Back in camp—An epidemic of small-pox—Panic of desertion—Kalulu’s
disloyalty—Livingstone’s lenience—Imaginary terrors—Hair dressing
_ad absurdum_—Ruanga’s opinion of white men—A village sketch—The
villagers of Uhombo—_In puris naturalibus_—A touch of human
nature—On Livingstone’s traces—What is there in feathers?—The
Manyema: their life and manners—Our ass astonishes the
natives—Bloodless wars—Nicknames—A tribe with beards but no
wives—The confluence of the Luama and the Livingstone.
_Aug. 31._—The sky was of a stainless blue, and the slumbering lake
faithfully reflected its exquisite tint, for not a breath of wind was
astir to vex its surface. With groves of palms and the evergreen fig-
trees on either hand, and before us a fringe of tall cane-grass along
the shores all juicy with verdure, the square tembés of Ugoy, and the
conical cotes of Kawelé, embowered by banana and plantain, we emerged
into the bay of Ujiji from the channel of Bangwé.
The cheery view of the port lent strength to our arms. An animating
boat-song was struck up, the sounds of which, carried far on the shore,
announced that a proud, joyous crew was returning homeward.
Long-horned cattle are being driven to the water to drink; asses are
galloping about, braying furiously; goats and sheep and dogs are
wandering in the market-place—many familiar scenes recur to us as we
press forward to the shore.
Our Wangwana hurry to the beach to welcome us. The usual congratulations
follow—hand-shakings, smiles, and glad expressions. Frank, however, is
pale and sickly; a muffler is round his neck, and he wears a greatcoat.
He looks very different from the strong, hearty man to whom I gave the
charge of the camp during my absence. In a few words he informs me of
his sufferings from the fever of Ujiji.
[Illustration:
IN COUNCIL: THE COURTYARD OF OUR TEMBÉ AT UJIJI.
(_From a photograph by the Author._)
]
“I am so glad you have come, sir. I was beginning to feel very
depressed. I have been down several times with severe attacks of the
horrible fever. Yesterday is the first time I got up after seven days’
weary illness, and people are dying round me so fast that I was
beginning to think I must soon die too. Now I am all right, and shall
soon get strong again.”
The news, when told to me in detail, was grievous. Five of our Wangwana
were dead from small-pox; six others were seriously ill from the same
cause. Among the Arab slaves, neither inoculated nor vaccinated, the
mortality had been excessive from this fearful pest.
At Rosako, the second camp from Bagamoyo, I had foreseen some such event
as this, and had vaccinated, as I had thought, all hands; but it
transpired, on inquiry now, that there were several who had not
responded to the call, through some silly prejudice against it. Five of
those unvaccinated were dead, and five were ill, as also was one who had
received the vaccine. When I examined the medicine-chest, I found the
tubes broken and the lymph dried up.
The Arabs were dismayed at the pest and its dreadful havoc among their
families and slaves. Every house was full of mourning and woe. There
were no more agreeable visits and social converse; each kept himself in
strict seclusion, fearful of being stricken with it. Khamis the Baluch
was dead, his house was closed, and his friends were sorrowing. Mohammed
bin Gharib had lost two children; Muini Kheri was lamenting the deaths
of three children. The mortality was increasing: it was now from fifty
to seventy-five daily among a population of about three thousand. Bitter
were the complainings against the hot season and close atmosphere, and
fervent the prayers for rain!
Frank had been assiduous in his assistance to our friends. He had
elevated himself in their opinion by his devotion and sympathy, until
sickness had laid its heavy hand on him. The Wangwana were now his
sincere admirers, and the chiefs were his friends. Formerly, while
ignorant of the language, he and they were, perhaps of necessity,
mutually distant; they now fraternised warmly.
Our messengers had not returned with our letters from Unyanyembé, but,
to escape the effects of the epidemic, it was necessary to move and
resume our journey westward. The Wangwana were therefore ordered to
prepare, and my last letters were written; but, though I hoped to be
ready on the 17th to strike camp, I was attacked by a serious fever.
This delayed me until the evening of the 25th.
When, on the morning of the 25th of August, the drum and bugle announced
that our travels were to be resumed, I had cause to congratulate myself
that I had foreseen that many desertions would take place, and that I
was prepared in a measure for it by having discarded many superfluities.
But I was not prepared to hear that thirty-eight men had deserted.
Thirty-eight out of 170 was a serious reduction of strength. I was also
told by the chiefs of the Expedition, who were almost beside themselves
with fear, that this wholesale desertion threatened an entire and
complete dissolution of our force, that many more would desert _en
route_ to Kabogo, as the people were demoralized by the prospect of
being eaten by Manyema cannibals. As neither Frank nor I relished the
idea of being compelled to return to Zanzibar before we had obtained a
view of the Lualaba, I mustered as many as would answer to their names;
and out of these, selecting such as appeared unstable and flighty, I
secured thirty-two, and surrounded our house with guards.
[Illustration: M’SEHAZY HAVEN AND CAMP, AT THE MOUTH OF M’SEHAZY RIVER.]
After repairing the canoes and getting the boat ready, those who did not
bear a good character for firmness and fidelity were conducted under
guard to the transport canoes; the firm and faithful, and those believed
to be so, were permitted to march on land with myself towards Kabogo
Cape, or M’sehazy Creek, whence the crossing of the Tanganika was to be
effected. Out of the 132 men, of whom the Expedition now consisted, only
thirty were entrusted with guns, as my faith in the stability of the
Wangwana was utterly destroyed, despite their protestations to the
contrary. I could afford to lose weak, fearful, and unworthy men; but I
could not afford to lose one gun. Though we had such a show of strength
left, I was only too conscious that there were barely forty reliable and
effective in a crisis, or in the presence of danger; the rest were
merely useful as bearers of burdens, or porters.
When we resumed our journey the second day from Ukaranga, three more
were missing, which swelled the number of desertions to forty-one, and
reduced our force to 129. After we had crossed the Tanganika and arrived
in Uguha, two more disappeared, one of whom was young Kalulu, whom I had
taken to England and the United States, and whom I had placed in an
English school for eighteen months.
