I halted to collect carriage and to await the arrival of the twenty-two
promised porters for about a fortnight at that hot-bed of pestilence,
Zungomero, where we nearly found “wet graves.” Our only lodging was
under the closed eaves of a hut built African-fashion, one abode within
the other. The roof was a sieve, the walls were systems of chinks, and
the floor was a sheet of mud. Outside the rain poured pertinaciously, as
if K’hutu had been situated in the “black north” of Hibernia; the
periodical S. and S.W. winds were raw and chilling, the gigantic
vegetation was sopped to decay, and the tangled bank of the Mgeta River,
lying within pistol-shot of our hovels, added its quotum of miasma. The
hardships of a march in inclement weather had taken effect upon the
Baloch guard: expecting everything to be done for them they endured
seven days of wet and wind before they could find energy to build a
shed, and they became almost mutinous because left to make shelter for
themselves. They stole the poultry of the villagers like gipsies, they
quarrelled violently with the slaves, they foully abused their temporal
superior, Said bin Salim, and three of the thirteen were accused of
grossly insulting the women of the Wak’hutu. The latter charge, after
due investigation, was “not proven:” we had resolved, in case of its
being brought home, severely to flog the culprits or to turn them out of
camp.
On the 27th July, Sayf bin Salim returned to Dut’humi with his gang of
thirty slaves, who also had distinguished themselves by laying violent
hands on sheep, goats, and hens. Their patroon had offered to carry our
baggage half-way over the mountains to Ugogo, for a sum of sixty
dollars; thinking his conditions exorbitant, I stipulated for conveyance
the whole way. He refused, declaring that he was about to organise
another journey up-country. I doubted his assertion, as he was known to
have audaciously defrauded Musa Mzuri, an Indian merchant, who had
entrusted him with a large venture of ivory at Kazeh: yet he spoke
truth; nearly a year afterwards we met him on his march to the “Sea of
Ujiji.” During his visit he had begged for drugs, tea, coffee, sugar,
spices, everything, but the stores were already far wasted by the
improvidence of the Goanese, who seemed to think that they were living
in the vicinity of a bazar. To punish me for not engaging his gang, he
caused the desertion of nine porters hired at Dut’humi, by declaring
that I was bearing them into slavery. As they carried off, in addition
to half their pay, sundry sundries and Muinyi Wazira’s sword, I sent
three slave-musketeers to recover the stolen goods per force if
necessary. With respect to the cloth, Sayf bin Salim wrote back to say
that as I could well afford the loss of a few “domestics,” he would not
compel the fugitives to restore it: at the same time that he did himself
the honour to return the sword, which I might want. This man proved
himself the sole “base exception” to the hospitality and the
courteousness of the Omani Arabs. I forwarded an official complaint to
H. M. the Sayyid Majid, but the arm of Zanzibar has not yet reached
K’hutu.
At Zungomero five fresh porters were engaged, making up the whole party
to a total of 132 souls. They were drafted into the men of Muinyi
Wazira, whose open indulgence in stingo had made his society at meals
distasteful to Moslem sticklers for propriety. He was an able
interpreter, speaking five African dialects, which is not, however, in
these lands a remarkable feat, and when sober, he did at first the work
of three men. But linguists are a dangerous race, as the annals of old
India prove:--I doubt a bilingual Eastern man, and if he can speak three
languages I do not doubt him at all. Moreover, true to his semi-servile
breed--his dam was a Mzaramo slave, and his sire a half-caste
Wawahili--he began well and he finished badly. His deep undying fondness
for pombe or holcus beer, kept him in alternate states of maudlin apathy
or of violent pugnacity. He had incurred heavy debts upon the coast.
After his arrival at Unyamwezi, letters were sent urging upon the Arabs
his instant arrest, but fortunately for him the bailiff and the jailor
are not, as the venerable saying declares the schoolmaster to be,
abroad. Muinyi Wazira, however, did not sight the Sea of Ujiji in my
service, and his five messmates, who each received 15 dollars’ worth of
cloth for the journey thither and back, were not more fortunate.
Before marching from Zungomero into the mountains I will order, for the
reader’s inspection, a muster of the party, and enlist his sympathies in
behalf of the unhappy being who had to lead it.
Said bin Salim may pass on: he has been described in Blackwood
(February, 1858) and he scarcely deserves a second notice. He is
followed by his four slaves, including the boy Faraj, who will presently
desert, and without including his acting wife, the lady Halimah. That
young person’s pug-dog countenance and bulky charms seem to engross
every thought not appropriated to himself. One day, however, my ears
detect the loud voice of wail proceeding from the lady Halimah,
accompanying methinks the vigorous performance of a stick; the
peccadillo was--but I eschew scandal and request the lady to advance.
My companion’s gun carrier, Seedy Mubarak Bombay, a negro from Uhiao,
has twice been sketched in Blackwood (March, 1858 and September, 1859),
he also requires no further celebrity. My henchman, Muinyi Mabruki, had
been selected by his fellow-tribeman Bombay at Zanzibar; he was the
slave of an Arab Shaykh, who willingly let him for the sum of 5 dollars
per mensem. Mabruki is the type of the bull-headed negro, low-browed,
pig-eyed, pug-nosed, and provided by nature with that breadth and power,
that massiveness and muscularity of jaw, which characterise the most
voracious carnivors. He is at once the ugliest and the vainest of the
party: his attention to his toilette knows no limit. His temper is
execrable, ever in extremes, now wild with spirits, then dogged,
depressed, and surly, then fierce and violent. He is the most unhandy of
men, he spoils everything entrusted to him, and presently he will be
forbidden to engage in any pursuit beyond ass-leading and tent-pitching.
