TO KILWA, THE END OF THE EAST AFRICAN
EXPEDITION (1857–1859).
‘Perseverance, dear my lord,
Keeps Honour bright: to have done is to hang
Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail
In monumental mockery.’—TROILUS AND CRESSIDA.
The Zanzibar coast was, at the time of our return to it, in a very
uncomfortable state. Cholera, for the first time, had swept
southwards from Arabia, decimating the East African population
between Unguja and Kilwa. Political troubles were rife, within as
well as from without. Sayyid Suwayni, pretexting unpaid arrears of
tribute, was reported to be embarking a host of Bedawin brigands
upon five ships and sundry Arab craft. It was an act of madness,
with cholera and small-pox on board; and, the coast not being open
for provisions and water, the invaders, even if left to themselves,
were safe to succumb by dribblets. Yet not the less were the Baloch
stations drained of mercenaries, whilst 7000 muskets, with an amount
of ammunition which made the city dangerous, were distributed to the
slaves and other ruffians. Daus ran down from Hadramaut crowded with
armed adventurers, all in the market to fight for the best pay.
Sayyids Jamshid and Hamdan, two of the young princes, had died of
small-pox, which killed the rich as cholera carried off the poor.
Sayyid Barghash, another brother of the Prince regnant, and now his
successor, becoming Yaghi (rebellious), made a demonstration at the
Palace gate with a herd of black musketeers: the Súri Arabs,
however, armed themselves, and the serviles fled into the sea,
throwing away weapons and ammunition. Sayyid Sulayman was on the
square, but the turbulent Harisi chiefs held a review of 2000 black
musketeers, and 200 ‘light bobs’ carrying bows and arrows: they
maintained an attitude of armed neutrality which threatened mischief
to the weaker of the rival brothers. Trade was paralyzed, the
foreign merchants lost severely, not less than 80 native craft from
Bombay and the North were still expected at the end of the season;
and, to complete the confusion, the coast suddenly became subject to
the action of ‘l’Émigration libre.’
Despite the untoward situation, I still resolved to visit Southern
Zanzibar, and to explore, if fortune would favour us, the Nyassa, or
Kilwa Lake. The first step was to dismiss from Konduchi the Baloch
guard and the ‘Sons of Ramji:’ the monocular Jemadar shed
crocodile-tears as he and his mob departed, begging gunpowder; and
my heart felt lighter than it had during many a day. By a casual
boat, I wrote to Zanzibar for drugs and medical comforts,
necessaries and supplies, and lastly for a vessel engaged at the
Consulate to sail down along shore.
During the six days of delay at Konduchi we occupied a neat hut
under the care of the Diwan, ‘Mtu Mku Wambele’ and the good Banyan
Premji. We strengthened ourselves by high living, by sea-baths, and
by shower-baths in the heavy rain; and we had another hard tussle
with the hippopotamus. The nights were remarkably fresh and
comfortable; the day-sky was milky white, and a glance at the cool
celadon colour of the islet-studded sea was itself a refrigerant. We
found nothing remarkable in the village, another Sa’adani: its site
is the usual glaring white sand-strip, setting off tall cocoas, that
wave in the fine sea-breeze, and mangroves bathed by the flood
tides. The coast-colours contrast well with the red ochreous earth
of the Mrima, two steep raised beaches which back the jungly flat,
and command a view of Zanzibar Island.
One day we were surprised by the abrupt entrance of a youth,
eminently North German in aspect, with sandy hair, smooth face, and
protruding eyes, flat occiput and projecting ears. He announced
himself as Dr Albrecht Roscher, of Hamburg, and he made himself
doubly welcome by bringing from Zanzibar the wished-for supplies,
letters, and newspapers—for 18 months we had not looked upon a white
face save the Albino, or a new print in any form but that of a Low
Church tract.
The traveller, who appeared at most 22, applied himself forthwith
to the magnetic survey, for which he had been engaged by the
Prussian Government. A visit to Mozambique, and a run up coast,
had taught him everything learnable about East Africa. He despised
the dangers of climate, against which he was cautioned: having
hitherto escaped fever, he held himself malaria-proof, and he
especially derided our advice about not wandering over the country
unarmed. He lauded to the skies his fellow-townsman Dr Barth. He
severely criticised Dr Livingstone; he patronized, in a comical
way, Herr Petermann; he highly extolled his own book;[61] and he
wrote to Zanzibar—so we afterwards heard—a far from flattering
estimate of our qualifications as travellers. He stayed with us
two days, and then departed northwards, intending to make Mbweni,
the Booamy or Bovamee of Dr Krapf, the village at the mouth of the
Panga-ni river. Thence he crossed to Zanzibar Island, and, after
scant preparations, he landed at Kilwa: in 1859 he marched through
Uhiao upon the Nyassa water. He reached it after long delays,
caused by almost constant illness, on November 19, 1859, about two
months after Dr Livingstone, who first saw it on Sept. 16. As he
was walking without weapons, two of his four Africans shot their
arrows into his back. This happened in S. lat. 12° 40′, and at a
short distance from the lake’s eastern shore. The assassins were
sent in irons to Zanzibar by the chief of the country, who feared
retribution, and on August 23rd, 1860, Captain Grant saw them
beheaded outside the Fort.
On February 10, 1859, we set sail in the shabbiest of Batelas with a
cabin like a large drawer, hot as a native hut, and full of vermin.
The skipper had neglected to lay in wood and ballast, we heeled over
unpleasantly, and the drinking water stood in an open cask, no joke,
considering that the action of a special infectant was to be feared,
and that the germs of cholera poison are so easily conveyed in
liquids and in dust. Two of the ‘sons of water’ at once died of the
disease, two others were taken ill, and Caetano appeared to be
sickening. The latter recovered, but after three days our crew of
seven was reduced to three, including one, Taufiki, who survived the
attack, and who regained health at Kilwa. We could do nothing but
bury the unfortunates, so sudden and foudroyant were the attacks,
and the scanty personnel was not good for much amongst bad reefs.
Our course lay past the settlements of Msásáni and Mágogoni and the
little Mbwezi river to Mbuámáji, ‘rain water,’ in the Mission map
called Mburomaji, and vulgarly Boromaji. The little port-village
with jungle rolling up to the walls, and anchorage defended by the
Sinda Islets, is a favourite entrance to the East African interior.
