WE ENTER UNYAMWEZI, THE FAR-FAMED LAND OF THE MOON.

The district of Tura, though now held, like Jiwe la Mkoa and Mgongo

T’hembo, by Wakimbu, is considered the eastern frontier of Unyamwezi

proper, which claims superiority over the minor neighbouring tribes.

Some, however, extend the “land of the moon” eastward as far as Jiwe la

Mkoa, and the porters when entering the “Fiery Field,” declare that they

are setting foot upon their own ground. The word “Tura,” pronounced by

the Wanyamwezi “Tula” or “Itula,” means “put down!” (scil. your pack):

as the traveller, whether from the east or from the west, will

inevitably be delayed for some days at this border settlement. Tula is

situated in S. lat. 5° 2′ and E. long. 33° 57′, and the country rises

4,000 feet above sea level. After the gloomy and monotonous brown

jungles and thorn forests of Mgunda Mk’hali, whose sinuous line of thick

jungle still girds the northern horizon, the fair champaign, bounded on

either hand by low rolling and rounded hills of primary formation, with

a succession of villages and many a field of holcus and sesamum, maize,

millet, and other cereals, of manioc and gourds, water melons and

various pulses, delights the sight, and appears to the African traveller

a Land of Promise.

The pertinacious Kidogo pressed me to advance, declaring the Wakimbu of

Tura to be a dangerous race: they appeared however a timid and ignoble

people, dripping with castor and sesamum oil, and scantily attired in

shreds of unclean cotton or greasy goat-skins. At Tura the last of the

thirty asses bought at Zanzibar paid the debt of nature, leaving us,

besides the one belonging to the Jemadar, but three African animals

purchased on the road. A few extra porters were therefore engaged. Our

people, after the discomforts of the bivouac, found the unsavoury

village a perfect paradise; they began somewhat prematurely to beg for

Bakhshish, and Muinyi Wazira requested dismissal on the plea that a

slave sent by him on a trading-expedition into the interior had, by

dying, endangered the safety of the venture. On the morning of the 30th

October Kidogo led us over the plain through cultivation and villages to

another large settlement on the western outskirt of the Tura district.

As I disappointed him in his hopes of a Tirikeza, he passed the night in

another Tembe, which was occupied by the caravans of Coast-Arabs and

their slave girls, to one of whom, said Scan. Mag., he had lost his

heart, and he punished me by halting through the next day. As we neared

the end of the journey the sons of Ramji became more restive under their

light loads; their dignity was hurt by shouldering a pack, and day after

day, till I felt weary of life, they left their burdens upon the ground.

However, on the 1st November, they so far recovered temper that the

caravan was able to cross the thin jungle, based upon a glaring white

soil, which divides the Tura from the Rubuga District. After a march of

6 hrs. and 30′, we halted on the banks of the Kwale or “Partridge”

Nullah, where, though late in the season, we found several long pools of

water. The porters collected edible bivalves and caught a quantity of

mud-fish by the “rough and ready” African process, a waist-cloth tied to

a pair of sticks, and used by two men as a drag-net. At Rubuga, which we

reached in 5 hrs. and 45′, marching over a plain of black earth, thinly

garnished with grass and thorn-trees, and then through clearings

overgrown with stubble, I was visited by an Arab merchant, Abdullah bin

Jumah, who, with a flying-caravan, had left Konduchi on the coast 2

months and 20 days after our departure. According to him his caravan had

lately marched thirty miles in the twenty-four hours: it was the

greatest distance accomplished in these regions; but the Arabs are fond

of exaggeration, the party was small and composed of lightly laden men,

and moreover it required two days’ rest after so unusual an exertion.

This merchant unwittingly explained a something which had puzzled me;

whenever an advance beyond Unyanyembe had been made the theme of

conversation, Said bin Salim’s countenance fell, and he dropped dark

hints touching patience and the power of Allah to make things easy.

Abdullah rendered the expression intelligible by asking me if I

considered the caravan strong enough to dare the dangers of the

road--which he grossly exaggerated--between Unyamwezi-Land and Ujiji. I

replied that I did, and that even if I did not, such bugbears should not

cause delay; Abdullah smiled, but was too polite to tell me that he did

not believe me.

A “doux marcher” of 2 hrs. 40′ on the 3rd November, led us to the

western limit of the Rubuga District. During the usual morning-halt

under a clump of shady milk-bush, I was addressed by Maura or Maula, the

Sultan of a large neighbouring village of Wanyamwezi: being a civilised

man and a coast-traveller, he could not allow the caravan of the

“Wazungu” to pass his quarters without presenting to him a bullock, and

extracting from him a little cloth. Like most chiefs in the “Land of the

Moon,” he was a large-limbed, gaunt, angular, tall old man, with a black

oily skin, seamed with wrinkles; and long wiry pigtails thickened with

grease, melted butter, and castor-oil, depending from the sides of his

purbald head. His dress--an old Barsati round the loins, and a grimy

Subai loosely thrown over the shoulders--was redolent of boiled

frankincense; his ankles were concealed by a foot depth of brass and

copper “Sambo,” thin wires twisted round a little bundle of elephant’s,

buffalo’s, or zebra’s hair; and he wore single-soled sandals, decorated

with four disks of white shell, about the size of a crown-piece, bound

to the thongs that passed between the toes and girt the heel. He

recognised the Baloch, greeted all kindly, led the way to his village,

ordered lodgings to be cleared and cleaned, caused the cartels or

bedsteads,--the first seen by us for many months,--to be vacated, and

left us to look for a bullock. At the village door I had remarked a rude

attempt at fashioning a block of wood into what was palpably intended

for a form human and feminine; the Moslems of course pronounced it to be

an idol, but the people declared that they paid no respect to it. They

said the same concerning the crosses and the serpent-like ornaments of

white ashes--in this land lime is unknown--with which the brown walls of

their houses were decorated.

We made bonne chère at Rubuga, which is celebrated for its milk and

meat, ghee and honey. On the wayside were numerous hives, the Mazinga or

“cannons,” before described; here however they were raised out of the

reach of the ants, white and black, upon a pair of short forked

supports, instead of being suspended from the branches of a tall tree.

My companion brought from a neighbouring swamp a fine Egyptian, or ruddy

goose, and a brace of crane-like water-fowl: these the Wanyamwezi

porters, expecting beef, disdained, because rejected by the Baloch, yet

at Inenge they had picked the carcase of a way-spent ass. Presently we

were presented by the Sultan with one of the fattest of his fine bulls;

it was indeed

“A grazier’s without and a butcher’s within;”

withal, so violent and unmanageable that no man could approach,

much less secure it: it rushed about the village like a wild buffalo,

scattering the people, who all fled except the Sultan, till it was

stopped dead in a most determined charge, with a couple of

rifle-bullets, by my companion. In return, Maula received a crimson

cloth and two domestics, after which he begged for everything, including

percussion caps, for which he had no gun. He appeared most anxious to

detain the caravan, and in the evening his carefully concealed reasons

leaked out--he wanted me to cure his son of fever, and to “put the

colophon” upon a neighbouring hostile chief. At 8 P.M., I was aroused by

my gun-carrier, Mabruki, who handed to me my Ferrara, and by the Baloch

Riza, who reported that the palisade was surrounded by a host of raging

blacks. I went out into the village, where the guard was running about

in a state of excitement which robbed them of their wits, and I saw a

long dark line of men sitting silently and peaceably, though armed for

fight, outside the strong stockade. Having caused our cloth to be safely

housed, and given orders to be awakened if work began, I returned to the

hut, determined to take leave of Sultan Maura and his quarrels on the

next day.

The porters were all gorged with beef, and three were “stale-drunk” with

the consequences of pombe; yet so anxious were they rendered by the

gathering clouds, and the spitting showers to reach their homes before

the setting in of the “sowing rains,” that my task was now rather to

restrain than to stimulate their ardour: the moon was resplendent, and

had I wished it, they would have set out at midnight. On the 4th

November we passed through another jungle-patch, to a village in the

fertile slopes of Ukona, where the Cannabis and the Datura, with its

large fetid flowers, disputed the ground with brinjalls and

castor-plants, holcus and panicum: tobacco grew luxuriantly, and

cotton-plots, carefully hedged round against the cattle, afforded

material for the loom, which now appeared in every village.

On the next day, we passed out of the fertile slopes of Ukona, and

traversed an open wavy country, streaked with a thin forest of Mimosa,

the Mtogwe or wood-apple, and a large quadrangular cactus. Beyond this

point, a tract of swampy low level led to the third district of Eastern

Unyamwezi, called Kigwa, or Mkigwa. We found quarters in a Tembe which

was half-burned and partly pulled down, to be re-erected.

The 6th November saw us betimes in the ill-omened Forest, that divided

us from the Unyanyembe district; it is a thin growth of gum-trees,

mimosas, and bauhinias, with tiers, earth-waves, and long rolling lines

of tawny-yellow hill--mantled with umbrella-shaped trees, and sometimes

capped with blocks and boulders--extending to a considerable distance on

both sides. The Sultan of Kigwa, one Manwa, has taken an active part in

the many robberies and murders which have rendered this forest a place

of terror, and the Arabs have hitherto confined themselves to threats,

though a single merchant complains that his slave-caravans have at

different times lost fifty loads of cloth. Manwa is aided and counselled

by Mansur, a Coast-Arab, who, horse-whipped out of the society of his

countrymen at Kazeh, for drunken and disorderly conduct, has become a

notorious traitor. Here also Msimbira, a Sultan of the Wasukuma, or

Northern Wanyamwezi, who has an old and burning hatred against the

Arabs, sends his plundering parties. On the 6th November the Baloch set

out at 1 A.M., we followed at 2.15 A.M.: they had been prevented from

obtaining beads on false pretences, consequently they showed temper, and

determined to deny their escort. Their beards were now in my hand, they

could neither desert nor refuse to proceed, but they desired to do me a

harm, and they did it. During the transit of the forest, an old porter

having imprudently lagged behind, was clubbed and cruelly bruised by

three black Mohawks, who relieved him of his load, a leathern

portmanteau, containing clothes, umbrellas, books, ink, journals, and

botanical collections. I afterwards heard that the highwaymen had

divided their spoils in the forest, and that separating into two

parties, they had taken the route homewards. On the way, however, they

were seized by a plundering expedition sent by Kitambi, the Sultan of

Uyuwwi, a district half a day’s march N.E. from Kazeh. The delict was

flagrant; the head of one robber at once decorated the main entrance of

Kitambi’s village, but the other two escaped Jeddart-justice with their

share of the plunder to his mortal enemy Msimbira. A present of a

scarlet waistcoat and four domestics recovered our clothes from Kitambi;

but Msimbira, threatening all the penalties of sorcery, abused,

plundered, and expelled Masud ibn Musallam el Wardi, an old Arab

merchant, sent to him from Unyanyembe for the purpose of recovering the

books, journals, and collections. The perpetual risk of loss discourages

the traveller in these lands; he never knows at what moment papers which

have cost him months of toil may be scattered to the winds. As regards

collections, future explorers are advised to abandon the hope of making

them on the march upwards, reserving their labour for the more leisurely

return. The precautions with which I prefaced our down-march may not be

useless as suggestions. My field and sketch-books were entrusted to an

Arab merchant, who preceded me to Zanzibar; they ran no other danger

except from the carelesness of the Consul who, unfortunately for me,

succeeded Lieut.-Col. Hamerton. My companion’s maps, papers, and

instruments, were committed to a heavy “petarah,” a deal-box with

pent-lid and hide-bound as a defence against rain, to be carried

“Mziga-ziga,” as the phrase is--suspended on a pole between the two

porters least likely to desert. I loaded one of the sons of Ramji with

an enamelled leathern bag, converted from a dressing-case into a

protection for writing and sketching materials; and a shooting-bag, hung

during the march over the shoulders of Nasiri, a Coast-Arab youth

engaged as ass-leader at Unyanyembe, contained my vocabularies,

ephemeris, and drawing-books.

