—without which prediction would have been impossible. When gratified he produced a little gourd snuff-box and indulged himself with a solemn and dignified pinch. He then drew forth a larger gourd which contained the great medicine, upon which no eye profane might gaze: the vessel, repeatedly shaken, gave out a vulgar sound as if filled with pebbles and bits of metal. Presently, placing the implement upon the ground, Thaumaturges extracted from the mat-bag two thick goat’s horns connected by a snake-skin, which was decorated with bunches of curiously-shaped iron bells; he held one in the left hand, and with the right he caused the point of the other to perform sundry gyrations, now directing it towards me, then towards himself, then at the awe-struck bystanders, waving his head, muttering, whispering, swaying his body to and fro, and at times violently rattling the bells. When fully primed with the spirit of prophecy, and connected by ekstasis with the ghosts of the dead, he spake out pretty much in the style of his brotherhood all the world over. The journey was to be prosperous. There would be much talking, but little killing.—Said bin Salim, in chuckling state, confessed that he had heard the same from a Mganga consulted at Zanzibar.—Before navigating the sea of Ujiji a sheep or a parti-coloured hen should be killed and thrown into the lake.—Successful voyage.—Plenty of ivory and slaves.—Happy return to wife and family.
This good example of giving valuable advice was not lost upon Mr. Rush Ramji. He insisted upon the necessary precautions of making a strong kraal and of posting sentinels every night; of wearing a kerchief round the head after dark, and of avoiding the dangerous air of dawn; of not eating strange food, and of digging fresh wells, as the Wazaramo bewitch water for travellers; of tethering the asses, of mending their ropes, and of giving them three lbs. of grain per diem. Like the medical directions given to the French troops proceeding to China, the counsel was excellent, but impracticable.
The evening concluded with a nautch. Yusuf, a Baloch, produced a saringi—the Asiatic viol—and collected all the scamps of the camp with a loud scraping. Hulluk, the buffoon, acted dancing-girl to perfection. After the normal pantomime, somewhat broadly expressed, he did a little work in his own character; standing on his head with a peculiar tremulousness from the hips upwards, dislocating his person in a sitting position, imitating the cry of a dog, cat, ape, camel, and slave-girl, and finally reproducing me with peculiar impudence before my face. I gave him a dollar, when, true to his strain, he at once begged another.
All accounts and receipts being finally duly settled with the Hindus, the last batch of three donkeys having arrived, and the baggage having been laden with great difficulty, I shook hands with old Mohammed and the other dignitaries, and mounting my ass, gave orders for immediate departure from Kuingani. This was not effected without difficulty: every one and everything, guide and escort, asses and slaves, seemed to join in raising up fresh obstacles. Four P.M. sped before we turned out of the little settlement. Among other unpleasant occurrences, Rahmat, a Baloch knave, who had formed one of my escort to Fuga, levelled his long barrel, with loud “Mimí ná pigá” (I am shooting him), when his company was objected to. His Jemadar, Yaruk, seized the old shooting-iron, which was probably unloaded, and Rahmat, with sotto-voce snarls and growls, slunk back to his kennel. A turbaned Negroid, who appeared on the path, was asked to point out the way, and, on his refusal, my bull-headed slave Mabruki struck him on the face, when, to the consternation of all parties, he declared himself a Diwan. The blow, according to the Jemadar, would infallibly lead to bloodshed.
After a second short march of one hour and a half, we pitched tents and obtained lodgings in Bomani, “the Stockade,” a frontier village, but within the jurisdiction of Bagamoyo. On this road, which ascended the old sea-beach, patches of open forest and of high rank grass divided cultivated clearings, where huts and hamlets appeared, and where modest young maidens beckoned us as we passed. The vegetation is here partly African, partly Indian. The Mbuyu,—the baobab, Adansonia digitata, monkey-bread, or calabash, the Mowana of the southern and the Kuka of the northern regions,—is of more markedly bulbous form than on the coast, where the trunk is columnar; its heavy extremities, depressed by the wind, give it the shape of a lumpy umbrella shading the other wild growths. There appear to be two varieties of this tree, similar in bole but differing in foliage and in general appearance. The normal Mbuyu has a long leaf, and the drooping outline of the mass is convex; the rarer, observed only upon the Usagara Mountains, has a small leaf, in colour like the wild indigo, and the arms striking upwards assume the appearance of a bowl. The lower bottoms, where the soil is rich, grow the Mgude, also called Mparamusi (Taxus elongatus, the Geel hout or Yellow-wood of the Cape?) a perfect specimen of arboreal beauty. A tall tapering shaft, without knot or break, straight and clean as a main-mast forty or forty-five feet in height, and painted with a tender greenish-yellow, is crowned with parachute-shaped masses of vivid emerald foliage, whilst sometimes two and even three pillars spring from the same root. The Mvumo,—a distorted toddy tree, or Hyphæna allied to the Daum palm of Egypt and Arabia,—has a trunk rough with the drooping remnants of withered fronds, above which it divides itself into branches resembling a system of Y’s. Its oval fruit is of a yellowish red, and when full-sized it is as large as a child’s head; it is eaten even unripe by the people, and is said to