Induced to do so by the hope that I should secure their attachment to
the cause of the Expedition, I had purchased from Sultan bin Kassim six
bales of cloth at an enormous price, £350, and had distributed them all
among the people gratuitously. This wholesale desertion at the very
period when their services were about to be most needed was my reward!
The desertion and faithless conduct of Kalulu did not, as may be
imagined, augment my hopes, or increase my faith in the fidelity of my
people. But it determined me to recover some of the deserters. Francis
Pocock and the detective of the Expedition, the ever-faithful and
gallant Kachéché, were therefore sent back with a squad to Ujiji, with
instructions how to act; and one night Kachéché pounced upon six
fellows, who, after a hard and tough resistance, were secured; and after
his return to Uguha with these he successfully recovered the runaway
Kalulu on Kasengé Island. These seven, along with a few others arrested
in the act of desertion, received merited punishments, which put an end
to misconduct and faithlessness, and prevented the wreck of the
Expedition.
It must not be supposed that I was more unfortunate than other
travellers; for to the faithlessness of his people may be attributed
principally the long wanderings of poor Livingstone. Cameron also lost a
great number at Unyanyembé, as well as at Ujiji. Experience had taught
me on my first journey to Central Africa that Wangwana would desert at
every opportunity, especially in the vicinity of the Arab depots. It was
to lessen these opportunities for desertion that I had left the
Unyanyembé road, and struck through Ituru and Iramba; and though my
losses in men were great from famine, the ferocity of the natives, and
sickness, they did not amount to half of what they certainly would have
been had I touched at Unyanyembé. By adopting this route, despite the
calamities that we were subjected to for a short season, I had gained
time, and opened new countries, hitherto unexplored.
_Sept._—Desertion had also been checked by voyaging Lake Victoria,
instead of pursuing our journey by land, and troubles with Rwoma and the
king of Usui had also been avoided. But when we received a check at the
Muta Nzigé, it became necessary to visit Ujiji, and the long-sought-for
opportunity to desert was thus presented to the disaffected, and those
who had enlisted only for the sake of the advance-money given to them at
Zanzibar. Among these cunning ones was Msenna, the terror of Zanzibar
and the coast. He was renowned as a murderer, robber, and ruffian when
he took service with me. This man was among the deserters at Ujiji.
Unless the traveller in Africa exerts himself to keep his force intact,
he cannot hope to perform satisfactory service. If he relaxes his
watchfulness, it is instantly taken advantage of by the weak-minded and
the indolent. Livingstone lost at least six years of time, and finally
his life, by permitting his people to desert. If a follower left his
service, he even permitted him to remain in the same village with him,
without attempting to reclaim him, or to compel that service which he
had bound himself to render at Zanzibar. The consequence of this
excessive mildness was that he was left at last with only seven men, out
of nearly seventy. His noble character has won from us a tribute of
affection and esteem, but it has had no lasting good effect on the
African. At the same time over-severity is as bad as over-gentleness in
dealing with these men. What is required is pure, simple justice between
man and man.
The general infidelity and instability of the Wangwana arises, in great
part, from their weak minds becoming a prey to terror of imaginary
dangers. Thus, the Johanna men deserted Livingstone because they heard
the terrible Mafitté were in the way; my runaways of Ujiji fled from the
danger of being eaten by the Manyema.
The slaves of Sungoro, the coast trader at Kagehyi, Usukuma, informed my
people that Lake Victoria spread as far as the Salt Sea, that it had no
end, and that the people on its shores loved the flesh of man better
than that of goats. This foolish report made it a most difficult matter
to man the exploring boat, and over a hundred swore by Allah that they
knew nothing of rowing.
A similar scene took place when about to circumnavigate the Tanganika,
for the Arab slaves had spread such reports of Muzimus, hobgoblins,
fiery meteors, terrible spirits, such as Kabogo, Katavi, Kateyé, and
Wanpembé, that the teeth of Wanyamwezi and Wangwana chattered with
fright. But no reports exercised such a terrible effect on their weak
minds as the report of the Manyema cannibals, none were so greedily
listened to, none more readily believed.
The path which traders and their caravans follow to Manyema begins at
Mtowa, in Uguha, and, continuing south a few miles over a series of
hills, descends into the plain of the Rugumba river about halfway
between the Lukuga river and the traders’ crossing-place.
The conduct of the first natives to whom we were introduced pleased us
all. They showed themselves in a very amiable light, sold their corn
cheaply and without fuss, behaved themselves decently and with
propriety, though their principal men, entertaining very strange ideas
of the white men, carefully concealed themselves from view, and refused
to be tempted to expose themselves within view or hearing of us.
Their doubts of our character were reported to us by a friendly young
Arab as follows: “Kassanga, chief of Ruanda, says, ‘How can the white
men be good when they come for no trade, whose feet one never sees, who
always go covered from head to foot with clothes? Do not tell me they
are good and friendly. There is something very mysterious about them;
perhaps wicked. Probably they are magicians; at any rate, it is better
to leave them alone and to keep close until they are gone.’”
From Ruanda, where we halted only for a day, we began in earnest the
journey to Manyema, thankful that the Tanganika was safely crossed, and
that the Expedition had lost no more of its strength.
On the third day, after gradually ascending to a height of 800 feet
above the lake, across a series of low hilly ridges and scantily wooded
valleys, which abound with buffalo, we reached the crest of a range
which divides the tributaries of the Lualaba from those of Lake
Tanganika. This range also serves as a boundary between Uguha and
Ubujwé, a country adjoining the former north-westerly. The western
portion of Uguha, and south-eastern Ubujwé, is remarkable for its
forests of fruit-trees, of which there are several varieties, called the
Masuku, Mbembu (or wood-apple), Singwé (wild African damson), the
Matonga (or nux-vomica), custard-apple, &c. A large quantity of honey
was also obtained. Indeed, an army might subsist for many weeks in this
forest on the various luscious fruits it contains. Our people feasted on
them, as also on the honey and buffalo meat, which I was fortunate in
obtaining.
