Chapter VI: My First Settlement on Kilima-Njaro

Very early in the morning of the succeeding day—the second after our arrival in Moši—I began to prepare for the last stage of my journey, the search for a suitable site on which to establish my principal and central collecting-station. Various considerations must influence me in my selection. Firstly, it must not be too low down on the mountain, so as to be inconveniently far from my collecting-grounds; secondly, it must not be too high up or my men would suffer unduly from cold, and we should induce no natives to bring their food supplies for sale. Again, I did not wish to build too near Mandara’s court in case that monarch should honour us with an inconvenient amount of his society, and always have me at his beck and call; on the other hand, if I journeyed too far into the wilderness I lost the protection Mandara was able to accord me and would, consequently, nullify the object of my settlement in Moši, which was to be enabled to pursue my avocations quietly and economically by living with a very few followers under the ægis of a powerful prince.

I, therefore, after long consultation of the imperfect map, decided that a certain prominent spur of the mountain in the north-east of Mandara’s country (overlooking the bed of a rivulet) would best answer my purpose for a secure and pleasant settlement. After experience showed me that this almost accidental choice would have been a strangely fortunate one, and had I made a permanent residence in Mandara’s country, I should have eventually built there. But on my indicating this selection to the chief on my arrival, I could see that it met with his secret disapproval. He really feared that in establishing myself on this distant spot I should be too independent of his caprices. Yet he did not countermand it, but merely nodded and said enigmatically, “We shall see—kešo, kešo” (_kešo_! fatal word = ‘to-morrow’). However, I was determined to show him that I intended to have my own way. Accordingly, I prepared actively for departure on the morrow. I thought it ominous that no guides or message came from Mandara’s court, but I, nevertheless, affected not to notice this, and gave the order cheerfully to shoulder loads and march. Only thirty men—the Zanzibaris—responded. The Rabai porters sat sullen and immovable, and raised not a finger to their loads. I asked them if they had understood me. “Perfectly,” they said, “but Mandara had given them orders not to move.” “But,” I exclaimed, “_I_ am your master, _I_ pay you, and I command you to take up your loads and follow me to the last stage of the journey.” “What do we care for your commands?” they replied. “Why Mandara could kill us all in a moment, and who could resist him? And you—why you daren’t even beat us, because you know we should tell the missionaries.” This was indeed bitterness for me, especially the feeling that I was impotent to harm these wretches. Unfortunately, they had all received the greater part of their wages in advance, and had carefully stored up their dollars before quitting the coast, so that the threat of depriving them of the small remainder of their pay, if they failed to complete the contract, had little effect. Mandara, it appears, had tried to cajole and frighten the Zanzibaris into joining the strike, but these true-hearted Mussulmen had informed him that they had but one master and that the white man, and him only would they obey—an answer for which Mandara ever afterwards bore them a grudge. I therefore in my difficulty turned to them for counsel. Kiongwe, the head-man, whose experience under Stanley had made him a reliable adviser, proposed a daring solution of the quandary, namely, that he should proceed forthwith to Mandara’s, present him my salaams, and inform him I was now ready to start, and waiting only for the promised guide. On this errand he went, and found Mandara in the best of humours, and apparently grieved to hear of the mutiny in my camp, though his one eye twinkled as he said so.

A compromise was arrived at. Kiongwe was informed that I was _free_ to go wherever I chose, but that Mandara _advised_ me to select the site which his delegates would show me. As I had a hundred loads and only thirty men willing to carry them, I had better put my goods under his charge, and he would take care of them until they could be removed in instalments to the selected site. I was rueful when Kiongwe returned and communicated the result of his interview, because I felt how utterly I had placed myself in Mandara’s power. Moreover, I dreaded lest the proposed “taking charge of my goods” were not a pretext for exacting a huge ransom. However, I submitted to fate, and after events showed me that I had misjudged Mandara. The site he had selected for my settlement was not quite equal to the one I would have preferred, as regards natural history purposes, but it was not far removed in distance, and certainly had many peculiar advantages. As to the goods placed under Mandara’s care, I can only say they were made over to me absolutely intact.