These worthies commenced well. They excited our admiration by braving
noon-day suns, and by snoring heavily through the rawest night with
nothing to warm them but a few smouldering embers. In an evil hour
compassion-touched, I threw over their shoulders a pair of English
blankets, which in the shortest time completely demoralised them. They
learned to lie a-bed o’ mornings, and when called up their shrugged
shoulders and shrinking forms were wrapped tightly round, lest the
breath of dawn should visit them too roughly. Idleness marked them for
her own: messmates and sworn brothers; they made at the halt huts out of
hail, lest they should be called to do work. As a rule, however,
Englishmen have the art of spoiling Eastern servants: we begin with the
utmost stretch of exertion, and we expect this high pressure system to
last. Of course the men’s energies are soon exhausted, their indolence
and apathy contrast with their former activity; we conceive dislikes to
them, and we end by dismissing them. This, however, was not the case
with Bombay and Mabruki. They returned with us to Zanzibar, and we
parted _à l’aimable_, especially with the former, who, after a somewhat
protracted fit of the “blue devils,” became once more, what he before
had been, a rara avis in the lands, an active servant and an honest man.
Regard for the Indian perusers of these pages, who know by experience
how “banal” a character is the half-caste oriental Portuguese, prevents
my offering anything but a sketch of Valentine A. and Gaetano B. I had
hired them at Bombay for Co.’s rs. 20 per mensem, besides board and
lodging. Scions of that half Pariah race which yearly issues from Goa,
Daman and Diu to gather rupees as “cook boys,” dry-nurses, and
“buttrels,” in wealthy British India, the hybrids had their faults: a
pride of caste, and a contempt for Turks and heathen, heretics and
infidels, which often brought them to grief; a fondness for acting
triton amongst the minnows; a certain disregard for the seventh
commandment, in the matter of cloth and clothes, medicines and
provisions; a constitutional repugnance to “Signior Sooth;” a
wastefulness of other men’s goods, and a peculiar tenacity of their own;
a deficiency of bodily strength and constitutional vigour; a voracity
which induced indigestion once a day; and, finally, a habit of frequent
phlebotomy which, deferred, made them sick. They had also their merits.
Valentine was a good specimen of the neat-handed and ready-witted
Indian: in the shortest time he learned to talk Kisawahili sufficiently
for his own purposes, and to read a chronometer and thermometer
sufficiently for ours: he had, however, one blemish, an addiction to
“fudging,” which rendered the severest overseeing necessary. A “Davy do
a’ things,” he was as clever at sewing a coat as at cooking a curry.
Gaetano had a curious kind of tenderness when acting nurse, and,
wonderful to relate, an utter disregard for danger: he would return
alone through a night-march of jungle to fetch his forgotten keys, and
would throw himself into an excited mob of natives with a fearlessness
which, contrasted with his weakly body, never failed to turn their wrath
into merriment. He suffered severely from the secondaries of fever,
which, in his case, as in his master’s, assumed a cerebral form. At
Msene he was seized with fits resembling epilepsy; and as he seemed
every month to become more addle-headed and scatter-brained, more dirty
and untidy, more wasteful and forgetful, more loath to work without
compulsion, and more prone to start and feed the fire with ghee when it
was the scarcest of luxuries, I could not but attribute many of his
delinquencies to disease.
The Baloch are now to appear. My little party were servants of His
Highness the Sayyid Majid of Zanzibar, who had detached them as an
escort upon the usual “deputation-allowance” of ten dollars per mensem.
They had received the command of their master to accompany me wherever I
might please to march, and they had been rendered responsible to him for
the safety of my person and property. As has been mentioned, Lieut.-Col.
Hamerton had advanced to them before departure a small sum for outfit,
and had promised them, on condition of good conduct, an ample reward on
the part of H. M.’s Government after return to Zanzibar. These men were
armed with the usual matchlock, the Cutch sabre,--one or two had
Damascus blades,--the Indian hide-targe, decorated with its usual
tinsel, the long khanjar or dagger, extra matches, flints and steels,
and toshdan, or ammunition pouches, sensibly distributed about their
persons.
The Jemadar Mallok led from Zanzibar seven warriors of fame, yclept
severally, Mohammed, Shahdad, Ismail, Belok, Abdullah, Darwaysh, and the
Seedy Jelai; at Kaole he persuaded to follow his fortunes, Khudabakhsh,
Musa, Gul Mohammed, Riza, and Hudul a tailor boy.
The Jemadar Mallok is a monocular, and the Sanscrit proverb declares:
“Rare a Kana (one-eyed man) is a good man and sound,
Rare a ladye gay will be faithful found.”
Mallok is no exception to this rule of the “Kana.” He is a man with
fine Italian features, somewhat disfigured by the small-pox: but his one
eye never looks you “in the face,” and there is an expression about the
mouth which forbids implicit trust in his honesty. He proclaims himself
to be somewhat fonder of fighting than of feeding, yet suspicious
circumstances led me to believe that he was one of those whom the Arabs
describe as “first at the banquet and last at the brawl.” He began with
a display of zeal and activity which died young; he lapsed, through
grumbling and discontent, into open insubordination as we progressed
westward, or from home; he became submissive and somewhat servile as we
returned to the coast, and when he took leave of me he shed a flood of
crocodile’s tears.
Mohammed is the Rish Safid, or greybeard of the caravan, and without a
greybeard no eastern caravan considers itself _en règle_. Of these
indispensable veterans I had two specimens; but of what use they were,
except to teach hot youth the cold caution of eld, I never could
divine,--_vieux soldat, vielle bête_. In the civilised regiment age is
not venerable in the private, as every grey hair is a proof that he has
not merited or has forfeited promotion; so in the East, where there is a
paucity of competitors in the race of fortune, the Rish Safid of humble
fortune may be safely set down as a fool or a foolish knave, and though
his escort is sought, he generally proves himself to be no better than
he should have been.
Mohammed’s body is apparently hard as a rock, his mind is soft as putty,
and his comrades, disappointed in their hopes of finding brains behind
those wrinkles, derisively compare him to a rotten walnut, and say
before his face, “What! grey hairs and no wits?” He has invested the
fifteen dollars advanced to him as outfit by Lieut.-Col. Hamerton, in a
slave-boy, whom presently he will exchange for a slave-girl, despite all
the inuendoes of his friends. He was at first a manner of peace-maker,
but soon my refusal to enlist and pay his slave as a hired porter acted
like Ithuriel’s spear. This veteran of fractious temper and miserly
habits ended, in a question of stinted rations, by drawing his sabre
upon and cutting at his Jemadar; an offence which I was compelled to
visit with a bastinado, inflicted out of the sight of man by the hand of
Khudabakhsh.
