Chapter XII (8)

[12] When my companion returned to Kazeh, he represented Ukerewe and
Mazita to be islands, and, although in sight of them, he had heard
nothing concerning their connection with the coast. This error was
corrected by Salim bin Rashid, and accepted by us. Yet I read in his
discovery of the supposed sources of the Nile: “Mansur, and a native,
the greatest traveller of the place, kindly accompanied and gave me
every obtainable information. This man had traversed the island, as he
called it, of Ukerewe from north to south. _But by his rough mode of
describing it, I am rather inclined to think that instead of its being
an actual island, it is a connected tongue of land, stretching
southwards from a promontory lying at right angles to the eastern
shore of the lake_, which being a wash, affords a passage to the
mainland during the fine season, but during the wet becomes submerged
and thus makes Ukerewe temporarily an island.” The information, I
repeat, was given, not by the “native,” but by Salim bin Rashid. When,
however, the latter proceeded to correct my companion’s confusion
between the well-known coffee mart Kitara and “the island of Kitiri
occupied by a tribe called Watiri,” he gave only offence--consequently
Kitiri has obtained a local habitation in Blackwood and Petermann.

This fresh-water sea is known throughout the African tribes as Nyanza, and the similarity of the sound to “Nyassa,” the indigenous name of the little Maravi or Kilwa Lake, may have caused in part the wild confusion in which speculative geographers have involved the Lake Regions of Central Africa. The Arabs, after their fashion of deriving comprehensive names from local and minor features, call it Ukerewe, in the Kisukuma dialect meaning the “place of Kerewe” (Kelewe), an islet. As has been mentioned, they sometimes attempt to join by a river, a creek, or some other theoretical creation, the Nyanza with the Tanganyika, the altitude of the former being 3750 feet above sea-level, or 1900 feet above the latter, and the mountain regions which divide the two having been frequently travelled over by Arab and African caravans. Hence the name Ukerewe has been transferred in the “Mombas Mission Map” to the northern waters of the Tanganyika. The Nyanza, as regards name, position, and even existence, has hitherto been unknown to European geographers; but, as will presently appear, descriptions of this sea by native travellers have been unconsciously transferred by our writers to the Tanganyika of Ujiji, and even to the Nyassa of Kilwa.

M. Brun-Rollet (“Le Nil Blanc et le Soudan,” p. 209) heard that on the west of the Padongo tribe,--whom he places to the S. of Mount Kambirah, or below 1° S. lat.--lies a great lake, from whose northern extremity issues a river whose course is unknown. In the map appended to his volume this water is placed between 1° S. and 3° N. lat., and about 25° 50′ E. long. (Greenwich), and the déversoir is made an influent of the White Nile.

Bowdich (“Discoveries of the Portuguese,” pp. 131, 132), when speaking of the Maravi Lake (the Nyassa), mentions that the “negroes or the Moors of Melinde” have mentioned a great water which is known to reach Mombaca, which the Jesuit missionaries conjectured to communicate with Abyssinia, and of which Father Lewis Marianna, who formerly resided at Tete, recommended a discovery, in a letter addressed to the government at Goa, which is still preserved among the public archives of that city. Here the confusion of the Nyanza, to which there was of old a route from Mombasah with the Nyassa, is apparent.

At the southern point, where the Muingwira River falls into the tortuous creek, whose surface is a little archipelago of brown rocky islets crowned with trees, and emerging from the blue waters, the observed latitude of the Nyanza Lake, is 2° 24′ S.; the longitude by dead reckoning from Kazeh is E. long. 33° and nearly due north, and the altitude by B. P. thermometer 3750 feet above sea-level. Its extent to the north is unknown to the people of the southern regions, which rather denotes some difficulty in travelling than any great extent. They informed my companion that from Mwanza to the southern frontier of Karagwah is a land journey of one month, or a sea voyage of five days towards the N. N. W. and then to the north. They also pointed out the direction of Unyoro N. 20° W. The Arab merchants of Kazeh have seen the Nyanza opposite Weranhanja, the capital district of Armanika, King of Karagwah, and declare that it receives the Kitangure River, whose mouth has been placed about the equator. Beyond that point all is doubtful. The merchants have heard that Suna, the late despot of Uganda, built matumbi, or undecked vessels, capable of containing forty or fifty men, in order to attack his enemies, the Wasoga, upon the creeks which indent the western shores of the Nyanza. This, if true, would protract the lake to between 1° and 1° 30′ of N. lat., and give it a total length of about 4° or 250 miles. This point, however, is still involved in the deepest obscurity. Its breadth was estimated as follows. A hill, about 200 feet above the water-level, shows a conspicuous landmark on the eastern shore, which was set down as forty miles distant. On the south-western angle of the line from the same point ground appeared; it was not, however, perceptible on the north-west. The total breadth, therefore, has been assumed at eighty miles,--a figure which approaches the traditions unconsciously chronicled by European geographers. In the vicinity of Usoga the lake, according to the Arabs, broadens out: of this, however, and in fact of all the formation north of the equator, it is at present impossible to arrive at certainty.

