Now for the dessert to my feast of research. If all its components have not been equally appetising, yet several of the courses have been good—some of them, indeed, very good—and there have been many dainty tit-bits; while the dessert is quite in character with the whole:—no further tax on the digestive powers, but a pleasant, gradual transition to the after-dinner cigar, the coffee and bitters. Thus has Mahuta, so far, appeared to me.
How ceremonious, to begin with, was our reception! It is true that all Africans have the finest manners, whether they have already assumed the white kanzu of the Coast men, or walk about in the scanty loincloth of primitive man. It has always been a matter of course, at every place I have visited in this country, for the elders of the village to come out to meet me and pay their respects. But Abdallah bin Malim, Wali of Mahuta, surpasses them all in the accurate formality with which he greeted me. It is not for nothing that he holds the highest position in this district; and we were disposed to feel ashamed of our stained and shabby khaki suits, and our generally dusty and dilapidated condition, when the Wali, dressed in the long, black, embroidered coat of the Coast Arab, and carrying a silver-mounted sword in his hand, met us long before we reached Mahuta.
Our quarters, too, looked very promising. Having squeezed ourselves into the boma through an incredibly narrow gap in the palisade, we were struck with admiration. The enclosure is nearly twice the size of all others we have seen; and a wide avenue of rubber-trees and Mauritius aloes runs across it from one gate to the other. The dwellings are placed in orderly arrangement on either side of this avenue. The sight of the solidly-built rest-house made it easy for me to dispense with the Professor’s house out by the ravine. Before long our tents had been pitched in the open space, while the carriers and soldiers distributed themselves, according to custom, among the various huts and rooms of the people inhabiting the boma. We were scarcely settled when Abdallah thought fit to call on us. Being still in his festive garments, he seemed to feel justified in claiming Knudsen’s long chair for himself. I was busy bathing my left foot, which I sprained on board the Prinzregent, and which has given me an immense amount of pain and discomfort throughout the last few months. Abdallah’s voice was loud and not melodious; he talked unceasingly, and expectorated all over the place with a freedom and marksmanship which might have been envied by the proverbial Yankee. Notwithstanding my ingrained respect for government officials, regardless of colour, I was compelled at last, in the interests of self-preservation, to get Knudsen to call the Wali’s attention to the unseemliness of his behaviour;—why, not even the washenzi—the pagans of the bush—would do thus in the presence of the Bwana Mkubwa. The hint took immediate effect.
THE WALI OF MAHUTA
It is now eight a.m., the sun is already tolerably high—at this season it is quite vertical over Mahuta at noon—and the two Europeans are enjoying the delicious morning air. The air of Mahuta would make it an admirable health-resort, no troublesome heat or uncomfortable cold, no mist and no gale, but excellent drinking-water hard by at the edge of the plateau, a clean baraza and plenty of fowls—what can heart desire more? We are just enjoying our morning cigars, when we hear a strange noise. Is it distant thunder? or are the Makonde making war on us? Nearer and nearer it comes, and as the rolling, rhythmic sound grows louder, we begin to perceive that it is approaching from several different directions at once, from the east, the west, and seemingly from the north as well. We soon recognise it as the sound of drums mingled with singing. Coming out from under the roof and between the tents, we see the people already pouring in through the narrow gates in an apparently endless procession.
Already the black masses have met in the midst of the spacious boma, but fresh throngs are streaming in from both sides; the avenue is full,—the black, surging sea spreads out beyond it into the lateral enclosures, the drums thunder, the voices screech, luluta, and sing,—coloured flags, looking more like flowered handkerchiefs than anything else, float from long poles above the heads of the crowd, and the whole is over-arched by the sky with its radiant sunshine and innumerable flocks of fleecy cloudlets. The picture is certainly unique of its kind, and well-fitted in its wild beauty to tempt the brush of a Breughel.
I cannot paint, but what is the good of having some thirty dark slides, well provided with plates? But, then, which way is one to turn in this superabundance of subjects? Here is an enormous circle of men, women, and children; six mighty drums are thundering away at a frantic pace, and in perfect time, as if moved by some invisible force; the whole vast assembly move arms and legs, mouths and hands as one person. Outside this huge ring is another circle of slender young girls just budding into womanhood. Their ntungululu vibrates through the air in shrillest treble, while their palms, raised high in the air, clap in time with the evolutions of the other performers. “Oh! I see,—the likwata”—the stock of human ideas is very limited, after all. Turning away in disappointment, we see in the background, occupying half of one side of the boma, two lines of sharpshooters, exercising under fire, in a truly African way. The native scorns to take cover, he is a fatalist—if he is hit, well—Inshallah! This is brought out very strikingly in the majimaji dance, the mimic representation of the late insurrection. The black attacking line charges at a run, regardless of even the uncanny “rack-rack” of the “Boom-boom”—those infernal machines out of which the Wadachi—the accursed Germans—can fire a thousand bullets a minute. In vain—not even the strong dawa of Hongo, the great war-doctor, can protect them from destruction. The enemy is already surging up—how can the majimaji stand against him? Instinctively the whole line falls back before the sharp bayonets of the askari, as far as the dimensions of the “battle-field” will permit, and then, howling their war-song, they charge again. This goes on for hours.
MOTHER AND CHILD