At Madege Madogo, the “little birds,” so called in contradistinction to its western and neighbouring district, Madege Makuba, the “great birds,” we pitched tent under a large sycamore; and the Baloch passed a night of alarms, fancying in every sound the approach of a leopard, a hippopotamus, or a crocodile. On the 13th July, we set out after dawn, and traversing forest, jungle, and bush, chequered with mud and morass, hard by the bending and densely-wooded line of the Kingani River, reached in three hours’ march an unwholesome camping-ground, called from a conspicuous landmark Kidunda, the “little hill.” Here the scenery is effective. The swift, yellow stream, about fifty yards broad, sweeps under tall, stiff earth-works, ever green with tangled vegetation and noble trees. The conical huts of the cultivators are disposed in scattered patches to guard their luxuriant crops, whilst on the northern bank the woody hillock, and on the southern rising ground, apparently the ancient river-terrace, affect the sight agreeably after the evergreen monotony of the river-plain. A petty chief, Mvirama, accompanied by a small party of armed men, posted himself near the cantonment, demanding rice, which was refused with asperity. At this frontier station the Wazaramo, mixed up with the tribes of Udoe, K’hutu, and Usagara, are no longer dreaded.
From Kidunda, the route led over sandy ground, with lines and scatters of water-worn pebbles, descended the precipitous inclines of sandstone, broken into steps of slabs and flags, and crossed the Manyora, a rough and rocky Fiumara, abounding in blocks of snowy quartz, grey and pink syenites, erratic boulders of the hornblende used as whetstones, and strata of a rude sandstone conglomerate. Thence it spanned grass, bush, and forest, close to the Kingani, and finally leaving the stream on the right hand, it traversed sandy soil, and, ascending a wave of ground, abutted upon the Mgeta or rivulet, a large perennial influent, which, rising in the mountains of Duthumi, drains the head of the River-valley.
This lower portion of the Mgeta’s bed was unfordable after the heavy rains: other caravans, however, had made a rude bridge of trees, felled on each side, lashed with creepers, and jammed together by the force of the current. The men perched upon the trunks and boughs, tossed or handed to one another the loads and packages, whilst the asses, pushed by force of arm down the banks, were driven with sticks and stones across the stream. Suddenly a louder cry than usual arose from the mob; my double-barrelled elephant-gun found a grave below the cold and swirling waters. The Goanese Gaetano had the courage to plunge in; the depth was about twelve feet; the sole was of roots and loose sand, and the stream ran with considerable force. I bade farewell to that gun;—by the bye it was the second accident of the kind that had occurred to it;—the country people cannot dive, and no one ventures to affront the genius loci, the mamba or crocodile. I found consolation in the thought that the Expedition had passed without accident through the most dangerous part of the journey. In 18 days, from the 27th of June, to the 14th of July, I had accomplished, despite sickness and all manner of difficulties, a march of 118 indirect statute miles, and had entered K’hutu, the safe rendezvous of foreign merchants.
Resuming our march on the 15th July, we entered the “Doab,”[5] on the western bank of the Mgeta, where a thick and tangled jungle, with luxuriant and putrescent vegetation, is backed by low, grassy grounds, frequently inundated. Presently, however, the dense thicket opened out into a fine park country, peculiarly rich in game, where the calabash and the giant trees of the seaboard gave way to mimosas, gums, and stunted thorns. Large gnus, whom the porters regard with a wholesome awe, declaring that they are capable of charging a caravan, pranced about, pawing the ground, and shaking their formidable manes; hartebeest and other antelopes clustered together on the plain, or travelled in herds to slake their thirst at the river. The homely cry of the partridge resounded from the brake, and the guinea-fowls looked like large bluebells upon the trees. Small land-crabs took refuge in the pits and holes, which made the path a cause of frequent accidents; whilst ants of various kinds, crossing the road in close columns, attacked man and beast ferociously, causing the caravan to break into a halting, trotting hobble, ludicrous to behold. Whilst crossing a sandy Fiumara, Abdullah, a Baloch, lodged by accident four ounces of lead, the contents of my second elephant-gun, in the head of an ass. After a march of six hours we entered Kiruru, a small, ragged, and muddy village of Wak’hutu, deep in a plantation of holcus, whose tall, stiff canes nearly swept me from the saddle. The weather was a succession of raw mist, rain in torrents, and fiery sunbursts; the land appeared rotten, and the jungle smelt of death. At Kiruru I found a cottage, and enjoyed for the first time an atmosphere of sweet warm smoke. My companion remained in the reeking, miry tent, where he partially laid the foundation of the fever which threatened his life in the mountains of Usagara.
[5] This useful word, which means the land embraced by the bifurcation of two streams, has no English equivalent. “Doab,” “Dhun” (Dhoon), “Nullah,” and “Ghaut,” might be naturalised with advantage in our mother tongue.
