APPRENTICESHIP
_Lindi_, July 9, 1906.
Africa is the land of patience. All my predecessors had ample
opportunity for acquiring and exercising that virtue, and it seems that
I am not to be spared the necessary trials. After being nearly three
weeks inactive at Dar es Salam, to be detained for about the same period
in another coast town is rather too much, especially when the time for
the whole journey is so limited, and the best part of the year—the
beginning of the dry season—is passing all too quickly.
At Dar es Salam the paucity of steamer communication furnished the
reason for delay, while here at Lindi it is the absence of the District
Commissioner and the consequent lack of available police. The
authorities will not hear of my starting without an armed escort, but
soldiers are only to be had when Mr. Ewerbeck returns, so that I am
compelled, whether I like it or not, to await his arrival. Not that I
have found the waiting wearisome, either here or at Dar es Salam. The
latter place, with its varied population and numerous European
residents, would be novel and striking enough to attract the mere
tourist, while, for my own part, I had an additional interest in the
preparation for my future work. This consisted in seeing as much of the
natives as time permitted. Many a morning and afternoon have I spent in
their huts or yards, and succeeded in securing some good phonographic
records of the songs sung at _ngoma_ dances, besides numerous solos and
melodies played by members of various tribes on their national
instruments. On one occasion, indeed, the officials very kindly got up a
dance expressly for my convenience. Unfortunately all the cinematograph
negatives I took on that occasion were either blurred by shaking or
over-exposed, so that we had to be content with some tolerable
photographs of the peculiar dances, and the excellent phonographic
records of the songs. Of the dances and their accompaniments I shall
have more to say later.
[Illustration: WOMEN’S DANCE AT DAR ES SALAM]
My stay at Lindi has passed off less peacefully and agreeably than I had
hoped. A day or two after landing here, I had to witness the execution
of a rebel. Such a function can never be a pleasure to the chief
performer, however callous; but if, after the reading of the long
sentence in German and then in Swahili, the proceedings are lengthened
by such bungling in the arrangements as was here the case, it can be
nothing less than torture even to the most apathetic black. It is true
that, as a precautionary measure, a second rope had been attached to the
strong horizontal branch of the great tree which serves as a gallows at
Lindi; but when the condemned man had reached the platform it appeared
that neither of the two was long enough to reach his neck. The stoical
calm with which the poor wretch awaited the dragging up of a ladder and
the lengthening of one of the ropes was extremely significant as an
illustration of native character, and the slight value these people set
on their own lives.
Lindi forms a contrast to many other Coast towns, in that its interior
keeps the promise of the first view from outside. It is true that the
long winding street in which the Indians have their shops is just as
ugly—though not without picturesque touches here and there—as the
corresponding quarters in Mombasa, Tanga and Dar es Salam; but in the
other parts of the straggling little town, the native huts are all
embowered in the freshest of green. Two elements predominate in the life
of the streets—the _askari_ and the chain-gang—both being closely
connected with the rising which is just over. The greater part of
Company No. 3 of the Field Force is, it is true, just now stationed at
strategic points in the interior—at Luagala on the Makonde Plateau, and
at Ruangwa, the former seat of Sultan Seliman Mamba, far back in the
Wamwera country. In spite of this, however, there is enough khaki left
to keep up the numbers of the garrison. This colour is most conspicuous
in the streets in connection with the numerous chain-gangs, each guarded
by a soldier in front and another in the rear, which are to be met with
everywhere in the neighbourhood of the old police _Boma_ and the new
barracks of the Field Force. I realize now what nonsense has been talked
in the Reichstag about the barbarity of this method of punishment, and
how superficial was the knowledge of the negro’s psychology and his
sense of justice shown by the majority of the speakers. Though competent
writers—men who, through a long residence in the country, have become
thoroughly familiar with the people and their character—have again and
again pointed out that mere imprisonment is no punishment for the black,
but rather a direct recognition of the importance of his offence, their
words have fallen on deaf ears. We Germans cannot get away from our
stereotyped conceptions, and persist in meting out the same treatment to
races so different in character and habit as black and white. Of course
I do not mean to imply that a man can under any circumstances be
comfortable when chained to a dozen fellow-sufferers (even though the
chain, running through a large ring on one side of the neck, allows each
one a certain freedom of movement), if only on account of the
difficulties involved in the satisfaction of natural necessities. But
then people are not sent to the chain-gang in order to be comfortable.
