WE SUCCEED IN TRAVERSING UGOGO.

Ugogo, the reader may remember, was the ultimate period applied to the

prospects of the Exploration by the worthy Mr. Rush Ramji, in

conversation with the respectable Ladha Damha, Collector of Customs,

Zanzibar.

I halted three days at Ugogi to recruit the party and to lay in rations

for four long desert marches. Apparently there was an abundance of

provisions, but the people at first declined to part with their grain

and cattle even at exorbitant prices, and the Baloch complained of

“cleanness of teeth.” I was visited by Ngoma Mroma, _alias_ Sultan

Makande, a diwan or headman, from Ugogo, here settled as chief, and well

known on the eastern seaboard: he came to offer his good services. But

he talked like an idiot, he begged for every article that met his eye:

and he wished me--palpably for his own benefit--to follow the most

northerly of the three routes leading to Unyamwezi, upon which there

were not less than eight “sultans” described by Kidogo as being “one

hungrier than the other.” At last, an elephant having been found dead

within his limits, he disappeared, much to my relief, for the purpose of

enjoying a gorge of elephant-beef.

Ugogi is the half-way district between the coast and Unyanyembe, and it

is usually made by up-caravans at the end of the second month. The

people of this “no man’s land” are a mongrel race: the Wasagara claim

the ground, but they have admitted as settlers many Wahehe and Wagogo,

the latter for the most part men who have left their country for their

country’s good. The plains are rich in grain, and the hills in cattle,

when not harried, as they had been, a little before our arrival, by the

Warori. The inhabitants sometimes offer for sale milk and honey, eggs

and ghee, but--only the civilised rogue can improve by adulteration--the

milk falls like water off the finger, the honey is in the red stage of

fermentation, of the eggs there are few without the rude beginnings of a

chicken, and the ghee, from long keeping, is sweet above and bitter

below. The country still contains game, kanga, or guinea-fowls, in

abundance, the ocelot, a hyrax like the coney of the Somali country, and

the beautiful “silver jackal.” The elephant and the giraffe are

frequently killed on the plains. The giraffe is called by the Arabs

Jamal el Wahshí, a translation of the Kisawahili Ngamia ya Muytu, “Camel

of the Wild,” and throughout the interior Tiga or Twiga. Their sign is

often seen in the uncultivated parts of the country; but they wander

far, and they are rarely found except by accident; the hides are

converted into shields and saddle-bags, the long tufty tails into

“chauri,” or fly-flappers, and the flesh is a favourite food. At Ugogi,

however, game has suffered from the frequent haltings of caravans, and

from the carnivorous propensities of the people, who, huntsmen all,

leave their prey no chance against their nets and arrows, their pitfalls

and their packs of yelping curs.

Ugogi stands 2760 feet above sea level, and its climate, immediately

after the raw cold of Usagara, pleases by its elasticity and by its dry

healthy warmth. The nights are fresh and dewless, and the rays of a

tropical sun are cooled by the gusts and raffales which, regularly as

the land and sea-breezes of the coast, sweep down the sinuosities of

Dungomaro. As our “gnawing stomachs” testified, the air of Usagara had

braced our systems. My companion so far recovered health that he was

able to bring home many a brace of fine partridge, and of the fat

guinea-fowl that, clustering upon the tall trees, awoke the echoes of

the rocks as they called for their young. The Baloch, the sons of Ramji,

and the porters began to throw off the effects of the pleurisies and the

other complaints, which they attributed to hardship and exposure on the

mountain-tops. The only obstinate invalids were the two Goanese. Gaetano

had another attack of the Mukunguru, or seasoning fever, which, instead

of acclimatising his constitution, seemed by ever increasing weakness

and depression, to pave the way for a fresh visitation. Valentine, with

flowing eyes, pathetically pointed to two indurations in his gastric

region, and bewailed his hard fate in thus being torn from the

dearly-loved shades of Panjim and Margão, to fatten the inhospitable

soil of Central Africa.

Immediately before departure, when almost in despair at the rapid

failure of our carriage--the asses were now reduced to nine--I

fortunately secured, for the sum of four cloths per man, the services of

fifteen Wanyamwezi porters. In all a score, they had left at Ugogi their

Mtongi, or employer, in consequence of a quarrel concerning _the_ sex.

They dreaded forcible seizure and sale if found without protection

travelling homewards through Ugogo; and thus they willingly agreed to

carry our goods as far as their own country, Unyanyembe. Truly is

travelling like campaigning,--a pennyweight of luck is better than a

talent of all the talents! And if marriages, as our fathers used to say,

are made in the heavens, the next-door manufactory must be devoted to

the fabrication of African explorations. Notwithstanding, however, the

large increase of conveyance, every man appeared on the next march more

heavily laden than before:--they carried grain for six days, and water

for one night.

From Ugogi to the Ziwa or Pond, the eastern limits of Ugogo, are four

marches, which, as they do not supply provisions, and as throughout the

dry season water is found only in one spot, are generally accomplished

in four days. The lesser desert, between Ugogi and Ugogo, is called

Marenga M’khali, or the Brackish Water: it must not be confounded with

the district of Usagara bearing the same name.

We left Ugogi on the 22nd September, at 3 P.M., instead of at noon. As

all the caravan hurried recklessly forward, I brought up the rear

accompanied by Said bin Salim, the Jemadar, and several of the sons of

Ramji, who insisted upon driving the asses for greater speed at a long

trot, which, after lasting a hundred yards, led to an inevitable fall of

the load. Before emerging from Ugogi, the road wound over a grassy

country, thickly speckled with calabashes. Square Tembe appeared on both

sides, and there was no want of flocks and herds. As the villages and

fields were left behind, the land became a dense thorny jungle, based

upon a sandy red soil. The horizon was bounded on both sides by

gradually-thinning lines of lumpy outlying hill, the spurs of the Rubeho

Range, that extended, like a scorpion’s claws, westward; and the plain,

gently falling in the same direction, was broken only by a single

hill-shoulder and by some dwarf descents. As we advanced through the

shades--a heavy cloud-bank had shut out the crescent moon--our

difficulties increased; thorns and spiky twigs threatened the eyes; the

rough and rugged road led to many a stumble, and the frequent whine of

the cynhyæna made the asses wild with fear. None but Bombay came out to

meet us; the porters were overpowered by their long march under the

fiery sun. About 8 P.M., directed by loud shouts and flaring fires, we

reached a kraal, a patch of yellow grass, offering clear room in the

thorny thicket. That night was the perfection of a bivouac, cool from

the vicinity of the hills, genial from their shelter, and sweet as

forest-air in these regions ever is.

On the next day we resumed our labour betimes: for a dreary and thirsty

stage lay before us. Toiling through the sunshine of the hot waste I

could not but remark the strange painting of the land around. At a

distance the plain was bright-yellow with stubble, and brown-black with

patches of leafless wintry jungle based upon a brick-dust soil. A closer

approach disclosed colours more vivid and distinct. Over the ruddy plain

lay scattered untidy heaps of grey granite boulders, surrounded and

capped by tufts of bleached white grass. The copse showed all manner of

strange hues, calabashes purpled and burnished by sun and rain, thorns

of a greenish coppery bronze, dead trees with trunks of ghastly white,

and gums (the blue-gum tree of the Cape?) of an unnatural sky-blue, the

effect of the yellow outer pellicle being peeled off by the burning

rays, whilst almost all were reddened up to a man’s height, by the

double galleries, ascending and descending, of the white ants. Here too,

I began to appreciate the extent of the nuisance, thorns. Some were soft

and green, others a finger long, fine, straight and woody--they serve as

needles in many parts of the country--one, a “corking pin,” bore at its

base a filbert-like bulge, another was curved like a cock’s spur; the

double thorns, placed dos-à-dos, described by travellers in Abyssinia

and in the Cape Karroos, were numerous, the “wait-a-bit,” a dwarf

sharply bent spine with acute point and stout foundation, and a smaller

variety, short and deeply crooked, numerous and tenacious as fish-hooks,

tore without difficulty the strongest clothing, even our woollen Arab

“Abas,” and our bed-covers of painted canvas.

Travelling through this broom-jungle and crossing grassy plains, over

paths where the slides of elephants’ feet upon the last year’s muddy

clay showed that the land was not always dry, we halted after 11 A.M.

for about an hour at the base of a steep incline, apparently an offset

from the now distant Rubeho Range. The porters would have nighted at the

mouth of a small drain which, too steep for ascent, exposed in its rocky

bed occasional sand-patches and deep pools; Kidogo, however, forced them

forwards, declaring that if the asses drank of this “brackish water,”

they would sicken and die. His assertion, suspected of being a

“traveller’s tale,” was subsequently confirmed by the Arabs of

Unyanyembe, who declared that the country people never water their

flocks and herds below the hill; there may be poisonous vegetation in

the few yards between the upper and the lower pools, but no one offered

any explanation of the phenomenon.

Ascending with difficulty the eastern face of the step, which presented

two ladders of loose stones and fixed boulders of grey syenite,

hornblende, and greenstone, with coloured quartzes, micacious schistes,

and layers of talcose slate glittering like mother-o’-pearl upon the

surface, we found a half-way platform some 150 feet of extreme breadth.

Upon its sloping and irregular floor, black-green pools, sadly offensive

to more senses than one, spring-fed, and forming the residue of the

rain-water which fills the torrent, lay in muddy holes broadly fringed

with silky grass. Travellers drink without fear this upper Marenga

Mk’hali, which, despite its name, is rather soft and slimy, than

brackish, and sign of wild-beasts--antelope and buffalo, giraffe and

rhinoceros--appear upon its brink. It sometimes dries up in the heart of

the hot season, and then deaths from thirst occur amongst the porters

who, mostly Wanyanwezi, are not wont to practise abstinence in this

particular. “Sucking-places” are unknown to them, water-bearing bulbs

might here be discovered by the South African traveller; as a rule,

however, the East African is so plentifully supplied with the necessary

that he does not care to provide for a dry day by unusual means.