[Illustration: NATIVES OF UBUJWÉ.]
Our acquaintance with the Wabujwé commenced at Lambo, or Mulolwa’s,
situated at the confluence of the Rugumba with the Rubumba. In these
people we first saw the mild, amiable, unsophisticated innocence of this
part of Central Africa, and their behaviour was exactly the reverse of
the wild, ferocious, cannibalistic races the Arabs had described to us.
From our experience of them, the natives of Rua, Uguha, and Ubujwé
appear to be the _élite_ of the hair-dressed fashionables of Africa.
Hair-dressing is indeed carried to an absurd perfection throughout all
this region, and among the various styles I have seen, some are
surpassing in taste and neatness, and almost pathetic from the
carefulness with which poor wild nature has done its best to decorate
itself.
The Waguha and Wabujwé, among other characteristics, are very partial to
the arts of sculpture and turning. They carve statues in wood, which
they set up in their villages. Their house doors often exhibit carvings
resembling the human face; and the trees in the forest between the two
countries frequently present specimens of their ingenuity in this art.
Some have also been seen to wear wooden medals, whereon a rough
caricature of a man’s features was represented. At every village in
Ubujwé excellent wooden bowls and basins of a very light wood
(Rubiaceae), painted red, are offered for sale.
Between Kwaniwa’s village, Lambo, and Kundi, we came to a hot stream
issuing from a spring, buried amid a mass of spear-grass and dwarf
papyrus. At the crossing the temperature was 106° Fahr., about twenty
yards above it was 115° Fahr. Those at Bath, in England, are from 117°
to 120° Fahr.; at Ursprung, Baden, 153½° Fahr. These hot springs at
Kwaniwa’s contain considerable iron in solution, judging from the
ferruginous slime below and the ochreous tint which rests on the plants
and grass.
Beyond Kundi our journey lay across chains of hills, of a conical or
rounded form, which enclosed many basins or valleys. While the Rugumba,
or Rubumba, flows northwesterly to the east of Kundi, as far as
Kizambala on the Luama river, we were daily, sometimes hourly, fording
or crossing the tributaries of the Luama.
[Illustration: A NATIVE OF UHYEYA.]
Adjoining Ubujwé is Uhyeya, inhabited by a tribe who are decidedly a
scale lower in humanity than their ingenious neighbours. What little
merit they possess seems to have been derived from commerce with the
Wabujwé. The Wahyeya are also partial to ochre, black paints, and a
composition of black mud, which they mould into the form of a plate, and
attach to the back part of the head. Their upper teeth are filed, “out
of regard to custom,” they say, and not from any taste for human flesh.
When questioned as to whether it was their custom to eat of the flesh of
people slain in battle, they were positive in their denial, and
protested great repugnance to such a diet, though they eat the flesh of
all animals except that of dogs. Simple and dirt-loving as these poor
people were, they were admirable for the readiness with which they
supplied all our wants, voluntarily offering themselves, moreover, as
guides to lead us to Uvinza, the next country we had to traverse.
Uvinza now seems to be nothing more than a name of a small district
which occupies a small basin of some few miles square. At a former
period it was very populous, as the many ruined villages we passed
through proved. The slave traders, when not manfully resisted, leave
broad traces wherever they go.
[Illustration:
ONE OF THE WAHYEYA OF UHOMBO
(BACK VIEW).
]
_Oct._—A very long march from Kagongwé in Uvinza brought us to the
pleasant basin of Uhombo, remarkable for its fertility, its groves of
Guinea-palms, and its beauty. This basin is about six miles square, but
within this space there is scarcely a two-acre plot of level ground to
be seen. The whole forms a picture of hill-tops, slopes, valleys,
hollows, and intersecting ridges in happy diversity. Myriads of cool,
clear streams course through, in time united by the Lubangi into a
pretty little river, flowing westerly to the Luama. It was the most
delightful spot that we had seen. As the people were amiable, and
disposed to trade, we had soon an abundance of palm-butter for cooking,
sugar-cane, fine goats and fat chickens, sweet potatoes, beans, peas,
nuts, and manioc, millet and other grain for flour, ripe bananas for
dessert, plantain and palm wines for cheer, and an abundance of soft,
cool, clear water to drink!
Subsequently we had many such pleasant experiences; but as it was the
first, it deserves a more detailed description.
Travellers from Africa have often written about African villages, yet I
am sure few of those at home have ever comprehended the reality. I now
propose to lay it before them in this sketch of a village in the
district of Uhombo. The village consists of a number of low, conical
grass huts, ranged round a circular common, in the centre of which are
three or four fig-trees kept for the double purpose of supplying shade
to the community, and bark-cloth to the chief. The doorways to the huts
are very low, scarcely 30 inches high. The common fenced round by the
grass huts shows plainly the ochreous colour of the soil, and it is so
well trodden that not a grass blade thrives upon it.
On presenting myself in the common, I attracted out of doors the owners
and ordinary inhabitants of each hut, until I found myself the centre of
quite a promiscuous population of naked men, women, children, and
infants. Though I had appeared here for the purpose of studying the
people of Uhombo, and making a treaty of friendship with the chief, the
villagers seemed to think I had come merely to make a free exhibition of
myself as some natural monstrosity.
I saw before me over a hundred beings of the most degraded,
unpresentable type it is possible to conceive, and though I knew quite
well that some thousands of years ago the beginning of this wretched
humanity and myself were one and the same, a sneaking disinclination to
believe it possessed me strongly, and I would even now willingly
subscribe some small amount of silver money for him who could but assist
me to controvert the discreditable fact.
