Chapter I (10)

From this cold jungle--the thermometer showed a minimum of 54° F.--we emerged at dawn on the 11th October, and after three hours’ driving through a dense bush of various thorns, with calabashes reddened by the intense heat, and tripping upon the narrow broken path that ran over rolling ground, we found the porters halted at some pits full of sweet clear water. Here the caravan preserved a remarkable dead silence. I inquired the cause. The Coast-Arabs who accompanied us were trying an experiment, which, had it failed, would have caused trouble, expense, and waste of time; they were attempting to pass without blackmail the little clearing of Usek’he, which lay to the south of the desert-road, and they knew that its Sultan, Ganza Mikono, usually posted a party upon the low masses of bristling hill hard by, to prevent caravans evading his dues. As no provisions were procurable in the jungle, it was judged better to proceed, and the sun was in the zenith before we reached the district of K’hok’ho. We halted under a spreading tree, near the head-quarter village of its villanous Sultan, in an open plain of millet and panicum-stubbles. Presently Kidogo, disliking the appearance of things--the men, rushing with yells of excitement from their villages, were forming a dense ring around us; the even more unmanageable old women stared like _sages femmes_, and already a Mnyamwezi porter had been beaten at the well--stirred us up and led the way to an open jungle about a mile distant. There we were safe; no assailant would place himself upon the plain, the Coast-Arabs were close at hand, and in the bush we should have been more than a match for the Wagogo.

The Baloch, fatigued by the tedious marches of the last two days, had surlily refused their escort to our luggage, as well as to ourselves. When the camp was pitched, I ordered a goat to be killed; and, serving out rations to the sons of Ramji and the porters, I gave them none, a cruel punishment to men whose souls centered in their ingesta. The earlier part of the evening was spent by them in enumerating their grievances--they were careful to speak in four dialects, so that all around might understand them, in discussing their plans of desertion, and in silencing the contradiction of their commander, the monocular Jemadar, who, having forsworn opium, now headed the party in opposition to the mutineers. They complained that they were faint for want of meat--the fellows were driving a bullock and half a dozen goats, which they had purchased with cloth, certainly not their own. I had, they grumbled, given them no ghee or honey, consequently they were obliged to “eat dry”--they knew this to be false, as they had received both at Kanyenye. We had made them march ten “Cos” in our eagerness to obtain milk--they were the first to propose reaching a place where provisions were procurable. The unmanageables, Khudabakhsh, Shahdad, and Belok, proposed an immediate departure, but a small majority carried the day in favour of desertion next morning. Kidogo and the sons of Ramji ridiculed, as was their wont, the silly boasters with, “Of a truth, brethren! the coast is far off, and ye are hungry men!” On the ensuing day, when a night’s reflection had cooled down their noble bile, they swallowed their words like buttered parsnips. I heard no more of their plans, and in their demeanour they became cringing as before.

The transit of the K’hok’ho clearing, which is also called the Nyika, or wilderness, is considered the nucleus of travellers’ troubles in Ugogo. The difficulty is caused by its Sultan, M’ana Miaha, popularly known as Maguru Mafupi, or Short-shanks. This petty tyrant, the most powerful, however, of the Wagogo chiefs, is a toothache to strangers, who complain that he cannot even plunder _à l’aimable_. He was described to me as a short elderly man, nearly bald, chocolate-coloured, and remarkable for the duck-like conformation which gave origin to his nickname. His dress was an Arab check round his loins, and another thrown over his shoulders. He becomes man, idiot, and beast with clockwork-regularity every day; when not disguised in liquor he is surly and unreasonable, and when made merry by his cups he refuses to do business. He is in the habit of detaining Wanyamwezi caravans to hoe his fields, and he often applies them to a _corvée_ of five or six days during the spring-time, before he will consent to receive his blackmail.

We were delayed five days at K’hok’ho to lay in provisions for four marches, and by the usual African pretexts, various and peculiar. On the afternoon of arrival it would have been held indecent haste to trouble His Highness. On the first morning His Highness’s spouse was unwell, and during the day he was “sitting upon Pombe,” in other words, drinking beer. On the second he received, somewhat scurvily, a deputation headed by Said bin Salim, the Coast-Arab merchants, and the Jemadar. Two Wazagira, or chief-councillors, did the palaver, which was conducted, for dignity, outside the royal hovel. He declared that the two caravans must compound separately, and that in my case he would be satisfied with nothing under six porters’ loads. As about one-twelfth of his demand was offered to him, he dismissed them with ignominy, affirming that he held me equal to the Sayyid of Zanzibar, and accordingly that he should demand half the outfit. The third day was spent by the Coast-Arabs in haggling with the courtiers before His Highness, who maintained a solemn silence, certainly the easiest plan; and the present was paraded, as is customary on such occasions, in separate heaps, each intended for a particular person, but Her Highness, justly offended by the flimsiness of a bit of chintz, seized a huge wooden ladle and hooted and hunted the offenders out of doors. After high words the Arabs returned, and informed me that things were looking desperate. I promised assistance in case of violence being offered to them,--a civility which they acknowledged by sending a shoulder of beef. The fourth day was one of dignified idleness. We received a message that the court was again sitting upon Pombe, and we too well understood that His Highness, with his spouse and cabinet, were drunk as drunk could be. On the morning of the fifth day, a similar delaying process was attempted; but as the testy Kidogo, who had taken the place of the tame Said, declared that the morrow should see us march in the afternoon, the present was accepted, and the two or three musket shots usual on such occasions sounded the joyful tidings that we were at liberty to proceed. The unconscionable extortioner had received one coil of brass wire, four “cloths with names,” eight domestics, eight blue cottons, and thirty strings of coral beads. Not contented with this, he demanded two Arab checks, and these failing, a double quantity of beads, and another domestic. I compromised the affair with six feet of crimson broadcloth, an article which I had not produced, as the Coast-Arabs, who owned none, declared that such an offering would cause difficulties in their case. But as they charged me double and treble prices for the expensive cloths which the Sultan required, and which, as they had been omitted in our outfit, it was necessary to purchase from them, I at length thought myself justified in economising by the only means in my power. The fiery-tempered Coast-Arabs left K’hok’ho with rage in their hearts and curses under their tongues. These men usually think outside their heads, but they know that in Ugogo the merest pretext--the loosing a hot word, touching a woman, offending a boy, or taking in vain the name of the Sultan--infallibly leads to being mulcted in cloth.

