FROM PANGA-NI TOWN TO TONGWE OUTPOST. THE
BALOCH GUARD.
Ma tutta insieme poi tra verdi sponde
In profondo canal l’acqua s’aduna,
E sotto l’ombra di perpetua fronde
Mormorando sen va gelida e bruna;
Ma transparente si, che non asconde
Del imo letto sua vaghezza alcuna. TASSO.
In the heroic ages of Bruce and Mungo Park, Denham and Clapperton,
Hornemann and Caillié, African travel had a prestige which, after living
through a generation, came, as is the fate of all things sublunary, to a
natural end. The public glutted with adventure and invention, which the
‘damnable license of printing’ ushered into the world, soon suffered
from the humours of a severe surfeit: it learned to nauseate the
monotonous tale of rapine, treachery, and murder; of ugly and unsavoury
savagery—the mala gens, as was said anent certain South countrymen, of a
bona terra—of bleared misery by day and animated impurity by night, and
of hunting adventures and hair-breadth escapes, which often made the
reader regret the inevitable absence of a catastrophe. It felt the
dearth of tradition and monuments of the olden time, the lack of
romance, variety, and history, whilst the presence of a ‘future,’ almost
too remote for human interest, was rather an aggravation than a
palliation of the evil. A temporary revival of interest was, it is true,
recited by the Egyptian hippopotamus and Gordon Cumming’s trophies:
Livingstone’s first journey and Paul du Chaillu’s gorilla also caused a
transient burst of enthusiasm. But this soon had its day, and the night
that followed was darker than before. In fact it still glooms.
Yet African travel still continues to fulfil all the conditions of
attractiveness as laid down by that great city authority, Leigh Hunt.
The theme has remoteness and obscurity of place, difference of custom,
marvellousness of hearsay; events passing strange yet credible;
sometimes barbaric splendour, generally luxuriance of nature, savage
life, personal danger and suffering always borne (in books) with
patience, dignity, and even enthusiasm. Moreover, no hours are more
fraught with smiling recollections to the author: nothing can he more
charming than the contrast between his vantage ground of present ease,
as he takes up his pen at home, and that past perspection of want,
hardships, and accidents upon which he gazes through the softening,
beautifying atmosphere of time. And the animus of the writer must to
some extent inspire his readers.
We arose early in the morning after making Panga-ni, and repaired to the
terrace for the better enjoyment of the view. The river-vista, with
cocoa avenues to the north, with yellow cliffs on the southern side,
some 40 feet high, abrupt as those of the Indus, and green clad above;
with a distance of plum-blue hill, upon which eye and mind both love to
rest; the mobile swelling water bounded by strips of emerald verdure and
golden sand, and the still and azure sea dotted with ‘diabolitos,’
little black rocks, not improperly called ‘devilings,’ wanted nothing
but the finish and polish of art to bring out the infinite variety, the
rude magnificence of nature. A few grey ruins upon the hills would
enable it to compare with the most admired prospects of the Rhine,
without looking as if it had been made picturesque by contrast, to
attract tourists, and with half-a-dozen white Kiosks and Serais,
minarets and latticed summer villas, it would almost rival that gem of
creation, the Bosphorus.
Panga-ni[31] ‘in the hole,’ or ‘between the highlands,’ as was said of
the River Lee, and its smaller neighbour, Kumba, hug the left or
northern bank of its river: the site is a flat Maremma bounded by the
sea and by a hill range, ten or eleven miles distant. Opposite are
Mbweni and Mzimo Mpia, small villages built under tall bluffs of yellow
sandstone, precipitous and impenetrably covered with wild growth. The
stream which separates these rival pairs of settlements may be 200 yards
broad: the mouth has an ugly line of bar-breakers, awash at low tide;
the only fairway course is a narrow channel to the south, and the
entrance is intricate, with reef and shoal. This in Capt. Owen’s time
was some 12 feet deep: now it it is reduced to seven or eight: although
a report had been spread that the ‘Shah Allum’ had crossed it, nothing
but country craft can safely enter, as some of our enterprising
compatriots have discovered, to their cost. Panga-ni Bay is shown to the
mariner by its ‘verdurous wall’ of palms and by its dotting of small
dark rocks; by Maziwi Island, a green-capped gem in a bezel of golden
sand, bearing S. East, and southwards by the yellow cliffs of Mbweni.
Vessels lie snugly in the outer roads, but when making the inner harbour
even Hamid, most niggardly of Suris, expended a dollar upon a pilot. At
low water in the dry season the bed of this tidal stream is partly
exposed, and its produce during the flow is briny as the main: the rains
cause it to swell with the hill-freshets, and then it becomes almost
potable. The wells produce heavy and brackish drink, but who, ask the
people, will take the trouble to fetch sweeter? The climate is said to
be tolerably healthy; throughout the long and severe rainy monsoon,
however, the place is rich in dysenteries and in fatal bilious
remittents.
Panga-ni boasts some 19 or 20 stone houses of the usual box style: the
rest is a mass of cajan huts, each with its large and mat-encircled
patio or courtyard, whose outer lines form the streets, and wherein
almost all the business of life is transacted. The settlement is
surrounded by a thick thorny jungle, harbouring not a few leopards. One
of these felines lately scaled the high terrace of our house, and seized
a slave-girl: her master, the burly Wáli, who was sleeping by her side,
snatched up his sword, hurried into the house and bolted the door,
heedless of the miserable cry, ‘B’ana, help me!’ The wretch was carried
into the jungle, and incontinently devoured. As full of crocodiles is
the river: whilst we were at Panga-ni a boy disappeared. When asked by
strangers why they do not kill their crocodiles and burn their bush, the
people reply that the former bring good luck, and that the latter is a
fort to which they can fly when need drives them. Plantains, arecas, and
cocoas grow all about the town; around it are plantations of papaws,
betel, and Jamlis, whilst further lie extensive Shambas, or plantations,
of holcus, maize, sesamum, and other grains. The clove flourishes, and,
as elsewhere upon the Zanzibar coast, a little cotton is raised for
household purposes; it will be long, however, before East-African cotton
can influence the English market, and as yet it has proved only a snare
and a delusion. A notable and narrow-minded party-cry of these modern
days, as applied to Africa, are the three Cs—Cotton, Civilization, and
Christianity: they ‘pay,’ however, better than to beg in the name of
roads and schools, steamers and steam engines—the true means which will
eventually lead to the wished-for end.