Ascending another steep incline we encamped upon a small step, the

half-way gradient of a higher level.

The 24th Sept. was to be a tirikeza: the Baloch and the sons of Ramji

spent the earlier half in blowing away gunpowder at antelope, partridge

and parrot, guinea-fowl and floriken, but not a head of game found its

way into camp. The men were hot, tired and testy, those who had wives

beat them, those who had not “let off the steam” by quarreling with one

another. Said bin Salim, sick and surly, had words concerning a

water-gourd with the brave Khudabakhsh, and the monocular Jemadar, who

made a point of overloading his porters, bitterly complained because

they would not serve him. At 2 P.M. we climbed up the last ladder of the

rough and stony incline, which placed us a few hundred feet above the

eastern half of the Lesser Desert. We took a pleasant leave of the last

of the rises; on this line of road, between Marenga Mk’hali and Western

Unyamwezi, the land, though rolling, has no steep ascents nor descents.

From the summit of the Marenga Mk’hali step we travelled till

sunset--the orb of day glaring like a fireball in our faces,--through

dense thorny jungle and over grassy plains of black, cracked earth, in

places covered with pebbles and showing extensive traces of shallow

inundations during the rains; in the lower lands huge blocks of

weathered granite stood out abruptly from the surface, and on both

sides, but higher on the right hand, rose blue cones, some single,

others in pairs like “brothers.” The caravan once rested in a thorny

coppice, based upon rich red and yellow clay whence it was hurriedly

dislodged by a swarm of wild bees. As the sun sank below the horizon the

porters called a halt on a calabash-grown plain, near a block of stony

hill veiled with cactus and mimosa, below whose northern base ran a

tree-lined Nullah where, they declared, from the presence of antelope

and other game, that water might be found by digging. Vainly Kidogo

urged them forwards declaring that they would fail to reach the Ziwa or

Pond in a single march; they preferred “crowing” and scooping up sand

till midnight to advancing a few miles, and some gourdsfull of dirty

liquid rewarded their industry.

On the morning of the 26th of September, I learned that we had sustained

an apparently irreparable loss. When the caravan was dispersed by bees,

a porter took the opportunity of deserting. This man, who represented

himself as desirous of rejoining at Unyamyembe, his patron Abdullah bin

Musa, the son of the well-known Indian merchant, had been engaged for

four cloths by Said bin Salim at Ugogi. The Arab with his usual

after-wit found out, when the mishap was announced, that he had from the

first doubted and disliked the man so much that he had paid down only

half the hire. Yet to the new porter had been committed the most

valuable of our packages, a portmanteau containing the Nautical Almanac

for 1858, the surveying books, and most of our paper, pens and ink. Said

bin Salim, however, was hardly to be blamed, his continual quarrels with

the Baloch and the sons of Ramji absorbed all his thoughts. Although the

men were unanimous in declaring that the box never could be recovered, I

sent back Bombay Mabruki and the slave Ambari with particular directions

to search the place where we had been attacked by bees; it was within

three miles, but, as the road was deemed dangerous, the three worthies

preferred passing a few quiet hours in some snug neighbouring spot.

At 1.30 P.M. much saddened by the disaster, we resumed our road and

after stretching over a monotonous grassy plain variegated with dry

thorny jungle, we arrived about sunset at a waterless kraal where we

determined to pass the night. Our supplies of liquid ran low, the

Wanyamwezi porters, who carried our pots and gourds, had drained them on

the way, and without drink an afternoon-march in this droughthy land

destroys all appetite for supper. Some of the porters presently set out

to fill their gourds with the waters of the Ziwa, thence distant but a

few miles; they returned after a four hours’ absence with supplies which

restored comfort and good humour to the camp.

Before settling for the night Kidogo stood up, and to loud cries of

“Maneno! maneno!”--words! words!--equivalent to our parliamentary hear!

hear! delivered himself of the following speech:--

“Listen, O ye whites! and ye children of Sayyidi Majidi! and ye sons of

Ramji! hearken to my words, O ye offspring of the night! The journey

entereth Ugogo--Ugogo (the orator threw out his arm westward). Beware,

and again beware (he made violent gesticulations). You don’t know the

Wagogo, they are ----s and ----s! (he stamped.) Speak not to those

Washenzi pagans; enter not into their houses (he pointed grimly to the

ground). Have no dealings with them, show no cloth, wire, nor beads

(speaking with increasing excitement). Eat not with them, drink not with

them, and make not love to their women (here the speech became a

scream). Kirangozi of the Wanyamwezi, restrain your sons! Suffer them

not to stray into the villages, to buy salt out of camp, to rob

provisions, to debauch with beer, or to sit by the wells!” And thus, for

nearly half an hour, now violently, then composedly, he poured forth the

words of wisdom, till the hubbub and chatter of voices which at first

had been silenced by surprise, brought his eloquence to an end.

We left the jungle-kraal early on the 26th September, and after hurrying

through thick bush we debouched upon an open stubbly plain, with herds

of gracefully bounding antelopes and giraffes, who stood for a moment

with long outstretched necks to gaze, and presently broke away at a

rapid, striding, camel’s-trot, their heads shaking as if they would jerk

off, their limbs loose, and their joints apparently dislocated. About 9

P.M. we sighted the much-talked of Ziwa. The Arabs, fond of “showing a

green garden,” had described to me at Inenge a piece of water fit to

float a man-of-war. But Kidogo, when consulted, had replied simply with

the Kisawahili proverb, “Khabari ya mb’hali;” _i. e._, “news from

afar;”--_a beau mentir qui vient de loin_. I was not therefore surprised

to find a shallow pool, which in India would barely merit the name of

tank.

The Ziwa, which lies 3,100 feet above the sea, occupies the lowest

western level of Marenga Mk’háli, and is the deepest of the many

inundated grounds lying to its north, north-east, and north-west. The

extent greatly varies: in September, 1857, it was a slaty sheet of

water, with granite projections on one side, and about 300 yards in

diameter; the centre only could not be forded. The bottom and the banks

were of retentive clay: a clear ring, whence the waters had subsided,

margined the pool, and beyond it lay a thick thorny jungle. In early

December, 1858, nothing remained but a surface of dry, crumbling, and

deeply-cracked mud, and, according to travellers, it had long, in

consequence of the scanty rains, been in that state. Caravans always

encamp at the Ziwa when they find water there. The country around is

full of large game, especially elephants, giraffes, and zebras, who come

to drink at night; a few widgeon are seen breasting the little waves;

“kata” (sand-grouse), of peculiarly large size and dark plumage, flock

there with loud cries; and at eventide the pool is visited by

guinea-fowl, floriken, curlews, peewits, wild pigeons, doves, and hosts

of small birds. When the Ziwa is desiccated, travellers usually encamp

in a thick bush, near a scanty clearing, about one mile to the

north-west, where a few scattered villages of Wagogo have found dirty

white water, hard and bad, in pits varying from twenty to thirty feet in

depth. Here, as elsewhere in eastern Africa, the only trough is a small

ring sunk in the retentive clayey soil, and surrounded by a little

raised dam of mud and loose stones. A demand is always made for

according permission to draw water--a venerable custom, dating from the

days of Moses. “Ye shall buy meat of them (the Edomites) for money, that

ye may eat; and ye shall also buy water of them for money, that ye may

drink.”--Deut. ii. 6. Yet as thirsty, like hungry men, are not to be

trifled with, fatal collisions have resulted from this inhospitable

practice. Some years ago a large caravan of Wanyamwezi was annihilated

in consequence of a quarrel about water, and lately several deaths

occurred in a caravan led by an Arab merchant, Sallum bin Hamid, because

the wells were visited before the rate of payment was settled. In

several places we were followed upon the march lest a gourd might be

furtively filled. To prevent exhaustion the people throw euphorbia,

asclepias, and solanaceous plants into the well after a certain hour,

and when not wanted it is bushed over, to keep off animals, and to check

evaporation.

At the Ziwa the regular system of kuhonga, or blackmail, so much dreaded

by travellers, begins in force. Up to this point all the chiefs are

contented with little presents; but in Ugogo tribute is taken by force,

if necessary. None can evade payment; the porters, fearing lest the road

be cut off to them in future, would refuse to travel unless each chief

is satisfied; and when a quarrel arises they throw down their packs and

run away. Ugogo, since the closing of the northern line through the

Wahumba and the Wamasai tribes, and the devastation of the southern

regions by the Warori, is the only open line, and the sultans have

presumed upon their power of stopping the way. There is no regular

tariff of taxes: the sum is fixed by the traveller’s dignity and outfit,

which, by means of his slaves, are as well known to every sultan as to

himself. Properly speaking, the exaction should be confined to the

up-caravans; from those returning a head or two of cattle, a few hoes,

or some similar trifle, are considered ample. Such, however, was not the

experience of the Expedition. When first travelling through the country

the “Wazungu” were sometimes mulcted to the extent of fifty cloths by a

single chief, and the Arabs congratulated them upon having escaped so

easily. On their downward march they pleaded against a second demand as

exorbitant as the first, adducing the custom of caravans, who are seldom

mulcted in more than two cows or a pair of jembe, or iron hoes; the

chiefs, however, replied that as they never expected to see white faces

again, it was their painful duty to make the most from them.

The kuhonga, however, is not unjust. In these regions it forms the

customs-dues of the government: the sultan receives it nominally, but he

must distribute the greater part amongst his family and councillors, his

elders and attendants. It takes the place of the fees expected by the

Balderabba of the Abyssinians, the Mogasa of the Gallas, the Abban of

the Somal, and the Ghafir and Rafik amongst the Bedouin Arabs, which are

virtually assertions of supremacy upon their own ground. These people

have not the idea which seems prevalent in the south, namely, that any

man has a right to tread God’s earth gratis as long as he does not

interfere with property. If any hesitation about the kuhonga be made,

the first question put to the objector will be, “Is this your ground or

my ground?” The practice, which is sanctioned by the customs of

civilised nations, is, however, vitiated in East Africa by the

slave-trade: it becomes the means of intrusion and extortion, of

insolence and violence. The Wagogo are an importing people, and they see

with envy long strings of what they covet passing through their

territory from the interior to the coast. They are strong enough to

plunder any caravan; but violence they know would injure them by cutting

off communication with the markets for their ivory. Thus they have

settled into a silent compromise, and their nice sense of self-interest

prevents any transgression beyond the bounds of reason. The sultans

receive their kuhonga, and the subjects entice away slaves from every

caravan, but the enormous interest upon capital laid out in the trade

still leaves a balance in favour of the merchants. The Arabs, however,

declaring that the evil is on the increase, propose many remedies--such

as large armed caravans, sent by their government, and heavy dues to be

exacted from those Wagogo who may visit the coast. But they are wise

enough to murmur without taking steps which would inevitably exacerbate

the evil. Should it pass a certain point, a new road will be opened, or

the old road will be reopened, to restore the balance of interests.

