VISIT TO THE KISULODI-NI MISSION HOUSE.
Tremolavano i rai del sol nascente
Sovra l’onde del mar purpuree e d’oro,
E in vesti di zaffiro il ciel ridente,
Specchiar parea le sue bellezze in loro.
D’Africa i venti fieri e d’Oriente,
Sovra il letto del mar prendean ristoro.—TASSONI.
Leaving directions with Lakhmidas to land and lodge our cockroach-gnawed
luggage, and deputing Saíd bin Salim, supported by our two Portuguese
servants and his three slaves, to protect it, we set out on the morning
after our arrival to visit M. Rebmann of the ‘Mombas Mission’ at
Kisulodi-ni, his station. Before the sun gained power to destroy the
dewy freshness of dawn, we slowly punted up the northern sea-arm which
bounds the Mombasah islet: in our heavy ‘dau’—here all the lesser craft
are so called—manned by two men and a small boy, we justified the stern
Omar’s base comparison for those who tempt the sea, ‘worms floating upon
a log.’ Whilst threading the channel our attention was attracted by
groups of market people, especially women, who called to be ferried
across. On the part of our crew the only acknowledgment was an African
modification of Marlow Bridge, far-famed amongst bargees. Sundry small
settlements, bosomed in thick undergrowth, relieved by brabs, cocoas,
and the W-shaped toddy-tree, appeared upon each ‘adverse strand.’ After
a two miles’ progress, lame as the march of civilisation at S’a Leone,
we entered Port Tudor, a salt-water basin, one of the canals of Mombasah
Bay, about two miles broad, and in depth varying from one to fifteen
fathoms. Broken only by the ‘Rock of Rats,’ and hedged on both sides by
the water-loving mangrove, it prolongs itself towards the interior in
two tidal river-like channels for about ten miles, till stopped by high
ground. The northern is named ‘Water of the Wakirunga,’ and the
north-western ‘Water of the Rabai,’ from tribes owning the banks.
Captain Owen has christened them respectively William Creek and River
Barrette, after the officers who aided in his survey. Similarly, Port
Reitz, to the south-west, projects a briny line called ‘Water of
Doruma’—the region which it drains—and receiving the Muache, a sweet
rivulet that flows from uplands 20 to 30 miles from the coast. Such in
nature is the Tuaca, or Nash river, which defaces our maps. It is a mere
confusion with Mtu Apa, the ‘River Matwapa’ of Captain Owen, a village
and a little runnel five miles north of Mombasah. Lieut. Emery mentions
the ‘hamlet of Mtuapa, situated at the entrance of a small river, which
runs about sixteen miles into the country.’ Like the Cuavo, or great
‘Quiloa river,’ a salt-water inlet receiving during the rainy season the
surface drainage of a seaward slope, the ‘Tuaca’ becomes a noble black
streak, dispensing the blessings of intercourse and irrigation athwart
three inches of white paper. The presence of such rivers must always be
suspected: they would long ago have fundamentally altered the social
condition of the interior. We may remark the same of Ptolemy’s three
great Arabian streams, which could have existed only in the imagination
of travellers.
