considers birds somewhat low feeding, roasts he adores, he contrasts
mountains of meat with his poor half-pound in pot, he would sell himself
for sugar; but again he hears nothing of tobacco; still he takes the
trouble to ask
“Where, O my brother?”
“There,” exclaims Gul Mohammed, pointing to the skies.
This is a “chokepear” to Muzungu Mbaya. The distance is great, and he
can scarcely believe that his interlocutor has visited the firmament to
see the provision; he therefore ventures upon the query,
“And hast thou been there, O my brother?”
“Astaghfar ullah (I beg pardon of Allah)!” ejaculates Gul Mohammed, half
angry, half amused. “What a mshenzi (pagan) this is! No, my brother, I
have not exactly been there, but my Mulungu (Allah) told my Apostle[15],
who told his descendants, who told my father and mother, who told me,
that when we die we shall go to a Shamba (a plantation), where----”
[15] Those who translate Rasul, meaning, literally, “one sent,” by
prophet instead of apostle, introduce a notable fallacy into the very
formula of Moslem faith. Mohammed never pretended to prophecy in our
sense of foretelling future events.
“Oof!” grunts Muzungu Mbaya, “it is good of you to tell us all this
Upumbafu (nonsense) which your mother told you. So there are plantations
in the skies?”
“Assuredly,” replies Gul Mohammed, who expounds at length the Moslem
idea of paradise to the African’s running commentary of “Nenda we!” (be
off!), “Mama-e!” (O my mother!) and “Tumbanina,” which may not be
translated.
Muzungu Mbaya, who for the last minute has been immersed in thought, now
suddenly raises his head; and, with somewhat of a goguenard air,
inquires:
“Well then, my brother, thou knowest all things! answer me, is thy
Mulungu black like myself, white like this Muzungu, or whity-brown as
thou art?”
Gul Mohammed is fairly floored: he ejaculates sundry la haul! to collect
his wits for the reply,--
“Verily the Mulungu hath no colour.”
“To-o-oh! Tuh!” exclaims the Muzunga, contorting his wrinkled
countenance, and spitting with disgust upon the ground. He was now
justified in believing that he had been made a laughing-stock. The
mountain of meat had, to a certain extent, won over his better judgment:
the fair vision now fled, and left him to the hard realities of the
half-pound. He turns a deaf ear to every other word; and, devoting all
his assiduity to the article before him, he unconsciously obeys the
advice which many an Eastern philosopher has inculcated to his
disciples--
“Hold fast the hour, though fools say nay,
The spheres revolve, they bring thee sorrow;
The wise enjoys his joy to-day,
The fool shall joy his joy to-morrow.”
The transit of Ugogo occupied three weeks, from the 14th of November to
the 5th of December. In Kanyenye we were joined by a large down-caravan
of Wanyamwezi, carrying ivories; the musket-shots which announced the
conclusion of certain brotherly ties between the sons of Ramji and the
porters, sounded in my ears like minute-guns announcing the decease of
our hopes of a return to the coast viâ Kilwa. At Kanyenye, also, we met
the stout Msawahili Abdullah bin Nasib, alias Kisesa, who was once more
marching into Unyamwezi: he informed me that the slaughter of Salim bin
Nasir, the Bu-Saidi, and the destruction of the Rubeho settlements,
after the murder of a porter, had closed our former line through
Usagara. He also supplied me with valuable tea and sugar, and my
companion with a quantity of valueless, or perhaps misunderstood,
information, which I did not deem worth sifting. On the 6th of December,
arrived at our old ground in the Ugogi Dhun, we were greeted by a
freshly-arrived caravan, commanded by Jumah bin Mbwana and his two
brothers, half-caste Hindi or Indian Moslems, from Mombasah.
The Hindis, after receiving and returning news with much solemnity,
presently drew forth a packet of letters and papers, which as usual
promised trouble. This time, however, the post was to produce the second
manner of annoyance--official “wigging,”--the first being intelligence
of private misfortune. Imprimis, came a note from Captain Rigby, the
newly-appointed successor to Lieut.-Col. Hamerton at Zanzibar, and that
name was not nice in the nostrils of men. Secondly, the following
pleasant announcement. I give the whole letter:
DEAR BURTON,--Go ahead! Vogel and Macguire dead--murdered. Write often
to
Yours truly, N. S.
