Chapter I (7)

Pursuing our march on the next day, I witnessed a curious contrast in this strange African nature, which is ever in extremes, and where extremes ever meet, where grace and beauty are seldom seen without a sudden change to a hideous grotesqueness. A splendid view charmed me in the morning. Above lay a sky of purest azure, flaked with fleecy opal-tinted vapours floating high in the empyrean, and catching the first roseate smiles of the unrisen sun. Long lines, one bluer than the other, broken by castellated crags and towers of most picturesque form, girdled the far horizon; the nearer heights were of a purplish-brown, and snowy mists hung like glaciers about their folds. The plain was a park in autumn, burnt tawny by the sun, patched with a darker hue where the people were firing the grass--a party was at work merrily, as if preparing for an English harvest-home--to start the animals, to promote the growth of a young crop, and, such is the popular belief, to attract rain. Calabashes, Palmyras, Tamarinds, and clumps of evergreen trees were scattered over the scene, each stretching its lordly arms over subject circlets of deep dew-fed verdure. Here the dove cooed loudly, and the guinea-fowl rang its wild cry, whilst the peewit chattered in the open stubble, and a little martin, the prettiest of its kind, contrasted by its nimble dartings along the ground with the condor wheeling slowly through the upper air. The most graceful of animals, the zebra and the antelope, browsed in the distance: now they stood to gaze upon the long line of porters, then, after leisurely pacing, with retrospective glances, in an opposite direction, they halted motionless for a moment, faced about once more to satiate curiosity, and lastly, terrified by their own fancy, they bounded in ricochets over the plain.

About noon the fair scene vanished as if by enchantment. We suddenly turned northwards into a tangled mass of tall fetid reeds, rank jungle and forest, with its decaying trunks encroaching upon the hole-pierced goat-track that zigzaged towards the Myombo River. This perennial stream rises, according to the guides, in an elevation opposite to the highlands of Dut’humi. It is about fifty feet broad at the ford, breast-deep, and the swift brown waters swirl under a canopy of the trees whose name it bears. The “Myombo” is a fine specimen of African timber, apparently unknown to the people of Zanzibar, but extending almost from the coast to the Lake Regions. The flower is greenish, with the overpowering smell of the Indian jasmines; the fruit is a large pod, containing ten or twelve long hard acorns, of a brown-black colour, set in cups which resemble red sealing-wax. The coarse bark is used for building huts and kraals, the inner fibre for “bast” and ropes, and the wood makes what Easterns call a hot fire, lasting long, and burning well out. After the fiery sun and the dry atmosphere of the plains, the sudden effect of the dank and clammy chill, the result of exceeding evaporation, under the impervious shades that line the river banks, was overpowering. In such places one feels as if poisoned by miasma; a shudder runs through the frame; and a cold perspiration, like the prelude for a fainting-fit, breaks from the brow. Unloading the asses, and fording the stream, we ascended the left bank, and occupied a kraal, with fires still smoking, on its summit. Though another porter was left behind with small-pox, I had little difficulty with the luggage on this march: the more I worked the men, the harder they worked. Besides, they seldom fell sick on the road, though often prostrated when halting, a phenomenon which my companion explained by their hard eating and little exercise when stationary, and which Said bin Salim more mercifully attributed to the fatigue and exposure of the journey taking effect when the excitement had passed away.

At dawn on the 23rd of August we resumed our journey, and in 4^{hrs} 30′ concluded the transit of the lateral plain, which separates the Rufuta from the Mukondokwa Range. The path wound over a wintry land, green with vegetation only in the vicinity of water. After struggling through a forest of canes, we heard a ngoma, or large drum, which astonished us, as we had not expected to find a village. Presently, falling into a network of paths, we lost our way. After long wandering we came upon a tobacco-field which the Baloch and the sons of Ramji had finished stripping, and conducted by some Wanyamwezi who had delayed returning to guide us, in order to indulge their love for drumming and plundering, we arrived at the débris of a once flourishing village of Wasagara, called Mbumi from its headman. A pitiable scene here presented itself. The huts were torn and half-burnt, and the ground was strewed with nets and drums, pestles and mortars, cots and fragments of rude furniture; and though no traces of blood were observed, it was evident that a Commando had lately taken place there. Said bin Salim opined this ruin to be the work of Khalfan bin Salim, the youth who had preceded us from Muhama; ever suspicious, he saw in it a plan adopted by the coast-Arab in order to raise against us the people of the mountains. Kidogo, observing that the damage was at least ten days’ old, more acutely attributed it to the Moslem kidnappers of Whinde, who, aided by the terrible Kisabengo, the robber-chief of Ukami, near K’hutu, harry the country with four or five hundred guns. Two of the wretched villagers were seen lurking in the jungle, not daring to revisit the wreck of their homes. Here again the Demon of Slavery will reign over a solitude of his own creation. Can it be that, by some inexplicable law, where Nature has done her best for the happiness of mankind, man, doomed to misery, must work out his own unhappiness? That night was spent at the deserted village by our men in drumming, singing, and gleaning all that Khalfan’s gang had left; they were, moreover, kept awake by fear lest they might be surprised by the remnants of the villagers.