At the Ziwa we had many troubles. One Marema, the sultan of a new

settlement situated a few hundred yards to the north-west visited us on

the day of our arrival and reproving us for “sitting in the jungle,”

pointed out the way to his village. On our replying that we were about

to traverse Ugogo by another route, he demanded his Ada or customs,

which being newly-imposed were at once refused by Kidogo. The sultan, a

small man, a “mere thief,”--as a poor noble is graphically described in

these lands,--threatened violence, whereupon the asses were brought in

from grazing and were ostentatiously loaded before his eyes: when he

changed his tone from threats to beggary. Kidogo relenting gave him two

cloths with a few strings of beads, preferring this slender disbursement

to the chance of a flight of arrows during the night. His good judgment

was evidenced by the speedy appearance of the country-people, who

brought with them bullocks, sheep, goats and poultry, water-melons and

pumpkins, honey, butter-milk, whey and curded-milk, an abundance of

holcus and calabash-flour. The latter is made from the hard dry pulp

surrounding the bean-like seed contained in the ripe gourd: the taste is

a not unpleasant agro-dolce, and the people declare it to be

strengthening food, especially for children; they convert it into

porridge and rude cakes.

This abundance of provaunt caused a halt of four days at the Ziwa, and

it was spent in disputes between the great Said and the greater Kidogo.

The ostensible “bone of contention,” was cloth advanced by the former to

the porters--who claimed as their perquisite a bullock before entering

Ugogo--without consulting the hard-headed slave, who wounded in his

tenderest place of pride, had influence enough to halt the caravan. The

real cause of the dispute was kept from my ears till some months

afterwards, but secrets in this land are as the Arabs say, “Like musk,

murder, and Basrah-garlic,” they must out, and Bombay, who could never

help blurting forth the tacenda with the dicenda, at last accidentally

unveiled the mystery. Said had deferred taking overcharge of the outfit

from Kidogo till our arrival at the Ziwa, and the latter felt aggrieved

by the sudden yet tardy demand, which deprived him of the dignity and

the profits of stewardship. Sickness became rife in camp, the effect of

the cold night-winds and the burning suns, and as usual when men are

uncomfortable violent quarrels ensued. Again the officious Wazira, shook

the torch of discord by ordering Khamisi, an exceedingly drunken and

debauched son of Ramji, to carry certain bundles which usually graced

the shoulders of Goha, one of the Wak’hutu porters. When words were

exhausted Khamisi drew his blade upon Goha and was tackled by Wazira,

whilst Goha brought the muzzle of my elephant-gun to bear upon Khamisi

and was instantly collared by Bombay. Being thus “in chancery” both

heroes waxed so “exceedingly brave--particular,” that I was compelled to

cool their noble bile with a long pole. At length it became necessary to

make Kidogo raise his veto against the advance of the caravan. He did

not appear before me till summoned half-a-dozen times: when he at last

vouchsafed so to do I dragged rather than led him to the mat, where sat

in surly pride Said bin Salim, with the monocular Jemadar, and I ordered

the trio to quench with the waters of explanation the fire of anger.

After an apparently satisfactory arrangement Kidogo started up and

disappeared in the huts of his men; it presently proved that he had so

done for the purpose of proposing to his party, who were now the sole

interpreters, that to Said bin Salim, an ignoramus in such matters,

should be committed the weighty task of settling the amount of our

blackmail and presents with the greedy chiefs of Ugogo. Had the

mischievous project been carried into execution, we should have been

sufferers to some extent: lack of unanimity however caused the measure

to be thrown out. A march was fixed for the next day, when the bullock,

on this occasion the scape-grace, broke its tether and plunged into the

bush: it was followed by the Baloch and the porters, whose puny arrows,

when they alighted upon the beast’s stern, only goaded it forwards, and

at least threescore matchlock balls were discharged before one bullet

found its billet in the fugitive. The camp of course then demanded

another holiday to eat beef.

The reader must not imagine that I am making a “great cry,” about a

little matter. Four days are not easily spent when snowed-up in a

country inn, and that is a feeble comparison for the halt in East

Africa, where outfit is leaking away, the valuable travelling-time is

perhaps drawing to a close, health is palpably failing, and nothing but

black faces made blacker still by ill-humour and loud squabbles, meet

the eye and ear. Insignificant things they afterwards appear viewed

through the medium of memory, these petty annoyances of travel; yet at

the moment they are severely felt, and they must be resented

accordingly. The African traveller’s fitness for the task of exploration

depends more upon his faculty of chafing under delays and kicking

against the pricks, than upon his power of displaying the patience of a

Griselda or a Job.

On the 30th September, the last day of our detention at the Jiwa,

appeared a large caravan headed by Said bin Mohammed of Mbuamaji, with

Khalfan bin Khamis, and several other Coast-Arabs. They brought news

from the sea-board, and,--wondrous good fortune!--the portmanteau

containing books which the porter, profiting by the confusion caused by

the swarm of bees, had deposited in the long grass, at the place where I

had directed the slaves to seek it. Some difficulty was at first made

about restitution: the Arab law of “lakit,” or things trove, being

variable, complicated, and altogether opposed to our ideas. However, two

cloths were given to the man who had charge of it, and the Jemadar and

Said bin Salim were sent to recover it by any or all means. The

merchants were not offended. They consented to sell for the sum of

thirty-five dollars a strong and serviceable but an old and obstinate

African ass, which after carrying my companion for many a mile, at last

broke its heart when toiling up the steeps from whose summit the fair

waters of the Central Lake were first sighted. Moreover, they proposed

that for safety and economy the two caravans should travel together

under a single flag, and thus combine to form a total of 190 men. These

Coast-Arabs travelled in comfort. The brother of Said Mohammed had

married the daughter of Fundikira, Sultan of Unyanyembe, and thus the

family had a double home, on the coast and in the interior. All the

chiefs of the caravan carried with them wives and female slaves, negroid

beauties, tall, bulky and “plenty of them,” attired in tulip-hues,

cochineal and gamboge, who walked the whole way, and who when we passed

them displayed an exotic modesty by drawing their head-cloths over

cheeks which we were little ambitious to profane. They had a multitude

of Fundi, or managing men, and male slaves, who bore their personal bag

and baggage, scrip and scrippage, drugs and comforts, stores and

provisions, and who were always early at the ground to pitch, to

surround with a “pai,” or dwarf drain, and to bush for privacy, with

green boughs, their neat and light ridge-tents of American domestics.

Their bedding was as heavy as ours, and even their poultry travelled in

wicker cages. This caravan was useful to us in dealing with the Wagogo:

it always managed, however, to precede us on the march, and to

monopolise the best kraals. The Baloch and the sons of Ramji, when asked

on these occasions why they did not build a palisade, would reply

theatrically, “Our hearts are our fortification!”--methought a sorry

defence.

By Kidogo’s suggestion I had preferred the middle line through the

hundred miles of dreaded Ugogo: it was the beaten path, and infested

only by four Sultans, namely: 1. Myandozi of Kifukuru. 2. Magomba of

Kanyenye. 3. Maguru-Mafupi of K’hok’ho; and 4. Kibuya of Mdaburu. On the

1st October, 1857, we left the Ziwa late in the morning, and after

passing through the savannahs and the brown jungles of the lower levels,

where giraffe again appeared, the path crested a wave of ground and

debouched upon the table-land of Ugogo. The aspect was peculiar and

unprepossessing. Behind still towered in sight the Delectable Mountains

of Usagara, mist-crowned and robed in the lightest azure, with streaks

of a deep plum-colour, fronting the hot low land of Marenga Mk’hali,

whose tawny face was wrinkled with lines of dark jungle. On the north

was a tabular range of rough and rugged hill, above which rose three

distant cones pointed out as the haunts of the robber Wahumba: at its

base was a deep depression, a tract of brown brush patched with yellow

grass, inhabited only by the elephant, and broken by small outlying

hillocks. Southwards scattered eminences of tree-crowned rock rose a few

yards from the plain which extended to the front, a clearing of deep red

or white soil, decayed vegetation based upon rocky or sandy ground, here

and there thinly veiled with brown brush and golden stubbles: its

length, about four miles, was studded with square villages, and with the

stately but grotesque calabash. This giant is to the vegetable what the

elephant is to the animal world:--the Persians call it the

“practice-work of nature”--its disproportionate conical bole rests upon

huge legs exposed to view by the washing away of the soil, and displays

excrescences which in pious India would merit a coat of vermilion. From

the neck extend gigantic gnarled arms, each one a tree, whose thinnest

twig is thick as a man’s finger, and their weight causes them to droop

earthwards, giving to the outline the shape of a huge dome. In many

parts the unloveliness of its general appearance is varied by the

wrinkles and puckerings which, forming by granulation upon the oblongs

where the bark has been removed for fibre, give the base the appearance

of being chamfered and fluted; and often a small family of trunks, four

or five in number, springs from the same root. At that season all were

leafless; at other times they are densely foliaged, and contrasting with

their large timber and with their coarse fleshy leaf, they are adorned

with the delicatest flowers of a pure virgin-white, which, opening at

early dawn, fade and fall before eventide. The babe-tree issues from the

ground about one foot in diameter: in Ugogo, however, all those observed

were of middle age. The young are probably grubbed up to prevent their

encumbering the ground, and when decayed enough to be easily felled,

they are converted into firewood. By the side of these dry and leafless

masses of dull dead hue, here and there a mimosa or a thorn was

beginning to bear the buds of promise green as emeralds. The sun burned

like the breath of a bonfire, a painful glare--the reflection of the

terrible crystal above,--arose from the hot earth; warm Siroccos raised

clouds of dust, and in front the horizon was so distant, that, as the

Arabs expressed themselves, “a man might be seen three marches off.”

