LOOKING ROUND
MASASI, July 25, 1906.
I have been here at Masasi quite a week. My abode is a hut in the purest
Yao style, built by the natives under the orders of the Imperial
District Commissioner, expressly for the benefit of passing European
travellers. This hut—or, I suppose I ought to say, this house, for it is
a sizeable building of some forty feet by twenty—lies outside the _boma_
which shelters the local police force. It is an oval structure whose
roof is exactly like an overturned boat. The material of the walls is,
as everywhere in this country, bamboo, and wood, plastered inside and
out with dark grey clay. My palace is superior to the abodes of the
natives in the matter of windows, though they are not glazed. At night,
before I creep under my mosquito-net into the camp bed, the openings are
closed with shutters constructed of strong pieces of bamboo. The floor,
as in all native huts, is of beaten earth, which can in general be kept
quite clean, but is not calculated for the sharp edges of European
boot-heels, which soon play havoc with its surface. The interior forms
an undivided whole, only interrupted by the two posts standing as it
were in the foci of the ellipse, and supporting the heavy thatched roof.
This projects outward and downward far beyond the wall of the house, its
outer edge being carried by a further ellipse of shorter posts, and so
makes a broad shady passage round the whole house, such as, under the
name of _baraza_ is an essential part of every East African residence.
The natives give the name of Masasi to a whole district alike
interesting from the point of view of geography, geology, botany or
geography.
Almost immediately after passing Nyangao, as one comes from the coast,
begins the “open bush and grass steppe” already mentioned, while at
the same time the edges of the Makonde plateau on the south and of the
high ground to the north of the Lukuledi retreat further and further.
As one walks on, day after day, across a perfectly horizontal plain
covered with the same monotonous vegetation, the journey is by no
means exciting. Then, suddenly, at a turn of the path, we see a huge
cliff of glittering grey. We draw a long breath and forget all our
fatigue in presence of this new charm in the landscape. Even the
heavy-laden carriers step more lightly. Suddenly the bush, which has
become fresher and greener as we approach the rock, ceases, and
instead of the one cliff we now see a whole long range of rocky peaks,
which seem to stand as a barrier right across our path. This, however,
is not the case, for close to the foot of the first mountain the road
turns sharply to S.S.E., running parallel and close to the range. When
the range ends, the road ends too, for there, embosomed in a circle of
“hill-children,”—as the native would say in his own language, _i.e._,
low hills of a few thousand feet or under,—lies the military station
of Masasi.
The dome-shaped gneiss peaks of Masasi are celebrated in geological
literature: they are, in fact, unique, not in their petrographic
constituents, but in the regularity of their serried ranks.
Orographically this whole region of East Africa which I am now
traversing is characterized by insular mountains (_Inselberge_), as they
are called by the geologist Bornhardt. The name is very appropriate,
for, if the land were to sink some three hundred feet, or the Indian
Ocean to rise in the same degree, the valleys of the Lukuledi, Umbekuru
and Rovuma, as well as, in all probability, several rivers in Portuguese
East Africa, and also the whole vast plain west of the Mwera and Makonde
plateaus would form one great lake. Here in the west, only these lumpy,
heavy gneiss peaks would rise as tiny islands above the waters, while
towards the coast the plateaus just mentioned would so to speak
represent the continents of this piece of the earth’s surface.
[Illustration: THE INSULAR MOUNTAIN OF MASASI]
In general these peaks are scattered irregularly over the whole wide
area of the country. If I climb one of the smaller hills immediately
behind my house, I can overlook an almost illimitable number of these
remarkable formations to north, west and south. They are mostly single
or in small clusters, but several days’ journey further west a large
number are gathered into a close cluster in the Majeje country. The
Masasi range in our immediate neighbourhood is the other exception.
Corresponding to their irregular distribution is a great variety in
height. Many are only small hillocks, while others rise to a sheer
height of 1,600 feet and over from the plain, which here at Masasi is
fully 1,300 feet above sea-level. The highest of these hills thus attain
about the middle height among our German mountains.