Animals are here rare. Cows soon die after eating the grass, and even
the Banyans despair of keeping them alive. Sheep are scarcely to be
found, and goats, being almost wild, give very little milk, and that
only before yeaning. But fish is abundant; poultry thrives, as it does
all over Africa, though not so much on the coast as in the interior;
and, before the late feuds began, clarified butter, that ‘one source’ of
the outer East, was cheap and plentiful. Made in the interior by the
Wazegura, and other Washenzi, with rich milk, stored in clean vessels,
and sold when fresh, it reminded me of the J’aferabádi ‘Ghi,’ so
celebrated throughout Western India.
Panga-ni, with its three neighbours, may contain a total of 4000
inhabitants, Arabs and Wasawahili, slaves and heathenry: of these a
large proportion are feminines and concubines. Twenty Banyans manage the
lucrative ivory trade of the Chaga, Nguru, and Umasai countries, which
produce the whitest, largest, heaviest, softest, and, perhaps, finest
ivory known. The annual export is said to be 35,000 lbs., besides 1750
lbs. of black rhinoceros horn, and 160 lbs. of hippopotamus’ teeth; the
latter is an article which, since porcelain teeth were invented, has
lost in value.[32] The other exports are holcus, maize, ghi, and
Zanzibar rafters, cut near the river mouth, and up stream.
Trading parties travel to the Umasai, Chaga, and Nguru countries at all
seasons, even when the rainy monsoon makes the higher Panga-ni difficult
to cross. As many as 1000 Wasawahili and slavers, directed by a few
Arabs, set out, laden with iron and brass wires (Nos. 7 and 8), some 50
of the former to 3 of the latter; with small brass chains which,
fastened together, are used as kilts (Mkifu) by the Wamasai; with
American domestics, indigo-dyed calicoes (Kiniki), and checks, with
beads of sorts, especially the white and the blue. Each man carries a
pack worth from $15 to $25: consequently the total venture is of £4000.
The caravan reaches its ground in about 20 days, and returns after a
period varying between two and six months. The purchase of slaves is not
on a large scale; nor is the coast journey distinguished by inhumanity.
Here the free traveller dies as frequently as the servile. The merchants
complain loudly of the ‘Pagazi,’ or porters: these fellows are prepaid
$10 for the trip, and the proprietor congratulates himself if, after
payment, only 15 per cent. abscond. The Hindu’s profit must here be
enormous, I saw one man to whom $26,000 were owed by the people. What
part do interest and compound interest play in making up such a sum,
when even Europeans will demand 40 per cent. for moneys lent on safe
mortgage or bottomry? We heard of another case, in which a bond worth
$60, and sold for $30, became, by post-obits and other processes,
$10,000: the affair was referred to the Zanzibar Government, which
allowed $1000 by way of indemnification. Some of their gains are
swallowed up by the rapacity of these savages, whose very princes are
inveterate beggars. The pliant Banyan always avoids refusals, like the
diplomatic Spaniard, ‘saying no, although he may do no’; consequently he
will find at his door every evening some 70 or 80 suitors, who besiege
him with cries for grain, butter, or a little oil.
After the dancing ceremony arose a variety of difficulties, resulting
from the African traveller’s twin banes—the dollar and the blood-feud.
Panga-ni, Mbweni, and the other settlements on this coast, nominally
belong, by right of conquest and succession, to the Sayyid of Zanzibar,
who invests and confirms the Governors and Diwans. At Panga-ni, however,
these officials are par congé d’élire, selected by Kimwere, Sultan of
Usumbara, whose ancestors received tribute from the Mountains of Paré
eastward to the Indian Ocean, and who still claims the northern
villages. On the other hand, Mbweni and the southern settlements are in
the territory of the Wazegura, a violent and turbulent tribe, inveterate
slave-dealers, and cunning at kidnapping, whilst the Christian merchants
of Zanzibar have been thoughtlessly allowed by the Prince Regnant to
supply them freely with muskets and ammunition. Of course the two
tribes, Wasumbara and Wazegura, are inveterate, deadly foes: moreover,
about a year ago, a violent intestine feud broke out amongst the latter,
who at the time of our visit were burning and plundering, selling and
murdering one another in all directions. About two months had passed
since they had cut the throat of one Moyya, a slave belonging to the
Sayyid of Zanzibar; and, as usual, the murder was left unpunished. The
citizens of Panga-ni, therefore, hearing that we were bearers of a
letter from the Sayyid of Zanzibar to Sultan Kimwere, marked out for us
the circuitous route viâ Mtangata, where no plundering Wazegura from the
south of the Panga-ni river could try their valour. We, on the other
hand, wishing to inspect that same stream, determined upon proceeding by
the directest line, along its left or northern bank. The timid townsmen
had also circulated a report that we were bound for Chaga and
Kilima-njaro; the Wamasai were ‘out,’ the rains were setting in, and
they saw us without armed escort. They resolved, therefore, not to
accompany us; but nevertheless did each man expect his gift of dollars
and his bribe of inducement.
The expense of the journey was an even more serious consideration. In
these lands the dollar is almighty. If it be lacking, you must travel
alone, unaccompanied, at least, by any but blacks; without other
instrument but a pocket-compass, and with few weapons. You must conform
to every nauseous custom; you will be subjected at the most interesting
points to perpetual stoppages; the contents of your note-book will be
well-nigh worthless; and unless you be one in a million, you may make up
your mind that want and hardship will conduct you to illness and perhaps
to death. This is one extreme, and from it to the other there is no
‘golden mean.’ With abundance of money—say £5000 per annum—an exploring
party in these parts could trace its own line, paying off all opposers.
It could study, if it pleases, even infusoria; handle sextants in the
presence of negroes, who would willingly cut every throat for one inch
of brass; and, by travelling comfortably, it would secure the best
chance of return. Either from Mombasah or from Panga-ni we might have
marched through the plundering Wamasai to Chaga and Kilima-njaro; but an
escort of at least 100 matchlocks would have been necessary. Pay,
porterage, and provisions for such a party would have amounted to at
least £100 per week; and a month and a half would have absorbed the
whole of our scanty supplies. Thus it was, gentle reader, that we were
compelled to rest contented with a walking trip to Fuga.
