triumphal entrance. The people of the whole country-side assembled to
welcome us, and pressed waist-deep into the water. My companion and I
were repeatedly called for, but true merit is always modest. We
regained our old tembe, were salaamed to by everybody, and it felt
like a return home. The upshot of it all was this――we had expended
upwards of a month exploring the Tanganyika Lake.
I had explored it thoroughly. My health now began to improve, my
strength increased; my feet were still swollen, but my hands lost
their numbness, and I could again read and write. A relieved mind had
helped on this recovery――the object of my expedition was now
effected――and I threw off the burden of grinding care with which the
prospect of a probable failure had sorely laden me.[6]
The rainy monsoon broke up after our return to Kawele, and the climate
became most enjoyable, but it was accompanied by that inexplicable
melancholy peculiar to tropical countries. I have never felt this
sadness in Egypt and Arabia, but I was never without it in India and
Zanzibar. We were expecting stores and provisions, but we got not one
single word from the agents who were to forward our things, and want
began to stare us in the face. Money was a necessity, or its
equivalent. I had to engage porters for the hammocks, feed
seventy-five mouths, to fee several chieftains, and to incur the heavy
expenses of two hundred and sixty miles’ marching back to Unyamyembe,
so I had to supplement the sum allowed me by the Royal Geographical
Society with my own little patrimony. One thousand pounds does not go
very far when it has to be divided amongst two hundred greedy savages
in two and a half years.
On May 22nd our ears were gladdened by the sound of musket-shots
announcing arrivals, and then, after a long silence of eleven months,
there arrived a caravan with boxes, bales, porters, slaves, and a
parcel of papers and letters from Europe, India, and Zanzibar. How we
pounced upon them! Here we first knew of the Indian Mutiny. The
caravan arrived at a crisis when it was really wanted, but as my agent
could not find porters for all the packages, he had kept back some of
them, and what he sent me were the least useful. They would suffice to
take us back to Unyamyembe, but were wholly inadequate for exploring
the southern end of Tanganyika, far less for returning to Zanzibar
_viâ_ the Nyassa Lake and Kilwa, as I had hoped to do.
On May 26th, 1858, we set out on our homeward journey, and left Kawele
_en route_ for Unyamyembe. I shall never forget my last sunrise look
on Tanganyika. The mists, luminously fringed with purple, were cut by
filmy rays; the living fire shot forth broad beams over the light blue
waters of the lake, and a soft breeze, the breath of the morning,
awoke the waves into life.
I had great difficulties in getting away, but at nine o’clock we
departed with a full gang of porters, and advanced until the evening.
Many troubles arose: a porter placed his burden upon the ground and
levanted, and being cognac and vinegar it was deeply regretted; then
the Unyamwezi guide, because his newly purchased slave girl had become
footsore and unable to walk, cut her head off. All these disagreeables
I was obliged to smooth down as best I could. Then there was a great
dread of savage tribes, and there was also a fear of conflagration, a
sort of prairie fire.
A sheet of flame, beginning with the size of a spark, would overspread
the hillside, advancing on the wings of the wind with the roaring,
rushing sound of many hosts, where the grass was thick, shooting huge
forked tongues high into the air, and tall trees, the patriarchs of
the forest, yielded their lives to the blast. Onward the fire would
sweep, smouldering and darkening where the rock afforded scanty fuel,
then flickering, blazing up, and soaring on again over the brow of the
hill, until the sheet became a thin line of fire, gradually vanishing
from the view.
