THE UNEXPECTED
LINDI, End of June, 1906.
Africa! Africa! When, in past years, men told me that in Africa it is no
use making plans of any sort beforehand, I always looked on this opinion
as the quintessence of stupidity; but after my recent experiences I am
quite in a position to appreciate its truth.
I must go back to the 11th of June. The two geographers and I had fixed
our departure northward for the 20th; after getting together the
necessary men and baggage we intended to take the steamer to Tanga, and
the Usambara railway from Tanga to Mombo, so as to start from the
Pangani Valley on our march across the Masai steppe to Kondoa-Irangi.
Our preparations were going on in the most satisfactory manner; and I
was one morning doing my best to hasten them in Traun, Stürken and
Devers’ stores, by exercising that persistency in bargaining which can
only be acquired by the director of an ethnographical museum. I had not
been listening to the conversation going on beside me between one of the
salesmen and a European officer of the Field Force; but suddenly the
name Kondoa-Irangi fell on my ear, and I was all attention on the
instant. “I suppose you are going home by the——to-morrow?” said one. “No
such luck! we are marching to-morrow afternoon. Didn’t I just say
there’s a rising in Iraku?” returned the other.
Kondoa-Irangi and Iraku concerned me closely enough to necessitate
farther inquiry. Half instinctively, I flung myself out at the door and
into the dazzling sunshine which flooded the street. At that moment
Captain Merker’s mule-waggon rattled up, and his voice reached me over
the woolly heads of the passers-by. “Stop, Dr. Weule, you can’t go to
Kondoa-Irangi.”
Though not in general endowed with presence of mind in any extraordinary
degree, I must in this instance have thought with lightning speed, for
no sooner had I taken my place beside Merker, in order to proceed
without loss of time to the Government offices and ask for fuller
explanations, than I had already gone through in my mind the various
possible alternatives, in case it turned out—as seemed probable—that I
had to give up all thought of the Irangi expedition. In those—to
me—critical days at Dar es Salam, there was no one acquainted with the
circumstances but would have said, “Get out! the Iraku rising is no
rising at all—it is a mere trifle, a quarrel about a couple of oxen, or
something of the sort—in any case an affair that will soon be settled.”
None the less I had to admit that the Acting Governor (Geheimrat Haber,
of whose unfailing kindness I cannot say enough) was right when he
pointed out that, while a geographer could traverse that district at his
ease, regardless of the four columns of the native Field Force
(_Schutztruppe_) marched into it, along roads converging from Moshi,
Mpapwa, Kilimatinde and Tabora respectively, the case was totally
different for an ethnographic expedition, which can only do its work in
a perfectly undisturbed country. This condition would not be attainable
up North for some time to come. Would it not be better to turn
southward, to the hinterland of Lindi and Mikindani? True, a rising had
taken place there not long ago, but it was now quite over, and the
Wamwera, more especially, had got a very effectual thrashing, so that
the tribes of that part would be unlikely to feel disposed for fresh
aggression just at present. At the same time, a comparatively large
force had marched into the South, both Field Force and police, and the
most important strategic points were strongly garrisoned, so that I
could be certain of getting a sufficient escort; while for the Manyara
country I could only reckon on a couple of recruits at the outside.
[Illustration: THE SS. _RUFIJI_, DRAWN BY BAKARI, A MSWAHILI]
My long-continued study of African races never rendered me a better
service than now. It can easily be understood that I knew less about the
new field of work suggested than about that which had been so rudely
snatched from me; but I was aware that it contained a conglomeration of
tribes similar to that found in the North; and I was also able to form a
fairly definite notion of the way in which I should have to plan and
carry out my new expedition, in order to bring it to a successful issue.
I refrained, however, from thinking out the new plan in detail—indeed, I
should have had no time to do so, for I had to be quick if I did not
wish to lose several weeks. The permission of the Geographical Committee
and of the Colonial Office was soon secured, my loads were packed; two
boys and a cook had been engaged long before. The little Government
steamer _Rufiji_ was to start for the South on the 19th of June. I
induced the Government to supply me on the spot with the only map of the
southern district at that time procurable, and with equal promptitude
the admirably-managed “_Central-Magazin_” had found me two dozen sturdy
Wanyamwezi porters. Other absolutely indispensable arrangements were
speedily disposed of, and before I had time to look round, I found
myself on board and steaming out of Dar es Salam Harbour.
[Illustration: VIEW NEAR THE MOUTH OF THE LUKULEDI ABOVE LINDI]
I had never for one moment cherished the illusion that a research
expedition was a pleasure-trip, but the three days and a quarter spent
on board the _Rufiji_ will remain a vivid memory, even should my
experience of the interior prove worse than I anticipate. My own want of
foresight is partly to blame for this. Instead of having a good
breakfast at the Dar es Salam Club before starting, I allowed the ship’s
cook to set before me some coffee, which in combination with the clammy,
ill-baked bread and rancid tinned butter would have proved an effectual
emetic even on dry land, and soon brought about the inevitable
catastrophe on board the little vessel madly rolling and pitching before
a stiff south-west monsoon. The _Rufiji_ and her sister ship the
_Rovuma_ are not, properly speaking, passenger steamers, but serve only
to distribute the mails along the coast and carry small consignments of
cargo. Consequently there is no accommodation for travellers, who have
to climb the bridge when they come on board, and live, eat, drink, and
sleep there till they reach their destination. This is all very well so
long as the numbers are strictly limited: there is just room at night
for two or three camp beds, an item which has to be brought with you in
any case, as without it no travel is possible in East Africa. But the
state of things when six or eight men, and perhaps even a lady, have to
share this space, which is about equal to that of a moderate-sized
room—the imagination dare not picture.