The Nyanza is an elevated basin or reservoir, the recipient of the surplus monsoon-rain which falls in the extensive regions of the Wamasai and their kinsmen to the east, the Karagwah line of the Lunar Mountains to the west, and to the south Usukuma or Northern Unyamwezi. Extending to the equator in the central length of the African peninsula, and elevated above the limits of the depression in the heart of the continent, it appears to be a gap in the irregular chain which, running from Usumbara and Kilima-ngao to Karagwah, represents the formation anciently termed the Mountains of the Moon. The physical features, as far as they were observed, suggest this view. The shores are low and flat, dotted here and there with little hills; the smaller islands also are hill-tops, and any part of the country immediately on the south would, if inundated to the same extent, present a similar aspect. The lake lies open and elevated, rather like the drainage and the temporary deposit of extensive floods than a volcanic creation like the Tanganyika, a long narrow mountain-girt basin. The waters are said to be deep, and the extent of the inundation about the southern creek proves that they receive during the season an important accession. The colour was observed to be clear and blue, especially from afar in the early morning; after 9 _a.m._, when the prevalent south-east wind arose, the surface appeared greyish, or of a dull milky white, probably the effect of atmospheric reflection. The tint, however, does not, according to travellers, ever become red or green like the waters of the Nile. But the produce of the lake resembles that of the river in its purity; the people living on the shores prefer it, unlike that of the Tanganyika, to the highest, and clearest springs; all visitors agree in commending its lightness and sweetness, and declare that the taste is rather of river or of rain-water than resembling the soft slimy produce of stagnant muddy bottoms, or the rough harsh flavour of melted ice and snow.

From the southern creek of the Nyanza, and beyond the archipelago of neighbouring islets, appear the two features which have given to this lake the name of Ukerewe. The Arabs call them “Jezirah”--an ambiguous term, meaning equally insula and peninsula--but they can scarcely be called islands. The high and rocky Mazita to the east, and the comparatively flat Ukerewe on the west, are described by the Arabs as points terminating seawards in bluffs, and connected with the eastern shore by a low neck of land, probably a continuous reef, flooded during the rains, but never so deeply as to prevent cattle fording the isthmus. The northern and western extremities front deep water, and a broad channel separates them from the southern shore, Usukuma. The Arabs, when visiting Ukerewe or its neighbour, prefer hiring the canoes of the Wasukuma, and paddling round the south-eastern extremity of the Nyanza, to exposing their property and lives by marching through the dangerous tribes of the coast.

Mazita belongs to a people called Makwiya. Ukerewe is inhabited, according to some informants, by Wasukuma; according to others, the Wakerewe are marked by their language as ancient emigrants from the highlands of Karagwah. In Ukerewe, which is exceedingly populous, are two brother Sultans: the chief is “Machunda;” the second, “Ibanda,” rules at Wiru, the headland on the western limit. The people collect ivory from the races on the eastern mainland, and store it, awaiting an Arab caravan. Beads are in most request; as in Usukuma generally, not half a dozen cloths of native and foreign manufacture will be found upon a hundred men. The women are especially badly clad; even the adult maidens wear only the languti of India, or the Nubian apron of aloe-fibre, strung with the pipe-stem bead called sofi, and blackened, like India-rubber, by use; it is fastened round the waist, and depends about one foot by six or seven inches in breadth.

The Arabs who traffic in these regions generally establish themselves with Sultan Machunda, and send their slaves in canoes round the south-east angle of the lake to trade with the coast people. These races are successively from the south; the Washaki, at a distance of three marches, and their inland neighbours the Wataturu; then the Warudi, a wild tribe, rich in ivory, lying about a fortnight’s distance; and beyond them the Wahumba, or Wamasai. Commercial transactions extend along the eastern shore as far as T’hiri, or Ut’hiri, a district between Ururu and Uhumba. This is possibly the origin of the island of Tiri or Kittiri, placed in my companion’s map near the north-west extremity of the Nyanza Lake, off the coast of Uganda, where there is a province called Kittara, peculiarly rich in coffee. The explorer heard from the untrustworthy country people that, after a long coasting voyage, they arrived at an island where the inhabitants, a poor and naked race, live on fish, and cultivate coffee for sale. The information appears suspicious. The Arabs know of no islands upon the Nyanza which produce coffee. Moreover, if the people had any traffic, they would not be without clothing.

The savagery of the races adjacent to the Nyanza has caused accidents amongst travelling traders. About five years ago a large caravan from Tanga, on the eastern coast, consisting of 400 or 500 guns, and led by Arab merchants, at the end of a journey which had lasted nearly two years, happened to quarrel with the Wahumba or Wamasai near the lake. The subject was the burning down of some grass required for pasture by the wild men. Words led to blows; the caravan, having but two or three pounds of gunpowder, was soon dispersed; seven or eight merchants lost their lives, and a few made their escape to Unyanyembe. Before our departure from Kazeh, the slaves of Salim bin Rashid, having rescued one of the wounded survivors, who had been allowed by the Wamasai to wander into Urudi, brought him back to Kazeh. He described the country as no longer practicable. In 1858 also the same trading party, the principal authority for these statements, were relieved of several bales of cloth, during their sleep, when bivouacking upon an inhabited island near the eastern shore.

The altitude, the conformation of the Nyanza Lake, the argilaceous colour and the sweetness of its waters, combine to suggest that it may be one of the feeders of the White Nile. In the map appended to M. Brun-Rollet’s volume, before alluded to, the large water west of the Padongo tribe, which clearly represents the Nyanza or Ukerewe, is, I have observed, made to drain northwards into the Fitri Lake, and eventually to swell the main stream of the White River. The details supplied by the Egyptian Expedition, which, about twenty years ago, ascended the White River to 3° 22′ N. lat., and 31° 30′ E. long., and gave the general bearing of the river from that point to its source as south-east, with a distance of one month’s journey, or from 300 to 350 miles, would place the actual sources 2° S. lat., and 35° E. long., or in 2° eastward of the southern creek of the Nyanza Lake. This position would occupy the northern counterslope of the Lunar Mountains, the upper water-shed of the high region whose culminating apices are Kilima-Ngao, Kenia, and Doengo Engai. The distance of these peaks from the coast, as given by Dr. Krapf, must be considerably reduced, and little authority can be attached to his river Tumbiri.[13] The site, supposed by Mr. Macqueen (“Proceedings of the Geographical Society of London,” January 24th, 1859), to be at least 21,000 feet above the level of the sea, and consequently 3000 or 4000 feet above the line of perpetual congelation, would admirably explain the two most ancient theories concerning the source of the White River, namely, that it arises in a snowy region, and that its inundation is the result of tropical rains.

