[4] Hippopotamus.
[5] He was originally Sudy, but afterwards they dubbed him Seedy.—I. B.
[6] These two guns I still treasure.—I. B.
[CHAPTER XIII.]
THE REAL START FOR TANGANYIKA IN THE INTERIOR.
"When we left Zanzibar the Sultan of Zanzibar and the Sawahil and his sons came on board with three letters of introduction. One was to Musa Mzuri, the Indian doyen of the merchants settled at Unyamwezi; secondly, a letter to the Arabs there resident, and thirdly, one to all his subjects who were travelling in the interior. I carried, in an étui round my neck, the diploma of the Shaykh El Islam of Mecca, and a passport from Cardinal Wiseman to all the Catholic missionaries. His Highness the Sultan Said of Muscat had died on his way from Arabia to Zanzibar. The party, besides Jack and I, were two Goanese boys, two negro gun-carriers, the Seedy Mubárak Mombai (Bombay), his brother, and eight Beloch mercenaries appointed by the Sultan. Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton, her Majesty's Consul at Zanzibar, a friend of mine, gave me all particulars and recommendations, and enlisted in my favour the Sayyid Sulayman bin Hamid bin Said (the noble Omani, 'who never forgets the name of his Grandsire'), landed us upon the coast, and superintended our departure, attended by Mr. Frost, the apothecary attached to the Consulate.
"My desire was to ascertain the limits of the Sea of Ujiji, Tanganyika, or Unyamwezi Lake, to learn the ethnography of its tribes, and determine the export of the produce of the interior. The Foreign Office granted £1000, and the Court of Directors allowed me two years' leave of absence to command the Expedition. Consul Hamerton warned us against Kilwa, where any one attempting to open the interior ran the danger of being murdered.
"We landed at Wale Point, about eighty-four miles distant from the little town of Bagamóyo. We wanted to engage one hundred and seventy porters, but we could only get thirty-six, and thirty animals were found, which were all dead in six months, so we had to leave part of our things behind, greater part of the ammunition, and our iron boat. The Hindoos were faithful to their promise to forward everything, but, great mistake, received one hundred and fifty dollars for the hire of twenty-two men to start in ten days; we went on, obliged to trust, but we did not get them for eleven months. We paid various visits to the hippopotamus haunts, and had our boat uplifted from the water upon the points of two tusks, which made corresponding holes in the bottom. My escort were under the impression that nothing less than one hundred guards, one hundred and fifty guns, and several cannon would enable them to fight a way through the perils of the interior. We were warned that for three days we must pass through savages, who sat on the trees, and discharged poisoned arrows into the air with extraordinary dexterity (meaning the Amazons); that they must avoid trees (which was not easy in a land all forest); that the Wazaramo had sent six several letters forbidding the white man to enter their country, and that they buried their provisions in the jungle, that travellers might starve; that one rhinoceros kills two hundred men; that armies of elephants attack camps by night; that the craven hyæna is more dangerous than a Bengal tiger.
"We owed all our intrigues to a rascal named Ramji, who had his own commerce in view, and often to our Ras Kaptan, or Caravan leader, Said bin Salim, who did not wear well. The varnish soon melted, and showed him as great a liar and thief as his men. At times it is good to appear a dupe, to allow people to think and to say that you are a muff, chronicling a vow that they shall change places with you before the end of the game. I confided to Mr. Frost two manuscripts addressed through the Foreign Office, one to Mr. John Blackwood of Edinburgh, the other to Mr. Norton Shaw, of the Royal Geographical Society. Blackwood's arrived safe, Norton Shaw's in six years.[1] I took a melancholy leave of my warm-hearted friend, Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton, who had death written on his features. He looked forward to death with a feeling of delight, the result of his Roman Catholic religious convictions, and, in spite of my entreaties, he would remain near the coast till he heard of our safe transit through the lands of the dangerous Wazaramo. This courage was indeed sublime, an example not often met with. After this affecting farewell we landed at Kaolé. I insisted that Ladha, the Collector of customs, and Ramji, his clerk, should insert in the estimate the sum required to purchase a boat upon the Sea of Ujiji. Being a Hindoo, he thought I was ignorant of Cutchee, so the following conversation took place:—
"Ladha. Will he ever reach it?
"Ramji. Of course not. What is he that he should pass through Ugogo? (a province about halfway).
"So I remarked at once that I did intend to cross Ugogo, and also the Sea of Ujiji, that I did know Cutchee, and that I was even able to distinguish between the debits and the credits of his voluminous sheets. The worst loss that I had was that my old and valued friend, Dr. Steinhaüser, civil surgeon at Aden, sound scholar, good naturalist, skilful practitioner, with rare personal qualities, which would have been inestimable, was ill and could not come. His Highness the late Sayyid Said, that great ally of the English nation, had made most public-spirited offers to his friend, Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton, for many years. Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton's extraordinary personal qualities enabled him to perform anything but impossibilities amongst the Arabs, and he was dying. Finally, as Indian experience taught me, I was entering the 'unknown land' at the fatal season when the shrinking of the waters after the wet monsoon would render it a hotbed of malaria, but I was tied by scanty means and a limited 'leave;' it was neck or nothing, and I determined to risk it. All the serving men in Zanzibar Island and the East African coast are serviles. There is no word to express a higher domestic. There was no remedy, so that I paid them wages, and treated them as if they were free men. I had no power to prevent my followers purchasing slaves, because they would say, 'We are allowed by our law to do so;' all I could do was to see that their slaves were well fed and not injured; but I informed all the wild people that Englishmen were pledged against slavery, and I always refused all slaves offered as presents.
