vegetation of, 282. Geology of, 282. Scarcity of water
in, 283. Traversed by the caravan, 283. Features of the, 283, 292.
Miasma of Sorora and Kajjanjeri, i. 403.
Mikiziwa Lake, in Uguhha, ii. 147.
Milk of cows in Ujiji, ii. 60. As food in East Africa, 283.
Preparations of, 283.
Millepedes, or jongo, in Unyamwezi, ii. 18.
Mimosa trees, i. 83. Flowers of the, in Usagara, 228. Trees in
Usagara, 229. In Unyamwezi, 318. Of the Usagara mountains, 165.
Miyandozi, sultan of Kifukaru, i. 264. Levies blackmail on the
caravan, 264.
Mji Mpia, “new town,” settlement of, described, i. 397. Bazar of, 397.
Mkora tree, uses of the wood of the, i. 374.
Mkorongo tree, uses of the, in East Africa, i. 374.
Mkuba, or wild edible plum of Yombo, i. 387.
Mkuyu, or sycamore tree, its magnificence in East Africa, i. 195. Its
two varieties, 195, 196.
Mkwaju la Mouani, the “Tamarind in the rains,” the village of,
described, i. 52.
Mninga tree, wood of the, i. 373. Use of the wood, 373.
Mnya Mtaza, headman of Ukaranga, ii. 45.
Mohammed bin Khamis, sailing-master of the Artemise, i. 8.
Mohammed, the Baloch, the Rish Safid, or greybeard, sketch of him,
i. 134. At Kazeh, 381.
Molongwe river, ii. 146.
Money in East Africa, ii. 388.
Mombas Mission, the, i. 6, 7.
Mongo Nullah, the, i. 289. Water obtained at the, 289.
Mongoose, the, at Dut’humi, i. 87.
Monkeys of Muhinyera, i. 64. Of Usagara mountains, 162. In Unyamwezi,
ii. 15.
Monkey-bread, ii. 221.
Monsoon, the N. E., or Kaskazi, of East Africa, i. 83, 102. In
Unyamwezi, ii. 9. Origin of the S. W. monsoon, 50. Failure of the
opportunity for comparing the hygrometry of the African and Indian
monsoons, 93.
Moon, Land of the. _See_ Unyamwezi.
Moon, her splendour at the equator, i. 162. Halo or corona round the,
in Unyamwezi, ii. 11, 12.
Morality, deficiency of, of the East Africans, ii. 335.
Morus alba, the, in Uzaramo, i. 60.
Mosquitoes of East Africa described, i. 182. On the Ruche river,
ii. 52, 158.
Mouma islands, ii. 153.
Moumo tree (Borassus flabelliformis), of East Africa, i. 47, 180.
Toddy drawn from, 181.
Mountains:--
Dut’humi, i. 65, 83, 86, 119.
Jiwe la Mkoa, i. 286, 287, 295.
Karagwah, ii. 48, 144, 177.
Kilima Ngao, ii. 179.
Kiringawana, i. 233.
Lunar, ii. 144, 178.
Mfuto, i. 326.
Mukondokwa, i. 180, 185, 194, 203, 233.
Ngu, or Nguru, i. 87, 125, 225.
Njesa, i. 226.
Rubeho, i. 203, 211, 214, 218, 245.
Rufuta, i. 167, 170, 180.
Uhha, ii. 160.
Urundi, i. 409; ii. 48.
Usagara, i. 101, 119, 159, 160, 215, 219, 225, 297.
Wahumba, i. 295.
Wigo, i. 159.
Mountains, none in Unyamwezi, ii. 6.
Mpagamo of Kigandu, defeated by Msimbira, i. 327.
Mparamusi, or Mgude, tree, i. 47, 60, 83.
Mpete, on the Malagarazi river, i. 410.
Mpingu tree, i. 373. Uses of the wood of the, 373.
Mporota, a den of thieves, halt at, ii. 252.
Mrima, or “hill-land,” of the East African coast, described, i. 8, 30.
Inhabitants of, 30. Their mode of life, 35. Mode of doing business in,
39. Vegetation of the, 47. Geography of the, 100. Climate of the, 102,
104. Diseases of the, 105. Roads of the, 105, 106. Ethnology of the,
106.
Mororwa, sultan of Wilyankuru, i. 391.
Msandarusi, or copal-tree, of Uzaramo, i. 63.
Msene, settlement of, arrival of the party at, i. 395. Description of,
395, 396. Sultan Masawza of, 396. Prices at, 397. Productions of, 397,
398. Currency of, 398. Industry of, 398. Habits of the people of, 398.
Climate of, 399.
Msimbira, sultan of the Wasukuma, i. 319. Papers of the party stolen
and carried to him, 320. Refuses to restore them, 320. Send a party to
cut off the road, 321. Defeats Sultan Mpagamo, 327.
Msopora, Sultan, restores the stolen goods, ii. 166.
Msufi, a silk-cotton tree, in Uzaramo, i. 60.
Msukulio tree of Uzaramo, i. 61, 83.
Mtanda, date of the establishment of the kingdom of, ii. 5.
Mtego, or elephant traps, i. 287. Disappearance of the Jemadar in one,
288.
Mt’hipit’hipi, or Abras precatorius, seeds of, used as an ornament,
ii. 181.
Mtogwe tree, a variety of Nux vomica, i. 48. In Unyamwezi, 318, 401.
Mtumbara, Sultan, and his quarrel, ii. 157.
Mtunguja tree of the Mrima, i. 48.
Mtungulu apples in Ugogo, i. 300.
Mtuwwa, in Ubwari island, halt of the party at, ii. 114. Blackmail at,
112.
Mud-fish, African mode of catching, i. 315.
Mud-fish in the Gombe nullah, i. 334.
Mud, Yegea, i. 83.
Muhama, halt at the nullah of, i. 176, 178.
Muhinna bin Sulayman of Kazeh, his arrival at Kawele, ii. 133. His
extortion, 133.
Muhinna bin Sulayman, the Arab merchant of Kazeh, i. 323.
Muhiyy-el-Din, Shafehi Hazi of Zanzibar, i. 7.
Muhiyy-el-Din, Kazi, of the Wasawahili, i. 33.
Muhonge, settlement of, described, i. 63.
Muhonyera, district of, described, i. 63. Wild animals, 63.
Mui’ Gumbi, Sultan of the Warori, ii. 271. Defeated by Sultan Ironga,
75. Description of him, 271.
Muikamba, on the Tanganyika Lake, night spent at, ii. 115.
Muingwira river, ii. 211.
Muinyi Wazira, engaged to travel with the expedition, i. 52. Sketch of
his character, 129. Requests to be allowed to depart, 314. His
debauch and dismissal, 399. Reappears at Kazeh, ii. 168. Ejected, 168.
Muinyi, halt of the party at, i. 193. Determined attitude of the
people of, 194.
Muinyi Chandi, passed through, i. 390.
Mukondokwa mountains, i. 180, 185, 196, 197, 203, 233. Bleak raw air
of the, 197.
Mukondokwa river, i. 88, 181, 188, 192, 311. Ford of, 188. Valley of
the, 192.
Mukozimo district, arrival of the party at the, i. 407. Inhospitality
of the chiefs of, 407.
Mukunguru, or seasoning fever, of Unyamwezi, ii. 14.
Mulberry, the whitish-green, of Uzaramo, i. 60.
Murchison, Sir R., his triumphant geological hypothesis, i. 409. His
notice respecting the interior of Africa, 409, _note_.
Murunguru river, ii. 154.
Murivumba, tents of the party pitched at, ii. 114. Cannibal
inhabitants of, 114.
Murundusi, march to, ii. 250.
Musa, the assistant Rish Safid of the party, sketch of him, i. 138.
Musa Mzuri, handsome Moses, of Kazeh, i. 323. His return to Kazeh,
ii. 223. His history, 223. His hospitality, 226. Visits the expedition
at Masui, 231. His kindness, 231.
Music and musical instruments in East Africa, described, ii. 291, 338.
Of the Wajiji, 98.
Mutware, or Mutwale, the Lord of the Ferry of the Malagarazi river,
i. 409.