[Illustration: SELIMAN MAMBA]
However, men guilty of particularly heinous crimes and those of
prominent social position enjoy the distinction of solitary confinement.
In the conversation of the few Europeans just now resident at Lindi, the
name of Seliman Mamba is of frequent occurrence. This man was the leader
of the rising in the coast region, but was ultimately captured, and is
now awaiting in the Lindi hospital the execution of the sentence
recently pronounced on him. As he has a number of human lives, including
those of several Europeans on his conscience, he no doubt deserves his
fate. As a historical personage who will probably long survive in the
annals of our Colony, I considered Seliman Mamba worthy of having his
features handed down to posterity, and therefore photographed him one
day in the hospital compound. The man was obviously ill, and could only
carry his heavy chain with the greatest difficulty. His execution, when
it takes place, as it shortly must, will be a release in every sense of
the word.
By far more agreeable than these “echoes of rebellion” are the results
of my scientific inquiries among my own men and the Swahilis. My
Wanyamwezi seem quite unable to endure inaction, and ever since our
second day at Lindi, they have been besieging me from early morning till
late at night with mute or even vocal entreaties to give them something
to do. This request I granted with the greatest pleasure,—I made them
draw to their heart’s content, and allowed them to sing into the
phonograph as often as opportunity offered. I have already discovered
one satisfactory result from our adventurous and—in one sense
calamitous—voyage in the _Rufiji_. My men have wrought their sufferings,
and their consequent treatment at the hands of the crew into a song
which they now delight in singing with much energy and a really pleasing
delivery. Here it is:—[4]
[Music:
Air A.
Tu-ku-ke-yu-la pa-ka kwe-u-pe Tu-ku-ke-yu-la mu me-ri, wa.
Air B.
wa, tu-ku-ti-a na nan-ga u-lu-ke-uw-one ta-bu, wa-wa, ta-bu ya-fu.
ma kwe-li ya-ku-wu-la-ga yu-ku-fu-lu mun-gu su-mi-rai yu wa-ki-ba-lu.]
The general drift of it is something like the following:—“We were on
board day and night, till the day dawned, and then cast anchor. The
_Baharia_ (sailors) on board said, ‘You _Washenzi_ (pagans, bush people)
from the interior, you will vomit yourselves to death.’ But we came safe
to Lindi after all, and said (to the sailors): ‘You mocked at God (by
saying that we should die), but we came safe to land.’”
This love of singing is characteristic of the Wanyamwezi. In the course
of my enforced detention here, I have taken many a photographic stroll,
in which my men are always eager to accompany me. On these occasions I
have to divide the small amount of apparatus necessary to be taken with
me among as many of them as possible, so that everyone may have
something to carry. It is never very long before Pesa mbili the
_Mnyampara_ or caravan headman, lifts up his voice—a very good one
too—whereupon the chorus promptly falls in in excellent time. I may here
give a specimen of these little marching songs:—
Kabowe kabowe ku meso; Namuki kabowe ku meso. (1)
Wambunga kabowe ku meso; Namuki kabowe ku meso.
Ki! kabowe ku meso; Wamwera kabowe ku meso.
Ki! kabowe ku meso; Wakumbwa kabowe ku meso.
(1) We shoot with our eyes—we shoot the Namuki with our eyes,
The Wambunga, we shoot them with our eyes—the Namuki, we shoot them
with our eyes;
Bang! we shoot with our eyes—the Wamwera, we shoot them with our
eyes;
Bang! we shoot with our eyes—the Wakumbwa—we shoot them with our
eyes.
To judge by the words of this song, the Wanyamwezi must be exceedingly
loyal to the German Government, for they march against all the
rebellious southern tribes in turn and annihilate them. The Namuki are
identical with the Majimaji, the insurgents of 1905–6. The time is a
frantic recitative which makes a reproduction in our notation
impossible. The exclamation “_ki_” conveys, according to the unanimous
testimony of Pesa mbili and the most intelligent among his friends, the
expression of the force with which the Rugaruga (the auxiliaries) smash
the skulls of the wounded enemy, even though it should have to be done
with a stamp of the heel. At every repetition of the _ki_ the singers
stamp on the ground so that it quivers—so completely can these peaceable
Northerners throw themselves into all the horrors of the late rising;
one can almost hear the skulls crash at every _ki_. This song of
defiance is certainly not an original composition of my people’s, but
has been borrowed by them from some of their tribesmen who served in the
last campaign as Rugaruga and are now lounging about Lindi out of work.
