Chapter XII (4)

It now became apparent that the Masika or rains, which the Arabs, whose barbarous lunar year renders untrustworthy in measurements of time, had erroneously represented as synchronous with the wet monsoon of Zanzibar, was drawing to a close, and that the season for navigation was beginning.[3] After some preliminaries with Said bin Salim, Kannena, who had been preparing for a cruise northwards, was summoned before me. He agreed to convey me; but when I asked him the conditions on which he would show me the Mtoni, or river, he jumped up, discharged a volley of oaths, and sprang from the house like an enraged baboon. I was prepared for this difficulty, having had several warnings that the tribes on the northern shores of the Tanganyika allow no trade. But fears like Kannena’s may generally be bought over. I trusted, therefore, to Fate, and resolved that at all costs, even if reduced to actual want, we should visit this mysterious stream. At length the headman yielded every point. He received, it is true, an exorbitant sum. Arabs visiting Uvira, the “ultima thule” of lake navigation, pay one cloth to each of the crew; and the fare of a single passenger is a brace of coil-bracelets. For two canoes, the larger sixty feet by four, and the lesser about two-thirds that size, I paid thirty-three coil-bracelets, here equal to sixty dollars, twenty cloths, thirty-six khete of blue glass beads, and 770 ditto of white-porcelains and green-glass. I also promised to Kannena a rich reward if he acted up to his word; and as an earnest I threw over his shoulders a six-foot length of scarlet broadcloth, which caused his lips to tremble with joy, despite his struggles to conceal it. The Nakhoda (captain) and the crew in turn received, besides rations, eighty cloths, 170 khete of blue glass-beads, and forty of coral-porcelains, locally three times more valuable than whites or greens. Sayfu, the interpreter, was as extravagantly paid in eight cloths and twenty-seven pounds of white and blue-porcelains. After abundance of dispute it was settled that the crews should consist of fifty-five men, thirty-three to the larger and twenty-two to the smaller canoe. It was an excess of at least one-half, who went for their own profit, not for our pleasure. When this point was conceded, we were kindly permitted to take with us the two Goanese, the two black gun-carriers, and three Baloch as an escort. The latter were the valiant Khudabakhsh, whom I feared to leave behind; Jelai, the mestiço-Mekrani; and, thirdly, Riza, the least mutinous and uncivil of the party.

[3] Not unmindful of the instructions of the Bombay Geographical
Society, which called especial attention to the amount of rain-fall
and evaporation in a region, which abounding in lakes and rivers yet
sends no supplies to the sea, I had prepared, at Zanzibar, a dish and
a gauge for the purpose of comparing the hygrometry of the African
with that of the Indian rainy monsoon. The instruments, however, were
fated to do no work. The first portion of the Masika was spent in a
journey; ensued severe sickness, and the end of the rains happened
during a voyage to the north of the Tanganyika. A few scattered
observations might have been registered, but it was judged better to
bring home no results, rather than imperfections which could only
mislead the meteorologist.

Before departure it will be necessary to lay before the reader a sketch of our conveyance. The first aspect of these canoes made me lament the loss of Mr. Francis’ iron boat: regrets, however, were of no avail. _Quocumque modo--rem!_ was the word.

The Baumrinden are unknown upon the Tanganyika Lake, where the smaller craft are monoxyles, generally damaged in the bow by the fishermen’s fire. The larger are long, narrow “matumbi,” or canoes, rudely hollowed with the axe--the application of fire being still to be invented,--in fact, a mere log of mvule, or some other large tree which abound in the land of the Wagoma, opposite Ujiji. The trunks are felled, scooped out in loco, dragged and pushed by man-power down the slopes, and finally launched and paddled over to their destination. The most considerable are composed of three parts--clumsy, misshapen planks, forming, when placed side by side, a keel and two gunwales, the latter fastened to the centre-piece by cords of palm-fibre passing through lines of holes. The want of caulking causes excessive leakage: the crew take duty as balesmen in turns. The cry Senga!--bale out!--rarely ceases, and the irregular hollowing of the tree-trunks makes them lie lopsided in the water. These vessels have neither masts nor sails; artifices which now do not extend to this part of the African world. An iron ring, fixed in the stern, is intended for a rudder, which, however, seldom appears except in the canoes of the Arabs, steering is managed by the paddle, and a flag-staff or a fishing-rod projects jib-like from the bow. Layers of palm-ribs, which serve for fuel, are strewed over the interior to raise the damageable cargo--it is often of salt--above the bilge-water. The crew sit upon narrow benches, extending across the canoe and fastened with cords to holes in the two side-pieces; upon each bench, despite the narrowness of the craft, two men place themselves side by side. The “Karagwah,” stout stiff mats used for hutting and bedding, are spread for comfort upon the seats; and for convenience of paddling, the sailors, when at work, incline their bodies over the sides. The space under the seats is used for stowage. In the centre there is a square place, about six feet long, left clear of benches; here also cargo is stored, passengers, cattle, and slaves litter down, the paddles, gourds, and other furniture of the crew are thrown, and the baling is carried on by means of an old gourd. The hold is often ankle-deep in water, and affords no convenience for leaning or lying down; the most comfortable place, therefore, is near the stern or the bow of the boat. The spears are planted upright amidships, at one or two corners of the central space so as to be ready at a moment’s notice; each man usually has his dagger stuck in his belt, and on long trips all are provided with bows and arrows. These Africans cannot row; indeed they will not use oars. The paddle on the Tanganyika is a stout staff, about six feet long, and cut out at the top to admit a trefoil-shaped block the size of a man’s hand:--it was described in South Africa by Captain Owen. The block, adorned with black paint in triangular patches, is lashed to the staff by a bit of whipcord, and it seldom lasts through the day without breaking away from its frail tackling. The paddler, placing one hand on the top and the other about the middle of the staff, scoops up as it were, the water in front of him, steadying his paddle by drawing it along the side of the canoe. The eternal splashing keeps the boat wet. It is a laborious occupation, and an excessive waste of power.

