I was detained at Kazeh from the 8th November to the 14th December,
1857, and the delay was one long trial of patience.
It is customary for stranger-caravans proceeding towards Ujiji to remain
six weeks or two months at Unyanyembe for repose and recovery from the
labours which they have, or are supposed to have, endured: moreover,
they are expected to enjoy the pleasures of civilised society, and to
accept the hospitality offered to them by the resident Arabs. In Eastern
Africa, I may again suggest, six weeks is as the three days’ visit in
England.
On the morning after our arrival at Kazeh, the gang of Wanyamwezi
porters that had accompanied us from the coast withdrew their hire from
our cloth-bales; and not demanding, because they did not expect,
bakhshish, departed, without a sign of farewell, to their homes in
Western Unyamwezi. The Kirangozi or guide received a small present of
domestics: his family being at Msene, distant five marches ahead, he
fixed, after long haggling, the term of fifteen days as his leave of
absence, after which he promised to join me with a fresh gang for the
journey to Ujiji.
The rest of the party apparently considered Unyanyembe, not Ujiji, the
end of the exploration; it proved in effect a second point of departure,
easier than Kaole only because I had now gained some experience.
Two days after our arrival, the Baloch, headed by their Jemadar,
appeared in full toilette to demand a “Hakk el Salamah,” or reward for
safe-conduct. I informed them that this would be given when they had
reached the end of the up-march. The pragmatical Darwaysh declared that
without bakhshish there would be no advance; he withdrew his words,
however, when my companion was called in to witness their being
committed to paper--a proceeding always unpalatable to the Oriental. The
Baloch then subsided into begging for salt and spices, and having
received more than they had probably ever possessed in their lives, they
privily complained of my parsimony to Said bin Salim. They then sent for
tobacco, a goat, gunpowder, bullets--all which they obtained. Their next
manœuvre was to extract four cloths for tinning their single copper pot
and for repairing the matchdogs and stocks of two old matchlocks. They
then sold a keg of gunpowder committed to their charge. They had
experienced every kindness from Snay bin Amir, from Sallum bin Hamid, in
fact, from all the Arab merchants of Kazeh. They lodged comfortably in
Musa Mzuri’s house, and their allowance, one Shukkah of domestics per
diem, enabled them to buy goats, sheep, and fowls--luxuries unknown in
their starving huts at Zanzibar. Yet they did not fail, with their foul
tongues, ever ready, as the Persians say, for “spitting at Heaven,” to
charge their kind hosts with the worst crime that the Arab
knows--niggardness.
On the 8th November, I had arranged with Kidogo, as well as with the
Kirangozi, to resume the march at the end of a fortnight. Ten days
afterwards I again sent for him to conclude the plans concerning the
journey: evidently something lay deep within his breast, but the
difficulty was to extract it. He began by requiring a present for his
excellent behaviour--he received, to his astonishment, four cloths. He
next demanded leave to visit his Unyamwezi home for a week, and was
unpleasantly surprised when it was granted. He then “hit the right nail
on the head.” The sons of Ramji, declaring that I had promised them a
bullock on arrival at Kazeh, had seized, hamstrung, and cut up a fine
fat animal sent to me by Sallum bin Hamid; yet Kidogo averred that the
alleged promise must be fulfilled to them. When I refused, he bluntly
informed me that I was quite equal to the task of collecting porters for
myself; I replied that this was his work and not mine. He left the house
abruptly, swearing that he would not trouble himself any longer, and,
moreover, for the future that his men should not carry the lightest
load, nor assist us even in threading beads. At last, on the 27th
November, I sent for Kidogo, and told him that the march was positively
fixed for the next week. After sitting for a time “_cupo concentrato_,”
in profound silence, the angry slave arose, delivered a volley of
rattling words with the most theatrical fierceness, and rushed from the
room, leaving the terrified Said bin Salim gazing upon vacancy like an
idiot. Accompanied by his followers, who were shouting and laughing, he
left the house, when--I afterwards heard--they drew their sabres, and
waving them round their heads, they shouted, for the benefit of Arabs,
“Tume-shinda Wazungu”--“We have conquered the Whites!” I held a
consultation with my hosts concerning the advisability of disarming the
recreant sons of Ramji. But Sallum bin Hamid, the “papa” of the colony,
took up the word, and, as usual with such deliberative bodies, the
council of war advised peace. They informed me that in Unyamwezi slaves
and muskets are the stranger’s sole protection, and as they were
unanimous in persuading me to temporise, to “swallow anger” till after
return, I felt bound, after applying for it, to be guided by their
advice. At the consultation, however, the real object which delayed the
sons of Ramji at Kazeh oozed out: their patroon, Mr. Rush Ramji, had
written to them that his and their trading outfit was on its way from
the coast; consequently, they had determined to await, and to make us
await, its arrival before marching upon Ujiji.
On the 14th November, the Masika or wet season, which had announced its
approach by premonitory showers and by a final burst of dry heat, set in
over the Land of the Moon with torrents of rain and “rain-stones,” as
hail is here called, and with storms of thunder and lightning, which
made it more resemble the first breaking of an Indian than the desultory
fall of a Zanzibar wet-monsoon. I was still under the impression that we
were encountering the Choti Barsat or Little Rains of Bengal and Bombay;
and curious to say, the Arabs of Unyanyembe one and all declared, even
after the wet-monsoon had reached its height, that the Masika in
Unyamwezi is synchronous with that of the island and the coast, namely,
in early April.
The Rains in Eastern Africa are, like the summer in England, the only
healthy and enjoyable season: the contrast between the freshness of the
air and the verdure of the scenery after the heat, dust, and desolation
that preceded the first showers, was truly luxurious. Yet the Masika has
many disadvantages for travellers. The Wanyamwezi, who were sowing their
fields, declined to act porters, and several Arab merchants, who could
not afford the expenditure required to hire unwilling men, were halted
perforce in and near Unyanyembe. The peasants would come in numbers;
offer to accompany the caravan; stand, stare, and laugh their vacant
laughs; lift and balance their packs; chaffer about hire; promise to
return next morning, and definitively disappear. With the utmost
exertion Snay bin Amir could collect only ten men, and they were all
ready to desert. Moreover, the opening of the Masika is ever unhealthy;
strangers suffer severely from all sudden changes of temperature;
Unyamwezi speedily became
“As full of agues as the sun in March.”
Another cause of delay became imminent; my companion was
comparatively strong, but the others were prostrated by sickness.
Valentine first gave in; he was nearly insensible for three days and
nights, the usual period of the Mukunguru or “Seasoning” of Unyamwezi--a
malignant bilious remittent--which left him weaker and thinner than he
had ever been before. When he recovered, Gaetano fell ill, and was soon
in the happy state of unconsciousness which distinguished all his
fevers. The bull-headed slave Mabruki also retired into private life,
and Bombay was laid up by a shaking ague, whilst the Baloch and the sons
of Ramji, who had led a life so irregular that the Arabs had frequently
threatened them with punishment, also began to pay the penalty of
excess.