Shahdad is the Chelebi of the party, the fast young man. He is decidedly
not handsome. A figure short and _trapu_, a retrussed nose, small pigs’
eyes, a beard like a blackberry bush, and a crop of hair which,
projecting its wiry waves in a deep long curtain from beneath a
diminutive scarlet fez, makes his head appear top-heavy. Yet he does sad
havoc amongst female hearts by means of his zeze or guitar, half a gourd
with an arm to which is attached a single string, and by his lively
accompaniment is a squeaking falsetto, which is here as fascinating and
emollient to the sex as ever was the organ of Rubini in Europe. During a
lengthened sojourn at Bombay he has enlarged his mind by the acquisition
of the Hindostani tongue and of Indian trickery. He is almost the only
Eastern whom I remember that abused the poor letter H like a
thoroughbred Londoner. His familiarity with Anglo-Europeans, and his
experience touching the facility of gulling them, has induced in him a
certain proclivity for peculation, grumbling, and mutiny. His
brother--or rather cousin, for in these lands all fellow-tribesmen are
brethren--“Ismail” is a confirmed invalid, a man with a “broken mouth,”
deeply sunken cheeks, and emaciated frame, who, though earnestly
solicited to return eastwards, will persist in accompanying the party
till he falls a victim to a chronic malady in Unyamwezi.
Belok is our snob; a youth of servile origin, with coarse features, wide
mouth, everted lips, and a pert, or rather an impudent expression of
countenance, which, acting as index to his troublesome character, at
once prejudices the physiognomist against him. Belok’s comrades have
reason to quote the Arab saw, “Defend me from the beggar become wealthy,
and from the slave become a freeman!” He has invested his advance of
salary in a youth; and the latter serves and works for the rest of the
mess, who must patiently and passively endure the insolence of the
master for fear of losing the offices of the man. After the fashion of a
certain sort of fools, he applies the whole of his modicum of wit to
mischief-making, and he succeeds admirably where better men, whose
thoughts attempt a wider range, would fail. By his exertions the Baloch
became, in point of social intercourse, not unlike the passengers of a
ship bound on a long voyage: after the first month the society divides
itself into two separate and adverse cliques; after the second it breaks
up into little knots; and after the third it is a chequer-work of pairs
and solitaires. Arrived at the “Pond of Ugogo,” I was compelled to
address an official letter to Zanzibar, requesting the recal of Belok
and his coadjutor in mischief, Khudabakhsh.
Abdullah is the type of the respectable, in fact, of the good young man.
It is really pathetic to hear him recount, with accents broken by
emotion, the “tale full of waters of the eye,”--the parting of an only
son, who was led away to an African grave, from the aged widow his
mamma; to listen to her excellent advice, and to his no less excellent
resolves. He is capable of calling his bride elect, were such article a
subject ever to be mentioned amongst Moslems, “his choicest blessing.”
With an edifying mingling of piety and discipline, he never neglects the
opportunity of standing in prayer behind the Jemadar Mallok, whose
elevation to a superior grade--_honneur oblige!_--has compelled him to
rub up a superficial acquaintance with the forms of devotion. Virtue in
the abstract I revere; in the concrete I sometimes suspect. The good
young man soon justified this suspicion by repeatedly applying to Said
bin Salim for beads, in my name, which he converted to his own purposes.
Of Darwaysh little need be said. He is a youth about twenty-two years
old, with a bulging brow, a pair of ferret-eyes, a “peaky” nose, a thin
chin; in fact, with a face the quintessence of curiosity. He is the
“brother”--that is to say, the spy--of the Jemadar, and his principal
peculiarity is a repugnance to obeying an order because it is an order.
With this individual I had at first many a passage of words. Presently
prostrated in body and mind by severe disease, he obtained relief from
European drugs; and from that time until the end of the journey, he
conducted himself with a certain stiffness and decorum which contrasted
pleasantly enough with the exceeding “bounce” of his earlier career.
The Seedy Jelai calls himself a Baloch, though palpably the veriest
descendant of Ham. He resents with asperity the name of “Nigger,” or
“Nig”--Jupiter Tonans has heard of the offensive dissyllable, which
was a household word before the days of the Indian mutiny, but has
he heard of the more offensive monosyllable which was forced upon
the abbreviating Anglo-Saxon by the fatal necessity of requiring
to repeat the word so frequently? Jelai clothes his long lank
legs--cucumber-shinned and bony-kneed--in calico tights, which display
the full deformity of those members; and taking a pride in the length of
his mustachios, which distinguishes him from his African-born brethren,
he twists them _en croc_ like a hidalgo in the days of Gil Blas. The
Seedy, judging from analogy, ought to be brave, but he is not. On the
occasion of alarm in the mountains of Usagara, he privily proposed to
his comrades to “bolt” and leave us. Moreover, on the “Sea of Ujiji,”
where he was chosen as an escort, he ignobly deserted me.
Khudabakhsh was formed by nature to be the best man of the party; he has
transformed himself into the worst. A man of broad and stalwart frame,
with stern countenance, and a quietness of demeanour which usually
argues _sang-froid_ and persistency, his presence is in all points
soldier-like and prepossessing. But his temper is unmanageable: he
enters into a quarrel when certain of discomfiture; he is utterly
reckless,--on one occasion he amused himself by blowing a charge of
gunpowder into the calves of African warriors who were dancing in front
of him;--and lastly, his innate propensity for backbiting, intrigue, and
opposition to all authority, render him a dangerous member of the
Expedition. He herds with Belok, whose tastes lie in the same line: he
is the head and front of all mischief, and presently his presence will
become insupportable.
