At Muhama I halted three days, a delay which generally occurred before long desert marches for which provisions are required. On the first, Kidogo would bring about sixty pounds of grain; on the second, he would disperse his men throughout the villages, and procure the 300 pounds required for five marches; and on the third, he would cause it to be husked and pounded, so as to be ready for the morrow. Three up-caravans, containing a total of about 150 men, suffering severely from small-pox, here passed us. One was commanded by Khalfan bin Muallim Salim and his brother Id, coast Arabs, whom we afterwards met at two places. He told me several deliberate falsehoods about the twenty-two porters that were to follow us, for instance, that he had left them, halted by disease, at Kidunda, in the maritime region, under the command of one Abdullah bin Jumah, and thus he led me to expect them at a time when they had not even been engaged. He and his men also spread reports in Ugogo and other places where the people are peculiarly suspicious concerning the magical and malignant powers of the “whites;” in fact, he showed all the bad spirit of his bastard blood. At Muhama, the furthest point westward to which the vuli or autumnal rains extend, the climate was still that of the Rufuta Range, foggy, misty mornings, white rags of cloudbank from the table-cloths outspread upon the heights, clear days, with hot suns and chilling south winds, and raw dewy nights. I again suffered from fever; the attack, after lasting seven days, disappeared, leaving, however, hepatic complications, which having lasted uninterruptedly ten months, either wore themselves out, or yielded to the action of acids, narcotics, and stimulants tardily forwarded from Zanzibar. Here also over-fatigue, in a fruitless shooting-excursion, combined with the mephitic air of stagnant, weedy waters, caused a return of my companion’s fever.
Two other Wanyamwezi porters were laid up with small-pox. One ass died of fatigue, whilst a second torn by a hyæna, and a third too weak to walk, were left, together with the animal that had been stung by bees, in charge of Mpambe, headman of the Wangindo. Being now reduced to the number of nineteen beasts, I submitted to Said bin Salim the advisability of leaving behind wire and ammunition, either cached in the jungle, as is the custom of these lands, or entrusted to the headman. The Arab approved; Kidogo, however, dissented. I took the opinion of the latter, he was positive that the effects once abandoned would never be recovered, and that the headman, who appeared a kind of cunning idiot, was not to be trusted. Some months afterwards I commissioned an Arab merchant, who was marching towards the coast, to recover the asses left in the charge of Mpambe; the latter refused to give them up, thus proving the soundness of Kidogo’s judgment.
Having collected with difficulty—the land was sun-cracked, and the harvest-store had been concealed by the people—some supplies, but scarcely sufficient for the long desert tract, we began, on the 21st of August, to cross the longitudinal plain that gently shelving westward separates the Rufuta from the second, or Mukondokwa Range. The plain was enclosed on all sides by low lines of distant hill, and cut by deep nullahs, which gave more than the usual amount of trouble. The tall Palmyra (Borassus Flabelliformis), whose majestic bulging column renders it so difficult to climb, was a novel feature in the scenery. This tree, the Mvumo of East Africa, and the Deleb-palm of the Upper Nile, is scattered through the interior, extending to the far south. On this line it is more common in Western Unyamwezi, where, and where only, an intoxicating toddy is drawn from the cut frond, than elsewhere. The country abounded in game, but we were both too weak to work—my companion, indeed, was compelled to lag behind—and the Baloch, to whom the guns were lent, returned empty-handed. Sign of the Mbogo (Bos Caffer) here appeared; it is general in East Africa, especially upon the river plains where water abounds. These wild cattle are fine animals, somewhat larger than the common-sized English bullock, with uniform dun skins, never parti-coloured like the tame herds, and with thick black-brown horns, from twelve to thirteen inches broad at the base, diverging outwards, and incurved at the points, which in large specimens are distant about three feet from each other; they are separated by a narrow channel, and this in age becomes a solid mass of bone. The Mbogo is as dull of comprehension as it is fierce and powerful; affecting particular spots, it will often afford several chances of a successful shot to the Fundi—Shikari, or Chasseur—of a caravan: the Africans kill it with arrows. The flesh, though considered heating and bilious, is eaten, and the hide is preferred for thongs and reins to that of the tame animal.
The approach to the kraal was denoted by a dead level of dry, caked, and cracked mud, showing the subsidence of an extensive inundation. We passed a large camping-ground, affected by down-caravans, on the near side of the Makata, a long river-like “tank,” whose lay is E. by N. The oozy banks of this water, which is said to flow after rains into the Mukondokwa River, are fringed with liliaceous and other large aquatic plants; the water, though dark, is potable. After fording the tank, which was then breast-deep, we found on the further side the kraal used by porters of up-caravans, who sensibly avoid commencing the day with hard labour, and who fear that a sudden fall of rain might compel them to intempestive halts. In such places, throughout the country, there are two distinct khambi, one on each side of the obstacle, whether this be a river, a pass, or a populous clearing; in the latter case, caravans unload at the farther end of the cultivation, prepared to escape from a fray into the jungle, without running the gauntlet of the villages. That evening I tried to reduce the ever-increasing baggage of the sons of Ramji, who added to the heaps piled upon the wretched asses, now burdened with rations for several days, their drums and sleeping-hides, and their cocks and hens, whilst they left the beds and the cooking-utensils of the Goanese upon the ground. They informed me that if our animals could not carry their property, they could not drive our animals. The reply was significant. With some exertion of the “rascally virtue”—Prudence—I retired.