I have been obliged to engage some of these men as carriers for the
march to Masasi; they are in their whole behaviour much more decided and
defiant than my gentle grown-up children from Dar es Salam, so that I
shall be glad to get rid of them when my destination is reached. I think
the above song must belong to them.
Now that I am on the subject I will reproduce a march of the Sudanese
soldiers which in its meaning closely resembles the one just given. This
was sung into the phonograph for me by _Sol_ (Sergeant-Major) Achmed Bar
Shemba and a couple of divisions from the third company of the Field
Force by order of that excellent African veteran, Captain Seyfried. The
little non-com. stood like a bronze statue in front of the machine, and
the gaunt brown warriors from Darfur and Kordofan closed up behind him,
as if they had been on the drill-ground, in two ranks, each man
accurately behind the one in front. We had no little trouble in making
them take up the wedge formation necessary to produce the desired
effect. The song runs thus:—
[Music:
Solo. (Air A) Chorus (Air A)
daim o daim al-lah al-la-ho daim al-lah daim o daim al-lah al-la-ho
daim al-lah
Solo. (A) Chorus
daim o daim al-lah al-la-ho daim al-lah daim o daim al-lah al-la-ho
daim al-lah
Solo. (B) Chorus
daim o daim al-lah al-la-ho daim al-lah daim o daim al-lah al-la-ho
daim al-lah
Solo. (A) Chorus
daim o daim al-lah al-la-ho daim al-lah daim o daim al-lah al-la-ho
daim al-lah
Solo. (B’) Chorus
Jum-be sa-ne pis al-lah al-la-ho daim al-lah daim o daim al-lah
al-la-ho daim al-lah
Solo. (B’) Chorus
Jum-be sa-ne pis al-lah al-la-ho daim al-lah daim o daim al-lah
al-la-ho daim al-lah
Solo. (B’) Chorus
Jum-be sa-ne pis al-lah al-la-ho daim al-lah daim o daim al-lah
al-la-ho daim al-lah
Solo. (A) Chorus
daim o daim al-lah al-la-ho daim al-lah daim o daim al-lah al-la-ho
daim al-lah
Solo. (B) Chorus
daim o daim al-lah al-la-ho daim al-lah daim o daim al-lah al-la-ho
daim al-lah
Solo. (B’) Chorus
Jum-be sa-ne pis al-lah al-la-ho daim al-lah daim o daim al-lah
al-la-ho daim al-lah
Solo. (B’) Chorus
Jum-be sa-ne pis al-lah al-la-ho daim al-lah daim o daim al-lah
al-la-ho daim al-lah]
[Illustration: YAO WOMEN AT MTUA]
The singers, who are principally Nubians, state that this song is in
their mother tongue, the Darfur dialect. I have not yet succeeded in
obtaining a literal translation. The general meaning of the words, which
are sung with enviable lung-power and indefatigable energy, is somewhat
as follows:
“We are always strong. The Jumbe (headman) has been hanged by the
command of Allah. Hongo (one of the insurgent leaders) has been hanged
by the command of Allah.”
Thus much as to the results of my musical inquiries so far as they
concern the foreign elements (foreign, that is to say, here at Lindi) of
the Wanyamwezi and Nubians. I have obtained some records of _ngoma_
songs from Yaos and other members of inland tribes, but I cannot tell
for the present whether they are a success, as I find to my
consternation that my cylinders are softening under the influence of the
damp heat, so that I can take records, but cannot risk reproducing them
for fear of endangering the whole surface. A cheerful prospect for the
future!
Very interesting from a psychological point of view is the behaviour of
the natives in presence of my various apparatus. The camera is, at any
rate on the coast, no longer a novelty, so that its use presents
comparatively few difficulties, and the natives are not particularly
surprised at the results of the process. The only drawback is that the
women—as we found even at Dar es Salam—usually escape being photographed
by running away as fast as their legs will carry them. The cinematograph
is a thing utterly outside their comprehension. It is an _enchini_, a
machine, like any other which the _mzungu_, the white man, has brought
into the country—and when the said white turns a handle on the little
black box, counting at the same time, in a monotonous rhythm,
“Twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-one, twenty-two,” the native may be
pleasantly reminded of the droning measures which he is accustomed to
chant at his work; but what is to be the result of the whole process he
neither knows nor cares.
