"THE LAND OF THE MOON."
"'The Land of the Moon,' which is the garden of Central Inter-tropical
Africa, presents an aspect of peaceful rural beauty, which soothes the
eye like a medicine, after the red glare of the barren Ugogo and the
dark, monotonous verdure of the western provinces.
"The inhabitants are comparatively numerous in the villages, which rise
at short intervals above their impervious walls of the lustrous green
milk-bush, with its coral-shaped arms, variegating the well-hoed plains.
"In the pasture lands frequent herds of many-colored cattle, plump,
well-rounded, and high-humped, like the Indian breeds, and mingled
flocks of goats and sheep dispersed over the landscape, suggest ideas of
barbarous comfort and plenty.
"There are few scenes more soft and soothing than a view of 'The Land of
the Moon' in the balmy evenings of spring. As the large yellow sun
nears the horizon, a deep stillness falls upon earth; even the zephyr
seems to lose the power of rustling the lightest leaf. The charm of the
hour seems to affect even the unimaginative Africans, as they sit in the
central spaces of their villages, or, stretched under the forest trees,
gaze upon the glories around.
"The rainy monsoon is here ushered in, accompanied and terminated by
storms of thunder and lightning, and occasional hail falls. The blinding
flashes of white, yellow, or rose color play over the firmament
uninterruptedly for hours, during which no darkness is visible.
"In the lighter storms, thirty and thirty-five flashes may be counted in
a minute. So vivid is the glare that it discloses the finest shades of
color, and appears followed by a thick and palpable gloom, such as would
hang before a blind man's eyes, while a deafening roar, simultaneously
following the flash, seems to travel, as it were, to and fro overhead.
Several claps sometimes sound almost at the same moment, and as if
coming from different directions. The same storm will, after the most
violent of its discharges, pass over, and be immediately followed by a
second, showing the superabundance of electricity in the atmosphere."
Burton describes two tribes of this region as worthy of notice, the
Wakimbu and the Wanyamwezi. The former are emigrants into The Land of
the Moon. They claim a noble origin, having come from tribes living
south of this land that has adopted them.
Burton's description of these people is interesting. "In these regions
there are few obstacles to immigrants. They visit the sultan, make a
small present, obtain permission to settle, and name the village after
their own chief; but the original proprietors still maintain their
rights to the soil.
"The Wakimbu build firmly stockaded villages, tend cattle, and cultivate
sorghum and maize, millet and pulse, cucumbers and watermelons.
Apparently they are poor, being generally clad in skins. They barter
slaves and ivory in small quantities to the merchants, and some travel
to the coast.
"They are considered treacherous by their neighbors. They are known by a
number of small lines formed by raising the skin with a needle, and
opening it by points laterally between the hair of the temples and the
eyebrows. In appearance they are dark and uncomely; their arms are bows
and arrows, spears, and knives stuck in the leathern waist belt; some
wear necklaces of a curiously plaited straw, others a strip of white
cowskin bound around the brow,--a truly savage and African decoration.
"The Wanyamwezi tribe, the proprietors of the soil, is the typical tribe
in this portion of Central Africa. Its comparative industry and
commercial activity have secured to it a superiority over the other
kindred tribes.
"The natives of this tribe are usually of a dark sepia brown, rarely
colored like diluted India ink, as are the slave races to the south. The
hair curls crisply, but it grows to the length of four or five inches
before it splits. It is usually twisted into many little ringlets, or
hanks. It hangs down like a fringe in the neck, and is combed off the
forehead after the manner of the ancient Egyptians and the modern
Hottentots.
"The habitations of the Eastern Wanyamwezi are the _tembe_, which in the
west give place to the circular African hut. Among the poorer
sub-tribes, the dwelling is a mere stack of straw.
"The best tembe have large projecting eaves, supported by uprights;
cleanliness, however, can never be expected in them. Having no
limestone, the people ornament the inner and outer walls with long lines
of ovals, formed by pressure of the finger-tips, after dipping them in
ashes and water for whitewash, and into red clay or black mud for
variety of color.
"With this primitive material they sometimes attempt rude imitations of
nature,--human beings and serpents. In some parts the cross appears, but
the people apparently ignore it as a symbol. Rude carving is also
attempted upon the massive posts at the entrance of villages, but the
figures, though to appearance idolatrous, are never worshiped."