As we advanced up the Rabai Water the sea arms shrank, and the scenery
brightened till we felt that any picture of this gorgeous and powerful
nature must be comparatively grey and colourless. A broken blue line of
well-wooded hills, the Rabai Range, first offsets of the Coast Ghats,
formed the background. On the nearer slopes, westward, were the rude
beginnings of plantations, knots of peasants’ huts hove successively in
sight, and pale smoke-wreaths, showing that the land is being prepared
for the approaching showers, curled high from field and fell. Above was
the normal mottled, vapoury sky of the rainy zone, fleecy mists,
opal-tinted, and with blurred edges, floating on milk-blue depths,
whilst in the western horizon a purple nimbus moved up majestically
against the wind. Below, the water caught various and varying
reflections of the firmament: here it was smooth as glass, there it was
dimpled by the pattering feet of the zephyrs, that found a way through
the hill-gaps, and merrily danced over the glistening floor. Now little
fish, pursued by some tyrant of the waters, played duck and drake upon
the surface: then larger kinds, scate-shaped, sprang five or six feet
into the air, catching the sun like silver plates. On both sides the
wave was bounded by veritable forests of the sea. The white mangrove
affected the unflooded ground; the red species (Rhizophora Mangle,
Linn.) rose unsupported where solidly based, but on the watery edge it
was propped, like a Banyan tree in miniature, by succulent offsets of
luscious purple and emerald green, so intricate that the eye would
vainly unravel the web of root and trunk, of branch and shoot. Hence,
doubtless, the name Aparaturie, or Apariturier, of the old French
travellers, from parere, because the tree reproduces itself like mankind
before split into Adam and Eve. Clusters of parasitical oysters adhered
edgeways to the portions denuded by the receding tide; the pirate-crab
sat in his plundered shell, whilst the brown newt and rainbow-tinted
cancers, each with solitary claw, plunged into their little
hiding-holes, or coursed sidling amongst the harrow-work of roots, and
the green tufted upshoots binding the black mass of ooze. These are the
‘verdant and superb, though unfruitful, trees’ of the old Portuguese
navigator, which supply the well-known ‘Zanzibar rafters.’ Various
lichens sat upon the branch forks, and tie-tie, or llianas, hung like
torn rigging from the boughs. Here and there towered a nodding cocoa, an
armed bombax (silk-cotton tree), or a ‘P’hun’-tree, with noble
buttressed shaft and canopied head of leek-green, glinted through by
golden beams. Fish-hawks, white and brown-robed, soared high in ether.
Lower down, bright fly-catchers hunted the yellow butterflies that
rashly crossed from bank to bank; the dove coo’d in the denser foliage;
the yellow vulture, apparently keeping a bright look-out, perched upon
the topmost tree-crest overhanging the shoal water which lined the
sides; the small grey kingfisher poised himself with twinkling wings;
the snowy paddy-bird stood meditating upon the margin of the wave, while
sober-coated curlews and sandpipers took short sharp runs, and stopped
to dive beak into the dark vegetable mud.
After seven hours, or ten miles, of alternate rowing, sailing, and
pushing through pelting rain and potent sunbeams, we reached, about
mid-day, the pier—a tree projecting from the right bank over the miry
graves of many defunct mangroves. Our boat, stripped of sail, oars, and
rudder, to secure her presence next morning, was made fast to a stump,
and we proceeded to breast the hills. We began with rolling ground,
sliced and split by alternate heat and moisture, thickly grown with tall
coarse grass, sun-scorched to a sickly tawny brown, and thinly sprinkled
with thorny trees. Amongst the latter I recognized the ‘Gabol’-mimosa of
Somaliland, whose long sharp needle, soft whilst young, but dry, hard,
and woody when old, springs from a hollow filbert-like cone.
Another mile brought us to the first ascent of the Rabai hills. The
pitch of the fell was short but sharp, and the path wound amongst
boulders, and at times under palms and clumps of grateful shade. On the
summit appeared the straggling lodges of the savages, pent-housed sheds
of dried fronds, surrounded by sparse cultivation, lean cattle, and
vegetation drooping for want of rain. The desert people were all armed,
being in terror of the Wamasai, the natural enemies of their kind. None,
however, carried guns, the citizens of Mombasah having strictly
prohibited the importation of powder; a wise precaution which might be
adopted by more civilized races upon the West African coast. Amid cries
of Yambo!—a salutation which recalled dim memories of Mumbo
Jumbo—especially from that part of the community termed by prescriptive
right the fair—questions as to whether our bundle contained provisions,
and the screams of lean-ribbed children, we pursued our road under the
grateful cover of a little wood, and then over ridgy ground where a
scattered village, shortly to be wasted by the Kimasai spear, was
surrounded by the scantiest cultivation. At the end of a five-mile walk
we entered the Mission House, introduced ourselves, and received from Mr
and Mrs Rebmann the kindest welcome. They were then alone, M. Deimler,
who had lived with Mr Isenberg in Abyssinia, having left them three days
before in H. M.’s ship Castor, the late Commodore Trotter. We afterwards
saw the latter at Zanzibar.
The Kisulodi-ni Mission House[13] at Rabai Mpia appeared to us in these
lands a miracle of industry. Begun about 1850 by Messrs Rebmann and
Erhardt, it was finished after some two years of uncommonly hard work.
