generally finish in a fortnight, all halts included, the transit of the
fifth region. The traveller has now accomplished a total number of 85
long, or 100 short stages, which, with necessary rests, but excluding
detentions and long halts, occupy 150 days. The direct longitudinal
distance from the coast is 540 geo. miles, which the sinuosities of the
road prolong to 955, or in round numbers 950 statute miles. The number
of days expended by the Expedition in actual marching was 100, of hours
420, which gives a rate of 2·27 miles per hour. The total time was seven
and a-half months, from the 27th June, 1857, to the 18th February, 1858;
thus the number of the halts exceeded by one-third the number of the
marches. In practice Arab caravans seldom arrive at the Tanganyika, for
reasons before alluded to, under a total period of six months. Those
lightly laden may make Unyanyembe in between two and a-half and three
months, and from Unyanyembe Ujiji in twenty-five stages, which would
reduce their journey to four months.
Dapper (‘Beschryving van Afrika,’ Amst. 1671) asserts that the “blacks
of Pombo, _i. e._ the Pombeiros, or native travellers of W. Africa, when
asked respecting the distance of the lake, say that it is at least a
sixty days’ journey, going constantly eastwards.” But the total breadth
of the continent between Mbuamaji and Loanda being, in round numbers,
1560 geographical miles, this estimate would give a marching rate of
twenty-six geographical and rectilinear miles (or, allowing for
deviation, thirty-six statute miles) per diem. When Da Couto (1565),
quoting the information procured by Francisco Barreto, during his
expedition in 1570, from some Moors (Arabs or Wasawahili) at Patta and
elsewhere, says that “from Kilwa or Atondo (that is to say, the country
of the Watondwe) the other sea of Angola might be reached with a journey
of fifteen or twenty (150 or 200?) leagues,” he probably alludes to the
Nyassa Lake, lying south-westwards of Kilwa, not to the Tanganyika. Mr.
Cooley gives one itinerary, by Mohammed bin Nasur, an old Arab merchant,
enumerating seventy-one marches from Buromaji (Mbuamaji) to Oha (Uhha),
and a total of eighty-three from the coast to the lake; and a second by
a native of Monomoezi, Lief bin Said (a misprint for Khalaf bin Saíd?)
sixty-two to Ogara (Ugala), which is placed four or five days from Oha.
In another page he remarks that “from Buromaji, near Point Puna, to Oha
in Monomoezi is a journey of seventy-nine, or, in round numbers, eighty
days, the shores of the lake being still six or eight days distant.”
This is the closest estimate yet made. Mr. Macqueen, from the itinerary
of Lief bin Said, estimates the lake, from the mouth of the river
Pangani, at 604 miles, and seventy-one days of total march. It is
evident, from the preceding pages, that African authorities have
hitherto confounded the Nyanza, the Tanganyika, and the Nyassa Lakes.
Still, in the estimate of the distance between the coast and Ujiji there
is a remarkable and a most deceptive coherence.
Ujiji--also called Manyofo, which appears, however, peculiar to a
certain sultanat or district--is the name of a province, not, as has
been represented, of a single town. It was first visited by the Arabs
about 1840; ten years after that they had penetrated to Unyamwezi; they
found it conveniently situated as a mart upon the Tanganyika Lake, and a
central point where their depôts might be established, and whence their
factors and slaves could navigate the waters, and collect slaves and
ivory from the tribes upon its banks. But the climate proved unhealthy,
the people dangerous, and the coasting-voyages frequently ended in
disaster; Ujiji, therefore, never rose to the rank of Unyanyembe or
Msene. At present it is visited during the fair season, from May to
September, by flying caravans, who return to Unyanyembe as soon as they
have loaded their porters.