Considering the conduct of the escort, I congratulated myself upon

having passed through the Kigwa forest without other accident. Two or

three days after our arrival at Kazeh several loads of beads were

plundered from a caravan belonging to Abdullah bin Salih. Shortly

afterwards Msimbira sent a large foraging party with a view to cutting

off the road: they allowed themselves to be surprised during sleep by

Mpagamo’s men, who slew twenty-five of their number and dispersed the

rest. This accident, however, did not cure their propensity for pillage;

on our return-march, when halted at a village west of the Kigwa forest,

a body of slaves passed us in hot haste and sore tribulation: they had

that day been relieved by bandits of all their packs.

Passing from the Kigwa forest and entering the rice-lands of the

Unyanyembe district we found quarters--a vile cow-house--in a large

dirty village called Hanga. The aspect of the land became prepossessing:

the route lay along a valley bisected by a little rivulet of sweet

water, whose course was marked by a vivid leek-green line; the slopes

were bright with golden stubble upon a surface of well-hoed field, while

to the north and south ran low and broken cones of granite blocks and

slabs, here naked, there clothed from base to brow with dwarf

parasol-shaped trees, and cactaceæ of gigantic size.

From this foul village I was urged by Kidogo to conclude by a tirikeza

the last stage that separated the caravan from Kazeh in Unyanyembe, the

place which he and all around him had apparently fixed as the final

bourne of the exploration. But the firmament seemed on fire, the porters

were fagged, and we felt feverish, briefly, an afternoon’s march was not

judged advisable. To temper, however, the wind of refusal, I served out

to each of the sons of Ramji five rounds of powder for blowing away on

entering the Arab head-quarters. All of course had that private store

which the Arabs call “El Akibah”--the ending; it is generally stolen

from the master and concealed for emergencies with cunning care. They

had declared their horns to be empty, and said Kidogo, “Every pedlar

fires guns here--shall a great man creep into his Tembe without a soul

knowing it?”

On the 7th November, 1857,--the 134th day from the date of our leaving

the coast--after marching at least 600 miles, we prepared to enter

Kazeh, the principal Bandari of Eastern Unyamwezi, and the capital

village of the Omani merchants. We left Hanga at dawn. The Baloch were

clothed in that one fine suit without which the Eastern man rarely

travels: after a few displays the dress will be repacked, and finally

disposed of in barter for slaves. About 8 A.M., we halted for stragglers

at a little village, and when the line of porters becoming compact began

to wriggle, snake-like, its long length over the plain, with floating

flags, booming horns, muskets ringing like saluting mortars, and an

uproar of voice which nearly drowned the other noises, we made a truly

splendid and majestic first appearance. The road was lined with people

who attempted to vie with us in volume and variety of sound: all had

donned their best attire, and with such luxury my eyes had been long

unfamiliar. Advancing I saw several Arabs standing by the wayside, they

gave the Moslem salutation and courteously accompanied me for some

distance. Amongst them were the principal merchants, Snay bin Amir, Said

bin Majid, a young and handsome Omani of noble tribe, Muhinna bin

Sulayman, who, despite elephantiasis, marched every year into Central

Africa, and Said bin Ali el Hinawi, whose short, spare, but well-knit

frame, pale face, small features, snowy beard, and bald head, surmounted

by a red fez, made him the type of an Arab old man.

I had directed Said bin Salim to march the caravan to the Tembe kindly

placed at my disposal by Isá bin Hijji, and the Arabs met at Inenge. The

Kirangozi and the porters, however, led us on by mistake (?) to the

house of “Musa Mzuri”--handsome Moses--an Indian merchant settled at

Unyanyembe for whom I bore an introductory letter, graciously given by

H. H. the Sayyid Majid of Zanzibar. As Musa was then absent on a

trading-journey to Karagwah, his agent, Snay bin Amir, a Harisi Arab,

came forward to perform the guest-rites, and led me to the vacant house

of Abayd bin Sulayman who had lately returned to Zanzibar.

After allowing me, as is the custom, a day to rest and to dismiss the

porters, who at once separated to their homes, all the Arab merchants,

then about a dozen, made the first ceremonious call, and to them was

officially submitted the circular addressed by the Prince of Zanzibar to

his subjects resident in the African interior. Contrary to the

predictions of others, nothing could be more encouraging than the

reception experienced from the Omani Arabs; striking, indeed, was the

contrast between the open-handed hospitality and the hearty good-will of

this truly noble race, and the niggardness of the savage and selfish

African--it was heart of flesh after heart of stone. A goat and a load

of the fine white rice grown in the country were the normal prelude to a

visit and to offers of service which proved something more than a mere

_vox et præterea nihil_. Whatever I alluded to, onions, plantains,

limes, vegetables, tamarind-cakes, coffee from Karagwah, and similar

articles, only to be found amongst the Arabs, were sent at once, and the

very name of payment would have been an insult. Snay bin Amir,

determining to surpass all others in generosity, sent two goats to us

and two bullocks to the Baloch and the sons of Ramji: sixteen years

before, he had begun life a confectioner at Maskat, and now he had risen

to be one of the wealthiest ivory and slave-dealers in Eastern Africa.

As his health forbade him to travel he had become a general agent at

Kazeh, where he had built a village containing his store-houses and his

depôts of cloth and beads, slaves and ivory. I have to acknowledge many

an obligation to him. Having received a “wakalat-namah,” or “power of

attorney” he enlisted porters for the caravan to Ujiji. He warehoused my

goods, he disposed of my extra stores, and, finally, he superintended my

preparations for the down-march. During two long halts at Kazeh he never

failed, except through sickness, to pass the evening with me, and from

his instructive and varied conversation was derived not a little of the

information contained in the following pages. He had travelled three

times between Unyamwezi and the coast, besides navigating the great Lake

Tanganyika and visiting the northern kingdoms of Karagwah and Uganda. He

first entered the country about fifteen years ago, when the line of

traffic ended at Usanga and Usenga, and he was as familiar with the

languages, the religion, the manners, and the ethnology of the African,

as with those of his natal Oman. He was a middle-aged man with somewhat

of the Quixotic appearance, high-featured, sharp and sunken-eyed, almost

beardless, light-coloured, tall, gaunt, and large-limbed. He had read

much, and, like an oriental, for improvement, not only for amusement: he

had a wonderful memory, fine perceptions and passing power of language.

Finally, he was the stuff of which friends are made; brave as all his

race, prudent withal, ready to perish for the “Pundonor,” and,--such is

not often the case in the East,--he was as honest as he was honourable.

Before proceeding with the thread of my narrative, the reader is

requested to bear with the following few lines upon the subject of

Unyanyembe.

Unyanyembe, the central and principal province of Unyamwezi, is, like

Zungomero in Khutu, the great Bandari or meeting-place of merchants, and

the point of departure for caravans which thence radiate into the

interior of Central Intertropical Africa. Here the Arab merchant from

Zanzibar meets his compatriot returning from the Tanganyika Lake and

from Uruwwa. Northwards well-travelled lines diverge to the Nyanza Lake,

and the powerful kingdoms of Karagwah, Uganda, and Unyoro; from the

south Urori and Ubena, Usanga and Usenga, send their ivory and slaves;

and from the south-west the Rukwa Water, K’hokoro, Ufipa, and Marungu

must barter their valuables for cottons, wires, and beads. The central

position and the comparative safety of Unyanyembe have made it the

head-quarters of the Omani or pure Arabs, who, in many cases, settle

here for years, remaining in charge of their depôts, whilst their

factors and slaves travel about the country and collect the items of

traffic. At Unyanyembe the merchants expect some delay. The porters,

whether hired upon the coast or at the Tanganyika Lake, here disperse,

and a fresh gang must be collected--no easy task when the sowing season

draws nigh.

Unyanyembe, which rises about 3480 feet above sea-level, and lies 356

miles in rectilinear distance from the eastern coast of Africa,

resembles in its physical features the lands about Tura. The plain or

basin of Ihárá, or Kwihárá, a word synonymous with the “Bondei” or

low-land of the coast, is bounded on the north and south by low,

rolling hills, which converge towards the west, where, with the

characteristically irregular lay of primitive formations, they are

crossed almost at right angles by the Mfuto chain. The position has been

imprudently chosen by the Arabs; the land suffers from alternate drought

and floods, which render the climate markedly malarious. The soil is

aluminous in the low levels--a fertile plain of brown earth, with a

subsoil of sand and sandstone, from eight to twelve feet below the

surface; the water is often impregnated with iron, and the higher

grounds are uninhabited tracts covered with bulky granite-boulders,

bushy trees, and thorny shrubs.

Contrary to what might be expected this “Bandari-district” contains

villages and hamlets, but nothing that can properly be termed a town.

The Mtemi or Sultan Fundikira, the most powerful of the Wanyamwezi

chiefs, inhabits a Tembe, or square settlement, called “Ititenya,” on

the western slope of the southern hills. A little colony of Arab

merchants has four large houses at a neighbouring place, “Mawiti.” In

the centre of the plain lies “Kazeh,” another scattered collection of

six large hollow oblongs, with central courts, garden-plots,

store-rooms, and outhouses for the slaves. Around these nuclei cluster

native villages--masses of Wanyamwezi hovels, which bear the names of

their founders.

This part of Unyanyembe was first colonised about 1852, when the Arabs

who had been settled nearly ten years at Kigandu of P’huge, a district

of Usukuma, one long day’s march north of Kazeh, were induced by

Mpagamo, to aid them against Msimbira, a rival chief, who defeated and

drove them from their former seats. The details of this event were

supplied by an actor in the scenes; they well illustrate the futility of

the people. The Arabs, after five or six days of skirmishing, were upon

the point of carrying the boma or palisade of Msimbira, their enemy,

when suddenly at night their slaves, tired of eating beef and raw

ground-nuts, secretly deserted to a man. The masters awaking in the

morning found themselves alone, and made up their minds for

annihilation. Fortunately for them, the enemy, suspecting an ambuscade,

remained behind their walls, and allowed the merchants to retire without

an attempt to cut them off. Their employer, Mpagamo, then professed

himself unable to defend them; when, deeming themselves insecure, they

abandoned his territory. Snay bin Amir and Musa Mzuri, the Indian,

settled at Kazeh, then a desert, built houses, sunk wells, and converted

it into a populous place.

It is difficult to average the present number of Arab merchants at

Unyanyembe who, like the British in India, visit but do not colonise;

they rarely, however, exceed twenty-five in number; and during the

travelling season, or when a campaign is necessary, they are sometimes

reduced to three or four; they are too strong to yield without fighting,

and are not strong enough to fight with success. Whenever the people

have mustered courage to try a fall with the strangers, they have been

encouraged to try again. Hitherto the merchants have been on friendly

terms with Fundikira, the chief. Their position, however, though partly

held by force of prestige, is precarious. They are all Arabs from Oman,

with one solitary exception, Musa Mzuri, an Indian Kojah, who is perhaps

in these days the earliest explorer of Unyamwezi. In July, 1858, an Arab

merchant, Silim bin Masud, returning from Kazeh to his home at Msene,

with a slave-porter carrying a load of cloth, was, though well armed and

feared as a good shot, attacked at a water in a strip of jungle westward

of Mfuto, and speared in the back by five men, who were afterwards

proved to be subjects of the Sultan Kasanyare, a Mvinza. The Arabs

organised a small expedition to revenge the murder, marched out with 200

or 300 slave-musketeers, devoured all the grain and poultry in the

country, and returned to their homes without striking a blow, because

each merchant-militant wished his fellows to guarantee his goods or his

life for the usual diyat, or blood-money, 800 dollars. This impunity of

crime will probably lead to other outrages.