Muzungu, or white man, dangers of accompanying a, in Africa, i. 10,
11.
Muzunga Mbaya, the wicked white man, the plague of the party, ii. 239.
His civility near home, 240. Sketch of his personal appearance, and
specimen of his conversation, 244.
Mvirama, a Mzaramo chief, demands rice, i. 80.
Mviraru, a Wazaramo chief, bars the road, i. 58.
Mvoro fish in the Tanganyika Lake, ii. 67.
Mvule trees used for making canoes, ii. 147.
Mwami, or wild coffee of Karagwah, ii. 180, 181, 187.
Mwimbe, or mangrove trees, of the coast of East Africa, i. 9. Those of
Uzaramo, 62.
Mwimbi, bad camping ground of, ii. 262.
Mwongo fruit tree, in Mb’hali, i. 401.
Mgombi river, i. 183.
Myombo tree of East Africa described, i. 184. Of Usagara, 229.
Mzimu, or Fetiss hut, of the Wazaramo, described, i. 57. In Ubwari
Island, halt at, ii. 113. Re-visited, 121.
Mziga Mdogo, or “The Little Tamarind,” arrival of the party at,
i. 161.
Mziga-ziga, a mode of carrying goods, i. 341.
Mzogera, Sultan of Uvinza, i. 408. His power, 408. Settlement of
blackmail with envoys of, 408.
Names given to children by the Wazaramo, i. 116.
Nakl, or first stage of departure, i. 43.
Nar, Beni, “sons of fire,” the English so called in Africa, i. 31.
Nautch at Kuingani described, i. 45.
Ndabi tree, i. 196. Fruit of the, 196.
Ndabi, halt of the caravan at, i. 196.
Navigation of the Tanganyika Lake, antiquity of the mode of, ii. 96.
Necklaces of shells worn in Ujiji, ii. 65.
Nge, or scorpions, of East Africa, i. 370.
Ngole, or Dendraspis, at Dut’humi, i. 87.
Night in the Usagara mountains, i. 162. In the caravan, described,
359.
Nile, White, Ptolemy’s notion of the origin of the, ii. 178. Captain
Speke’s supposed discovery of the sources of the, 204.
Njasa, Sultan of the Wasagara, his visit to the expedition, i. 199.
Description of him, 199. Makes “sare” or brotherhood with Said bin
Salim, 199.
Njesa mountains, i. 226.
Njugu ya Nyassa, the Arachis Hypogæa, as an article of food, i. 198.
Northern kingdoms of Africa. _See_ Karagwah, Uganda, and Unyoro.
Nose pincers of the Wajiji tribe, ii. 65.
Nullahs, or watercourses of East Africa, i. 102.
Nutmeg, wild, of Usui, ii. 176.
Nyakahanga, in Karagwah, ii. 177.
Nyanza, or Ukerewe, Lake, i. 311, 439; ii. 175, 176, 179. Chances of
exploration of the, 195. Geography of the, 206, 210, _et seq._ Size of
the, 212. Position of the, 211. Commerce of the, 215. Savage races of
the, 215. Reasons why it is not the head stream of the White Nile,
218. Tribes dwelling near the, 219.
Nyara, or Chamærops humilis, of the Mrima, i. 48.
Nyasanga, fishing village on the Tanganyika lake, ii. 101.
Nzasa, halt at the, i. 54.
Nzige, or locusts, flights of, in Unyamwezi, ii. 18. Varieties of, 18.
Oars not used on the Tanganyika Lake, ii. 96.
Ocelot, the, of Ugogi, i. 242.
Oil, common kind of, in East Africa, ii. 285. Various kinds of, 285.
Olive-tree unknown in East Africa, ii. 285.
Olympus, the Æthiopian, ii. 179.
Onions cultivated in Unyamwezi, i. 330.
Ophthalmia, several of the party suffer from, in Unyamwezi, i. 406.
Ophidia in Unyamwezi, ii. 17.
Ordeal for witchcraft, ii. 357. Amongst the Wazaramo, i. 114.
Ornaments worn by the Wazaramo, i. 110. By the Wak’hutu, 120. Fondness
of the Africans for, 147, 148, 150. Of the Wasagara tribe, 199, 237.
Of the Wagogo, 305. Of the Wahumba, 312. Of the porters of caravans,
349. Of sultans in East Africa, 396. Of the Wakimba, ii. 20. Of the
Wanyamwezi, 22. Of the Wabuha, 78. Of the Wabwari islanders, 113. Of
the people of Karagwah, 181.
Ostriches in Ugogo, i. 301. Value of feathers in East Africa, i. 301.
Outfit of the expedition, articles required for the, i. 151.
Oxen of Ujiji, ii. 59.
Paddles used on the Tanganyika lake, ii. 96. Described, 96.
Palm, Syphæna, i. 82, 83.
Palma Christi, or Mbarika, of East Africa, i. 48.
Palm-oil, or mawezi, of the shores of the Lake Tanganyika, ii. 58.
Mode of extracting it, 58, 59. Price at the lake, 59. Uses to which it
is applied, 59. Trade in, at Wafanya, 107.
Palmyra tree (Borassus flabelliformis), in the plains, i. 180. Toddy
drawn from, 181. At Yambo, 387. And at Mb’hali, 401. Tapped for toddy
at Msene, 398.
Pangani river, ii. 179.
Papazi, pest of, in East Africa, i. 371.
Papilionaceæ in Unyamwezi, ii. 18.
Panda, village of, i. 403.
Pano, village of, i. 389.
Parugerero, district of, in Unyamwezi, ii. 37. Salt manufacture of,
37.
Partridges in the Doab of the Mgeta river i. 81.
Pazi bug, the, of East Africa, i. 371.
Peewit, the, in the Rufuta plains, i. 183.
Phantasmata in East Africa, ii. 352.
P’hazi, or headmen of the Wazaramo, i. 54, 113. Of the Wak’hutu, 121.
P’hepo, ghost or devil, African belief in, i. 88; ii. 352. Exorcism,
352.
Phlebotomy in East Africa, ii. 322.
Pig-nuts of East Africa, i. 198.
Pillaw in Africa, i. 393. How to boil rice, 393.
Pine-apple, or Mananzi, of East Africa, i. 66.
Pipes in East Africa, ii. 315.
Pismires, chungo-fundo or siyafu, of the banks of the rivers in East
Africa, described, i. 186. Its enemy, the maji m’oto, 187.
Pismires black, annoyance of, at K’hok’ho, i. 276.
Plantain wine of Karagwah, ii. 180. And of Uganda, 197. Mode of making
it, 287.
Plantains near the Unguwwe river, ii. 41. Of Ujiji, 58. The staff of
life in many places, 58. Luxuriance of it, 58. Varieties, 58. Of
Uganda, 196.
Playfair, Captain R. L., his “History of Arabia Felix” quoted, i. 68,
_note_.
Plum, wild, of Yombo, i. 387.
Plundering expeditions of the Wazaramo, i. 112.
Poisons used for arrows in Africa, ii. 301.
Polygamy amongst the Wanyamwezi, ii. 24.
Pombe beer, of East Africa, i. 95, 116, 333; ii. 180, 285. Universal
use of, i. 309; ii. 29. Mode of making it, 286.
Porcupines in K’hutu, i. 160.
Porridge of the East Africans, i. 35.
Porridge flour, of the Wanyamwezi, ii. 29.
Porters, or Pagazi, the Wanyamwezi, of the expedition, i. 143.
Character of East African, 144. In East Africa, 337. Variations of
porterage, 339. Great weight carried sometimes by, 341. Their
discontent, 343. Desertion of in Wilyankuru, 391. Description of those
hired in Ujiji, ii. 157. Of the Warori, 271.
Pottery, art of, in East Africa, ii. 313.
Prices at Msene, i. 397. In the market at Unyanyembe, 333. In Ujiji,
ii. 72. At Wafanya, 107. At Uvira, 120, 121.
Proverbs, Arab, i. 50, 86, 130, 133, 135, 382.
---- African, i. 31.
---- Moslem, ii. 131.
---- Persian, ii. 237.
---- Sanscrit, i. 133.
