Chapter XII (5)

Uvira is much frequented on account of its cheapness; it is the great northern depôt for slaves, ivory, grain, bark-cloth, and ironware, and, in the season, hardly a day elapses without canoes coming in for merchandise or provisions. The imports are the kitindi, salt, beads, tobacco, and cotton cloth. Rice does not grow there, holcus and maize are sold at one to two fundo of common beads per masuta or small load,--perhaps sixteen pounds,--and one khete is sufficient during the months of plenty to purchase five pounds of manioc, or two and even three fowls. Plantains of the large and coarse variety are common and cheap, and one cloth is given for two goodly earthen pots full of palm-oil. Ivory fetches its weight in brass wire: here the merchant expects for every 1000 dollars of outfit to receive 100 farasilah (3500 lbs.) of large tusks, and his profit would be great were it not counterbalanced by the risk and by the expense of transport. The prices in the slave-mart greatly fluctuate. When business is dull, boys under ten years may be bought for four cloths and five fundo of white and blue porcelains, girls for six shukkah, and as a rule at these remote places, as Uvira, Ujipa, and Marungu, slaves are cheaper than in the market of Ujiji. Adults fetch no price, they are notoriously intractable, and addicted to desertion. Bark-cloths, generally in the market, vary from one to three khete of coral beads. The principal industry of the Wavira is ironware, the material for which is dug in the lands lying at a little distance westward of the lake. The hoes, dudgeons, and small hatchets, here cost half their usual price at Ujiji. The people also make neat baskets and panniers, not unlike those of Normandy, and pretty bowls cut out of various soft woods, light and dark: the latter are also found, though rarely, at Ujiji and in the western islets.

A gale appeared to be brewing in the north--here the place of storms--and the crews, fearing wind and water, in the afternoon insisted upon launching their canoes and putting out to sea at 10 A.M. on the 6th May. After touching at the stages before described, Muikamba, Ngovi and Murivumba of the anthropophagi, we crossed without other accidents but those of weather--the rainy monsoon was in its last convulsions--the western branch or supplementary channel separating the Lake from the island of Ubwari. Before anchoring at Mzimu, our former halting-place, we landed at a steep ghaut, where the crews swarmed up a ladder of rock, and presently returned back with pots of the palm-oil, for which this is the principal depôt.

On the 10th May the sky was dull and gloomy, the wind was hushed, the “rain-sun” burnt with a sickly and painful heat; the air was still and sultry, stifling and surcharged, while the glimmerings of lurid lightning and low mutterings from the sable cloud-banks lying upon the northern horizon, cut by light masses of mist in a long unbroken line, and from the black arch rising above the Acroceraurian hills to the west, disturbed at times the death-like silence. Even the gulls on the beach forefelt a storm. I suggested a halt, but the crews were now in a nervous hurry to reach their homes,--impatience mastered even _their_ prudence.

We left Mzimu at sunset, and for two hours coasted along the shore. It was one of those portentous evenings of the tropics--a calm before a tempest--unnaturally quiet; we struck out, however, boldly towards the eastern shore of the Tanganyika, and the western mountains rapidly lessened on the view. Before, however, we reached the mid-channel, a cold gust--in these regions the invariable presage of a storm--swept through the deepening shades cast by the heavy rolling clouds, and the vivid nimble lightning flashed, at first by intervals, then incessantly, with a ghastly and blinding glow, illuminating the “vast of night,” and followed by a palpable obscure, and a pitchy darkness, that weighed upon the sight. As terrible was its accompaniment of rushing, reverberating thunder, now a loud roar, peal upon peal, like the booming of heavy batteries, then breaking into a sudden crash, which was presently followed by a rattling discharge like the sharp pattering of musketry. The bundles of spears planted upright amidships, like paratonnerres, seemed to invite the electric fluid into the canoes. The waves began to rise, the rain descended, at first in warning-drops, then in torrents, and had the wind steadily arisen, the cockle-shell craft never could have lived through the short, chopping sea which characterises the Tanganyika in heavy weather. The crew, though blinded by the showers, and frightened by the occasional gusts, held their own gallantly enough; at times, however, the moaning cry, “O my wife!” showed what was going on within. Bombay, a noted Voltairian in fine weather, spent the length of that wild night in reminiscences of prayer. I sheltered myself from the storm under my best friend, the Mackintosh, and thought of the far-famed couplet of Hafiz,--with its mystic meaning I will not trouble the reader:--

“This collied night, these horrid waves, these gusts that sweep the
whirling deep!
What reck they of our evil plight, who on the shore securely sleep?”

Fortunately the rain beat down wind and sea, otherwise nothing short of a miracle could have preserved us for a dry death.

That night, however, was the last of our “sea-sorrows.” After floating about during the latter hours of darkness, under the land, but uncertain where to disembark, we made at 7 A.M., on the 11th May, Wafanya, our former station in ill-famed Urundi. Tired and cramped by the night’s work, we pitched tents, and escaping from the gaze of the insolent and intrusive crowd, we retired to spend a few hours in sleep.

I was suddenly aroused by Mabruki, who, rushing into the tent, thrust my sword into my hands, and exclaimed that the crews were scrambling into their boats. I went out and found everything in dire confusion. The sailors hurrying here and there, were embarking their mats and cooking-pots, some were in violent parley with Kannena, whilst a little knot was carrying a man, mortally wounded, down to the waters of the Lake. I saw at once that the affair was dangerous. On these occasions the Wajiji, whose first impulse is ever flight, rush for safety to their boats and push off, little heeding whom or what they leave behind. We therefore hurried in without delay.

