again our goods and chattels were fated to be thoroughly sopped. I
obtained a few corn-cobs from a passing caravan of Wanyamwezi, and
charged them with meat and messages for the party left behind. A desert
march, similar to the stage last travelled, led us to the Unguwwe or
Uvungwe River, a shallow, muddy stream, girt in as usual by dense
vegetation; and we found a fine large kraal on its left bank. After a
cold and rainy night, we resumed our march by fording the Unguwwe. Then
came the weary toil of fighting through tiger and spear-grass, with
reeds, rushes, a variety of ferns, before unseen, and other lush and
lusty growths, clothing a succession of rolling hills, monotonous
swellings, where the descent was ever a reflection of the ascent. The
paths were broken, slippery, and pitted with deep holes; along their
sides, where the ground lay exposed to view, a conglomerate of
ferruginous red clay--suggesting a resemblance to the superficies of
Londa, as described by Dr. Livingstone--took the place of the granites
and sandstones of the eastern countries, and the sinking of the land
towards the Lake became palpable. In the jungle were extensive clumps of
bamboo and rattan; the former small, the latter of poor quality; the
bauhinia, or black-wood, and the salsaparilla vine abounded; wild grapes
of diminutive size, and of the austerest flavour, appeared for the first
time upon the sunny hill-sides which Bacchus ever loves, and in the
lower swamps plantains grew almost wild. In parts the surface was broken
into small deep hollows, from which sprang pyramidal masses of the
hugest trees. Though no sign of man here met the eye, scattered fields
and plantations showed that villages must be somewhere near. Sweet water
was found in narrow courses of black mud, which sorely tried the sinews
of laden man and beast. Long after noon, we saw the caravan halted by
fatigue upon a slope beyond a weary swamp: a violent storm was brewing,
and whilst half the sky was purple black with nimbus, the sun shone
stingingly through the clear portion of the empyrean. But these small
troubles were lightly borne; already in the far distance appeared walls
of sky-blue cliff with gilded summits, which were as a beacon to the
distressed mariner.
On the 13th February we resumed our travel through screens of lofty
grass, which thinned out into a straggling forest. After about an hour’s
march, as we entered a small savannah, I saw the Fundi before alluded to
running forward and changing the direction of the caravan. Without
supposing that he had taken upon himself this responsibility, I followed
him. Presently he breasted a steep and stony hill, sparsely clad with
thorny trees: it was the death of my companion’s riding-ass. Arrived
with toil,--for our fagged beasts now refused to proceed,--we halted for
a few minutes upon the summit. “What is that streak of light which lies
below?” I inquired of Seedy Bombay. “I am of opinion,” quoth Bombay,
“that that is _the_ water.” I gazed in dismay; the remains of my
blindness, the veil of trees, and a broad ray of sunshine illuminating
but one reach of the Lake, had shrunk its fair proportions. Somewhat
prematurely I began to lament my folly in having risked life and lost
health for so poor a prize, to curse Arab exaggeration, and to propose
an immediate return, with the view of exploring the Nyanza, or Northern
Lake. Advancing, however, a few yards, the whole scene suddenly burst
upon my view, filling me with admiration, wonder, and delight. It gave
local habitation to the poet’s fancy:--
“Tremolavano i rai del Sol nascente
Sovra l’onde del mar purpuree e d’oro,
E in veste di zaffiro il ciel ridente
Specchiar parea le sue bellezze in loro.
D’Africa i venti fieri e d’Oriente,
Sovra il letto del mar, prendean ristoro,
E co’ sospiri suoi soavi e lieti
Col Zeffiro increspava il lembo a Teti.”
