Chapter I (12)

The market at Unyanyembe varies greatly according to the quantity of the rains. As usual in barbarous societies, a dry season, or a few unexpected caravans, will raise the prices, even to trebling; and the difference of value in grain before and after the harvest will be double or half of what it is at par. The price of provisions in Unyamwezi has increased inordinately since the Arabs have settled in the land. Formerly a slave-boy could be purchased for five fundo, or fifty strings of beads: the same article would now fetch three hundred. A fundo of cheap white porcelain-beads would procure a milch cow; and a goat, or ten hens its equivalent, was to be bought for one khete. In plentiful years Unyanyembe is, however, still the cheapest country in East Africa, and, as usual in cheap countries, it induces the merchant to spend more than in the dearest. Paddy of good quality, when not in demand, sells at twenty kayla (120lbs.) for one shukkah of American domestics; maize, at twenty-five; and sorghum, here the staff of life, when in large stock, at sixty. A fat bullock may be bought for four domestics, a cow costs from six to twelve, a sheep or a goat from one to two. A hen, or its equivalent, four or five eggs, is worth one khete of coral or pink porcelain beads. One fundo of the same will purchase a large bunch of plantains, with which máwá or plantain-wine, and siki or vinegar are made; and the Wanyamwezi will supply about a pint of milk every morning at the rate of one shukkah per mensem. A kind of mud-fish is caught by the slaves in the frequent pools which, during the cold season, dot the course of the Gombe Nullah, lying three miles north of Kazeh; and return-caravans often bring with them stores of the small fry, called Kashwá or Daga’a, from the Tanganyika Lake.

From Unyanyembe twenty marches, which are seldom accomplished under twenty-five days, conduct the traveller to Ujiji, upon the Tanganyika. Of these the fifth station is Msene, the great Bandari of Western Unyamwezi. It is usually reached in eight days; and the twelfth is the Malagarazi River, the western limit of the fourth region.

The traveller, by means of introductory letters to the Doyen of the Arab merchants at Kazeh, can always recruit his stock of country currency,--cloth, beads, and wire,--his requirements of powder and ball, and his supply of spices, comforts, and drugs, without which travel in these lands usually ends fatally. He will pay, it is true, about five times their market-value at Zanzibar: sugar, for instance, sells at its weight in ivory, or nearly one-third more than its weight in beads. But though the prices are exorbitant they preserve the buyer from greater evils, the expense of porterage, the risk of loss, and the trouble and annoyance of personally superintending large stores in a land where “vir” and “fur” are synonymous terms.

And now comfortably housed within a stone-throw of my new friend Shaykh Snay bin Amir, I bade adieu for a time to the march, the camp, and the bivouac. Perhaps the reader may not be unwilling to hear certain details concerning the “road and the inn” in Eastern Africa; he is familiar from infancy with the Arab Kafilah and its host of litters and camels, horses, mules, and asses, but the porter-journeys in Eastern Africa have as yet escaped the penman’s pen.

Throughout Eastern Africa made roads, the first test of progress in a people, are unknown. The most frequented routes are foot-tracks like goat-walks, one to two spans broad, trodden down during the travelling season by man and beast, and during the rains the path in African parlance “dies,” that is to say, it is overgrown with vegetation. In open and desert places four or five lines often run parallel for short distances. In jungly countries they are mere tunnels in thorns and under branchy trees, which fatigue the porter by catching his load. Where fields and villages abound they are closed with rough hedges, horizontal tree-trunks, and even rude stockades, to prevent trespassing and pilferage. Where the land is open, an allowance of one-fifth must be made for winding: in closer countries this must be increased to two-fifths or to one-half, and the traveller must exercise his judgment in distributing the marches between these two extremes. In Uzaramo and K’hutu the tracks run through tall grasses, which are laid by their own weight after rains, and are burned down during the hot seasons: they often skirt cultivated lands, which they are not allowed to enter, miry swamps are spanned, rivers breast-deep, with muddy bottoms and steep slippery banks, are forded, whilst deep holes, the work of rodents and insects, render them perilous to ridden cattle. In Usagara the gradients are surmounted either by beds of mountain torrents or by breasting steep and stony hills, mere ladders of tree-root and loose stones: laden animals frequently cannot ascend or descend them. The worst paths in this region are those which run along the banks of the many streams and rivulets, and which traverse the broken and thorny ground at the base of the hills. The former are “thieves’ roads,” choked with long succulent grass springing from slushy mud; the latter are continued rises and falls, with a small but ragged and awkward watercourse at every bottom. From Usagara to Western Unyamwezi the roads lead through thick thorn-jungle, and thin forests of trees blazed or barked along the track, without hill, but interrupted during the rains by swamps and bogs. They are studded with sign-posts, broken pots and gourds, horns and skulls of game and cattle, imitations of bows and arrows pointing towards water, and heads of holcus. Sometimes a young tree is bent across the path and provided with a cross-bar; here is a rush gateway like the yoke of the ancients, or a platform of sleepers supported by upright trunks; there a small tree felled and replanted, is tipped with a crescent of grass twisted round with bark, and capped with huge snail shells, and whatever barbarous imagination may suggest. Where many roads meet, those to be avoided are barred with a twig or crossed by a line drawn with the foot. In Western Uvinza and near Ujiji, the paths are truly vile, combining all the disadvantages of bog and swamp, river and rivulet, thorn-bush and jungle, towering grasses, steep inclines, riddled surface, and broken ground. The fords on the whole line are temporary as to season, but permanent in place: they are rarely more than breast-deep; and they average in dry weather a cubit and a half, the fordable medium. There are but two streams, the Mgeta and the Ruguvu, which are bridged over by trees; both could be forded higher up the bed; and on the whole route there is but one river, the Malagarazi, which requires a ferry during the dry season. Cross roads abound in the populous regions. Where they exist not, the jungle is often impassable, except to the elephant and the rhinoceros: a company of pioneers would in some places require a week to cut their way for a single march through the network of thorns and the stockade of rough tree-trunks. The directions issued to travellers about drawing off their parties for safety at night to rising grounds, will not apply to Eastern Africa; it would be far easier to dig for themselves abodes under the surface.