Nevertheless, not foreknowing the happy termination of my troubles, it was with a somewhat anxious heart that I accompanied my thirty Zanzibaris, following as speedily as possible Mandara’s nimble soldiers. These, our guides, sped along in front, skipping uphill like goats, and making nothing of the slippery, clayey descents, slimy with recent showers, where _we_ had carefully to walk sideways to avoid a headlong tumble. But these glissades were only accidents along the winding track; our general direction was upwards. We left the spur on which Mandara’s residences stand, wound along a little artificial watercourse which irrigated the chief’s banana plantations, then attacked a very steep hill-side, up which we clambered almost on all fours, clutching at grass tufts by the way, stopped to breathe under the spreading branches of some magnificent acacia-trees, where the bold, grey monkeys peered at us wonderingly with their blue faces, and ducked their heads and chattered at our ugliness; again mounted up, up, up, till our knees grew palsied, and our chests ached; passed through rich hedges of glossy-leaved dracœnas, pink-flowered aloes, spreading fern-fronds and fruiting brambles, turned the corner sharply, and entered on a less fatiguing portion of our route.

How charming was the journey now before us! After such a tiring ascent, wherein we were nearly compelled to relapse into our pristine mode of locomotion—in fact to imitate those great baboons who scampered away from us on all fours up the lanes, disturbed in their raids on the banana clusters; we were now able to stroll at our ease, though such was the exhilaration of the scene, and the freshness of the morning air, that I skipped and tripped, childlike, along the level path. And such a path! Like a tiny towing-track it followed a Lilliputian canal, cut along an artificial channel in the hill-side, or, to express it more clearly, diverted from the parent-stream before the hill was a hill in a far-off valley, and now pursuing its tranquil course and gentle descent along the swelling bosom of the mountain, while the original rivulet descended below in wasteful cascades. Both path and irrigating channel hung seemingly in mid-air, jutting out from the mountain-side with a thousand feet of tree-choked ravine below and five hundred feet of bracken-covered hill above. Therefore, as we marched along so gaily, we looked down on the velvety tops of the bushy trees with which the sheer descent of rock and fern was studded, and up through the wide, orange-tinted bracken fronds at the bright green banana groves that crested the summit of the hill. Then we rounded the prettiest little clump of woodland imaginable, pushed out like an ornamental shelf or bracket from the wall of hill, and positively suspended over the green gulf below. This, indeed, was a “hanging-wood,” and I almost hesitated at first to follow the path that hung upon its edge, fearing lest the weight of our passing troop might break down the border that supported path and stream, and send us tumbling into the valley beneath. But this was a danger more fanciful than real, for the ledge was firmly buttressed underneath by the strong roots of the forest-trees clinging to the rock. As we skirted this great ravine we arrived at a point where it narrowed, and where the difference between valley and hill was less. Here the little rivulet, which farther on its course lay a thousand feet below, was on a level with the path, and here it was made to give birth by careful damming to artificial canals, which started away on either side to irrigate the terraced hill-plantations with their sluggish flow. Where we crossed the pretty stream was in a shady hollow. It had expanded to a shimmering pool; large sycamore fig-trees with spatulate leaves rose above its banks. Tall arums, with pale yellow flower-sheaths, and untidy Isolepis grasses, whose heads of streaming filaments looked like green mops, studded its flattened banks, and we jumped in a few seconds from stone to stone across its shallow flow, crossing at the same time both stream and valley, and finding ourselves commencing the ascent of the opposite hill, and, but that we now had the widening gorge between us, seemingly retracing our steps to Mandara’s town. His little beehive huts, on which we had hitherto turned our backs, now reappeared behind the shoulder of the opposite hill, but when our climb was done lay more than a thousand feet below us. Here we had reached our destination.

VIEW OF MANDARA’S VILLAGE FROM KITIMBIRIU.

To face page 119.
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There are numberless spurs or buttresses of the parent-mountain on the southern side of Kilima-njaro. Some are bold, serrated, and abrupt; some are rounded and nearly flattened on the top. On one of these Mandara’s residence is placed, on another, of more imposing height, I was about to build; and there are yet others, and others, and others, stretching out westward and eastward into the great plain below. Each one of these spreading buttresses is separated from its neighbours by a ravine, which, as you ascend it, will gradually narrow and narrow until it disappears, and the two diverging spurs of the mountain converge into the parent mass, so that the general effect of Kilima-njaro from the south would suggest a tree-trunk poised on its spreading roots. In each ravine there is a rivulet, and along the crest of each buttress, or it may be somewhat to the side, meanders an artificially-trained stream, diverted from the rivulet at some higher fountain or waterfall, and carried in a gentle descent along the brow of the hill. This, of course, is the handiwork of man, but so industrious have been at varying times the Bantu inhabitants of Kilima-njaro, that there is scarcely a spur descending from the southern base of the mountain that is unprovided with the irrigating channel—or, it may be, three or four channels at different elevations—running along its sloping crest or flanks, and keeping its terraced gardens supplied with water. In those parts where wars have devastated the country, and where the hills are no longer cultivated or inhabited, these former runnels of water still remain, although from want of care the channels may have dried up and become turfed over.

