amongst travelling traders. About five years ago a large caravan from
Tanga, on the eastern coast, consisting of 400 or 500 guns, and led by
Arab merchants, at the end of a journey which had lasted nearly two
years, happened to quarrel with the Wahumba or Wamasai near the lake.
The subject was the burning down of some grass required for pasture by
the wild men. Words led to blows; the caravan, having but two or three
pounds of gunpowder, was soon dispersed; seven or eight merchants lost
their lives, and a few made their escape to Unyanyembe. Before our
departure from Kazeh, the slaves of Salim bin Rashid, having rescued one
of the wounded survivors, who had been allowed by the Wamasai to wander
into Urudi, brought him back to Kazeh. He described the country as no
longer practicable. In 1858 also the same trading party, the principal
authority for these statements, were relieved of several bales of cloth,
during their sleep, when bivouacking upon an inhabited island near the
eastern shore.
The altitude, the conformation of the Nyanza Lake, the argilaceous
colour and the sweetness of its waters, combine to suggest that it may
be one of the feeders of the White Nile. In the map appended to M.
Brun-Rollet’s volume, before alluded to, the large water west of the
Padongo tribe, which clearly represents the Nyanza or Ukerewe, is, I
have observed, made to drain northwards into the Fitri Lake, and
eventually to swell the main stream of the White River. The details
supplied by the Egyptian Expedition, which, about twenty years ago,
ascended the White River to 3° 22′ N. lat., and 31° 30′ E. long., and
gave the general bearing of the river from that point to its source as
south-east, with a distance of one month’s journey, or from 300 to 350
miles, would place the actual sources 2° S. lat., and 35° E. long., or
in 2° eastward of the southern creek of the Nyanza Lake. This position
would occupy the northern counterslope of the Lunar Mountains, the upper
water-shed of the high region whose culminating apices are Kilima-Ngao,
Kenia, and Doengo Engai. The distance of these peaks from the coast, as
given by Dr. Krapf, must be considerably reduced, and little authority
can be attached to his river Tumbiri.[13] The site, supposed by Mr.
Macqueen (“Proceedings of the Geographical Society of London,” January
24th, 1859), to be at least 21,000 feet above the level of the sea, and
consequently 3000 or 4000 feet above the line of perpetual congelation,
would admirably explain the two most ancient theories concerning the
source of the White River, namely, that it arises in a snowy region, and
that its inundation is the result of tropical rains.
[13] The large river Tumbiri, mentioned by Dr. Krapf as flowing
towards Egypt from the northern counterslope of Mount Kenia, rests
upon the sole authority of a single wandering native. As, moreover,
the word T’humbiri or T’humbili means a monkey, and the people are
peculiarly fond of satire in a small way, it is not improbable that
the very name had no foundation of fact. This is mentioned, as some
geographers--for instance, Mr. Macqueen (“Observations on the
Geography of Central Africa:” “Proceedings of the R. G. S. of London,”
May 9, 1859)--have been struck by the circumstance that the Austrian
Missionaries and Mr. Werne (“Expedition to discover the sources of the
White Nile, in 1840-41”) gave Tubirih as the Bari name of the White
Nile at the southern limit of their exploration.
It is impossible not to suspect that between the upper portion of the
Nyanza and the watershed of the White Nile there exists a longitudinal
range of elevated ground, running from east to west--a “furca” draining
northwards into the Nile and southwards into the Nyanza Lake--like that
which separates the Tanganyika from the Maravi or Nyassa of Kilwa.
According to Don Angelo Vinco, who visited Loquéck in 1852, beyond the
cataract of Garbo--supposed to be in N. lat. 2° 40′--at a distance of
sixty miles lie Robego, the capital of Kuenda, and Lokoya (Logoja), of
which the latter receives an affluent from the east. Beyond Lokoya the
White Nile is described as a _small and rocky mountain-river_,
presenting none of the features of a stream flowing from a broad
expanse of water like the great Nyanza reservoir.