The Lake People derive their modern practice of navigation, doubtless, from days of old; the earliest accounts of the Portuguese mention the traffic of this inland sea. They have three principal beats from Ujiji: the northern abuts at the ivory and slave marts of Uvira; the western conducts to the opposite shores of the Lake and the island depôts on the south-west; and the southern leads to the land of Marunga. Their canoes creep along the shores like the hollowed elders of thirty bygone centuries, and, waiting till the weather augurs fairly, they make a desperate push for the other side. Nothing but their extreme timidity, except when emboldened by the prospect of a speedy return home, preserves their cranky craft from constant accidents. The Arabs, warned by the past, rarely trust themselves to this Lake of Storms, preferring the certain peculation incurred by deputing for trading purposes agents and slaves to personal risk. Those who must voyage on the lake build, by means of their menials and artisans, dows, or sailing-vessels, and teach their newly-bought gangs to use oars instead of paddles. This is rather an economy of money than of time: they expend six months upon making the dow, whereas they can buy the largest canoe for a few farasilah of ivory.

As my outfit was already running low, I persuaded, before departure, two of the Baloch to return with a down-caravan westwards, and arrived at Unyanyembe, to communicate personally with my agent, Snay bin Amir. They agreed so to do, but the Mtongi, or head of the African kafilah, with true African futility, promised to take them on the next day, and set out that night on his journey. As Said bin Majid was about despatching a large armed party to the north of the Lake, I then hurried on my preparations for the voyage. Provisions and tobacco were laid in, the tent was repaired, and our outfit, four half loads of salt--of these two were melted in the canoe, six Gorah,--or one load of domestics, nine coil-bracelets, the remainder of our store, one load of blue porcelain beads, and a small bag of the valuable red coral intended for private expenses, and “El Akibah” (the reserve), was properly packed for concealment. Meanwhile some trifling disputes occurred with Kannena, who was in the habit of coming to our Tembe, drunk and surly, with eyes like two gouts of blood, knitted front, and lips viciously shot out: when contradicted or opposed, he screamed and gesticulated as if haunted by his P’hepo,--his fiend;--and when very evilly disposed, he would proceed to the extreme measure of cutting down a tent. This slave-sultan was a “son of noise:” he affected _brusquerie_ of manner and violence of demeanour the better to impressionise his unruly subjects; and he frightened the timid souls around us, till at last the Jemadar’s phrase was, “strength is useless here.” Had I led, however, three hundred instead of thirty matchlocks, he would have crouched and cowered like a whipped cur.

At 4 P.M., on the 9th April, appeared before the Kannena in a tattered red turban donned for the occasion. He was accompanied by his ward, who was to perform the voyage as a training to act sultan, and he was followed by his sailors bearing salt, in company with their loud-voiced wives and daughters performing upon the wildest musical instruments. Of these the most noisy was a kind of shaum, a straight, long and narrow tube of wood, bound with palm-fibre and provided with an opening mouth like a clarionet; a distressing bray is kept up by blowing through a hole pierced in the side. The most monotonous was a pair of foolscap-shaped plates of thin iron, joined at the apices and connected at the bases by a solid cross-bar of the same metal; this rude tomtom is performed upon by a muffled stick with painful perseverance; the sound--how harshly it intruded upon the stilly beauty of the scenes around!--still lingers and long shall linger in my tympanum. The canoe had been moved from its usual position opposite our Tembe, to a place of known departure--otherwise not a soul could have been persuaded to embark--and ignoring the distance, I condemned myself to a hobble of three miles over rough and wet ground. The night was comfortless; the crew, who were all “half-seas over,” made the noise of bedlamites; and two heavy falls of rain drenching the flimsy tent, at once spoiled the tobacco and flour, the grain and the vegetables prepared for the voyage.

Early on the next morning we embarked on board the canoes: the crews had been collected, paid, and rationed, but as long as they were near home it was impossible to keep them together. Each man thinking solely of his own affairs, and disdaining the slightest regard for the wishes, the comfort, or the advantage of his employers, they objected systematically to every article which I had embarked. Kannena had filled the canoes with his and his people’s salt, consequently he would not carry even a cartel. Various points settled we hove anchor or rather hauled up the block of granite doing anchoral duty, and with the usual hubbub and strife, the orders which every man gives and the advice which no man takes, we paddled in half an hour to a shingly and grassy creek, defended by a sandpit and backed by a few tall massive trees. Opposite and but a few yards distant, rose the desert islet of Bangwe, a quoin-shaped mass of sandstone and red earth, bluff to the north and gradually shelving towards the water at the other extremity: the prolific moisture above and around had covered its upper ledge with a coat of rich thick vegetation. Landward the country rises above the creek, and upon its earth-waves, which cultivation shares with wild growth, appear a few scattered hamlets.

Boats generally waste some days at Bangwe Bay, the stage being short enough for the usual scene being encored. They load and reload, trim cargo, complete rations, collect crews, and take leave of friends and relatives, women, and palm-wine. We pitched a tent and halted in a tornado of wind and rain. Kannena would not move without the present of one of our three goats. At 4 P.M., on the 11th April, the canoes were laden and paddled out to and back from Bangwe islet, when those knowing in such matters pronounced them so heavily weighted as to be unsafe: whereupon, the youth Riza, sorely against my will, was sent back to the Kawele. On that night a furious gale carried away my tent, whilst the Goanese were, or pretended to be, out of hearing. I slept, however, comfortably enough upon the crest of a sand-wave higher than the puddles around it, and--blessings on the name of Mackintosh!--escaped the pitiless pelting of the rain.