Abundant humidity and a fertile soil, evidenced by the large forest
trees and the abundance of ferns, render Ujiji the most productive
province in this section of Africa: vegetables, which must elsewhere be
cultivated, here seem to flourish almost spontaneously. Rice of
excellent quality was formerly raised by the Arabs upon the shores of
the Tanganyika; it grew luxuriantly, attaining, it is said, the height
of eight or nine feet. The inhabitants, however, preferring sorghum, and
wearied out by the depredations of the monkey, the elephant, and the
hippopotamus, have allowed the more civilised cereal to degenerate. The
principal grains are the holcus and the Indian nagli or nanchni
(Eleusine coracano); there is no bajri (panicum or millet) in these
regions; the pulses are phaseoli and the voandzeia, groundnuts, beans,
and haricots of several different species. The manioc, egg-plant, and
sweet-potato, the yam, the cucumber, an edible white fungus growing
subterraneously, and the Indian variety of the Jerusalem artichoke,
represent the vegetables: the people, however, unlike the Hindus,
despise, and consequently will not be at the pains to cultivate them.
Sugar-cane, tobacco, and cotton are always purchasable in the bazar. The
fruits are the plantain and the Guinea-palm. The mdizi or plantain-tree
is apparently an aborigen of these latitudes: in certain parts, as in
Usumbara, Karagwah, and Uganda, it is the staff of life: in the hilly
countries there are, it is said, about a dozen varieties, and a single
bunch forms a load for a man. It is found in the island and on the coast
of Zanzibar, at K’hutu in the head of the alluvial valley, and, though
rarely, in the mountains of Usagara. The best fruit is that grown by the
Arabs at Unyanyembe: it is still a poor specimen, coarse and insipid,
stringy and full of seeds, and strangers rarely indulge in it, fearing
flatulence. Upon the Tanganyika Lake there is a variety called mikono
t’hembu, or elephant’s-hands, which is considerably larger than the
Indian “horse-plantain.” The skin is of a brickdust red, in places
inclining to rusty-brown; the pulp is a dull yellow, with black seeds,
and the flavour is harsh, strong, and drug-like. The Elæis Guiniensis,
locally called mchikichi, which is known by the Arabs to grow in the
islands of Zanzibar and Pemba, and more rarely in the mountains of
Usagara, springs apparently uncultivated in large dark groves on the
shores of the Tanganyika, where it hugs the margin, rarely growing at
any distance inland. The bright-yellow drupe, with shiny purple-black
point, though nauseous to the taste, is eaten by the people. The mawezi
or palm-oil, of the consistency of honey, rudely extracted, forms an
article of considerable traffic in the regions about the Lake. This is
the celebrated extract, whose various officinal uses in Europe have
already begun to work a social reformation in W. Africa. The people of
Ujiji separate, by pounding, the oily sarcocarpium from the one seed of
the drupe, boil it for some hours, allow the floating substance to
coagulate, and collect it in large earthen pots. The price is usually
about one doti of white cotton for thirty-five pounds, and the people
generally demand salt in exchange for it from caravans. This is the “oil
of a red colour” which, according to Mr. Cooley, is bought by the
Wanyamwezi “from the opposite or south-western side of the lake.”
Despite its sickly flavour, it is universally used in cooking, and it
forms the only unguent and lamp-oil in the country. This fine
Guinea-palm is also tapped, as the date in Western India, for toddy; and
the cheapness of this tembo--the sura of West Africa--accounts for the
prevalence of intoxication, and the consequent demoralisation of the
Lakist tribes.
The bazar at Ujiji is well supplied. Fresh fish of various kinds is
always procurable except during the violence of the rains: the people,
however, invariably cut it up and clean it out before bringing it to
market. Good honey abounds after the wet monsoon. By the favour of the
chief, milk and butter may be purchased every day. Long-tailed sheep and
well-bred goats, poultry and eggs--the two latter are never eaten by the
people--are brought in from the adjoining countries: the Arabs breed a
few Manilla ducks, and the people rear but will not sell pigeons. The
few herds at Ujiji which have escaped the beef-eating propensities of
the Watuta are a fine breed, originally, it is said, derived by the
Wahha from the mountains of Karagwah. Their horns in these lands appear
unusually large; their stature combines with the smallness of the hump
to render them rather like English than Indian or African cattle. They
are rarely sold of later days, except for enormous prices, an adult
slave being the lowest valuation of a cow. The cattle is never stalled
or grain-fed, and the udder is little distended; the produce is about
one quarter that of a civilised cow, and the animals give milk only
during the few first months after calving. The “tulchan” of Tibet is
apparently unknown in Central Africa; but the people are not wanting in
barbarous contrivances to persuade a stubborn animal to yield her
produce.