Fig. 28.—Head and Shoulders of our Cow.
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In half an hour I had fixed on the site for my settlement, and remained there alone to guard the first instalment of my goods while my men returned to bring the rest. By the end of the afternoon everything had safely arrived, and for the first time during many weeks I knew what it was to be free from care, and be able to enjoy an afternoon of idleness. I no longer cared now whether the men of Rabai ran away or not. My goods were safely landed at my destination, my wearying tramp over wold and fell, sharp rocks and scorching sand, was at an end, and I was free to rest with the satisfaction of finding that my brightest anticipations of Kilima-njaro scenery were realized. No more desperate marches after water, only to find it hidden away in the crevices of lofty hills. There, alongside of me, in front of me, as I sat in my deck-chair on the broad brow of the hill, swirled the water in its artificial channel, brought by man’s patient ingenuity to keep us company in our eyrie. A little way off me lay my men, their work for the day concluded. They had with happy abandonment thrown themselves down on the sweet turf, lying half somnolent in fragrant beds of mint and clover, crushing with their dead weight many a delicate ground-orchid or purple-red dissotis. The tent had been pitched, and the cook’s fire was sending up a little column of smoke, which stood out bluish-white against the green background of the rising hill-side. A goat and kid, a cow and calf, presents from Mandara, munched peacefully the rank grass round the bushes, but save for the occasional smothered tearing noise they made when cropping the herbage, and except the desultory conversation between the two cooks, no sound broke the dreamy silence. By a thoughtful order of Mandara’s, no native was allowed to visit my encampment the first day of our arrival, so that, until we had got all our goods safely stored, there might be no temptation to steal. Consequently my attention was undistracted, and totally given to the examination of my new surroundings.

The site of my first settlement on Kilima-njaro lay about two miles to the north-east of the capital of Moši (in latitude 3° 17′ 30″ S., and longitude 37° 25′ E.), on the brow of a fine hill nearly 5000 feet above the sea; but, of course, not much elevated above the surrounding country. On either side yawned a deep ravine, with a stream flowing through in its depths; but at the back the hill, which was only one of the many spurs of the mountain-side, joined the parent mass, and might thus be easily approached without much serious climbing. It would have been a splendid site for a city, and, indeed—who knows?—may be some day. I sometimes amuse myself by thinking that when—as it must be sooner or later—Kilima-njaro is colonized by a superior race, and fair cities spring up on its breezy heights, some of them may arise from the original sites of my various stations, and when they look back with complacency on their prosperous career and some aspiring archivist starts to write their history from its earliest commencement, my insignificance may be rescued from utter oblivion as the first inhabitant and the pristine architect of their foundation. Perhaps in the city museum may be preserved some curious relics of my stay—a champagne-bottle, a petroleum-tin, or an empty jar that once contained arsenical soap; and in the municipal library, perhaps even a copy of this book may be found, in which the passages descriptive of the city’s ancient site may be eagerly discussed and quoted. In the interest, then, of a possible futurity, I will complete the history of my settlement in Moši, the native name of which was “Kitimbiriu.” On the summit of this elongated hill—_colline_, or “little neck,” is a French name which describes it well—was a nearly level and broad plateau, three sides of which descended almost precipitously into the valleys below. With a very little work it might have been made unapproachable save from the north, where it joined on to higher ground. Along one side and then across and down the other side flowed a tiny artificial canal of clear water brought from a tumbling stream higher up the mountain, and carried along this hill from above in a very gently descending channel. Thus we had water at our very door, and needed not to seek it in the ravine a thousand feet below. It seemed so strange and quaint to find a placid brooklet flowing along high ground up in the clouds and at the edge of a precipice. All this was due to the patient industry of the Wa-čaga of Kilima-njaro, who prefer to live on the tops of hills for safety, and therefore carry their water in artificial channels from the heights above, and make it flow the whole length of these inhabited spurs, while the parent streams go dashing down the valleys, descending in cascades of 70 and 100 feet, till they flow far, far below the placid canals which water the hill-crests stretching out into the plains.

