Chapter I (4)

I had been careful to bring from Zanzibar four hammocks, which, slung to poles, formed the conveyance, called by the Indians “manchil;” by the Portuguese “manchila;” and in West Africa “tipoia.” Sayf bin Salim agreed for the sum of ten dollars to hire his slaves as porters for ourselves and our outfit. On the 24th July, feeling strong enough to advance, we passed out of the cultivation of Dut’humi. Crossing a steep and muddy bed, knee-deep even in the dry season, we entered fields under the outlying hillocks of the highlands. These low cones, like similar formations in India, are not inhabited; they are even more malarious than the plains, the surface is rocky, and the woodage, not ceasing as in higher elevations, extends from base to summit. Beyond the cultivation the route plunges into a jungle, where the European traveller realises every preconceived idea of Africa’s aspect, at once hideous and grotesque. The general appearance is a mingling of bush and forest, which, contracting the horizon to a few yards, is equally monotonous to the eye and palling to the imagination. The black greasy ground, veiled with thick shrubbery, supports in the more open spaces screens of tiger and spear-grass, twelve and thirteen feet high, with every blade a finger’s breadth; and the towering trees are often clothed from root to twig with huge epiphytes, forming heavy columns of densest verdure, and clustering upon the tops in the semblance of enormous bird’s nests. The foot-paths, in places “dead,”--as the natives say,--with encroaching bush, are crossed by llianas, creepers and climbers, thick as coir-cables, some connecting the trees in a curved line, others stretched straight down the trunks, others winding in all directions around their supports, frequently crossing one another like network and stunting the growth of even the vivacious calabash, by coils like rope tightly encircling its neck. The earth, ever rain-drenched, emits the odour of sulphuretted hydrogen, and in some parts the traveller might fancy a corpse to be hidden behind every bush. To this sad picture of miasma the firmament is a fitting frame: a wild sky, whose heavy purple nimbi, chased by raffales and chilling gusts, dissolve in large-dropped showers; or a dull, dark grey expanse, which lies like a pall over the world. In the finer weather the atmosphere is pale and sickly; its mists and vapours seem to concentrate the rays of the oppressive “rain-sun.” The sensation experienced at once explains the apathy and indolence, the physical debility, and the mental prostration, that are the gifts of climates which moist heat and damp cold render equally unsalubrious and uncomfortable. That no feature of miasma might be wanting to complete the picture, filthy heaps of the rudest hovels, built in holes in the jungle, sheltered their few miserable inhabitants, whose frames are lean with constant intoxication, and whose limbs, distorted by ulcerous sores, attest the hostility of Nature to mankind. Such a revolting scene is East Africa from central K’hutu to the base of the Usagara Mountains.

Running through this fetid flat the path passed on the left sundry shallow salt-pits which, according to the Arabs, are wet during the dry and dry during the wet season. Presently after breaking through another fence of holcus, whose cane was stiffer than the rattans of an Indian jungle, we entered, and found lodgings in Bakera, a pretty little hamlet ringed with papaws and plantains, upon which the doves disported themselves. Here, on our return in 1859, a thick growth of grass waved over the ground-marks of hearth and roof-tree. The African has a superstitious horror of stone walls; he is still a semi-nomade, from the effects of the Wandertrieb, or man’s vagabond instinct, uncurbed by the habits of civilisation. Though vestiges of large and stable habitations have been discovered in the barbarous Eastern Horn, in these days, between the parallels of Harar and the ruined Portuguese towns near the Zambezi Rivers, inner Africa ignores a town of masonry. In our theoretical maps, the circlets used by cartographers to denote cities serve only to mislead; their names prove them to be Saltanats--lordships, districts or provinces.

Resuming our course on the next day through hollows and rice-swamps, where almost every ass fell or cast its load, we came after a long tramp to the nearest outposts of the Zungomero district; here were several caravans with pitched tents, piles of ivory and crowds of porters. The gang of thirty-six Wanyamwezi, who had preceded us, having located themselves at a distant hamlet, we resumed our march, and presently were met by a number of our men headed by their guard, the two “sons of Ramji.” Ensued a general sword and spear play, each man with howls and cheers brandished his blade or vibrated his missile, rushing about in all directions, and dealing death amongst ideal foes with such action as may often be observed in poultry-yards when the hens indulge in a little merry pugnacity. The march had occupied us four weeks, about double the usual time, and the porters had naturally began to suspect accidents from the Wazaramo.