As to the origin of these strange mountain shapes, not being a
geologist, I am in no position to form an opinion. According to
Bornhardt, who in his magnificent work on the earth-sculpture and
geology of German East Africa[11] has described the geological features
of this landscape with admirable vividness, all these insular peaks
testify to a primeval and never interrupted struggle between the
constructive activity of the sea and the denuding, eroding, digging and
levelling action of flowing water and of atmospheric influences. He sees
this tract in primordial times as an immense unbroken plain of primitive
gneiss. In this, in course of time, streams and rivers excavated their
valleys, all more or less in the same direction. At the end of this
long-continued process, long hill ridges were left standing between the
different valleys. Then came another epoch, when stratification took the
place of destruction. Whereas formerly, rain, springs, brooks and rivers
carried the comminuted and disintegrated rock down to the sea, now, the
sea itself overflowed the land, filled the valleys, and probably covered
the whole former scene of action with its sediment. This sediment,
again, in the course of further ages became hardened into rock. Once
more the scene changed; again the land was left dry; and wind, rain and
running water could once more begin their work of destruction. But this
time their activity took a different direction. They had formerly
carried the detritus north or south, but now they swept it eastward, at
right angles to their former course, and so gradually ground and filed
away the whole of the later deposit, and also eroded the long ridges
which had survived from the first period of destruction. Finally, when
even this primitive rock had been worn away down to the bottom level of
the first valleys, nothing remained of the old sheet of gneiss except in
the angles formed by the crossing of the two lines of abrasion and
erosion. The superincumbent strata being swept away, the hard gneiss
cores of these angles of ground form the very insular peaks I have been
describing. Bornhardt’s theory is a bold one and assumes quite
immeasurable periods of time, but it has been generally accepted as the
most plausible of all attempts to explain the facts. In any case it is a
brilliant proof of the capacity for inductive reasoning possessed by
German scholars.
These mighty masses of rock, springing with an unusually steep slope,
direct from the plain, dominate their surroundings wherever one comes
across them, but where they appear in such a wonderfully regular series
as they do here—Mkwera, Masasi, Mtandi, Chironji, Kitututu, Mkomahindo,
and the rest of the lesser and greater elevations within my
horizon,—they present an incomparable and quite unforgettable spectacle.
When once the projected railway across the Umbekuru basin is completed,
the tourist agencies will have no more popular excursion than that to
the Masasi Range.
From a botanical point of view, also, the visitor finds himself well
repaid for his trouble. Once in the shadow of these hills, the
desolation of the _pori_ is forgotten as if by magic; one plantation
succeeds another, and patches of all the different varieties of millet
bow their heavy cobs and plumes in the fresh morning breeze, which is a
real refreshment after the stifling heat of the long day’s march through
the bush. Beans of all kinds, gourds and melons, rejoice the eye with
their fresh green, on either side of the path the _mhogo_ (manioc)
spreads its branches with their pale-green leaves and pink stalks.
Wherever there is an interval between these various crops, the _bazi_
pea rattles in its pod. This fertility (astonishing for the southern
part of German East Africa) is only rendered possible by the geological
constitution of the soil. Wherever we have set foot on the main road,
and north and south of the same, as far as the eye can reach, the
principal constituents of the upper stratum have been loamy sand and
sandy loam. In places where the action of water has been more marked, we
find an outcrop of bare, smooth gneiss rocks; or the ground is covered
with hard quartzite, crunching under foot. Only where these mighty
gneiss ranges break the monotony does anyone examining the country with
an eye to its economic value find full satisfaction. Gneiss weathers
easily and forms excellent soil, as the natives have long ago
discovered; and, though they by no means despise the less fertile
tracts, yet the most favoured sites for settlements have always been
those in the immediate vicinity of the gneiss islands. Masasi, with its
enormous extent, taking many hours to traverse, is the typical example
of such economic insight.
