dead season, when provisions are most expensive and are not unfrequently
unprocurable. But being “Wazungu” and well provided with “African
money,” we might expect the people to sell to us their grain and stores,
which they would have refused at tariff-prices to Arabs or Wasawahili.
We carried as stock fourteen porters’ loads of cloth, viz., 645
domestics, 653 blue-cottons, and 20 coloured cloths, principally
Debwani, Barsati, and Subai, as presents to chiefs. The supply of beads
was represented by one load of ububu or black-porcelains--afterwards
thrown away as useless--half a Frasilah (17·5 pounds) of “locust-legs,”
or pink-porcelains, purchased from Sallum bin Hamid, and eight Kartasat
or papered-bundles of the heavy and expensive “town-breakers,” vermilion
or coral-porcelains, amounting to seventy Fundo, each of which covered
as a rule the day’s minor expenses. The other stores were the fifty-four
Jembe purchased at Msene, besides a few brought from Usukuma by my
companion. These articles are useful in making up kuhonga or blackmail;
in Ugogo and Usagara, which is their western limit, they double in
value, and go even further than a white cotton-cloth. Finally, we had
sixteen cows, heifers, and calves, bought in Usukuma by my companion, at
the rate of six domestics per head. We expected them to be serviceable
as presents, and meanwhile to add materially to our comfort by a more
regular supply of milk than the villages afford. But, alas! having
neglected to mark the animals, all were changed--a fact made evident by
their running dry after a few days: the four calves presently died of
fatigue; whenever an animal lay down upon the road its throat was
summarily cut, others were left to stray and be stolen, and the last
bullock preserved for a sirloin on Christmas was prematurely lost. A
small per-centage proved useful as tribute to the chiefs of Ugogo, and
served as rations when grain was unprocurable. The African, however,
looks upon meat, not as “Posho”--daily bread--but as kitoweyo--kitchen:
two or three pounds of beef merely whet his teeth for the usual Ugali
or porridge of boiled flour. It is almost needless to state that,
despite the best surveillance and the strictest economy, we arrived at
the coast almost destitute; cloth and beads, hoes and cattle, all had
disappeared, and had we possessed treble the quantity, it would have
gone the same way.
The 26th September, 1858, saw us on foot betimes. The hospitable Snay
bin Amir, freshly recovered from an influenza which had confined him for
some days to his sleeping-mat, came personally to superintend our
departure. As no porters had returned for property left behind, and as
all the “cooking-pots” had preceded us on the yester, Snay supplied us
with his own slaves, and provided us with an Arab breakfast, well
cooked, and as usual, neatly served on porcelain plates, with plaited
and coloured straw dish-covers, pointed like Chinese caps. Then,
promising to spend the next day with me, he shook hands and followed me
out of the compound. After a march of three miles, under a white-hot
sun, and through a chilling wind, to which were probably owing our
subsequent sufferings, we entered the dirty little village of Masui,
where a hovel had been prepared for us by Said bin Salim. There we were
greeted by the caravan, and we heard with pleasure that it was ready,
after a fashion, to break ground.
Early on the next morning appeared Snay bin Amir and Musa Mzuri: as I
was suffering from a slight attack of fever, my companion took my place
as host. The paroxysm passing off, allowed me to settle all accounts
with Snay bin Amir, and to put a finishing touch to the names of
stations in the journal. I then thanked these kind-hearted men for their
many good deeds, and promised to report to H. H. the Sayyid Majid the
hospitable reception of his Arab subjects generally, and of Snay and
Musa in particular. About evening time I shook hands with Snay bin
Amir--having so primed the dear old fellow with a stirrup-cup of
burnt-punch, that his gait and effusion of manner were by no means such
as became a staid and stately Arab Shaykh.
On the 4th October, after a week of halts and snail’s marches--the
insufficiency of porterage compelled me to send back men for the
articles left behind at the several villages--we at last reached Hanga,
our former quarters on the eastern confines of the Unyanyembe district.
As long as we were within easy distance of Kazeh it was impossible to
keep the sons of Ramji in camp, and their absence interfered materially
with the completion of the gang. Several desertions took place, a slave
given by Kannena of Ujiji to Said bin Salim, old Musangesi the Asinego,
and two new purchases, male and female, made by the Baloch at Kazeh,
disappeared after the first few marches. The porters were troublesome.