I was delighted to escape from the foul strip of crowded jungle in which we had halted. A down-caravan of Wanyamwezi had added its quotum of discomfort to the place. Throughout the fiery day we were stung by the Tzetze, and annoyed by swarms of bees and pertinacious gadflies. On one occasion an army of large poisonous siyafu, or black pismire, drove us out of the tent by the wounds which it inflicted between the fingers and on other tender parts of the body, before a kettle of boiling water persuaded them to abandon us. These ant-fiends made the thin-skinned asses mad with torture. The nights were cold and raw, and when we awoke in the morning we found some valuable article rendered unserviceable by the termites. K’hok’ho was an ill-omened spot. There my ass “Seringe,” sole survoice of the riding animals brought from Zanzibar, was so torn by a hyæna that I was compelled to leave it behind. I was afterwards informed that it had soon died of its wounds. The next mishap was the desertion of the fifteen Wanyamwezi porters who had been hired and paid at Ugogi. These men had slept in the same kraal with the somnolent sons of Ramji, and had stealthily disappeared during the night. As usual, though they carried off their own, they had left our loads behind, that they might reach their homes with greater speed. They would choose a jungle road, to avoid the danger of slavery, and living the while upon roots and edible grasses, would traverse the desert separating them from their country in three or four days. This desertion of fifteen men first suggested to me that my weary efforts and wearing anxiety about carriage were to a certain extent self-inflictions. Expecting to see half the outfit left upon the ground, I was surprised by the readiness with which it disappeared. The men seemed to behave best whenever things were palpably at the worst; besides which, as easily as the baggage of 50 porters was distributed amongst 100, so easily were the loads of 100 men placed upon the shoulders of 50. Indeed, the original Wanyamwezi gang, who claimed by right extra pay for carrying extra weight, though fiercely opposed to lifting up an empty gourd gratis, were ever docile when a heavier pack brought with it an increase of cloth and beads.

However, the march on the 17th October had its trifling hardships. My companion rode forward on the ass lately given to us by Abdullah bin Nasib, whilst I, remaining behind and finding that no carriage could be procured for two bags of clothes and shoes, placed them upon my animal the Mnyamwezi bought at Inenge, inasmuch as it appeared somewhat stronger than the half-dozen wretched brutes that flung themselves upon the ground apparently too fagged to move. I had, however, overrated its powers: it soon became evident that I must walk, or that the valuable cargo must be left behind. Trembling with weakness, I set out to traverse the length of the Mdáburu Jungle. The memory of that march is not pleasant: the burning sun and the fiery reflected heat arising from the parched ground--here a rough, thorny, and waterless jungle, where the jasmine flowered and the frankincense was used for fuel; there a grassy plain of black and sun-cracked earth--compelled me to lie down every half-hour. The watergourds were soon drained by my attendant Baloch; and the sons of Ramji, who, after reaching the resting-place, had returned with ample stores for their comrades, hid their vessels on my approach. Sarmalla, a donkey-driver, the model of a surly negro, whose crumpled brow, tightened eyes and thick lips which shot-out on the least occasion of excitement, showed what was going on within his head, openly refused me the use of his gourd, and--thirst is even less to be trifled with than hunger--found ample reason to repent himself of the proceeding. Near the end of the jungle I came upon a party of the Baloch, who, having seized upon a porter belonging to a large caravan of Wanyamwezi that had passed us on that march, were persuading him, half by promises and half by threats, to carry their sleeping mats and their empty gourds. The strict and positive orders as regards enticing away deserters which I had issued at Inenge, were looked upon by them, in their all-engrossing egotism, as a mere string of empty words. I could do nothing beyond threatening to report their conduct to their master, and dismissing the man, who obviously stood in fear of death, with his tobacco and hoes duly counted back to him. Towards the end of that long march I saw with pleasure the kindly face of Seedy Bombay, who was returning to me in hot haste, leading an ass, and carrying a few scones and hard-boiled eggs. Mounting, I resumed my way, and presently arrived at the confines of Mdáburu, where, under a huge calabash, stood our tent, amidst a kraal of grass boothies, surrounded by a heaped-up ridge of thorns.

