It is not very easy to locate my present abode on the map. Masasi and its exact latitude and longitude have been known to me for years, but of this strangely named place,[[17]] where I drove in my tent-pegs a few days ago, I never even heard before I had entered the area of the inland tribes.
One trait is common to all Oriental towns, their beauty at a distance and the disillusionment in store for those who set foot within their walls. Knudsen has done nothing but rave about Chingulungulu ever since we reached Masasi. He declared that its baraza was the highest achievement of East African architecture, that it had a plentiful supply of delicious water, abundance of all kinds of meat, and unequalled fruit and vegetables. He extolled its population, exclusively composed, according to him, of high-bred gentlemen and good-looking women, and its well-built, spacious houses. Finally, its situation, he said, made it a convenient centre for excursions in all directions over the plain. I have been here too short a time to bring all the details of this highly coloured picture to the test of actual fact, but this much I have already ascertained, that neither place nor people are quite so paradisaical as the enthusiastic Nils would have me believe.
YAO HOMESTEAD AT CHINGULUNGULU
To relate my experiences in their proper order, I must, however, go back to our departure from Masasi which, owing to a variety of unfortunate circumstances, took place earlier than originally planned. To begin with, there was the changed attitude of the inhabitants, who at first, as already stated, showed the greatest amiability, and allowed us, in the most obliging way, to inspect their homes and buy their household furnishings. In my later sketching and collecting expeditions, I came everywhere upon closed doors and apparently deserted compounds. This phenomenon, too, comes under the heading of racial psychology. However much he may profit by the foreigner’s visits, the African prefers to have his own hut to himself.[[18]]
In the second place, we began, in the course of a prolonged residence, to discover the drawbacks of our quarters in the rest-house. Knudsen, who is very sensitive in this respect, insisted that it was damp, and we soon found that the subsoil water, which indeed reached the surface as a large spring on the hillside a little below the house, was unpleasantly close to our floor. Even on the march up from the coast, Knudsen had suffered from occasional attacks of fever. These now became so frequent and severe that he was scarcely fit for work. His faithful old servant, Ali, nursed him with the most touching devotion, and never left his bedside night or day.
I had myself on various occasions noticed a curious irritation of the scalp, for which I could discover no cause, in spite of repeated examination. One day, while hastening across from the dark-room to the rest-house, with some wet plates in my hand, I was conscious of intense discomfort among my scanty locks, and called out to Moritz to take off my hat and look if there was anything inside it. He obeyed, inspected the hat carefully inside and out, and, on pursuing his researches under the lining, turned grey in the face, and ejaculated with evident horror, “Wadudu wabaya!”[[19]] The case becoming interesting, I put my plates down and instituted a minute investigation into Moritz’s find, which proved to consist of a number of assorted animalcules, with a sprinkling of larger creatures resembling ticks. This was somewhat startling. I had come to Africa with a mind entirely at ease as regards malaria—I swear by Koch and fear nothing. But remittent fever is another matter. In Dar es Salam I had heard enough and to spare about this latest discovery of the great Berlin bacteriologist, and how it is produced by an inconspicuous tick-like insect which burrows in the soil of all sites occupied for any length of time by natives. The mosquito-net, I was told, is a sufficient protection against the full grown papasi, as they are called, but not against their hopeful progeny, which can slip unhindered through the finest mesh. This particular kind of fever, moreover, was said to be most especially trying—you were never seriously ill, and yet never really well, or fit for work; and nothing, not even quinine, would avail to keep the attacks from recurring every few days. Small wonder if, at the sight of these wadudu wabaya in the shape of ticks, I too turned pale at the thought of the ignoble end possibly awaiting my enterprise before it was well begun.
I had already found out that Masasi was not precisely an abode of all the virtues, and that an appreciable percentage of the soldiers forming the garrison at the boma were suffering from venereal diseases; but the incident which precipitated our departure was the following. The akida, or local headman (a former sergeant in the Field Force), was the owner of a small herd of cattle, and with the good-nature which is one of the most striking traits in the African character, earned my warmest gratitude by sending me a small jar of milk every day. After a time we heard, and the rumour gained in definiteness with each repetition, that the akida was a leper. I could not refuse the milk, which continued to arrive regularly, and came in very handy for fixing my pencil drawings.
THE YAO CHIEF MATOLA