Presently the plot thickened. Muigni Khatib, eldest son and heir of
Sultan Kimwere, a black of unprepossessing physiognomy, with a
‘villainous trick of the eye and a foolish hanging of the nether lip;’ a
prognathous jaw garnished with cat-like mustachios and cobweb beard;
with a sour frown and abundant surliness by way of dignity, dressed like
an Arab, and raised above his fellows by El Islam, sent a presumptuous
message requesting us to place in his hands what we intended for his
father. This chief was then journeying to Zanzibar with fear and
trembling: he had tried to establish at his village, Kirore, a Romulian
asylum for fugitive slaves, and having partially succeeded in enticing
away many ruffians, he dreaded the consequences. The Baloch Jemadar
strongly urged us privily to cause his detention in the Island, a
precaution somewhat too Oriental for our taste; he refused, however, the
Muigni’s request in his own tone. Following princely example, the
dancing Diwans claimed a fee for permitting us to reside. As they worded
it El Ada—the habit—basing it upon an ancient present from
Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton, and as they were in palpable, manifest process
of establishing a local custom, which in Africa becomes law to the
latest posterity, we flatly objected, showed our letters, and in the
angriest of moods, threatened reference to Head Quarters. Briefly, all
began to angle for bakhshish, but I cannot remember any one catching it:
they revenged themselves by promising to show us a minaret, and by
showing only an old tomb—poor reward for 16 miles in the burning sun.
Weary of negro importunities, we resolved to visit Chogwe, the nearest
Baloch outpost upon the Rufu[33] (Lufu), or Upper Pangani river, and
thence, aided by the Jemadar, who had preceded us, to push for Fuga, the
capital village of Usumbara. We made our preparations silently, paid off
the Riámi, rejected the Diwans who wished to accompany us as spies, left
Said bin Salim and Caetano, the Goanese lad, in the house of the Wali
Meriko, who presently accompanied his Muigni to Zanzibar; and under
pretext of a short shooting excursion, we hired a long canoe and four
men, loaded it with the luggage required for a fortnight, and started
with the tide, at 11 A.M. on January 6, 1858.
[Illustration: FUGA, CAPITAL OF USUMBARA.]
First we grounded, then a puff of wind drove us on at railway speed, and
then we scraped again: it was impossible to avoid being taken aback, so
abrupt are the windings of the bed. At last we were successful in
turning the first dangerous angle: here, where sea-breeze and tide meet
the buffing stream, forming a ‘Lahr,’ as the Baloch call it, navigation
becomes perilous to small craft. There is, as usual at and near the
mouths of African rivers where the water acts as wind conductor, a
little gale blowing upstream, a valuable aid to craft bound inland, but
not without its risks; here many a boat has filled and sunk beneath the
ridge of short chopping waves. After five miles, during which the
turbulent river, streaked with lines of froth, gradually narrowed, we
found it barely brackish, and somewhat farther it was sweet as the
celebrated creek-water of Guiana.
Often since that day, while writing amid the soughing blasts, the
dashing rain, and the darkened air of a wet season in West Africa and
the Brazil, have I remembered with yearning the bright and beautiful
spectacle of those Zangian streams, whose charm, like the repose of the
dead, seems heightened by proximity to decay. We had soon exchanged the
amene and graceful, though somewhat tame scenery of the sandstone
formation on the seaboard, for a view most novel and characteristic.
Behemoth now reared his head from the foaming waters, gazed upon us,
snorted at us, and sank back surlily and suspiciously into the depths of
his home. Crocodiles, terrified by the splash of paddles, waddled down,
as dowagers might, with their horrid claws dinting the slimy bank, and
lay upon the water like yellow-brown tree-trunks, measuring us with
small malignant green eyes, deep set under warty brows. Monkeys rustled
the tall trees, here peeping with curiosity almost human, there darting
away in fear amidst the wondrous frondage and foliage; now gambolling
and frolicking up and down the corkscrew-like bush-ropes, nature’s
cables, shrouds, and stays; then disappearing amidst the gloom of virgin
forest. Below, their younger brethren, the jungle men and women—
‘So withered and so wild in their attire,
That look not like th’ inhabitants o’ th’ earth,
And yet are on’t’—
planted their shoulder-cloths, their rude crates, and their coarse weirs
upon the muddy inlets where fish abounded. The sky was sparkling blue,
the water was bluer, and over both spread the thinnest blue haze,
tempering raw tones of colour to absolute beauty. On both sides of the
shrinking stream a dense curtain of many-tinted vegetation,
‘Yellow and black, and pale and hectic red,’
shadowed swirling pools, where the current swept over the growth of
intertwisted fibres. The stunted Mkindu, brab or wild date (Phœnix
sylvestris), much used for mats, contrasted with the Nakhl el Shaytan,
or Devil’s Date (Raphia Vinifera), which, eccentric in form and
frondage, curved arms sometimes 30 and even 35 feet long, over the
dancing wave: this dwarf-giant of the palms has no trunk to speak of,
but each midrib is thick as a man’s thigh, and the vegetable kingdom
cannot show such length of foliage. Not a few of the trees were so
distinguished by oppositions of tall and sturdy trunk supporting frail
and tender belongings, that they seemed to bear leaves and blossoms not
their own. Upon the watery margin large lilies of snowy robe, some
sealed by day, others wide expanded and basking in light and air,
gleamed beautifully against the black-green growth and the clear
bitumen-brown of the bank-water. In scattered spots were inhuman traces
of human presence; tall arecas and cocoas waving over a now impenetrable
jungle; whilst plantains, sugar-canes, limes, and bitter oranges, choked
with wild verdure, still lingered about the broken homestead and around
the falling walls, blackened by the murderer’s fire. And above all
reigned the peculiar African and tropical stillness of noontide, deep
and imposing, broken only by the curlew’s scream or by the tepid breeze
rustling the tree-tops in fitful gusts, whispering among the matted
foliage, and swooning away upon the warm bosom of the wave.