The Arabs live comfortably, and even splendidly, at Unyanyembe. The

houses, though single-storied, are large, substantial, and capable of

defence. Their gardens are extensive and well planted; they receive

regular supplies of merchandise, comforts, and luxuries from the coast;

they are surrounded by troops of concubines and slaves, whom they train

to divers crafts and callings: rich men have riding-asses from

Zanzibar, and even the poorest keep flocks and herds. At Unyanyembe,

as at Msene, and sometimes at Ujiji, there are itinerant fundi, or

slave-artisans--blacksmiths, tinkers, masons, carpenters, tailors,

potters, and rope-makers,--who come up from the coast with Arab

caravans. These men demand exorbitant wages. A broken matchlock can be

repaired, and even bullets cast; good cord is purchaseable; and for

tinning a set of seventeen pots and plates five shukkah merkani are

charged. A pair of Arab stirrups are made up for one shukkah besides the

material, and chains for animals at about double the price. Fetters and

padlocks, however, are usually imported by caravans. Pack-saddles are

brought from Zanzibar: in caravans a man may sometimes be found to make

them. There is, moreover, generally a pauper Arab who for cloth will

make up a ridge-tent; and as most civilised Orientals can use a needle,

professional tailors are little required. Provisions are cheap and

plentiful; the profits are large; and the Arab, when wealthy, is

disposed to be hospitable and convivial. Many of the more prosperous

merchants support their brethren who have been ruined by the chances and

accidents of trade. When a stranger appears amongst them, he receives

the “hishmat l’il gharíb,” or the guest-welcome, in the shape of a goat

and a load of white rice; he is provided with lodgings, and is

introduced by the host to the rest of the society at a general banquet.

The Arabs’ great deficiency is the want of some man to take the lead.

About fifteen years ago Abdullah bin Salim, a merchant from Zanzibar,

with his body of 200 armed slaves, kept the whole community in

subjection: since his death, in 1852, the society has suffered from all

the effects of disunion where union is most required. The Arab, however,

is even in Africa a Pantisocrat, and his familiarity with the inferior

races around him leads to the proverbial consequences.

The houses of the Arabs are Moslem modifications of the African Tembe,

somewhat superior in strength and finish. The deep and shady

outside-verandah, supported by stout uprights, shelters a broad bench of

raised earthwork, where men sit to enjoy the morning cool and the

evening serenity, and where they pray, converse, and transact their

various avocations. A portcullis-like door, composed of two massive

planks, with chains thick as a ship’s cable--a precaution rendered

necessary by the presence of wild slaves--leads into the barzah, or

vestibule. The only furniture is a pair of clay benches extending along

the right and left sides, with pillow-shaped terminations of the same

material; over these, when visitors are expected, rush mats and rugs are

spread. From this barzah a passage, built at the angle proper to baffle

the stranger’s curiosity, leads into the interior, a hollow square or

oblong, with the several rooms opening upon a courtyard, which, when not

built round, is completely closed by a “liwan”--a fence of small

tree-trunks or reeds. The apartments have neither outward doors nor

windows: small bull’s-eyes admit the air, and act as loop-holes in case

of need. The principal room on the master’s side of the house has a

bench of clay, and leads into a dark closet where stores and merchandise

are placed. There are separate lodgings for the harem, and the domestic

slaves live in barracoons or in their own outhouses. This form of Tembe

is perhaps the dullest habitation ever invented by man. The exterior

view is carefully removed from sight, and the dull, dirty courtyard,

often swamped during the rains, is ever before the tenant’s eyes; the

darkness caused by want of windows painfully contrasts with the flood of

sunshine pouring in through the doors, and at night no number of candles

will light up its gloomy walls of grey or reddish mud. The breeze is

either excluded by careless frontage, or the high and chilling winds

pour in like torrents; the roof is never water-tight, and the walls and

rafters harbour hosts of scorpions and spiders, wasps and cockroaches.

The Arabs, however, will expend their time and trouble in building

rather than trust their goods in African huts, exposed to thieves and to

the frequent fires which result from barbarous carelessness: everywhere,

when a long halt is in prospect, they send their slaves for wood to the

jungle, and superintend the building of a spacious Tembe. They neglect,

however, an important precaution, a sleeping-room raised above the mean

level of malaria.

Another drawback to the Arab’s happiness is the failure of his

constitution: a man who escapes illness for two successive months boasts

of the immunity; and, as in Egypt, no one enjoys robust health. The

older residents have learned to moderate their appetites. They eat but

twice a-day--after sunrise, and at noon--the midday meal concluded, they

confine themselves to chewing tobacco or the dried coffee of Karagwah.

They avoid strong meats, especially beef and game, which are considered

heating and bilious, remaining satisfied with light dishes, omelets and

pillaus, harísah, firni, and curded milk, and the less they eat the more

likely they are to escape fever. Harisáh, in Kisawahili “boko-boko,” is

the roast beef--the _plat de résistance_--of the Eastern and African

Arab. It is a kind of pudding made with finely shredded meat, boiled

with flour of wheat, rice, or holcus, to the consistence of a thick

paste, and eaten with honey or sugar. Firni, an Indian word, is

synonymous with the muhallibah of Egypt, a thin jelly of milk-and-water,

honey, rice-flour, and spices, which takes the place of our substantial

northern rice-pudding. The general health has been improved by the

importation from the coast of wheat, and a fine white rice, instead of

the red aborigen of the country, of various fruits, plantains, limes,

and papaws; and of vegetables, brinjalls, cucumbers, and tomatos, which

relieve the indigenous holcus and maize, manioc and sweet-potato, millet

and phaseoli, sesamum and ground-nuts. They declare to having derived

great benefit from the introduction of onions,--an antifebral, which

flourishes better in Central than in Maritime Africa. The onion, so

thriving in South Africa, rapidly degenerates upon the island of

Zanzibar into a kind of houseleek. In Unyamwezi it is of tolerable size

and flavour. It enters into a variety of dishes, the most nauseous being

probably the sugared onion-omelet. In consequence of general demand,

onions are expensive in the interior; an indigo-dyed shukkah will

purchase little more than a pound. When the bulbs fail, the leaves

chopped into thin circles and fried in clarified butter with salt, are

eaten as a relish with meat. They are also inserted into marak or soups,

to disguise the bitter and rancid taste of stale ghee. Onions may be

sown at all seasons except during the wet monsoon, when they are liable

to decay. The Washenzi have not yet borrowed this excellent and healthy

vegetable from the Arabs. Garlic has also been tried in Unyanyembe, but

with less success; moreover, it is considered too heating for daily use.

As might be expected, however, amongst a floating population with many

slaves, foreign fruits and vegetables are sometimes allowed to die out.

Thus some enterprising merchant introduced into Unyanyembe the date and

the mkungu, bidam, or almond-tree of the coast: the former, watered once

every third day, promised to bear fruit, when, in the absence of the

master, the Wanyamwezi cut up the young shoots into walking-sticks.

Sugar is imported: the water-wanting cane will not thrive in arid

Unyanyembe, and honey must be used as a succedaneum. Black pepper,

universally considered cooling by Orientals, is much eaten with

curry-stuffs and other highly-seasoned dishes, whereas the excellent

chillies and bird-pepper, which here grow wild, are shunned for their

heating properties. Butter and ghee are made by the wealthy; humbler

houses buy the article, which is plentiful and good, from the

Wanyamwezi. Water is the usual beverage. Some Arabs drink togwa, a sweet

preparation of holcus; and others, debauchees, indulge in the sour and

intoxicating pombe, or small-beer.

The market at Unyanyembe varies greatly according to the quantity of the

rains. As usual in barbarous societies, a dry season, or a few

unexpected caravans, will raise the prices, even to trebling; and the

difference of value in grain before and after the harvest will be double

or half of what it is at par. The price of provisions in Unyamwezi has

increased inordinately since the Arabs have settled in the land.

Formerly a slave-boy could be purchased for five fundo, or fifty strings

of beads: the same article would now fetch three hundred. A fundo of

cheap white porcelain-beads would procure a milch cow; and a goat, or

ten hens its equivalent, was to be bought for one khete. In plentiful

years Unyanyembe is, however, still the cheapest country in East Africa,

and, as usual in cheap countries, it induces the merchant to spend more

than in the dearest. Paddy of good quality, when not in demand, sells at

twenty kayla (120lbs.) for one shukkah of American domestics; maize, at

twenty-five; and sorghum, here the staff of life, when in large stock,

at sixty. A fat bullock may be bought for four domestics, a cow costs

from six to twelve, a sheep or a goat from one to two. A hen, or its

equivalent, four or five eggs, is worth one khete of coral or pink

porcelain beads. One fundo of the same will purchase a large bunch of

plantains, with which máwá or plantain-wine, and siki or vinegar are

made; and the Wanyamwezi will supply about a pint of milk every morning

at the rate of one shukkah per mensem. A kind of mud-fish is caught by

the slaves in the frequent pools which, during the cold season, dot the

course of the Gombe Nullah, lying three miles north of Kazeh; and

return-caravans often bring with them stores of the small fry, called

Kashwá or Daga’a, from the Tanganyika Lake.

From Unyanyembe twenty marches, which are seldom accomplished under

twenty-five days, conduct the traveller to Ujiji, upon the Tanganyika.

Of these the fifth station is Msene, the great Bandari of Western

Unyamwezi. It is usually reached in eight days; and the twelfth is the

Malagarazi River, the western limit of the fourth region.

The traveller, by means of introductory letters to the Doyen of the Arab

merchants at Kazeh, can always recruit his stock of country

currency,--cloth, beads, and wire,--his requirements of powder and ball,

and his supply of spices, comforts, and drugs, without which travel in

these lands usually ends fatally. He will pay, it is true, about five

times their market-value at Zanzibar: sugar, for instance, sells at its

weight in ivory, or nearly one-third more than its weight in beads. But

though the prices are exorbitant they preserve the buyer from greater

evils, the expense of porterage, the risk of loss, and the trouble and

annoyance of personally superintending large stores in a land where

“vir” and “fur” are synonymous terms.

And now comfortably housed within a stone-throw of my new friend Shaykh

Snay bin Amir, I bade adieu for a time to the march, the camp, and the

bivouac. Perhaps the reader may not be unwilling to hear certain details

concerning the “road and the inn” in Eastern Africa; he is familiar from

infancy with the Arab Kafilah and its host of litters and camels,

horses, mules, and asses, but the porter-journeys in Eastern Africa have

as yet escaped the penman’s pen.

Throughout Eastern Africa made roads, the first test of progress in a

people, are unknown. The most frequented routes are foot-tracks like

goat-walks, one to two spans broad, trodden down during the travelling

season by man and beast, and during the rains the path in African

parlance “dies,” that is to say, it is overgrown with vegetation. In

open and desert places four or five lines often run parallel for short

distances. In jungly countries they are mere tunnels in thorns and under

branchy trees, which fatigue the porter by catching his load. Where

fields and villages abound they are closed with rough hedges, horizontal

tree-trunks, and even rude stockades, to prevent trespassing and

pilferage. Where the land is open, an allowance of one-fifth must be

made for winding: in closer countries this must be increased to

two-fifths or to one-half, and the traveller must exercise his judgment

in distributing the marches between these two extremes. In Uzaramo and

K’hutu the tracks run through tall grasses, which are laid by their own

weight after rains, and are burned down during the hot seasons: they

often skirt cultivated lands, which they are not allowed to enter, miry

swamps are spanned, rivers breast-deep, with muddy bottoms and steep

slippery banks, are forded, whilst deep holes, the work of rodents and

insects, render them perilous to ridden cattle. In Usagara the gradients

are surmounted either by beds of mountain torrents or by breasting steep

and stony hills, mere ladders of tree-root and loose stones: laden

animals frequently cannot ascend or descend them. The worst paths in

this region are those which run along the banks of the many streams and

rivulets, and which traverse the broken and thorny ground at the base of

the hills. The former are “thieves’ roads,” choked with long succulent

grass springing from slushy mud; the latter are continued rises and

falls, with a small but ragged and awkward watercourse at every bottom.