It is commonly asserted in the island of Zanzibar that there are no caravans in these regions. The dictum is true if the term be limited to the hosts of camels and mules that traverse the deserts and the mountains of Arabia and Persia. It is erroneous if applied to a body of men travelling for commercial purposes. From time immemorial the Wanyamwezi have visited the road to the coast, and though wars and blood-feuds may have temporarily closed one line, another necessarily opened itself. Amongst a race so dependent for comfort and pleasure upon trade, commerce, like steam, cannot be compressed beyond a certain point. Until a few years ago, when the extension of traffic induced the country people to enlist as porters, all merchants traversed these regions with servile gangs hired on the coast or island of Zanzibar, a custom still prevailing on the northern and southern routes from the sea-board to the lakes of Nyanza and Nyassa. Porterage, on the long and toilsome journey, is now considered by the Wanyamwezi a test of manliness, as the Englishman deems a pursuit or a profession necessary to clear him from the charge of effeminacy. The children imbibe the desire with their milk, and at six or seven years old they carry a little tusk on their shoulders--instinctive porters, as pointer-pups are hereditary pointers. By premature toil their shinbones are sometimes bowed to the front like those of animals too early ridden. “He sits in hut egg-hatching,” is their proverbial phrase to express one more elegant--

“Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits.”

And they are ever quoting the adage that men who travel not are void of understanding--the African equivalent of what was said by the European sage: “The world is a great book, of which those who never leave home read but a page.” Against this traditional tendency reasons of mere hire and rations, though apparently weighty, are found wanting. The porter will bargain over his engagement to the utmost bead, saying that all men are bound to make the best conditions for themselves: yet, after two or three months of hard labour, if he chance upon a caravan returning to his home, a word from a friend, acting upon his innate debility of purpose, will prevail upon him to sacrifice by desertion all the fruits of his toil. On these occasions the porters are carefully watched; open desertion would, it is true, be condemned by the general voice, yet no merchant can so win the affections of his men that some will not at times disappear. Until the gangs have left their homes far behind, their presence seems to hang by a thread; at the least pretext they pack up their goods and vanish in a mass. When approaching their settlements--at the frontier districts of Tura and Mfuto, for instance--their cloth and hire are taken from them, packed in the employer’s bales, and guarded by armed slaves, especially at night, and on the line of march. Yet these precautions frequently fail, and, once beyond the camp limits, it is vain to seek the fugitive. In the act of desertion they show intelligence: they seldom run away when caravans first meet, lest their employer should halt and recover them by main force, and, except where thieves and wild beasts are unknown, they will not fly by night. The porter, however, has one point of honour; he leaves his pack behind him. The slave, on the other hand, certainly robs his employer when he runs away, and this, together with his unwillingness to work and the trouble and annoyance which he causes to his owner, counterbalances his superior dexterity and intelligence.

Caravans, called in Kisawahili safári (from the Arab safar, a journey) and by the African rugendo or lugendo, “a going,” are rarely wanting on the main trunk-lines. The favourite seasons for the upward-bound are the months in which the greater and the lesser Masika or tropical rains conclude--in June and September, for instance, on the coast--when water and provisions are plentiful. Those who delay till the dry weather has set in must expect hardships on the march; the expense of rations will be doubled and trebled, and the porters will frequently desert. The down-caravans set out in all seasons except the rainy; it is difficult to persuade the people of Unyanyembe to leave their fields between the months of October and May. They will abandon cultivation to the women and children, and merrily take the footpath way if laden with their own ivory, but from the merchant they will demand exorbitant wages, and even then they will hesitate to engage themselves.

