THE ROVUMA ONCE MORE
ON THE ROVUMA, about 39° 40′ E., October 23, 1906.
From a height of 2,300 feet above sea-level at Newala we have descended
to something under 200 feet, and instead of the usual noonday
temperature of 76° or 77°, we are sweltering in the jungle at 97° or
thereabouts, though in the immediate neighbourhood of our old friend the
Rovuma. But I must proceed in chronological order, if my narrative is to
be intelligible.
The early morning of October 11th was as misty, raw and cold as all its
predecessors, yet to our perceptions it did not resemble them in the
least. The spectacle of uproarious high spirits, which my men presented
when we left Chingulungulu was here repeated if possible in an
intensified form. Newala proved, in fact, anything but a Capua for these
poor fellows. Even Pesa mbili II, formerly a fellow of generous
proportions, has become quite slender. When I asked him yesterday,
“_Tumbo lako wapi?_” (“Where is your stomach?”) he replied with a
mournful glance at the place it had once occupied, “_Tumbo limekwenda,
Bwana_” (“It has gone away, sir”). Knudsen and I, by the way, can say
much the same, for our khaki suits hang quite loosely round our wasted
limbs.
Mahuta is the only place at which I could think of pursuing my Makonde
studies. It is not only the political centre of the hill country, and
the residence of the highest Government official, the Wali, but is from
a geographical point of view very favourably situated for my purposes,
as roads lead from it in all directions, by which I can easily reach the
various native tribes, or by which, this being in every way more
convenient, the natives can come to me. But, in the meantime, another
goal was beckoning—the Wangoni enclave on the southern edge of the
plateau.
From the day of my leaving Lindi I have heard all sorts of statements as
to these Wangoni, who of course are supposed to be akin to the Kafir
tribes of that name on the eastern shore of Lake Nyasa. On one of the
many raids in which these tribes, whether called Mazitu, Mafiti,
Magwangwara, Wamachonde, or Wangoni, have more or less laid waste, the
whole southern part of German East Africa, this division was separated
from the main body by a gallant counter-attack of the Yaos under Matola
I, and driven into the Nchichira district, on the southern edge of the
Makonde plateau. Nils Knudsen had more information to give me than this;
he described the Wangoni as splendid figures of warriors, in every
respect immeasurably superior to their present neighbours, and even to
his beloved Wayao. And if I wanted to see regular villages—rows of
houses with fine streets between them,—he said, I must go to Nchichira.
“So I will, but of course you must come, too,” was my answer. Honest
Nils did not wait for a second invitation: the Rovuma and
elephant-hunting are in his mind inseparably connected, and I think he
would walk straight to the Congo without stopping, if anyone told him
that a decent-sized tusker had been seen there. He is a good shot, too,
in spite of the unwieldy old-fashioned guns—in a very shaky condition,
moreover—which form his armoury.
I therefore determined on an excursion to Nchichira, to see something of
the Wangoni, before going on to Mahuta, where I mean to spend some weeks
in order to finish my inquiries. I feel already as if I had collected
nearly all the information I am capable of assimilating at present, and
that there is some danger of my receptive faculties failing me one of
these days, amid the abundance of new impressions.
We passed Mahuta on our march from Newala to Nchichira—the easiest march
yet experienced. Had I not bestridden my well-tried old mule, I could
have wished for a bicycle; even a motor could have been driven quite
comfortably along this road. No steep hills and no deeply eroded gorges,
but a plain with a gentle and almost imperceptible eastward slope,
covered throughout with dense bush, in which the industrious Makonde
have here and there cleared their little patches for cultivation, and
through which run broad, well-kept roads, sometimes perfectly straight
for a kilometer at a time. The Makonde have certainly not made these
roads out of any personal interest in improving their means of
communication. In fact, considerable pressure from Lindi was needed
before they could be got to accomplish the task; but, once finished, the
roads—everywhere wide enough for a column, and sometimes for a section,
to march abreast—are equal to every strategic requirement. The only
thing calculated to diminish the pleasures of travel is the loose, deep
sand, which, however, one is thankful to find does not occur everywhere,
but only in the depressions, where it has been washed down from the
higher parts of the road. In these spots it seems all but bottomless.