My own woes scarcely permitted me to think about the welfare of my men.
Moritz and Kibwana, my two boys and my cook, Omari, are travelled
gentlemen who yielded themselves with stoic calm to the motion of the
_Rufiji_, but my Wanyamwezi porters very soon lost their usual
imperturbable cheerfulness. They all came on board in the highest
spirits, boasting to the kinsmen they left behind at Dar es Salam of the
way in which they were going to travel and see the world. How the
twenty-four managed to find room in the incredibly close quarters of the
after-deck, which they had, moreover, to share with two or three horses,
is still a puzzle to me; they were sitting and lying literally on the
top of one another. As they were sick the whole time, it must, indeed,
have been a delightful passage for all of them.
There is something strangely rigid, immovable and conservative about
this old continent. We were reminded of this by the Lion of Cape
Guardafui, and now we find it confirmed even by the official regulations
of steamer traffic. The ancients, as we know, only sailed by day, and
savages, who are not very well skilled in navigation, always moor their
sea-going craft off shore in the evening. We Europeans, on the other
hand, consider it one of our longest-standing and highest achievements
to be independent both of weather and daylight in our voyages. To this
rule the _Rovuma_ and _Rufiji_ form one of the rare exceptions; they
always seek some sheltered anchorage shortly before sunset, and start
again at daybreak the next morning.
On the trip from Dar es Salam to Lindi and Mikindani—the South Tour, as
it is officially called—the first harbour for the night is Simba Uranga,
one of the numerous mouths of the great Rufiji river. The entrance to
this channel is not without charm. At a great distance the eye can
perceive a gap in the green wall of mangroves which characterizes the
extensive delta. Following the buoys which mark the fairway, the little
vessel makes for the gap, not swiftly but steadily. As we approach it
opens out—to right and left stretches the white line of breakers,
foaming over the coral reefs which skirt the coast of Eastern Equatorial
Africa—and, suddenly, one is conscious of having escaped from the open
sea and found refuge in a quiet harbour. It is certainly spacious
enough—the river flows, calm and majestic, between the green walls of
its banks, with a breadth of 600, or even 800 metres, and stretches away
into the interior farther than the eye can follow it. The anchorage is
about an hour’s steam up river. On the right bank stands a saw-mill,
closed some time ago: its forsaken buildings and rusting machinery
furnishing a melancholy illustration of the fallacious hopes with which
so many Colonial enterprises were started. Just as the sun sinks below
the horizon, the screw ceases its work, the anchor-chain rattles through
the hawse-holes, and the _Rufiji_ is made fast for the night. Her
furnace, which burns wood, is heated with mangrove logs, cut in the
forests of the Delta and stacked at this spot ready for transference on
board. This work is usually done under the superintendence of a
forester, whom I am sorry not to see, he being absent up country. His
life may be leisurely, but scarcely enviable; for we are speedily
surrounded, even out in mid-stream, by dense clouds of mosquitoes,
which, I fancy, will hardly be less abundant on land. The swabbing of
the decks on an ocean steamer, in the early morning, just at the time
when sleep is sweetest, is represented on the _Rufiji_ by the wooding in
the Simba Uranga River, and the shipping of cargo in the open roadstead
of Kilwa. In the two nights passed on board, I got very little sleep,
between the incessant bumping of loads thrown down on deck, and the
equally incessant yelling of the crew. There was little compensation for
this, either in the magnificent sunset witnessed on the Simba Uranga, or
the wonderfully impressive spectacle we enjoyed when steaming out in the
early morning. Nothing could have revived us but the fresh breeze of the
monsoon on the open sea. No sooner, however, were we outside than
Neptune once more demanded his tribute. I do not know whether a healthy
nervous system would have been affected by the _Rufiji’s_ mode of
stoking—and if so, how—but to us three sea-sick passengers, who had to
share the amenities of the bridge as far as Kilwa, it was simply
intolerable. Of the two boats, the _Rovuma_, at any rate, has a
digestion sufficiently robust to grapple with the thirty-inch lengths of
mangrove-wood, thrown into her furnaces just as they are. The _Rufiji_,
however, has a more delicate constitution, and can only assimilate food
in small pieces. With the first glimmer of daybreak, the heavy hammer,
wielded by the strong right arm of a muscular _baharia_, crashes down on
the steel wedge held in position by another native sailor on the first
of the mangrove logs. Blow after blow shakes the deck; the tough wood
creaks and groans; at last the first morsel has been chopped up for the
ravenous boiler, and the fragments describe a lofty parabola in their
flight into the tiny engine-room. Then comes another crash which makes
the whole boat vibrate,—and so on, hour after hour, throughout the whole
day. Not till evening do the men’s arms rest, and our sea-sick brains
hail the cessation of work with sincere thankfulness, for the continuous
rhythm of the hammer, which seems quite tolerable for the first hour,
becomes, in the eleven which follow it, the most atrocious torture.