[13] The large river Tumbiri, mentioned by Dr. Krapf as flowing
towards Egypt from the northern counterslope of Mount Kenia, rests
upon the sole authority of a single wandering native. As, moreover,
the word T’humbiri or T’humbili means a monkey, and the people are
peculiarly fond of satire in a small way, it is not improbable that
the very name had no foundation of fact. This is mentioned, as some
geographers--for instance, Mr. Macqueen (“Observations on the
Geography of Central Africa:” “Proceedings of the R. G. S. of London,”
May 9, 1859)--have been struck by the circumstance that the Austrian
Missionaries and Mr. Werne (“Expedition to discover the sources of the
White Nile, in 1840-41”) gave Tubirih as the Bari name of the White
Nile at the southern limit of their exploration.

It is impossible not to suspect that between the upper portion of the Nyanza and the watershed of the White Nile there exists a longitudinal range of elevated ground, running from east to west--a “furca” draining northwards into the Nile and southwards into the Nyanza Lake--like that which separates the Tanganyika from the Maravi or Nyassa of Kilwa. According to Don Angelo Vinco, who visited Loquéck in 1852, beyond the cataract of Garbo--supposed to be in N. lat. 2° 40′--at a distance of sixty miles lie Robego, the capital of Kuenda, and Lokoya (Logoja), of which the latter receives an affluent from the east. Beyond Lokoya the White Nile is described as a _small and rocky mountain-river_, presenting none of the features of a stream flowing from a broad expanse of water like the great Nyanza reservoir.

The periodical swelling of the Nyanza Lake, which, flooding a considerable tract of land on the south, may be supposed--as it lies flush with the basal surface of the country--to inundate extensively all the low lands that form its periphery, forbids belief in the possibility of its being the head-stream of the Nile, or the reservoir of its periodical inundation. In Karagwah, upon the western shore, the masika or monsoon lasts from October to May or June, after which the dry season sets in. The Egyptian Expedition found the river falling fast at the end of January, and they learned from the people that it would again rise about the end of March, at which season the sun is vertical over the equator. About the summer solstice (June), when the rains cease in the regions south of and upon the equator, the White Nile begins to flood. From March to the autumnal equinox (September) it continues to overflow its banks till it attains its magnitude, and from that time it shrinks through the winter solstice (December) till March. The Nile is, therefore, full during the dry season and low during the rainy season south of and immediately upon the equator. And as the northern counterslope of Kenia will, to a certain extent, be a lee-land, like Ugogo, it cannot have the superfluity of moisture necessary to send forth a first-class stream. The inundation is synchronous with the great falls of the northern equatorial regions, which extend from July to September, and is dependent solely upon the tropical rains. It is, therefore, probable that the true sources of the “Holy River” will be found to be a network of runnels and rivulets of scanty dimensions, filled by monsoon torrents, and perhaps a little swollen by melted snow on the northern water-parting of the Eastern Lunar Mountains.

Of the tribes dwelling about the Nyanza, the western have been already described. The Washaki and the Warudi are plundering races on the east, concerning whom little is known. Remain the Wahinda, a clan or class alluded to in this and a former chapter, and the Wataturu, an extensive and once powerful tribe, mentioned when treating of the regions about Tura.

The Wahinda (in the singular Muhinda) are, according to some Arabs, a foreign and ruling family, who coming from a distant country, probably in the neighbourhood of Somaliland, conquered the lands, and became Sultans. This opinion seems to rest upon physical peculiarities,--the superiority of the Wahinda in figure, stature, and complexion to their subjects suggesting a difference of origin. Others explain the word Muhinda to mean a cadet of royal family, and call the class Bayt el Saltanah, or the Kingly House. Thus, whilst Armanika is the Mkámá or Sovereign of Karagwah, his brother simply takes the title of Muhinda. These conflicting statements may be reconciled by the belief general in the country that the families of the Sultans are a foreign and a nobler race, the date of whose immigration has long fallen into oblivion. This may be credited without difficulty; the physique of the rulers--approximating more to the northern races of Africa--is markedly less negroid than that of their subjects, and the difference is too great to be explained by the effects of climate or of superior diet, comfort, and luxury.

The Wahinda are found in the regions of Usui, Karagwah, Uhha, Uvinza, Uyungu, Ujiji, and Urundi, where they live in boma--stockades--and scattered villages. Of this race are the Sultans Suwarora of the Wasui, Armanika of Karagwah, Kanoni of Uhha, Kanze of Uyungu, Mzogera of Uvinza, Rusimba of Ujiji, Mwezi of Urundi, Mnyamurunde of Uyofo, Gaetawa of Uhayya, and Mutawazi of Utumbara. The Wahinda affect a milk diet which is exceedingly fattening, and anoint themselves plentifully with butter and ghee, to soften and polish the skin. They never sell their fellow clansmen, are hospitable and civil to strangers, seldom carry arms, fear nothing from the people, and may not be slain even in battle. Where the Wahinda reign, their ministers are the Watosi, a race which has been described when treating of their head-quarters Karagwah.

