Thirty years ago Central Africa was what people who are fond of airing
their learning would call a terra incognita. To-day its general
characteristics are pretty well known. Then, as now, the little
island of Zanzibar, situated just south of the equator, on the east
coast, was the starting place of all expeditions into the interior,
and Unguja (pronounced Oon-goo'jah), the big town of that island, the
place where the preparations for plunging into the unknown were made.
At that period these expeditions consisted, almost without exception,
of caravans loaded with beads and cotton cloth, which were exchanged
among the inland tribes for elephants' tusks and slaves--for Unguja
boasted the only, and the last, open slave-market in the world then.
The few exceptions were a would-be discoverer now and then, or a
party of rich white men going to hunt "big game;" that is, travelling
hundreds--aye, thousands--of miles, and enduring many hardships,
for the momentary pleasure of holding a gun in such a position that
when they pulled the trigger the bullet hit such a prominent mark as
an elephant or a lion, which was living in its natural surroundings
and interfering with no one.
Between you and me, I don't mind remarking that many of their
expeditions ended, on their return to Unguja, in the purchase of a
few elephants' tusks and wild animal skins in the bazaars of that
thriving city, after the method pursued by unsuccessful anglers in
civilized countries.
But even the most successful of these hunters, by reason of having
followed the few beaten paths known to their guides, never came
within miles of such wonderful animals as those described by the
tribesmen from the very center of the dark continent. If you have
read any accounts of adventure in Africa, you will know that travelers
never mention animals of any kind that are gifted with the faculty of
speech, or gazelles that are overseers for native princes, or hares
that eat flesh. No, indeed; only the native-born know of these; and,
judging by the immense and rapid strides civilization is making in
those parts, it will not be long before such wonderful specimens of
zoology will be as extinct as the ichthyosaurus, dinornis, and other
poor creatures who never dreamed of the awful names that would be
applied to them when they were too long dead to show their resentment.
As to the truth of these tales, I can only say that they were told
to me, in Zanzibar, by negroes whose ancestors told them to them,
who had received them from their ancestors, and so back; so that the
praise for their accuracy, or the blame for their falsity, lies with
the first ancestor who set them going.
You may think uncivilized negroes are pretty ignorant people, but the
white man who is supposed to have first told the story of "The House
that Jack Built" was a mighty poor genius compared with the unknown
originator of "Goso, the Teacher," who found even inanimate things
that were endowed with speech, which the pupils readily understood and
were not astonished to hear; while "Puss in Boots" was not one-half
so clever as the gazelle that ran things for Haamdaanee. It would be a
severe task to rattle off "Goso" as you do "The House that Jack Built."
Don't stumble over the names in these tales; they are very easy. Every
one is pronounced exactly as it is spelled, and the accent is always on
the last syllable but one; as, Poon'dah, the donkey; Haam-daa'nee, etc.
Finally, if the perusal of these tales interests you as much as
their narration and translation interested me, everything will be
satisfactory.