Chapter III: Visit to the Kisulodi-Ni Mission House

Tremolavano i rai del sol nascente
Sovra l’onde del mar purpuree e d’oro,
E in vesti di zaffiro il ciel ridente,
Specchiar parea le sue bellezze in loro.
D’Africa i venti fieri e d’Oriente,
Sovra il letto del mar prendean ristoro.—TASSONI.

Leaving directions with Lakhmidas to land and lodge our cockroach-gnawed luggage, and deputing Saíd bin Salim, supported by our two Portuguese servants and his three slaves, to protect it, we set out on the morning after our arrival to visit M. Rebmann of the ‘Mombas Mission’ at Kisulodi-ni, his station. Before the sun gained power to destroy the dewy freshness of dawn, we slowly punted up the northern sea-arm which bounds the Mombasah islet: in our heavy ‘dau’—here all the lesser craft are so called—manned by two men and a small boy, we justified the stern Omar’s base comparison for those who tempt the sea, ‘worms floating upon a log.’ Whilst threading the channel our attention was attracted by groups of market people, especially women, who called to be ferried across. On the part of our crew the only acknowledgment was an African modification of Marlow Bridge, far-famed amongst bargees. Sundry small settlements, bosomed in thick undergrowth, relieved by brabs, cocoas, and the W-shaped toddy-tree, appeared upon each ‘adverse strand.’ After a two miles’ progress, lame as the march of civilisation at S’a Leone, we entered Port Tudor, a salt-water basin, one of the canals of Mombasah Bay, about two miles broad, and in depth varying from one to fifteen fathoms. Broken only by the ‘Rock of Rats,’ and hedged on both sides by the water-loving mangrove, it prolongs itself towards the interior in two tidal river-like channels for about ten miles, till stopped by high ground. The northern is named ‘Water of the Wakirunga,’ and the north-western ‘Water of the Rabai,’ from tribes owning the banks. Captain Owen has christened them respectively William Creek and River Barrette, after the officers who aided in his survey. Similarly, Port Reitz, to the south-west, projects a briny line called ‘Water of Doruma’—the region which it drains—and receiving the Muache, a sweet rivulet that flows from uplands 20 to 30 miles from the coast. Such in nature is the Tuaca, or Nash river, which defaces our maps. It is a mere confusion with Mtu Apa, the ‘River Matwapa’ of Captain Owen, a village and a little runnel five miles north of Mombasah. Lieut. Emery mentions the ‘hamlet of Mtuapa, situated at the entrance of a small river, which runs about sixteen miles into the country.’ Like the Cuavo, or great ‘Quiloa river,’ a salt-water inlet receiving during the rainy season the surface drainage of a seaward slope, the ‘Tuaca’ becomes a noble black streak, dispensing the blessings of intercourse and irrigation athwart three inches of white paper. The presence of such rivers must always be suspected: they would long ago have fundamentally altered the social condition of the interior. We may remark the same of Ptolemy’s three great Arabian streams, which could have existed only in the imagination of travellers.