And thirdly came the inevitable official wig.
Convinced, by sundry conversations with Arabs and others at Suez and
Aden, during my last overland journey to India, and by the details
supplied to me by a naval officer who was thoroughly conversant with the
Red Sea, that, in consequence of the weakness and insufficiency of the
squadron then employed, slavery still flourished, and that the numerous
British subjects and protegés were inadequately protected, I had dared,
after arrival at Zanzibar, privately to address on the 15th of December,
1856, a letter upon the subject to the secretary of the Royal
Geographical Society. It contained an “Account of Political Affairs in
the Red Sea,”--to quote the words of the paper, and expressed a hope
that it might be “deemed worthy to be transmitted to the Court of
Directors, or to the Foreign Office.”[16] The only acknowledgment which
I received, was the edifying information that the Secretary to
Government, Bombay, was directed by the Right Honourable the Governor in
Council, Bombay, to state that my “want of discretion and due regard for
the authorities to whom I am subordinate, has been regarded with
displeasure by the Government.”
[16] The whole correspondence, with its reply and counter-reply, are
printed in Appendix.
This was hard. I have perhaps been Quixotic enough to attempt a
suggestion that, though the Mediterranean is fast becoming a French
lake, by timely measures the Red Sea may be prevented from being
converted into a Franco-Russo-Austrian lake. But an Englishman in these
days must be proud, very proud, of his nation, and withal somewhat
regretful that he was not born of some mighty mother of men--such as
Russia and America--who has not become old and careless enough to leave
her bairns unprotected, or cold and crusty enough to reward a little
word of wisdom from her babes and sucklings with a scolding or a buffet.
The sore, however, had its salve. The official wig was dated the 23rd of
July, 1857. Posts are slow in Africa. When received on the 5th of
December, 1858, it was accompanied by a copy of a Bombay Newspaper,
which reported that on the 30th of June, 1858, “a massacre of nearly all
the Christians took place at Juddah, on the Red Sea,” and that “it was
apprehended that the news from Juddah might excite the Arab population
of Suez to the commission of similar outrages.”
At Ugogi, which, it will be remembered, is considered the half-way
station between Unyanyembe and the coast, the sons of Ramji and the
porters detained us for a day, declaring that there was a famine upon
the Mukondokwa road which we had previously traversed. At the same time
they warned us that we should find the great chief, who has given a name
to the Kiringawana route, an accomplished extortioner, and one likely to
insist upon our calling upon him in person. Having given their
ultimatum, they would not recede from it: for us, therefore, nothing
remained but to make a virtue of necessity. We loaded on the 7th of
December, and commenced the passage of the Usagara mountains by the
Kiringawana line.
I must indent upon the patience of the reader by a somewhat detailed
description of this southern route, which is separated from the northern
by a maximum interval of forty-three miles. The former being the more
ancient, contains some settlements like Maroro and Kisanga, not unknown
by report to European geographers. It is preferred by down-caravans, who
have no store of cloth to be demanded by the rapacious chiefs: the
up-country travellers, who have asses, must frequent the Mukondokwa, on
account of the severity of the passes on the Kiringawana.
The Kiringawana numbers nineteen short stages, which may be accomplished
without hardship in twelve days, at the rate of about five hours per
diem. Provisions are procurable in almost every part, except when the
Warori are “out;” and water is plentiful, if not good. Travel is
rendered pleasant by long stretches of forest land without bush or fetid
grass. The principal annoyances are the thievish propensities of the
natives and the extortionate demands of the chief. A minor plague is
that of mosquitoes, that haunt the rushy banks of the hill rivulets,
some of which are crossed nine or ten times in the same day; moreover,
the steep and slippery ascents and descents of black earth and mud, or
rough blocks of stone, make the porters unwilling to work.