Snay bin Amir was our principal doctor. An adept in the treatment,
called by his countrymen “camel-physic,” namely, cautery and similar
counter-irritants, he tried his art upon me when I followed the example
of the party. At length, when the Hummah, or hot fit, refused to yield
to its supposed specific, a coating of powdered ginger, he insisted upon
my seeing a Mganga, or witch, celebrated for her cures throughout the
country-side. She came, a wrinkled old beldame, with a greasy skin,
black as soot, set off by a mass of tin-coloured pigtails: her arms were
adorned with copper bangles like manacles, and the implement of her
craft was, as usual, a girdle of small gourds dyed red-black with oil
and use.
After demanding and receiving her fee in cloth, she proceeded to search
my mouth, and to inquire anxiously concerning poison. The question
showed the prevalence of the practice in the country, and indeed the
people, to judge from their general use of “Mithridates,” seem ever to
expect it. She then drew from a gourd a greenish powder, which was
apparently bhang, and having mixed it with water, she administered it
like snuff, causing a convulsion of sneezing, which she hailed with
shouts and various tokens of joy. Presently she rubbed my head with
powder of another kind, and promising to return the next day, she left
me to rest, declaring that sleep would cause a cure. The prediction,
however, was not fulfilled, nor was the promise. Having become wealthy,
she absconded to indulge in unlimited pombe for a week. The usual
consequences of this “seasoning,” distressing weakness, hepatic
derangements, burning palms, and tingling soles, aching eyes, and
alternate thrills of heat and cold, lasted, in my case, a whole month.
Our departure from Kazeh had now been repeatedly deferred. The fortnight
originally fixed for the halt had soon passed in the vain search for
porters. Sickness then delayed the journey till the 1st December, and
Snay bin Amir still opined that want of carriage would detain me till
the 19th of that month; he would not name the 18th, which was an unlucky
day. When they recovered from their ailments, the Jemadar and the Baloch
again began to be troublesome. All declared that a whole year, the term
for which they had been sent by their Prince, had elapsed, and therefore
that they had now a right to return. The period was wholly one of their
own, based perhaps upon an answer which they had received from
Lieut.-Col. Hamerton touching the probable duration of the Expedition,
“a year or so.” Even of that time it still wanted five months, but
nothing from myself or from Said bin Salim could convince men who would
not be convinced, of that simple fact. Ismail, the Baloch, who was dying
of dysentery, reported himself unable to proceed: arrangements were made
to leave him and his “brother” Shahdad--the fearful tinkling of whose
sleepless guitar argued that the sweet youth was in love--under the
charge of Snay bin Amir, at Kazeh. Greybeard Mohammed was sulking with
his fellows. He sat apart from them; and complaining that he had not
received his portion of food, came to me for dismissal, which was
granted, but not accepted. The Jemadar required for himself and the
escort a porter per man. When this was refused, he changed his tactics,
and began to lament bitterly the unavoidable delay. He annoyed me with
ceaseless visits, which were spent in harping upon the one string, “When
do we march?” At last I forbade all allusion to the subject. In wrath he
demanded leave, declaring that he had not come to settle in Africa, and
much “excessiveness” to the same effect. He was at last brought to his
senses by being summarily turned out of the house for grossly insulting
my companion. A reaction then ensued; the Baloch professed penitence,
and all declared themselves ready to march or to halt as I pleased. Yet,
simulating impatience to depart, they clung to the pleasures of Kazeh;
they secretly caused the desertion of the porters, and they never ceased
to spread idle reports, vainly hoping that I might be induced to return
to the coast.
Finally, Said bin Salim fulfilled at Kazeh Lieut.-Col. Hamerton’s acute
prophecy. The Bukini blood of his mother--a Malagash slave--got the
better of his Omani descent. I had long reformed my opinion concerning
his generosity and kindheartedness, hastily concluded during a short
cruise along the coast. “Man’s heart,” say the Arabs, “is known only in
the fray, and man’s head is known only on the way.” But though
high-flown sentiment and studied courtesy had disappeared with the first
days of hardship and fatigue, he preserved for a time the semblance of
respectability and respect. Presently, like the viler orders of
Orientals, he presumed upon his usefulness, and his ability to forward
the Expedition; the farther we progressed from our “_point d’appui_” the
coast, the more independent became his manner,--of course it afterwards
subsided into its former civility,--and an overpowering egotism formed
the motive of his every action. I had imprudently allowed him to be
accompanied by the charming Halimah. True to his servile origin, he
never seemed happy except in servile society, where he was “king of his
company.” At Kazeh, jealous of my regard for Snay bin Amir, and wearied
by long evening conversations, where a little “ilm” or knowledge in the
shape of history and divinity used to appear,--his ignorance and apathy
concerning all things but A. bin B., and B. bin C., who married his son
D. to the daughter of E., prevented his taking part in them,--he became
first sulky, and then “contrarious.” Formerly he was wont, on the usual
occasions, to address a word of salutation to my companion: this ceased,
and presently he would pass him as if he had been a bale of cloth. He
affected in society the indecorous posture of a European woman stretched
upon a sofa, after crouching for months upon his shins,--in fact he was,
as the phrase is, “trailing his jacket” for a quarrel.
Through timidity he had been profuse in expending the goods entrusted to
his charge, and he had been repeatedly reproved for serving out, without
permission, cloth and beads to his children. Yet, before reaching
Unyanyembe, I never had reason to suspect him of dishonesty or deceit.
At Kazeh, however, he was ordered to sell a keg of gunpowder, before his
slaves could purloin the whole. He reported that he had passed on the
commission to Snay bin Amir. I also forbade him to issue hire to porters
for a return-march from the Lake, having been informed that such was the
best way to secure their desertion; and the information proved true
enough, as twenty-five disappeared in a single night. He repeatedly
affirmed that he had engaged and paid them for the up-march only. When
he stood convicted of a double falsehood, he had _not_ spoken about the
gunpowder, and he _had_ issued whole hire to several of the porters, I
improved the occasion with a mild reproach. The little creature became
vicious as a weasel, screamed like a hyæna, declared himself no tallab
or “asker,” but an official under his government, and poured forth a
torrent of justification. I cut the same short by leaving the room--a
confirmed slight in these lands--and left him to rough language on the
part of Snay bin Amir. Some hours subsequently he recovered his temper,
and observed that “even husband and wife must occasionally have a gird
at each other.” Not caring, however, for a repetition of such
puerilities, I changed the tone of kindness in which he had invariably
been addressed, for one of routine command, and this was preserved till
the day of our final parting on the coast.
The good Snay bin Amir redoubled his attentions. His slaves strung in
proper lengths, upon the usual palm-fibre, the beads sent up loose from
Zanzibar; and he distributed the bales in due proportions for carriage.