Late in the morning of the 24th of August, after losing another ass, torn by a cynhyæna, we followed the path that leads from Mbumi along the right bank of the Mukondokwa River to its ford. The marcescent vegetation, and the tall, stiff, and thick-stalked grass, dripped with dew, which struck cold as a freezing-mixture. The path was slippery with mud, and man and beast were rendered wild by the cruel stings of a small red ant and a huge black pismire. The former cross the road in dense masses like the close columns of an army. They are large-headed, showing probably that they are the defenders of the republic, and that they perform the duties of soldiers in their excursions. Though they cannot spring, they show great quickness in fastening themselves to the foot or ankle as it brushes over them. The pismire, known to the people as the “chungu-fundo,” or “siyafu” from the Arabic “siyaf,” is a horse-ant, about an inch in length, whose bulldog-like head and powerful mandibles enable it to destroy rats and mice, lizards and snakes. It loves damp places upon the banks of rivers and stagnant waters; it burrows but never raises hills, and it appears scattered for miles over the paths. Like the other species, it knows neither fear nor sense of fatigue; it rushes to annihilation without hesitating, and it cannot be expelled from a hut except by fire or boiling water. Its bite, which is the preamble to its meal, burns like a pinch with a red-hot needle; and when it sets to work, twisting itself round and “accroupi” in its eagerness for food, it may be pulled in two without relaxing its hold. The favourite food of this pismire is the termite: its mortal enemy is a large ginger-coloured ant, called from its painful wound “maji m’oto,” or “hot-water.” In this foul jungle our men also suffered severely from the tzetze. This fly, the torment of Cape travellers, was limited, by Dr. Livingstone, to the regions south of the Zambezi river. A specimen, brought home by me and submitted to Mr. Adam White, of the British Museum, was pronounced by him to be a true Glossina morsitans, and Mr. Petherick has fixed its limits about eight degrees north of the equator. On the line followed by the Expedition, the tzetze was found extending from Usagara westward as far as the Central Lakes; its usual habitat is the jungle-strip which encloses each patch of cultivated ground, and in the latter it is rarely seen. It has more persistency of purpose even than the Egyptian fly, and when beaten off it will return half a dozen times to the charge; it cannot be killed except by a smart blow, and its long sharp proboscis draws blood even through a canvas hammock. It is not feared by the naked traveller; the sting is as painful as that of an English horsefly, and leaves a lasting trace, but this hard-skinned people expect no evil consequences from it. In the vicinity of Kilwa it was heard of under the name of “kipanga,” the “little sword.” It is difficult to conceive the purpose for which this plague was placed in a land so eminently fitted for breeding cattle and for agriculture, which without animals cannot be greatly extended, except as an exercise for human ingenuity to remove. Possibly at some future day, when the country becomes valuable, the tzetze may be exterminated by the introduction of some insectivorous bird, which will be the greatest benefactor that Central Africa ever knew.

After about an hour’s march, the narrow tunnel in the jungle--it was so close that only one ass could be led up and unloaded at a time--debouched upon the Mukondokwa ford. The view was not unpleasing. The swift brown stream was broadened by a branch-islet in its upper bed to nearly a hundred yards, and its margins were fringed with rushes backed by a screen of dense verdure and tall trees which occupied the narrow space between the water and the hills. The descent and the landing-place were equally bad. Slipping down the steep miry bank the porters sank into the river breast-deep, causing not a little damage to their loads: the ford now wetted the waist then the knee, and the landing-place was a kind of hippopotamus-run of thick slushy mud, floored with roots and branches, snags and sawyers, and backed by a quagmire rendered passable only by its matwork of tough grass-canes laid by their own weight. Having crossed over on our men’s backs, we ascended a little rise and lay down somewhat in the condition of travelling Manes fresh from the transit of the Styx. I ordered back Kidogo with a gang of porters to assist Said bin Salim who was bringing up the rear: he promised to go but he went the wrong way--forwards. Resuming our march along the river’s left or northern bank, we wound along the shoulders and the bases of hills, sometimes ascending the spurs of stony and jungly eminences, where the paths were unusually rough and precipitous, at other times descending into the stagnant lagoons, the reedy and rushy swamps, and the deep bogs which margin the stream. After a total of six hours we reached a kraal situated upon the sloping ground at the foot of the northern walls which limit the grassy river basin: through this the Mukondokwa flows in a dark turbid stream now narrowed to about forty feet. The district of “Kadetamare” was formerly a provisioning station where even cattle were purchaseable, a rare exception to the rule in the smaller settlements of Usagara. I at once sent men to collect rations, none, however, were procurable: meeting a small party that were bringing grain from Rumuma, they learned that there was a famine in the land.

At Kadetamare the only pedometer, a patent watch-shaped instrument, broke down, probably from the effects of the climate. Whilst carried by my companion it gave a steady exaggerative rate, but being set to the usual military pace of 30 inches, when transferred to the person of “Seedy Bombay” and others, it became worse than useless, sometimes showing 25 for 13 miles. I would suggest to future explorers in these regions, as the best and the most lasting means of measuring distances, two of the small wheelbarrow perambulators--it is vain to put trust in a single instrument--which can each be rolled on by one man. And when these are spoilt or stolen, timing with the watch, and a correct estimate of the walking rate combined with compass-bearings, the mean of the oscillations being taken when on the march, would give a “dead-reckoning,” which checked by latitudes, as often as the cloudy skies permit, and by a few longitudes at crucial stations, would afford materials for a map approximating as nearly to correctness as could be desired in a country where a “handful of miles” little matters. The other instruments, though carefully protected from the air, fared not better than the pedometer: with three pocket-chronometers and a valuable lever-watch, we were at last reduced to find time by a sixpenny sun-dial. Before the first fortnight after our second landing in Africa had elapsed, all these instruments, notwithstanding the time and trouble devoted to them by my companion, at Zanzibar, failed in their ratings and became useless for chronometric longitudes. Two of them (Ed. Baker, London, No. 863, and Barraud, London, No. 2/537), stopped without apparent reason. A third, a first-rate article (Parkinson and Frodsham, No. 2955), issued to me from the Royal Observatory Greenwich, at the kind suggestion of Capt. Belcher, of the Admiralty, had its glass broken and its second-hand lost by the blunderer Gaetano: we remedied that evil by counting the ticks without other trouble than that caused by the odd number,--5 to 2 seconds. This instrument also summarily struck work on the 9th November, 1858, the day before we intended to have “made a night of it” at Jiwe la Mkoa. This may serve as a warning for future travellers to avoid instruments so delicate that a jolt will disorder them--the hair-spring of the lever watch was broken by my companion in jumping out of a canoe--and which no one but a professional can attempt to repair. A box chronometer carried in a “petarah” by a pole swung between two men so as to preserve its horizontality, might outlast the pocket-instruments, yet we read in Capt. Owens celebrated survey of the African coasts, that out of nine not one kept rate without fluctuations. The best plan would be to purchase half-a-dozen sound second-hand watches, carefully inspected and cleaned, and to use one at a time; if gold-mounted, they would form acceptable presents to the Arabs, and ultimately would prove economical by obviating the necessity of parting with more valuable articles.