[Illustration: MY ESCORT HALTED AT HENDERERA’S VILLAGE IN THE MAKONDE
HIGHLANDS]
But the men’s delight in change and movement would conquer greater
difficulties than this trifle. The bush is green, the sun has just
dispelled the mists, and now shines down victoriously on black and white
alike with such cheerfulness that the carriers cannot help singing. So
they strike up their fine old Nyamwezi songs which have so often helped
us over the small unpleasantnesses of the march, and also some
newly-composed ones, which, heard to-day for the first time, are still
more pleasing than the old répertoire.
There is only one settlement of any size on the road between Newala and
Mahuta. This is the village presided over by Henderera, an old
club-footed Makonde headman. His ugliness seems to have impressed even
my carriers; at least one of them, a few days later, brought me a
sketch-book, in which the old man was most faithfully portrayed.
Henderera’s village is laid out on a surprisingly large scale; the open
space round which the huts are grouped is large enough for a company of
German soldiers to exercise in, and my scant dozen warriors make a very
poor show in it.
The _boma_ of Mahuta is conspicuous at a great distance by its palisade
and an unusually large drill-ground. In fact, all trees and bushes have
been cleared away to a distance of at least a couple of hundred yards
all round the fort. In front of the main entrance—a small gateway
scarcely wide enough for one man to pass—I see the Wali’s whole force
drawn up; five _baharia_, black fellows in khaki sailor-suits, who are
making convulsive efforts to get into tolerable alignment. The Wali is
not visible; he is at the coast, I am told. The commanding officer is
just bellowing “Present arms!” when I am unkind enough to leave the road
to the _boma_ and turn to the right. A few hundred yards on one side of
the _boma_, and behind it, I see the house which was long ago named in
my honour and in which it is surely my bounden duty to take up my
quarters. This is a building which Mr. Ewerbeck, in anticipation of our
working together at Mahuta, caused to be erected for our common use some
months ago. The architect was punctually at hand on the day fixed for
the house-warming, but his guest had been grappled with hooks of steel
by the ethnological interests of Chingulungulu. Half in sadness, half in
vexation, Ewerbeck moved in by himself, bestowed on the house the sign
of “The Professor who Never Came,” and, finally, took his own departure.
Scarcely had the five sailors become aware of my intention before they
were off like lightning. I rode after them at a round trot, but
nevertheless the “Ready! Present arms! Eyes left!” came quite in time. I
must say they are smart at their drill, these black lads!
The house at the sign of “The Professor who Never Came” has a
magnificent situation. From its verandah, or from the steps leading to
it, we look into a deep ravine yawning immediately at our feet. On both
sides is a splendid forest of large timber trees—the Makonde avoid steep
slopes in their destructive system of farming—and, in the far distance
behind the spot where the ravine (which must be some twelve miles long)
is closed in by two projecting spurs of the plateau, we see a pale grey
strip with a silver streak in it. That is the Rovuma. Behind it again is
a shining mirror—the Lidede Lake,[66] and behind that, in dark,
dull-green contours, the level of the Mavia plateau. After the monotony
of the Makonde Highlands, the scenery of Mahuta is indeed refreshing.
We continued our march on the following day. Hour after hour, the
long-drawn-out line of the caravan wound its way between the green walls
of the bush. The aspect of the latter had now undergone a change. It was
not so high, and the place of the terrible thorns was taken by a perfect
exuberance of plant-forms reminding me of our box-thorn (_Lycium
barbarum_). As the sun rose higher, the heat in the narrow pass now
forming the road became more stifling, and the sand of the soil finer
and deeper. At last we reached Nchichira, which, like Masasi, Newala and
Mahuta, possesses a _boma_—a square enclosure of about 100 yards to a
side, surrounded by a palisade of stout logs. This contains the
dwellings of the Akida and the other officials of a subordinate German
administrative centre. In the months which have passed since we left
Lindi, my men have become thoroughly proficient in pitching and breaking
camp. One, two, three, and my tent is in place—and in an equally short
time we have installed ourselves under the low _baraza_. It is no more
comfortable than our previous abodes, but I prefer a strong thatched
roof to the necessity of living in the hot tent, or to a freshly-built
_banda_ with its abundance of all sorts of vermin. In such structures
insects incessantly rain down from the newly-cut grass on one’s head and
body, and into all the plates and dishes.