As we advanced up the Rabai Water the sea arms shrank, and the scenery brightened till we felt that any picture of this gorgeous and powerful nature must be comparatively grey and colourless. A broken blue line of well-wooded hills, the Rabai Range, first offsets of the Coast Ghats, formed the background. On the nearer slopes, westward, were the rude beginnings of plantations, knots of peasants’ huts hove successively in sight, and pale smoke-wreaths, showing that the land is being prepared for the approaching showers, curled high from field and fell. Above was the normal mottled, vapoury sky of the rainy zone, fleecy mists, opal-tinted, and with blurred edges, floating on milk-blue depths, whilst in the western horizon a purple nimbus moved up majestically against the wind. Below, the water caught various and varying reflections of the firmament: here it was smooth as glass, there it was dimpled by the pattering feet of the zephyrs, that found a way through the hill-gaps, and merrily danced over the glistening floor. Now little fish, pursued by some tyrant of the waters, played duck and drake upon the surface: then larger kinds, scate-shaped, sprang five or six feet into the air, catching the sun like silver plates. On both sides the wave was bounded by veritable forests of the sea. The white mangrove affected the unflooded ground; the red species (Rhizophora Mangle, Linn.) rose unsupported where solidly based, but on the watery edge it was propped, like a Banyan tree in miniature, by succulent offsets of luscious purple and emerald green, so intricate that the eye would vainly unravel the web of root and trunk, of branch and shoot. Hence, doubtless, the name Aparaturie, or Apariturier, of the old French travellers, from parere, because the tree reproduces itself like mankind before split into Adam and Eve. Clusters of parasitical oysters adhered edgeways to the portions denuded by the receding tide; the pirate-crab sat in his plundered shell, whilst the brown newt and rainbow-tinted cancers, each with solitary claw, plunged into their little hiding-holes, or coursed sidling amongst the harrow-work of roots, and the green tufted upshoots binding the black mass of ooze. These are the ‘verdant and superb, though unfruitful, trees’ of the old Portuguese navigator, which supply the well-known ‘Zanzibar rafters.’ Various lichens sat upon the branch forks, and tie-tie, or llianas, hung like torn rigging from the boughs. Here and there towered a nodding cocoa, an armed bombax (silk-cotton tree), or a ‘P’hun’-tree, with noble buttressed shaft and canopied head of leek-green, glinted through by golden beams. Fish-hawks, white and brown-robed, soared high in ether. Lower down, bright fly-catchers hunted the yellow butterflies that rashly crossed from bank to bank; the dove coo’d in the denser foliage; the yellow vulture, apparently keeping a bright look-out, perched upon the topmost tree-crest overhanging the shoal water which lined the sides; the small grey kingfisher poised himself with twinkling wings; the snowy paddy-bird stood meditating upon the margin of the wave, while sober-coated curlews and sandpipers took short sharp runs, and stopped to dive beak into the dark vegetable mud.

After seven hours, or ten miles, of alternate rowing, sailing, and pushing through pelting rain and potent sunbeams, we reached, about mid-day, the pier—a tree projecting from the right bank over the miry graves of many defunct mangroves. Our boat, stripped of sail, oars, and rudder, to secure her presence next morning, was made fast to a stump, and we proceeded to breast the hills. We began with rolling ground, sliced and split by alternate heat and moisture, thickly grown with tall coarse grass, sun-scorched to a sickly tawny brown, and thinly sprinkled with thorny trees. Amongst the latter I recognized the ‘Gabol’-mimosa of Somaliland, whose long sharp needle, soft whilst young, but dry, hard, and woody when old, springs from a hollow filbert-like cone.

Another mile brought us to the first ascent of the Rabai hills. The pitch of the fell was short but sharp, and the path wound amongst boulders, and at times under palms and clumps of grateful shade. On the summit appeared the straggling lodges of the savages, pent-housed sheds of dried fronds, surrounded by sparse cultivation, lean cattle, and vegetation drooping for want of rain. The desert people were all armed, being in terror of the Wamasai, the natural enemies of their kind. None, however, carried guns, the citizens of Mombasah having strictly prohibited the importation of powder; a wise precaution which might be adopted by more civilized races upon the West African coast. Amid cries of Yambo!—a salutation which recalled dim memories of Mumbo Jumbo—especially from that part of the community termed by prescriptive right the fair—questions as to whether our bundle contained provisions, and the screams of lean-ribbed children, we pursued our road under the grateful cover of a little wood, and then over ridgy ground where a scattered village, shortly to be wasted by the Kimasai spear, was surrounded by the scantiest cultivation. At the end of a five-mile walk we entered the Mission House, introduced ourselves, and received from Mr and Mrs Rebmann the kindest welcome. They were then alone, M. Deimler, who had lived with Mr Isenberg in Abyssinia, having left them three days before in H. M.’s ship Castor, the late Commodore Trotter. We afterwards saw the latter at Zanzibar.