The periodical swelling of the Nyanza Lake, which, flooding a
considerable tract of land on the south, may be supposed--as it lies
flush with the basal surface of the country--to inundate extensively all
the low lands that form its periphery, forbids belief in the possibility
of its being the head-stream of the Nile, or the reservoir of its
periodical inundation. In Karagwah, upon the western shore, the masika
or monsoon lasts from October to May or June, after which the dry season
sets in. The Egyptian Expedition found the river falling fast at the end
of January, and they learned from the people that it would again rise
about the end of March, at which season the sun is vertical over the
equator. About the summer solstice (June), when the rains cease in the
regions south of and upon the equator, the White Nile begins to flood.
From March to the autumnal equinox (September) it continues to overflow
its banks till it attains its magnitude, and from that time it shrinks
through the winter solstice (December) till March. The Nile is,
therefore, full during the dry season and low during the rainy season
south of and immediately upon the equator. And as the northern
counterslope of Kenia will, to a certain extent, be a lee-land, like
Ugogo, it cannot have the superfluity of moisture necessary to send
forth a first-class stream. The inundation is synchronous with the great
falls of the northern equatorial regions, which extend from July to
September, and is dependent solely upon the tropical rains. It is,
therefore, probable that the true sources of the “Holy River” will be
found to be a network of runnels and rivulets of scanty dimensions,
filled by monsoon torrents, and perhaps a little swollen by melted snow
on the northern water-parting of the Eastern Lunar Mountains.
Of the tribes dwelling about the Nyanza, the western have been already
described. The Washaki and the Warudi are plundering races on the east,
concerning whom little is known. Remain the Wahinda, a clan or class
alluded to in this and a former chapter, and the Wataturu, an extensive
and once powerful tribe, mentioned when treating of the regions about
Tura.
The Wahinda (in the singular Muhinda) are, according to some Arabs, a
foreign and ruling family, who coming from a distant country, probably
in the neighbourhood of Somaliland, conquered the lands, and became
Sultans. This opinion seems to rest upon physical peculiarities,--the
superiority of the Wahinda in figure, stature, and complexion to their
subjects suggesting a difference of origin. Others explain the word
Muhinda to mean a cadet of royal family, and call the class Bayt el
Saltanah, or the Kingly House. Thus, whilst Armanika is the Mkámá or
Sovereign of Karagwah, his brother simply takes the title of Muhinda.
These conflicting statements may be reconciled by the belief general in
the country that the families of the Sultans are a foreign and a nobler
race, the date of whose immigration has long fallen into oblivion.
This may be credited without difficulty; the physique of the
rulers--approximating more to the northern races of Africa--is markedly
less negroid than that of their subjects, and the difference is too
great to be explained by the effects of climate or of superior diet,
comfort, and luxury.
The Wahinda are found in the regions of Usui, Karagwah, Uhha, Uvinza,
Uyungu, Ujiji, and Urundi, where they live in boma--stockades--and
scattered villages. Of this race are the Sultans Suwarora of the Wasui,
Armanika of Karagwah, Kanoni of Uhha, Kanze of Uyungu, Mzogera of
Uvinza, Rusimba of Ujiji, Mwezi of Urundi, Mnyamurunde of Uyofo, Gaetawa
of Uhayya, and Mutawazi of Utumbara. The Wahinda affect a milk diet
which is exceedingly fattening, and anoint themselves plentifully with
butter and ghee, to soften and polish the skin. They never sell their
fellow clansmen, are hospitable and civil to strangers, seldom carry
arms, fear nothing from the people, and may not be slain even in battle.
Where the Wahinda reign, their ministers are the Watosi, a race which
has been described when treating of their head-quarters Karagwah.
The Wataturu extend from the Mángewá district, two marches northward of
Tura in a north-north-westerly diagonal, to Usmáo, a district of
Usukuma, at the south-east angle of the Nyanza Lake. On the north and
east they are limited by the Wahumba, on the south by the people of
Iramba, and there is said to be a connection between these three tribes.