From Usagara to Western Unyamwezi the roads lead through thick

thorn-jungle, and thin forests of trees blazed or barked along the

track, without hill, but interrupted during the rains by swamps and

bogs. They are studded with sign-posts, broken pots and gourds, horns

and skulls of game and cattle, imitations of bows and arrows pointing

towards water, and heads of holcus. Sometimes a young tree is bent

across the path and provided with a cross-bar; here is a rush gateway

like the yoke of the ancients, or a platform of sleepers supported by

upright trunks; there a small tree felled and replanted, is tipped with

a crescent of grass twisted round with bark, and capped with huge snail

shells, and whatever barbarous imagination may suggest. Where many roads

meet, those to be avoided are barred with a twig or crossed by a line

drawn with the foot. In Western Uvinza and near Ujiji, the paths are

truly vile, combining all the disadvantages of bog and swamp, river and

rivulet, thorn-bush and jungle, towering grasses, steep inclines,

riddled surface, and broken ground. The fords on the whole line are

temporary as to season, but permanent in place: they are rarely more

than breast-deep; and they average in dry weather a cubit and a half,

the fordable medium. There are but two streams, the Mgeta and the

Ruguvu, which are bridged over by trees; both could be forded higher up

the bed; and on the whole route there is but one river, the Malagarazi,

which requires a ferry during the dry season. Cross roads abound in the

populous regions. Where they exist not, the jungle is often impassable,

except to the elephant and the rhinoceros: a company of pioneers would

in some places require a week to cut their way for a single march

through the network of thorns and the stockade of rough tree-trunks. The

directions issued to travellers about drawing off their parties for

safety at night to rising grounds, will not apply to Eastern Africa; it

would be far easier to dig for themselves abodes under the surface.

It is commonly asserted in the island of Zanzibar that there are no

caravans in these regions. The dictum is true if the term be limited to

the hosts of camels and mules that traverse the deserts and the

mountains of Arabia and Persia. It is erroneous if applied to a body of

men travelling for commercial purposes. From time immemorial the

Wanyamwezi have visited the road to the coast, and though wars and

blood-feuds may have temporarily closed one line, another necessarily

opened itself. Amongst a race so dependent for comfort and pleasure upon

trade, commerce, like steam, cannot be compressed beyond a certain

point. Until a few years ago, when the extension of traffic induced the

country people to enlist as porters, all merchants traversed these

regions with servile gangs hired on the coast or island of Zanzibar, a

custom still prevailing on the northern and southern routes from the

sea-board to the lakes of Nyanza and Nyassa. Porterage, on the long and

toilsome journey, is now considered by the Wanyamwezi a test of

manliness, as the Englishman deems a pursuit or a profession necessary

to clear him from the charge of effeminacy. The children imbibe the

desire with their milk, and at six or seven years old they carry a

little tusk on their shoulders--instinctive porters, as pointer-pups are

hereditary pointers. By premature toil their shinbones are sometimes

bowed to the front like those of animals too early ridden. “He sits in

hut egg-hatching,” is their proverbial phrase to express one more

elegant--

“Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits.”

And they are ever quoting the adage that men who travel not are

void of understanding--the African equivalent of what was said by the

European sage: “The world is a great book, of which those who never

leave home read but a page.” Against this traditional tendency reasons

of mere hire and rations, though apparently weighty, are found wanting.

The porter will bargain over his engagement to the utmost bead, saying

that all men are bound to make the best conditions for themselves: yet,

after two or three months of hard labour, if he chance upon a caravan

returning to his home, a word from a friend, acting upon his innate

debility of purpose, will prevail upon him to sacrifice by desertion all

the fruits of his toil. On these occasions the porters are carefully

watched; open desertion would, it is true, be condemned by the general

voice, yet no merchant can so win the affections of his men that some

will not at times disappear. Until the gangs have left their homes far

behind, their presence seems to hang by a thread; at the least pretext

they pack up their goods and vanish in a mass. When approaching their

settlements--at the frontier districts of Tura and Mfuto, for

instance--their cloth and hire are taken from them, packed in the

employer’s bales, and guarded by armed slaves, especially at night, and

on the line of march. Yet these precautions frequently fail, and, once

beyond the camp limits, it is vain to seek the fugitive. In the act of

desertion they show intelligence: they seldom run away when caravans

first meet, lest their employer should halt and recover them by main

force, and, except where thieves and wild beasts are unknown, they will

not fly by night. The porter, however, has one point of honour; he

leaves his pack behind him. The slave, on the other hand, certainly robs

his employer when he runs away, and this, together with his

unwillingness to work and the trouble and annoyance which he causes to

his owner, counterbalances his superior dexterity and intelligence.

Caravans, called in Kisawahili safári (from the Arab safar, a journey)

and by the African rugendo or lugendo, “a going,” are rarely wanting on

the main trunk-lines. The favourite seasons for the upward-bound are the

months in which the greater and the lesser Masika or tropical rains

conclude--in June and September, for instance, on the coast--when water

and provisions are plentiful. Those who delay till the dry weather has

set in must expect hardships on the march; the expense of rations will

be doubled and trebled, and the porters will frequently desert. The

down-caravans set out in all seasons except the rainy; it is difficult

to persuade the people of Unyanyembe to leave their fields between the

months of October and May. They will abandon cultivation to the women

and children, and merrily take the footpath way if laden with their own

ivory, but from the merchant they will demand exorbitant wages, and even

then they will hesitate to engage themselves.

Porterage varies with every year and in every caravan. It knows but two

limits: the interest of the employer to disburse as little as possible

by taking every advantage of the necessities of his employé, and the

desire of the employé to extract as much as he can by presuming upon the

wants of his employer. In some years there is a glut of porters on the

coast; when they are rare quarrels take place between the several

settlements, each attempting a monopoly of enlistment to the detriment

of its neighbours, and a little blood is sometimes let. When the

Wanyamwezi began to carry, they demanded for a journey from the coast to

their own country six to nine dollars’ worth of domestics, coloured

cloths, brass-wires, and the pigeon’s-egg bead called sungomaji. The

rate of porterage then declined; the increase of traffic, however, has

of late years greatly increased it. In 1857 it was 10 dollars, and it

afterwards rose to 12 dollars per porter. In this sum rations are not

included; the value of these--which by ancient custom are fixed at 1

kubabah (about 1·5 lbs.) of grain per diem, or, that failing, of manioc,

sweet potatoes, and similar articles, with the present of a bullock at

the frontier--is subject to greater variations, and is even less

reducible to an average than the porter’s pay. It is needless to say

that the down-journey is less expensive than the up-march, as the

carriers rely upon a fresh engagement on the coast. The usual hire from

Unyanyembe would be nine cloths, payable on arrival at the sea-port,

where each is worth 25 cents, or about 1 shilling. The Arabs roughly

calculate--the errors balancing one another--that, rations included, the

hire of a porter from the coast to the Tanganyika Lake and back amounts

to a total of 20 dollars = 4_l._ 3_s._ From the coast, Wanyamwezi

porters will not engage themselves for a journey westward of their own

country; at Unyanyembe they break up, and a fresh gang must be enlisted

for a march to the Tanganyika or to the Nyanza Lake. It is impossible to

average the numbers of an East African caravan, which varies from half a

dozen to 200 porters, under a single Mundewa or merchant. In dangerous

places travellers halt till they form an imposing force; 500 is a

frequent figure, and even bodies of 1000 men are not rare. The only

limit to the gathering is the incapability of the country to fill more

than a certain number of mouths. The larger caravans, however, are slow

and cumbrous, and in places they exhaust the provision of water.

Caravans in East Africa are of three kinds. The most novel and

characteristic are those composed only of Wanyamwezi; secondly, are the

caravans directed and escorted by Wasawahili freemen or fundi (slave

fattori), commissioned by their patrons; and, lastly, those commanded by

Arabs.

The porter, called pagazi or fagazi--the former is the African, the

latter the ridiculous Arabised form of the word--corresponds with the

carregador of West Africa. The Wanyamwezi make up large parties of men,

some carrying their own goods, others hired by petty proprietors, who

for union and strength elect a head Mtongi, Ras Kafilah, or leader. The

average number of these parties that annually visit the coast is far

greater than those commanded by stranger-merchants. In the Unyamwezi

caravan there is no desertion, no discontent, and, except in certain

spots, little delay. The porters trudge from sunrise to 10 or 11 A.M.,

and sometimes, though rarely, they will travel twice a day, resting only

during the hours of heat. They work with a will, carrying

uncomplainingly huge tusks, some so heavy that they must be lashed to a

pole between two men--a contrivance technically called mziga-ziga. Their

shoulders are often raw with the weight, their feet are sore, and they

walk half or wholly naked to save their cloth for displays at home. They

ignore tent or covering, and sleep on the ground; their only supplies

are their country’s produce, a few worn-down hoes, intended at times to

purchase a little grain or to be given as blackmail for sultans, and

small herds of bullocks and heifers that serve for similar purposes if

not lost, with characteristic African futility, upon the road. Those who

most consult comfort carry, besides their loads and arms, a hide for

bedding, an earthen cooking pot, a stool, a kilindo or bark-box

containing cloth and beads, and perhaps a small gourd full of ghee. They

sometimes suffer severely from exposure to a climate which forbids long

and hard work upon short and hard fare. Malignant epidemics, especially

small-pox, often attack caravans as they approach the coast; generally,

however, though somewhat lean and haggard, the porters appear in better

condition than might be expected. The European traveller will repent

accompanying these caravans: as was said of a similar race, the Indians

of Guiana, “they will not deviate three steps from the regular path.”

Porters engaged by Arab Mtajiri or Mundewa--the former is the

Kisawahili, the latter is the Inner African term for a merchant or

travelling trader--are known by their superior condition; they eat much

more, work much less, and give far greater trouble to their commanders.

They expend part of the cloth and beads which they have received as hire

to procure for themselves occasional comforts; and on the down-journey

they take with them a few worn-down hoes to retain the power of

desertion without starving. The self-willed wretches demean themselves

with the coolest impudence; reply imperiously, lord it over their

leaders, regulate the marches and the halts, and though they work they

never work without loud complaints and open discontent. Rations are a

perpetual source of heart-burning: stinted at home to a daily mess of

grain-porridge, the porters on the line of march devote, in places where

they can presume, all their ingenuity to extort as much food as possible

from their employers. At times they are seized with a furore for meat.

When a bullock is slaughtered, the Kirangozi or guide claims the head,

leaving the breast and loin to the Mtongi or principal proprietor, and

the remainder is equally portioned amongst the khambi or messes into

which the gang divides itself. As has been remarked, the Arab merchant,

next to the Persian, is the most luxurious traveller in the East; a

veteran of the way, he well knows the effects of protracted hardship and

scarcity upon a wayfarer’s health. The European traveller, however, will

not enjoy the companionship of the Arab caravan, which marches by

instinct rather than by reason. It begins by dawdling over the

preliminaries; it then pushes hurriedly onwards till arrested by

epidemic or desertion; and finally it lingers over the end of the

journey, thus loosing time twice. This style of progress is fatal to

observation; moreover, none but a special caravan, consisting of slaves

hired for the purpose in the island of Zanzibar or on the coast, and

accompanied by their own Ahbab or patron--without whom they will obey no

employer, however generous or energetic--will enable the explorer to

strike into an unbeaten path, or to progress a few miles beyond the

terminus of a main trunk-road. The most enterprising of porters will

desert, leaving the caravan-leader like a water-logged ship.