My black followers behaved exactly as had been foretold to me by those
best acquainted with the race. At Dar es Salam each of the twenty-seven
had received his _posho_, _i.e._, the means of buying rations for four
days. At Simba Uranga, the _mnyampara_ (headman) came to me with a
request that I should buy more provisions for himself and his
twenty-three subordinates, as they had already eaten all they had. The
complete lack of purchasable supplies in the forest saved me the
necessity of a refusal,—as it also did in the case of Moritz, who, with
his refined tastes, insisted on having some fish, and whom, with a calm
smile, I projected down the bridge ladder. That is just like these
improvident children of the Dark Continent; they live in the present and
take no thought for the future—not even for to-morrow morning.
Accordingly, I had to spend a few more rupees at Kilwa, in order to
quiet these fellows, the edge of whose insatiable appetite had not been
blunted by sea-sickness. Kilwa—called Kilwa Kivinje, to distinguish it
from Kilwa Kisiwani, the old Portuguese settlement further south,—has
sad memories for us, connected with the Arab rising of 1888, when two
employees of the German East African Company met with a tragic death
through the failure of our fleet to interfere. The officers in command
have been severely blamed for this; but to-day, after examining for
myself the topography of the place, I find that the whole deplorable
business becomes perfectly intelligible. The shallowness of the water
off shore is such that European steamers have to anchor a long way out,
and the signals of distress shown by the two unfortunate men could not
have been seen.
Under normal circumstances three days is a pretty liberal allowance for
the run from Dar es Salam to Lindi by the _Rufiji_; but we did not
accomplish it in the time. South of Kilwa we lost the shelter afforded
us for the last two days by the island of Mafia and the countless little
coral reefs and islets, and consequently felt the full force of the
south wind. Being now the only passenger, I had plenty of room, but was
if possible more wretched than before, as the supply of oranges—the only
thing I felt the slightest inclination to eat—was exhausted. Soon after
midday the captain and mate began to study the chart with anxious looks.
“When shall we get to Lindi?” I asked wearily, from the depths of my
long chair.
An evasive answer. The afternoon wore on, and the view to starboard: a
white, curling line of breakers, backed by the wall of mangroves with
their peculiar green, still remained the same. The captain and mate were
still bending over their chart when the sun was nearing the horizon.
[Illustration: LINDI ROADSTEAD]
“Is that headland Cape Banura?” I asked, thinking that we were on the
point of entering Lindi Bay, which once seen can never be mistaken.
Another evasive answer made it quite clear to me that our two navigators
could not be very familiar with this part of the coast. In fact the
captain was quite a new-comer, and the mate was acting temporarily in
the place of a man on leave. As the sun was now fast setting, we ran
into the first convenient inlet, passed a quiet night there, and did the
last three or four hours to Lindi on the fourth day, without further
incident. Our harbour of refuge was Mchinga Bay, which was unknown to
the two seamen and to me—though not, as afterwards appeared, to the two
engineers. Unluckily it happened—as it always does when our countrymen
are cooped up together in a small space for any length of time—that
there was an implacable feud between the after-deck and the engine-room,
and the latter had not thought fit to enlighten the former as to the
ship’s position.
There is something solemn and awe-inspiring about the entrance to Lindi
Bay. As the vessel rounds Cape Banura, a mighty basin, perhaps nine
miles by three, spreads itself out before us. The green hills
surrounding it are not high, but yet by no means insignificant, and they
fall away in steep declivities to the sea, especially on the south side.
The _Rufiji_ looks a black speck on this glittering silvery expanse. The
little town of Lindi lies picturesquely enough among groves of
coco-palms and _Casuarina_, on a tongue of land formed by the shore at
the back of the rectangular bay and the left bank of a seemingly vast
river, which we can see penetrating into the country behind Lindi. The
geographer knows, however, that this mighty channel—from 800 to 1,200
yards broad—represents the estuary of the tiny Lukuledi, which at the
present day could not possibly fill such a bed. What we look upon as its
mouth is really the whole valley of a much older Lukuledi, now sunk
beneath the level of the Indian Ocean. All our harbours on this coast
have originated in the same way:—Dar es Salam, Kilwa Kisiwani, Lindi and
Mikindani are all flooded river-valleys. Africa with its unwieldy mass
looks dull enough, I admit, on the map; but examined at close quarters
the continent is interesting in all its parts, as we find even before we
have landed on its shores.
[Illustration: ARAB DHOW. DRAWN BY STAMBURI, A SOLDIER BELONGING TO THE
AWEMBA TRIBE]
[Illustration: CHAIN-GANG. DRAWN BY SALIM MATOLA, A MNYASA]