The Kisulodi-ni Mission House[13] at Rabai Mpia appeared to us in these lands a miracle of industry. Begun about 1850 by Messrs Rebmann and Erhardt, it was finished after some two years of uncommonly hard work. The form is three sides of a hollow square, completed with a railing to keep poultry from vagrancy, and the azotea, or flat roof, is ascended by an external ladder; the material is sandstone, clay-plastered and white-washed; mangrove rafters form the ceiling, and Mvuli planks the doors and shutters. It has, however, its inconveniences, being far from that source of all comfort, the well, and beplagued with ants—the little red wretches are ubiquitous by day, and by night overrunning the clothes, nestling in the hair, and exploring nose and ears without a moment’s repose, they compel the inmates to sleep with pans of water supporting the couch legs. We enjoyed sundry huge ‘sneakers’ of tea, and even more still the cool, light, refreshing air of the heights, and the glorious evening, which here, unlike ‘muggy’ Zanzibar, follows the heavy showers. The altitude by B. P. proved to be 750 feet, not 1200 to 2000, as reported.

The servants, most grotesque in garb and form, gathered to stare at the new white men, and those hill-savages who were brave enough to enter a house stalked about, and stopped occasionally to relieve their minds by begging snuff or cloth. One of the attendants had that in his face and manner which suggested the propriety of having a revolver ready. ‘Do not mind him,’ said Mrs Rebmann, ‘he is a very dear friend,—one of our oldest converts.’ ‘Yes,’ pursued her husband, ‘Apekunza was mentally prepared for Christianity by a long course of idiocy, poor fellow!’ We were somewhat startled by the utter simplicity of the confession when it was explained to us that the convert Apekunza, whom Dr Krapf calls Abbe Gunja, had, as often happens to Africans, been driven to distraction by the loss of all his friends and relatives. M. Rebmann also related to me in pathetic terms the death of the mechanic missionary, Johannes Wagner, a youth who, suffering from typhus, was very properly, but in vain, supplied with abundant stimulants, therefore the Arab version of the event was Sharrabúhu Khamr kasír—sár sakrán—mát wa Jehannum (they gave him much strong liquor—he got drunk—died, and went to Gehenna). To compare the edification of the people round the Christian death-bed, as set forth in the Missionary Intelligencer, was not a little suggestive of the delusions in which even honest men can live.

At a conference with the secretaries of the Church Missionary Society in London, Major Straith and the Rev. Mr Venn had intrusted me with an open letter to their employé, dated Sept. 30, 1856, giving him leave of absence in case he decided to accompany the East African expedition at the expense of the latter. They had neglected to forward a copy, but M. Rebmann had received a second communication, which he did not before produce. His earliest impulse was evidently to assist in carrying out the plans which had been first formed by the ‘Mombas Mission,’ and personally to verify the accuracy of the map, then so loudly and violently criticised, now gaining credit every year. But presently cool reflection came. He was not in strong health; he had, perhaps, seen enough of the interior; and, possibly, after a few conversations he thought that we relied too much on the arms of flesh—sword and gun. The home instructions were, ‘The Committee have only to remark that they entirely confide in you, as one of their missionaries, that wherever you go you will maintain all the Christian principles by which you are guided; that should you see fit to go with the expedition your experience and knowledge of the language may prove very valuable; while you may also obtain access to regions and tribes where missionary enterprise may be hereafter carried on with renewed vigour.’ This did not quite suit us, who had been pledged by Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton to avoid ‘Dutchmen’ and proselytizing. Briefly, M. Rebmann did not accompany us. A few weeks afterwards we met him again at Zanzibar, whither he had been driven by the plundering Wamasai in February, 1857. His passion for the ‘wunderbar’ had not abated, and he told us impossible legends about vast forests and other mythical features, near the Nyassa, southern or Zambezean Lake. During the years which he had spent in the Wanyika country he had never studied its language; but when driven from it, he immediately applied himself to Kinyika. An honest and conscientious man, he had yet all the qualities which secure unsuccess. He was the last of the ten members of the hapless Mission: all of them were attacked by bilious remittents a few weeks after commencing their labours; several had died, and the others had sought less dangerous fields for labour, and some possibility of doing something in the spiritual way. That it has been highly successful, geographically speaking, none can doubt. The short trips into the interior, and the long conversations with the natives, duly published by Messrs Krapf, Rebmann, and Erhardt, gave an impulse to East African exploration utterly unknown before their day. And as the recent valuable labours of Messrs Wakefield and New prove, the ‘Mombas Mission’ is not likely to derogate from its former fame.