---- Wanyamwezi, i. 338.
Pumpkins, junsal or boga, grown at Marenga Mk’hali, i. 201.
Punishments in Uganda, ii. 192.
Punishments in East Africa, ii. 364.
Punneeria coagulans of the Mrima, i. 48.
Quaggas in Unyamwezi, ii. 15.
Races of the Northern Kingdoms of Africa, ii. 174, 175.
Rahmat, the Baloch, i. 46.
Rain at Zungomero, i. 156. Autumnal, at Muhama, 179. In the Usagara
mountains, 218, 231, 232. In Ugogo, 298. The Masika or wet season,
378. In Unyamwezi, ii. 8-10. In the valley of the Malagarazi river,
49. In Karagwah, 180.
Rainbow, fog, in the Usagara mountains, i. 222.
Ramji, the Banyan of Cutch, engaged to accompany the expedition,
i. 10. His commercial speculation, 20. His conversation with Ladha
Damha, 23. Visits the author at Kuingani, 43. Account of him, 43, 44.
His advice, 45.
Ramji, “sons” of, sketch of them, i. 140. Their ever-increasing
baggage, 182. Their quarrels with the Baloch soldiers, 163. Their
insolence, 164. Reappear at Kazeh, ii. 168. Allowed to take the places
of porters, 227. Return home, ii. 277.
Ranæ of Unyamwezi, ii. 17. Of the Tanganyika Lake, ii. 61.
Rats, field, i. 160. On the banks of the Mukondokwa river, 193. House
rats of Ujiji, ii. 60.
Ravens of the Usagara mountains, i. 162.
Religion of the Wazaramo, i. 115. Of the East Africans, _ib._; ii.
341. An African’s notion of God, 348 _note_.
Reptiles in Unyamwezi, ii. 17.
Respect, tokens of, amongst the Wajiji, ii. 69.
Revenge of the African, ii. 329.
Revenue, sources of, in East Africa, ii. 365.
Rhinoceroses at Dut’humi, i. 87. On the road to Ugogo, 247. On the
Mgunda Mk’hali, 289. In Ugogo, 300. In Unyamwezi, ii. 15. The
Rhinoceros horn trade of East Africa, 413.
Rice, how to cook, i. 393. Red, density and rapidity of growth of, at
Msene, 397. Luxuriance of, in Ujiji, ii. 57. Allowed to degenerate,
57. Unknown in Karagwah, 180.
Ricinæ of East Africa, i. 371.
Rigby, Captain, at Zanzibar, ii. 382.
Rivers:--
Dungomaro, or Mandama, i. 222.
Gama, i. 123.
Kariba, ii. 146.
Karindire, ii. 146.
Katonga, ii. 187.
K’hutu, i. 86.
Kibaiba, ii. 146.
Kingani, i. 56, 69, 87, 101, 123, 231.
Kikoboga, ii. 263.
Kitangure, or Karagwah, i. 409; ii. 144, 177, 186.
Kuryamavenge, ii. 146.
Malagarazi, i. 334, 337, 407, 408; ii. 36, 39, 47, 49, 164.
Mandama, or Dungomero, 222.
Marenga Mk’hali, i. 200, 201.
Marenga Mk’hali, upper, i. 247.
Maroro, i. 231.
Molongwe, ii. 146.
Mgazi, i. 86.
Mgeta, i. 80, 86, 87, 88, 101, 119, 127, 159, 160, 336; ii. 264,
268, 274.
Muingwira, ii. 187.
Mukondokwa, i. 88, 181, 188, 192, 216, 311.
Myombo, i. 181.
Mwega, ii. 256.
Pangani, i. 125; ii. 179.
Ruche, ii. 46, 52, 157, 158.
Rufiji, or Rwaha, i. 30, 101, 119, 216, 220, 225, 231; ii. 257, 270,
379.
Rufuta, i. 167.
Ruguvu, or Luguvu, ii. 40, 52.
Rumangwa, ii. 149, 153.
Rumuma, i. 197.
Rusizi, or Lusizi, ii. 117, 146.
Rusugi, ii. 37, 161.
Rwaha, or Rufiti, i. 216, 220, 225, 231, 295; ii. 8.
Tumbiri of Dr. Krapf, ii. 217.
Unguwwe, or Uvungwe, ii. 40, 52.
Yovu, ii. 257, 258.
Zohnwe, i. 127.
Riza, the Baloch, sketch of him, i. 139.
Roads in the maritime region of East Africa described, i. 105, 106. In
the Usagara Mountains, 230. From Ugogo to Unyamwezi, 281. In Ugogo,
302. In Unyanyembe, 325. Description of the roads in East Africa, 335.
In Unyamwezi, ii. 19. From the Malagarazi Ferry, 51.
Rubeho Mountains, i. 233, 211, 245.
Rubeho, or “Windy Pass,” painful ascent of the, i. 213. Scenery from
the summit, 214. Village of Wasagara at the summit, 218.
Rubeho, the Great, halt at the, i. 215. Dangerous illness of Capt.
Speke at, 215. His restoration, 215.
Rubeho, the Little, ascent of the, i. 215. Fight between the porters
and the four Wak’hutu, 216.
Rubeho, the Third, halt of the caravan at, i. 221.
Rubuga, arrival of the caravan at, i. 315. Visit from Abdullah bin
Jumah and his flying caravan, 315. Flood at, 317.
Ruche river, ii. 52. Mouth of the, 46, 157.
Rudi, march to, ii. 251.
Rufiji river, the, i. 30, 216, 220, 225, 231; ii. 257, 379. Races on
the, i. 30.
Rufita Pass in Umgara, ii. 259.
Rufuta fiumara, the, i. 167.
Ruguvu, or Luguvu, river, ii. 40, 52. Fords of the, i. 336.
Ruhembe rivulet, the, ii. 261. Halt in the basin of the, 261.
Ruhembe, Sultan, slain by the Watuta, ii. 76.
Rukunda, or Lukunda, night spent at, i. 407.
Rumanika of Karagwah, his rebellion and defeat, ii. 183. Besieges his
brother, 224.
Rumuma river, described, i. 197.
Rumuma, halt of the caravan at, i. 198. Abundance of its supplies,
198. Visit from the Sultan Njasa at, 199. Climate of, 199.
Rusimba, Sultan of Ujiji, ii. 70.
Rusizi river, ii. 117, 146.
Rusugi river, described, ii. 37. Forded, 37.
Ruwere, chief of Jambeho, levies “dash” on the party, ii. 36.
Rwaha river, i. 295, 216, 220, 225, 231; ii. 257.
Sage, in Usagara, i. 228.
Sangale fish in the Tanganyika Lake, ii. 67.
Said, Sayyid, Sultan of Zanzibar, the “Imaum of Muscat,” i. 2. His
sons, 2.
Salim bin Rashid, the Arab merchant, calls on Captain Burton, ii. 228.
Said bin Salim, appointed Ras Kafilah, or caravan guide, to the
expedition, i. 9, 10. Attacked by fever, 71. His terror of the
Wazaramo, 73. His generosity through fear, 90. His character, 129.
His hatred of the Baloch, 163. His covetousness, 163, 164. Insolence
of his slaves, 164. His dispute with Kidogo, 255. His fears, and
neglect at Ugogo, 280. His inhospitality, 287. His change of
behaviour, 382. His punishment, 384. His selfishness, 391. His fears,
ii. 125. Enters into brotherhood with Lurinda, 125. And afterwards
with Kannena, 126. His carelessness of the supplies, 127. His
impertinence, 159, 160. His attempts to thwart the expedition, 172.
Pitches tents outside Kazeh, 227. Moves to the village of Masui, 229.
Dismissed from his stewardship, 237. His news from Zanzibar, 261. His
terror in Uzaramo, 275. Leaves for home, 277. Visits the author at
Zanzibar, 382.
Said bin Ali el Hinawi, the Arab merchant of Kazeh, i. 323.
Said bin Majid, the Arab merchant of Kazeh, i. 323. Return of the
expedition with his caravan, ii. 157. Separation from him, 165.
Treatment of his people at Ujiji, 84.
