THE REAL START FOR TANGANYIKA IN THE INTERIOR.
"When we left Zanzibar the Sultan of Zanzibar and the Sawahil and his
sons came on board with three letters of introduction. One was to
Musa Mzuri, the Indian _doyen_ of the merchants settled at Unyamwezi;
secondly, a letter to the Arabs there resident, and thirdly, one to
all his subjects who were travelling in the interior. I carried, in an
_étui_ round my neck, the diploma of the Shaykh El Islam of Mecca, and
a passport from Cardinal Wiseman to all the Catholic missionaries. His
Highness the Sultan Said of Muscat had died on his way from Arabia to
Zanzibar. The party, besides Jack and I, were two Goanese boys, two
negro gun-carriers, the Seedy Mubárak Mombai (Bombay), his brother,
and eight Beloch mercenaries appointed by the Sultan. Lieut.-Colonel
Hamerton, her Majesty's Consul at Zanzibar, a friend of mine, gave
me all particulars and recommendations, and enlisted in my favour
the Sayyid Sulayman bin Hamid bin Said (the noble Omani, 'who never
forgets the name of his Grandsire'), landed us upon the coast, and
superintended our departure, attended by Mr. Frost, the apothecary
attached to the Consulate.
"My desire was to ascertain the limits of the Sea of Ujiji,
Tanganyika, or Unyamwezi Lake, to learn the ethnography of its tribes,
and determine the export of the produce of the interior. The Foreign
Office granted £1000, and the Court of Directors allowed me two years'
leave of absence to command the Expedition. Consul Hamerton warned us
against Kilwa, where any one attempting to open the interior ran the
danger of being murdered.
[Sidenote: _A Long March._]
"We landed at Wale Point, about eighty-four miles distant from the
little town of Bagamóyo. We wanted to engage one hundred and seventy
porters, but we could only get thirty-six, and thirty animals were
found, which were all dead in six months, so we had to leave part of
our things behind, greater part of the ammunition, and our iron boat.
The Hindoos were faithful to their promise to forward everything, but,
great mistake, received one hundred and fifty dollars for the hire of
twenty-two men to start in ten days; we went on, obliged to trust, but
we did not get them for eleven months. We paid various visits to the
hippopotamus haunts, and had our boat uplifted from the water upon
the points of two tusks, which made corresponding holes in the bottom.
My escort were under the impression that nothing less than one hundred
guards, one hundred and fifty guns, and several cannon would enable
them to fight a way through the perils of the interior. We were warned
that for three days we must pass through savages, who sat on the
trees, and discharged poisoned arrows into the air with extraordinary
dexterity (meaning the Amazons); that they must avoid trees (which was
not easy in a land all forest); that the Wazaramo had sent six several
letters forbidding the white man to enter their country, and that they
buried their provisions in the jungle, that travellers might starve;
that one rhinoceros kills two hundred men; that armies of elephants
attack camps by night; that the craven hyæna is more dangerous than a
Bengal tiger.
"We owed all our intrigues to a rascal named Ramji, who had his own
commerce in view, and often to our _Ras Kaptan_, or Caravan leader,
Said bin Salim, who did not wear well. The varnish soon melted, and
showed him as great a liar and thief as his men. At times it is good
to appear a dupe, to allow people to think and to say that you are a
muff, chronicling a vow that they shall change places with you before
the end of the game. I confided to Mr. Frost two manuscripts addressed
through the Foreign Office, one to Mr. John Blackwood of Edinburgh,
the other to Mr. Norton Shaw, of the Royal Geographical Society.
Blackwood's arrived safe, Norton Shaw's in six years.[1] I took a
melancholy leave of my warm-hearted friend, Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton,
who had death written on his features. He looked forward to death
with a feeling of delight, the result of his Roman Catholic religious
convictions, and, in spite of my entreaties, he _would_ remain near
the coast till he heard of our safe transit through the lands of the
dangerous Wazaramo. This courage was indeed sublime, an example not
often met with. After this affecting farewell we landed at Kaolé. I
insisted that Ladha, the Collector of customs, and Ramji, his clerk,
should insert in the estimate the sum required to purchase a boat
upon the Sea of Ujiji. Being a Hindoo, he thought I was ignorant of
Cutchee, so the following conversation took place:--
"_Ladha_. Will he ever reach it?
"_Ramji_. Of course not. What is _he_ that he should pass through
Ugogo? (a province about halfway).
"So I remarked at once that I _did_ intend to cross Ugogo, and also
the Sea of Ujiji, that I did know Cutchee, and that I was even able
to distinguish between the debits and the credits of his voluminous
sheets. The worst loss that I had was that my old and valued
friend, Dr. Steinhaüser, civil surgeon at Aden, sound scholar, good
naturalist, skilful practitioner, with rare personal qualities, which
would have been inestimable, was ill and could not come. His Highness
the late Sayyid Said, that great ally of the English nation, had made
most public-spirited offers to his friend, Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton,
for many years. Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton's extraordinary personal
qualities enabled him to perform anything but impossibilities amongst
the Arabs, and he was dying. Finally, as Indian experience taught
me, I was entering the 'unknown land' at the fatal season when the
shrinking of the waters after the wet monsoon would render it a hotbed
of malaria, but I was tied by scanty means and a limited 'leave;' it
was neck or nothing, and I determined to risk it. All the serving men
in Zanzibar Island and the East African coast are serviles. There is
no word to express a higher domestic. There was no remedy, so that I
paid them wages, and treated them as if they were free men. I had no
power to prevent my followers purchasing slaves, because they would
say, 'We are allowed by our law to do so;' all I could do was to see
that their slaves were well fed and not injured; but I informed all
the wild people that Englishmen were pledged against slavery, and I
always refused all slaves offered as presents.
"In eighteen days we accomplished (despite sickness and every manner
of difficulty) a march of one hundred and eighteen indirect statute
miles, and entered K'hutu, the safe rendezvous of foreign merchants,
on the 14th of July. On the 15th we entered Kiruru, where I found a
cottage, and enjoyed for the first time an atmosphere of sweet, warm
smoke." (In all Richard's wilder travels in damp places, he laid such
a stress upon "sweet, warm smoke.") "Jack (that is, Speke), in spite
of my endeavours, would remain in the reeking miry tent, and laid the
foundations of the fever which threatened his life in the mountains of
Usagára.