They had divided themselves as usual into Khambi, or crews, but no
regular Kirangozi having been engaged, they preferred, through mutual
jealousy, following Shehe, one of the sons of Ramji. On the road, also,
some heads had been broken, because the cattle-drivers had attempted to
precede the line, and I feared that the fall of a chance shower might
make the whole squad desert, under the impression that the sowing season
had set in. In their idleness and want of excitement, they had
determined to secure at Hanga the bullock claimed by down caravans at
Rubuga. After four days’ halt, without other labour but that of cooking,
they arose under pretext of a blow given by one of the children of Said
bin Salim, and packing up their goods and chattels, poured in mass,
with shouts and yells, from the village, declaring that they were going
home. In sore tribulation, Said bin Salim and the Jemadar begged me to
take an active part, but a short experience of similar scenes amongst
the Bashi-Buzuks at the Dardanelles had made me wiser than my advisers:
the African, like the Asiatic, is naturally averse to the operation
proverbially called “cutting off one’s own nose;” but if begged not to
do so, he may wax, like pinioned men, valorous exceedingly, and dare the
suicidal deed. I did not move from my hut, and in half an hour
everything was _in statu quo ante_. The porters had thrown the blame of
the proceeding upon the blow, consequently a flogging was ordered for
Said bin Salim’s “child,” who, as was ever the case, had been flagrantly
in the wrong; but after return, evading the point, the plaintiffs
exposed the true state of affairs by a direct reference to the bullock.
Thus the “child” escaped castigation, and the bullock was not given till
we reached Rubuga.
At Hanga my companion was taken seriously ill. He had been chilled on
the line of march by the cruel easterly wind, and at the end of the
second march from Kazeh he appeared trembling as if with ague.
Immediately after arrival at the foul village of Hanga--where we lodged
in a kind of cow-house, full of vermin, and exposed directly to the fury
of the cold gales--he complained, in addition to a deaf ear, an inflamed
eye, and a swollen face, of a mysterious pain which often shifted its
seat, and which he knew not whether to attribute to liver or to spleen.
It began with a burning sensation, as by a branding-iron, above the
right breast, and then extended to the heart with sharp twinges. After
ranging around the spleen, it attacked the upper part of the right lung,
and finally it settled in the region of the liver. On the 10th October,
suddenly waking about dawn from a horrible dream, in which a close pack
of tigers, leopards, and other beasts, harnessed with a network of iron
hooks, were dragging him like the rush of a whirlwind over the ground,
he found himself sitting up on the side of his bedding, forcibly
clasping both sides with his hands. Half-stupefied by pain, he called
Bombay, who having formerly suffered from the “Kichyoma-chyoma”--the
“little irons”--raised his master’s right arm, placed him in a sitting
position, as lying down was impossible, and directed him to hold the
left ear behind the head, thus relieving the excruciating and torturing
twinges, by lifting the lung from the liver. The next spasm was less
severe, but the sufferer’s mind had begun to wander, and he again
clasped his sides, a proceeding with which Bombay interfered.
Early on the next morning, my companion, supported by Bombay and
Gaetano, staggered towards the tent. Nearing the doorway, he sent in his
Goanese, to place a chair for sitting, as usual, during the toils of the
day, outside. The support of an arm being thus removed, ensued a second
and violent spasm of cramps and twinges, all the muscles being painfully
contracted. After resting for a few moments, he called his men to assist
him into the house. But neglecting to have a chair previously placed for
him, he underwent a third fit of the same epileptic description, which
more closely resembled those of hydrophobia than aught I had ever
witnessed. He was once more haunted by a crowd of hideous devils,
giants, and lion-headed demons, who were wrenching, with superhuman
force, and stripping the sinews and tendons of his legs down to the
ankles. At length, sitting, or rather lying upon the chair, with limbs
racked by cramps, features drawn and ghastly, frame fixed and rigid,
eyes glazed and glassy, he began to utter a barking noise, and a
peculiar chopping motion of the mouth and tongue, with lips
protruding--the effect of difficulty of breathing--which so altered his
appearance that he was hardly recognisable, and completed the terror of
the beholders. When this, the third and the severest spasm, had passed
away, he called for pen and paper, and fearing that increased weakness
of mind and body might presently prevent any exertion, he wrote an
incoherent letter of farewell to his family. That, however, was the
crisis. He was afterwards able to take the proper precautions, never
moving without assistance, and always ordering a resting-place to be
prepared for him. He spent a better night, with the inconvenience,
however, of sitting up, pillow-propped, and some weeks elapsed before he
could lie upon his sides. Presently, the pains were mitigated, though
they did not entirely cease: this he expressed by saying that “the
knives were sheathed.” Such, gentle reader, in East Africa, is the
kichyoma-chyoma: either one of those eccentric after-effects of fever,
which perplex the European at Zanzibar, or some mysterious manifestation
of the Protean demon Miasma.
