The “malwa,” or beer, is from fermented millet and ripe bananas. It is in great demand, and a chief’s greatest business in life appears to be paying visits to his friends round about, for the purpose of exhausting their malwa pots. Fortunately, it is not very potent, and is scarcely strong enough to do more than inspire a happy convivial feeling.
The climate of the region is agreeable. Five hours’ work per day can be performed, even out-door, without discomfort from excessive heat, and three days out of seven during the whole of daylight, because of the frequent clouded state of the sky. When, however, the sky is exposed, the sun shines with a burning fervour that makes men seek the shelter of their cool huts. The higher portions of the grass-land—as at Kavalli’s, in the Balegga Hills, and on the summit of the Ankori pastoral ranges—range from 4,500 to 6,500 feet above the sea, and large extents of Toro and Southern Unyoro as high as 10,000, and promise to be agreeable lands for European settlers when means are provided to convey them there. When that time arrives they will find amiable, quiet, and friendly neighbours in that fine-featured race, of which the best type are the Wahuma, with whom we have never exchanged angry words, and who bring up vividly to the mind the traits of those blameless people with whom the gods deigned to banquet once a year upon the heights of Ethiopia.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
TO THE ENGLISH MISSION STATION, SOUTH END OF VICTORIA NYANZA.
Ankori and Karagwé under two aspects—Karagwé; and the Alexandra Nile—Mtagata Hot Springs—A baby rhinoceros, captured by the Nubians, shows fight in camp—Disappearance of Wadi Asmani—The Pasha’s opinion of Captain Casati—Surgeon Parke and the pigmy damsel—Conduct of a boy pigmy—Kibbo-bora loses his wife at the Hot Springs—Arrival at Kufarro—Recent kings of Karagwé—Kiengo and Captain Nelson’s resemblance to “Speke”—The King of Uganda greatly dreaded in Karagwé—Ndagara refuses to let our sick stay in his country—Camp at Uthenga: loss of men through the cold—We throw superfluous articles in Lake Urigi in order to carry the sick—We enter the district of Ihangiro: henceforward our food has to be purchased—The Lake of Urigi—At the village of Mutara, Fath-el-Mullah runs amuck with the natives, and is delivered over to them—The Unyamatundu plateau—Halt at Ngoti: Mwengi their chief—Kajumba’s territory—We obtain a good view of Lake Victoria—The country round Kisaho—Lions and human skulls in the vicinity of our camp—The events of 1888 cleared our track for a peaceful march to the sea—We reach Amranda and Bwanga—The French missionaries and their stations at Usambiro—Arrival at Mr. Mackay’s, the English Mission station—Mr. Mackay and his books—We rest, and replenish our stores, etc.—Messrs. Mackay and Deakes give us a sumptuous dinner previous to our departure—The last letter from Mr. A. M. Mackay, dated January 5, 1890.
1889.
July 28.
Karagwé.
A stranger entering Ankori or Karagwé in the dry season, and taking a casual view around, and seeing only vast spaces made black with fire, and lines and massive outcroppings of grey rock, long mountainous ridges heaving one after another, all burnt up, and scorched to seeming desolateness, would be apt to exclaim impatiently, “Show me one beauty spot on the face of it!” This man is an old acquaintance of mine. He is a spleeny, querulous, joyless fellow, of thin blood and aching liver. He will go to the Congo, or to East Africa, or to Bechuanaland, and standing on an ant-heap, he will ask with a sneer, “Do you call this Africa? Pho!” Nevertheless, within three weeks after the fire which burnt the sere grass, and gave the land an aspect of desolation, the young grass is waving merrily, exulting in its youth, and beauty, and greenness over mountain summit, slope, and valley, and these two pasture-lands, renowned for the breeding of their cattle, really look beautiful. I have seen them now under two aspects. To Ankori I give the preference. In it are mighty extents of plain stretching in a hazy, billowy manner, broken up here and there by humpy eminences, pap-like hills, and dwarfish mounts, divided by tributaries of the Alexandra like the Rwizi, or by feeders of the Albert Edward like the Rusango, and all within curving lines of grand grass-covered ranges, which separate one broad river basin from another. It seems as though all this was arranged after some cunning plan, to meet the exigencies of exclusive tribes. The plan has been defeated, however, for Antari reigns over the basins of the Rwizi, the Namianja, the Rusango, and many another stream, despite the mountainous dyke, and of late years he has annexed Mpororo country, and if his power were equal to his ambition he would probably annex Karagwé, and Koki, and Uddu, down to the Victoria Lake.
We are now in Karagwé. The Alexandra Nile—drawing its waters from Ruanda, Mpororo, to the west; and from north, Uhha; and north-east, Urundi and Kishakka—runs north along the western frontier of Karagwé, and reaching Ankori, turns sharply round to eastward to empty into the Victorian Sea; and as we leave its narrow valley, and ascend gradually upward, along one of those sloping narrow troughs so characteristic of this part of Central Africa, we camp at Unyakatera, below a mountain ridge of that name, and like the view obtained from that summit two score of times repeated, is all Karagwé. It is a system of deep narrow valleys running between long narrow ranges as far as the eye can reach. In the north of Karagwé they are drained by small streams which flow into the Alexandra.
1889.
July 29.
Mtagata.
The second day’s travel was terminated when we reached Mtagata hot springs, which I have already described in ‘Through the Dark Continent.’