We were received with the drumming and the ringing of bells attached to

the ivories, with the yells and frantic shouts of two caravans halted at

Kifukuru: one was that of Said Mohammed, who awaited our escort, the

other a return “Safari,” composed of about 1,000 Wanyamwezi porters,

headed by four slaves of Salim bin Rashid, an Arab merchant settled at

Unyanyembe. The country people also flocked to stare at the phenomenon;

they showed that excitement which some few years ago might have been

witnessed in more polished regions when a “horrible murder” roused every

soul from Tweed banks to Land’s End; when, to gratify a morbid

destructiveness, artists sketched, literati described, tourists visited,

and curio-hunters met to bid for the rope and the murderer’s whiskers.

Yet I judged favourably of the Wagogo by their curiosity, which stood

out in strong relief against the apathy and the uncommunicativeness of

the races lately visited. Such inquisitiveness is amongst barbarians

generally a proof of improvability,--of power to progress. One man who

had visited Zanzibar could actually speak a few words of Hindostani, and

in Ugogo, and there only, I was questioned by the chiefs concerning

Uzungu “White-land,” the mysterious end of the world in which beads are

found under ground, and where the women weave such cottons. From the day

of our entering to that of our leaving the country, every settlement

turned out its swarm of gazers, men and women, boys and girls, some of

whom would follow us for miles with explosions of Hi!--i!--i! screams of

laughter and cries of excitement, at a long high trot,--most ungraceful

of motion!--and with a scantiness of toilette which displayed truly

unseemly spectacles. The matrons, especially the aged matrons, realised

Madame Pernelle’s description of an unpleasant female--

“Un peu trop forte en gueule et fort impertinente;”

and of their sex the old men were ever the most pertinacious and

intrusive, the most surly and quarrelsome. Vainly the escort attempted

to arrest the course of this moving multitude of semi-nude barbarity. I

afterwards learned that the two half-caste Arabs who had passed us at

Muhama, Khalfan and Id, the sons of Muallim Salim of Zanzibar, had,

whilst preceding us, spread through Ugogo malevolent reports concerning

the Wazungu. They had one eye each and four arms; they were full of

“knowledge,” which in these lands means magic; they caused rain to fall

in advance and left droughts in their rear; they cooked water melons and

threw away the seeds, thereby generating small-pox; they heated and

hardened milk, thus breeding a murrain amongst cattle; and their wire,

cloth, and beads caused a variety of misfortunes; they were kings of the

sea, and therefore white-skinned and straight-haired--a standing mystery

to these curly-pated people--as are all men who live in salt water; and

next year they would return and seize the country. Suspicion of our

intentions touching “territorial aggrandisement” was a fixed idea:

everywhere the value attached by barbarians to their homes is in inverse

ratio to the real worth of the article. Hence mountaineers are

proverbially patriotic. Thus the lean Bedouins of Arabia and the lank

Somal, though they own that they are starving, never sight a stranger

without suspecting that he is spying out the wealth of the land. “What

will happen to us?” asked the Wagogo; “we never yet saw this manner of

man!” But the tribe cannot now forfeit intercourse with the coast: they

annoyed us to the utmost, they made the use of their wells a daily

source of trouble, they charged us double prices, and when they brought

us provisions for sale, they insisted upon receiving the price of even

the rejected articles; yet they did not proceed to open outrage. Our

timid Arab, the Baloch, the sons of Ramji, and the porters humoured them

in every whim. Kidogo would not allow observations to be taken with a

bright sextant in presence of the mobility. He declined to clear the

space before the tent, as the excited starers, some of whom had come

from considerable distances, were apt under disappointment to wax

violent; and though he once or twice closed the tent-flaps, he would not

remove the lines of men, women, and children, who stretched themselves

for the greater convenience of peeping and peering, lengthways upon the

ground. Whenever a Mnyamwezi porter interfered, he was arrogantly told

to begone, and he slunk away, praying us to remember that these men are

“Wagogo.” Caravan after caravan had thus taught them to become bullies,

whereas a little manliness would soon have reduced them to their proper

level. They are neither brave nor well-armed, and their prestige rests

solely upon their feat in destroying about one generation ago a caravan

of Wanyamwezi--an event embalmed in a hundred songs and traditions. They

seemed to take a fancy to the Baloch, who received from the fair sex

many a little souvenir in the shape of a kid or a water-melon. Whenever

the Goanese Valentine was sent to a village he was politely and

hospitably welcomed, and seated upon a three-legged stool by the

headman; and generally the people agreed in finding fault with their

principal Sultans, declaring that they unwisely made the country hateful

to “Wakonongo,” or travellers. Fortunately for the Expedition several

scions of the race saw the light safely during our transit of Ugogo: had

an accident occurred to a few babies or calves, our return through the

country would have been difficult and dangerous. All received the name

of “Muzungu,” and thus there must now be a small colony of black “white

men” in this part of the African interior.

At Kifukuru I was delayed a day whilst settling the blackmail of its

Sultan Miyandozi. Said bin Salim, the Jemadar, and Kidogo called upon

him in the morning and were received in the gateway of a neat “Tembe,”

the great man disdaining to appear on so trivial an occasion. This

Sultan is the least powerful of the four; he is plundered by the Warori

tribes living to the south-west, and by his western neighbour, Magomba;

his subjects are poorly clad, and are little ornamented compared with

those occupying the central regions, where they have the power to detain

travellers and to charge them exorbitantly for grain and water. Yet

Miyandozi demanded four white and six blue shukkahs; besides which I was

compelled to purchase for him from the sons of Ramji, who of course

charged treble its value, a “Sohari” or handsome silk and cotton

loin-cloth. In return he sent--it appeared to be in irony--one kayla, or

four small measures of grain. The slaves of Salim bin Rashid obliged me

with a few pounds of rice, for which I gave them a return in gunpowder,

and they undertook to convey to Zanzibar a package of reports, indents,

and letters, which was punctually delivered. An ugly accident had nearly

happened that night; the Wanyamwezi porters managed to fire the grass

round a calabash tree, against which they had stretched their loads, and

a powder-magazine--fortunately fire-proof--was blackened and charred by

the flames. A traveller cannot be too careful about his ammunition in

these lands. I have seen a slave smoking a water pipe, tied for

convenience of carriage to a leaky keg of powder; and another in the

caravan of Salim bin Sayf of Dut’humi, resting the muzzle of his musket

against a barrel of ammunition, fired it to try its strength, and blew

himself up with several of his comrades.

On the 3rd October we quitted Kifukuru in the afternoon, and having

marched nearly six hours we encamped in one of the strips of waterless

brown jungles which throughout Ugogo divide the cultivated districts

from one another, and occupy about half the superficies of the land. The

low grounds, inundated during the rains, were deeply cracked, and my

weak ass, led by the purblind Shahdad, fell with violence upon my knee,

leaving a mixture of pain and numbness which lasted for some months. On

the next day we resumed our journey betimes through a thick rugged

jungle and over a rolling grassy plain, which extended to the frontier

of Kanyenye, where Sultan Magomba rules. The 5th October saw us in the

centre of Kanyenye, a clearing about ten miles in diameter. The surface

is a red tamped clayey soil, dotted with small villages, huge

calabashes, and stunted mimosas; water is found in wells or rather pits

sunk from ten to twelve feet in the lower lands, or in the sandy beds of

the several Fiumaras. Flocks and herds abound, and the country is as

cultivated and populous as the saline nitrous earth, and the scarceness

of the potable element, which often tarnishes silver like sulphur-fumes,

permits.

At Kanyenye I was delayed four days to settle blackmail with Magomba,

the most powerful of the Wagogo chiefs. He was on this, as on a

subsequent occasion, engaged in settling a cause arising from Uchawi or

Black Magic; yet all agree that in Ugogo, where, to quote the “Royal

Martyr’s” words,

“Plunder and murder are the kingdom’s laws,”

there is perhaps less of wizardhood and witchcraft, and consequently

less of its normal consequences, fiscs and massacres, than in any other

region between the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean. “Arrow-heads” employed

every art of wild diplomacy to relieve me of as much cloth as possible.

I received, when encamped at the Ziwa, a polite message declaring his

desire to see white men; but--“the favour of the winds produces dust”--I

was obliged to acknowledge the compliment with two cottons. On arrival

at his head-quarters I was waited upon by an oily cabinet of Wazirs and

elders, who would not depart without their “respects”--four cottons. The

next demand was made by his favourite wife, a peculiarly hideous old

princess with more wrinkles than hairs, with no hair black and no tooth

white, and attended by ladies in waiting as unprepossessing as herself:

she was not to be dismissed without a fee of six cottons. At last,

accompanied by a mob of courtiers, who crowded in like an African House

of Commons, appeared in person the magnifico. He was the only Sultan

that ever entered my tent in Ugogo--pride and a propensity for strong

drink prevented other visits. He was much too great a man to call upon

the Arab merchants, but in our case curiosity had mastered state

considerations. Magomba was a black and wrinkled elder, drivelling and

decrepid, with a half-bald head from whose back and sides depended a few

straggling corkscrews of iron gray: he wore a coat of castor-oil and a

“Barsati” loin-cloth, which grease and use had changed from blue to

black. A few bead strings decorated his neck, large flexible anklets of

brass wire adorned his legs, solid brass rings, single and in coils,

which had distended his earlobes almost to splitting, were tied by a

string over his cranium, and his horny soles were defended by

single-soled sandals, old, dirty, and tattered. He chewed his quid and

he expectorated without mercy; he asked many a silly question, yet he

had ever an eye to the main chance. He demanded and received five

“cloths with names,” which I was again compelled to purchase at an

exorbitant price from the Baloch and slaves, one coil of brass wire,

four blue cottons, and ten “domestics;” the total amounted to fifty

shukkahs, here worth at least fifty dollars, and exhausting nearly

two-thirds of a porter’s load. His return present was the leanest of

calves; when it was driven into camp with much parade, his son, who had

long been looking out for a fit opportunity, put in a claim for three

cottons.

