The singing has exercised its usual fascination on the European auditor, he is sitting upright and vigorously joining in, to the delight of the performers. This hasimpo, as it is usually called for brevity’s sake, is sung to accompany a dance. In the hoeing-song the tune and the words, so far as I have been able to translate the latter, show some degree of congruity with each other, but I cannot as yet make head or tail of what Pesa mbili has to-day dictated to me as the gist of this hasimpo song. For the sake of completeness I will first give my attempt at the translation of the hilala.
“Work, work. The headman will weep for his son. They love the white ombasha, he is strong. Thanks, the son has prophesied. Oh! blockhead that I am! my mother is going away, the children are crying. Do not cry, do not cry, do not cry.”
As will be seen, it is confused enough, but at least some parts appear to have a connected sense, and the sililo “do not weep,” thrice repeated, sounds rather touching. It is less easy to fit the ombasha—the corporal—into the framework of the song; but who shall fathom the profundities of the African mind? especially when it is the mind of a poet.
The dancing song is as follows:—
“The Wairamba are eating vegetables—they are eating vegetables, I say, at the well. When you get home, salute my mother, and tell her I am coming. So I said and the police seized the devil. We set down our loads of cloth and beads and yet again beads. The sun is going down, the time for dancing is at an end.”
Here again the reference to the mother is a pathetic touch, but the police and the nature of their association with the Prince of Darkness must remain a mystery.
Now comes the song of the Standard:—
It is the chant of the Long Trail—the glorification of travel for its own sake,—the element as necessary to the Mnyamwezi as his ugali:—“O journey! O journey with the great master, O (delightful) journey! He will give cloth to the young men—O journey, O beautiful journey!”
The deep bass notes have died away slowly, almost mournfully, and the men are visibly growing sleepy; in fact, it is nearly ten, by which hour they are usually rolled up in their mats and dreaming of home. A questioning glance from Pesa mbili induces me to give the signal; the whole band vanishes almost without a sound, and I am left alone. Really alone, for Knudsen has been away for some days, hunting in the valley. The people there sent him word that numbers of elephants had been seen, and after that there was no keeping him back. He hurried off at such a pace that his cook, Latu, and his boy, Wanduwandu, a splendid big Yao, could scarcely follow him. He was to have returned at noon to-day. I wonder what has detained him.