The break-down of the last chronometer disheartened us for a time. Presently when our brains, addled by sun and sickness, had recovered tone by a return to the Usagara sanitarium, we remembered a rough and ready succedaneum for instruments. I need scarcely tell the reader that, unhappily for travellers, the only means of ascertaining the longitude of a place is by finding the difference between the local and Greenwich times, and that this difference of time with certain corrections is converted into distance of space. We split a 4 oz. rifle-ball, inserted into it a string measuring 39 inches from the point of suspension to the centre of the weight, and fixed it by hammering the halves together. The loose end of the cord was attached to a three-edged file as a pivot, and this was lashed firmly to the branch of a tree sheltered as much as possible from the wind. Local time was ascertained with a sextant by taking the altitude of a star or a planet; Greenwich time by a distance between the star or planet and the moon, and the vibrations of our rude pendulum did all that a watch could do, by registering the seconds that elapsed between the several observations.

I am somewhat presuming upon the subject, but perhaps it may here be better to chronicle the accidents which happened to the rest of our instruments. We had two Schmalcalder’s compasses (H. Barron & Co., 26, Oxenden Street), which, when the paste-board faces had been acclimatized and no longer curled up against their glasses, did good service; one of them was trodden upon by my companion, the other by a sailor during a cruise on the lake. We returned with a single instrument, the gift of my old friend Lieut.-General Monteith; it had surveyed Persia, and outlasting two long excursions into Eastern Africa, it still outlives and probably will outlive many of the showy articles now supplied by the trade. Finally, a ship’s compass, mounted in gimbals for boat-work and indented for upon the Engineer’s Stores, Bombay, soon became lumber, its oscillations were too sluggish to be useful.

We left Kadetamare on the 25th August, to ascend the fluviatile valley of the Mukondokwa. According to the guides this stream is the upper course of the Kingani River, with which it anastomoses in Uzaramo(?) It cuts its way through the chain to which it gives a name, by a transversal valley perpendicular to the lay, and so conveniently disposed that the mountains seem rather to be made for their drain than the drain for its mountains. The fluviatile valley is apparently girt on all sides by high peaks, with homesteads smoking and cattle grazing on all sides. Crippled by the night-cold that rose from the river-bed, and then wet through with the dew that dripped from the tall grass, we traversed, within ear-shot of the frightened villagers who hailed one another from the heights, some fields of grain and tobacco that had been lately reaped. After an hour and a-half of marching we arrived at the second ford of the Mukondokwa. Receiving less drainage than in the lower bed, the stream was narrower and only knee-deep; the landing-place of sloppy mud caused, however, many accidents to the asses, and on inspecting our stores a few days afterwards we found them all soft and mildewed. The reader will wonder that on these occasions we did not personally inspect the proceedings of our careless followers. The fact is we were physically and morally incapacitated for any exertion beyond balancing ourselves upon the donkeys; at Kadetamare I had laid in another stock of fever, and my companion had not recovered from his second severe attack. After fording the Mukondokwa we followed the right bank through cultivation, grass, and trees, up a gradually broadening valley peculiarly rich in field-rats. The path then crossing sundry swamps and nullahs, hill-spurs and “neat’s tongues,” equally rough thorny and precipitous, presently fell into a river-reach where pools of water, breast deep, and hedged in by impassable jungle and long runs of slushy mire festering in a furious sun, severely tried the porters and asses. Thence the road wound under the high hills to the South, whose flanks were smoking with extensive conflagrations, whilst on the opposite or left bank of the river, the opening valley displayed a forest of palms and tall trees. About 2 P.M. I reached the ground, a hutless circle of thorns, called by our people Muinyi: the rear-guard, however, did not straggle in before 6 P.M., and the exhaustion of the asses--seventeen now remained--rendered a day’s halt necessary.

