But what is the use of speculating as to what is attainable or unattainable? The sun is shining brightly, the woods are fresh and green after the shower, and some of the askari are lounging against the palisade in a picturesque if untidy group. The metamorphosis undergone by our native warrior in the course of the day is certainly surprising. Smart and active on the drill-ground—they look on their drill as a kind of game, and call it playing at soldiers—he is just the reverse, from our German point of view, in the afternoon and evening.
It must be acknowledged that he knows how to make himself comfortable when off duty. He has his boy to wait on him, even to take his gun from his hand the moment the word has been given to “dismiss”; and the respect commanded, in Africa as elsewhere, by anything in the shape of a uniform secures him the best of everything wherever he goes. He lounges through the hot hours on his host’s most commodious bedstead, and, when evening comes on, sallies forth in fatigue dress to captivate the girls of the place. They are less charming, it is true, than those of Lindi, but a man has to take what he can get. The slovenly figures in the photograph are those of Lumbwula and the Nubian Achmed Mohammed, taking their ease in this fashion.
My release from work and worry has worked miracles, physiologically speaking;—I sleep in my bed like a hibernating bear, wield a mighty knife and fork at table and increase in circumference almost perceptibly from day to day. Moreover, we have been living fairly well for the last few weeks. The first case of porter was followed by a second, and various other delights came up at the same time from Lindi—genuine unadulterated milk from the blessed land of Mecklenburg, fresh pumpernickel, new potatoes from British East Africa, tinned meats and fruits in abundance, and so forth. The lean weeks of Newala are forgotten, and our not much more luxurious sojourn at Chingulungulu recedes into the misty past. The evenings, too, are pleasant and leisurely. As decreed by a kindly destiny, I find that I have still some plates left, but no chemicals for developing and fixing, so that I can photograph as much as I like, while compelled to dispense with the trying work of developing the plates in the close tent. Omari has provided a spatchcocked fowl for our evening meal, which smells inviting and tastes delicious. He has here revived for our benefit the primitive process of roasting already known to prehistoric man, which consists of simply holding the meat over the fire till done. Only one innovation has been introduced: after splitting up the carcase of the fowl, Omari has rubbed salt and pepper into it. This, though historically incorrect, improves the flavour so much that it is quite a pardonable piece of vandalism.
Here come my carriers, issuing with clean clothes and radiant faces from their temporary lodgings in one of the thatched huts of the boma. They know that in the next few days we are going on safari again, the goal in view being this time the eagerly anticipated paradise of the coast. And they will be receiving uncounted sums of money at Lindi. Many a time have they grumbled at the Bwana Mkubwa, because he refused them an advance, when they wanted so very much to make a present to some pretty girl in a neighbouring village. They had even been directly asked for such presents, but the Bwana Pufesa made a point of saying to any man who wanted a trifle of a loan, “Nenda zako”—(“Be off with you”). He was very hard, was the Bwana Pufesa, but it was best so, after all; for now we shall get all the money paid down at once—it must be over forty rupees. What times we shall have at Lindi—not to mention Dar es Salam! And we will go to the Indian’s store and buy ourselves visibau finer even than the ones sported by those apes of Waswahili.
The crimson glow of the sunset is still lingering on the western horizon, while the full moon is rising in the east, behind the great spreading tree, under which my camera has been planted day after day for the last few weeks; and I am watching the spectacle, stretched comfortably in my long chair, and at the same time listening to the chant of the Wanyamwezi.
With the deep notes characteristic of the Wanyamwezi, the chant penetrates the ear of the European listener. My men have often sung it at Newala, at Majaliwa’s, and here at Mahuta, always accompanying the rhythm of the song with equally rhythmical movements. It is a hoeing-song. The Mnyamwezi going out into the fields with his hoe is provided with a whole repertoire of such songs; the body bends and rises in regular time as the broad blade crunches its way through the soil, and the chant of labour sounds softly and harmoniously over the wide plain. At this moment, when the men are squatting round me in picturesque groups, they snap their fingers in time with great spirit and energy, instead of going through the motions of hoeing.
The air is pleasing enough and insensibly steals into the consciousness of the listening European, carrying him away from the harsh, raw nature of Africa to the ancient civilisation of his native land, which the busy days now left behind have left him little leisure to recall. As Pesa mbili’s clear baritone alternates with the deep-toned chorus I recall the blacksmith at the forge, seeking the rhythm in his strokes which keeps his arm from tiring so soon in wielding the heavy hammer. It takes me back, too, to my boyhood, when few if any small farmers owned a threshing machine, and I used to hear from our neighbour’s barn the triple and quadruple time of the flails. The same sort of rhythm, too, is heard in our streets, above the bustle and noise of traffic, when the paviours are ramming down the stones,—ping, ping, ping, ping, ping, ping,—each note louder or softer according to the degree of force employed, but all in the strictest time. This rhythm is the outcome of a need inherent in human nature: it precedes, indeed it is indispensable to, any sustained bodily exertion. This is felt even by civilized people, as we see when the striking-up of the band puts new life and vigour into the tired legs of a marching regiment, or when a number of men are engaged in moving a heavy load; and it is true in a much greater degree of the African. I am convinced that he cannot accomplish the easiest task unless he accompanies it with a rapidly improvised chant; even the heavily-ironed convicts in the chain-gangs, push or pull their barrows to a continuous antiphonal chant. Thus, too, when a number of people are hoeing a field together, the work becomes a game in which the body spontaneously falls into the rhythmic motions of the dance; but no dance is without its song.
The song comes to an end with a long-drawn kweli (“it is true”). The Wanyamwezi are famed for their endurance, both in marching and singing, and the above performance has lasted for a considerable time. But after a short pause the indefatigable Pesa mbili begins again,—this time with my favourite melody, Kulya mapunda.
