I have found out within the last few days why so few men are to be seen in my rounds. The settlements here scarcely deserve the name of villages—they are too straggling for that; it is only now and then that from one hut one can catch a distant glimpse of another. The view is also obstructed by the fields of manioc, whose branches, though very spreading, are not easily seen through on account of the thickly-growing, succulent green foliage. This and the bazi pea are, now that the maize and millet have been gathered in, the only crops left standing in the fields. Thus it may happen that one has to trust entirely to the trodden paths leading from one hut to another, to be sure of missing none, or to the guidance of the sounds inseparable from every human settlement. There is no lack of such noises at Masasi, and in fact I follow them almost every day. Walking about the country with Nils Knudsen, I hear what sounds like a jovial company over their morning drink—voices becoming louder and louder, and shouting all together regardless of parliamentary rules. A sudden turn of the path brings us face to face with a drinking-party, and a very merry one, indeed, to judge by the humour of the guests and the number and dimensions of the pombe pots which have been wholly or partially emptied. The silence which follows our appearance is like that produced by a stone thrown into a pool where frogs are croaking. Only when we ask, “Pombe nzuri?” (“Is the beer good?”) a chorus of hoarse throats shouts back the answer—“Nzuri kabisa, bwana!” (“Very good indeed, sir!”)
As to this pombe—well, we Germans fail to appreciate our privileges till we have ungratefully turned our backs on our own country. At Mtua, our second camp out from Lindi, a huge earthen jar of the East African brew was brought as a respectful offering to us three Europeans. At that time I failed to appreciate the dirty-looking drab liquid; not so our men, who finished up the six gallons or so in a twinkling. In Masasi, again, the wife of the Nyasa chief Masekera Matola—an extremely nice, middle-aged woman—insisted on sending Knudsen and me a similar gigantic jar soon after our arrival. We felt that it was out of the question to refuse or throw away the gift, and so prepared for the ordeal with grim determination. First I dipped one of my two tumblers into the turbid mass, and brought it up filled with a liquid in colour not unlike our Lichtenhain beer, but of a very different consistency. A compact mass of meal filled the glass almost to the top, leaving about a finger’s breadth of real, clear “Lichtenhainer.” “This will never do!” I growled, and shouted to Kibwana for a clean handkerchief. He produced one, after a seemingly endless search, but my attempts to use it as a filter were fruitless—not a drop would run through. “No use, the stuff is too closely woven. Lete sanda, Kibwana” (“Bring a piece of the shroud!”) This order sounds startling enough, but does not denote any exceptional callousness on my part. Sanda is the Swahili name for the cheap, unbleached and highly-dressed calico (also called bafta) which, as a matter of fact, is generally used by the natives to wrap a corpse for burial. The material is consequently much in demand, and travellers into the interior will do well to carry a bale of it with them. When the dressing is washed out, it is little better than a network of threads, and might fairly be expected to serve the purpose of a filter.
I found, however, that I could not strain the pombe through it—a few scanty drops ran down and that was all. After trying my tea and coffee-strainers, equally in vain, I gave up in despair, and drank the stuff as it stood. I found that it had a slight taste of flour, but was otherwise not by any means bad, and indeed quite reminiscent of my student days at Jena—in fact, I think I could get used to it in time. The men of Masasi seem to have got only too well used to it. I am far from grudging the worthy elders their social glass after the hard work of the harvest, but it is very hard that my studies should suffer from this perpetual conviviality. It is impossible to drum up any considerable number of men to be cross-examined on their tribal affinities, usages and customs. Moreover, the few who can reconcile it with their engagements and inclinations to separate themselves for a time from their itinerant drinking-bouts are not disposed to be very particular about the truth. Even when, the other day, I sent for a band of these jolly topers to show me their methods of basketmaking, the result was very unsatisfactory—they did some plaiting in my presence, but they were quite incapable of giving in detail the native names of their materials and implements—the morning drink had been too copious.