During the last two marches the Baloch had been, they declared, without grain; the sons of Ramji and the porters, more provident, had reserved a small store, moreover they managed to procure a sheep from the next station. On the morrow a party, headed by Muinyi Wazira, set out to forage among the mountain settlements, bearing no arms in token of peace. About noon they returned, and reported that at the sight of strangers the people had taken to flight, after informing the party that they were in the habit of putting to death all Murungwana or freemen found trespassing off the road; however, that on this occasion the lives of the strangers should be spared. But Ambari, a slave belonging to Said bin Salim, presently tattled the true tale. The gallant foragers had not dared to enter the village; when the war-cry flew from hamlet to hamlet, and all the Wasagara, even the women and children, seized their spears and stood to arms, they at once threw themselves into the jungle and descended the hill with such unseemly haste that most of them bore the wounds of thorns and stones. Two of Baloch, Riza and Belok, lit their matches and set out proudly to provide themselves by their prowess; they were derided by Kidogo: “Verily, O my brethren! ye go forth to meet men and not women!” and after a hundred yards’ walk they took second thoughts and returned. The Mukondokwa Mountains, once a garden, have become a field for fray and foray; cruelty and violence have brutalised the souls of the inhabitants, and they have learned, as several atrocities committed since our passage through the country prove, to wreak their vengeance upon all weaker than themselves.

On the 27th August we resumed our way under fresh difficulties. The last march had cost us another ass. Muhinna, a donkey-driver, complaining of fever, had been mounted by Kidogo without my permission, and had summarily departed, thus depriving us of the services of a second, whilst all were in a state of weakness which compelled them to walk at their slowest pace. On the other hand, the men of the caravan, hungry and suffering from raw south-east wind and the chilly cold, the result not of low temperature but of humidity and extensive evaporation, were for pushing forward as fast as possible. The path was painful, winding along the shoulders of stony and bushy hills, with rough re-entering angles, and sometimes dipping down into the valley of the Mukondokwa, which, hard on the right, spread out in swamps, nearly two miles broad, temporary where they depended upon rain, and permanent where their low levels admitted of free infiltration. On the steep eminences to the left of the path rose tall and thick the thorny aloetic and cactaceous growth of arid Somaliland; the other side was a miniature of the marine lagoons, the creeks, and the bayous of green Zanzibar. After three hours of hard marching, the labour came to its crisis, where the path, breaking off at a right angle from the river, wound up an insecure ladder of loose earth and stones, which caused several porters and one ass to lose their footing, and to roll with their loads through the thorny bushes of the steep slope, near the off side, into the bed of rushes below. Then leaving the river-valley on the right, we fell into a Fiumara of deep loose sand, about a hundred yards broad, and occupying the centre of a widening table-land. The view now changed, and the “wady” afforded pleasant glimpses of scenery. Its broad, smooth and glistening bed, dinted by the footprints of cattle, was bounded by low perpendicular banks of stiff red clay, margined by mighty masses of brilliant green tamarinds, calabashes, and sycomores, which stood sharply out against the yellow stubbles beyond them. The Mkuyu or sycomore in Eastern Africa is a magnificent tree; the bole, composed of a pillared mass, averages from eight to ten feet in height, and the huge branches, thatched with thick cool foliage, extend laterally, overshadowing a circle whose perimeter, when the sun is vertical, sometimes attains five hundred feet. The fruit, though eaten by travellers, is a poor berry, all rind and seeds, with a slender title to the name of fig. There are apparently two varieties of this tree, resembling each other in general appearance, but differing in details. The Mtamba has a large, heavy, and fleshy leaf; its fruit is not smooth like that of the Mkuyu, but knobbed with green excrescences, and the bole is loftier than the common sycomore’s trunk. The roots of the older trees, rising above the earth, draw up a quantity of mould which, when the wood is decayed or destroyed, forms the dwarf mounds that in many parts encumber the surface of the country. Traces of extensive cultivation--fields of bajri or panicum, the staple cereal which here supplants the normal African holcus, or Kafir corn, and plantations of luxuriant maize, of beans, of the vetch known as the voiandzeia subterranea, of tobacco, and other plants--showed that this district is beyond the reach of the coast-kidnappers. From the rising ground on the left hand we heard the loud tattoo of the drum. The Baloch, choosing to be alarmed, fired several shots, much to the annoyance of the irascible Kidogo, who had laid down as a law that waste of powder in this region was more likely to invite than to prevent an attack. As we ascended the Fiumara it narrowed rapidly, and its head was encumbered with heaps of boulders from which sprang a runnel of the sweetest water. The camping-ground was upon the left bank of the bed. The guide called it Ndábi, probably from a small gnarled tree here abundant, bearing a fruit like a pale red currant, which tastes like sweetened gum dissolved in dirty water. I lost no time in sending for provisions, which were scarce and dear. Bombay failed in procuring a sheep, though the Baloch, by paying six cloths, were more fortunate. One of Kidogo’s principles of action, in which he was abetted by Said bin Salim, was to prevent our buying provisions, however necessary, at high prices, fearing lest the tariff thus established might become an “ada,” a precedent or custom for future travellers, himself and others. We were, therefore, fain to content ourselves and our servants with a little bajri and two eggs.

After a day’s halt at Ndabi we resumed the journey on the 29th August. The path crossed a high and stony hill-shoulder, where the bleak raw air caused one of the porters to lie down torpid like a frozen man. It then stretched over gradually rising and falling ground to a dense bush of cactaceæ and milk-bush, aloetic plants and thorns, based upon a surface of brickdust-red. Beyond this point lay another plateau of wavy surface, producing dwarfed and wind-wrung calabashes, and showing grain-fields carefully and laboriously ridged with the hoe. Flocks and herds now appeared in all directions. The ground was in some places rust-coloured, in others dazzlingly white with a detritus of granite; mica glittered like silver-filings in the sun, and a fine silky grass waved in the wind, bleached clean of colour by the glowing rays. This plateau ended in a descent with rapid slopes, over falls and steps of rock and boulder into the basin of the Rumuma River. It is a southern influent, or a bifurcation of the Mukondokwa, and it drains the hills to the south-west of the Rumuma district, whereas the main stream, arising in the highlands of the Wahumba or Wamusai, carries off the waters of the lands on the west. Losing our way, we came upon this mountain-torrent, which swirls through blocks and boulders under stiff banks of red earth densely grown with brush and reeds; and to find the kraal we were obliged to travel up the bed-side, through well-hoed fields irrigated by raised water-courses. The khambi was badly situated in the dwarf hollow between the river and the hills, and having lately been tenanted, as the smoking embers showed, it was uncleanly in the extreme. It was heart-breaking to see the asses that day. I left them to Said bin Salim, who, with many others, did not appear till eventide.

