THE START—MOMBASA TO TAITA.
After a month’s sojourn in Zanzibar, most agreeably spent as the
recipient of Sir John Kirk’s hospitality, all my arrangements for
commencing my expedition to Kilima-njaro were completed. I had hired
upwards of thirty porters, most of them old _employés_ of Mr. Stanley’s
on the Congo, and despatched them to Mombasa in an Arab dau, while I
followed in the mail-steamer going north, accompanied by my personal
servant, a Tamil boy from Ceylon. I took leave of Sir John Kirk with
considerable regret one dark evening after an unusually agreeable
dinner-party, and entered a little rowing-boat, which was to take me to
the steamer, with a feeling of such downheartedness that my calmer
reflections told me Zanzibar was likely to prove my African Capua. After
my own experience I could realize now how previous explorers had been
unnerved and unfitted for the rough life of the wilderness by the
luxurious and easy-going life in Zanzibar. Fortunately the steamer I was
journeying in to Mombasa was the same vessel which had brought me down
to Aden, so that I once more found myself among friends. The night I
left Sir John Kirk’s was stiflingly hot, and the steamer was full of
passengers—I shuddered at passing the night in a poky cabin with three
other inmates. The captain saw my hesitation, and offered most kindly to
rig up a cot for me on deck. I accepted his proposal eagerly, forgetting
the danger in it, of which both of us were unaware. The steamer,
according to custom, would remain all night in Zanzibar harbour, and
leave at dawn. Now—and this is the only reason I record this
incident—there is no surer way of getting a bad fever than to sleep in
the open air in a tropical port. The reasons for this are many and would
take up a great deal of time and space to describe properly; I therefore
confine myself to the dogmatic assertion, which I here record in the
interest of such of my readers as may be proceeding to the tropics, and
are likely to be tempted to pass a quiet night in harbour on the cool
upper deck instead of in their stuffy berths below. Sleep in the air as
much as you like at open sea, but never when you are lying off shore in
a port or land-locked bay. I paid the penalty of this one night’s
mistake in a very bad fever which attacked me soon after I landed at
Mombasa, and left me horribly weak from its effects. Most fortunately,
in my hour of extremity, I had fallen among friends. Captain Gissing,
the Vice-Consul, was my host, and not only quartered me and my baggage
in his Consulate, but also put up my thirty Zanzibar followers, an act
of kindness for which I fear he was ill-rewarded by their noisy
behaviour and continual squabbles with the populace of the town. So kind
was Captain Gissing, that I was not made aware of this till after my
recovery, and I beg to thank him again here for his considerate
patience. The men were anything but bad fellows, but I suppose, finding
themselves masterless with plenty to eat and nothing to do, they waxed
riotous. In the meantime, the Rev. Mr. Handford, of the Church
Missionary Society, who had brought me round in the crisis of my fever,
carried me off to his station of Frere Town on the mainland (Mombasa is
an island) to effect my convalescence, which, so pleasant was the
nursing bestowed on me under his wife’s kind care, would have been
quietly enjoyable had I not continually worried myself about my arrested
work. However, my friends were not idle while I lay in enforced
inactivity, and the Revs. A. Downes Shaw, of Kisolutini, and Thomas
Wakefield, of Jomvu, were both busily engaging porters for my caravan.
At length I was so far recovered as to resume my preparations for
departure, and I once more repaired to Captain Gissing’s house to pack
my vast quantity of baggage into loads of a more or less uniform weight,
averaging fifty pounds apiece.
[Illustration:
MOMBASA.
To face page 42.
]
As yet Eastern Africa provides no other means of porterage than human
labour, and all goods and chattels have to be carried on men’s heads and
shoulders. There are donkeys to be bought, it is true, but they never
seem to do well on long journeys, and are in no way to be depended on;
besides, at the time when I was staying at Mombasa, asses were both dear
in price and poor in quality. Thirty of my men had been, as already
mentioned, engaged in Zanzibar, and it would have been far better for
the fortunes of my caravan had I recruited all the porters of my
expedition at that place, for the men who frequent the capital and
emporium of the dominions of Sayyid Barghash are of a better stamp than
the worthless A-nika and A-rabai that inhabit the vicinity of Mombasa.