The fauna appear rare upon the borders of the Tanganyika: all men are
hunters; every human being loves animal food, from white ants to
elephants; the tzetze was found there, and probably the luxuriance of
the vegetation, in conjunction with the extreme humidity, tends to
diminish species and individuals. Herds of elephants exist in the
bamboo-jungles which surround the sea, but the heaps of ivory sold in
the markets of Ujiji are collected from an area containing thousands of
square miles. Hippopotami and crocodiles are common in the waters, wild
buffaloes in the plains. The hyænas are bold thieves, and the half-wild
“Pariah-dogs” that slink about the villages are little inferior as
depredators. The people sometimes make pets of them, leading them about
with cords; but they do not object to see them shot after a raid upon
the Arab’s meat, butter, or milk. These animals are rarely heard to
bark; they leave noise to the village cocks. The huts are as usual
haunted by the grey and the musk-rat. Of birds there is a fine
fish-eagle, about the size of a domestic cock, with snowy head and
shoulders relieving a sombre chocolate plume: he sits majestically
watching his prey upon the tall trees overhanging the waves of the
Tanganyika. A larus, or sea-gull, with reddish legs, lives in small
colonies upon this lake. At the end of the monsoon in 1858 these birds
were seen to collect in troops upon the sands, as they are accustomed
to do at Aden when preparing to migrate. The common kingfisher is a
large bird with a white and grey plume, a large and strong black bill,
and a crest which somewhat resembles that of the Indian bulbul: it
perches upon the branches over the waters, and in flight and habits
resembles other halcyons. A long and lank black plotus, or diver, is
often seen skimming the waters, and sandpipers run along the yellow
sands. The other birds are the white-breasted “parson-crow,” partridges,
and quails seen in Urundi; swallows in passage, curlews, motacillæ,
muscicapæ, and various passerines. Ranæ, some of them noisy in the
extreme, inhabit the sedges close to the lake. The termite does great
damage in the sweet red soils about Kawele: it is less feared when the
ground is dry and sandy. The huts are full of animal life--snakes,
scorpions, ants of various kinds, whose armies sometimes turn the
occupants out of doors; the rafters are hollowed out by xylophagous
insects; the walls are riddled by mason-bees, hideous spiders veil the
corners with thick webs, the chirp of the cricket is heard both within
and out of doors, cockroaches destroy the provisions, and large brown
mosquitoes and flies, ticks and bugs, assault the inhabitants.
The rise in the price of slaves and ivory has compelled Arab merchants,
as will be seen in another chapter, to push their explorations beyond
the Tanganyika Lake. Ujiji is, however, still the great slave-mart of
these regions, the article being collected from all the adjoining tribes
of Urundi, Uhha, Uvira, and Marungu. The native dealers, however, are so
acute, that they are rapidly ruining this their most lucrative traffic.
They sell cheaply, and think to remunerate themselves by aiding and
abetting desertion. Merchants, therefore, who do not chain or cord
together their gangs till they have reached the east bank of the
Malagarazi River, often lose 20 per cent. The prevalence of the practice
has already given Ujiji a bad name, and, if continued, will remove the
market to another place, where the people are somewhat less clever and
more sensible. It is impossible to give any idea of the average price of
the human commodity, which varies, under the modifications of demand and
supply, from two to ten doti or tobes of American domestics. Yet as
these purchases sell in Zanzibar for fourteen or fifteen dollars per
head, the trade realises nearly 500 per cent., and will, therefore, with
difficulty be put down.
The principal tribes in this region are the Wajiji, the Wavinza, the
Wakaranga, the Watuta, the Wabuha, and the Wahha.
The Wajiji are a burly race of barbarians, far stronger than the tribes
hitherto traversed, with dark skins, plain features, and straight,
sturdy limbs: they are larger and heavier men than the Wanyamwezi, and
the type, as it approaches Central Africa, becomes rather negro than
negroid.[1] Their feet and hands are large and flat, their voices are
harsh and strident, and their looks as well as their manners are
independent even to insolence. The women, who are held in high repute,
resemble, and often excel, their masters in rudeness and violence; they
think little in their cups of entering a stranger’s hut, and of
snatching up and carrying away an article which excites their
admiration. Many of both sexes, and all ages, are disfigured by the
small-pox--the Arabs have vainly taught them inoculation--and there are
few who are not afflicted by boils and various eruptions; there is also
an inveterate pandemic itch, which, according to their Arab visitors,
results from a diet of putrid fish.