Breaking ground at 6 A.M. on the 7th December, we marched to Murundusi,
the frontier of Usagara and Uhehe. The path lay over a rolling thorny
jungle with dottings of calabash at the foot of the Rubeho mountains,
and lumpy outliers falling on the right of the road. After three hours’
march, the sound of the horses announced the vicinity of a village, and
the country opening out, displayed a scene of wonderful fertility, the
effect of subterraneous percolations from the highlands. Nowhere are the
tamarind, the sycamore, and the calabash, seen in such perfection; of
unusual size also are the perfumed myombo and the mkora, the myongo, the
ndabi, the chamvya, with its edible yellowish-red berries, and a large
sweet-smelling acacia. Amidst these piles of verdure, troops of
parroquets, doves, jays, and bright fly-catchers, find a home, and
frequent flocks and herds, a resting-place beneath the cool shade. The
earth is still sprinkled with “black-jacks,” the remains of trees which
have come to an untimely end. In the fields near the numerous villages
rise little sheds to shelter the guardians of the crops, and cattle
wander over the commons or unreclaimed lands. Water, which is here pure
and good, lies in pits from fifteen to twenty feet deep, staged over
with tree trunks, and the people draw it in large shallow buckets, made
of gourds sewn together and strengthened with sticks. Towards the
evening, a cold east-wind brought up with it a storm of thunder and
rain, which was pronounced by the experts to be the opening of the rainy
monsoon in Usagara.
The next day led us over an elevated undulation cut by many jagged
watercourses, and still flanked by the outlying masses which fall
westward into the waste of Mgunda M’khali. After an hour’s march, we
turned abruptly eastwards, and crossing a rugged stony fork, presently
found a dwarf basin of red soil which supplied water. The Wahehe owners
of the land have a chronic horror of the Warori; on sighting our
peaceful caravan, they at once raised the war-cry, and were quieted only
by the certainty that we were even more frightened than they were. At
Kinganguku, the night was again wild and stormy; in fact, after leaving
Ugogi, we were regularly rained upon till we had crossed the Mountains.
On the 9th December, we marched in six hours from Kinyanguku to Rudi,
the principal district of Uhehe. It was an ascent plunging into the
hills, which, however, on this line are easy to traverse, compared with
those of the northern route; the paths were stony and rugged, and the
earth was here white and glaring, there of a dull red colour. Water pure
and plentiful was found in pits about fifteen feet deep, which dented
the sole of a picturesque Fiumara. The people assembled to stare with
the stare pertinacious; they demanded large prices for their small
reserves of provisions, but they sold tobacco at the rate of two or
three cakes, each weighing about one pound and a half, for a shukkah.
Passing from the settlements of Rudi, on the next morning we entered a
thorn jungle, where the handiwork of the fierce Warori appeared in many
a shell of smoke-stained village. We then crossed two Fiumaras exactly
similar to those which attract the eye in the Somali country, broad
white sandy beds, with high stiff earth-banks deeply water-cut, and with
huge emerald-foliaged trees rising from a hard bare red plain. After a
short march of three hours, we pitched under a tamarind, and sent our
men abroad to collect provisions. Tobacco was cheap, as at Rudi, grain
and milk, whether fresh or sour, were expensive, and two shukkahs were
demanded for a lamb or a young goat. The people of Mporota are notorious
pilferers. About noontide a loud “hooroosh” and the scampering of
spearmen over the country announced a squabble; presently our people
reappeared driving before them a flock which they had seized in revenge
for a daring attempt at larceny. I directed them to retain one fine
specimen--the _lex talionis_ is ever the first article of the penal code
in the East--and to return the rest. Notwithstanding these energetic
measures, the youth Taufiki awaking in the night with a shriek like one
affected by nightmare, found that a Mhehe robber had snatched his cloth,
and favoured by the shades had escaped with impunity. The illness of
Said bin Salim detained us for a day in this den of thieves.
The 12th December carried us in three hours from Mporota to Ikuka of
Uhehe. The route wound over red steps amongst low stony hills, the legs
of the spider-like system, and the lay of the heights was in exceeding
confusion. Belted by thorny scrub and forests of wild fruit trees--some
edible, others poisonous--were several villages, surrounded by fields,
especially rich in ground-nuts. Beyond Ikuka the road entered stony and
rugged land, with a few sparse cultivations almost choked by thick bushy
jungle; the ragged villages contained many dogs, and a few peculiarly
hideous human beings. Thence it fell into a fine Fiumara, with pure
sweet water in pools, breaking the surface of loose white sand; upon the
banks, red soil, varying from a few inches to 20 feet in depth, overlay
bands and lines of rounded pebbles, based on beds of granite, schiste,
and sandstone. After ascending a hill, we fell into a second
watercourse, whose line was almost choked with wild and thorny
vegetation, and we raised the tents in time to escape a pitiless
pelting, which appeared to spring from a gap in the southern mountains.