Said bin Mohammed of Mbuamaji, and his caravan i. 257. Account of him
and his family, 258.
Said bin Mohammed, Sultan of Irora, i. 389. His surliness, 389.
Brought to his senses, 389, 390.
Salim bin Said, the Arab merchant in Wilyankuru, i. 391. His
hospitality, 391.
Salim bin Masud, the Arab merchant, murdered, i. 328, 391.
Sanscrit proverb, i. 133.
Salt, demand for, in Ujiji, ii. 82. Scarcity of, at Wafanya, 108.
Stock laid in, ii. 161.
Salt-pits of K’hutu, i. 92.
Salt-trade of Parugerero, ii. 37. Quality of the salt, 37.
Salsaparilla vine of Uzaramo, i. 60.
Sare, or brother oath, of the Wazaramo, i. 114. Mode of performing the
ceremony, 114. Ceremony of, performed between Sultan Njasa and Said
bin Salim, i. 199.
Sawahil, or “the shores,” geographical position of the, i. 29, 30.
People of, described, 30.
Sayf bin Salim, the Arab merchant, account of, i. 83. Returns to
Dut’humi, 128. His covetousness, 128. Crushes a servile rebellion,
125.
Scorpions of East Africa, i. 370. In the houses in Ujiji, ii. 61.
Seasons, aspect of the, in Ugogo, i. 298. Eight in Zanzibar, ii. 8.
Two in Unyamwezi, 8.
Seedy Mubarak Bombay, gun-carrier in the expedition, character of,
i. 130, 279. His demand of bakhshish, ii. 173. His peculiarities, 236.
Appointed steward, 237.
Σεληνης ορος of the Greeks, locality of the, ii. 4.
Servile war in East Africa, i. 125.
Shahdad, the Baloch, sketch of him, i. 135. Left behind at Kazeh, 381.
Sharm, or shame, Oriental, i. 23.
Sheep of Ujiji, ii. 59.
Shehe, son of Ramji, appointed Kirangozi, ii. 232. Dismissed, 238.
Shields of the Wasagara tribe, i. 238. Unknown to the Wagogo, 304.
Carried by the Wahumba, 312. In Unyamwezi, ii. 23.
Shoes required for the expedition, i. 154.
Shoka, or battle-axes of the East Africans, ii. 307.
Shukkah, or loin cloth, of East Africa, i. 149. Of the Wasagara, 235.
Materials of which it is made, 236.
Siki, or vinegar of East Africa, ii. 288.
Sikujui, the lady, added to the caravan, i. 210. Description of her,
210, 221.
Silurus, the, of the Mabunguru fiumara, i. 284.
Sime, or double-edged knives, of the Wasagara, i. 240. Of the Wagogo,
306. Of the Wanyamwezi, ii. 22. Of East Africa generally, 307.
Singa fish of the Tanganyika Lake, ii. 68.
Siroccos at Ugogo, i. 260.
Siyafu, or black pismires, annoyances of, at K’hok’ho, i. 276.
Skeletons on the road side, i. 165, 168.
Skin, colour of the, of the Wazaramo, i. 108. Of the Wak’hutu, 120. Of
the Wadoe, 124. Of the Wagogo, 304. Sebaceous odour of the, of the
Wazaramo, 309. Of the Wanyamwezi, ii. 20. Warundi, 145. Karagwah
people, 181. Skin diseases of East Africa, 320.
Slave caravans of East Africa, i. 17. At Tumba Ihere, 62. At Zanzibar,
50.
Slaves and slavery: kidnapping in Inland Magogoni, i. 88. In Dat’humi,
89. Slavery in K’hutu, 97, 98, 121. Kidnappings of the Wazegura, 125.
Pitiable scene presented by a village after a commando, 185. In Ugogo,
309. In Unyamwezi, ii. 23. Of Ujiji, 61, 71. Prices of slaves in, 62,
71. Prices of Wahha slaves at Msene, 79. Not trustworthy in Africa,
111. Their modes of murdering their patrons, 111. Prices of, in Uvira,
121. In Karagwah, 184. In Ubena, 270. Degrading effects of the slave
trade, 340, 366. Origin of the slave trade of East Africa, 366.
Treatment of slaves, 367, 369. Two kinds of slave trade, 368.
Kidnapping, 369. Character of slaves, 371. Revenge of slaves, 374,
375. Female slaves, 375. Prices of slaves, 375. Number of slaves
imported yearly into Zanzibar, 377. Ease with which the slave-trade at
Zanzibar could be abolished, 377.
Small-pox in the Usagara mountains, i. 166. And in the up caravans,
179. The porters of the party attacked by, 180, 184, 190. In Khalfan’s
caravan, 201. In the caravans in East Africa, 342. In East Africa
generally, ii. 318.
Smoking parties of women at Yombo, i. 388.
Snay bin Amir, the Arab merchant of Kazeh, i. 323. Performs the guest
rites there, 323, 324. Sketch of his career, 324. His visit to the
Sultan of Ugunda, ii. 193. His kindness, i. 384; ii. 231.
Snakes at Unyamwezi, ii. 17. In the houses in Ujiji, 61.
Snuff, Wajiji mode of taking, ii. 65.
Soil, fertility of the, at Msene, i. 397. Character of the, in
Unyamwezi, ii. 6. Wondrous fertility of the, in the valley of the
Malagarazi river, 49. And of that of Ujiji, 57.
Soma Giri, of the Hindus, locality of the, ii. 4.
Songs of the porters of the caravan, ii. 361, 362. Of East Africa,
ii. 291.
Sorghum cultivated in Ujiji, ii. 57.
Sorora, or Solola, in Unyamwezi, arrival of the party at, i. 401. Its
deadly climate, 401.
Speke, Capt., his illness in Uzaramo, i. 62, 65, 69. Shakes off his
preliminary symptoms, 71. Lays the foundation of a fever, 82.
Thoroughly prostrated, 84. Recovers his health at Mzizi Mdogo, 161.
Again attacked at Muhama, 179. And by “liver” at Rumuma, 200.
Dangerous illness at the Windy Pass, 214. Restored, 215. Unable to
walk, 286. Awaits reserve supplies at Kazeh, 386. Rejoins the caravan,
390. Tormented by ophthalmia, 406; ii. 86. Starts on an expedition to
explore the northern extremity of the Tanganyika Lake, 87. Returns
moist and mildewed, and nothing done, 90. His “Journal” in “Blackwood”
referred to, 90. Quoted, 91 _note_. A beetle in his ear, 91 _note_.
Joins the second expedition, 99. Improvement in his health, 129.
Return journey, 157. His deafness and dimness of vision, 169. Leaves
Kazeh for the north, 173. Returns, 204. His supposed discovery of the
sources of the White Nile, 204. Taken ill at Hanga, 233. Convalescent,
240. Sights the sea at Konduchi, 279. Returns home, 384.
Spears and assegais of the Wasagara tribe, i. 237. Of the Wagogo, 306.
Of the Wahumba, 311. Of the Wanyamwezi, ii. 22. Of East Africa
generally, 301.
Spiders of East Africa, i. 371. In the houses of Ujiji, ii. 61.
Sport in East Africa, remarks on, i. 268.
Spring, hot, of Maji ya W’heta, i. 159.
Squirrels, red, in K’hutu, i. 160.
Stars, their splendour at the equator, i. 163.
Stares, category of in Africa, ii. 129.
Stationery required for the expedition, i. 153.
Steinhæuser, Dr., i. 25.
Storm in Uzaramo, i. 69. Those of the rainy monsoon in Unyamwezi,
ii. 9. On the Tanganyika Lake, description of a, 122.
Succession and inheritance, in Unyamwezi, ii. 23.
Sugar-cane, wild, or Gugu-mbua, i. 71. In Ujiji, ii. 58. Chewed, 288.
Sugar made of granulated honey, i. 397.
Suiya, antelope, i. 269.
Sulphur in Karagwah, ii. 185.
Sultans, burial-places of, in Unyamwezi, ii. 26. Power of the Sultan
in this country, 31. And in East Africa generally, ii. 362.
Sun, his splendour at the equator, i. 162. Ring-cloud tempering the
rays of the, in Unyamwezi, ii. 11, 12.