"In eighteen days we accomplished (despite sickness and every manner of difficulty) a march of one hundred and eighteen indirect statute miles, and entered K'hutu, the safe rendezvous of foreign merchants, on the 14th of July. On the 15th we entered Kiruru, where I found a cottage, and enjoyed for the first time an atmosphere of sweet, warm smoke." (In all Richard's wilder travels in damp places, he laid such a stress upon "sweet, warm smoke.") "Jack (that is, Speke), in spite of my endeavours, would remain in the reeking miry tent, and laid the foundations of the fever which threatened his life in the mountains of Usagára.
"As soon as we reached Dut'húmi, where we were detained nearly a week, the malaria brought on attacks of marsh fever. In my case it lasted twenty days." (In all Richard's fever fits, and for hours afterwards, both now and always, he had a queer conviction of divided identity, never ceasing to be two persons, who generally thwarted and opposed each other, and also that he was able to fly.) "Jack suffered still more; he had a fainting-fit which strongly resembled a sunstroke, and it seemed to affect him more or less throughout our journey. Our sufferings were increased by the losses of our animals, and we had to walk, often for many miles, through sun, rain, mud, and miasmatic putridities. The asses shy, stumble, rear, run away, fight, plunge and pirouette when mounted; they hog and buck till they burst their girths; they love to get into holes and hollows; they rush about like pigs when the wind blows; they bolt under tree-shade when the sun shines; so they have to be led, and if the least thing happens the slave drops the halter and runs away.
"The Zanzibar riding-asses were too delicate and died; we were then reduced to the half-reclaimed beast of Wamyamwezi. As to the baggage animals, they were constantly thrown, and the Beloch only grumbled, sat down, and stared. They stole the ropes and cords; they never were pounded for the night, nobody counted them, and we were too ill to look after it. We were wretched; each morning dawned with a fresh load of care and trouble, and every evening we knew that another miserable morrow was to dawn, but I never relinquished the determination to risk everything, myself included, rather than to return unsuccessful. At Dut'húmi, two Chiefs fought, and the strongest kidnapped five of his weaker neighbour subjects. I could not stand by and see iniquity done without an attempt, so I headed a little Expedition against the strong, and I had the satisfaction of restoring the rescued, the five unhappy stolen wretches, to their hearths and homes, and two decrepit old women, that had been rescued from slavery, thanked me with tears of joy" (Richard lightly calls this "an easy good deed" done), "after which I was able, though with swimming head and trembling hands, to prepare a report for the Geographical Society.
"On the 24th of July we were able to move on under the oppressive rain-sun. From Central K'hutu to the base of the Usagára Mountains there were nothing but filthy heaps of the rudest hovels, built in holes of the jungle. Their miserable inhabitants, whose frames are lean with constant intoxication, and whose limbs are distorted by ulcerous sores, attest the hostility of Nature to Mankind.
"Arrived at Zungomero, we waited a fortnight for the twenty-two promised porters. It was a hotbed of pestilence, where we nearly found wet graves. Our only lodging was the closed eaves of a hut; the roof was a sieve, the walls all chinks, and the floor a sheet of mud. The Beloch had no energy to build a shed, and became almost mutinous because we did not build it for them.
"Our life here was the acme of discomfort; we had pelting showers, followed by fiery sunshine, which extracted steam from the grass, bush, and trees. My Goanese boys got a mild form of 'yellow Jack,' and I was obliged to take them into my hut, already populated with pigeons, rats, flies, mosquitoes, bugs, and fleas. We were weary of waiting for the porters and baggage, so we prepared our papers, and sent them down by a confidential slave to the coast. Jack and I left Zungomero on the 7th of August. We were so weak, we could hardly sit our asses, but we were determined to get to the nearest ascent of the Usagára Mountains, a march of five hours, and succeeded in rising three hundred feet from the plain, ascending its first gradient.
They ascend from Zungomero to a Better Climate.
"This is the frontier of the second region, or Ghauts. There was no vestige of buildings, nor sight nor sound of Man. There was a wondrous change of climate at this place, called Mzizi Maogo; strength and health returned as if by magic, even the Goanese shook off their mild 'yellow Jack.' Truly delicious was the escape from the nebulous skies, the fog-driving gusts, the pelting rain, the clammy mists veiling a gross growth of fœtor, the damp raw cold rising as it were from the earth, and the alternations of fiery and oppressive heat; in fact, from the cruel climate of the river valley, to the pure sweet mountain air, alternately soft and balmy, cool and reviving, and to the aspect of clear blue skies, which lent their tints to highland ridges well wooded with various greens.
"Dull mangrove, dismal jungle, and monotonous grass were supplanted by tall solitary trees, amongst which the lofty tamarind rose conspicuously graceful, and a card-table-like swamp, cut by a network of streams, nullahs, and stagnant pools, gave way to dry healthy slopes, with short steep pitches and gently shelving hills. The beams of the large sun of the Equator—and nowhere have I seen the Rulers of Night and Day so large—danced gaily upon blocks and pebbles of red, yellow, and dazzling snowy quartz, and the bright sea-breeze waved the summits of the trees, from which depended graceful llianas and wood-apples large as melons, whilst creepers, like vine tendrils, rising from large bulbs of brown-grey wood, clung closely to their stalwart trunks. Monkeys played at hide-and-seek, chattering behind the bolls, as the iguana, with its painted scale-armour, issued forth to bask upon the sunny bank; white-breasted ravens cawed when disturbed from their perching places, doves cooed on the well-clothed boughs, and hawks soared high in the transparent sky. The field-cricket chirped like the Italian cicala in the shady bush, and everywhere, from air, from earth, from the hill-slopes above, and from the marshes below, the hum, the buzz, and the loud continuous voice of insect life, through the length of the day, spoke out its natural joy. Our gypsy encampment lay
'By shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.'By night, the soothing murmurs of the stream at the hill's base rose mingled with the faint rustling of the breeze, which at times, broken by the scream of the night-heron, the bellow of the bull-frog in his swamp home, the cynhyæna's whimper, and the fox's whining bark, sounded through the silence most musical, most melancholy. Instead of the cold night rain, and the soughing of the blast, the view disclosed a peaceful scene, the moonbeams lying like sheets of snow upon the ruddy highlands, and the stars hanging like lamps of gold from the dome of infinite blue. I never wearied with contemplating the scene, for, contrasting with the splendours around me, still stretched in sight the 'Slough of Despond,' unhappy Zungomero, lead-coloured above, mud-coloured below, wind-swept, fog-veiled, and deluged by clouds that dared not approach these Delectable Mountains.