Why this should be is a problem very difficult to solve, and one not
altogether unsurrounded by thorny questions. I am afraid that in
recording my downright bad opinion of the native carriers—many of them
professing Christians—which are to be found in the vicinity of the
English missionary stations near Mombasa, I am giving pain to my very
kind friends, the missionaries who labour in those parts. I am sorry for
this, for I am aware, more than any one perhaps, how thoroughly
deserving of respect and support is their unselfish work in those
regions. But truth must be told, and in the interests of travellers who
succeed me in these districts, I warn them never, if they can help it,
to engage porters at Mombasa. Independently of all questions of
religion—Mohammedan and Christian alike—the inhabitants of the Mombasa
district are a thoroughly bad lot. It is hopeless to win them by
kindness, or infuse a spirit of discipline by sternness. They are liars,
cowards, thieves, and drunkards. They were so when Krapf, the earnest
pioneer of Christian missions, first came among them; they are so still,
after nearly forty years of evangelization. Why is it that men got from
Zanzibar, Pangani, Mozambique, or elsewhere, should be so much superior?
It must be some inherent fault in the local race, because the few men
whom I obtained from the Mombasa missions that were _not_ natives of
Mombasa, but had been trained in the mission schools, turned out all
that could be desired.
However, being unaware of all this, I had already vicariously engaged
the bulk of my porters at Mombasa, fearing to be disappointed at
Zanzibar, as there is often a paucity of caravan-men in that place,
owing to the constant demand. Even before I started for the interior,
the true character of the Mombasa men began to dawn upon me, but I
hesitated to take the extreme step of dismissing them and sending to
Zanzibar for others, because this would, firstly, be very expensive, and
secondly, for the reason that they were only engaged for one month to
transport my goods to the mountain, and there leave me with my nucleus
of thirty Zanzibaris. Moreover, I was feverishly anxious to leave
Mombasa, feeling sure that I should never shake off the effects of my
illness till I left the unhealthy coast; and without worrying myself
about a change of men, I had quite sufficient hindrance and vexatious
delay in the purchase and packing of the necessary goods for sale and
barter in the interior.
The great staple of East African trade and the chief currency of all
countries lying inland, is “merikani,” or American sheeting. I had to
purchase several huge bales of this at Zanzibar and transport it to
Mombasa, there to be split up into loads of five gora each. A “gora,” or
“jora,” is about forty-two yards, and in sheeting of medium quality,
weighs 12 lbs., so that each load of five gora weighed 60 lbs., and was
a fair burden for a single porter. There were many other kinds of
“cloth” (“cloth” becomes in Africa a generic name for all dry goods) to
be taken. “Kaniki,” or indigo-dyed cotton; gaudy red handkerchiefs from
Manchester looms; “bandeira,” or Turkey-red; “kikoi,” or handsomely
bordered waistbands, fringed every two yards; richly dyed stuffs from
Western India and the Persian Gulf, “maskati,” “dubhani,” “sabhai,” &c.
All these in common with the “merikani,” had to be carefully divided
into loads averaging 55 lbs. or 60 lbs.; each load counted and
catalogued in its amount to check the stealing of any of its contents,
and then finally sewn up in a peculiar kind of grass matting, very
strong, and almost impervious to rain. Next, the beads had to be
considered. It was necessary to take with the expedition different kinds
and colours, for in East Africa, as I remarked on the River Congo, there
are most varied and capricious tastes to consult among the natives, and
scarcely two villages concur in their canons of taste. Thus, you must
take different sizes of blue bead, called by the Wa-swahili _maji
bahri_, or “sea-water,” for although an entire tribe may affect one
shade of blue in their bead necklaces, yet each individual will have
special opinion as to the correct size of the bead. Then there are large
ruby-red beads and white ones, and tiny pink and medium-sized black, and
transparent blue. When the beads are bought in sacks from the traders,
they are only threaded on rotten, worthless thread, and it is impossible
to trade with them before they have been re-threaded securely. For this
purpose you purchase on the coast a stout twine, made, I fancy, from the
fibre of a Raphia palm, and then you set your men to work to re-thread
all the beads. This task, of course, gives them immense opportunities
for quiet pilfering, for the beads in their eyes are almost like
coinage; so not only must you keep a sharp eye on the little groups of
four or five merry black men who are so blithely slipping bead after
bead along the yellow strings of palm-fibre, but each man’s lot must be
carefully weighed before and after its transference from the old thread
to the new. Even with every precaution some loss always takes place
during the process, and a day or two after this task is over you are
surprised and grieved to see one of your most trusted followers reeling
about the streets of the coast town, drunk on the proceeds of the
misappropriated beads.