The form is three sides of a hollow square, completed with a railing to
keep poultry from vagrancy, and the azotea, or flat roof, is ascended by
an external ladder; the material is sandstone, clay-plastered and
white-washed; mangrove rafters form the ceiling, and Mvuli planks the
doors and shutters. It has, however, its inconveniences, being far from
that source of all comfort, the well, and beplagued with ants—the little
red wretches are ubiquitous by day, and by night overrunning the
clothes, nestling in the hair, and exploring nose and ears without a
moment’s repose, they compel the inmates to sleep with pans of water
supporting the couch legs. We enjoyed sundry huge ‘sneakers’ of tea, and
even more still the cool, light, refreshing air of the heights, and the
glorious evening, which here, unlike ‘muggy’ Zanzibar, follows the heavy
showers. The altitude by B. P. proved to be 750 feet, not 1200 to 2000,
as reported.
The servants, most grotesque in garb and form, gathered to stare at the
new white men, and those hill-savages who were brave enough to enter a
house stalked about, and stopped occasionally to relieve their minds by
begging snuff or cloth. One of the attendants had that in his face and
manner which suggested the propriety of having a revolver ready. ‘Do not
mind him,’ said Mrs Rebmann, ‘he is a very dear friend,—one of our
oldest converts.’ ‘Yes,’ pursued her husband, ‘Apekunza was mentally
prepared for Christianity by a long course of idiocy, poor fellow!’ We
were somewhat startled by the utter simplicity of the confession when it
was explained to us that the convert Apekunza, whom Dr Krapf calls Abbe
Gunja, had, as often happens to Africans, been driven to distraction by
the loss of all his friends and relatives. M. Rebmann also related to me
in pathetic terms the death of the mechanic missionary, Johannes Wagner,
a youth who, suffering from typhus, was very properly, but in vain,
supplied with abundant stimulants, therefore the Arab version of the
event was Sharrabúhu Khamr kasír—sár sakrán—mát wa Jehannum (they gave
him much strong liquor—he got drunk—died, and went to Gehenna). To
compare the edification of the people round the Christian death-bed, as
set forth in the Missionary Intelligencer, was not a little suggestive
of the delusions in which even honest men can live.
At a conference with the secretaries of the Church Missionary Society in
London, Major Straith and the Rev. Mr Venn had intrusted me with an open
letter to their employé, dated Sept. 30, 1856, giving him leave of
absence in case he decided to accompany the East African expedition at
the expense of the latter. They had neglected to forward a copy, but M.
Rebmann had received a second communication, which he did not before
produce. His earliest impulse was evidently to assist in carrying out
the plans which had been first formed by the ‘Mombas Mission,’ and
personally to verify the accuracy of the map, then so loudly and
violently criticised, now gaining credit every year. But presently cool
reflection came. He was not in strong health; he had, perhaps, seen
enough of the interior; and, possibly, after a few conversations he
thought that we relied too much on the arms of flesh—sword and gun. The
home instructions were, ‘The Committee have only to remark that they
entirely confide in you, as one of their missionaries, that wherever you
go you will maintain all the Christian principles by which you are
guided; that should you see fit to go with the expedition your
experience and knowledge of the language may prove very valuable; while
you may also obtain access to regions and tribes where missionary
enterprise may be hereafter carried on with renewed vigour.’ This did
not quite suit us, who had been pledged by Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton to
avoid ‘Dutchmen’ and proselytizing. Briefly, M. Rebmann did not
accompany us. A few weeks afterwards we met him again at Zanzibar,
whither he had been driven by the plundering Wamasai in February, 1857.
His passion for the ‘wunderbar’ had not abated, and he told us
impossible legends about vast forests and other mythical features, near
the Nyassa, southern or Zambezean Lake. During the years which he had
spent in the Wanyika country he had never studied its language; but when
driven from it, he immediately applied himself to Kinyika. An honest and
conscientious man, he had yet all the qualities which secure unsuccess.