Despite the danger of hyænas, leopards, and crocodiles to an ass-caravan, we were delayed by the torrents of rain and the depth of the mud for two days at Kiruru. According to the people, the district derives its name “palm leaves,” from a thirsty traveller, who, not knowing that water was near, chewed the leaves of the hyphæna-palm till he died. One of the Baloch proposed a “Hammam,”—a primitive form of the “lamp-bath,” practised in most parts of Central Asia,—as a cure for fever: he placed me upon one of the dwarf stools used by the people, and under the many abas or hair-cloaks with which I was invested he introduced a bit of pottery containing live coal and a little frankincense. At Kiruru I engaged six porters to assist our jaded animals as far as the next station. The headman was civil, but the people sold their grain with difficulty.
On the 18th July we resumed our march over a tract which caused sinking of the heart in men who expected a long journey under similar circumstances. Near Kiruru the thick grass and the humid vegetation, dripping till midday with dew, rendered the black earth greasy and slippery. The road became worse as we advanced over deep thick mire interlaced with tree-roots through a dense jungle and forest, chiefly of the distorted hyphæna-palm, in places varied by the Mparamusi and the gigantic Msukulío, over barrens of low mimosa, and dreary savannahs cut by steep nullahs. In three places we crossed bogs from 100 yards to a mile in length, and admitting a man up to the knee; the porters plunged through them like laden animals, and I was obliged to be held upon the ass. This “Yegea Mud,” caused by want of water-shed after rain, is sometimes neck-deep; it never dries except when the moisture has been evaporated by sun and wind during the middle of the Kaskazi or N. E. monsoon. The only redeeming feature in the view was a foreground of lovely hill, the highlands of Dut’humi, plum-coloured in the distance and at times gilt by a sudden outburst of sunshine. Towards the end of the march, I forged ahead of the caravan, and passing through numerous villages, surrounded by holcus-fields, arrived at a settlement tenanted by Sayf bin Salim, an Arab merchant, who afterwards proved to be a notorious “mauvais sujet.” A Harisi from Birkah in Oman, he was a tall thin-featured venerable-looking man, whose old age had been hurried on by his constancy to pombe-beer. A long residence in Unyamwezi had enabled him to incur the hostility of his fellow-merchants, especially one Salim bin Said el Sawwafi, who, with other Arabs, persuaded Mpagamo, an African chief, to seize upon Sayf, and after tying him up in full view of the plundering and burning of his store-house, to drive him out of the country. Retreating to Dut’humi, he had again collected a small stock in trade, especially of slaves, whom he chained and treated so severely that all men predicted for him an evil end. “Msopora,” as he was waggishly nicknamed by the Wanyamwezi, instantly began to backbite Said bin Salim, whom he pronounced utterly unfit to manage our affairs; I silenced him by falling asleep upon a cartel placed under the cool eaves of a hut. Presently staggered in my companion almost too ill to speak; over-fatigue had prostrated his strength. By slow degrees, and hardly able to walk, appeared the Arab, the Baloch, the slaves and the asses, each and every having been bogged in turn. On this occasion Wazira had acted guide, and used to “bog-trotting,” he had preferred the short cut to the cleaner road that rounds the swamps.
At Dut’humi we were detained nearly a week; the malaria had brought on attacks of marsh fever, which in my case lasted about 20 days; the paroxysms were mild compared with the Indian or the Sindhian type, yet, favoured by the atonic state of the constitution, they thoroughly prostrated me. I had during the fever-fit, and often for hours afterwards, a queer conviction of divided identity, never ceasing to be two persons that generally thwarted and opposed each other; the sleepless nights brought with them horrid visions, animals of grisliest form, hag-like women and men with heads protruding from their breasts. My companion suffered even more severely, he had a fainting-fit which strongly resembled a sun-stroke, and which seemed permanently to affect his brain. Said bin Salim was the convalescent of the party; the two Goanese yielded themselves wholly to maladies, brought on mainly by hard eating, and had they not been forced to rise, they would probably never have risen again. Our sufferings were increased by other causes than climate. The riding asses having been given up for loads, we were compelled, when premonitory symptoms suggested rest, to walk, sometimes for many miles in a single heat, through sun and rain, through mud and miasmatic putridities. Even ass-riding caused over-fatigue. It by no means deserves in these lands the reputation of an anile exercise, as it does in Europe. Maître Aliboron in Africa is stubborn, vicious and guilty of the four mortal sins of the equine race, he shies and stumbles, he rears and runs away: my companion has been thrown as often as twice in two hours. The animals are addicted to fidgetting, plunging and pirouetting when mounted, they hog and buck till they burst their frail girths, they seem to prefer holes and hollows, they rush about pig-like when high winds blow, and they bolt under tree-shade when the sun shines hot. They must be led, or, ever preferring the worst ground, they disdain to follow the path, and when difficulties arise the slave will surely drop the halter, and get out of harm’s way. If a pace exceeding two miles an hour be required, a second man must follow and flog each of these perfect slugs during the whole march. The roundness of their flanks, the shortness of their backs, and their want of shoulder, combine to make the meagre Arab packsaddle unsafe for anything but a baboon or a boy, whilst the straightness and the rigidity of their goat-like pasterns render the pace a wearisome, tripping hobble. We had, it is true, Zanzibari riding-asses, but the delicate animals soon chafed and presently died; we were then reduced to the Koroma or half-reclaimed beast of Wanyamwezi. The laden asses gave us even more trouble. The slaves would not attend to the girthing and the balancing of parcels—the great secret of donkey-loading—consequently the burdens were thrown at every mud or broken ground: the unwilling Baloch only grumbled, sat down and stared, leaving their Jemadars with Said bin Salim and ourselves to reload. My companion and I brought up the rear by alternate days, and sometimes we did not arrive before the afternoon at the camping ground. The ropes and cords intended to secure the herd were regularly stolen, that I might be forced to buy others: the animals were never pounded for the night, and during our illness none of the party took the trouble to number them. Thus several beasts were lost, and the grounding of the Expedition appeared imminent and permanent. The result was a sensation of wretchedness, hard to describe; every morning dawned upon me with a fresh load of cares and troubles, and every evening reminded me as it closed in, that another and a miserable morrow was to dawn. But “in despair,” as the Arabs say, “are many hopes;” though sorrow endured for the night—and many were “white” with anxiety—we never relinquished the determination to risk everything, ourselves included, rather than to return unsuccessful.