If you are likely to travel through countries ranged over by the Masai,
large coils of iron wire must be taken, as these predatory people
greatly value it, and turn it to many useful ends in their simple
manufactures. Natives of all tribes in East Africa are also fond of
copper and brass wire of every thickness, the very large sizes being
coiled into bracelets or anklets, and the finer sorts used with much
ingenuity to ornament gun-stocks, the hafts of knives, or the rods of
spears. Finally, to this already extensive list of goods must be added a
few sacks of cowries, barrels of trade gunpowder, tin boxes of
percussion-caps, looking-glasses, large and small butchers’ knives,
bells, mouse-traps, and cheap musical instruments; while as presents for
chiefs of special importance, fancy articles have to be taken, such as
musical-boxes, accordions, guns of superior make, playing-cards, fine
snuff, and gaudy picture-books. I was myself provided with a huge roll
of coloured plates from the _Graphic_ and other illustrated papers,
which I found made a most satisfactory impression on chiefs of an
æsthetic turn of mind, already cloyed with the cloth, beads, and brass
wire of the ordinary trader. When all these wares had been selected,
assorted, and packed, I had further to add to our encumbrances by
purchases of food for myself and the men, as the country through which
our journey lay was almost uninhabited and devoid of cultivation. For
myself I added crates of potatoes and onions, and a dozen live fowls to
my precious stock of preserved provisions; while for the men, large
quantities of Indian corn and beans were bought. How easily fed these
Swahili porters are! What other race would be content to trudge twenty
miles a day with a burden of sixty pounds, and be regaled on nothing but
maize and beans?
[Illustration:
Fig. 17.—The Shaws’ House, Kisolutini—the first Mission Station in
East Africa.
]
At length all my arrangements were finished. The men had received and
spent their advanced wages, and had sobered down after the drunken spree
by which they nearly always inaugurate a journey into the interior. I
myself was ready and anxious to be off. I longed for the bracing air of
the inland plateaux to dispel the weakening fever from which I suffered,
and gladly stepped into Captain Gissing’s pretty skiff, in which the
first stage of the journey might be made, for several tidal creeks
extend inland from Mombasa for a distance of nearly twenty miles. My men
journeyed by land, and we all met again in the vicinity of the mission
station of Rabai. After one night spent with Mr. and Mrs. Wakefield at
Jomvu, and a pleasant rest with the Shaws at Kisolutini, I was at length
launched alone into the wilderness, rather relieved than otherwise at my
unaccustomed solitude. My party consisted of one hundred and twenty men.
The first day’s tramp into the interior was very trying. Owing to the
scarcity of water, I had resolved to make a long march to a place called
Gora, at a distance of about thirty miles from my starting point. I gave
my caravan a little start ahead of me, and followed leisurely in a
hammock, feeling at first too weak from fever to be able to go on foot.
In fact, what with anterior weakness and a blazing sun, I felt in such a
stupid condition that I hoped, during the first day of my travels, to be
allowed to journey peacefully without undue exercise of energy. But it
was not to be, and perhaps fortunately so, since there is nothing that
dispels the languidness of fever so speedily as the necessity for
vigorous action. After some hours’ easy jog-trot in my net-hammock, I
came up with the bulk of my caravan, and found all the men reclining in
the pleasant shade of a leafy wood. The Zanzibaris rose somewhat
apologetically, and with a show of respect, but the men of Rabai and
Mombasa merely looked at me with stolid unconcern, and several yawned
unrestrainedly in my face when I questioned them as to the cause of this
prolonged halt. The head-man of these Christian—save the mark!—porters
then informed me that his men considered the walk to Gora too long to be
undertaken in a day, and had chosen this pleasant spot to repose in
during the sultry hours. I called on the laggards to take up their
burdens and go on; I maintained that I alone had the power to order a
halt; that the morning was still fresh, and that if we rested now we
should never reach the water-place by nightfall—in vain, I was only met
with sullen looks and murmurs of dissent.