Amid such scenes we paddled and poled till the setting sun spread its
cloak of purple over a low white cliff, upon whose feet the ripple broke
and on whose head lingered venerable trees that stood out from the
underwood of the lower banks. Here lies the Pir of Wasin, a saint
described by our Baloch guide as a ‘very angry, holy man’ (bará jabrá
Pir). A Sherif of pure strain, he gallantly headed, in times long gone
by, his Moslem followers flying from Panga-ni, when it was attacked by a
ravenous herd of heathenry. The infidels seem to have had the advantage
in running: they collared the Faithful at these cliffs, and would have
made mince-meat of them, when Mother Hertha, at the prayer of the Pir,
opened wide and received them in her bowels. This Shaykh will not allow
the trees to be felled or the floods to rise above the level of his
grave: moreover, if the devotee, after cooking food at the tomb in
honour of its tenant, venture to lick his fingers—the usual succedaneum
for napkins in East Africa, and throughout the Moslem world—he is at
once delivered over to the haunting Jinns. The Baloch never pass the
place without casting a handful of leaves, a bullet, or a few grains of
powder by way of humble heave-offering into the stream. Our guide told
us, in accents of awe, how a Suri Arab, doubtless tainted with Wahhabi
heresy, had expressed an opinion that this Pir had been a mere mortal,
but little better, if at all better, than his own sinful self; how the
shallow scoffer’s ship was wrecked within the year, and how he passed
through water into the fire of Jehannum. _Probatum est_—defend us,
Allah! from the sins of Reason.
We passed three small Arab timber-craft which were laying in a cargo of
red and white mangrove trunks, and in many places floated small rafts of
palm-fronds ready to be guided down-stream. At sunset the tide, running
like a mill-race, compelled our crew to pole up a little inlet near
Pombui or Kipombui, a village on the left bank, well stockaded with
split areca trunks. The people who are subject to Zanzibar, and are
claimed by Kimwere, flocked out to welcome their strangers, laid down a
bridge of cocoa-ribs, brought chairs, and offered a dish of small green
mangoes, here a great luxury. We sat under a tree till midnight,
unsatiated with the charm of the darker hours. The moon rained molten
silver over the black foliage and the huge fronds of the Devil’s Dates
(Raphias); the stars gleamed like golden lamps hung unusually high in
the limpid air, and Venus, the beautiful, glittered diamond-like upon
the pure front of the firmament. The fireflies rose in a scatter of
sparks—‘a shower of fire’ Southey has it—now all shone out
simultaneously through the dark; then the glow melted away, as if by
concerted impulse, amidst the glooms of the ground. At our feet rolled
the black waters of the creek; in the jungle wild beasts roared
fitfully; Leviathan and Behemoth crashed through the bush, and the night
breeze mingled softly sighing sounds with the murmurs and the gurgling
of the stream.
About midnight, when the tide flowed strong, we resumed our way. The
river then became a sable streak down the avenue of lofty trees except
where a bend suddenly opened its mirrory surface to the reflection of
the moon, and stretched it before us like a silver ribbon. The deep roar
of the hippopotamus, the snorting, and the occasional blowing sounded
close to our stern, and the crew begged me to fire for the purpose of
frightening a certain pernicious ‘rogue’ whose villanies had gained for
him the royal title of ‘Sultan Mamba,’ or King Crocodile: now we heard
the splashing of the huge beasts, as they scrambled over the shoals;
then they struggled with hoarse grunts up the miry slippery banks which
led to fields and plantations; then, again, all was quiet as the grave.
After a protracted silence, deep and drear, the near voice of a man
startled us as though it had been some ghostly sound. At 2 P.M.,
reaching a cleared tract on the river-side, the ‘ghaut’ or landing-place
of Chogwe, we made fast the canoe, looked to our weapons, and covering
our faces against the clammy dew and the blinding, paralyzing moonlight,
we lay down to snatch an hour’s sleep. The total distance rowed was
about 13½ miles.
We began the next morning with an inspection of Chogwe, the bazar, to
which we were escorted with sundry honorary discharges of matchlocks, by
the Jemadar, and 20 Bashi Buzuks. It was first occupied some few years
ago, when the Church Missionary Intelligencer had published (Jan. 1850)
a ‘fact,’ namely, that the ‘Imam of Zanzibar had not one inch of ground
between the Island of Wasin and the Panga-ni river.’ The fact proved to
be a fiction, and the late Sayyid at once garrisoned Chogwe and Tongwe
with 25 Baloch. About this time, also, King Kimwere, with cheap
generosity, had offered to Dr Krapf by way of mission-station a choice
of Tongwe, of Pambire, or of Meringa, a lofty peak in the continuous
range to the N. West. A certain French admiral declared that he would
occupy these places where the ‘Imam’ had little authority; ‘if they do,
I’ll burn the country faster than they can travel,’ was the Arab’s
reply. M. Guillain next strove hard to prove that none of the Bu Saidi
ever included even Makdishu in their dominions.
Chogwe is situated upon an eminence gently rising from the grassy plain
of black alluvial soil which is flooded during the rains. It is seven
direct miles distant from Panga-ni town, bearing west 288°; the walk
over a rugged path occupies four or five hours, yet few men but slaves
availed themselves of the short cut. The position is badly chosen, water
is distant, the rugged soil produces nothing but stunted manioc, and
when the inundation subsides in the lowlands it is exposed to miasma,
whilst the frequent creeks must he crossed upon tree trunks acting
bridges. The garrison at such times suffers severely from sickness,
especially from fever and diarrhœa, and the men, dull as a whaler’s crew
lorn of luck, abhor the wretched desolate out-station. Commanding,
however, the main road to Usumbara, Chogwe affords opportunity for an
occasional something in the looting line—which is a consideration.
[Illustration: HILL-FORT AT TONGWE.]
A stiff snake-fence surrounds the hill-crest and defends the cajan
penthouses of the Bashi Buzuks: the only works are two platforms for
matchlock-men planted on high poles like the Maychan of Hindostan and
the Mintar of Syria. The Washenzi savages sometimes creep up at night,
shoot a few arrows into the huts, set fire to the matting with the
spicula ignita, and after other such amenities, hurriedly levant. The
Wazegura, though fighting with one another, did not when we visited the
place molest the Baloch. To the North and West of Chogwe rises a
continuous range, the outliers of Usumbara: about 15 miles S. Westward
(233° 15′) in the plains of the Wazegura beyond the river is a
succession of detached hills of which the most remarkable, Tongwe
Mwanapiro, in our charts called Genda-genda, may be seen from Zanzibar.