The time occupied in marching from Ikuka to Inena of Usagara was four
hours, and, as usual in these short stages, there was no halt.
Two porters were found missing on the morning of the 14th
December,--they had gone for provisions, and had slept in the
villages,--moreover, heavy clouds hanging on the hill-tops threatened
rain: a Tirikeza was therefore ordered. At 11 A.M. we set out over
rises, falls, and broken ground, at the foot of the neighbouring
highlands which enclose a narrow basin, the seat of villages and
extensive cultivation. Small cascades flashing down the walls that
hemmed us in showed the copiousness of the last night’s fall. After five
hours’ heavy marching, we forded a rapid Fiumara, whose tall banks of
stiff red clay, resting upon tilted-up strata of greenstone, enclosed a
stream calf-deep, and from 10 to 12 feet broad. At this place, called
Ginyindo, provisions were hardly procurable; consequently the caravan,
as was its wont on such occasions, quarrelled for disport, and the
Baloch, headed by “Gray-beard Musa,” began to abuse and to beat the
Pagazis.
The morning of the 15th December commenced with a truly African scene.
The men were hungry, and the air was chill. They prepared, however, to
start quietly betimes. Suddenly a bit of rope was snatched, a sword
flashed in the air, a bow-horn quivered with nocked arrow, and the whole
caravan rushed frantically with a fearful row to arms. As no one
dissuaded the party from “fighting it out,” they apparently became
friends, and took up their loads. My companion and I rode quietly
forward: scarcely, however, had we emerged from the little basin in
which the camp had been placed, than a terrible hubbub of shouts and
yells announced that the second act had commenced. After a few minutes,
Said bin Salim came forward in trembling haste to announce that the
Jemadar had again struck a Pagazi, who, running into the Nullah, had
thrown stones with force enough to injure his assailant, consequently
that the Baloch had drawn their sabres and had commenced a general
massacre of porters. Well understanding this misrepresentation, we
advanced about a mile, and thence sent back two of the sons of Ramji to
declare that we would not be delayed, and that if not at once followed,
we would engage other porters at the nearest village. This brought on a
denouement: presently the combatants appeared, the Baloch in a high
state of grievance, the Africans declaring that they had not come to
fight but to carry. I persuaded them both to defer settling the business
till the evening, when both parties well crammed with food listened
complacently to that gross personal abuse, which, in these lands,
represents a reprimand.
Resuming our journey, we crossed two high and steep hills, the latter of
which suddenly disclosed to the eye the rich and fertile basin of
Maroro. Its principal feature is a perennial mountain stream, which,
descending the chasm which forms the northern pass, winds sluggishly
through the plain of muddy black soil and patches of thick rushy grass,
and diffused through watercourses of raised earth, covers the land with
tobacco, holcus, sweet-potato, plantains, and maize. The cereals stood
five feet high, and were already in ear: according to the people, never
less than two, and often three and four crops are reaped during the
year. This hill-girt district is placed at one month’s march from the
coast. At the southern extremity, there is a second opening like the
northern, and through it the “River of Maroro” sheds into the Rwaha,
distant in direct line two marches west with southing.
[Illustration: THE BASIN OF MARORO.]
Maroro, or Malolo, according to dialect, is the “Marorrer town” of Lt.
Hardy, (Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society, from Sept. 1841
to May 1844,) who, in 1811-12, was dispatched with Capt. Smee by the
Government of Bombay to collect information at Kilwa and its
dependencies, and the East African coast generally. Mr. Cooley (Inner
Africa Laid Open, p. 56) writes the word Marora, and explains it to mean
“trade:” the people, however, ignore the derivation. It is not a town,
but a district, containing as usual on this line a variety of little
settlements. The confined basin is by no means a wholesome locality, the
air is warm and “muggy,” the swamp vegetation is fetid, the mosquitos
venomous, and the population, afflicted with fevers and severe
ulceration, is not less wretched and degraded than the Wak’hutu. Their
habitations are generally Tembe, but small and poor, and their fields
are dotted with dwarf platforms for the guardians of the crops. Here a
cow costs twelve cloths, a goat three, whilst two fowls are procurable
for a shukkah. Maroro is the westernmost limit of the touters from the
Mrima; there are seldom less than 150 muskets present, and the Wasagara
have learned to hold strangers in horror.