When both crews had embarked, and no enemy appeared, Kannena persuaded them to reland, and proving to them their superior force, induced them to demand, at the arrow’s point, satisfaction of Kanoni, the chief, for the outrage committed by his subjects. During our sleep a drunken man--almost all these disturbances arise from fellows who have the “_vin méchant_”--had rushed from the crowd of Warundi, and, knobstick in hand, had commenced dealing blows in all directions. Ensued a general mêlée. Bombay, when struck, called to the crews to arm. The Goanese, Valentine, being fear-crazed, seized my large “Colt” and probably fired it into the crowd; at all events, the cone struck one of our own men below the right pap, and came out two inches to the right of the backbone. Fortunately for us he was a slave, otherwise the situation would have been desperate. As it was, the crowd became violently excited, one man drew his dagger upon Valentine, and with difficulty I dissuaded Kannena from killing him. As the crew had ever an eye to the “main chance,” food, they at once confiscated three goats, our store for the return voyage, cut their throats, and spitted the meat upon their spears:--thus the lamb died and the wolf dined, and the innocent suffered and the plunderer was joyed, the strong showed his strength and the weak his weakness, according to the usual formula of this sublunary world.

Whilst Kannena was absent, on martial purposes intent, I visited the sole sufferer in the fray, and after seeing his wound washed, I forbade his friends to knead the injured muscles, as they were doing, and to wrench his right arm from side to side. A cathartic seemed to have a beneficial effect. On the second day of his accident he was able to rise. But these occurrences in wild countries always cause long troubles. Kannena, who obtained from Sultan Kanoni, as blood-money, a small girl and a large sheep, declared that the man might die, and insisted upon my forthwith depositing, in case of such contingency, eight cloths, which, should the wound not prove fatal, would be returned. The latter clause might have been omitted; in these lands, _nescit_ cloth _missa reverti_. As we were about to leave Ujiji, Kannena claimed for the man’s subsistence forty cloths,--or as equivalent, three slaves and six cloths--which also it was necessary to pay. A report was afterwards spread that the wretch had sunk under his wound. Valentine heard the intelligence with all that philosophy which distinguishes his race when mishaps occur to any but self. His prowess, however, cost me forty-eight dollars, here worth at least £100 in England. Still I had reason to congratulate myself that matters had not been worse. Had the victim been a Mjiji freeman, the trouble, annoyances, and expense would have been interminable. Had he been a Mrundi, we should have been compelled to fight our way, through a shower of arrows, to the boats; war would have extended to Ujiji, and “England,” as usual, would have had to pay the expenses. When Said bin Salim heard at Kazeh a distorted account of this mishap--of course it was reported that “Haji Abdullah” killed the man--he hit upon a notable device. Lurinda, the headman of Gungu, had often begged the Arab to enter into “blood-brotherhood” with him, and this had Said bin Salim pertinaciously refused, on religious grounds, to do. When informed that battle and murder were in the wind, he at once made fraternity with Lurinda, hoping to derive protection from his spear. His terrors afterwards persuaded him to do the same with Kannena: indeed at that time he would have hailed a slave as “Ndugu yango!” (my brother!)

When Kannena returned successful from his visit to Kanoni, we prepared to leave Wafanya. The fierce rain and the nightly drizzle detained us, however, till the next morning. On the 11th May we paddled round the southern point of Wafanya Bay to Makimoni, a little grassy inlet, where the canoes were defended from the heavy surf.

After this all was easy. We rattled paddles on the 12th May, as we entered our “patrie,” Nyasanga. The next night was spent in Bangwe Bay. We were too proud to sneak home in the dark; we had done something deserving a Certain Cross, we were heroes, braves of braves; we wanted to be looked at by the fair, to be howled at by the valiant. Early on the morning of the 13th May we appeared with shots, shouts, and a shocking noise, at the reed-lined gap of sand that forms the ghaut of Kawele. It was truly a triumphal entrance. All the people of that country-side had collected to welcome the crew, women and children, as well as men, pressed waist-deep into the water to receive friend and relative with becoming affection:--the gestures, the clamour, and the other peculiarities of the excited mob I must really leave to the reader’s imagination; the memory is too much for me.

But true merit is always modest; it aspires to Honor, not honours. The Wagungu, or whites, were repeatedly “called for.” I broke, however, through the sudant, strident, hircine throng, and regaining, with the aid of Riza’s strong arm, the old Tembe, was salaamed to by the expectant Said bid Salim and the Jemadar. It felt like a return home. But I had left, before my departure, with my Arab chargé-d’affaires, four small loads of cloth, and on inspecting the supplies there remained only ten shukkah. I naturally inquired what had become of the 110 others, which had thus prematurely disappeared. Said bin Salim replied by showing a small pile of grain-bags, and by informing me that he had hired twenty porters for the down-march. He volunteered, it is true, in case I felt disposed to finish the Periplus of the Lake, to return to Kazeh and to superintend the transmission of our reserve supplies; as, however, he at the same time gave me to understand that he could not escort them back to Ujiji, I thanked him for his offer, and declined it.

We had expended upwards of a month--from the 10th April to the 13th May, 1858--in this voyage fifteen days outward bound, nine at Uvira, and nine in returning. The boating was rather a severe trial. We had no means of resting the back; the holds of the canoes, besides being knee-deep in water, were disgracefully crowded;--they had been appropriated to us and our four servants by Kannena, but by degrees, he introduced in addition to the sticks, spears, broken vases, pots, and gourds, a goat, two or three small boys, one or two sick sailors, the little slave-girl and the large sheep. The canoes were top-heavy with the number of their crew, and the shipping of many seas spoilt our tents, and besides, wetted our salt, and soddened our grain and flour; the gunpowder was damaged, and the guns were honeycombed with rust. Besides the splashing of the paddles and the dashing of waves, heavy showers fell almost every day and night, and the intervals were bursts of burning sunshine.