Mdáburu is the first important district in the land of Uyanzi, which, beginning from Western K’hok’ho, extends as far as Tura, the eastern frontier of Unyamwezi-land. It is a fertile depression of brick-red earth, bisected by a broad, deep, and sandy Fiumara, which, trending southwards, supplies from five pits water in plenty even during the driest season. It is belted on all sides by a dense jungle, over whose dark brown line appeared the summits of low blue cones, and beyond them long streaks of azure ridge, beautified by distance into the semblance of a sea. We were delayed two days at this, the fourth and westernmost district of Ugogo. It was necessary to lay in a week’s provision for the party--ever a tedious task in these regions, but more especially in the dead of winter--moreover, the Sultan Kibuya expected the settlement of his blackmail. From this man we experienced less than the usual incivility: by birth a Mkimbu foreigner, and fearing at that time wars and rumours of wars on the part of his villanous neighbour, Maguru Mafupi, he contented himself with a present which may be estimated at nineteen cloths, whereas the others had murmured at forty and fifty. However, he abated nothing of his country’s pretentious pride. A black, elderly man, dressed in a grimy cloth, without other ornament but a broad ivory bracelet covering several inches of his right wrist, he at first refused to receive the deputation because his “ministers” were absent; and during the discourse about the amount of blackmail, he sat preserving an apathetic silence, outside his dirty lodging in the huge kraal which forms his capital. The demand concluded with a fine silk-cotton cloth, on the part of his wife; and when “ma femme” appears on such occasions in these regions, as in others further west, it is a sure sign that the stranger is to be taken in. As usual with the East African chiefs, Kibuya was anxious to detain me, not only in order that his people might profitably dispose of their surplus stores, but also because the presence of so many guns would go far to modify the plans of his enemies. His attempts at delay, however, were skilfully out-manœuvred by Said bin Salim, who broke through all difficulties with the hardihood of fear. The little man’s vain terrors made him put the ragged kraal which surrounded us into a condition of defence, and every night he might be seen stalking like a troubled spirit amongst the forms of sleeping men.

At Mdáburu I hired two porters from the caravan that accompanied us; and Said bin Salim began somewhat tardily to take the usual precautions against desertion. He was ordered, before the disappearance of the porters that levanted at K’hok’ho, to pack their hire in our loads, and every evening to chain up the luggage heaped in front of our tent. The accident caused by his neglect rendered him now quasi-obedient. Moreover, two or three Baloch were told off to precede the line, and as many to bring up the rear. The porters, as I have said, hold it a point of honour not to steal their packs; but if allowed to straggle forwards, or to loiter behind, they will readily attempt the recovery of their goods by opening their burdens, which they afterwards abandon upon the road. The Coast-Arabs, in return for some small shot, which is here highly prized, assisted me by carrying some surplus luggage. Amongst other articles, two kegs of gunpowder were committed to them: both were punctually returned at Unyanyembe, where gunpowder sells at two cloths, or half a Frasilah (17·5 lbs.) of ivory per lb; but the bungs had been stove in, and a quarter of the contents had evaporated. The evening of the second day’s halt closed on us before the rations for the caravan were collected, and seventeen shukkah, with about a hundred strings of beads, barely produced a sufficiency of grain.

From the Red Vale of Mdáburu three main lines traverse the desert between Ugogo and Unyamwezi. The northernmost, called Njia T’humbi, leads in a west-north-westerly direction to Usukuma. Upon this track are two sultans and several villages. The central “Karangásá,” or “Mdáburu,” is that which will be described in the following pages. The southernmost, termed Uyánzi, sets out from K’hok’ho, and passes through the settlements known by the name of Jiwe lá Singá. It is avoided by the porters, dreading to incur the wrath of Sultan Kibuyá, who would resent their omitting to visit his settlement, M’dáburu.

These three routes pass through the heart of the great desert and elephant-ground “Mgunda Mk’hali”--explained by the Arabs to mean in Kinyamwezi, the Fiery “Shamba” or Field. Like Marenga Mk’hali, it is a desert, because it contains no running water nor wells, except after rain. The name is still infamous, but its ill-fame rests rather upon tradition than actuality; in fact, its dimensions are rapidly shrinking before the torch and axe. About fifteen years ago it contained twelve long stages, and several tirikeza; now it is spanned in eight marches. The wildest part is the first half from Mdáburu to Jiwe lá Mkoa, and even here, it is reported, villages of Wakimbu are rising rapidly on the north and south of the road. The traveller, though invariably threatened with drought and the death of cattle, will undergo little hardship beyond the fatigue of the first three forced marches through the “Fiery Field;” in fact, he will be agreeably surprised by its contrast with the desert of Marenga Mk’hali.

From east to west the diagonal breadth of Mgunda Mk’hali is 140 miles. The general aspect is a dull uniform bush, emerald-coloured during the rains, and in the heats a network of dry and broom-like twigs. Except upon the banks of nullahs--“rivers” that are not rivers--the trees, as in Ugogo, wanting nutriment, never afford timber, and even the calabash appears stunted. The trackless waste of scrub, called the “bush” in Southern Africa, is found in places alternating with thin gum-forest; the change may be accounted for by the different depths of water below the level of the ground. It is a hardy vegetation of mimosas and gums mixed with evergreen succulent plants, cactaceæ, aloes, and euphorbias: the grass, sometimes tufty, at other times equally spread, is hard and stiff; when green it feeds cattle, and when dry it is burned in places by passing caravans to promote the growth of another crop.

The groundwork of Mgunda Mk’hali is a detritus of yellowish quartz, in places white with powdered felspar, and, where vegetation decays, brown-black with humus. Water-worn pebbles are sprinkled over the earth, and the vicinity of Fiumaras abounds in a coarse and modern sandstone-conglomerate. Upon the rolling surface, and towering high above the tallest trees, are based the huge granitic and syenitic outcrops before alluded to. The contrast between the masses and the dwarf rises which support them at once attracts the eye. Here and there the long waves that diversify the land appear in the far distance like blue lines bounding the nearer superficies of brown or green. Throughout this rolling table-land the watershed is to the south. In rare places the rains stagnate in shallow pools, which become systems of mud-cakes during the drought. At this season water is often unprocurable in the Fiumaras, causing unaccustomed hardships to caravans, and death to those beasts which, like the elephant and the buffalo, cannot long exist without drinking.