Zungomero, the head of the great river-valley, is a plain of black earth and sand, prodigiously fertile. It is enclosed on all sides except the eastern, or the line of drainage; northwards rise the peaks of Dut’humi; westwards lie the little Wigo hills and the other spurs of Usagara, uncultivated and uninhabited, though the country is populous up to their feet; and southwards are detached cones of similar formation, steep, rocky, and densely wooded. The sea-breeze is here strong, but beyond its influence the atmosphere is sultry and oppressive; owing to maritime influences the kosi, or south-west wind, sometimes continues till the end of July. The normal day, which varies little throughout the year, begins with the light milky mist which forms the cloud-ring; by degrees nimbi and cumuli come up from the east, investing the heights of Dut’humi, and, when showers are imminent, a heavy line of stratus bisects the highlands and overlies the surface of the plain. At the epochs of the lunar change rain falls once or twice during the day and night, and, when the clouds burst, a fiery sun sucks up poison from the earth’s putridity. The early nights are oppressive, and towards the dawn condensation causes a copious deposit of heavy dew, which even the people of the country dread. A prolonged halt causes general sickness amongst the porters and slaves of a caravan. The humidity of the atmosphere corrodes everything with which it comes in contact; the springs of powder-flasks exposed to the damp snap like toasted quills; clothes feel limp and damp; paper, becoming soft and soppy by the loss of glazing, acts as a blotter; boots, books, and botanical collections are blackened; metals are ever rusty; the best percussion caps, though labelled waterproof, will not detonate unless carefully stowed away in waxed cloth and tin boxes; gunpowder, if not kept from the air, refuses to ignite; and wood becomes covered with mildew. We had an abundance of common German phosphor-matches, and the best English wax lucifers; both, however, became equally unserviceable, the heads shrank and sprang off at the least touch, and the boxes frequently became a mere mass of paste. To future travellers I should recommend the “good old plan;” a bit of phosphorus in a little phial half full of olive oil, which serves for light as well as ignition. When accompanied by matchlock-men, however, there is no difficulty about fire; their pouches always contain a steel and flint, and a store of cotton, or of the wild Bombex, dipped in saltpetre or gunpowder solution.

Yet Zungomero is the great Bandárí or centre of traffic in the eastern, as are Unyanyembe and Ujiji in the middle and the western regions. Lying upon the main trunk-road, it must be traversed by the up and down-caravans, and, during the travelling season, between June and April, large bodies of some thousand men pass through it every week. Kilwa formerly sent caravans to it, and the Wanyamwezi porters have frequently made that port by the “Mwera road.” The Arab merchants usually pitch tents, preferring them to the leaky native huts, full of hens and pigeons, rats and mice, snakes and lizards, crickets and cockroaches, gnats and flies, and spiders of hideous appearance, where the inmates are often routed by swarms of bees, and are ever in imminent danger of fires. The armed slaves accompanying the caravan seize the best huts, which they either monopolise or share with the hapless inmates, and the porters stow themselves away under the projecting eaves of the habitations. The main attraction of the place is the plenty of provisions. Grain is so abundant that the inhabitants exist almost entirely upon the intoxicating pombe, or holcus-beer,--a practice readily imitated by their visitors. Bhang and the datura plant, growing wild, add to the attractions of the spot. The Bhang is a fine large species of the Cannabis Indica, the bang of Persia, the bhang of India, and the benj of Arabia, the fasukh of northern, and the dakha of southern Africa. In the low lands of East Africa it grows before every cottage door. As in hot climates generally, the fibre degenerates, and the plant is only valued for its narcotic properties. The Arabs smoke the sun-dried leaf with, and the Africans without tobacco, in huge waterpipes, whose bowls contain a quarter of a pound. Both ignore the more luxurious preparations, momiya and hashish, ganja and sebzi, charas and maajun. Like the “jangli” or jungle (wild)-bhang of Sindh, affected by kalandars, fakirs, and other holy beggars, this variety, contracting the muscle of the throat, produces a violent whooping-cough, ending in a kind of scream, after a few long puffs, when the smoke is inhaled; and if one man sets the example the others are sure to follow. These grotesque sounds are probably not wholly natural; even the boys may be heard practising them; they appear to be a fashion of “renowning it”; in fact, an announcement to the public that the fast youths are smoking bhang. The Datura stramonium, called by the Arabs and by the Wasawahili “muranhá,” grows in the well-watered plains; it bears a large whitish flower and a thorn-apple, like that of India. The heathen, as well as their visitors, dry the leaves, the flowers, and the rind of the rootlet, which is considered the strongest preparation, and smoke them in a common bowl or in a water-pipe. This is held to be a sovereign remedy against zik el nafas (asthma) and influenza; it diminishes the cough by loosening the phlegm. The Washenzi never make that horrible use of the plant known to the Indian dhaturiya, or datura-poisoners: many accidents, however, occur from ignorance of its violent narcotism. Meat is scarce: the only cattle are those driven down by the Wanyamwezi to the coast; milk, butter, and ghee are consequently unprocurable. A sheep or a goat will not cost less than a shukkah, or four cubits of domestics, here worth twenty-five cents. The same will purchase only two fowls; and eggs and fruit--chiefly papaws and plantains, cocos and limes--are at fancy prices. For the shukkah eight rations of unhusked holcus, four measures of rice--which must here be laid in by those travelling up-country--and five cakes of tobacco, equal to about three pounds, are generally procurable. Thus the daily expenditure of a large caravan ranges from one dollar to one dollar fifty cents’ worth of cloth in the Zanzibar market. The value, however, fluctuates greatly, and the people will shirk selling even at any price.

The same attractions which draw caravans to Zungomero render it the great rendezvous of an army of touters, who, whilst watching for the arrival of the ivory traders, amuse themselves with plundering the country. The plague has now spread like a flight of locusts over the land. The Wak’hutu, a timid race, who, unlike the Wazaramo, have no sultan to gather round, are being gradually ousted from their ancient seats. In a large village there will seldom be more than three or four families, who occupy the most miserable hovels, all the best having been seized by the touters or pulled down for firewood. These men--slaves, escaped criminals, and freemen of broken fortunes, flying from misery, punishment, or death on the coast--are armed with muskets and sabres, bows and spears, daggers and knobsticks. They carry ammunition, and thus are too strong for the country people. When rough language and threats fail, the levelled barrel at once establishes the right to a man’s house and property, to his wife and children. If money runs short, a village is fired by night, and the people are sold off to the first caravan. In some parts the pattering of musketry is incessant, as it ever was in the turbulent states of Independent India. It is rarely necessary to have recourse to violence, the Wak’hutu, believing their tyrants to be emissaries, as they represent themselves, from His Highness the Sultan, and the chief nobles of Zanzibar, offer none but the most passive resistance, hiding their families and herds in the bush. Thus it happens that towards the end of the year nothing but a little grain can be purchased in a land of marvellous fertility.