The discomfort of the halt was not less than that of the boat. At first we pitched tents near the villages, in tall, fetid grass, upon ground never level, where stones were the succedanea for tent-pegs stolen for fuel, and where we slept literally upon mire. The temperature inside was ever in extremes, now a raw rainy cold, then a steam-bath that damped us like an April shower. The villagers, especially in the remoter districts, were even more troublesome, noisy, and inquisitive, than the Wagogo. A “notable passion of wonder” appeared in them. We felt like baited bears: we were mobbed in a moment, and scrutinised from every point of view by them; the inquisitive wretches stood on tiptoe, they squatted on their hams, they bent sideways, they thrust forth their necks like hissing geese to vary the prospect. Their eyes, “glaring lightning-like out of their heads,” as old Homer hath it, seemed to devour us; in the ecstasy of curiosity they shifted from one Muzungu to his “brother,” till, like the well-known ass between the two bundles of hay, they could not enjoy either. They were pertinacious as flies, to drive them away was only to invite a return; whilst, worst grief of all, the women were plain, and their grotesque salutations resembled the “encounter of two dog-apes.” The Goanese were almost equally honoured, and the operation of cooking was looked upon as a miracle. At last my experience in staring enabled me to categorise the infliction as follows. Firstly, is the stare furtive, when the starer would peep and peer under the tent, and its reverse, the stare open. Thirdly, is the stare curious or intelligent, which, generally accompanied with irreverent laughter regarding our appearance. Fourthly, is the stare stupid, which denoted the hebete incurious savage. The stare discreet is that of sultans and great men; the stare indiscreet at unusual seasons is affected by women and children. Sixthly, is the stare flattering--it was exceedingly rare, and equally so was the stare contemptuous. Eighthly, is the stare greedy; it was denoted by the eyes restlessly bounding from one object to another, never tired, never satisfied. Ninthly, is the stare peremptory and pertinacious, peculiar to crabbed age. The dozen concludes with the stare drunken, the stare fierce or pugnacious, and finally the stare cannibal, which apparently considered us as articles of diet. At last, weary of the stare by day, and the tent by night, I preferred inhabiting a bundle of clothes in the wet hold of the canoe; this, at least, saved the trouble of wading through the water, of scrambling over the stern, and of making a way between the two close lines of grumbling and surly blacks that manned the paddle-benches; whenever, after a meaningless halt, some individual thought proper to scream out “Safári!” (journey!)

Curious to say, despite all these discomforts our health palpably improved. My companion, though still uncomfortably deaf, was almost cured of his blindness. When that ulcerated mouth, which rendered it necessary for me to live by suction--generally milk and water--for seventeen days, had returned to its usual state, my strength gradually increased. Although my feet were still swollen by the perpetual wet and by the painful funza or entozoon, my hands partially lost their numbness, and the fingers which before could hold the pen only for a few minutes were once more able freely to write and sketch. In fact, I date a slow but sensible progress towards a complete recovery of health from the days and nights spent in the canoe and upon the mud of the Tanganyika Lake. Perhaps mind had also acted upon matter; the object of my mission was now effected, and this thought enabled me to cast off the burden of grinding care with which the imminent prospect of a failure had before sorely laden me.

The rainy monsoon broke up on the 14th May, the day after my return to Kawele, and once more, after six months of incessant storm-wind and rain, clouds and mists, we had fine, cool mornings, clear warm sun, and deliciously cold nights. The climate became truly enjoyable, but the scenery somewhat lost its earlier attractions. The faultless, regular, and uniform beauty, and the deep stillness of this evergreen land did not fail to produce that strange, inexplicable melancholy of which most travellers in tropical countries complain. In this Nature all is beautiful that meets the eye, all is soft that affects the senses; but she is a Siren whose pleasures soon pall upon the enjoyer. The mind, enfeebled perhaps by an enervating climate, is fatigued and wearied by the monotony of the charms which haunt it; cloyed with costly fare, it sighs for the rare simplicity of the desert. I have never felt this sadness in Egypt and Arabia, and was never without it in India and Zanzibar.

Our outfit, as I have observed, had been reduced to a minimum. Not a word from Snay bin Amir, my agent at Kazeh, had arrived in reply to my many missives, and old Want began to stare at us with the stare peremptory. “Wealth,” say the Arabs, “hath one devil, poverty a dozen,” and nowhere might a caravan more easily starve than in rich and fertile Central Africa. Travellers are agreed that in these countries “baggage is life:” the heartless and inhospitable race will not give a handful of grain without return, and to use the Moslem phrase, “Allah pity him who must beg of a beggar!” As usual on such occasions, the Baloch began to clamour for more rations--they received two cloths per diem--and to demand a bullock wherewith to celebrate their Eed or greater Festival. There were several Arab merchants at Kawele, but they had exhausted their stock in purchasing slaves and ivory. None in fact were so rich as ourselves, and we were reduced to ten shukkah, ten fundo of coral beads, and one load of black porcelains, which were perfectly useless. With this pittance we had to engage hammals for the hammock, to feed seventy-five mouths, and to fee several Sultans; in fact, to incur the heavy expenses of marching back 260 miles to Unyanyembe.

Still, with an enviable development of Hope, Said bin Salim determined that we should reach Kazeh unfamished. We made the necessary preparations for the journey, patched tents and umbrella, had a grand washing and scouring day, mended the portmanteaus, and ground the grain required for a month’s march, hired four porters for the manchil, distributed ammunition to Said bin Salim and the Baloch, who at once invested it in slaves, and exchanged with Said bin Majid several pounds of lead for palm-oil, which would be an economy at the Malagarazi Ferry. For some days past rumours had reached here that a large caravan of Wanyamwazi porters, commanded by an Arab merchant, was approaching Kawele. I was not sanguine enough to expose myself to another disappointment. Suddenly on the 22d May, frequent musket shots announced the arrival of strangers, and at noon the Tembe was surrounded with boxes and bales, porters, slaves, and four “sons of Ramji,” Mbaruko, Sangora, Khamisi, and Shehe. Shahdad the Baloch, who had been left behind at Kazeh in love, and in attendance upon his “brother,” Ismail, who presently died, had charge of a parcel of papers and letters from Europe, India, and Zanzibar. They were the first received after nearly eleven months, and of course they brought with them evil tidings,--the Indian mutinies. _En revanche_, I had a kindly letter from M. Cochet, Consul of France, and from Mr. Mansfield, of the U.S., who supplied me with the local news, and added for my edification a very “low-church” Tract, the first of the family, I opine, that has yet presented itself in Central Africa. Mr. Frost reported that he had sent at once a letter apprising me of Lieut.-Colonel Hamaton’s death, and had forwarded the medical supplies for which I indented from K’hutu: these, as has been explained, had not reached me. Snay bin Amir also informed me that he had retained all the packages for which he could find no porters; that three boxes had been stolen from his “godown;” and finally, that the second supply, 400 dollars-worth of cloth and beads, for which I had written at Inenge and had re-written at Ugogo and other places, was hourly expected to arrive.