The Wataturu extend from the Mángewá district, two marches northward of Tura in a north-north-westerly diagonal, to Usmáo, a district of Usukuma, at the south-east angle of the Nyanza Lake. On the north and east they are limited by the Wahumba, on the south by the people of Iramba, and there is said to be a connection between these three tribes. This wild pastoral people were formerly rich in flocks and herds; they still have the best asses in the country. About five years ago, however, they were persuaded by Msimbira, a chief of Usukuma, to aid him against his rival Mpagamo, who had called in the Arabs to his assistance. During the long and bitter contest which ensued, the Arabs, as has been related, were worsted in the field, and the Wataturu suffered severe losses in cattle. Shortly before the arrival of the Expedition at Kazeh the foreign merchants had despatched to Utaturu a plundering party of sixty slave-musketeers, who, however, suddenly attacked by the people, were obliged to fly, leaving behind eighteen of their number. This event was followed by a truce, and the Wataturu resumed their commerce with Tura and Unyanyembe, where, in 1858, a caravan, numbering about 300 men, came in. Two small parties of this people were also met at Tura; they were small, dark, and ugly savages, almost beardless, and not unlike the “Thakur” people in Maharatta-land. Their asses, provided with neat saddle-bags of zebra skin, were better dressed than the men, who wore no clothing except the simplest hide-sandals. According to the Arabs this clan affects nudity: even adult maidens dispense with the usual skin-kilt. The men ignored bows and arrows, but they were efficiently armed with long spears, double-edged sime, and heavy hide shields. They brought calabash or monkey-bread flour--in this country, as in Ugogo, a favourite article of consumption--and a little coarse salt, collected from the dried mud of a Mbuga or swamp in the land of Iramba, to be bartered for holcus and beads. Their language sounded to the unpractised ear peculiarly barbarous, and their savage suspiciousness rendered it impossible to collect any specimens.

At Kazeh, sorely to my disappointment, it was finally settled, in a full conclave of Arabs, that we must return to the coast by the tedious path with which we were already painfully familiar. At Ujiji the state of our finances had been the sole, though the sufficient obstacle to our traversing Africa from east to west; we might--had we possessed the means--by navigating the Tanganyika southwards, have debouched, after a journey of three months, at Kilwa. The same cause prevented us from visiting the northern kingdoms of Karagwah and Uganda; to effect this exploration, however, we should have required not only funds but time. The rains there setting in about September render travelling impossible; our two years’ leave of absence were drawing to a close, and even had we commanded a sufficient outfit, we were not disposed to risk the consequences of taking an extra twelve months. No course, therefore, remained but to regain the coast. We did not, however, give up hopes of making our return useful to geography, by tracing the course of the Rwaha or Rufijí River, and of visiting the coast between the Usagara Mountains and Kilwa, an unknown line not likely to attract future travellers.

CHAP. XVII.

THE DOWN-MARCH TO THE COAST.

On the 5th September 1858, Musa Mzuri--handsome Moses, as he was called by the Africans--returned with great pomp to Kazeh after his long residence at Karagwah. Some details concerning this merchant, who has played a conspicuous part in the eventful “_peripéties_” of African discovery, may be deemed well placed.

About thirty-five years ago, Musa, a Moslem of the Kojah sect, and then a youth, was driven by poverty from his native Surat to follow his eldest brother “Sayyan,” who having sought fortune at Zanzibar, and having been provided with an outfit by the Sayyid el Laghbari, then governor of the island, made sundry journeys into the interior. About 1825, the brothers first visited the Land of the Moon, preceding the Arab travellers, who in those days made their markets at Usanga and Usenga, distant about a dozen marches to the S.S.E. of Kazeh. Musa describes Unyamwezi as richly cultivated, and he has not forgotten the hospitable reception of the people. The brothers bought up a little venture of forty Farasilah or twenty men’s loads of cloth and beads, and returned with a joint stock of 800 Farasilah (800 × 35 = 28,000 lbs. avoirdupois) in ivory; as Sayyan died on the road, all fell to Musa’s share. Since that time he has made five journeys to the coast and several to the northern kingdoms. About four years ago Armanika, the present Sultan of Karagwah, was besieged in a palisaded village by a rebel brother Rumanika. On this occasion Musa, in company with the king, endured great hardships, and incurred no little risk; when both parties were weary of fighting, he persuaded, by a large bribe of ivory, Suna, the powerful despot of the neighbouring kingdom of Uganda, to raise the siege, by throwing a strong force into the field. He has ever since been fraternally received by Armanika, and his last journey to Karagwah was for the purpose of recovering part of the ivory expended in the king’s cause. After an absence of fifteen months he brought back about a score of splendid tusks, one weighing, he declared, upwards of 200 lbs. During his detention Salim bin Sayf, of Dut’humi, who had been entrusted by Musa with sixty-five Farasilah of ivory to barter for goods on the coast, arrived at Unyanyembe, when hearing the evil tidings, the wily Harisi appropriated the property and returned to whence he came. Like most merchants in East Africa, Musa’s business is extensive, but his gains are principally represented by outlying debts; he cannot, therefore, leave the country without an enormous sacrifice. He is the recognised Doyen of the commercial body, and he acts agent and warehouseman; his hall is usually full of buyers and sellers, Arab and African, and large investments of wires, beads, and cotton-cloths, some of them valuable, are regularly forwarded to him with comforts and luxuries from the coast.

Musa Mzuri is now a man of the uncertain “certain age” between forty-five and fifty, thin-bearded, tall, gaunt, with delicate extremities, and with the regular and handsome features of a high-caste Indian Moslem. Like most of his compatriots, he is a man of sad and staid demeanour, and he is apparently faded by opium, which so tyrannises over him that he carries pills in every pocket, and stores them, lest the hoard should run short, in each corner and cranny of his house. His clean new dress, perfumed with jasmine-oil and sandal-wood, his snowy skull-cap and well-fitting sandals, distinguish him in appearance from the Arabs; and his abode, which is almost a village, with its lofty gates and its spacious courts, full of slaves and hangers-on, contrasts with the humility of the Semite tenements.