Between these two extremes are the trading parties directed by the

Wasawahili, the Wamrima, and the slave Fundi--the Pombeiros of West

Africa--kindred souls with the Pagazi, understanding their languages and

familiar with their habits, manners, and customs. These “Safari” are

neither starved like those composed of Wanyamwezi, nor pampered like

those headed by the Arabs. There is less fatigue during the march, and

more comfort at the halting-place, consequently there are fewer cases of

disease and death. These semi-African Mtongi, hating and jealousing

Arabs and all strangers, throw every obstacle in their way, spread

reports concerning their magical and malevolent powers which are

dangerous amongst the more superstitious barbarians, they offer a

premium for desertion, and in fine, they labour hard though fruitlessly,

to retain their ancient monopoly of the profits derived from the

interior.

I will now describe the day’s march and the halt of the East African

caravan.

At 3 A.M., all is silent as the tomb, even the Mnyamwezi watchman nods

over his fire. About an hour later the red-faced apoplectic

chanticleer--there are sometimes half-a-dozen of them--the alarum of the

caravan, and a prime favourite with the slaves and porter, who carry him

on their banghy-poles by turns, and who drench him with water when his

beak opens under the sun,--flaps his wings and crows a loud salutation

to the dawn: he is answered by every cock and cockerel within ear-shot.

I have been lying awake for some time, longing for the light, and when

in health, for an early breakfast. At the first paling of the East, the

torpid Goanese are called up to build a fire, they tremble with the

cold--thermometrically averaging 60° F.--and they hurry to bring food.

Appetite somewhat difficult at this hour, demands a frequent change of

diet, we drink tea or coffee when procurable, or we eat rice-milk and

cakes raised with whey, or a porridge not unlike water-gruel. Whilst we

are so engaged, the Baloch chanting the spiritual songs which follow

prayers, squat round a cauldron placed upon a roaring fire, and fortify

the inner man with boiled meat and grain, with toasted pulse and

tobacco.

About such time, 5 A.M., the camp is fairly roused, and a little low

chatting becomes audible. This is a critical moment. The porters have

promised overnight, to start early, and to make a long wholesome march.

But, “uncertain, coy, and hard to please,” they change their minds like

the fair sex, the cold morning makes them unlike the men of the warm

evening, and perhaps one of them has fever. Moreover, in every caravan

there is some lazy, loud-lunged, contradictory and unmanageable fellow,

whose sole delight is to give trouble. If no march be in prospect, they

sit obstinately before the fire warming their hands and feet, inhaling

the smoke with everted heads, and casting quizzical looks at their

fuming and fidgety employer. If all be unanimous, it is vain to attempt

them, even soft sawder is but “throwing comfits to cows.” We return to

our tent. If, however, there be a division, a little active stimulating

will cause a march. Then a louder conversation leads to cries of Kwecha!

Kwecha! Pakia! Pakia! Hopa! Hopa! Collect! pack! set out! Safari! Safari

leo! a journey, a journey to-day! and some peculiarly African boasts,

P’hunda! Ngami! I am an ass! a camel! accompanied by a roar of bawling

voices, drumming, whistling, piping, and the braying of Barghumi, or

horns. The sons of Ramji come in a body to throw our tents, and to

receive small burdens, which, if possible, they shirk; sometimes Kidogo

does me the honour to inquire the programme of the day. The porters,

however, hug the fire till driven from it, when they unstack the loads

piled before our tents and pour out of the camp or village. My companion

and I, when well enough to ride, mount our asses, led by the gunbearers,

who carry all necessaries for offence and defence; when unfit for

exercise, we are borne in hammocks, slung to long poles, and carried by

two men at a time. The Baloch tending their slaves hasten off in a

straggling body, thinking only of escaping an hour’s sun. The Jemadar,

however, is ordered to bring up the rear with Said bin Salim, who is

cold and surly, abusive and ready with his rattan. Four or five packs

have been left upon the ground by deserters, or shirkers, who have

started empty-handed, consequently our Arab either double-loads more

willing men, or persuades the sons of Ramji to carry a small parcel

each, or that failing, he hires from some near village a few porters by

the day. This, however, is not easy, the beads have been carried off,

and the most tempting promises without pre-payment, have no effect upon

the African mind.

When all is ready, the Kirangozi or Mnyamwezi guide rises and shoulders

his load, which is ever one of the lightest. He deliberately raises his

furled flag, a plain blood-red, the sign of a caravan from Zanzibar,

much tattered by the thorns, and he is followed by a privileged Pagazi,

tom-toming upon a kettle-drum much resembling a European hour-glass. The

dignitary is robed in the splendour of scarlet broadcloth, a narrow

piece about six feet long, with a central aperture for the neck, and

with streamers dangling before and behind; he also wears some wonderful

head-dress, the spoils of a white and black “tippet-monkey,” or the

barred skin of a wild cat, crowning the head, bound round the throat,

hanging over the shoulders, and capped with a tall cup-shaped bunch of

owl’s feathers, or the gorgeous plumes of the crested crane. His

insignia of office are the kipungo or fly-flapper, the tail of some

beast which he affixes to his person as if it were a natural growth, the

kome, or hooked iron spit, decorated with a central sausage of

parti-coloured beads, and a variety of oily little gourds containing

snuff, simples, and “medicine,” for the road, strapped round his waist.

He leads the caravan, and the better to secure the obedience of his

followers he has paid them in a sheep or a goat, the value of which he

will recover by fees and superiority of rations--the head of every

animal slaughtered in camp and the presents at the end of the journey

are exclusively his. A man guilty of preceding the Kirangozi is liable

to fine, and an arrow is extracted from his quiver to substantiate his

identity at the end of the march. Pouring out of the kraal in a

disorderly mob, the porters stack their goods at some tree distant but a

few hundred yards, and allow the late, the lazy, and the invalids to

join the main body. Generally at this conjuncture the huts are fired by

neglect or mischievousness. The khambi, especially in winter, burns like

tinder, and the next caravan will find a heap of hot ashes and a few

charred sticks still standing. Yet by way of contrast the Pagazi will

often take the trouble to denote by the usual signposts to those

following them that water is at hand. Here and there a little

facetiousness appears in these erections, a mouth is cut in the

tree-trunk to admit a bit of wood, simulating a pipe, with other

representations still more waggish.

After the preliminary halt, the caravan, forming into the order of

march, winds, like a monstrous land-serpent, over hill, dale, and plain.

The Kirangozi is followed by an Indian file, those nearest to him, the

grandees of the gang, are heavily laden with ivories: when the weight of

the tusk is inordinate, it is tied to a pole and is carried

palanquin-fashion by two men. A large cowbell, whose music rarely ceases

on the march, is attached to the point which is to the fore; to the

bamboo behind is lashed the porter’s private baggage,--his earthen

cooking-pot, his water-gourd, his sleeping-mat, and his other

necessaries. The ivory-carriers are succeeded by the bearers of cloth

and beads, each man, poising upon either shoulder, and sometimes raising

upon the head for rest, packs that resemble huge bolsters, six feet long

by two in diameter, cradled in sticks, which generally have a forked

projection for facility of stacking and reshouldering the load. The

sturdiest fellows are usually the lightest loaded: in Eastern Africa, as

elsewhere, the weakest go to the wall. The maximum of burden may be two

farasilah, or seventy pounds, avoirdupois. Behind the cloth bearers

straggles a long line of porters and slaves, laden with the lighter

stuff, rhinoceros-teeth, hides, salt-cones, tobacco, brass wire, iron

hoes, boxes and bags, beds and tents, pots and water-gourds, mats and

private stores. With the Pagazi, but in separate parties, march the

armed slaves, who are never seen to quit their muskets, the women, and

the little toddling children, who rarely fail to carry something, be it

only of a pound weight, and the asses neatly laden with saddle-bags of

giraffe or buffalo-hide. A “Mganga” almost universally accompanies the

caravan, not disdaining to act as a common porter. The “parson” not only

claims, in virtue of his sacred calling, the lightest load; he is also a

stout, smooth, and sleek-headed man, because, as usual with his class,

he eats much and he works little. The rear is brought up by the master

or the masters of the caravan, who often remains far behind for the

convenience of walking and to prevent desertion.

All the caravan is habited in its worst attire, the East African derides

those who wear upon a journey the cloth which should be reserved for

display at home. If rain fall they will doff the single goat-skin hung

round their sooty limbs, and, folding it up, place it between the

shoulder and the load. When grain is served out for some days’ march,

each porter bears his posho or rations fastened like a large “bussel” to

the small of his back. Upon this again, he sometimes binds, with its

legs projecting outwards, the three-legged stool, which he deems

necessary to preserve him from the danger of sitting upon the damp

ground. As may be imagined, the barbarians have more ornament than

dress. Some wear the ngala, a strip of zebra’s mane bound round the head

with the bristly parti-coloured, hair standing out like a saint’s

“gloria:” others prefer a long bit of stiffened ox-tail, rising like a

unicorn’s horn, at least a foot above the forehead. Other ornaments are

the skins of monkeys and ocelots, rouleaus and fillets of white, blue,

or scarlet cloth, and huge bunches of ostrich, crane, and jay’s

feathers, crowning the head like the tufts of certain fowls. Their arms

are decorated with massive ivory bracelets, heavy bangles of brass or

copper, and thin circlets of the same metal, beads in strings and bands,

adorn their necks, and small iron bells, a “knobby” decoration, whose

incessant tinkling harmonises, in African ears, with the regular

chime-like “Ti-ti! Ti-ti! tang!” of the tusk-bells, and the loud broken

“Wa-ta-ta!” of the horns, are strapped below the knee or round the ankle

by the more aristocratic. All carry some weapon; the heaviest armed have

a bow and a bark-quiver full of arrows, two or three long spears and

assegais, a little battle-axe borne on the shoulder, and the sime or

dudgeon.

The normal recreations of a march are, whistling, singing, shouting,

hooting, horning, drumming, imitating the cries of birds and beasts,

repeating words which are never used except on journeys--a “chough’s

language, gabble enough and good enough”--and abundant squabbling; in

fact perpetual noise which the ear however, soon learns to distinguish

for the hubbub of a halt. The uproar redoubles near a village, where the

flag is unfurled and where the line lags to display itself. All give

vent to loud shouts, “Hopa! hopa!--go on! go on! Mgogolo!--a stoppage!

Food! food! Don’t be tired! The kraal is here--home is near! Hasten,

kirangozi--Oh! We see our mothers! We go to eat!” On the road it is

considered prudent as well as pleasurable to be as loud as possible, in

order to impress upon plunderers an exaggerated idea of the caravan’s

strength; for equally good reasons silence is recommended in the kraal.

When threatened with attack and no ready escape suggests itself, the

porters ground their loads and prepare for action. It is only

self-interest that makes them brave; I have seen a small cow, trotting

up with tail erect, break a line of 150 men carrying goods not their

own. If a hapless hare or antelope cross the path, every man casts his

pack, brandishes his spear, and starts in pursuit; the animal never

running straight is soon killed, and torn limb from limb, each negroid

helluo devouring his morsel raw. Sometimes a sturdy fellow “renowns it”

by carrying his huge burden round and round, like a horse being ringed,

and starts off at full speed. When two bodies meet, that commanded by an

Arab claims the road. If both are Wanyamwezi, violent quarrels ensue,

but fatal weapons, which are too ready at hand, are turned to more

harmless purposes, the bow and spear being used as whip and cudgel.