[Sidenote: _Marsh Fever._]
"As soon as we reached Dut'húmi, where we were detained nearly a week,
the malaria brought on attacks of marsh fever. In my case it lasted
twenty days." (In all Richard's fever fits, and for hours afterwards,
both now and always, he had a queer conviction of divided identity,
never ceasing to be two persons, who generally thwarted and opposed
each other, and also that he was able to fly.) "Jack suffered still
more; he had a fainting-fit which strongly resembled a sunstroke,
and it seemed to affect him more or less throughout our journey. Our
sufferings were increased by the losses of our animals, and we had
to walk, often for many miles, through sun, rain, mud, and miasmatic
putridities. The asses shy, stumble, rear, run away, fight, plunge
and pirouette when mounted; they hog and buck till they burst their
girths; they love to get into holes and hollows; they rush about like
pigs when the wind blows; they bolt under tree-shade when the sun
shines; so they have to be led, and if the least thing happens the
slave drops the halter and runs away.
"The Zanzibar riding-asses were too delicate and died; we were then
reduced to the half-reclaimed beast of Wamyamwezi. As to the baggage
animals, they were constantly thrown, and the Beloch only grumbled,
sat down, and stared. They stole the ropes and cords; they never were
pounded for the night, nobody counted them, and we were too ill to
look after it. We were wretched; each morning dawned with a fresh load
of care and trouble, and every evening we knew that another miserable
morrow was to dawn, but I never relinquished the determination to
risk everything, myself included, rather than to return unsuccessful.
At Dut'húmi, two Chiefs fought, and the strongest kidnapped five of
his weaker neighbour subjects. I could not stand by and see iniquity
done without an attempt, so I headed a little Expedition against the
strong, and I had the satisfaction of restoring the rescued, the five
unhappy stolen wretches, to their hearths and homes, and two decrepit
old women, that had been rescued from slavery, thanked me with tears
of joy" (Richard lightly calls this "an easy good deed" done), "after
which I was able, though with swimming head and trembling hands, to
prepare a report for the Geographical Society.
"On the 24th of July we were able to move on under the oppressive
rain-sun. From Central K'hutu to the base of the Usagára Mountains
there were nothing but filthy heaps of the rudest hovels, built in
holes of the jungle. Their miserable inhabitants, whose frames are
lean with constant intoxication, and whose limbs are distorted by
ulcerous sores, attest the hostility of Nature to Mankind.
"Arrived at Zungomero, we waited a fortnight for the twenty-two
promised porters. It was a hotbed of pestilence, where we nearly
found wet graves. Our only lodging was the closed eaves of a hut; the
roof was a sieve, the walls all chinks, and the floor a sheet of mud.
The Beloch had no energy to build a shed, and became almost mutinous
because we did not build it for them.
"Our life here was the acme of discomfort; we had pelting showers,
followed by fiery sunshine, which extracted steam from the grass,
bush, and trees. My Goanese boys got a mild form of 'yellow Jack,'
and I was obliged to take them into my hut, already populated with
pigeons, rats, flies, mosquitoes, bugs, and fleas. We were weary of
waiting for the porters and baggage, so we prepared our papers, and
sent them down by a confidential slave to the coast. Jack and I left
Zungomero on the 7th of August. We were so weak, we could hardly sit
our asses, but we were determined to get to the nearest ascent of the
Usagára Mountains, a march of five hours, and succeeded in rising
three hundred feet from the plain, ascending its first gradient.
[Sidenote: _They ascend from Zungomero to a Better Climate._]
"This is the frontier of the second region, or Ghauts. There was no
vestige of buildings, nor sight nor sound of Man. There was a wondrous
change of climate at this place, called Mzizi Maogo; strength and
health returned as if by magic, even the Goanese shook off their mild
'yellow Jack.' Truly delicious was the escape from the nebulous skies,
the fog-driving gusts, the pelting rain, the clammy mists veiling a
gross growth of fœtor, the damp raw cold rising as it were from the
earth, and the alternations of fiery and oppressive heat; in fact,
from the cruel climate of the river valley, to the pure sweet mountain
air, alternately soft and balmy, cool and reviving, and to the aspect
of clear blue skies, which lent their tints to highland ridges well
wooded with various greens.
"Dull mangrove, dismal jungle, and monotonous grass were supplanted
by tall solitary trees, amongst which the lofty tamarind rose
conspicuously graceful, and a card-table-like swamp, cut by a network
of streams, nullahs, and stagnant pools, gave way to dry healthy
slopes, with short steep pitches and gently shelving hills. The beams
of the large sun of the Equator--and nowhere have I seen the Rulers
of Night and Day so large--danced gaily upon blocks and pebbles of
red, yellow, and dazzling snowy quartz, and the bright sea-breeze
waved the summits of the trees, from which depended graceful llianas
and wood-apples large as melons, whilst creepers, like vine tendrils,
rising from large bulbs of brown-grey wood, clung closely to their
stalwart trunks. Monkeys played at hide-and-seek, chattering behind
the bolls, as the iguana, with its painted scale-armour, issued
forth to bask upon the sunny bank; white-breasted ravens cawed
when disturbed from their perching places, doves cooed on the
well-clothed boughs, and hawks soared high in the transparent sky. The
field-cricket chirped like the Italian cicala in the shady bush, and
everywhere, from air, from earth, from the hill-slopes above, and from
the marshes below, the hum, the buzz, and the loud continuous voice of
insect life, through the length of the day, spoke out its natural joy.
Our gypsy encampment lay
'By shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.'
By night, the soothing murmurs of the stream at the hill's base rose
mingled with the faint rustling of the breeze, which at times, broken
by the scream of the night-heron, the bellow of the bull-frog in
his swamp home, the cynhyæna's whimper, and the fox's whining bark,
sounded through the silence most musical, most melancholy. Instead of
the cold night rain, and the soughing of the blast, the view disclosed
a peaceful scene, the moonbeams lying like sheets of snow upon the
ruddy highlands, and the stars hanging like lamps of gold from the
dome of infinite blue. I never wearied with contemplating the scene,
for, contrasting with the splendours around me, still stretched in
sight the 'Slough of Despond,' unhappy Zungomero, lead-coloured above,
mud-coloured below, wind-swept, fog-veiled, and deluged by clouds that
dared not approach these Delectable Mountains.