"All along our way we were saddened by the sight of clean-picked skeletons, and here and there the swollen corpses of porters who had perished in this place by starvation. A single large body which passed us but yesterday had lost fifty of their number by small-pox, and the sight of their deceased comrades made a terrible impression. Men staggering on, blinded by disease, mothers carrying on their backs infants as loathsome as themselves. The poor wretches would not leave the path, as every step in their state of failing strength was precious. He who once fell would never rise again. No village would admit a corpse into its precincts, no friend or relation would return for them, and they would lie till their agony was ended by the raven, the vulture, and the fox. Near every kraal were detached huts set apart for those seized with the fell disease. Several of our party caught the infection, and must have thrown themselves into some jungle, for when they were missed we came back to look and there was no sign of them. The further we went on, the more numerous were the corpses. Our Moslems passed them with averted faces, and with the low 'La haul!' of disgust, and a decrepit old porter gazed and wept for himself. At the foot of the 'Goma Pass' we found the outlying huts for the small-pox, and an old kraal, where we made comfortable for the night. All around peeped the little beehive villages of the Wakaguru and the Wakwivi.
"When we arrived at Rufuta I found that nearly all our instruments had been spoilt or broken, the barometer had come to grief, no aneroid had been sent from Bombay, and we had chiefly to get on with two bath thermometers. Zonhwe was the turning-point of the expedition's difficulties. The 17th of August, as we went on, the path fell easily westwards down a long grassy jungly incline, cut by several water-courses. At noon I lay down fainting in the sandy bed of the Muhama nullah, meaning the 'Palmetto' or 'Fan-palm,' and keeping Wazira and Mabruki with me, I begged Jack to go on, and send me back a hammock from the halting-place. The men, who were partly mutinous and deserting, suddenly came out well; they reappeared, led me to a place where stagnant water was found, and showed abundant penitence. At three o'clock, as Jack did not send the hammock, I remounted and passed through another 'Slough of Despond' like Zungomero, and found two little villages, and on a hillside my caravan halted, which had been attacked by a swarm of wild bees. At Muhama we halted three days, and forded the Makata, and pursuing our march next day, I witnessed a curious contrast in this strange African nature, which is ever in extremes, and where extremes ever meet, where grace and beauty are seldom seen without a sudden change to a hideous grotesqueness.
From Lovely Scenery to Fœtid Marshes.
"A splendid view charmed me in the morning. Above lay a sky of purest azure, flaked with fleecy opal-tinted vapours floating high in the empyrean, and catching the first roseate smiles of the unrisen sun. Long lines, one bluer than the other, broken by castellated crags and towers of the most picturesque form, girdled the far horizon; the nearer heights were of a purplish-brown, and snowy mists hung like glaciers about their folds. The plain was a park in autumn, burnt tawny by the sun or patched with a darker hue where the people were firing the grass—a party was at work merrily, as if preparing for an English harvest home—to start the animals, to promote the growth of a young crop, and, such is the popular belief, to attract rain. Calabashes, palmyras, tamarinds, and clumps of evergreen trees, were scattered over the scene, each stretching its lordly form over subject circlets of deep dew-fed verdure. Here the dove cooed loudly, and the guinea-fowl rang its wild cry, whilst the peewit chattered in the open stubble, and a little martin, the prettiest of its kind, contrasted by its nimble dartings along the ground, with the vulture wheeling slowly through the upper air. The most graceful of animals, the zebra and the antelope, browsed in the distance; now they stood to gaze upon the long line of porters, then, after leisurely pacing, with retrospective glances, in an opposite direction, they halted motionless for a moment, faced about once more to satiate curiosity, and lastly, terrified by their own fancy, they bounded in ricochets over the plain.
"About noon the fair scene vanished as if by enchantment. We suddenly turned northwards into a tangled mass of tall fœtid reeds, rank jungle, and forest. One constantly feels, in malarious places, suddenly poisoned as if by miasma; a shudder runs through the frame and a cold perspiration, like a prelude for a fainting fit, breaks from the brow. We came upon the deserted—once flourishing—village of Wasagara, called Mbumi. The huts were torn and half burnt, the ground strewed with nets and drums, pestles and mortars, cots and fragments of rude furniture; the sacking seemed to be about ten days old. Two wretched villagers were lurking in the jungle, not daring to revisit the wreck of their own homes. The demon of Slavery reigns over a solitude of his own creation; can it be, that by some inexplicable law, where Nature has done her best for the happiness of Mankind, Man, doomed to misery, must work out his own unhappiness?
"Next day our path was slippery as mud, and man and beast were rendered wild by the cruel stings of a small red ant and a huge black pismire. They are large headed; they cannot spring, but show great quickness in fastening themselves to the foot or ankle as it brushes over them. The pismire is a horse-ant, about an inch in length, whose bulldog head and powerful mandibles enable it to destroy rats and mice, lizards and snakes; its bite burns like a pinch of a red-hot needle. When it sets to work, twisting itself round, it may be pulled in two without relaxing its hold. As the people stopped to drink they were seized by these dreadful creatures, and suddenly began to dance and shout like madmen, pulling off their clothes, and frantically snatching at their lower limbs. In the evening it was like a savage opera scene. One would recite his Korán, another pray; a third told funny stories; a fourth trolled out in a minor key lays of love and war that were familiar to me upon the Scindian hills. This was varied by slapping away the black mosquitoes, ridding ourselves of ants, and challenging small parties of savages who passed us from time to time with bows and arrows.
