CHAP. V.
HALT AT ZUNGOMERO, AND FORMATION OF THE CARAVAN.
I halted to collect carriage and to await the arrival of the twenty-two promised porters for about a fortnight at that hot-bed of pestilence, Zungomero, where we nearly found “wet graves.” Our only lodging was under the closed eaves of a hut built African-fashion, one abode within the other. The roof was a sieve, the walls were systems of chinks, and the floor was a sheet of mud. Outside the rain poured pertinaciously, as if K’hutu had been situated in the “black north” of Hibernia; the periodical S. and S.W. winds were raw and chilling, the gigantic vegetation was sopped to decay, and the tangled bank of the Mgeta River, lying within pistol-shot of our hovels, added its quotum of miasma. The hardships of a march in inclement weather had taken effect upon the Baloch guard: expecting everything to be done for them they endured seven days of wet and wind before they could find energy to build a shed, and they became almost mutinous because left to make shelter for themselves. They stole the poultry of the villagers like gipsies, they quarrelled violently with the slaves, they foully abused their temporal superior, Said bin Salim, and three of the thirteen were accused of grossly insulting the women of the Wak’hutu. The latter charge, after due investigation, was “not proven:” we had resolved, in case of its being brought home, severely to flog the culprits or to turn them out of camp.
On the 27th July, Sayf bin Salim returned to Dut’humi with his gang of thirty slaves, who also had distinguished themselves by laying violent hands on sheep, goats, and hens. Their patroon had offered to carry our baggage half-way over the mountains to Ugogo, for a sum of sixty dollars; thinking his conditions exorbitant, I stipulated for conveyance the whole way. He refused, declaring that he was about to organise another journey up-country. I doubted his assertion, as he was known to have audaciously defrauded Musa Mzuri, an Indian merchant, who had entrusted him with a large venture of ivory at Kazeh: yet he spoke truth; nearly a year afterwards we met him on his march to the “Sea of Ujiji.” During his visit he had begged for drugs, tea, coffee, sugar, spices, everything, but the stores were already far wasted by the improvidence of the Goanese, who seemed to think that they were living in the vicinity of a bazar. To punish me for not engaging his gang, he caused the desertion of nine porters hired at Dut’humi, by declaring that I was bearing them into slavery. As they carried off, in addition to half their pay, sundry sundries and Muinyi Wazira’s sword, I sent three slave-musketeers to recover the stolen goods per force if necessary. With respect to the cloth, Sayf bin Salim wrote back to say that as I could well afford the loss of a few “domestics,” he would not compel the fugitives to restore it: at the same time that he did himself the honour to return the sword, which I might want. This man proved himself the sole “base exception” to the hospitality and the courteousness of the Omani Arabs. I forwarded an official complaint to H. M. the Sayyid Majid, but the arm of Zanzibar has not yet reached K’hutu.
At Zungomero five fresh porters were engaged, making up the whole party to a total of 132 souls. They were drafted into the men of Muinyi Wazira, whose open indulgence in stingo had made his society at meals distasteful to Moslem sticklers for propriety. He was an able interpreter, speaking five African dialects, which is not, however, in these lands a remarkable feat, and when sober, he did at first the work of three men. But linguists are a dangerous race, as the annals of old India prove:—I doubt a bilingual Eastern man, and if he can speak three languages I do not doubt him at all. Moreover, true to his semi-servile breed—his dam was a Mzaramo slave, and his sire a half-caste Wawahili—he began well and he finished badly. His deep undying fondness for pombe or holcus beer, kept him in alternate states of maudlin apathy or of violent pugnacity. He had incurred heavy debts upon the coast. After his arrival at Unyamwezi, letters were sent urging upon the Arabs his instant arrest, but fortunately for him the bailiff and the jailor are not, as the venerable saying declares the schoolmaster to be, abroad. Muinyi Wazira, however, did not sight the Sea of Ujiji in my service, and his five messmates, who each received 15 dollars’ worth of cloth for the journey thither and back, were not more fortunate.
Before marching from Zungomero into the mountains I will order, for the reader’s inspection, a muster of the party, and enlist his sympathies in behalf of the unhappy being who had to lead it.
Said bin Salim may pass on: he has been described in Blackwood (February, 1858) and he scarcely deserves a second notice. He is followed by his four slaves, including the boy Faraj, who will presently desert, and without including his acting wife, the lady Halimah. That young person’s pug-dog countenance and bulky charms seem to engross every thought not appropriated to himself. One day, however, my ears detect the loud voice of wail proceeding from the lady Halimah, accompanying methinks the vigorous performance of a stick; the peccadillo was—but I eschew scandal and request the lady to advance.