South of this point the coast people are called Watu wa Rufiji, or
Rufiji folk. The next night was passed in an open roadstead off Rási
ya Ndege—Bird Point—the S. Western portal of the Zanzibar channel, a
well-wooded red rise. We then coasted along a low and forested shore
sighting Ra’as Kimbizi and Point Puna, which can hardly be called
Point or Cape. Khwale (partridge) Island, a link in the long chain
of little ‘inches’[62] which runs parallel with the coast to Kilwa,
showed the usual physiognomy, coralline ledges, yellow sands, and
tufted verdant trees: the pretty little patch is said to abound in
hippos. Koma, the next inhabited islet, gave us a few cocoas, but no
game; the people, serviles from Kilwa, would not answer our
questions without bakhshish. The next day saw us fighting against a
strong northerly current, and a sharp struggle was required to make
the Kisima-ni (the well of) Máfiyah.[63]
The watering-place lies on the westernmost point of Mafiyah, in our
maps Monfia, and not to be pronounced with Mr Cooley ‘Mofiji;’ it is
the longest island in the Southern Archipelago of the Zangian Seas,
and ranking after Zanzibar and Pemba. The anchorage was smooth and
deep, allowing the largest ships to ride in safety, and the abysses
around it are as usual unfathomed. Pits a few hundred yards from the
sea supply the casks with water of a quality somewhat better than
usual. The tree-clad island is flat and sandy; its growth is by no
means so luxuriant as that of its greater sisters, and the
population appears to be scanty. We saw no wild animals but a black
monkey and a guinea-fowl. The mean breadth of the Manche is here 9
miles,[64] and the bottom is said to be very foul.
Opposite Mafiyah lies the Delta of the Rufiji, Lufiji, or Ufiji
river, the Loffih, Luffia, or Loffia of older maps, which was made
by them to issue from a great lake: it is a reduced copy of the
Zambeze farther south, and a waterway worth exploring, as possibly
the future high road of nations into Eastern Africa. The people
declare that boats can ascend it for a month, and larger craft for a
week—this appears, however, doubtful. The stream, then flooding,
overflowed its banks, and its line was marked by heavy purple nimbi
with hangings and curtains of grey rain. We anchored off Sumanga, an
open roadstead, about four miles south of the embouchure: here the
land is low, and the village, on account of the high tides, is built
a good mile from the water. It contains some large huts, and the
people supplied us with milk, rice, sugar, and custard apples.
Cattle, though plentiful, is subject, they say, to murrain, and must
often change air. Here probably the Tsetse fly is common, as at
Kilwa, where I found a fine specimen, afterwards deposited in the
British Museum. At that time its habitat was unduly limited
northward to the Valley of the Zambeze river: in after years I met
with it upon the coast of Guinea, and MM. Antinori and Piaggia
observed it amongst the Jurs of the Upper Nile, whilst Sir Samuel
Baker saw it in the country of the ‘Latookas,’ 110 miles east of
Gondokoro (N. lat. 4° 55′). It will probably be found scattered in
patches, especially of lowland virgin-forest, throughout
Intertropical Africa.
M. Guillain, again by solely considering distance, would place
Rhapta, ‘the last mart of Azania,’ at the ‘embouchure de l’Oufidji;’
while the older geographers prefer Kilwa. Ptolemy, I have said,
mentions three places of that name, to the north a river in E. long.
72° and S. lat. 7°; a city in E. long. 71° and S. lat. 7°, therefore
lying up stream and one degree to the west, and lastly the Rhapta
Promontory, in E. long. 73° 30′ 20″ and S. lat. 8° 20′ 5″. I believe
them, for reasons given in vol. I. chap. v., to be the Rufiji river,
Old Kilwa, and Cape Delgado. Local tradition preserves no trace of
an emporium lying up the stream, nor would so exposed a locality
have been chosen by the older traders, who invariably preferred the
shelter of islands. Dr Livingstone (near Lake Bangweolo, South
Central Africa, July, 1868) proposes the Rovuma—so he writes the
word Rufuma—as the probable position of Ptolemy’s river Rhapta. This
has the same disadvantage as the Rufiji—it places an important point
or points at an unimportant site.
We had no sweeps to make head against the river, even for a few
miles, and all dissuaded us from attempting exploration at this
season. According to the Banyan Jetha, who declared that he had
lived 20 years hereabouts, the stream takes its name from the Rufiji
village, a little way up its course. He moreover asserted that some
15 days ago a Banyan had been plundered when travelling to the
interior, that the Washenzi (savages) were dangerous, and nowise
under the authority of Zanzibar; and, finally, that white men would
want letters from the Wali of Kilwa, addressed to three Diwans in
the Rufiji village B’ánás Hasi, Kangayya and Furiyya, with two
up-country sultans, Monga and Dumbo.
The next feature was the low islet of Chole, rich in cattle and
hippos: here the Mtepe-craft is superiorly made, as are also the
Chinese-like dish covers (Káwá) of dyed and plaited straw. It was
followed by the comparatively large and inhabited island,
Songo-Songo—the Songa-Songa of M. Rebmann. Here I heard one of the
men use a Persian phrase with Kisawahili termination—‘Tumbak nísti’
(for níst), there is no tobacco: it reminded me of a Kentish woman
threatening to ‘frap’ her child. Thence about noon (Feb. 15) we
sighted Kilwa Kivinjya. It lies at bottom of a broad shallow bay
broken by juttings from the land, and backed by high rolling ground,
cleared for mashamba and orange orchards. The mangrove-belted sea
ebbs about half a mile, and flows right up to the buildings: we ran
close in, and before the tide was out we propped ourselves, like our
neighbours, with strong poles.