On arrival at Kazeh I forwarded to Musa the introductory letter with which H. H. the Sayyid Majid had honoured me. Sundry civilities passed between his housekeeper, Mama Khamisi, and ourselves; she supplied the Baloch with lodgings and ourselves with milk, for which we were careful to reward her. After returning from Ujiji we found Abdullah, the eldest of Musa’s two sons by different slave girls, resting at Kazeh after his down-march from Karagwah. He knew a few words of English, but he had learned no Hindostani from his father, who curious to say, after an expatriation of thirty-five years, still spoke his mother-tongue purely and well. The youth would have become a greater favourite had he not been so hard a drinker and so quarrelsome in his cups; on more than one occasion he had dangerously cut or stabbed his servile boon-companions. Musa had spared the rod, or had used it upon him to very little purpose; after intruding himself repeatedly into the hall and begging for handsome clothes, with more instance of freedom than consisted with decorum, he was warned that if he stayed away it might be the better for his back, and he took the warning.

Musa, when rested after his weary return-march, called upon me with all due ceremony, escorted by the principal Arab merchants. I was not disappointed in finding him wholly ignorant concerning Africa and things African; Snay bin Amir had told me that such was the case. He had, however, a number of slaves fresh from Karagwah and Uganda, who confirmed the accounts previously received from Arab travellers in those regions. Musa displayed even more hospitality than his fellow-travellers. Besides the mbogoro or skinful of grain and the goat usually offered to fresh arrivals, he was ever sending those little presents of provisions which in the East cannot be refused without offence. I narrowly prevented his killing a bullock to provide us with beef, and at last I feared to mention a want before him. During his frequent visits he invariably showed himself a man of quiet and unaffected manners, dashed with a little Indian reserve, which in process of time would probably have worn off.

On the 6th September, Said bin Salim, nervously impatient to commence the march homewards, “made a khambi,” that is to say, pitched our tents under a spreading tree outside and within sight of Kazeh. Although he had been collecting porters for several days, only two came to the fore; a few refreshing showers were falling at the autumnal equinox, and the black peasantry so miscalculated the seasons that they expected the immediate advent of the great Masika. Moreover, when informed that our route would debouch at Kilwa, they declared that they must receive double pay, as they could not expect there to be hired by return caravans. That the “khambi” might assume an appearance of reality, the Baloch were despatched into “country-quarters.” As they followed their usual tactic, affecting eagerness to depart but privily clinging to the pleasures of Kazeh, orders were issued definitively to “cut” their rations in case of necessity. The sons of Ramji, who had returned from Msene, without, however, intrusion or swagger, were permitted to enter the camp. Before the march I summoned them, and in severe terms recapitulated their misdeeds, warned them that they would not be re-engaged, and allowed them provisions and protection only on condition of their carrying, as the slaves of Arab merchants are expected to do, our lighter valuables, such as the digester, medicine-chest, gun-cases, camp-table and chair. They promised with an edifying humility to reform. I was compelled, however to enliven their murmuring by a few slight floggings before they would become amenable to a moral rule, and would acquire those habits of regularity which are as chains and fetters to the African man. The five Wak’hutu porters who, after robbing and deserting us on the road to Ujiji, had taken service with my old acquaintance, Salim bin Rashid--the well-informed Coast Arab merchant, originally named by H. H. the Sayyid Majid, as my guide and caravan leader,--begged hard to be again employed. I positively refused to see them. If at this distance from home they had perjured themselves and had plundered us, what might be expected when they arrived near their native country?

As the time of departure approached, I regretted that the arrival of several travellers had not taken place a month earlier. Salim bin Rashid, whilst collecting ivory in Usukuma and to the eastward of the Nyanza Lake, had recovered a Msawahili porter, who, falling sick on the road, had been left by a caravan from Tanga amongst the wildest of the East African tribes, the Wamasai or Wahumba. From this man, who spent two years amongst those plunderers and their rivals in villany the Warudi, I derived some valuable information concerning the great northern route which spans the countries lying between the coast and the Nyanza Lake. I was also called upon by Amayr bin Said el Shaksi, a strong-framed and stout-hearted greybeard, who, when his vessel foundered in the waters of the Tanganyika, saved his life by swimming, and as he had no goods and but few of his slaves had survived, lived for five months on roots and grasses, till restored to Ujiji by an Arab canoe. A garrulous senior, fond of “venting his travels,” he spent many hours with me, talking over his past adventures, and his ocular knowledge of the Tanganyika enabled me to gather many, perhaps, reliable details concerning its southern extremity. A few days before departure Hilal bin Nasur, a well-born Harisi, returned from K’hokoro; he supplied me with a list of stations and a lengthy description of his various excursions to the southern provinces.[14]

[14] For this and other purely geographical details concerning the
Southern Provinces, the reader is referred to the Journal of the Royal
Geographical Society, vol. xxix. 1860.

Said bin Salim, in despair that the labours of a whole fortnight spent in the jungle had produced the slenderest of results, moved from under the tree in Kazeh plain to Masui, a dirty little village distant about three miles to the east of our head-quarters. As he reported on the 25th of September that his gang was nearly completed, I sent forward all but the personal baggage. The Arab had, however, secured but three Hammals or bearers for my hammock; one a tottering old man, the other a knock-kneed boy, and the third a notorious skulk. Although supplied with meat to strengthen them, as they expressed it, they broke down after a single march. From that time, finding it useless to engage bearers for a long journey in these lands, I hired men from district to district, and dismissed them when tired. The only objection to this proceeding was its inordinate expense: three cloths being generally demanded by the porter for thirty miles. A little calculation will give an idea of the relative cost of travelling in Africa and in Europe. Assuming each man to receive one cloth, worth one dollar, for every ten miles, and that six porters are required to carry the hammock, we have in Africa an expenditure on carriage alone of nearly half a crown per mile: in most parts of Europe travel on the iron road has been reduced to one penny.