Our lights being almost exhausted, he made for us “dips,” by ladling
over wicks of unravelled “domestics” the contents of a cauldron filled
with equal parts of hot wax and tallow. My servant, Valentine, who,
evincing uncommon aptitude for cooking, had as yet acquired only that
wretched art of burlesquing coarse English dishes which renders the
table in Western India a standing mortification to man’s palate, was
apprenticed to Mama Khamisi, a buxom housekeeper in Snay’s
establishment. There, in addition to his various Goanese
accomplishments--making curds and whey, butter, cheese, and ghee;
potting fish, pickling onions and limes, and preparing jams and jelly
from the pleasant and cooling rosel,--he learned the art of yeasting
bread with whey or sour bean-flour (his leathery scones of coarse meal
were an abomination to us); of straining honey, of preparing the
favourite “Kawurmeh,” jerked or smoked meat chipped up and soused in
ghee; of making Firni, rice-jelly, and Halwa, confectionery, in the
shape of “Kazi’s luggage,” and “hand-works:” he was taught to make ink
from burnt grain; and last, not least, the trick of boiling rice as it
should be boiled. We, in turn, taught him the various sciences of
bird-stuffing, of boiling down isinglass and ghee, of doctoring tobacco
with plantain, heeart, and tea leaves, and of making milk-punch, cigars,
and guraku for the hookah. Snay bin Amir also sent into the country for
plantains and tamarinds, then unprocurable at Kazeh, and he brewed a
quantity of beer and mawa or plantain-wine. He admonished the Baloch and
the sons of Ramji to be more careful, as regards conduct and
expenditure. He lent me valuable assistance in sketching the outlines of
the Kinyamwezi, or language of Unyamwezi, and by his distances and
directions we were enabled to lay down the Southern limits, and the
general shape of the Nyanza or Northern Lake, as correctly--and the maps
forwarded from Kazeh to the Royal Geographical Society will establish
this fact--as they were subsequently determined, after actual
exploration, by my companion. He took charge of our letters and papers
intended for home, and he undertook to forward the lagging gang still
expected from the Coast: as the future will prove, his energy enabled me
to receive the much wanted reserve in the “nick of time.”
At length, it became apparent that no other porters were procurable at
Kazeh, and that the restiff Baloch and the sons of Ramji disdaining
Cæsar’s “ite,” required his “venite.” I therefore resolved to lead them,
instead of expending time and trouble in driving them, trusting that old
habit, and that the difficulties attending their remaining behind would
induce them to follow me. After much murmuring, my companion preceded me
on the 5th December, and “made a Khambi,” at Zimbili, a lumpy hill, with
a north and south lay, and conspicuous as a landmark from the Arab
settlements, which are separated from it by a march of two hours. On the
third day I followed him, in truth, more dead than alive,--the wing of
Azrael seemed waving over my head,--even the movement of the Manchila
was almost unendurable. I found cold and comfortless quarters in a large
village at the base of Zimbili, no cartel was procurable, the roof
leaked, and every night brought with it a furious storm of lightning,
wind, and rain. By slow degrees, the Baloch began to drop in, a few of
the sons of Ramji, and the donkey-men followed, half-a-dozen additional
porters were engaged, and I was recovering strength to advance once
more, when the report that our long-expected caravan was halted at
Rubuga, in consequence of desertion, rendered a further delay necessary.
My companion returned to Kazeh, to await the arrival of the
reserve-supplies, and I proceeded onwards to collect a gang for the
journey westwards.
At 10 A.M., on the 15th December, I mounted the Manchila, carried by six
slaves, hired by Snay bin Amir, from Khamis bin Salim at the rate of
three pounds of white beads each, for the journey to Msene. After my
long imprisonment, I was charmed with the prospect, a fine open country,
with well-wooded hills rolling into blue distance on either hand. A two
hours’ ride placed me at Yombo, a new and picturesque village of
circular tents, surrounded by plantains and wild fruit-trees. The Mkuba
bears an edible red plum, which, though scanty of flesh, as usual, where
man’s care is wanting, was found by no means unpalatable. The Metrongoma
produces a chocolate-coloured fruit, about the size of a cherry: it is
eaten, but it lacks the grateful acid of the Mkuba. The gigantic Palmyra
or Borassus, which failed in the barren platform of Ugogo, here
re-appears, and hence extends to the Tanganyika Lake.
I halted two days at Yombo: the situation was low and unhealthy, and
provisions were procurable in homœopathic quantities. My only amusement
there was to watch the softer part of the population. At eventide, when
the labours of the day were past and done, the villagers came home in a
body, laden with their implements of cultivation, and singing a kind of
“dulce domum,” in a simple and pleasing recitative. The sunset hour, in
the “Land of the Moon,” is replete with enjoyments. The sweet and balmy
breeze floats in waves, like the draught of a fan; the sky is softly and
serenely blue; the fleecy clouds, stationary in the upper firmament, are
robed in purple and gold, and the beautiful blush, crimsoning the west,
is reflected by all the features of earth. At this time, all is life.
The vulture soars with silent flight, high in the blue expanse; the
small birds preen themselves for the night, and sing their evening
hymns; the antelopes prepare to couch in the bush; the cattle and flocks
frisk and gamble, whilst driven from their pastures; and the people busy
themselves with the simple pleasures that end the day. Every evening
there is a smoking party, which particularly attracts my attention. All
the feminine part of the population, from wrinkled grandmother to the
maiden scarcely in her teens, assemble together, and sitting in a circle
upon dwarf stools and logs of wood, apply themselves to their long
black-bowl’d pipes.
“Sæpe illæ long-cut vel short-cut flare tobacco
Sunt solitæ pipos.”
They smoke with an intense enjoyment, slowly and deeply inhaling
the glorious weed, and exhaling clouds from their nostrils; at times
they stop to cool the mouth with slices of raw manioc, or cobs of green
maize roasted in the ashes; and often some earnest matter of local
importance causes the pipes to be removed for a few minutes, and a
clamour of tongues breaks the usual silence. The pipe also requires
remark: the bowl is of imperfect material--the clay being
half-baked--but the shape is perfect. The African tapering cone is far
superior to the European bowl: the former gives as much smoke as
possible whilst the tobacco is fresh and untainted, and as little when
it becomes hot and unpleasant; the latter acts on the contrary
principle. Amongst the fair of Yombo, there were no less than three
beauties--women who would be deemed beautiful in any part of the world.
Their faces were purely Grecian; they had laughing eyes, their figures
were models for an artist, with--
“Turgide, brune e ritondette mamme,”
like the “bending statue that delights the world” cast in bronze.
The dress--a short kilt of calabash fibre,--rather set off than
concealed their charms, and though destitute of petticoat or crinoline
they were wholly unconscious of indecorum. It is a question that by no
means can be positively answered in the affirmative, that real modesty
is less in proportion to the absence of toilette. These “beautiful
domestic animals” graciously smiled when in my best Kinyamwezi I did my
devoir to the sex; and the present of a little tobacco always secured
for me a seat in the undress circle.
After hiring twenty porters--five lost no time in deserting--and
mustering the Baloch, of whom eleven now were present, I left Yombo on
the 18th December, and passing through a thick green jungle, with low,
wooded, and stony hills rising on the left hand, to about 4000 feet
above sea-level, I entered the little settlement of Pano. The next day
brought us to the clearing of Mfuto, a broad, populous, and fertile
rolling plain, where the stately tamarind flourished to perfection. A
third short march, through alternate patches of thin wood and field,
studded with granite blocks, led to Irora, a village in Western Mfuto,
belonging to Salim bin Salih, an Arab from Mbuamaji, and a cousin of
Said bin Mohammed, my former travelling companion, who had remained
behind at Kazeh. This individual, a fat, pulpy, and dingy-coloured
mulatto, appeared naked to the waist, and armed with bow and arrows: he
received me surlily, and when I objected to a wretched cow-shed outside
his palisade, he suddenly waxed furious: he raved like a madman, shook
his silly bow, and declared that he ignored the name of the Sayyid
Majid, being himself as good a “Sultan” as any other. He became pacified
on perceiving that his wrath excited nothing but the ridicule of the
Baloch, found a better lodging, sent a bowl of fresh milk wherein to
drown differences, and behaved on this and a subsequent occasion more
like an Arab Shaykh, than an African headman.