Suna, Sultan of Uganda, ii. 188. The Arabs’ description of him, 189.
His hundred sons, 192. His chief officers, and mode of government,
192. Account of a visit to him, 193.
Sunset-hour on the Indian Ocean, i. 1. In the Land of the Moon, 387.
In Unyamwezi, ii. 7. In Ujiji, 89. In East Africa generally, 289.
Sunrise on the Tanganyika Lake, ii. 156.
Superstitions of the Wamrima, i. 38. Of the Wagogoni, inland, 88. Of
the Wazaramo, 112, 114, 115.
Supplies, shortness of, ii. 130. Arrival of some, but inadequate for
the purpose, 130.
Surgery in East Africa, ii. 322.
Suwarora, Sultan, his exorbitant black-mail, ii. 176.
Swallows in Unyamwezi, ii. 17.
Swords in East Africa, ii. 308.
Sycomore tree of East Africa, the Mkuyu, its magnificence, i. 195. Its
two varieties, 195, 196. Its magnificence in Usagara, 229.
Tailoring in Africa, ii. 201.
Tamarind trees of the Usagara Mountains, i. 165, 229. Modes of
preparing the fruit, 165. At Mfuto, 389.
Tanganyika Lake, first view of the, described, ii. 42, 43. A boat
engaged on the, 45. Seen from Ujiji, 47. Hippopotami and crocodiles
in, 60. People of the shores of, 62, _et seq._ Fishing in, 66.
Varieties of fish in, 67. Failure of Captain Speke’s expedition for
exploring the northern shores of, 90. Preparations for another cruise,
93. Description of the boats of the lake, 94. Navigation of the, 94.
Voyage up the, 99. Eastern shores of the, described, 100. Fishing
villages, 100. Remarks on boating and voyaging on the lake, 101.
Account of the island of Ubwari, 108. Visit to the island, 113.
Further progress stopped, 117, 119. Storm on the lake, 122. History of
the lake, ii. 134 _et seq._ Meaning of the name, 137. Extent and
general direction of, 137. Altitude of, 139. Sweetness of its water,
139. Its colour, 140. Its depth, 140. Its affluents, 140. Its coasts,
141. No effluents, 141. Its temperature, 142. Its ebb and flow, 143.
Physical and ethnological features of its periplus, 144. Sunrise
scenery on the lake, 156.
Targes of the East Africans described, ii. 307.
Tattoo, not general amongst the Wazaramo, i. 108. Nor amongst the
Wak’hutu, 120. Practised by the Wadoe, 124. Of the Wanyamwezi, ii. 21.
Amongst the Wajiji, 63. Of the Warundi, 145.
Teeth, chipped to points by the Wasagara tribe, i. 235.
Tembe, the houses beyond Marenga Mk’hali so called, i. 207.
Description of the Tembe of East Africa, 366.
Tembo, or palm-toddy, a favourite inebrient in Ujiji, ii. 70.
Tenga, in Karagwah, ii. 177.
Tent-making in Africa, ii. 201.
Termites of East Africa, i. 201, 202. In the houses of Ujiji, ii. 61.
Tetemeka, or earthquakes in Unyamwezi, ii. 13.
Thermometers in Africa, i. 169.
Thiri, or Ut’hiri, district of, ii. 215.
Thirst, impatience and selfishness of, of the Baloch guard, i. 205.
African impatience of, 359; ii. 334.
Thorns, nuisance of, on the road to Ugogo, i. 246.
Thunder and lightning in Unyamwezi, ii. 9. In the Malagarazi valley,
50. In Karagwah, 180.
Timber of East Africa, ii. 415.
Time, difficulty of keeping, by chronometers in East African travel,
i. 189, 190. Second-hand watches to be preferred, 190.
Tirikeza, or afternoon march of a caravan, i. 203, 221. Incidents of
one, 204, 205.
Tobacco, trade of, in East Africa, ii. 418.
Tobacco, use of, in East Africa, i. 36. Smoked by women in Unyamwezi,
388. Chewed by Unyamwezi, ii. 28. Tobacco of Uganda, 196. Tobacco
trade of East Africa, ii. 418.
Tobacco-pipes of Eastern Africa, i. 388; ii. 315.
Toddy obtained from the palmyra of Msene only, i. 398. Extracted from
the Guinea-palm in Ujiji, ii. 59. Prevalence of the use of, in Ujiji,
59, 70. Of Zanzibar, 287.
Togwa, a drink in Unyamwezi, i. 333. And in East Africa generally,
ii. 286.
Tombs of the Wamrima and Wazaramo, i. 57.
Tools required for the expedition, i. 153.
Tramontana of the Rubeho, or Windy Pass, i. 214.
Travellers in Africa, advice to, ii. 82. Melancholy of which
travellers in tropical countries complain, 130.
Travelling, characteristics of Arab, in Eastern Africa, ii. 157.
Expense of travelling in East Africa, 229.
Trees in East Africa. _See_ Vegetation.
Tree-bark used for clothing in Ujiji, ii. 64. Mode of preparing it,
64.
Trove, treasure, Arab care of, i. 258.
Tumba Ihere, the P’hazi, i. 54. His station, 62. Slave caravans at,
62. Accompanies the expedition, 62, 65.
Tumbiri river of Dr. Krapf, ii. 217.
Tunda, “the fruit,” malaria of the place, i. 71.
Tura, arrival of the caravan at the nullah of, i. 291. And at the
village of, 292. Astonishment of the inhabitants, 292. Description of,
313. Return to, ii. 241.
Turmeric at Muinyi Chandi, i. 390.
Twanigana, elected Kirangozi, ii. 239. His conversation, 243.
Twins amongst the Wazaramo, i. 116. Treatment of, in Unyamwezi,
ii. 23.
Tzetze, a stinging jungle fly, i. 187. At K’hok’ho, 276. On the
Mgunda Mk’hali, 289.
Ubena, land of, described, ii. 269. People of, 270. Commerce and
currency of, 270.
Ubeyya, province of, ii. 153.
Ubwari, island of, ii. 108. De Barros’ account of, quoted, 108. Size
and position of, 108. The expedition sails for, 112. Inhabitants of,
113. Halt at, 114. Portuguese accounts of, 135.
Uchawi, or black magic, how punished by the Wazaramo, i. 113.
Described, 265. Not generally believed in Ugogo, 307. Mode of
proceeding in cases of, ii. 32. Belief of the East Africans generally
in, 347. Office of the mganga, 356.
Ufipa, district of, on the Tanganyika Lake, i. 153. Its fertility,
135. People of, 153.
Ufyoma, a province of Unyamwezi, ii. 6.
Ugaga, delay at the village of, i. 408, 410.
Ugali, or flour porridge, the common food of East Africa, i. 35. Of
the Wanyamwezi, ii. 29.
Uganda, road to, ii. 187. Sultan of, and his government, 188.
Uganza, arrival of the caravan at, i. 407.
Ugogi, halt of the party at, i. 241. Abundance of provisions at, 241.
Geography of, 242. People of, 242. Animals of, 242. Pleasant position
of, 243. Its healthiness, 243.
Ugogo, first view of, from the Usagara mountains, i. 220. The plains
of, reached by the caravan, 223. Scenery on the road near, 245.
Blackmail at, 252. Entrance into, 259. Description of the surrounding
country, 259. The calabash tree at, 260. Siroccos at, 260. Reception
of the caravan at, 261. Incidents of the march through, 261-280. Roads
from Ugogo to Unyamwezi, 281. Geography of Ugogo, 294. Boundaries of,
294. No rivers in, 295. Igneous formation of, 295. Houses of, 296.
Subsoil of, 296. Climate of, 297. Diseases of, 299. Vegetation of,
299, 300. Animals of, 300. Roads of, 302. Description of the tribes
of, 303. Lodging for caravans in, 354. Return through, ii. 246.
Ugoyye, district of, in Ujiji, ii. 53.
Uhha, land of, now a desert, ii. 53. Laid waste by the Watuta tribe,
76, 78.
Uhehe, march through, ii. 250. People of, 251.