He was the last of the ten members of the hapless Mission: all of them
were attacked by bilious remittents a few weeks after commencing their
labours; several had died, and the others had sought less dangerous
fields for labour, and some possibility of doing something in the
spiritual way. That it has been highly successful, geographically
speaking, none can doubt. The short trips into the interior, and the
long conversations with the natives, duly published by Messrs Krapf,
Rebmann, and Erhardt, gave an impulse to East African exploration
utterly unknown before their day. And as the recent valuable labours of
Messrs Wakefield and New prove, the ‘Mombas Mission’ is not likely to
derogate from its former fame.
We had proposed for ourselves a short excursion inland from Mombasah;
but everything combined to oppose the project. The land was parched,
provisions were unprocurable, the robber tribes were out, and neither
guides nor porters would face the plundering parties then approaching
the town. Indeed, it is to be feared that the entrance to Chaga,
Kilima-njaro, and the hill country around will now be closed to
travellers for many a year. Caravans dare not risk a contest with
professed plunderers; and hereabouts a successful raid always leads to
sundry repetitions. Such is the normal state of East Africa, from the
Red Sea to the Cape. The explorer can never be sure of finding a
particular road practicable: a few murders will shut it for a
generation, and effectually arrest him at the very threshold.
We had no object during a mere ‘trial trip,’ either to fight our way, or
to pave it with gold. Our course was to economize life and money for the
great task of exploring the Lake Regions. This was duly explained by me
to the Royal Geographical Society, and no African traveller would have
required the explanation. But a certain Herr Augustus Petermann, of
Gotha, could not resist the temptation of taunting me with having
hesitated to face dangers through which the missionaries had passed,
‘weaponed only with their umbrellas.’ This gentleman from Germany had
visited England, and had created for himself the title of ‘Physical
Geographer to the Crown’: when, however, no salary was the result, he
returned to his native land, declaring that the Crown must take its
geography without physic. His style of settling geographical questions,
for instance in the ‘Skizze’ before alluded to (note 1, chap. v.), seems
to be simply striking a mean between the extremes of the disputants. The
process reminds one of a Bombay savan, locally famed, who, having
collected every observation published upon the disputed longitude of
that port, added them all, divided them by the number of the items, and
produced _his_ meridian. As a reward for Herr Petermann’s ‘zealous and
enlightened services as a writer and cartographer in advancing
geographical science,’ that is to say, persistent book-making and
map-drawing, he, and not Mr Alexander Findlay, received, in 1867, the
Founder’s medal of the Royal Geographical Society; and I can only say
that in this case the gift has gone cheap, and has been easily gained,
as what is called in familiar French ‘un crachat.’
Unlike the traveller, the merchant always commands an entrance for his
goods: if one line be shut up, another forthwith opens itself. Such we
found this year to be the case at Mombasah; the western country has
suddenly been closed to Arabs and Wasawahili; the north-western has
become as unexpectedly practicable. On January 19 (1857) returned the
van of a large trading party, which had started for the interior in
September last. It was composed of about 200 men—Arabs, Wasawahili, and
slaves, of whom 40 bore provisions, rice and maize, pulse, sugar, and
tobacco, whilst 150 armed with muskets carried packs to the value of
$3000 in ‘Merkani’ (American domestics), sheetings, longcloths, and
other stuffs; green, white, and spotted beads, knives, tin (batí); brass
wires, and small chains, with stores and comforts for the journey. After
19 days of actual marching, and sleeping out 24 nights, they reached
Kitui, the farthest point visited by Dr Krapf in 1849, and thence they
dispersed through Ukamba-ni and Kikuyu, its north-western province, to
purchase ivory. The latter article sold per Farsalah (35 lbs.) for 88
cubits of cotton cloth, probably worth at Zanzibar 11 German crowns and
a small merchant could thus afford to being back from 1400 to 1500 lbs.
I wrote down a list of their marches[14] and stations, carefully
comparing the accounts of several travellers. Ukamba-ni was described to
me as a country rich in game, whose rivers were full of hippopotamus;
with gazelles, jungle-cattle, and ‘wild camels’ (giraffes) in the
plains, and in the bush lions and leopards, elephants, and the
rhinoceros, which the Arabs here call ‘El Zurraf,’ and describe to be
very fierce. The tribes are subject to head men, whose influence extends
over a few miles: these chiefs must be propitiated with cloth and beads,
for which they return safe conduct and provisions. At Kikuyu the caravan
found a royalet, Mundu Wazeli, whose magical powers were greatly feared.