We had proposed for ourselves a short excursion inland from Mombasah; but everything combined to oppose the project. The land was parched, provisions were unprocurable, the robber tribes were out, and neither guides nor porters would face the plundering parties then approaching the town. Indeed, it is to be feared that the entrance to Chaga, Kilima-njaro, and the hill country around will now be closed to travellers for many a year. Caravans dare not risk a contest with professed plunderers; and hereabouts a successful raid always leads to sundry repetitions. Such is the normal state of East Africa, from the Red Sea to the Cape. The explorer can never be sure of finding a particular road practicable: a few murders will shut it for a generation, and effectually arrest him at the very threshold.

We had no object during a mere ‘trial trip,’ either to fight our way, or to pave it with gold. Our course was to economize life and money for the great task of exploring the Lake Regions. This was duly explained by me to the Royal Geographical Society, and no African traveller would have required the explanation. But a certain Herr Augustus Petermann, of Gotha, could not resist the temptation of taunting me with having hesitated to face dangers through which the missionaries had passed, ‘weaponed only with their umbrellas.’ This gentleman from Germany had visited England, and had created for himself the title of ‘Physical Geographer to the Crown’: when, however, no salary was the result, he returned to his native land, declaring that the Crown must take its geography without physic. His style of settling geographical questions, for instance in the ‘Skizze’ before alluded to (note 1, chap. v.), seems to be simply striking a mean between the extremes of the disputants. The process reminds one of a Bombay savan, locally famed, who, having collected every observation published upon the disputed longitude of that port, added them all, divided them by the number of the items, and produced _his_ meridian. As a reward for Herr Petermann’s ‘zealous and enlightened services as a writer and cartographer in advancing geographical science,’ that is to say, persistent book-making and map-drawing, he, and not Mr Alexander Findlay, received, in 1867, the Founder’s medal of the Royal Geographical Society; and I can only say that in this case the gift has gone cheap, and has been easily gained, as what is called in familiar French ‘un crachat.’

Unlike the traveller, the merchant always commands an entrance for his goods: if one line be shut up, another forthwith opens itself. Such we found this year to be the case at Mombasah; the western country has suddenly been closed to Arabs and Wasawahili; the north-western has become as unexpectedly practicable. On January 19 (1857) returned the van of a large trading party, which had started for the interior in September last. It was composed of about 200 men—Arabs, Wasawahili, and slaves, of whom 40 bore provisions, rice and maize, pulse, sugar, and tobacco, whilst 150 armed with muskets carried packs to the value of $3000 in ‘Merkani’ (American domestics), sheetings, longcloths, and other stuffs; green, white, and spotted beads, knives, tin (batí); brass wires, and small chains, with stores and comforts for the journey. After 19 days of actual marching, and sleeping out 24 nights, they reached Kitui, the farthest point visited by Dr Krapf in 1849, and thence they dispersed through Ukamba-ni and Kikuyu, its north-western province, to purchase ivory. The latter article sold per Farsalah (35 lbs.) for 88 cubits of cotton cloth, probably worth at Zanzibar 11 German crowns and a small merchant could thus afford to being back from 1400 to 1500 lbs.