"Now we also began to suffer severely from the tzetze fly, which is the true Glossina morsitans. It extended from Usagara westward as far as the Central Lakes. It has more persistency of purpose than an Egyptian fly; when beaten off, it will return half a dozen times to the charge. It cannot be killed except by a smart blow, and its long sharp proboscis draws blood through a canvas hammock. The sting is like an English horse-fly and leaves a lasting trace. This land is eminently fitted for breeding cattle and for agriculture, which, without animals, cannot be greatly extended. Why this plague should have been placed here, unless to exercise human ingenuity, I cannot imagine. Perhaps some day it will be exterminated by the introduction of some insectiferous bird, which will be the greatest benefactor that Central Africa ever knew. The brown ant has cellular hills of about three feet high, whereas in Somali-land they become dwarf ruins of round towers. When we reached Rumuma the climate was new to us, after the incessant rains of the Maritime Valley, and the fogs and mists of the Rufuta range; but it was in extremes—the thermometer under the influence of dewy gusts sank in the tent to 48° F., a killing temperature in these latitudes to half-naked and houseless men. During the day it showed 90° F.; the sun was fiery, and a furious south wind coursed through skies purer and bluer than I had ever seen in Greece or Italy.
"When we were ill our followers often mutinied, and would do nothing, but stole and lost our goods, and would not work. Sometimes, though they carried the water, they would refuse us any. Jack was as ill as I was. We reached Rubeho, the third and westernmost range of the Usagára Mountains, and here we were welcomed with joy, and given milk and butter and honey, a real treat. Here we were in danger of being attacked by the Wahúmba. Next day a Caravan arrived, under the command of four Arab merchants, of which Isa bin Hijji was most kind, and did us good service. I was always at home when I got amongst Arabs. They always treat me practically as one of themselves. They gave us useful information for crossing the Rubeho range, and superintended our arrangements. When they went away I charged them not to spread reports of our illness. I saw them depart with regret. It had really been a relief to hear once more the voice of civility and sympathy.
"Our greatest labour was before us. Trembling with ague, with swimming heads, ears deafened by weakness, and limbs that would hardly support us, we contemplated with dogged despair the perpendicular scramble over the mountains and the ladders of root and boulder, up which we and our starving, drooping asses had to climb. Jack was so weak that he had three supporters; I, having stronger nerves, managed with one. We passed wall-like sheets of rock, long steeps of loose white soil and rolling stones. Every now and then we were compelled to lie down by cough and thirst and fatigue; and when so compelled, fires suddenly appeared on the neighbouring hills. The War-cry rang loud from hill to hill, and Indian files of archers and spearmen, streaming like lines of black ants, appeared in all directions down the paths. It was the Wahúmba, who, waiting for the Caravans to depart, were going down to fall fiercely on the scattered villages in the lowlands, kill the people, and to drive off the cattle, and plunder the villages of Inengé. Our followers prepared to desert us, but, strange to say, the Wahúmba did not touch us. By resting every few yards, and clinging to our supporters, we reached the summit of this terrible path after six hours, and we sat down amongst aromatic flowers and bright shrubs, to recover strength and breath. Jack was almost in a state of coma, and could hardly answer. The view disclosed a retrospect of severe hardships past and gone.
"We eventually arrived, after more walking, at a place called the Great Rubeho, where several settlements appeared, and where poor Jack was seized with a fever fit and dangerous delirium; he became so violent that I had to remove his weapons, and, to judge from certain symptoms, the attack had a permanent cerebral effect. Death appeared stamped upon his features, and yet our followers clamoured to advance, because it was cold. This lasted two nights, when he was restored and came to himself, and proposed to advance. I had a hammock rigged up for him, and the whole Caravan broke ground. We went on ascending till we reached the top of the third and westernmost range of the Usagára Mountains, raised 5700 feet above sea level, and we begin to traverse Ugogi, which is the halfway district between the Coast and Unyanyembe, and stands 2760 feet above sea level, and the climate of Ugogi pleases by its elasticity and its dry healthy warmth.
"The African traveller's fitness for the task of Exploration depends more upon his faculty of chafing under delays and kicking against the pricks than upon his power of displaying the patience of a Griselda or a Job. Another Caravan of coast Arabs arrived. They brought news from the sea-board, and, wondrous good fortune, the portmanteau containing books, which a porter, profiting by the confusion when they were attacked by bees, had deposited in the long grass at the place where I directed the slaves to look for it. Some half-caste Arabs had gone forward and spread evil reports of us. They said we had each one eye and four arms; we were full of magic; we caused rain to fall in advance, and left droughts in our rear; we cooked water-melons, and threw away the seeds, thus generating small-pox; we heated and hardened milk, thus breeding a murrain amongst cattle; our wire, cloth, and beads caused a variety of misfortunes; we were Kings of the Sea, and therefore white-skinned and straight-haired, as are all men who live in salt water, and next year we would seize their land.
"As far as our followers were concerned, there was not a soul to stand by Jack and me except ourselves. Had anything happened we must have perished. We should have been as safe with six as with sixty guns, but six hundred stout fellows, well armed, might march through the length and breadth of Central Africa." (Richard said when the Government sent Gordon to Khartoum they failed because they sent him alone. Had they sent him with five hundred soldiers there would have been no war.) "And now a word to sportsmen in this part of Africa. Let no future travellers make my mistake. I expected great things without realizing a single hope. In the more populous parts the woodman's axe and the hunter's arrows have melted away game. Even where large tracks of jungle abound with water and forage, the notes of a bird rarely strike the ear, and during the day's march not a single large animal will be seen. In places such as the park-lands of Dut'húmi, the jungles and forests of Ugogi and Mgunda Mk'hali, the barrens of Usukuma, and the tangled thickets of Ujiji, there is abundance of noble game—lions, leopards, elephants, rhinoceroses, wild cattle, giraffes, gnus, zebras, quaggas, and ostriches; but the regions are so dangerous that a sportsman cannot linger. There is miasma, malaria, want of food, rarely water, no camels, and every porter would desert, whilst the extraordinary expense of provision and of carriage would be the work of a very rich man. As for us, we could only shoot on halting days at rare periods, and there is nothing left but the hippopotamus and the crocodile of the seacoast.