But common-sense tells me not to take into undue consideration their
squalor, their ugliness, or nakedness, but to gauge their true position
among the human race by taking a view of the cultivated fields and
gardens of Uhombo, and I am compelled to admit that these debased
specimens of humanity only plant and sow such vegetables and grain as I
myself should cultivate were I compelled to provide for my own
sustenance. I see, too, that their huts, though of grass, are almost as
well made as the materials will permit, and indeed I have often slept in
worse. Speak with them in their own dialect of the law of _meum_ and
_tuum_, and it will soon appear that they are intelligent enough upon
that point. Moreover, the muscles, tissues, and fibres of their bodies,
and all the organs of sight, hearing, smell, or motion, are as well
developed as in us. Only in taste and judgment, based upon larger
experience, in the power of expression, in morals and intellectual
culture, are we superior.
I strive, therefore, to interest myself in my gross and rudely-shaped
brothers and sisters. Almost bursting into a laugh at the absurdity, I
turn towards an individual whose age marks him out as one to whom
respect is due, and say to him after the common manner of greeting:
“My brother, sit you down by me on this mat, and let us be friendly and
sociable”; and as I say it I thrust into his wide open hand twenty
cowries, the currency of the land. One look at his hand as he extended
it made me think I could carve a better-looking hand out of a piece of
rhinoceros hide.
While speaking I look at his face, which is like an ugly and extravagant
mask, clumsily manufactured from some strange, dark brown coarse
material. The lips proved the thickness of skin which nature had endowed
him with, and by the obstinacy with which they refused to meet each
other the form of the mouth was but ill-defined, though capacious and
garnished with its full complement of well-preserved teeth.
His nose was so flat that I inquired in a perfectly innocent manner as
to the reason for such a feature.
“Ah,” said he, with a sly laugh, “it is the fault of my mother, who,
when I was young, bound me too tight to her back.”
His hair had been compelled to obey the capricious fashion of his
country, and was therefore worked up into furrows and ridges and central
cones, bearing a curious resemblance to the formation of the land around
Uhombo. I wonder if the art grew by perceiving nature’s fashion and
mould of his country?
Descending from the face, which, crude, large-featured, rough-hewn as it
was, bore witness to the possession of much sly humour and a kindly
disposition, my eyes fastened on his naked body. Through the ochreous
daubs I detected strange freaks of pricking on it, circles and squares
and crosses, and traced with wonder the many hard lines and puckers
created by age, weather, ill-usage, and rude keeping.
His feet were monstrous abortions, with soles as hard as hoofs, and his
legs as high up as the knees were plastered with successive strata of
dirt; his loin-cover or the queer “girding tackle” need not be
described. They were absolutely appalling to good taste, and the most
ragged British beggar or Neapolitan lazzarone is sumptuously, nay,
regally, clothed in comparison to this “king” in Uhombo.
If the old chief appeared so unprepossessing, how can I paint
without offence my humbler brothers and sisters who stood round us?
As I looked at the array of faces, I could only comment to
myself—ugly—uglier—ugliest. As I looked at their nude and filthy
bodies, and the enormous dugs which hung down the bosoms of the
women, and the general indecency of their nakedness, I ejaculated
“Fearful!” as the sum total of what I might with propriety say, and
what indeed is sufficiently descriptive.
And what shall I say of the hideous and queer appendages that they wear
about their waists; the tags of monkey-skin and bits of gorilla bone,
goat horn, shells, strange tags to stranger tackle? and of the things
around their necks—brain of mice, skin of viper, “adder’s fork, and
blind worm’s sting”? And how strangely they smell, all these queer man-
like creatures who stand regarding me! Not silently: on the contrary,
there is a loud interchange of comments upon the white’s appearance, a
manifestation of broad interest to know whence I come, whither I am
going, and what is my business. And no sooner are the questions asked
than they are replied to by such as pretend to know. The replies were
followed by long-drawn ejaculations of “Wa-a-a-antu!” (“Men!”) “Eha-a,
and these are men!”
Now imagine this! While we whites are loftily disputing among ourselves
as to whether the beings before us are human, here were these creatures
actually expressing strong doubts as to whether we whites are men!
A dead silence prevailed for a short time, during which all the females
dropped their lower jaws far down, and then cried out again “Wa-a-a-a-a-
antu!” (“Men!”) The lower jaws indeed dropped so low that, when, in a
posture of reflection, they put their hands up to their chins, it really
looked as if they had done so to lift the jaws up to their proper place
and to sustain them there. And in that position they pondered upon the
fact that there were men “white all over” in this queer, queer world!
The open mouths gave one a chance to note the healthy state and ruby
colour of the tongues, palates, and gums, and, above all, the admirable
order and brilliant whiteness of each set of teeth.
“Great events from trivial causes spring”—and while I was trying to
calculate how many Kubaba (measure of 2 lbs.) of millet-seed would be
requisite to fill all these Dutch-oven mouths, and how many cowries
would be required to pay for such a large quantity of millet, and
wondering at the antics of the juveniles of the population, whose
uncontainable, irrepressible wonder seemed to find its natural
expression in hopping on one leg, thrusting their right thumbs into
their mouths to repress the rising scream, and slapping the hinder side
of the thighs to express or give emphasis to what was speechless—while
thus engaged, and just thinking it was time to depart, it happened that
one of the youthful innocents already described, more restless than his
brothers, stumbled across a long heavy pole which was leaning insecurely
against one of the trees. The pole fell, striking one of my men severely
on the head. And all at once there went up from the women a genuine and
unaffected cry of pity, and their faces expressed so lively a sense of
tender sympathy with the wounded man, that my heart, keener than my
eyes, saw through the disguise of filth, nakedness, and ochre, the human
heart beating for another’s suffering, and I then recognised and hailed
them as indeed my own poor and degraded sisters.
Under the new light which had dawned on me, I reflected that I had done
some wrong to my dusky relatives, and that they might have been
described less harshly, and introduced to the world with less disdain.
Before I quitted the village, they made me still more regret my former
haughty feelings, for the chief and his subjects loaded my men with
bounties of bananas, chickens, Indian corn, and malafu (palm-wine), and
escorted me respectfully far beyond the precincts of the village and
their fields, parting from me at last with the assurance that, should I
ever happen to return by their country, they would endeavour to make my
second visit to Uhombo much more agreeable than my first had been.