Nothing, in sooth, could be more picturesque than this first view of the
Tanganyika Lake, as it lay in the lap of the mountains, basking in the
gorgeous tropical sunshine. Below and beyond a short foreground of
rugged and precipitous hill-fold, down which the foot-path zigzags
painfully, a narrow strip of emerald green, never sere and marvellously
fertile, shelves towards a ribbon of glistening yellow sand, here
bordered by sedgy rushes, there cleanly and clearly cut by the breaking
wavelets. Further in front stretch the waters, an expanse of the
lightest and softest blue, in breadth varying from thirty to thirty-five
miles, and sprinkled by the crisp east-wind with tiny crescents of snowy
foam. The background in front is a high and broken wall of
steel-coloured mountain, here flecked and capped with pearly mist, there
standing sharply pencilled against the azure air; its yawning chasms,
marked by a deeper plum-colour, fall towards dwarf hills of mound-like
proportions, which apparently dip their feet in the wave. To the south,
and opposite the long low point, behind which the Malagarazi River
discharges the red loam suspended in its violent stream, lie the bluff
headlands and capes of Uguhha, and, as the eye dilates, it falls upon a
cluster of outlying islets, speckling a sea-horizon. Villages,
cultivated lands, the frequent canoes of the fishermen on the waters,
and on a nearer approach the murmurs of the waves breaking upon the
shore, give a something of variety, of movement, of life to the
landscape, which, like all the fairest prospects in these regions, wants
but a little of the neatness and finish of Art,--mosques and kiosks,
palaces and villas, gardens and orchards--contrasting with the profuse
lavishness and magnificence of nature, and diversifying the unbroken
_coup d’œil_ of excessive vegetation, to rival, if not to excel, the
most admired scenery of the classic regions. The riant shores of this
vast crevasse appeared doubly beautiful to me after the silent and
spectral mangrove-creeks on the East-African seaboard, and the
melancholy, monotonous experience of desert and jungle scenery, tawny
rock and sun-parched plain or rank herbage and flats of black mire.
Truly it was a revel for soul and sight! Forgetting toils, dangers, and
the doubtfulness of return, I felt willing to endure double what I had
endured; and all the party seemed to join with me in joy. My purblind
companion found nothing to grumble at except the “mist and glare before
his eyes.” Said bin Salim looked exulting,--_he_ had procured for me
this pleasure,--the monoculous Jemadar grinned his congratulations, and
even the surly Baloch made civil salams.
Arrived at Ukaranga I was disappointed to find there a few miserable
grass-huts--used as a temporary shelter by caravans passing to and from
the islets fringing the opposite coast--that clustered round a single
Tembe, then occupied by its proprietor, Hamid bin Sulayyam, an Arab
trader. Presently the motive of the rascally Fundi, in misleading the
caravan, which, by the advice of Snay bin Amir, I had directed to march
upon the Kawele district in Ujiji, leaked out. The roadstead of Ukaranga
is separated from part of Kawele by the line of the Ruche River, which
empties itself into a deep hollow bay, whose chord, extending from N.W.
to S.E., is five or six miles in length. The strip of shelving plain
between the trough-like hills and the lake is raised but a few feet
above water-level. Converted by the passage of a hundred drains from the
highlands, into a sheet of sloppy and slippery mire, breast deep in
select places, it supports with difficulty a few hundred inhabitants:
drenched with violent rain-storms and clammy dews, it is rife in fevers,
and it is feared by travellers on account of its hippopotami and
crocodiles. In the driest season the land-road is barely practicable;
during and after the wet monsoon the lake affords the only means of
passage, and the port of Ukaranga contains not a single native canoe.