This was an unexpected good fortune, happening at a crisis when it was really wanted. My joy was somewhat damped by inspecting the packs of the fifteen porters. Twelve were laden with ammunition which was not wanted, and with munitions _de bouche_, which were: nearly half the bottles of curry-powder, spices, and cognac were broken, tea, coffee, and sugar, had been squeezed out of their tin canisters, and much of the rice and coffee had disappeared. The three remaining loads were one of American domestics,--sixty shukkahs--and the rest contained fifteen coral-bracelets and white beads. All were the refuse of their kind: the good Hindoos at Zanzibar had seized this opportunity to dispose of their flimsy, damaged, and unsaleable articles. This outfit was sufficient to carry us comfortably to Unyanyembe. I saw, however, with regret that it was wholly inadequate for the purpose of exploring the two southern thirds of the Tanganyika Lake, much less for returning to Zanzibar, _viâ_ the Nyassa or Maravi Lake, and Kilwa, as I had once dreamed.

I received several visits from our old companion, Muhinna bin Sulayman of Kazeh, and three men of his party. He did not fail to improve the fact of his having brought up my supplies in the nick of time. He required five coil-bracelets and sixteen pounds of beads as my share of the toll taken from him by the Lord of the Malagarazi Ferry. For the remaining fifteen coil-bracelets he gave me forty cloths, and for the load and a half of white beads he exchanged 880 strings of blue porcelains--a commercial operation by which he cleared without trouble 35 per cent. Encouraged by my facility, he proposed to me the propriety of paying part of the kuhonga or blackmail claimed from new comers by Rusimba and Kannena. But facility has its limits: I quietly objected, and we parted on the best of terms.

A Mjiji.

Mugungu Mbaya, “the wicked white man.”

A Mgogo.

Ferry Boat on the Malagarazi River.

A Mzaramo.]

CHAP. XV.

THE TANGANYIKA LAKE AND ITS PERIPLUS.

The Tanganyika Lake, though situated in the unexplored centre of Intertropical Africa, and until 1858 unvisited by Europeans, has a traditionary history of its own, extending through more than three centuries.

“Accounts of a great sea in the interior of Africa obtained (partially from native travellers) at Congo and Sofala,” reached the Portuguese settlements on both shores of the continent.[6] The details of de Barros (first printed in 1852), whilst affording substantially correct details, such as the length of the Lake--100 leagues--the capability of navigation, and the one large island--Ubwari--are curiously intermingled with the errors of theoretical conclusion. Subsequently Pigafetta (1591), writing upon the authority of Portuguese inquirers, affirms that there is but one lake (the N’yassa) on the confines of Angola and Monomotapa, but that there are two lakes (the Nyassa and the Tanganyika), not lying east and west, as was supposed by Ptolemy of Alexandria, but north and south of each other, and about 400 miles asunder, which give birth to the Nile. From that epoch dates the origin of our modern misconceptions concerning the Lake Region of Central Intertropical Africa. The Nyassa and the Tanganyika were now blended, then separated, according to the theories or the information of the geographer; no explorer ventured to raise from the land of mystery the veil that invested it; and the “Mombas Mission” added the colophon by confounding, with the old confusion, the Nyanza or Ukerewe, a third lake, of which they had heard at Mombasah and elsewhere. It is not wonderful then that Dr. Vincent suspected the existence or the place of the Central Lake, or that the more ignorant popularizers of knowledge confounded the waters of the Nyassa and the Ngami.[7]

[6] Mr. Cooley’s ‘Memoir on the Geography of N’yassi,’ p. 1. (Vol. XV.
of 1845, Journal of the Royal Geographical Society.) The extracts from
Portuguese history in the text are entirely taken from that learned
paper, which in describing actualities wanted nothing but a solid
foundation of data. The geographer’s principal informant in 1834 was
one “Khamisi bin Tani,” civilised into “Khamis bin Osman,” a Msawahili
of Lamu who having visited the Nyassa, Maravi or Kilwa Lake, pretended
that he had travelled to the Tanganyika Lake. I cannot allow this
opportunity to pass without expressing my gratitude to Mr. Cooley for
his courtesy in supplying me with references and other information.

[7] In the ‘Westminster Review’ (New Series, No. XX.) occurs the
following passage, which sufficiently illustrates the assertion in the
text; the critic is discussing Mr. C. Andersson’s ‘Lake Ngami,’ &c.
&c. (London, 1856):--“African missionaries, penetrating some little
distance inland from the S.E., recently brought information, which
they received second-hand from Arab travellers, of a vast fresh-water
lake far in the interior, described as being of enormous
dimensions--as nothing less than a great inland sea. Frequenters of
the Geographical Society’s meetings in Whitehall-place have observed
in consequence, on the site which used to be marked in the maps as a
sandy desert, a blue spot, about the size of the Caspian, and the
shape of a hideous inflated leech. We trusted that a more accurate
survey would correct the extreme frightfulness of the supposed form.
Mr. Andersson has spared us further excitement. The lake turns out to
be a mirage--a mythus with the smallest conceivable nucleus of fact.
On the very spot occupied by this great blue leech--long. E. from
Greenwich 23° and lat. S. 20° 21′--he found a small speck of bitter
water, something more than twenty miles across, or the size of Lake
Corrib in Galway. So perishes a phantom which has excited London
geographers for a whole season.”