I wrote down a list of their marches[14] and stations, carefully comparing the accounts of several travellers. Ukamba-ni was described to me as a country rich in game, whose rivers were full of hippopotamus; with gazelles, jungle-cattle, and ‘wild camels’ (giraffes) in the plains, and in the bush lions and leopards, elephants, and the rhinoceros, which the Arabs here call ‘El Zurraf,’ and describe to be very fierce. The tribes are subject to head men, whose influence extends over a few miles: these chiefs must be propitiated with cloth and beads, for which they return safe conduct and provisions. At Kikuyu the caravan found a royalet, Mundu Wazeli, whose magical powers were greatly feared. The people, a semi-pastoral and hospitable race, willingly escorted the strangers. They are braver than the Wanyika, and they effectively oppose the Wamasaa, when invading their country to drive the Galla cattle. The Wakámbá claim blood-relationship with the Wakwafi and the Wagálla, who, it must be remembered, speak an Arabic dialect. All spring from the three sons of a venerable keeper of cattle, Mkwáfi the senior, Mgálla, and Mkámbá: the legend seems invented to account for the inveterate blood-feud between the cousin tribes. When the founders had inherited their father’s property, they had been cautioned against robbing wild honey, and they were told, as in the Crystal Palace, ‘Never kill a Bee.’ Mkámbá, apparently having a sweet tooth, attacked a wild hive, and had the misfortune to see all his cattle rush violently to the forests, where in time they became ‘buffaloes’ and antelopes. He naturally robbed his second brother, who, in turn, robbed the senior, who retorted by robbing the junior, and so forth till the present day. The climate is good, water abounds, and provisions are cheap. The honey is ‘white as paper’; sugar-cane, manioc, holcus, and tobacco are everywhere cultivated by the women; poultry is plentiful, and goats cost 8, while cows fetch 24 cubits of cotton cloth. The beasts of burden are asses and a few camels. The return road was rendered dangerous by the Gallas and the Wamasai, who both harry Ukam-ba-ni, but who did not dare to attack so large a body armed with guns. The caravan marched from sunrise till the afternoon, halting about half an hour after two hours’ walking, the stages being mostly determined by water. Every night they surrounded themselves with a corral, or rude abbatis, and they lighted huge fires against the wild beasts. I did not hear that any of the party died. My informants could tell me nothing concerning the giant snow-mountain, Ndur-Kenia,[15] that exceptional volcano, still active, when distant 6° from the sea, which would postulate a large lacustrine region, possibly the Baringo or Behari-ngo. They had never heard of the Tumbiri or Monkey river, flowing to the N. West; of the direct communication with the Upper Nile, or of other geographical curiosities whose existence the study of the interior during the last few years has either confirmed or annulled. Yet they were acute and not incurious men. One of them, Mohammed bin Ahmad, had kept a journal of his march, carefully noting the several stages. The late M. Jomard, President of the French Geographical Society, had been informed (and misinformed) that an annual caravan of ‘red people,’ from the neighbourhood of Mombasah, carried beads to buy ivory on the Nile, about N. lat. 3°. He laid down the length of the journey at two to three months. The Arabs knew nothing of the matter.

Nothing even among the Somali Bedawin can be wilder than the specimens from Ukamba-ni; these Warimangao,[16] as the people of Mombasah call them, the ‘sons’ of the chief Kivoi, that danced and sang the Nyunbo or song of triumph in the streets of Mombasah. It was a perfect picture of savagery. About 50 blacks, ruddled with ochre, performed the Zumo (procession); men blowing Kudu-horns, or firing their muskets, and women ‘lullalooing.’ They sat with us for some hours drinking a sherbet of Ngizi, or molasses extracted from cocoa-tree toddy, and the number of gallons which disappeared were a caution. The warriors of the tribe, adorned with beads on the necks, loins, and ankles, were armed with the usual long bows and poisoned arrows, spears or rather javelins, knobsticks for striking or throwing; knives and two-edged swords of fine iron, the latter a rude imitation of the straight Omani blade, of which I afterwards saw specimens upon the Congo river. Some had shock heads of buttered hair, wondrous unsavoury, and fit only for door-mats; others wore the thatch twisted into a hundred little corkscrews; their eyes were wild and staring, their voices loud and barking, and all their gestures denoted the ‘noble savage’ who had run out of his woods for the first time. They were, however, in high spirits. Before last year (1857) no Arab had visited their country: trading parties from Ukamba-ni sold ivory to the Wanyika for four times round the tusk in beads, and these middlemen, after fleecing those more savage than themselves, retailed the goods at high profits to the citizens. The Wakamba of the coast are, of course, anxious to promote intercourse between Mombasah and their kinsmen of the interior, and thus the road, first opened at the imminent risk of life, by the enterprising Dr Krapf, has become a temporary highway into the interior of Eastern Intertropical Africa—a region abounding in varied interest, and still awaiting European exploration. But let not geographers indulge in golden visions of the future! Some day the Arabs of Mombasah will seize and sell a caravan, or the fierce Wamasai or the Gallas will prevail against the traders. Briefly, no spirit of prophecy is needed to foresee that the Kikuyu line shall share the fate of many others.