Captain Owen learned, considerably to his mortification, that there
were two Kilwas—he might have said half-a-dozen. The name, by the
people generally called Kirwa, but never Kulwa as in Ibn
Batuta—probably a clerical error—was originally applied to the
island; now it is that of a district, not of a place. Hence we find
in Abu Saíd (13th cent.) the Island of Kilwa containing three
cities, all built upon the banks of rivers. The settlements are
separated by Khírán, or salt-water inlets, stretching through
mangrove-swamps, which often extend many miles inland. Native
vessels enter and quit them with the flow, and remain high and dry
at the ebb, whilst cutting wood and making salt. Upon the N. West of
the Bay, distant about five miles, is Majinjera, streamlet and
settlement, of which Mr Cooley erroneously says, ‘It is the island
commonly known as Kilwa.’[65] It is separated by a promontory from
its neighbours, Ugoga, Mayungi-yungi, and Kivafi or Kivavi: hence
doubtless the Cuavo of Pigafetta, the ’Fiume Coavo che sbocca a
Quiloa created by Giovanni Botero, and the Suabo supposed to have a
common origin with the Zambezean Shire. It is the Geographer of
N’yassi’s imaginary Quavi, or river of Kilwa, a branch of the
Lufiji, and ‘reported to descend from the Zébé, that is Ziwa in
Sawâhili, or the Lake.’ But unhappily there is no Kilwa river, any
more than a ‘Mombas river.’ The fabled stream is a mere ‘Khor,’ like
that near the Mayungi-yungi village,[66] and a surface drain running
for a few miles. The next and the most important is Kilwa Kivinjya,
or Mgongeni, in the map Kibendji, and Kevingi in the ‘Geographer,’
who erroneously calls it Old Kilwa, whereas it was built (in S. lat.
8° 42′ 59″) by the Islanders when flying from the fleet of the late
Sayyid Said. Adjoining this to the south is Tekwiri (not Tekiri),
the Tekewery of Owen and the Tikewery of Horsburg: here are the
ruins of an older Kilwa. Lastly, and about 12 direct geographical
miles farther south (S. lat. 8° 57′ 12″), is Kilwa Kisiwá-ni, the
island upon which remnants of mosques and other buildings are found:
the Geographer confounds it with Tekiri. Such are the half-dozen
settlements which have in turn been known as Kilwa, a name confined
in modern days to Kivinjya.
Kivinjya, the settlement, is surrounded by mangrove-swamps, with
scatters of tall cocoas, which the wind snubs. The long narrow line,
disposed somewhat in Brazilian style, shows nothing but country
huts, except a large masonry-built Custom House called a Fort. There
is a bazar garnished with the usual shops, which supply amongst
other things Epsom salts, empty bottles, peppermint water, and Eau
de Cologne. The prices were high—here the rupee becomes a dollar: we
were asked 0.75 cents for a common umbrella worth 0.30, and $2.50
for 12 cubits of domestics. Provisions were scarcely procurable,—two
ships lying in the offing had raised lean chickens from six to three
per dollar; sheep are here brought from the Rufiji river, goats from
the Washenzi of the interior, and black cattle from Chole Island.
The once wealthy and important trade of Kilwa is now in the hands of
a few Arabs, 53 Hindus, and about 100 Hindostanis—Kojahs, Mehmans,
and Borahs. Of the Banyans none had died by cholera: the Indian
Moslems had lost 11 or 12. An old Hindostani kindly housed us in a
neat, clean dwelling with matted floor, white mattresses rolled up
in the corners, black-wood writing-desks in the niches, pictures of
men with gigantic moustaches on the walls, an old wooden clock still
ticking, and two noble tusks of Uhiao ivory, bearing the purchaser’s
mark. The tenement was not so pleasant outside: it was invested with
a mass of filth, the sea washed up impurities to the very palisades,
and farther out the bay-water was covered with a brown scum of
sickening taint. We were presently visited by the very civil and
obliging Wali, Sayf bin Ali, an old traveller to Unyamwezi: the
people being greatly demoralized, he ordered our lodgings to be
guarded at night. Yarok, the Jemadar of Baloch, also confided to us
his desire of becoming C. O.: the step was vacant by cholera, and
many of his men had lost the number of their mess.
After seeing and smelling Kilwa I did not wonder that cholera during
the last 15 days had killed off half the settlement. According to
the people, it was the first attack ever known to East Africa: that
which decimated Maskat in July, 1821, did not extend to Zanzibar.
They agreed that it came down in vessels from Zanzibar: all held it
highly infectious, as indeed under the circumstances it certainly
was; hands would not ship on board our Batela, and at first no one
would even visit us. They declared the disease to be dying out, yet
the wealthier classes still clung to their mashamba, where the water
is good and clean as it is filthy in the towns; and hyænas walked
the streets at night.
Accustomed to face cholera since my childhood, I never saw even in
Italy, in India, or in Sind, such ravages as it committed at Kilwa.
Soil and air seemed saturated with poison, the blood appeared
predisposed to receive the influence, and the people died like
flies. Numbers of patients were brought to us, each with the ominous
words, ‘He has the death;’ and none hardly had energy to start or
wince at what would under other conditions have frightened them out
of their senses. They sometimes walked two miles to see us; the only
evil symptoms were dull congested eyes, cold breath, and a thready
feeble pulse, which in the worst cases almost refused to beat. After
the visit they would return home on foot, lie down and expire in a
collapse, without cramps or convulsions, emesis, or other effort of
nature to relieve herself. Life seemed to have lost all its hold
upon them. Of course we were the only doctors, and our small stock
of ether and brandy were soon exhausted; the natives, however,
treated the complaint sensibly enough with opium and Mvinyo, spirits
locally distilled, and did not, like the Anglo-Indian surgeon,
murder patients with mercury, the lancet, and the chafing-dish.
There were hideous sights about Kilwa at that time. Corpses lay in
the ravines, and a dead negro rested against the walls of the Custom
House. The poorer victims were dragged by the leg along the sand, to
be thrown into the ebbing waters of the bay; those better off were
sewn up in matting, and were carried down like hammocks to the same
general depôt. The smooth oily water was dotted with remnants and
fragments of humanity, black and brown when freshly thrown in,
patched, mottled, and parti-coloured when in a state of half pickle,
and ghastly white, like scalded pig, when the pigmentum nigrum had
become thoroughly macerated. The males lay prone upon the surface,
diving as it were, head downwards, when the retiring swell left them
in the hollow water; the women floated prostrate with puffed and
swollen breasts—I have lately seen this included amongst ‘vulgar
errors.’ Limbs were scattered in all directions, and heads lay like
pebbles upon the beach: here I collected the 24 skulls afterwards
deposited in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, and which
it is said (Journal Anthro. Soc. No. 28, xli.) Professor Busk is now
investigating. They were gathered at random; doubtless they belonged
to both sexes, and they represented chiefly the slave population.