On October 4th, after a week of halts and snails’ marches, we at last
reached Hanga, our former quarters in the western confines of the
Unyamyembe district. Here my companion was taken seriously ill, and
immediately after our arrival at this foul village, where we were
lodged in a sort of cow-house, full of vermin and exposed directly to
the fury of the cold gales, he complained, in addition to the deaf
ear, an inflamed eye, and a swollen face, of a mysterious pain, which
he knew not whether to attribute to the liver or the spleen. Shortly
after this his mind began to wander, and then he underwent three fits
of an epileptic description, which more closely resembled those of
hydrophobia than any I have ever witnessed. He was haunted by a crowd
of hideous devils, giants, and lion-headed demons, who were wrenching
and stripping the sinews and tendons of his legs. He began to utter a
barking noise, with a peculiar chopping motion of the mouth and
tongue. When the third spasm was over, he called for pen and paper,
and, fearing that increased weakness of mind and body might prevent
any further exertion, he wrote an incoherent letter of farewell to his
family. That, however, was the crisis, and he afterwards spent a
better night; the pains were mitigated, or, as he expressed it, “the
knives were sheathed.”
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 springs. The zemzemiyah, or
travelling canteen of the East African, was everywhere a long-necked
gourd, slung to the shoulder by a string. But it became offensive
after some use, and could never be entrusted to a servant for a mile
before its contents were exhausted.
We left Hanga, my companion being now better, on October 13th. Seven
short marches between that place and Tura occupied fifteen days, a
serious waste of time, caused by the craving of the porters for their
homes.
The stages now appeared shorter, the sun cooler, the breeze warmer,
for, after fourteen months of incessant fevers, we had become
tolerably acclimatised; we were now loud in praise, as we had been in
censure, of the water and air. Before re-entering the Fiery Field the
hire for carrying hammocks became so exorbitant that I dismissed the
bearers, drew on my jackboots, mounted the Zanzibar ass, and appeared
once more as the mtongi of a caravan. My companion was also now able
to ride.
At Eastern Tura, where we arrived on October 28th, a halt was
occasioned by the necessity of providing and preparing food for the
week’s march through the Fiery Field. The caravan was then mustered,
and it completed altogether a party of one hundred and fifty-two
souls.
On November 3rd the caravan, issuing from Tura, plunged manfully into
the Fiery Field, and after seven marches in as many days――we halted
for breath and forage at the Round Stone――Jiwe la Mkoa. Here we
procured a few rations, and resumed our way on November 12th, and in
two days exchanged, with a sensible pleasure, the dull expanse of dry
brown bush and brushwood for the fertile red plain of Mdaburn. At that
point began our re-transit of Ugogo, where I had been taught to expect
accidents; they resolved themselves into nothing more than the
disappearance of cloth and beads in inordinate quantities. 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 terror into their hearts. One of them
would frequently indulge me in a dialogue like the following, which
may serve as a specimen of our 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, 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 killed 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 so on for two mortal hours.
The transit of Ugogo occupied three weeks, from November 14th to
December 5th. In Kanyenye we were joined by a large caravan of
Wanyamwezi, carrying ivories. On December 6th we arrived at a halting
place in the Ugogi Dhun, and were greeted by another caravan, freshly
arrived, commanded by Hindus, who, after receiving and returning news
with much solemnity, presently drew forth a packet of papers and
letters, which as usual promised trouble, and the inevitable――to
me――“official wigging.” I also received the following pleasant
letter:――
DEAR BURTON,
Go ahead! Vogel and Macguire dead――murdered. Write often to
Yours truly,
N.S.
At Ugogo, which, it will be remembered, is considered the half-way
station between Unyamyembe and the coast, we were detained a day
through difficulties with porters, who declared there was a famine
upon the road we had previously traversed, and also that a great
chief, who was also a great extortioner, was likely to insist upon our
calling upon him in person, which would involve a change of route.
However, there was nothing to be done but to take the road. We loaded
on December 7th, and began the passage of the Usagara Mountains, going
this time by the Kiringawana route.
Travelling by a roundabout way, we arrived at the village of the chief
Kiringawana on December 19th, and the next day proceeded to palaver.
After abundant chaffering, the chief accepted from the expedition
three expensive coloured cloths and other things, grumbling the while
because we had neglected to reserve for him something more worthy his
acceptance; he returned a fat bullock, which was instantly shot and
devoured.