Had the learned reviewer used his eyes or his judgment in
Whitehall-place, he would not thus have confounded the hypothetic sea
of the ‘Mombas Mission Map’--a reservoir made to include the three
several waters of Nyanza, Tanganyika, and Nyassa--in E. long. 24°-29°,
and _S. lat._ 0° 13′--with the little Ngami explored by Dr.
Livingstone and a party of friends in August, 1849, and placed by him
in E. long. 23°, and in _S. lat._ 20° 20′ 21′. The nearest points of
the two waters are separated by an interval, in round numbers, of 700
miles.

The earliest name given by theoretical writers to the hypothetical single lake appears to have been Zembére, Zémbere, Zambre, Zambri, or Zembre, probably a corruption or dialectic variety of Zambesi, that river being supposed, like the Nile, the Zaire, the Manisa, and others, to be derived from it. The word Moravi or Maravi, which still deforms our maps, is the name of a large tribe or a lordly race like the Wahinda, dwelling to the south-east and south-west of the Nyassa. In the seventeenth century Luigi Mariano, a missioner residing at the Rios de Sena, calls the Central Sea the Lake of Hemosura; his description however applies to the Nyassa, Maravi or Kilwa Lake, and the word is probably a corruption of Rusuro or Lusuro, which in the language of Uhiao signifies a river or flowing water. In the ‘Mombas Mission Map’ the lake is called “See von Uniamesi,” a mere misnomer, as it is separated by hundreds of miles from the Land of the Moon: the northern part is termed Ukerewe, by a confusion with the Nyanza Lake and the southern N’hánjá, for Nyassa, the old Maravi water near Kilwa. It is not a little curious, however, that Messrs. Cooley and Macqueen should both have recorded the vernacular name of the northern Lake Tangenyika, so unaccountably omitted from the ‘Mombas Mission Map.’ The words Tanganyenka and Tanganyenko used by Dr. Livingstone, who in places appears to confound the Lake with the Nyanza and the Nyassa, are palpable mispronunciations.

The African name for the central lake is Tanganyika, signifying an anastomosis, or a meeting place (sc. of waters,) from ku tanganyika, the popular word, to join, or meet together: the initial t being changed to ch--ku changanyika for ku tanganyika--in the lingua Franca of Zanzibar doubtless gave rise to Mr. Cooley’s “Zanganyika.” The word Tanganyika is universally used by the Wajiji and other tribes near and upon the Lake. The Arabs and African strangers, when speaking loosely of it, call it indifferently the Bahari or Sea, the Ziwa or Pond, and even the Mtoni or River. The “Sea of Ujiji” would, after the fashion of Easterns, be limited to the waters in the neighbourhood of that principal depot.

The Tanganyika occupies the centre of the length of the African continent, which extends from 32° N. to 33° S. latitude, and it lies on the western extremity of the eastern third of the breadth. Its general direction is parallel to the inner African line of volcanic action drawn from Gondar southwards through the regions about Kilima-ngáo (Kilimanjáro) to Mount Njesa, the eastern wall of the Nyassa Lake. The general formation suggests, as in the case of the Dead Sea, the idea of a volcano of depression--not, like the Nyanza or Ukerewe, a vast reservoir formed by the drainage of mountains. Judging from the eye, the walls of this basin rise in an almost continuous curtain, rarely waving and infracted to 2,000 or 3,000 feet above the water-level. The lower slopes are well wooded: upon the higher summits large trees are said not to grow; the deficiency of soil, and the prevalence of high fierce winds would account for the phenomena. The lay is almost due north and south, and the form a long oval, widening in the central portions and contracting systematically at both extremities. The length of the bed was thus calculated: From Ujiji (in S. lat. 4° 55′) to Uvira (in S. lat. 3° 25′), where the narrowing of the breadth evidences approach to the northern head, was found by exploration a direct distance of 1° 30′ = 90 miles, which, allowing for the interval between Uvira and the river Rusizi, that forms the northernmost limit, may be increased to 100 rectilinear geographical miles. According to the Arab voyagers, who have frequently rounded the lake Ujiji in eight stages from the northern, and twelve from the southern, end of the lake, the extent from Ujiji to the Marungu River, therefore, is roughly computed at 150 miles. The total of length, from Uvira, in S. lat. 30° 25′, to Marungu, in S. lat. 7° 20′, would then be somewhat less than 250 rectilinear geographical miles. About Ujiji the water appears to vary in breadth from 30 to 35 miles, but the serpentine form of the banks, with a succession of serrations and indentations of salient and re-entering angles--some jutting far and irregularly into the bed--render the estimate of average difficult. The Arabs agree in correctly stating, that opposite Ujiji the shortest breadth of the lake is about equal to the channel which divides Zanzibar from the mainland, or between 23 and 24 miles. At Uvira the breadth narrows to eight miles. Assuming, therefore, the total length at 250, and the main breadth at 20, geographical miles, the circumference of the Tanganyika would represent, in round numbers, a total of 550 miles; the superficial area, which seems to vary little, covers about 5,000 square miles; and the drainage from the beginning of the great Central African depression in Unyamwezi, in E. long. 33° 58′, numbers from the eastward about 240 miles.