As has been mentioned, these malpractices are severely reprobated by His Highness the Sultan, and when the evil passes a certain point remedial measures are taken. A Banyan, for instance, is sent to the coast with warnings to the Diwans concerned. But what care they for his empty words, when they know that he has probably equipped a similar party of black buccaneers himself? and what hope can there be of reform when there is not an honest man in the country to carry it out? Thus the Government of Zanzibar is rendered powerless;--improvement can be expected only from the hand of Time. The Wak’hutu, indeed, often threaten a deputation to entreat the Arab Sultan for protection in the shape of a garrison of Baloch. This measure has been retarded for sound reasons: no man dares to leave his house for fear of finding it a ruin on his return; moreover, he would certainly be shot if the touters guessed his intention, and, even if he escaped this danger, he would probably be sold, on the way to the coast, by his truculent neighbours the Wazaramo. Finally, if they succeeded in their wishes, would not a Baloch garrison act the part of the man who, in the fable, was called in to assist the horse against the stag? The Arabs, who know the temper of these mercenaries, are too wise ever to sanction such a “dragonnade.”

The reader will readily perceive that he is upon the slave-path, so different from travel amongst the free and independent tribes of Southern Africa. The traffic practically annihilates every better feeling of human nature. Yet, though the state of the Wak’hutu appears pitiable, the traveller cannot practise pity: he is ever in the dilemma of maltreating or being maltreated. Were he to deal civilly and liberally with this people he would starve: it is vain to offer a price for even the necessaries of life; it would certainly be refused because more is wanted, and so on beyond the bounds of possibility. Thus, if the touter did not seize a house, he would never be allowed to take shelter in it from the storm; if he did not enforce a “corvée,” he must labour beyond his strength with his own hands; and if he did not fire a village and sell the villagers, he might die of hunger in the midst of plenty. Such in this province are the action and reaction of the evil.

CHAP. IV.

ON THE GEOGRAPHY AND ETHNOLOGY OF THE FIRST REGION.

Before bidding adieu to the Maritime Region, it will be expedient to enter into a few details concerning its geography and ethnology.[7]

[7] Those who consider the subject worthy of further consideration are
referred, for an ampler account of it, to the Journal of the R.
Geographical Society, vol. xxix. of 1860.

The first or maritime region extends from the shores of the Indian Ocean in E. long. 39° to the mountain-chain forming the land of Usagara in E. long. 37° 28′; its breadth is therefore 92 geographical miles, measured in rectilinear distance, and its mean length, bounded by the waters of the Kingani and the Rufiji rivers, may be assumed at 110. The average rise is under 4 feet per mile. It is divided into two basins; that of the Kingani easterly, and westward that of the Mgeta stream with its many tributaries; the former, which is the principal, is called the land of Uzaramo; the latter, which is of the second order, contains the provinces of K’hutu, by the Arabs pronounced Kutu, and Uziraha, a minor district. The natives of the country divide it into the three lowlands of Tunda, Dut’humi, and Zungomero.

The present road runs with few and unimportant deviations along the whole length of the fluviatile valleys of the Kingani and the Mgeta. Native caravans if lightly laden generally accomplish the march in a fortnight, one halt included. On both sides of this line, whose greatest height above the sea-level was found by B. P. therm. to be 330 feet, rises the rolling ground, which is the general character of the country. Its undulations present no eminences worthy of notice; near the sea they are short and steep, further inland they roll in longer waves, and everywhere they are covered with abundant and luxuriant vegetation, the result of decomposition upon the richest soil. In parts there is an appearance of park land; bushless and scattered forests, with grass rising almost to the lower branches of the smaller thorns; here and there clumps and patches of impassable shrubbery cluster round knots and knolls of majestic and thickly foliaged trees. The narrow footpaths connecting the villages often plunge into dark and dense tunnels formed by overarching branch and bough, which delay the file of laden porters; the mud lingering long after a fall of rain in these low grounds fills them with a chilly clammy atmosphere. Merchants traverse such spots with trembling; in these, the proper places for ambuscade, a few determined men easily plunder a caravan by opposing it in front or by an attack in rear. The ways are often intersected by deep nullahs and water-courses, dry during the hot season, but unfordable when rain falls. In the many clearings, tobacco, maize, holcus, sesamum, and ground-nuts, manioc, beans, pulse, and sweet potatoes flourish; the pine-apple is a weed, and a few cocos and mangoes, papaws, jack-fruit, plantains, and limes are scattered over the districts near the sea. Rice grows abundantly in the lower levels. The villages are hidden deep in the bush or grass: the crowing of the cocks heard all along the road, except in the greater stretches of wilderness, proves them to be numerous; they are, however small and thinly populated. The versant, as usual in maritime E. Africa, trends towards the Indian Ocean. Water abounds even at a distance from the rivers; it springs from the soil in diminutive runnels and lies in “shimo” or pits, varying from surface-depth to 10 feet. The monsoon-rains, which are heavy, commence in March, about a month earlier than in Zanzibar, and the duration is similar. The climate of the higher lands is somewhat superior to that of the valley, but it is still hot and oppressive. The formation, after passing from the corallines, the limestones, the calcareous tuffs, and the rude gravelly conglomerates of the coast, is purely primitive and sandstone: erratic blocks of fine black hornblende and hornblendic rock, used by the people as whetstones and grinding-slabs, abound in the river-beds, which also supply the clay used for pottery. The subsoil is near the sea a stiff blue loam, in the interior a ruddy quartzose gravel; the soil is a rich brown or black humus, here and there coated with, or varied by, clean white sand, and in some parts are seams of reddish loam. Fresh-water shells are scattered over the surface, and land-crabs burrow in the looser earths where stone seldom appears. Black cattle are unknown in the maritime region, but poultry, sheep, and goats are plentiful: near the jungle they are protected from the leopards or ounces by large wooden huts, like cages, raised on piles for cleanliness.