The people, a semi-pastoral and hospitable race, willingly escorted the
strangers. They are braver than the Wanyika, and they effectively oppose
the Wamasaa, when invading their country to drive the Galla cattle. The
Wakámbá claim blood-relationship with the Wakwafi and the Wagálla, who,
it must be remembered, speak an Arabic dialect. All spring from the
three sons of a venerable keeper of cattle, Mkwáfi the senior, Mgálla,
and Mkámbá: the legend seems invented to account for the inveterate
blood-feud between the cousin tribes. When the founders had inherited
their father’s property, they had been cautioned against robbing wild
honey, and they were told, as in the Crystal Palace, ‘Never kill a Bee.’
Mkámbá, apparently having a sweet tooth, attacked a wild hive, and had
the misfortune to see all his cattle rush violently to the forests,
where in time they became ‘buffaloes’ and antelopes. He naturally robbed
his second brother, who, in turn, robbed the senior, who retorted by
robbing the junior, and so forth till the present day. The climate is
good, water abounds, and provisions are cheap. The honey is ‘white as
paper’; sugar-cane, manioc, holcus, and tobacco are everywhere
cultivated by the women; poultry is plentiful, and goats cost 8, while
cows fetch 24 cubits of cotton cloth. The beasts of burden are asses and
a few camels. The return road was rendered dangerous by the Gallas and
the Wamasai, who both harry Ukam-ba-ni, but who did not dare to attack
so large a body armed with guns. The caravan marched from sunrise till
the afternoon, halting about half an hour after two hours’ walking, the
stages being mostly determined by water. Every night they surrounded
themselves with a corral, or rude abbatis, and they lighted huge fires
against the wild beasts. I did not hear that any of the party died. My
informants could tell me nothing concerning the giant snow-mountain,
Ndur-Kenia,[15] that exceptional volcano, still active, when distant 6°
from the sea, which would postulate a large lacustrine region, possibly
the Baringo or Behari-ngo. They had never heard of the Tumbiri or Monkey
river, flowing to the N. West; of the direct communication with the
Upper Nile, or of other geographical curiosities whose existence the
study of the interior during the last few years has either confirmed or
annulled. Yet they were acute and not incurious men. One of them,
Mohammed bin Ahmad, had kept a journal of his march, carefully noting
the several stages. The late M. Jomard, President of the French
Geographical Society, had been informed (and misinformed) that an annual
caravan of ‘red people,’ from the neighbourhood of Mombasah, carried
beads to buy ivory on the Nile, about N. lat. 3°. He laid down the
length of the journey at two to three months. The Arabs knew nothing of
the matter.
Nothing even among the Somali Bedawin can be wilder than the specimens
from Ukamba-ni; these Warimangao,[16] as the people of Mombasah call
them, the ‘sons’ of the chief Kivoi, that danced and sang the Nyunbo or
song of triumph in the streets of Mombasah. It was a perfect picture of
savagery. About 50 blacks, ruddled with ochre, performed the Zumo
(procession); men blowing Kudu-horns, or firing their muskets, and women
‘lullalooing.’ They sat with us for some hours drinking a sherbet of
Ngizi, or molasses extracted from cocoa-tree toddy, and the number of
gallons which disappeared were a caution. The warriors of the tribe,
adorned with beads on the necks, loins, and ankles, were armed with the
usual long bows and poisoned arrows, spears or rather javelins,
knobsticks for striking or throwing; knives and two-edged swords of fine
iron, the latter a rude imitation of the straight Omani blade, of which
I afterwards saw specimens upon the Congo river. Some had shock heads of
buttered hair, wondrous unsavoury, and fit only for door-mats; others
wore the thatch twisted into a hundred little corkscrews; their eyes
were wild and staring, their voices loud and barking, and all their
gestures denoted the ‘noble savage’ who had run out of his woods for the
first time. They were, however, in high spirits. Before last year (1857)
no Arab had visited their country: trading parties from Ukamba-ni sold
ivory to the Wanyika for four times round the tusk in beads, and these
middlemen, after fleecing those more savage than themselves, retailed
the goods at high profits to the citizens. The Wakamba of the coast are,
of course, anxious to promote intercourse between Mombasah and their
kinsmen of the interior, and thus the road, first opened at the imminent
risk of life, by the enterprising Dr Krapf, has become a temporary
highway into the interior of Eastern Intertropical Africa—a region
abounding in varied interest, and still awaiting European exploration.