Magomba before our departure exacted from Kidogo an oath that his

Wazungu would not smite the land with drought or with fatal disease,

declaring that all we had was in his hands. He boasted, and with truth,

of his generosity. It was indeed my firm conviction from first to last,

that in case of attack or surprise I had not a soul except my companion

to stand by me: all those who accompanied us could, and consequently

would, have saved their lives;--_we_ must have perished. We should have

been as safe with six as with sixty guns; but I would by no means apply

to these regions Mr. Galton’s opinion, “that the last fatal expedition

of Mungo Park is full of warning to travellers who propose exploring

with a large body of men.” For though sixty guns do not suffice to

prevent attack in Ugogo, 600 stout fellows armed with the “hot-mouthed

weapon” might march through the length and breadth of Central Africa.

During our four days’ detention at Kanyenye, I was compelled to waste

string after string of beads in persuading the people to water the

porters and asses. Yet their style of proceeding proved that it was

greed of gain, not scarcity of the element, which was uppermost in their

minds; they would agree to supply us with an unlimited quantity, and

then would suddenly gather round the well and push away the Wanyamwezi,

bidding them go and fetch more beads. All the caravan took the

opportunity of loading itself with salt. Whilst the halt lasted, my

companion brought in a fine-flavoured pallah and other antelopes, with

floriken, guinea-fowl, and partridge. Neither he nor I, however, had

strength enough, nor had we time, to attack the herds of elephants that

roam over the valley whose deep purple line separates the table-land of

Ugogo from the blue hills of the Wahumba to the north. And here,

perhaps, a few words concerning the prospects of sportsmen in this part

of Africa, may save future travellers from the mistake into which I

fell. I expected great things, and returned without realising a single

hope. This portion of the peninsula is a remarkable contrast to the line

traversed by Dr. Livingstone, where the animals standing within bow-shot

were so numerous and fearless, that the burden of provisions was often

unnecessary. In the more populous parts game has melted away before the

woodman’s axe and the hunters’ arrows: even where large tracks of jungle

abound with water and forage, the note of a bird rarely strikes the ear,

and during a long day’s march not a single large animal will be seen

from the beaten track. It is true that in some places, there is

“---- enough

Of beastes that be chaseable.”

The park lands of Dut’humi, the jungles and forests of Ugogi and

Mgunda Mk’hali, the barrens of Usukuma, and the tangled thickets of

Ujiji, are full of noble game,--lions and leopards, elephants and

rhinoceroses, wild cattle, giraffes, gnus, zebras, quaggas, and

ostriches. But these are dangerous regions where the sportsman often

cannot linger for a day. Setting aside the minor considerations of

miasma and malaria,--the real or fancied perils of the place, and the

want of food, or the difficulty of procuring water, would infallibly

cause the porters to desert. Here are no Cape-waggons, at once house,

store, and transport; no “Ships of the Desert,” never known to run away;

in fact there is no vehicle but man, and he is so impatient and

headstrong, so suspicious and timorous, that he must be humoured in

every whim. As sportsmen know, it is difficult to combine surveying

operations and collection of specimens with a pursuit which requires all

a man’s time; in these countries, moreover, no merely hunting-expedition

would pay, owing to the extraordinary expense of provisions and

carriage. Thus Venator will be reduced to use his “shooting-iron” on

halting days, and at the several periods of his journey, and his only

consolation will be the prospect of wreaking vengeance upon the

hippopotamus and the crocodile of the coast, if his return there be

entered in the book of Time. Finally, East Africa wants the vast variety

of animals, especially the beautiful antelopes, which enrich the lists

of the Cape Fauna. The tale of those observed in short: the horns of the

oryx were seen, the hartebeest and steinbok, the saltiana and the

pallah,--the latter affording excellent venison,--were shot. The country

generally produces the “Suiya,” a little antelope with reddish coat and

diminutive horns, about the size of an English hare, the swangura, or

sungula, an animal somewhat larger than the saltiana, and of which,

according to the people, the hind only has horns; and at K’hutu my

companion saw a double-horned antelope which he thought resembled the

“Chouka-singa,” (_Tetraceros Quadricornis_) of Nepaul. The species of

birds, also, are scarcely more numerous than the beasts; the feathered

tribe is characterised by sombreness of plumage, and their song is noisy

but not harmonious, unpleasant, perhaps because strange, to the European

ear.

On the 8th October appeared at Kanyenye a large down-caravan headed by

Abdullah bin Nasib, a Msawahili of Zanzibar, whose African name is

Kisesa. This good man began with the usual token of hospitality, the

gift of a goat, and some measures of the fine Unyanyembe rice, of which

return-parties carry an ample store: he called upon me at once with

several companions,--one of them surprised me not a little by an English

“good morning,”--and he kindly volunteered to halt a day whilst we wrote

reports and letters, life-certificates, and duplicate-indents upon

Zanzibar for extra supplies of drugs and medical comforts, cloth and

beads. The asses were now reduced to five, and as Magomba refused to

part with any of his few animals, at any price,--on the coast I had been

assured that asses were as numerous as dogs in Ugogo--Abdullah gave me

one of his riding-animals, and would take nothing for it except a little

medicine, and a paper acknowledging his civility. Several of the slaves

and porters had been persuaded by the Wagogo to desert, and Abdullah

busied himself to recover them. One man, who had suddenly deposited his

pack upon the path and had disappeared in the jungle during the noonday

halt, was pointed out by a woman to Kidogo, and was found lurking in a

neighbouring village, where the people refused to give him up. Abdullah

sent for Magomba’s four chief “ministers,” and persuaded them to render

active aid: they seized the fellow, took from him his wire and his nine

cloths, appropriated four, and left me five wherewith to engage another

porter. The deserter was of course dismissed, but the severity of the

treatment did not prevent three desertions on the next day.

The 10th October ushered in an ugly march. Emerging betimes from the

glaring white and red plains of Kanyenye, dotted with fields, villages,

and calabashes, we unloaded in a thin jungle of mimosa and

grass-bunches, near sundry pools, then almost dried up, but still

surrounded by a straggling growth of chamærops and verdurous thorns. The

bush gave every opportunity to the porters, who had dispersed in the

halt, to desert with impunity. In our hurried morning tramp, want of

carriage had caused considerable confusion, and at 2 P.M., when again

the word “load” was given for a tirikeza, everything seemed to go wrong.

Said bin Salim and the Jemadar hurried forwards, leaving me to manage

the departure with Kidogo, who, whilst my companion lay under a calabash

almost unable to move, substituted for his strong Mnyamwezi ass a

wretched animal unable to bear the lightest load. The Baloch Belok was

asked to carry our only gourd full of water; he pleaded sickness as an

excuse. And, when the rear of the caravan was about to march, Kidogo,

who alone knew the way, hastened on so fast that he left us to wander

through a labyrinth of elephants’ tracks, hedged in by thorns and

brambly trees, which did considerable damage to clothes and cutis.

Having at length found the way, we advanced over a broad, open, and

grassy plain, striped with southwards-trending sandy water-courses of

easy ascent and descent, and lined with a green aromatic vegetation, in

which the tall palm suggested a resemblance to the valley-plains of the

Usagara Mountains. As night fell upon us like a pall, we entered the

broken red ground that limits the flat westwards, and, ascending a dark

ridge of broken, stony, ground, and a dense thorn-bush, we found

ourselves upon a higher level. The asses stumbled, the men grumbled, and

the want of water severely tried the general temper.

From this cold jungle--the thermometer showed a minimum of 54° F.--we

emerged at dawn on the 11th October, and after three hours’ driving

through a dense bush of various thorns, with calabashes reddened by the

intense heat, and tripping upon the narrow broken path that ran over

rolling ground, we found the porters halted at some pits full of sweet

clear water. Here the caravan preserved a remarkable dead silence. I

inquired the cause. The Coast-Arabs who accompanied us were trying an

experiment, which, had it failed, would have caused trouble, expense,

and waste of time; they were attempting to pass without blackmail the

little clearing of Usek’he, which lay to the south of the desert-road,

and they knew that its Sultan, Ganza Mikono, usually posted a party upon

the low masses of bristling hill hard by, to prevent caravans evading

his dues. As no provisions were procurable in the jungle, it was judged

better to proceed, and the sun was in the zenith before we reached the

district of K’hok’ho. We halted under a spreading tree, near the

head-quarter village of its villanous Sultan, in an open plain of millet

and panicum-stubbles. Presently Kidogo, disliking the appearance of

things--the men, rushing with yells of excitement from their villages,

were forming a dense ring around us; the even more unmanageable old

women stared like _sages femmes_, and already a Mnyamwezi porter had

been beaten at the well--stirred us up and led the way to an open jungle

about a mile distant. There we were safe; no assailant would place

himself upon the plain, the Coast-Arabs were close at hand, and in the

bush we should have been more than a match for the Wagogo.

The Baloch, fatigued by the tedious marches of the last two days, had

surlily refused their escort to our luggage, as well as to ourselves.