The twelve days at Nchichira passed like a dream. Not that I really did
any dreaming: the excessive amount of work awaiting me there prevented
that. Just because I have not yet attained a clear consciousness of the
impressions received—have, so to speak, not digested the abundant repast
set before me—the whole time of my stay seems, on looking back, like a
confused reverie. I shall not attempt to describe its details here, but
only to note the most striking points.
I can find no trace of the heroic qualities alleged to be possessed by
the Wangoni. These fellows do not seem to differ much, physically or
mentally, from the other tribes in this region; in fact, to confess the
honest truth, their physique is somewhat inferior. Moreover, many of
them are diseased. I was confronted with a ghastly sight one day, when
following a strange track in the sand which I took to be that of a
python, I went round to the back of a hut and found seated there a
living skeleton—a man without a vestige of flesh or muscle on his whole
body. He had been dragged along in a sitting posture by a compassionate
small boy, thus producing the track I had noticed. This disease is
called _ububa_.
[Illustration: NATIVE SUFFERING FROM THE _UBUBA_ DISEASE]
The only really tall man is old Makachu, the headman of the neighbouring
village, and at the same time the chief of one of the two clans into
which the Wangoni living here are divided. I measured Makachu and found
his height to be a fraction under six feet. If this stature makes him
look like Saul among his people, it is obvious how very poorly developed
the rest of them must be. Indeed the old men of the tribe, as they drag
themselves up to the _baraza_ to talk to me, seem quite emaciated with
chronic underfeeding; and the rising generation does not promise much
better. “No—these are no Zulus,” I said to myself on first seeing them;
and I have since found this conclusion confirmed by all sorts of proofs.
[Illustration: MAJALIWA, SAIDI AND MAKACHU]
In the first place, there is not a single South African touch in the
arrangement and construction of their huts. The widely-scattered
villages, through which we have marched for the last few hours of the
road from Mahuta, are exactly like the villages in the plains west of
the plateau. The only difference is that the fields here appear to be
better kept, and to have been better cleared and broken up, to begin
with. But then it is one thing to clear ground in a large timber forest,
and another to burn off the sort of bush that grows up in these parts.
The details of hut-construction, too, are exactly the same, and the
interiors just as wildly untidy, and furnished with the same sort of
grain-stores, pots and bark boxes, the same bedsteads and the same
smouldering log on the hearth as at Mchauru or Akundonde’s; while the
outer walls are daubed over with the same sort of childish paintings
found elsewhere in the country.
But let us consider the language and history of this group of people.
Among my carriers we have in the person of Mambo sasa a genuine Zulu, a
Mngoni from Runsewe. These Wangoni are the descendants of that wave of
Zulus which penetrated furthest north. While the main body of the
warriors who, three quarters of a century ago, crossed the Zambezi,[67]
settled on both shores of Nyasa, and founded kingdoms there, amid
sanguinary struggles, these Wangoni kept on northward along the eastern
shore of Tanganyika, till their advance, too, was checked in
north-western Unyamwezi. Under the name of Watuta, the descendants of
these first conquerors continued their predatory career for some
decades, till Captain Langheld, in the nineties, settled them in the
bush at Runsewe where they now live. “Now, Mambo sasa, you can go ahead
and interpret!” I remarked to my merry friend, when the Wangoni made
their appearance. I have already more than once mentioned Mambo; he is
jester-in-ordinary to the whole company; his voice, though not
melodious, is powerful and untiring, and his improvised ditties never
cease during the day, whether on the march or in camp. With the Wangoni
of Nchichira confronting the Mngoni from Runsewe, I prepared to take
notes in my usual way. Mambo, when I had made sure that he understood my
first question, repeated it in his mother tongue—but there was no
answer; the men simply stared at him in bewilderment. Repeated
experiments led to the same result; it was abundantly clear that the
alleged fellow-tribesmen could not understand one another’s speech.