On the 22nd December my companion rejoined me, bringing four loads of
cloth, three of beads, and seven of brass wire: they formed part of the
burden of the twenty-two porters who were to join the Expedition ten
days after its departure from the coast. The Hindus, Ladha Damha and Mr.
Rush Ramji, after the decease of Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton, had behaved
with culpable neglect. The cloth was of the worst and flimsiest
description; the beads were the cheap white and the useless black--the
latter I was obliged to throw away; and as they sent up the supply
without other guard than two armed slaves, “Mshindo” and “Kirikhota,”
the consequence was that the pair had plundered _ad libitum_. No letters
had been forwarded, and no attention had been paid to my repeated
requests for drugs and other stores. My companion’s new gang, levied at
Kazeh, affected the greatest impatience. They refused to halt for a
day,--even Christmas day. They proposed double marches, and they
resolved to proceed by the straight road to Msene. It was deemed best to
humour them. They arrived, however, at their destination only one day
before my party, who travelled leisurely, and who followed the longer
and the more cultivated route.
We left Irora on the 23rd December, and marched from sunrise till noon
to the district of Eastern Wilyankuru. There we again separated. On the
next day I passed alone through the settlement called Muinyi Chandi,
where certain Arabs from Oman had built large Tembe, to serve as
barracoons and warehouses. This district supplies the adjoining
countries with turmeric, of which very little grows in Unyanyembe. After
this march disappeared the last of the six hammals who had been hired to
carry the hammocks. They were as unmanageable as wild asses, ever
grumbling and begging for “kitoweyo,”--“kitchen;”--constitutionally
unfitted to obey an order; disposed, as the noble savage generally is,
to be insolent; and, like all porters in this part of the world, unable
to carry a palanquin. Two men, instead of four, insisted upon bearing
the hammock; thus overburdened and wishing to get over the work, they
hurried themselves till out of breath. When one was fagged, the man that
should have relieved him was rarely to be found, consequently two or
three stiff trudges knocked them up and made them desert. Said bin
Salim, the Jemadar, and the Baloch, doubtlessly impressed with the
belief that my days were numbered, passed me on the last march without a
word--the sun was hot, and they were hastening to shade--and left me
with only two men to carry the hammock, in a dangerous strip of jungle
where, shortly afterwards, Salim bin Masud, an Arab merchant of Msene,
was murdered.
On Christmas day I again mounted ass, and passing through the western
third of the Wilyankuru district, was hospitably received by a wealthy
proprietor, Salim bin Said, surnamed, probably on account of his
stature, Simba, or the Lion, who had obtained from the Sultan Mrorwa
permission to build a large Tembe. The worthy and kind-hearted Arab
exerted himself strenuously to promote the comfort of his guest. He led
me to a comfortable lodging, placed a new cartel in the coolest room,
supplied meat, milk, and honey, and spent the evening in conversation
with me. He was a large middle-aged man, with simple, kindly manners,
and an honesty of look and words which rendered his presence exceedingly
prepossessing.
After a short and eventless march, on the 26th December, to Masenge, I
reached on the following day the little clearing of Kirira. I was
unexpectedly welcomed by two Arabs, Masud ibn Musallam el Wardi, and
Hamid bin Ibrahim el Amuri. The former, an old man of the Beni Bu Ali
clan, and personally familiar with Sir Lionel Smith’s exploits, led me
into the settlement, which was heaped round with a tall green growth of
milkbush, and placed me upon a cartel in the cool and spacious barzah or
vestibule of the Tembe. From my vantage-ground I enjoyed the pleasant
prospect of those many little miseries which Orientals--perhaps not only
Orientals--create for themselves by “ceremony” and “politeness.” Weary
and fagged by sun and dust, the Baloch were kept standing for nearly
half an hour before the preliminaries to sitting down could be arranged
and the party could be marshalled in proper order,--the most honourable
man on the left hand of the host, and the “lower class” off the dais or
raised step;--and, when they commenced to squat, they reposed upon their
shins, and could not remove their arms or accoutrements till especially
invited to hang them up. Hungry and thirsty, they dared not commit the
solecism of asking for food or drink; they waited from 9 A.M. till noon,
sometimes eyeing the door with wistful looks, but generally affecting an
extreme indifference as to feeding. At length came the meal, a mountain
of rice, capped with little boulders of mutton. It was allowed to cool
long before precedence round the tray was settled, and ere the grace,
“Bismillah,”--the signal to “set to,”--was reverentially asked by Said
bin Salim. Followed a preparation of curdled milk, for which spoons
being requisite, a wooden ladle did the necessary. There was much
bustling and not a little importance about Hamid, the younger host, a
bilious subject twenty-four or twenty-five years old, who for reasons
best known to himself assumed the style and title of Sarkal,--Government
servant. The meal concluded with becoming haste, and was followed by
that agreeable appearance of repletion which is so pleasing to the
Oriental Amphitryon. The Baloch returned to squat upon their shins, and
they must have suffered agonies till 5 P.M., when the appearance of a
second and a more ceremonious repast enabled them once more to perch
upon their heels. It was hard eating this time; the shorwa, or mutton
broth, thickened with melted butter, attracted admiration; the guests,
however, could only hint at its excellences, because in the East if you
praise a man’s meat you intend to slight his society. The _plat de
résistance_ was, as usual, the pillaw, or, as it is here called,
pulao,--not the conventional mess of rice and fowl, almonds and raisins,
onion-shreds, cardomoms, and other abominations, which goes by that name
amongst Anglo-Indians, but a solid heap of rice, boiled after being
greased with a handful of ghee--
(I must here indulge in a little digression. For the past century, which
concluded with reducing India to the rank of a British province, the
proud invader has eaten her rice after a fashion which has secured for
him the contempt of the East. He deliberately boils it, and after
drawing off the nutritious starch or gluten called “conjee,” which forms
the perquisite of his Portuguese or his Pariah cook, he is fain to fill
himself with that which has become little more nutritious than the
prodigal’s husks. Great, indeed, is the invader’s ignorance upon that
point. Peace be to the manes of Lord Macaulay, but listen to and wonder
at his eloquent words!--“The Sepoys came to Clive, not to complain of
their scanty fare, but to propose that all the grain should be given to
the Europeans, who required more nourishment than the natives of Asia.
The thin gruel, they said, which was strained away from the rice would
suffice for themselves. History contains no more touching instance of
military fidelity, or of the influence of a commanding mind.” Indians
never fail to drink the “conjee.” The Arab, on the other hand, mingles
with his rice a sufficiency of ghee to prevent the extraction of the
“thin gruel,” and thus makes the grain as palatable and as nutritious as
Nature intended it to be.)