The latter is here mainly recruited by the Wahiao, the Wagao, the
Wamwera, the Wangindo, the Makonda, the Wakomango, the Wadoka, the
Wakhwinde, and the other tall stout races lying between Kilwa and
the Nyassa Lake. It will not be easy to forget one spectacle,—the
lower portion of some large strong man, whose legs had parted at the
knees, came again and again, persistent as the flood, up to the very
walls of our dwelling, and bowing with the ripple, it seemed to
claim acquaintance with us.
There was no subsequent attack of cholera on the Zanzibar coast till
early 1870, when one-third of the native population was reported to
have been swept away. In six weeks, besides 13 out of the score
which composed the European and American residents at Unguja, 10,000
people perished in the city, 30,000 on the Island: at Kilwa there
were 200 daily deaths amongst the slaves, and the survivors found no
purchasers at $1 a head. This visitation is supposed to have come
from the interior, appearing first at Panga-ni; yet, curious to
relate, it again went inland viâ Bagamoyo, and extended to Ugogo,
where ivory was left on the road and caravans were stopped by ‘the
death.’
Kilwa makes from £5000 to £20,000 per annum by the tax upon wild
slaves. The market is supplied chiefly by the tribes living about
the Nyassa Lake, the Wahiáo, as I have said, being preferred to all
others, and some may march for a distance of 400 miles. After this
long journey they reach the coast where they exported in the
following numbers, according to the Custom House of Kivinjya:—
1862-3 exported to Zanzibar and elsewhere—
13,000 5500
1863-4 14,000 3500
1864-5 13,821 3000
1865-6 18,344 4000
1866-7 17,538 4500
—————— —————
76,703 20,500
20,500
——————
Total 97,203 exported from Kilwa to
Zanzibar in five years.
Year ending August 23, 1869, exported, 14,944.
The next process is either the short voyage in Daus or native craft
to Zanzibar Island, or the long passage to Turkish Arabia, the Red
Sea, Persia, and the N. Zangian coast. At present they make some
half the journey without being molested by British cruisers, but
this portion of the treaty will probably be modified. Slaves
liberated from the Daus were—and are still—taken to the Seychelles,
a dependency of the Mauritius, or to Aden and Bombay, at a heavy
cost to the Imperial Exchequer. The mortality of the captives on the
march, throughout Africa as far as my knowledge extends, is
immensely overrated, except in case of cholera or small-pox, at 1 :
5, or even 1 : 10. The fact is, that the mortality on the
Kilwa-Nyassa line is excessive, because the negroes fight, and the
‘chattels’ run away. Where I am personally acquainted with it the
loss of slaves on the down-march does not exceed that of freemen,
and the latter when poor have less chance than the valuable
property.
In the outer roads, at the time of our visit, lay a French six-gun
schooner, l’Estafette, with loose rigging, no flamme, and only one
white face visible on deck. ‘Frenchman good only to steal men,’ said
the people of Kilwa: the vessel, however, was escorting a ‘free
emigrant ship,’ in plain English, a slaver, which rode three miles
out, and which was taking in ‘casimir noir’ for Bourbon. Many of the
crew braved the danger of cholera, and came on shore. I saw the
captain, and was not a little surprised when recognizing him some
years afterwards on his own quarterdeck during a voyage to ——. He
hinted that the spec. had been of the best that he had ever made,
and no wonder. During the death-in-life above described Banyans and
Baloch, Arabs and Africans, all began to sell their surviving
slaves, and an A. B. adult could be bought for a maximum of $6—‘what
a price for the noblest work of God!’ Kidnapping was also
common,—three men were shown to me who had lately escaped from
Angazijeh or Great Comoro.
A few words upon ‘free labour,’ the latest and most civilized form
of slavery in East and West Africa. The Imperial Government,
doubting nothing, authorized their colonies of Bourbon, Mayotte, and
Nosi-bé to import from East Africa the Coolies, whom we export from
Western India to the Mauritius. The plan was weak: constrained free
labour is a contradiction, and the system was foully perverted by
the people of Bourbon, at that time the least worthy, perhaps, of
the colonies of France. They required a total of 100,000 head to
begin with, and a biennial item of 10,000 for contingencies. Within
18 months about 47,000 were embarked for the African coasts, and the
free emigration was managed thus wise. Slave owners taught their
chattels a nod of assent to every question proposed, and brought
them before the French agent, who, in his own tongue, asked the
candidate if he was willing to serve as a free labourer for so many
years. A ‘bob’ and a scratch upon a contract-paper consigned the
emigrant to a ship anchored so far out that he could not save
himself by swimming. The freemen sometimes threw themselves
overboard, with the idea that once in the sea they would be carried
back to their country: under these circumstances, the older slavers
used mostly to shoot them in the water. The modern style of
levanting was tried at Aden with great success by the Somal, who
swim like fishes. The ouvrier libre was at once put in irons till
the hour for sailing came. The usual price of slaves being on the
coast $7 to $10, the agents satisfied the trader by paying $14: the
scruples of the Portuguese governors were quieted by the usual fee,
equivalent to the value of the purchase, and four additional crowns
were distributed amongst the Custom House officers. Thus the total
price of the engagé freeman was $32 (= £6 5s.). Arrived at Bourbon,
Messieurs les Sauvages were politely informed that they were no
longer slaves, and they were at once knocked down to the highest
bidder. They were worked 15 or 16 hours a day; their pay was $2 per
mensem, hardly sufficient to support life; and when they fell sick
their miserable pittance was cut. The expiration of the
engagement-period found them heavily in debt, without the hope of
working off their liabilities; and seven years of hard labour at
Bourbon might be considered almost certain death. When the idea of
travailleurs libres was detailed to the Sayyid Said, he treated it
as a mauvaise plaisanterie: the coast people also unanimously
rejected the liberal offer of free men becoming slaves for $2 a
month. The French Consul, M. de Beligny, was at first strongly
opposed to the system: a few weeks at Bourbon changed, it seems, his
opinion. His successor, M. Ladislas Cochet, energetically and
conscientiously rejected all compromise. Bourbon might easily supply
herself with Coolies, as the Mauritius does, by paying $4 per
mensem, by treating the labourer well, and by ordering him a passage
home after three or four years, whether in debt or not. It was,
however, I believe, a mistake on our part to purchase the putting
down of this system by permitting the French to enlist Coolies in
Hindostan. This country wants every hand born within its limits:
strangers viewing the densely crowded ports, the capitals, the chief
cities and their neighbourhoods, are apt to believe the vast and
wealthy peninsula over-populated, when it abounds in tracts of
primeval forest, through which a man may march a fortnight without
seeing a human being. Our first duty is evidently to the land which
belongs to us.