Subsequently I questioned both parties separately, and noted down as
much of their respective languages as the incredible and equal stupidity
of the good Mambo sasa and the Nchichira elders would allow. So far as I
have been able to get a connected view of the result, my supposition is
confirmed; the Wangoni of this district have nothing beyond the name in
common with those in the hill country near Songea. They are just such a
congeries of broken tribes as we find elsewhere in the south of our
colony.
A clear proof that I am right in the above opinion was afforded me when
talking over the history of the tribe. After the giant Makachu, my
principal informant is old Majaliwa, within the area of whose village
the _boma_ is built, and whose guests, in a manner of speaking, we
therefore are. He is also the chief of the second clan previously
mentioned. The younger and more “educated” element is represented by
Saidi, the teacher at Nkundi, who arrived to act as interpreter in
response to my urgent appeal for his help. The people here are, after
all, too primitive for anything. Half-a-dozen other men, mostly elderly,
who seem more concerned with expectorating all over my _baraza_ than
with adding to my knowledge of their tribal history, serve to fill up
the background behind the above three worthies.
In the first place Majaliwa and Makachu enlighten me as to their
respective families. The former belongs to the _lukohu_ (= _lukosyo_) of
the Makale, the latter to that of the Wakwama. Makachu, the effect of
whose fine stature is somewhat spoilt by very high shoulders, between
which his head appears quite sunk, then, uninvited, begins to relate how
he was born near the Lukimwa River, but his people were driven thence to
the Mluhezi when he was a boy. Quite mechanically, at the word boy, the
old man, as he sits on the ground, raises his arm to a horizontal
position, and as mechanically his hand rises so as to make a right angle
with his arm. It was the Wangoni, he goes on, who drove them away.
“The Wangoni?” I ask in astonishment, “but you are a Mngoni yourself!”
“Yes, but it was the Wangoni, all the same.”
I thought it best for the moment not to confuse the old man, so made no
further remark, and he went on: “When my beard was just beginning to
grow”—Makachu’s short beard is now quite white—“the Wangoni came again,
but that time they were as many as the locusts, and we were driven away
as far as Namagone’s.”
[Illustration: VIEW FROM NCHICHIRA OVER THE ROVUMA, LAKE NANGADI, AND
THE MAVIA PLATEAU]
I always, of course, have my only and highly-prized map handy, and a
glance at it shows me that such a chief as Namagone really exists, and
that his village is on the right bank of the Rovuma, in 38° 26′ E.
longitude, so that one troop of these Wangoni must at some time or other
during their retreat have got as far east as this. This was confirmed by
several other men sitting by. Kambale says that he, too, was at
Namagone’s when a boy, and Liambaku, a younger brother of Majaliwa’s,
states that he was born at the Lukimwa.
Makachu is just about to continue his narrative when Majaliwa, the
senior of those present, opens his withered mouth, with its worn-down
stumps of teeth, to say: “From the Lukimwa we went to Kandulu’s, the Yao
chief; the Wangoni drove us away from there; first we went to
Namagone’s, and then to Makachu’s, where we remained a year. But the
Wangoni came again and drove us out once more, and we came to Nchichira.
But even here they have attacked us once, and that was at the time when
you Wadachi (Germans) built your _boma_ at Lindi.”
No one else offers to speak, so that I can put in a word in my turn.
“You have so much to say of the evil the Wangoni have done you, but are
they not your brothers?”
Lively gesticulation all round the circle. “No,” is the unanimous
answer, “they are our worst enemies.”
“But surely you can understand and speak their language?” Again a most
decided negative. Further cross-questioning elicited the following
explanation:—
“We people of Nchichira call ourselves Wangoni, but we call the people
from Songea Mafiti. They came from a far country long ago, but we do not
know what country they came from. Our fathers always lived on the
Lukimwa, and if it were not that the evil Mafiti had raided us so often,
we should be living there still. We are no kin to the Wamatambwe, but we
are good friends with the Wayao; our fathers always took refuge with
them in time of war.”