I at once sent an express to Snay bin Amir for the necessary drugs. The
Arabs treat this complaint by applying to the side powdered myrrh mixed
with yoke of egg, and converted into a poultice with flour of mung
(Phaseolus Mungo). The material was duly forwarded, but it proved of
little use. Said bin Salim meanwhile, after sundry vague hints
concerning the influence of the Father of Hair, the magnificent comet
then spanning the western skies, insisted, as his people invariably do
on such conjunctures, upon my companion being visited by the mganga, or
medicine-man of the caravan. That reverend personage, after claiming and
receiving the usual fee, a fat goat, anointed with its grease two little
bits of wood strung on to a tape of tree-fibre, and contented himself
with fastening this Mpigi--the negroid’s elixir vitæ--round my
companion’s waist. The ligature, however, was torn off after a few
minutes, as its only effect was to press upon and pain the tenderest
part.
During the forced halt which followed my companion’s severe attack, I
saw that, in default of physic, change of air was the most fitting
restorative. My benumbed legs and feet still compelling me to use a
hammock, a second was rigged up for the invalid; and by good fortune
thirteen unloaded porters of a down caravan consented to carry us both
for a large sum to Rubuga. The sons of Ramji were imperatively ordered
to leave Kazeh under pain of dismissal, which none would incur as they
had a valuable investment in slaves: with their aid the complement of
porters was easily and speedily filled up.
Seedy Mubarak Bombay--in the interior the name became Mamba (a
crocodile) or Pombe (small beer)--had long before returned to his former
attitude, that of a respectful and most ready servant. He had, it is
true, sundry uncomfortable peculiarities. A heaven-born “Pagazi,” he
would load himself on the march with his “T’haka-t’haka,” or
“chow-chow,” although a porter had been especially hired for him. He had
no memory: an article once taken by him was always thrown upon the
ground and forgotten: in a single trip he broke my elephant gun, killed
my riding-ass, and lost its bridle. Like the Eastern Africans
generally, he lacked the principle of immediate action; if beckoned to
for a gun in the field he would probably first delay to look round, then
retire, and lastly advance. He had a curious inverted way of doing all
that he did. The water-bottle was ever carried on the march either
uncorked or inverted; his waistcoat was generally wound round his neck,
and it appeared fated not to be properly buttoned; whilst he walked
bareheaded in the sun, his Fez adorned the tufty poll of some comrade;
and at the halt he toiled like a charwoman to raise our tents and to
prepare them for habitation, whilst his slave, the large lazy Maktubu, a
boy-giant from the mountains of Urundi, sat or dozed under the cool
shade. Yet with all his faults and failures Bombay, for his unwearied
activity, and especially from his undeviating honesty,--there was no
man, save our “Negro Rectitude,” in the whole camp who had not proved
his claim to the title triliteral--was truly valuable. Said bin Salim
had long forfeited my confidence by his carelessness and extravagance;
and the disappearance of the outfit committed to him at Ujiji, in
favour, as I afterwards learned, of an Arab merchant-friend, rendered
him unfit for the responsibilities of stewardship.
Having summoned Said bin Salim, I told him with all gentleness, in order
to spare his “shame”--the Persian proverb says, Fell not the tree which
thou hast planted--that being now wiser in Eastern African travel than
before, I intended to relieve him of his troublesome duties. He heard
this announcement with the wriest of faces; and his perturbation was not
diminished when informed that the future distribution of cloth should be
wholly in the hands of Bombay, checked by my companion’s
superintendence. The loads were accordingly numbered and registered;
the Pagazi were forbidden, under pain of punishment, to open or to
change them without permission; and Said bin Salim received, like the
Baloch, a certain monthly amount of beads, besides rations of rice for
the consumption of his children. This arrangement was persevered in till
we separated upon the seaboard: it acted well, saving outfit, time, and
a host of annoyances; moreover, it gave us command, as the African man,
like the lower animals, respects only, if he respects anything, the hand
that gives, that feeds him. It was wonderful to see how the “bone of
contention,” cloth, having been removed, the fierceness of those who
were formerly foes melted and merged into friendship and fraternisation.
The triad of bitter haters, Said bin Salim, the monocular Jemadar, and
Muinyi Kidogo, now marched and sat and ate together as if never weary of
such society; they praised one another openly and without reserve, and
if an evil tale ever reached my ear its subject was the innocent
Bombay--its object was to ruin him in my estimation.