Musa, a tall, gaunt, and dark-brown old man, is the assistant Rish
Safid, or greybeard; in fact, the complement of “Greybeard Mohammed.”
After a residence of twenty years at Mombasah, he has clean forgotten
Persian; he speaks only a debased Mekrani dialect, and the Kisawahili,
which, as usual with his tribe, he prefers. An old soldier, he
compensates for want of youth and vigour by artfulness; an old
traveller--nothing better distinguishes in these lands the veteran of
the road from the griffin or greenhorn, than the careful and systematic
consideration of his comforts--he carries the lightest matchlock, he
starts in the cool of the morning, he presses forward to secure the best
quarters, and throughout he thinks only of himself. His character has a
want of wrath, which, despite his white hairs, causes him to be little
regarded. Greybeard Mohammed is considered a fool; Greybeard Musa, an
old woman. Yet he troubles himself little about the opinions of his
fellows, he looks well after his morning and evening meals, his ghee,
his pipe, and his sleeping mat; and knowing that he will last out all
the novices, with enviable philosophy he casts ambition to the winds.
Gul Mohammed is the most civilised man of the party. He has straight and
handsome features, of the old Grecian type, a reddish-brown skin--the
skin by excellence--and a Central-Asian beard of largest dimensions. His
mind is as civilised as his body; he is an adept after the fashion of
his tribe, in divinity especially, in medicine and natural history; and
when landing at Marka, he actually took the trouble to visit, for
curiosity, the Juba River. Unfortunately, “Gul Mohammed” is a mixture of
Baloch mountaineer-blood with the Sindhian of the plain, and the cross
is, throughout the East, renowned for representing the worst points of
both progenitors. Gul Mohammed is brave and treacherous, fair-spoken and
detractive, honourable and dishonest, good-tempered and bad-hearted.
Of the Baloch remain Riza, and Hudul, the tailor-boy: the former is a
kind of Darwaysh, utterly insignificant, but by no means so disagreeable
as his fellows: the only marking corporeal peculiarity of the latter is
a deficiency of skin; his mouth appears ever open, and his teeth
resemble those of an old rabbit. His mental organisation has its _petite
pointe_, its little twist; he is under the constant delusion that those
who speak in unknown tongues are employed specially in abusing him. His
first complaint was against the Goanese: as he could not understand a
word of their language, it was dismissed with some derision; he then
charged me to his comrades with his normal grievance, and in due time he
felt aggrieved by my companion.
A proper regard to precedence induces me now to marshal the “sons of
Ramji,” who acted as interpreters, guides, and war-men. They were armed
with the old “Tower-musket,” which, loaded with nearly an ounce of
powder, they never allowed to quit the hand; and with those antiquated
German-cavalry sabres which find their way over all the East: their
accoutrements were small leathern boxes, strapped to the waist, and huge
cow-horns, for ammunition. The most part called themselves Muinyi
(master), the title of an African freeman, because they had been
received in pawn by the Banyan Ramji from their parents or uncles, who
had forgotten to redeem the pledge, and they still claimed the honour of
noble birth. Of these there were eight men under their Mtu Mku, or chief
man, Kidogo--Anglicè, Mr. Little. Kidogo had preceded the Expedition,
escorting the detachment of thirty-six Wanyamwezi porters to Zungomero,
and he possessed great influence over his brother slaves, who all seemed
to admire and to be proud of him. He was by no means a common man.
“Natione magis quam ratione barbarus;” he had a fixed and obstinate
determination: amongst these puerile, futile African souls he was
exceptional as “a sage Sciote or a green horse.” His point of honour
consisted in the resolve that his words should be held as Median laws,
and he had, as the Africans say, a “large head,” namely, abundant
self-esteem, that blessed quality which makes man independent of his
fellows. Muinyi Kidogo is a short, thin, coal-black person, with a
something arguing gentle blood in his tribe, the Wadoe Cannibals; he has
a peaked beard, a bulging brow, close thin lips, a peculiar wall-eyed
roll of glance, and a look fixed, when unobserved, with a manner of
fascination which men felt. His attitude is always humble and
deprecatory, he drops his chin upon the collar of reflection, he rarely
speaks, save in dulcet tones, low, plaintive, and modulated; yet
agreeing in every conceivable particular, he never fails to introduce a
most pertinacious “but,” which brings him back precisely to his own
starting-point. The vehemence of his manner, and the violence of his
temper, win for him the fears of the porters; having a wife and children
in Unyamwezi, he knows well the languages, the manners, and the customs
of the people; he never hesitates, when necessary, to enforce his mild
commands by a merciless application of the staff, or to air his blade
and to fly at the recusant like a wild cat. In such moods, he is always
seized by his friends, and led forcibly away, as if dangerous. To insure
some regularity on the road, I ordered him to meet Said bin Salim and
Muinyi Wazira every evening at my tent, for a “Mashauri,” or palaver,
about the next day’s march and halt. The measure was rendered futile by
Kidogo, who soon contrived so to browbeat the others, that they would
not venture an opinion in his presence. As a chief, he would have been
in the right position; as a slave, he was falsely placed, because
determined not to obey. He lost no time in demanding that he and his
brethren should be considered Askári, soldiers, whose sole duty it was
to carry a gun; and he took the first opportunity of declaring that his
men should not be under the direction of the Jemadar. Having received
for answer that we could not all be Sultans, he retired with a
“Ngema”--a “very well,” accompanied by a glance that boded little good.