Now was the crisis in which my authority was to be asserted or for ever
to be subordinated to the men’s caprices. The Zanzibaris were waiting to
see how I should act, and would gauge my disposition by the way in which
I met my first difficulties. In fact, the scene in which this conflict
of wills took place was not ill-disposed for effect. A slight depression
or basin was sunk in the centre of the clearing, in which the
dissentient porters and their loads were grouped, and around ran an
amphitheatre-like rise of ground, whereon stood a file of Zanzibaris
awaiting the outcome of our dispute before taking sides. No longer
addressing an indiscriminate crowd, I called on one man to pick up his
burden and take the road. He promptly and curtly refused, and as quickly
my Indian servant had him by the heels, whilst I soundly trounced him
with his own walking-stick. This was quite a sufficient display of
force. Whilst the recalcitrant porter was still screaming abjectly for
pardon, and I was still gravely counting the strokes of the
wand—eight!—nine!—ten!—eleven!—the other men had hoisted their loads on
their bullet-heads, and were falling into file along the narrow path,
leaving my servant and myself alone with the victim of our wrath. The
very hammock-men had disappeared, and hurried forward in an excess of
zeal. But I was almost independent of them now. The temporary burst of
just anger not only brought a flush of colour to my pallid face, but
seemed to restore strength to my limbs, and I strode on now by the side
of the caravan, exhorting and encouraging the men till we had all
regained our good humour, and even the scapegoat himself emerged from
sulky silence, and gave a half-humorous, half-dolorous account of his
beating to the men walking near him.
I had now a little leisure to observe the character of the scenery
through which we were passing. There were no hills at present in sight,
and the view was bounded by the scrub and stunted trees which closed up
round the narrow path. Nevertheless, the want of landscape beauty was
atoned for by the vivid glory of the wild flowers, which now, at the
close of the rainy season, were in perfection of bloom. That beautiful
genus _Commelyna_ (a monocotyledonous plant allied distantly to the
spider-worts) gave us species with pale blue, ultramarine, and
citron-yellow blossoms. I marvel that the _Commelynæ_, commonest of
African flowers, have never been introduced by European floriculturists.
Under cultivation they ought to yield beautiful displays of colour, and,
as many species grow on the flanks of Mount Kilima-njaro in an English
temperature, there is no reason why they should not supplant the lobelia
in our garden borders, and yield a vivid sheet of rich blue blossoms far
surpassing the feeble flowerets of the last-mentioned plant. Many other
wild flowers make themselves noticeable by their abundance and beauty in
this district between Gora and Rabai, which lies at about thirty to
forty miles from the coast, and receives more rain and humidity from the
not far distant Indian Ocean than the sterile steppes further westward.
Great, tall, terrestrial orchids of the _Lisso-chilus_ genus border the
pathway, and display their graceful heads of blossoms, which are mauve,
or bright yellow, or yellow and purple, according to the species. Then
there are spotted-leaved aloes, with sprays of waxy-pink flowers, great
prickly candelabra euphorbias, with tiny green inflorescence, and other
smaller euphorbias with large, weird flowers of a dull, dead
purple-brown. White and blue clitoreas trail over harsher shrubs, and
enliven the grey-green bush with tender colour. _Crinum_ lilies are
lavish in squandered bloom, and the air is fragrant with a thousand
odours, to which the flowers of acacias, climbing jessamines, and
corissas powerfully contribute.
We reached Gora that night by the light of the moon, but as my tardy
porters had lagged behind, I arrived at the camping-place without tent,
bed, or provisions, and not only had to lie down to sleep supperless,
but blanketless; and, as the night air was unusually chilly, my health
was not improved by these privations. The next day we fortunately had
but a march of sixteen miles to accomplish; nevertheless the men went
very badly. We stopped in the morning at Samburu, a pleasant place, with
once-cultivated plantations run wild. Here there was indifferent water
in clefts in the rocks, and we set to work to prepare our midday meal.