On the 20th October we began the transit of the “Fiery Field,” whose long broad line of brown jungle, painted blue by the intervening air, had, since leaving K’hok’ho, formed our western horizon. The waste here appeared in its most horrid phase. The narrow goat-path serpentined in and out of a growth of poisonous thorny jungle, with thin, hard grass-straw, growing on a glaring white and rolling ground; the view was limited by bush and brake, as in the alluvial valleys of the maritime region, and in weary sameness the spectacle surpassed everything that we had endured in Marenga Mk’hali. We halted through the heat of the day at some water-pits in a broken course; and resuming our tedious march early in the afternoon, we arrived about sunset at the bed of a shallow nullah, where the pure element was found in sand-holes about five feet deep.

On the 2nd day we reached the large Mabunguru Fiumara, a deep and tortuous gash of fine yellow quartzoze sand and sunburnt blocks of syenite: at times it must form an impassable torrent, even at this season of severe drought it afforded long pools of infiltrated rain-water, green with weeds and abounding with shell-fish, and with the usual description of Silurus. In the earlier morning the path passed through a forest already beautified by the sprouting of tender green leaves and by the blooming of flowers, amongst which was a large and strongly perfumed species of jasmine, whilst young grass sprouted from the fire-blackened remnants of the last year’s crop. Far upon the southern horizon rose distant hills and lines, blue, as if composed of solidified air, and mocking us by their mirage-likeness to the ocean. Nearer, the ground was diversified by those curious evidences of igneous action, which extend westward through eastern Unyamwezi, and northwards to the shores of the Nyanza Lake. These outcrops of gray granite and syenite are principally of two different shapes, the hog’s back and the turret. The former usually appears as a low lumpy dome of various dimensions; here a few feet long, there extending a mile and a half in diameter: the outer coat scales off under the action of the atmosphere, and in places it is worn away by a network of paths. The turret is a more picturesque and changing feature. Tall rounded blocks and conical or cylindrical boulders, here single, there in piles or ridges, some straight and stiff as giant ninepins, others split as if an alley or a gateway passed between them, rise abruptly and perpendicularly almost without foundationary elevation, cleaving the mould of a dead plain, or--like gypseous formations, in which the highest boulders are planted upon the lowest and broadest bases--they bristle upon a wave of dwarfish rocky hill. One when struck was observed to give forth a metallic clink, and not a few, balanced upon points, reminded me of the tradition-bearing rocking stones. At a distance in the forest, the larger masses might be mistaken for Cyclopean walls, towers, steeples, minarets, loggans, dwelling houses, and ruined castles. They are often overgrown with a soft grass, which decaying, forms with the degradation of the granite a thin cap of soil; their summits are crowned with tufty cactus, a stomatiferous plant which imbibes nourishment from the oxygen of the air; whilst huge creepers, imitating trees, project gnarled trunks from the deeper crevices in their flanks. Seen through the forest these rocks are an effective feature in the landscape, especially when the sunbeams fall warm and bright upon their rounded summits and their smooth sides, here clothed with a mildew-like lichen of the tenderest leek-green, there yellowed like Italian marbles by the burning rays, and there streaked with a shining black as if glazed by the rain, which, collecting in cupfuls upon the steps and slopes, at times overflows, coursing in mimic cataracts down the heights.

That march was a severe trial; we had started at dawn, we did not, however, arrive at the Mabunguru Fiumara before noon, and our people straggled in about eveningtide. All our bullet-moulds, and three boxes of ammunition, were lost. Said bin Salim, the Jemadar, and three other men had followed in the rear, driving on the “One-Eyed Fiend,” which, after many a prank, lay down upon the ground, and positively declined to move. The escort, disliking the sun, abandoned it at once to its fate, and want of provisions, and the inordinate length of the marches, rendered a halt or a return for the valuable load--four boxes of ammunition--out of the question. An article once abandoned in these deserts is rarely if ever recovered; the caravan-porters will not halt, and a small party dares not return to recover it.

The 22nd October saw us at Jiwe la Mkoa, the half-way-house of Mgunda Mk’hali. The track, crossing the rough Mabunguru Fiumara, passed over rolling ground through a thorny jungle that gradually thinned out into a forest; about 8 A.M. a halt was called at a water in the wilderness. My companion being no longer able to advance on foot, an ass was unloaded, and its burden of ammunition was divided, for facility of porterage, amongst the sons of Ramji. After noon we resumed our march, and the Kirangozi, derided by the rival guide of the Coast-Arabs’ caravan, and urged forward by Kidogo, who was burning to see his wife and children in Unyamwezi, determined to “put himself at the head of himself.” The jungle seemed interminable. The shadows of the hills lengthened out upon the plains, the sun sank in the glory of purple, crimson, and gold, and the crescent-moon rained a flood of silvery light upon the topmost twig-work of the trees; we passed a dwarf clearing, where lodging and perhaps provisions were to be obtained, and we sped by water near the road where the frogs were chanting their vesper-hymn; still far,--far ahead we heard the horns and the faint march-cries of the porters. At length, towards the end of the march, we wound round a fantastic mass of cactus-clad boulders, and crossing a low ridge we found at its base a single Tembe or square village of emigrant Wakimbu, who refused to admit us. The little basin beyond it displayed, by “black jacks” and felled tree-trunks, evidences of modern industry, and it extended to the Jiwe or Rock, which gives its name to the clearing. We were cheered by the sight of the red fires glaring in the Kraal, but my companion’s ass, probably frightened by some wild beast to us invisible, reared high in the air, bucked like a deer, broke his frail Arab girths, and threw his invalid rider heavily upon the hard earth. Arrived at the Kraal, I found every boothy occupied by the porters, who refused shelter until dragged out like slaughtered sheep. Said bin Salim’s awning was as usual snugly pitched; ours still lay on the ground. The little Arab’s “duty to himself” appeared to attain a higher limit every stage; once comfortably housed, he never thought of offering cover to another, and his children knew him too well even to volunteer such a service to any one but himself. On a late occasion, when our tent had not appeared, Said bin Salim, to whom a message had been sent, refused to lend us one half of the awning committed to him, a piece of canvas cut out to serve as a tent and lug-sail. Bombay then distinguished himself by the memorable words,--“If you are not ashamed of your master, be ashamed of his servant!” which had the effect of bringing the awning and of making Said bin Salim testily refuse the half returned to him.