From that hour the “sons of Ramji” went wrong. Before, servilely civil,
they waxed insolent; they learned their power--without them I must have
returned to the coast--and they presumed upon it. They assumed the
“swashing and martial outside” of valiant men: they disdained to be
“mechanical;” they swore not to carry burdens; they objected to loading
and leading the asses; they would not bring up articles left behind in
the camp or on the road; they claimed the sole right of buying
provisions; they arrogated to themselves supreme command over the
porters; and they pilfered from the loads whenever they wanted the
luxuries of meat and beer; they drank deep; and on more than one
occasion they endangered the caravan by their cavalier proceedings with
the fair sex. It was “water-painting” to complain; they had one short
reply to all objections, namely, the threat of desertion. Preferring
anything to risking the success of the Expedition, I was reduced to the
bitter alternative of long-suffering, but it was with the hope of a
_revanche_ at some future time. The suffering was perhaps not wholly
patient. Orientals advise the traveller “to keep his manliness in his
pocket for braving it and ruffling at home.” Such, however, is not
exactly the principle or the practice of an Englishman, who recognises a
primary duty of commanding respect for himself, for his successors, and
for the noble name of his nation. On the return of the Expedition,
Kidogo proved himself a “serviceable villain,” but an extortionate;
anything committed to him was, as the Arabs say, in “ape’s custody,” and
the only remedy was to remove him from all power over the outfit.
Under the great Kidogo were the Muinyi Mboni, Buyuni, Hayja, and Jako;
these four took precedence as being the sons of Diwans, whilst the
commonalty was represented by the Muinyi Shehe, Mbaruko, Wulaydi, and
Khamisi.
The donkey-men, five in number, had been hired at the rate of thirty
dollars per head for the whole time of exploration. Their names were
Musangesi, Sangora, Nasibu, Hasani, and Saramalla. Of their natures
little need be said, except that they were a trifle less manageable than
the “sons of Ramji:” perfect models of servile humanity, obstinate as
asses and vicious as mules, gluttonous and lazy, noisy and overbearing,
insolent and quarrelsome as slaves.
Lowest in rank, and little above the asses even in their own estimation,
are the thirty-six Wanyamwezi Pagazi, or porters, who formed the
transport-corps. Concerning these men and their burdens, a few words of
explanation will be necessary.
In collecting a caravan the first step is to “make,” as the people say,
a “Khambi,” or kraal. The Mtongi, or proprietor of the goods, announces,
by pitching his tent in the open, and by planting his flag, that he is
ready to travel; this is done because amongst the Wanyamwezi a porter
who persuades others to enlist does it under pain of prosecution and
fine-paying if a death or an accident ensue. Petty chiefs, however, and
their kinsmen will bring with them in hope of promotion a number of
recruits, sometimes all the male adults of a village, who then recognise
them as headmen. The next step is to choose a Kirangozi or guide. Guides
are not a peculiar class; any individual of influence and local
knowledge who has travelled the road before is eligible to the post. The
Kirangozi must pay his followers to acknowledge his supremacy, and his
Mganga or medicine-man for providing him with charms and prophylactics.
On the march he precedes his porters, and any one who breaks this rule
is liable to a fine. He often undergoes abuse for losing the way, for
marching too far or not far enough, for not halting at the proper place,
and for not setting out at the right time. In return he enjoys the empty
circumstance of command, and the solid advantage of better food and a
present, which, however, is optional, at the end of the journey: he
carries a lighter load, and his emoluments frequently enable him to be
attended by a slave. The only way of breaking the perverse and
headstrong herd into a semblance of discipline, is to support the
Kirangozi at all conjunctures, and to make him, if possible, dole out
the daily rations and portion the occasional presents of meat.
At the preliminary Khambi the Mtongi superintends the distribution of
each Muzigo or load. The Pagazi or porters are mostly lads, lank and
light, with the lean and clean legs of leopards. Sometimes, however, a
herculean form is found with the bullet-head, the broad bull-like neck,
the deep wide chest, and the large strong extremities that characterise
the Hammal of Stamboul. There is usually a sprinkling of greybeards, who
might be expected, as the proverb is, to be “leaning against the wall.”
Amongst these races, however, the older men, who have learned to husband
their strength, fare better than their juniors, and the Africans, like
the Arabs, object to a party which does not contain veterans in beard,
age, and experience. In portioning the loads there is always much
trouble: each individual has his favourite fancy, and must choose, or,
at any rate, must consent to his burden. To load porters properly is a
work of skill. They will accept at the hand of a man who knows their
nature a weight which, if proposed by a stranger, would be rejected with
grunts of disgust. They hate the inconvenience of boxes, unless light
enough to be carried at both ends of a “Banghi”-pole by one man, or
heavy enough to be slung between two porters. The burden must never be
under a fair standard, especially when of that description that it
decreases by expenditure towards the end of the journey; a lightly-laden
man not only becomes lazy, he also makes his fellows discontented. The
nature of the load, however, causes an inequality of weight. Cloth is
tightly rolled up in the form of a huge bolster, five feet long by
eighteen to twenty-four inches in diameter, protected against wear and
weather by Makanda or coarse matting of brab-leaf, and corded over. This
bundle is fastened, for the purpose of preserving its shape and for
convenience of stacking, in a cradle of three or more flexible branches,
cut from a small tree below the place of junction, barked and trimmed,
laid along the length of the load, and confined at the open end by a
lashing of fibre-rope. Besides his weapons and marching kit, a man will
carry a pack of two Frasilah or seventy pounds, and this perhaps is the
maximum. Beads are placed in long, narrow bags of domestics, matted,
corded, and cradled in sticks like cloth; being a less elastic load,
they are more difficult to carry, and therefore seldom exceed fifty
pounds. Brass, and other wires, are carried in daur, khata, or circles,
lashed to both ends of a pole, which is generally the large midrib of a
palm-frond, with a fork cut in its depth at one extremity to form a base
for the load when stacked, and provided at the point of junction with a
Kitambara or pad of grass, rag, or leather. Wire is the lightest, as
ivory is the heaviest, of loads. The African porter will carry only the
smallest burdens upon his head, and the custom is mostly confined to
women and children. The merchants of course carry nothing but
themselves, except in extreme cases; but when the sudden sickness or the
evasion of a porter endangers the safety of his load, they shoulder it
without hesitation. The chief proprietor usually follows his caravan,
accompanied by some of his partners and armed slaves, to prevent the
straggling which may lead to heavy loss; he therefore often endures the
heat and tedium of the road longer than the rest of his party.