The next morning showed a calm sea, levelled by the showers, and no pretext or desire for longer detention lingered in the hearts of the crew. At 7·20 A.M., on the 12th April, 1858, my canoe--bearing for the first time on those dark waters--

“The flag that braved a thousand years
The battle and the breeze,”

stood out of Bangwe Bay, and followed by my companion’s turned the landspit separating the bight from the main, and made directly for the cloudy and storm-vexed north. The eastern shore of the lake, along which we coasted, was a bluff of red earth pudding’d with separate blocks of sandstone. Beyond this headland the coast dips, showing lines of shingle or golden-coloured quartzose sand, and on the shelving plain appear the little fishing-villages. They are usually built at the mouths of the gaps, combes, and gullies, whose deep gorges winding through the background of hill-curtain, become, after rains, the beds of mountain-torrents. The wretched settlements are placed between the tree clad declivities and the shore on which the waves break. The sites are far from comfortable: the ground is here veiled with thick and fetid grass; there it is a puddle of black mud, and there a rivulet trickles through the villages. The hamlet consists of half a dozen beehive-huts, foul, flimsy, and leaky; their only furniture is a hearth of three clods or stones, with a few mats and fishing implements. The settlements are distinguished from a distance by their plantations of palm and plantain, and by large spreading trees, from whose branches are suspended the hoops and the drag-nets not in actual use, and under whose shade the people sit propped against their monoxyles, which are drawn high up out of danger of the surf. There was no trade, and few provisions were procurable at Kigari. We halted there to rest, and pitching a tent in the thick grass we spent a night loud with wind and rain.

Rising at black dawn on the 13th April, the crews rowed hard for six hours between Kigari and another dirty little fishing-village called Nyasanga. The settlement supplied fish-fry, but neither grain nor vegetables were offered for sale. At this place, the frontier district between Ujiji and Urundi, our Wajiji took leave of their fellow-clansmen and prepared with serious countenances for all the perils of expatriation.

This is the place for a few words concerning boating and voyaging upon the Tanganyika Lakes. The Wajiji, and indeed all these races, never work silently or regularly. The paddling is accompanied by a long monotonous melancholy howl, answered by the yells and shouts of the chorus, and broken occasionally by a shrill scream of delight from the boys which seems violently to excite the adults. The bray and clang of the horns, shaums, and tomtoms, blown and banged incessantly by one or more men in the bow of each canoe, made worse by brazen-lunged imitations of these instruments in the squeaking trebles of the younger paddlers, lasts throughout the livelong day, except when terror induces a general silence. These “Wáná Máji”--sons of water--work in “spirts,” applying lustily to the task till the perspiration pours down their sooty persons. Despite my remonstrances, they insisted upon splashing the water in shovelsful over the canoe. They make terribly long faces, however, they tremble like dogs in a storm of sleet, and they are ready to whimper when compelled by sickness or accident to sit with me under the endless cold wave-bath in the hold. After a few minutes of exertion, fatigued and worn, they stop to quarrel, or they progress languidly till recruited for another effort. When two boats are together they race continually till a bump--the signal for a general grin--and the difficulty of using the entangled paddles afford an excuse for a little loitering, and for the loud chatter, and violent abuse, without which apparently this people cannot hold converse. At times they halt to eat, drink, and smoke: the bhang-pipe is produced after every hour, and the paddles are taken in whilst they indulge in the usual screaming convulsive whooping-cough. They halt for their own purposes but not for ours; all powers of persuasion fail when they are requested to put into a likely place for collecting shells or stones.[4] For some superstitious reason they allow no questions to be asked, they will not dip a pot for water into the lake, fearing to be followed and perhaps boarded by crocodiles, which are hated and dreaded by these black navigators, much as is the shark by our seamen, and for the same cause not a scrap of food must be thrown overboard--even the offal must be cast into the hold. “Whittling” is here a mortal sin: to chip or break off the smallest bit of even a condemned old tub drawn up on the beach causes a serious disturbance. By the advice of a kind and amiable friend[5], I had supplied myself with the desiderata for sounding and ascertaining the bottom of the Lake: the crew would have seen me under water rather than halt for a moment when it did not suit their purpose. The wild men lose half an hour, when time is most precious, to secure a dead fish as it floats past the canoe entangled in its net. They never pass a village without a dispute; some wishing to land, others objecting because some wish it. The captain, who occupies some comfortable place in the bow, stern, or waist, has little authority; and if the canoe be allowed to touch the shore, its men will spring out without an idea of consulting aught beyond their own inclinations. Arrived at the halting-place they pour on shore; some proceed to gather firewood, others go in search of rations, and others raise the boothies. A dozen barked sticks of various lengths are planted firmly in the ground; the ends are bent and lashed together in the shape of half an orange, by strips of tree-fibre; they are then covered with the karagwah--the stiff-reed mats used as cushions when paddling--these are tightly bound on, and thus a hut is made capable of defending from rain the bodies of four or five men whose legs which project beyond the shelter are apparently not supposed to require covering. Obeying only impulse, and wholly deficient in order and purpose, they make the voyage as uncomfortable as possible; they have no regular stages and no fixed halting-places; they waste a fine cool morning, and pull through the heat of the day, or after dozing throughout the evening, at the loud cry of “Pakírá Bábá!”--pack up, hearties!--they scramble into their canoes about midnight. Outward-bound they seek opportunities for delay; when it is once “up anchor for home,” they hurry with dangerous haste.

[4] THE FOLLOWING PAPER BY S. P. WOODWARD, F.G.S., COMMUNICATED BY
PROF. OWEN, APPEARED IN THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF
LONDON, JUNE 28, 1859.