[Illustration: GIRLS FROM LINDI]
The phonograph, on the contrary, is an _enchini_ after the very heart,
not only of the black man, but even of the black woman. If I should live
to the age of Methuselah the scene in Mr. Devers’s compound at Dar es
Salam will always remain one of the most delightful recollections
connected with my stay in Africa. After spending some time in the native
quarter, watching the dances of various tribes—here a Manyema _ngoma_,
there one of the Wazaramo, or yonder again that of some coast people’s
club, and observing the costumes of the performers, sometimes hideous
but always picturesque, I returned to my own quarters, at the head of a
procession numbering some hundreds of the dancers, male and female, in
order to take down the audible part of the proceedings. Everything had
gone off in the most satisfactory way; but every time I changed the
diaphragms, took out the recorder and put in the reproducer, when the
full-voiced melody poured forth from the mysterious funnel in exactly
the same time and with the precise timbre which had been sung into
it—what measureless and at the same time joyful astonishment was painted
on the brown faces, all moist and shining with their exertions in
singing and dancing! Whenever this happened, all the more
unsophisticated souls joined in the chorus, to be speedily enlightened
by the derisive laughter of the more “educated” element.
But the most delightful instance of _naiveté_ came at the close of the
proceedings, after I had used up my small stock of Swahili idioms in
expressing my pleasure at a successful afternoon. Two women, who had
previously attracted my notice by their tremendous vocal power, as well
as by the elegance of their attire, came forward again; and, as the
crowd fell back, leaving a clear space in front of the phonograph, first
one and then the other approached the apparatus, dropped a curtsy in the
finest Court style, and waving her hand towards the mouthpiece said,
“_Kwa heri, sauti yangu!_”—“Good-bye, my voice!” This incident
illustrates the way in which the native mind cannot get away from what
is most immediately obvious to the senses. In the very act of uttering
their farewell, these two women could hear for themselves that they had
not lost their voices in the least, and yet because they had a moment
ago, heard them distinctly coming out of the phonograph, they regarded
themselves as deprived of them from that instant, and solemnly took
leave of them.
As to my inquiries into the artistic aptitudes of the natives, I prefer
to give the results in a connected form later on, when I shall have
brought together a larger amount of material on which to form a
judgment. So much, however, I can say even now: _c’est le premier pas
qui coûte_ is true, not only for the executant artist but also for the
investigator. At Dar es Salam, the matter was simpler. My “boy” Kibwana
(literally, “the Little Master”), a youth of the Wazegeju tribe from
Pangani, though, like Omari the cook (a Bondei from the north of the
colony), he had never had a pencil or a piece of paper in his hand
before, had been too long in the service of Europeans to venture any
objections when desired to draw something for me—say the palm in front
of my window, or my piece of India-rubber. He set to work, and
cheerfully drew away, with no anxieties as to the artistic value to be
expected from the result.
In the case of my Wanyamwezi, with whom I have made a beginning here, in
order to give them something to do, a mere order is of little use. If I
put a sketch-book and pencil into the hands of one of my followers with
the invitation to draw something, the inevitable answer is a perplexed
smile and an embarrassed “_Sijui, bwani_”—“I don’t know how, sir.” Then
one has to treat the man according to his individuality—with an
energetic order, or a gentle request; but in every case I found that the
best plan was to approach him on the side of his ambition. “Why, you’re
a clever fellow, you know—a _mwenyi akili_—just look at your friend Juma
over there—he is not nearly as clever as you—and yet, see how he can
draw! Just sit down here and begin drawing Juma himself!” This subtle
flattery proved irresistible to all but a few, who, despite everything I
could say by way of encouragement, stuck to it that they could not do
what was wanted. The rest are like the lion who has once tasted blood:
they are insatiable, and if I had brought two dozen sketch-books with
me, they would all be continuously in use. I found that, instead of
leaving the beginner to choose his own subject, it was a better plan (as
it is also educationally a sounder one) to suggest in the first instance
something quite familiar—a Nyamwezi hut, a fowl, a snake, or the like.
Then one finds that they set to work with some confidence in themselves,
and that they are inordinately proud of their masterpieces, if their
mzungu gives them the smallest word of praise. It is obvious that I
should never dream of finding fault—my object being, not criticism with
a view to improvement, but merely the study of the racial aptitudes and
the psychological processes involved in artistic production.