When the camp was pitched, I ordered a goat to be killed; and, serving

out rations to the sons of Ramji and the porters, I gave them none, a

cruel punishment to men whose souls centered in their ingesta. The

earlier part of the evening was spent by them in enumerating their

grievances--they were careful to speak in four dialects, so that all

around might understand them, in discussing their plans of desertion,

and in silencing the contradiction of their commander, the monocular

Jemadar, who, having forsworn opium, now headed the party in opposition

to the mutineers. They complained that they were faint for want of

meat--the fellows were driving a bullock and half a dozen goats, which

they had purchased with cloth, certainly not their own. I had, they

grumbled, given them no ghee or honey, consequently they were obliged to

“eat dry”--they knew this to be false, as they had received both at

Kanyenye. We had made them march ten “Cos” in our eagerness to obtain

milk--they were the first to propose reaching a place where provisions

were procurable. The unmanageables, Khudabakhsh, Shahdad, and Belok,

proposed an immediate departure, but a small majority carried the day in

favour of desertion next morning. Kidogo and the sons of Ramji

ridiculed, as was their wont, the silly boasters with, “Of a truth,

brethren! the coast is far off, and ye are hungry men!” On the ensuing

day, when a night’s reflection had cooled down their noble bile, they

swallowed their words like buttered parsnips. I heard no more of their

plans, and in their demeanour they became cringing as before.

The transit of the K’hok’ho clearing, which is also called the Nyika, or

wilderness, is considered the nucleus of travellers’ troubles in Ugogo.

The difficulty is caused by its Sultan, M’ana Miaha, popularly known as

Maguru Mafupi, or Short-shanks. This petty tyrant, the most powerful,

however, of the Wagogo chiefs, is a toothache to strangers, who complain

that he cannot even plunder _à l’aimable_. He was described to me as a

short elderly man, nearly bald, chocolate-coloured, and remarkable for

the duck-like conformation which gave origin to his nickname. His dress

was an Arab check round his loins, and another thrown over his

shoulders. He becomes man, idiot, and beast with clockwork-regularity

every day; when not disguised in liquor he is surly and unreasonable,

and when made merry by his cups he refuses to do business. He is in the

habit of detaining Wanyamwezi caravans to hoe his fields, and he often

applies them to a _corvée_ of five or six days during the spring-time,

before he will consent to receive his blackmail.

We were delayed five days at K’hok’ho to lay in provisions for four

marches, and by the usual African pretexts, various and peculiar. On the

afternoon of arrival it would have been held indecent haste to trouble

His Highness. On the first morning His Highness’s spouse was unwell, and

during the day he was “sitting upon Pombe,” in other words, drinking

beer. On the second he received, somewhat scurvily, a deputation headed

by Said bin Salim, the Coast-Arab merchants, and the Jemadar. Two

Wazagira, or chief-councillors, did the palaver, which was conducted,

for dignity, outside the royal hovel. He declared that the two caravans

must compound separately, and that in my case he would be satisfied with

nothing under six porters’ loads. As about one-twelfth of his demand was

offered to him, he dismissed them with ignominy, affirming that he held

me equal to the Sayyid of Zanzibar, and accordingly that he should

demand half the outfit. The third day was spent by the Coast-Arabs in

haggling with the courtiers before His Highness, who maintained a solemn

silence, certainly the easiest plan; and the present was paraded, as is

customary on such occasions, in separate heaps, each intended for a

particular person, but Her Highness, justly offended by the flimsiness

of a bit of chintz, seized a huge wooden ladle and hooted and hunted the

offenders out of doors. After high words the Arabs returned, and

informed me that things were looking desperate. I promised assistance in

case of violence being offered to them,--a civility which they

acknowledged by sending a shoulder of beef. The fourth day was one of

dignified idleness. We received a message that the court was again

sitting upon Pombe, and we too well understood that His Highness, with

his spouse and cabinet, were drunk as drunk could be. On the morning of

the fifth day, a similar delaying process was attempted; but as the

testy Kidogo, who had taken the place of the tame Said, declared that

the morrow should see us march in the afternoon, the present was

accepted, and the two or three musket shots usual on such occasions

sounded the joyful tidings that we were at liberty to proceed. The

unconscionable extortioner had received one coil of brass wire, four

“cloths with names,” eight domestics, eight blue cottons, and thirty

strings of coral beads. Not contented with this, he demanded two Arab

checks, and these failing, a double quantity of beads, and another

domestic. I compromised the affair with six feet of crimson broadcloth,

an article which I had not produced, as the Coast-Arabs, who owned none,

declared that such an offering would cause difficulties in their case.

But as they charged me double and treble prices for the expensive cloths

which the Sultan required, and which, as they had been omitted in our

outfit, it was necessary to purchase from them, I at length thought

myself justified in economising by the only means in my power. The

fiery-tempered Coast-Arabs left K’hok’ho with rage in their hearts and

curses under their tongues. These men usually think outside their heads,

but they know that in Ugogo the merest pretext--the loosing a hot word,

touching a woman, offending a boy, or taking in vain the name of the

Sultan--infallibly leads to being mulcted in cloth.

I was delighted to escape from the foul strip of crowded jungle in which

we had halted. A down-caravan of Wanyamwezi had added its quotum of

discomfort to the place. Throughout the fiery day we were stung by the

Tzetze, and annoyed by swarms of bees and pertinacious gadflies. On one

occasion an army of large poisonous siyafu, or black pismire, drove us

out of the tent by the wounds which it inflicted between the fingers and

on other tender parts of the body, before a kettle of boiling water

persuaded them to abandon us. These ant-fiends made the thin-skinned

asses mad with torture. The nights were cold and raw, and when we awoke

in the morning we found some valuable article rendered unserviceable by

the termites. K’hok’ho was an ill-omened spot. There my ass “Seringe,”

sole survoice of the riding animals brought from Zanzibar, was so torn

by a hyæna that I was compelled to leave it behind. I was afterwards

informed that it had soon died of its wounds. The next mishap was the

desertion of the fifteen Wanyamwezi porters who had been hired and paid

at Ugogi. These men had slept in the same kraal with the somnolent sons

of Ramji, and had stealthily disappeared during the night. As usual,

though they carried off their own, they had left our loads behind, that

they might reach their homes with greater speed. They would choose a

jungle road, to avoid the danger of slavery, and living the while upon

roots and edible grasses, would traverse the desert separating them from

their country in three or four days. This desertion of fifteen men first

suggested to me that my weary efforts and wearing anxiety about carriage

were to a certain extent self-inflictions. Expecting to see half the

outfit left upon the ground, I was surprised by the readiness with which

it disappeared. The men seemed to behave best whenever things were

palpably at the worst; besides which, as easily as the baggage of 50

porters was distributed amongst 100, so easily were the loads of 100 men

placed upon the shoulders of 50. Indeed, the original Wanyamwezi gang,

who claimed by right extra pay for carrying extra weight, though

fiercely opposed to lifting up an empty gourd gratis, were ever docile

when a heavier pack brought with it an increase of cloth and beads.

However, the march on the 17th October had its trifling hardships. My

companion rode forward on the ass lately given to us by Abdullah bin

Nasib, whilst I, remaining behind and finding that no carriage could be

procured for two bags of clothes and shoes, placed them upon my animal

the Mnyamwezi bought at Inenge, inasmuch as it appeared somewhat

stronger than the half-dozen wretched brutes that flung themselves upon

the ground apparently too fagged to move. I had, however, overrated its

powers: it soon became evident that I must walk, or that the valuable

cargo must be left behind. Trembling with weakness, I set out to

traverse the length of the Mdáburu Jungle. The memory of that march is

not pleasant: the burning sun and the fiery reflected heat arising from

the parched ground--here a rough, thorny, and waterless jungle, where

the jasmine flowered and the frankincense was used for fuel; there a

grassy plain of black and sun-cracked earth--compelled me to lie down

every half-hour. The watergourds were soon drained by my attendant

Baloch; and the sons of Ramji, who, after reaching the resting-place,

had returned with ample stores for their comrades, hid their vessels on

my approach. Sarmalla, a donkey-driver, the model of a surly negro,

whose crumpled brow, tightened eyes and thick lips which shot-out on the

least occasion of excitement, showed what was going on within his head,

openly refused me the use of his gourd, and--thirst is even less to be

trifled with than hunger--found ample reason to repent himself of the

proceeding. Near the end of the jungle I came upon a party of the

Baloch, who, having seized upon a porter belonging to a large caravan of

Wanyamwezi that had passed us on that march, were persuading him, half

by promises and half by threats, to carry their sleeping mats and their

empty gourds. The strict and positive orders as regards enticing away

deserters which I had issued at Inenge, were looked upon by them, in

their all-engrossing egotism, as a mere string of empty words. I could

do nothing beyond threatening to report their conduct to their master,

and dismissing the man, who obviously stood in fear of death, with his

tobacco and hoes duly counted back to him. Towards the end of that long

march I saw with pleasure the kindly face of Seedy Bombay, who was

returning to me in hot haste, leading an ass, and carrying a few scones

and hard-boiled eggs. Mounting, I resumed my way, and presently arrived

at the confines of Mdáburu, where, under a huge calabash, stood our

tent, amidst a kraal of grass boothies, surrounded by a heaped-up ridge

of thorns.

Mdáburu is the first important district in the land of Uyanzi, which,

beginning from Western K’hok’ho, extends as far as Tura, the eastern

frontier of Unyamwezi-land. It is a fertile depression of brick-red

earth, bisected by a broad, deep, and sandy Fiumara, which, trending

southwards, supplies from five pits water in plenty even during the

driest season. It is belted on all sides by a dense jungle, over whose

dark brown line appeared the summits of low blue cones, and beyond them

long streaks of azure ridge, beautified by distance into the semblance

of a sea. We were delayed two days at this, the fourth and westernmost

district of Ugogo. It was necessary to lay in a week’s provision for the

party--ever a tedious task in these regions, but more especially in the

dead of winter--moreover, the Sultan Kibuya expected the settlement of

his blackmail. From this man we experienced less than the usual

incivility: by birth a Mkimbu foreigner, and fearing at that time wars

and rumours of wars on the part of his villanous neighbour, Maguru

Mafupi, he contented himself with a present which may be estimated at

nineteen cloths, whereas the others had murmured at forty and fifty.