"All along our way we were saddened by the sight of clean-picked
skeletons, and here and there the swollen corpses of porters who had
perished in this place by starvation. A single large body which
passed us but yesterday had lost fifty of their number by small-pox,
and the sight of their deceased comrades made a terrible impression.
Men staggering on, blinded by disease, mothers carrying on their
backs infants as loathsome as themselves. The poor wretches would
not leave the path, as every step in their state of failing strength
was precious. He who once fell would never rise again. No village
would admit a corpse into its precincts, no friend or relation would
return for them, and they would lie till their agony was ended by
the raven, the vulture, and the fox. Near every kraal were detached
huts set apart for those seized with the fell disease. Several of our
party caught the infection, and must have thrown themselves into some
jungle, for when they were missed we came back to look and there was
no sign of them. The further we went on, the more numerous were the
corpses. Our Moslems passed them with averted faces, and with the low
'La haul!' of disgust, and a decrepit old porter gazed and wept for
himself. At the foot of the 'Goma Pass' we found the outlying huts for
the small-pox, and an old kraal, where we made comfortable for the
night. All around peeped the little beehive villages of the Wakaguru
and the Wakwivi.
"When we arrived at Rufuta I found that nearly all our instruments had
been spoilt or broken, the barometer had come to grief, no aneroid
had been sent from Bombay, and we had chiefly to get on with two
bath thermometers. Zonhwe was the turning-point of the expedition's
difficulties. The 17th of August, as we went on, the path fell
easily westwards down a long grassy jungly incline, cut by several
water-courses. At noon I lay down fainting in the sandy bed of the
Muhama nullah, meaning the 'Palmetto' or 'Fan-palm,' and keeping
Wazira and Mabruki with me, I begged Jack to go on, and send me back
a hammock from the halting-place. The men, who were partly mutinous
and deserting, suddenly came out well; they reappeared, led me to a
place where stagnant water was found, and showed abundant penitence.
At three o'clock, as Jack did not send the hammock, I remounted and
passed through another 'Slough of Despond' like Zungomero, and found
two little villages, and on a hillside my caravan halted, which had
been attacked by a swarm of wild bees. At Muhama we halted three days,
and forded the Makata, and pursuing our march next day, I witnessed
a curious contrast in this strange African nature, which is ever in
extremes, and where extremes ever meet, where grace and beauty are
seldom seen without a sudden change to a hideous grotesqueness.
[Sidenote: _From Lovely Scenery to Fœtid Marshes._]
"A splendid view charmed me in the morning. Above lay a sky of purest
azure, flaked with fleecy opal-tinted vapours floating high in the
empyrean, and catching the first roseate smiles of the unrisen sun.
Long lines, one bluer than the other, broken by castellated crags and
towers of the most picturesque form, girdled the far horizon; the
nearer heights were of a purplish-brown, and snowy mists hung like
glaciers about their folds. The plain was a park in autumn, burnt
tawny by the sun or patched with a darker hue where the people were
firing the grass--a party was at work merrily, as if preparing for an
English harvest home--to start the animals, to promote the growth
of a young crop, and, such is the popular belief, to attract rain.
Calabashes, palmyras, tamarinds, and clumps of evergreen trees, were
scattered over the scene, each stretching its lordly form over subject
circlets of deep dew-fed verdure. Here the dove cooed loudly, and the
guinea-fowl rang its wild cry, whilst the peewit chattered in the open
stubble, and a little martin, the prettiest of its kind, contrasted by
its nimble dartings along the ground, with the vulture wheeling slowly
through the upper air. The most graceful of animals, the zebra and the
antelope, browsed in the distance; now they stood to gaze upon the
long line of porters, then, after leisurely pacing, with retrospective
glances, in an opposite direction, they halted motionless for a
moment, faced about once more to satiate curiosity, and lastly,
terrified by their own fancy, they bounded in ricochets over the plain.
"About noon the fair scene vanished as if by enchantment. We suddenly
turned northwards into a tangled mass of tall fœtid reeds, rank
jungle, and forest. One constantly feels, in malarious places,
suddenly poisoned as if by miasma; a shudder runs through the frame
and a cold perspiration, like a prelude for a fainting fit, breaks
from the brow. We came upon the deserted--once flourishing--village
of Wasagara, called Mbumi. The huts were torn and half burnt, the
ground strewed with nets and drums, pestles and mortars, cots and
fragments of rude furniture; the sacking seemed to be about ten days
old. Two wretched villagers were lurking in the jungle, not daring to
revisit the wreck of their own homes. The demon of Slavery reigns over
a solitude of his own creation; can it be, that by some inexplicable
law, where Nature has done her best for the happiness of Mankind, Man,
doomed to misery, must work out his own unhappiness?
[Sidenote: _Ants._]
"Next day our path was slippery as mud, and man and beast were
rendered wild by the cruel stings of a small red ant and a huge black
pismire. They are large headed; they cannot spring, but show great
quickness in fastening themselves to the foot or ankle as it brushes
over them. The pismire is a horse-ant, about an inch in length, whose
bulldog head and powerful mandibles enable it to destroy rats and
mice, lizards and snakes; its bite burns like a pinch of a red-hot
needle. When it sets to work, twisting itself round, it may be pulled
in two without relaxing its hold. As the people stopped to drink they
were seized by these dreadful creatures, and suddenly began to dance
and shout like madmen, pulling off their clothes, and frantically
snatching at their lower limbs. In the evening it was like a savage
opera scene. One would recite his Korán, another pray; a third told
funny stories; a fourth trolled out in a minor key lays of love and
war that were familiar to me upon the Scindian hills. This was varied
by slapping away the black mosquitoes, ridding ourselves of ants, and
challenging small parties of savages who passed us from time to time
with bows and arrows.
"Now we also began to suffer severely from the tzetze fly, which is
the true _Glossina morsitans_. It extended from Usagara westward as
far as the Central Lakes. It has more persistency of purpose than
an Egyptian fly; when beaten off, it will return half a dozen times
to the charge. It cannot be killed except by a smart blow, and its
long sharp proboscis draws blood through a canvas hammock. The sting
is like an English horse-fly and leaves a lasting trace. This land
is eminently fitted for breeding cattle and for agriculture, which,
without animals, cannot be greatly extended. Why this plague should
have been placed here, unless to exercise human ingenuity, I cannot
imagine. Perhaps some day it will be exterminated by the introduction
of some insectiferous bird, which will be the greatest benefactor that
Central Africa ever knew. The brown ant has cellular hills of about
three feet high, whereas in Somali-land they become dwarf ruins of
round towers. When we reached Rumuma the climate was new to us, after
the incessant rains of the Maritime Valley, and the fogs and mists
of the Rufuta range; but it was in extremes--the thermometer under
the influence of dewy gusts sank in the tent to 48° F., a killing
temperature in these latitudes to half-naked and houseless men. During
the day it showed 90° F.; the sun was fiery, and a furious south wind
coursed through skies purer and bluer than I had ever seen in Greece
or Italy.