Ujiji, Sea of. _See_ Tanganyika, Lake of.
Ujiji, town of, lodgings for caravans in, i. 354. Arrival of the party
at the, ii. 46. Scene there, 47. Climate of, 50, 51. Boundaries of,
53. Villages and districts of, 53. Camping ground of caravans near,
54. Distance of Ujiji from the coast, and number of stages, 55.
History of the country, 56. Trade of, 57. Fertility of the soil of,
57. Bazar of, 59. Fauna of, 60. Slave trade of, 61. Principal tribes
in, 62. Inconveniences of a halt at, and of a return journey from, 74.
Mode of spending the day at, 87.
Ukami, depopulation of, i. 88.
Ukaranga, or “land of ground-nuts,” on the Tanganyika Lake, arrival
at, ii. 44. Boundaries of, 52. Wretched villages of, 52. Apathy of the
people, 52. Etymology of the name, 52.
Ukerewe, ii. 212. Account of, 212, 213. People of, 212. Commerce of,
213.
Ukhindu, or brab-tree, i. 48.
Ukona, reached by the caravan, i. 318.
Ukungwe, village of, i. 403.
Ukungwe, islands of, ii. 151.
Umbilical region, protrusion of the, in the children of the Wazaramo,
ii. 117.
Unguwwe, or Uvungwe, river, ii. 40, 52. Forded, 40.
Unyanguruwwe, settlement of, i. 408.
Unyangwira, a province of Unyamwezi, ii. 6.
Unyanyembe district, rice lands of the, i. 321. Aspect of the land,
321. Description of it, 325; ii. 5. Roads in, i. 325. Its physical
features, 326. Its villages, 326. History of the Arab settlements in,
327. Food in, 329, 331-334. Prices in, 333.
Unyamwezi, or the Land of the Moon, i. 313. Arrival of the caravan in
the, 314. Lodgings for caravans in, 354. Geography of, ii. 1.
Boundaries and extent of, 2. Altitude of, 2. The country as known to
the Portuguese, 2. Corruptions of the name, 2, 3. Etymology of the
word, 3, 4. Barbarous traditions of its having been a great empire, 4.
Portuguese accounts of its former greatness, 5. Its present political
condition, 5. Its dialects, 5. Provinces into which it is divided, 5.
General appearance of the country, 6. Its geology, 6. Peaceful rural
beauty of the country, 7. Water and rice fields, 7. Versant of
Unyamwezi, 8. Its two seasons, 8. Its rainy monsoon, 8-10. The hot
season, 11. Diseases of the country, 11, 13, 14. Whirlwinds and
earthquakes, 11, 13. Curious effects of the climate, 14. Fauna of
Unyamwezi, 15. Roads in, 19. Notice of the races of, 19.
Unyoro, dependent, ii. 187.
Unyoro, independent, land of, ii. 197. People of, 197.
Urundi, mountains of, i. 409; ii. 48. Arrival of the expedition in the
region of, 101. People of, 107, 117. Description of the kingdom of,
144. Governments of, 145. People of, 145. Route to, 169.
Uruwwa, the present terminus of trade, ii. 147. People of, 147. Prices
at, 147.
Usagara mountains, i. 87, 159, 215, 297, 335. Ascent of the, 160. Halt
in the, 161. Healthiness of the, 161. Vegetation of the, 162, 165.
Water in the, 218. Descent of the counterslope of the, 219. View from
the, 220. Geography of the, 225, _et seq._ Geology of the, 227. Fruits
and flowers of the, 228. Magnificent trees of the, 129. Water-channels
and cultivation of the ground in the, 229. Village of the, 229.
Supplies of food in the, 229. Roads of the, 230. Water for drinking in
the, 230. Climate of the, 231. Diseases of the, 233. The tribes
inhabiting the, 233.
Usagozi, a province of Unyamwezi, ii. 6. March to, i. 405. Insolence
of the men of, 405. Description of the town of, and country around,
405. Sultan and people of, 406.
Usek’he, in Ugogo, i. 272.
Usenda, capital of the Sultan Kazembe, ii. 148. Trade of Usenda, 148.
Usenge, arrival of the party at the clearing of, i. 407.
Usoga, Land of, ii. 197. People of, 197.
Usui, road and route from Unyanyembe to, ii. 175. Description of, 176.
People of, 176.
Usukama, a province of Unyamwezi, ii. 5.
Usumbwa, a province of Unyamwezi, ii. 6.
Utakama, a province of Unyamwezi, ii. 5.
Utambara, near Marungu, district of, ii. 151.
Ut’hongwe, country of, ii. 52.
Utumbara, a province of Unyamwezi, ii. 6, 176. People of, 176.
Uvinza, lodgings for caravans in, i. 354. Geography of, ii. 1, 48. The
two seasons of, 8.
Uvira, southern frontier of, reached by the expedition, ii. 115, 116.
Sultan of, 116. Blackmail at, 120. Commerce of, 120.
Uyanzi, land of, description of the, i. 279.
Uyonwa, principal village of Uvinza, ii. 78. Sultan Mariki of, 78.
Tents pitched at, 161.
Uyuwwi, Kitambi, sultan of, i. 320.
Uzaramo, the first district of, i. 54. Fertility of, 60. Wild animals
of, 63. Storm in, 60. Boundaries of the territory of, 107. Roads in,
335. Art of narcotising fish in, ii. 67. Re-entered, 275.
Uzige, land of, described, ii. 146. People of, 146. Rivers of, 146.
Uziraha, plain of, ii. 263.
Uzungu, or White Land, African curiosity respecting, i. 261.
Valentine, the Goanese servant, sketch of his character, i. 131. Taken
ill, i. 200, 379; ii. 169. Cured by the tinctura Warburgii, 169. His
reception by the Wagogo, 263. Sent to learn cooking, 384. Suffers from
ophthalmia, 406. Mortally wounds a Wayfanya, ii. 124.
Vegetables in East Africa, i. 201; ii. 283.
Vegetation of--
Bomani, road to, i. 47.
Dut’humi, i. 87.
Eastern Africa generally, i. 228.
Karagwah, ii. 180.
Katonga river, ii. 187.
K’hutu, i. 91.
Kingani river, valley of the, i. 56, 69.
Kiranga-Ranga, i. 60.
Kirira, i. 395.
Kiruru, i. 83.
Kuingani, i. 43.
Makata tank, i. 181.
Mgeta river, i. 166.
Mgunda Mk’hali, i. 282.
Mrima, the, i. 101, 103, 104.
Msene, i. 397, _note_.
Muhogwe, i. 63.
Mukondokwa mountains, i. 195.
Murundusi, ii. 250.
Rufuta fiumara, i. 168.
---- plains, i. 180.
Tanganyika Lake shores, ii. 141.
The road beyond Marenga Mk’hali, i. 205.
The road to Ugogo, i. 246.
Tumba Ihere, i. 62.
Ugogo, i. 275, 299, 300.
Ugoma, ii. 147.
Ujiji, ii. 57.
Unguwwe river, ii. 40.
Unyamwezi, ii. 6.
Usagara mountains, i. 162, 165, 220.
Uvinza in June, ii. 163.
Yombo, i. 387.
Zungomero, i. 95.
Veneration, African want of, ii. 336.
Village life in East Africa, described, ii. 278.
Villages of the Mrima, i. 102. Of the Wak’hutu, 121. A deserted
village described, 185. Villages of the Usagara mountains, 229. Of the
Wahehe, 240. Of East Africa generally, 364, _et seq._ In Unyamwezi,
ii. 7. Of Ukaranga, 52.
Vinegar of East Africa, ii. 288.
Voandzeia subterranea, a kind of vetch, i. 196, 198.
Wabembe tribe, their cannibal practices, ii. 114, 146.
Wabena tribes, i. 304. Described by the Arab merchants, ii. 270.
Wabha tribe, their habitat, ii. 78. Their chief village, 78. Their
personal appearance and dress, 78. Their arms, 78. Their women, 78.
Wabisa tribe, habitat of the, ii. 150. Their dress, 150. Their manners
and customs, 150.
Wabwari, or people of Ubwari island, described, ii. 113. Women of the,
113.