By B. P. thermometer the altitude of the Tanganyika is 1850 feet above the sea-level, and about 2000 feet below the adjacent plateau of Unyamwezi and the Nyanza, or northern lake. This difference of level, even did not high-hill ranges intervene, would preclude the possibility of that connection between the waters which the Arabs, by a conjecture natural to inexpert geographers, have maintained to the confusion of the learned. The topographical situation of the Tanganyika is thus the centre of a deep synclical depression in the continent, a long narrow trough in the southern spurs of Urundi, which, with its mountain-neighbour Karagwah, situated upon the equator, represents the Inner African portion of the Lunar Mountains. It may be observed that the parallel of the northern extremity of the Tanganyika nearly corresponds with the southern creek of the Nyanza, and that they are separated by an arc of the meridian of about 343 miles.

The water of the Tanganyika appears deliciously sweet and pure after the salt and bitter, the putrid and slimy produce of the wells, pits, and pools on the line of march. The people, however, who drink it willingly when afloat, prefer, when on shore, the little springs which bubble from its banks. They complain that it does not satisfy thirst, and contrast it unfavourably with the waters of its rival the Nyanza: it appears moreover, to corrode metal and leather with exceptional power. The colour of the pure and transparent mass has apparently two normal varieties: a dull sea-green--never, however, verdigris-coloured, as in the shoals of the Zanzibar seas, where the reflected blue of the atmosphere blends with the yellow of the sandy bottom; the other, a clear, soft blue--by day rarely deep and dark, like the ultramarine of the Mediterranean, but resembling the light and milky tints of tropical seas. Under a strong wind the waves soon rise in yeasty lines, foaming up from a turbid greenish surface, and the aspect becomes menacing in the extreme.

It was found impracticable to take soundings of the Tanganyika: the Arabs, however, agreed in asserting that with lines of several fathoms they found bottom only near the shores. The shingly sole shelves rapidly, without steps or overfalls, into blue water. Judging from the eye, the bottom is sandy and profusely strewn with worn pebbles. Reefs and washes were observed near the shores; it is impossible to form an idea of their position or extent, as the crews confine themselves to a few well-known lines, from which they cannot be persuaded to diverge. No shoals or shallows were seen at a distance from the coasts, and though islets are not unfrequent upon the margin, only one was observed or heard of near the centre.

The affluents of this lake are neither sufficiently numerous nor considerable to alter by sedimentary deposit the depth or the shape of the bed. The borders are generally low: a thick fringe of rush and reed, obviating erosion by the element, conceals the watery margin. Where the currents beat, they cut out a short and narrow strip of quartzose sand, profusely strewn with large shingle, gravel, comminuted shells, and marine exuviæ, with a fringe of drift formed by the joint action of wind and wave. Beyond this is a shelving plain--the principal locality for cultivation and settlements. In some parts it is a hard clay conglomerate; in others, a rich red loam, apparently stained with oxide of iron; and in others sandy, but everywhere coated with the thickest vegetation extending up to the background of mountains. The coast is here and there bluff, with miniature cliffs and headlands, whose formation is of sandstone strata tilted, broken, and distorted, or small blocks imbedded in indurated reddish earth. From the water appeared piles of a dark stone resembling angular basalt, and amongst the rock-crevices the people find the float-clay, or mountain meal, with which they decorate their persons and the sterns of their canoes. The uncultivated hill summits produce various cactaceæ; the sides are clothed with giant trees, the mvule, the tamarind, and the bauhinia. On the declines, more precipitous than the Swiss terraces, manioc and cereals grow luxuriantly, whilst the lowest levels are dark with groves of plantains and Guinea-palms.

A careful investigation and comparison of statements leads to the belief that the Tanganyika receives and absorbs the whole river-system--the net-work of streams, nullahs, and torrents--of that portion of the Central African depression whose water-shed converges towards the great reservoir. Geographers will doubt that such a mass, situated at so considerable an altitude, can maintain its level without an effluent. Moreover, the freshness of the water would, under normal circumstances, argue the escape of saline matter washed down by the influents from the area of drainage. But may not the Tanganyika, situated, like the Dead Sea, as a reservoir for supplying with humidity the winds which have parted with their moisture in the barren and arid regions of the south, maintain its general level by the exact balance of supply and evaporation? And may not the saline particles deposited in its waters be wanting in some constituent which renders them evident to the taste? One point concerning the versant has been proved by these pages, namely, that the Tanganyika cannot be drained eastward by rents in a subtending mountain ridge, as was supposed by Dr. Livingstone from an indiscriminately applied analogy with the ancient head-basin of the Zambezi. Dr. Livingstone (chap. xxiv. xxvi. et passim) informs his readers, from report of the Arabs, that the Tanganyika is a large shallow body of water; in fact, the residuum of a mass anciently much more extensive. This, however, is not and cannot be the case. In theorising upon the eastern versant and drainage of the Tanganyika, Dr. Livingstone seems to have been misled by having observed that the vast inland sea of geological ages, of which Lake Ngami and its neighbour Kumadau are now the principal remains, had been desiccated by cracks and fissures, caused in the subtending soils by earthquakes and sudden upheavals, which thus opened for the waters an exit into the Indian Ocean. This may have happened to the Nyassa, or Southern Lake; it must not, however, be generalized and extended to the Nyanza and the Tanganyika.