But let not geographers indulge in golden visions of the future! Some
day the Arabs of Mombasah will seize and sell a caravan, or the fierce
Wamasai or the Gallas will prevail against the traders. Briefly, no
spirit of prophecy is needed to foresee that the Kikuyu line shall share
the fate of many others.
A report prevalent in Mombasah—even a Msawahili sometimes speaks the
truth—that the Mission House had been attacked by the savages, and the
march of an armed party from the town, showing a belief in their own
words, hurried us up to Kisulodi-ni, on Sunday, January 18. The rumour
proved to be false, but it was a shadow forethrown by coming events: as
M. Rebmann showed certain velléités for martyrdom, I insisted that his
wife, an English woman, should be sent down to Mombasah, and we had the
satisfaction to see the boxes packed. This second visit added something
to our knowledge of the country. The Ghaut, or Coast Range, which has no
general but many partial names, as Rabai, Shimba, and others, varies in
height from 700 to 1200 feet, and fringes the shore from Melinde to the
Panga-ni river. Distant but a few miles from a sea-board of shelly
coralline, it shows, like Madagascar, no trace of the limestone
formation, which forms the maritime region of Somaliland. These hills
are composed of sandstones, fine and coarse, red-yellow and dark brown,
with oxide of iron; the soil, as usual in Western Intertropical Africa,
is a ‘terrier rouge,’ as Senegal was called by the French of the 17th
century, a red ochreous clay, and bits of quartz lie scattered over the
surface. Beyond it are detached hills of gneiss and grey and rufous
granite: the latter is so micareous that the Baloch firmly believe it to
contain gold.
Inland of Mombasah the Rabai Range is a mere ridge, with a gentler
counter-slope landwards, declining 150 to 200 feet, not, as such
maritime formations usually are, the rampart of an inland plateau. This
unusual disposition probably gave rise to the novel idea—instruments
were not used—that the interior falls to, and even below, sea-level,
thus forming a depression, bounded north and south by rapid rivers, the
Adi and the Panga-ni. The chine is broken by deep ravines, which during
the rains pour heavy torrents into the sea-arms at their base: the
people might make tanks and reservoirs by draining the smaller clefts,
but they prefer thirst and famine to sweating their brows. Though
exposed to the blighting salt breeze, the land wants nothing but water,
and, this given, no man need ‘tread upon his neighbour’s toes.’ Arecas
and cocoas, bushy mangoes and small custard-apples, the guava and the
castor plant, the feathery manioc, and the broad-leaved papaw and
plantain flourish upon its flanks. In the patches of black forest spared
by the wild woodman, the copal, they say, and the Mvule, a majestic
timber-tree whose huge trunk serves for planking and doors at Zanzibar,
still linger. I saw none of the cinnamon plants mentioned by Dr Krapf. A
little gum-animi or copal is here dug; but the inveterate indolence of
the natives, their rude equality, in which, as amongst Bushmen, no one
commands, and their inordinate love for Tembo, or palm-wine, are
effectual obstacles to its exploitation. When we visited these hills
drought and its consequence, famine, had compelled the people to sell
their children: contented with this exertion, they did no more.
We left Kisulodi-ni on January 22, 1857. Some nights afterwards fires
were observed upon the neighbouring hills, and the Wanyika scouts
returned with a report that the Wamasai were in rapid advance. The wise
few fled at once to the Kaya, or hidden barricaded stronghold, which
these people prepare for extreme danger. The foolish many said,
‘To-morrow we will drive our flocks and herds to safety.’ But ere that
morning dawned upon the world, a dense mass of wild spearmen, numbering
some 800 braves, sweeping like a whirlwind, with shout and yell and
clashing arms, passed the Mission House, which they either did not see
or which they feared to enter; dashed upon the scattered village in the
vale below, and strewed the ground with the corpses of wretched
fugitives. Thence driving their loot they rushed down to the shore, and
met a body of 148 matchlock-men, Arabs and Baloch, Wasawahili and
slaves, posted to oppose progress. The bandits fled at the first volley.