Porterage varies with every year and in every caravan. It knows but two limits: the interest of the employer to disburse as little as possible by taking every advantage of the necessities of his employé, and the desire of the employé to extract as much as he can by presuming upon the wants of his employer. In some years there is a glut of porters on the coast; when they are rare quarrels take place between the several settlements, each attempting a monopoly of enlistment to the detriment of its neighbours, and a little blood is sometimes let. When the Wanyamwezi began to carry, they demanded for a journey from the coast to their own country six to nine dollars’ worth of domestics, coloured cloths, brass-wires, and the pigeon’s-egg bead called sungomaji. The rate of porterage then declined; the increase of traffic, however, has of late years greatly increased it. In 1857 it was 10 dollars, and it afterwards rose to 12 dollars per porter. In this sum rations are not included; the value of these--which by ancient custom are fixed at 1 kubabah (about 1·5 lbs.) of grain per diem, or, that failing, of manioc, sweet potatoes, and similar articles, with the present of a bullock at the frontier--is subject to greater variations, and is even less reducible to an average than the porter’s pay. It is needless to say that the down-journey is less expensive than the up-march, as the carriers rely upon a fresh engagement on the coast. The usual hire from Unyanyembe would be nine cloths, payable on arrival at the sea-port, where each is worth 25 cents, or about 1 shilling. The Arabs roughly calculate--the errors balancing one another--that, rations included, the hire of a porter from the coast to the Tanganyika Lake and back amounts to a total of 20 dollars = 4_l._ 3_s._ From the coast, Wanyamwezi porters will not engage themselves for a journey westward of their own country; at Unyanyembe they break up, and a fresh gang must be enlisted for a march to the Tanganyika or to the Nyanza Lake. It is impossible to average the numbers of an East African caravan, which varies from half a dozen to 200 porters, under a single Mundewa or merchant. In dangerous places travellers halt till they form an imposing force; 500 is a frequent figure, and even bodies of 1000 men are not rare. The only limit to the gathering is the incapability of the country to fill more than a certain number of mouths. The larger caravans, however, are slow and cumbrous, and in places they exhaust the provision of water.

Caravans in East Africa are of three kinds. The most novel and characteristic are those composed only of Wanyamwezi; secondly, are the caravans directed and escorted by Wasawahili freemen or fundi (slave fattori), commissioned by their patrons; and, lastly, those commanded by Arabs.

The porter, called pagazi or fagazi--the former is the African, the latter the ridiculous Arabised form of the word--corresponds with the carregador of West Africa. The Wanyamwezi make up large parties of men, some carrying their own goods, others hired by petty proprietors, who for union and strength elect a head Mtongi, Ras Kafilah, or leader. The average number of these parties that annually visit the coast is far greater than those commanded by stranger-merchants. In the Unyamwezi caravan there is no desertion, no discontent, and, except in certain spots, little delay. The porters trudge from sunrise to 10 or 11 A.M., and sometimes, though rarely, they will travel twice a day, resting only during the hours of heat. They work with a will, carrying uncomplainingly huge tusks, some so heavy that they must be lashed to a pole between two men--a contrivance technically called mziga-ziga. Their shoulders are often raw with the weight, their feet are sore, and they walk half or wholly naked to save their cloth for displays at home. They ignore tent or covering, and sleep on the ground; their only supplies are their country’s produce, a few worn-down hoes, intended at times to purchase a little grain or to be given as blackmail for sultans, and small herds of bullocks and heifers that serve for similar purposes if not lost, with characteristic African futility, upon the road. Those who most consult comfort carry, besides their loads and arms, a hide for bedding, an earthen cooking pot, a stool, a kilindo or bark-box containing cloth and beads, and perhaps a small gourd full of ghee. They sometimes suffer severely from exposure to a climate which forbids long and hard work upon short and hard fare. Malignant epidemics, especially small-pox, often attack caravans as they approach the coast; generally, however, though somewhat lean and haggard, the porters appear in better condition than might be expected. The European traveller will repent accompanying these caravans: as was said of a similar race, the Indians of Guiana, “they will not deviate three steps from the regular path.”

Porters engaged by Arab Mtajiri or Mundewa--the former is the Kisawahili, the latter is the Inner African term for a merchant or travelling trader--are known by their superior condition; they eat much more, work much less, and give far greater trouble to their commanders. They expend part of the cloth and beads which they have received as hire to procure for themselves occasional comforts; and on the down-journey they take with them a few worn-down hoes to retain the power of desertion without starving. The self-willed wretches demean themselves with the coolest impudence; reply imperiously, lord it over their leaders, regulate the marches and the halts, and though they work they never work without loud complaints and open discontent. Rations are a perpetual source of heart-burning: stinted at home to a daily mess of grain-porridge, the porters on the line of march devote, in places where they can presume, all their ingenuity to extort as much food as possible from their employers. At times they are seized with a furore for meat. When a bullock is slaughtered, the Kirangozi or guide claims the head, leaving the breast and loin to the Mtongi or principal proprietor, and the remainder is equally portioned amongst the khambi or messes into which the gang divides itself. As has been remarked, the Arab merchant, next to the Persian, is the most luxurious traveller in the East; a veteran of the way, he well knows the effects of protracted hardship and scarcity upon a wayfarer’s health. The European traveller, however, will not enjoy the companionship of the Arab caravan, which marches by instinct rather than by reason. It begins by dawdling over the preliminaries; it then pushes hurriedly onwards till arrested by epidemic or desertion; and finally it lingers over the end of the journey, thus loosing time twice. This style of progress is fatal to observation; moreover, none but a special caravan, consisting of slaves hired for the purpose in the island of Zanzibar or on the coast, and accompanied by their own Ahbab or patron--without whom they will obey no employer, however generous or energetic--will enable the explorer to strike into an unbeaten path, or to progress a few miles beyond the terminus of a main trunk-road. The most enterprising of porters will desert, leaving the caravan-leader like a water-logged ship.

Between these two extremes are the trading parties directed by the Wasawahili, the Wamrima, and the slave Fundi--the Pombeiros of West Africa--kindred souls with the Pagazi, understanding their languages and familiar with their habits, manners, and customs. These “Safari” are neither starved like those composed of Wanyamwezi, nor pampered like those headed by the Arabs. There is less fatigue during the march, and more comfort at the halting-place, consequently there are fewer cases of disease and death. These semi-African Mtongi, hating and jealousing Arabs and all strangers, throw every obstacle in their way, spread reports concerning their magical and malevolent powers which are dangerous amongst the more superstitious barbarians, they offer a premium for desertion, and in fine, they labour hard though fruitlessly, to retain their ancient monopoly of the profits derived from the interior.