These affrays are not rancorous till blood is shed. Few tribesmen are

less friendly for so trifling an affair as a broken head; even a slight

cut or a shallow stab is little thought of; but, if returned with

interest, great loss of life may arise from the slenderest cause. When

friendly caravans meet, the two Kirangozis sidle up with a stage pace, a

stride, and a stand, and with sidelong looks prance till arrived within

distance; then suddenly and simultaneously “ducking,” like boys “giving

a back,” they come to logger-heads and exchange a butt violently as

fighting rams. Their example is followed by all with a rush and a crush,

which might be mistaken for the beginning of a faction, but it ends, if

there be no bad blood, in shouts of laughter. The weaker body, however,

must yield precedence and offer a small present as blackmail.

About 8 A.M., when the fiery sun has topped the trees and a pool of

water, or a shady place appears, the planting of the red flag, the

braying of a Barghumi, or koodoo’s horn, which, heard at a distance in

the deep forests, has something of the charm which endears the “Cor de

Chasse” to every woodman’s ear, and sometimes a musket-shot or two,

announces a short halt. The porters stack their loads, and lie or loiter

about for a few minutes, chatting, drinking, and smoking tobacco and

bhang, with the usual whooping, screaming cough, and disputing eagerly

about the resting-place for the day. On long marches we then take the

opportunity of stopping to discuss the contents of two baskets which are

carried by a slave under the eye of the Goanese.

If the stage be prolonged towards noon, the caravan lags, straggles, and

suffers sorely. The heat of the ground, against which the horniest sole

never becomes proof, tries the feet like polished-leather boots on a

quarter-deck in the dog-days near the Line, and some tribulation is

caused by the cry M’iba hapa!--thorns here! The Arabs and the Baloch

must often halt to rest. The slaves ensconce themselves in snug places;

the porters, propping their burdens against trees, curl up, dog-like,

under the shade; some malinger; and this, the opportunity preferred for

desertion, is an anxious hour to the proprietor; who, if he would do his

work “deedily,” must be the last in the kraal. Still the men rarely

break down. As in Indian marching, the African caravan prefers to end

the day, rather than to begin it, with a difficulty--the ascent of a

hill, or the fording of a stream. They prefer the strip of jungle at the

further end of a district or a plantation, for safety as well as for the

comfort of shade. They avoid the vicinity of rocks; and on desert plains

they occupy some slightly rising ground, where the night-cold is less

severe than in the lower levels.

At length an increased hubbub of voices, blended with bells, drums,

fifes, and horns, and sometimes a few musket-shots, announce that the

van is lodged, and the hubbub of the halt confirms the pleasing

intelligence that the journey is shortened by a stage. Each selfish body

then hurries forward to secure the best boothy in the kraal, or the most

comfortable hut in the village, and quarrels seem serious. Again,

however, the knife returns home guiltless of gore, and the spear is used

only as an instrument for sound belabouring. The more energetic at once

apply themselves to “making all snug” for the long hot afternoon and the

nipping night; some hew down young trees, others collect heaps of leafy

boughs; one acts architect, and many bring in huge loads of firewood.

The East African is so much accustomed to house-life, that the bivouac

in the open appears to him a hardship; he prefers even to cut out the

interior of a bush and to squat in it, the portrait of a comfortable

cynocephalus. We usually spread our donkey-saddles and carpets in some

shade, awaiting the arrival of our tents, and its erection by the

grumbling sons of Ramji; if we want a hut, we draw out the man in

possession like a badger,--he will never have the decency to offer it.

As a rule, the villagers are more willing to receive the upward-bound

caravans, than those who, returning, carry wealth out of instead of into

the country. Merchants, on account of their valuable outfits, affect,

except in the safest localities, the khambi rather than the village; the

latter, however, is not only healthier, despite its uncleanliness in

miasmatic lands, but is also more comfortable, plenty and variety of

provisions being more readily procured inside than outside. The Arab’s

khaymah is a thin pole or ridge-tent of flimsy domestics, admitting sun

and rain, and, like an Irish cabin, permitting at night the occupant to

tell time by the stars; yet he prefers it, probably for dignity, to the

boothy which, in this land of verdure and cool winds, is a far more

comfortable lodging.

The Wamrima willingly admit strangers into their villages; the Wazaramo

would do the same, but they are constantly at feud with the Wanyamwezi,

who therefore care not to avail themselves of the dangerous hospitality.

In K’hutu caravans seize by force the best lodgings. Throughout Eastern

Usagara travellers pitch tents in the dear central spaces, surrounded by

the round huts of the peasantry, under whose low and drooping eaves the

pagazi find shelter. In the western regions, where the Tembe or square

village prevails, kraals form the nighting-place. In Ugogo strangers

rarely enter the hamlets, the hovels being foul, and the people

dangerous. Throughout Eastern and Central Unyamwezi caravans defile into

the villages without hesitation. Some parties take possession of the

Iwanza or public-house; others build for themselves tabernacles of leafy

boughs, which they are expected to clear away before departure, and the

headman provides lodgings for the Mtongi. In Western Unyamwezi the doors

are often closed against strangers, and in Eastern Uvinza the people

will admit travellers to bivouac, but they will not vacate their huts.

In Western Uvinza, a desert like Marenga and Mgunda Mk’hali, substantial

khambi occur at short intervals. At Ujiji, the Sultan, after offering

the preliminary magubiko or presents, provides his guests with lodgings,

which, after a time sufficient for enabling them to build huts, they

must vacate in favour of new comers. In the other Lake Regions the

reception depends mainly upon the number of muskets in a caravan, and

the character of the headman and his people.

The khambi or kraal everywhere varies in shape and material. In the

eastern regions, where trees are scarce, wattle frames of rough sticks,

compacted with bark-fibre, are disposed in a circle; the forked

uprights, made higher behind and lower in front, to form a sloping roof,

support horizontal or cross poles, which are overlaid with a rough

thatch of grass or grain-cane. The central space upon which the boothies

open is occupied by one or more huts for the chiefs of the party; and

the outer circle is a loose fence of thorn branches, flimsy, yet

impassable to breech-less legs, unshod feet, and thin loose

body-garments. When a kraal must be built, rations are not served out

till enclosures made round the camp secure the cattle; if the leader be

dilatory, or unwilling to take strong measures, he may be a serious

loser. The stationary kraals become offensive, if not burnt down after a

few months. The Masika-kraal, as it is called, is that occupied only

during the rainy monsoon, when water is everywhere found. The vicinity

and the abundance of that necessary are the main considerations in

selecting the situation of encampments. The bark-kraals commence in

Uvinza, where trees abound, and extend to the Tanganyika Lake; some are

substantial, as the temporary villages, and may be a quarter of a mile

in circumference. The Lakist population carry with them, when

travelling, Karagwah or stiff mats of reed and rush; these they spread

over and fasten to a firmly-planted framework of flexible boughs, not

unlike a bird’s nest inverted, or they build a cone of strong canes, in

the shape of piled muskets, with the ends lashed together. It is curious

to see the small compass in which the native African traveller can

contract himself: two, and even three, will dispose their heads and part

of their bodies--leaving their lower limbs to the mercy of the

elements--under a matting little more than a yard square.

When lodgings in the kraal have been distributed, and the animals have

been off-packed, and water has been brought from the pit or stream, all

apply themselves to the pleasant toil of refection. Merrily then sounds

the breathless chant of the woman pounding or rubbing down grain, the

song of the cook, and the tinkle-tinkle of the slave’s pestle, as he

bends over the iron mortar from which he stealthily abstracts the

coffee. The fireplaces are three stones or clods, placed trivet-wise

upon the ground, so that a draught may feed the flame, they are far

superior to the holes and trenches of our camps and pic-nics. The tripod

supports a small black earthen pot, round which the khambi or little

knot of messmates perseveringly squat despite the stinging sun. At home

where they eat their own provisions they content themselves with a

slender meal of flour and water once a day. But like Spaniards, Arabs,

and all abstemious races, they must “make up for lost time.” When

provisions are supplied to them, they are cooking and consuming as long

as the material remains; the pot is in perpetual requisition, now filled

to be emptied, then refilled to be re-emptied. They will devour in three

days the rations provided for eight, and then complain loudly that they

are starved. To leave a favourable impression upon their brains, I had a

measure nearly double that generally used, yet the perverse wretches

pleading hunger, though they looked like aldermen by the side of the

lean bony anatomies whom they met on the road, would desert whenever met

by a caravan. After a time there will, doubtless, be a re-action; when

their beards whiten they will indulge in the garrulity of age; they will

recount to wondering youth the prodigality of the Muzungu, in filling

them with grain, even during the longest marches, and they will compare

his loads of cloth and beads with the half dozen “shaggy” cows and the

worn-out hoes, the sole outfit for presents and provisions carried by

caravans of “Young Africa.” If there be any delay in serving out

provisions, loud cries of Posho! p’hamba!--rations! food!--resound

through the camp; yet when fatigued, the porters will waste hours in

apathetic idleness rather than walk a few hundred yards to buy grain.

Between their dozen meals they puff clouds of pungent tobacco, cough and

scream over their jungle-bhang, and chew ashes, quids, and pinches of

red earth, probably the graves of white ants. If meat be served out to

them, it is eaten as a relish; it never, however, interferes with the

consumption of porridge. A sudden glut of food appears to have the

effect of intoxicating them. The Arabs, however, avoiding steady

rations, alternately gorge and starve their porters, knowing by

experience that such extremes are ever most grateful to the barbarian

stomach. The day must be spent in very idleness; a man will complain

bitterly if told to bring up his pack for opening; and general

discontent, with hints concerning desertion, will arise from the

mortification of a muster. On such occasions he and his fellows will

raise their voices,--when not half-choked by food--and declare that they

will not be called about like servants, and crouch obstinately round the

smoky fire, the pictures of unutterable disgust; and presently enjoy the

sweet savour of stick-jaw dough and pearl-holcus like small shot, rat

stews, and boiled weeds, which they devour till their “bulge” appears

like the crop of a stuffed turkey. Sometimes when their improvidence has

threatened them with a Banyan-day, they sit in a melancholy plight,

spitefully smoking and wickedly eyeing our cooking-pots; on these

occasions they have generally a goat or a bullock in store, and, if not,

they finesse to obtain one of ours. I always avoid issuing an order to

them direct, having been warned by experience that Kidogo or the

Kirangozi is the proper channel; which sorely vexes Valentine and Seedy

Bombay, whose sole enjoyment in life is command. I observed that when

wanted for extra-work, to remove thorns or to dig for water, that the

false alarm of Posho! (rations) summons them with a wonderful alacrity.

Moreover, I remarked that when approaching their country and leaving

ours--the coast--they became almost unmanageable and _vice versâ_ as

conditions changed.

My companion and I pass our day as we best can, sometimes in a bower of

leafy branches, often under a spreading tree, rarely in the flimsy tent.

The usual occupations are the diary and the sketch-book, added to a

little business. The cloth must be doled out, and the porters must be

persuaded, when rested, to search the country for rations,

otherwise--the morrow will be a blank. When a bullock is killed one of

us must be present. The porters receive about a quarter of the meat,

over which they sit wrangling and screaming like hyænas, till a fair

division according to messes is arrived at. Then, unless watched, some

strong and daring hand will suddenly break through the ring, snatch up

half a dozen portions and disappear at a speed defying pursuit; others

will follow his example, with the clatter and gesture of a troop of

baboons, and the remainder will retire as might be expected, grumbling

and discontented. Dinner at 4 P.M. breaks the neck of the day.

Provisions of some kind are mostly procurable, our diet, however, varies

from such common doings as the hard holcus-scone, the tasteless

bean-broth and the leathery goat-steak, to fixings of delicate venison,

fatted capon, and young guinea-fowl or partridge, with “bread sauce,”

composed of bruised rice and milk. At first the Goanese declined to cook

“pretty food,” as pasties and rissoles, on the plea that such things

were impossible upon the march; they changed their minds when warned

that persistence in such theory might lead to a ceremonious fustigation.