The soldiers, like true Orientals, at once dispersed to secure the
plundered cattle, when the Wamasai rallying, fell upon them, and drove
them away in ignominious flight, after losing 25 men, to the refuge of
their walls. The victors presently retired to the hill-range, amused
themselves with exterminating as many Wanyika as they could catch, and,
gorged with blood and beef, returned triumphant to their homes. The old
Jemadar Tangai took from the unfortunate Wanyika all their remaining
cows; they also retired into the interior, and the price of provisions
at Mombasah was at once doubled.
The wild people of Eastern Africa are divided by their mode of life into
three orders. Most primitive and savage are the fierce pastoral nomades,
Wamasai and Gallas, Somal, and certain of the ‘Kafir’ sub-tribes: living
upon the produce of their herds and by the chase and foray, they are the
constant terror of their neighbours. Above them rank the semi-pastoral,
as the Wakamba, who, though without building fixed abodes, make their
women cultivate the ground: these clans indulge in occasional or
periodical raids and feuds. The first step towards civilization,
agriculture, has been definitively taken by the Wanyika, the Wasumbara,
the Wanyamwezi, and other tribes living between the coast and the inland
lakes: this third order is usually peaceful with travellers, but
thievish and fond of intestine broils.
But a few years ago the Wakwafi,[17] who in their raids slew women and
children, were the terror of this part of the coast: now they have been
almost exterminated by their Southern and S. Western neighbours, the
Wamasai, a tribe of congeners, formerly friends, and speaking the same
dialect. The habitat of this grim race is the grassy and temperate
region from N. Westward and to S. Westward of Chaga: nomades, but
without horses, they roam over the country, where their flocks and herds
find the best forage; they build no huts, but dwell under skins,
pitching rude camps where water and green meat are plentiful. They are
described as a fine, tall, dark race resembling the Somal, with a
fearful appearance caused by their nodding plumes, their hide pavoises
or shields, longer than those of the ‘Kafirs,’ and their spears with
heads broad as shovels, made of excellent charcoal-smelted metal.
According to native travellers, they are not inhospitable, but their
rough and abrupt manners terrify the Wasawahili: they will snatch a
cloth from the trader’s body, and test his courage with bended bow and
arrow pile touching his ribs. Life is valueless among them; arms are
preferred to clothes, and they fear only the gun because it pierces
their shields. They are frequented when in peaceful mood by traders from
Mombasah, Wasin, Mtanga, and Panga-ni: this year, however, even those
who went up from the Southern ports feared to pass the frontier. Such
visits, however, are always dangerous. ‘If a number of persons are
killed by a certain tribe, and there happen to be parties belong to that
tribe staying amongst the race which has suffered loss, the visitors are
immediately put to death,’ says Mr Wakefield. Cattle is the main end and
aim of their forays, all herds being theirs by the gift of the Rain-god
and by right of strength; in fact, no other nation should dare to claim
possession of a cow. They do not attack by night, like other Africans:
they disdain the name of robbers, and they delay near the plundered
places, dancing, singing, and gorging beef to offer the enemy his
revenge. Until this year they have shunned meeting Moslems and
musketeers in the field: having won the day, they will, it is feared,
repeat the experiment.
-----
Footnote 13:
I made a sketch of it which was published in Dr Krapf’s Travels, chap.
xiii. Rabai Mpia, ‘New Rabai,’ is thus distinguished from a
neighbouring settlement, Rabai Khú or Kale, ‘old Rabai.’ According to
M. Guillain (i. 247), the ‘Montagnes de Rabaye’ correspond with the
‘Alkerany’ of the geographer Ibn Saíd, who says, ‘East of Melinde is
Alkerany, the name of a mountain very well known to travellers. This
height projects into the sea for a distance of about 100 miles in a
north-east direction; at the same time it extends along the Continent
in a straight line, trending south for some 50 miles. Amongst the
peculiarities of this mountain is the following: the continental
portion contains an iron mine, which supplies all the country of the
Zenj, besides being exported, and the part under the sea contains
magnetic matter which attracts iron.’ Evidently ‘Alkerany’ belongs to
the geography of El Sindibad of the Sea, better known as Sindbad the
Sailor.
