Khudabakhsh was formed by nature to be the best man of the party; he has transformed himself into the worst. A man of broad and stalwart frame, with stern countenance, and a quietness of demeanour which usually argues sang-froid and persistency, his presence is in all points soldier-like and prepossessing. But his temper is unmanageable: he enters into a quarrel when certain of discomfiture; he is utterly reckless,—on one occasion he amused himself by blowing a charge of gunpowder into the calves of African warriors who were dancing in front of him;—and lastly, his innate propensity for backbiting, intrigue, and opposition to all authority, render him a dangerous member of the Expedition. He herds with Belok, whose tastes lie in the same line: he is the head and front of all mischief, and presently his presence will become insupportable.
Musa, a tall, gaunt, and dark-brown old man, is the assistant Rish Safid, or greybeard; in fact, the complement of “Greybeard Mohammed.” After a residence of twenty years at Mombasah, he has clean forgotten Persian; he speaks only a debased Mekrani dialect, and the Kisawahili, which, as usual with his tribe, he prefers. An old soldier, he compensates for want of youth and vigour by artfulness; an old traveller—nothing better distinguishes in these lands the veteran of the road from the griffin or greenhorn, than the careful and systematic consideration of his comforts—he carries the lightest matchlock, he starts in the cool of the morning, he presses forward to secure the best quarters, and throughout he thinks only of himself. His character has a want of wrath, which, despite his white hairs, causes him to be little regarded. Greybeard Mohammed is considered a fool; Greybeard Musa, an old woman. Yet he troubles himself little about the opinions of his fellows, he looks well after his morning and evening meals, his ghee, his pipe, and his sleeping mat; and knowing that he will last out all the novices, with enviable philosophy he casts ambition to the winds.
Gul Mohammed is the most civilised man of the party. He has straight and handsome features, of the old Grecian type, a reddish-brown skin—the skin by excellence—and a Central-Asian beard of largest dimensions. His mind is as civilised as his body; he is an adept after the fashion of his tribe, in divinity especially, in medicine and natural history; and when landing at Marka, he actually took the trouble to visit, for curiosity, the Juba River. Unfortunately, “Gul Mohammed” is a mixture of Baloch mountaineer-blood with the Sindhian of the plain, and the cross is, throughout the East, renowned for representing the worst points of both progenitors. Gul Mohammed is brave and treacherous, fair-spoken and detractive, honourable and dishonest, good-tempered and bad-hearted.
Of the Baloch remain Riza, and Hudul, the tailor-boy: the former is a kind of Darwaysh, utterly insignificant, but by no means so disagreeable as his fellows: the only marking corporeal peculiarity of the latter is a deficiency of skin; his mouth appears ever open, and his teeth resemble those of an old rabbit. His mental organisation has its petite pointe, its little twist; he is under the constant delusion that those who speak in unknown tongues are employed specially in abusing him. His first complaint was against the Goanese: as he could not understand a word of their language, it was dismissed with some derision; he then charged me to his comrades with his normal grievance, and in due time he felt aggrieved by my companion.