A report prevalent in Mombasah—even a Msawahili sometimes speaks the truth—that the Mission House had been attacked by the savages, and the march of an armed party from the town, showing a belief in their own words, hurried us up to Kisulodi-ni, on Sunday, January 18. The rumour proved to be false, but it was a shadow forethrown by coming events: as M. Rebmann showed certain velléités for martyrdom, I insisted that his wife, an English woman, should be sent down to Mombasah, and we had the satisfaction to see the boxes packed. This second visit added something to our knowledge of the country. The Ghaut, or Coast Range, which has no general but many partial names, as Rabai, Shimba, and others, varies in height from 700 to 1200 feet, and fringes the shore from Melinde to the Panga-ni river. Distant but a few miles from a sea-board of shelly coralline, it shows, like Madagascar, no trace of the limestone formation, which forms the maritime region of Somaliland. These hills are composed of sandstones, fine and coarse, red-yellow and dark brown, with oxide of iron; the soil, as usual in Western Intertropical Africa, is a ‘terrier rouge,’ as Senegal was called by the French of the 17th century, a red ochreous clay, and bits of quartz lie scattered over the surface. Beyond it are detached hills of gneiss and grey and rufous granite: the latter is so micareous that the Baloch firmly believe it to contain gold.

Inland of Mombasah the Rabai Range is a mere ridge, with a gentler counter-slope landwards, declining 150 to 200 feet, not, as such maritime formations usually are, the rampart of an inland plateau. This unusual disposition probably gave rise to the novel idea—instruments were not used—that the interior falls to, and even below, sea-level, thus forming a depression, bounded north and south by rapid rivers, the Adi and the Panga-ni. The chine is broken by deep ravines, which during the rains pour heavy torrents into the sea-arms at their base: the people might make tanks and reservoirs by draining the smaller clefts, but they prefer thirst and famine to sweating their brows. Though exposed to the blighting salt breeze, the land wants nothing but water, and, this given, no man need ‘tread upon his neighbour’s toes.’ Arecas and cocoas, bushy mangoes and small custard-apples, the guava and the castor plant, the feathery manioc, and the broad-leaved papaw and plantain flourish upon its flanks. In the patches of black forest spared by the wild woodman, the copal, they say, and the Mvule, a majestic timber-tree whose huge trunk serves for planking and doors at Zanzibar, still linger. I saw none of the cinnamon plants mentioned by Dr Krapf. A little gum-animi or copal is here dug; but the inveterate indolence of the natives, their rude equality, in which, as amongst Bushmen, no one commands, and their inordinate love for Tembo, or palm-wine, are effectual obstacles to its exploitation. When we visited these hills drought and its consequence, famine, had compelled the people to sell their children: contented with this exertion, they did no more.

We left Kisulodi-ni on January 22, 1857. Some nights afterwards fires were observed upon the neighbouring hills, and the Wanyika scouts returned with a report that the Wamasai were in rapid advance. The wise few fled at once to the Kaya, or hidden barricaded stronghold, which these people prepare for extreme danger. The foolish many said, ‘To-morrow we will drive our flocks and herds to safety.’ But ere that morning dawned upon the world, a dense mass of wild spearmen, numbering some 800 braves, sweeping like a whirlwind, with shout and yell and clashing arms, passed the Mission House, which they either did not see or which they feared to enter; dashed upon the scattered village in the vale below, and strewed the ground with the corpses of wretched fugitives. Thence driving their loot they rushed down to the shore, and met a body of 148 matchlock-men, Arabs and Baloch, Wasawahili and slaves, posted to oppose progress. The bandits fled at the first volley. The soldiers, like true Orientals, at once dispersed to secure the plundered cattle, when the Wamasai rallying, fell upon them, and drove them away in ignominious flight, after losing 25 men, to the refuge of their walls. The victors presently retired to the hill-range, amused themselves with exterminating as many Wanyika as they could catch, and, gorged with blood and beef, returned triumphant to their homes. The old Jemadar Tangai took from the unfortunate Wanyika all their remaining cows; they also retired into the interior, and the price of provisions at Mombasah was at once doubled.

