Native life in East Africa

by Karl Weule

UNDER THE PALMS

In fact we Europeans, as far as the spontaneous putting forth of strength goes, are as giants compared with the African. I made fairly careful records of the figures for each man, not once only, but in several successive trials, so that no allowance need be made for novelty or want of practice, but how inferior they are to us! None of them could compass a greater pressure than 35 kilos with the right hand and 26 with the left, with the exception of one man who attained to something over 40 kilos; while I, even here in the damp heat of the coast region can still manage over 60 with the right and over 50 with the left. And yet nearly all my men are professional carriers, sturdy fellows with tremendous chest-measurement, broad shoulders and splendidly developed upper arm muscles. What they lack, as has so often been pointed out, is the power of concentrating the strength of the whole body at a given moment of time. These very Wanyamwezi are famous for their almost incredible powers of endurance.

The natives thus, as a whole, indisputably present a picture not without attractions from a psychological point of view; but in the six weeks or so which I have by this time spent on the coast, the Europeans have appeared to me almost more interesting still. Dar es Salam is so large and contains so many of our race that the new-comer does not have the contrasts between black and white forced on his notice, while the contrasts to be found among the white population are less observable on the wider field of a large settlement. Lindi, being very much smaller, leaves no room for either possibility; in the narrowness of its environment and the monotony of its life, there is nothing to modify the shock of contrasted and clashing individualities, and in such a place one sees with startling clearness the enormously powerful and rapid effect of residence in the tropics on the mental balance of a foreign race. It does not belong to my office to point to the—to say the least of it, curious—excrescences of our German class and caste spirit, which here, in a circle of Europeans numbering a dozen or less, brings forth singularly unpleasant fruits. I need not relate how the military element, recently “dethroned” by the establishment of a civil administration, looks down with a superior smile on the officials of that administration, or how the intrusion of the personal element into affairs cuts off every possibility of social intercourse, and, what is worse, of cordial cooperation in common work. To the new-comer, expressing his astonishment at such a state of things, old residents say (with a coolness contrasting strangely with their usual state of chronic irritation): “What do you expect?—this is not the only place where things are so—you will find it the same everywhere!” So it seems to be, if I may judge by all I have heard during these instructive weeks; but one may hope that this disagreeable phenomenon is only one of the many infantile diseases incidental to the early stages in the life of every colony. One thing, however, which I absolutely fail to understand is the furious fits of rage to which every white man who has lived long in the country appears to be subject. I am doing my best in the meantime to go on my way without calling of names or boxing of ears, but everyone is agreed in assuring me that I shall learn better in the course of the next few months. I cannot judge for the present whether life is really impossible without thrashing people—but I hope it is not the case.

In order not to dwell exclusively on the darker traits characteristic of Europeans in the tropics, I must mention the admirable gifts of household management possessed by most of them. Dar es Salam is so far a centre of civilization as to possess bakers, butchers, and shops of all kinds in plenty, yet even there I fancy that the office of mess president is by no means a sinecure. But who shall describe how the unlucky bachelor in a remote coast town has to rack his brains in order to set before his messmates—not merely something new, but anything at all! Only experience can teach how far in advance one has to provide for all the thousand-and-one trifles which are inseparable from our housekeeping. The price alone makes it impossible to depend to any great extent on tinned goods, and it becomes necessary to have sufficient stores on hand to last for days—sometimes for weeks and months, and, in addition, to concoct eatable dishes out of the wild herbs which the cook and kitchen-boy bring in. On the coast some variety is secured by the abundance of good fish; in the interior this resource fails. And when it happens—as it does just now—that even the standard typical bird of Africa, the domestic fowl, and its product, the egg, are not to be had, then the case is desperate indeed, and catering for a large number of people becomes a serious problem.