_Oct. 5._—On the 5th of October our march from Uhombo brought us to the
frontier village of Manyema, which is called Riba-Riba. It is noteworthy
as the starting-point of another order of African architecture. The
conical style of hut is exchanged for the square hut with more gradually
sloping roof, wattled, and sometimes neatly plastered with mud,
especially those in Manyema. Here, too, the thin-bodied and long-limbed
goat, to which we had been accustomed, gave place to the short-legged,
large-bodied, and capacious-uddered variety of Manyema. The grey parrots
with crimson tails here also first began to abound, and the hoarse growl
of the fierce and shy “soko” (gorilla?) was first heard.
From the day we cross the watershed that divides the affluent of the
Tanganika from the head waters of the Luama, there is observed a gradual
increase in the splendour of nature. By slow degrees she exhibits to us,
as we journey westward, her rarest beauties, her wealth and all the
profligacy of her vegetation. In the forests of Miketo and on the
western slopes of the Goma mountains she scatters with liberal hand her
luxuries of fruits, and along the banks of streams we see revealed the
wild profusion of her bounties.
As we increase the distance from the Tanganika, we find the land
disposed in graceful lines and curves: ridges heave up, separating
valley from valley, hills lift their heads in the midst of the basins,
and mountain-ranges, at greater distances apart, bound wide prospects,
wherein the lesser hill-chains, albeit of dignified proportions, appear
but as agreeable diversities of scenery.
Over the whole, Nature has flung a robe of verdure of the most fervid
tints. She has bidden the mountains loose their streamlets, has
commanded the hills and ridges to bloom, filled the valleys with
vegetation breathing perfume, for the rocks she has woven garlands of
creepers, and the stems of trees she has draped with moss; and sterility
she has banished from her domain.
Yet Nature has not produced a soft, velvety, smiling England in the
midst of Africa. Far from it. She is here too robust and prolific. Her
grasses are coarse, and wound like knives and needles; her reeds are
tough and tall as bamboos; her creepers and convolvuli are of cable
thickness and length; her thorns are hooks of steel; her trees shoot up
to a height of a hundred feet. We find no pleasure in straying in search
of wild flowers, and game is left undisturbed, because of the difficulty
of moving about, for once the main path is left we find ourselves over
head amongst thick, tough, unyielding, lacerating grass.
At Manyema, the beauty of Nature becomes terrible, and in the expression
of her powers she is awful. The language of Swahili has words to paint
her in every mood. English, rich as it is, is found insufficient. In the
former we have the word Pori for a forest, an ordinary thickly wooded
tract, but for the forests of Manyema it has four special words, Mohuro,
Mwitu, Mtambani, and Msitu. For Mohuro we might employ the words jungly
forest; for Mwitu, dense woods; but for Msitu and Mtambani we have no
single equivalent, nor could we express their full meaning without a
series of epithets ending with “tangled jungle” or “impervious underwood
in the midst of a dense forest”—for such is in reality the nature of a
Manyema Msitu.
I am of opinion that Manyema owes its fertility to the mountains west of
the Tanganika, which by their altitude suddenly cool and liquefy the
vapours driven over their tops by the south-east monsoon, for while
Uguha west was robed in green, its lake front was black with the ashes
of burnt grass.
We left Riba-Riba’s old chief, and his numerous progeny of boys and
girls, and his wonderful subjects, encamped on their mountain-top, and
journeyed on with rapid pace through tall forests, and along the crests
of wooded ridges, down into the depths of gloomy dingles, and up again
to daylight into view of sweeping circles of bearded ridges and solemn
woods, to Ka-Bambarré.
Even though this place had no other associations, it would be attractive
and alluring for its innocent wildness; but associated as it is with
Livingstone’s sufferings, and that self-sacrificing life he led here, I
needed only to hear from Mwana Ngoy, son of Mwana Kusu,[4] “Yes, this is
the place where the old white man stopped for many moons,” to make up my
mind to halt.
-----
Footnote 4:
Mwana, _lord_; Kusu, _parrot_.
-----
“Ah! he lived here, did he?”
“Yes.”
By this time the population of Ka-Bambarré, seeing their chief in
conversation with a white stranger, had drawn round us under a palm-
tree, and mats were spread for us to seat ourselves.
“Did you know the old white man? Was he your father?”
“He was not my father; but I knew him well.”
“Eh, do you hear that?” he asked his people. “He says he knew him. Was
he not a good man?”
“Yes; very good.”
“You say well. He was good to me, and he saved me from the Arabs many a
time. The Arabs are hard men, and often he would step between them and
me when they were hard on me. He was a good man, and my children were
fond of him. I hear he is dead?”
“Yes, he is dead.”
“Where has he gone to?”
“Above, my friend,” said I, pointing to the sky.
“Ah,” said he breathlessly, and looking up, “did he come from above?”
“No, but good men like him go above when they die.”
We had many conversations about him. The sons showed me the house he had
lived in for a long time when prevented from further wandering by the
ulcers in his feet. In the village his memory is cherished, and will be
cherished for ever.
It was strange what a sudden improvement in the physiognomy of the
native had occurred. In the district of Uhombo we had seen a truly
debased negro type. Here we saw people of the Ethiopic negro type,
worthy to rank next the more refined Waganda. Mwana Ngoy himself was
nothing very remarkable. Age had deprived him of his good looks; but
there were about him some exceedingly pretty women, with winsome ways
about them that were quite charming.
Mwana Ngoy, I suppose, is one of the vainest of vain men. I fancy I can
see him now strutting about his village with his sceptral staff, an
amplitude of grass cloth about him, which when measured gives exactly
twenty-four square yards, drawn in double folds about his waist, all
tags, tassels, and fringes, and painted in various colours, bronze and
black and white and yellow, and on his head a plumy head-dress.