This wild pastoral people were formerly rich in flocks and herds; they
still have the best asses in the country. About five years ago, however,
they were persuaded by Msimbira, a chief of Usukuma, to aid him against
his rival Mpagamo, who had called in the Arabs to his assistance. During
the long and bitter contest which ensued, the Arabs, as has been
related, were worsted in the field, and the Wataturu suffered severe
losses in cattle. Shortly before the arrival of the Expedition at Kazeh
the foreign merchants had despatched to Utaturu a plundering party of
sixty slave-musketeers, who, however, suddenly attacked by the people,
were obliged to fly, leaving behind eighteen of their number. This event
was followed by a truce, and the Wataturu resumed their commerce with
Tura and Unyanyembe, where, in 1858, a caravan, numbering about 300
men, came in. Two small parties of this people were also met at Tura;
they were small, dark, and ugly savages, almost beardless, and not
unlike the “Thakur” people in Maharatta-land. Their asses, provided with
neat saddle-bags of zebra skin, were better dressed than the men, who
wore no clothing except the simplest hide-sandals. According to the
Arabs this clan affects nudity: even adult maidens dispense with the
usual skin-kilt. The men ignored bows and arrows, but they were
efficiently armed with long spears, double-edged sime, and heavy hide
shields. They brought calabash or monkey-bread flour--in this country,
as in Ugogo, a favourite article of consumption--and a little coarse
salt, collected from the dried mud of a Mbuga or swamp in the land of
Iramba, to be bartered for holcus and beads. Their language sounded to
the unpractised ear peculiarly barbarous, and their savage
suspiciousness rendered it impossible to collect any specimens.
At Kazeh, sorely to my disappointment, it was finally settled, in a full
conclave of Arabs, that we must return to the coast by the tedious path
with which we were already painfully familiar. At Ujiji the state of our
finances had been the sole, though the sufficient obstacle to our
traversing Africa from east to west; we might--had we possessed the
means--by navigating the Tanganyika southwards, have debouched, after a
journey of three months, at Kilwa. The same cause prevented us from
visiting the northern kingdoms of Karagwah and Uganda; to effect this
exploration, however, we should have required not only funds but time.
The rains there setting in about September render travelling impossible;
our two years’ leave of absence were drawing to a close, and even had we
commanded a sufficient outfit, we were not disposed to risk the
consequences of taking an extra twelve months. No course, therefore,
remained but to regain the coast. We did not, however, give up hopes of
making our return useful to geography, by tracing the course of the
Rwaha or Rufijí River, and of visiting the coast between the Usagara
Mountains and Kilwa, an unknown line not likely to attract future
travellers.
[Illustration: SAYDUMI, A NATIVE OF UGANDA.]
[Illustration: Mgongo Thembo, or the Elephant’s Back.]
CHAP. XVII.
THE DOWN-MARCH TO THE COAST.
On the 5th September 1858, Musa Mzuri--handsome Moses, as he was called
by the Africans--returned with great pomp to Kazeh after his long
residence at Karagwah. Some details concerning this merchant, who has
played a conspicuous part in the eventful “_peripéties_” of African
discovery, may be deemed well placed.
About thirty-five years ago, Musa, a Moslem of the Kojah sect, and then
a youth, was driven by poverty from his native Surat to follow his
eldest brother “Sayyan,” who having sought fortune at Zanzibar, and
having been provided with an outfit by the Sayyid el Laghbari, then
governor of the island, made sundry journeys into the interior. About
1825, the brothers first visited the Land of the Moon, preceding the
Arab travellers, who in those days made their markets at Usanga and
Usenga, distant about a dozen marches to the S.S.E. of Kazeh. Musa
describes Unyamwezi as richly cultivated, and he has not forgotten the
hospitable reception of the people. The brothers bought up a little
venture of forty Farasilah or twenty men’s loads of cloth and beads, and
returned with a joint stock of 800 Farasilah (800 × 35 = 28,000 lbs.