Jiwe la Mkoa, or the Round Rock, is the largest of the many hogs’-backs of grey syenite that stud this waste. It measures about two miles in extreme diameter, and the dome rises with a gentle slope to the height of 200 or 300 feet above the dead level of the plain. Tolerable water is found in pits upon a swamp at its southern base, and well covered Mtego or elephant traps, deep grave-like excavations, like the Indian “Ogi,” prove dangerous to travellers; in one of these the Jemadar disappeared suddenly, as if by magic. The smooth and rounded surface of the rock displays deep hoof-shaped holes, which in a Moslem land would at once be recognised as the Asr, or the footprints of those holy quadrupeds, Duldul or Zu’l Jenah. In places the Jiwe, overgrown with scattered tufts of white grass, and based upon a dusty surface blackened by torrent rains, forcibly suggested to the Baloch the idea of an elderly negro’s purbald poll.

We encamped close to the Jiwe, and in so doing we did wrong: however pleasant may be the shadow of a tall rock in a thirsty land by day, way-wise travellers avoid the vicinity of stones which, by diminished radiation, retain their heat throughout the night. All caravans passing through this clearing clamour to be supplied with provisions; our porters, who, having received rations for eight days, which they consumed in four, were no exceptions to the rule. As the single little village of Jiwe la Mkoa could afford but one goatskin of grain and a few fowls, the cattle not being for sale, and no calves having been born to the herds, the porters proposed to send a party with cloth and beads to collect provaunt from the neighbouring settlements. But the notable Khalfan bin Khamis, the most energetic of the Coast-Arabs in whose company we were travelling, would brook no delay: he had issued as usual three days’ rations for a long week’s march, and thus by driving his porters beyond their speed, he practised a style of economy usually categorised by us at home as “penny-wise and pound-foolish.” His marching was conducted upon the same principle; determining to save time, he pushed on till his men began to flag, presently broke down, and finally deserted.

At Jiwe la Mkoa the neck of the desert is broken: the western portion of Mgunda Mk’hali has already thinned out. On the 23rd October, despite the long march of the preceding day, Khalfan proposed a Tirikeza, declaring that the heavy nimbus from the west, accompanied by a pleasant cold, portended rain, and that this rain, like the “Choti Barsat” of India, announces the approach of the great Masika, or vernal wet season. Yielding to his reasons, we crossed the “Round Rock,” and passing through an open forest of tall trees, with here and there an undulating break, now yellow with quartz, then black with humus, we reached, after about three hours, another clearing like Jiwe la Mkoa, which owes its origin to the requirements of commerce. “Kirurumo” boasted of several newly built Tembe of Wakimbu, who supplied caravans at an exorbitant rate. The blackness of the ground, and the vivid green of vegetation, evidenced the proximity of water. The potable element was found in pits, sunk in a narrow nullah running northwards across the clearing; it was muddy and abundant. On the next day the road led through a thin forest of thorns and gums, which, bare of bush and underwood, afforded a broad path and pleasant, easy travelling. Sign of elephant and rhinoceros, giraffe and antelope, crossed the path, and as usual in such places, the asses were tormented by the Tzetze. After travelling four hours and thirty minutes, we reached a new settlement upon the western frontier of Uganzi, called “Jiweni,” “near the stones,” from the heaps of block and boulder scattered round pits of good water, sunk about three feet in the ground. The Mongo Nullah, a deep surface-drain, bisects this clearing, which is palpably modern. Many of the trees are barked previous to felling, and others have fallen prostrate, apparently from the depredations of the white ant. On the 25th, after another desert march of 2 hrs. 20′ through a flat country, where the forest was somewhat deformed by bush and brake, which in places narrowed the path to a mere goat-track, we arrived at the third quarter of Mgunda Mk’hali. “Mgongo T’hembo,” or the Elephant’s Back, derives its name from a long narrow ridge of chocolate-coloured syenite, outcropping from the low forest lands around it; the crest of the chain is composed of loose rocks and large detached boulders. Like the other inhabited portions of Mgunda Mk’hali, it is a recent clearing; numerous “black-jacks,” felled trees, and pollarded stumps still cumber the fields. The “Elephant’s Back” is, however, more extensive and better cultivated than any of its neighbours,--Mdáburu alone excepted,--and water being abundant and near the surface, it supports an increasing population of mixed Wakimbu and Wataturu, who dwell in large substantial Tembe, and live by selling their surplus holcus, maize, and fowls to travellers. They do not, like the Wakimbu of Jiwe la Mkoa, refuse entrance to their villages, but they receive the stranger with the usual niggard guest-rites of the slave-path, and African-like, they think only of what is to be gained by hospitality. Here I halted for a day to recruit and to lay in rations. The length of the stages had told upon the men; Bombay had stumped himself, several of the sons of Ramji, and two of Said bin Salim’s children were unable to walk; the asses, throwing themselves upon the ground, required to be raised with the stick, and all preferred rest even to food. Mboni, one of the sons of Ramji, carried off a slave girl from the camp of the Coast-Arabs; her proprietor came armed to recover her, swords were drawn, a prodigious clash and clatter of tongue arose, friends interfered, and blades were sheathed. Khalfan bin Khamis, losing all patience at this delay, bade us adieu, promising to announce our approach at Unyanyembe; about a week afterwards, however, we found him in most melancholy plight, halted half-way, because his over-worked porters had taken “French leave.”