The loads of the Pagazi, it has appeared, are composed of beads, cloth,
and wire, which in this land of “round trade” or barter, supply the
wants of a circulating medium, and they severally represent copper,
silver, and gold. For a detailed notice, the reader is referred to the
appendix; in this place a few general remarks will suffice to set before
him the somewhat complicated use of the articles.
Of beads there are about 400 varieties, some of which have each three or
four different names. The cheapest, which form the staple of commerce,
are the Hafizi, Khanyera or Ushanga Waupe, a round white porcelain, the
price of which averages at Zanzibar 1 dollar per 5 or 6 lbs.
avoirdupois. The most expensive are the Samsam or Samesame, also called
Joho (scarlet cloth), Kimara-p’hamba (food-finishers), because a man
will part with his dinner to obtain them, and Kifunjyá-mji
(town-breakers), because the women will ruin themselves and their
husbands for them: these are the small coral-bead, scarlet enamelled
upon a white ground, they are of fifteen different sizes, and the value
at Zanzibar is from 13 to 16 dollars per 35 lbs. Beads are purchased
from the Banyan monopolisers unstrung, and are afterwards mounted by the
merchant upon T’hembe, or threads of palm-fibre; much depends for
success in sale upon the regularity and the attractiveness of the line.
The principal divisions are the bitil and the khete, which may represent
the farthing and the penny. The former is a single length from the tip
of the index to the wrist; the latter, which comprises four of the
former, is a double length round the thumb to the elbow-bone, or what is
much the same, twice the circumference of the throat. Ten khete compose
the fundo or knot, which is used in the larger purchases, and of these
from two to three were daily expended in our small expenses by the
Goanese servants, whilst the usual compensation for rations to an
African is a single khete. The utmost economy should be exercised in
beads: apparently exhaustless a large store goes but a little way, and a
man’s load rarely outlasts a month. It is difficult to divine what
becomes of these ornaments: for centuries ton after ton has been
imported into the country, they are by no means perishable substances,
and the people carry, like the Indians, their wealth upon their persons.
Yet not a third of the population was observed to wear any considerable
quantity; possibly the excessive demand in the lands outlying direct
intercourse with the coast, tends to disperse them throughout the vast
terra incognita of the central African basin.
The African preserves the instincts of infancy in the higher races. He
astonished the enlightened De Gama some centuries ago by rejecting with
disdain jewels, gold, and silver, whilst he caught greedily at beads and
other baubles, as a child snatches at a new plaything. To the present
day he is the same. There is something painfully ludicrous in the
expression of countenance, the intense and all-absorbing admiration, and
the greedy wistfulness with which he contemplates the rubbish. Yet he
uses it as a toy: after sacrificing perhaps his goat or his grain to
become the happy possessor of a khete, he will hang it round his neck
for a few days, and then, child-like, weary of the acquisition, he will
do his best to exchange it for another. In all bargains beads must be
thrown in, especially where women are concerned: their sisters of
civilisation would reproach themselves with an unconscious lapse into
the “nil admirari” doctrines so hateful to the muscular system of the
age, and with a cold indifference to the charms of diamonds and pearls,
could they but witness the effect of a string of scarlet porcelains upon
the high-born dames in Central Africa.
The cloths imported into East Africa are of three kinds, Merkani,
Kaniki, and “cloths with names.”
“Merkani,” in which we detect the African corruption of American, is the
article “domestics”--unbleached shirting and sheeting from the mills
near Salem. Kaniki, is the common Indian indigo dyed cotton. “Cloths
with names,” as they are called by the Africans, are Arab and Indian
checks, and coloured goods, of cotton or silk mixed with cotton. Of
these the most common is the Barsati, a dark blue cotton cloth with a
broad red stripe, which representing the dollar in the interior is
useful as presents to chiefs. Of double value is the Dabwani, made at
Maskat, a small blue and white check, with a quarter breadth of red
stripe, crossed with white and yellow: this showy article is invariably
demanded by the more powerful Sultans for themselves and their wives,
whilst they divide the Merkani and Kaniki, which composes their
Honga--“blackmail” or dash--amongst their followers.
The people of East Africa, when first visited by the Arabs, were
satisfied with the coarsest and flimsiest Kaniki imported by the Banyans
from Cutch. When American merchants settled at Zanzibar, Kaniki yielded
before the advance of “Merkani,” which now supplies the markets from
Abyssinia to the Mozambique. But the wild men are fast losing their
predilection for a stuff which is neither comfortable nor durable, and
in many regions the tribes satisfied with goat-skins and tree barks,
prefer to invest their capital in the more attractive beads and wire. It
would evidently be advantageous if England or her colonies could
manufacture an article better suited to the wants of the country than
that now in general use; but as long as the Indian short-stapled cotton
must be used, there is little probability of her competing with the
produce of the New World.
In Eastern Africa cotton cloth is used only for wear. The popular
article is a piece of varying breadth but always of four cubits, or six
feet, in length: the braça of Portuguese Africa, it is called by the
Arabs, shukkah, by the Wasawahili, unguo, and in the far interior upande
or lupande. It is used as a loin-wrapper, and is probably the first
costume of Eastern Africa and of Arabia. The plate borrowed from
Montfaucon’s edition of the “Topographia Christiana,” by Dr. Vincent
(Part I. Appendix to the Periplus) shows the Shukkah, to be the general
dress of Ethiopians, as it was of the Egyptians, and the spear their
weapon. The use of the Shukkah during the Meccan pilgrimage, when the
devotees cast off such innovations as coats and breeches for the
national garb of their ancestors, proves its antiquity throughout the
regions eastward of the Red Sea. On the African coast the Shukkah
Merkani is worth about 0·25 dollars = 1_s._ 0½_d._, in the interior it
rises to the equivalent of a dollar (4_s._ _2d._) and even higher. The
Kaniki is but little cheaper than the Merkani, when purchased upon the
sea-board; its increase of value in the interior, however, is by no
means in proportion to its prime cost, and by some tribes it is wholly
rejected. A double length of Shukkah, or twelve feet, the article worn
by women who can afford it, is called a Doti, and corresponds with the
Tobe of Abyssinia and of the Somali country. The whole piece of Merkani,
which contains from seven to eleven Doti, is termed a Jurah or Gorah.