[Illustration: RUINED TOWER, LINDI (BUILT BY THE PORTUGUESE)]
My way of getting at the latter is to stipulate that each of my
draughtsmen, as soon as he feels that his degree of proficiency entitles
him to a reward, is to show me his work. Then comes a _shauri_[5]
usually of long duration, but extremely amusing for both parties. “What
is this?” I ask, pointing with my pencil to what looks a perplexing
complication of lines. “_Mamba_—a crocodile,” comes the answer, either
with a slight undertone of indignant astonishment at the European who
does not even know a crocodile when he sees it, or somewhat dejectedly
on finding the work to be so unsuccessful that even the omniscient
_mzungu_ cannot tell what it is meant for. “Oh! a crocodile—very good!”
I reply, and write the word beside the drawing. “Yes,” the artist never
fails to add, “but it is a _mamba_ of Unyamwezi,” or “of Usagara,” or
“in the Ngerengere,” as the case may be. One is brought up short by this
information, and asks, “Why? How so?” and then comes a long story in
explanation. This is a crocodile which the artist and his friends (here
follow their names in full), saw on the march from Tabora to the coast
with such and such a European, and which came very near being the death
of him at the crossing of such and such a swamp, or of the Ngerengere
river. When writing down the first few of these commentaries, I did not
pay any special attention to the fact of their always being connected
with a particular incident; but now, after having acquired a large
collection of drawings representing either single objects (animals,
plants, implements, etc.), or scenes from native life, it has become
clear to me that the African is incapable of drawing any object in the
abstract, so to speak, and apart from its natural surroundings—or indeed
from some particular surroundings in which he has met with it on some
particular occasion. If he is told to draw a Mnyamwezi woman he draws
his own wife, or at any rate some relative or personal acquaintance, and
if he is to draw a hut, he proceeds in exactly the same way, and depicts
his own or his neighbour’s. Just so with the _genre_ pictures, which are
not such in our sense of the word, but might almost be termed a species
of historical painting. I have already a whole series of sketches
representing a lion springing on a cow, or a hyæna attacking a man, or
some similar scene from the life-struggle of the higher organisms, and
the explanation is always something like this:—“This is a lion, and this
is a cow, but the cow belonged to my uncle and the lion carried it off
about four years ago. And this is a hyæna, and this man is my
friend—say, Kasona—who was taken ill on the march from Tabora to Mwanza
and had to stay behind, and the hyæna came and was going to bite him,
but we drove it away and saved Kasona.”
These are only one or two specimens of my methods and results. I am
convinced that I am on the right tack, though no doubt I shall make many
mistakes and need much additional experience.
My dynamometer, which did such excellent service on board the Red Sea
steamer in promoting friendly international relations, has not lost its
virtue here. When I am at the end of my resources for amusing my men and
the friends whom they have gathered round them since our arrival in
Lindi, I put the steel oval into the hand of honest Pesa mbili, who, of
course, must have the precedence in everything. He presses it, and then,
with the whole troop of his black friends crowding round, gazes with the
greatest excitement at the dial, as if he could read the mysterious
signs engraved on the brass arc. When I have glanced at the scale and
announced the result—of course the numbers only, as the kilogrammes
would merely serve to perplex them—it is received with a certain quite
comprehensible feeling of doubt; they do not yet know if the number
means much or little, having no standard of comparison. The second man
begins to excite interest; if, instead of his predecessor’s 35
kilogrammes, he can only reach 30, he is greeted by mildly derisive
laughter, but if he excels his rival, he is a _mwenyi nguvu_—a strong
man, worthy of the tribute of admiration which he receives with smiling
dignity.
So each man takes his turn, and they will go on for hours without
tiring. One thing only is felt by the more intelligent to be wanting—it
interests them to know which among themselves is the strongest or
weakest, but in order to get a higher and absolute standard of
comparison, they are all eagerness to know what their lord and master
can do. Of course I am willing to oblige them, at the close of the
meeting, and press the instrument, first in my right hand and then in my
left. When they hear the result (which, to my great satisfaction,
requires no cooking), a unanimous “_A-ah! bwana mkubwa!_” bursts from
the admiring circle—literally, “Ah! Great master!”—but about equivalent
to, “What a giant you are for strength!”