It is remarkable, however, how skilled even the most inveterate bachelors among the German residents are in solving this problem—not always with elegance, and certainly not always to the satisfaction of their critical predecessors in office, but yet so as to fill the novice at any rate with astonished admiration. Dr. Franz Stuhlmann, who accompanied Emin Pasha on his last disastrous journey—a thoroughly competent ethnographer and the guardian and cherisher of the African plant-world, so far as it can be adapted to the service of man—has long been a celebrity in the culinary department throughout the whole Colony. Stuhlmann has the reputation of being able to prepare a dainty dish from every weed that grows beside the native path; he is a walking encyclopædia of tropical cookery. Others are less proficient than this, but I cannot yet get over my astonishment at the way in which Captain Seyfried, for instance, can produce something eatable out of the most elementary ingredients, at his achievements in salting and pickling, at the unimpeachable jellies he contrives to serve up even at the present temperature, and at the variety which always characterizes his bill of fare.

I must here make an end, once for all, of one fallacy prevalent at home. “Why, you surely cannot eat anything in that heat!” is a remark which never fails to occur in any conversation having the tropics for its subject, but which betrays a complete misconception of the conditions. In the first place, the heat is not so unendurable as commonly supposed by us—at any rate during the dry season, on the coast, where a fresh sea-breeze always blows by day. But, in addition to this, the waste of tissue goes on much more rapidly in tropical than in temperate climates. Not even the new-comer is surprised to see “old Africans” consuming an extensive “first breakfast” at a very early hour, in which various preparations of meat figure, though fruit is also conspicuous. At midday even a minor official never thinks of less than two courses and dessert, and in the evening after office hours, all ranks and professions go in for a repast which at home would certainly rank as a public banquet. This seemingly luxurious mode of life, however, by no means deserves the reprehension one may feel inclined to bestow on it. On the contrary, it is physiologically both justifiable and necessary, if the body is to offer permanent resistance to the deleterious influence of the climate. The new-comer is not surprised by the appetite of others because, unconsciously, he shares it. Personally, though I wield quite a creditable knife and fork at home, my performances out here would make me the terror of most German housewives.

The only article of diet I do not get on with is alcohol. At home I can appreciate a glass of beer or wine, and on board the Prinzregent we passengers levied a pretty heavy toll on the supplies of “Münchener” and “Pilsener”; but since I landed in this country I have taken no beer at all and wine only in very small quantities, while I have been quite unable to acquire a taste for whisky and soda, the national drink of all Germans in East Africa. Such abstinence is easily understood at Lindi, where there is no ice to be had; but even at Dar es Salam, where Schultz’s brewery supplies the whole town with ice every day, I found I had no taste for alcoholic beverages. This is a great advantage as regards my journey into the interior, as I am saved the inconvenience of taking loads of bottles with me.

I am glad to say that my enforced detention on the coast is nearing its end. Commissioner Ewerbeck, who returned from the interior a few days ago, is most kindly willing to start again with me to-morrow, so as to escort me with a detachment of police through the Wamwera country—the scene of the late rising—as far as Masasi. He has still work to do in the Central Lukuledi Valley, for, though most of the insurgent leaders have long ago been captured and adorn the streets of Lindi in the shape of chain-gangs, the pursuit of others is still going on and will yet cost many a shauri. From Masasi, Mr. Ewerbeck will have to return immediately to Lindi, in time for the formal reception of the delegates from the Reichstag, who are to visit the south of the Colony next month, on their much-discussed tour through East Africa.

My first glimpse of the interior, by the bye, has hardly been a pleasant one. In the course of the riding-lessons which Captain Seyfried has been giving me, we one evening made an excursion to the Kitulo. This is a long, fairly precipitous range of heights, about 570 feet above sea-level, rising immediately behind Lindi and separating the narrow sandy plain on which the town stands from the back country. A landmark of our civilization—a tower built for the sake of the view—was, some years ago, erected on the top of this Kitulo. When I ascended it by the help of a somewhat decrepit ladder, the sun had already set, and the whole western landscape—precisely the part of the Dark Continent which I wish to penetrate within the next few days—lay extended before me as a dark, menacing shadow. For one moment my mind was clouded by gloomy forebodings, but I speedily recalled my old luck which has never yet forsaken me. “Never mind—I’ll get the better of you yet!” I exclaimed, sotto voce, as I lit a new cigar with the utmost philosophy, and mounted my mule for the return journey.