I will now describe the day’s march and the halt of the East African caravan.

At 3 A.M., all is silent as the tomb, even the Mnyamwezi watchman nods over his fire. About an hour later the red-faced apoplectic chanticleer--there are sometimes half-a-dozen of them--the alarum of the caravan, and a prime favourite with the slaves and porter, who carry him on their banghy-poles by turns, and who drench him with water when his beak opens under the sun,--flaps his wings and crows a loud salutation to the dawn: he is answered by every cock and cockerel within ear-shot. I have been lying awake for some time, longing for the light, and when in health, for an early breakfast. At the first paling of the East, the torpid Goanese are called up to build a fire, they tremble with the cold--thermometrically averaging 60° F.--and they hurry to bring food. Appetite somewhat difficult at this hour, demands a frequent change of diet, we drink tea or coffee when procurable, or we eat rice-milk and cakes raised with whey, or a porridge not unlike water-gruel. Whilst we are so engaged, the Baloch chanting the spiritual songs which follow prayers, squat round a cauldron placed upon a roaring fire, and fortify the inner man with boiled meat and grain, with toasted pulse and tobacco.

About such time, 5 A.M., the camp is fairly roused, and a little low chatting becomes audible. This is a critical moment. The porters have promised overnight, to start early, and to make a long wholesome march. But, “uncertain, coy, and hard to please,” they change their minds like the fair sex, the cold morning makes them unlike the men of the warm evening, and perhaps one of them has fever. Moreover, in every caravan there is some lazy, loud-lunged, contradictory 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, inhaling the smoke with everted heads, and casting quizzical looks at their fuming and fidgety employer. If all be unanimous, it is vain to attempt them, even soft sawder is but “throwing comfits to cows.” We return to our tent. If, however, there be a division, a little active stimulating will cause a march. Then a louder conversation leads to cries of Kwecha! Kwecha! Pakia! Pakia! Hopa! Hopa! Collect! pack! set out! Safari! Safari leo! a journey, a journey to-day! and some peculiarly African boasts, P’hunda! Ngami! I am an ass! a camel! accompanied by a roar of bawling voices, drumming, whistling, piping, and the braying of Barghumi, or horns. The sons of Ramji come in a body to throw our tents, and to receive small burdens, which, if possible, they shirk; sometimes Kidogo does me the honour to inquire the programme of the day. The porters, however, hug the fire till driven from it, when they unstack the loads piled before our tents and pour out of the camp or village. My companion and I, when well enough to ride, mount our asses, led by the gunbearers, who carry all necessaries for offence and defence; when unfit for exercise, we are borne in hammocks, slung to long poles, and carried by two men at a time. The Baloch tending their slaves hasten off in a straggling body, thinking only of escaping an hour’s sun. The Jemadar, however, is ordered to bring up the rear with Said bin Salim, who is cold and surly, abusive and ready with his rattan. Four or five packs have been left upon the ground by deserters, or shirkers, who have started empty-handed, consequently our Arab either double-loads more willing men, or persuades the sons of Ramji to carry a small parcel each, or that failing, he hires from some near village a few porters by the day. This, however, is not easy, the beads have been carried off, and the most tempting promises without pre-payment, have no effect upon the African mind.

When all is ready, the Kirangozi or Mnyamwezi guide rises and shoulders his load, which is ever one of the lightest. He deliberately raises his furled flag, a plain blood-red, the sign of a caravan from Zanzibar, much tattered by the thorns, and he is followed by a privileged Pagazi, tom-toming upon a kettle-drum much resembling a European hour-glass. The dignitary is robed in the splendour of scarlet broadcloth, a narrow piece about six feet long, with a central aperture for the neck, and with streamers dangling before and behind; he also wears some wonderful head-dress, the spoils of a white and black “tippet-monkey,” or the barred skin of a wild cat, crowning the head, bound round the throat, hanging over the shoulders, and capped with a tall cup-shaped bunch of owl’s feathers, or the gorgeous plumes of the crested crane. His insignia of office are the kipungo or fly-flapper, the tail of some beast which he affixes to his person as if it were a natural growth, the kome, or hooked iron spit, decorated with a central sausage of parti-coloured beads, and a variety of oily little gourds containing snuff, simples, and “medicine,” for the road, strapped round his waist. He leads the caravan, and the better to secure the obedience of his followers he has paid them in a sheep or a goat, the value of which he will recover by fees and superiority of rations--the head of every animal slaughtered in camp and the presents at the end of the journey are exclusively his. A man guilty of preceding the Kirangozi is liable to fine, and an arrow is extracted from his quiver to substantiate his identity at the end of the march. Pouring out of the kraal in a disorderly mob, the porters stack their goods at some tree distant but a few hundred yards, and allow the late, the lazy, and the invalids to join the main body. Generally at this conjuncture the huts are fired by neglect or mischievousness. The khambi, especially in winter, burns like tinder, and the next caravan will find a heap of hot ashes and a few charred sticks still standing. Yet by way of contrast the Pagazi will often take the trouble to denote by the usual signposts to those following them that water is at hand. Here and there a little facetiousness appears in these erections, a mouth is cut in the tree-trunk to admit a bit of wood, simulating a pipe, with other representations still more waggish.