"On the 8th of October we fell in with a homeward-bound Caravan headed by Abdullah bin Nasib, who was very, very kind to us. He kindly halted a day that we might send home a mail, and gave me one of his riding animals, and would take nothing for it except a little medicine. We left K'hok'ho, a foul strip of crowded jungle, where we were stung throughout the fiery day by the tzetze fly, swarms of bees, and pertinacious gadflies, where an army of large poisonous ants drove us out of the tent by the wounds which they inflicted between the fingers and other tender parts of the body, till kettles of boiling water persuaded them to abandon us. These ant-fiends made the thin-skinned asses mad with torture. In this ill-omened spot my ass Seringe, the sole survivor of the riding animals brought from Zanzibar, was so torn by a hyæna that it died of its wounds, and fifteen of my porters deserted, so that I thought that it was no use continuing my weary efforts and anxiety about baggage.
"I gave Jack my good donkey, because he was worse than I was, and I took one of the poor ones, and found that I must either walk or leave valuable things behind. Trembling with weakness, I set out to march the length of the Mdáburu jungle. The memory of that march is not pleasant. The burning sun and the fiery reflected heat arising from the parched ground—here a rough, thorny, and waterless jungle, where the jessamine flowered and the frankincense was used for fuel; there a grassy plain of black and sun-cracked earth—compelled me to lie down every half-hour. The water-gourds were soon drained by my attendant Beloch; and the sons of Ramji, who, after reaching the resting-place, had returned with ample stores for their comrades, hid their vessels on my approach. Sarmalla, a donkey-driver, the model of a surly negro, whose crumpled brow, tightened eyes, and thick lips, which shot out on the least occasion of excitement, showed what was going on within his head, openly refused me the use of his gourd, and—thirst is even less to be trifled with than hunger—found ample reason to repent himself of the proceeding. Near the end of the jungle I came upon a party of the Beloch, who, having seized upon a porter belonging to a large Caravan of Wanyamwezi that had passed us on that march, were persuading him, half by promises and half by threats, to carry their sleeping mats and their empty gourds.
"Towards the end of that long march I saw with pleasure the kindly face of Seedy Bombay, who was returning to me in hot haste, leading an ass and carrying a few scones and hard-boiled eggs. Mounting, I resumed my way, and presently arrived at the confines of Mdáburu, where, under a huge calabash, stood our tent, amidst a kraal of grass boothies, surrounded by a heaped-up ridge of thorns.
"We left Ugogi and pursued our way to 'Mgunda Mk'hali,' a very wild part, and at last got to Jiwella Mkoa, the halfway house. We were cheered by the sight of the red fires glaring in the kraal, but Jack's ass, perhaps frightened by some wild beast which we did not see, reared high in the air, bucked like a deer, broke his girths, and threw Jack, who was sick and weak, heavily upon the hard earth. Our people had become so selfish that they always attended to themselves first, and Said bin Salim, the leader, actually refused to give us a piece of canvas to make a tent. Bombay made a memorable speech: 'If you are not ashamed of your Master, O Said, be at least ashamed of his servant,' which had such an effect that he sent the whole awning, and refused the half which I sent back to him.
"The three Tribes of this part are the Wagogo (the Wamasai), the Wahúmba, and the Wakwafi, who are remarkable for their strength and intelligence, and for their obstinate and untamable characters. They only sell their fellow tribesmen when convicted of magic, or from absolute distress, and many of them would rather die under the stick than work. The Wagogo are thieves; they would rob during the day, are importunate beggars, and specify their long lists of wants without stint or shame. An Arab merchant once went out to the Wahúmba to buy asses. He set out from Tura in Eastern Unyamwezi, and traversing the country of the wild Watatúru, arrived on the eighth day at the frontier district, I'ramba, where there is a river which separates the tribes. He was received with civility, but none have ever since followed his example.
"As we neared Unyanyembe the porters became more restive under their light loads, their dignity was hurt by shouldering a pack, and day after day, till I felt weary of life, they left their burdens upon the ground. At Rubuga I was visited by an Arab merchant, who explained something which had puzzled me. Whenever an advance beyond Unyanyembe was spoken of, Said bin Salim's countenance fell. The merchant asked me if I thought the Caravan was strong enough to bear the dangers of the road between that and Ujiji, and I replied that I did, but even if I did not, I should go on. The perpetual risk of loss, discourages the traveller in these lands. In a moment papers which have cost him months of toil may be scattered to the winds. Collectors should never make them on the march upwards, but on their leisurely return. My field and sketch-books were entrusted to an Arab merchant who preceded me to Zanzibar. Jack sent down maps, papers, and instruments, and I my vocabularies, ephemeris, and drawing-books, which ran no danger, except from Hamerton's successor, who seemed careless.
"The hundred and thirty-fourth day from leaving the coast, after marching over six hundred miles, we prepared to enter Kázeh. I was met by Arabs who gave me the Moslem salutation, and courteously accompanied me. I was to have gone to the tembe kindly placed at my disposal by Isa bin Hijji and the Arabs met at Inengé, but by mistake we were taken to that of Musa Mzuri, an Indian merchant, for whom I bore an introductory letter, graciously given by H.H. the Sayyid Majjid of Zanzibar. Here I dismissed the porters, who separated to their homes. What a contrast between the open-handed hospitality and the hearty good will of this truly noble race (Arabs), and the niggardliness of the savage and selfish African! It was heart of flesh after heart of stone. They warehoused my goods, disposed of my extra stores, and made all arrangements for my down march on return. During two long halts at Kázeh, Snay bin Amir never failed to pass the evening with me, and, as he thoroughly knew the country all around, I derived immense information from his instructive and varied conversation.