We resumed our march on the 27th October, and after a slow and painful progress for seven hours over a rolling country, whose soil was now yellow with argile, then white with felspar, then black-brown with humus, through thorny bush, and forest here opening out, there densely closing in, we arrived at the “Tura Nullah,” the deepest of the many surface drains winding tortuously to the S. W. The trees lining the margin were of the noblest dimensions; the tall thick grass that hedged them in showed signs of extensive conflagration, and water was found in shallow pools and in deep pits beneath the banks, on the side to which the stream, which must be furious during the rainy season, swings. When halted in a clear place in the jungle, we were passed by a down caravan of Wanyamwezi; our porters shouted and rushed up to greet their friends, the men raised their right hands about a dozen times, and then clapped palm to palm, and the women indulged in “vigelegele,” the African “lulliloo,” which rang like breech-loaders in our ears.

On the next day we set out betimes through the forest, which, as usual when nearing populous settlements, spread out, and which began at this season to show a preponderance of green over brown. Presently we reached a large expanse of yellow stover where the van had halted, in order that the caravan might make its first appearance with dignity. Ensued a clearing, studded with large stockaded villages, peering over tall hedges of dark green milk-bush, fields of maize and millet, manioc, gourds, and water-melons, and showing numerous flocks and herds, clustering around the shallow pits. The people swarmed from their abodes, young and old hustling one another for a better stare; the man forsook his loom and the girl her hoe, and for the remainder of the march we were escorted by a tail of screaming boys and shouting adults; the males almost nude, the women, bare to the waist and clothed only knee-deep in kilts, accompanied us, puffing pipes the while, with wallets of withered or flabby flesh flapping the air, striking their hoes with stones, crying “Beads! beads!” and ejaculating their wonder in strident explosions of “Hi! hi!--Hui! ih!” and “Ha!--a!--a!” It was a spectacle to make an anchorite of a man,--it was at once ludicrous and disgusting.

At length the Kirangozi fluttered his red flag in the wind, and the drums, horns, and larynxes of his followers began the fearful uproar which introduces a caravan to the admiring “natives.” Leading the way, our guide, much to my surprise,--I knew not then that such was the immemorial custom of Unyamwezi,--entered uninvited and sans ceremony the nearest large village; the long string of porters flocked in with bag and baggage, and we followed their example. The guests at once dispersed themselves through the several courts and compounds into which the interior hollow was divided, and lodged themselves with as much regard for self and disregard for their grumbling hosts as possible. We were placed under a wall-less roof, bounded on one side by the bars of the village palisade, and the mob of starers that relieved one another from morning till night made me feel like the denizen of a menagerie.

CHAP. IX.

THE GEOGRAPHY AND ETHNOGRAPHY OF UGOGO,--THE THIRD REGION.

The third division of the country visited is a flat table-land extending from the Ugogi “Dhun,” or valley, at the western base of the Wasagara Mountains, in E. long. 36° 14′, to Tura, the eastern district of Unyamwezi, in E. long. 33° 57′; occupying a diagonal breadth of 155 geographical rectilinear miles. The length from north to south is not so easily estimated. The Wahumba and the Wataturu in the former, and the Wahehe and Warori in the latter direction, are migratory tribes that spurn a civilised frontier; according to the Arabs, however, the Wagogo extend three long marches on an average to the north and four or five southwards. This, assuming the march at 15 miles, would give a total of 120. The average of the heights observed is 3,650 feet, with a gradual rise westwards to Jiwe la Mkoa, which attains an altitude of 4,200 feet(?).

The third region, situated to leeward of a range whose height compels the south-east trades to part with their load of vapours, and distant from the succession of inland seas, which, stationed near the centre of the African continent, act as reservoirs to restore the balance of humidity, is an arid, sterile land, a counterpart, in many places, of the Kalahari and the Karroo, or South African desert-plains. The general aspect is a glaring yellow flat, darkened by long growths of acrid, saline, and succulent plants, thorny bush, and stunted trees, and the colouring is monotonous in the extreme. It is sprinkled with isolated dwarf cones bristling with rocks and boulders, from whose interstices springs a thin forest of gums, thorns, and mimosas. The power of igneous agency is displayed in protruding masses of granitic formation, which rise from the dead level with little foundationary elevation; and the masses of sandstone, superincumbent upon the primitive base in other parts of the country, here disappear. On the north rises the long tabular range of the Wahumba Hills, separated by a line of lower ground from the plateau. Southwards, a plain, imperceptibly shelving, trends towards the Rwaha River. There are no rivers in Ugogo: the periodical rains are carried off by large nullahs, whose clay banks are split and cut during the season of potent heat into polygonal figures like piles of columnar basalt. On the sparkling nitrous salinas and the dull-yellow or dun-coloured plains the mirage faintly resembles the effects of refraction in desert Arabia. The roads are mere foot-tracks worn through the fields and bushes. The kraals are small dirty circles enclosing a calabash or other tree, against which goods are stacked. The boothies are made of dried canes and stubble, surrounded by a most efficient _chevaux de frise_ of thorn-boughs. At the end of the dry season they are burnt down by inevitable accident. The want of wood prevents their being made solidly, and for the same reason “bois de vache” is the usual fuel of the country.

