"May the itch make him loathsome, and the hair of his head be lost by the mange; may the adder wait for him by the path, and the lion meet him on his way; may the leopard in the darkness besiege his house, and his wife when she draweth water from the stream, be seized; may the barbed arrow pin his entrails, and the sharp spear be dyed in his vitals; may sickness waste his strength, and his days be narrowed with disease; may his limbs fail him in the day of battle, and his arms stiffen with cramps," and so on, invoking every evil and disease most dreaded, and the Zanzibari Professor of Secret Ritualism, somewhat dumbfounded at first at the series of curses delivered so volubly by Nestor, 1888.
April 14.
Undussuma. seized his magic gourd, and shook it at the hills and the valley, at the head of Mazamboni with awful solemnity; at Nestor himself, and the awe-struck following around, and outdid Nestor, from perverted ambition, by frenzy, voice, and gesture, in harmony with it; his eyes rolled wildly, foam came from his lips; he summoned every blight to fall upon the land and its productions, every damnable agency in his folk-lore to hound Mazamboni for ever; every dark and potent spirit out of the limbo of evil imagination to torture him in his waking and sleeping hours, until his actions were so fantastic, his denunciation so outrageous, his looks so like one possessed with a demon, that everyone, native and Zanzibari, broke out into uncontrollable laughter, which caused Murabo, our "medicine man," to sober instantly, and to say in Swahili to us, with a conceited shake of the head,
"Ay! master, how do you like that style for high acting?" which reminded me of nothing so much as Hamlet out-ranting Laertes.
Mazamboni, though undoubtedly paramount chief of Undussuma, seems to be governed by an unwritten constitution. His ministers also are his principal kinsmen, who conduct foreign and home policy even in his presence, so that in affairs of government his voice is seldom heard. Most of the time he sat silent and reserved—one might almost say indifferent. Thus this unsophisticated African chief has discovered that—whether from intuition or traditional custom it is hard to say—it is best to divide government. If the principle has been derived from custom, it proves that from the Albert Nyanza down to the Atlantic the thousand tribes of the Congo basin spring from one parent tribe, nation, or family. The similarity in other customs, physiognomy, and roots of languages, lend additional proofs to substantiate this.
We discovered that the chiefs, as well as the lesser folk, were arrant beggars, and too sordid in mind to recognise a generous act. Though a peace was strenuously sought by all, yet the granting of it seemed to 1888.
April 14.
Undussuma. them to be only a means of being enriched with gifts from the strangers. Mazamboni, even after a long day's work, could only be induced to give more than a calf and five goats as a return for a ten-guinea rug, a bundle of brass wire, and ivory horns from the forest. The chief of Urumangwa and Bwessa, that flourishing settlement which in December had so astonished us with its prosperity, likewise thought that he was exceedingly liberal by endowing us with a kid and two fowls.
ONE OF MAZAMBONI'S WARRIORS.
Among our visitors to-day were Gavira, the chief of the Eastern Bavira, who proclaimed from a hill that the land lay at our feet when we were returning from the Lake; and also a Mhuma chief, who wore unblushingly the fine scarlet cloth of which we had been mulcted in December to buy peace. He never offered a return gift so long deferred.
We discovered that there were two different and distinctly differing races living in this region in harmony with each other, one being clearly of Indo-African origin, possessing exceedingly fine features, aquiline noses, slender necks, small heads, with a grand and proud carriage; an old, old race, possessing splendid traditions, and ruled by inflexible custom which would admit of no deviation. Though the majority have a nutty-brown complexion, some even of a rich dark brown, the purest of their kind resemble old ivory in colour, and 1888.
April 14.
Undussuma. their skins have a beautifully soft feel, as of finest satin. These confine themselves solely to the breeding of cattle, and are imbued with a supercilious contempt for the hoemen, the Bavira, who are strictly agricultural. No proud dukeling in England could regard a pauper with more pronounced contempt than the Wahuma profess for the Bavira. They will live in the country of the Bavira, but not in their villages; they will exchange their dairy produce for the grain and vegetables of the hoemen, but they will never give their daughters in marriage but to a Mhuma born. Their sons may possess children by Bavira women, but that is the utmost concession. Now in this I discover the true secret of the varying physiognomies, and the explanations in the variation of facial types.
We have the true negroidal cast of features in the far-away regions of West Africa, with which this proud high-caste race could not possibly come in contact during many centuries; we have the primitive races of the forest, the Akkas, Wambutti, Watwa, and Bushmen, of which the Wambutti are by far the handsomest; have the Zulus, the Mafitte, Watuta, Wahha, Warundi, Wanya-Ruanda, semi-Ethiopic; we have the Ethiopic, slightly degraded, except in the aristocratic families, as in the Wahuma, or, as they are variously called, Waima, Wachwezi, Wawitu, and the Wataturu, who represent two human streams, one coming from Ethiopia by way of South-East Galla into Unyoro and the high pastoral lake regions, and the other flowing direct south. The Victoria Lake lies between these sections of superior African humanity.
A Bavira chief complained to me of the haughty contempt with which the Bavira were regarded by the Wahuma, in just such words as these: "They call us hoemen, and laugh to scorn the sober regularity with which we, tilling the dark soil, live through our lives in honest labour. They sweep round on foraging excursions, and know no loved and fixed home; they settle down wherever they are tempted (by pasture), and when there (is trouble) they build a house in another spot."