Wadoe tribe, their habitat, i. 123. Their history, 123. Their
cannibalism, 123. Their distinctive marks, 124. Their arms, 124. Their
customs, 124. Subdivisions of the tribe, 124.
Wafanya, halt at the village of, ii. 106. Visit from the chief of,
107. Blackmail at, 107. Climate of, 107. Prices at, 107.
Wafipa tribe, habitat of the, ii. 153. Their personal appearance, 153.
Wafyoma race, described, ii. 176.
Waganda races, described, ii. 196. Their language, 196. Their dress,
196.
Waganga, or priests, of Urundi, their savage appearance, ii. 145.
_See_ Mganga.
Wagara, or Wagala, tribe, i. 407.
Wagogo, their astonishment at the white man, i. 263. Habitat of the,
303, 304. Extent of the country of the, 304. Complexion of the, 304.
The ear-ornaments of the, 304. Distinctive mark of the, 304. Modes of
wearing the hair, 304. Women of the, 305. Dress of the, 305. Ornaments
of the, 305. Arms of the, 306. Villages of the, 306. Language of the,
306. Their dislike of the Wanyamwezi, 307. Their strength of numbers,
307. Not much addicted to black magic, 307. Their commerce, 308. Their
greediness, 308. Their thievish propensities, 309. Their idleness and
debauchery, 309. Their ill manners, 309. Their rude hospitality, 310.
Authority of the Sultan of Ugogo, 310. Food in, 310, 311.
Wagoma tribe, their habitat, ii. 147.
Waguhha tribe, habitat of the, ii. 147. Lake in their country, 147.
Roads, 147.
Wahayya tribe, the, ii. 187.
Wahehe tribe, their habitat, i. 239. Their thievish propensities, 239.
Their distension of their ear-lobes, 239. Distinctive marks of the
tribe, 239. Their dress, 239. Their arms, 240. Their villages, flocks,
and herds, 240.
Wahha tribe, their country laid waste, ii. 76, 78. Their present
habitat, 79. Wahha slaves, 79.
Wahinda tribe, account of the, ii. 219. Their habitat, 219. Their
dress, 220. Their manners and customs, 220.
Wahuma class of Karagwah, described, ii. 181, 182.
Wahumba tribe, the bandit, i. 203. Haunts of the, seen in the
distance, 205.
Wahumba, or Wamasai, tribe, ii. 215. Attack the villages of Inenge,
i. 213. Haunts of, 259. Slavery among the, 309. Dialect of the, 311.
Habitat of the, 311. Seldom visited by travellers, 311. Complexion of
the, 311. Dress, manners, and customs of the, 312. Dwellings of the,
312. Arms of the, 312.
Wahumba Hills, i. 295, 297.
Wajiji tribe, the, described, ii. 62. Rudeness and violence of, 62,
68. Diseases of, 63. Practice of tattooing amongst, 63. Ornaments and
dress of, 63, 64. Cosmetics of, 63. Mode of taking snuff of, 65.
Fishermen of the lake of Tanganyika, 66. Ceremoniousness of the
Wajiji, 69. Absence of family affection amongst them, 69. Their habits
of intoxication, 69. Power and rights of their sultan, 70. Their
government, 71. Their commerce, 71. Prices in Ujiji, 72. Currency in,
73. Musical instruments of the Wajiji, 98. Inquisitive wonder of the
people, 128. Category of stares, 128.
Wakaguru tribe, villages of the, i. 168.
Wakalaganza tribe, the, i. 406. Dress of the, 406.
Wakamba, the, a sub-tribe of the Wazaramo, i. 108.
Wakarenga tribe, wretched villages of the, ii. 52. Their want of
energy and civilisation, 52, 74, 75.
Wakatete tribe, habitat of the, ii. 149.
Wakimbu race, account of the, ii. 19. Villages of the, 19. Dress and
characteristic marks of the, 20. Arms of the, 20. Ornaments of the,
20. Language of the, 20.
Wakumbaku tribe, country of the, i. 88.
Wak’hutu race, the, described, i. 97. The ivory touters of, 97. Their
territory, 119. Their physical and mental qualities, 120. Their dress,
120. Their drunkenness, 120. Their food, 120. Their government, 121.
Their dwellings, 121.
Wakwafi tribe, slavery among the, i. 309. Their untameable character,
309.
Wall point, i. 8.
Wamasai tribe, slavery among the, i. 309.
Wambele, Chomwi la Mtu Mku, or Headman Great Man of Precedence,
i. 156.
Wambozwa tribe, habitat of the, ii. 149. Their government, 152. Their
personal appearance, 152. Their manners and customs, 152.
Wamrima, or “people of the Mrima,” described, i. 16, 30, 32. Their
chomwi, or headmen, 16. Their dress, 33. Their women, 34. Their mode
of life, 35. Their national characteristics, 36. Their habits and
customs, 37. Their tombs, 57. Wamrima caravans, description of, 344.
Hospitality of the people, 353.
Wanguru porters, desertion of the, i. 52.
Wanyambo, the poor class of Karagwah, described, ii. 182.
Wanyamwezi porters of the expedition, i. 143. Account of the
Wanyamwezi tribe, ii. 20. Colour of the skin of the, 20. Effluvium
from their skins, 20. Mode of dressing the hair, 20. Elongation of the
mammæ of the women, 21. Mark of the tribe, 21. Dress of the, 21.
Ornaments of the, 22. Arms of the, 22. Manners and customs of the, 23.
Ceremonies of childbirth, 23. Of marriage, 24. Funerals, 25. Houses of
the Wanyamwezi, 24. Iwanza, or public-house of the, 27. Food of the
people, 28. Their commercial industry, 29. Their language, 30.
Cultivation of the ground, 30, 31. Slavery amongst them, 31, 33.
Government of the people, 31. Notice of Sultan Fundikira, 31, 32.
Desertion of the porters, in Ugogo, 277. Their fear of the Wagogo,
307. Greeting of porters of the, on the road, 291.
Wanyika, halt of the party at the settlement of, i. 407. Blackmail at,
407.
Wanyora race described, ii. 197.
Wap’hangara, the, a subtribe of the Wazaramo, i. 108.
Wapoka, country of the, ii. 153.
Warburg’s tincture, an invaluable medicine, ii. 169.
Warori, their meeting with the caravan, ii. 251. The tribe described,
272. Their raids, 272, 273. Their personal appearance, 273. Dress and
weapons, 273. Their food and habitations, 273.
Warufiji, or people of the Rufiji river, i. 30.
Warudi tribe, ii. 215, 219.
Warugaru tribe, country of the, i. 88. Their language, 89.
Warundi tribe, noise and insolence of the, ii. 107. Their
inhospitality, 108, 117. Their habitat, 144. Their mode of government,
145. Their complexion, 145. Their personal appearance, 145. Their
dress, arms, and ornaments, 145. Their women, 146.
Wasagara tribe, thievish propensities of the, i. 229. Villages of the,
168. Those of Rumuma described, 198. Their ornaments and arms, 199.
Village of, on the summit of Rubeho, 218. Villages of, on the slopes,
221. Their habitat, 234. Colour of their skins, 234. Modes of wearing
the hair, 234. Distension of the ear-lobe, 235. Distinctive marks of
the tribe, 235. Dress of the, 235. Arms of the, 237. Government of
the, 238. Houses of the, 366.
Wasawahili, or people of the Sawahil, described, i. 30. National
characteristics of the, 36. Their habits and customs, 37. Caravans of,
344.
Wasenze tribe, their habitat, ii. 147.
Washaki tribe, the, ii. 215, 219.
Washenzi, or barbarians from the interior, i. 18. Curiosity of, 394.
Washenzi, “the conquered,” or Ahl Maraim, the, i. 30.
Wasps, mason, of the houses in East Africa, i. 370.
Wasui tribe, described, ii. 176.
Wasukuma tribe, their thievery, i. 319. Punishment of some of them,
320, 321. Their sultan, Msimbira, 319-321.
Wasumbwa tribe, in Msene, i. 395.
Wasuop’hángá tribe, country of the, i. 88.