However, he abated nothing of his country’s pretentious pride. A black,

elderly man, dressed in a grimy cloth, without other ornament but a

broad ivory bracelet covering several inches of his right wrist, he at

first refused to receive the deputation because his “ministers” were

absent; and during the discourse about the amount of blackmail, he sat

preserving an apathetic silence, outside his dirty lodging in the huge

kraal which forms his capital. The demand concluded with a fine

silk-cotton cloth, on the part of his wife; and when “ma femme” appears

on such occasions in these regions, as in others further west, it is a

sure sign that the stranger is to be taken in. As usual with the East

African chiefs, Kibuya was anxious to detain me, not only in order that

his people might profitably dispose of their surplus stores, but also

because the presence of so many guns would go far to modify the plans of

his enemies. His attempts at delay, however, were skilfully

out-manœuvred by Said bin Salim, who broke through all difficulties with

the hardihood of fear. The little man’s vain terrors made him put the

ragged kraal which surrounded us into a condition of defence, and every

night he might be seen stalking like a troubled spirit amongst the forms

of sleeping men.

At Mdáburu I hired two porters from the caravan that accompanied us; and

Said bin Salim began somewhat tardily to take the usual precautions

against desertion. He was ordered, before the disappearance of the

porters that levanted at K’hok’ho, to pack their hire in our loads, and

every evening to chain up the luggage heaped in front of our tent. The

accident caused by his neglect rendered him now quasi-obedient.

Moreover, two or three Baloch were told off to precede the line, and as

many to bring up the rear. The porters, as I have said, hold it a point

of honour not to steal their packs; but if allowed to straggle forwards,

or to loiter behind, they will readily attempt the recovery of their

goods by opening their burdens, which they afterwards abandon upon the

road. The Coast-Arabs, in return for some small shot, which is here

highly prized, assisted me by carrying some surplus luggage. Amongst

other articles, two kegs of gunpowder were committed to them: both were

punctually returned at Unyanyembe, where gunpowder sells at two cloths,

or half a Frasilah (17·5 lbs.) of ivory per lb; but the bungs had been

stove in, and a quarter of the contents had evaporated. The evening of

the second day’s halt closed on us before the rations for the caravan

were collected, and seventeen shukkah, with about a hundred strings of

beads, barely produced a sufficiency of grain.

From the Red Vale of Mdáburu three main lines traverse the desert

between Ugogo and Unyamwezi. The northernmost, called Njia T’humbi,

leads in a west-north-westerly direction to Usukuma. Upon this track are

two sultans and several villages. The central “Karangásá,” or “Mdáburu,”

is that which will be described in the following pages. The

southernmost, termed Uyánzi, sets out from K’hok’ho, and passes through

the settlements known by the name of Jiwe lá Singá. It is avoided by the

porters, dreading to incur the wrath of Sultan Kibuyá, who would resent

their omitting to visit his settlement, M’dáburu.

These three routes pass through the heart of the great desert and

elephant-ground “Mgunda Mk’hali”--explained by the Arabs to mean in

Kinyamwezi, the Fiery “Shamba” or Field. Like Marenga Mk’hali, it is a

desert, because it contains no running water nor wells, except after

rain. The name is still infamous, but its ill-fame rests rather upon

tradition than actuality; in fact, its dimensions are rapidly shrinking

before the torch and axe. About fifteen years ago it contained twelve

long stages, and several tirikeza; now it is spanned in eight marches.

The wildest part is the first half from Mdáburu to Jiwe lá Mkoa, and

even here, it is reported, villages of Wakimbu are rising rapidly on the

north and south of the road. The traveller, though invariably threatened

with drought and the death of cattle, will undergo little hardship

beyond the fatigue of the first three forced marches through the “Fiery

Field;” in fact, he will be agreeably surprised by its contrast with the

desert of Marenga Mk’hali.

From east to west the diagonal breadth of Mgunda Mk’hali is 140 miles.

The general aspect is a dull uniform bush, emerald-coloured during the

rains, and in the heats a network of dry and broom-like twigs. Except

upon the banks of nullahs--“rivers” that are not rivers--the trees, as

in Ugogo, wanting nutriment, never afford timber, and even the calabash

appears stunted. The trackless waste of scrub, called the “bush” in

Southern Africa, is found in places alternating with thin gum-forest;

the change may be accounted for by the different depths of water below

the level of the ground. It is a hardy vegetation of mimosas and gums

mixed with evergreen succulent plants, cactaceæ, aloes, and euphorbias:

the grass, sometimes tufty, at other times equally spread, is hard and

stiff; when green it feeds cattle, and when dry it is burned in places

by passing caravans to promote the growth of another crop.

The groundwork of Mgunda Mk’hali is a detritus of yellowish quartz, in

places white with powdered felspar, and, where vegetation decays,

brown-black with humus. Water-worn pebbles are sprinkled over the earth,

and the vicinity of Fiumaras abounds in a coarse and modern

sandstone-conglomerate. Upon the rolling surface, and towering high

above the tallest trees, are based the huge granitic and syenitic

outcrops before alluded to. The contrast between the masses and the

dwarf rises which support them at once attracts the eye. Here and there

the long waves that diversify the land appear in the far distance like

blue lines bounding the nearer superficies of brown or green. Throughout

this rolling table-land the watershed is to the south. In rare places

the rains stagnate in shallow pools, which become systems of mud-cakes

during the drought. At this season water is often unprocurable in the

Fiumaras, causing unaccustomed hardships to caravans, and death to those

beasts which, like the elephant and the buffalo, cannot long exist

without drinking.

On the 20th October we began the transit of the “Fiery Field,” whose

long broad line of brown jungle, painted blue by the intervening air,

had, since leaving K’hok’ho, formed our western horizon. The waste here

appeared in its most horrid phase. The narrow goat-path serpentined in

and out of a growth of poisonous thorny jungle, with thin, hard

grass-straw, growing on a glaring white and rolling ground; the view was

limited by bush and brake, as in the alluvial valleys of the maritime

region, and in weary sameness the spectacle surpassed everything that we

had endured in Marenga Mk’hali. We halted through the heat of the day at

some water-pits in a broken course; and resuming our tedious march early

in the afternoon, we arrived about sunset at the bed of a shallow

nullah, where the pure element was found in sand-holes about five feet

deep.

On the 2nd day we reached the large Mabunguru Fiumara, a deep and

tortuous gash of fine yellow quartzoze sand and sunburnt blocks of

syenite: at times it must form an impassable torrent, even at this

season of severe drought it afforded long pools of infiltrated

rain-water, green with weeds and abounding with shell-fish, and with the

usual description of Silurus. In the earlier morning the path passed

through a forest already beautified by the sprouting of tender green

leaves and by the blooming of flowers, amongst which was a large and

strongly perfumed species of jasmine, whilst young grass sprouted from

the fire-blackened remnants of the last year’s crop. Far upon the

southern horizon rose distant hills and lines, blue, as if composed of

solidified air, and mocking us by their mirage-likeness to the ocean.

Nearer, the ground was diversified by those curious evidences of igneous

action, which extend westward through eastern Unyamwezi, and northwards

to the shores of the Nyanza Lake. These outcrops of gray granite and

syenite are principally of two different shapes, the hog’s back and the

turret. The former usually appears as a low lumpy dome of various

dimensions; here a few feet long, there extending a mile and a half in

diameter: the outer coat scales off under the action of the atmosphere,

and in places it is worn away by a network of paths. The turret is a

more picturesque and changing feature. Tall rounded blocks and conical

or cylindrical boulders, here single, there in piles or ridges, some

straight and stiff as giant ninepins, others split as if an alley or a

gateway passed between them, rise abruptly and perpendicularly almost

without foundationary elevation, cleaving the mould of a dead plain,

or--like gypseous formations, in which the highest boulders are planted

upon the lowest and broadest bases--they bristle upon a wave of

dwarfish rocky hill. One when struck was observed to give forth a

metallic clink, and not a few, balanced upon points, reminded me of the

tradition-bearing rocking stones. At a distance in the forest, the

larger masses might be mistaken for Cyclopean walls, towers, steeples,

minarets, loggans, dwelling houses, and ruined castles. They are often

overgrown with a soft grass, which decaying, forms with the degradation

of the granite a thin cap of soil; their summits are crowned with tufty

cactus, a stomatiferous plant which imbibes nourishment from the oxygen

of the air; whilst huge creepers, imitating trees, project gnarled

trunks from the deeper crevices in their flanks. Seen through the forest

these rocks are an effective feature in the landscape, especially when

the sunbeams fall warm and bright upon their rounded summits and their

smooth sides, here clothed with a mildew-like lichen of the tenderest

leek-green, there yellowed like Italian marbles by the burning rays, and

there streaked with a shining black as if glazed by the rain, which,

collecting in cupfuls upon the steps and slopes, at times overflows,

coursing in mimic cataracts down the heights.

That march was a severe trial; we had started at dawn, we did not,

however, arrive at the Mabunguru Fiumara before noon, and our people

straggled in about eveningtide. All our bullet-moulds, and three boxes

of ammunition, were lost. Said bin Salim, the Jemadar, and three other

men had followed in the rear, driving on the “One-Eyed Fiend,” which,

after many a prank, lay down upon the ground, and positively declined to

move. The escort, disliking the sun, abandoned it at once to its fate,

and want of provisions, and the inordinate length of the marches,

rendered a halt or a return for the valuable load--four boxes of

ammunition--out of the question. An article once abandoned in these

deserts is rarely if ever recovered; the caravan-porters will not halt,

and a small party dares not return to recover it.