After the preliminary halt, the caravan, forming into the order of march, winds, like a monstrous land-serpent, over hill, dale, and plain. The Kirangozi is followed by an Indian file, those nearest to him, the grandees of the gang, are heavily laden with ivories: when the weight of the tusk is inordinate, it is tied to a pole and is carried palanquin-fashion by two men. A large cowbell, whose music rarely ceases on the march, is attached to the point which is to the fore; to the bamboo behind is lashed the porter’s private baggage,--his earthen cooking-pot, his water-gourd, his sleeping-mat, and his other necessaries. The ivory-carriers are succeeded by the bearers of cloth and beads, each man, poising upon either shoulder, and sometimes raising upon the head for rest, packs that resemble huge bolsters, six feet long by two in diameter, cradled in sticks, which generally have a forked projection for facility of stacking and reshouldering the load. The sturdiest fellows are usually the lightest loaded: in Eastern Africa, as elsewhere, the weakest go to the wall. The maximum of burden may be two farasilah, or seventy pounds, avoirdupois. Behind the cloth bearers straggles a long line of porters and slaves, laden with the lighter stuff, rhinoceros-teeth, hides, salt-cones, tobacco, brass wire, iron hoes, boxes and bags, beds and tents, pots and water-gourds, mats and private stores. With the Pagazi, but in separate parties, march the armed slaves, who are never seen to quit their muskets, the women, and the little toddling children, who rarely fail to carry something, be it only of a pound weight, and the asses neatly laden with saddle-bags of giraffe or buffalo-hide. A “Mganga” almost universally accompanies the caravan, not disdaining to act as a common porter. The “parson” not only claims, in virtue of his sacred calling, the lightest load; he is also a stout, smooth, and sleek-headed man, because, as usual with his class, he eats much and he works little. The rear is brought up by the master or the masters of the caravan, who often remains far behind for the convenience of walking and to prevent desertion.

All the caravan is habited in its worst attire, the East African derides those who wear upon a journey the cloth which should be reserved for display at home. If rain fall they will doff the single goat-skin hung round their sooty limbs, and, folding it up, place it between the shoulder and the load. When grain is served out for some days’ march, each porter bears his posho or rations fastened like a large “bussel” to the small of his back. Upon this again, he sometimes binds, with its legs projecting outwards, the three-legged stool, which he deems necessary to preserve him from the danger of sitting upon the damp ground. As may be imagined, the barbarians have more ornament than dress. Some wear the ngala, a strip of zebra’s mane bound round the head with the bristly parti-coloured, hair standing out like a saint’s “gloria:” others prefer a long bit of stiffened ox-tail, rising like a unicorn’s horn, at least a foot above the forehead. Other ornaments are the skins of monkeys and ocelots, rouleaus and fillets of white, blue, or scarlet cloth, and huge bunches of ostrich, crane, and jay’s feathers, crowning the head like the tufts of certain fowls. Their arms are decorated with massive ivory bracelets, heavy bangles of brass or copper, and thin circlets of the same metal, beads in strings and bands, adorn their necks, and small iron bells, a “knobby” decoration, whose incessant tinkling harmonises, in African ears, with the regular chime-like “Ti-ti! Ti-ti! tang!” of the tusk-bells, and the loud broken “Wa-ta-ta!” of the horns, are strapped below the knee or round the ankle by the more aristocratic. All carry some weapon; the heaviest armed have a bow and a bark-quiver full of arrows, two or three long spears and assegais, a little battle-axe borne on the shoulder, and the sime or dudgeon.

The normal recreations of a march are, whistling, singing, shouting, hooting, horning, drumming, imitating the cries of birds and beasts, repeating words which are never used except on journeys--a “chough’s language, gabble enough and good enough”--and abundant squabbling; in fact perpetual noise which the ear however, soon learns to distinguish for the hubbub of a halt. The uproar redoubles near a village, where the flag is unfurled and where the line lags to display itself. All give vent to loud shouts, “Hopa! hopa!--go on! go on! Mgogolo!--a stoppage! Food! food! Don’t be tired! The kraal is here--home is near! Hasten, kirangozi--Oh! We see our mothers! We go to eat!” On the road it is considered prudent as well as pleasurable to be as loud as possible, in order to impress upon plunderers an exaggerated idea of the caravan’s strength; for equally good reasons silence is recommended in the kraal. When threatened with attack and no ready escape suggests itself, the porters ground their loads and prepare for action. It is only self-interest that makes them brave; I have seen a small cow, trotting up with tail erect, break a line of 150 men carrying goods not their own. If a hapless hare or antelope cross the path, every man casts his pack, brandishes his spear, and starts in pursuit; the animal never running straight is soon killed, and torn limb from limb, each negroid helluo devouring his morsel raw. Sometimes a sturdy fellow “renowns it” by carrying his huge burden round and round, like a horse being ringed, and starts off at full speed. When two bodies meet, that commanded by an Arab claims the road. If both are Wanyamwezi, violent quarrels ensue, but fatal weapons, which are too ready at hand, are turned to more harmless purposes, the bow and spear being used as whip and cudgel. These affrays are not rancorous till blood is shed. Few tribesmen are less friendly for so trifling an affair as a broken head; even a slight cut or a shallow stab is little thought of; but, if returned with interest, great loss of life may arise from the slenderest cause. When friendly caravans meet, the two Kirangozis sidle up with a stage pace, a stride, and a stand, and with sidelong looks prance till arrived within distance; then suddenly and simultaneously “ducking,” like boys “giving a back,” they come to logger-heads 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 faction, but it ends, if there be no bad blood, in shouts of laughter. The weaker body, however, must yield precedence and offer a small present as blackmail.