Moreover, they used to serve us after their fashion, with a kind of

“portion” on plates; the best part, of course, remained in the pots and

digesters; these, therefore, were ordered to do duty as dishes. When tea

or coffee is required in a drinkable state, we must superintend the

process of preparing it, the notions of the Goanese upon such subjects

being abominable to the civilised palate. When we have eaten our

servants take their turn; they squat opposite each other over a private

“cooking-pot” to which they have paid unremitting attention; they

stretch forth their talons and eat till weary, not satiated, pecking,

nodding, and cramming like two lank black pigeons. Being “Christians,”

that is to say, Roman Catholics, they will not feed with the heathenry,

moreover a sort of semi-European dignity forbids. Consequently Bombay

messes with his “brother” Mabruki, and the other slaves eat by

themselves.

When the wells ahead are dry the porters will scarcely march in the

morning; their nervous impatience of thirst is such that they would

exhaust all their gourds, if they expected a scarcity in front, and then

they would suffer severely through the long hot day. They persist,

moreover, upon eating before the march, under the false impression that

it gives them strength and bottom. In fact, whenever difficulties as

regards grain or drink suggest themselves, the African requires the

direction of some head-piece made of better stuff than his own. The

hardships of the tirikeza have already been described: they must be

endured to be realised.

Night is ushered in by penning and pounding the cows, and by tethering

the asses--these “careless Æthiopians” lose them every second day,--and

by collecting and numbering the loads, a task of difficulty where every

man shirks the least trouble. When there has been no tirikeza, when

provisions have been plentiful, and when there is a bright moonshine,

which seems to enliven these people like jackals, a furious drumming, a

loud clapping of hands, and a general droning song, summon the lads and

the lasses of the neighbouring villages to come out and dance and “make

love.” The performance is laborious, but these Africans, like most men

of little game, soon become too tired to work, but not too tired to play

and amuse themselves. Their style of salutation is remarkable only for

the excessive gravity which it induces; at no other time does the East

African look so serious, so full of earnest purpose. Sometimes a single

dancer, the village buffoon, foots a _pas seul_, featly, with head,

arms, and legs, bearing strips of hair-garnished cow-skin, which are

waved, jerked, and contorted, as if dislocation had occurred to his

members. At other times, a line or a circle of boys and men is formed

near the fire, and one standing in the centre, intones the song solo,

the rest humming a chorus in an undertone. The dancers plumbing and

tramping to the measure with alternate feet, simultaneously perform a

treadmill exercise with a heavier stamp at the end of every period: they

are such timists, that a hundred pair of heels sound like one. At first

the bodies are slowly swayed from side to side, presently as excitement

increases, the exercise waxes severe: they “cower down and lay out their

buttocks,” to use pedantic Ascham’s words, “as though they would shoot

at crows;” they bend and recover themselves, and they stoop and rise to

the redoubled sound of the song and the heel-music, till the assembly,

with arms waving like windmills, assumes the frantic semblance of a ring

of Egyptian Darwayshes. The performance often closes with a grand

promenade; all the dancers being jammed in a rushing mass, a _galop

infernale_, with the features of satyrs, and gestures resembling aught

but the human. When the fun threatens to become too fast and furious,

the song dies, and the performers, with loud shouts of laughter, throw

themselves on the ground, to recover strength and breath. The greybeards

look on with admiration and sentiment, remembering the days when they

were capable of similar feats. Instead of “bravo,” they ejaculate “Nice!

nice! very nice!” and they wonder what makes the white men laugh. The

ladies prefer to perform by themselves, and perhaps in the East, ours

would do the same, if a literal translation of the remarks to which a

ball always gives rise amongst Orientals, happened by misfortune to

reach their refined ears.

When there is no dancing, and the porters can no longer eat, drink, and

smoke, they sit by their fires, chatting, squabbling, talking and

singing some such “pure nectar” as the following. The song was composed,

I believe, in honour of me, and I frequently heard it when the singers

knew that it was understood. The Cosmopolitan reader will not be

startled by the epithet “Mbaya,” or wicked, therein applied to the

Muzungu. A “good white man,” would indeed, in these lands, have been

held an easy-going soul, a natural, an innocent, like the “buona

famiglia,” of the Italian cook, who ever holds the highest quality of

human nature to be a certain facility for being “plucked without

’plaining,” and being “flayed without flinching.” Moreover, despite my

“wickedness,” they used invariably to come to me for justice and

redress, especially when proximity to the coast encouraged the guide and

guards to “bully” them.

“Muzungu mbaya” (the wicked white man) goes from the shore,

(_Chorus_) Puti! Puti! (I can only translate it by “grub! grub!”)

We will follow “Muzungu mbaya.”

Puti! Puti!

As long as he gives us good food!

Puti! Puti!

We will traverse the hill and the stream,

Puti! Puti!

With the caravan of this great mundewa (merchant).

Puti! Puti! &c., &c.

The Baloch and the sons of Ramji quarrel, yell, roar, and talk of

eating--the popular subject of converse in these lands, as is beer in

England, politics in France, law in Normandy, “pasta” at Naples, and to

say no more, money everywhere--till a late hour. About 8 P.M., the small

hours of the country, sounds the cry lala! lala!--sleep! It is willingly

obeyed by all except the women, who must sometimes awake to confabulate

even at midnight. One by one the caravan sinks into torpid slumber. At

this time, especially when in the jungle-bivouac, the scene often

becomes truly impressive. The dull red fires flickering and forming a

circle of ruddy light in the depths of the black forest, flaming against

the tall trunks and defining the foliage of the nearer trees, illuminate

lurid groups of savage men, in every variety of shape and posture.

Above, the dark purple sky, studded with golden points, domes the earth

with bounds narrowed by the gloom of night. And, behold! in the western

horizon, a resplendent crescent, with a dim, ash-coloured globe in its

arms, and crowned by Hesperus, sparkling like a diamond, sinks through

the vast of space, in all the glory and gorgeousness of Eternal Nature’s

sublimest works. From such a night, methinks, the Byzantine man took his

device, the Crescent and the Star.

The rate of caravan-marching in East Africa greatly varies. In cool

moonlit mornings, over an open path, the Pagazi will measure perhaps

four miles an hour. This speed is reduced by a quarter after a short

“spurt,” and under normal, perhaps favourable, circumstances, three

statute miles will be the highest average. Throughout the journey it is

safe to reckon for an Indian file of moderate length--say 150 men--2·25

English miles, or what is much the same, 1·75 geographical miles per

hour, measured by compass from point to point. In a clear country an

allowance of 20 per cent, must be made for winding: in closer regions

40-50 per cent., and the traveller must exercise his judgment in

distributing his various courses between these extremes. Mr. Cooley

(Inner Africa Laid Open, p. 6) a “resolute,” and I may add a most

successful “reducer of itinerary distances,” estimates that the ordinary

day’s journey of the Portuguese missionaries in West Africa never

exceeded six geographical miles projected in a straight line, and that

on rare occasions, and with effort only, it may have extended to 10

miles. Dr. Lacerda’s porters in East Africa were terrified at the

thought of marching ordinarily 2·50 Portuguese leagues, or about 9·33

statute miles per day. Dr. Livingstone gives the exceedingly high

maximum of 2·50 to 3 miles an hour in a straight line, but his porters

were lightly laden, and the Makololo are apparently a far “gamer” race,

more sober and industrious, than the East Africans. Mr. Petherick, H.

M.’s Consul at Khartum, estimates his gangs to have marched 3·50 miles

per hour, and the ordinary day’s march at 8 hours. It is undoubted that

the negro races north of the equator far surpass in pedestrian powers

their southern brethren; moreover the porters in question were marching

only for a single day; but as no instruments were used, the average may

fairly be suspected of exaggeration. Finally Mr. Galton’s observation

concerning Cape travelling applies equally well to this part of Africa,

namely, that 10 statute or 6 rectilinear geographical miles per diem is

a fair average of progress, and that he does well who conducts the same

caravan 1,000 geographical miles across a wild country in six months.

I will conclude this chapter with a succinct account of the inn, that is

to say the village in East Africa.

The habitations of races form a curious study and no valueless guide to

the nature of the climate and the physical conditions to which men are

subject.

Upon the East African coast the villages, as has been mentioned, are

composed of large tenements, oblongs or squares of wattle and dab, with

eaves projecting to form a deep verandah and a thatched pent-roof,

approaching in magnitude that of Madagascar.

Beyond the line of maritime land the “Nyumba” or dwelling-house assumes

the normal African form, the circular hut described by every traveller

in the interior: Dr. Livingstone appears to judge rightly that its

circularity is the result of a barbarous deficiency in inventiveness. It

has, however, several varieties. The simplest is a loose thatch thrown

upon a cone of sticks based upon the ground, and lashed together at the

apex: it ignores windows, and the door is a low hole in the side. A

superior kind is made after the manner of our ancient bee hives; it is

cup-shaped with bulging sides, and covered with neat thatch, cut in

circles which overlap one another tile-fashion: at a distance it

resembles an inverted bird’s nest. The common shape is a cylindrical

framework of tall staves, or the rough trunks of young trees planted in

the earth, neatly interwoven with parallel and concentric rings of

flexible twigs and withies: this is plastered inside and outside with a

hard coat of red or grey mud; in the poorer tenements the surface is

rough and chinked, in the better order it is carefully smoothed and

sometimes adorned with rude imitations of life. The diameter averages

from 20 to 25, and the height from 7 to 15 feet in the centre, which is

supported by a strong roof-tree, to which all the stacked rafters and

poles converge. The roof is subsequently added, it is a structure

similar to the walls, interwoven with sticks, upon which thick grass or

palm-fronds are thrown, and the whole is covered with thatch tied on by

strips of tree-bark. It has eaves which projecting from two to six

feet--under them the inhabitants love to sit or sun shade

themselves--rest upon horizontal bars, which are here and there

supported by forked uprights, trees rudely barked. Near the coast the

eaves are broad and high: in the interior they are purposely made so low

that a man must creep in on all fours. The door-way resembles the

entrance to an English pig-sty, it serves, however, to keep out heat in

the hot season, and to keep in smoke and warmth during the rains and the

cold weather: the threshold is garnished with a horizontal log or board

that defends the interior from inundation. The door is a square of reeds

fastened together by bark or cord, and planted upright at night between

the wall and two dwarf posts at each side of the entrance: there is

generally a smaller and a secret door opposite that in use, and

jealously closed up except when flight is necessary. In the colder and

damper regions there is a second wall and roof outside the first,

forming in fact one house within the other.

About Central Usagara the normal African haystack-hut makes place for

the “Tembe” which extends westward, a little beyond Unyanyembe. The

Tembe, though of Hamitic origin, resembles the Utum of the ancients, and

the Hishan of the modern Hejaz, those hollow squares of building which

have extended through Spain to France and even to Ireland: it was,

probably, suggested to Africa and to Arabia by the necessity of defence

to, as well as lodging for, man and beast. It is to a certain extent, a

proof of civilisation in Eastern Africa: the wildest tribes have not

progressed beyond the mushroom or circular hut, a style of architecture

which seems borrowed from the indigenous mimosa tree.

Westward of Unyamwezi in Uvinza and about the Tanganyika Lake the round

hovel again finds favour with the people; but even there the Arabs

prefer to build for themselves the more solid and comfortable Tembe.

The haystack-hut has been described by a multitude of travellers: the

“Tembe,” or hollow village, yet awaits that honour.

The “Tembe” wants but the addition of white-wash to make it an effective

feature in African scenery: as it is, it appears from afar like a short

line of raised earth. Provided with a block-house at each angle to sweep

dead ground where fire, the only mode of attack practised in these

regions, can be applied, it would become a fort impregnable to the

Eastern African. The form is a hollow square or oblong, generally

irregular, with curves, projections, and semicircles; in the East

African Ghauts, the shape is sometimes round or oval to suit the

exigencies of the hill-sides and the dwarf cones upon which it is built.