What charms lurk in feathers! From the grand British dowager down to
Mwana-Ngoy of Ka-Bambarré, all admit the fascination of feathers,
whether plucked from ostriches or barn-door fowl.
Mwana Ngoy’s plumes were the tribute of the village chanticleers, and
his vanity was so excited at the rustle of his feathered crest that he
protruded his stomach to such a distance that his head was many degrees
from the perpendicular.
_Oct. 10._—On the 10th of October we arrived at Kizambala, presided over
by another chief, called Mwana Ngoy, a relative to him of Ka-Bambarré.
Up to this date we had seen some twenty villages, and probably 4000
natives, of Manyema, and may therefore be permitted some
generalizations.
[Illustration: A YOUTH OF EAST MANYEMA.]
[Illustration: A MANYEMA ADULT.]
The Manyema, then, have several noteworthy peculiarities. Their arms are
a short sword scabbarded with wood, to which are hung small brass and
iron bells, a light, beautifully balanced spear—probably, next to the
spear of Uganda, the most perfect in the world. Their shields were
veritable wooden doors. Their dress consisted of a narrow apron of
antelope skin or finely made grass cloth. They wore knobs, cones, and
patches of mud attached to their beards, back hair, and behind the ears.
Old Mwana Ngoy had rolled his beard in a ball of dark mud: his children
wore their hair in braids with mud fringes. His drummer had a great
crescent-shaped patch of mud at the back of the head. At Kizambala, the
natives had horns and cones of mud on the tops of their heads. Others,
more ambitious, covered the entire head with a crown of mud.
[Illustration: A YOUNG WOMAN OF EAST MANYEMA.]
The women, blessed with an abundance of hair, manufactured it with a
stiffening of light cane into a bonnet-shaped head-dress, allowing the
back hair to flow down to the waist in masses of ringlets. They seemed
to do all the work of life, for at all hours they might be seen, with
their large wicker baskets behind them, setting out for the rivers or
creeks to catch fish, or returning with their fuel baskets strapped on
across their foreheads.
[Illustration: A VILLAGE IN SOUTH-EAST MANYEMA.]
Their villages consist of one or more streets from 100 to 150 feet wide,
flanked by low square huts arranged in tolerably straight lines, and
generally situated on swells of land, to secure rapid drainage. At the
end of one of these streets is the council and gossip house, overlooking
the length of the avenue. In the centre is a platform of tamped clay,
with a heavy tree trunk sunk into it, and in the wood have been scooped
out a number of troughs, so that several women may pound grain at once.
It is a substitute for the village mill.
The houses are separated into two or more apartments, and on account of
the compact nature of the clay and tamped floor are easily kept clean.
The roofs are slimy with the reek of smoke, as though they had been
painted with coal-tar. The household chattels or furniture are limited
to food baskets, earthenware pots, an assortment of wickerwork dishes,
the family shields, spears, knives, swords, and tools, and the fish-
baskets lying outside.
They are tolerably hospitable, and permit strangers the free use of
their dwellings. The bananas and plantains are very luxuriant, while the
Guinea palms supply the people with oil and wine; the forests give them
fuel, the rivers fish, and the gardens cassava, ground-nuts, and Indian
corn.
The chiefs enact strict laws, and, though possessed of but little actual
power either of wealth or retinue, exact the utmost deference, and are
exceedingly ceremonious, being always followed by a drummer, who taps
his drum with masterly skill born of long and continued practice.
_Oct. 11._—On the 11th we crossed the Luama river—a stream 200 yards
wide and 8 feet deep in the centre at the ferry—called the Rugumba in
Ubujwé. After uniting with the Rubumba, it flows northward, and takes a
wide sweep round to clear the northern spurs of the Ka-Bambarré group of
mountains, and thence, meeting another stream from the north-west near
Uvira, flows west, bisecting the country of Manyema. Below the ford, as
far as the Lualaba, its current is from three to six knots an hour, and
about 5 feet deep, flowing over a shaly bed.
On the western side of the Luama the women at once fled upon the
approach of our caravan—a certain sign that there had been trouble
between them and Arabs.
_Oct. 12._—On the 12th, following the Luama river, we reached Wusumbiri.
My predecessors, Livingstone and Cameron, had, after crossing the
stream, proceeded west, but I preferred to follow the Luama to its
junction with the Lualaba, and thence to Nyangwé.
The Luama valley is about twenty miles wide, furrowed with many
watercourses; the soil is poor, abounding with yellow quartz, but
resting upon soft shale. The ridges are formed of dykes of granite,
which peep out frequently in large masses from amongst the foliage of
trees.
The people appeared to be very timid, but behaved amiably. Over fifty
followed us, and carried loads most willingly. Three volunteered to
follow us wherever we should go, but we declined their offer.
Our riding-asses were the first ever seen in Manyema, and effected a
striking demonstration in our favour. They obtained more admiration than
even we Europeans. Hundreds of natives ran up to us at each village in
the greatest excitement to behold the strange long-eared animals, and
followed us long distances from their homes to observe the asses’
motions.
One ass, known by the name of Muscati, a high-spirited animal from
Arabia, possessed braying powers which almost equalled the roar of a
lion in volume, and really appeared to enjoy immensely the admiration he
excited. His asinine soul took great delight in braying at the
unsophisticated Africans of the trans-Luama, for his bray sent them
flying in all directions. Scores of times during a day’s march we were
asked the name of the beast, and, having learnt it they were never tired
of talking about the “Mpunda.”
One must not rashly impute all the blame to the Arabs and Wa-Swahili of
the Zanzibar coast for their excesses in Manyema, for the natives are
also in a way to blame. Just as the Saxon and Dane and Jute, invited by
the Britons, became their masters, so the Arabs, invited by the Manyema
to assist them against one another, have become their tyrants.