We waited for the laggards of the caravan until four o’clock, and then,
too impatient to delay any longer, I took advantage of the cool
afternoon and limped on to my next camping-place. By midnight all were
at length reassembled, but I resolved in future, if it were only to
avoid anxiety, to walk behind instead of before the caravan, and not to
pass any one on the road; thus, I should always arrive simultaneously
with my baggage. The following day I put this plan into operation, but
its first results were not encouraging. About every half-hour the Rabai
men would put down their burdens and compose themselves for a nap in the
shade. As these intermittent siestas greatly deranged the uniform
progress of the caravan, I objected, preferring to rest unanimously
every two hours, but walk uninterruptedly whilst on the march. As the
Rabai men were, however, of a different opinion, I now began to meet at
every turn of the path a man’s load without a man, and on inquiry was
told that its whilom bearer had decamped into the bush. Last of all I
counted nearly a dozen of such abandoned burdens, and sat down desperate
by the wayside, not knowing what course to pursue. However, my Zanzibar
men stood by me like trumps, and many of them carried extra loads, and
so brought all the things to our next camping-place at Ziwani.
Here we arrived at about dusk, although there was scarcely any ending to
the daylight, for we were favoured with a brilliant moon. I now was able
to review my men and rearrange the loads so that all the things might be
carried on the morrow. I retired at last to my tent, thoroughly
exhausted, both with physical fatigue and mental anxiety. Throwing
myself, or rather involuntarily tumbling, on my bed, I felt I was
fainting, and just roused my energies sufficiently to ask my servant to
open my wine-case and get me out some champagne. When a bottle of Moët
and Chandon had been uncorked, and a tumblerful (alas for the delicate
champagne-glass, I had it not!) drunk, an effect as magical as that of
the “hashish” given by the Sheikh of the Mountain to his deluded
followers was produced. Before the foaming draught had passed my lips I
was a poor, despondent creature of the earth, earthy, and tied to the
base soil by physical fatigue and mental prostration; but no sooner had
the sparkling wine entered my system than I was transfigured,
transformed. My fever-dried skin broke out into grateful perspiration,
the fitful pulse resumed a brisk and regular beat—no fainting now. I
felt ready to march anywhere, and my blistered and ulcerated feet pained
me no more. I ate my evening meal in a sort of tranquil ecstasy, and
afterwards undressed dreamily, and steeped all my cares in the Lethe of
sleep. And a cupful of champagne on an empty stomach had sufficed to
work this happy change!
In case there are some of my readers whom this rhapsody (copied almost
word for word from my diary) may offend, let them understand that I am
singing the praises of champagne as a _medicine_, not as a customary
drink. No one can inveigh more strenuously than I against the daily or
even frequent use of alcoholic drinks in a hot climate. I believe that
in Africa, as a general rule, and under ordinary circumstances, a man
may with benefit to himself abstain _totally_ from the use of wine,
beer, or spirits. But, for the very reason that he rarely indulges in
strong drink, when he does find himself in a state of physical or mental
prostration, especially ensuing from attacks of fever, there is no more
certain tonic than a little _good_ champagne. I have seen cases in
Africa, East and West, where a cupful of champagne administered at an
apparently hopeless juncture has snatched a man from a sinking
condition, and brought him back to life. I only took a dozen of
champagne—and no other wine—with me to Kilima-njaro, and of this dozen
eleven bottles were consumed at various crises in my adventures, when I
felt my physical strength deserting me. Somehow the very knowledge that
you have such a stimulant at hand braces your nerves with mental
confidence, and the happy faith in its sovereign efficacy inspires you
with a cheering belief that Death himself will flee before a goblet of
champagne.