--and dotted over with morsels of fowl, so boiled that they shredded
like yarn under the teeth. This repast again concluded with a bowl of
sweetened milk, and other entremets, for which both hosts amply
apologised; the house had lately been burned down, and honey had been
used instead of sugar. The day concluded with prayers, with a seance in
the verandah and with drinking fresh milk out of gourds--a state of
things which again demanded excuses. A multitude of “Washenzi” thronged
into the house, especially during the afternoon, to gaze at the Muzungu.
I was formally presented to the Sultan Kafrira, a tall and wrinkled
elder, celebrated for ready wits and spear. The sons of Ramji had often
looked in at the door whilst preparations for feeding were going on, but
they were not asked to sit down: the haughty host had provided them with
a lean goat, in return for which they privily expressed an opinion that
he was a “dog.” Masud, boasting of his intimacy with the Sultan
Msimbira, whose subjects had plundered our portmanteau, offered on
return to Unyanyembe his personal services in ransoming it. I accepted
with joy; but the Shaykh Masud, as afterwards proved, nearly “left his
skin” in the undertaking.
The climate of Kíríra is called by the Arabs a medicine. They vaunt its
virtues, which become apparent after the unhealthy air of Kazeh, and
after a delicious night spent in the cool barzah, I had no reason to
question its reputation. I arose in the morning wonderfully refreshed,
and Valentine, who had been prostrated with fever throughout the day,
became another man. Yet the situation was apparently unpropitious; the
Gombe Nullah, the main drain of this region, a line of stagnant pools,
belted with almost impassable vegetation, lies hard by, and the
background is an expanse of densest jungle.
Three short and eventless marches through thick jungle, with scattered
clearings, led me, on the 30th December, to the district of Msene, where
the dense wild growth lately traversed suddenly opens out and discloses
to the west a broad view of admirable fertility. Before entering the
settlements, the caravan halted, as usual, to form up. We then
progressed with the usual pomp and circumstance; the noise was terrific,
and the streets, or rather the spaces between the houses, were lined
with Negroid spectators. I was led to the Tembe of one Saadullah, a
low-caste Msawahili, and there found my companion looking but poorly.
Gaetano, his “boy,” was so excited by the scene, that he fell down in a
fit closely resembling epilepsy.
Msene, the chief Bandari of Western Unyamwezi, may be called the capital
of the Coast Arabs and the Wasawahili, who, having a natural antipathy
to their brethren of Oman, have abandoned to them Unyanyembe and its
vicinity. Of late years, however, the Omani merchants, having been
driven from the neighbouring districts by sundry murders into Msene, may
at times be met there to the number of four or five. The inhabitants are
chiefly Wasumbwá, a subtribe of the Wanyamwezi race. There is, however,
besides Arabs and Wasawahili, a large floating population of the
pastoral clan called Watosi, and fugitives from Uhha. In 1858 the chief
of Msene was the Sultan Masanza. Both he and Funza, his brother, were
hospitable and friendly to travellers, especially to the Arabs, who but
a few years ago beat off with their armed slaves a large plundering
party of the ferocious Watuta. This chief has considerable power, and
the heads of many criminals elevated upon poles in front of his several
villages show that he rules with a firm hand. He is never approached by
a subject without the clapping of hands and the kneeling which in these
lands are the honours paid to royalty. He was a large-limbed, gaunt, and
sinewy old man, dressed in a dirty Subai or Arab check, over a coating
of rancid butter, with a broad brass disk, neatly arabesqued, round his
neck, with a multitude of little pigtails where his head was not bald,
and with some thirty sambo or flexible wire rings deforming, as if by
elephantiasis, his ankles. Like the generality of sultans, he despises
beads as an article of decoration, preferring coils of brass or copper.
He called several times at the house occupied by the Expedition, and on
more than one occasion brought with him a bevy of wives, whose
deportment was, I regret to say, rather naïve than decorous.
Msene, like Unyanyembe, is not a town, but a mass of detached
settlements, which are unconscious of a regular street. To the
northwards lie the villages of the Sultan--Kwihángá and Yovu. These are
surrounded with a strong stockade, a deep moat, and a thick milk-bush
hedge, intended for defence. The interior is occupied by thatched
circular huts, divided by open squarelike spaces, and wynds and
alleys are formed by milk-bush hedges and palisades. There are distinct
places for the several wives, families, and slaves. The other
settlements--Mbugání (“in the wild”) and Mji Mpia (“new town”), the
latter being the place affected by the Wasawahili--cluster in a circle,
separated by short cross-roads, which after rain are ankle-deep in mud,
from Chyámbo, the favourite locale of the Coast Arabs. This settlement,
which contained in 1858 nine large Tembe and about 150 huts, boasts of
an African attempt at a soko or bazar, a clear space between the houses,
where, in fine weather, bullocks are daily slaughtered for food, and
where grain, vegetables, and milk are exposed for sale. At Msene a fresh
outfit of cloth, beads, and wire can be procured for a price somewhat
higher than at Unyanyembe. The merchants have small stores of drugs and
spices, and sometimes a few comforts, as coffee, tea, and sugar. The
latter is generally made of granulated honey, and therefore called
sukárí zá ásalí. The climate of Msene is damp, the neighbouring hills
and the thickly-vegetated country attracting an abundance of rain. It is
exceedingly unhealthy, the result doubtless of filth in the villages and
stagnant waters spread over the land. The Gombe Nullah, which runs
through the district, about six hours’ march from the settlements,
discharges after rain its superfluous contents into the many lakelets,
ponds, and swamps of the lowlands. Fertilised by a wet monsoon, whose
floods from the middle of October to May are interrupted only by bursts
of fervent heat, the fat, black soil manured by the decay of centuries,
reproduces abundantly anything committed to it. Flowers bloom
spontaneously over the flats, and trees put forth their richest raiment.
Rice of the red quality--the white is rare and dear--grows with a
density and a rapidity unknown in Eastern Unyamwezi. Holcus and millet,
maize and manioc, are plentiful enough to be exported. Magnificent
palmyras, bauhinias and sycomores, plantains, and papaws, and a host of
wild fruit-trees, especially the tamarind, which is extensively used,
adorn the land. The other productions are onions, sweet potatoes, and
egg-plants, which are cultivated; turmeric, brought from the vicinity;
tomatos and bird-pepper, which grow wild; pulse, beans, pumpkins,
water-melons, excellent mushrooms, and edible fungi. Milk, poultry,
honey, and tobacco are cheap and plentiful. The currency at Msene in
1858--the date is specified, as the medium is liable to perpetual and
sudden change, often causing severe losses to merchants, who, after
laying in a large outfit of certain beads, find them suddenly
unfashionable, and therefore useless--was the “pipe-stem,” white and
blue porcelain-beads, called sofi in the string, and individually msaro.
Of these ten were sufficient to purchase a pound of beef. The other
beads in demand were the sungomaji, or pigeon-egg, the red-coral, the
pink-porcelain, and the shell-decorations called kiwangwa. The cheaper
varieties may be exchanged for grain and vegetables, but they will not
purchase fowls, milk, and eggs. At this place only, the palmyra is
tapped for toddy; in other parts of East Africa the people are unable to
climb it. The market at Msene is usually somewhat cheaper than that of
Unyanyembe, but at times the prices become very exorbitant.