"Here were the times when Jack was at such a disadvantage from want of language; he could join in none of these things, and this made him, I think, a little sour, and partly why he wished to have an expedition of his own. Snay bin Amir was familiar with the language, the religion, the manners, and the ethnology of all the tribes. He was of a quixotic appearance, high featured, tall, gaunt, and large limbed. He was well read, had a wonderful memory, fine perceptions, and passing power of language. He was the stuff of which I could make a friend, brave as all his race, prudent, ready to perish for honour, and as honest as he was honourable. At Unyanyembe the merchants expect some delay, because the porters, whether hired at the coast or at Tanganyika, here disperse, and a fresh gang has to be collected. When Snay bin Amir and Musa Mzuri, the Indian, settled at Kázeh, it was only a desert; they built houses, sunk wells, and converted it into a populous place. The Arabs here live comfortably and even splendidly. The houses are single-storied, but large, substantial, and capable of defence. They have splendid gardens; they receive regular supplies of merchandise, comforts, and luxuries from the coast; they are surrounded by troops of concubines and slaves, whom they train to divers crafts and callings. The rich have riding asses from Zanzibar, and the poorest keep flocks and herds. When a stranger appears he receives hishmat l'il gharib, or 'the guest welcome.' He is provided with lodgings, and introduced by the host to the rest of the society at a general banquet. A drawback to their happiness is the failure of constitution. A man who escapes illness for a couple of months boasts, and, as in Egypt, no one enjoys robust health. The residents are very moderate in their appetites, and eat only light dishes that they may escape fever.
Description of Caravans and Difficulties.
"From Unyanyembe there are twenty marches to Ujiji upon the Tanganyika, seldom accomplished under twenty-five days. The two greatest places are, first, Msene; the second is the Malagarázi river; but now I bade adieu for a time to the march, the camp, and the bivouac, and was comfortably housed close to my new friend, Shakyh Snay bin Amir. You are all familiar with the Arab Kafilah and its hosts of litters, horses, camels, mules, and asses; but the porter-journeys in East Africa have, till this year of my arrival, escaped the penman's pen. There are three kind of Caravans. These are the Wanyamwezi, the Wasawahili free men, and lastly that of the Arabs. That of the Arabs is splendid, and next to the Persian, he is the most luxurious traveller in the East. A veteran of the way, he knows the effects of protracted hardship and scarcity upon a wayfarer's health; but the European traveller does not enjoy it, because it marches by instinct rather than reason. It dawdles, it hurries, it lingers, losing time twice. It is fatal to observation, and nothing will induce them to enable an Explorer to strike into an unbeaten path, or to progress a few miles out of the main road. Malignant epidemics attack Caravans, and make you repent joining them. For the rest, the porters, one and all, want to eat, drink, sleep, carry the lightest load or none at all; for the slightest service they want double pay; they lose your mules and your baggage; they steal what they can; they desert when they can; they run away when there is the slightest danger. When it is safe, they are mutinous and insolent, because you are dependent on them. If you come to a comfortable place, you cannot dislodge them; if you come to a dangerous place, they will not give the necessary time for food or sleep, or resting the animals. Everything is done to get as much out of you as possible, to do as little as they can for it; gain and self are almost their only thoughts. Bombay proved more or less an exception. During our journey from start to finish, there was not one, from Said bin Salim, the leader, to the very porter, except Bombay and the two Goanese Catholics, who did not attempt to desert.
"About five p.m. the camp was fairly roused, and a little low chatting commences. The porters overnight have promised to start early, and to make a long wholesome march; but, 'uncertain, coy, and hard to please,' the cold morning makes them unlike the men of the warm evening, and so one of them will have fever. In every Caravan there is some lazy lout and unmanageable fellow whose sole delight is to give trouble. If no march be in prospect, they sit obstinately before the fire, warming their hands and feet, and casting quizzical looks at their fuming and fidgety employer. If all be unanimous it is vain to tempt them; even soft sawder is but 'throwing comfits to cows,' and we return to our tent. If, however, there be a division, a little active stimulating will cause a march. They hug the fire till driven from it, when they unstack the loads piled before our tents and pour out of camp or village. Jack and I, when able, mount our asses; we walk when we can, but when unable for either we are borne in hammocks. The heat of the ground, against which the horniest sole never becomes proof, tries the feet like polished leather boots on a quarter-deck in the dog-days near the Line. Sometimes, when in good humour, they are very sportive. When two bodies meet, that commanded by an Arab claims the road. When friendly caravans meet, the two kirangozis sidle up with a stage pace, a stride and a stand, and, with sidelong looks, prance till they arrive within distance; then suddenly and simultaneously 'ducking,' like boys 'giving a back,' they come to loggerheads and exchange a butt violently as fighting rams. Their example is followed by all with a rush and a crush, which might be mistaken for the beginning of a fight; but it ends, if there be no bad blood, in shouts of laughter.
"When a Unyamwezi guide is leader of a Caravan the kirangozi deliberately raises his plain blood-red flag, and they all follow him. If any man dares to go before him, or into any but his own place, an arrow is extracted from his quiver to substantiate his identity at the end of the march.
"The Wamrima willingly admit strangers into their villages, and the Wazaramo would do the same, but they are constantly at feud with the Wanyamwezi, and therefore it is dangerous hospitality. My Goanese boys, being 'Christians,' that is to say, Roman Catholics, consider themselves semi-European, and they will not feed with the heathenry, so there are four different messes in the Camp. The dance generally assumes, as the excitement increases, the frantic semblance of a ring of Egyptian dervishes. The performance often closes with a grand promenade, all the dancers being jammed in a rushing mass, a galop infernale, with features of satyrs, and gestures resembling aught but human. Sometimes they compose songs in honour of me. I understand them, and the singers know that I do. They sing about the Muzungú Mbáya, 'the wicked white man;' to have called me a 'good white man' would mean that one was a natural, an innocent, who would be plucked and flayed without flinching; moreover, despite my wickedness, it was always to me that they came for justice and redress if any one bullied or ill-treated them.