About 8 A.M., when the fiery sun has topped the trees and a pool of water, or a shady place appears, the planting of the red flag, the braying of a Barghumi, or koodoo’s horn, which, heard at a distance in the deep forests, has something of the charm which endears the “Cor de Chasse” to every woodman’s ear, and sometimes a musket-shot or two, announces a short halt. The porters stack their loads, and lie or loiter about for a few minutes, chatting, drinking, and smoking tobacco and bhang, with the usual whooping, screaming cough, and disputing eagerly about the resting-place for the day. On long marches we then take the opportunity of stopping to discuss the contents of two baskets which are carried by a slave under the eye of the Goanese.

If the stage be prolonged towards noon, the caravan lags, straggles, and suffers sorely. 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, and some tribulation is caused by the cry M’iba hapa!--thorns here! The Arabs and the Baloch must often halt to rest. The slaves ensconce themselves in snug places; the porters, propping their burdens against trees, curl up, dog-like, under the shade; some malinger; and this, the opportunity preferred for desertion, is an anxious hour to the proprietor; who, if he would do his work “deedily,” must be the last in the kraal. Still the men rarely break down. As in Indian marching, the African caravan prefers to end the day, rather than to begin it, with a difficulty--the ascent of a hill, or the fording of a stream. They prefer the strip of jungle at the further end of a district or a plantation, for safety as well as for the comfort of shade. They avoid the vicinity of rocks; and on desert plains they occupy some slightly rising ground, where the night-cold is less severe than in the lower levels.

At length an increased hubbub of voices, blended with bells, drums, fifes, and horns, and sometimes a few musket-shots, announce that the van is lodged, and the hubbub of the halt confirms the pleasing intelligence that the journey is shortened by a stage. Each selfish body then hurries forward to secure the best boothy in the kraal, or the most comfortable hut in the village, and quarrels seem serious. Again, however, the knife returns home guiltless of gore, and the spear is used only as an instrument for sound belabouring. The more energetic at once apply themselves to “making all snug” for the long hot afternoon and the nipping night; some hew down young trees, others collect heaps of leafy boughs; one acts architect, and many bring in huge loads of firewood. The East African is so much accustomed to house-life, that the bivouac in the open appears to him a hardship; he prefers even to cut out the interior of a bush and to squat in it, the portrait of a comfortable cynocephalus. We usually spread our donkey-saddles and carpets in some shade, awaiting the arrival of our tents, and its erection by the grumbling sons of Ramji; if we want a hut, we draw out the man in possession like a badger,--he will never have the decency to offer it. As a rule, the villagers are more willing to receive the upward-bound caravans, than those who, returning, carry wealth out of instead of into the country. Merchants, on account of their valuable outfits, affect, except in the safest localities, the khambi rather than the village; the latter, however, is not only healthier, despite its uncleanliness in miasmatic lands, but is also more comfortable, plenty and variety of provisions being more readily procured inside than outside. The Arab’s khaymah is a thin pole or ridge-tent of flimsy domestics, admitting sun and rain, and, like an Irish cabin, permitting at night the occupant to tell time by the stars; yet he prefers it, probably for dignity, to the boothy which, in this land of verdure and cool winds, is a far more comfortable lodging.

The Wamrima willingly admit strangers into their villages; the Wazaramo would do the same, but they are constantly at feud with the Wanyamwezi, who therefore care not to avail themselves of the dangerous hospitality. In K’hutu caravans seize by force the best lodgings. Throughout Eastern Usagara travellers pitch tents in the dear central spaces, surrounded by the round huts of the peasantry, under whose low and drooping eaves the pagazi find shelter. In the western regions, where the Tembe or square village prevails, kraals form the nighting-place. In Ugogo strangers rarely enter the hamlets, the hovels being foul, and the people dangerous. Throughout Eastern and Central Unyamwezi caravans defile into the villages without hesitation. Some parties take possession of the Iwanza or public-house; others build for themselves tabernacles of leafy boughs, which they are expected to clear away before departure, and the headman provides lodgings for the Mtongi. In Western Unyamwezi the doors are often closed against strangers, and in Eastern Uvinza the people will admit travellers to bivouac, but they will not vacate their huts. In Western Uvinza, a desert like Marenga and Mgunda Mk’hali, substantial khambi occur at short intervals. At Ujiji, the Sultan, after offering the preliminary magubiko or presents, provides his guests with lodgings, which, after a time sufficient for enabling them to build huts, they must vacate in favour of new comers. In the other Lake Regions the reception depends mainly upon the number of muskets in a caravan, and the character of the headman and his people.