[1] My companion observes (in Blackwood, Nov. 1859), “It may be worthy
of remark that I have always found the lighter coloured savages more
boisterous and warlike than those of the dingier hue. The _ruddy
black_, fleshy-looking Wazaramos and Wagogos are much _lighter_ in
colour (!) than any of the other tribes, and certainly have a far
superior, more manly and warlike independent spirit and bearing than
any of the others.” The “dingiest” peoples are usually the most
degraded, and therefore sometimes the least powerful; but the fiercest
races in the land are the Wazaramo, the Wajiji and the Wataturu, who
are at the same time the darkest.
This tribe is extensively tattooed, probably as a protection against the
humid atmosphere, and the chills of the Lake Region. Some of the chiefs
have ghastly scars raised by fire, in addition to large patterns marked
upon their persons--lines, circles, and rays of little cupping-cuts
drawn down the back, the stomach, and the arms, like the tattoo of the
Wangindo tribe near Kilwa. Both sexes love to appear dripping with oil;
and they manifestly do not hold cleanliness to be a virtue. The head is
sometimes shaved; rarely the hair is allowed to grow; the most
fashionable coiffure is a mixture of the two; patches and beauty-spots
in the most eccentric shapes--buttons, crescents, crests, and galeated
lines--being allowed to sprout either on the front, the sides, or the
back of the head, from a carefully-scraped scalp. Women as well as men
are fond of binding a wisp of white tree-fibre round their heads, like
the ribbon which confines the European old person’s wig. There is not a
trace of mustachio or whisker in the country; they are removed by the
tweezers, and the climate, according to the Arabs, is, like that of
Unyamwezi, unfavourable to beards. For cosmetics both sexes apply, when
they can procure such luxuries, red earth to the face, and over the head
a thick-coating of chalk or mountain-meal, which makes their blackness
stand out hideously grotesque.
The chiefs wear expensive stuffs, checks, and cottons, which they
extract from passing caravans. Women of wealth affect the tobe or
coast-dress, and some were seen wearing red and blue broadcloths. The
male costume of the lower orders is confined to softened goat, sheep,
deer, leopard, or monkey skins, tied at two corners over either
shoulder, with the flaps open at one side, and with tail and legs
dangling in the wind. Women who cannot afford cloth use as a succedaneum
a narrow kilt of fibre or skin, and some content themselves with a
tassel of fibre or a leafy twig depending from a string bound round the
waist, and displaying the nearest approach to the original fig-leaf. At
Ujiji, however, the people are observed, for the first time, to make
extensive use of the macerated tree-bark, which supplies the place of
cotton in Urundi, Karagwah, and the northern kingdoms. This article,
technically termed “mbugu,” is made from the inner bark of various
trees, especially the mrimba and the mwale, or huge Raphia-palm. The
trunk of the full-grown tree is stripped of its integument twice or
thrice, and is bound with plantain-leaves till a finer growth is judged
fit for manipulation. This bark is carefully removed, steeped in water,
macerated, kneaded, and pounded with clubs and battens to the
consistency of a coarse cotton. Palm-oil is then spirted upon it from
the mouth, and it acquires the colour of chamois-leather. The Wajiji
obtain the mbugu mostly from Urundi and Uvira. They are fond of striping
it with a black vegetable mud, so as to resemble the spoils of leopards
and wild cats, and they favour the delusion by cutting the edge into
long strips, like the tails and other extremities of wild beasts. The
price of the mbugu varies according to size, from six to twelve khete or
strings of beads. Though durable, it is never washed: after many
months’ wear the superabundance of dirt is removed by butter or ghee.