The Fundi, therefore, wisely determined that I should spend beads for
rations and lodgings amongst his companions, and be heavily mulcted for
a boat by them. Moreover, he instantly sent word to Mnya Mtaza, the
principal headman of Ukaranga, who, as usual with the Lakist chiefs,
lives in the hills at some distance from the water, to come instanter
for his Honga or blackmail, as, no fresh fish being procurable, the
Wazungu were about to depart. The latter manœuvre, however, was
frustrated by my securing a conveyance for the morrow. It was an open
solid-built Arab craft, capable of containing thirty to thirty-five men;
it belonged to an absent merchant, Said bin Usman; it was in point of
size the second on the Tanganyika, and being too large for paddling, its
crew rowed instead of scooping up the water like the natives. The
slaves, who had named four khete of coral beads as the price of a bit of
sun-dried “baccalà,” and five as the hire of a foul hovel for one night,
demanded four cloths--at least the price of the boat--for conveying the
party to Kawele, a three hours’ trip. I gave them ten cloths and two
coil-bracelets, or somewhat more than the market value of the whole
equipage,--a fact which I effectually used as an _argumentum ad
verecundiam_.
At eight A.M., on the 14th February, we began coasting along the eastern
shore of the lake in a north-westerly direction, towards the Kawele
district, in the land of Ujiji. The view was exceedingly beautiful:
“ . . . the flat sea shone like yellow gold
Fused in the sun,”
and the picturesque and varied forms of the mountains, rising above and
dipping into the lake, were clad in purplish blue, set off by the rosy
tints of morning. Yet, more and more, as we approached our destination,
I wondered at the absence of all those features which prelude a popular
settlement. Passing the low, muddy, and grass-grown mouth of the Ruche
River, I could descry on the banks nothing but a few scattered hovels of
miserable construction, surrounded by fields of sorghum and sugar-cane,
and shaded by dense groves of the dwarf, bright-green plantain, and the
tall, sombre elæis or Guinea-palm. By the Arabs I had been taught to
expect a town, a ghaut, a port, and a bazar, excelling in size that of
Zanzibar, and I had old, preconceived ideas concerning “die Stadt
Ujiji,” whose sire was the “Mombas Mission Map.” Presently Mammoth and
Behemoth shrank timidly from exposure, and a few hollowed logs, the
monoxyles of the fishermen, the wood-cutters, and the market-people,
either cut the water singly, or stood in crowds drawn up on the patches
of yellow sand. About 11 A.M. the craft was poled through a hole in a
thick welting of coarse reedy grass and flaggy aquatic plants to a level
landing-place of flat shingle, where the water shoaled off rapidly. Such
was the ghaut or disembarkation quay of the great Ujiji.
Around the ghaut a few scattered huts, in the humblest bee-hive shape,
represented the port-town. Advancing some hundred yards through a din of
shouts and screams, tom-toms and trumpets, which defies description, and
mobbed by a swarm of black beings, whose eyes seemed about to start from
their heads with surprise, I passed a relic of Arab civilisation, the
“Bazar.” It is a plot of higher ground, cleared of grass, and flanked
by a crooked tree; there, between 10 A.M. and 3 P.M.--weather
permitting--a mass of standing and squatting negroes buy and sell,
barter and exchange, offer and chaffer with a hubbub heard for miles,
and there a spear or dagger-thrust brings on, by no means unfrequently,
a skirmishing faction-fight. The articles exposed for sale are sometimes
goats, sheep, and poultry, generally fish, vegetables, and a few fruits,
plantains, and melons; palm-wine is a staple commodity, and occasionally
an ivory or a slave is hawked about: those industriously disposed employ
themselves during the intervals of bargaining in spinning a coarse yarn
with the rudest spindle, or in picking the cotton, which is placed in
little baskets on the ground. I was led to a ruinous Tembe, built by an
Arab merchant, Hamid bin Salim, who had allowed it to be tenanted by
ticks and slaves. Situated, however, half a mile from, and backed by,
the little village of Kawele, whose mushroom-huts barely protruded their
summits above the dense vegetation, and placed at a similar distance
from the water in front, it had the double advantage of proximity to
provisions, and of a view which at first was highly enjoyable. The
Tanganyika is ever seen to advantage from its shores: upon its surface
the sight wearies with the unvarying tintage--all shining greens and
hazy blues--whilst continuous parallels of lofty hills, like the sides
of a huge trough, close the prospect and suggest the idea of
confinement.