The name of our last camping-place, “Ziwani,” had a pleasant sound to
the thirsty traveller, for translated into English it means “By the
pool,” and would consequently suggest the close proximity of water. But,
except under favourable conditions, this is not the case at the spot in
question, and, as it happened, Taru, a day’s journey from Ziwani, was
the last place where we had been able to replenish our gourds and
bottles. In consequence of such dearth of water it was necessary that
the distance between Ziwani and Maungu (the next watering-place) should
be covered in a day, and as this was thirty-two miles it meant a forced
march of thirteen hours. My men had willingly allowed me to ignore the
disagreeable necessity, fearing that I might, as I certainly should have
done, force them to break the distance between Ziwani and Maungu by a
night march—a thing they much detested, even when performed by the light
of a full moon, having, like most Africans, a superstitious fear of
night. But being themselves conscious of the long stretch of waterless
country they had to traverse before reaching the mountains of Maungu,
they, for once, were eager and ready to start before their leader’s
call, and consequently when I awoke from that delicious dreamless sleep
caused by the timely draught of champagne, I found myself almost alone,
while a strange and unwonted silence pervaded the camp. The head-man of
the caravan was squatted outside the tent patiently awaiting my
awakening. The Indian servant and the senior cook were busily preparing
breakfast, while just sufficient men remained behind to carry my tent,
bed, and cooking apparatus.
Learning the cause of my porters’ disappearance, and far from
disapproving such unaccustomed and unprompted activity, I hastily
dressed, swallowed my breakfast, and also prepared myself for the long
journey that lay before us. The bright slanting beams of an hour-old sun
lit up the landscape so cheerfully that the purpose of covering
thirty-two miles by nightfall seemed both feasible and easy of
accomplishment. The air was fresh and buoyant, and either my potion of
the night before or the change from the hothouse atmosphere of the coast
to a more bracing climate had brought back strength to my limbs and
courage to my heart, for I stepped out along the red path at three miles
an hour and enjoyed the exercise. This rate of progress soon brought me
up to the rearguard of those who had started with the earliest dawn, but
whose energy had waned after two or three hours’ hard tramp. Already,
with stupid resignation, many were stretching themselves by the wayside,
having first, to satisfy a moderate thirst, consumed in several gulps
the remainder of the drinking-water which was to carry them through the
day; and, this finished, they were prepared to lie down in utter
hopelessness, feeling themselves unequal to the task of walking
twenty-five miles to the next water-supply or twenty-five miles back to
the last.
I should parenthetically remark that these East Coast porters, like most
Africans, are utterly without prevision, and so long as they can satisfy
the desire of the moment care little to provide for future wants as yet
unfelt. On long journeys, where there is no water on the road, you will
experience the greater difficulty in preventing your men dropping and
dying of thirst, because, although they may have started with an ample
supply of drinking-water in their gourds—quite sufficient for the time
required if carefully measured out—yet, in spite of warning and
prohibition, they will squander the precious fluid, quench every slight
attack of thirst, and consume it all in a few hours; then, during the
long waterless tramp which ensues, they will wring your heart with the
sight of their sufferings, and stagger along the dusty path with dry,
swollen tongues, parched lips, and bloodshot eyes.
So it was on this terrible journey to Maungu. Towards midday, when the
noon blazed in fierce white heat, when the sky was so hot and
scintillating that it was devoid of all colour and shone like a silver
shield, when the short, scrubby mimosas gave no sheltering shade under
their thorny boughs, when escape from the overpowering dazzling sunshine
was impossible, and the baked and heated soil seemed to burn the soles
of my boots, and made the men who were still plodding on pick up their
feet like the proverbial dancing bear—then I began to doubt whether my
party would reach Maungu intact, for now it was useless to battle with
the sullen sluggishness of many of the porters, who preferred lying in
the road exposed to hard words and blows rather than toiling patiently
and uninterruptedly on in the direction of water and permissible repose.