A proper regard to precedence induces me now to marshal the “sons of Ramji,” who acted as interpreters, guides, and war-men. They were armed with the old “Tower-musket,” which, loaded with nearly an ounce of powder, they never allowed to quit the hand; and with those antiquated German-cavalry sabres which find their way over all the East: their accoutrements were small leathern boxes, strapped to the waist, and huge cow-horns, for ammunition. The most part called themselves Muinyi (master), the title of an African freeman, because they had been received in pawn by the Banyan Ramji from their parents or uncles, who had forgotten to redeem the pledge, and they still claimed the honour of noble birth. Of these there were eight men under their Mtu Mku, or chief man, Kidogo—Anglicè, Mr. Little. Kidogo had preceded the Expedition, escorting the detachment of thirty-six Wanyamwezi porters to Zungomero, and he possessed great influence over his brother slaves, who all seemed to admire and to be proud of him. He was by no means a common man. “Natione magis quam ratione barbarus;” he had a fixed and obstinate determination: amongst these puerile, futile African souls he was exceptional as “a sage Sciote or a green horse.” His point of honour consisted in the resolve that his words should be held as Median laws, and he had, as the Africans say, a “large head,” namely, abundant self-esteem, that blessed quality which makes man independent of his fellows. Muinyi Kidogo is a short, thin, coal-black person, with a something arguing gentle blood in his tribe, the Wadoe Cannibals; he has a peaked beard, a bulging brow, close thin lips, a peculiar wall-eyed roll of glance, and a look fixed, when unobserved, with a manner of fascination which men felt. His attitude is always humble and deprecatory, he drops his chin upon the collar of reflection, he rarely speaks, save in dulcet tones, low, plaintive, and modulated; yet agreeing in every conceivable particular, he never fails to introduce a most pertinacious “but,” which brings him back precisely to his own starting-point. The vehemence of his manner, and the violence of his temper, win for him the fears of the porters; having a wife and children in Unyamwezi, he knows well the languages, the manners, and the customs of the people; he never hesitates, when necessary, to enforce his mild commands by a merciless application of the staff, or to air his blade and to fly at the recusant like a wild cat. In such moods, he is always seized by his friends, and led forcibly away, as if dangerous. To insure some regularity on the road, I ordered him to meet Said bin Salim and Muinyi Wazira every evening at my tent, for a “Mashauri,” or palaver, about the next day’s march and halt. The measure was rendered futile by Kidogo, who soon contrived so to browbeat the others, that they would not venture an opinion in his presence. As a chief, he would have been in the right position; as a slave, he was falsely placed, because determined not to obey. He lost no time in demanding that he and his brethren should be considered Askári, soldiers, whose sole duty it was to carry a gun; and he took the first opportunity of declaring that his men should not be under the direction of the Jemadar. Having received for answer that we could not all be Sultans, he retired with a “Ngema”—a “very well,” accompanied by a glance that boded little good. From that hour the “sons of Ramji” went wrong. Before, servilely civil, they waxed insolent; they learned their power—without them I must have returned to the coast—and they presumed upon it. They assumed the “swashing and martial outside” of valiant men: they disdained to be “mechanical;” they swore not to carry burdens; they objected to loading and leading the asses; they would not bring up articles left behind in the camp or on the road; they claimed the sole right of buying provisions; they arrogated to themselves supreme command over the porters; and they pilfered from the loads whenever they wanted the luxuries of meat and beer; they drank deep; and on more than one occasion they endangered the caravan by their cavalier proceedings with the fair sex. It was “water-painting” to complain; they had one short reply to all objections, namely, the threat of desertion. Preferring anything to risking the success of the Expedition, I was reduced to the bitter alternative of long-suffering, but it was with the hope of a revanche at some future time. The suffering was perhaps not wholly patient. Orientals advise the traveller “to keep his manliness in his pocket for braving it and ruffling at home.” Such, however, is not exactly the principle or the practice of an Englishman, who recognises a primary duty of commanding respect for himself, for his successors, and for the noble name of his nation. On the return of the Expedition, Kidogo proved himself a “serviceable villain,” but an extortionate; anything committed to him was, as the Arabs say, in “ape’s custody,” and the only remedy was to remove him from all power over the outfit.
Under the great Kidogo were the Muinyi Mboni, Buyuni, Hayja, and Jako; these four took precedence as being the sons of Diwans, whilst the commonalty was represented by the Muinyi Shehe, Mbaruko, Wulaydi, and Khamisi.
The donkey-men, five in number, had been hired at the rate of thirty dollars per head for the whole time of exploration. Their names were Musangesi, Sangora, Nasibu, Hasani, and Saramalla. Of their natures little need be said, except that they were a trifle less manageable than the “sons of Ramji:” perfect models of servile humanity, obstinate as asses and vicious as mules, gluttonous and lazy, noisy and overbearing, insolent and quarrelsome as slaves.
Lowest in rank, and little above the asses even in their own estimation, are the thirty-six Wanyamwezi Pagazi, or porters, who formed the transport-corps. Concerning these men and their burdens, a few words of explanation will be necessary.