avoirdupois) in ivory; as Sayyan died on the road, all fell to Musa’s
share. Since that time he has made five journeys to the coast and
several to the northern kingdoms. About four years ago Armanika, the
present Sultan of Karagwah, was besieged in a palisaded village by a
rebel brother Rumanika. On this occasion Musa, in company with the king,
endured great hardships, and incurred no little risk; when both parties
were weary of fighting, he persuaded, by a large bribe of ivory, Suna,
the powerful despot of the neighbouring kingdom of Uganda, to raise the
siege, by throwing a strong force into the field. He has ever since been
fraternally received by Armanika, and his last journey to Karagwah was
for the purpose of recovering part of the ivory expended in the king’s
cause. After an absence of fifteen months he brought back about a score
of splendid tusks, one weighing, he declared, upwards of 200 lbs. During
his detention Salim bin Sayf, of Dut’humi, who had been entrusted by
Musa with sixty-five Farasilah of ivory to barter for goods on the
coast, arrived at Unyanyembe, when hearing the evil tidings, the wily
Harisi appropriated the property and returned to whence he came. Like
most merchants in East Africa, Musa’s business is extensive, but his
gains are principally represented by outlying debts; he cannot,
therefore, leave the country without an enormous sacrifice. He is the
recognised Doyen of the commercial body, and he acts agent and
warehouseman; his hall is usually full of buyers and sellers, Arab and
African, and large investments of wires, beads, and cotton-cloths, some
of them valuable, are regularly forwarded to him with comforts and
luxuries from the coast.
Musa Mzuri is now a man of the uncertain “certain age” between
forty-five and fifty, thin-bearded, tall, gaunt, with delicate
extremities, and with the regular and handsome features of a high-caste
Indian Moslem. Like most of his compatriots, he is a man of sad and
staid demeanour, and he is apparently faded by opium, which so
tyrannises over him that he carries pills in every pocket, and stores
them, lest the hoard should run short, in each corner and cranny of his
house. His clean new dress, perfumed with jasmine-oil and sandal-wood,
his snowy skull-cap and well-fitting sandals, distinguish him in
appearance from the Arabs; and his abode, which is almost a village,
with its lofty gates and its spacious courts, full of slaves and
hangers-on, contrasts with the humility of the Semite tenements.
On arrival at Kazeh I forwarded to Musa the introductory letter with
which H. H. the Sayyid Majid had honoured me. Sundry civilities passed
between his housekeeper, Mama Khamisi, and ourselves; she supplied the
Baloch with lodgings and ourselves with milk, for which we were careful
to reward her. After returning from Ujiji we found Abdullah, the eldest
of Musa’s two sons by different slave girls, resting at Kazeh after his
down-march from Karagwah. He knew a few words of English, but he had
learned no Hindostani from his father, who curious to say, after an
expatriation of thirty-five years, still spoke his mother-tongue purely
and well. The youth would have become a greater favourite had he not
been so hard a drinker and so quarrelsome in his cups; on more than one
occasion he had dangerously cut or stabbed his servile boon-companions.
Musa had spared the rod, or had used it upon him to very little purpose;
after intruding himself repeatedly into the hall and begging for
handsome clothes, with more instance of freedom than consisted with
decorum, he was warned that if he stayed away it might be the better for
his back, and he took the warning.
Musa, when rested after his weary return-march, called upon me with all
due ceremony, escorted by the principal Arab merchants. I was not
disappointed in finding him wholly ignorant concerning Africa and things
African; Snay bin Amir had told me that such was the case. He had,
however, a number of slaves fresh from Karagwah and Uganda, who
confirmed the accounts previously received from Arab travellers in
those regions. Musa displayed even more hospitality than his
fellow-travellers. Besides the mbogoro or skinful of grain and the goat
usually offered to fresh arrivals, he was ever sending those little
presents of provisions which in the East cannot be refused without
offence. I narrowly prevented his killing a bullock to provide us with
beef, and at last I feared to mention a want before him. During his
frequent visits he invariably showed himself a man of quiet and
unaffected manners, dashed with a little Indian reserve, which in
process of time would probably have worn off.