The formation of the subsoil is mostly sandstone bearing a ruddy sand. The surface is in rare places a brown vegetable humus, extending but a few inches in depth, or more generally a hard yellow-reddish ferruginous clay covered with quartz nodules of many colours, and lumps of carbonate of lime, or white and siliceous sand, rather resembling a well-metalled road or an “untidy expanse of gravel-walk” than the rich moulds which belong to the fertile African belt. In many parts are conical anthills of pale red earth; in others ironstone crops out of the plain; and everywhere fine and coarse grits abound. The land is in parts condemned to perpetual drought, and nowhere is water either good or plentiful. It is found in the serpentine beds of nullahs, and after rain in ziwa, vleys, tanks, pools, or ponds, filled by a gentle gravitation, and retained by a strong clay, in deep pits excavated by the people, or in shallow holes “crowed” in the ground. The supplies of this necessary divide the country into three great districts. On the east is Marenga Mk’hali, a thick bush, where a few villages, avoided by travellers, are scattered north and south of the road. The heart of the region is Ugogo, the most populous and the best cultivated country, divided into a number of small and carefully cultivated clearings by tracts of dense bush and timberless woods, a wall of verdure during the rains, and in the hot season a system of thorns and broomwork which serves merely to impede a free circulation of the air. These seams of waste land appear strange in a country populated of old; the Arabs, however, declare that the land is more thinly inhabited than it used to be. Mgunda Mk’hali, the western division, is a thin forest and a heap of brakey jungle. The few hills are thickly clothed with vegetation, probably because they retain more moisture than the plains.

The climate of Ugogo is markedly arid. During the transit of the Expedition in September and October, the best water-colours faded and hardened in their pans; India-rubber, especially the prepared article in squares, became viscid, like half-dried birdlime; “Macintosh” was sticking plaister, and the best vulcanized elastic-bands tore like brown paper. During almost the whole year a violent east-wind sweeps from the mountains. There are great changes in the temperature, whilst the weather apparently remains the same, and alternate currents of hot and cold air were observed. In the long summer the climate much resembles that of Sindh; there are the same fiery suns playing upon the naked surface with a painful dazzle, cool crisp nights, and clouds of dust. The succulent vegetation is shrivelled up and carbonised by heat, and the crackling covering of clayey earth and thin sand, whose particles are unbound by dew or rain, rises in lofty whirling columns like water-spouts when the north wind from the Wahumba Hills meets the gusts of Usagara, which are soon heated to a furnace-breath by the glowing surface. These “p’hepo” or “devils” scour the plain with the rapidity of horsemen, and, charged with coarse grain and small pebbles, strike with the violence of heavy hail. The siccity and repercussion of heat produce an atmosphere of peculiar brilliancy in Ugogo: the milky haze of the coast-climate is here unknown. The sowing season, at which time also trees begin to bud and birds to breed, is about the period of the sun’s greatest southern declination, and the diminution of temperature displays in these regions the effects of the tepid winds and the warm vernal showers of the European continent. There is no Vuli, and thus the climate is unrefreshed by the copious tropical rains. About the middle of November the country is visited by a few preliminary showers, accompanied by a violent tramontana, and the vital principle which appears extinct starts once more into sudden and excessive activity. Towards the end of December the Masika, or rainy season, commences with the wind shifting from the east to the north and north-east, blowing steadily from the high grounds eastward and westward of the Nyanza Lake, which have been saturated by heavy falls beginning in September. The “winter” seldom exceeds the third month, and the downfall is desultory and uncertain, causing frequent droughts and famine. For this reason the land is much inferior in fertility to the other regions, and the cotton and tobacco, which flourish from the coast to the Tanganyika Lake, are deficient in Ugogo, whilst rice is supplanted by the rugged sorghum and maize.

Arab and other travellers unaccustomed to the country at first suffer from the climate, which must not, however, be condemned. They complain of the tourbillons, the swarms of flies, and the violent changes from burning heat to piercing cold, which is always experienced in that region when the thermometer sinks below 60°-55° F. Their thin tents, pitched under a ragged calabash, cannot mitigate the ardour of an unclouded sun; the salt-bitter water, whose nitrous and saline deposits sometimes tarnish a silver ring like the fumes of sulphur, affects their health; whilst the appetite, stimulated by a purer atmosphere and the coolness of the night air, is kept within due bounds only by deficiency in the means of satisfying it. Those who have seen Africa further west, are profuse in their praises of the climate on their return-march from the interior. The mukunguru, or seasoning fever, however, rarely fails to attack strangers. It is, like that of the second region, a violent bilious attack, whose consequences are sleeplessness, debility, and severe headaches: the hot fit compared with the algid stage is unusually long and rigorous. In some districts the parexia is rarely followed by the relieving perspiration; and when natural diaphoresis appears, it by no means denotes the termination of the paroxysm. Other diseases are rare, and the terrible ulcerations of K’hutu and Eastern Usagara are almost unknown in Ugogo. There is little doubt that the land, if it afforded good shelter, purified water, and regular diet, would be eminently wholesome.