I was the more careful minutely to report the free emigration system
on account of an egregious deceit successfully passed off upon one
of our officials. In 1856 a certain M. Lambert, agent at Aden for
the house of Messrs Menon, Lambert, et Com^{ie}, of the Mauritius
Steam Navigation Company, persuaded the Political Resident,
Lieut.-Colonel Coghlan, that Zanzibar annually exported 49,000
slaves to Berberah, Zayla, Tajurrah, and the ports of Arabia and
Southern Asia. This more than doubled the greatest number annually
imported into the Island: and the latter no longer publicly exported
slave-cargoes, although many ran away to seek fortune in India,
whilst far more were kidnapped by the northern Arabs. In fact, it
confounded Zanzibar Island with the whole coast of Eastern Africa,
whose ports, especially those about Kilwa, were supported almost
wholly by the slave trade. Lieut.-Colonel Coghlan had been long
enough at Aden to know that Berberah, Zayla, and Tajurrah are
slave-exporting as well as importing markets, and that every native
craft sailing up coast always declares itself to be from ‘the
Sawáhil,’ or, if that word be not understood, from Zanzibar. At the
time when my first report was written an agent of the same Messrs
Lambert was waiting passage at Kilima-ni with 1000 travailleurs
libres: many of the wretches had died of the famine which had
devastated the southern coast, and the speculator complained that he
had lost $20,000 to $30,000. The same M. Lambert, in 1857, visited
Tananarive, persuading poor Madame Ida Pfeiffer to accompany him:
his object was not so much to ‘depose,’[67] as to dispose of, the
old Queen, who was to be succeeded by a person more amenable to
Christianity and French influence: the premature discovery of the
plot caused the death of the lady who twice journeyed round the
world. She had proposed accompanying me to the Lake Regions; but to
travel with a grandmother would have been too compromising. Another
grandmother volunteered from India; in fact, it appeared then my
fate to have fallen upon grandmothers.
The ‘emigration’ had been strictly forbidden by the Imperial
Government between her colonies and Madagascar. But ‘Delhi is
distant.’ Lately (1857) a Bourbon ship, commanded by a French
captain, touched at Boyannah Bay to embark 100 engagés, and took on
board some 87 Sakalawas, who had been stolen from the interior.
These men rose up whilst the commander was on shore completing his
tale, murdered the crew, beheaded and quartered the captain’s son, a
mere boy, ran the ship upon a reef, and escaped. Even since that
massacre another French ship from Nosi-bé sailed for Boyannah Bay
and its ill-omened vicinity.
The climate of Kilwa is bad and depressing: the people appeared to
suffer from severe sores, and their aspect was eminently
unhealthy—want of cleanliness is undoubtedly part cause. All
complain that the air is dry[68] and costive, producing frequent
agues and fevers, that sleep is heavy, not sound, and that in the
morning they awake unrefreshed. Our small ailments increased, and
my companion’s sight became much weaker. After a fine cool breeze,
like that of the S. West monsoon, on the night of February 17
burst a furious storm, with large-dropped rains, more violent than
during the regular wet season; the lightning was unusually pink
(the effect of excessive nitrogen ?), the thunder seemed to roll
close upon the roof, and the wind blew in the bamboo lattices of
our dwelling-place. The outburst subsided on the morning of the
18th; the sky, however, remained overcast, and did not allow an
observation of the sun. On the next day there were two fierce
gales, with raw gusts strong enough to swamp a boat, and when they
ended the weather became close and muggy with occasional chilling
blasts. Heavy clouds ran before the wind, and steady rain set in
from the south: the change of weather seemed to modify the
cholera, and the health of the town at once improved.
On February 20 we proceeded to inspect the ruins of ancient Kilwa
Kisimá-ni. A fine crisp breeze carried us out of the fetid harbour,
through the floating carcases, and the larger craft that lay about a
mile and a half from the land. The bay is here planted with four or
five extensive Wigo, or fish weirs, stockades submerged at high
tide, and detaining the fish when the waters ebb. The people of
Kilwa are ichthyophagists, and the slaves usually bring the supply
at 3 P. M. in their little Ngarawas; now, however, the fishermen are
dead, and the citizens avoid eating what is supposed to prey upon
Mizoga, or carrion.
We hugged the shore to get dead water: here, according to the
pilots, during the N. East monsoon there is a current setting to the
east, and this trend, during the S. West monsoon, is deflected to
the N. West. After expending six hours upon the 12.25 miles south of
mainland Kilwa, we reached the Island, and landed on the N. Western
side to inspect the Fort. An inscription over the entrance dates it
from Muharram 23, A. H. 1231, therefore only 44 years old (1857);
but evidently, like those of Unguja and Chak Chak, it is a
Portuguese foundation restored. The building is now a mere dickey,
with three shells of towers standing, and the fourth clean gone; the
bastions are crenellated in the Arab fashion, and one has a
port-hole for cannon. A few long iron carronades, possibly
Lusitanian, lay upon the ground, and the entrance was shaded by a
noble ‘Persian Almond,’ large leaved as the Almendreiras (Sterculiæ)
which adorn Pernambuco.[69] Huge sycamores and tamarisks were
scattered around, and the luxuriant vegetation had in places
breached the defences; the trees shaded the huts, and the carpeted
earth benches upon which the Baloch garrison lolled and played at
Báo—cups and counters.