Dut’humi, one of the most fertile districts in K’hutu, is a plain of black earth and sand, choked with vegetation where not corrected by the axe. It is watered by the perennial stream of the same name, which, rising in the islands, adds its quotum to the waters of the Mgazi, and eventually to the Mgeta and the Kingani Rivers. In such places artificial irrigation is common, the element being distributed over the fields by hollow ridges. The mountains of Dut’humi form the northern boundary of the plain. They appear to rise abruptly, but they throw off southerly lower eminences, which diminish in elevation till confounded with the almost horizontal surface of the champaign; the jagged broken crests and peaks argue a primitive formation. Their lay is to the N.N.W.; after four days’ journey, according to the guides, they inosculate with the main chain of the Usagara Mountains, and they are probably the southern buttress of Ngu, or Nguru, the hill region westward of Saadani. This chain is said to send forth the Kingani River, which, gushing from a cave or fissure in the eastern, is swollen to a large perennial stream by feeders from the southern slopes, whilst the Mgeta flows from the western face of the water-parting, and circles the southern base. The cold temperature of these cloud-capped and rainy crags, which never expose their outlines except in the clearest weather, affects the plains; by day bleak north-east and north-west gusts pour down upon the sun-parched Dut’humi, and at night the thermometer will sink to 70°, and even to 65° F. Water is supposed to freeze upon the highlands, yet they are not unhealthy; sheep, goats, and poultry abound; betel-pepper grows there, according to the Arabs, and, as in the lowlands, holcus and sesamum, manioc and sweet-potatoes (Convolvulus batata), cucumbers, the turai (Luffa acutangula), and beans, plantains, and sugar-cane, are plentiful. The thick jungle at the base of the hills shelters the elephant, the rhinoceros in considerable numbers, the gnu, and the koodoo, which, however, can rarely be found when the grass is high; a variety of the ngole—a small Dendraspis—haunts the patriarchs of the forest, and the chirrup of the mongoose, which the people enjoy, as Europeans do the monotonous note of the cricket, is heard in the brakes at eventide. This part of the country, about six hours’ march northward from Dut’humi, is called the Inland Magogoni; and it is traversed by the “Mdimu” nullah, which falls into the Mgeta River. The fertile valleys in the lower and southern folds are inhabited by the Wákumbáku(?),[6] and by the Wásuop’hángá tribes; the higher elevations, which apparently range from 3000 to 4000 feet, by the Waruguru. They are compelled to fortify themselves against the cold and the villanous races around them. The plague of the land is now one Kisabengo, a Mzegura of low origin, who, after conquering Ukami, a district extending from the eastern flank of the Dut’humi hills seawards, from its Moslem diwan, Ngozi, alias Kingaru, has raised himself to the rank of a Shene Khambi, or principal headman. Aided by the kidnapping Moslem coast clans of Whinde, a small coast town opposite the island of Zanzibar, and his fellow tribemen of Uzegura, he has transferred by his frequent commandos almost all the people of Ukámí, chiefly Wásuop’hángá and Wárúgúrú, to the slave-market of Zanzibar, and, thus compelled to push his depredations further west, he has laid waste the lands even beyond the Mukondokwa river-valley. The hill tribes, however, still receive strangers hospitably into their villages. They have a place visited even by distant Wazaramo pilgrims. It is described as a cave where a P’hepo or the disembodied spirit of a man, in fact a ghost, produces a terrible subterraneous sound, called by the people Kurero or Bokero; it arises probably from the flow of water underground. In a pool in the cave women bathe for the blessing of issue, and men sacrifice sheep and goats to obtain fruitful seasons and success in war. These hill-races speak peculiar dialects, which, according to the guides, are closely connected with Kik’hutu.
[6] This unsatisfactory figure of print will often occur in these pages. Ignorance, error, and causeless falsehood, together with the grossest exaggeration, deter the traveller from committing himself to any assertion which he has not proved to his own satisfaction.