be the favourite food of the elephant. Pulpless, hard, and stringy, it has, when thoroughly mature, a slight taste of gingerbread, hence it is also called the Gingerbread-tree. The Ukhindu or brab, of whose fronds mats and the grass kilts worn by many of the tribes are made, flourishes throughout the country, proving that the date-tree might be naturalised. The Nyara or Chamærops humilis, the dwarf fan-palm or palmetto of Southern Europe, abounds in this maritime region. The other growths are the Mtogwe and the Mbungo-bungo, varieties of the Nux vomica; the finest are those growing in the vicinity of water. The fruit contains within its hard rind, which, when ripe, is orange-coloured, large pips, covered with a yellow pulp of a grateful agro-dolce flavour, with a suspicion of the mango. The people eat them with impunity; the nuts, which contain the poisonous principle, being too hard to be digested. The Mtunguja (the Punneeria coagulans of Dr. Stocks), a solanaceous plant called by the Indians Jangli bengan, or the wild egg-plant, by the South Africans Toluane, and by the Baloch Panír, or cheese, from the effect of the juice in curdling milk, is here, as in Somaliland, a spontaneous growth throughout the country. The same may be said of the castor plant, which, in these regions, is of two kinds. The Mbono (Jatropha curcas?) is the Gumpal of Western India, a coarse variety, with a large seed; its fetid oil, when burnt, fouls the lamp; yet, in Africa, it is used by all classes as an unguent. The Mbarika, or Palma Christi, the Irindi of India, is employed in medicine. The natives extract the oil by toasting and pounding the bean, adding a little hot water and skimming off what appears upon the surface. The Arabs, more sensibly, prefer it “cold-drawn.” These plants, allowed to grow unpruned, often attain the height of eighteen to twenty feet.
The 30th June was another forced halt, when I tasted all the bitterness that can fall to the lot of those who explore regions unvisited by their own colour. The air of Bomani is stagnant, the sun fiery, and clouds of mosquitoes make the nights miserable. Despite these disadvantages, it is a favourite halting-place for up-caravans, who defer to the last the evil days of long travel and short rations. Though impressed with the belief, that the true principle of exploration in these lands is to push on as rapidly and to return as leisurely as possible, I could not persuade the Baloch to move. In Asia, two departures usually suffice; in Africa there must be three,—the little start, the great start, and the start κατ’ εξοχην. Some clamoured for tobacco—I gave up my cavendish; others for guitar-strings—they were silenced with beads; and all, born donkey-drivers, complained loudly of the hardship and the indignity of having to load and lead an ass. The guide, an influential Mzaramo, promised by the Banyans Ladha and Ramji, declined, after receiving twenty dollars, to accompany the Expedition, and from his conduct the Baloch drew the worst of presages. Much ill-will was shown by them towards the European members of the Expedition. “Kafir end, márá bandirá na khenen” (they are infidels and must not carry our flag)—it was inscribed with the usual Moslem formula—was spoken audibly enough in their debased Mekrani to reach my ears: a faithful promise to make a target of the first man who might care to repeat the words, stopped that manner of nuisance. Again the most childish reports flew about the camp, making these jet-bearded and fierce-eyed hen-hearts faint with fears. Boxes had been prepared by the barbarians for myself, and gates had been built across the paths to arrest my party. P’hazi Mazungera, M. Maizan’s murderer, had collected a host that numbered thousands, and the Wazaramo were preparing a levée en masse. To no purpose I quoted the Arab’s proverb—“the son of fifty dieth not at thirty”; all would be heroic victims marching to gory graves. Such reports did real damage: the principal danger was the tremulous alacrity with which the escort prepared upon each trivial occasion for battle and murder, and sudden death. At one place a squabble amongst the villagers kept the Baloch squatting on their hams with lighted matches from dusk till dawn. At another, a stray Fisi or Cynhyæna entering the camp by night, caused a confusion which only the deadliest onslaught could have justified. A slave hired on the road, hearing these horrors, fled in dismay; this, the first of desertions, was by no means the last. The reader may realise the prevalence and the extent of this African traveller’s bane by the fact that during my journey to Ujiji there was not a soul in the caravan, from Said bin Salim the Arab, to the veriest pauper, that did not desert or attempt to desert.
Here, at the first mention of slaves, I must explain to the reader why we were accompanied by them, and how the guide and escort contrived to purchase them. All the serving-men in Zanzibar Island and on the coast of E. Africa are serviles; the Kisawahili does not contain even a word to express a hired domestic. For the evil of slave-service there was no remedy: I therefore paid them their wages and treated them as if they were freemen. I had no power to prevent Said bin Salim, the Baloch escort, and the “sons of Ramji,” purchasing whomever they pleased; all objections on my part were overruled by, “we are allowed by our law to do so,” and by declaring that they had the permission of the consul. I was fain to content myself with seeing that their slaves were well fed and not injured, and indeed I had little trouble in so doing, as no man was foolish enough to spoil his own property. I never neglected to inform the wild people that Englishmen were pledged to the suppression of slavery, and I invariably refused all slaves offered as return presents.
