Now comes the attempt at a practical application. I rise from my camp-stool, take up an oratorical attitude and inform my disciples in art that, as they have now seen how I, the fundi, set about drawing a trap, it would be advisable for them to attempt a more difficult subject, such as this. It is dull work to keep on drawing their friends, or trees, houses, and animals; and they are such clever fellows that a bird-trap must surely be well within their powers. I have already mentioned the look of embarrassed perplexity which I encountered when beginning my studies at Lindi. Here it was even more marked and more general. It produced a definite impression that the idea of what we call perspective for the first time became clear to the men’s minds. They were evidently trying to express something of the sort by their words and gestures to each other; they followed with their fingers the strangely foreshortened curves which in reality stood for circles—in short, they were in presence of something new—something unknown and unimagined, which on the one hand made them conscious of their intellectual and artistic inferiority, and on the other drew them like a magnet to my sketch-book. None of them has up to the present attempted to draw one of these traps.
Travellers of former days, or in lands less satisfactorily explored than German East Africa, found the difficulties of barter not the least of their troubles. Stanley, not so many years ago, set out on his explorations with hundreds of bales of various stuffs and innumerable kinds of beads, and even thus it was not certain whether the natives of the particular region traversed would be suited; not to mention the way in which this primitive currency increased the number of carriers required by every expedition. In German East Africa, where the Colonial Administration has so often been unjustly attacked, the white man can now travel almost as easily as at home. His letter of credit, indeed, only holds good as far as the coast, but if his errand is, like mine, of an official character, every station, and even every smaller post, with any Government funds at its disposal, has orders to give the traveller credit, on his complying with certain simple formalities, and to provide him with cash. The explanation is not difficult: the fact that our rupees are current on the coast compels all the interior tribes to adopt them, whether they like it or not. I brought with me from Lindi a couple of large sacks with rupees, half and quarter rupees, and for immediate needs a few cases of heller.[[16]] This copper coin, long obsolete in Germany, has been coined for circulation in our colony, but the natives have not been induced to adopt it, and reckon as before by pice—an egg costs one pice (pesa) and that is enough—no one thinks of working out the price in hellers. Neither is the coin popular with the white residents, who deride its introduction and make feeble puns on its name—one of the poorest being based on the name of the present Director of Customs, which happens to be identical with it.
I find, however, that the natives are by no means averse to accepting these despised coins when they get the chance. On our tramps through the villages, Moritz with the lantern is followed by Mambo sasa, the Mngoni, carrying on his woolly head a large jar of bright copper coin newly minted at Berlin.
After a long, but not tedious examination of all the apartments in the native palaces, I return to the light of day, dazzled by the tropical sunshine. With sympathetic chuckles, my bodyguard—those of my men who are always with me and have quickly grasped, with the sympathetic intuition peculiar to the native, what it is that I want—follow, dragging with them a heap of miscellaneous property. Lastly come the master of the house and his wife, in a state of mingled expectation and doubt. Now begins the bargaining, in its essentials not very different from that experienced in the harbours of Naples, Port Said, Aden and Mombasa. “Kiasi gani?” (“What is the price?”) one asks with ostentatious nonchalance, including the whole pile in a compendious wave of the hand. The fortunate owner of the valuables apparently fails to understand this, so he opens his mouth wide and says nothing. I must try him on another tack. I hold up some article before his eyes and ask, “Nini hii?” (“What is this?”), which proves quite effectual. My next duty is to imagine myself back again in the lecture-hall during my first term at college, and to write down with the utmost diligence the words, not of a learned professor, but of a raw, unlettered mshenzi. By the time I have learnt everything I want to know, the name, the purpose, the mode of manufacture and the way in which the thing is used, the native is at last able and willing to fix the retail price. Up to the present, I have met with two extremes: one class of sellers demand whole rupees, Rupia tatu (three) or Rupia nne (four), quite regardless of the nature of the article for sale—the other, with equal consistency, a sumni as uniform price. This is a quarter-rupee—in the currency of German East Africa an exceedingly attractive-looking silver coin, a little smaller than our half-mark piece or an English sixpence. Possibly it is its handiness, together with the untarnished lustre of my newly-minted specimens in particular, which accounts for this preference. One thing must be mentioned which distinguishes these people very favourably from the bandits of the ports already mentioned. None of them raises an outcry on being offered the tenth or twentieth part of what he asks. With perfect calm he either gradually abates his demands till a fair agreement is reached, or else he says, at the first offer, “Lete” (“Hand it over”). At this moment Moritz and my jar of coppers come to the front of the stage. The boy has quickly lifted the vessel down from the head of his friend Mambo sasa. With the eye of a connoisseur he grasps the state of our finances and then pays with the dignity, if not the rapidity, of the cashier at a metropolitan bank. The remaining articles are bargained for in much the same way. It takes more time than I like; but this is not to be avoided.
When the purchase of the last piece is completed, my carriers, with the amazing deftness I have so often admired, have packed up the spoil, in the turn of a hand, in large and compact bundles. A searching look round for photographic subjects, another last glance at the house-owner chuckling to himself over his newly-acquired wealth, and then a vigorous “Kwa heri” (“Good-bye”), and lantern and jar go their way. We had only just settled into our house here when we received a visit from the chief’s son, Salim Matola, a very tall and excessively slender youth of seventeen or eighteen, magnificently clad in a European waistcoat, and very friendly. Since then he has scarcely left my side; he knows everything, can do everything, finds everything, and, to my delight, brings me everything. He makes the best traps, shows me with what diabolical ingenuity his countrymen set limed twigs, plays on all instruments like a master, and produces fire by drilling so quickly that one is astonished at the strength in his slight frame. In a word, he is a treasure to the ethnographer.
One thing only seems to be unknown to my young friend, and that is work. His father, Masekera Matola, already mentioned, has a very spacious group of huts and extensive gardens. Whether the old gentleman ever does any perceptible work on this property with his own hands, I am not in a position to judge, as he is for the present most strenuously occupied in consuming beer; but at every visit, I have noticed the women of the family working hard to get in the last of the crops. The young prince alone seems to be above every plebeian employment. His hands certainly do not look horny, and his muscles leave much to be desired. He strolls through life in his leisurely way with glad heart and cheerful spirit.
MY CARAVAN ON THE MARCH. DRAWN BY PESA MBILI
CHAPTER VII
MY CARAVAN ON THE SOUTHWARD MARCH
Chingulungulu, beginning of August, 1906.