After beads and piece-goods, the principal imports into Eastern Africa,
especially on the northern lines and in the western portion of the great
central route, are Masango or brass wires of large sizes, Nos. 4 and 5.
They are purchased at Zanzibar, when cheap, at 12, and when dear at 16,
dollars per Frasilah of 35 lbs. When imported up-country the Frasilah is
divided into three or four large coils, called by the Arabs “daur,” and
by the Africans “khata:” the object is convenience of attachment to the
porters’ banghy-poles. Arrived at Unyanyembe they are converted by
artisans into the kitindi, or coil-bracelet, a peculiarly African
decoration. It is a system of concentric circles extending from the
wrist to the elbow; at both extremities it is made to bulge out for
grace and for allowing the joints to play; and the elasticity of the
wire keeps it in its place. It weighs nearly 3 lbs., yet--“vanity knows
no sore”--the women of some tribes will wear four of these bulky
decorations upon their arms and legs. It is mostly a feminine ornament.
In the Lake Regions, however, men assume the full-sized armlet, and in
the mountains of Usagara their wrists, arms, and ankles are often
decorated with half and quarter lengths, which being without terminal
bulges, appear to compress the limbs painfully. At Unyanyembe the value
of a kitindi varies from two to four shukkah; at Ujiji, where the
ornament is in demand it rises to four or five.
The remainder of the live stock forming the _personnel_ of the caravan
is composed of asses. At Zanzibar I had bought five riding animals to
mount the chiefs of the party, including Said bin Salim and the Goanese.
The price varied from fifteen to forty dollars. Of the twenty-nine asses
used for carriage, only twenty remained when the muster was made at
Zungomero, and the rapid thinning of their numbers by loss, death and
accident began to suggest uncomfortable ideas.
The following “Equipment of the Expedition,” sent by me to Mr. Francis
Galton, the South African traveller, and bearing date, “Camp Zungomero
in Khutu, Sunday, 2nd August, 1857,” is here republished: it will assist
the reader in picturing to himself the mass of material which I am about
to drag over the mountains.
_Provisions, &c._--1 dozen brandy (to be followed by 4 dozen more); 1
box cigars; 5 boxes tea (each 6 lbs.); a little coffee; 2 bottles curry
stuff, besides ginger, rock and common salt, red and black pepper, one
bottle each, pickles, soap, and spices; 20 lbs. pressed vegetables; 1
bottle vinegar; 2 bottles oil; 20 lbs. sugar (honey is procurable in the
country).
_Arms and Ammunition_, including 2 smooth bores, 3 rifles, a Colt’s
carbine, and 3 revolvers, spare fittings, &c., and 3 swords. Each gun
has its leather bag with three compartments, for powder-flask, ball,
caps, patches, &c. 100 lbs. gunpowder (in 2 safety copper magazines and
others); 60 lbs. shot; 380 lbs. lead bullets, cast of hardened material
at the Arsenal, Bombay, placed in boxes 40 lbs. each for convenience of
carriage, also to serve as specimen boxes, and screwed down to prevent
pilfering; 20,000 copper caps; wadding.
The Baloch are armed with matchlocks, shields, swords, daggers and
knives. They have for ammunition--40 lbs. gunpowder (4 kegs); 1000 lead
bullets; 1000 flints for slaves’ muskets, and are to be followed by
about an equal quantity of ammunition.
_Camp Furniture._--1 sepoy’s rowtie; 1 small (gable-shaped) tent of two
sails joined, to cover and shelter property in this land of perpetual
rains; 1 table and chair; 1 tin Crimean canteen, with knives and forks,
kettle, cooking-pots, &c.; bedding, painted tarpaulin cover, 2 large
cotton pillows for stuffing birds, 1 air pillow, 2 waterproof blankets
(most useful), 1 Maltese blanket (remarkably good), and 2 other
blankets; 1 cork bed, with 2 pillows, 3 blankets, and mosquito net. The
Goanese have thick cotton padded mattresses, pillows, and blankets, and
all the servants have some kind of bedding. 3 solid leather portmanteaus
for clothes and books; 1 box, like an Indian petarah, for books; 1
patent leather bag for books, washing materials, diaries, drawing-books,
&c.; 1 small couriers’ bag, for instruments, &c.; 5 canvas bags for kit
generally; 3 mats, used as carpets.
_Instruments._--1 lever watch; 2 chronometers; 2 prismatic compasses,
slings, and stands; 1 ship’s azimuth compass; 2 pocket compasses; 1
pocket thermometer; 1 portable sun-dial; 1 rain gauge; 1 evaporating
dish; 2 sextants and boxes, with canvas bags to be slung over porters’
shoulders; 2 artificial horizons (with a little extra mercury, to be
followed by more); 1 pocket lens; 1 mountain barometer lent by Bombay
Geographical Society (very delicate); 3 thermometers; 1 measuring tape
(100 ft.); 1 sounding lead; 2 boiling thermometers; 1 box of
mathematical instruments; 1 glass; 1 telescope; 2 ft. rule with brass
slide; 1 pocket pedometer by Dixie; 1 parallel ruler.
_Stationery._--Foolscap paper; 1 ream common paper; 6 blank books; 3
Letts’ diaries; 2 dozen pencils; 6 pieces caoutchouc; 6 metallic note
books; 3 memorandum ditto; 1 box wafers and sealing wax; 2 field books;
steel pens; quill ditto; ink powder which makes up well without acid; 3
bottles ink; 1 bottle native ink; 2 sets meteorological tables, blank; 4
tin cylinders for papers (very bad, everything rusts in them); Nautical
Almanacs for 1857 and 1858; charts, Mr. Cooley’s maps; “Mombas mission
map”; skeleton maps; table of stars; account book; portfolio; wooden and
tin cylinders for pens, &c.