In collecting a caravan the first step is to “make,” as the people say, a “Khambi,” or kraal. The Mtongi, or proprietor of the goods, announces, by pitching his tent in the open, and by planting his flag, that he is ready to travel; this is done because amongst the Wanyamwezi a porter who persuades others to enlist does it under pain of prosecution and fine-paying if a death or an accident ensue. Petty chiefs, however, and their kinsmen will bring with them in hope of promotion a number of recruits, sometimes all the male adults of a village, who then recognise them as headmen. The next step is to choose a Kirangozi or guide. Guides are not a peculiar class; any individual of influence and local knowledge who has travelled the road before is eligible to the post. The Kirangozi must pay his followers to acknowledge his supremacy, and his Mganga or medicine-man for providing him with charms and prophylactics. On the march he precedes his porters, and any one who breaks this rule is liable to a fine. He often undergoes abuse for losing the way, for marching too far or not far enough, for not halting at the proper place, and for not setting out at the right time. In return he enjoys the empty circumstance of command, and the solid advantage of better food and a present, which, however, is optional, at the end of the journey: he carries a lighter load, and his emoluments frequently enable him to be attended by a slave. The only way of breaking the perverse and headstrong herd into a semblance of discipline, is to support the Kirangozi at all conjunctures, and to make him, if possible, dole out the daily rations and portion the occasional presents of meat.
At the preliminary Khambi the Mtongi superintends the distribution of each Muzigo or load. The Pagazi or porters are mostly lads, lank and light, with the lean and clean legs of leopards. Sometimes, however, a herculean form is found with the bullet-head, the broad bull-like neck, the deep wide chest, and the large strong extremities that characterise the Hammal of Stamboul. There is usually a sprinkling of greybeards, who might be expected, as the proverb is, to be “leaning against the wall.” Amongst these races, however, the older men, who have learned to husband their strength, fare better than their juniors, and the Africans, like the Arabs, object to a party which does not contain veterans in beard, age, and experience. In portioning the loads there is always much trouble: each individual has his favourite fancy, and must choose, or, at any rate, must consent to his burden. To load porters properly is a work of skill. They will accept at the hand of a man who knows their nature a weight which, if proposed by a stranger, would be rejected with grunts of disgust. They hate the inconvenience of boxes, unless light enough to be carried at both ends of a “Banghi”-pole by one man, or heavy enough to be slung between two porters. The burden must never be under a fair standard, especially when of that description that it decreases by expenditure towards the end of the journey; a lightly-laden man not only becomes lazy, he also makes his fellows discontented. The nature of the load, however, causes an inequality of weight. Cloth is tightly rolled up in the form of a huge bolster, five feet long by eighteen to twenty-four inches in diameter, protected against wear and weather by Makanda or coarse matting of brab-leaf, and corded over. This bundle is fastened, for the purpose of preserving its shape and for convenience of stacking, in a cradle of three or more flexible branches, cut from a small tree below the place of junction, barked and trimmed, laid along the length of the load, and confined at the open end by a lashing of fibre-rope. Besides his weapons and marching kit, a man will carry a pack of two Frasilah or seventy pounds, and this perhaps is the maximum. Beads are placed in long, narrow bags of domestics, matted, corded, and cradled in sticks like cloth; being a less elastic load, they are more difficult to carry, and therefore seldom exceed fifty pounds. Brass, and other wires, are carried in daur, khata, or circles, lashed to both ends of a pole, which is generally the large midrib of a palm-frond, with a fork cut in its depth at one extremity to form a base for the load when stacked, and provided at the point of junction with a Kitambara or pad of grass, rag, or leather. Wire is the lightest, as ivory is the heaviest, of loads. The African porter will carry only the smallest burdens upon his head, and the custom is mostly confined to women and children. The merchants of course carry nothing but themselves, except in extreme cases; but when the sudden sickness or the evasion of a porter endangers the safety of his load, they shoulder it without hesitation. The chief proprietor usually follows his caravan, accompanied by some of his partners and armed slaves, to prevent the straggling which may lead to heavy loss; he therefore often endures the heat and tedium of the road longer than the rest of his party.