The four shells which form the subject of the present note were
collected by Captain Speke in the great freshwater lake Tanganyika in
Central Africa.

The large bivalve belongs to the genus _Iridina_, Lamarck,--a group of
river mussels, of which there are nine reputed species, all belonging
to the African continent. This little group has been divided into
several sub-genera. That to which the new shell belongs is
distinguished by its broad and deeply-wrinkled hinge-line, and is
called _Pleiodon_ by Conrad. The posterior slope of this shell is
encrusted with tufa, as if there were limestone rocks in the vicinity
of its habitat.

The small bivalve is a normal _Unio_, with finely sculptured valves.

The smaller univalve is concave beneath, and so much resembles a
_Nerita_ or _Calyptræa_ that it would be taken for a sea-shell if its
history were not well authenticated. It agrees essentially with
_Lithoglyphus_,--a genus peculiar to the Danube; for the American
shells referred to it are probably, or, I may say, certainly distinct.
It agrees with the Danubian shells in the extreme obliquity of the
aperture, and differs in the width of the umbilicus, which in the
European species is nearly concealed by the callous columellar lip.

In the Upper Eocene Tertiaries of the Isle of Wight there are several
estuary shells, forming the genus _Globulus_, Sow., whose affinities
are uncertain, but which resemble _Lithoglyphus_.

The lake Tanganyika (situated in lat. 3° to 8° S. and long. 30° E.),
which is several hundred miles in length and 30 to 40 in breadth,
seems entirely disconnected with the region of the Danube: but the
separation may not always have been so complete, for there is another
great lake, Nyanza, to the northward of Tanganyika, which is believed
by Speke to be the principal source of the Nile.

The other univalve is a _Melania_, of the sub-genus _Melanella_
(Swainson), similar in shape to _M. hollandi_ of S. Europe, and
similar to several Eocene species of the Isle of Wight. Its colour,
solidity, and tuberculated ribs give it much the appearance of a small
marine whelk (_Nassa_); and it is found in more boisterous waters, on
the shores of this great inland sea, than most of its congeners
inhabit.

1. IRIDINA (PLEIODON) SPEKII, n. sp. (Pl. XLVII. fig. 2.)

Shell oblong, ventricose, somewhat attenuated at each end: base
slightly concave; epidermis chestnut brown, deepening to black at the
margin; anterior slope obscurely radiated; hinge-line compressed in
front and tuberculated, wider behind and deeply wrinkled.

Length 4¾, breadth 2, thickness 1¾ inches.

_Testa oblonga, tumida, extremitatibus fere attenuata, basi
subarcuata; epidermide castaneo-fusca, marginem versus nigricante;
linea cardinali antice compressa tuberculata, postice latiore, paucis
rugis arata._

2. UNIO BURTONI, n. sp. (Pl. XLVII. fig. 1.)

Shell small, oval, rather thin, somewhat pointed behind; umbones
small, not eroded; pale olive, concentrically furrowed, and sculptured
more or less with fine divaricating lines; anterior teeth narrow, not
prominent; posterior teeth laminar; pedal scar confluent with anterior
adductor.

Length 12, breadth 8½, thickness 5½ lines.

_Testa parva, ovalis, tenuiuscula, postice subattenuata; umbonibus
parvis, acuminatis; epidermide pallide olivacea; valvis lineolis
divaricatis, decussatum exaratis; dentibus cardinalibus angustis, haud
prominentibus._

3. LITHOGLYPHUS ZONATUS, n. sp. (Pl. XLVII. fig. 3.)

Shell orbicular, hemispherical; spire very small; aperture large, very
oblique; umbilicus wide and shallow, with an open fissure in the young
shell; lip continuous in front with the umbilical ridge; columella
callous, ultimately covering the fissure; body-whirl flattened, pale
olivaceous, with two brown bands, darker at the apex; lines of growth
crossed by numerous oblique, interrupted striæ.

Diameter 5-6, height 3 lines.

_Testa orbicularis, hemisphærica, late umbilicata (apud juniores
rimata), spira minuta; apertura magna, valde obliqua; labio calloso
(in testa adulta rimam tegente); pallide olivacea, fasciis duabus
fuscis zonata; lineis incrementi striolis interruptis oblique
decussatis._

4. MELANIA (MELANELLA) NASSA, n. sp. (Pl. XLVII. fig. 4.)

Shell ovate, strong, pale brown, with (sometimes) two dark bands;
spire shorter than the aperture; whirls flattened, ornamented with six
brown spiral ridges crossed with a variable number of white,
tuberculated, transverse ribs; base of body-whirl eight with
tuberculated spiral ridges variegated with white and brown; aperture
sinuated in front; outer lip simple; inner lip callous.

Length 8½, breadth 5½ lines.

_Testa ovata, solida, pallide fusca, zonis 2 nigricantibus aliquando
notata; spira apertura breviore; anfractibus planulatis, lineis 6
fuscis spiralibus et costis tuberculatis ornatis; apertura antice
sinuata; labro simplici; labio calloso._

P.S. July 27th.--In addition to the foregoing shells, several others
were collected by Capt. Speke, when employed, under the command of
Capt. Burton, in exploring Central Africa in the years 1856-9; these
were deposited in the first instance with the Geographical Society,
and are now transferred to the British Museum.

A specimen of _Ampullaria (Lanistes) sinistrorsa_, Lea, and odd valves
of two species of _Unio_, both smooth and olive-coloured, were picked
up in the Ugogo district, an elevated plateau in lat. 6° to 7° S.,
long. 34° to 35° E.

A large _Achatina_, most nearly related to _A. glutinosa_, Pfr., is
the “common snail” of the region between lake Tanganyika and the east
coast. Fossil specimens were obtained in the Usagara district, at a
place called Marora, 3000 feet above the sea, overlooking the Lufiji
River, where it intersects the coast range (lat. 7° to 8° S., long.
36° to 36° E.).