"When we were ill our followers often mutinied, and would do nothing,
but stole and lost our goods, and would not work. Sometimes, though
they carried the water, they would refuse us any. Jack was as ill
as I was. We reached Rubeho, the third and westernmost range of the
Usagára Mountains, and here we were welcomed with joy, and given milk
and butter and honey, a real treat. Here we were in danger of being
attacked by the Wahúmba. Next day a Caravan arrived, under the command
of four Arab merchants, of which Isa bin Hijji was most kind, and did
us good service. I was always at home when I got amongst Arabs. They
always treat me practically as one of themselves. They gave us useful
information for crossing the Rubeho range, and superintended our
arrangements. When they went away I charged them not to spread reports
of our illness. I saw them depart with regret. It had really been a
relief to hear once more the voice of civility and sympathy.
[Sidenote: _The War-cry of the Wahúmba._]
"Our greatest labour was before us. Trembling with ague, with swimming
heads, ears deafened by weakness, and limbs that would hardly support
us, we contemplated with dogged despair the perpendicular scramble
over the mountains and the ladders of root and boulder, up which we
and our starving, drooping asses had to climb. Jack was so weak that
he had three supporters; I, having stronger nerves, managed with one.
We passed wall-like sheets of rock, long steeps of loose white soil
and rolling stones. Every now and then we were compelled to lie down
by cough and thirst and fatigue; and when so compelled, fires suddenly
appeared on the neighbouring hills. The War-cry rang loud from hill
to hill, and Indian files of archers and spearmen, streaming like
lines of black ants, appeared in all directions down the paths. It
was the Wahúmba, who, waiting for the Caravans to depart, were going
down to fall fiercely on the scattered villages in the lowlands, kill
the people, and to drive off the cattle, and plunder the villages of
Inengé. Our followers prepared to desert us, but, strange to say, the
Wahúmba did not touch us. By resting every few yards, and clinging to
our supporters, we reached the summit of this terrible path after six
hours, and we sat down amongst aromatic flowers and bright shrubs,
to recover strength and breath. Jack was almost in a state of coma,
and could hardly answer. The view disclosed a retrospect of severe
hardships past and gone.
"We eventually arrived, after more walking, at a place called the
Great Rubeho, where several settlements appeared, and where poor Jack
was seized with a fever fit and dangerous delirium; he became so
violent that I had to remove his weapons, and, to judge from certain
symptoms, the attack had a permanent cerebral effect. Death appeared
stamped upon his features, and yet our followers clamoured to advance,
_because it was cold_. This lasted two nights, when he was restored
and came to himself, and proposed to advance. I had a hammock rigged
up for him, and the whole Caravan broke ground. We went on ascending
till we reached the top of the third and westernmost range of the
Usagára Mountains, raised 5700 feet above sea level, and we begin to
traverse Ugogi, which is the halfway district between the Coast and
Unyanyembe, and stands 2760 feet above sea level, and the climate of
Ugogi pleases by its elasticity and its dry healthy warmth.
[Sidenote: _Evil Reports._]
"The African traveller's fitness for the task of Exploration depends
more upon his faculty of chafing under delays and kicking against the
pricks than upon his power of displaying the patience of a Griselda
or a Job. Another Caravan of coast Arabs arrived. They brought news
from the sea-board, and, wondrous good fortune, the portmanteau
containing books, which a porter, profiting by the confusion when they
were attacked by bees, had deposited in the long grass at the place
where I directed the slaves to look for it. Some half-caste Arabs had
gone forward and spread evil reports of us. They said we had each
one eye and four arms; we were full of magic; we caused rain to fall
in advance, and left droughts in our rear; we cooked water-melons,
and threw away the seeds, thus generating small-pox; we heated and
hardened milk, thus breeding a murrain amongst cattle; our wire,
cloth, and beads caused a variety of misfortunes; we were Kings of the
Sea, and therefore white-skinned and straight-haired, as are all men
who live in salt water, and next year we would seize their land.
[Sidenote: _Game._]
"As far as _our_ followers were concerned, there was not a soul to
stand by Jack and me except ourselves. Had anything happened we must
have perished. We should have been as safe with six as with sixty
guns, but six hundred stout fellows, well armed, might march through
the length and breadth of Central Africa." (Richard said when the
Government sent Gordon to Khartoum they failed because they sent him
_alone_. Had they sent him with five hundred soldiers there would
have been no war.) "And now a word to sportsmen in this part of
Africa. Let no future travellers make my mistake. I expected great
things without realizing a single hope. In the more populous parts
the woodman's axe and the hunter's arrows have melted away game. Even
where large tracks of jungle abound with water and forage, the notes
of a bird rarely strike the ear, and during the day's march not a
single large animal will be seen. In places such as the park-lands
of Dut'húmi, the jungles and forests of Ugogi and Mgunda Mk'hali,
the barrens of Usukuma, and the tangled thickets of Ujiji, there is
abundance of noble game--lions, leopards, elephants, rhinoceroses,
wild cattle, giraffes, gnus, zebras, quaggas, and ostriches; but the
regions are so dangerous that a sportsman cannot linger. There is
miasma, malaria, want of food, rarely water, no camels, and every
porter would desert, whilst the extraordinary expense of provision and
of carriage would be the work of a very rich man. As for us, we could
only shoot on halting days at rare periods, and there is nothing left
but the hippopotamus and the crocodile of the seacoast.