And now, lodged with comparative comfort, in the cool Tembe, I will
indulge in a few geographical and ethnological reminiscences of the
country lately traversed.
The fifth region includes the alluvial valley of the Malagarazi River,
which subtends the lowest spires of the Highlands of Karagwah and
Urundi, the western prolongation of the chain which has obtained,
probably from African tradition, the name of “Lunar Mountains.” In
length, it extends from the Malagarazi Ferry in E. Lat. 31° 10′ to the
Tanganyika Lake, in E. Long. 30° 1′. Its breadth, from S. Lat. 3° 14′,
the supposed northern limit of Urundi, to S. Lat. 5° 2′; the parallel of
Ukaranga is a distance of 108 rectilinear geographical miles. Native
caravans pass from the Malagarazi to Ujiji in eight days, usually
without halting till arrived within a stone’s throw of their
destination. To a region of such various elevations it would be
difficult to assign an average of altitude; the heights observed by
thermometer never exceeded 1850 feet.
This country contains in due order, from east to west, the lands of
Uvinza, Ubuha, and Ujiji: on the northern edge is Uhha, and on the
south-western extremity Ukaranga. The general features are those of the
alluvial valleys of the Kingani and the Mgeta Rivers. The soil in the
vicinity of the Malagarazi is a rich brown or black loam, rank with
vegetable decay. This strip along the stream varies in breadth from one
to five miles; on the right bank it is mostly desert, but not sterile,
on the left it is an expanse of luxuriant cultivation. The northern
boundary is a jagged line of hill-spurs of primitive formation, rough
with stones and yawning with ravines: in many places the projections
assume the form of green “dogs’ tails,” or “neat’s tongues,” projecting
like lumpy ridges into the card-table-like level of the river-land
southwards. Each mound or spur is crowned with a tufty clump,
principally of bauhinias and mimosas, and often a lone, spreading and
towering tree, a Borassus or a Calabash, ornamenting the extreme point,
forms a landmark for the caravan. The sides of these hills, composed of
hornblende and gneissic rock, quartzite, quartz-grit, and ferruginous
gritstone, are steep, rugged, and thickly wooded, and one slope
generally reflects the other,--if muddy, muddy; and if stony, stony.
Each “hanger,” or wave of ground, is divided from its neighbour by a
soft sedgy valley, bisected by a network of stagnant pools. Here and
there are nullahs, with high stiff earthbanks for the passage of rain
torrents. The grass stands in lofty screens, and the path leads over a
matted mass of laid stalks which cover so closely the thick mud that
loaded asses do not sink; this vegetation is burned down during the hot
season, and a few showers bring up an emerald crop of young blades,
sprouting phœnix-like from the ashes of the dead. The southern boundary
of the valley is more regular; in the eastern parts is an almost tabular
wall of rock, covered even to the crest with shrub and tree.
As is proved by the regular course of the Malagarazi River, the westward
decline of the country is gentle: along the road, however, the two
marches nearest to the Tanganyika Lake appear to sink more rapidly than
those preceding them. The main drain receives from the northern
hill-spurs a multitude of tributaries, which convey their surplus
moisture into the great central reservoir.
Under the influence of the two great productive powers in nature--heat
and moisture--the wondrous fertility of the soil, which puts forth where
uncleared a rank jungle of nauseous odour, renders the climate
dangerous. The rains divide the year into two unequal portions of eight
and four months, namely, the wet monsoon, which commences with violence
in September and ends in May, and the dry hot weather which rounds off
the year. The showers fall, as in Zanzibar, uncontinuously, with breaks
varying from a few hours to several days; unlike those of Zanzibar, they
are generally accompanied by violent discharges of electricity.
