DEPARTURE FOR THE COAST.
Tipolo and his immediate friends treated me with every kindness; but
many of the smaller traders, who would fain have been robbers and not
traders at all, and who chafed under the restrictions which Tipolo
enforced in their intercourse with the natives, did not regard me with
any favour. They said openly it was a mistake to let an Englishman who
knew all about their doings in Central Africa leave the country, as he
would be sure to tell his government that they traded in slaves; and
that already the _Beni har_ (sons of fire), as they called our naval
officers, interfered with the transport of slaves from “the island” to
Munculla and Muscat. To this Tipolo answered, that here among the
heathen it was for all civilized persons to assist one another; that by
all the laws of hospitality, by the traditions of the Arab race, and by
the teaching of Mohammed, the prophet of God, whom God bless,[C] they
were bound to assist me to the utmost, and should do so without any
hope of reward or fear of evil.
Though Tipolo was so kind to me, I longed for the day when we should
leave Nyangwe. In his presence I was free from insult, but many of the
baser sort among the traders did not scruple to insult me, calling me a
dog of a Nazarene, a hog, and unclean, and would doubtless, unless
deterred by fear, have ill-treated me in other ways. These people too, I
found, lived a life of debauchery. Such slaves as they had they treated
in a very cruel manner, quite different from that in which Tipolo
treated those of his household; but I am obliged to say that the
captives he had made in his recent campaign, though fairly fed, were but
poorly lodged, and kept chained in gangs of from ten to fifteen to
prevent their escape.
One evening, as I was drinking coffee with him in his _barazah_, or
veranda, the only other person present being Hatibu, to whom he had been
giving orders about his journey to the coast, I ventured to speak to him
about slavery and the condition of those unfortunate people dragged away
from their wives and families.
I was somewhat afraid he would resent my interference, but I was much
pleased to find that he did not. He only seemed to think that I and all
Englishmen were mad on the question of slavery, which he argued had
always been and always would be, adding that Daood, and Suliman ibu
Daood (David and his son Solomon), and the prophet Ayoub (Job), had all
possessed slaves, and that the Koran permitted slavery. To this I said
that surely the Koran did not permit wars for the purpose of making
slaves; and though I had never heard he had sent out slave-raids, still
Muinyi Dugumbi and other traders did, and it could not be right to keep
numbers of men in chains.
He answered, that with the doings of Muinyi Dugumbi and others like him
he had nothing to do; that he often used his influence to prevent them
from attacking the natives without provocation, and to induce them to
treat their captives kindly. As for himself and all true Arabs, he said
the slaves of their household were treated as members of the family, and
had nothing to complain of; indeed, they were better off than they would
be as freemen, and could always, if they desired it, become free. The
captives he had made, he confessed, were not so well treated; “but,” he
said, “what can I do? I have here ivory which I have collected at great
cost and risk, and here it is valueless to me. I must send it to the sea
to sell it; and how am I to carry it? If I send my own men, my people
from ‘the island,’ and my Wanyamwesi with it, I shall be left here
without defence. The people of the country will not travel far for hire.
Slaves cost more than freemen. From Unyanyembe to Kilwa and Bagamoyo the
Wanyamwesi go as porters, and we pay and feed them; that is better than
employing slaves. Ten slaves are chained together,--one man stops, all
stop. Ten slaves cannot carry as much as five men who are free. If I
could carry my ivory without slaves I would, as it would be better and
cheaper for me. A freeman wants to end his journey and get his payment;
a slave does not care--one day is the same as another to him: so that
the freeman travels faster and further. No; if I could get _pagazi_
(porters) to carry my ivory, I would never use slaves. But if we did not
have slaves, what would become of the people the heathen make prisoners
in war? They would be killed and eaten. Surely it is better for them to
be slaves.”
I was unable to reply; but he did not convince me at all that slavery
was right, or even excusable. I daily became more and more a hater of
slavery, from what I saw of the way the captives he had taken in the
late fights were treated, though their lot was far better than that of
those who had fallen into the hands of other traders. I had, however,
not much time to argue with Tipolo on the subject, for his brother
arrived; and he was busy all day long with him arranging about pushing
their trading-parties further afield, and about the despatch of ivory to
the coast.
I was delighted to find that Hatibu, my first acquaintance among the
Arabs and their retainers, was selected for the charge of the
down-caravan, and that Bilal was to accompany him, as with them I felt
myself safe. If any of the many people who did not care about my freely
expressed opinions about slavery had been put in charge, they would not
have treated me so kindly as did Hatibu, with whom I had struck up a
[Illustration: WIVES OF HATIBU AND BILAL.
_Page 293._]
very warm friendship, increased by the memory of the perils we had gone
through together. I had the feeling that, under Providence, it was to
him I was indebted for my life and the prospect of returning to my own
people and my own country.