We resumed our march on December 22nd, which was almost entirely
down-hill. We crossed in a blazing sun the fœtid plain, and after
finding with some difficulty the jungly path, we struck into a
pleasant forest. Presently we emerged again upon the extremity of the
Makata Plain, a hideous low level of black vegetable earth, peaty in
appearance, and bearing long puddles of dark and stagnant
rain-water――mere horse-ponds, with the additional qualities of miasma
and mosquitoes. The transit of this plain took some days.
The dawn of Christmas Day, 1858, saw us toiling along the Kikoboga
River, which we forded four times. The road presently turned up a
rough rise, from whose crest began the descent of the Mabruki Pass.
The descent was very steep and rough; the path, spanning rough ground
at the hill base, led us to the plains of Uziraha in K’hutu.
We had reserved a bullock in honour of Christmas Day, but as he was
lost, I ordered the purchase of half a dozen goats to celebrate it,
but the porters were too lazy to collect them. My companion and I made
good cheer upon a fat capon, which acted as roast beef, with a mess of
ground-nuts sweetened with sugar-cane, which did duty as plum-pudding.
We started off again and entered Zungomero on December 29th. An army
of black musketeers, in scanty but various and gaudy attire, came out
to meet us, and with the usual shots and shouts conducted us to the
headman’s house. They then stared at us, as usual, for half a dozen
consecutive hours, which done, they retired to rest.
We stayed at Zungomero some time and celebrated the New Year there,
but January 21st, 1859, enabled us to bid it adieu and merrily take to
the footpath way. We made Konduchi on February 3rd, after twelve
marches, which we accomplished in fourteen days. There is little of
interest or adventure to record in this return line, for we travelled
over much the same ground we had done before.
As the mud near Dut’humi was throat-deep, we crossed it lower down――a
weary trudge of several miles through thick, slabby mire, which
admitted a man to his knees. In places, after toiling under a sickly
sun, we crept under tunnels of thick jungle growth, the dank and fœtid
cold causing a deadly sensation of faintness, which was only relieved
by the glass of æther sherbet, a pipe or two of the strongest tobacco,
and half an hour’s rest.
On January 30th our natives of Zanzibar screamed with delight at the
sight of the monkey-tree, an old, familiar sight to them. On February
2nd we greeted, with doffed caps, and with three times three and one
more, as Britons will do on such occasions, the kindly, smiling face
of our father Neptune as he lay basking in the sunbeams between earth
and air. February 3rd saw us winding through the poles decorated with
skulls――a sort of negro Temple Bar――which pointed out the way into the
little village of Konduchi.
Our return was attended with much ceremony: the war-men danced, shot,
and shouted; a rabble of adults, youths, and boys crowded upon us; the
fair sex lulliloo’d with vigour; and a general procession conducted us
to a hut, swept, cleaned, and garnished for us by the principal banyan
of the village, and there they laughed and stared at us until they
could laugh and stare no more.
We were detained at Konduchi for some days, and on February 9th the
battela and the stores required for our trip arrived from Zanzibar,
and the next day saw us rolling down the coast towards the Island of
Zanzibar, where we landed on March 4th, 1859. I was taken ill there,
and my companion went home alone――thereby hangs a tale. But I
recovered after a while, and left Zanzibar for Aden to catch the
homeward boat. I bade adieu to the “coal-hole of the East” on April
28th, 1859, and in due time arrived once more on the shores of Old
England, after an absence of two years and eight months.
[6] At the time of which I write (1858) the Tanganyika had
never before been visited by any European.
_THE CITY OF THE MORMONS_
1860
I
_THE JOURNEY_
I had long determined to add the last new name――Great Salt Lake
City――to my list of Holy Cities; to visit the new rival, _soi-disant_,
of Memphis, Benares, Jerusalem, Rome, and Meccah; and to observe the
origin and working of a regular go-ahead Western revelation. Mingled
with the wish of prospecting the city of the Mormons from a spiritual
point of view was the mundane desire of enjoying a little skirmishing
with the savages, who had lately been giving the “pale-faces” tough
work to do.