It is well known that it is the custom of most, if not all, African tribes to make a part of their supply of cereals into beer after an abundant harvest, and consume it wholesale in this form. This, more than anything else, has probably given rise to the opinion that the native always wastes his substance in time of plenty, and is nearly starved afterwards in consequence. It is true that our black friends cannot be pronounced free from a certain degree of “divine carelessness”—a touch, to call it no more, of Micawberism—but it would not be fair to condemn them on the strength of a single indication. I have already laid stress on the difficulty which the native cultivator has of storing his seed-corn through the winter. It would be still more difficult to preserve the much greater quantities of foodstuffs gathered in at the harvest in a condition fit for use through some eight or nine months. That he tries to do so is seen by the numerous granaries surrounding every homestead of any importance, but that he does not invariably succeed, and therefore prefers to dispose of that part of his crops which would otherwise be wasted in a manner combining the useful and the agreeable, is proved by the morning and evening beer-drinks already referred to, which, with all their loud merriment, are harmless enough. They differ, by the bye, from the drinking in European public-houses, in that they are held at each man’s house in turn, so that every one is host on one occasion and guest on another—a highly satisfactory arrangement on the whole.
My difficulties are due to other causes besides the chronically bemused state of the men. In the first place, there are the troubles connected with photography. In Europe the amateur is only too thankful for bright sunshine, and even should the light be a little more powerful than necessary, there is plenty of shade to be had from trees and houses. In Africa we have nothing of the sort—the trees are neither high nor shady, the bushes are not green, and the houses are never more than twelve feet high at the ridge-pole. To this is added the sun’s position in the sky at a height which affects one with a sense of uncanniness, from nine in the morning till after three in the afternoon, and an intensity of light which is best appreciated by trying to match the skins of the natives against the colours in Von Luschan’s scale. No medium between glittering light and deep black shadow—how is one, under such circumstances, to produce artistic plates full of atmosphere and feeling?
For a dark-room I have been trying to use the Masasi boma. This is the only stone building in the whole district and has been constructed for storing food so as to prevent the recurrence of famine among the natives, and, still more, to make the garrison independent of outside supplies in the event of another rising. It has only one story, but the walls are solidly built, with mere loopholes for windows; and the flat roof of beaten clay is very strong. In this marvel of architecture are already stacked uncounted bags containing millet from the new crop, and mountains of raw cotton. I have made use of both these products, stopping all crevices with the cotton, and taking the bags of grain to sit on, and also as a support for my table, hitherto the essential part of a cotton-press which stands forsaken in the compound, mourning over the shipwreck it has made of its existence. Finally, I have closed the door with a combination of thick straw mats made by my carriers, and some blankets from my bed. In this way, I can develop at a pinch even in the daytime, but, after working a short time in this apartment, the atmosphere becomes so stifling that I am glad to escape from it to another form of activity.
RAT TRAP
On one of my first strolls here, I came upon a neat structure which was explained to me as “tego ya ngunda”—a trap for pigeons. This is a system of sticks and thin strings, one of which is fastened to a strong branch bent over into a half-circle. I have been, from my youth up, interested in all mechanical contrivances, and am still more so in a case like this, where we have an opportunity of gaining an insight into the earlier evolutional stages of the human intellect. I therefore, on my return to camp, called together all my men and as many local natives as possible, and addressed the assembly to the effect that the mzungu was exceedingly anxious to possess all kinds of traps for all kinds of animals. Then followed the promise of good prices for good and authentic specimens, and the oration wound up with “Nendeni na tengenezeni sasa!” (“Now go away and make up your contraptions!”).
How they hurried off that day, and how eagerly all my men have been at work ever since! I had hitherto believed all my carriers to be Wanyamwezi—now I find, through the commentaries which each of them has to supply with his work, that my thirty men represent a number of different tribes. Most of them, to be sure, are Wanyamwezi, but along with them there are some Wasukuma and Manyema, and even a genuine Mngoni from Runsewe, a representative of that gallant Zulu tribe who, some decades ago, penetrated from distant South Africa to the present German territory, and pushed forward one of its groups—these very Runsewe Wangoni—as far as the south-western corner of the Victoria Nyanza. As for the askari, though numbering only thirteen, they belong to no fewer than twelve different tribes, from those of far Darfur in the Egyptian Sudan to the Yao in Portuguese East Africa. All these “faithfuls” have been racking their brains to recall and practise once more in wood and field the arts of their boyhood, and now they come and set up, in the open, sunny space beside my palatial abode, the results of their unwonted intellectual exertions.