Rumuma is a favourite resting-place with caravans, on account of the comparative abundance of its supplies. I halted here two whole days, to rest and feed the starving porters, and to repair the sacks, the pack-saddles, and the other appointments of the asses. Here, for the first time, the country people descended in crowds from the hills, bringing fowls, hauling along small but beautifully formed goats, lank sheep, and fine bullocks--the latter worth twelve cloths--and carrying on their heads basket-platters full of the Voandzeia, bajri, beans, and the _Arachis Hypogæa_. The latter is called by the Arabs Sumbul el Sibal, or “Monkey’s Spikenard;” on the coast, Njugu ya Nyassa; in Unyamwezi, Karanga or K’haranga, and further west, Mayowwa or Mwanza. It is the Bhuiphali, or “earth-fruit” of India, and the Bik’han of Maharatta land, where it is used by cheap confectioners in the place of almonds, whose taste it simulates. Our older Cape travellers term it the pig-nut. The plant extends itself along the surface of the ground, and puts forth its fruit at intervals below. It is sown before the rains, and ripens after six months,--in the interior about June. The Arabs fry it with cream that has been slightly salted, and employ it in a variety of rich dishes; it affords them also a favourite oil. The Africans use it principally on journeys. The price greatly varies according to the abundance of the article; when moderate, about two pounds may be purchased for a “khete” of coral beads.

The Wasagara of Rumuma are short, black, beardless men. They wear their hair combed off the forehead, and twisted into a fringe of little pig-tails, which extend to the nape of the neck. Few boast of cloth, the general body contenting themselves with a goat-skin flap somewhat like a cobbler’s apron tied over one shoulder, as we sling a game-bag. Their ornaments are zinc and brass earrings in rolls, which distend the ear-lobe, bangles, or armlets of similar metal, and iron chains with oblong links as anklets. Their arms are bows and arrows, assegais with long lanceated heads, and bull-hide shields, three feet long by one broad, painted black and red in perpendicular stripes. I was visited by their Sultan Njasa, a small grizzled old man, with eyes reddened by liquor, a wide mouth, a very thin beard, a sooty skin, and long straggling hair, “_à la malcontent_.” He was attired in an antiquated Barsati, or blue and red Indian cotton, tucked in at the waist, with another thrown over his shoulders, and his neck was decked with many strings of beads. He insisted upon making “sare” or brotherhood with Said bin Salim, who being forbidden by his law to taste blood, made the unconscientious Muinyi Wazira his proxy. The two brothers being seated on the ground opposite each other, with legs well to the fore, one man held over their heads a drawn sword, whilst another addressed to them alternately a little sermon, denouncing death or slavery as the penalty for proving false to the vow. Then each brother licked a little of the other’s blood, taken with the finger from a knife-cut above the heart, or rather where the heart is popularly supposed to be. The Sultan then presented to the Muinyi, _in memoriam_, a neat iron chain-anklet, and the Muinyi presented to the Sultan a little of our cloth.

The climate of Rumuma was new to me, after the incessant rains of the maritime valley, and the fogs and mists of the Rufuta Range. It was, however, in extremes. At night the thermometer, under the influence of dewy gusts, sank in the tent to 48° F., a killing temperature in these latitudes to half-naked and houseless men. During the day the mercury ranged between 80° and 90° F.; the sun was fiery, whilst a furious south wind coursed through skies purer and bluer than I had ever seen in Greece or Italy. At times, according to the people, the hill-tops are veiled, especially in the mornings and evenings, with thick nimbus, vapours, and spitting clouds, which sometimes extend to the plain, and discharge heavy showers that invariably cause sickness. Here my companion once more suffered from an attack of “liver,” brought on, he supposed, from over-devotion to a fat bullock’s hump. Two of the Wanyamwezi porters were seized with preliminary symptoms of small-pox, euphuistically termed by Said bin Salim “shurua,” or chicken-pox. Several of the slaves, including the charming Halimah, were laid up; the worst of all, however, was Valentine, who complained of an unceasing racking headache, whilst his puffed cheeks and dull-yellow skin gave him the look of one newly deceased. At length, divining his complaint, he was cupped by a Mnyamwezi porter, and he recovered after the operation strength and appetite.