As the next morning was windless, we set out in a four-oared boat to
visit the western shore of the Island. The latter is a low flat
breakwater of sand and coralline about five miles long, defending a
fine deep sea-arm, land-locked on both sides: the entrance is from
east to west. The northern arm has only seven to eight feet depth,
ships therefore must prefer Pactolus Gap between Kilwa Island and
Songo Mnárá. On the Barr el Moli, or mainland at the bottom of the
bay to the south, is the Mavuji Creek, so called from the district
through which it passes, and higher up, where hippopotami are
numerous, it receives the Mtera streamlet. Ten days’ marching
southwards (about 120 direct geographical miles) lead to the Rufuma
river.[70] The path crosses ‘Kitarika,’ a ridge of highland, to
which extend the plantations of the Shirazi Wasawahili, who are here
mixed with the Wamachinga tribe.
We found the shallow waters off the Island shore lined with Wigos,
weeds, and mangroves, in which sandy breaks represented the old
Bandars or ports. Southwards, at the bottom of the bay, appeared the
islet of Sánje Kati, and opposite lay the Mlango, or gate where the
depth diminishes from 80 to 6 fathoms, and leads to Sánje Májoma.
This may be the Changa of the Kilwa Chronicle, whose ‘King’ Matata
Mandelima expelled in early days Daud, the Sultan of Kilwa. We then
landed again at a gap in the verdure, and ascending a slope of
coralline rock, smooth near the water and rough above, we reached
the sandy shore-line, and thence, turning south through trees and
grass, we came upon the ruins.
The most remarkable are the remnants of the Nabháni mosque, which,
blackened and decayed, represents the 366 of Kilwa Island in her day
of pride: the well-cut gateway, the Mihrab decorated with Persian
tiles, and the vestiges of ghaut-steps, and masonry lining the
shore, showed a considerable amount of civilization. Around it lay
the tombs of the Shirazi Shaykhs, shaped like those of Zanzibarian
Mnazi Moyya, and strewed with small water-washed pebbles. This is an
ancient custom of the country: a few days after the decease small
stones are washed, perfumed, and sun-dried; finally, they are
strewed with prayers upon the tomb. Some travellers have imagined
that they take the place of the defunct’s rosary, which in old days
was devoted to this purpose: it appears to me simply the
perpetuation of a Bedawi practice which dates from the remotest
antiquity. As usual, inscriptions, those landmarks of history, were
wanting. The large old town beyond was even more ruinous than Changa
Ndumi, near Mtangata, and vegetation occupied every dwelling: one of
the mosques is said to have had 360 columns, of which we did not see
a vestige—the trees had filled and buried them all. Another Msikiti
(Masjid) stood deep in mangroves and was flooded by every high tide:
here the islet is sinking, and it may return to its original
condition, a group of three reefs, the southernmost being Songo
Mnárá. The Shirazi fort was a parallelogram about 500 feet each way,
with a curtain loop-holed for musketry, and square bastions—lodgings
for the garrison—at the angles: the entrance was high, the northern
wall was breached, and the interior preserved a dry masonry-revetted
well, 40 feet deep by 2 across. Of these there are several on the
Island: drinking water, however, is usually drawn from pits which
are higher than sea-level. The Governor’s palace, a double-storied
building with torn roof and rafters projecting from the walls,
seemed to contain only corpses indecently buried in shallow graves:
it resembled the relics about Tongo-ni, and doubtless the architects
were of the same race. Kilwa, we are told, was a mass of wooden huts
for some 200 years, till the reign of the Amir Sulayman Hasan, who,
198 to 200 years after Sulayman bin Hasan, built it of stone,
embellished it with mosques, and strengthened it with forts and
towers of coralline and lime.
The cultivators of the many Máshámbá prefer to sleep upon the
mainland, yet here there is no mud: the air is said to be far purer
than that of modern Kilwa, and the only endemic is a mild
Mkunguru—ague and fever. One of the Fungwi or peasants welcomed us
to his hut, and some twenty of his neighbours crowded to ‘interview’
us, and to sell cocoas at the rate of 30 per dollar. They declared
that the cholera had been very destructive, but that its violence
had lately abated: they could not supply us with milk because the
herdsmen were dead. They boasted that none of their race had mixed
with Muhadímo or servile Wasawahili, and without being uncivil, they
were free, and by no means shy, evidently holding that maître
charbonnier est maire chez lui.
In view of the ruins they recounted to us their garbled legendary
history. The Island was originally inhabited by the Wahiao savages,
from whom the present race partly descends, and Songo Mnárá was
occupied by the Wadubuki, a Moslem clan. These were succeeded by the
Nabhani or Ghafiri Arabs, the builders of the mosque just visited,
and in the days of Ibn Batuta (14th cent.) we find that ‘the Sultan
of Oman was of the tribe of Azud, son of El Ghaus, who is known by
the name of Abu Mohammed, son of Nabhan.’ They died out, however,
and left the land once more to the Washenzi. Then came the rule of
the Wagemu, especially the Wasongo, a tribe of Shirazis.[71] A
certain Shaykh Yusuf from Shangaya[72] bought land from Napendu, the
heathen headman, by spreading it over with cloth, built the old
fort, won the savage’s daughter, slew his father-in-law, and became
the sire of a long race of Shirazi ‘Kings of the Zinj.’
The history of Kilwa is probably better known, thanks to its
chronicle found by the Portuguese, than any place on the East coast
of Africa. It is the usual document of Moslems and Easterns, amongst
whom the man reigns, a roster of rulers, with a long string of their
battles, marches, and sudden dethronings. Kilwa was to Southern what
Mombasah was to Northern Zanzibar, a centre of turmoil and trouble.
Founded in our 10th century, and probably upon a far older site, its
rule eventually extended northwards to Mombasah, others say to
Melinde, and south to the gold regions about Sofala. The first
European visitor was Pedralves Cabral, the accidental discoverer of
the Brazil: he anchored here on July 26, 1500. The great port was
then ruled by a certain Sultan Ibrahim, murderer and usurper: the
Shaykhs took the royal title, and were known to the Wasawahili as
Mfalme, a term changed by El Masudi to Oklimen or Oklimin. ‘The
rulers of Zenj,’ says the Nubian Geographer, ‘are entitled Oklimen,
which means the son of the great master, that is to say, the God of
heaven and earth: they call the Creator Tamkalanjalo.’ Cabral was
welcomed by the chief; but his lieges, more perspicacious than their
ruler, began at once to show their ill-will, and the voyager
continued his progress towards India. Kilwa was also visited by João
da Nova, by Vasco da Gama, who on his second journey, in 1502, took
tribute from Sultan Ibrahim, and by Ruy Lourenço Ravasco, when en
route for Zanzibar. In July, 1505, D. Francisco d’Almeyda, first
viceroy of Portuguese India, landed a force of 500 men and fired the
city. Sultan Ibrahim fled, and was duly deposed in favour of one
Mohammed Ankoni, who had proved himself a friend to the Europeans:
he preferred, however, placing the power in the hands of Micante
(?), the only son left by the murdered Sultan Alfudayl (El Fuzayl).