A detailed study of the Wangoni at Nchichira thus shows that, as already
stated, they are a conglomerate of all possible elements, who during the
long Mafiti troubles fled to this remote corner and became amalgamated
into a sort of tribal unit of their own. How much they resemble—or try
to resemble—the Yaos, nothing shows more clearly than the fact that
almost all the women wear the _kipini_ or nose-stud; the _pelele_ is
quite a rarity among them. Though disappointed of the new and strange
traits I had hoped to meet with, had the Wangoni proved to be true
Zulus, I cannot help feeling a certain pride in correcting the old
mistaken view of these people which is even now current on the coast:
yet I cannot deny that the discovery made me less unwilling to leave
Nchichira than I should otherwise have been.
Knudsen has been spending the whole time which I have devoted to my
inquiries among the Wangoni elders, hunting in the alluvial valley of
the Rovuma, with its rich variety of high, dense forest, tangled scrub,
and open, meadow-like glades. I often thought I could hear his gun, so
close under the _boma_ of Nchichira do these hunting-grounds lie, and,
more than once, standing on the plateau, I have fancied my eye could
follow his stooping figure as he advanced quickly and yet cautiously
along the bottom of the valley.
The one evening walk possible at Nchichira is very short, but reveals
almost an excess of beauty. The sun has just set behind the distant
Nyasa, and, quite exhausted, I lay aside pencil and note-book, light a
fresh cigar (we have had in a supply by this time, not derived from the
Indian’s store at Lindi, but genuine Leipzig ones), beckon my
camera-bearers to follow, and leave the _boma_ at a good round pace. We
walk along the palisade till it comes to an end, and then we have
reached the goal; the Rovuma Valley in all its glory is lying
immediately at my feet. It is no easy task to depict a sunset in words,
and here, where to the peculiar character of the country, with its
remarkable contrasts between the highest degree of erosion and the
greatest amount of alluvial accumulation is added an indescribable
richness of colour in the evening sky, the pen fails—if only because in
the presence of such beauty it is impossible for a person of any feeling
to put his impressions on paper. If I could photograph in colours what a
picture I should have! But as I am confined to the use of common, or at
most orthochromatic plates, I shall have to do the best I can with my
note-book, after reaching home, to give some idea of the glory I have
been witnessing.
[Illustration: FOREST RUINED BY NATIVES NEAR NCHICHIRA, ROVUMA VALLEY]
The plateau, here, at the centre of its southern edge, is much lower
than at Newala; it may be estimated at from 1,300 to 1,500 feet. And yet
the valley of the Rovuma, with a breadth of from six to nine miles and a
height above sea-level, at its lowest point, of barely 200 feet, makes
the impression of a vast eroded ravine. Its two edges are absolutely
similar, and it must be clear to any child that the Mavia plateau on the
other side and the Makonde highlands on this are of the same age and
have the same origin. The Rovuma, working downward like a saw, has
gradually excavated this cañon across the old tableland. Now at the end
of the dry season, the river looks more poverty-stricken than ever—a
scanty thread of water trickling along a bed over half-a-mile wide,
filled with enormous banks of gravel and sand. The river in flood must
be a grand sight, but to-day the prevailing note of the scenery is
gentle and cheerful. A whole series of terraces marking different
flood-levels are visible to the naked eye below us, while similar ones
can be made out with a field-glass on the Portuguese side of the river.
The grey strip with the shining silver thread in it looks near enough to
be touched by the hand, yet Knudsen says it is a good two hours’ walk to
the river-bank—so deceptive is the wonderfully clear air. It is true
that here, too, there are clouds of smoke rising to the sky—they are at
times particularly dense and frequent on the other side of the valley,
between the river and the Nangadi Lake. I am almost tempted to think
that the Mavia want to smoke out the unlucky Portuguese who is probably
meditating in his _boma_—easily distinguishable with the glass—on the
reason why he has been condemned to pass his life here: so numerous are
the concentric zones of fire which seem to surround his lonely abode. To
our right the grey bed of the river with its green margins stretches
away westward till it is lost in the distance. The Lidede Lake is by no
means near, yet it, too, by an effect of perspective, seems to lie at
our feet, so far can I look beyond it into the interior of the
continent. And over all this the western and southern horizon glows in a
thousand brilliant tints. It almost seems as if the sun, for love of so
much beauty, were departing less quickly than he usually does between
the tropics; the sunset hues pale and fade away only very gradually. It
was with difficulty that I could tear myself away from this picture in
order to take one or two photographs of it with my smallest stop, while
my dark friends stood behind me in silence, evidently as much impressed
as their master. At first the darkness came on by slow degrees, but
after a while the shadows, growing deeper and deeper, descended more
quickly over Lidede and Nangadi; then the first sombre tones touched the
meadows and the green forest, and only the light grey of the river bed
showed up for a while amid the gathering darkness. I am a very prosaic
person, on the whole; but I am quite willing to admit that a single
sunset like this would have amply repaid me for the march to Nchichira,
even had I found no Wangoni living there.