The man was ready, the hour hardly appeared propitious for other than
belligerent purposes. Throughout the summer of 1860 an Indian war was
raging in Nebraska; the Comanches, Kiowas, and Cheyennes were “out”;
the Federal Government had despatched three columns to the centres of
confusion; intestine feuds amongst the aborigines were talked of; the
Dakota, or Sioux, had threatened to “wipe out” their old foe the
Pawnee. Both tribes were possessors of the soil over which the road to
Great Salt Lake City ran. Horrible accounts of murdered post-boys and
cannibal emigrants, grossly exaggerated as usual, filled the papers.
“Going amongst the Mormons!” said a friend to me at New Orleans. “They
are shooting and cutting one another in all directions. How can _you_
expect to escape?” But sagely reflecting that “dangers which loom
large from afar generally lose size as one draws near,” and that even
the Mormons might turn out less black than they were painted, I
resolved to run the risk of the “red nightcap” from the bloodthirsty
Indians and the poisoned bowie-dagger from the jealous Latter-Day
Saints. I therefore applied myself to then audacious task of an
expedition to the City of the Mormons.
There were three roads to be chosen from――the three main lines,
perhaps, for a Pacific railway between the Mississippi and the Western
Ocean――the northern, the central, and the southern. The first, or
British, was not to be thought of, since it involved semi-starvation,
a possible plundering by the Bedouins, and, what was far worse, five
or six months of slow travel. The third, or southern, took twenty-four
days and nights, and the journey was accompanied by excessive heat in
a malarial climate, to say nothing of poisonous food. There remained
only the central road, which has two branches; of these I chose the
great emigrant road from Missouri to California. The mail coach on
this line was not what one would call luxurious, and the hours of
halting-places were badly selected. The schedule time from St. Joseph,
Missouri, to Great Salt Lake City was twenty-one days; we accomplished
it, it turned out, in nineteen. I therefore travelled to St. Joseph,
disrespectfully known as St. Jo, bought my ticket, and prepared to
start.
An important part in my preparations was the kit, which in my case was
represented as follows:――One India-rubber blanket, pierced in the
centre for a poncho, and with buttons and elastic loops, which
converted it into a carpet bag. I ought to have added a buffalo robe
as a bed, but ignorance prevented. With one’s coat as a pillow, a
buffalo robe, and a blanket, one might defy the dangerous “bunks” of
the stations. For weapons I carried two revolvers. In those days, from
the moment of leaving St. Joseph to the time of reaching Placerville
or Sacramento, the pistol ought never to be absent from a man’s right
hand, nor the bowie-knife from his left. Contingencies with Indians
and others might happen, when the difference of an instant might save
life. In dangerous places the revolver should be discharged and loaded
every morning, both for the purpose of keeping the hand in and doing
the weapon justice. A revolver is an admirable tool when properly
used. Those, however, who are too idle or careless to attend to it had
better carry a pair of “Derringers.” I took also some opium, which is
invaluable on the prairie, and some other drugs against fever. The
“holy weed, Nicotian,” was not forgotten, for cigars were most useful,
as the driver either received or took the lion’s share. The prairie
traveller was not very particular about his clothes; the easiest dress
was a dark flannel shirt, worn over the normal article, no braces, but
a broad leather belt for a six-shooter and a “Kansas tooth-pick,” a
long clasp-knife. The nether garments were forked with good buckskin,
or they would infallibly have given out, and the lower ends were
tucked into the boots, after the sensible fashion of our grandfathers.
In cold weather――the nights were rarely warm――there was nothing better
than an old English shooting-jacket; for riding or driving a large
pair of buckskin gloves, or rather gauntlets, were advisable, and we
did not forget spurs. The best hat was a brown felt, which, by boring
holes around the brim to admit a ribbon, could be converted into a
riding-hat or a nightcap, as you pleased. Having got my kit and
purchased my ticket, I was ready to start.