Here rules one Mwere, a chief hostile to the mercenaries, who boast that
if they numbered 50 they could overrun and plunder the whole land: the
Asiatics, not caring to soil their hands with negro blood, make their
slaves fight his men even as the ingenuous youth, of Eton offered their
scouts to meet in the cricket-field the ambitious youth of Rugby. It is
certain that a few stout fellows, with a competent leader and a little
money for good arms and ammunition, might easily establish an absolute
monarchy over the independent blacks, and filibuster for Zanzibar, as
the Khedive is now doing for Egypt.
These Baloch mercenaries merit some notice. They were first entitled
Askar in the days of Sultan bin Ahmad, father of the late Sayyid Said,
who preferred them to his unruly self-willed Omani Arabs and his futile
half-castes and blacks: he acted upon the same principle which made the
Ayyubite sultans of Syria and Egypt arm first Kurdish and afterwards
Circassian ‘Mamluks.’ From 1000 to 1500 men were scattered over the
country in charge of the forts: the ruler knew that they were hated by
all Arabs, and to create dissensions even amongst his own children was
ever the astute Sayyid’s policy. The Wáli and the Jemadar, like the
Turkish Wáli and Mushir, are rarely on speaking terms, and if not open
enemies, they are at least rivals. The people nickname these foreigners
Kurára Kurára—to sleep! to sleep! ‘rárá’ being the Asiatic
mispronunciation of lálá. Boasting themselves to be Baloch, they are
mostly from the regions about Kech and Bampur: they are mixed up with a
rabble rout of Arabs and Afghans, of Sidis[34] and Hindostan men. The
corps spoke some half-a-dozen different languages, and many of the
members have left their country for their country’s good—a body of
convicts, however, generally fights well. The Mekrani especially are
staunch men behind walls, and if paid, drilled, and officered, they
would make as ‘varmint’ light-bobs as any Arnauts. They have a knightly
fondness for arms: a ‘young barrel and an old blade’ are their delight:
like schoolboys, they think nothing so fine as the report of a gun;
consequently ammunition is kept by the C. O., and is never served out
except before a fight. All use the matchlock: while good shots are rare,
many are tolerably skilful with sword and shield. Their nominal pay is
from $2 to $3 per mensem, a pittance of some 20 pice (120 pice=$1) per
diem: this must find them in clothes and rations as well as in arms;
often there is not a sandal amongst them, and they are as ragged a crew
as ever left the barren wolds of Central Asia in quest of African
fortune. They live in tattered hovels, which they build for themselves,
upon one meal a day, which is shared by their slave concubines. To the
natural greed of mountain-races, the poor devils who come in horse and
salt-boats, and act barbers and sailors, porters, labourers, and
date-gleaners, add the insatiable desires of beggars. The Banyans have a
proverb that a Baloch, a Brahman, and a buck-goat eat the trees to which
they are tied. Sudden and sharp in quarrel, they draw their daggers upon
the minutest provocation; they have no mitigation nor remorse of voice,
and they pray in the proportion of one to a dozen. Africa is to them
what the Caucasus is to the Russians, Kabylie to the French, and Sind to
the English soldier. All look forward to ‘Hindostan—bagh o bostan,’
India the flower-garden; but the Arabs have a canny proverb inporting
that the fool who falleth into the fire rarely falleth out of it.
Fraudare stipendio, saith ancient Justin, was the proverb of the Great
King’s satraps: the custom has been religiously preserved by the modern
East. Each station is commanded by a Jemadar, who receives $4 to $5 per
month, and ample license to pay himself by peculation. This class is at
once under-salaried, and over-trusted. The Jemadar advances money upon
usury to his men; he keeps them six months in arrears, and not a few of
them never see the colour of Government coin from the year’s beginning
to the end. He exacts perquisites from all who fear his hate and who
need his aid; and he falsifies the muster-rolls impudently and with
impunity, giving 25 names to perhaps four men. Thus, like the Turkish
Colonel of Nizam, the Jemadar lives in great state. He has a wife or
two, and perhaps a dozen slaves; he sports a fine coat of scarlet
broadcloth, a silver-hilted sword and dagger, and a turban of rich silk.
He keeps flocks of sheep and goats, and he trades with the interior for
ivory and captives. Such has been, such is, and such ever will be till
Europe steps in, that false economy which throughout the ‘East,’ from
Stambul to Japan, grasps the penny and flings away the pound. It is a
state inseparable from the conditions of society and of government,
where public servants are not paid, they must, of course, pay
themselves; and they often prefer the latter mode, as they pay
themselves far better than they would otherwise be paid. About a century
ago we did the same thing in India, where men amassed fortunes, and
until the late reforms, such was notoriously the case throughout the
Russian empire. Perhaps in the present day the best place to study the
system of all peculation and no pay is Damascus.
Having confided our project to the Jemadar of Chogwe, he promised his
good-will—for a consideration. He undertook to start us the next day,
and, curious to relate, for as usual he was a Cathaian of the first
water, he kept his word. The small garrison, however, could afford but
four matchlock-men as a guard, and the same number of slave-boys acting
porters. The C. O., therefore, engaged for us, nominally paying $10, and
doubtless retaining one half, a couple of guides, who proved to be a
single guide and his chattel.
After a night spent in the Maychan, where wind, dust, and ants conspired
to make us miserable, we arose to prepare for marching. We reduced our
kit to the strictest necessaire, surveying instruments, weapons,
waterproof blankets, tea, sugar, and tobacco for ten days, a bag of
dates, and three bags of rice. About noon, issuing from our shed, we
placed the baggage in the sun; thus mutely appealing to the
‘Sharm’—shame or sense of honour—possessed by our Baloch employés. A
start was not effected till 5 P.M.; every slave grumbling loudly at his
load, snatching up the lightest of packs, fighting to avoid the heavier
burdens, and rushing forward regardless of what was left behind. This
nuisance endured till abated by an outward application easily divined. I
had only to hope that after a march or two the scramble would subside
into something like order. At length, escorted in token of honour by the
consumptive Jemadar and most of his company, we set out, in a straggling
Indian file, towards Tongwe.