Since this would naturally attract people from all directions, it is not
to be wondered at if a question as to the tribal affinities of the
Masasi people should land one in a very chaos of tribes. Makua, Wayao,
Wangindo, a few Makonde, and, in addition a large percentage of Coast
men:—such are the voluntary immigrants to this little centre of social
evolution. To these we must add a miscellaneous collection of people
belonging to various tribes of the far interior, who are here included
under the comprehensive designation of Wanyasa. These Wanyasa are the
living testimony to an experiment devised in the spirit of the highest
philanthropy, which, unfortunately, has not met with the success hoped
for and expected by its promoters. This very region was some decades ago
the scene of an extremely active slave-traffic; the trade, kept up by
the Zanzibar and Coast Arabs, preferred the route through this
easily-traversed and at that time thickly-populated country. The
situation of Kilwa Kivinje on a bay so shallow that Arab slave-dhows,
but not the patrolling gun-boats of rigidly moral Powers, can anchor
there, is to this day a speaking testimony to that dark period in the
not excessively sunny history of Africa.
In order to get at the root of the evil, English philanthropists have
for many years been in the habit of causing the unhappy victims driven
down this road in the slave-stick, to be ransomed by the missionaries
and settled on their stations as free men. The principal settlement of
this kind is that among the gneiss peaks of Masasi. The Christian world
cherished the hope that these liberated slaves might be trained into
grateful fellow-believers and capable men. But when one hears the
opinion of experienced residents in the country, it is not possible
without a strong dose of preconceived opinion to see in these liberated
converts anything better than their compatriots. The fact remains and
cannot by any process of reasoning be explained away, that Christianity
does not suit the native; far less, in any case than Islam, which
unhesitatingly allows him all his cherished freedom.
Personally, however, I must say I have not so far noticed any
discreditable points in the character of the Masasi people; all who have
come in contact with me have treated me in the same friendly fashion as
the rest of those I have come across in this country. Such contact has
by no means been wanting in spite of the shortness of my stay here,
since I have thrown myself into my work with all the energy of which I
am capable, and am convinced that I have already seen with my own eyes
and heard with my own ears a large and important part of the people’s
life.
The very beginning of my studies was remarkably promising. The Mission
station of Masasi lies a short hour’s walk north north-eastward from us,
immediately under the precipitous side of Mtandi Mountain. This Mtandi
is the most imposing peak of the whole range; it rises in an almost
vertical cliff directly behind the straw huts of the Mission, ending, at
a height of nearly 3,100 feet in a flat dome. District Commissioner
Ewerbeck and I had already, when riding past it on the day of our
arrival, determined to visit this mountain; and we carried out our
project a day or two later. The trip was not without a certain
fascination. At 4.30 a.m. in a pitch-dark tropical night, we were ready
to march, the party consisting of two Europeans and half-a-dozen
carriers and boys, with Ewerbeck’s Muscat donkey and my old mule. As
quickly as the darkness allowed, the procession passed along the
_barabara_, turning off to the left as we approached Mtandi. The animals
with their attendants were left behind at the foot of the mountain,
while the rest of us, making a circuit of the Mission grounds, began our
climbing practice.
I had equipped myself for my African expedition with the laced boots
supplied by Tippelskirch expressly for the tropics. When I showed these
to “old Africans” at Lindi, they simply laughed at me and asked what I
expected to do in this country with one wretched row of nails on the
edge of the sole. They advised me to send the things at once to Brother
William at the Benedictine Mission, who earns the gratitude of all
Europeans by executing repairs on shoes and boots. Brother William, in
fact, very kindly armed my boots with a double row of heavy Alpine
hobnails, and I wore a pair the first day out from Lindi, but never
again on the march. They weighed down my feet like lead, and it soon
appeared that the heavy nails were absolutely unnecessary on the fine
sand of the _barabara_. After that first day, I wore my light laced
shoes from Leipzig, which make walking a pleasure. Here, on the other
hand, on the sharp ridges of Mtandi, the despised mountain boots
rendered me excellent service.
I prefer to omit the description of my feelings during this ascent. It
grew lighter, and we went steadily upwards, but this climbing, in single
file, from rock to rock and from tree to tree was, at any rate for us
two well-nourished and comfortable Europeans, by no means a pleasure. In
fact, we relinquished the ambition of reaching the highest peak and
contented ourselves with a somewhat lower projection. This was sensible
of us, for there was no question of the magnificent view we had
expected; the heights and the distant landscape were alike veiled in
thick mist, so that even the longest exposure produced no effect to
speak of on my photographic plates.