As a rule, the fluviatile valleys resemble in most points the physical features of the coast and island of Zanzibar: the general aspect of the country, however--the expression of its climate--undergoes some modifications. Near the sea, the basin is a broad winding line, traversed by the serpentine river, whose bed is now too deep for change. About the middle expanse stony ridges and rocky hills crop out from the rolling ground, and the head of the valley is a low continuous plain. In many places, especially near the estuary, river-terraces, like road embankments, here converging, there diverging, indicate by lines and strews of water-worn pebbles and sea-shells the secular uprise of the country and the declension of the stream to its present level. These raised seabeaches at a distance appear crowned with dwarf rounded cones which, overgrown with lofty trees, are favourite sites for settlements. In the lower lands the jungle and the cultivation are of the rankest and most gigantic description, the effect of a damp, hot region, where atmospheric pressure is excessive. The grass, especially that produced by the black soils in the swamps and marshes, rises to the height of 12-13 feet, and serves to conceal runaway slaves and malefactors: the stalks vary in thickness from a goose-quill to a man’s finger. The larger growths, which are so closely planted that they conceal the soil, cannot be traversed without paths, and even where these exist the traveller must fight his way through a dense screen, receiving from time to time a severe blow when the reeds recoil, or a painful thrust from some broken and inclined stump. Even the horny sole of the sandal-less African cannot tread these places without being cut or staked, and everywhere a ride through these grass-avenues whilst still dripping with the cold exhalations of night, with the sun beating fiercely upon the upper part of the body, is a severe infliction to any man not in perfect health. The beds of streams and nullahs are sometimes veiled by the growth of the banks. These crops spring up with the rains, and are burned down by hunters, or more frequently by accident, after about a month of dry weather; in the interim fires are dangerous: the custom is to beat down the blaze with leafy boughs. Such is the variety of species that in some parts of the river-valleys each day introduces the traveller to a grass before unseen. Where the inundations lie long, the trees are rare, and those that exist are slightly raised by mounds above the ground to escape the destructive effects of protracted submergence: in these places the decomposed vegetation exhales a fetid odour. Where the waters soon subside there are clumps of tall shrubbery and seams of forest rising on extensive meadows of grassy land, which give it the semblance of a suite of natural parks or pleasure-grounds, and the effect is not diminished by the frequent herds of gnu and antelope prancing and pacing over their pastures.

The climate is hot and oppressive, and the daily sea-breeze, which extends to the head of the Mgeta valley, is lost in the lower levels. About Zungomero rain is constant, except for a single fortnight in the month of January; it seems to the stranger as if the crops must infallibly decay, but they do not. At most times the sun, even at its greatest northern declination, shines through a veil of mist with a sickly blaze and a blistering heat, and the overcharge of electricity is evidenced by frequent and violent thunder-storms. In the western parts cold and cutting breezes descend from the rugged crags of Dut’humi.

The principal diseases of the valley are severe ulcerations and fevers, generally of a tertian type. The “Mkunguru” begins with coldness in the toes and finger-tips; a frigid shiver seems to creep up the legs, followed by pains in the shoulders, severe frontal headache, hot eyes, and a prostration and irritability of mind and body. This preliminary lasts for one to three hours, when nausea ushers in the hot stage: the head burns, the action of the heart becomes violent, thirst rages, and a painful weight presses upon the eyeballs: it is often accompanied by a violent cough and irritation. Strange visions, as in delirium, appear to the patient, and the excitement of the brain is proved by unusual loquacity. When the fit passes off with copious perspiration the head is often affected, the ears buzz, and the limbs are weak. If the patient attempts to rise suddenly, he feels a dizziness, produced apparently by a gush of bile along the liver duct: want of appetite, sleeplessness and despondency, and a low fever, evidenced by hot pulses, throbbing temples, and feet painfully swollen, with eruptions of various kinds, and ulcerated mouth, usher in the cure. This fever yields easily to mild remedies, but it is capable of lasting three weeks.

A multitude of roads, whose point of departure is the coast, form a triangle and converge at the “Makutaniro,” or junction-place, in Central Uzaramo. The route whose several stations have been described is one of the main lines running from Kaole and Bagamoyo, in a general southwest direction, till it falls into the great trunk road which leads directly west from Mbuamaji. It is divided into thirteen caravan stages, but a well-girt walker will accomplish the distance in a week.