On the 6th September, Said bin Salim, nervously impatient to commence
the march homewards, “made a khambi,” that is to say, pitched our tents
under a spreading tree outside and within sight of Kazeh. Although he
had been collecting porters for several days, only two came to the fore;
a few refreshing showers were falling at the autumnal equinox, and the
black peasantry so miscalculated the seasons that they expected the
immediate advent of the great Masika. Moreover, when informed that our
route would debouch at Kilwa, they declared that they must receive
double pay, as they could not expect there to be hired by return
caravans. That the “khambi” might assume an appearance of reality, the
Baloch were despatched into “country-quarters.” As they followed their
usual tactic, affecting eagerness to depart but privily clinging to the
pleasures of Kazeh, orders were issued definitively to “cut” their
rations in case of necessity. The sons of Ramji, who had returned from
Msene, without, however, intrusion or swagger, were permitted to enter
the camp. Before the march I summoned them, and in severe terms
recapitulated their misdeeds, warned them that they would not be
re-engaged, and allowed them provisions and protection only on condition
of their carrying, as the slaves of Arab merchants are expected to do,
our lighter valuables, such as the digester, medicine-chest, gun-cases,
camp-table and chair. They promised with an edifying humility to reform.
I was compelled, however to enliven their murmuring by a few slight
floggings before they would become amenable to a moral rule, and would
acquire those habits of regularity which are as chains and fetters to
the African man. The five Wak’hutu porters who, after robbing and
deserting us on the road to Ujiji, had taken service with my old
acquaintance, Salim bin Rashid--the well-informed Coast Arab merchant,
originally named by H. H. the Sayyid Majid, as my guide and caravan
leader,--begged hard to be again employed. I positively refused to see
them. If at this distance from home they had perjured themselves and had
plundered us, what might be expected when they arrived near their native
country?
As the time of departure approached, I regretted that the arrival of
several travellers had not taken place a month earlier. Salim bin
Rashid, whilst collecting ivory in Usukuma and to the eastward of the
Nyanza Lake, had recovered a Msawahili porter, who, falling sick on the
road, had been left by a caravan from Tanga amongst the wildest of the
East African tribes, the Wamasai or Wahumba. From this man, who spent
two years amongst those plunderers and their rivals in villany the
Warudi, I derived some valuable information concerning the great
northern route which spans the countries lying between the coast and the
Nyanza Lake. I was also called upon by Amayr bin Said el Shaksi, a
strong-framed and stout-hearted greybeard, who, when his vessel
foundered in the waters of the Tanganyika, saved his life by swimming,
and as he had no goods and but few of his slaves had survived, lived for
five months on roots and grasses, till restored to Ujiji by an Arab
canoe. A garrulous senior, fond of “venting his travels,” he spent many
hours with me, talking over his past adventures, and his ocular
knowledge of the Tanganyika enabled me to gather many, perhaps, reliable
details concerning its southern extremity. A few days before departure
Hilal bin Nasur, a well-born Harisi, returned from K’hokoro; he supplied
me with a list of stations and a lengthy description of his various
excursions to the southern provinces.[14]
[14] For this and other purely geographical details concerning the
Southern Provinces, the reader is referred to the Journal of the Royal
Geographical Society, vol. xxix. 1860.
Said bin Salim, in despair that the labours of a whole fortnight spent
in the jungle had produced the slenderest of results, moved from under
the tree in Kazeh plain to Masui, a dirty little village distant about
three miles to the east of our head-quarters. As he reported on the 25th
of September that his gang was nearly completed, I sent forward all but
the personal baggage. The Arab had, however, secured but three Hammals
or bearers for my hammock; one a tottering old man, the other a
knock-kneed boy, and the third a notorious skulk. Although supplied with
meat to strengthen them, as they expressed it, they broke down after a
single march. From that time, finding it useless to engage bearers for a
long journey in these lands, I hired men from district to district, and
dismissed them when tired. The only objection to this proceeding was its
inordinate expense: three cloths being generally demanded by the porter
for thirty miles. A little calculation will give an idea of the relative
cost of travelling in Africa and in Europe. Assuming each man to receive
one cloth, worth one dollar, for every ten miles, and that six porters
are required to carry the hammock, we have in Africa an expenditure on
carriage alone of nearly half a crown per mile: in most parts of Europe
travel on the iron road has been reduced to one penny.