So in sheer despair I left them to lie wherever they threw themselves,
accepting in lieu of any other consolation their assurance that they
would follow on in the cooler hours of the day. Now, even, it became
with myself a desperate rush to reach the water-supply before I should
suffer painfully from thirst. An examination of my own store of the
precious liquid had revealed the appalling fact that not one drop
remained, and the man who had been carrying my bottles and calabash
confessed to having assisted in its disappearance. This was a serious
matter; thumping the man did nothing towards allaying my increasing
thirst. All that could be done was to journey on patiently but
unremittingly in the direction of Maungu. There was no time to prepare
food in the middle of the day: I pulled out a tin of hare soup from my
provision box, opened it, and drank the undiluted liquor. The unfinished
bottle of champagne was divided and consumed by myself and my patient
Tamil servant, lending a factitious strength to our tired, overheated
bodies, and so far buoying up our spirits that we strode on past man
after man until we were well ahead of the caravan.
Soon, however, I needed to rest more and more frequently, stopping at
last to pause and pant in every patch of thin shade. Then my Tamil boy
and the head-collector proposed that they should go on alone and return
to meet me as soon as water was found. This I acceded to, and so was
left completely alone. In this condition, hobbling along painfully,
resting continually, and with foolish persistency painting, to my
thirsting imagination, vivid pictures of cooling draughts, I toiled
through the sultry afternoon, persisting doggedly in my determination
not to give in till I was within measurable distance from water.
Sometimes I did give way—stretched myself languidly under the faint
patchwork of shade that some meagre bush afforded, and lay there during
some minutes, vainly trying to moisten my dried lips with my parched
tongue, and hoping that with the approach of night and its dewy coolness
I might overcome this raging thirst. Then the little lithe lizards would
come and look at me with their heads on one side, and their bright eyes
scanning me half-mockingly; an irate ant would nip my hot hand, which I
had abandoned as if it no longer belonged to me, and carelessly placed
on an unconsidered ant-hill, till at length, weary of my unrestful
repose, I would stagger to my feet, and limp on for a few minutes in
agony, as you always do when you have given blistered feet a brief rest
and then commence walking again.
I will spare you a further recital of these very ordinary, everyday
African sufferings, so interesting to me to ponder over now that I am
writing about them in England, where thirst is almost desirable from the
many pleasant ways there are of quenching it. I will suppose that I have
stumbled over a rocky path in the waning daylight, toiled on the last
dreary miles of the journey under a rising moon, and at length found
myself amid a strange thicket of thorny trees and weird euphorbias at
the base of the hill of Maungu. In the camping-place where most caravans
stop, I see a small fire burning, a man sitting, and a man lying down.
The former is one of my natural history collectors and the other my
Indian servant, Virapan, who has fainted. I question the collector, a
man called Athmani, and he tells me the water lies in a cup-shaped basin
at the summit of the hill (which is nearly 5000 feet high), and that his
companion and helpmate, Mabruki, has gone to get some. Fancy when you
have walked thirty-two miles for a drink finding your cistern lies some
three or four thousand feet above you!
With what amount of patience I should have awaited the return of the
water-carrier I do not know, but just at this juncture one of my porters
arrived, and threw down his burden with a weary sigh. I remembered with
joy the contents of the lumpy sack he bore, and rapidly untying its
mouth took from it several cocoanuts. Filling a gourd with their milk, I
was able to assuage the thirst of myself and my servant, who had
returned to consciousness, and we then passed with equanimity the
half-hour that elapsed before Mabruki came back from his quest among the
rocks of Maungu, bearing gourds full of delicious water, clear and cool.
At this camping-place we remained until the afternoon of the next day,
awaiting the coming in of all the laggards; but my patience was at last
overtaxed, and I resolved to go on with a few followers to Ndara, the
next camping-spot, where we should be in an inhabited country, and with
pleasanter surroundings, for the vegetation in the vicinity of Maungu
was singularly forbidding and ugly, suggesting some enchanted forest,
and, moreover, the water-supply proved scanty and difficult of access. I
left my head-man and a few followers to search for the missing men, and
walked on to Ndara through the moonlight, stopping to sleep for a few
hours before dawn. In the early morning we began to ascend and cross a
rocky ridge, and on surmounting it looked out westward over the plains
or mountain plateaux of Taita. Here our sight was gladdened by clumps of
really green and shady trees, and we were further delighted by the first
signs of evident cultivation. Further on we met some natives, ugly,
nearly naked, and very black, with huge rings of beads in their
wide-lobed ears, and greeting them with effusive friendliness we induced
them to follow us to our camp with a few eatables (sweet potatoes and
corn-cobs principally), feeling in our delight at once more reaching
habitable country an amiable desire to be on the best of terms with its
inmates. We pitched the tent at the foot of Ndara Hill, near a pool of
dirty water, whither large flocks of cattle came to drink.