The track wound over stony ridges, and after an hour it plunged into a
dense, thorny thicket, which during the rains must be impassable. The
evening belling of the deer and the near ‘clock clock’ of the partridge
struck our ears pleasantly. In open places lay the dry lesses of
elephants, and footprints retained by the last year’s mud: these
animals, as in the Harar country, descend to the plains during the rainy
monsoon, and when the heats set in retire to the cool hills—a regular
annual migration. The Baloch shoot, the wild people kill them with
poisoned arrows. More than once during our march we found the gravelike
trap-pits in India called Ogi. They are wedge-shaped holes 10 feet deep,
artfully placed in the little rises frequented by the beasts, and the
size must exactly fit the victim, which easily extricates itself from
one too large or too small: if fairly jammed, however, it cannot escape.
We did not sight a single specimen; but judging from the
footprints—three to three and a half circumferences showing the
shoulder-height—the elephant here is not of tall stature. From the
further interior come tusks commonly weighing 100 lbs. each; those of
175 lbs. are not rare, and I have heard of a par nobile sent from
Delagoa Bay to the King of Portugal, whose joint weight was 560 lbs. We
also saw many traces of lion, antelope, and wild cattle, here called
buffalo. It was a severe disappointment to us that we could not revisit,
as we had promised ourselves, this country during the rains; but
Lieut.-Col. Hamerton strongly dissuaded us from again risking jungle
fever; and we had other work to do in Inner Africa. Sporting, indeed,
must occupy the whole man, and even to shoot for specimens is often to
waste time in two ways. The ‘serious traveller’ must indulge himself by
taking at times a week or a fortnight’s leave from geographical work,
and even then he will frequently find circumstances interfere with his
plans. Throughout our march in these regions game was rarely seen; none
lives where the land is peopled; in the parts near the stations it is
persecuted by the Baloch, and the wild Jägers will kill and eat even
rats. We heard, however, many tales of Mabogo, or wild cattle, and of
lions; of leopards in plenty; of a hog, probably the masked boar;
amongst many antelopes, of one resembling the Nilghai (A. Picta), and of
an elk said to be like the Sambar of Hindostan.
Another hour’s marching, and a total of six miles, as shown by the
pedometer, brought us to the Makam Sayyid Sulayman, a partially cleared
ring in the thorny jungle. It was bounded on one side by a rocky and
tree-fringed nullah, where water stagnates in pools during the dry
season; and here ensued a comical scene. The whole party went to drink,
when suddenly all began to dance and shout like madmen, pulling off
their clothes and frantically snatching at their lower limbs. It was our
first experience of that formican fiend, the bull-dog ant (Siyáfú or
Ch’hungu Fundo),[35] black, and a good half inch long, which invariably
reserves its attentions for the tenderest portions of the person
attacked. The bite of this wretch, properly called ‘atrox,’ burns like
the point of a red-hot needle, and whilst engaged in its cannibal meal,
literally beginning to devour man alive, even when its doubled-up body
has been torn from the head, the pincers will remain embedded in flesh.
Moreover, there are the usual white ants (Ch’hungu Mchwa, Termes
fatalis), death upon your property; the ginger-coloured Ch’hungu ya
moto, whose name ‘fire-ant’ describes its bite, and the hopper ant, who,
like the leopard, takes a flying leap from the nearest branch, and
cleverly alighting upon the victim, commences operations. And where the
ant is in legions, one of the most troublesome is the smelling ant
(Ch’hungu Uvundo), which suggests that carrion is concealed behind every
bush. Verily, in Africa, as was said of the Brazil, the ant is king, and
he rules like a tyrant.
We spent the night in a small Babel of Baloch. It was a savage opera
scene. One recited his Koran, another prayed, a third told funny
stories, whilst a fourth trolled out in minor key lays of love and war,
made familiar to my ear upon the rugged Sindian hills. This was varied
by slapping away the lank mosquitoes that flocked to the gleaming
camp-fires, by rising occasionally to rid ourselves of the ants, and by
challenging the small parties of savages who, armed with bows and
arrows, passed amongst us, carrying grain to Panga-ni. The Baloch kept a
truly oriental watch. They sang and shouted, and they carefully fed the
camp fire during early night, when there is no danger; but all slept
like the dead through the ‘small hours,’ the time always chosen by the
African freebooters, and indeed by almost all savages, to make their
unheroic onslaughts. Similarly, throughout our expedition to the Lake
Regions, the ‘soldiers’ never dreamed of any precaution whilst in
dangerous regions. As we approached the coast, however, sentinels were
carefully set, that all might be well which ends well.
At daybreak on February 9, accompanied by a much reduced detachment, we
resumed our march: the poitrinaire Jemadar, who was crippled by the
moonlight and by the cold dew, resolved, when thawed, to return with the
rest of his company Chogwe-wards. An hour’s hard walking brought us to
the foot of rugged Tongwe, the Great Hill. Ascending the flank of the N.
Eastern spur, we found ourselves at 8 A.M., after five or six bad miles,
upon the chine of a little ridge, with summer facing the sea, and a
wintry wind blowing from the deep and forested valley to landward.
Thence, pursuing the rugged incline, after another half-hour we entered
the ‘fort,’ a crenellated, flat-roofed, and whitewashed room, 14 feet
square, supported inside by smooth blackened rafters. It was tenanted by
two Baloch, who figure on the muster-rolls as 20 men. They complain of
loneliness and of the horrors: though several goats have been
sacrificed, an obstinate demon still haunts the hill, and at times the
weeping and wailing of distressed spirits makes their thin blood run
chill from their hearts.
Tongwe is the first offset of the massive mountain-terrace which forms
the Region of Usumbara: here, in fact, begins the Highland block of
Zangian and equatorial Africa, which culminates in Kilima-njaro and
Doenyo Ebor, or Mount Kenia. It rises abruptly from the plain, and
projects long spurs into the river valley, where the Panga-ni flows
noisily through a rocky trough, and whence we could distinctly hear the
roar of the celebrated waterfall. Situated N. West of (324°), and nine
miles as the crow flies from, Chogwe, the hill summit, about 2000 feet
above sea-level, is clothed with jungle, through which we had to cut a
way with our swords, when seeking compass bearings of the Nguru hills.