As in Zanzibar, there is little variety of temperature upon the Tanganyika. The violent easterly gales, which, pouring down from the cold heights of Usagara, acquire impetus sufficient to carry the current over Ugogo, Unyamwezi, and Uvinza, are here less distinctly defined. The periodical winds over the Lake--regular, but not permanent--are the south-east and the south-west, which also bring up the foulest weather. The land and sea breezes are felt almost as distinctly as upon the shores of the Indian Ocean. The breath of the morning, called by the Arabs El Barad, or the zephyr, sets in from the north. During the day are light variable breezes, which often subside, when the weather is not stormy, into calms. In the evenings a gentle afflatus comes up from the waters. Throughout the dry season the Lake becomes a wind-trap, and a heavy ground sea rolls towards the shore. In the rains there is less sea, but accidents occur from sudden and violent storms. The mountainous breakers of Arab and African informants were not seen; in fact, with a depth of three feet from ridge to dell, a wave would swamp the largest laden canoe. Wind-currents are common. Within a few hours a stream will be traversed, setting strongly to the east, and crossed by a southerly or south-westerly current. High gales, in certain localities where the waves set upon a flush, flat shore, drive the waters fifteen to twenty feet beyond the usual mark. This circumstance may partly explain the Arab’s belief in a regular Madd wa Jarr--ebb and flow--which Eastern travellers always declare to have observed upon the Tanganyika and Nyassa Lakes, and which Mr. Anderson believes to exist in the little Ngami. A mass of water so large must be, to a certain extent, subject to tidal influences; but the narrowness of the bed from east to west would render their effect almost unobservable. Mr. Francis Galton referred me for the explanation of this phenomenon to a paper ‘On the Seiches of Lakes,’ by Colonel J. R. Jackson, F.R.G.S., published in the ‘Journal of the R. G. S.,’ vol. iii. of 1833, in which the learned author refers the ebb and flow of the waters of Lake Leman, or of Geneva (and of the lakes of Zurich, Annecy, and Constance), to “an unequal pressure of the atmosphere on different parts of the lake at the same time; that is, to the simultaneous effect of columns of air of different weight or different elasticity, arising from temporary variations of temperature, or from mechanical causes.”

The scenery and the navigation of the Tanganyika have been illustrated in the last chapter. Remains only a succinct account of the physical and ethnological features of its Periplus, carefully collected from authorities on the spot.

According to the Wajiji, from their country to the Runangwa or Marungu River, which enters the Lake at the southern point, there are twelve stages; this Periplus numbers 120 khambi or stations, at most of which, however, provisions are not procurable. An extended list of fifty-three principal points was given by the guides; it is omitted, as it contains nothing beyond mere names. There are, however, sixteen tribes and districts which claim attention: of these, Ukaranga and Ujiji have already been described.

The kingdom of Urundi, which lies north of Ujiji, has a sea-face of about fifty miles; a low strip of exceeding fertility, backed at short distances by a band of high green hill. This region, rising from the Lake in a north-easterly direction, culminates into the equatorial mass of highlands which, under the name of Karagwah, forms the western spinal prolongation of the Lunar Mountains. The residence of the Mwami, or chief sultan Mwezi, is near the headstream of the Kitangure (Kitangule), or River of Karagwah, which rises at a place distant six days’ march (sixty miles), and bearing north-east from, the Tanganyika. His settlement, according to the Arabs, is of considerable extent; the huts are built of rattan, and lions abound in the vicinity.

Urundi differs from the lake regions generally in being a strictly monarchical country, locally governed by Watware or headmen, who transmit the customs and collections at stated periods to their suzerain. The Mwame, it is said, can gather in a short time a large host of warriors who are the terror of the neighbouring tribes. The Warundi are evidently natives of a high cold country; they are probably the “white people resembling Abyssinians,” and dwelling near the Lake, of whom European geographers have heard from Zanzibar. The complexion varies from a tawny yellow, the colour of the women, to a clear dark brown, which is so brightened by the daily use of ochre mixed with palm-oil, that in few cases the real tint is discernible. The men tattoo with circles and lines like cupping-cuts; some burn up alti rilievi of large shining lumps an inch in diameter, a decoration not a little resembling large boils; others chip the fore teeth like the Wanyamwezi. Their limbs are stout and well proportioned, many stand upwards of six feet high, and they bear the appearance of a manly and martial race. Their dress is the mbugu, worn in the loosest way; their arms are heavy spears, sime, and unusually strong arrows; their ornaments are beads, brass wire, and streaks of a carmine-coloured substance, like the red farinaceous powder called in India gulal, drawn across the head and forehead. The Waganga, or priests of Urundi, wear a curious hood, a thatch of long white grass or fibre, cut away at the face and allowed to depend behind over the shoulders; their half-naked figures, occasionally rattling wooden clappers, and capering causelessly like madmen, present a savage and horrid appearance. Honourable women wear long tobes of American domestics from below the arms to the ankles; they are followed by hosts of female slaves, and preserve an exceptionally modest and decorous demeanour. Their features are of the rounded African type of beauty. Their necks and bosoms support a profusion of sofi and other various-coloured beads; their foreheads are bound with frontlets, fillet-like bands of white and coral porcelain, about three fingers deep, a highly becoming ornament probably derived from Karagwah; and those who were seen by the Expedition invariably walked about with thin staves five or six feet long, pointed and knobbed as the walking-sticks of ancient Egypt.

At the northern extremity of the Urundi sea-face, and at the head of the Tanganyika, lies the land of Uzige; it is rarely visited except by the Lakist traders. This people, who, like their neighbours, cannot exist without some form of traffic, have, it is said, pursued the dows of the earlier Arab explorers with a flotilla of small canoes; it is probable that negro traders would be better received. In their country, according to the guides, six rivers fall into the Tanganyika in due order from the east: the Kuryamavenge, the Molongwe, the Karindira, the Kariba, the Kibaiba, and westernmost the Rusizi or Lusizi. The latter is the main drain of the northern countries, and the best authorities, that is to say those nearest the spot, unanimously assert that it is an influent.

The races adjoining Uzige, namely, the Wavira on the north-western head of the Tanganyika, and their southern neighbours, the Wabembe cannibals, have already been mentioned. The Wasenze inhabit the hills within or westwards of the Wabembe. Further southwards and opposite Kawele in Ujiji are the Wagoma highlanders. The lower maritime lands belonging to the Wagoma supply the gigantic mvule trees required for the largest canoes. These patriarchs of the forest are felled and shaped with little axes on the spot; when finished they are pushed and dragged down the slopes by the workmen, and are launched and paddled over to the shores of Ujiji.