The departure from Bomani was effected on the 1st of July with some trouble; it was like driving a herd of wild cattle. At length, by ejecting skulkers from their huts, by dint of promises and threats, of gentleness and violence, of soft words and hard words, occasionally backed by a smart application of the “Bakur”—the local “cat”—by sitting in the sun, in fact by incessant worry and fidget from 6 A. M. to 3 P. M., the sluggish and unwieldy body acquired some momentum. I had issued a few marching orders for the better protection of the baggage: two Baloch were told off for each donkey, one to lead, the other to drive; in case of attack, those near the head of the file, hearing the signal, three shots, were to leave their animals and to hurry to the front, where my companion marched, whilst the remainder rallied round my flag in the rear: thus there would have been an attacking party and a reserve, between which the asses would have been safe. The only result of these fine manœuvres was, that after a two-mile tramp through an umbrageous forest in which caravans often lose the way, and then down an easy descent across fertile fields, into a broken valley, whose further side was thick with luxuriant grass, tall shrubs, and majestic trees, a confused straggling line,—a mere mob of soldiers, slaves, and asses,—arrived at the little village of Mkwaju la Mvuani,—the “Tamarind in the rains.”
The settlement is composed as usual of a few hovels and a palaver-house, with a fine lime-tree, the place of lounging and gossip, grain-husking, and mat-weaving, in the open centre. Provisions and rough muddy water being here plentiful, travellers often make a final halt to polish their weapons, and to prepare their minds for the Wazaramo. It is the last station under the jurisdiction of Bagamoyo; from Changahera, the crafty old Diwan, I obtained the services of his nephew Muinyi Wazírá, who received seventeen dollars as an inducement to travel in the interior, and was at once constituted linguist and general assistant to Said bin Salim. The day passed as usual, a snake was killed, and a gun-shot heard in the distance supplied conversation for some hours. The “sons of Ramji” carefully lost half a dozen of the axes, bill-hooks, and dibbles, with which they had been supplied, fearing lest they might be called upon to build the Síwá or Bomá, the loose thorn-fence with which the halting-place ought to be surrounded before the night, and 7 P. M. had passed before I could persuade the Baloch to catch, tether, and count the asses. One of the escort, Ismail, was attacked with dysentery and required to be mounted, although we were obliged by the want of carriage to wend our way on foot. During the last night, Said bin Salim had taken charge of three Wanguru porters, who, freshly trapped by Said el Hazrami, had been chained pro tempore to prevent desertion. The Arab boasted that he was a bad sleeper, but bad sleepers are worse watchers, because when they do sleep they sleep in earnest. The men were placed for the night in Said’s tent, surrounded by his five slaves, yet they stole his gun, and carrying off an axe and sundry bill-hooks, disappeared in the jungle. The watchful Said, after receiving many congratulations on his good fortune—fugitive slaves sometimes draw their knives across the master’s throat or insert the points into his eyes—sent off his own attendants to recover the fugitives. In the jungle, however, search was of scant avail: the Wanguru feared that if caught by the Baloch, they would lose their ears; three days would enable them to reach their own country; and their only risk was that if trapped by the Washenzi before their irons—a valuable capture to the captors—could be removed, they might again be sold to some travelling trader. As the day wore on, Said’s face assumed a deplorable expression: his slaves had not appeared, and though several of them were muwallid or born in his father’s house, and one was after a fashion his brother-in-law, he sorely dreaded that they also had deserted. He was proportionably delighted when in the dead of the night, entering Mkwaju la Mvuani, they reported ill-success; and though I could little afford the loss, I was glad to get rid of this chained and surly gang.
On the next day we began loading for the third and final departure, before dawn, and at 7.30 A. M. were on the dew-dripping way. Beyond the settlement a patch of jungle led to cultivated grounds belonging to the villagers, whose scattered and unfenced abodes were partially concealed by dense clumps of trees. The road then sweeping parallel with the river plain, which runs from N.W. to S.E., crossed several swamps, black muddy bottoms covered with tall thick rushes and pea-green paddy, and the heavily laden asses sunk knee-deep into the soft soil. Red copalliferous sand clothed the higher levels. On the wayside appeared for the first time the Khambi or substantial kraals, which evidence unsafe travelling and the unwillingness of caravans to bivouac in the villages. In this region they assumed the form of round huts and long sheds or boothies of straw or grass supported by a framework of rough sticks firmly planted in the ground and lashed together with bark-strips. The whole was surrounded with a deep circle of thorns which—the entrance or entrances being carefully closed at nightfall, not to reopen until dawn—formed a complete defence against bare feet and naked legs. About half-way a junction of the Mbuamaji road was reached, and the path became somewhat broader and less rough. Passing on the right, a hilly district, called Dunda or “the Hill,” the road fell from the ancient sea-beach into the alluvial valley of the Kinganí River; presently rising again, it entered the settlement of Nzasa, a name interpreted “level ground.”