Fig. 29.—A View towards Mačame.
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In the centre of my settlement a large and spreading tree gave a pleasant shade in the warm noonday, and further sheltered my habitations from the occasional high winds; and lastly—and this, I suppose, no afterwork of man can alter—the view to be obtained from this site was almost unequalled in Čaga. “All the world,” said Mandara once, “can be seen from your windows;” and though, of course, it was not a strictly true assertion, it was plausible when uttered in view of such a splendid expanse of country—such a veritable map of Eastern Africa as might be seen from Kitimbiriu. The two snow-peaks of Kibô and Kimawenzi rose above us to the north. Looking westward we might gaze over the whole belt of inhabited country as far as Mačame, near the great western shoulder of Kilima-njaro, which stretches towards Méru. Many a forest-crowned hill intervened; and in the foreground the scenery was a bewildering maze of banana plantations in their glinting, vivid green, of maize-fields, of patches of red and freshly turned-up soil, and dark purple blots, which were isolated trees left standing in the cultivated land. Then there were the bare, sheep-cropped downs forming stretches of pale green colour, and the hill-sides clothed with feathery bracken, which at the season of my arrival (June) was dried to a vivid yellow. All these varied tones, too crude and startling in the foreground, became harmonized into a beautiful green and purple patchwork in the middle distance, and faded away near the horizon into a calm and tender violet, broken here and there by the blue puffs of smoke which everywhere mark the inhabited zone; for the natives of Čaga are perpetually clearing the land of weeds and burning the refuse in great bonfires to fertilize the soil with the ashes.

Fig. 30.

A View towards Ugweno.
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Southward and eastward I looked across to the beautiful blue hills of Ugweno,[15] at the base of which lies Lake ǰipé. The lake cannot be seen from the elevation of Kitimbiriu, but mount a thousand feet higher and you will descry it like an oblong mirror at the base of the purple hills.

Fig. 31.—Mount Méru.
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But in all this range of view there was no grander object for the eyes to rest on—scarcely excepting the snowy dome of Kibô—than Méru, the grandest mountain in symmetrical shape that Africa can boast. It rises, a perfect pyramid, to the west of Kilima-njaro, and springs heavenward from the sunny plain till it reaches a height of nearly 15,000 feet.[16] I wish I could paint it for you as I saw it at the close of this tranquil afternoon when I lay resting and awaiting my dinner on the hill-top of Kitimbiriu. Imagine, first, a western sky of clear, pale gold, deepening into orange just close to the horizon. Over this hangs in the upper heaven a thin sheet of greyish purple cloud, semi-opaque, semi-transparent, letting a little of the warm ground show through, sharp edged, and so disposed at a slight angle as to appear like the border of a dusky curtain prepared to drop over the scene. This foil enhances the vivid glory of the golden belt which stretches across the sky. Then out of a serrated horizon of unimportant peaks and cones rises the clear, dark blue pyramid of Méru, its outline just a little tampered with by Nature, so that it may not be rendered too formal. The summit is slightly flattened, and on the right side a jagged notch breaks the uniformity of its long northern slope. The accidental effect of colour is as beautiful as anything. Seen by this light there is no subtle interweaving of tints. The whole mass of Méru is one clear tone of dark grey-blue, and the brilliant band of sky behind is an unvaried positive gold. Just to break the almost decorative look the formal contrast bears, there is one faint, delicate smear of cloud stretching right across the upper half of mountain and sky. Méru is cut off from the middle distance by a long, undulating, purple line marking the farthest westward spur of Kilima-njaro. The centre of the picture is a rich, dusky-green plain, interwoven with lines of purple and brown to mark the distant clumps of forest bordering the river-course. In the more distant foreground stretch out the nearer buttresses of Kilima-njaro, long lines of hillocks, crested with occasional umbrageous trees, but more often clothed with banana groves of pale, pure green. These interwoven lines of hill stretch upwards from the vague obscurity of the middle distance till they culminate in the great simple shoulder of the down rising across our ravine. This is a plain grassy slope with white goats browsing on it, but in the immediate foreground it is dropping into the more misty depths of the widening gorge over whose purple abyss soar and wheel in high relief a few brown vultures.

