CHAPTER XVIII
MY RETURN TO THE COAST
Lindi, towards the end of November, 1906.
With all respect to my camp bed, I find that I can sleep much more comfortably on the couch provided here by the Imperial District Commissioner, with its three-foot-six mattress and spacious mosquito-net: luxuries which I have been enjoying for the last week, having marched into Lindi with flying colours on November 17th, after a toilsome and difficult journey.
The outward aspect of the little town is much the same as when I left it in July, but the European population has changed to a surprising degree. Hardly any of the old residents are left, but the number of new arrivals from Germany is so great that there is some difficulty in getting lodgings. If we were in an English colony, I should say that there is just now a boom at Lindi; as it is, we may say that capital has discovered the southern districts and is setting about their economic exploitation. It is said that all the good land in the neighbourhood of Lindi is already taken up, and later comers will perforce have to put up with more distant estates. While personally delighted to hear that the southern province, which has become very dear to me in the course of my stay, is thus prospering, I am too much occupied with my own affairs to have any further concern in these transactions.
First came the paying off of the numerous extra carriers whom I had been obliged to hire for the transport of the collections made at Mahuta. The amount paid out was not great, as the recipients had not been called upon to perform an excessive amount of work. All over the Makonde plateau I found that the carriers who arrived in time for the start on any given day, marched with the caravan as far as that night’s halting-place, but as regularly disappeared before the next morning, in spite of the sentries posted all round our camp. This unreliability caused me much vexation and loss of temper, besides the waste of time in engaging fresh men; but, on the other hand, I saved, in every such case, the day’s wages, which these deserters never gave me the chance of paying them. After passing the Kiheru valley and getting into the Yao country we had no more trouble, the men there being quite willing to go as far as the coast.
My Wanyamwezi carriers have already left for the north. On the 23rd I saw them on board the steamer, a much larger and finer boat than the Rufiji in which they suffered such misery on the down trip. Probably they are indulging in happy dreams of a speedy return to their far inland homes, and of the way in which they mean to lay out the capital knotted into their waistcloths; but in reality they will probably, on the day after landing, find themselves starting on a fresh expedition with the “chop-boxes” of some other white man on their heads. At this time, just before the rains, carriers are very scarce, and they are sure to be seized on at once. I am thus dependent for packing my collections—the cases previously sent down to the coast having been stored in the cellars of the Government offices, where they have remained undisturbed except by the innumerable rats—on myself and my remaining men. Among these, for the time being, I can still reckon Knudsen, who lends a hand right willingly, in spite of his melancholy looks. He does not like the coast; he says the damp climate is too soft for him, and he cannot get on with the white men. He is better accustomed to the washenzi in the bush, who neither worry him nor look down on him. He is only waiting till I have left for the north, before going west once more after antelope and elephant.
“Why, I thought you had had enough of that sort of thing,” was my well-meant remark, as I glanced at his right arm, of which, he says, he has not yet recovered the full use. It is a terrible story.
I was sitting at dinner one afternoon, trying to eat some mysterious compound out of a Portuguese tin, which proved on examination to be bacon and beans (probably a part of the stores originally laid in for Vasco da Gama’s expedition), when I heard Moritz’s nasal voice announcing, “Bwana mdogo anakuja” (“Mr. Knudsen is coming”). I turned round and saw him dragging himself along with uncertain steps; he was covered with dust, his clothes were torn, and his right arm in a sling.
“Well, old Nimrod, has the elephant tusked you?” I called out to him, not taking matters very seriously.
“Not that. I only fell and broke my arm—but my poor Wanduwandu is dead. He died just now;—here they come with him.”