Acutely remembering the trouble caused by the feuds between Said bin
Salim and Kidogo upon the subject of work, I directed the former to take
sole charge of the porters, to issue their rations, and to superintend
their loads. The better to assist him, two disorderly sons of Ramji were
summarily flogged, and several others who refused to carry our smaller
valuables were reduced to order by the usual process of stopping
rations. “Shehe,” though chosen as Kirangozi or guide from motives of
jealousy by the porters, was turned out of office; he persisted in
demanding cloth for feeing an Unyamwezi medicine-man, in order to
provide him, a Moslem! with charms against the evil eye, a superstition
unknown to this part of Eastern Africa. The Pagazi, ordered to elect
one of their number, named the youth Twánígáná, who had brought with him
a large gang. But the plague of the party, a hideous, puckered, and
scowling old man who had called himself “Muzungu Mbaya,” or the “Wicked
White,” so far prevailed that at the first halt Twanigana, with his
blushing honours in the shape of a scarlet waistcoat fresh upon him, was
found squatting solus under a tree, the rest of the party having
mutinously preceded him. I halted at once and recalled the porters, who,
after a due interval of murmuring, reappeared. And subsequently, by
invariably siding with the newly-made Kirangozi, and by showing
myself ready to enforce obedience by any means and every means, I
gave the long-legged and weak-minded youth, who was called
“Gopa-Gopa”--“Funk-stick”--on account of his excessive timidity, a
little confidence, and reduced his unruly followers to all the
discipline of which their race is capable.
As we were threatened with want of water on the way, I prepared for that
difficulty by packing a box with empty bottles, which, when occasion
required, might be filled at the best springs. The Zemzemiyah or
travelling canteen of the East African is everywhere a long-necked
gourd, slung to the shoulder by a string. But it becomes offensive after
a short use, and it can never be entrusted to servant, slave, or porter
without its contents being exhausted before a mile is measured.
By these arrangements, the result of that after-wisdom which some have
termed fools’ wit, I commenced the down march under advantages, happy as
a “_bourgeois_” of trappers in the joyous _pays sauvage_. I have
detailed perhaps to a wearisome length the preparations for the march.
But the success of such expeditions mainly depends upon the measures
adopted before and immediately after departure, and this dry knowledge
may be useful to future adventurers in the great cause of discovery.
The stages now appeared shorter, the sun cooler, the breeze warmer;
after fourteen months of incessant fevers, the party had become
tolerably acclimatised; all were now loud in praise, as they had been
violent in censure, of the “water and air.” Before entering the Fiery
Field, the hire for carrying the hammocks became so exorbitant that I
dismissed the bearers, drew on my jack-boots, mounted the half-caste
Zanzibari ass, and appeared once more as the Mtongi of a caravan. After
a fortnight my companion had convalesced so rapidly that he announced
himself ready to ride. The severe liver pains had disappeared, leaving
behind them, however, for a time, a harassing heart-ache and nausea,
with other bilious symptoms, which developed themselves when exposed to
the burning sun of the several tirikeza. Gradually these sequelæ ceased,
sleep and appetite returned, and at K’hok’ho, in Ugogo, my companion had
strength enough to carry a heavy rifle, and to do damage amongst the
antelope and the guinea fowl. Our Goanese servants also, after suffering
severely from fever and face-ache, became different men; Valentine,
blessed with a more strenuous diathesis, carried before him a crop like
a well-crammed capon. As the porters left this country, and the escort
approached their homes, there was a notable change of demeanour. All
waxed civil, even to servility, grumbling ceased, and smiles mantled
every countenance. Even Muzungu Mbaya, who in Unyamwezi had been the
head and front of all offence, was to be seen in Ugogo meekly sweeping
out our tents with a bunch of thorns.
We left Hanga, the dirty cow-village, on the 13th October. The seven
short marches between that place and Tura occupied fifteen days, a
serious waste of time and cloth, caused by the craving of the porters
for their homes. It was also necessary to march with prudence,
collisions between the party and the country-people, who are
unaccustomed to see the articles which they most covet carried out of
the country, were frequent: in fact we flew to arms about every second
day, and after infinite noise and chatter, we quitted them to boast of
the deeds of “derring do,” which had been consigned to the limbo of
things uncreate by the fainéance of the adversary. At Eastern Tura,
where we arrived on the 28th October, a halt of six days was occasioned
by the necessity of providing and preparing food, at that season scarce
and dear, for the week’s march through the Fiery Field. The caravan was
then mustered, when its roll appeared as follows. We numbered in our own
party two Europeans, two Goanese, Bombay with two slaves--the child-man
Nasibu and the boy-giant Maktubu--the bull-headed Mabruki, Nasir, a
half-caste Mazrui Arab, who had been sent with me by the Arabs of Kazeh
to save his morals, and Taufiki, a Msawahili youth, who had taken
service as gun-carrier to the coast: they formed a total of 10 souls.