Fig. 32.—A Kite.
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It was most delightful thus to look forth from my eyrie on the many lands spread before me as on a huge and living map, and also to feel that I was safe from all attack on the part of the lawless rovers of the plains. My gaze stretched away, even into parts of Africa that are unknown and unvisited of white men, and I could scan the natural features of these countries at a glance, and correct the disposition of their rivers and mountain ranges on the map. Sometimes, when the partial mists rose over the nearer hills and valleys, and the brow of my hill seemed to be an island floating in the air, the effect was a most pleasing and novel one. I, my men, my huts, and my domestic animals seemed to be sailing over Africa in a giant balloon. Below us, beyond the mists, were the sunlit plains, the lines of velvet forest bordering the winding streams, the stretches of open pasture-land like lakes of grass, green amid the darker forest and the purple hills. Then, at our feet, rolling clouds of grey vapour, and, standing out in strong relief against this vacuous background, the soaring kites who wheeled and poised with outspread pinions just below my feet, seeming like the birds which accompanied Solomon when he flew through the air on his magic carpet, as the Arab legends tell us.

Throughout the four months of my residence in Kitimbiriu the beauties of the scenery never palled and never grew monotonous. With such varied atmospheric agencies the effects around us changed like the designs of a kaleidoscope, and rarely came two alike. Sometimes, perhaps at early dawn, everything would be veiled in blank mist, save only the summit of Kibô, and this would gleam out above the clouds, like some supernatural vision, rosy in the effulgence of the coming dawn. Or, it might be, in the noontide every trace of vapour would have vanished, and the velvet forest lie glowing in gold-green light and dusky purple shadows, every detail strongly marked, while the precipices, jutting rocks, and shining _nevées_ of Kibô were discernible with startling clearness, though the peak lay distant nearly fifteen miles. In the afternoon, perhaps, the sky was hung with dense curtains of purple-grey cloud, and the plain below lay in monotonous blue shadow; only away to the west, behind the pyramid of Méru, the heavens exhibited one clear, cloudless belt, which the descending sun turned to refulgent gold, and against this relief, as on some antique illumination or decorative design, the peak of Méru and the jagged hill-tops at its base would stand out in a simple tone of indigo.

On the morning succeeding my arrival I had little leisure for observing the scenery, although I felt in high spirits and very much the better for my long, dreamy, restful afternoon of the day before, spent idly in the contemplation of the matchless landscapes round me. Perhaps for this reason I was inclined to relent in my just wrath against the Rabai porters, and pay them the remainder of their wages and let them go. Or it may have been a message from Mandara, asking me to overlook their mutiny of the day before, and send them back to the coast with their money and food allowance, which decided me to this act of forgiveness, for such powerful advocacy was not to be slighted. Accordingly these creatures were summoned from Mandara’s village, ranged in line by my Zanzibaris, and received their “chits,” or slips of paper, which they were to present for payment to the Consul on the coast. On each “chit” was written the amount of the man’s wages, _minus_ fines for misbehaviour, or _plus_ a present for well-doing. Further, perhaps, was a line or two of writing to serve as a “character,” good or bad, as the case may be, which Captain Gissing, when he payed them at Mombasa, would doubtless enlarge into a stern upbraiding or kindly commendation. I fear, however, from what I remember of these men, that he would have been more occupied in rebuking than commending, for a worse stamp of men than the Rabai porters I have rarely met with in Africa, and I think most other travellers’ experience is the same. Their first evangelist, Krapf, describes them in despair as a “crooked and indifferent generation of heathens,” and although the generation of which he wrote may have passed away, the one to which it has given place amply illustrates the principle of heredity by perpetuating with increased force the ancestral badness.

It was with considerable relief that I dismissed them from my settlement in Čaga and turned to my faithful Zanzibaris, who were setting to work with bright activity to make our little colony inhabitable. Twenty of these Zanzibaris were allowed to lie by and rest, for I intended to send them shortly back to Taita to fetch the goods there left behind in the missionary’s house, when so many of the Wa-rabai deserted; but of the remaining twelve, each man received his appointed task. Abdallah was made supervisor of the working men; Mabruki and Athmani were already engaged in drying plants and skinning birds under my tuition; Faraǰi and Cephas were building a kitchen; Ibrahim was sent with Baher, Fariǰala, and Mwali Mnyani to take spades and clear the site for my house; Abdallah bin Saleh was to cut grass and attend to the goat and cow; Mguu collected firewood for the cooks; while, most important task of all, to Kadu Stanley was given the post of gardener—he had to dig up a piece of soil, divide it into neat plots, sow it with my English seeds, and hedge it round about with a sturdy palisade. The day succeeding my arrival I had already put into my kitchen-garden the seeds of mustard and cress, radishes, turnips, carrots, onions, tomatoes, borage, sage, cucumbers, and melons; and at the end of my first week in Čaga, I was already eating a salad of my own growing.