No apology is offered for the lengthiness of the ethnographical descriptions contained in the following pages. The ethnology of Africa is indeed its most interesting, if not its only interesting feature. Everything connected with the habits and customs, the moral and religious, the social and commercial state of these new races, is worthy of diligent observation, careful description, and minute illustration. There is indeed little in the physical features of this portion of the great peninsula to excite the attention of the reader beyond the satisfaction that ever accompanies the victory of truth over fable, and a certain importance which in these “travelling times,”--when man appears rapidly rising to the rank of a migratory animal,--must attach to discovery. The subject, indeed, mostly banishes ornament. Lying under the same parallels with a climate whose thermical variations know no extremes, the succession of alluvial valley, ghaut, table-land, and shelving plain is necessarily monotonous, the soil is the same, the productions are similar, and the rocks and trees resemble one another. Eastern and central inter-tropical Africa also lacks antiquarian and historic interest, it has few traditions, no annals, and no ruins, the hoary remnants of past splendour so dear to the traveller and to the reader of travels. It contains not a single useful or ornamental work, a canal or a dam is, and has ever been, beyond the narrow bounds of its civilisation. It wants even the scenes of barbaric pomp and savage grandeur with which the student of occidental Africa is familiar. But its ethnography has novelties: it exposes strange manners and customs, its Fetichism is in itself a wonder, its commerce deserves attention, and its social state is full of mournful interest. The fastidiousness of the age, however, forbidding ampler details, even under the veil of the “learned languages,” cripples the physiologist, and robs the subject of its principal peculiarities. I have often regretted that if Greek and dog-Latin be no longer a sufficient disguise for the facts of natural history, human and bestial, the learned have not favoured us with a system of symbols which might do away with the grossness of words.

The present tenants of the First Region are the Wazaramo, the Wak’hutu, and their great sub-tribe, the Waziraha; these form the staple of population,--the Wadoe and the Wazegura being minor and immigrant tribes.

The Wazaramo are no exception to the rule of barbarian maritime races: they have, like the Somal, the Gallas, the Wangindo, the Wamakua, and the Cape Kafirs, come into contact with a civilisation sufficiently powerful to corrupt without subjugating them; and though cultivators of the ground, they are more dreaded by caravans than any tribe from the coast to the Lake Region. They are bounded eastward by the thin line of Moslems in the maritime regions, westward by the Wak’hutu, northward by the Kingani River, and on the south by the tribes of the Rufiji. The Wazaramo, or, as they often pronounce their own name, Wazalamo, claim connection with the semi-nomade Wakamba, who have, within the last few years, migrated to the north-west of Mombasah. Their dialect, however, proves them to be congeners of the Wak’hutu, and distinct from the Wakamba. As in East Africa generally, it is impossible to form the remotest idea of the number of families, or of the total of population. The Wazaramo number many sub-tribes, the principal of which are the Wákámbá and the Wáp’hangárá.

These negroids are able-bodied men, tall and straight, compared with the Coast-clans, but they are inferior in development to most of the inner tribes. The complexion, as usual, varies greatly. The chiefs are often coal-black, and but few are of light colour. This arises from the country being a slave-importer rather than exporter; and here, as among the Arabs, black skins are greatly preferred. The Mzaramo never circumcises, except when becoming a “Mháji,” or Moslem convert; nor does this tribe generally tattoo, though some adorn the face with three long cicatrized cuts, like the Mashali of Mecca, extending down each cheek from the ear-lobes to the corners of the mouth. Their distinctive mark is the peculiarity of dressing their hair. The thick wool is plastered over with a cap-like coating of ochreish and micaceous clay, brought from the hills, and mixed to the consistency of honey with the oil of the sesamum or the castor-bean. The pomatum, before drying, is pulled out with the fingers to the ends of many little twists, which circle the head horizontally, and the mass is separated into a single or a double line of knobs, the upper being above, and the lower below, the ears, both look stiff and matted, as if affected with a bad plica polonica. The contrast between these garlands of small red dilberries and the glossy black skin is, however, effective. The clay, when dry, is washed out with great trouble by means of warm water--soap has yet to be invented--and by persevering combing with the fingers. Women wear the hair-thatch like men; there are, however, several styles. It is usually parted in the centre, from the crinal front-line to the nape of the neck, and allowed to grow in a single or double dense thatch, ridging the head breadthwise from ear to ear: this is coloured or not coloured, according to the wearer’s taste. Some of the Wazaramo, again, train lumps of their wool to rise above the region of cautiousness, and very exactly simulate bears’ ears. The face is usually lozenge-shaped, the eyes are somewhat oblique, the nose is flat and patulated, the lips tumid and everted, the jaw prognathous, and the beard, except in a few individuals, is scanty. The sebaceous odour of the skin amongst all these races is overpowering: emitted with the greatest effect during and after excitement either of mind or body, it connects the negroid with the negro and separates him from the Somal, the Galla, and the Malagash. The expression of countenance is wild and staring, the features are coarse and harsh, the gait is loose and lounging; the Arab strut and the Indian swagger are unknown in East Africa. The Wazaramo tribe is rich in albinos; three were seen by the Expedition in the course of a single day. They much resemble Europeans of the leucous complexion; the face is quite bald; the skin is rough, and easily wrinkles in long lines, marked by a deeper pink; the hair is short, sharp-curling, and coloured like a silk-worm’s cocoon, and the lips are red. The eyes have grey pupils and rosy “whites:” they appear very sensitive to light, and are puckered up so as to distort the countenance. The features are unusually plain, and the stature appears to range below the average. The people who have no prejudice against them, call these leucœthiops Wazungu, “white men.”