Lightning from the north, especially at night, is considered a sign of
approaching foul weather. It would be vain to seek in these regions of
Central Africa the kaskazi and kosi, or regular north-east and
south-west monsoons, those local modifications of the trade-winds which
may be traced in regular progress from the centre of Equatorial Africa
to the Himalayas. The atmospheric currents deflected from the Atlantic
Ocean by the coast-radiation and the arid and barren regions of Southern
Africa are changed in hydrometric condition, and are compelled by the
chilly and tree-clad heights of the Tanganyika Lake, and the low, cold,
and river-bearing plains lying to the westward, to part with the
moisture which they have collected in the broad belt of extreme humidity
lying between the Ngami Lake and the equator. When the land has become
super-saturated, the cold, wet, wind, driving cold masses, surcharged
with electricity, sets continually eastward, to restore the equilibrium
in lands still reeking with the torrid blaze, and where the atmosphere
has been rarified by from four to six months of burning suns. At Msene,
in Western Unyamwezi, the rains break about October; thence the wet
monsoon, resuming its eastward course, crosses the Land of the Moon,
and, travelling by slow stages, arrives at the coast in early April.
Following the northing sun, and deflected to the north-east by the
rarified atmosphere from the hot, dry surface of the Eastern Horn of
Africa, the rains reach Western India in June, and exhaust themselves in
frequent and copious downfalls upon the southern versant of the
Himalayas. The gradual refrigeration of the ground, with the southing
of the sun, produces in turn the inverse process, namely, the
north-east monsoon. About the Tanganyika, however, all is variable. The
large body of water in the central reservoir preserves its equability of
temperature, while the alternations of chilly cold and potent heat, in
the high and broken lands around it, cause extreme irregularity in the
direction of the currents. During the rains of 1858 the prevalent winds
were constantly changing: in the mornings there was almost regularly a
cool north breeze drawn by the water from the heights of Urundi; in the
course of the day it varied round towards the south. The most violent
storms came up from the south-east and the south-west, and as often
against as with the gale. The long and rigorous wet monsoon, broken only
by a few scattered days of heat, renders the climate exceedingly damp,
and it is succeeded by a burst of sunshine which dries the grass to
stubble in a few days. Despite these extremes, the climate of Ujiji has
the reputation of being comparatively healthy; it owes this probably to
the refreshing coolness of the nights and mornings. The mukunguru, or
seasoning-fever of this region, is not feared by strangers so much as
that of Unyanyembe, yet no one expects to escape it. It is a low bilious
and aguish type, lasting from three to four days: during the attack
perspiration is induced with difficulty, and it often recurs at regular
times once a month.
From the Malagarazi Ferry many lines traverse the desert on the right or
northern bank of the river, which is preferred to the southern, whence
the Wavinza exclude travellers. Before entering this region caravans
generally combine, so as to present a formidable front to possible foes.
The trunk road, called Jambeho, the most southerly of the northern
routes, has been described in detail.
The district of Ukaranga extends from the Ruguvu or the Unguwwe River to
the waters of the lake: on the south it is bounded by the region of
Ut’hongwe, and on the north by the Ruche River. This small and sluggish
stream, when near the mouth, is about forty yards in breadth, and, being
unfordable at all seasons, two or three ferry-boats always ply upon its
waters. The _rauque_ bellow of the hippopotamus is heard on its banks,
and the adjacent lowlands are infested by mosquitoes in clouds. The
villages of Ukaranga are scattered in clumps over the plain--wretched
hamlets, where a few households live surrounded by rare cultivation in
the drier parts of the swamps. The “port of Ukaranga” is an open
roadstead, which seldom shows even a single canoe. Merchants who possess
boats and can send for provisions to the islands across the lake
sometimes prefer, for economy, Ukaranga to Kawele; it is also made a
halting-place by those _en route_ to Uguhha, who would lose time by
visiting Ujiji. The land, however, affords no supplies; a bazar is
unknown; and the apathetic tribe, who cultivate scarcely sufficient
grain for themselves, will not even take the trouble to cast a net.