Precisely at 8 a.m. on Tuesday, August 7th, 1860, there appeared in
front of the Patee House, the Fifth Avenue Hotel of St. Joseph, the
vehicle destined to be my home for the next three weeks. I scrutinised
it curiously. It was what was known as a “concord coach,” a spring
waggon, of which the body is shaped something like an English tax-cart
considerably magnified. It paid no regard to appearances, but was
safe, strong, and light. The wheels were five to six feet apart,
affording security against capsizing; the tyres were of unusual
thickness, and polished like steel by the hard, dry ground. The waggon
bed was supported by iron bands, and the whole bed was covered with
stout osnaburg, supported by strong bars of white oak. There was a
sunshade, or hood, in front where the driver sat, a curtain behind,
which could be raised or lowered at discretion, and four flaps on each
side, either folded up, or fastened down with hooks and eyes. The
coach was drawn by a team of four mules, which were much preferred to
horses as being more enduring. The rate of travel, on an average, was
five miles an hour. This was good; between seven and eight was the
maximum, which sank in hilly country to three or four.
We were detained more than an hour before we started. Our “plunder,”
as they called the luggage, was clapped on with little ceremony, and
when all was packed away (and a good deal of the comfort of the
journey depended on the packing), we rattled through the dusty roads
of St. Jo, got on the steam ferry, which conveyed us from the right to
the left bank of the Missouri River, and landed us in “bleeding”
Kansas. We then fell at once into the emigrant road, as it was called,
to the Far West, a great thoroughfare at this point, open, broad, and
well worn as a European turnpike or a Roman military road, and
undoubtedly the best and longest natural highway in the world.
At first the scene was one of a luxuriant vegetation; but after an
hour of burning sun and sickly damp, the effects of the late storms,
we emerged from the waste of vegetation on to the region of the Grand
Prairie. Over the rolling surface, which rarely broke into hill or
dale, lay a tapestry of thick grass, already turning to a ruddy yellow
under the influence of approaching autumn. Nothing, I may remark, is
more monotonous, except the African and Indian jungle, than these
prairie tracks. You saw, as it were, the ends of the earth, and looked
around in vain for some object upon which the eye might rest; it
wanted the sublimity of repose so suggestive in the sandy deserts, and
the perpetual motion so pleasing in the aspect of the sea.
Passing through a few wretched shanties called Troy, in Syracuse, we
arrived about three o’clock at Cold Springs, where we were allowed an
hour’s halt to dine and change mules. The scene was the “rale” Far
West. The widow body to whom the shanty of the station belonged lay
sick with fever, and the aspect of her family was a “caution to
snakes.” The ill-conditioned sons dawdled about, listless as Indians,
in skin tunics, and the daughters, whose sole attire was apparently a
calico morning wrapper, waited on us in a grudging way in the wretched
log hut, which appeared ignorant of the duster and the broom. Myriads
of flies disputed with us a dinner consisting of dough-nuts,
suspicious eggs in a greasy fritter, and rusty bacon, intolerably fat.
It was our first sight of squatter life, and, except in two cases, it
was our worst.
We drove on all the afternoon and all the night, except for a halt for
supper. The last part of our journey was performed under a heavy
thunderstorm. Gusts of violent wind whizzed overhead, thunder crashed
and rattled, and vivid lightning, flashing out of the murky depths
around, made earth and air one blaze of fire. We arrived about one
o’clock a.m. at Locknan’s station, a few log huts near a creek. Here
we found beds and snatched an hour of sleep. So passed the first day.
It is not my purpose to describe the journey day by day, for it lasted
nineteen days, and one day was often much like another. I shall
therefore content myself with picking out the chief points of interest
on the route.
Before long the prairies wore a burnt-up aspect. As far as the eye
could see the tintage was that of the Arabian desert. It was still,
however, too early for prairie fires, and I therefore did not witness
this magnificent spectacle. In some parts, where the grass is tall and
rank, and the roaring flames leap before the fire with the stride of a
maddened horse, the danger is imminent, and the spectacle must be one
of awful sublimity.