Watatura tribes, i. 304; ii. 215, 220. Their habitat, 220. Recent
history of them, 220, 221.
Watches, a few second-hand, the best things for keeping time in East
African travel, i. 190.
Water-courses, or nullahs, of East Africa, i. 102. In the Usagara
mountains, 229, 230.
Water, in the Mrima, i. 102. In the Usagara mountains, 218. Scarcity
of, near Marenga Mk’hali, 203. Impatience and selfishness of thirst of
the Baloch guard, 205. In the Usagara mountains, 230. On the road to
Ugogo, 247. Permission required for drawing, 252. Scarcity of, at
Kanyenye, 265. Inhospitality of the people there, respecting, 267.
Scarcity of, in Mgunda Mk’hali, 282. At the Jiwe la Mkoa, 287. At
Kirurumo, 289. At Jiweni, 289. On the march of the caravan, 359. In
Unyamwezi, ii. 7. Of the Tanganyika Lake, its sweetness, 139. Want of,
on the return journey, 239.
Water-melons at Marenga Mk’hali, i. 201. Cultivation of, 201.
Wat’hembe tribe, the, ii. 154.
Wat’hembwe tribe, habitat of the, ii. 149.
Wat’hongwe tribe, country of the, ii. 154.
Wat’hongwe Kapana, Sultan, ii. 154.
Watosi tribe in Msene, i. 396. Their present habitat, ii. 185. Account
of them and their manners and customs, 185.
Watuta tribe, hills of the, i. 408. History of, ii. 75. Their present
habitat, 76. Their wanderings and forays, 76, 77. Their women, 77.
Their arms, 77. Their tactics, 77. Their fear of fire-arms, 77. Their
hospitality and strange traits, 77. Their attack on the territory of
Kannena, ii. 156.
Wavinza tribe, i. 407. Personal appearance and character of the,
ii. 75. Arms of the, 75. Inhospitality of the, 75. Drunkenness of the,
75.
Wavira tribe, civility of the, ii. 115.
Wayfanya, return to, ii. 123. A slave mortally wounded at, 124.
Wazaramo tribe, the, i. 19.
Wazaramo, or Wazalamo, territory of the, i. 54. Visit from the P’hazi,
or headmen, i. 54. Women’s dance of ceremony, 55. Tombs of the tribe,
57. Stoppage of the guard of the expedition by the Wazaramo, 70.
Ethnology of the race, 107. Their dialect, 107. Subtribes of, 108.
Distinctive marks of the tribe, 108. Albinos of the, 109. Dress of
the, 109. Ornaments and arms of the, 110. Houses of the, 110.
Character of the, 112. Their government, 113. The Sare, or brother
oath, of the, 114. Births and deaths, 118. Funeral ceremonies, 118,
119. “Industry” of the tribe, 119.
Wazegura tribe, i. 124. Their habitat, 125. Their arms, 125. Their
kidnapping practices, 125. Their government, 125. Their character,
126.
Wazige tribe described, ii. 146.
Waziraha, a subtribe of the Wak’hutu, i. 122. Described, 123.
Weights and measures in Zanzibar, ii. 389, 391.
Weapons in East Africa, ii. 300.
Weaving in East Africa, ii. 309.
White land, African curiosity respecting, i. 261.
Whirlwinds in Unyamwezi, ii. 11, 13.
Wife of Sultan Magomba, i. 266.
Wigo hill, i. 93, 159.
Wilyankuru, Eastern, passed through, i. 390.
Winds in Unyamwezi, ii. 9, 10. In Central Africa, 50. Periodical of
Lake Tanganyika, 143. In Karagwah, ii. 180.
Windy Pass, or Pass of Rubeho, painful ascent of, i. 213. Village of
Wasagara at, 218.
Wine, plantain, of Karagwah, ii. 180. And of Uganda, 197.
Wire, mode of carrying, in the expedition, i. 145. As an article of
commerce, 146, 150.
Witch, or mganga, of East Africa, i. 380.
Witchcraft, belief in, in East Africa, ii. 347. Office of the mganga,
356.
Women in East Africa, ii. 298, 330, 332, 334.
---- of Karagwah, ii. 182.
---- of the Wabuha, ii. 78.
---- ---- Wagogo, i. 304, 305, 310.
---- ---- Wahehe, i. 239.
---- ---- Wajiji, ii. 62-64.
---- ---- Wak’hutu, i. 120.
---- ---- Wamrima, i. 16, 34.
---- ---- Wanyamwezi, i. 388, 396, 398; ii. 21, 23, 24.
---- ---- Warundi, ii. 146.
---- ---- Wasagara, i. 234, 236.
---- ---- Wataturu, ii. 221.
---- ---- Watuta, ii. 77.
---- ---- Wazaramo, i. 55, 61, 63, 110, 116, 118.
---- “Lulliloo” of the Wanyamwezi, i. 291.
---- physicians in East Africa, ii. 323.
---- Dance by themselves in East Africa, i. 361.
---- Handsome, at Yombo, i. 388.
---- Slave-girls of the coast Arabs on the march up country, i. 314.
---- The Iwanza, or public-houses of the women of Unyamwezi, ii. 27.
---- Of the Wabwari islanders, ii. 113.
Wood-apples in Unyamwezi, i. 318.
Woodward, Mr. S. P., his description of shells brought from Tanganyika
Lake, ii. 102, _note_.
Xylophagus, the, in East African houses, i. 370.
Yegea mud, i. 83.
Yombo, halt of the party at, i. 387. Description of, 387. The sunset
hour at, 387. Return to, ii. 166.
Yovu, river, ii. 257, 258. Forded, 258.
Yovu, village of, described, i. 396.
Zanzibar, view of, from the sea, i. 1. What the island is not, 2.
Family, 2, 3. History of the word “Zanzibar,” 28. Its geographical
position, 29. Weakness of the government of, in the interior of the
continent, 98. The eight seasons of, ii. 8. Slave-trade of, 377.
Troubles in, 380. General trade of, Appendix to vol. ii.
Zawada, the lady, added to the caravan, i. 210. Her services to Capt.
Speke, ii. 277.
Zebras, in the Rufuta plains, i. 183. At Ziwa, 251. In Unyamwezi,
ii. 15.
Zemzemiyah of East Africa, ii. 239.
Zeze, or guitar, of East Africa, ii. 291.
Zik el nafas, or asthma, remedy in East Africa for, i. 96.
Zimbili, halt of the caravan at, i. 386. Description of, 386.
Ziwa, or the Pond, i. 244. Water obtained from the, 250. Description
of the, 251. Troubles of the expedition at, 254.
Zohnwe river, i. 172.
Zohnwe settlement, i. 173. Adventures of the expedition at, 173.
Zungomero, district of, described, i. 93. Commerce of, 95. Attractions
of, 95. Food of, 95-97. Cause of the ivory touters of, 97. Halt of the
expedition at, i. 127. Pestilence of, 127, 163. Fresh porters engaged
at, 128. Life at, 156. Return to, ii. 264. Departure from, 276.
Transcriber’s Notes
Spelling variants, inconsistent, archaic and unusual spelling,
hyphenation, capitalisation, use of accents, etc., also in proper and
geographical names and in non-English words, have been retained,
except as listed below. The names of peoples, tribes, other groups and
localities in particular occur in different variants. Factual and
textual errors, inconcistencies and contradictions have not been
corrected or standardised.
Depending on the hard- and software used to read this text, not all
elements may display as intended.
Index: the deviations from the alphabetical order of the main entries
have not been corrected.
Page viii, ix and others: the map and Appendices may be found in Vol.
2.
Page xii ff., tables: The totals given do not always correspond to the
data given; this has not been corrected.
Changes made:
Footnotes and illustrations have been moved outside text paragraphs.
Some obvious minor punctuation and printing errors have been corrected
silently.
In several tables and lists ditto characters („) have been replaced
with the dittoed text.
Page xvii: Entry Illustration “A village in K’hutu. The Silk Cotton
Tree” added.
In the Index, some spelling and page numbering errors have been
corrected silently in order to conform to the text.
Index: The Index was not included in the original Volume I, but has
been copied from Volume II for the sake of convenience and
completeness.
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