South of the Wagoma are the Waguhha, who have been mentioned as the proprietors of the islets south-west of Ujiji. In their lands, according to the Arabs, is a lake or large water called Mikiziwá, whence the tribe upon its banks derives its name Wamikiziwá. Through the country of the Waguhha lies the route to Uruwwa, at present the western terminus of the Zanzibar trade. The merchant crossing the sea-arm which separates Kasenge from the mainland of the Tanganyika, strikes towards Uruwwa; the line runs over low levels shelving towards the lake, cut by a reticulation of streams unfordable after rain, and varied by hilly and rolling ground. Provisions are everywhere procurable, but the people, like the Wavinza, are considered dangerous. At Uruwwa the khete, or string of beads, is half the size of that current in other countries. The price of ivory per frasilah is 15 miranga, or 150 large khete of white, small-blue, and coarse-red porcelain beads, the latter called Lungenga; besides which a string of sungomaji (pigeon-egg beads), and a few sámesáme, or coral-beads, are thrown in. The route numbers nine long or sixteen short stages; the general direction is south-westerly. Kiyombo, the sultan of Uruwwa, is at present friendly with the Arabs; he trades in ivory, slaves, and a little copper from Katata or Katanga, a district distant fifteen marches north-west of Usenda, the now well-known capital of the great chief Kazembe. The grandfather of the present Kazembe, the “viceroy” of the country lying south-west of the Tanganyika, and feudatory to Mwátá yá Nvo, the sovereign of “Uropua,” was first visited by Dr. Lacerda, governor of the Rios de Sena, in 1798-99. The traveller died, however, after being nine months in the country, without recording the name and position of the African capital; the former was supplied by the expedition sent under Major Monteiro and Captain Gamitto in 1831-32; it is variously pronounced Lucenda, Luenda, and by the Arabs Usenda, the difference being caused probably by dialect or inflexion. According to the Arabs, the Kazembe visited by the Portuguese expedition in 1831, died about 1837, and was succeeded by his son the present chief. He is described as a man of middle age, of light-coloured complexion, handsomely dressed in a Surat cap, silk coat, and embroidered loin cloth; he is rich in copper, ivory, and slaves, cloth and furniture, muskets and gunpowder. Many Arabs, probably half-castes, are said to be living with him in high esteem, and the medium of intercourse is the Kisawahili. Though he has many wives, he allows his subjects but one each, puts both adulterer and adulteress to death, and generally punishes by gouging out one or both eyes.

On the Uruwwa route caravans are composed wholly of private slaves; the races of the Tanganyika will not carry loads, and the Wanyamwezi, unmaritime savages like the Kafirs, who have a mortal dread and abhorrence of water, refuse to advance beyond Ujiji. On account of its dangers, the thriving merchants have hitherto abandoned this line to debtors and desperate men.

South of Uguhha lies the unimportant tribe of Wat’hembwe, whose possessions are within sight of Kawele in Ujiji. The race adjoining them is the Wakatete or Wakadete, and the country is called by the Arabs Awwal Marungu, on the northern frontier of Marungu. Marungu is one of the most important divisions of the lands about the Tanganyika. Amayr bin Said el Shaksi, a sturdy old merchant from Oman, who, wrecked about twelve years ago on that part of the coast, had spent five months with the people, living on roots and grasses, divides the region generically termed Marungu into three distinct provinces--Marungu to the north, Karungu in the centre, and Urungu on the south. Others mention a western Marungu, divided from the eastern by the Runangwa River, and they call the former in contradistinction Marungu Tafuna, from its sultan.

Western Marungu extends according to the Arabs in depth from Ut’hembwe to the Wabisa, a tribe holding extensive lands westward of the Nyassa Lake. Travellers from Unyamwezi to K’hokoro meet, near Ufipa, caravans of the northern Wabisa _en route_ to Kilwa. Between Marungu and Usenda, the capital of the Kazembe, the road lies through the district of Kavvire, distant seven marches; thence nine stages conduct them to the end of the journey. There is an upper land route through Uruwwa for those travelling from Ujiji to Usenda, and many caravans have passed from Unyanyembe direct through K’hokoro and Ufipa, to the country of the Kazembe. Mr. Cooley (“Geography of N’yassi,” p. 7) conjectures that the Ambios or Imbies, Zimbas or Muzimbas, celebrated by the old Portuguese historians of Africa on account of an irruption, in 1570, from the north as far as the Zambezi River, “were no other than the M’Biza, or Moviza, as they are called by the Portuguese who still occupy its (the Nyassa’s) south-western banks.” The proper name of this well-known tribe is Wábísá (in the sing. Mbisá), not Wábíshá, as it is pronounced at Zanzibar, where every merchant knows “Bisha ivory.” The Wábísá extend according to the Arabs from the west of the Nyassa or Kilwa Lake towards the south of the Tanganyika. They dress in bark-cloth, carry down their fine ivory to Tete and Kilimani (Quillimane); and every four or five years a caravan appears at Kilwa, where, confounding their hosts with the Portuguese, they call every Arab “muzungu,” or white man. They are a semi-pastoral tribe, fond of commerce, and said to be civil and hospitable to strangers. It must be observed that those geographers are in error who connect the Wabisa with the Wanyamwezi; they are distinct in manners and appearance, habits and language. Mr. Cooley has, for instance, asserted that “the ‘Moviza’ and the ‘Monomoezi’ are similar in physical character and national marks.” The only mark known to the Wabisa is the kishshah, or crest of hair; not, as Khamisi Wa Tani asserted to Mr. Cooley (“Inner Africa laid Open,” p. 61), a dotted line on the nose and forehead; whereas, the Wanyamwezi, as has been seen, puncture the skin. Thus Lacerda calls the “Moviza” a frizzled and periwigged people. The Arabs deny the assertion of Pereira, recorded by Bowdich, that the Moviza, like the Wahiao, file their teeth.