On the mountains and in Ugogo, where timber is scarce, the houses form

the continued frontage of the building, which, composed of

mimosa-trunks, stout stakes, and wattle and dab, rarely exceeds seven

feet in height. In the southern regions of Usagara where the Tembe is

poorest, the walls are of clods loosely put together and roofed over

with a little straw. About Msene where fine trees abound, the Tembe is

surrounded by a separate boma or palisade of young unbarked trunks,

short or tall, and capped here and there with cattle-skulls, blocks of

wood, grass-wisps, and similar talismans; this stockade, in damper

places, is hedged with a high thick fence, sometimes doubled and

trebled, of peagreen milk-bush, which looks pretty and refreshing, and

is ditched outside with a deep trench serving as a drain. The cleared

space in front of the main passage through the hedges is often decorated

with a dozen poles, placed in a wide semicircle to support human skulls,

the mortal remains of ill-conducted boors. In some villages the

principal entrance is approached by long, dark and narrow lanes of

palisading. When the settlement is built purely for defence, it is

called “Kaya,” and its headman “Muinyi Kaya,” the word, however, is

sometimes used for “Boma” or “Mji,” a palisaded village in general. In

some parts of Unyamwezi there is a Bandani or exterior boothy, where the

men work at the forge, or sit in the shade, and where the women husk,

pound, and cook their grain.

The general roof of the Tembe is composed of mud and clay heaped upon

grass thickly strewed over a framework of rafters supported by the long

walls. It has, usually, an obtuse slope to the front and another to the

rear, that rain may not lie; it is, however, flat enough to support the

bark-bins of grain, gourds, old pots, firewood, water-melons, pumpkins,

manioc, mushrooms, and other articles placed there to ripen or dry in

the sun. It has no projecting eaves, and it is ascended from the inside

by the primitive ladder, the inclined trunk of a tree, with steps formed

by the stumps of lopped boughs, acting rings. The roof, during the

rains, is a small plot of bright green grass: I often regretted not

having brought with me a little store of mustard and cress. In each

external side of the square, one or two door-ways are pierced; they are

large enough to admit a cow, and though public they often pass through

private domiciles. They are jealously closed at sunset, after which hour

not a villager dares to stir from his home till morning. The outer doors

are sometimes solid planks, more often they are three or four heavy

beams suspended to a cross-bar passing through their tops. When the way

is to be opened they are raised from below and are kept up by being

planted in a forked tree-trunk inside the palisade: they are let down

when the entrance is to be closed, and are barred across with strong

poles.

The tenements are divided from one another by party-walls of the same

material as the exterior. Each house has, usually, two rooms, a “but”

and a “ben,” which vary in length from 20 to 50 feet, and in depth from

12 to 15: they are partitioned by a screen of corn-canes supported by

stakes, with a small passage left open for light. The “but,” used as

parlour, kitchen, and dormitory, opens upon the common central square;

the “ben” receives a glimmer from the doors and chinks, which have not

yet suggested the idea of windows: it serves for a sleeping and a store

room; it is a favourite place with hens and pigeons that aspire to be

mothers, and the lambs and kids in early infancy are allowed to pass the

night there. The inner walls are smeared with mud: lime is not

procurable in Eastern Africa, and the people have apparently no

predilection for the Indian “Gobar:” floor is of tamped earth, rough,

uneven, and unclean. The prism-shaped ceiling is composed of rafters and

thin poles gently rising from the long-walls to the centre, where they

are supported by strong horizontals, which run the whole length of the

house, and these again rest upon a proportionate number of pillars,

solid forked uprights, planted in the floor. The ceiling is polished to

a shiny black with smoke, which winds its way slowly through the

door--smoke and grease are the African’s coat and small clothes, they

contribute so much to his health and comfort that he is by no means

anxious to get rid of them--and sooty lines depend from it like

negro-stalactites.

The common enceinte formed by the houses is often divided into various

courts, intended for different families, by the walls of the tenements,

or by stout screens, and connected by long wynds and dark alleys of

palisade-work. The largest and cleanest square usually belongs to the

headman. In these spaces cattle are milked and penned; the ground is

covered with a thick coat of the animals’ earths, dust in the hot

weather and deep viscid mud during the rains: the impurity must be an

efficacious fomite of cutaneous and pectoral disease. The villagers are

fond of planting in the central courts trees, under whose grateful shade

the loom is plied, the children play, the men smoke, and the women work.

Here, also, stands the little Mzimu, or Fetiss-hut, to receive the

oblations of the pious. Places are partitioned off from the public

ground, near the houses, by horizontal trunks of trees, resting on

forks, forming pens to keep the calves from the cows at night. In some

villages huge bolsters of surplus grain, neatly packed in bark and

corded round, are raised on tall poles near the interior doors of the

tenements. Often, too, the insides of the settlements boast of

pigeon-houses, which in this country are made to resemble, in miniature,

those of the people. In Unyamwezi the centre is sometimes occupied by

the Iwanza, or village “public-house,” which will be described in a

future chapter.

In some regions, as in Ugogo, these lodgings become peculiarly offensive

if not burnt after the first year. The tramping of the owners upon the

roof shakes mud and soot from the ceiling, and the rains wash down

masses of earthwork heavy enough to do injury. The interior is a

menagerie of hens, pigeons, and rats, of peculiar impudence. Scorpions

and earwigs fall from their nests in the warm or shady rafters. The

former, locally termed “Nge,” is a small yellow variety, and though it

stings spitefully the pain seldom lasts through the day; as many as

three have dropped upon my couch in the course of the week. In Ugogo

there is a green scorpion from four to five inches long, which inflicts

a torturing wound. According to the Arabs the scorpion in Eastern Africa

dies after inflicting five consecutive stings, and commits suicide if a

bit of stick be applied to the middle of its back. The earwig is common

in all damp places, and it haunts the huts on account of the shade. The

insect apparently casts its coat before the rainy season, and the

Africans ignore the superstition which in most European countries has

given origin to its trivial name. A small xylophagus with a large black

head rains a yellow dust like pollen from the riddled woodwork;

house-crickets chirp from evening to dawn; cockroaches are plentiful as

in an Indian steamer; and a solitary mason-wasp, the “Kumbharni,” or

“potter’s wife” of western India--a large hymenopter of several

varieties, tender-green, or black and yellow, or dark metallic

blue--burrows holes in the wall, or raises plastered nests, and buzzes

about the inmates’ ears; lizards, often tailless after the duello,

tumble from the ceilings; in the darker corners spiders of frightful

hideousness weave their solid webs; and the rest of the population is

represented by tenacious ticks of many kinds, flies of sorts, bugs,

fleas, mosquitoes, and small ants, which are, perhaps, the worst plagues

of all. The Riciniæ in Eastern Africa are locally called Papazi, which

probably explains the “Pazi bug,” made by Dr. Krapf a rival in venom to

the Argas Persicus, or fatal “bug of Miana.” In Eastern Africa these

parasites are found of many shapes, round and oval, flat and swollen;

after suction they vary in size from microscopic dimensions to

three-quarters of an inch; the bite cannot poison, but the constant

irritation caused by it may induce fever and its consequences. A hut

infested with Papazi must be sprinkled with boiling water, and swept

clean for many weeks, before they will disappear. In the Tembe there is

no draught to disturb the smaller occupants, consequently they are more

numerous than in the circular cottage. Moreover, the people, having an

aversion to sleeping in the open air, thus supply their co-inhabitants

with nightly rations, which account for their fecundity.

The abodes, as might be expected, are poorly furnished. In Unyamwezi,

they contain invariably one or more “Kitanda.” This cartel, or bedstead,

is a rude contrivance. Two parallel lines of peeled tree-branches,

planted at wide intervals, support in their forks horizontal poles: upon

these is spread crosswise a layer of thick sticks, which forms the

frame. The bedding consists of a bull-hide or two, and perhaps a long,

coarse, rush-mat. It is impossible for any one but an African to sleep

upon these Kitanda, on account of their shortness, the hardness of the

material, and the rapid slope which supplies the want of pillows, and

serves for another purpose which will not be described. When removed, a

fractured pole will pour forth a small shower of the foul cimex: this

people of hard skins considers its bite an agreeable titillation, and,

what may somewhat startle a European, esteems its odour a perfume.

Around the walls depend from pegs neatly-plaited slings of fibrous cord,

supporting gourds and “vilindo”--neat cylinders, like small band-boxes,

of tree bark, made to contain cloth, butter, grain, or other provisions.

In the store-room, propped upon stones, and plastered over with clay for

preservation, are Lindo, huge corn-bins of the same material; grain is

ground upon a coarse granite slab, raised at an angle of 25°, about one

foot above the floor, and embedded in a rim of hard clay. The hearth is

formed of three “Mafiga,” or truncated cones of red or grey mud,

sometimes two feet high, and ten inches in diameter at the base: they

are disposed triangularly, with the apex to the wall, and open to the

front when the fire is made. The pot rests upon the tripod. The broom, a

wisp of grass, a bunch of bamboo splints, or a split fibrous root,

usually sticks in the ceiling; its work is left to the ants. From the

rafters hang drums and kettle-drums, skins and hides in every process,

and hooked twigs dangling from strings support the bows and arrows, the

spears and assegais. An arrow is always thrust into the inner thatch for

good luck: ivory is stored between the rafters, hence its dark ruddy

colour, which must be removed by ablution with warm blood; and the

ceiling is a favourite place for small articles that require

seasoning--bows, quivers, bird-bolts, knob-sticks, walking-canes,

reed-nozzles for bellows, and mi’iko or ladles, two feet long, used to

stir porridge. The large and heavy water-pots, of black clay, which are

filled every morning and evening by the women at the well, lie during

the day empty or half empty about the room. The principal article of

luxury is the “Kiti,” or dwarf stool, cut out of a solid block,

measuring one foot in height by six inches in diameter, with a concave

surface for convenience of sitting: it has usually three carved legs or

elbows; some, however, are provided with a fourth, and with a base like

the seat, to steady them. They are invariably used by the Sultan and the

Mganga, who disdain to sit upon the ground: and the Wamrima ornament

them with plates of tin let into the upper concaves. The woods generally

used for the Kiti, are the Mninga and the Mpingu. The former is a tall

and stately tree, which supplies wood of a dark mahogany colour, exuding

in life a red gum, like dragon’s blood: the trunk is converted into

bowls and platters, the boughs into rafters, which are, however, weak

and subject to the xylophagus, whilst of the heart are made spears,

which, when old and well-greased, resemble teak-wood. The Mpingu is the

Sisam of India, (Dalbergia Sissoo) here erroneously called by the Arabs

Abnus--ebony. The tree is found throughout Eastern Africa. The wood is

of fine quality, and dark at the core: the people divide it into male

and female; the former is internally a dark brick-dust red, whilst the

latter verges upon black: they make from it spears and axe-handles,

which soon, however, when exposed to the air, unless regularly greased,

become brittle. The massive mortar, for husking grain, called by the

people “Mchi,” is shaped exactly like those portrayed in the

interior-scenes of ancient Egypt: it is hewn out of the trunk of the

close-grained Mkora tree. The huge pestle, like a capstan-bar, is made

of the Mkorongo, a large tree with a fine-grained wood, which is also

preferred to others for rafters, as it best resists the attacks of

insects.

Such, gentle reader, is the Tembe of Central Africa. Concerning village

life, I shall have something to say in a future page. The scene is more

patent to the stranger’s eye in these lands than in the semi-civilised

regions of Asia, where men rarely admit him into their society.

[Illustration: African House Building.]