The 2nd of September saw us _en route_ to Márengá Mk’hali, or the “brackish water.” Fording the Rumuma above the spot where it receives the thin supplies of the Márengá Mk’hali, we marched over stony hills and thorny bushes, dotted with calabash and mimosa, the castor-shrub and the wild egg-plant, and gradually rising, we passed into scattered fields of holcus and bajri, pulse and beans. Here, for the first time, bee-hives, called by the coast-people Mazinga, or cannons, from their shape, hollowed cylindrical logs, closed with grass and puddle at both ends, and provided with an oval opening in the centre, were seen hanging to the branches of the foliaged trees. Cucumbers, water-melons, and pumpkins grew apparently without cultivation. The water-melon, called by the Arabs Johh, and by the Wasawahili Tikiti, flourishes throughout the interior, where it is a favourite with the people. It is sown before the rainy season, gathered after six months, and placed to ripen upon the flat roofs of the villages. Like the produce of Kafir-land, it is hard, insipid, fleshy, and full of seeds, having nothing but the name in common with the delicious fruit of Egypt and Afghanistan. The Junsal, or Boga, the pumpkin, is, if possible, worse than the water-melon. Its red meat, simply boiled, is nauseously sweet; it is, however, considered wholesome, and the people enjoy the seeds toasted, pounded, and mixed with the “Mboga,” or wild vegetables, with which a veritable African can, in these regions, keep soul and body together for six months. About 10 A.M., I found Khalfan’s caravan halted in a large kraal amongst the villages, on the eastern hill above the “brackish water.” They were loading for the march, and my men looked wistfully at the comfortable huts; but their halt had been occasioned by small-pox, I therefore hurried forwards across the streamlet to a wind-swept summit of an opposite hill. The place was far from pleasant, the gusts were furious; by night the thermometer showed 54° F., by day there was but scanty shelter from the fiery sun, and the “Márengá Mk’hali,” which afforded the only supplies of water, was at a considerable distance. Moreover our umbrellas and bedding suffered severely from a destructive host of white ants, that here became troublesome for the first time. The “Chunga Mchwa,” or termite, abounds throughout the sweet red clay soils, and cool damp places, avoiding heat, sand, and stone, and it acts like a clearer and scavenger; without it, indeed, some parts of the country would be impassable, and it is endowed with extraordinary powers of destruction. A hard clay-bench has been drilled and pierced like a sieve by these insects in a single night, and bundles of reeds placed under bedding, have in a few hours been converted into a mass of mud; straps were consumed, cloths and umbrellas were reduced to rags, and the mats used for covering the servants’ sleeping-gear were, in the shortest possible time, so tattered as to be unserviceable. Man revenges himself upon the white ant, and satisfies his craving for animal food, which in these regions becomes a principle of action,--a passion,--by boiling the largest and fattest kind, and eating it as a relish with his insipid ugali, or porridge. The termite appears to be a mass of live water. Even in the driest places it finds no difficulty in making a clay-paste for the mud-galleries, like hollow tree-twigs, with which it disguises its approach to its prey. The phenomenon has been explained by the conjecture that it combines by vital force the atmospheric oxygen with the hydrogen evolved by its food. When arrived at the adult state, the little peoples rise ready-winged, like thin curls of pipe-smoke, generally about even-tide, from the ground. After a flight of a few yards, the fine membranes, which apparently serve to disperse the insects into colonies, drop off. In East Africa there is also a semi-transparent brown ant, resembling the termite in form, but differing in habits, and even exceeding it in destructiveness. It does not, like its congener, run galleries up to the point of attack. Each individual works for itself in the open air, tears the prey with its strong mandibles, and carries it away to its hole. The cellular hills of the termites in this country rarely rise to the height of three feet, whereas in Somali-land they become dwarf towers, forming a conspicuous feature in the view.

No watch was kept by the Baloch at Márengá Mk’hali, though we were then in the vicinity of the bandit Wahumba. On the next day we were harangued by Kidogo, who proceeded to expound the principles that must guide us through the unsafe regions ahead. The caravan must no longer straggle on in its usual disorder, the van must stop short when separated from the main body, and the rear must advance at the double when summoned by the sound of the Barghumi, or the koodoo-horn, which acts as bugle in Eastern Africa. I thought, at the time, that Kidogo might as well address his admonitions to the wind, and I thought rightly.

The route lay through the lateral plain which separates the Mukondokwa or second, from the Rubeho or third parallel range of the Usagara Mountains. At Márengá, Mk’hali, situated as it is under the lee of the two eastern walls, upon which the humid N. E. and S. E. trade-winds impinge, the eye no longer falls, as before, upon a sheet of monotonous green, and the nose is not offended by the death-like exhalations of a pestilent vegetation. The dew diminishes, the morning-cloud is rare upon the hill-top, and the stratus is not often seen in the valley; rain, moreover, seldom falls heavily, except during its single appointed season. The climate is said to be salubrious, and the medium elevation of the land, 2500 feet, raises it high above the fatal fever-level, without attaining the altitudes where dysentery and pleurisy afflict the inhabitants. For many miles beyond Márengá Mk’hali water is rarely found. Caravans, therefore, resort to what is technically called a “Tirikeza,” or afternoon march. In the Kisawahili, or coast-language, “ku Tirikeza,” or “Tilikeza,” and in Kinyamwezi, “ku Witekezea,” is the infinitive of a neuter verb signifying “to march after noon-day”; by the Arabs it is corrupted into a substantive. Similarly the verb ku honga, to pay “dash”, tribute, passage-money, or blackmail, becomes in the mouths of the stranger, ku honga, or Honga. The tirikeza is one of the severest inflictions that African travelling knows. At 11 A.M. everything is thrown into confusion, although two or three hours must elapse before departure; loads are bound up, kitchen-batteries are washed and packed, tents are thrown, and stools are carried off by fidgeting porters and excited slaves. Having drunk for the last time, and filled their gourds for the night, the wayfarers set out when the midday ends. The sun is far more severely felt after the sudden change from shade, than during the morning marches, when its increase of heat is slow and gradual. They trudge under the fireball in the firmament, over ground seething with glow and reek, through an air which seems to parch the eyeballs, and they endure this affliction till their shadows lengthen out upon the ground. The tirikeza is almost invariably a lengthy stage, as the porters wish to abridge the next morning’s march, which leads to water. It is often bright moonlight before they arrive at the ground, with faces torn by the thorns projecting across the jungly path, with feet lacerated by stone and stub, and occasionally a leg lamed by stumbling into deep and narrow holes, the work of field-rats and of various insects.