Another common land snail of the same district is the well known
“_Bulimus caillaudi_, Pfr.,” a shell more nearly related to _Achatina_
than _Bulimus_.

Captain Speke also found a solitary example of _Bulimus ovoideus_,
Brug., in a musjid on the island of Kiloa (lat. 9° S., long. 39° to
40° E.). This species is identical with _B. grandis_, Desh., from the
island of Nosse Bé, Madagascar, and very closely allied to _B.
liberianus_, Lea, from Guinea.

[5] Captain Balfour, H.M.I.N., who kindly supplied me with a list of
necessaries for sail-making and other such operations on the Lake. I
had indented upon the Engineers’ Stores, Bombay, for a Massey’s patent
or self-registering log, which would have been most useful had the
people allowed it to be used. Prevented by stress of business from
testing it in India, I found it at sea so thoroughly defective, that
it was returned from whence it came by the good aid of Captain
Frushard, then commanding the H.E.I.C.’s sloop of war _Elphinstone_. I
then prepared at Zanzibar, a line and a lead, properly hollowed to
admit of its being armed, and this safely reached the Tanganyika Lake.
It was not useless but unused: the crew objected to its being hove,
and moreover--lead and metal are never safe in Central Africa--the
line, which was originally short, was curtailed of one half during the
first night after our departure from Kawele. It is by no means easy to
estimate the rate of progress in these barbarous canoes barbarously
worked. During the “spirts” when the paddler bends his back manfully
to his task, a fully-manned craft may attain a maximum of 7 to 8 miles
per hour: this exertion, however, rarely exceeds a quarter of an hour,
and is always followed by delay. The usual pace, when all are fresh
and cool, is about 4 to 5 miles, which declines through 4 and 3 to 2½,
when the men are fatigued, or when the sun is high. The medium,
therefore, may be assumed at 4 miles for short, and a little more than
2 miles an hour for long trips, halts deducted.

On the 14th April, a cruise of four hours conducted us to Wafanya, a settlement of Wajiji mixed with Warundi. Leaving this wretched mass of hovels on the next day, which began with a solemn warning from Sayfu--a man of melancholic temperament--we made in four hours Wafanya, the southern limit of Urundi, and the only port in that inhospitable land still open to travellers. Drawing up our canoes upon a clear narrow sandstrip beyond the reach of the surf, we ascended a dwarf earth-cliff, and pitching our tents under a spreading tree upon the summit, we made ourselves as comfortable as the noisy, intrusive, and insolent crowd, assembled to stare and to laugh at the strangers, would permit. The crew raised their boothies within a stone-throw of the water, flight being here the thought ever uppermost in their minds.

The people of this country are a noisy insolent race, addicted, like all their Lakist brethren, to drunkenness, and, when drunk, quarrelsome and violent. At Wafanya, however, they are kept in order by Kanoni, their mutware or minor chief, subject to “Mwezi,” the mwami or sultan of Urundi. The old man appeared, when we reached his settlement, in some state, preceded by an ancient carrying his standard, a long wisp of white fibre attached to a spear, like the Turkish “horse-tail,” and followed by a guard of forty or fifty stalwart young warriors armed with stout lance-like spears for stabbing and throwing, straight double-edged daggers, stiff bows, and heavy, grinded arrows. Kanoni began by receiving his black-mail--four cloths, two coil-bracelets, and three fundo of coral beads: the return was the inevitable goat. The climate of Wafanya is alternately a damp-cold and a “muggy” heat; the crews, however, if numerous and well armed, will delay here to feed when northward bound, and to lay in provisions when returning to their homes. Sheep and fine fat goats vary in value from one to two cloths; a fowl, or five to six eggs, costs a khete of beads; sweet potatoes are somewhat dearer than at Ujiji; there is no rice, but holcus and manioc are cheap and abundant, about 5 lbs. of the latter being sold for a single khete. Even milk is at times procurable. A sharp business is carried on in chikichi or palm-oil, of which a large earthen pot is bought for a cloth; the best paddles used by the crews are made at Wafanya; and the mbugu, or bark-cloth, is bought for four to ten khete, about one third of the market-price at Ujiji. Salt, being imported from Uvinza, is dear and scarce: it forms the first demand for barter, and beads the second. Large fish is offered for sale, but the small fry is the only article of the kind which is to be purchased fresh. The country owes its plenty, according to the guides, to almost perennial showers.

The inhospitality of the Warundi and their northern neighbours, who would plunder a canoe or insist upon a black-mail equivalent to plunder, allows neither traffic nor transit to the north of Wafanya. Here, therefore, the crews prepare to cross the Tanganyika, which is divided into two stages by the island of Ubwari.

In Ubwari I had indeed discovered “an island far away.” It is probably the place alluded to by the Portuguese historian, De Barros, in this important passage concerning the great lake in the centre of Africa: “It is a sea of such magnitude as to be capable of being navigated by many sail; and among the islands in it there is one capable of sending forth an army of 30,000 men.” Ubwari appears from a distance of two days bearing north-west; it is then somewhat hazy, owing to the extreme humidity of the atmosphere. From Wafanya it shows a clear profile about eighteen to twenty miles westward, and the breadth of the western channel between it and the mainland averages from six to seven miles. Its north point lies in south lat. 4° 7′, and the lay is N. 17° E. (corrected). From the northern point of Ubwari the eastern prolongation of the lake bears N. 3° W. and the western N. 10° W. It is the only island near the centre of the Tanganyika--a long, narrow lump of rock, twenty to twenty-five geographical miles long, by four or five of extreme breadth, with a high longitudinal spine, like a hog’s back, falling towards the water--here shelving, there steep, on the sea-side--where it ends in abrupt cliffs, here and there broken by broad or narrow gorges. Green from head to foot, in richness and profuseness of vegetation it equals, and perhaps excels, the shores of the Tanganyika, and in parts it appears carefully cultivated. Mariners dare not disembark on Ubwari, except at the principal places; and upon the wooded hill-sides wild men are, or are supposed to be, ever lurking in wait for human prey.