The Wazaramo tribe is wealthy enough to dress well: almost every man can afford a shukkah or loin-cloth of unbleached cotton, which he stains a dirty yellow, like the Indian gerua, with a clay dug in the subsoil. Their ornaments are extensive girdles and bead necklaces of various colours, white disks, made from the base of a sea-shell, and worn single on the forehead or in pairs at the neck. A massy ring of brass or zinc encircles the wrist. The decoration peculiar to the tribe, and common to both sexes, is the mgoweko, a tight collar or cravat, 1 to 1·50 inches broad, of red and yellow, white and black beads, with cross-bars of different colours at short intervals. Men never appear in public without an ostentatious display of arms. The usual weapons, when they cannot procure muskets, are spears, bows, and arrows, the latter poisoned, and sime, or long knives like the Somali daggers, made by themselves with imported iron. The chiefs are generally seen in handsome attire; embroidered Surat caps bound with a tight snowy turban of a true African shape, which contrasts well with black skins and the short double-peaked beards below. The body-garment is a loin-cloth of showy Indian cotton or Arab check; some prefer the long shirt and the kizbao or waistcoat affected by the slaves at Zanzibar. The women are well dressed as the men--a circumstance rare in East Africa. Many of them have the tibia bowed in front by bearing heavy water-pots at too early an age; when not burdened they have a curious mincing gate, they never veil their faces, and they show no shame in the presence of strangers. The child is carried in a cloth at the back.

The habitations of the Wazaramo are far superior in shape and size to those of K’hutu, and, indeed, to any on this side of Unyamwezi. Their buildings generally resemble the humbler sort of English cow-house, or an Anglo-Indian bungalow. In poorer houses the outer walls are of holcus canes, rudely puddled; the better description are built of long and broad sheets of Myombo and Mkora bark, propped against strong uprights inside, and bound horizontally by split bamboos tied outside with fibrous cord. The heavy pent-shaped roof often provided with a double thatch of grass and reeds, projects eaves, which are high enough to admit a man without stooping; these are supported by a long cross bar resting on perpendiculars, tree-trunks, barked and smoothed, forked above, and firmly planted in the ground. Along the outer marginal length of this verandah lies a border of large logs polished by long sittings. The interior is dark and windowless, and party-walls of stiff grass-cane divide it into several compartments. The list of furniture comprises a dwarf cartel about 4 feet long by 16 inches broad, upon which even the married couple manages to make itself comfortable; a stool cut out of a single block, a huge wooden mortar, mtungi or black earthen pots, gourds, ladles of cocoa-nut, cast-off clothes, whetstones, weapons, nets, and in some places creels for fishing. Grain is ground upon an inclined slab of fine-grained granite or syenite, sometimes loose, at other times fixed in the ground with a mud plaster; the classical Eastern handmill is unknown in this part of Africa. The inner roof and its rafters, shining with a greasy soot, in wet weather admit drenching lines of leakage, and the only artifice applied to the flooring is the tread of the proprietors. The door is a close hurdle of parallel holcus-straw bound to five or six cross-bars with strips of bark. In a village there will be from four to twelve “bungalows;” the rest are the normal haycock and beehive hut of Africa. Where enemies are numerous the settlements are palisaded; each has, moreover, but a single entrance, which is approached by a narrow alley of strong stockade, and is guarded by a thick planking that fits into a doorway large enough to admit cattle.

The Wazaramo are an ill-conditioned, noisy, boisterous violent, and impracticable race. A few years ago they were the principal obstacle to Arab and other travellers entering into East Africa. But the seizure of Kaole and other settlements by the late Sayyid of Zanzibar has now given strangers a footing in the land. After tasting the sweets of gain, they have somewhat relented; but quarrels between them and the caravans are still frequent. The P’házi, or chief of the district, demands a certain amount of cloth for free passage from all merchants on their way to the interior; from those returning he takes cattle, jembe, or iron hoes, shokah or hatchets, in fact, whatever he can obtain. If not contented, his clansmen lie in ambush and discharge a few poisoned arrows at the trespassers: they never have attempted, like the Wagogo, to annihilate a caravan; in fact, the loss of one of their number causes a general panic. They have hitherto successfully resisted the little armies of touters that have almost desolated K’hutu, and they are frequently in hostilities with the coast settlements. The young men sometimes set out on secret plundering expeditions to Bagamoyo and Mbuamaji, and enter the houses at night by mining under the walls. The burghers attempt to defeat them by burying stones and large logs as a foundation, but in vain: their superior dexterity has originated a superstitious notion that they possess a peculiar “medicine,” a magic spell called “Ugumba,” which throws the household into a deep trance. When a thief is caught _in flagrante delicto_, his head soon adorns a tall pole at the entrance of the settlement: it is not uncommon to see half a dozen bloody or bleached fragments of humanity collected in a single spot. When disposed to be friendly the Wazaramo will act as porters to Arabs, but if a man die his load is at once confiscated by his relatives, who, however, insist upon receiving his blood-money, as if he had been slain in battle. Their behaviour to caravans in their own country depends upon the strangers’ strength; many trading bodies therefore unite into one before beginning the transit, and even then they are never without fear.