We left Márengá Mk’hali at 1 P.M., on the 3rd September, and in order to impressionise a large and well-armed band of the country people that had gathered to stare at, to criticise, and to deride us, we indulged in a little harmless sword-play, with a vast show of ferocity and readiness for fight. The road lay over several rough, steep, and bushy ridges, where the wretched asses, rushing away to take advantage of a yard of shade, caused constant delays. The Wanyamwezi animals having a great persistency of character, could scarcely be dislodged; and when they were, they threw their loads in pure spite. After topping a little “col” or pass, we came in sight of an extensive basin, bounded by distant blue hills, to which the porters pointed with a certain awe, declaring them to be the haunts of the fierce Wahumba. A descent of the western flank led us to a space partially cleared by burning, when the cry arose that men were lurking about. We then plunged into a thick bush of thorny trees, based upon a red clayey soil caked into the semblance of a rock. Contrary to expectation, when crossing a deep nullah trending northwards, we found a little rusty, ochreish water, in one of the cups and holes that dented the sandstone of the soles. Thence the path, gradually descending, fell into a coarse scrub, varied with small open savannahs, and broken, like the rest of the road, by deep, narrow watercourses, which carry off the waters of the southern hills to the northern lowlands. About 6 P.M., we came upon a cleared space in a thick thorn-jungle, where we established ourselves for the night. The near whine of the hyæna, and the alarm of the asses, made sleep a difficulty. The impatience and selfishness of thirst showed strongly in the Baloch. Belok had five large gourds full of water, perhaps three gallons, yet he would not part with a palmful to the sick Ismail. That day I was compelled to dismiss my usual ass-leader Shahdad, the zeze-player and fracturer of female hearts, who preferring the conversation of his fellows, dragged the animal through thorns and alongside of trees so artistically, that my nether garments were soon in strips. I substituted for him Musa the Greybeard, who, after a few days, begged, with bitter tears, to be excused. It was his habit to hurry on towards the kraal and shade, and the slow hobble of the ass detained him a whole hour in sore discomfort. The task was then committed to the tailor-youth Hudul, who lost no time in declaring that I had abused him--that he was a Baloch--that he was not an asinego. Then I tried Abdullah,--the good young man. I dismissed him because every day brought with it a fresh demand for cloth or beads, gourds or sandals, for a “chit” to the Balyuz--the Consul, or a general good character as regards honesty, virtue, and the _et ceteras_. Finally the ass was entrusted to the bull-headed slave Mabruki, who thinking of nothing but chat with his “brother,” Seedy Bombay, and having that curious mania for command which seems part of every servile nature, hurried my monture so recklessly, that earth-cracks and rat-holes caused us twain many a severe fall. My companion had entrusted himself to Bombay, who, though he did nothing well rarely did anything very badly.

The 4th September began with an hour’s toil through the dense bush, to a rapid descent over red soil and rocks, which necessitated frequent dismounting,--no pleasant exercise after a sleepless night. Below, lay a wide basin of rolling ground, surrounded in front by a rim of hills. It was one of the many views which “catching the reflex of heaven,” and losing by indistinctness the harshness of defined outline and the deformity of individual feature, assume, viewed from afar, a peculiar picturesqueness. Traces of extensive cultivation, flocks and herds, were descried in the lower levels, which were a network of sandy nullahs; and upon the rises, the regular and irregular square or oblong habitations, called “Tembe,” were seen for the first time. Early September is, in this region, the depth of winter. Under the burning, glaring sun, the grass becomes white as the ground; the fields, stubbles stiff as harrows, are stained only by the shadow of passing clouds; the trees, except upon the nullah-banks, are gaunt and bare, the animals are walking skeletons, and nothing seems to flourish but flies and white ants, caltrops and grapple-plants. After crossing deep water-cuts trending N.E. and N.N.E., we descended a sharp incline and a rough ladder of boulders, and found a dirty and confined kraal, on the side of a rocky khad[8] or ravine, which drains off the surplus moisture of the westerly crags and highlands, and which affords sweet springs, that cover the soil as far as they extend with a nutritious and succulent grass. As this was to be a halting-place, a more than usually violent rush was made by the Baloch, the sons of Ramji, and the porters, to secure the best quarters. The Jemadar remaining behind with three of the Wanyamwezi, who were unable to walk, did not arrive till after noon, and my companion, suffering from a paroxysm of bilious fever, came in even later. Valentine was weaker than usual, and Gaetano groaned more frequently, “ang duk’hta”--body pains! To add other troubles, an ass had been lost, and “Khamsin,”--No. 50--my riding-animal, had by breaking a tooth in fighting incapacitated itself for food or drink: its feebleness compelled me to transfer the saddle to the last of the Zanzibar riding-asses, Siringe,--the Quarter-dollar--and Siringe, sadly back-sore, cowering in the hams, and slipping from under me every few minutes, showed present signs of giving in.

[8] The Indian “khad” is the deep rocky drain in hilly countries, thus
differing from the popular idea of a “ravine,” and from the nullah,
which is a formation in more level lands.

