They are not a warlike people, but, like others who are not remarkable for courage, they always go armed; a Mgogo never walking without his spear and shield, and perhaps a short club, also to be used as a missile. The shield is oblong, and made of leather, and the spear has nothing remarkable about it; and, as Captain Speke remarks, these weapons are carried more for show than for use.
They are not a pleasant people, being avaricious, intrusive, and inquisitive, ingrained liars, and sure to bully if they think they can do so with safety. If travellers pass through their country, they are annoying beyond endurance, jeering at them with words and insolent gestures, intruding themselves among the party, and turning over everything that they can reach, and sometimes even forcing themselves into the tents. Consequently the travellers never enter the villages, but encamp at some distance from them, under the shelter of the wide-spreading “gouty-limbed trees” that are found in this country, and surround their camp with a strong hedge of thorns, which the naked Mgogo does not choose to encounter.
Covetous even beyond the ordinary avarice of African tribes, the Wagogo seize every opportunity of fleecing travellers who come into their territory. Beside the usual tax or “hongo,” which is demanded for permission to pass through the country, they demand all sorts of presents, or rather bribes. When one of Captain Speke’s porters happened to break a bow by accident, the owner immediately claimed as compensation something of ten times its value.
Magomba, the chief, proved himself an adept at extortion. First he sent a very polite message, requesting Captain Speke to reside in his own house, but this flattering though treacherous proposal was at once declined. In the first place, the houses of this part of the country are small and inconvenient, being nothing more than mud huts with flat-topped roofs, this kind of architecture being called by the name of “tembe.” In the next place, the chief’s object was evidently to isolate the leader of the expedition from his companions, and so to have a hold upon him. This he could more easily do, as the villages are strongly walled, so that a traveller who is once decoyed inside them could not escape without submitting to the terms of the inhabitants. Unlike the villages of the Southern Africans, which are invariably circular, these are invariably oblong, and both the walls and the houses are made of mud.
Next day Magomba had drunk so much pombé that he was quite unfit for business, but on the following day the hongo was settled, through the chief’s prime minister, who straightway did a little business on his own account by presenting a small quantity of food, and asking for an adequate return, which, of course, meant one of twenty times its value. Having secured this, he proceeded to further extortion by accusing Captain Grant of having shot a lizard on a stone which he was pleased to call sacred. So, too, none of them would give any information without being paid for it. And, because they thought that their extortion was not sufficiently successful, they revenged themselves by telling the native porters such horrifying tales of the countries which they were about to visit and the cruelty of the white men, that the porters were frightened, and ran away, some forgetting to put down their loads. These tactics were repeated at every village near which the party had to pass, and at one place the chief threatened to attack Captain Speke’s party, and at the same time sent word to all the porters that they had better escape, or they would be killed. Half of them did escape, taking with them the goods which would have been due to them as payment; and, as appeared afterward, the rascally Wagogo had arranged that they should do so, and then they would go shares in the plunder.
They were so greedy, that they not only refused to sell provisions except at an exorbitant rate, but, when the leaders of the expedition shot game to supply food for their men, the Wagogo flocked to the spot in multitudes, each man with his arms, and did their best to carry off the meat before the rightful owners could reach it. Once, when they were sadly in want of food, Captain Speke went at night in search of game, and shot a rhinoceros. By earliest dawn he gave notice to his men that there was plenty of meat for them.
“We had all now to hurry back to the carcass before the Wagogo could find it; but, though this precaution was quickly taken, still, before the tough skin of the beast could be cut through, the Wagogo began assembling like vultures, and fighting with my men. A more savage, filthy, disgusting, but at the same time grotesque, scene than that which followed cannot be described. All fell to work with swords, spears, knives, and hatchets, cutting and slashing, thumping and bawling, fighting and tearing, up to their knees in filth and blood in the middle of the carcass. When a tempting morsel fell to the possession of any one, a stronger neighbor would seize and bear off the prize in triumph. All right was now a matter of pure might, and lucky it was that it did not end in a fight between our men and the villagers. These might be afterward seen, covered with blood, scampering home each one with his spoil—a piece of tripe, or liver, or lights, or whatever else it might have been his fortune to get off with.” The artist has represented [this scene] on the next page.
It might be imagined that the travellers were only too glad to be fairly out of the dominions of this tribe, who had contrived to cheat and rob them in every way, and had moreover, through sheer spite and covetousness, frightened away more than a hundred porters who had been engaged to carry the vast quantities of goods with which the traveller must bribe the chiefs of the different places through which he passes.