[Sidenote: _Vermin._]
"On the 8th of October we fell in with a homeward-bound Caravan headed
by Abdullah bin Nasib, who was very, very kind to us. He kindly halted
a day that we might send home a mail, and gave me one of his riding
animals, and would take nothing for it except a little medicine. We
left K'hok'ho, a foul strip of crowded jungle, where we were stung
throughout the fiery day by the tzetze fly, swarms of bees, and
pertinacious gadflies, where an army of large poisonous ants drove us
out of the tent by the wounds which they inflicted between the fingers
and other tender parts of the body, till kettles of boiling water
persuaded them to abandon us. These ant-fiends made the thin-skinned
asses mad with torture. In this ill-omened spot my ass Seringe, the
sole survivor of the riding animals brought from Zanzibar, was so
torn by a hyæna that it died of its wounds, and fifteen of my porters
deserted, so that I thought that it was no use continuing my weary
efforts and anxiety about baggage.
[Sidenote: _A Hard Jungle March._]
"I gave Jack my good donkey, because he was worse than I was, and I
took one of the poor ones, and found that I must either walk or leave
valuable things behind. Trembling with weakness, I set out to march
the length of the Mdáburu jungle. The memory of that march is not
pleasant. The burning sun and the fiery reflected heat arising from
the parched ground--here a rough, thorny, and waterless jungle, where
the jessamine flowered and the frankincense was used for fuel; there a
grassy plain of black and sun-cracked earth--compelled me to lie down
every half-hour. The water-gourds were soon drained by my attendant
Beloch; and the sons of Ramji, who, after reaching the resting-place,
had returned with ample stores for their comrades, hid their vessels
on my approach. Sarmalla, a donkey-driver, the model of a surly negro,
whose crumpled brow, tightened eyes, and thick lips, which shot out
on the least occasion of excitement, showed what was going on within
his head, openly refused me the use of his gourd, and--thirst is even
less to be trifled with than hunger--found ample reason to repent
himself of the proceeding. Near the end of the jungle I came upon a
party of the Beloch, who, having seized upon a porter belonging to a
large Caravan of Wanyamwezi that had passed us on that march, were
persuading him, half by promises and half by threats, to carry their
sleeping mats and their empty gourds.
"Towards the end of that long march I saw with pleasure the kindly
face of Seedy Bombay, who was returning to me in hot haste, leading
an ass and carrying a few scones and hard-boiled eggs. Mounting, I
resumed my way, and presently arrived at the confines of Mdáburu,
where, under a huge calabash, stood our tent, amidst a kraal of grass
boothies, surrounded by a heaped-up ridge of thorns.
"We left Ugogi and pursued our way to 'Mgunda Mk'hali,' a very wild
part, and at last got to Jiwella Mkoa, the halfway house. We were
cheered by the sight of the red fires glaring in the kraal, but Jack's
ass, perhaps frightened by some wild beast which we did not see,
reared high in the air, bucked like a deer, broke his girths, and
threw Jack, who was sick and weak, heavily upon the hard earth. Our
people had become so selfish that they always attended to themselves
first, and Said bin Salim, the leader, actually refused to give us a
piece of canvas to make a tent. Bombay made a memorable speech: 'If
you are not ashamed of your Master, O Said, be at least ashamed of his
servant,' which had such an effect that he sent the whole awning, and
refused the half which I sent back to him.
"The three Tribes of this part are the Wagogo (the Wamasai), the
Wahúmba, and the Wakwafi, who are remarkable for their strength and
intelligence, and for their obstinate and untamable characters. They
only sell their fellow tribesmen when convicted of magic, or from
absolute distress, and many of them would rather die under the stick
than work. The Wagogo are thieves; they would rob during the day, are
importunate beggars, and specify their long lists of wants without
stint or shame. An Arab merchant once went out to the Wahúmba to buy
asses. He set out from Tura in Eastern Unyamwezi, and traversing
the country of the wild Watatúru, arrived on the eighth day at the
frontier district, I'ramba, where there is a river which separates
the tribes. He was received with civility, but none have ever since
followed his example.
"As we neared Unyanyembe the porters became more restive under their
light loads, their dignity was hurt by shouldering a pack, and day
after day, till I felt weary of life, they left their burdens upon the
ground. At Rubuga I was visited by an Arab merchant, who explained
something which had puzzled me. Whenever an advance beyond Unyanyembe
was spoken of, Said bin Salim's countenance fell. The merchant asked
me if I thought the Caravan was strong enough to bear the dangers of
the road between that and Ujiji, and I replied that I did, but even
if I did not, I should go on. The perpetual risk of loss, discourages
the traveller in these lands. In a moment papers which have cost
him months of toil may be scattered to the winds. Collectors should
_never_ make them on the _march upwards_, but on their _leisurely
return_. My field and sketch-books were entrusted to an Arab merchant
who preceded me to Zanzibar. Jack sent down maps, papers, and
instruments, and I my vocabularies, ephemeris, and drawing-books,
which ran no danger, except from Hamerton's successor, who seemed
careless.
"The hundred and thirty-fourth day from leaving the coast, after
marching over six hundred miles, we prepared to enter Kázeh. I was
met by Arabs who gave me the Moslem salutation, and courteously
accompanied me. I was to have gone to the _tembe_ kindly placed at my
disposal by Isa bin Hijji and the Arabs met at Inengé, but by mistake
we were taken to that of Musa Mzuri, an Indian merchant, for whom
I bore an introductory letter, graciously given by H.H. the Sayyid
Majjid of Zanzibar. Here I dismissed the porters, who separated to
their homes. What a contrast between the open-handed hospitality
and the hearty good will of this truly noble race (Arabs), and the
niggardliness of the savage and selfish African! It was heart of
flesh after heart of stone. They warehoused my goods, disposed of my
extra stores, and made all arrangements for my down march on return.
During two long halts at Kázeh, Snay bin Amir never failed to pass
the evening with me, and, as he thoroughly knew the country all
around, I derived immense information from his instructive and varied
conversation.
"Here were the times when Jack was at such a disadvantage from want
of language; he could join in none of these things, and this made
him, I think, a little sour, and partly why he wished to have an
expedition of his own. Snay bin Amir was familiar with the language,
the religion, the manners, and the ethnology of all the tribes. He
was of a quixotic appearance, high featured, tall, gaunt, and large
limbed. He was well read, had a wonderful memory, fine perceptions,
and passing power of language. He was the stuff of which I could make
a friend, brave as all his race, prudent, ready to perish for honour,
and as honest as he was honourable. At Unyanyembe the merchants
expect some delay, because the porters, whether hired at the coast or
at Tanganyika, here disperse, and a fresh gang has to be collected.