Ukaranga sends bamboos, rafters for building, and fire-wood, cut in the
background of highlands, to Kawele and other parts of Ujiji, at which
places, however, workmen must be hired.
Ukaranga signifies, etymologically, the “Land of Groundnuts.” This
little district may, in earlier ages, have given name to the Mocarangas,
Mucarongas, or Mucarangas, a nation which, according to the Portuguese
historians, from João dos Sanctos (1586-97) to Don Sebastian Xavier
Botelho (1835), occupied the country within the Mozambique, from S.
lat. 5° to S. lat. 25°, under subjection to the sovereign and the people
of “Monomotapa.” In the absence of history, analogy is the only guide.
Either, then, the confusion of the Tanganyika and the Nyassa Lakes by
the old geographers, caused them to extend the “Mocarangas” up to the
northern water--and the grammatical error in the word “Mucaranga”
justifies some suspicion as to their accuracy--or in the space of three
centuries the tribe has declined from its former power and consequence,
or the Wakaranga of the Tanganyika are a remnant of the mighty southern
nation, which, like the Watuta tribe, has of late years been pressed by
adverse circumstances to the north. Though Senhor Botelho, in his
‘Memoria Estatisca,’ denominates the “Monomoezi country” “Western
Mucaranga,” it is certain that no Mnyamwezi in the present day owns to
connection with a race speaking a different dialect, and distant about
200 miles from his frontier.
The land of Ujiji is bounded on the north by the heights of Urundi, and
on the south by the Ukaranga country: eastward it extends to Ubuha, and
westward it is washed by the waves of the Tanganyika Lake. On its
north-east lies the land of Uhha, now reduced by the predatory Watuta to
a luxuriant desert.
The head-quarter village of Ujiji was in 1858 Kawele. To the westward of
this settlement was the district of Gungu, facing the islet rock Bangwe.
This place was deserted by travellers on account of the plundering
propensities of its former chief. His son “Lurinda,” however, labours to
recover lost ground by courtesy and attention to strangers.
South-eastwards of Kawele is the district of Ugoyye, frequented by the
Arabs, who find the Sultans Habeyya and Marabu somewhat less
extortionate than their neighbours. It is a sandy spot, clear of white
ants, but shut out by villages and cultivation from the lovely view of
the lake. To one standing at Kawele all these districts and villages are
within two or three miles, and a distant glance discloses the
possessions of half-a-dozen independent tribes.
Caravans entering Ujiji from the land side usually encamp in the
outlying villages on the right or left bank of the Ruche, at
considerable inconvenience, for some days. The origin of this custom
appears to date from olden time. In East Africa, as a rule, every
stranger is held to be hostile before he has proved friendly intentions,
and many tribes do not admit him into their villages without a special
invitation. Thus, even in the present day, the visitor in the countries
of the Somal and Galla, the Wamasai and the Wakwafi, must sit under some
tree outside the settlement till a deputation of elders, after formally
ascertaining his purpose, escort him to their homes. The modern reason
for the custom, which prevails upon the coast, as well as on the banks
of the Tanganyika, is rather commercial than political. The caravan
halts upon neutral ground, and the sultans or chiefs of the different
villages send select messengers carrying various presents: in the
interior ivory and slaves, and in the maritime regions cloth and
provisions, technically called “Magubiko,” and intended as an earnest of
their desire to open trade. Sweet words and fair promises win the day;
the Mtongi, or head of the caravan, after a week of earnest deliberation
with all his followers, chooses his host, temporary lodgings are
provided for the guests, and the value of the retaining fees is
afterwards recovered in Hongá and Kirembá--blackmail and customs. This
custom was known in Southern Africa by the name of “marts;” that is, a
“connection with a person belonging to another nation, so that they
reside at each other’s houses when visiting the place, and make mutual
presents.” The compulsory guest amongst the Arabs of Zanzibar and the
Somal is called “Nezil.”