Said bin Salim was accompanied by 12--the charmers Halimah and Zawada,
his five children, and a little gang of five fresh captures, male and
female. The Baloch, 12 in number, had 15 slaves and 11 porters,
composing a total of 38. The sons of Ramji, and the ass-drivers under
Kidogo their leader, were in all 24, including their new acquisitions.
Finally 68 Wanyamwezi porters, carrying the outfit and driving the
cattle, completed the party to 152 souls.
[Illustration: Jiwe la Mkoa, the Round Rock.]
On the 3rd November, the caravan issuing from Tura plunged manfully into
the Fiery Field, and after seven marches in as many days, halted for
breath and forage at Jiwe la Mkoa, the Round Stone. A few rations having
been procured in its vicinity, we resumed our way on the 12th November,
and in two days exchanged, with a sensible pleasure, the dull expanse of
dry brown bush and brushwood, dead thorn-trees, and dry Nullahs, for the
fertile red plain of Mdaburu. After that point began the transit of
Ugogo, where I had been taught to expect accidents: they resolved
themselves, however, into nothing more than the disappearance of cloth
and beads in inordinate quantities. We were received by Magomba, the
Sultan of Kanyenye, with a charge of magic, for which of course it was
necessary to pay heavily. The Wanyamwezi porters seemed even more timid
on the down-journey than on the up-march. They slank about like curs,
and the fierce look of a Mgogo boy was enough to strike a general
terror. Twanigana, when safe in the mountains of Usagara, would
frequently indulge me in a dialogue like the following, and it may serve
as a specimen of the present state of conversation in East Africa:--
“The state, Mdula?” (_i.e._ Abdullah, a word unpronounceable to Negroid
organs.)
“The state is very! (well) and thy state?”
“The state is very! (well) and the state of Spikka? (my companion).”
“The state of Spikka is very! (well.)”
“We have escaped the Wagogo (resumes Twanigana), white man O!”
“We have escaped, O my brother!”
“The Wagogo are bad.”
“They are bad.”
“The Wagogo are very bad.”
“They are very bad.”
“The Wagogo are not good.”
“They are not good.”
“The Wagogo are not at all good.”
“They are not at all good.”
“I greatly feared the Wagogo, who kill the Wanyamwezi.”
“Exactly so!”
“But now I don’t fear them. I call them ----s and ----s, and I would
fight the whole tribe, white man O!”
“Truly so, O my brother!”
And thus for two mortal hours, till my ennui turned into marvel.
Twanigana however was, perhaps, in point of intellect somewhat below the
usual standard of African young men. Older and more experienced was
Muzungu Mbaya, and I often listened with no small amusement to the
attempts made by the Baloch to impress upon this truly African mind a
respect for their revelation. Gul Mohammed was the missionary of the
party: like Moslems generally, however, his thoughts had been taught to
run in one groove, and if disturbed by startling objections, they were
all abroad. Similarly I have observed in the European old lady, that on
such subjects all the world must think with her, and I have been
suspected of drawing the long-bow when describing the worship of gods
with four arms, and goddesses with two heads.
Muzungu Mbaya, as the old hunks calls himself, might be sitting deeply
meditative, at the end of the march, before the fire, warming his inner
legs, smoking his face, and ever and anon casting pleasant glances at a
small black earthen pipkin, whence arose the savoury steam of meat and
vegetables. A concatenation of ideas induces Gul Mohammed to break into
his favourite theme.
“And thou, Muzungu Mbaya, thou also must die!”
“Ugh! ugh!” replies the Muzungu personally offended, “don’t speak in
that way! Thou must die too.”
“It is a sore thing to die,” resumes Gul Mohammed.
“Hoo! Hoo!” exclaims the other, “it is bad, very bad, never to wear a
nice cloth, no longer to dwell with one’s wife and children, not to eat
and drink, snuff, and smoke tobacco. Hoo! Hoo! it is bad, very bad!”
“But we shall eat,” rejoins the Moslem, “the flesh of birds, mountains
of meat, and delicate roasts, and drink sugared water, and whatever we
hunger for.”