_Tools._--1 large turnscrew; 1 hand saw; 1 hammer; 20 lbs. nails; 1 hand
vice; 1 hone; 9 hatchets (as a rule every porter carries an axe); 2
files; 9 Jembe or native hoe; 9 Mas’ha or native dibbles; 1 cold chisel;
1 heavy hammer; 1 pair pincers. To be followed by 1 bench vice; 1 hand
ditto; 12 gimlets of sizes; 1 18-inch stone grinder, with spindle and
handle; 6 splitting axes; 12 augers of sizes; 2 sets centre-bits, with
stock; 12 chisels; 4 mortise chisels; 2 sets drills; 24 saw files; 6
files of sorts; 4 gouges of sizes; 50 lbs. iron nails; 2 planes, with 2
spare irons; 3 hand saws; screws. These things were expected to be
useful at the lakes, where carpenters are in demand.
_Clothing, Bedding, and Shoes._--Shirts, flannel and cotton; turbans and
thick felt caps for the head. (N.B. not looking forward to so long a
journey, we left Zanzibar without a new outfit; consequently we were in
tatters before the end, and in a climate where flannel fights half the
battle of life against death, my companion was compelled to invest
himself in overalls of American domestics, and I was forced to cut up
blankets into coats and wrappers. The Goanese also had laden themselves
with rags which would have been refused by a Jew; they required to be
re-clothed in Kaniki, or blue cotton. African travel is no favourable
opportunity for wearing out old clothes; the thorny jungles, and the
practice of packing up clothes wet render a double outfit necessary for
long journeys. The second should be carried packed up in
tin--flannel-shirts, trousers and stocks, at least six of each,--not to
be opened till required.
The best bedding in this country would be a small horsehair mattrass
with two blankets, one thick the other thin, and mosquito curtains that
would pack into the pillow. A simple carpet-bag without leathern or
other adjuncts, should contain the travelling clothes, and all the
bedding should roll up into a single bundle, covered with a piece of
waterproof canvass, and tightly bound with stout straps.
As regards shoes, the best would be ammunition boots for walking and
jack boots for riding. They must be of light colour, and at least one
size too large in England; they should be carefully protected from
external air which is ruinous to leather, and they must be greased from
time to time,--with fat not with oil--otherwise they will soon become so
hard and dry, that it is impossible to draw them on unless treated after
the Indian plan, viz. dipped in hot water and stretched with a stuffing
of straw.)
_Books and Drawing Materials._--Norie; Bowdich; Thompson’s ‘Lunar
Tables;’ Gordon’s ‘Time Tables;’ Galton’s ‘Art of Travel;’ Buist’s
‘Manual of Observation;’ Jackson’s ‘What to Observe;’ Jackson’s
‘Military Surveying;’ ‘Admiralty Manual;’ Cuvier’s ‘Animal Life;’
Prichard’s ‘History of Man;’ Keith’s ‘Trigonometry;’ Krapf’s ‘Kisuaheli
Grammar;’ Krapf’s ‘Kinika Testament;’ Amharic Grammar (Isenberg’s);
Belcher’s ‘Mast Head Angles;’ Cooley’s ‘Geography of N’yassi;’ and other
miscellaneous works; 1 paint-box complete, soft water colours; 1 small
ditto, with Chinese ink, sepia and Prussian blue; 2 drawing books; 1
large drawing book; 1 camera lucida.
_Portable domestic Medicine Chest._--Vilely made. Some medicines for
natives in packages. Application was made to Zanzibar for more quinine,
some morphia, Warburg’s drops, citric acid, and chiretta root.
_Miscellaneous._--10 pieces scarlet broad-cloth for presents (3
expended); 3 knives for servants; 4 umbrellas; 1 hank salmon gut; 1
dozen twisted gut; 1 lb. bees’ wax; courier’s box with brass clasps to
carry sundries on the road; 2 dozen penknives; 2000 fishing hooks; 42
bundles fishing line; 2 lanterns (policeman’s bull’s eye and common
horn); 2 iron ladles for casting lead; 1 housewife, with buttons,
needles, thread, silk, pins, &c.; 12 needles (sailor’s) and palms; 2
pair scissors; 2 razors; 1 hone; 2 pipes; 1 tobacco pouch; 1 cigar case;
7 canisters of snuff; 1 filter; 1 pocket filter; 1 looking-glass; 1
small tin dressing-case, with soap, nail-brush and tooth-brush (very
useful); brushes and combs; 1 union jack; arsenical paste for specimens;
10 steels and flints.
Life at Zungomero I have said was the acme of discomfort. The weather
was, as usual at the base of the mountains, execrable; pelting showers
descended in a succession, interrupted only by an occasional burst of
fiery sunshine which extracted steam from the thick covert of grass,
bush, and tree. The party dispersing throughout the surrounding
villages, in which it was said about 1000 travellers were delayed by the
inundations, drank beer, smoked bhang, quarrelled amongst themselves,
and by their insolence and violence caused continual complaints on the
part of the villagers. Both the Goanese being prostrated with mild
modifications of “yellow jack,” I was obliged to admit them into the
hut, which was already sufficiently populated with pigeons, rats, and
flies by day, and with mosquitos, bugs, and fleas, by night. At length
weary of waiting the arrival of the twenty-two promised porters, we
prepared our papers, which I committed to the confidential slave of a
coast Diwan, here dwelling as caravan-touter, for his uncle Ukwere of
Kaole. His name was somewhat peculiar, Chomwi la Mtu Mku Wambele, or the
“Headman Great Man of Precedence;”--these little Jugurthas have all the
titles of emperors, with the actual power of country squires;--he never
allowed himself to appear in public sober, and to judge from the list of
stations with which he obliged me--of eighteen not one was correct--I
hesitated to entrust his slave with reports and specimens. But the
Headman Great Man of Precedence did as he promised to do, and as his
charge arrived safely, I here make to him the “amende honorable.”
[Illustration: A village in K’hutu.