Bribes were offered to us three times by Manyema chiefs to assist them
in destroying their neighbours, to whom they are of near kin, and with
whom they have almost daily intimate relations. Our refusal of ivory and
slaves appeared to surprise the chiefs, and they expressed the opinion
that we white men were not as good as the Arabs, for—though it was true
we did not rob them of their wives, ravish and steal their daughters,
enslave their sons, or despoil them of a single article—the Arabs would
have assisted them.
One of my men, who knew Manyema of old, said, “I told you, master, what
kind of people these were: they have always got a little war on hand,
and they only wait the arrival of the Arabs to begin it. The quarrel is
always with their nearest relatives and friends, whom, however, for the
sake of the family alliances between them, they always take care to
warn. I was once with Mohammed bin Gharib (Livingstone’s friend) when he
undertook to fight a tribe for Mwana Ngoy of Kizambala on the Luama. We
were ten hours firing away as fast as we could, but not a single soul
was wounded of either party!
“Mwana Ngoy, you must know, had told his friend the hour Mohammed would
begin, and his friend obligingly left the field clear. Some of the
boldest had amused themselves by showing their heads, just to let us
know that they were there, but I assure you no one was hurt in the
least.
“Of late years it has not been so bloodless, because the Arabs have
learned their tricks. When they set out now, they never tell their
native confederate when they intend to begin, because they don’t like to
throw away their powder for nothing. In this manner large numbers of
slaves have been captured and many men killed. After such an event, both
sides, those who have suffered and those who were the cause and who
bribed the Arabs to the war, fall to weeping and abusing the Arabs
violently, and with pathetic cries bewail the murdered, but never think
of accusing themselves.”
The above is the story of Wadi Safeni, the coxswain of the boat on Lake
Victoria.
One really does not know whether to pity or to despise the natives of
Manyema. Many are amiable enough to deserve good and kind treatment, but
others are hardly human. They fly to the woods upon the approach of
strangers, leaving their granaries[5] of Indian corn, erected like
screens across the streets, or just outside the villages, in tempting
view of hungry people. If the strangers follow them into the woods to
persuade them to return and sell food, the purpose of the visit is
mistaken, and they are assailed from behind depths of bush and tall
trees. They are humble and liberal to the strong-armed Arab, savage and
murderous and cannibalistic to small bands, and every slain man provides
a banquet of meat for the forest-natives of Manyema. Livingstone’s
uniform gentle treatment of all classes deserved a better return than to
have his life attempted four times. His patience finally exhausted, and
his life in danger, he gave the order to his men, “Fire upon them; these
men are wicked.”
-----
Footnote 5:
These granaries consist of tall poles—like telegraph poles—planted at
a distance of about 10 feet from each other, to which are attached
about a dozen lines of lliane, or creepers, at intervals, from top to
bottom. On these several lines are suspended the maize, point
downwards, by the shucks of the cob. Their appearance suggests lofty
screens built up of corn.
-----
Nevertheless, the best-natured Arabs confess that the present state of
things is to some extent the result of the excesses and high-handed
conduct of Muini Dugumbi, who, animated by greed for ivory and slaves,
signalled his advent in the country by shooting men as soon as seen in
their villages. Aware of the bad repute which Arabs had in Manyema, I
refused to be accompanied by any trader from Ujiji, though some half-
dozen earnestly entreated me to wait for them. As far as Nyangwé all the
members of our Expedition had reason to rejoice in this decision, for we
were neither threatened nor molested in the least.
An internecine “war” in Manyema is exceedingly comical. Old Riba-Riba, a
patriarch of eighty or thereabouts, who with his few villages guards the
frontier on the range separating Uhombo from Manyema, told me he was at
“war” with Mwana Buttu of Nyembu. The cause was the murder of a young
man of Riba-Riba’s by Mwana Buttu’s people.
When the shocking affair became known there was great excitement, much
manifestation of anger, loud talk, sharpening of broad-bladed spears,
and industrious preparation of stacks of fire-hardened wooden assegais
and other deadly war _matériel_. All things being ready, Riba-Riba’s
people reluctantly set off to fight Mwana Buttu’s villagers, not,
however, without first communicating their intentions and publishing by
criers a formal and fierce declaration of war.
But Mwana Buttu is of a sterner nature than is common in Manyema;
consequently, to Riba-Riba’s surprise, he did not abscond for fear of
the invading host, but calmly arrayed his warriors in order of battle on
the opposite side of a stream, that he might take advantage of the
enemy’s confusion while crossing.
Riba-Riba’s warriors, on emerging from the depth of the forest,
perceived the foe palisaded behind their tall, door-like shields, and
immediately formed themselves in like order on their own side of the
stream. From this position they opened on the enemy volleys of tongue
abuse, which lasted for hours; until at last both sides, fatigued with
the wordy encounter and hoarse with the prolonged vituperative exercise,
mutually consented to defer the battle until next day.
The morrow dawned, and both sides, vigilantly active after their night’s
rest, reformed themselves in the same positions which they had occupied
on the previous day, and resumed the wordy war with all its fierce
gesture, and a great clangour of wooden shields, until sunset, when both
parties retired from the field with no decisive advantage to either
side.
On the third day the wordy war was resumed, until both tribes, exhausted
from the bloodless conflict, mutually agreed that they would postpone
the war with spears to an indefinite period. Meanwhile they have left
off visiting. The affair will only be settled by the arrival of some
Arab mercenary, who, for a consideration of five or six tusks of ivory,
will undertake, with a few explosions of that mischievous compound
called gunpowder, to send Mwana Buttu flying and to “beat his back with
his own shield,” thus avenging Riba-Riba.
_Oct. 13._—On the 13th, after a march of thirteen miles in a west-south-
west direction, along a very crooked path, we arrived at Kabungwé.
At this settlement we observed for the first time spears all of wood,
having their points sharp and hardened in fire, and shafts 8 to 10 feet
long. As each warrior possesses a sheaf of these weapons, besides a vast
wooden shield, he is sufficiently armed against a native enemy, and
might, by a little boldness, become a dangerous foe to an Arab.