In these basins caravans endeavour, and are forced by the people, to
encamp upon the further end after marching through. At the end of a
short stage of three hours we forded three times the river bed, a muddy
bottom, flanked by stiff rushes, and encamped under a Mkamba tree, above
and to windward of the fetid swamp. The night was hot and rainy, clouds
of mosquitos rose from their homes below, and the cynhyænas were so
numerous that it was necessary to frighten them away with shots. The
labour of laying in provisions detained us for a day at Maroro.
On the 17th December we left the little basin by its southern opening,
which gradually winds eastward. The march was delayed by the
distribution of the load of a porter who had fled to the Warori. After
crossing a fourth rise, the road fell into the cultivated valley of the
Mwega River. This is a rush-girt stream of pure water, about 20 feet
broad, and knee-deep at the fords in dry weather; its course is S.W. to
the stream of Maroro. Like the Mukondokwa, it spreads out, except where
dammed by the correspondence of the salient and the re-entering angles
of the hill spurs. The road runs sometimes over this rocky and jungly
ground, horrid with thorn and cactus, fording the stream, where there is
no room for a path, and at other times it traverses lagoon-like
backwaters, garnished with grass, rush, and stiff shrubs, based upon
sun-cracked or miry beds. After a march of four hours we encamped in the
Mwega Basin, where women brought down grain in baskets: cattle were seen
upon the higher grounds, but the people refused to sell milk or meat.
The next stage was Kiperepeta; it occupied about 2 hours 30 min. The
road was rough, traversing the bushy jungly spurs on the left bank of
the rushy narrow stream; in many places there were steps and ladders of
detached blocks and boulders. At last passing through a thick growth,
where the smell of jasmine loads the air, we ascended a steep and rugged
incline, whose summit commanded a fine back view of the Maroro Basin. A
shelving counterslope of earth deeply cracked and cut with watercourses
led us to the encamping-ground, a red patch dotted with tall calabashes,
and boasting a few pools of brackish water. We had now entered the land
of grass-kilts and beehive huts, built for defence upon the ridges of
the hills: whilst cactus, aloe, and milk-bush showed the diminished
fertility of the soil. About Kiperepeta it was said a gang of nearly 400
touters awaited with their muskets the arrival of caravans from the
interior.
On the 19th December, leaving Kiperepeta, we toiled up a steep incline,
cut by the sinuated channels of water-courses, to a col or pass, the
water-parting of this line in Usagara: before south-westerly, the
versant thence-forward trends to the south-east. Having topped the
summit, we began the descent along the left bank of a mountain burn, the
Rufita, which, forming in the rainy season a series of rapids and
cascades, casts its waters into the Yovu, and eventually into the Rwaha
River. The drainage of the hill-folds cuts, at every re-entering angle,
a ragged irregular ditch, whose stony depths are impassable to
heavily-laden asses. After a toilsome march of three hours, we fell into
the basin of Kisanga, which, like others on this line, is an enlarged
punchbowl, almost surrounded by a mass of green hills, cone rising upon
cone, with tufted cappings of trees, and long lines of small
haycock-huts ranged along the acclivities and ridge-lines. The floor of
the basin is rough and uneven; a rich cultivation extends from the
hill-slopes to the stream which drains the sole, and fine trees, amongst
which are the mparamusi and the sycomore, relieve the uniformity of the
well-hoed fields. Having passed through huts and villages, where two
up-caravans of Wanyamwezi were halted, displaying and haggling over the
cloths intended as tribute to the Sultan Kiringawana, we prudently
forded the Yovu, and placed its bed between ourselves and the enemy. The
Yovu, which bisects the basin of Kisanga from N. to S. and passes by the
S.E. into the Rwaha, was then about four feet deep; it flowed down a
muddy bed laced with roots, and its banks, whence a putrid smell
exhaled, were thick lines of sedgy grass which sheltered myriads of
mosquitos. Ascending an eminence to the left of the stream, we obtained
lodgings, and at once proceeded to settle kuhonga with the chief,
Kiringawana.
[Illustration: Rufita Pass in Usagara.]