The thickness of the vegetation, which contains stunted cocoas, oranges
grown wild and bitter, the Castor shrub, the Solanum, and the
bird-pepper plant, with small berry, but very hot i’ the mouth, renders
the eminence inaccessible from any but the Eastern and Northern flanks.
The deserted grounds showed signs of former culture, and our negro guide
sighed as he told us that his kinsmen had been driven by the Wazegura
from their ancient seats to the far inner wilds. Around the Fort were
slender plantations of maize and manioc springing amongst the ‘black
jacks,’ which here, as in the Brazil, are never removed. The surface is
a reddish, argillaceous, and vegetable soil, overlying grey and ruddy
granite and schists. These rocks bear the ‘gold and silver complexion’
which was fatal to Colin Clout, the chivalrous ‘Shepherd of the Ocean,’
and the glistening spangles of mica still feed the fancy of the pauper
Baloch mercenary. Below Tongwe hill, a deep hole in the northern face
supplies the sweetest ‘rock-water,’ and upon the plain a boulder of
well-weathered granite, striped with snowy quartz, contains two crevices
ever filled by the purest springs. The climate appeared delicious,
temperate in the full blaze of an African and tropical summer, and
worthy of verse—
‘Fair is that land as evening skies,
And cool though in the depths it lies
Of burning Africa.’
The temperature would correspond with a similar altitude upon the
Fernando Po and the Camarones peaks. But whilst the hill was green the
lower lands were baked like bread crust—the ‘fertile and flourishing
regions about Tongwe’ belong to the category of things gone by.
We had much to do before leaving Tongwe. The Jemadar had, it is true,
ordered for us an escort, but in these latitudes obedience to orders is
an optional matter. Moreover, the Baloch, enervated by climate and by
long habits of utter indolence, looked forward with scant pleasure to
the discomforts of a mountain march. Shoeless, bedless, and almost
ragless, they could hardly be induced, even by the offer of ‘stone
dollars,’ to quit for a week their hovel homes, their black Venuses, and
their whitey-brown piccaninnies. They felt truly happy with us at
Tongwe, doing nothing beyond devouring, twice a day, vast quantities of
our dates and rice, an unknown luxury; and they were at infinite pains
to defer the evil hour of departure. One fellow declared it was
absolutely impossible for him to travel without salt, and proposed
sending back a slave to Chogwe: the move would have involved the loss of
at least three days, so we thought it best at once to begin with firmly
saying no.
By hard talking I managed at last to secure a small party, which demands
a few words of introduction to the reader—it is the typical affair in
this part of Africa, and the sketch may be useful to future travellers.
We have four slave boys, idle, worthless dogs, who never work save under
the rod, who think of nothing beyond their stomachs, and who are
addicted to running away upon all occasions. Petty pilferers to the
backbone, they steal, magpie-like, by instinct, and from their impudent
fingers nothing is safe. On the march they lag behind to see what can be
‘prigged,’ and not being professional porters, they are as restive as
camels when receiving their loads. ‘Am I not a slave?’ is their excuse
for every detected delinquency, and we must admit its full validity. One
of these youths happening to be brother-in-law—after a fashion—to the
Jemadar, requires almost superhuman efforts to prevent him loading the
others with his own share.
The guide, Muigni Wazira, is a huge broad-shouldered, thick-waisted,
large-limbed Msawahili, with coal black skin and straight features,
massive and regular, which look as if cut in jet; a kind of face that
might be seen on the keystone of an arch. He frowns like the Jann spoken
of in the Arabian Nights, and he often makes me wish for a photographer.
He is purblind, a defect which does not, however, prevent his leading us
by the shortest path into every village that aspires to mulct our
slender store of sprig-muslin. Wazira is our rogue, rich in all the
perfections of African cunning. A prayerless Sherif, he utterly despises
all Makafiri or infidels; he has a hot temper, and when provoked he
roars like a wild beast. He began by stubbornly refusing to carry any
load; but he yielded when it was gently placed upon his heavy shoulder,
with a significant gesture in case of recusance. He does not, however,
neglect to pass it occasionally to his slave, who, poor wretch, is
almost broken down by the double burden.
Rahmat the Mekrani calls himself a Baloch, and bears the proud title of
Shah-Sawar, or the Rider King. He is the Chelebi, the dandy or tiger of
the party. A good-looking brown man, about 25 years of age, with a
certain affectation and girlishness of speech and tournure which bode no
good, the Rider King deals in the externals of respectability: he washes
and prays with artificial regularity; he is ever combing his long hair
and beard; he trains his bushy mustache to touch his eyes, and he binds
on crookedly a huge turban. His cue is to affect the Jemadar, to take
command. He would have monopolized, had I permitted him, the general
store of gunpowder, a small leathern bottle wrung from the C. O. at
Chogwe: and having somewhat high-flown ideas of discipline, he began by
stabbing a slave-boy. He talks loud in his nasal native Balochki,
debased Persian, ridiculous Arabic, and voluble Kisawahili; moreover,
his opinion is ever to the fore. The Rider King, pleading soldier,
refuses to carry anything but his matchlock and a private stock of
dates, which he keeps ungenerously to himself. He boasts of prowess in
vert and venison: I never saw him hit the mark, but we missed some
powder and ball, with which perhaps he may be more fortunate. Literally,
he was not worth his salt. Yet this knave had resolved to force himself
upon me when in June I set out for the Lake Regions, and made a show of
levelling his old shooting-iron. For sixpence a shot he might have fired
ad libitum.
Hamdan, a Maskat Arab, has seen better days, of which strong waters and
melancholia have removed all traces except a tincture of lettres. Our
Mullah, or chaplain-and-secretary, is small, thin, brown-skinned,
long-nosed, and green-eyed, with little spirit and less muscularity. A
crafty old traveller, he has a store of creature comforts for the
journey: he carries with his childish match-lock a drinking gourd and a
Ghi-pot, and for more reasons than one he sits apart at the camping
ground. Strongly contrasting with him is the ancient Mekrani Sha’ahan, a
decrepit giant with the negroid type of countenance, pockmarked, and
ugly enough to frighten. He is of the pig-headed, opposed to the
soft-brained, order of old man, hard and opinionated, selfish and
unmanageable. He smokes, and must drink water throughout the livelong
day. He dispenses the wisdom of a Dogberry, whereat all laugh; and much
to the disgust of his hearers, he either coughs or snores during the
hours of night. This senior will carry nothing but his long greasy gun,
gourd, and pipe; and, despite his grey beard, he is the drone of our
party.