In this valley, then, Nils Knudsen has been pursuing the pleasures of
the chase. At any time, the first chance native who comes to him with
the remark, “Master, there are elephants down there,” is enough to send
him off in ten minutes at the best pace of which his rolling seaman’s
gait will permit. He is sensible enough, however, to trust no longer to
his ancient blunderbusses, but has asked me for the loan of one of my
rifles.
One afternoon, I am sitting as usual with my native tutors. Our Kingoni
studies are not progressing very satisfactorily. If I direct the
intelligent Saidi to translate, “Your father is dead,” I infallibly get
a sentence which, when afterwards checked, turns out to mean, “My father
is dead.” If I want him to tell me the Kingoni for “My father is dead,”
he translates (quite correctly from his point of view), “Your father,”
etc., etc. I am now so far used to these little jokes that they no
longer excite me, but a worse difficulty lies in ascertaining the forms
of the personal pronouns: “I, thou,” etc. They caused me no end of
trouble even at Newala, where my teachers were by no means stupid. Here,
whatever I do, I cannot succeed in getting the third person singular and
plural. I have arrived at the first and second, of course, by the rule
of contraries; for, if I say “I,” involuntarily pointing to myself, I am
sure to get the word for “you,” and _vice versa_. Resigning myself to
disappointment, I am just about to light a cigar to soothe my nerves,
when I become aware of a perceptible excitement all round me. At a rate
compared with which Pheidippides must have come from Marathon at a
snail’s pace, one of Knudsen’s boys arrives, spluttering out something
which I cannot understand. My men are all assembled in no time, and from
them and the inhabitants of the _boma_ I hear the news of Knudsen’s
success in bringing down a large elephant. Its tusks are “so big”—the
fellows stretch out their, long, gibbon-like arms to show their
girth—and as for meat...! I could see how their mouths were watering at
the thought.
That day and the next were entirely dominated by the slain elephant. The
men kept bringing in veritable mountains of meat, and the whole
countryside smelt anything but agreeably of African cooking. Then
arrived the four feet, then the tusks, and last of all the successful
hunter himself. His triumph, however, was somewhat damped by the fact
that the tusks were small in proportion to the size of the animal,
weighing, by our reckoning, certainly not over forty pounds. To make up
for this, he brought me another piece of news, to my mind much more
welcome; the people in the valley had houses of a style totally
different from anything to be seen up here—in fact, constructions of
several stories. Nils was obliged to asseverate this in the most solemn
way before I would believe him; but once convinced of his _bona fides_,
I could not stay another day on the plateau. Early the very next
morning, we were clambering like monkeys down its bordering cliffs into
the river-valley.
For the last few days we have been encamped here close to the left bank
of the main river, in the scanty shade of stunted trees, surrounded by a
tangle of reeds and tall grass, in which our people with some trouble
cleared a place for the tents. At this spot there is an extensive view
both up and down stream, and, for a wonder, this reach is free from the
islands which elsewhere obstruct the channel, so that the eye can range
unhindered across a sea of sand-banks to the further shore. The steep,
eroded banks whose acquaintance we made on the central course of the
river are here, too, the rule. Sitting at the top of one of these steep
slopes, it requires some skill to hit the hippos which from time to time
unexpectedly rise in the river; even Nils, usually a dead shot, misses
time after time, to his great disgust. These slopes are the only
picturesque point in the vast desolation of the river-bed where nothing
is to be seen except sand and gravel, gravel and sand. Between these
great masses of drift, the Rovuma is still more broken up into small
streams than is the case higher up at the mouth of the Bangala, and the
wandering Wamatambwe, here more numerous than on the upper river, have
no need to exercise their famous powers of swimming and diving, but can
wade at their ease across the shallow channels.