Our return from Unyanyembe to the coast was to take place during the dead season, when provisions are most expensive and are not unfrequently unprocurable. But being “Wazungu” and well provided with “African money,” we might expect the people to sell to us their grain and stores, which they would have refused at tariff-prices to Arabs or Wasawahili. We carried as stock fourteen porters’ loads of cloth, viz., 645 domestics, 653 blue-cottons, and 20 coloured cloths, principally Debwani, Barsati, and Subai, as presents to chiefs. The supply of beads was represented by one load of ububu or black-porcelains--afterwards thrown away as useless--half a Frasilah (17·5 pounds) of “locust-legs,” or pink-porcelains, purchased from Sallum bin Hamid, and eight Kartasat or papered-bundles of the heavy and expensive “town-breakers,” vermilion or coral-porcelains, amounting to seventy Fundo, each of which covered as a rule the day’s minor expenses. The other stores were the fifty-four Jembe purchased at Msene, besides a few brought from Usukuma by my companion. These articles are useful in making up kuhonga or blackmail; in Ugogo and Usagara, which is their western limit, they double in value, and go even further than a white cotton-cloth. Finally, we had sixteen cows, heifers, and calves, bought in Usukuma by my companion, at the rate of six domestics per head. We expected them to be serviceable as presents, and meanwhile to add materially to our comfort by a more regular supply of milk than the villages afford. But, alas! having neglected to mark the animals, all were changed--a fact made evident by their running dry after a few days: the four calves presently died of fatigue; whenever an animal lay down upon the road its throat was summarily cut, others were left to stray and be stolen, and the last bullock preserved for a sirloin on Christmas was prematurely lost. A small per-centage proved useful as tribute to the chiefs of Ugogo, and served as rations when grain was unprocurable. The African, however, looks upon meat, not as “Posho”--daily bread--but as kitoweyo--kitchen: two or three pounds of beef merely whet his teeth for the usual Ugali or porridge of boiled flour. It is almost needless to state that, despite the best surveillance and the strictest economy, we arrived at the coast almost destitute; cloth and beads, hoes and cattle, all had disappeared, and had we possessed treble the quantity, it would have gone the same way.

The 26th September, 1858, saw us on foot betimes. The hospitable Snay bin Amir, freshly recovered from an influenza which had confined him for some days to his sleeping-mat, came personally to superintend our departure. As no porters had returned for property left behind, and as all the “cooking-pots” had preceded us on the yester, Snay supplied us with his own slaves, and provided us with an Arab breakfast, well cooked, and as usual, neatly served on porcelain plates, with plaited and coloured straw dish-covers, pointed like Chinese caps. Then, promising to spend the next day with me, he shook hands and followed me out of the compound. After a march of three miles, under a white-hot sun, and through a chilling wind, to which were probably owing our subsequent sufferings, we entered the dirty little village of Masui, where a hovel had been prepared for us by Said bin Salim. There we were greeted by the caravan, and we heard with pleasure that it was ready, after a fashion, to break ground.

Early on the next morning appeared Snay bin Amir and Musa Mzuri: as I was suffering from a slight attack of fever, my companion took my place as host. The paroxysm passing off, allowed me to settle all accounts with Snay bin Amir, and to put a finishing touch to the names of stations in the journal. I then thanked these kind-hearted men for their many good deeds, and promised to report to H. H. the Sayyid Majid the hospitable reception of his Arab subjects generally, and of Snay and Musa in particular. About evening time I shook hands with Snay bin Amir--having so primed the dear old fellow with a stirrup-cup of burnt-punch, that his gait and effusion of manner were by no means such as became a staid and stately Arab Shaykh.

On the 4th October, after a week of halts and snail’s marches--the insufficiency of porterage compelled me to send back men for the articles left behind at the several villages--we at last reached Hanga, our former quarters on the eastern confines of the Unyanyembe district. As long as we were within easy distance of Kazeh it was impossible to keep the sons of Ramji in camp, and their absence interfered materially with the completion of the gang. Several desertions took place, a slave given by Kannena of Ujiji to Said bin Salim, old Musangesi the Asinego, and two new purchases, male and female, made by the Baloch at Kazeh, disappeared after the first few marches. The porters were troublesome. They had divided themselves as usual into Khambi, or crews, but no regular Kirangozi having been engaged, they preferred, through mutual jealousy, following Shehe, one of the sons of Ramji. On the road, also, some heads had been broken, because the cattle-drivers had attempted to precede the line, and I feared that the fall of a chance shower might make the whole squad desert, under the impression that the sowing season had set in. In their idleness and want of excitement, they had determined to secure at Hanga the bullock claimed by down caravans at Rubuga. After four days’ halt, without other labour but that of cooking, they arose under pretext of a blow given by one of the children of Said bin Salim, and packing up their goods and chattels, poured in mass, with shouts and yells, from the village, declaring that they were going home. In sore tribulation, Said bin Salim and the Jemadar begged me to take an active part, but a short experience of similar scenes amongst the Bashi-Buzuks at the Dardanelles had made me wiser than my advisers: the African, like the Asiatic, is naturally averse to the operation proverbially called “cutting off one’s own nose;” but if begged not to do so, he may wax, like pinioned men, valorous exceedingly, and dare the suicidal deed. I did not move from my hut, and in half an hour everything was _in statu quo ante_. The porters had thrown the blame of the proceeding upon the blow, consequently a flogging was ordered for Said bin Salim’s “child,” who, as was ever the case, had been flagrantly in the wrong; but after return, evading the point, the plaintiffs exposed the true state of affairs by a direct reference to the bullock. Thus the “child” escaped castigation, and the bullock was not given till we reached Rubuga.