The basin of Inenge lies at the foot of the Rubeho or “Windy Pass,” the third and westernmost range of the Usagara Mountains. The climate, like that of Rumuma, is ever in extremes--during the day a furnace, and at night a refrigerator--the position is a funnel, which alternately collects the fiery sunbeams and the chilly winds that pour down from the misty highlands. The villagers of the settlements overlooking the ravine, flocked down to barter their animals and grain. Here, for the first time since our departure from the coast, honey, clarified butter, and, greatest boon of all, milk, fresh and sour, were procurable. The man who has been restricted to a diet so unwholesome as holcus and bajri, with an occasional treat of kennel-food,--broth and beans,--will understand that the first unexpected appearance of milk, butter, and honey formed an epoch in our journey.

The halt was celebrated with abundant drumming and droning, which lasted half the night; it served to cheer the spirits of the men, who had talked of nothing the whole day but the danger of being attacked by the Wahumba. On the next morning arrived a caravan of about 400 Wanyamwezi porters marching to the coast, under the command of Isa bin Hijji and three other Arab merchants. An interchange of civilities took place. The Arabs lacking cloth could not feed their slaves and porters, who deserted daily, imperilling a valuable investment in ivory. The Europeans could afford a small contribution of three Gorah or pieces of domestics: they received a present of fine white rice, a few pounds of salt, and a goat, in exchange for a little perfumed snuff and assafœtida, which after a peculiar infusion is applied to wounds, and which, administered internally, is considered a remedy for many complaints. I was allured to buy a few yards of rope, indispensable for packing the animals. The number of our asses being reduced from thirty to fifteen, and the porters from thirty-six to thirty, it was necessary to recruit. The Arabs sold two Wanyamwezi animals for ten dollars each, payable at Zanzibar. One proved valuable as a riding ass, and carried me to the Central Lake, and back to Unyanyembe: the other, though caponized and blind on the off-side, had become by bad treatment so obstinate and so cleverly vicious, that the Baloch called him “Shaytan yek-cham,” or the “one-eyed fiend:” he carried, besides sundries, four boxes of ammunition, weighing together 160 pounds, and even under these he danced like a deer. Nothing was against him but his character: after a few days he was cast adrift in the wilderness of Mgunda M’khali, because no man dared to load and lead him. Knowing that the Arab merchants upon this line hold it a point of honour to discourage, by refusing a new engagement, the down-porters in their proclivity to desert, and believing that it was a stranger’s duty to be even stricter than they are, I gave most stringent orders that any fugitive porter detected in my caravan should be sent back a prisoner to his employers. But the Coast-Arabs and the Wasawahili ignore this commercial chivalry, and shamelessly offer a premium to “levanters:” moreover, in these lands it is hard to make men understand the _rapport_ between sayings and doings. Seven or eight fellows, who secretly left the party, were sent back; one, however, was taken on without my knowledge. Said bin Salim persuaded the merchants to lend us the services of three Wanyamwezi, who for sums varying from eight Shukkah to two cloths, and a coil large enough to make three wire bracelets, undertook to carry packs as far as Unyanyembe. Our Ras Kafilah had increased in Uzaramo his suite by the addition of “Zawada,”--the “nice gift,” a parting present of the headman Kizaya. She was a woman about thirty, with a black skin shining like a patent-leather boot, a bulging brow, little red eyes, a wide mouth which displayed a few long, strong, scattered teeth, and a figure considerably too bulky for her thin legs, which were unpleasantly straight, like ninepins. Her _morale_ was superior to her _physique_; she was a patient and hard-working woman, and respectable in the African acceptation of the term. She was at once married off to old Musangesi, one of the donkey-men, whose nose and chin made him a caricature of our dear old friend Punch. After detecting her in a lengthy walk, perhaps not solitary, through the jungle, he was palpably guilty of such cruelty that I felt compelled to decree a dissolution of the marriage. After passing through sundry adventures she returned safely to Zanzibar, where, for aught I know, she may still grace the harem of Said bin Salim. At Inenge another female slave was added to the troop, in the person of the lady Sikujui, “Don’t know,” a “mulier nigris dignissima barris,” whose herculean person and virago manner raised her value to six cloths and a large coil of brass wire. The channel of her upper lip had been pierced to admit a disk of bone; her Arab master had attempted to correct the disfigurement by scarification and the use of rock-salt, yet the distended muscles insisted upon projecting sharply from her countenance, like a duck’s bill, or the beak of an ornithorhyncus. This truly African ornamentation would have supplied another instance to the ingenious author of “Anthropometamorphosis.”[9] “Don’t know’s” morals were frightful. She was duly espoused--as the forlorn hope of making her an “honest woman”--to Goha, the sturdiest of the Wak’hutu porters; after a week she treated him with a sublime contempt. She gave him first one, then a dozen rivals; she disordered the caravan by her irregularities; she broke every article entrusted to her charge, as the readiest way of lightening her burden, and--“le moindre défaut d’une femme galante est de l’être”--she deserted so shamelessly that at last Said bin Salim disposed of her, at Unyanyembe, for a few measures of rice, to a travelling trader, who came the next morning to complain of a broken head.

[9] Anthropometamorphosis: Man-transformed: or the Artificial
Changeling, historically presented, In the mad and cruel Gallantry,
foolish Bravery, Ridiculous Beauty, filthy Finenesse, and loathsome
Loveliness of most NATIONS, fashioning and attiring their Bodies from
the mould intended by NATURE; with figures of these Transfigurations.
To which artificial and affected Deformations are added, all the
Native and National Monstrosities that have appeared to disfigure the
Humane Fabrick. With a VINDICATION of the Regular Beauty and Honesty
of NATURE. With an Appendix of the Pedigree of the ENGLISH GALLANT.
Scripsit J. B. Cognomento Chirosophus, M.D “In nova fert animus,
mutatas dicere formas.” London: Printed by William Hunt, Anno. Dom.
1653.