Whilst wandering about, however, we chanced to see a number of negroes turn out and chase down an antelope. It was a very small rufous-brown animal, much about the size and shape of the Kakur deer of the Himalayas; but what struck me most was, the peculiarity of its having, unlike all hitherto known African species, four points of horns. In consequence of this great novelty, I tried to purchase its head, but the greedy savages who caught it, coveting the flesh, would not, for any consideration, let me have it, and I never saw another killed. Rain poured down in torrents at night, and the days remained so cloudy, that we felt the kuzi or little monsoon had now fairly set in, and the sooner we could get away from the high lands so much the better for us. In the evening (15th February), therefore, we sent our return presents to the king, and asked permission to be allowed to go. A very civil reply was given, with certain additions, for which I could not help admiring him; but he would not accept the present, and we might go whenever we pleased.
Thinking to obviate to the best of my ability any differences with these benighted but cunning people, and to leave as favourable an impression of our visit as I could, I advised Captain Burton to distribute amongst the ministers those things which had been brought for the king, and this accordingly was done, but not without considerable debate, and the finally reluctant sanction of the king.[40] The next morning (16th February) saw us descending the heights of Fuga, and in a few hours' walk we left the cool congenial air incidental to 4000 or 5000 feet, for the hot, damp, morbid, close atmosphere of the jungle plains below, in which, as Miss Nightingale would say, you could palpably smell a fever. Then following the old route, we came down to the Pangani; and in three days' travelling along it, as Captain Burton, being no sportsman, would not stop for shooting, we put up once more at Kohodé, with Sultan Momba.
19th February.—To vary the way and gain a better knowledge of the river, we now determined to follow it all the way down to Chogué, which we made on the third day, spending the two intervening nights at the Wazégura villages of Kiranga and Kizungu. The valley, though much varied, was generally contracted by the closing in of the rolling terminal abutments of the Tongué hill, on the one side—with rising land, and little conical hills almost joining, which overhung the river on the right bank in Uzégura, on the other side. We seldom met any people on the line of march; and the land being totally uncultivated, excepting in the immediate vicinity of these villages, we felt as though we were travelling through a desert wild of dreary jungle—which, indeed, it was. No animals, and scarcely any birds, moved about to cheer and keep the road alive; and all was silent, save the constant gurgling, rumbling sound of the river's waters as they rushed rapidly over boulders and often plunged down many little falls in the bed of the stream. On passing the point opposite to Tongué Fort, we saw the cause which produced the sound like a cataract, which formerly we had heard when standing on its summit. It was, indeed, a cascade of considerable dimensions, and would, doubtless, be a sight of pleasing grandeur when the river is full.
In the afternoon of the 22d, as we approached Chogué, the little Beluch jemadar, with the rest of the guard, turned out to welcome us, and gloat over the successful termination of an artful trick he felt himself the father of. He spread mats for us to sit upon, and brought the universal coffee-pot and some sweetmeats as a relish to refresh us and increase the triumph; for the little man, no doubt, thought he had gained his prize.
The next three days were spent in making different excursions, shooting hippopotami in the vicinity of the outpost; and on the 26th February we returned to Pangani, Captain Burton dropping down the river in a canoe, whilst I, to complete the survey of the country and to check my former work on the river, walked with Bombay to Pombui, ferried across the stream there, and came by the right bank down to Buéni, on the shore of the Pangani Bay. Here I recrossed the river again, and found Sheikh Said and my "boy" Gaetano, with all the traps arranged, ready at the old house for our reception. Our vessel had been discharged at the expiration of the first month's engagement, and we were now expecting a second one from Zanzibar, to continue the cruise southward along the shore, and gain a fuller knowledge of the various entrepôts of caravans. I had by this time become much attached to Bombay, for I must say I never saw any black man so thoroughly honest and conscientious as he was, added to which, his generosity was unbounded; and I thought (as we shall see afterwards proved to be the case) he would turn out a most valuable servant for the future journey—a regular "Friday." The only difficulty now was how to obtain his discharge from the service he was in; but this the jemadar, who followed us down to Pangani to receive the wages for the men who accompanied us to Fuga, said he would arrange, if Bombay felt willing, and would leave a substitute to act for him whilst he was away. A compact was accordingly concluded, by which Bombay became my servant for the time being, at five dollars per mensem, with board and lodging on the journey found him. The jemadar now left us, with a present for himself and the hire of his men, and we were all alone.
On the 1st March a violent bilious fever attacked me, and also floored Captain Burton and Valantine. It appeared in the form of the yellow jack of Jamaica, and made us all as yellow as guineas; and had we been able to perspire, I have no doubt we should have sweated out a sort of yellow ochre which a painter might have coveted. In this state we lay physicking ourselves until the 5th, when a vessel chartered by the Consul, and stored with delicacies of all kinds by our generous, thoughtful old host for the journey southwards, arrived, and took us off. Captain Burton being still under the influences of this terrible scourge, and very ill, even to absolute prostration, and occasionally wandering in his mind, he gave up his projected plans, and we returned at once to Zanzibar, reaching it on the 6th March.
