Kofia tule, then, comes slowly forward, followed by six more Wanyamwezi, and some local men whom I have engaged as extra carriers. With him as their mnyampara they are to take my collections down to the Coast, and get them stored till my return in the cellars of the District Commissioner’s office at Lindi. The final instructions are delivered, and then comes the order, “You here, go to the left,—we are going to the right. March!” Our company takes some time to get into proper marching order, but at last everything goes smoothly. A glance northward over the plain assures us that Kofia tule and his followers have got up the correct safari speed; and we plunge into the uninhabited virgin pori.
There is something very monotonous and fatiguing about the march through these open woods. It is already getting on for noon, and I am half-asleep on my mule, when I catch sight of two black figures, gun in hand, peeping cautiously round a clump of bushes in front. Can they be Wangoni?
For some days past we have heard flying rumours that Shabruma, the notorious leader of the Wangoni in the late rebellion, and the last of our opponents remaining unsubdued, is planning an attack on Nakaam, and therefore threatening this very neighbourhood. Just as I look round for my gun-bearer, a dozen throats raise the joyful shout of “Mail-carrier!” This is my first experience of the working of the German Imperial Post in East Africa; I learnt in due course that, though by no means remunerative to the department, it is as nearly perfect as any human institution can be. It sounds like an exaggeration, but it is absolutely true, to say that all mail matter, even should it be only a single picture post-card, is delivered to the addressee without delay, wherever he may be within the postal area. The native runners, of course, have a very different sort of duty to perform from the few miles daily required of our home functionaries. With letters and papers packed in a water-tight envelope of oiled paper and American cloth, and gun on shoulder, the messenger trots along, full of the importance of his errand, and covers enormous distances, sometimes, it is said, double the day’s march of an ordinary caravan. If the road lies through a district rendered unsafe by lions, leopards, or human enemies, two men are always sent together. The black figures rapidly approach us, ground arms with soldierly precision and report in proper form:—Letters from Lindi for the Bwana mkubwa and the Bwana mdogo—the great and the little master. As long as Mr. Ewerbeck was with us, it was not easy for the natives to establish the correct precedence between us. Since they ranked me as the new captain, they could not possibly call me Bwana mdogo. Now, however, there is not the slightest difficulty,—there are only two Europeans, and I being, not only the elder, but also the leader of the expedition, there is nothing to complicate the usual gradation of ranks.
CAMP AT MWITI
By the middle of the afternoon, a broken hilly country had taken the place of the undulating plain. Every few minutes our path was crossed by clear streams, running in steep-sided gullies almost impassable for my mule and the heavily-laden carriers. The vegetation became greener and more abundant, but at the same time the heat in these narrow ravines proved well-nigh suffocating. I rode along, trying to read my home letters, regardless of the logs which from time to time formed barriers across the path, or the thorny bushes which overhung it. Our guide, no other than Salim Matola, the lanky jack-of-all-trades, had marched on far ahead. I had on the previous day, attracted by his many good qualities, formally engaged him as my collector-in-chief; whereupon, true to his character, he inaugurated his new functions by demanding a substantial sum in advance. Unfortunately for him, I am already too old in African experience to be caught so easily. “First show me what you can do,” was my response, “and then in a few weeks’ time you may ask again. Now be off and be quick about it!” Salim had declared on oath that he knew the road well. The map is not to be relied on for this part of the country; but according to our calculation we should have reached Mwiti long before this. With a sudden resolution I struck my heels into the flanks of my lazily-ambling mule and, starting him into a gallop, soon overtook the guide striding along at the head of the column. “Mwiti wapi?” (“Where is Mwiti?”) I roared at him. “Sijui Bwana” (“I don’t know, sir,”) was the somewhat plaintive answer. “Simameni!” (“Stop!”), I shouted at the top of my voice, and then followed a grand shauri. None of my carriers knew the country, nor did any of the askari or their boys appear any better informed. There was nothing for it but to march by the map, that is to say, in our case, turn to the right about till we struck the Mwiti stream again, and then follow it up till we reached the place itself. It was late in the afternoon when the longed-for goal at last came in sight. Salim Matola now brought back a half-rupee received from me, protesting that it was “bad,” by which he meant that the Emperor’s effigy had sustained a very slight damage. The young man’s exit from my presence was more speedy than dignified, and illustrated the miraculous effect of an energetic gesture with the kiboko (hippo-hide whip). But such are the ways of the native.
SHUTTER WITH INLAID SWASTIKA, in NAKAAM’S HOUSE AT MWITI
Africa is the land of contrasts. Masasi, at a height of from 1,300 to 2,000 feet, was on the whole pleasantly cool, while we had been half-roasted on the march across the plain between the insular mountains and the Makonde plateau; and now at Mwiti a heavy fur coat would have been acceptable, so bitterly cold is the strong wind which, directly the sun has set, sweeps down from the heights with their maximum atmospheric pressure to the rarefied air of the plain which has been baking in the heat all day long. Our camping-place seemed to have been specially designed to catch all the winds of heaven. With startling strategic insight, Nakaam has chosen for his palace a site on a promontory ending a long range of heights and surrounded on three sides by a loop of the Mwiti River. On these three sides it falls away in precipitous cliffs, the only easy access being from the south. If I call Nakaam’s house a palace, I am not exaggerating. This chief has not only the reputation of being the shrewdest native in the southern district, but he must be comparatively wealthy; otherwise he would scarcely have been able to employ a competent builder from the Coast to erect for him a really imposing house with many rooms and a high, steep roof. The rooms are actually well lighted with real though unglazed windows, which, in the apartments devoted to the chief’s harem, can be closed with shutters. The architect has put the finishing touch to his work by ornamenting all the woodwork in the typical Coast style with incised arabesques. From my long chair, into which I threw myself quite worn out on arriving, I gazed in astonishment at the wide verandah shading the front of this, considering its surroundings, doubly remarkable building. Suddenly I started up and, leaping over the confusion of trunks and packing cases just laid down under the verandah by the carriers, hastened to one of the windows, scarcely able to believe my eyes. A swastika, the “fylfot,” the ancient symbol of good fortune, here in the centre of the Dark Continent! “May you bring me luck too!” I murmured to myself, still greatly surprised. In fact, it was the well-known sign, or something exceedingly like it, neatly inlaid in ivory in the centre of the shutter. When Nakaam appeared, within four hours, in response to an urgent summons despatched on our arrival, one of my first questions, after the customary ceremonious salutations, related to the name and meaning of the figure let into this window-shutter. My disappointment was great when he simply answered “Nyota—a star.” We must therefore suppose that the swastika is unknown to the natives of the interior. In the present case it was probably, like the rest of the ornamentation, introduced by the builder from the Coast. At Mwiti we remained a day and a half and two nights, without much benefit to my ethnographical collection. Either Nakaam has very little influence over his subjects, or they must be very few in number. The passing traveller can scarcely judge of this, for the hilly nature of the country prevents any comprehensive survey, and the tribes hereabouts live scattered over so wide an extent of ground that the small area visible in one view is no criterion for the whole. All the more varied and interesting are the psychological observations I have been able to make in this place. Nakaam himself is a short, stout man of middle age, dressed quite after the Swahili fashion in a long white kanzu or shirt-like upper garment. As to his nationality I had been already informed—the jolly pombe drinkers at Masasi had told me with malicious grins that Nakaam in his conceit called himself a Yao, but was in reality “only” a Makua.