The wild people of Eastern Africa are divided by their mode of life into three orders. Most primitive and savage are the fierce pastoral nomades, Wamasai and Gallas, Somal, and certain of the ‘Kafir’ sub-tribes: living upon the produce of their herds and by the chase and foray, they are the constant terror of their neighbours. Above them rank the semi-pastoral, as the Wakamba, who, though without building fixed abodes, make their women cultivate the ground: these clans indulge in occasional or periodical raids and feuds. The first step towards civilization, agriculture, has been definitively taken by the Wanyika, the Wasumbara, the Wanyamwezi, and other tribes living between the coast and the inland lakes: this third order is usually peaceful with travellers, but thievish and fond of intestine broils.

But a few years ago the Wakwafi,[17] who in their raids slew women and children, were the terror of this part of the coast: now they have been almost exterminated by their Southern and S. Western neighbours, the Wamasai, a tribe of congeners, formerly friends, and speaking the same dialect. The habitat of this grim race is the grassy and temperate region from N. Westward and to S. Westward of Chaga: nomades, but without horses, they roam over the country, where their flocks and herds find the best forage; they build no huts, but dwell under skins, pitching rude camps where water and green meat are plentiful. They are described as a fine, tall, dark race resembling the Somal, with a fearful appearance caused by their nodding plumes, their hide pavoises or shields, longer than those of the ‘Kafirs,’ and their spears with heads broad as shovels, made of excellent charcoal-smelted metal. According to native travellers, they are not inhospitable, but their rough and abrupt manners terrify the Wasawahili: they will snatch a cloth from the trader’s body, and test his courage with bended bow and arrow pile touching his ribs. Life is valueless among them; arms are preferred to clothes, and they fear only the gun because it pierces their shields. They are frequented when in peaceful mood by traders from Mombasah, Wasin, Mtanga, and Panga-ni: this year, however, even those who went up from the Southern ports feared to pass the frontier. Such visits, however, are always dangerous. ‘If a number of persons are killed by a certain tribe, and there happen to be parties belong to that tribe staying amongst the race which has suffered loss, the visitors are immediately put to death,’ says Mr Wakefield. Cattle is the main end and aim of their forays, all herds being theirs by the gift of the Rain-god and by right of strength; in fact, no other nation should dare to claim possession of a cow. They do not attack by night, like other Africans: they disdain the name of robbers, and they delay near the plundered places, dancing, singing, and gorging beef to offer the enemy his revenge. Until this year they have shunned meeting Moslems and musketeers in the field: having won the day, they will, it is feared, repeat the experiment.

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Footnote 13:

I made a sketch of it which was published in Dr Krapf’s Travels, chap.
xiii. Rabai Mpia, ‘New Rabai,’ is thus distinguished from a
neighbouring settlement, Rabai Khú or Kale, ‘old Rabai.’ According to
M. Guillain (i. 247), the ‘Montagnes de Rabaye’ correspond with the
‘Alkerany’ of the geographer Ibn Saíd, who says, ‘East of Melinde is
Alkerany, the name of a mountain very well known to travellers. This
height projects into the sea for a distance of about 100 miles in a
north-east direction; at the same time it extends along the Continent
in a straight line, trending south for some 50 miles. Amongst the
peculiarities of this mountain is the following: the continental
portion contains an iron mine, which supplies all the country of the
Zenj, besides being exported, and the part under the sea contains
magnetic matter which attracts iron.’ Evidently ‘Alkerany’ belongs to
the geography of El Sindibad of the Sea, better known as Sindbad the
Sailor.