My companion’s gun carrier, Seedy Mubarak Bombay, a negro from Uhiao, has twice been sketched in Blackwood (March, 1858 and September, 1859), he also requires no further celebrity. My henchman, Muinyi Mabruki, had been selected by his fellow-tribeman Bombay at Zanzibar; he was the slave of an Arab Shaykh, who willingly let him for the sum of 5 dollars per mensem. Mabruki is the type of the bull-headed negro, low-browed, pig-eyed, pug-nosed, and provided by nature with that breadth and power, that massiveness and muscularity of jaw, which characterise the most voracious carnivors. He is at once the ugliest and the vainest of the party: his attention to his toilette knows no limit. His temper is execrable, ever in extremes, now wild with spirits, then dogged, depressed, and surly, then fierce and violent. He is the most unhandy of men, he spoils everything entrusted to him, and presently he will be forbidden to engage in any pursuit beyond ass-leading and tent-pitching. These worthies commenced well. They excited our admiration by braving noon-day suns, and by snoring heavily through the rawest night with nothing to warm them but a few smouldering embers. In an evil hour compassion-touched, I threw over their shoulders a pair of English blankets, which in the shortest time completely demoralised them. They learned to lie a-bed o’ mornings, and when called up their shrugged shoulders and shrinking forms were wrapped tightly round, lest the breath of dawn should visit them too roughly. Idleness marked them for her own: messmates and sworn brothers; they made at the halt huts out of hail, lest they should be called to do work. As a rule, however, Englishmen have the art of spoiling Eastern servants: we begin with the utmost stretch of exertion, and we expect this high pressure system to last. Of course the men’s energies are soon exhausted, their indolence and apathy contrast with their former activity; we conceive dislikes to them, and we end by dismissing them. This, however, was not the case with Bombay and Mabruki. They returned with us to Zanzibar, and we parted à l’aimable, especially with the former, who, after a somewhat protracted fit of the “blue devils,” became once more, what he before had been, a rara avis in the lands, an active servant and an honest man.
Regard for the Indian perusers of these pages, who know by experience how “banal” a character is the half-caste oriental Portuguese, prevents my offering anything but a sketch of Valentine A. and Gaetano B. I had hired them at Bombay for Co.’s rs. 20 per mensem, besides board and lodging. Scions of that half Pariah race which yearly issues from Goa, Daman and Diu to gather rupees as “cook boys,” dry-nurses, and “buttrels,” in wealthy British India, the hybrids had their faults: a pride of caste, and a contempt for Turks and heathen, heretics and infidels, which often brought them to grief; a fondness for acting triton amongst the minnows; a certain disregard for the seventh commandment, in the matter of cloth and clothes, medicines and provisions; a constitutional repugnance to “Signior Sooth;” a wastefulness of other men’s goods, and a peculiar tenacity of their own; a deficiency of bodily strength and constitutional vigour; a voracity which induced indigestion once a day; and, finally, a habit of frequent phlebotomy which, deferred, made them sick. They had also their merits. Valentine was a good specimen of the neat-handed and ready-witted Indian: in the shortest time he learned to talk Kisawahili sufficiently for his own purposes, and to read a chronometer and thermometer sufficiently for ours: he had, however, one blemish, an addiction to “fudging,” which rendered the severest overseeing necessary. A “Davy do a’ things,” he was as clever at sewing a coat as at cooking a curry. Gaetano had a curious kind of tenderness when acting nurse, and, wonderful to relate, an utter disregard for danger: he would return alone through a night-march of jungle to fetch his forgotten keys, and would throw himself into an excited mob of natives with a fearlessness which, contrasted with his weakly body, never failed to turn their wrath into merriment. He suffered severely from the secondaries of fever, which, in his case, as in his master’s, assumed a cerebral form. At Msene he was seized with fits resembling epilepsy; and as he seemed every month to become more addle-headed and scatter-brained, more dirty and untidy, more wasteful and forgetful, more loath to work without compulsion, and more prone to start and feed the fire with ghee when it was the scarcest of luxuries, I could not but attribute many of his delinquencies to disease.
The Baloch are now to appear. My little party were servants of His Highness the Sayyid Majid of Zanzibar, who had detached them as an escort upon the usual “deputation-allowance” of ten dollars per mensem. They had received the command of their master to accompany me wherever I might please to march, and they had been rendered responsible to him for the safety of my person and property. As has been mentioned, Lieut.-Col. Hamerton had advanced to them before departure a small sum for outfit, and had promised them, on condition of good conduct, an ample reward on the part of H. M.’s Government after return to Zanzibar. These men were armed with the usual matchlock, the Cutch sabre,—one or two had Damascus blades,—the Indian hide-targe, decorated with its usual tinsel, the long khanjar or dagger, extra matches, flints and steels, and toshdan, or ammunition pouches, sensibly distributed about their persons.
The Jemadar Mallok led from Zanzibar seven warriors of fame, yclept severally, Mohammed, Shahdad, Ismail, Belok, Abdullah, Darwaysh, and the Seedy Jelai; at Kaole he persuaded to follow his fortunes, Khudabakhsh, Musa, Gul Mohammed, Riza, and Hudul a tailor boy.