At Hanga my companion was taken seriously ill. He had been chilled on the line of march by the cruel easterly wind, and at the end of the second march from Kazeh he appeared trembling as if with ague. Immediately after arrival at the foul village of Hanga--where we lodged in a kind of cow-house, full of vermin, and exposed directly to the fury of the cold gales--he complained, in addition to a deaf ear, an inflamed eye, and a swollen face, of a mysterious pain which often shifted its seat, and which he knew not whether to attribute to liver or to spleen. It began with a burning sensation, as by a branding-iron, above the right breast, and then extended to the heart with sharp twinges. After ranging around the spleen, it attacked the upper part of the right lung, and finally it settled in the region of the liver. On the 10th October, suddenly waking about dawn from a horrible dream, in which a close pack of tigers, leopards, and other beasts, harnessed with a network of iron hooks, were dragging him like the rush of a whirlwind over the ground, he found himself sitting up on the side of his bedding, forcibly clasping both sides with his hands. Half-stupefied by pain, he called Bombay, who having formerly suffered from the “Kichyoma-chyoma”--the “little irons”--raised his master’s right arm, placed him in a sitting position, as lying down was impossible, and directed him to hold the left ear behind the head, thus relieving the excruciating and torturing twinges, by lifting the lung from the liver. The next spasm was less severe, but the sufferer’s mind had begun to wander, and he again clasped his sides, a proceeding with which Bombay interfered.

Early on the next morning, my companion, supported by Bombay and Gaetano, staggered towards the tent. Nearing the doorway, he sent in his Goanese, to place a chair for sitting, as usual, during the toils of the day, outside. The support of an arm being thus removed, ensued a second and violent spasm of cramps and twinges, all the muscles being painfully contracted. After resting for a few moments, he called his men to assist him into the house. But neglecting to have a chair previously placed for him, he underwent a third fit of the same epileptic description, which more closely resembled those of hydrophobia than aught I had ever witnessed. He was once more haunted by a crowd of hideous devils, giants, and lion-headed demons, who were wrenching, with superhuman force, and stripping the sinews and tendons of his legs down to the ankles. At length, sitting, or rather lying upon the chair, with limbs racked by cramps, features drawn and ghastly, frame fixed and rigid, eyes glazed and glassy, he began to utter a barking noise, and a peculiar chopping motion of the mouth and tongue, with lips protruding--the effect of difficulty of breathing--which so altered his appearance that he was hardly recognisable, and completed the terror of the beholders. When this, the third and the severest spasm, had passed away, he called for pen and paper, and fearing that increased weakness of mind and body might presently prevent any exertion, he wrote an incoherent letter of farewell to his family. That, however, was the crisis. He was afterwards able to take the proper precautions, never moving without assistance, and always ordering a resting-place to be prepared for him. He spent a better night, with the inconvenience, however, of sitting up, pillow-propped, and some weeks elapsed before he could lie upon his sides. Presently, the pains were mitigated, though they did not entirely cease: this he expressed by saying that “the knives were sheathed.” Such, gentle reader, in East Africa, is the kichyoma-chyoma: either one of those eccentric after-effects of fever, which perplex the European at Zanzibar, or some mysterious manifestation of the Protean demon Miasma.

I at once sent an express to Snay bin Amir for the necessary drugs. The Arabs treat this complaint by applying to the side powdered myrrh mixed with yoke of egg, and converted into a poultice with flour of mung (Phaseolus Mungo). The material was duly forwarded, but it proved of little use. Said bin Salim meanwhile, after sundry vague hints concerning the influence of the Father of Hair, the magnificent comet then spanning the western skies, insisted, as his people invariably do on such conjunctures, upon my companion being visited by the mganga, or medicine-man of the caravan. That reverend personage, after claiming and receiving the usual fee, a fat goat, anointed with its grease two little bits of wood strung on to a tape of tree-fibre, and contented himself with fastening this Mpigi--the negroid’s elixir vitæ--round my companion’s waist. The ligature, however, was torn off after a few minutes, as its only effect was to press upon and pain the tenderest part.

During the forced halt which followed my companion’s severe attack, I saw that, in default of physic, change of air was the most fitting restorative. My benumbed legs and feet still compelling me to use a hammock, a second was rigged up for the invalid; and by good fortune thirteen unloaded porters of a down caravan consented to carry us both for a large sum to Rubuga. The sons of Ramji were imperatively ordered to leave Kazeh under pain of dismissal, which none would incur as they had a valuable investment in slaves: with their aid the complement of porters was easily and speedily filled up.