Footnote 14:

The route which follows seems to agree, as far as it goes, with the
Rev. Mr Wakefield’s No. 3, from Mombasah to Dhaicho. I have not
changed my notes, which still appear in my diary of 1857.

1. Mombasah viâ Mkupa to Rabai: 1 full day.

2. Kitakakai in the plains of the Wakamba: 1 day.

3. Mtu ’Ndogoni (M’tu Anggoni of Capt. Guillain?): 1 day.

4. Wamamba of the Doruma: 1 day.

5. Kisima (little well), amongst high hills, with a small reservoir:
1½ day. (This appears to be the Ngurunga za Kimiri and Ngurunga za
Mlala of Capt. Guillain, and the Gurungani of Mr Wakefield).

6. Dayda (Tayta, the Taveta of Capt. Guillain, which Mr Wakefield
makes a corruption of a Kikwavi word, ‘Ndoveta’): 2 days (1 long and 1
short).

7. Ndi, a place infamous for thieves: 1½ day.

8. The Chágo (Zavo) or Tsavo river: 1½ day. (Captain Guillain has a
village, Segao.)

9. Mtitowandei: 1½ day.

10. Kikumbulu, or country on the southern frontier of Ukamba: 1 day.

11. The Adi (Sabaki or Sabbak) river, which disembogues itself north
of Melinde, unfordable after rains: 1½ day.

12. The Tiwa river in Yatá: 1 day.

13. Nzáu, the land of tobacco: 1½ day.

14. Kitui: 2½ days.

Thence, to the beginning of Kikuyu, the travellers make from 4 to 8
stages. The day’s work would be 9 hours, including 2 of halt, and the
distance, assuming the pace to be 2½ miles per hour, would be about 17
miles. Here, say the people, 10 marches do the work of a month on the
southern lines, the reason being want of food and water, and fear of
enemies.

Footnote 15:

The reports forwarded by the Rev. Mr Wakefield render it very probable
that Mount Kenia is the Dóĭnyo Ebor, ‘White Mountain,’ the block
rising north of Kikuyu, and almost in a meridian with Kilima-njaro.
Moreover, a native traveller has lately described a mass of 30 to 40
craters in the Njemsi country, south of the Baringo or Bahari-ngo
Lake; the apex of the mountains being the Doenyo Mburo, alias the
Kirima ja Jioki (Mountain of Smoke), heard of by Dr Krapf (Church
Miss. Int., p. 234. 1852.)

Footnote 16:

The singular is Mritmangao, hence Mr Cooley’s Meremongáo, whence iron
was exported to make Damascus blades—risum teneatis? Dr Krapf says
‘the Wakamba are called by the Suahili, Waumanguo.’ M. Guillain (iii.
216) translates ‘M’rim-anggâo, or Ouarimanggâo’ by ‘gens qui vont
nus.’

Footnote 17:

Dr Krapf’s ‘Vocabulary of the Engútuk Eloikob’ (Wakwafi), Tübingen,
1854. The author, a far better ethnologist than linguist, made the
Wakwafi tribe extend from N. Lat. 2° to S. Lat. 4°, and in breadth
from 7° to 8°. He derives the racial name from Loi or Eloi (‘those,’
plural of Oloi), and Gob or Kob (country) ‘those in or of the
country’; the word has been corrupted by the Wakamba to Mukabi, and by
the Wasawahili to Mukafi and Mkwafi, in the plural, Wakwafi. Late
reports represent the fact that the Wamasai tribe, after the fashion
of all Inner Africa, is struggling to obtain a settlement upon the
coast, where it can trade direct with Europeans, and has actually
succeeded in driving the Waboni from the southern bank of the Adi or
Sabakí river; thence its progress to Melinde and the seashore is easy
and sure. I regret to state that the valuable papers by Herr Richard
Brenner (Mittheilungen, &c., Dr A. Petermann, 1868) have not been
translated into English. Mr Edward Weller, however, has made use of
that traveller’s map in preparing his excellent illustration of these
volumes. Herr Brenner is stated to be still in Africa; he appears to
be an intelligent traveller, and we may justly hope that we have not
heard the last of him.