Our preparations were not very great. Besides Hatibu and Bilal and their
wives, Tipolo sent twenty men from Zanzibar, and thirty Wanyamwesi. A
hundred loads of ivory were loaded on as many slaves, and fifty more
were sent to be used in case the others broke down, or to be sold and
bartered on the road. In the meantime they carried the personal
belongings of their escort, and a small stock of beads and cowries with
which to pay for food. Muinyi Dugumbi and others also took the
opportunity of this party leaving for the coast to send away slaves and
ivory, and gave the charge of their ventures to some of their own
adherents.
Before leaving Nyangwe, Tipolo told me to speak for him to the consul of
the English at Zanzibar, and say that he had done all that lay in his
power for me. He said that his agent there would provide me with means
to return home. His kindness quite overpowered me, and I did not know
how I could thank this generous and good-hearted man for all his
kindness to me. It is my duty to represent him as he appeared to me, and
to mourn that such a man should be almost compelled to be a trafficker
in human flesh.
He accompanied us for a couple of hours on our first day’s march. When
we parted he said he had given into Hatibu’s charge, for my special use,
a bag of rice, some curry stuff, and a small quantity of coffee, to
enable me to live more comfortably than if I were to depend entirely on
the products of the country for food.
For the first three or four days our road led through a comparatively
open country, where there were but few inhabitants, and where the
villages lay far apart. Hatibu, in obedience to the orders of Tipolo,
paid the people of these villages for any supplies he got from them; but
the other chiefs of parties allowed their men to plunder and rob, and it
was easy to see that if it had not been for the fear entertained of our
fire-arms, the sufferers would have attacked us. As it was, the women
and children all fled on our approach, and only the men remained in the
villages. Armed with heavy spears and huge wooden shields, they seemed
formidable fellows; and every night a warning was given in camp that no
one should straggle from the caravan, as we were entering Manyuema,
where the people were fierce, and would kill and eat all strangers whom
they found alone. Nor was this warning unnecessary; for as I conversed
with Hatibu and Bilal around our campfire at night, they told me many
instances of stragglers having been cut off; and often in the day-time
we could see bodies of men watching the progress of our party, evidently
ready to attack us if any favourable opportunity offered itself.
As we advanced the country became more thickly populated; and in the
course of each day’s march we passed many large villages, which were
different in their arrangements from any I had seen in my wanderings in
Africa. They were all composed of long, parallel rows of huts, built of
red mud, with thatched roofs. The huts, instead of being as usual round
or square, were oblong, and the roofs had gable ends. In the smaller of
the villages there were only two rows of these huts, facing each other
across a wide open space. Along the centre of this was usually planted a
row of oil palms, between which were the village granaries and floors of
hardened clay, with trunks of trees sunk to half their diameter, and
having holes cut in them for the women and slaves to pound the corn
required for food.
In the larger villages there were two, three, and even four of these
double rows, sometimes disposed abreast, and sometimes radiating from a
large open space. In every village were one or more large sheds, under
which were foundries where iron was smelted, the blast necessary to get
up the heat being produced by men working a curious kind of bellows,
there being sometimes ten or a dozen men squatting round the furnace,
each working away at his own pair of bellows. The iron was made into
blooms weighing about three or four pounds, shaped like a double cone,
with a projection about as big as a skewer, and four inches long at each
end. These were used by the producers to barter for all sorts of
necessaries of life, and even luxuries, as they are understood in
Central Africa. Hatibu, who said they would be of great use on our road
for procuring provisions, laid in a stock of them, as did all our
followers.
The ironworkers did not confine themselves to making this iron currency,
for they were most skilful smiths. The blades of the knives, spears, and
axes which they made were often elaborately ornamented with patterns
chiselled on them, and in some cases were perforated. The most valuable
of all were inlaid with copper, the patterns being very good and
tasteful. Indeed, the arms of the chiefs were often such masses of
ornament that they became almost useless for purposes of offence.
The villages of these ironworkers were passed in about seven days; and
soon after we came to a river called the Luama, which we had to cross in
canoes. Here, while crossing, we were somewhat frightened by a herd of
hippopotami coming down the stream and blowing close to the canoes. One,
indeed, came so close to the canoe in which Hatibu and I were that I
could have touched its back with my hand, and I was in a great fright
lest we should be capsized.
As it was too late for us to continue our march when we were all across,
we had to form our camp on the bank of the river; and in the evening we
began speaking of the hippopotami. Some natives in the camp told us how
they were in the habit of waiting at night for the brutes to land, and
spearing them as they came out of the water. I was desirous to be quit
with them for the fear and annoyance they had caused us, and I proposed
to Hatibu that we should try our hand at this sport if we could find a
place where they were in the habit of coming ashore.
When the natives heard this, they said they would take us to a place
where there would be hippopotami in plenty, but as it would be too late
for us to go that night, they proposed that we should halt the next day
to let the people rest and get food. This suited us very well; for we
found that corn was cheap and plentiful, and Hatibu had intended to have
made a stay two days further on for the purpose of provisioning the
caravan. By what he now heard he found that the village where he had
intended to halt had been burned by the inhabitants of another some
little distance away, so that we should have been disappointed had we
tried to get food there.