We did not, however, sink at once into this life of quiet colonization. During the first few days of my stay I was much annoyed by continual visits from Mandara’s parasites; wretched bankrupt Swahili traders or runaway slaves, who had taken refuge with the chief of Moši from their creditors or owners; and, in the sense that a one-eyed man is king amongst the blind, so this rascality of the coast quite lorded it over the simple savage, and affected to consider itself on a par with the white man. From the first time, however, that I met them on the road to Čaga, when they were sent to welcome me to Mandara’s country. I felt it would be a struggle for supremacy between us. They were secretly enraged at my coming, fearing to lose their influence over the fickle chief, and seeing much hindrance to the slave-trade, which they, the ex-slaves, were so profitably organizing. Accordingly, from the very first they sought to thwart me, and, without resorting to any overt act of malice, intended to render my stay in the country impossible. Before I had barely occupied my settlement a day they began making constant visits to my tent, coolly demanding this and that article in the name of Mandara. At first I simply declined, but, after one or two refusals, their ringleader, an ape-like, shrunken man, marked with small-pox, said in a threatening tone, “I tell you what, young man (kiǰana), if you are not more generous, you will never be able to stop here.” I immediately seized my stick, and jumped after him; but he had gathered up his skirts and fled, followed by his companions. At this juncture there was but one course to be pursued. I called to me two or three of my men, took my walking-stick, and started on the road to Mandara’s house. Arriving at his village green, I saw his Swahili parasites lolling about, some of them affecting to play with much interest a game like “draughts,” called _bao_, although I saw them watching me out of the corners of their eyes. All, however, studiously remained indifferent to my approach, and for a second I paused, irresolute as to how I should announce myself to the chief. Then I called to the nearest man, who was stooping over one of the _bao_ players, and told him quietly to go and tell Mandara I desired an interview. He kept his back turned to me, shrugged his shoulders, and smiled scornfully at his comrades. My temper rose, but, apart from this, I knew these curs only cringe to force. I raised my stick, and brought it down with a sounding thwack on the shoulders of the inattentive man. “Now,” I said, “you pig, you slave, go and tell the chief I have come to say good-bye.” He looked startled and hurried off. Presently I was summoned by a Čaga warrior to approach, but before I reached the hedge of dracœnas that bounded Mandara’s enclosure the chief himself came striding to meet me, not, as I had nerved myself to meet him, with knitted brows and sullen scowl, but with a charming smile and beaming face. Taking both my hands in his outstretched palms, he said, “What! has my white man come to see me already? How good! Now we must have a chat. Bring a seat there, and a cup of ‘tembo.’” This winning manner quite altered the tone of my feelings, and, after such graciousness, I felt that peevish complaints sounded very ill from my mouth. However, I braced myself to the disagreeable task, and told him resolutely that I must leave if any further demand for presents was made. “You know, Mandara, I am a poor man. The Wa-alimu (wise men) of Ulaya have not provided me with many goods. I cannot afford to give you constant gifts. If you really want me to build here and live in your country, you must leave off asking me for presents.”