Jemal and Murad Ali are our working men, excellent specimens of the true
Baloch, vieux grognards, with a grim sour humour, something like ‘wut,’
especially when the fair sex and its backslidings are concerned. They
have dark frowning faces, wrinkled and rugged as their natal hills, with
pads of muscle upon their short forearms and sinewy angular calves,
remarkable in this land of sheepshanks. Sparing of words, they grunt the
shortest answers when addressed; if they speak at all, it is in a roar
or a scream: they are angry men, uncommonly handy with their
well-polished daggers, and they think as little of cutting a negro’s as
a sheep’s throat. At the promise of an extra dollar they walk off under
heavy loads, besides carrying their arms and necessaries. These two, in
fact, are good men and true.
The gem of the party, however, is one Sidi Mubarak, who has taken to
himself the agnomen of ‘Bombay.’ His sooty skin, and teeth sharp-pointed
like those of the reptilia, denote his origin from Uhiao: he is one of
those model Seedies, runaway slaves, employed as lascars and
coal-trimmers, who with chaff, grimace, and peals of laughter, varied
now and then by dance and song, delight the passengers in an
Anglo-Indian steamer. Bombay, sold at Kilwa in early youth, a process of
which he talks with many broad grins, was carried to Cutch by some
Banyan, and there became a libertinus: he looks fondly back upon the
hour of his adoption, and he sighs for the day when a few dollars will
enable him to return. His head is a triumph to phrenology; a high narrow
cranium, denoting by arched and rounded crown, fuyant brow and broad
base with full development of the moral region, deficiency of the
reflectives, fine perceptives, and abundant animality. His hair is of
the woolliest: his twinkling little eyes are set close together, and his
lips and expansive mouth, especially in rare fits of ill-temper, project
as in the cynocephali. He works on principle and he works like a horse,
candidly declaring that not love of us but his duty to his belly make
him work. With a sprained ankle and a load quite disproportioned to his
chétif body, he insists upon carrying two guns, and after a 30 miles’
walk he is as fresh as before it began. He attends us everywhere,
manages our purchases, carries all our messages, and when not employed
by us, he is at every man’s beck and call. Speaking a little broken
Hindostani, he has for all ‘jungly niggers’ an ineffable contempt, which
he never attempts to conceal. He had enlisted under the Jemadar of
Chogwe: we thought, however, so highly of his qualifications, that
persuasion and paying his debts induced him after a little coqueting to
take leave of soldiering and to follow our fortunes. He began by
escorting us to Fuga as head gun-carrier: on our march to the Lakes he
was the confidential servant and interpreter of my companion, he being
the only man with whom the latter could converse, and in the Second
Expedition of Capts Speke and Grant he was promoted to command the
Wasawahili. Almost every black brain would have been turned by this
rapid and dazzling rise: Sidi Mubarak Bombay did _not_, however, as I
had anticipated, ‘prove himself a failure in the end.’
A machine so formed could hardly be expected to begin work without some
creaking. The Baloch were not entirely and solely under us, and in the
East no man will, even if he can, serve two masters. For the first few
days many a muttered cursing and loud wrangling showed signs of
dissolution. One would not proceed because the Rider King kept the
gunpowder, another started on his way home because he was refused some
dates, and, during the night after departure, all Bombay’s efforts, we
afterwards heard, were in requisition to prevent a break-up en masse.
But by degrees the component parts fitted smoothly and moved steadily,
till at last we had little to complain of, and the men volunteered to
follow wherever we might lead. By acting upon the old Oriental
principle, ‘the word is gone forth and must be heard,’ we never failed
to win a disputed point, and one success paved the way for others.
Amongst these perverse and headstrong races, however, the traveller must
be careful in committing himself to an ultimatum, and he must be
prepared when he says he will do a thing, to do it. Otherwise he will
speedily lose caste, and caste once lost is not to be regained—in Africa
or, perhaps, elsewhere.
NOTE.
Since these pages were written, Sidi Mubarak Bombay has been made Chief
of Caravan by Mr Stanley of New York, who is now (December 10, 1871)
marching upon the Tanganyika Lake in quest of Dr Livingstone.
-----
Footnote 31:
The Arabs, who have no P, must change it to an F, e.g. Fanga-ni and
Fagazi for Pagazi, a porter. The latter word is ridiculously enough
turned into a verb, e.g. ‘ba-yatafaggazú’, ‘they act carriers.’
Footnote 32:
Yet it has not become wholly obsolete. Mr Henry Adrian Churchill,
C.B., formerly H. M.’s Consul, Zanzibar, when examined before the
Select Committee on slave trade (July 13, 1871), made the total amount
of exportation from Zanzibar Island, $1,527,800. Of this $100,000
represented copal; $2400 stood for hippopotamus’ teeth; $663,600 for
ivory; and $270,000 for slaves. Thus no notice of cowries is taken;
and the trade rivalry of H.M. Régis and Fabre has succeeded in putting
down the shell-money.
Footnote 33:
Mr Wakefield (loc. cit.) writes the word ‘Rúvu,’ and says that it is
Kizegúa (Kizegura). I believe that this is the name by which it is
known, not only ‘a few days in the interior,’ but immediately beyond
the embouchure. As has already been remarked, the wild people would
pronounce the words Kizegúa and Mzegúa, the civilized Kizegura and
Mzegura. Dr Krapf prefers Luffu, Lufu being the more truly African
form. Mr Cooley (Lower Africa, &c., p. 79) has Ruvú, a mere error, and
he actually confounds it with the great Rufuma stream, a hundred miles
to the south.
Footnote 34:
The full-blooded negro is called Sidi (Seedy) or Sidi bhai (‘my lord
brother’) throughout Western India. I have said that the expression,
derived from his address to his master, is unknown at Zanzibar: to
Europe it is made familiar by El Cid Campeador, but it must not be
confounded with Sayyid, as it has lately been by a writer in the
Athenæum (No. 2288, Sept. 2, 1871).
Footnote 35:
Ch’hungu, the generic name for an ant, must not be confounded with
‘Chungu,’ a pot.