This is rather unfortunate for Knudsen, as it deprives him of an
opportunity to prove the truth of a story he is never tired of telling
me about the Wamatambwe. Not content with saying that they are excellent
swimmers, and not afraid of crocodiles, partly because of their faith in
the charms with which they are always provided and partly because they
are much more agile in the water than the reptiles—he insists that they
cross the river at its highest level, when the current is too strong to
launch their canoes, by simply walking through, though the water is far
above their heads. Though unable, in face of his superior knowledge, to
disprove this assertion, I find it somewhat difficult to believe.
The state of the river, as I have already remarked, will not allow them
to show off their diving at present, and as regards their trust in the
_dawa_ for protection against crocodiles, my own observation does not
bear out what he tells me. At least, I see that the Wamatambwe whom he
sends across the channel at our feet, in order to pick up the numerous
ducks shot by him, always look about them uneasily when they chance upon
a deeper spot and make the best of their way to shore.
[Illustration: MATAMBWE FISHERMAN CATCHING A TURTLE, WHICH A WATER-SNAKE
IS TRYING TO SEIZE. FROM A DRAWING BY THE ASKARI STAMBURI]
But this is not the purpose for which I came down to the Rovuma, and I
may give myself credit for devoting to the river only the afternoons of
my scanty leisure. Every forenoon is occupied with the discovery as to
which Knudsen was so enthusiastic. This time, for once, he was right;
but, as the simplest photograph tells more than the fullest description,
I refer the reader to the accompanying illustrations and only give such
additional comments as are absolutely necessary to make them
comprehensible.
Our departure from Nchichira was slightly delayed by a warm shower,
falling in straight, vertical lines on the dry sand. Both nature and man
drew a long breath at this first symptom of the approaching rains. But
the pitiless sun reasserted his rights only too quickly, and the
procession started on its way, soon vanishing down the precipitous
slope. After descending a few yards, the steep path ceased to be
slippery; hot, dry stones crunched under our feet—the atmosphere, too,
into which every step plunged us another fraction of a yard deeper, was
likewise hot and dry; it became evident that the rain must here have
evaporated before it reached the ground. At last we arrived at the
bottom and entered a dense forest of huge trees. But even here we did
not find the pleasant coolness of our German forests; the air we
encountered was hot, moist and mouldy-smelling, and the foot had to feel
its way uncertainly over the quaking soil.
“If the Department of Woods and Forests only knew—there is plenty of
timber to be had here!” I was just saying to myself, when we suddenly
came to the end of it. It looked as though a hurricane had passed, or an
avalanche ploughed its way down the neighbouring precipice. The mighty
boles lay like broken matches, across one another in all directions; a
lamentable sight indeed to an economical European eye. With great
difficulty we scrambled on; the ground became drier; here and there we
stepped into heaps of ashes, and then a glance round revealed the true
state of the case. Even here, it is man who will not leave nature in
peace. The Makonde plateau, with its area of 6,000 square miles, might
surely be expected to afford subsistence for a mere trifle of 80,000 or
90,000 natives with their simple wants. As a matter of fact, however, we
see that it is not sufficient for them. In this case the underwood had
been cut down and burnt over a considerable distance, and the large
trees had been attacked, as usual, with axe and fire. Everywhere fallen
logs still smouldered, and the vanished shapes of splendid trees were
traced on the ground in outlines of white ashes. While I was still
gazing in horror at the work of destruction, my men brought forward one
of the criminals—no other than old Majaliwa himself. He had his axe
still in his hand, and was grinning all over with pride at his
achievements.