In the uninviting landscape a tufty, straggling grass, like living hay, often raised on little mounds, with bald places between, thinly strewed with bits of quartz and sandstone, replaces the tall luxuriant herbage of the maritime plain, and the arboraceous and frutescent produce of the mountains. The dryness of the climate, and the poverty of the soil, are displayed in the larger vegetation. The only tree of considerable growth is the calabash, and it is scattered over the country widely apart. A variety of frankincense overspreads the ground; the bark is a deep burnished bronze, whitened above with an incrustation, probably nitrous, that resembles hoar-frost; and the long woody twigs are bleached by the falling off of the outer integuments. The mukl or bdellium tree rises like a dwarf calabash from a low copse. The Arabs declare this produce of Ugogo (_Balsamodendron Africanum?_), to be of good quality. Rubbed upon a stone and mixed with water it is applied with a pledget of cotton to sluggish and purulent sores; and women use it for fumigation. The Africans ignore its qualities, and the Baloch, though well acquainted with the bdellium, gugal, or guggur, in their own country, did not observe it in Ugogo. The succulent plants, cactus, aloe, and euphorbia, will not burn; the air within them expands with heat, and the juices gushing out extinguish the flame. Amongst various salsolæ, or saltworts, the shrub called by the Arabs arak, the Capparis Sodata of Sindh and Arabia, with its currant-like bunches of fruit, is conspicuous for its evergreen verdure; the ragged and stunted mtungulu rains its apples upon the ground; and the mbembu, in places sheltered from the sun, bears a kind of medlar which is eagerly sought by the hungry traveller. The euphorbiæ here rise to the height of 35 or 40 feet, and the hard woody stem throws out a mass of naked arms, in the shape of a huge cap, impervious to the midday sun.

Wild animals abound through these jungles, and the spoor lasts long upon the crisp gravelly soil. In some districts they visit by night the raised clay water-troughs of the cultivators. The elephant prefers the thick jungle, where he can wallow in the pools and feed delicately upon succulent roots and fruits, bark, and leaves. The rhinoceros loves the dark clumps of trees, which guard him from the noonday sun, and whence he can sally out all unexpected upon the assailant. The mbogo, or Bos Caffer, driven from his favourite spots, low grassy plains bordering on streams, wanders, like the giraffe, through the thinner forests. As in Unyamwezi, the roar of the lion strikes the ear by night, and the cry of the ostrich by day. The lion upon this line of Eastern Africa is often heard, but rarely seen; on only two occasions its footprints appeared upon the road. The king of beasts, according to the Arabs, is of moderate stature: it seldom attains its maximum of strength, stature, and courage, except in plain countries where game abounds, as in the lands north of the Cape, or in hills and mountains, where cattle can be lifted at discretion, as in Northern Africa. In Unyamwezi its spoils, which are yellow, like those of the Arab lion, with a long mane, said to hang over the eyes, and with a whitish tinge under the jaws, become the property of the Sultan. The animal is more common in the high lands of Karagwah than in the low countries; it has, however, attacked the mbogo, or wild bull, and has destroyed cattle within sight of the Arabs at Kazeh in Unyanyembe. The lion is rarely a man-eater; this peculiarity, according to some writers, being confined to old beasts, whose worn teeth are unfit for fight.

The “polygamous bird” was first observed on the Ugogo plateau; it extends through Unyamwezi and Usukuma to Ujiji. The eggs are sold, sometimes fresh, but more generally stale. Emptied and dried, they form the principal circulating-medium between the Arab merchants and the coffee-growing races near the Nyanza Lake, who cut them up and grind them into ornamental disks and crescents. The young birds are caught, but are rarely tamed. In Usukuma the bright and glossy feathers of the old male are much esteemed for adorning the hair; yet, curious to say, the bird is seldom hunted. Moreover, these East Africans have never attempted to export the feathers, which, when white and uninjured, are sold, even by the Somal, for 8 dollars per lb. The birds are at once wild and stupid, timid and headstrong: their lengthened strides and backward glances announce terror at the sight of man, and it is impossible to stalk them in the open grounds, which they prefer. The leopard and the cynhyæna, the koodoo and the different species of antelope, are more frequently killed in these deserts than in any other part of the line. Hog of reddish colour, and hares with rufous fur, are sometimes started by caravans. The hyrax of the Somali country basks upon the rocks and boulders, and the carapace of a small land-turtle, called khasa, fastened to a branch, serves as a road-sign. The k’hwalu, a small green parrot, with yellow shoulders, the upupa or hoopoe, a great variety of fly-catchers, larks with jet-black heads and yellow bodies, small bustards, hornbills, nightjars, muscicapæ, green pigeons, sparrow-hawks, and small doves, are seen in every jungle. Near the settlements the white-necked raven and the common chíl of India (Falco cheela), attest the presence of man, as the monkey does the proximity of water. The nest of the loxia swings to and fro in the fierce simoom; the black Bataleur eagle of Somaliland, a splendid bird, towering shily in the air, with his light under-plume gleaming like a silver plate, and large vultures (condors?) flocking from afar, denote the position of a dead or dying animal.

Until late years the Wagogo, being more numerous than they are now, deterred travellers from traversing their country: in those early days the road to Unyamwezi, running along the left or northern bank of the Rwaha, through the Warori tribe, struck off near Usanga and Usenga. It is related, when the first caravan, led by Jumah Mfumbi, the late Diwan of Saadani, entered Ugogo, that the people, penetrated with admiration of his corpulence, after many experiments to find out whether it was real or not, determined that he was and must be the Deity. Moreover, after coming to this satisfactory conclusion, they resolved that, being the Deity, he could improve their country by heavy rains; and when he protested against both these resolutions, they proposed to put him to death. A succession of opportune showers, however, released him. By degrees the ever-increasing insolence and violence of the Warori drove travellers to this northern line, and the Wagogo learned to see strangers without displaying this Lybian mania for sacrificing them.