The 22nd October saw us at Jiwe la Mkoa, the half-way-house of Mgunda

Mk’hali. The track, crossing the rough Mabunguru Fiumara, passed over

rolling ground through a thorny jungle that gradually thinned out into a

forest; about 8 A.M. a halt was called at a water in the wilderness. My

companion being no longer able to advance on foot, an ass was unloaded,

and its burden of ammunition was divided, for facility of porterage,

amongst the sons of Ramji. After noon we resumed our march, and the

Kirangozi, derided by the rival guide of the Coast-Arabs’ caravan, and

urged forward by Kidogo, who was burning to see his wife and children in

Unyamwezi, determined to “put himself at the head of himself.” The

jungle seemed interminable. The shadows of the hills lengthened out upon

the plains, the sun sank in the glory of purple, crimson, and gold, and

the crescent-moon rained a flood of silvery light upon the topmost

twig-work of the trees; we passed a dwarf clearing, where lodging and

perhaps provisions were to be obtained, and we sped by water near the

road where the frogs were chanting their vesper-hymn; still far,--far

ahead we heard the horns and the faint march-cries of the porters. At

length, towards the end of the march, we wound round a fantastic mass of

cactus-clad boulders, and crossing a low ridge we found at its base a

single Tembe or square village of emigrant Wakimbu, who refused to admit

us. The little basin beyond it displayed, by “black jacks” and felled

tree-trunks, evidences of modern industry, and it extended to the Jiwe

or Rock, which gives its name to the clearing. We were cheered by the

sight of the red fires glaring in the Kraal, but my companion’s ass,

probably frightened by some wild beast to us invisible, reared high in

the air, bucked like a deer, broke his frail Arab girths, and threw his

invalid rider heavily upon the hard earth. Arrived at the Kraal, I found

every boothy occupied by the porters, who refused shelter until dragged

out like slaughtered sheep. Said bin Salim’s awning was as usual snugly

pitched; ours still lay on the ground. The little Arab’s “duty to

himself” appeared to attain a higher limit every stage; once comfortably

housed, he never thought of offering cover to another, and his children

knew him too well even to volunteer such a service to any one but

himself. On a late occasion, when our tent had not appeared, Said bin

Salim, to whom a message had been sent, refused to lend us one half of

the awning committed to him, a piece of canvas cut out to serve as a

tent and lug-sail. Bombay then distinguished himself by the memorable

words,--“If you are not ashamed of your master, be ashamed of his

servant!” which had the effect of bringing the awning and of making Said

bin Salim testily refuse the half returned to him.

Jiwe la Mkoa, or the Round Rock, is the largest of the many hogs’-backs

of grey syenite that stud this waste. It measures about two miles in

extreme diameter, and the dome rises with a gentle slope to the height

of 200 or 300 feet above the dead level of the plain. Tolerable water is

found in pits upon a swamp at its southern base, and well covered Mtego

or elephant traps, deep grave-like excavations, like the Indian “Ogi,”

prove dangerous to travellers; in one of these the Jemadar disappeared

suddenly, as if by magic. The smooth and rounded surface of the rock

displays deep hoof-shaped holes, which in a Moslem land would at once be

recognised as the Asr, or the footprints of those holy quadrupeds,

Duldul or Zu’l Jenah. In places the Jiwe, overgrown with scattered tufts

of white grass, and based upon a dusty surface blackened by torrent

rains, forcibly suggested to the Baloch the idea of an elderly negro’s

purbald poll.

We encamped close to the Jiwe, and in so doing we did wrong: however

pleasant may be the shadow of a tall rock in a thirsty land by day,

way-wise travellers avoid the vicinity of stones which, by diminished

radiation, retain their heat throughout the night. All caravans passing

through this clearing clamour to be supplied with provisions; our

porters, who, having received rations for eight days, which they

consumed in four, were no exceptions to the rule. As the single little

village of Jiwe la Mkoa could afford but one goatskin of grain and a few

fowls, the cattle not being for sale, and no calves having been born to

the herds, the porters proposed to send a party with cloth and beads to

collect provaunt from the neighbouring settlements. But the notable

Khalfan bin Khamis, the most energetic of the Coast-Arabs in whose

company we were travelling, would brook no delay: he had issued as usual

three days’ rations for a long week’s march, and thus by driving his

porters beyond their speed, he practised a style of economy usually

categorised by us at home as “penny-wise and pound-foolish.” His

marching was conducted upon the same principle; determining to save

time, he pushed on till his men began to flag, presently broke down, and

finally deserted.

At Jiwe la Mkoa the neck of the desert is broken: the western portion of

Mgunda Mk’hali has already thinned out. On the 23rd October, despite the

long march of the preceding day, Khalfan proposed a Tirikeza, declaring

that the heavy nimbus from the west, accompanied by a pleasant cold,

portended rain, and that this rain, like the “Choti Barsat” of India,

announces the approach of the great Masika, or vernal wet season.

Yielding to his reasons, we crossed the “Round Rock,” and passing

through an open forest of tall trees, with here and there an undulating

break, now yellow with quartz, then black with humus, we reached, after

about three hours, another clearing like Jiwe la Mkoa, which owes its

origin to the requirements of commerce. “Kirurumo” boasted of several

newly built Tembe of Wakimbu, who supplied caravans at an exorbitant

rate. The blackness of the ground, and the vivid green of vegetation,

evidenced the proximity of water. The potable element was found in pits,

sunk in a narrow nullah running northwards across the clearing; it was

muddy and abundant. On the next day the road led through a thin forest

of thorns and gums, which, bare of bush and underwood, afforded a broad

path and pleasant, easy travelling. Sign of elephant and rhinoceros,

giraffe and antelope, crossed the path, and as usual in such places, the

asses were tormented by the Tzetze. After travelling four hours and

thirty minutes, we reached a new settlement upon the western frontier of

Uganzi, called “Jiweni,” “near the stones,” from the heaps of block and

boulder scattered round pits of good water, sunk about three feet in the

ground. The Mongo Nullah, a deep surface-drain, bisects this clearing,

which is palpably modern. Many of the trees are barked previous to

felling, and others have fallen prostrate, apparently from the

depredations of the white ant. On the 25th, after another desert march

of 2 hrs. 20′ through a flat country, where the forest was somewhat

deformed by bush and brake, which in places narrowed the path to a mere

goat-track, we arrived at the third quarter of Mgunda Mk’hali. “Mgongo

T’hembo,” or the Elephant’s Back, derives its name from a long narrow

ridge of chocolate-coloured syenite, outcropping from the low forest

lands around it; the crest of the chain is composed of loose rocks and

large detached boulders. Like the other inhabited portions of Mgunda

Mk’hali, it is a recent clearing; numerous “black-jacks,” felled trees,

and pollarded stumps still cumber the fields. The “Elephant’s Back” is,

however, more extensive and better cultivated than any of its

neighbours,--Mdáburu alone excepted,--and water being abundant and near

the surface, it supports an increasing population of mixed Wakimbu and

Wataturu, who dwell in large substantial Tembe, and live by selling

their surplus holcus, maize, and fowls to travellers. They do not, like

the Wakimbu of Jiwe la Mkoa, refuse entrance to their villages, but they

receive the stranger with the usual niggard guest-rites of the

slave-path, and African-like, they think only of what is to be gained by

hospitality. Here I halted for a day to recruit and to lay in rations.

The length of the stages had told upon the men; Bombay had stumped

himself, several of the sons of Ramji, and two of Said bin Salim’s

children were unable to walk; the asses, throwing themselves upon the

ground, required to be raised with the stick, and all preferred rest

even to food. Mboni, one of the sons of Ramji, carried off a slave girl

from the camp of the Coast-Arabs; her proprietor came armed to recover

her, swords were drawn, a prodigious clash and clatter of tongue arose,

friends interfered, and blades were sheathed. Khalfan bin Khamis, losing

all patience at this delay, bade us adieu, promising to announce our

approach at Unyanyembe; about a week afterwards, however, we found him

in most melancholy plight, halted half-way, because his over-worked

porters had taken “French leave.”

We resumed our march on the 27th October, and after a slow and painful

progress for seven hours over a rolling country, whose soil was now

yellow with argile, then white with felspar, then black-brown with

humus, through thorny bush, and forest here opening out, there densely

closing in, we arrived at the “Tura Nullah,” the deepest of the many

surface drains winding tortuously to the S. W. The trees lining the

margin were of the noblest dimensions; the tall thick grass that hedged

them in showed signs of extensive conflagration, and water was found in

shallow pools and in deep pits beneath the banks, on the side to which

the stream, which must be furious during the rainy season, swings. When

halted in a clear place in the jungle, we were passed by a down caravan

of Wanyamwezi; our porters shouted and rushed up to greet their friends,

the men raised their right hands about a dozen times, and then clapped

palm to palm, and the women indulged in “vigelegele,” the African

“lulliloo,” which rang like breech-loaders in our ears.

On the next day we set out betimes through the forest, which, as usual

when nearing populous settlements, spread out, and which began at this

season to show a preponderance of green over brown. Presently we reached

a large expanse of yellow stover where the van had halted, in order that

the caravan might make its first appearance with dignity. Ensued a

clearing, studded with large stockaded villages, peering over tall

hedges of dark green milk-bush, fields of maize and millet, manioc,

gourds, and water-melons, and showing numerous flocks and herds,

clustering around the shallow pits. The people swarmed from their

abodes, young and old hustling one another for a better stare; the man

forsook his loom and the girl her hoe, and for the remainder of the

march we were escorted by a tail of screaming boys and shouting adults;

the males almost nude, the women, bare to the waist and clothed only

knee-deep in kilts, accompanied us, puffing pipes the while, with

wallets of withered or flabby flesh flapping the air, striking their

hoes with stones, crying “Beads! beads!” and ejaculating their wonder in

strident explosions of “Hi! hi!--Hui! ih!” and “Ha!--a!--a!” It was a

spectacle to make an anchorite of a man,--it was at once ludicrous and

disgusting.

At length the Kirangozi fluttered his red flag in the wind, and the

drums, horns, and larynxes of his followers began the fearful uproar

which introduces a caravan to the admiring “natives.” Leading the way,

our guide, much to my surprise,--I knew not then that such was the

immemorial custom of Unyamwezi,--entered uninvited and sans ceremony the

nearest large village; the long string of porters flocked in with bag

and baggage, and we followed their example. The guests at once dispersed

themselves through the several courts and compounds into which the

interior hollow was divided, and lodged themselves with as much regard

for self and disregard for their grumbling hosts as possible. We were

placed under a wall-less roof, bounded on one side by the bars of the

village palisade, and the mob of starers that relieved one another from

morning till night made me feel like the denizen of a menagerie.

[Illustration: Usagara Mountains, seen from Ugogo.]