[Illustration: BUSH-FIRE ON THE MAKONDE PLATEAU]
[Illustration: OUR ASCENT OF MTANDI MOUNTAIN. DRAWN BY JUMA]
This ascent, though barren of results in other respects, has produced
one small monument of African art, a drawing of our climbing caravan,
which is here offered to the reader’s inspection. The native artist has
quite correctly indicated the steepness of the mountain by the vertical
line representing the road. The confusion of circles and curves at the
lower end stands for the buildings of the Mission station:—the
foundations of a church vast enough, should it ever be finished, to hold
all the converted heathen of Africa and the adjacent continents; the _ci
devant_ cowhouse, in which the two aged clergymen have found a primitive
refuge after the destruction of their beautiful buildings by the
_Majimaji_, the boys’ school and the girls’ school—two large bamboo huts
in the native style; and the dwellings of the native teachers and
boarders. The curly labyrinth at the upper end of the line is the top of
the mountain with its gneiss blocks. The two uppermost climbers are the
_kirongozi_ or guide and one of our men, the third is Captain Ewerbeck,
and the fourth myself. The District Commissioner is readily recognizable
by the epaulettes with the two stars denoting his military rank, which
belong to the uniform worn on duty by this class of officials. Of all
attributes of the white man this seems to make the greatest impression
on the native mind, since, in every drawing in my possession where
officers are represented, their rank is invariably (and always
correctly) indicated by the number of stars. In the same way the native
draughtsman never makes a mistake with regard to the stripes on the
sleeves of non-commissioned officers, black or white. The advantages of
a well-developed corporation are here evident! Ewerbeck and Seyfried are
about the same age as myself, and our chest and other measurements are
pretty nearly identical. This I suppose must be the reason why the
inhabitants of Lindi, and later on those of the interior, have promoted
me to the rank of captain; at Lindi I went by the name of _Hoffmani
mpya_, “the new captain” (_Hauptmann_). The drawing here reproduced is
evidence of my promotion, the artist having bestowed the epaulettes on
me as well as on Ewerbeck. The figures behind us are of no importance,
they are only the rest of our party. Now, however, comes the
psychologically noteworthy point; I figure in the picture twice over,
first laboriously climbing the mountain, and then in majestic pose at
the top, in the act of photographing the African landscape. You must
know that the tripod shown in the drawing is that of my 13 × 18 cm.
camera, the zig-zags between its legs are the brass struts which keep it
rigid; the long snake-like line is the rubber tube for the release of
the instantaneous shutter—of which, as a matter of fact, I could make no
use on account of the mist,—and the photographer is, as above stated,
myself. The men behind me are my personal attendants to whom the more
fragile parts of the apparatus are usually entrusted. The graphic
reproduction of this ascent is no great achievement on the part of the
native intellect, but nevertheless it is a very important document for
the beginnings of art in general and for the African point of view in
particular. To the ethnographer, of all men, the most apparently
insignificant matters are not without importance, and this is why the
prospect of working undisturbed for many months in these surroundings is
such a delight to me.
Our ascent of Mtandi was concluded, at any rate for the present, by a
ceremonious breakfast, to which the two missionaries had kindly invited
us. Englishmen, as is well known, live extremely well in their own
country; but abroad, too, even in the far interior of a continent, they
know how to make the best of things. I was here impressed with the fact
that Masasi must be a “very nourishing district,” as Wilhelm Raabe would
say. We had no champagne, it is true—Archdeacon Carnon had set it before
us on the previous day, in a huge water-jug, apologizing for the absence
of champagne glasses. We showed him that we were able to appreciate his
hospitality, even in the absence of such refinements.