The Wazaramo chiefs are powerful only when their wealth or personal qualities win the respect of their unruly republican subjects. There are no less than five orders in this hereditary master-class. The P’hazi is the headman of the village, and the Mwene Goha is his principal councillor; under these are three ranks of elders, the Kinyongoni, the Chúmá, and the Káwámbwá. The headman, unless exceptionally influential, must divide amongst his “ministry” the blackmail extorted from travellers. The P’hazi usually fills a small village with his wives and families; he has also large estates, and he personally superintends the labour of his slave-gangs. He cannot sell his subjects except for two offences--Ugoni or adultery, and Ucháwe or black magic. The latter crime is usually punished by the stake; in some parts of the country the roadside shows at every few miles a heap or two of ashes with a few calcined and blackened human bones mixed with bits of half-consumed charcoal, telling the tragedy that has been enacted there. The prospect cannot be contemplated without horror; here and there, close to the larger circles where the father and mother have been burnt, a smaller heap shows that some wretched child has shared their terrible fate, lest growing up he should follow in his parents’ path. The power of conviction is wholly in the hands of the Mgángá or medicine-man, who administers an ordeal called Bága or Kyápo by boiling water. If the hand after being dipped show any sign of lesion, the offence is proven, and the sentence is instantly carried into execution.

Instinctively conscious of their moral wants, the Washenzi throughout this portion of East Africa have organised certain customs which have grown to laws. The first is the Sáre or brother oath. Like the “manred” of Scotland, the “munh bola bhai” of India, and similar fraternal institutions amongst most of the ancient tribes of barbarians in whom sociability is a passion, it tends to reconcile separate interests between man and man, to modify the feuds and discords of savage society, and, principally, to strengthen those that need an alliance. In fact, it is a contrivance for choosing relations instead of allowing Nature to force them upon man, and the flimsiness of the tie between brothers born in polygamy has doubtless tended to perpetuate it. The ceremony, which is confined to adults of the male sex, is differently performed in the different tribes. Amongst the Wazaramo, the Wazegura, and the Wasagara, the two “brothers” sit on a hide face to face, with legs outstretched to the front and overlapping one another; their bows and arrows are placed across their thighs, whilst a third person, waving a sword over their heads, vociferates curses against any one that may “break the brotherhood.” A sheep is then slaughtered, and its flesh, or more often its heart, is brought roasted to the pair, who, having made with a dagger incisions in each other’s breasts close to the pit of the stomach, eat a piece of meat smeared with the blood. Among the Wanyamwezi and the Wajiji the cut is made below the left ribs or above the knee; each man receives in a leaf his brother’s blood, which, mixed with oil or butter, he rubs into his own wound. An exchange of small presents generally concludes the rite. It is a strong tie, as all men believe that death or slavery would follow its infraction. The Arabs, to whom the tasting of blood is unlawful, usually perform it by proxy. The slave “Fundi,” or fattori, of the caravans become brothers, even with the Washenzi, whenever they expect an opportunity of utilising the relationship.

The second custom is more peculiar. The East African dares not appropriate an article found upon the road, especially if he suspect that it belongs to a fellow tribeman. He believes that a “Kigámbo,” an unexpected calamity, slavery or death, would follow the breach of this custom. At Zungomero a watch, belonging to the Expedition, was picked up by the country people in the jungle, and was punctually returned, well wrapped round with grass and leaves. But subsequent experience makes the traveller regret that the superstition is not of a somewhat more catholic and comprehensive character.

The religion of the East African will be treated of in a future page. The Wazaramo, like their congeners, are as little troubled with ceremony as with belief. In things spiritual as in things temporal they listen to but one voice, that of “Ádá,” or custom. The most offensive scoffer or sceptic in Europe is not regarded with more abomination than the man who in these lands would attempt to touch a jot or tittle of Ádá.

There are no ceremonies on birth-occasions and no purification of women amongst these people. In the case of abortion or of a still-born child they say, “he hath returned,” that is to say, to home in earth. When the mother perishes in childbirth, the parents claim a certain sum from “the man that killed their daughter.” Neither on the continent nor at Zanzibar do they bind with cloth the head of the new-born babe. Twins, here called Wápáchá, and by the Arabs of Zanzibar, Shukúl (شكول) are usually sold or exposed in the jungle as amongst the Ibos of West Africa. If the child die, an animal is killed for a general feast, and in some tribes the mother does a kind of penance. Seated outside the village, she is smeared, with fat and flour, and exposed to the derision of people who surround her, hooting and mocking with offensive jests and gestures. To guard against this calamity, the Wazaramo and other tribes are in the habit of vowing that the babe shall not be shaved till manhood, and the mother wears a number of talismans, bits of wood tied, with a thong of snake’s skin, round her neck, and beads of different shapes round her head. When carrying her offspring, which she rarely leaves alone, she bears in her hand what is technically called a kirangozi, a “guide” or “guardian,” in the form of two sticks a few inches in length, bound with bands of particoloured beads. This article, made up by the Mgángá or medicine-man, is placed at night under the child’s head, and is carried about till it has passed the first stage of life. The kirangozi is intended to guard the treasure against the malevolent spirits of the dead; that almost universal superstition, the Evil Eye, though an article of faith amongst the Arabs, the Wasawahili, and the Wamrima, is unknown to the inner heathen.