[Illustration: UNDER THE PALMS]
In fact we Europeans, as far as the _spontaneous_ putting forth of
strength goes, are as giants compared with the African. I made fairly
careful records of the figures for each man, not once only, but in
several successive trials, so that no allowance need be made for novelty
or want of practice, but how inferior they are to us! None of them could
compass a greater pressure than 35 kilos with the right hand and 26 with
the left, with the exception of one man who attained to something over
40 kilos; while I, even here in the damp heat of the coast region can
still manage over 60 with the right and over 50 with the left. And yet
nearly all my men are professional carriers, sturdy fellows with
tremendous chest-measurement, broad shoulders and splendidly developed
upper arm muscles. What they lack, as has so often been pointed out, is
the power of concentrating the strength of the whole body at a given
moment of time. These very Wanyamwezi are famous for their almost
incredible powers of endurance.
The natives thus, as a whole, indisputably present a picture not without
attractions from a psychological point of view; but in the six weeks or
so which I have by this time spent on the coast, the Europeans have
appeared to me almost more interesting still. Dar es Salam is so large
and contains so many of our race that the new-comer does not have the
contrasts between black and white forced on his notice, while the
contrasts to be found among the white population are less observable on
the wider field of a large settlement. Lindi, being very much smaller,
leaves no room for either possibility; in the narrowness of its
environment and the monotony of its life, there is nothing to modify the
shock of contrasted and clashing individualities, and in such a place
one sees with startling clearness the enormously powerful and rapid
effect of residence in the tropics on the mental balance of a foreign
race. It does not belong to my office to point to the—to say the least
of it, curious—excrescences of our German class and caste spirit, which
here, in a circle of Europeans numbering a dozen or less, brings forth
singularly unpleasant fruits. I need not relate how the military
element, recently “dethroned” by the establishment of a civil
administration, looks down with a superior smile on the officials of
that administration, or how the intrusion of the personal element into
affairs cuts off every possibility of social intercourse, and, what is
worse, of cordial cooperation in common work. To the new-comer,
expressing his astonishment at such a state of things, old residents say
(with a coolness contrasting strangely with their usual state of chronic
irritation): “What do you expect?—this is not the only place where
things are so—you will find it the same everywhere!” So it seems to be,
if I may judge by all I have heard during these instructive weeks; but
one may hope that this disagreeable phenomenon is only one of the many
infantile diseases incidental to the early stages in the life of every
colony. One thing, however, which I absolutely fail to understand is the
furious fits of rage to which every white man who has lived long in the
country appears to be subject. I am doing my best in the meantime to go
on my way without calling of names or boxing of ears, but everyone is
agreed in assuring me that I shall learn better in the course of the
next few months. I cannot judge for the present whether life is really
impossible without thrashing people—but I hope it is not the case.
In order not to dwell exclusively on the darker traits characteristic of
Europeans in the tropics, I must mention the admirable gifts of
household management possessed by most of them. Dar es Salam is so far a
centre of civilization as to possess bakers, butchers, and shops of all
kinds in plenty, yet even there I fancy that the office of mess
president is by no means a sinecure. But who shall describe how the
unlucky bachelor in a remote coast town has to rack his brains in order
to set before his messmates—not merely something new, but anything at
all! Only experience can teach how far in advance one has to provide for
all the thousand-and-one trifles which are inseparable from our
housekeeping. The price alone makes it impossible to depend to any great
extent on tinned goods, and it becomes necessary to have sufficient
stores on hand to last for days—sometimes for weeks and months, and, in
addition, to concoct eatable dishes out of the wild herbs which the cook
and kitchen-boy bring in. On the coast some variety is secured by the
abundance of good fish; in the interior this resource fails. And when it
happens—as it does just now—that even the standard typical bird of
Africa, the domestic fowl, and its product, the egg, are not to be had,
then the case is desperate indeed, and catering for a large number of
people becomes a serious problem.
It is remarkable, however, how skilled even the most inveterate
bachelors among the German residents are in solving this problem—not
always with elegance, and certainly not always to the satisfaction of
their critical predecessors in office, but yet so as to fill the novice
at any rate with astonished admiration. Dr. Franz Stuhlmann, who
accompanied Emin Pasha on his last disastrous journey—a thoroughly
competent ethnographer and the guardian and cherisher of the African
plant-world, so far as it can be adapted to the service of man—has long
been a celebrity in the culinary department throughout the whole Colony.
