Native life in East Africa

by Karl Weule

I must go back to the 11th of June. The two geographers and I had fixed our departure northward for the 20th; after getting together the necessary men and baggage we intended to take the steamer to Tanga, and the Usambara railway from Tanga to Mombo, so as to start from the Pangani Valley on our march across the Masai steppe to Kondoa-Irangi. Our preparations were going on in the most satisfactory manner; and I was one morning doing my best to hasten them in Traun, Stürken and Devers’ stores, by exercising that persistency in bargaining which can only be acquired by the director of an ethnographical museum. I had not been listening to the conversation going on beside me between one of the salesmen and a European officer of the Field Force; but suddenly the name Kondoa-Irangi fell on my ear, and I was all attention on the instant. “I suppose you are going home by the——to-morrow?” said one. “No such luck! we are marching to-morrow afternoon. Didn’t I just say there’s a rising in Iraku?” returned the other.

Kondoa-Irangi and Iraku concerned me closely enough to necessitate farther inquiry. Half instinctively, I flung myself out at the door and into the dazzling sunshine which flooded the street. At that moment Captain Merker’s mule-waggon rattled up, and his voice reached me over the woolly heads of the passers-by. “Stop, Dr. Weule, you can’t go to Kondoa-Irangi.”

Though not in general endowed with presence of mind in any extraordinary degree, I must in this instance have thought with lightning speed, for no sooner had I taken my place beside Merker, in order to proceed without loss of time to the Government offices and ask for fuller explanations, than I had already gone through in my mind the various possible alternatives, in case it turned out—as seemed probable—that I had to give up all thought of the Irangi expedition. In those—to me—critical days at Dar es Salam, there was no one acquainted with the circumstances but would have said, “Get out! the Iraku rising is no rising at all—it is a mere trifle, a quarrel about a couple of oxen, or something of the sort—in any case an affair that will soon be settled.” None the less I had to admit that the Acting Governor (Geheimrat Haber, of whose unfailing kindness I cannot say enough) was right when he pointed out that, while a geographer could traverse that district at his ease, regardless of the four columns of the native Field Force (Schutztruppe) marched into it, along roads converging from Moshi, Mpapwa, Kilimatinde and Tabora respectively, the case was totally different for an ethnographic expedition, which can only do its work in a perfectly undisturbed country. This condition would not be attainable up North for some time to come. Would it not be better to turn southward, to the hinterland of Lindi and Mikindani? True, a rising had taken place there not long ago, but it was now quite over, and the Wamwera, more especially, had got a very effectual thrashing, so that the tribes of that part would be unlikely to feel disposed for fresh aggression just at present. At the same time, a comparatively large force had marched into the South, both Field Force and police, and the most important strategic points were strongly garrisoned, so that I could be certain of getting a sufficient escort; while for the Manyara country I could only reckon on a couple of recruits at the outside.

THE SS. RUFIJI, DRAWN BY BAKARI, A MSWAHILI

My long-continued study of African races never rendered me a better service than now. It can easily be understood that I knew less about the new field of work suggested than about that which had been so rudely snatched from me; but I was aware that it contained a conglomeration of tribes similar to that found in the North; and I was also able to form a fairly definite notion of the way in which I should have to plan and carry out my new expedition, in order to bring it to a successful issue. I refrained, however, from thinking out the new plan in detail—indeed, I should have had no time to do so, for I had to be quick if I did not wish to lose several weeks. The permission of the Geographical Committee and of the Colonial Office was soon secured, my loads were packed; two boys and a cook had been engaged long before. The little Government steamer Rufiji was to start for the South on the 19th of June. I induced the Government to supply me on the spot with the only map of the southern district at that time procurable, and with equal promptitude the admirably-managed “Central-Magazin” had found me two dozen sturdy Wanyamwezi porters. Other absolutely indispensable arrangements were speedily disposed of, and before I had time to look round, I found myself on board and steaming out of Dar es Salam Harbour.

VIEW NEAR THE MOUTH OF THE LUKULEDI ABOVE LINDI

I had never for one moment cherished the illusion that a research expedition was a pleasure-trip, but the three days and a quarter spent on board the Rufiji will remain a vivid memory, even should my experience of the interior prove worse than I anticipate. My own want of foresight is partly to blame for this. Instead of having a good breakfast at the Dar es Salam Club before starting, I allowed the ship’s cook to set before me some coffee, which in combination with the clammy, ill-baked bread and rancid tinned butter would have proved an effectual emetic even on dry land, and soon brought about the inevitable catastrophe on board the little vessel madly rolling and pitching before a stiff south-west monsoon. The Rufiji and her sister ship the Rovuma are not, properly speaking, passenger steamers, but serve only to distribute the mails along the coast and carry small consignments of cargo. Consequently there is no accommodation for travellers, who have to climb the bridge when they come on board, and live, eat, drink, and sleep there till they reach their destination. This is all very well so long as the numbers are strictly limited: there is just room at night for two or three camp beds, an item which has to be brought with you in any case, as without it no travel is possible in East Africa. But the state of things when six or eight men, and perhaps even a lady, have to share this space, which is about equal to that of a moderate-sized room—the imagination dare not picture.

My own woes scarcely permitted me to think about the welfare of my men. Moritz and Kibwana, my two boys and my cook, Omari, are travelled gentlemen who yielded themselves with stoic calm to the motion of the Rufiji, but my Wanyamwezi porters very soon lost their usual imperturbable cheerfulness. They all came on board in the highest spirits, boasting to the kinsmen they left behind at Dar es Salam of the way in which they were going to travel and see the world. How the twenty-four managed to find room in the incredibly close quarters of the after-deck, which they had, moreover, to share with two or three horses, is still a puzzle to me; they were sitting and lying literally on the top of one another. As they were sick the whole time, it must, indeed, have been a delightful passage for all of them.