We halted two miserable days at Wafanya. The country is peculiarly rich, dotted with numerous hamlets, which supply provisions, and even milk, and divided into dense thickets, palm-groves, and large clearings of manioc, holcus, and sweet potatoes, which mantle like a garment the earth’s brown body. Here we found Kannena snugly ensconced in our sepoy’s pal, or ridge-tent. He had privily obtained it from Said bin Salim, with a view to add to his and his ward’s comfort and dignity. When asked to give it up--we were lodging, I under a lug-sail, brought from the coast and converted into an awning, and my companion in the wretched flimsy article purchased from the Fundi--he naively refused. Presently having seen a fat sheep, he came to me declaring that it was his perquisite: moreover, he insisted upon receiving the goat offered to us by the Sultan Kanoni. I at first demurred. His satisfactory rejoinder was: “Ngema, ndugu yango!--Well, my brother,--here we remain!” I consulted Bombay about the necessity of humouring him in every whim. “What these jungle-niggers want,” quoth my counsel, “that they will have, or they will see the next month’s new moon!”

The morning of the 18th April was dark and menacing. Huge purpling clouds deformed the face of the northern sky. Having loaded the canoes, however, we embarked to cross the channel which separated us from the Ubwari island. As the paddles were in hand, the crew, starting up from their benches, landed to bring on board some forgotten manioc. My companion remained in his boat, I in mine. Presently, hearing an unusual uproar, I turned round and saw the sailors arming themselves, whilst the “curtain-lion,” Khudabakhsh, was being hustled with blows, and pushed up the little cliff by a host of black spearmen; a naked savage the while capering about, waving the Baloch’s bare blade in one hand and its scabbard in the other. Kannena joined majestically in the “row,” but the peals of laughter from the mob showed no signs of anger. A Mjiji slave, belonging to Khudabakhsh had, it appears, taken flight, after landing unobserved with the crowd. The brave had redemanded him of Kannena, whom he charged, moreover, with aiding and abetting the desertion. The slave Sultan offered to refer the point to me, but the valiant man, losing patience, out with his sword, and was instantly disarmed, assaulted, and battered, as above described, by forty or fifty sailors. When quiet was restored, I called to him from the boat. He replied by refusing to “budge an inch,” and by summoning his “brother” Jelai to join him with bag and baggage. Kannena also used soft words, till at last, weary of waiting, he gave orders to put off, throwing two cloths to Khudabakhsh, that the fellow might not return home hungry. I admired his generosity till compelled to pay for it.

The two Baloch were like mules; they disliked the voyage, and as it was the Ramazan, they added to their discomforts by pretending to fast. Their desertion was inexcusable; they left us wholly in the power of the Wajiji, to dangers and difficulties which they themselves could not endure. Prudent Orientals, I may again observe, never commit themselves to the sole custody of Africans, even of the “Muwallid,” namely those born and bred in their houses. In Persia the traveller is careful to mix the black blood with that of the higher race; formerly, whenever the member of a family was found murdered, the serviles were all tortured as a preliminary to investigation, and many stories, like the following, are recounted. The slaves had left their master in complete security, and were sitting, in early night, merrily chatting round the camp fire. Presently one began to relate the list of their grievances; another proposed to end them by desertion; and a third seconded the motion, opining, however, that they might as well begin by murdering the patroon. No sooner said than done. These children of passion and instinct, in the shortest interim, act out the “dreadful thing,” and as readily repent when reflection returns. The Arab, therefore, in African lands, seldom travels with Africans only; he prefers collecting as many companions, and bringing as many hangers on as he can afford. The best escort to a European capable of communicating with and commanding them, would be a small party of Arabs fresh from Hazramaut and untaught in the ways and tongues of Africa. They would by forming a kind of balance of power, prevent that daring pilfering for which slaves are infamous; in the long run they would save money to the explorer, and perhaps save his life.

Khudabakhsh and his comrade-deserter returned safely by land to Kawele; and when derided by the other men, he repeated, as might be expected, notable griefs. Both had performed prodigies of valour; they had however been mastered by millions. Then they had called upon “Haji Abdullah” for assistance, to which he had replied “My power does not extend here!” Thus heartlessly refused aid by the only person who could and should have afforded it, they were reduced, sorely against their will, to take leave of him. Their tale was of course believed by their comrades, till the crews brought back the other version of the affair, the “camel-hearts” then once more became the laugh and jibe of man and woman.

After a short consultation amongst the men concerning the threatening aspect of the heavens, it was agreed by them to defer crossing the Lake till the next day. We therefore passed on to the northern side of the point which limits the bay of Wafanya, and anchoring the craft in a rushy bayou, we pitched tents in time to protect us against a violent thunderstorm with its wind and rain.