The khambi or kraal everywhere varies in shape and material. In the eastern regions, where trees are scarce, wattle frames of rough sticks, compacted with bark-fibre, are disposed in a circle; the forked uprights, made higher behind and lower in front, to form a sloping roof, support horizontal or cross poles, which are overlaid with a rough thatch of grass or grain-cane. The central space upon which the boothies open is occupied by one or more huts for the chiefs of the party; and the outer circle is a loose fence of thorn branches, flimsy, yet impassable to breech-less legs, unshod feet, and thin loose body-garments. When a kraal must be built, rations are not served out till enclosures made round the camp secure the cattle; if the leader be dilatory, or unwilling to take strong measures, he may be a serious loser. The stationary kraals become offensive, if not burnt down after a few months. The Masika-kraal, as it is called, is that occupied only during the rainy monsoon, when water is everywhere found. The vicinity and the abundance of that necessary are the main considerations in selecting the situation of encampments. The bark-kraals commence in Uvinza, where trees abound, and extend to the Tanganyika Lake; some are substantial, as the temporary villages, and may be a quarter of a mile in circumference. The Lakist population carry with them, when travelling, Karagwah or stiff mats of reed and rush; these they spread over and fasten to a firmly-planted framework of flexible boughs, not unlike a bird’s nest inverted, or they build a cone of strong canes, in the shape of piled muskets, with the ends lashed together. It is curious to see the small compass in which the native African traveller can contract himself: two, and even three, will dispose their heads and part of their bodies--leaving their lower limbs to the mercy of the elements--under a matting little more than a yard square.

When lodgings in the kraal have been distributed, and the animals have been off-packed, and water has been brought from the pit or stream, all apply themselves to the pleasant toil of refection. Merrily then sounds the breathless chant of the woman pounding or rubbing down grain, the song of the cook, and the tinkle-tinkle of the slave’s pestle, as he bends over the iron mortar from which he stealthily abstracts the coffee. The fireplaces are three stones or clods, placed trivet-wise upon the ground, so that a draught may feed the flame, they are far superior to the holes and trenches of our camps and pic-nics. The tripod supports a small black earthen pot, round which the khambi or little knot of messmates perseveringly squat despite the stinging sun. At home where they eat their own provisions they content themselves with a slender meal of flour and water once a day. But like Spaniards, Arabs, and all abstemious races, they must “make up for lost time.” When provisions are supplied to them, they are cooking and consuming as long as the material remains; the pot is in perpetual requisition, now filled to be emptied, then refilled to be re-emptied. They will devour in three days the rations provided for eight, and then complain loudly that they are starved. To leave a favourable impression upon their brains, I had a measure nearly double that generally used, yet the perverse wretches pleading hunger, though they looked like aldermen by the side of the lean bony anatomies whom they met on the road, would desert whenever met by a caravan. After a time there will, doubtless, be a re-action; when their beards whiten they will indulge in the garrulity of age; they will recount to wondering youth the prodigality of the Muzungu, in filling them with grain, even during the longest marches, and they will compare his loads of cloth and beads with the half dozen “shaggy” cows and the worn-out hoes, the sole outfit for presents and provisions carried by caravans of “Young Africa.” If there be any delay in serving out provisions, loud cries of Posho! p’hamba!--rations! food!--resound through the camp; yet when fatigued, the porters will waste hours in apathetic idleness rather than walk a few hundred yards to buy grain. Between their dozen meals they puff clouds of pungent tobacco, cough and scream over their jungle-bhang, and chew ashes, quids, and pinches of red earth, probably the graves of white ants. If meat be served out to them, it is eaten as a relish; it never, however, interferes with the consumption of porridge. A sudden glut of food appears to have the effect of intoxicating them. The Arabs, however, avoiding steady rations, alternately gorge and starve their porters, knowing by experience that such extremes are ever most grateful to the barbarian stomach. The day must be spent in very idleness; a man will complain bitterly if told to bring up his pack for opening; and general discontent, with hints concerning desertion, will arise from the mortification of a muster. On such occasions he and his fellows will raise their voices,--when not half-choked by food--and declare that they will not be called about like servants, and crouch obstinately round the smoky fire, the pictures of unutterable disgust; and presently enjoy the sweet savour of stick-jaw dough and pearl-holcus like small shot, rat stews, and boiled weeds, which they devour till their “bulge” appears like the crop of a stuffed turkey. Sometimes when their improvidence has threatened them with a Banyan-day, they sit in a melancholy plight, spitefully smoking and wickedly eyeing our cooking-pots; on these occasions they have generally a goat or a bullock in store, and, if not, they finesse to obtain one of ours. I always avoid issuing an order to them direct, having been warned by experience that Kidogo or the Kirangozi is the proper channel; which sorely vexes Valentine and Seedy Bombay, whose sole enjoyment in life is command. I observed that when wanted for extra-work, to remove thorns or to dig for water, that the false alarm of Posho! (rations) summons them with a wonderful alacrity. Moreover, I remarked that when approaching their country and leaving ours--the coast--they became almost unmanageable and _vice versâ_ as conditions changed.