The small fort of Santiago was built, and the citizens consented to
pay tribute and to acknowledge the sovereignty of D. Manoel.
Discontent soon showed itself: trade with Sofala had been forbidden
to the citizens, and the latter fled to other cities on the coast.
Mohammed Ankoni was presently murdered by the intrigues of the
deposed Sultan Ibrahim; and the viceroy, D’Almeyda, sent Gonçalo Vaz
de Goes with orders to punish the crime. The Captain of Kilwa, Pedo
Ferreira, had raised the Wasawahili of Songo Mnárá Island, and
preferred for the succession Micante to Ali Hosayn, the son of
Mohammed. In December, 1506, Vaz de Goes landed at Kilwa, and
restored its ancient prosperity by putting an end to the monopolies
of trade, and the vexations caused by the cupidity of the
Portuguese. After his departure, however, Ali Hosayn managed to
obtain the Sultanship, and attacked with great loss the Shaykh of
Tirendiconde, who had actually murdered his father. The pride and
extortions of the new Sultan soon offended his subjects; he was
deposed by orders of the Viceroy, and he died in obscurity at
Mombasah.
Micante, once more confirmed as Sultan, proved himself a greater
plague than Ali Hosayn, but he managed to secure the interest of
Francisco Pereira Pestana. This ‘Captain of Kilwa’ aided in
attacking the deposed Ibrahim, but the Portuguese garrison was
reduced to 40 sound men. Hearing the danger of his subjects, D.
Manoel ordered the Viceroy to raze the fort of Santiago, and to
transfer Pestana to Socotra, which had just been occupied by the
Lusitanians, and from which they expected great benefits in their
wars with the Turks. Thereupon Ibrahim returned again to his own,
Micante fled to the Querimba Islands, where he died in misery, and
the former, made wiser by adversity, restored Kilwa to her old
prosperity, and charged his sons never to fail in fidelity to
Portugal.
In 1598 the capital of Southern Zanzibar was attacked by the Wazimba
Kafirs, who afterwards commited such ravages at Mombasah. A
traitorous Moor made conditions for himself and his family, and
pointed out a ford over which the invader could pass at low tide.
The savages fell upon the city at night, massacred those who could
not save themselves by flight, destroyed the buildings, and carried
off 3000 persons, male and female, who, according to Diogo do Couto,
were incontinently devoured.
The Yu’rabi ruler, Sayf bin Sultan, after driving the Portuguese
from Mombasah (1698), sent his powerful fleet to Zanzibar and
Kilwa, which at once accepted his rule. A temporary return of the
Europeans took place in 1728, when the Capt.-General Luiz Mello de
Sampayo re-established the rule of his king from Patta to Kilwa.
Ahmed bin Said el Hináwi rising to power (1744), contented himself
with annually sending to the Zanzibar coast as far as Kilwa three
or four ships, which brought away the rich exports of the
neighbourhood—gold, ivory, and slaves. The name of Kilwa now
rarely occurs in history. Late in the last century the French here
attempted to form a slave depôt, which led to the out-station
being re-occupied by Zanzibar. The Shirazis, however, held the
land till the late Sayyid Said seized and deported to Maskat
Muammadi, their last sultan, and thus the tribe was scattered
abroad.
Such is the present state of a settlement which in 1500 the
Portuguese found prosperous to the highest degree, and ruling the
Zangian coast to Mozambique and Sofala. Every blessing save that of
beauty has now passed away from it, and instead of ‘cet éternel
nuage de fumée qui dort sur les toits, et le bourdonnement lointain
de la ruche immense,’ we see the wild ‘smokes’ of the tropical
coast, and we hear the scream of the seamew harshly invading the
silence and solitude of a city in ruins.
Returning to Kivinjya, we consulted the Wali and the principal
inhabitants about the feasibility of a march upon the Nyassa or
Southern Lake—here, as at Zanzibar, not a soul confounded it with
the Tanganyika. All agreed that it was then impossible. The slaves
were dead or sold off, and porters would not be procurable on
account of the cholera: perhaps, however, we might succeed by
awaiting the arrival of the first caravans in June. This delay we
could not afford, our time was becoming short, our means shorter,
and the climate of Kilwa was doing us no good. Evidently the
exploration of the Nyassa was a matter of too much importance to be
tacked on to an expedition as its tail-piece.
Unwillingly but perforce we turned, on February 24, 1859, the
Batela’s head northwards. Though the wet season did not set in till
March 20, the weather was especially vile,—a succession of
pertinacious calms, violent tornadoes of wind and rain, and cloudy
weather with not enough of blue sky to make a ribbon. At last, after
nine days of thorough discomfort, we ran into Zanzibar harbour
before the mildest of sea-breezes.
As we approached the city file-firing was heard day and night: we
thought that there was fighting, but it proved that the people were
keeping their Thursday, our Friday eve, with all the honours. The
place was full of armed men, and for a fortnight, during which the
wildest rumours flew abroad, all was excitement and suspense.
Although Mr Ezkel bin Yusuf, British agent at Maskat, had omitted to
report the embarkation of Sayyid Suwayni on February 11, yet the
invader was known to be en route. The European officials at Zanzibar
stood undecided how to act except in the matter of pacification. The
French Consul, whose protection had been sought by Sayyid Majid,
held to the doctrine that all peoples (except the Spaniards?) have a
right to elect their rulers. The loss of Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton was
severely felt: the English Consul who succeeded him was a new man,
reported generally to be not indifferent to self-interest. The U. S.
Consul refused to take any part in the matter, declaring that if he
was killed his nation would demand four lacs of rupees, one for
himself, one for his wife, and two for the house.
Presently it was announced officially that the invading fleet had
been dispersed by a storm, and that Capt. Fullerton, of H. M. S.