On the 19th April we stretched westward, towards Ubwari, which appeared a long strip of green directly opposite Urundi, and distant from eighteen to twenty miles. A little wind caused a heavy chopping swell; we were wet to the skin, and as noon drew nigh, the sun shone stingingly, reflected by a mirrory sea. At 10 A.M. the party drew in their paddles and halted to eat and smoke. About 2 P.M. the wind and waves again arose,--once more we were drenched, and the frail craft was constantly baled out to prevent water-logging. A long row of nine hours placed the canoes at a roadstead, with the usual narrow line of yellow sand, on the western coast of Ubwari Island. The men landed to dry themselves, and to cook some putrid fish which they had caught as it floated past the canoe, with the reed triangle that buoyed up the net. It was “strong meat” to us, but to them its staleness was as the “taste in his butter,” to the Londoner, the pleasing toughness of the old cock to the Arab, and the savoury “fumet” of the aged he-goat to the Baloch. After a short halt, we moved a little northwards to Mzimu, a strip of low land dividing the waters from their background of grassy rise, through which a swampy line winds from the hills above. Here we found canoes drawn up, and the islanders flocked from their hamlets to change their ivory and slaves, goats and provisions, for salt and beads, wire and cloth. The Wabwari are a peculiar, and by no means a comely race. The men are habited in the usual mbugu, tigered with black stripes, and tailed like leopard-skins: a wisp of fine grass acts as fillet, and their waists, wrists, and ankles, their knob-sticks, spears, and daggers, are bound with rattan-bark, instead of the usual wire. The women train their frizzly locks into two side-bits resembling bear’s ears; they tie down the bosom with a cord, apparently for the purpose of distorting nature in a way that is most repulsive to European eyes; and they clothe themselves with the barbarous goat-skin, or the scantiest kilts of bark-cloth. The wives of the chiefs wear a load of brass and bead ornaments; and, like the ladies of Wafanya, they walk about with patriarchal staves five feet long, and knobbed at the top.

We halted for a day at Mzimu in Ubwari, where Kannena demanded seventy khete of blue-porcelain beads as his fee for safe conduct to the island. Suddenly, at 6 P.M., he informed me that he must move to other quarters. We tumbled into the boats, and after enjoying two hours of pleasant progress with a northerly current, and a splendid moonshine, which set off a scene at once wild and soft as any

“That savage Rosa dashed, or learned Poussin drew,”

we rounded the bluff northern point of the island, put into “Mtuwwa,” a little bay on its western shore, pitched the tent, and slept at ease.

Another halt was required on the 22nd April. The Sultan Kisesa demanded his blackmail, which amounted to one coil-bracelet and two cloths; provisions were hardly procurable, because his subjects wanted white beads, with which, being at a discount at Ujiji, we had not provided ourselves; and Kannena again successfully put in a tyrannical claim for 460 khete of blue-porcelains to purchase rations.

On the 23rd April we left Mtuwwa, and made for the opposite or western shore of the lake, which appeared about fifteen miles distant; the day’s work was nine hours. The two canoes paddled far apart, there was therefore little bumping, smoking, or quarrelling, till near our destination. At Murivumba the malaria, the mosquitoes, the crocodiles, and the men are equally feared. The land belongs to the Wabembe, who are correctly described in the “Mombas Mission Map” as “Menschenfresser--anthropophagi.” The practice arises from the savage and apathetic nature of the people, who devour, besides man, all kinds of carrion and vermin, grubs and insects, whilst they abandon to wild growths a land of the richest soil and of the most prolific climate. They prefer man raw, whereas the Wadoe of the coast eat him roasted. The people of a village which backed the port, assembled as usual to “sow gape-seed;” but though

“A hungry look hung upon them all,”--

and amongst cannibals one always fancies oneself considered in the light of butcher’s meat,--the poor devils, dark and stunted, timid and degraded, appeared less dangerous to the living than to the dead. In order to keep them quiet, the bull-headed Mabruki, shortly before dusk, fired a charge of duck-shot into the village; ensued loud cries and deprecations to the “Murungwana,” but happily no man was hurt. Sayfu the melancholist preferred squatting through the night on the bow of the canoe, to trusting his precious person on shore. We slept upon a reed-margined spit of sand, and having neglected to pitch the tent, were rained upon to our heart’s content.

We left Murivumba of the man-eaters early on the morning of the 24th April, and stood northwards along the western shore of the Lake: the converging trend of the two coasts told that we were fast approaching our destination. After ten hours’ paddling, halts included, we landed at the southern frontier of Uvira, in a place called Mamaletua, Ngovi, and many other names. Here the stream of commerce begins to set strong; the people were comparatively civil, they cleared for us a leaky old hut with a floor like iron,--it appeared to us a palace!--and they supplied, at moderate prices, sheep and goats, fish-fry, eggs, and poultry, grain, manioc and bird-pepper.

After another long stretch of fifteen rainy and sunny hours, a high easterly wind compelled the hard-worked crews to put into Muikamba (?) of Uvira. A neighbouring hamlet, a few hovels built behind a thick wind-wrung plantain-grove, backed a reed-locked creek, where the canoes floated in safety and a strip of clean sand on which we passed the night as pleasantly as the bright moonlight and the violent gusts would permit. On the 26th April, a paddle of three hours and a half landed us in the forenoon at the sandy baystand, where the trade of Uvira is carried on.

Great rejoicings ushered in the end of our outward-bound voyage. Crowds gathered on the shore to gaze at the new merchants arriving at Uvira, with the usual concert, vocal and instrumental, screams, shouts, and songs, shaums, horns, and tom-toms. The captains of the two canoes performed with the most solemn gravity a bear-like dance upon the mat-covered benches, which form the “quarter-decks,” extending their arms, pirouetting upon both heels, and springing up and squatting down till their hams touched the mats. The crews, with a general grin which showed all their ivories, rattled their paddles against the sides of their canoes in token of greeting, a custom derived probably from the ceremonious address of the Lakists, which is performed by rapping their elbows against their ribs. Presently Majid and Bekkari, two Arab youths sent from Ujiji by their chief, Said bin Majid, to collect ivory, came out to meet me; they gave me, as usual, the news, and said that having laid in the store of tusks required, they intended setting out southwards on the morrow. We passed half the day of our arrival on the bare landing-place, a strip of sand foully unclean, from the effect of many bivouacs. It is open to the water and backed by the plain of Uvira; one of the broadest of these edges of gently-inclined ground which separate the Lake from its trough of hills. Kannena at once visited the Mwami or Sultan Maruta, who owns a village on a neighbouring elevation; this chief invited me to his settlement, but the outfit was running low and the crew and party generally feared to leave their canoes. We therefore pitched our tents upon the sand, and prepared for the last labour, that of exploring the head of the Lake.