The industry of Msene is confined to manufacturing a few cotton cloths,
coarse mats, clay pipeheads, and ironmongery. As might be expected from
the constitution of its society, Msene is a place of gross debauchery,
most grateful to the African mind. All, from sultan to slave, are
intoxicated whenever the material is forthcoming, and the relations
between the sexes are of the loosest description. The drum is never
silent, and the dance fills up the spare intervals of carouse, till
exhausted nature can no more. The consequence is, that caravans
invariably lose numbers by desertion when passing through Msene. Even
household slaves, born and bred upon the coast, cannot tear themselves
from its Circean charms.
There was “cold comfort” at Msene, where I was delayed twelve days. The
clay roof of the Tembe was weed-grown like a deserted grave, and in the
foul patio or central court-yard only dirty puddles set in black mud met
the eye. The weather was what only they can realise who are familiar
with a “Rainy Monsoon.” The temptations of the town rendered it almost
impossible to keep a servant or a slave within doors; the sons of Ramji
vigorously engaged themselves in trading, and Muinyi Wazira in a
debauch, which ended in his dismissal. Gaetano had repeated epileptic
fits, and Valentine rushed into the room half-crying to show a white
animalcule--in this country called Funza--which had lately issued from
his “buff.” None of the half-caste Arabs, except I’d and Khalfan, sons
of Muallim Salim, the youths who had spread evil reports concerning us
in Ugogo and elsewhere, called or showed any civility, and the only Arab
at that time resident at Msene was the old Salim bin Masud. I received
several visits from the Sultan Masanza. His first greeting was, “White
man, what pretty thing hast thou brought up from the shore for me?” He
presented a bullock, and received in return several cloths and strings
of beads, and he introduced to us a variety of princesses, who returned
the salutes of the Baloch and others with a wild effusion. As
Christmas-day had been spent in marching, I hailed the opportunity of
celebrating the advent of the New Year. Said bin Salim, the Jemadar, and
several of the guard, were invited to an English dinner on a fair
sirloin of beef, and a curious succedaneum for a plum-pudding, where
neither flour nor currants were to be found. A characteristic trait
manifested itself on this occasion. Amongst Arabs, the remnants of a
feast must always be distributed to the servants and slaves of the
guests;--a “brass knocker” would lose a man’s reputation. Knowing this,
I had ordered the Goanese to do in Rome as the Romans do; and being
acquainted with their peculiarities, I paid them an unexpected visit,
where they were found so absorbed in the task of hiding, under pots and
pans, every better morsel from a crowd of hungry peerers that the
interruption of a stick was deemed necessary.
At length, on the 10th January, 1858, I left Msene with considerable
difficulty. The Kirangozi, or guide, who had promised to accompany me,
had sent an incompetent substitute, his brother, a raw young lad, who
had no power to collect porters. The sons of Ramji positively refused to
lend their aid in strengthening the gang. One of Said bin Salim’s
children, the boy Faraj, had fled to Kazeh. The bull-headed Mabruki was
brought back from flight only by the persuasion of his brother “Bombay,”
and even “Bombay,” under the influence of some negroid Neæra, at the
time of departure hid himself in his hut. All feared the march
westwards. A long strip of blue hill lying northwards ever keeps the
traveller in mind of the robber Watuta, and in places where the clans
are mixed, all are equally hostile to strangers. Villages are less
frequented and more meanly built, and caravans are not admitted beyond
the faubourgs--the miserable huts outlying the fences. The land also is
most unhealthy. After the rain, the rich dark loam becomes, like the
black soils of Guzerat and the Deccan, a coat of viscid mire. Above is a
canopy of cumulus and purple nimbus, that discharge their loads in
copious day-long floods. The vegetation is excessive, and where there is
no cultivation a dense matting of coarse grass, laid by wind and water
and decayed by mud, veils the earth, and from below rises a clammy
chill, like the thaw-cold of England, the effect of extreme humidity.
And, finally, the paths are mere lines, pitted with deep holes, and worn
by cattle through the jungle.
After an hour and thirty minutes’ march I entered Mb’hali, the normal
cultivator’s village in Western Unyamwezi;--a heap of dwarf huts like
inverted birds’ nests surrounding a central space, and surrounded by
giant heaps of euphorbia or milk-bush. Tall grasses were growing almost
up to the door-ways, and about the settlement were scattered papaws and
plantains; the Mwongo, with its damson-like fruit, the Mtogwe or
wood-apple tree, and the tall solitary Palmyra, whose high columnar
stem, with its graceful central swell, was eminently attractive. We did
not delay at Mb’hali, whence provisions had been exhausted by the
markets of Msene. The 11th January led us through a dense jungle upon a
dead flat, succeeded by rolling ground bordered with low hills and
covered with alternate bush and cultivation, to Sengati, another similar
verdure-clad village of peasantry, where rice and other supplies were
procurable. On the 12th January, after passing over a dead flat of
fields and of the rankest grass, we entered rolling ground in the
vicinity of the Gombe Nullah, with scattered huts upon the rises, and
villages built close to the dense vegetation bordering upon the stream.
Sorora or Solola is one of the deadliest spots in Unyamwezi; we were
delayed there, however, three long days, by the necessity of collecting
a two months’ supply of rice, which is rarely to be obtained further
west.
The non-appearance of the sons of Ramji rendered it necessary to take a
strong step. I could ill afford the loss of twelve guns, but Kidogo and
his men had become insufferable: moreover, they had openly boasted that
they intended to prevent my embarking upon the “Sea of Ujiji.” Despite
therefore the persuasions of the Jemadar and Said bin Salim, who looked
as if they had heard their death-warrants, I summoned the slaves, who
first condescended to appear on the 13th January--three days after my
departure,--informed them that the six months for which they were
engaged and paid had expired, and that they had better return and
transact their proprietor’s business at Kazeh. They changed, it is true,
their tone and manner, pathetically pleaded, as an excuse for their ill
conduct, that they were slaves, and promised in future to be the most
obedient of servants. But they had deceived me too often, and I feared
that, if led forwards, they might compromise the success of the
exploration. They were therefore formally dismissed, with a supply of
cloth and beads sufficient to reach Kazeh, a letter to their master, and
another paper to Snay bin Amir, authorising him to frank them to their
homes. Kidogo departed, declaring that he would carry off perforce, if
necessary, the four donkey-drivers who had been engaged and paid for the
journey to the “Sea of Ujiji” and back: as two of these men, Nasibu and
Hassani, openly threatened to desert, they were at once put in irons and
entrusted to the Baloch. They took oaths on the Koran, and, by strong
swearing, persuaded Said bin Salim and their guard to obtain my
permission for their release. I gave it unwillingly, and on the next
march they “levanted,” carrying off, as runaway slaves are wont to do, a
knife, some cloth, and other necessaries belonging to Sangora, a brother
donkey-driver. Sangora returning without leave, to recover his goods,
was seized, tied up, and severely fustigated by the inexorable Kidogo,
for daring to be retained whilst he himself was dismissed.