German East Africa has no superfluity of real, commercially valuable
timber; the famous Shume forest in Usambara and a few others (remarkable
on account of their rarity) are but the exceptions proving the rule. The
necessity, therefore, of protecting the hitherto untouched forest areas
on the Rovuma from the wasteful farming of the natives is all the more
urgent. We have a well-founded right to prohibit the tribes living in
the neighbourhood of this valley from cutting down a single tree in it,
since it is solely in consequence of the security afforded by the German
administration that they are able to cultivate any new ground at all
outside their hereditary seats on the plateau. If the _boma_ of
Nchichira had not been planted on the top of the escarpment, bidding
defiance to the Mavia across the valley, no Mngoni or Makonde would
dream of sowing a single grain of maize beyond the edge of the
tableland. So to-day, knowing that, under our protection, they are quite
safe from Mavia raids, even in the valley, they go down and destroy our
finest forests.
A little farther on, having reached the top of an undulation in the
soil, we at last came to the wonder we were in search of—two specimens
at once. With astonishment I found myself before a regular tower, and
saw my men staring uncomprehendingly at a style of architecture quite
new to them. Majaliwa’s new palace—it was here then, that the old man
retired every day after our _shauri_ was over—is not, indeed, as Nils
Knudsen had asserted, a three-storied house, but, with a little goodwill
we can easily make out two stories and an attic. The ground floor is a
square apartment with grass walls, filled with pots, calabashes, ladles
and the rest of a native woman’s household requisites, and having the
usual fire smouldering between the three lumps of earth in the centre.
The first floor is much more elegantly appointed, only the access to it
is less convenient than might be wished. My early training in gymnastics
enables me to negotiate without difficulty the primitive ladder,
consisting of cross-pieces lashed to the supporting piles at intervals
of about a yard; but they give Knudsen a good deal of trouble, and how
old Majaliwa and his wife get up it every night, like chickens going to
roost, is beyond my comprehension. Their sleeping apartment is quite
comfortable—a thick layer of straw covers the logs of the floor, and the
mats which make up the bedding are of a quality by no means to be
despised. As the _matriarchate_ is not in force among the Wangoni, no
rule of propriety is violated by the fact that Abdallah, the heir to the
house, lives in the attic. This, too, is, for a native dwelling, very
neatly arranged, with its soft bed, mats and baskets of provisions.
[Illustration: PILE-DWELLING ON THE ROVUMA, NEAR NCHICHIRA]
Such was my first sight of the pile-dwellings of this region. It was
followed by more extensive studies, but the main features of these
constructions are everywhere the same. My first notion as to the reason
for this mode of building was that it had been adopted to escape the
mosquitoes in the neighbourhood of the river, and also for safety in
time of flood. Some of these huts, in fact, are within reach of the
inundations during the wet season; but the majority are placed on the
top of ridges well beyond high-water mark. If we ask the natives why
they build their huts in this particular way, the answer is always the
same—“_Pembe_” (“Elephants”). I was at first unwilling to believe this,
the elephant being an extremely shy animal, who, under all
circumstances, avoids the vicinity of man; but I was informed that the
local representatives of the species are of a somewhat different
disposition from their congeners elsewhere. Only a few days before, one
of these monsters had, quite unprovoked, seized a Mngoni going peaceably
about his business, and tossed him into the air. In the light of these
facts, the strong palisade surrounding many of these high structures
cannot be considered an unnecessary precaution. In any case the
discovery of this pile-dwelling district within easy reach of the coast
was almost as pleasant a surprise as my success in establishing the
tribal divisions at Newala.
The heat here certainly makes us wish ourselves back in the
comparatively low temperature of that place. It is impossible to remain
even a minute in the tent during the daytime, the thermometer there
standing at over 104°, while even under our _banda_ (a hastily erected
grass shelter), we are sitting perspiring at 98° and 99°. The evening
gale which was the terror of our lives at Newala is here entirely
absent, but, on the other hand, we are tormented by a legion of
mosquitoes, from which we can only escape by retiring under our nettings
soon after sunset.
“Have you anything more on your mind?” I have just asked the
indefatigable Knudsen, who seems quite worn out. “I mean,” I add, seeing
that he does not at once understand, “have you any more ethnographical
curiosities in reserve?”
“Not that I know of,” is his answer.
“Well, then, let us march again to-day, as far as the _boma_ of
Nchichira, and to-morrow morning at 4.45 we will leave for Mahuta.”
“Let us do so at once, by all means!” replies Knudsen, and goes into his
tent to change his soaking khaki suit.