My companion and I pass our day as we best can, sometimes in a bower of leafy branches, often under a spreading tree, rarely in the flimsy tent. The usual occupations are the diary and the sketch-book, added to a little business. The cloth must be doled out, and the porters must be persuaded, when rested, to search the country for rations, otherwise--the morrow will be a blank. When a bullock is killed one of us must be present. The porters receive about a quarter of the meat, over which they sit wrangling and screaming like hyænas, till a fair division according to messes is arrived at. Then, unless watched, some strong and daring hand will suddenly break through the ring, snatch up half a dozen portions and disappear at a speed defying pursuit; others will follow his example, with the clatter and gesture of a troop of baboons, and the remainder will retire as might be expected, grumbling and discontented. Dinner at 4 P.M. breaks the neck of the day. Provisions of some kind are mostly procurable, our diet, however, varies from such common doings as the hard holcus-scone, the tasteless bean-broth and the leathery goat-steak, to fixings of delicate venison, fatted capon, and young guinea-fowl or partridge, with “bread sauce,” composed of bruised rice and milk. At first the Goanese declined to cook “pretty food,” as pasties and rissoles, on the plea that such things were impossible upon the march; they changed their minds when warned that persistence in such theory might lead to a ceremonious fustigation. Moreover, they used to serve us after their fashion, with a kind of “portion” on plates; the best part, of course, remained in the pots and digesters; these, therefore, were ordered to do duty as dishes. When tea or coffee is required in a drinkable state, we must superintend the process of preparing it, the notions of the Goanese upon such subjects being abominable to the civilised palate. When we have eaten our servants take their turn; they squat opposite each other over a private “cooking-pot” to which they have paid unremitting attention; they stretch forth their talons and eat till weary, not satiated, pecking, nodding, and cramming like two lank black pigeons. Being “Christians,” that is to say, Roman Catholics, they will not feed with the heathenry, moreover a sort of semi-European dignity forbids. Consequently Bombay messes with his “brother” Mabruki, and the other slaves eat by themselves.

When the wells ahead are dry the porters will scarcely march in the morning; their nervous impatience of thirst is such that they would exhaust all their gourds, if they expected a scarcity in front, and then they would suffer severely through the long hot day. They persist, moreover, upon eating before the march, under the false impression that it gives them strength and bottom. In fact, whenever difficulties as regards grain or drink suggest themselves, the African requires the direction of some head-piece made of better stuff than his own. The hardships of the tirikeza have already been described: they must be endured to be realised.

Night is ushered in by penning and pounding the cows, and by tethering the asses--these “careless Æthiopians” lose them every second day,--and by collecting and numbering the loads, a task of difficulty where every man shirks the least trouble. When there has been no tirikeza, when provisions have been plentiful, and when there is a bright moonshine, which seems to enliven these people like jackals, a furious drumming, a loud clapping of hands, and a general droning song, summon the lads and the lasses of the neighbouring villages to come out and dance and “make love.” The performance is laborious, but these Africans, like most men of little game, soon become too tired to work, but not too tired to play and amuse themselves. Their style of salutation is remarkable only for the excessive gravity which it induces; at no other time does the East African look so serious, so full of earnest purpose. Sometimes a single dancer, the village buffoon, foots a _pas seul_, featly, with head, arms, and legs, bearing strips of hair-garnished cow-skin, which are waved, jerked, and contorted, as if dislocation had occurred to his members. At other times, a line or a circle of boys and men is formed near the fire, and one standing in the centre, intones the song solo, the rest humming a chorus in an undertone. The dancers plumbing and tramping to the measure with alternate feet, simultaneously perform a treadmill exercise with a heavier stamp at the end of every period: they are such timists, that a hundred pair of heels sound like one. At first the bodies are slowly swayed from side to side, presently as excitement increases, the exercise waxes severe: they “cower down and lay out their buttocks,” to use pedantic Ascham’s words, “as though they would shoot at crows;” they bend and recover themselves, and they stoop and rise to the redoubled sound of the song and the heel-music, till the assembly, with arms waving like windmills, assumes the frantic semblance of a ring of Egyptian Darwayshes. The performance often closes with a grand promenade; all the dancers being jammed in a rushing mass, a _galop infernale_, with the features of satyrs, and gestures resembling aught but the human. When the fun threatens to become too fast and furious, the song dies, and the performers, with loud shouts of laughter, throw themselves on the ground, to recover strength and breath. The greybeards look on with admiration and sentiment, remembering the days when they were capable of similar feats. Instead of “bravo,” they ejaculate “Nice! nice! very nice!” and they wonder what makes the white men laugh. The ladies prefer to perform by themselves, and perhaps in the East, ours would do the same, if a literal translation of the remarks to which a ball always gives rise amongst Orientals, happened by misfortune to reach their refined ears.

When there is no dancing, and the porters can no longer eat, drink, and smoke, they sit by their fires, chatting, squabbling, talking and singing some such “pure nectar” as the following. The song was composed, I believe, in honour of me, and I frequently heard it when the singers knew that it was understood. The Cosmopolitan reader will not be startled by the epithet “Mbaya,” or wicked, therein applied to the Muzungu. A “good white man,” would indeed, in these lands, have been held an easy-going soul, a natural, an innocent, like the “buona famiglia,” of the Italian cook, who ever holds the highest quality of human nature to be a certain facility for being “plucked without ’plaining,” and being “flayed without flinching.” Moreover, despite my “wickedness,” they used invariably to come to me for justice and redress, especially when proximity to the coast encouraged the guide and guards to “bully” them.

“Muzungu mbaya” (the wicked white man) goes from the shore,
(_Chorus_) Puti! Puti! (I can only translate it by “grub! grub!”)
We will follow “Muzungu mbaya.”
Puti! Puti!
As long as he gives us good food!
Puti! Puti!
We will traverse the hill and the stream,
Puti! Puti!
With the caravan of this great mundewa (merchant).
Puti! Puti! &c., &c.