Stuhlmann has the reputation of being able to prepare a dainty dish from
every weed that grows beside the native path; he is a walking
encyclopædia of tropical cookery. Others are less proficient than this,
but I cannot yet get over my astonishment at the way in which Captain
Seyfried, for instance, can produce something eatable out of the most
elementary ingredients, at his achievements in salting and pickling, at
the unimpeachable jellies he contrives to serve up even at the present
temperature, and at the variety which always characterizes his bill of
fare.
I must here make an end, once for all, of one fallacy prevalent at home.
“Why, you surely cannot eat anything in that heat!” is a remark which
never fails to occur in any conversation having the tropics for its
subject, but which betrays a complete misconception of the conditions.
In the first place, the heat is not so unendurable as commonly supposed
by us—at any rate during the dry season, on the coast, where a fresh
sea-breeze always blows by day. But, in addition to this, the waste of
tissue goes on much more rapidly in tropical than in temperate climates.
Not even the new-comer is surprised to see “old Africans” consuming an
extensive “first breakfast” at a very early hour, in which various
preparations of meat figure, though fruit is also conspicuous. At midday
even a minor official never thinks of less than two courses and dessert,
and in the evening after office hours, all ranks and professions go in
for a repast which at home would certainly rank as a public banquet.
This seemingly luxurious mode of life, however, by no means deserves the
reprehension one may feel inclined to bestow on it. On the contrary, it
is physiologically both justifiable and necessary, if the body is to
offer permanent resistance to the deleterious influence of the climate.
The new-comer is not surprised by the appetite of others because,
unconsciously, he shares it. Personally, though I wield quite a
creditable knife and fork at home, my performances out here would make
me the terror of most German housewives.
The only article of diet I do not get on with is alcohol. At home I can
appreciate a glass of beer or wine, and on board the _Prinzregent_ we
passengers levied a pretty heavy toll on the supplies of “Münchener” and
“Pilsener”; but since I landed in this country I have taken no beer at
all and wine only in very small quantities, while I have been quite
unable to acquire a taste for whisky and soda, the national drink of all
Germans in East Africa. Such abstinence is easily understood at Lindi,
where there is no ice to be had; but even at Dar es Salam, where
Schultz’s brewery supplies the whole town with ice every day, I found I
had no taste for alcoholic beverages. This is a great advantage as
regards my journey into the interior, as I am saved the inconvenience of
taking loads of bottles with me.
I am glad to say that my enforced detention on the coast is nearing its
end. Commissioner Ewerbeck, who returned from the interior a few days
ago, is most kindly willing to start again with me to-morrow, so as to
escort me with a detachment of police through the Wamwera country—the
scene of the late rising—as far as Masasi. He has still work to do in
the Central Lukuledi Valley, for, though most of the insurgent leaders
have long ago been captured and adorn the streets of Lindi in the shape
of chain-gangs, the pursuit of others is still going on and will yet
cost many a _shauri_. From Masasi, Mr. Ewerbeck will have to return
immediately to Lindi, in time for the formal reception of the delegates
from the Reichstag, who are to visit the south of the Colony next month,
on their much-discussed tour through East Africa.
My first glimpse of the interior, by the bye, has hardly been a pleasant
one. In the course of the riding-lessons which Captain Seyfried has been
giving me, we one evening made an excursion to the Kitulo. This is a
long, fairly precipitous range of heights, about 570 feet above
sea-level, rising immediately behind Lindi and separating the narrow
sandy plain on which the town stands from the back country. A landmark
of our civilization—a tower built for the sake of the view—was, some
years ago, erected on the top of this Kitulo. When I ascended it by the
help of a somewhat decrepit ladder, the sun had already set, and the
whole western landscape—precisely the part of the Dark Continent which I
wish to penetrate within the next few days—lay extended before me as a
dark, menacing shadow. For one moment my mind was clouded by gloomy
forebodings, but I speedily recalled my old luck which has never yet
forsaken me. “Never mind—I’ll get the better of you yet!” I exclaimed,
_sotto voce_, as I lit a new cigar with the utmost philosophy, and
mounted my mule for the return journey.
[Illustration: THE LIKWATA DANCE BEING PHOTOGRAPHED BY THE AUTHOR. DRAWN
BY PESA MBILI, THE MNYAMWEZI HEADMAN]