"The Caravan scene at night is often very impressive. The dull red fires flickering and forming a circle of ruddy light in the depths of the black forest, flaming against the tall trunks, and defining the foliage of the nearer trees, illuminate lurid groups of savage men, in every variety of shape and posture. Above, the dark purple sky, studded with golden points, domes the earth with bounds narrowed by the gloom of night. And, behold, in the western horizon, a resplendent crescent, with a dim, ash-coloured globe in its arms, and crowned by Hesperus, sparkling, like a diamond, sinks through the vast space in all the glory and gorgeousness of Eternal Nature's sublimest works. From such a night, methinks, the Byzantine man took his device, the crescent and the star.
"At Kázeh, as in Ugogi and everywhere else, the lodgings are a menagerie of hens, pigeons, rats, scorpions, earwigs (the scorpions are spiteful), and in Ugogi there is a green scorpion from four to five inches long, which inflicts a torturing wound. Here they say that it dies after inflicting five consecutive stings, and kills itself if a bit of stick be applied to the middle of its back. House crickets and cockroaches are plentiful, as well as lizards, and frightful spiders weave their webs. One does not count ticks, flies of sorts, bugs, fleas, mosquitoes, and small ants, and the fatal bug of Miana, which vary in size, after suction, from almost invisible dimensions to three-quarters of an inch. The bite does not poison, but the irritation causes sad consequences. Huts have to be sprinkled with boiling water to do away with some of these nuisances.
"It is customary for Caravans proceeding to the Tanganyika to remain for six weeks or two months at Unyanyembe for repose and recovery from the labours they are supposed to have endured, to enjoy the pleasures of 'civilized society,' to accept the hospitality offered by the Arabs. All our party, except Jack and I, considered Unyanyembi the end of the exploration, but to us it merely meant a second point of departure easier than the first, because we had gained experience. We had, however, a cause of delay. Jack had become strong, but all the rest got ill. Valentine, my Goanese boy, was insensible for three days and nights from bilious fever, and when he recovered Gaetano got it and was unconscious. Then followed the bull-headed slave, Mabruki, and lastly Bombay, while the rest of the following, who had led a very irregular life, began to pay the penalty of excess. They brought us a mganga, or witch, who doctored us. However, we got distressing weakness, liver derangement, burning palms, tingling soles, aching eyes, and alternate chills of heat and cold, and we delayed till the 1st of December, during which we learnt a lot of necessary things.
"My good Snay bin Amir sent into the country for plantains and tamarinds, and brewed a quantity of beer and plantain wine. He lent me valuable assistance concerning the country and language, and we were able, through him, to learn all about the Nyanza or Northern Lake, and the maps forwarded from Kázeh to the Royal Geographical Society will establish this fact, as they were subsequently determined, after actual exploration, by Jack. Snay bin Amir took charge of all the letters and papers for home, and his energy enabled me afterwards to receive the much-needed reserve of supplies in the nick of time.
"On the 15th we went on to Yombo, where I remarked three beauties who would be deemed beautiful in any part of the world. Their faces were purely Grecian, they had laughing eyes, their figures were models for an artist, like the bending statue that delights the world, cast in bronze. These beautiful domestic animals smiled graciously when, in my best Kinyamwezi, I did my devoir to the sex, and a little tobacco always secured for me a seat in the 'undress circle.'
"On the 22nd of December Jack came back, and we left on the 23rd of December, and marched to the district of Eastern Wilyankuru; and there we again separated, and I went on alone to Muinyi Chandi, and my people were very troublesome. Said bin Salim, believing that my days were numbered, passed me on the last march without a word. The sun was hot, and he and his party were hastening to shade, and left me with only two men to carry the hammock in a dangerous jungle, where shortly afterwards an Arab merchant was murdered. On Christmas Day I mounted my ass, passed through the western third of the Wilyankuru district, and was hospitably received by one Salim bin Said, surnamed Simba the Lion, who received me with the greatest hospitality. He was a large, middle-aged man, with simple and kindly manners, and an honesty of looks and words which rendered his presence extremely prepossessing.
"The favourite dish in this country is the pillaw, or pilaf, here called pulao; and here I want to digress. For the past century, which concluded with reducing India to the rank of a British province, the proud invader has eaten her rice after a fashion which has secured for him the contempt of the East. He deliberately boils it, and after drawing off the nutritious starch, or gluten, called conjee, which forms the perquisite of the Portuguese or his pariah cook, he is fain to fill himself with that which has become little more nutritious than the prodigal's husks. Great, indeed, is the invader's ignorance upon that point. Peace be to the manes of Lord Macaulay, but listen to and wonder at his eloquent words: 'The Sepoys came to Clive, not to complain of their scanty fare, but to propose that all the grain should be given to the Europeans, who required more nourishment than the natives of Asia. The thin gruel, they said, which was strained away from the rice, would suffice for themselves. History contains no more touching instance of military fidelity, or of the influence of a commanding mind.' Indians never fail to drink the conjee. The Arab, on the other hand, mingles with his rice a sufficiency of ghee to prevent the extraction of the 'thin gruel,' and thus makes the grain as palatable and as nutritious as Nature intended it to be—and dotted over with morsels of fowl, so boiled that they shredded like yarn under the teeth.