We had now reached the “ne plus ultra,” the northernmost station to which merchants have as yet been admitted. The people are generally on bad terms with the Wavira, and in these black regions a traveller coming direct from an enemy’s territory is always suspected of hostile intentions,--no trifling bar to progress. Opposite us still rose, in a high broken line, the mountains of inhospitable Urundi, apparently prolonged beyond the northern extremity of the waters. The head, which was not visible from the plain, is said to turn N.N. westwards, and to terminate after a voyage of two days, which some informants, however, reduce to six hours. The breadth of the Tanganyika is here between seven and eight miles. On the 28th April, all my hopes--which, however, I had hoped against hope--were rudely dashed to the ground. I received a visit from the three stalwart sons of the Sultan Maruta: they were the noblest type of Negroid seen near the Lake, with symmetrical heads, regular features and pleasing countenances; their well-made limbs and athletic frames of a shiny jet black, were displayed to advantage by their loose aprons of red and dark-striped bark-cloth, slung, like game-bags, over their shoulders, and were set off by opal-coloured eyeballs, teeth like pearls, and a profusion of broad massive rings of snowy ivory round their arms, and conical ornaments like dwarf marling-spikes of hippopotamus tooth suspended from their necks. The subject of the mysterious river issuing from the Lake, was at once brought forward. They all declared that they had visited it, they offered to forward me, but they unanimously asserted, and every man in the host of bystanders confirmed their words, that the “Rusizi” enters into, and does not flow out of the Tanganyika. I felt sick at heart. I had not, it is true, undertaken to explore the Coy Fountains by this route; but the combined assertions of the cogging Shaykh and the false Msawahili had startled me from the proprieties of reason, and--this was the result!

Bombay, when questioned, declared that my companion had misunderstood the words of Hamid bin Sulayyam, who spoke of a river falling into, not issuing _from_ the lake; and added his own conviction that the Arab had never sailed north of Ubwari Island. Sayfu, who at Ujiji had described, as an eye-witness, the mouth of the déversoir and its direction for two days, now owned that he had never been beyond Uvira, and that he never intended to do so. Briefly, I had been deceived by a strange coincidence of deceit.

On the 28th April, we were driven from the strip of land which we originally occupied by a S. E. gale; here a “blat,” or small hurricane, which drives the foaming waters of the tideless sea up to the green margin of the land. Retiring higher up where the canoes were careened, we spread our bedding on the little muddy mounds that rise a few inches above the surface of grass-closed gutter which drains off the showers daily falling amongst the hills. I was still obliged to content myself with the lug-sail, thrown over a ridge-pole supported by two bamboo uprights, and pegged out like a tent below; it was too short to fall over the ends and to reach the ground, it was therefore a place of passage for mizzle, splash, and draught of watery wind. My companion inhabited the tent bought from the Fundi, it was thoroughly rotted, during his first trip across the Lake--by leakage in the boat, and by being “bushed” with mud instead of pegs on shore. He informed me that there was “good grub” at Uvira, and that was nearly the full amount of what I heard from or of him. Our crews had hutted themselves in the dense mass of grass near our tents; they lived as it were under arms, and nothing would induce them to venture away from their only escape, the canoes, which stood ready for launching whenever required. Sayfu swore that he would return to Ujiji rather than venture a few yards inland to buy milk, whilst Bombay and Mabrukí, who ever laboured under the idea that every brother-African of the jungle thirsted for their blood, upon the principle that wild birds hate tame birds, became, when the task was proposed to them, almost mutinous. Our nine days’ halt at Uvira had therefore unusual discomforts. The air, however, though damp and raw, with gust, storm, and rain, must have been pure in the extreme; appetite and sleep--except when the bull-frogs were “making a night of it”--were rarely wanting, and provisions were good, cheap, and abundant.

I still hoped, however, to lay down the extreme limits of the lake northwards. Majid and Bekkari the Arab agents of Said bin Majid, replied to the offer of an exorbitant sum, that they would not undertake the task for ten times that amount. The sons of Maruta had volunteered their escort; when I wanted to close with them, they drew off. Kannena, when summoned to perform his promise and reminded of the hire that he had received, jumped up and ran out of the tent: afterwards at Ujiji he declared that he had been willing to go, but that his crews were unanimous in declining to risk their lives,--which was perhaps true. Towards the end of the halt I suffered so severely from ulceration of the tongue, that articulation was nearly impossible, and this was a complete stopper to progress. It is a characteristic of African travel that the explorer may be arrested at the very bourne of his journey, on the very threshold of success, by a single stage, as effectually as if all the waves of the Atlantic or the sands of Arabia lay between.

Maruta and his family of young giants did not fail to claim their blackmail; they received a total of twelve cloths, five kitindi, and thirty khete of coral beads. They returned two fine goats, here worth about one cloth each, and sundry large gourds of fresh milk--the only food I could then manage to swallow. Kannena, who had been living at Maruta’s village, came down on the 5th May to demand 460 khete of blue porcelains, wherewith to buy rations for the return-voyage. Being heavily in debt, all his salt and coil-bracelets had barely sufficed for his liabilities: he had nothing to show for them but masses of Sambo--iron-wire rings--which made his ankles resemble those of a young hippopotamus. The slaves and all the fine tusks that came on board were the property of the crew.

Our departure from Uvira was finally settled for the 6th May: before taking leave of our “furthest point,” I will offer a few details concerning the commerce of the place.