The Kirangozi and Bombay having rejoined at Sorora, the Expedition left
it on the 16th January. Traversing a fetid marsh, the road plunged into
a forest, and crossed a sharp elbow of the Gombe Nullah, upon whose
grassy and reedy banks lay a few dilapidated “baumrinden” canoes,
showing that at times the bed becomes unfordable. Having passed that
night at Ukungwe, and the next at Panda, dirty little villages, where
the main of the people’s diet seemed to be mushrooms resembling ours and
a large white fungus growing over the grassy rises, on the 18th January
we entered Kajjanjeri.
Kajjanjeri appeared in the shape of a circle of round huts. Its climate
is ever the terror of travellers: to judge from the mud and vegetation
covering the floors, the cultivators of the fields around usually retire
to another place during the rainy season. Here a formidable obstacle to
progress presented itself. I had been suffering for some days: the
miasmatic air of Sorora had sown the seeds of fresh illness. About 3
P.M., I was obliged to lay aside the ephemeris by an unusual sensation
of nervous irritability, which was followed by a general shudder as in
the cold paroxysm of fevers. Presently the extremities began to weigh
and to burn as if exposed to a glowing fire, and a pair of jack-boots,
the companions of many a day and night, became too tight and heavy to
wear. At sunset, the attack had reached its height. I saw yawning wide
to receive me
“those dark gates across the wild
That no man knows.”
The whole body was palsied, powerless, motionless, and the limbs
appeared to wither and die; the feet had lost all sensation, except a
throbbing and tingling, as if pricked by a number of needle points; the
arms refused to be directed by will, and to the hands the touch of cloth
and stone was the same. Gradually the attack seemed to spread upwards
till it compressed the ribs; there, however, it stopped short.
This, at a distance of two months from medical aid, and with the
principal labour of the Expedition still in prospect! However, I was
easily consoled. Hope, says the Arab, is woman, Despair is man. If one
of us was lost, the other might survive to carry home the results of the
exploration. I had undertaken the journey in the “nothing-like-leather”
state of mind, with the resolve either to do or die. I had done my best,
and now nothing appeared to remain for me but to die as well.
Said bin Salim, when sent for, declared, by a “la haul!” the case beyond
his skill; it was one of partial paralysis brought on by malaria, with
which the faculty in India are familiar. The Arab consulted a Msawahili
Fundi, or caravan-guard, who had joined us on the road, and this man
declared that a similar accident had once occurred to himself and his
little party in consequence of eating poisoned mushrooms. I tried the
usual remedies without effect, and the duration of the attack presently
revealed what it was. The contraction of the muscles, which were
tightened like ligatures above and below the knees, and those λυτα
γουνατα, a pathological symptom which the old Greek loves to specify,
prevented me from walking to any distance for nearly a year; the
numbness of the hands and feet disappeared even more slowly. The Fundi,
however, successfully predicted that I should be able to move in ten
days--on the tenth I again mounted my ass.
This unforeseen misfortune detained the caravan at Kajjanjeri till
porters could be procured for the hammock. On the 21st January four men
were with difficulty persuaded to carry me over the first march to
Usagozi. This gang was afterwards increased to six men, who severally
received six cloths for the journey to Ujiji; they all “bolted” eight
days after their engagement, and before completing half the journey.
These men were sturdier than the former set of Hammals, but being
related to the Sultan of Usagozi, they were even more boisterous,
troublesome, and insolent. One of them narrowly escaped a pistol bullet;
he ceased, however, stabbing with his dagger at the slave Mabruki before
the extreme measure became necessary.
Usagozi was of old the capital province of Unyamwezi, and is still one
of its principal and most civilised divisions. Some authorities make
Usagozi the western frontier of Unyamwezi, others place the boundary at
Mukozimo, a few miles to the westward; it is certain, however, that
beyond Usagozi the Wanyamwezi are but part-proprietors of the soil. The
country is laid out in alternate seams of grassy plains, dense jungle,
and fertile field. The soil is a dark vegetable humus, which bears
luxuriant crops of grain, vegetables, and tobacco; honey-logs hang upon
every large tree, cattle are sold to travellers, and the people are
deterred by the aspect of a dozen discoloured skulls capping tall poles,
planted in a semicircle at the main entrance of each settlement, from
doing violence to caravans. When I visited Usagozi it was governed by
“Sultan Ryombo,” an old chief “adorned with much Christian courtesy.”
His subjects are Wakalaganza, the noble tribe of the Wanyamwezi, mixed,
however with the Watosi, a fine-looking race, markedly superior to their
neighbours, but satisfied with leaky, ragged, and filthy huts, and large
but unfenced villages. The general dress of the Wakalaganza is
bark-cloth, stained a dull black.
We halted three days on the western extremity of the Usagozi district,
detained by another unpleasant phenomenon. My companion, whose blood had
been impoverished, and whose system had been reduced by many fevers, now
began to suffer from “an inflammation of a low type, affecting the whole
of the interior tunic of the eyes, particularly the iris, the choroid
coat, and the retina;” he describes it as “an almost total blindness,
rendering every object enclouded as by a misty veil.” The Goanese
Valentine became similarly afflicted, almost on the same day; he
complained of a “drop serene” in the shape of an inky blot--probably
some of the black pigment of the iris deposited on the front of the
lens--which completely excluded the light of day; yet the pupils
contracted with regularity when covered with the hand, and as regularly
dilated when it was removed. I suffered in a minor degree; for a few
days webs of flitting muscæ obscured smaller objects and rendered
distant vision impossible. My companion and servant, however,
subsequently, at Ujiji, were tormented by inflammatory ophthalmia, which
I escaped by the free use of “camel-medicine.”
Quitting Usagozi on the 26th January, we marched through grain fields,
thick jungle-strips, and low grassy and muddy savannahs to Masenza, a
large and comfortable village of stray Wagara or Wagala, an extensive
tribe, limiting Unyamwezi on the S. and S.E., at the distance of about a
week’s march from the road. On the 27th January, after traversing
cultivation, thick jungles, and low muddy bottoms of tall grass
chequered with lofty tamarinds, we made the large well-palisadoed
villages of the Mukozimo district, inhabited by a mixture of Wanyamwezi,
with Wagara from the S.E. and Wawende from the S.W. The headman of one
of these inhospitable “Kaya,” or fenced hamlets, would not house “men
who ride asses.” The next station was Uganza, a populous settlement of
Wawende, who admitted us into their faubourg, but refused to supply
provisions. The 29th January saw us at the populous and fertile clearing
of Usenye, where the mixed races lying between the Land of the Moon
eastward, and Uvinza westward, give way to pure Wavinza, who are
considered by travellers even more dangerous than their neighbours.
Beyond Usenye we traversed a deep jungle where still lingered remains of
villages which had been plundered and burned down by the Wawende and the
Watuta, whose hills rose clearly defined on the right hand. Having
passed the night at Rukunda, or Lukunda, on the 31st January we sighted
the plain of the Malagarazi River. Northwards of the road ran the
stream, and the low level of the country adjoining it had converted the
bottoms into permanent beds of soft, deep, and slippery mire. The rest
of the march was the usual country--jungle, fields, and grasses--and
after a toilsome stretch, we unpacked at the settlement of Wanyika.