Mandara, at these words, looked around on all present with well-acted astonishment. His one bright eye grew sad and perplexed under his knitted brow, as he said, “What is the white man saying? I don’t understand. Why does he want to go?” My men then told him, with averted looks and in tones of deepest respect, that the white man was offended because Mandara’s Swahilis came asking for frequent gifts for their chief. “Oh, is that all?” said Mandara, who had of course instigated the whole affair, and had sent these men to sound me gently, and see if I was of a generous and yielding temperament. “These men don’t know what they are saying; they should converse with the white man’s servants, not with him. But,” he said, “we are wasting our time over little words—_manéno madogo_. Between the white man and Mandara only great affairs should be treated of, or else general and light conversation (zumgumzo). I am Sultan here, am I not?” (An eager and hurried assent on every one’s part.) “And this is the Baloza’s child. Let him settle here in peace, and not concern himself with the conversation of slaves.” Here he affected to scowl at the Wa-swahili, who bore all this tirade very stolidly, as if a prearranged comedy was being carried out. However, I was not to be outdone in amiability, and so I heartily shook Mandara’s great paw, and drank sour tembo (which I detested) with an affected enjoyment quite touching in its hypocrisy. Then a bright idea crossed my mind and I said—seeing that Mandara expected a reply to his oration—“Mandara, I have got a little tale (hadithi) to tell you.” “I am listening,” answered the chief. “Once, do you know, in Ulaya, there was a man who had a hen (none of the Wa-čaga have heard of geese) which laid him every morning a golden egg. And the man was very pleased at first, but after awhile he got impatient, and he said, ‘Instead of waiting for many days till I get a good sum from this hen’s eggs, let me cut her open now, and get out all the gold at once.’ And he did so, and found nothing inside. Now, wasn’t that a foolish man, Mandara?” “Ye-es,” replied the chief thoughtfully, “perhaps he was.” Then he sipped more tembo, and reflected. After a pause he turned to me and continued, “And now _I_ will tell _you_ a tale. When I plant a seed or a sapling here in my plantation, I let it grow quietly at first—I do not pull it up to look at its roots, and I do not pluck its early blossoms or its tender leaves. I wait until it is mature, and then,” he added thoughtfully, looking straight before him, “if it fails to bear abundant fruit, I cut it down.”

Then our conversation ranged over the most varied subjects—European life, a description from me of an ironclad—_manowari_ (man-of-war) as Mandara called it—the history and configuration of Čaga from Mandara, whose notion of local geography was singularly correct—the Čaga language, the English tongue, and so on.

The interview ended in rapturous friendship. Mandara declared himself my father, claimed me as a son, and announced, almost hysterically, a complete community of goods (a statement to which I inwardly demurred). “Whenever the white man wanted a cow or a goat, he would just take them from the herds of his father Mandara, and whenever Mandara desired a handsome gun or a European bed, he would use those that belonged to his white child.”

As an earnest of this happy arrangement he sent for a splendid ram, with an immensely fat tail, a ewe, and a lamb, and handed them over to me as a little “kitowéo” (relish), to take back to my camp. I then shook his great hand enthusiastically, and with many a parting shout of “Kwa-heri (good-bye), Mandara,” “Kwa-heri, mtoto wangu!” (good-bye, my child), I turned my steps back to Kitimbiriu, my men enthusiastic over the “manéno mazuri” (fine words) which had passed between their master and the chief of Moši. Of course on my return I made up a quantity of the things he most coveted, especially a number of packets of European seeds, and sent them to him as an equivalent for the sheep. After this interview the relations between Mandara and myself assumed such a friendly character, that I felt myself able to rely entirely on his goodwill as a protection against the rapacity of his followers. Consequently, the very next day I despatched twenty men to Taita for the purpose, already mentioned, of bringing the last instalment of goods left behind.

KIBÔ IN THE EARLY MORNING.

To face page 136.
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When these had departed, I was now at liberty to turn my attention to more congenial studies. I installed my two collectors in a quickly constructed hut, unpacked the bales of botanical paper, the cases of taxidermist paraphernalia, and other necessaries in natural history collecting, and set to work to amass and preserve as many specimens of the fauna and flora around me as I could obtain. Having given every man his allotted task, and being able to trust the general supervision of the settlement to my Indian servant, I was freer in my movements than I had been for a long time, and could ramble about alone all day with the certainty of finding everything going on well when I returned. With a light heart I was able to explore the beauties of my African Switzerland. First of all, I desired to obtain a sketch of the snowy dome of Kibô. This, the highest summit of Kilima-njaro, was not always on view. For weeks together he would be swathed in clouds. But should you be an early riser, you would hardly fail to catch a glimpse of him just at sunrise, when before the cold breath of morning the unfolding clouds part and scatter, and disclose his splendid crown of virgin snow, irradiated with the pale pink sunshine. Thus it was that within a few days of my arrival I had my first good stare at, and began my first detailed sketch of Kilima-njaro’s highest peak, which the coast people call “the mountain of the Snow Fiend,” and the Masai more reverently term “the Home of God.” I hurried a short distance from my camp to the edge of the ravine, whence there was little to obstruct the view, and there, squatted amid the crushed bracken fronds at the commencement of the precipitous descent, I looked across first to the opposite hill, crested with feathery trees, acacias, sycamores, and palms, and then to the swelling forest-clad heights beyond, gloomy and sombre in the shade, as yet untouched by the sloping sunshine. Above these a vast white sheet of fleecy cloud, uniform and flat, and crowning all, as if cut off from the lower earth, and floating majestically in the pale blue heaven, the snow-covered dome, with its blemishes of shadow and blaze of preponderating light like that of the disc of the moon.