The merriest part of our whole Mtandi expedition, however, was the ride
home, with the Mission pupils trotting along beside us. The little
fellows looked warlike enough with their bows and arrows, and seemed
desirous of shouting each other down. I could not at first make out what
they wanted, but on reaching home, that is to say, our police-post, I
soon understood that their object was nothing less than to offer me the
whole of their martial equipment for my ethnographic collection. But not
as a present—giving things away for nothing is not in the negro’s line,
and in this he resembles our German rustics. On the contrary, these
young people demanded fancy prices for the bows which they had made on
purpose to sell them to the _mzungu_, that remarkable character who buys
all sorts of native rubbish. I purchased such of their wares as seemed
suitable for my objects, and thought it advisable to prevent
disappointment to those whose offers had been refused by giving each a
copper or two out of the famous jar of which we shall hear again later
on. Before doing so, however, I instituted a pleasing experiment,
instructive for myself and highly enjoyable for the youth of Masasi, in
the shape of an archery competition.
Comparative ethnography has for a long time past busied itself with the
task of classifying and analyzing all the technical and mental
activities of man. Thus some decades ago, the American, Morse,[12]
ascertained that all men who shoot, or ever have shot, with the bow,
have certain definite ways of drawing it. There are about half-a-dozen
distinct methods, which are so distributed over the globe that, in some
places the same release (or “loose” as it is technically called) is
known to be common to the whole of a large area, while elsewhere the
most abrupt contrasts may be observed between contiguous nations or
tribes. It might be supposed that there could be no possible differences
in so simple an action as that of drawing a bow; but experiment shows
otherwise, and this experiment I have made over and over again in the
course of my lectures.
It is a thousand to one that any German (leaving out of consideration
the English and the Belgians, who still practise archery according to
the rules of the game, and can distinguish a good “loose” from a bad
one), when he has taken the bow in his left hand and grasped the arrow
and the string in his right, will hold the notch as it rests on the
string between his thumb and forefinger, and thus only indirectly draw
the string by means of the arrow. This, which is the “loose” we used on
the little toy bows of our boyhood, is the very worst conceivable, as
anyone who understands the other methods can convince himself by every
shot he tries. It is obvious that the arrow must slip from the fingers
if a moderately strong pull is given. The best proof of the inferiority
of this particular “loose” is the fact that it is very seldom found
among those sections of mankind who still use the bow as a serious and
effective weapon, whether in war or hunting. These handle it after a
very different fashion. Only where the bow is a mere survival, and only
used as a toy by children (the most conservative class in the
community), as for instance among ourselves, this method, quite useless
for an effective shot, is practised simply because no better is known.
If I felt compelled to take the boys at Masasi Mission as a standard for
estimating the culture of the race, I should have to say that here too
the bow is a survival, for nine-tenths of the whole multitude shot in
the same way as our boys at home, but with one difference; we hold the
bow horizontally, the African boys held it vertically, the arrow lying
on the left side of the string between the index and middle finger. Only
one-tenth of the whole number used a different “loose,” and these,
significantly enough, were older boys, who therefore had evidently taken
over with them into their Christianity a considerable dose of old
African conservatism.
My competition was arranged with a view, not so much of registering the
number of hits and misses, as of observing the method of drawing; but,
notwithstanding, I must say that the little archers acquitted themselves
by no means contemptibly. It is true that the distances were short, and
my mark was scarcely a small one, being a copy of the _Tägliche
Rundschau_; but the greater number sent their arrows inside the rings I
had hastily drawn on this improvised target. They were proud of their
success, too; and when I praised a good shot it was good to see the
triumphant looks that the little black hero cast round on his admiring
companions.
As to the other methods, if I were asked the question in my Leipzig
lecture-room, I should have to answer it at once. As it is, I am enabled
to claim the privilege of the investigator and excuse myself from giving
further information till I have collected sufficient material by a
series of fresh observations. I hope to gratify my readers’ thirst for
knowledge when I have traversed the whole plain north of the Rovuma,
and, encamped on the cool heights of the Makonde plateau, find leisure
to look back and take stock of my studies. Till then—_Au revoir,
Messieurs!_
[Illustration: MNYASA HUNTER WITH DOG. DRAWN BY SALIM MATCLA]