Seedy Mubarak Bombay--in the interior the name became Mamba (a crocodile) or Pombe (small beer)--had long before returned to his former attitude, that of a respectful and most ready servant. He had, it is true, sundry uncomfortable peculiarities. A heaven-born “Pagazi,” he would load himself on the march with his “T’haka-t’haka,” or “chow-chow,” although a porter had been especially hired for him. He had no memory: an article once taken by him was always thrown upon the ground and forgotten: in a single trip he broke my elephant gun, killed my riding-ass, and lost its bridle. Like the Eastern Africans generally, he lacked the principle of immediate action; if beckoned to for a gun in the field he would probably first delay to look round, then retire, and lastly advance. He had a curious inverted way of doing all that he did. The water-bottle was ever carried on the march either uncorked or inverted; his waistcoat was generally wound round his neck, and it appeared fated not to be properly buttoned; whilst he walked bareheaded in the sun, his Fez adorned the tufty poll of some comrade; and at the halt he toiled like a charwoman to raise our tents and to prepare them for habitation, whilst his slave, the large lazy Maktubu, a boy-giant from the mountains of Urundi, sat or dozed under the cool shade. Yet with all his faults and failures Bombay, for his unwearied activity, and especially from his undeviating honesty,--there was no man, save our “Negro Rectitude,” in the whole camp who had not proved his claim to the title triliteral--was truly valuable. Said bin Salim had long forfeited my confidence by his carelessness and extravagance; and the disappearance of the outfit committed to him at Ujiji, in favour, as I afterwards learned, of an Arab merchant-friend, rendered him unfit for the responsibilities of stewardship.

Having summoned Said bin Salim, I told him with all gentleness, in order to spare his “shame”--the Persian proverb says, Fell not the tree which thou hast planted--that being now wiser in Eastern African travel than before, I intended to relieve him of his troublesome duties. He heard this announcement with the wriest of faces; and his perturbation was not diminished when informed that the future distribution of cloth should be wholly in the hands of Bombay, checked by my companion’s superintendence. The loads were accordingly numbered and registered; the Pagazi were forbidden, under pain of punishment, to open or to change them without permission; and Said bin Salim received, like the Baloch, a certain monthly amount of beads, besides rations of rice for the consumption of his children. This arrangement was persevered in till we separated upon the seaboard: it acted well, saving outfit, time, and a host of annoyances; moreover, it gave us command, as the African man, like the lower animals, respects only, if he respects anything, the hand that gives, that feeds him. It was wonderful to see how the “bone of contention,” cloth, having been removed, the fierceness of those who were formerly foes melted and merged into friendship and fraternisation. The triad of bitter haters, Said bin Salim, the monocular Jemadar, and Muinyi Kidogo, now marched and sat and ate together as if never weary of such society; they praised one another openly and without reserve, and if an evil tale ever reached my ear its subject was the innocent Bombay--its object was to ruin him in my estimation.

Acutely remembering the trouble caused by the feuds between Said bin Salim and Kidogo upon the subject of work, I directed the former to take sole charge of the porters, to issue their rations, and to superintend their loads. The better to assist him, two disorderly sons of Ramji were summarily flogged, and several others who refused to carry our smaller valuables were reduced to order by the usual process of stopping rations. “Shehe,” though chosen as Kirangozi or guide from motives of jealousy by the porters, was turned out of office; he persisted in demanding cloth for feeing an Unyamwezi medicine-man, in order to provide him, a Moslem! with charms against the evil eye, a superstition unknown to this part of Eastern Africa. The Pagazi, ordered to elect one of their number, named the youth Twánígáná, who had brought with him a large gang. But the plague of the party, a hideous, puckered, and scowling old man who had called himself “Muzungu Mbaya,” or the “Wicked White,” so far prevailed that at the first halt Twanigana, with his blushing honours in the shape of a scarlet waistcoat fresh upon him, was found squatting solus under a tree, the rest of the party having mutinously preceded him. I halted at once and recalled the porters, who, after a due interval of murmuring, reappeared. And subsequently, by invariably siding with the newly-made Kirangozi, and by showing myself ready to enforce obedience by any means and every means, I gave the long-legged and weak-minded youth, who was called “Gopa-Gopa”--“Funk-stick”--on account of his excessive timidity, a little confidence, and reduced his unruly followers to all the discipline of which their race is capable.

As we were threatened with want of water on the way, I prepared for that difficulty by packing a box with empty bottles, which, when occasion required, might be filled at the best springs. The Zemzemiyah or travelling canteen of the East African is everywhere a long-necked gourd, slung to the shoulder by a string. But it becomes offensive after a short use, and it can never be entrusted to servant, slave, or porter without its contents being exhausted before a mile is measured.

By these arrangements, the result of that after-wisdom which some have termed fools’ wit, I commenced the down march under advantages, happy as a “_bourgeois_” of trappers in the joyous _pays sauvage_. I have detailed perhaps to a wearisome length the preparations for the march. But the success of such expeditions mainly depends upon the measures adopted before and immediately after departure, and this dry knowledge may be useful to future adventurers in the great cause of discovery.

The stages now appeared shorter, the sun cooler, the breeze warmer; after fourteen months of incessant fevers, the party had become tolerably acclimatised; all were now loud in praise, as they had been violent in censure, of the “water and air.” Before entering the Fiery Field, the hire for carrying the hammocks became so exorbitant that I dismissed the bearers, drew on my jack-boots, mounted the half-caste Zanzibari ass, and appeared once more as the Mtongi of a caravan. After a fortnight my companion had convalesced so rapidly that he announced himself ready to ride. The severe liver pains had disappeared, leaving behind them, however, for a time, a harassing heart-ache and nausea, with other bilious symptoms, which developed themselves when exposed to the burning sun of the several tirikeza. Gradually these sequelæ ceased, sleep and appetite returned, and at K’hok’ho, in Ugogo, my companion had strength enough to carry a heavy rifle, and to do damage amongst the antelope and the guinea fowl. Our Goanese servants also, after suffering severely from fever and face-ache, became different men; Valentine, blessed with a more strenuous diathesis, carried before him a crop like a well-crammed capon. As the porters left this country, and the escort approached their homes, there was a notable change of demeanour. All waxed civil, even to servility, grumbling ceased, and smiles mantled every countenance. Even Muzungu Mbaya, who in Unyamwezi had been the head and front of all offence, was to be seen in Ugogo meekly sweeping out our tents with a bunch of thorns.