The Masika, or great vernal rainy season which follows up the sun as it passes to the north, broke over the island of Zanzibar this year early in April, and was expected to last for its normal period of forty days. For this to subside we had now to wait here as patiently as we could, occupying the spare time so forced on us in purchasing an outfit and in preparing for the journey. It was highly interesting to see here at this season of the year, as we well could do, so near the equator, the regular systematic procession of the wind and rain following up the sun in its northward passage. The atmosphere, at this time and place, was heated and rarefied by the vertical rays of the sun; that produced a vacuum, which the cold airs of the south taking advantage of, rush up to fill, and with their coldness condense the heated vapours drawn up daily from the ocean and precipitate them back again on the earth below. This occurring and continually repeating day by day, for a certain time, nearly in the same place, fills the air with electric excitement, which causes thunder and lightning to accompany nearly every storm. The atmospheric air's being so surcharged with electricity was palpably felt by the nervous system; at any rate, judging from myself, I can only say I experienced a nervous sensibility I never knew before, of being startled at any sudden accident. A pen dropping from the table even would make me jump. Whilst stopping here, the Colonel's house was one continuous scene of pleasure and festivities. The British Consulate was the common rendezvous of all men: Arab, Hindi, German, French, or American, were all alike received without distinction or any forced restraint. Indeed, the old Consul literally studied the mode of making people happy; and Zanzibar, instead of being an outlandish place, such as to make one wonder how men could exile themselves by coming here, was really a place of great enjoyment. The merchants, on the other hand, were not less hospitably inclined, and constantly entertained and gave very handsome dinners.
Besides our Consulate, there is a French and an American one, and the European merchants were composed of French, Germans, and Americans,—the dark-coloured ones being principally confined to Arabs, Hindis, and the Wasuahili, or coast people. Taking advantage of the time, especially the evenings, I spent most of them in rating the chronometers and getting all the surveying instruments into working order; whilst Captain Burton, besides book-making, busied himself in making all the other arrangements for the journey, such as purchasing Venetian beads, brass wire, and American sheetings, &c., which come here in shiploads round the Cape of Good Hope, or in buying donkeys for our riding and their transport. Then in the cool of the mornings we took social walks or rides through the clove plantations, or amongst the palms, mango-trees, and orange gardens, treating pine-apples, which grew like common weeds on the roadsides, as if they were nothing better than ordinary turnips, though when placed upon the table they are certainly as delicious as any living fruit. The only fine houses are those occupied by the Europeans and the Sultan, and they front the harbour, which is considered a very good one, and is very constantly filled with shipping, the Sultan's men-of-war, foreign square-rigged vessels, and a host of buggaloes from Aden, Muscat, Catch, and Bombay. The back of the town is very much like a common Indian bazaar, but there is a hollow square in its centre, which nowadays is peculiar to this place—it is the slave-market. Immediately after every fresh importation, you can see in the early morning unhappy-looking men and women, all hideously black and ugly, tethered to one another like horses in a fair, and calculating men, knowing judges of flesh and limb, walking up and down, feeling their joints and looking out to make a bargain. Women, of course, sell better than the men, being fitted to more general purposes. For a good wife any sum might be given. But the saddest sight which came under my observation was the way in which some licentious-looking men began a cool, deliberate inspection of a certain divorced culprit who had been sent back to the market for inconstancy to her husband. She had learnt a sense of decency during her conjugal life, and the blushes on her face now clearly showed how her heart was mortified at this unseemly exposure, made worse because she could not help it.
The amount of information gathered by the expedition concerning the interior of Africa at Zanzibar, I may say was nil, to use Captain Burton's own words, in a letter written at the British Consulate, 22d April 1857, and published in the Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, page 52 of No. 1, vol. ii., where these remarkable words may be found:—"We could obtain no useful information from the European merchants of Zanzibar, who are mostly ignorant of everything beyond the island. The Arabs and Sawahilis, who were averse to, and fearful of, white travellers, did give us information, but it was worse than none."
The orders of the Royal Geographical Society to Captain Burton were these, in short:—"The great object of the expedition is to penetrate inland from Kilwa, or some other place on the east coast of Africa, and make the best of your way to the reputed Lake of Nyassa; to determine the position and limits of that lake; to ascertain the depth and nature of its waters and tributaries; to explore the country around it, &c. Having obtained all the information you require in that quarter, you are to proceed northwards towards the range of mountains marked upon our maps as containing the probable sources of the Bahr el Abiad, which it will be your next great object to discover."