Fig. 34.—A Native Dam.
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The jealous clouds, however, granted me but a poor half-hour in which to sketch the features of their monarch, and I was compelled to defer the completion of my work to other opportunities. Meanwhile, I extended my walks, gun in hand, and a collecting portfolio on my back, in all directions, but my first favourite stroll was up the valley of our little stream. Following the tiny path which ran parallel with our irrigating channel, I came to the place where the latter branched off from the parent stream. Here, at will, a passing native could cut off our water-supply by laying a packet of grass and mud athwart the little channel, and, therefore, bearing this in mind, and regarding also the fertility and beauty of the rich valley (full of the alluvial soil washed down from the hill-sides by the rain), I resolved that hereabouts my principal plantations should be made. I obtained Mandara’s consent to the plan, and accordingly set my man, Kadu Stanley, to work at once, directing him to clear away the brushwood, burn it, mix the ashes with the soil, and then plough the whole field up and break the clods of earth. Soon many a rich bed of dark red earth was sown with seed, and separated from its fellows by little runnels, along which, once a day or oftener, water, diverted from the nearest waterfall, was turned. Indeed, perpetual irrigation was here much simplified. The plenteous stream went bounding through the valley, with a cascade every hundred yards or so. From the head of these waterfalls nothing was easier than to divert a stream on either side, carry it along a banked-up channel above your plantations, and turn the water wherever you willed into the network of tiny trenches which intersected the plots of ground.

Fig. 35.—“Kitimbiriu” (our First Settlement on Kilima-njaro).
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However, artificial irrigation seemed almost a superfluity in Čaga, where never a month passed without rain, and where the climate was as moist as that of Devonshire. I soon began to find that my first care must be to get a rain-proof roof to sleep under. Our primal houses were roughly made in a very few days. The men proceeded to the forest, cut a certain number of poles, used those that were forked at one extremity as “uprights,” and laid the horizontal rods across them, tying everything securely with long lithe strips of wetted banana fibre. Then to this rough framework they affixed a number of smaller sticks, until a rough lattice-work was formed, and finally, the whole, roof and all, would be neatly thatched with the old fronds of the banana-tree, resembling brown paper in look and texture. (By-the-bye, when civilization extends to Africa and people have got beyond the stage when they only seek for gold or diamonds, it strikes me that sun-dried banana leaves would form an admirable material for paper-making, superior to esparto grass.) Provided the roof was done with care, it ought to be completely rain-tight. As it was, a little patching generally had to take place after the first shower. No windows, of course, were made. Light was obtained from the open doorway, which was closed at night by a mackintosh curtain and a door of wooden framework. Inside, the earthen floor was stamped hard by men’s feet, and before inhabiting the house numerous fires were burnt on the ground and their ashes pounded into the beaten earth. Of course a trench or moat, to carry off the heavy rain, was dug all round the house, so that it generally happened that these hastily-constructed abodes were wonderfully dry and snug. When the house was built for my own occupation I had a large mat made from plaited strips of the useful “migomba” (dried banana leaves), and thrown down on the bare floor of beaten earth. Then, on this, one or two wild beasts’ skins or a bright-coloured Zanzibar “mkeka” (dyed grass mat), added quite a comfortable look to the interior. My bed was mounted in one corner, my portable table stood in the centre of the dwelling, boxes of necessaries were arranged along the walls, my washing-basin was poised on a roughly-made tripod, shelves were hastily rigged up to support the lighter articles of my equipment, and lastly, nails and hooks were knocked into the accommodating rafters, and from these depended all the heterogeneous articles that would let themselves be hung up.

Similar habitations were constructed for my men, paths were cleared and open spaces mowed, and soon, where before had been little but the pristine wilderness, rose the first decided outlines of my little colony.