Footnote 14:
The route which follows seems to agree, as far as it goes, with the
Rev. Mr Wakefield’s No. 3, from Mombasah to Dhaicho. I have not
changed my notes, which still appear in my diary of 1857.
1. Mombasah viâ Mkupa to Rabai: 1 full day.
2. Kitakakai in the plains of the Wakamba: 1 day.
3. Mtu ’Ndogoni (M’tu Anggoni of Capt. Guillain?): 1 day.
4. Wamamba of the Doruma: 1 day.
5. Kisima (little well), amongst high hills, with a small reservoir:
1½ day. (This appears to be the Ngurunga za Kimiri and Ngurunga za
Mlala of Capt. Guillain, and the Gurungani of Mr Wakefield).
6. Dayda (Tayta, the Taveta of Capt. Guillain, which Mr Wakefield
makes a corruption of a Kikwavi word, ‘Ndoveta’): 2 days (1 long and 1
short).
7. Ndi, a place infamous for thieves: 1½ day.
8. The Chágo (Zavo) or Tsavo river: 1½ day. (Captain Guillain has a
village, Segao.)
9. Mtitowandei: 1½ day.
10. Kikumbulu, or country on the southern frontier of Ukamba: 1 day.
11. The Adi (Sabaki or Sabbak) river, which disembogues itself north
of Melinde, unfordable after rains: 1½ day.
12. The Tiwa river in Yatá: 1 day.
13. Nzáu, the land of tobacco: 1½ day.
14. Kitui: 2½ days.
Thence, to the beginning of Kikuyu, the travellers make from 4 to 8
stages. The day’s work would be 9 hours, including 2 of halt, and the
distance, assuming the pace to be 2½ miles per hour, would be about 17
miles. Here, say the people, 10 marches do the work of a month on the
southern lines, the reason being want of food and water, and fear of
enemies.
Footnote 15:
The reports forwarded by the Rev. Mr Wakefield render it very probable
that Mount Kenia is the Dóĭnyo Ebor, ‘White Mountain,’ the block
rising north of Kikuyu, and almost in a meridian with Kilima-njaro.
Moreover, a native traveller has lately described a mass of 30 to 40
craters in the Njemsi country, south of the Baringo or Bahari-ngo
Lake; the apex of the mountains being the Doenyo Mburo, alias the
Kirima ja Jioki (Mountain of Smoke), heard of by Dr Krapf (Church
Miss. Int., p. 234. 1852.)
Footnote 16:
The singular is Mritmangao, hence Mr Cooley’s Meremongáo, whence iron
was exported to make Damascus blades—risum teneatis? Dr Krapf says
‘the Wakamba are called by the Suahili, Waumanguo.’ M. Guillain (iii.
216) translates ‘M’rim-anggâo, or Ouarimanggâo’ by ‘gens qui vont
nus.’
Footnote 17:
Dr Krapf’s ‘Vocabulary of the Engútuk Eloikob’ (Wakwafi), Tübingen,
1854. The author, a far better ethnologist than linguist, made the
Wakwafi tribe extend from N. Lat. 2° to S. Lat. 4°, and in breadth
from 7° to 8°. He derives the racial name from Loi or Eloi (‘those,’
plural of Oloi), and Gob or Kob (country) ‘those in or of the
country’; the word has been corrupted by the Wakamba to Mukabi, and by
the Wasawahili to Mukafi and Mkwafi, in the plural, Wakwafi. Late
reports represent the fact that the Wamasai tribe, after the fashion
of all Inner Africa, is struggling to obtain a settlement upon the
coast, where it can trade direct with Europeans, and has actually
succeeded in driving the Waboni from the southern bank of the Adi or
Sabakí river; thence its progress to Melinde and the seashore is easy
and sure. I regret to state that the valuable papers by Herr Richard
Brenner (Mittheilungen, &c., Dr A. Petermann, 1868) have not been
translated into English. Mr Edward Weller, however, has made use of
that traveller’s map in preparing his excellent illustration of these
volumes. Herr Brenner is stated to be still in Africa; he appears to
be an intelligent traveller, and we may justly hope that we have not
heard the last of him.