"Shaykh Masud boasted of his intimacy with the Sultan Msimbira, whose subjects had plundered our portmanteau, and offered, on return to Unyanyambe, his personal services in ransoming it. I accepted with joy, but it afterwards proved that he nearly left his skin in the undertaking. The climate of Kíríra, where I arrived on the 27th of December, is called by the Arabs a medicine, and I spent a delicious night in the cool Barzah after the unhealthy air of Kázeh. Three marches more brought me to Msene, where I was led to the tembe of one Saadullah, a low-caste Msawahili, and there I found Jack, looking very poorly. We were received with great pomp and circumstance; the noise was terrific, and Gaetano, Jack's boy, was so excited by the scene that he fell down in an epileptic fit, which fits returned repeatedly.
"On the 10th of January we left, and arrived at Mb'hali, and passed through dense jungle, and eventually came to Sorora and Kajjanjeri, and here we were freshly ill from miasma. About three in the afternoon I was forced to lay aside my writing by an unusual sensation of nervous irritability, which was followed by a general shudder as in the cold paroxysm of fevers. Presently my extremities began to weigh, and began to burn as though exposed to a glowing fire, and my jack-boots became too tight and heavy to wear. At sunset the attack reached its height. I saw yawning wide to receive me—
'Those dark gates across the wild
That no man knows.'My body was palsied, powerless, motionless; the limbs appeared to wither and die; the feet had lost all sensation, except a throbbing and a tingling as if pricked by needle points, the arms refused to be directed by will, and to the hands the touch of cloth and stone was the same. Gradually the attack spread upwards till it seemed to compress my ribs, and stopped short there. This at a distance of two months of any medical aid, and with the principal labour of the expedition still in prospect! If one of us was lost, I said to myself, the other might survive to carry home the results of the exploration, which I had undertaken with the resolve either to do or die. I had done my best, and now nothing appeared to remain for me but to die as well.
Partial Paralysis. Blindness. Elephants.
"It was partial paralysis, brought on by malaria, well known in India. I tried the usual remedies without effect, and the duration of the attack presently revealed what it was. The contraction of the muscles, which were tightened like ligatures above and below the knees, and those λύταγούνατα [Greek: lytagounata], a pathological symptom which the old Greek loves to specify, prevented me from walking to any distance for nearly a year; the numbness of the hands and feet disappeared more slowly, but the Fundi predicted that I should be able to move in ten days, and on the 10th I again mounted my ass. At Usagozi, Jack, whose blood had been impoverished, and whose system had been reduced by many fevers, now began to suffer from inflammation of the eyes, which produced an almost total blindness, rendering every object enclouded by a misty veil. Goanese Valentine suffered the same on the same day, and subsequently, at Ujiji, was tormented by inflammatory ophthalmia. I suffered in a minor degree. On the 3rd of February we debouched from a jungle upon the river plain; the swift brown stream, there fifty yards broad, was swirling through the tall wet grasses of its banks on our right hand, hard by our track. Upon the off-side, a herd of elephants in Indian file broke through the reed fence in front of them.
The Crossing of the Great River Malagarázi.
"The Malagarázi, corrupted by speculative geographers to Mdjigidgi—the uneuphonious terminology of the 'Mombas Mission Map'—to 'Magrassie,' and to 'Magozi,' has been wrongly represented to issue from the Sea of Ujiji. According to all travellers in these regions, it rises in the mountains of Urundi, at no great distance from the Kitangure, or river of Karagwah; but whilst the latter, springing from the upper counterslope, feeds the Nyanza, or Northern Lake, the Malagarázi, rising in the lower slope of the equatorial range, trends to the south-east, till it becomes entangled in the decline of the Great Central African Depression—the hydrographical basin first indicated in his address of 1852 by Sir Roderick I. Murchison, president of the Royal Geographical Society of London.[2] Thence it sweeps round the southern base of Urundi, and, deflected westwards, it disembogues itself into the Tanganyika. Its mouth is in the land of Ukaranga, and the long promontory behind which it discharges its waters is distinctly visible from Kawele, the head-quarters of Caravans in Ujiji. The Malagarázi is not navigable; as in primary and transition countries generally, the bed is broken by rapids. Beyond the ferry the slope becomes more pronounced, branch and channel islets of sand and verdure divide the stream, and as every village near the banks appears to possess one or more canoes, it is probably unfordable. The main obstacle to crossing it on foot, over the broken and shallower parts near the rock-bars, would be the number and the daring of the crocodiles.
"The mukunguru of Unyamwezi is the severest seasoning-fever in this part of Africa; it is a bilious-remittent lasting three days, which reduces the patient to nothing, and often followed by a long attack of tertian type. The consequences are severe and lasting, even in men of the strongest nervous diathesis; burning and painful eyes, hot palms and soles, a recurrence of shivering and flushing fits, extremities alternately icy cold, then painfully hot and swollen, indigestion, sleeplessness, cutaneous eruptions, fever sores, languor, dejection, all resulting from torpidity of liver, from inordinate secretion of bile, and shows the poison in the system. Sometimes the fever works speedily; some become at once delirious, and die on the first or second day.
"From Tura to Unyamwezi the Caravans make seven marches of sixty geographical miles. The races requiring notice in this region are two—Wakimbu and the Wanyamwezi."
[1] Some of these things disappeared in a very singular manner, and one was very curiously fated. It was missed here, and came home to me in six years. Later on, in 1863, it again disappeared for six years. It was stolen at Fernando Po in 1863; it was marked by somebody on a bit of parchment, "Burton's Original Manuscript Diary, Africa, 1857." Colonel Maude, the Queen's Equerry, saw it outside an old book-shop, was attracted by the label on the Letts's Diary. He bought it for a few shillings, called on Lord Derby, and left it in the hall, forgetting it. Lord Derby, coming down, saw the book, recognized my handwriting, wrote to Colonel Maude for permission to restore the private diary to its rightful owner. We happened to be in town. He kindly called and gave it back to us, so that journal twice disappeared for six years, but had to come home. Who shall say there is no destiny in this?