In this not unpicturesque country of rocks and forest trees and lovely
wild flowers I stayed during two days, and at last collected my caravan
round me. Maungu was very nearly being a Moscow to my little army, but
ultimately there was small loss in either men or goods. Some two or
three porters had run back to the coast, leaving their burdens behind,
while two miscreants who carried a case of spirit for preserving natural
history specimens, had broached and drunk the alcohol, and, strange to
say, still survived this extraordinary bout.
Before I leave Ndara, therefore, I may take this opportunity of
describing, somewhat in detail, the men who were following me to the
steeps of Kilima-njaro, and on whose fidelity the fate of the expedition
entirely depended. The head-man of the entire caravan was Kiongwe, a
pleasant-spoken, rather plain young man of about thirty, who had served
much on the Congo, and had accompanied Stanley thither in his first
expedition, in proof of which he wore a massive silver ring. Kiongwe
(whose name meant in Swahili a “headstrong jackass,” and who was
therefore politely called by his inferiors “Shaongwe” in order that his
name might not be too closely interpreted) was good-tempered,
respectful, and fairly brave, but could not always be trusted with
property, as he felt now and then an irresistible temptation to
appropriate a little of his master’s cloth and beads. However, he made a
good head-man, for if lenient to his own occasional dishonesty he
watched well that no one else robbed me. The second in command was
Abdallah, another old Congo traveller, and a learned Arab scribe.
Excelling Kiongwe in politeness and suavity of demeanour, he also erred
somewhat as regards strict honesty, but was on the whole a very good
fellow. His manners and mode of life were quite fastidiously
gentlemanly, and his person was always, and under every circumstance,
clean and sprucely apparelled. Without being in the least religious he
had a gusto for prayers, and all his leisure moments were employed in
the rapid and glib recital of the Koran. I once asked him what would be
his ideal mode of life. “Kusoma Muungu, sikuzote”—“To be always praying
to God,” he replied, with the faintest hypocritical tone of
self-satisfaction in his voice.
[Illustration:
Fig. 18.—Virapan, my Tamil Servant.
]
Then in order of precedence came Mabruki and Athmani, two natural
history collectors, men who, by accompanying several preceding African
travellers, had acquired a rough knowledge of preparing specimens. The
further history of these two gentlemen will be disclosed as this
narrative proceeds. My two cooks deserve a word of mention. Faraji, the
elder, was a busy old man of the Yao tribe, who had accompanied Cameron
across Africa and further served a three-years’ term on the Congo. He
was the strongest man in the caravan, and his only fault was a somewhat
large style of housekeeping, by which himself and his colleagues were
amply fed out of the remains of my dinner. Cephas, the junior cook,
often called Cephassi by the soft-tongued Zanzibaris, was originally a
freed Nyassa slave. Educated at the Nassick Mission, near Bombay, he had
been taught to cook in a way that generally procured him good
situations. He had visited England and there acquired certain useful
expletives which served him as augmentative, diminutive, intensifying,
and modifying adverbs, and lent great expression to his simple English.
Beneath the rank of the men already cited, whose wages were specially
fixed, came a troop of Zanzibaris on their promotion, who received a
uniform rate of five dollars a month. Among these, however, I had
noticed already several as good servants or cheerful, conscientious
men—Ibrahim and Kadu Stanley, especially. Ibrahim was nick-named
“Mčekesaji,” a word which you will find translated in Steere’s
dictionary “a merry, laughing body.” Kadu Stanley was remarkable as
having been an old servant of Stanley, to whom he had been given by
Mtesa, King of Buganda. After the Zanzibaris came a herd of Rabai and
Mombasa men, solely remarkable for their hopelessly bad disposition and
for the quaint combination of Christian and heathen names they assumed.
I had only engaged them to carry the bulk of my goods to Kilima-njaro,
and when we had attained that goal I took leave of them without regret.