A name is given to the child without other celebration than a debauch with pombe: this will sometimes occur at the birth of a male, when he is wanted. The East Africans, having few national prejudices, are fond of calling their children after Arabs and other strangers: they will even pay a sheep for the loan of a merchant’s name. There must be many hundred Sayyid Saids and Sayyid Majids now in the country; and as during the eighteen months’ peregrination of the East African Expedition every child born on and near the great trunk-line was called Muzungu--the “white”--the Englishman has also left his mark in the land. The period of ablactation, as in South Africa, is prolonged to the second or third year: may this account, in part, for the healthiness of the young and the almost total absence of debility and deformity? Indeed, the nearest approach to the latter is the unsightly protrusion of the umbilical region, sometimes to the extent of several inches, owing to ignorance of proper treatment; but, though conspicuous in childhood, it disappears after puberty. Women retain the power of suckling their children to a late age, even when they appear withered grandames. Until the child can walk without danger, it is carried by the mother, not on the hip, as in Asia, but on the bare back for warmth, a sheet or skin being passed over it and fastened at the parent’s breast. Even in infancy it clings like a young simiad, and the peculiar formation of the African race renders the position easier by providing a kind of seat upon which it subsides; the only part of the body exposed to view is the little coco-nut head, with the small, round, beady black eyes in a state of everlasting stare. Finally, the “kigogo,” or child who cuts the two upper incisors before the lower, is either put to death, or is given away or sold to the slave-merchant, under the impression that it will bring disease, calamity, and death into the household. The Wasawahili and the Zanzibar Arabs have the same impressions: the former kill the child; the latter, after a Khitmah or perlection of the Koran, make it swear, by nodding its head if unable to articulate, that it will not injure those about it. Even in Europe, it may be remembered, the old prejudice against children born with teeth is not wholly forgotten.

Amongst the Wazaramo there is no limitation to the number of wives, except the expense of wedding and the difficulty of supporting a large establishment. Divorce is signified by presenting to the wife a piece of holcus-cane: if a sensible woman she at once leaves the house, and, if not, she is forced to leave. There is no more romance in the affair even before marriage than in buying a goat. The marriageable youth sends a friend to propose to the father: if the latter consents, his first step is, not to consult his daughter--such a proceeding would be deemed the act of a madman--but to secure for himself as many cloths as possible, from six to twelve, or even more, besides a preliminary present which goes by the name of kiremba (kilemba), his “turban.” This, however, is a kind of settlement which is demanded back if the wife die without issue; but if she bear children, it is preserved for them by their grand-parents. After the father the mother puts in her claim in behalf of the daughter; she requires a kondáví, or broad parti-coloured band of beads worn round the waist and next the skin; her mukájyá or loin-cloth, and her wereko, or sheet in which the child is borne upon the back. In the interior the settlement is made in live-stock, varying from a few goats to a dozen cows. This weighty point duly determined, the husband leads his wife to his own home, an event celebrated by drumming, dancing, and extensive drunkenness. The children born in wedlock belong to the father.

When a man or a woman is at the point of death, the friends assemble, and the softer sex sometimes sings, howls, and weeps: the departing is allowed to depart life upon the kitanda, or cartel. There is, however, little demonstrative sorrow amongst these people, and, having the utmost dread of disembodied spirits, all are anxious to get rid of the corpse and its appertainings. The Wazaramo, more civilised than their neighbours, bury their dead stretched out and in the dress worn during life: their graves have already been described.

The “industry” of Usaramo will occupy but few sentences. Before the great rains of the year set in the land must be weeded, and scratches must be made with a hoe for the reception of seed. The wet season ushers in the period for copal digging: the proceeds are either sold to travelling traders, or are carried down to the coast in mákándá--mat-sacks--of light weight, and are sold to the Banyans. Bargaining and huckstering, cheapening and chaffering, are ever the African’s highest intellectual enjoyments, and he does not fail to stretch them to their utmost limits. After the autumnal rains during the Azyab, or the north-east monsoon, the grass is fired, when the men seizing their bows, arrows, and spears, indiscriminately slaughter beast and bird--an operation which, yearly repeated, accounts in part for the scarcity of animal life so remarkable in this animal’s paradise. When all trades fail, the Mzaramo repairs to the coast, where, despite his bad name, he usually finds employment as a labourer.

Next in order to the maritime Wazaramo are the Wak’hutu, to whom many of the observations upon the subject of their more powerful neighbours equally apply. Their territory extends from the Mgeta River to the mountains of Usagara, and in breadth from the Dut’humi Highlands to the Rufiji River.

The Wak’hutu are physically and, apparently, mentally a race inferior to the Wazaramo; they are very dark, and bear other marks of a degradation effected by pernicious climatory conditions. They have no peculiar tattoo, although individuals raise complicated patterns in small cicatrices upon their breasts. The popular head-dress is the clay-coating of the Wazaramo, of somewhat modified dimensions; and some of them, who are possibly derived from the Wahiao and other southern clans, have a practice--exceptional in these latitudes--of chipping their incisors to sharp points, which imitate well enough the armature of the reptilia. Their eyes are bleared and red with perpetual intoxication, and they seem to have no amusements but dancing and singing through half the night. None but the wealthier can afford to wear cloth; the substitute is a kilt of the calabash fibre, attached by a cord of the same material to the waist. In women it often narrows to a span, and would be inadequate to the purposes of decency were it not assisted by an underclothing of softened goatskin; this and a square of leather upon the bosom, which, however, is often omitted, compose the dress of the multitude. The ornaments are like those of the Wazaramo, but by no means so numerous. The Wak’hutu live poorly, and, having no ghee, are contented with the oil of the sesamum and the castor-bean with their holcus porridge. The rivers supply them with the usual mud-fish; at times they kill game. Their sheep, goats, and poultry they reserve for barter on the coast; and, though bees swarm throughout the land, and even enter the villages, they will not take the trouble to make hives.