Besides the common brass-wire girdles and bracelets, armlets and
anklets, masses of white-porcelain, blue-glass, and large pigeon-egg
beads, and hundreds of the iron-wire circlets called sambo, which, worn
with ponderous brass or copper rings round the lower leg, above the
foot, suggest at a distance the idea of disease, the Wajiji are
distinguished from tribes not on the lake by necklaces of shells--small
pink bivalves strung upon a stout fibre. They have learned to make brass
from the Arabs, by melting down one-third of zinc imported from the
coast with two parts of the fine soft and red copper brought from the
country of the Kazeembe. Like their Lakist neighbours, they ornament the
throat with disks, crescents, and strings of six or seven cones,
fastened by the apex, and depending to the breast. Made of the whitest
ivory or of the teeth, not the tusks, of the hippopotamus, these
dazzling ornaments effectively set off the dark and negro-like skin.
Another peculiarity amongst these people is a pair of iron pincers or a
piece of split wood ever hanging round the neck; nor is its use less
remarkable than its presence. The Lakists rarely chew, smoke, or take
snuff according to the fashion of the rest of mankind. Every man carries
a little half-gourd or diminutive pot of black earthenware, nearly full
of tobacco; when inclined to indulge, he fills it with water, expresses
the juice, and from the palm of his hand sniffs it up into his nostrils.
The pincers serve to close the exit, otherwise the nose must be
temporarily corked by the application of finger and thumb. Without much
practice it is difficult to articulate during the retention of the dose,
which lasts a few minutes, and when an attempt is made the words are
scarcely intelligible. The arms of the Wajiji are small battle-axes and
daggers, spears, and large bows, which carry unusually heavy arrows.
They fear the gun and the sabre, yet they show no unwillingness to
fight. The Arabs avoid granting their demands for muskets and gunpowder,
consequently a great chief never possesses more than two or three
fire-locks.
The Lakists are an almost amphibious race, excellent divers, strong
swimmers and fishermen, and vigorous ichthyophagists all. At times, when
excited by the morning coolness and by the prospect of a good haul, they
indulge in a manner of merriment which resembles the gambols of sportive
water-fowls: standing upright and balancing themselves in their hollow
logs, which appear but little larger than themselves, they strike the
water furiously with their paddles, skimming over the surface, dashing
to and fro, splashing one another, urging forward, backing, and wheeling
their craft, now capsizing, then regaining their position with wonderful
dexterity. They make coarse hooks, and have many varieties of nets and
creels. Conspicuous on the waters and in the villages is the Dewa, or
“otter” of Oman, a triangle of stout reeds, which shows the position of
the net. A stronger kind, and used for the larger ground-fish, is a cage
of open basket-work, provided, like the former, with a bait and two
entrances. The fish once entangled cannot escape, and a log of wood,
used as a trimmer, attached to a float-rope of rushy plants, directs the
fisherman. The heaviest animals are caught by a rope-net--the likh of
Oman--weighted and thrown out between two boats. They have circular lath
frames, meshed in with a knot somewhat different from that generally
used in Europe; the smaller variety is thrown from the boat by a single
man, who follows it into the water,--the larger, which reaches six feet
in diameter, is lowered from the bow by cords, and collects the fish
attracted by the glaring torch-fire. The Wajiji also make large and
small drag-nets, some let down in a circle by one or more canoes, the
others managed by two fishermen, who, swimming at each end, draw them in
when ready. They have little purse-nets to catch small fry, hoops thrust
into a long stick-handle through the reed walls that line the shore; and
by this simple contrivance the fish are caught in considerable
quantities. The wigo or crates alluded to as peculiar in the ‘Periplus,’
and still common upon the Zanzibar coast, are found at the Tanganyika.
The common creel resembles the khún of Western India, and is well-known
even to the Bushmen of the South: it is a cone of open bamboo-strips or
supple twigs, placed lengthways, and bound in and out by strings of
grass or tree-fibre. It is closed at the top, and at the bottom there is
a narrow aperture, with a diagonally-disposed entrance like that of a
wire rat-trap, which prevents the fish escaping. It is placed upon its
side with a bait, embanked with mud, reeds, or sand, and seems to answer
the purpose for which it is intended. In Uzaramo and near the coast the
people narcotise fish with the juice of certain plants, asclepias and
euphorbias: about the Tanganyika the art appears unknown.