Punjaub, sailing under orders of the Bombay Government, had
persuaded Sayyid Suwayni to return. Congratulations were exchanged,
salutes were fired, bullets whizzed about like hornets, the negroes
danced and sang for a consecutive week, and with the least possible
delay armed men poured in crammed boats from the Island towards
their normal stations. But the blow had been struck: the cholera had
filled the city with mourning; the remnant of the trading season was
insufficient for the usual commercial transactions, and a strong
impression that the attack from Maskat would be renewed, as indeed
it was, seemed to be uppermost in every mind.[73]
I have related in a former volume how the change at the British
Consulate affected me personally. My report to the Secretary of
the Royal Geographical Society had not been forwarded, and no one
knew where it was. The sketch and field books which we had sent in
case of mishap from the interior, were accidentally found stowed
away in some drawer. A mistaken feeling of delicacy made me object
to be the bearer of despatches which would have thrown a curious
light upon certain intrigues, and no feeling of delicacy on the
part of the person complained of prevented his devising an ignoble
plot and carrying out the principle, ‘Calumniari audacter, semper
aliquid hærebit.’ The Home branch of the Indian Government
embraced the opportunity of displaying under the sham of
inflexible justice—summum jus summa injuria—peculiar animus, and
turned a preoccupied ear to explanations which would have more
than satisfied any other. And thus unhappily ended my labours at
Zanzibar and in Eastern Intertropical Africa.
-----
Footnote 61:
‘Ptolemæus und die Handelstrassen in Central-Afrika.’ It was
written before the traveller set out for Africa, and it has been
calmly and fairly judged by Dr Beke (Sources of the Nile, p. 69).
Footnote 62:
The old Portuguese travellers (Rezende and others) mention the
islets of Auxoly, Coa, and Zibondo; I could hear nothing of these
names: they are probably corruptions, Auxoly for Chole, Coa for
Koma, and Zibondo for Kibundo.
Footnote 63:
Kisíma (Arab. Tawi) is opposed to Shímo, a water-pit (Arab.
Hufreh).
Footnote 64:
Captain Guillain (i. 111) says 10 miles or 100 stadia. In i. 169
he writes ‘Mafia n’est separée de la côte que par un canal de 3½
lieues, partagé encore par une petite île intermédiare.’
Footnote 65:
Note to p. 20. In p. 19 (ibid.) we read, ‘The country near the
mouth of the Lufiji is occupied by the Mazingía.’ No such name is
known, however; it would mean, if anything, ‘Water of the Path
(Maji ya Njia),’ not, as he renders it, ‘the road along the
water.’ Even then Maji Njia is hardly grammatical: the genitive
sign can be omitted, especially in poetry, as—
‘Mimi siki, Mimi siki M’áná simbá,’
‘I fear not, I fear not the lion’s whelp;’
but the ‘water path’ as a P.N. is not Kisawahili. The word is
evidently a confusion with Kilwa Majinjera; and the ‘Denkarenko’
tribe is unknown as the ‘Mazingía.’ Another mistake of another
kind is talking of a ‘Surat (for Suri) Arab,’ something like a
Russian Englishman. Such, however, is the individual who lectures
Dr Livingstone on Sichwawa and teaches me the elements of
Kisawahili.
Footnote 66:
After leaving Kilwa we heard of a ‘Nullah’ entering the bay, a
long fissure 4 to 5 feet broad and many fathoms deep, which
communicates with a grotto haunted by huge snakes and genii
(Jinus).
Footnote 67:
Page xliii. of Mr E. G. Ravenstein’s Introduction to Dr Krapf’s
Travels, Researches, and Missionary Labours (London: Trübner.
1860).
Footnote 68:
This must be understood by comparison: the vegetation shows much
humidity, but perhaps not so excessive as upon the coast further
north.
Footnote 69:
The Highlands of the Brazil, i. 370.
Footnote 70:
I have explained the latter, like Rufa and Rufuta, to have been
derived from Ku fa, to die (Memoir on the Lake Regions, p. 44).
This Rufuma is the Livuma (or ‘gut’) of Mr Cooley (Geography, &c.,
p. 15). What can he mean by ‘going from Kilwa to Jáo (Uhyáo), the
traveller reaches the Livuma in 25 to 30 days’? There is hardly a
bee-line of 2° between Kilwa and the mouth of the Rufuma. And what
may be ‘Lukelingo, the capital of Jáo’?—any relation to the ‘town
Zanganica’? It is probably the Lukeringo district and stream
falling into the eastern waters of the Nyassa Lake.
Footnote 71:
This is probably a confusion with the legend of Ali bin Hasan, the
Shirazi chief, who, according to the ‘Kilwa Chronicle’ (De Barros,
1st Decade of Asia, viii. 4, 5), occupied Kilwa in our 11th
century. There may have been a second emigration from Shangaya
after the 14th century, but the tale of the cloth is suspicious.
Cloth, however, has played everywhere upon this coast the part of
gold and silver. Sofala was anciently a monopoly of Makdishu,
which traded with it for gold on condition of sending every year a
few young men to improve the ‘Kafir’ race, the latter highly
valuing the comparatively white blood. A fisherman of Kilwa having
been carried by the currents to the S. Eastern Gold Coast,
reported this state of affairs to Daud, 10th Shirazi Sultan of
Kilwa. This chief succeeded in getting the rich trade into his own
hands by offering as many pieces of cloth as the youths sent by
the people of Makdishu, and by also supplying emigrants to marry
the daughters of the savages.
Footnote 72:
The Rev. Mr Wakefield (loc. cit. p. 312) calls this place
Shungwaya, and states that it is a district between Goddoma and
Kaúma (Wanyika-land); whilst his authority, Sadi, declares it to
be the original home of all the Wasegeju.
Footnote 73:
The Sayyid Majid had originally agreed to pay annually $20,000 to
Sayyid Suwayni, $10,000 to his brother, Sayyid Turki of Sohar, and
$10,000 tribute to the Wahhabis. This was on condition that Sayyid
Turki should not be molested, as he repeatedly was. It was
generally believed that the arrangement was verbal, Sayyid Majid
having refused to bind himself by writing: possibly there may have
been a secret document. This agreement was subsequently modified
by the action of the Bombay Government.