When Snay bin Amir and Musa Mzuri, the Indian, settled at Kázeh,
it was only a desert; they built houses, sunk wells, and converted
it into a populous place. The Arabs here live comfortably and even
splendidly. The houses are single-storied, but large, substantial, and
capable of defence. They have splendid gardens; they receive regular
supplies of merchandise, comforts, and luxuries from the coast; they
are surrounded by troops of concubines and slaves, whom they train to
divers crafts and callings. The rich have riding asses from Zanzibar,
and the poorest keep flocks and herds. When a stranger appears he
receives _hishmat l'il gharib_, or 'the guest welcome.' He is provided
with lodgings, and introduced by the host to the rest of the society
at a general banquet. A drawback to their happiness is the failure of
constitution. A man who escapes illness for a couple of months boasts,
and, as in Egypt, no one enjoys robust health. The residents are very
moderate in their appetites, and eat only light dishes that they may
escape fever.
[Sidenote: _Description of Caravans and Difficulties._]
"From Unyanyembe there are twenty marches to Ujiji upon the
Tanganyika, seldom accomplished under twenty-five days. The two
greatest places are, first, Msene; the second is the Malagarázi
river; but now I bade adieu for a time to the march, the camp, and
the bivouac, and was comfortably housed close to my new friend,
Shakyh Snay bin Amir. You are all familiar with the Arab Kafilah
and its hosts of litters, horses, camels, mules, and asses; but the
porter-journeys in East Africa have, till this year of my arrival,
escaped the penman's pen. There are three kind of Caravans. These are
the Wanyamwezi, the Wasawahili free men, and lastly that of the Arabs.
That of the Arabs is splendid, and next to the Persian, he is the most
luxurious traveller in the East. A veteran of the way, he knows the
effects of protracted hardship and scarcity upon a wayfarer's health;
but the European traveller does not enjoy it, because it marches by
instinct rather than reason. It dawdles, it hurries, it lingers,
losing time twice. It is fatal to observation, and nothing will induce
them to enable an Explorer to strike into an unbeaten path, or to
progress a few miles out of the main road. Malignant epidemics attack
Caravans, and make you repent joining them. For the rest, the porters,
one and all, want to eat, drink, sleep, carry the lightest load or
none at all; for the slightest service they want double pay; they lose
your mules and your baggage; they steal what they can; they desert
when they can; they run away when there is the slightest danger. When
it is safe, they are mutinous and insolent, because you are dependent
on them. If you come to a comfortable place, you cannot dislodge them;
if you come to a dangerous place, they will not give the necessary
time for food or sleep, or resting the animals. Everything is done to
get as much out of you as possible, to do as little as they can for
it; gain and self are almost their only thoughts. Bombay proved more
or less an exception. During our journey from start to finish, there
was not one, from Said bin Salim, the leader, to the very porter,
except Bombay and the two Goanese Catholics, who did not attempt to
desert.
"About five p.m. the camp was fairly roused, and a little low chatting
commences. The porters overnight have promised to start early, and
to make a long wholesome march; but, 'uncertain, coy, and hard to
please,' the cold morning makes them unlike the men of the warm
evening, and so one of them will have fever. In every Caravan there is
some lazy lout and unmanageable fellow whose sole delight is to give
trouble. If no march be in prospect, they sit obstinately before the
fire, warming their hands and feet, and casting quizzical looks at
their fuming and fidgety employer. If all be unanimous it is vain to
tempt them; even soft sawder is but 'throwing comfits to cows,' and we
return to our tent. If, however, there be a division, a little active
stimulating will cause a march. They hug the fire till driven from it,
when they unstack the loads piled before our tents and pour out of
camp or village. Jack and I, when able, mount our asses; we walk when
we can, but when unable for either we are borne in hammocks. The heat
of the ground, against which the horniest sole never becomes proof,
tries the feet like polished leather boots on a quarter-deck in the
dog-days near the Line. Sometimes, when in good humour, they are very
sportive. When two bodies meet, that commanded by an Arab claims the
road. When friendly caravans meet, the two _kirangozis_ sidle up with
a stage pace, a stride and a stand, and, with sidelong looks, prance
till they arrive within distance; then suddenly and simultaneously
'ducking,' like boys 'giving a back,' they come to loggerheads and
exchange a butt violently as fighting rams. Their example is followed
by all with a rush and a crush, which might be mistaken for the
beginning of a fight; but it ends, if there be no bad blood, in shouts
of laughter.
"When a Unyamwezi guide is leader of a Caravan the _kirangozi_
deliberately raises his plain blood-red flag, and they all follow him.
If any man dares to go before him, or into any but his own place, an
arrow is extracted from his quiver to substantiate his identity at the
end of the march.
"The Wamrima willingly admit strangers into their villages, and the
Wazaramo would do the same, but they are constantly at feud with the
Wanyamwezi, and therefore it is dangerous hospitality. My Goanese
boys, being 'Christians,' that is to say, Roman Catholics, consider
themselves semi-European, and they will not feed with the heathenry,
so there are four different messes in the Camp. The dance generally
assumes, as the excitement increases, the frantic semblance of a ring
of Egyptian dervishes. The performance often closes with a grand
promenade, all the dancers being jammed in a rushing mass, a _galop
infernale_, with features of satyrs, and gestures resembling aught
but human. Sometimes they compose songs in honour of me. I understand
them, and the singers know that I do. They sing about the Muzungú
Mbáya, 'the wicked white man;' to have called me a '_good_ white man'
would mean that one was a natural, an innocent, who would be plucked
and flayed without flinching; moreover, despite my wickedness, it
was always to _me_ that they came for justice and redress if any one
bullied or ill-treated them.
"The Caravan scene at night is often very impressive. The dull red
fires flickering and forming a circle of ruddy light in the depths of
the black forest, flaming against the tall trunks, and defining the
foliage of the nearer trees, illuminate lurid groups of savage men,
in every variety of shape and posture. Above, the dark purple sky,
studded with golden points, domes the earth with bounds narrowed by
the gloom of night. And, behold, in the western horizon, a resplendent
crescent, with a dim, ash-coloured globe in its arms, and crowned by
Hesperus, sparkling, like a diamond, sinks through the vast space in
all the glory and gorgeousness of Eternal Nature's sublimest works.
From such a night, methinks, the Byzantine man took his device, the
crescent and the star.