The currency throughout Manyema consists of cowries. Six cowries formed
the ration money of the Wangwana, three cowries purchased a chicken, two
procured ten maize ears, one cowrie obtained the service of a native to
grind the grain, two cowries were a day’s hire for a porter; so that the
Wangwana and Wanyamwezi were enjoying both abundance and relief from
labour while we were travelling through Manyema.
At Kabungwé I was alarmed at an insufferable odour that pervaded the air
we breathed, for, whether in the house or without, the atmosphere seemed
loaded with an intolerable stench. On enquiring of the natives whether
there was any dead animal putrefying in the neighbourhood, they pointed
to the firewood that was burning, and to a tree—a species of laurel—as
that which emitted the smell. Upon examination I found it was indeed due
to this strange wood, which, however, only becomes offensive under the
action of fire.
Between Kabungwé and Mtuyu, our next camp, the country is extremely
populous. Were all the villages we passed inhabited by brave men, a
brigade of European troops could not move without precaution. The
people, however, did not attempt to molest us, though an enormous number
came out to stare at us and our asses.
The natives are quick to adopt nicknames. In some places the Arabs were
known by the name of Mwana Ngombé, “lords of cows”; in others, Wasambyé,
or the “uncircumcised,” because of their Wanyamwezi followers, which
last name has penetrated over an immense region.
Majwara, Frank Pocock’s servant, upon receiving the present of a bride
from Mtesa because he was the son of Namujurilwa, the champion of
Uganda, gave her the name of Tuma-leo, or “sent-to-day.”
The Sarmeen of my first expedition received from his comrades, for his
detective qualities, the name of Kachéché, or the “weasel.”
Lukoma, who accompanied us to Muta Nzigé, called himself Mkanga, or “the
one who looks behind.”
Sambuzi received the title of Mta-uza, or the “spoiler”; and one of his
subordinates was called Kiswaga, or “fleet-foot.”
Kalulu’s name was formerly Ndugu Mali, “brother of money.”
Wadi Safeni had a young relative in the Expedition entitled Akili Mali,
or “one who is wise with his money.”
Mgongo-Tembo, or “elephant’s back”; Mambu, or “noise”; Khamis, or
“Thursday”; Juma, or “Friday”; Muini Kheri, or “lord of fortune”; Muini
Pembé, or “lord of ivory”; and scores of others I might mention.
In the same manner countries receive appellations distinctive of
peculiarities, such as—
Unya-Nyembé, land of hoes.
U-Yofu, land of elephants.
Unya-Mbewa, land of goats.
Unya-Nkondo, land of sheep.
Unya-Ngoma, land of drums.
U-Konongo, land of travellers.
Unya-Nguruwé, land of hogs.
U-Nguru, land of mountains.
U-Kusu, land of parrots.
U-Ganda, land of drums.
U-Lungu or U-Rungu, plain land.
Ma-Rungu, plateau land.
U-Kutu, land of ears (long ears?).
U-Karanga, land of ground-nuts.
U-Lua or U-Rua, land of lakes.
U-Emba, lake land.
U-Bwari, land of food.
Lakes also have names significative of native ideas, such as the
Tanganika, “the great lake spreading out like a plain,” or “plain-like
lake”; Niyanja Muta Nzigé, or “the lake of dead locusts,” from, no
doubt, the swarms of locusts on the plains of Ankori, Unyoro, and
Western Uganda, and the salinas of Usongora, being swept into it by
strong winds; Niyanja, or Nianja Ukerewé, “the great lake around
Ukerewé.”
Mtuyu is the easternmost settlement of the country of Uzura. On arrival
we perceived that all their women were absent, and naturally enquired
what had become of them. They replied, in pathetic strains, “Oh, they
are all dead, all cut off, every one. It was the small-pox!”
We sympathised with them, of course, because of such a terrible loss,
and attempted to express our concern. But one of our enterprising
people, while endeavouring to search out a good market for his cowries,
discovered several dozen of the women in a wooded ravine!
[Illustration:
KITETÉ
THE CHIEF OF MPUNGU.
]
Skirting the range of hills which bounds the Luama valley on the north,
we marched to Mpungu, which is fifteen miles west of Mtuyu. Kiteté, its
chief, is remarkable for a plaited beard twenty inches long, decorated
at the tips with a number of blue glass beads. His hair was also trussed
up on the crown of his head in a shapely mass. His brother possessed a
beard six inches long; there were half-a-dozen others with beards of
three or four inches long. Kiteté’s symbol of royalty was a huge
truncheon, or Hercules club, blackened and hardened by fire. His village
was neat, and the architecture of the huts peculiar, as the picture at
foot shows.
The Luama valley at Uzura at this season presents a waving extent of
grass-grown downs, and while crossing over the higher swells of land, we
enjoyed uninterrupted views of thirty or forty miles to the west and
south.
From Mpungu we travelled through an interesting country (a distance of
four miles), and suddenly from the crest of a low ridge saw the
confluence of the Luama with the majestic Lualaba. The former appeared
to have a breadth of 400 yards at the mouth; the latter was about 1400
yards wide, a broad river of a pale grey colour, winding slowly from
south and by east.
We hailed its appearance with shouts of joy, and rested on the spot to
enjoy the view. Across the river, beyond a tawny, grassy stretch towards
the south-south-west, is Mount Kijima; about 1000 feet above the valley,
to the south-south-east, across the Luama, runs the Luhye-ya ridge; from
its base the plain slopes to the swift Luama. In the bed of the great
river are two or three small islands, green with the verdure of trees
and sedge. I likened it even here to the Mississippi, as it appears
before the impetuous, full-volumed Missouri pours its rusty-brown water
into it.
A secret rapture filled my soul as I gazed upon the majestic stream. The
great mystery that for all these centuries Nature had kept hidden away
from the world of science was waiting to be solved. For two hundred and
twenty miles I had followed one of the sources of the Livingstone to the
confluence, and now before me lay the superb river itself! My task was
to follow it to the Ocean.
[Illustration: NATIVE HOUSES AT MTUYU.]