At Wanyika we were delayed for a day by the necessity of settling
Kuhonga, or blackmail, with the envoys of Mzogera. This great man, the
principal Sultan of Uvinza, is also the Lord of the Malagarazi River. As
he can enforce his claims by forbidding the ferrymen to assist
strangers, he must be carefully humoured. He received about forty
cloths, white and blue, six Kitindi or coil bracelets, and ten Fundo (or
100 necklaces) of coral beads. It is equivalent in these lands to 50_l._
in England. When all the items had been duly palavered over, we resumed
our march on the 2nd February. The road, following an incline towards
the valley of the river, in which bush and field alternated with shallow
pools, black mud, and putrid grass, led to Unyanguruwwe, a miserable
settlement, producing, however, millet in abundance, sweet potatoes, and
the finest manioc. On the 3rd February we set out betimes. Spanning
cultivation and undulating grassy ground, and passing over hill-opens to
avoid the deeper swamps, we debouched from a jungle upon the
river-plain, with the swift brown stream, then about fifty yards broad,
swirling through the tall wet grasses of its banks on our right hand,
hard by the road. Upon the off side a herd of elephants, forming Indian
file, slowly broke through the reed-fence in front of them: our purblind
eyes mistook them for buffaloes. Northwards lay an expanse of card-table
plain, over which the stream, when in flood, debords to the distance of
two miles, cutting it with deep creeks and inlets. The flat is bounded
in the far offing by a sinuous line of faint blue hills, the haunts of
the Watuta; whilst, westward and southward, rises the wall-shaped ridge,
stony and wooded, which buttresses the left bank of the river for some
days’ journey down the stream. We found lodgings for the night in a
little village, called from its district Ugaga; we obtained provisions,
and we lost no time in opening the question of ferryage. The Sultan
Mzogera had sold his permission to cross the river. The Mutware, or
Mutwale, the Lord of the Ferry, now required payment for his canoes.
Whilst delayed at Ugaga by the scabrous question of how much was to be
extracted from me, I will enter into a few geographical details
concerning the Malagarazi River.
The Malagarazi, corrupted by speculative geographers to Mdjigidgi,--the
uneuphonious terminology of the “Mombas Mission Map,”--to “Magrassie”
and to “Magozi,” has been wrongly represented to issue from the Sea of
Ujiji. According to all travellers in these regions, it arises in the
mountains of Urundi, at no great distance from the Kitangure, or River
of Karagwah; but whilst the latter, springing from the upper
counterslope, feeds the Nyanza or Northern Lake, the Malagarazi, rising
in the lower slope of the equatorial range, trends to the south-east,
till it becomes entangled in the decline of the Great Central African
Depression--the hydrographical basin first indicated in his Address of
1852 by Sir Roderick I. Murchison, President of the Royal Geographical
Society of London.[10] Thence it sweeps round the southern base of
Urundi, and, deflected westwards, it disembogues itself into the
Tanganyika. Its mouth is in the land of Ukaranga, and the long
promontory behind which it discharges its waters, is distinctly visible
from Kawele, the head-quarters of caravans in Ujiji. The Malagarazi is
not navigable; as in primary and transition countries generally, the bed
is broken by rapids. Beyond the ferry, the slope becomes more
pronounced, branch and channel-islets of sand and verdure divide the
stream, and as every village near the banks appears to possess one or
more canoes, it is probably unfordable. The main obstacle to crossing it
on foot, over the broken and shallower parts near the rock-bars, would
be the number and the daring of the crocodiles.
[10] The following notice concerning a discovery which must ever be
remembered as a triumph of geological hypothesis, was kindly forwarded
to me by the discoverer:--
“My speculations as to the whole African interior being a vast watery
plateau-land of some elevation above the sea, but subtended on the
east and west by much higher grounds, were based on the following
data:--
“The discovery in the central portion of the Cape colony, by Mr. Bain,
of fossil remains in a lacustrine deposit of secondary age, and the
well-known existence on the coast of loftier mountains known to be of
a Palæozoic or primary epoch and circling round the younger deposits,
being followed by the exploration of the Ngami Lake, justified me in
believing that Africa had been raised from beneath the ocean at a very
early geological period; and that ever since that time the same
conditions had prevailed. I thence inferred that an interior network
of lakes and rivers would be found prolonged northwards from Lake
Ngami, though at that time no map was known to me showing the
existence of such central reservoirs. Looking to the west as well as
to the east, I saw no possibility of explaining how the great rivers
could escape from the central plateau-lands and enter the ocean except
through deep lateral gorges, formed at some ancient period of
elevation, when the lateral chains were subjected to transverse
fractures. Knowing that the Niger and the Zaire, or Congo, escaped by
such gorges on the west, I was confident that the same phenomenon must
occur upon the eastern coast, when properly examined. This hypothesis,
as sketched out in my ‘Presidential Address’ of 1852, was afterwards
received by Dr. Livingstone just as he was exploring the transverse
gorges by which the Zambesi escapes to the east, and the great
traveller has publicly expressed the surprise he then felt that his
discovery should have been thus previously suggested.”
The Lord of the Ferry delayed us at Ugaga by removing the canoes till he
had extracted fourteen cloths and one coil-bracelet,--half his original
demand. Moreover, for each trip the ferryman received from one to five
khete of beads, according to the bulk, weight, and value of the freight.
He was as exorbitant when we returned; then he would not be satisfied
with less than seven cloths, a large jar of palm oil, and at least three
hundred khete. On the 4th February we crossed to Mpete, the district on
the right or off bank of the stream. After riding over the river plain,
which at that time, when the rains had not supersaturated the soil, was
hard and dry, we came upon the “Ghaut,” a muddy run or clearing in the
thicket of stiff grass which crossed the stream. There we found a scene
of confusion. The Arabs of Kazeh had described the canoes as fine
barges, capable of accommodating fifty or sixty passengers. I was not,
however, surprised to find wretched “baumrinden”--tree-rind--canoes, two
strips of “myombo” bark, from five to seven feet in length, sown
together like a doubled wedge with fibres of the same material. The keel
was sharp, the bow and stern were elevated, and the craft was prevented
from collapsing by cross-bars--rough sticks about eighteen inches long,
jammed ladder-wise between the sides. When high and dry upon the bank,
they look not unlike castaway shoes of an unusual size. We entered
“gingerly.” The craft is crankier than the Turkish caïque, and we held
on “like grim death” to the gunwale with wetted fingers. The weight of
two men causes these canoes to sink within three or four inches of
water-level. An extra sheet of stiff bark was placed as a seat in the
stern; but the interior was ankle-deep in water, and baling was
necessary after each trip. The ferryman, standing amidships or in the
fore, poled or paddled according to the depth of the stream. He managed
skilfully enough, and on the return-march I had reason to admire the
dexterity with which he threaded the narrow, grass-grown and winding
veins of deep water, that ramified from the main trunk over the swampy
and rushy plains on both sides. Our riding asses were thrown into the
river, and they swam across without accident. Much to my surprise, none
of the bales were lost or injured. The ferrymen showed decision in
maintaining, and ingenuity in increasing, their claims. On the
appearance of opposition they poled off to a distance, and squatted,
quietly awaiting the effect of their decisive manœuvre. When the waters
are out, it is not safe to step from the canoe before it arrives at its
destination. The boatman will attempt to land his passenger upon some
dry mound emerging from deep water, and will then demand a second fee
for salvage.