[Sidenote: _Reptiles._]
"At Kázeh, as in Ugogi and everywhere else, the lodgings are a
menagerie of hens, pigeons, rats, scorpions, earwigs (the scorpions
are spiteful), and in Ugogi there is a green scorpion from four to
five inches long, which inflicts a torturing wound. Here they say that
it dies after inflicting five consecutive stings, and kills itself if
a bit of stick be applied to the middle of its back. House crickets
and cockroaches are plentiful, as well as lizards, and frightful
spiders weave their webs. One does not count ticks, flies of sorts,
bugs, fleas, mosquitoes, and small ants, and the fatal bug of Miana,
which vary in size, after suction, from almost invisible dimensions
to three-quarters of an inch. The bite does not poison, but the
irritation causes sad consequences. Huts have to be sprinkled with
boiling water to do away with some of these nuisances.
[Sidenote: _Ill and attended by a Witch._]
"It is customary for Caravans proceeding to the Tanganyika to remain
for six weeks or two months at Unyanyembe for repose and recovery
from the labours they are supposed to have endured, to enjoy the
pleasures of 'civilized society,' to accept the hospitality offered
by the Arabs. All our party, except Jack and I, considered Unyanyembi
the end of the exploration, but to us it merely meant a second point
of departure easier than the first, because we had gained experience.
We had, however, a cause of delay. Jack had become strong, but all
the rest got ill. Valentine, my Goanese boy, was insensible for three
days and nights from bilious fever, and when he recovered Gaetano got
it and was unconscious. Then followed the bull-headed slave, Mabruki,
and lastly Bombay, while the rest of the following, who had led a very
irregular life, began to pay the penalty of excess. They brought us
a _mganga_, or witch, who doctored us. However, we got distressing
weakness, liver derangement, burning palms, tingling soles, aching
eyes, and alternate chills of heat and cold, and we delayed till the
1st of December, during which we learnt a lot of necessary things.
"My good Snay bin Amir sent into the country for plantains and
tamarinds, and brewed a quantity of beer and plantain wine. He lent me
valuable assistance concerning the country and language, and we were
able, through him, to learn all about the Nyanza or Northern Lake,
and the maps forwarded from Kázeh to the Royal Geographical Society
will establish this fact, as they were subsequently determined, after
actual exploration, by Jack. Snay bin Amir took charge of all the
letters and papers for home, and his energy enabled me afterwards to
receive the much-needed reserve of supplies in the nick of time.
"On the 15th we went on to Yombo, where I remarked three beauties who
would be deemed beautiful in any part of the world. Their faces were
purely Grecian, they had laughing eyes, their figures were models for
an artist, like the bending statue that delights the world, cast in
bronze. These beautiful domestic animals smiled graciously when, in my
best Kinyamwezi, I did my _devoir_ to the sex, and a little tobacco
always secured for me a seat in the 'undress circle.'
"On the 22nd of December Jack came back, and we left on the 23rd of
December, and marched to the district of Eastern Wilyankuru; and there
we again separated, and I went on alone to Muinyi Chandi, and my
people were very troublesome. Said bin Salim, believing that my days
were numbered, passed me on the last march without a word. The sun was
hot, and he and his party were hastening to shade, and left me with
only two men to carry the hammock in a dangerous jungle, where shortly
afterwards an Arab merchant was murdered. On Christmas Day I mounted
my ass, passed through the western third of the Wilyankuru district,
and was hospitably received by one Salim bin Said, surnamed Simba the
Lion, who received me with the greatest hospitality. He was a large,
middle-aged man, with simple and kindly manners, and an honesty of
looks and words which rendered his presence extremely prepossessing.
"The favourite dish in this country is the _pillaw_, or _pilaf_, here
called _pulao_; and here I want to digress. For the past century,
which concluded with reducing India to the rank of a British province,
the proud invader has eaten her rice after a fashion which has secured
for him the contempt of the East. He deliberately boils it, and after
drawing off the nutritious starch, or gluten, called _conjee_, which
forms the perquisite of the Portuguese or his pariah cook, he is fain
to fill himself with that which has become little more nutritious
than the prodigal's husks. Great, indeed, is the invader's ignorance
upon that point. Peace be to the manes of Lord Macaulay, but listen
to and wonder at his eloquent words: 'The Sepoys came to Clive, not
to complain of their scanty fare, but to propose that all the grain
should be given to the Europeans, who required more nourishment than
the natives of Asia. The thin gruel, they said, which was strained
away from the rice, would suffice for themselves. History contains no
more touching instance of military fidelity, or of the influence of a
commanding mind.' Indians never fail to drink the _conjee_. The Arab,
on the other hand, mingles with his rice a sufficiency of _ghee_ to
prevent the extraction of the 'thin gruel,' and thus makes the grain
as palatable and as nutritious as Nature intended it to be--and dotted
over with morsels of fowl, so boiled that they shredded like yarn
under the teeth.
"Shaykh Masud boasted of his intimacy with the Sultan Msimbira, whose
subjects had plundered our portmanteau, and offered, on return to
Unyanyambe, his personal services in ransoming it. I accepted with
joy, but it afterwards proved that he nearly left his skin in the
undertaking. The climate of Kíríra, where I arrived on the 27th of
December, is called by the Arabs a medicine, and I spent a delicious
night in the cool Barzah after the unhealthy air of Kázeh. Three
marches more brought me to Msene, where I was led to the _tembe_ of
one Saadullah, a low-caste Msawahili, and there I found Jack, looking
very poorly. We were received with great pomp and circumstance; the
noise was terrific, and Gaetano, Jack's boy, was so excited by the
scene that he fell down in an epileptic fit, which fits returned
repeatedly.
"On the 10th of January we left, and arrived at Mb'hali, and passed
through dense jungle, and eventually came to Sorora and Kajjanjeri,
and here we were freshly ill from miasma. About three in the afternoon
I was forced to lay aside my writing by an unusual sensation of
nervous irritability, which was followed by a general shudder as
in the cold paroxysm of fevers. Presently my extremities began to
weigh, and began to burn as though exposed to a glowing fire, and my
jack-boots became too tight and heavy to wear. At sunset the attack
reached its height. I saw yawning wide to receive me--
'Those dark gates across the wild
That no man knows.'
My body was palsied, powerless, motionless; the limbs appeared to
wither and die; the feet had lost all sensation, except a throbbing
and a tingling as if pricked by needle points, the arms refused to
be directed by will, and to the hands the touch of cloth and stone
was the same. Gradually the attack spread upwards till it seemed to
compress my ribs, and stopped short there. This at a distance of
two months of any medical aid, and with the principal labour of the
expedition still in prospect! If one of us was lost, I said to myself,
the other might survive to carry home the results of the exploration,
which I had undertaken with the resolve either to do or die. I had
done my best, and now nothing appeared to remain for me but to die as
well.
[Sidenote: _Partial Paralysis. Blindness. Elephants._]
"It was partial paralysis, brought on by malaria, well known in India.
I tried the usual remedies without effect, and the duration of the
attack presently revealed what it was. The contraction of the muscles,
which were tightened like ligatures above and below the knees, and
those λύταγούνατα [Greek: lytagounata], a pathological symptom
which the old Greek loves to specify, prevented me from walking to
any distance for nearly a year; the numbness of the hands and feet
disappeared more slowly, but the _Fundi_ predicted that I should be
able to move in ten days, and on the 10th I again mounted my ass. At
Usagozi, Jack, whose blood had been impoverished, and whose system had
been reduced by many fevers, now began to suffer from inflammation of
the eyes, which produced an almost total blindness, rendering every
object enclouded by a misty veil. Goanese Valentine suffered the
same on the same day, and subsequently, at Ujiji, was tormented by
inflammatory ophthalmia. I suffered in a minor degree. On the 3rd of
February we debouched from a jungle upon the river plain; the swift
brown stream, there fifty yards broad, was swirling through the tall
wet grasses of its banks on our right hand, hard by our track. Upon
the off-side, a herd of elephants in Indian file broke through the
reed fence in front of them.
[Sidenote: _The Crossing of the Great River Malagarázi._]
"The Malagarázi, corrupted by speculative geographers to
Mdjigidgi--the uneuphonious terminology of the 'Mombas Mission
Map'--to 'Magrassie,' and to 'Magozi,' has been wrongly represented
to issue from the Sea of Ujiji. According to all travellers in these
regions, it rises in the mountains of Urundi, at no great distance
from the Kitangure, or river of Karagwah; but whilst the latter,
springing from the upper counterslope, feeds the Nyanza, or Northern
Lake, the Malagarázi, rising in the lower slope of the equatorial
range, trends to the south-east, till it becomes entangled in the
decline of the Great Central African Depression--the hydrographical
basin first indicated in his address of 1852 by Sir Roderick I.
Murchison, president of the Royal Geographical Society of London.[2]
Thence it sweeps round the southern base of Urundi, and, deflected
westwards, it disembogues itself into the Tanganyika. Its mouth
is in the land of Ukaranga, and the long promontory behind which
it discharges its waters is distinctly visible from Kawele, the
head-quarters of Caravans in Ujiji. The Malagarázi is not navigable;
as in primary and transition countries generally, the bed is broken
by rapids. Beyond the ferry the slope becomes more pronounced, branch
and channel islets of sand and verdure divide the stream, and as every
village near the banks appears to possess one or more canoes, it is
probably unfordable. The main obstacle to crossing it on foot, over
the broken and shallower parts near the rock-bars, would be the number
and the daring of the crocodiles.
"The _mukunguru_ of Unyamwezi is the severest seasoning-fever in this
part of Africa; it is a bilious-remittent lasting three days, which
reduces the patient to nothing, and often followed by a long attack of
tertian type. The consequences are severe and lasting, even in men of
the strongest nervous diathesis; burning and painful eyes, hot palms
and soles, a recurrence of shivering and flushing fits, extremities
alternately icy cold, then painfully hot and swollen, indigestion,
sleeplessness, cutaneous eruptions, fever sores, languor, dejection,
all resulting from torpidity of liver, from inordinate secretion of
bile, and shows the poison in the system. Sometimes the fever works
speedily; some become at once delirious, and die on the first or
second day.
"From Tura to Unyamwezi the Caravans make seven marches of sixty
geographical miles. The races requiring notice in this region are
two--Wakimbu and the Wanyamwezi."
[1] Some of these things disappeared in a very singular manner, and
one was very curiously fated. It was missed here, and came home to me
in six years. Later on, in 1863, it again disappeared for six years.
It was stolen at Fernando Po in 1863; it was marked by somebody on a
bit of parchment, "Burton's Original Manuscript Diary, Africa, 1857."
Colonel Maude, the Queen's Equerry, saw it outside an old book-shop,
was attracted by the label on the Letts's Diary. He bought it for a few
shillings, called on Lord Derby, and left it in the hall, forgetting
it. Lord Derby, coming down, saw the book, recognized my handwriting,
wrote to Colonel Maude for permission to restore the private diary to
its rightful owner. We happened to be in town. He kindly called and
gave it back to us, so that journal twice disappeared for six years,
but had to come home. Who shall say there is no destiny in this?
[2] "The following notice concerning a discovery which must ever be
remembered as a triumph of geological hypothesis, was kindly forwarded
to me by the discoverer:--
"'My speculations as to the whole African interior being a vast watery
plateau-land of some elevation above the sea, but subtended on the east
and west by much higher grounds, were based on the following data:--
"'The discovery in the central portion of the Cape Colony, by Mr. Bain,
of fossil remains in a lacustrine deposit of Secondary age, and the
well-known existence on the coast of loftier mountains known to be of
a Palæozoic or Primary epoch, and circling round the younger deposits,
being followed by the exploration of the Ngami Lake, justified me in
believing that Africa had been raised from beneath the ocean at a
very early geological period; and that ever since that time the same
conditions had prevailed. I thence inferred that an interior network of
lakes and rivers would be found prolonged northwards from Lake Ngami,
though at that time no map was known to me showing the existence of
such central reservoirs. Looking to the west as to the east, I saw
no possibility of explaining how the great rivers could escape from
the central plateau-lands and enter the ocean except through deep
lateral gorges, formed at some ancient period of elevation, when the
lateral chains were subjected to transverse fractures. Knowing that
the Niger and the Zaire, or Congo, escaped by such gorges on the west,
I was confident that the same phenomenon must occur upon the eastern
coast, when properly examined. This hypothesis, as sketched out in
my 'Presidential Address' of 1852, was afterwards received by Dr.
Livingstone just as he was exploring the transverse gorges by which
the Zambesi escapes to the east, and the great traveller has publicly
expressed the surprise he then felt that his discovery should have been
thus previously suggested.'"