The night was disturbed only by mosquitoes. These piping pests, however, are less troublesome in this part of East Africa than might be expected from the nature and the position of the country, and the bite has little venom compared with those of the Mozambique, or even of Western India. The common culex is a large variety, of brownish or dun colour; its favourite breeding-places are the backwaters on the banks of rivers, and the margins of muddy pools, and upon the creeks of the maritime regions, and the Central Lakes.
Pursuing our march on the 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. 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 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, 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 arms 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 condor 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 fetid reeds, rank jungle and forest, with its decaying trunks encroaching upon the hole-pierced goat-track that zigzaged towards the Myombo River. This perennial stream rises, according to the guides, in an elevation opposite to the highlands of Dut’humi. It is about fifty feet broad at the ford, breast-deep, and the swift brown waters swirl under a canopy of the trees whose name it bears. The “Myombo” is a fine specimen of African timber, apparently unknown to the people of Zanzibar, but extending almost from the coast to the Lake Regions. The flower is greenish, with the overpowering smell of the Indian jasmines; the fruit is a large pod, containing ten or twelve long hard acorns, of a brown-black colour, set in cups which resemble red sealing-wax. The coarse bark is used for building huts and kraals, the inner fibre for “bast” and ropes, and the wood makes what Easterns call a hot fire, lasting long, and burning well out. After the fiery sun and the dry atmosphere of the plains, the sudden effect of the dank and clammy chill, the result of exceeding evaporation, under the impervious shades that line the river banks, was overpowering. In such places one feels as if poisoned by miasma; a shudder runs through the frame; and a cold perspiration, like the prelude for a fainting-fit, breaks from the brow. Unloading the asses, and fording the stream, we ascended the left bank, and occupied a kraal, with fires still smoking, on its summit. Though another porter was left behind with small-pox, I had little difficulty with the luggage on this march: the more I worked the men, the harder they worked. Besides, they seldom fell sick on the road, though often prostrated when halting, a phenomenon which my companion explained by their hard eating and little exercise when stationary, and which Said bin Salim more mercifully attributed to the fatigue and exposure of the journey taking effect when the excitement had passed away.
At dawn on the 23rd of August we resumed our journey, and in 4hrs 30′ concluded the transit of the lateral plain, which separates the Rufuta from the Mukondokwa Range. The path wound over a wintry land, green with vegetation only in the vicinity of water. After struggling through a forest of canes, we heard a ngoma, or large drum, which astonished us, as we had not expected to find a village. Presently, falling into a network of paths, we lost our way. After long wandering we came upon a tobacco-field which the Baloch and the sons of Ramji had finished stripping, and conducted by some Wanyamwezi who had delayed returning to guide us, in order to indulge their love for drumming and plundering, we arrived at the débris of a once flourishing village of Wasagara, called Mbumi from its headman. A pitiable scene here presented itself. The huts were torn and half-burnt, and the ground was strewed with nets and drums, pestles and mortars, cots and fragments of rude furniture; and though no traces of blood were observed, it was evident that a Commando had lately taken place there. Said bin Salim opined this ruin to be the work of Khalfan bin Salim, the youth who had preceded us from Muhama; ever suspicious, he saw in it a plan adopted by the coast-Arab in order to raise against us the people of the mountains. Kidogo, observing that the damage was at least ten days’ old, more acutely attributed it to the Moslem kidnappers of Whinde, who, aided by the terrible Kisabengo, the robber-chief of Ukami, near K’hutu, harry the country with four or five hundred guns. Two of the wretched villagers were seen lurking in the jungle, not daring to revisit the wreck of their homes. Here again the Demon of Slavery will reign 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? That night was spent at the deserted village by our men in drumming, singing, and gleaning all that Khalfan’s gang had left; they were, moreover, kept awake by fear lest they might be surprised by the remnants of the villagers.
Late in the morning of the 24th of August, after losing another ass, torn by a cynhyæna, we followed the path that leads from Mbumi along the right bank of the Mukondokwa River to its ford. The marcescent vegetation, and the tall, stiff, and thick-stalked grass, dripped with dew, which struck cold as a freezing-mixture. The path was slippery with mud, and man and beast were rendered wild by the cruel stings of a small red ant and a huge black pismire. The former cross the road in dense masses like the close columns of an army. They are large-headed, showing probably that they are the defenders of the republic, and that they perform the duties of soldiers in their excursions. Though they cannot spring, they show great quickness in fastening themselves to the foot or ankle as it brushes over them. The pismire, known to the people as the “chungu-fundo,” or “siyafu” from the Arabic “siyaf,” is a horse-ant, about an inch in length, whose bulldog-like head and powerful mandibles enable it to destroy rats and mice, lizards and snakes. It loves damp places upon the banks of rivers and stagnant waters; it burrows but never raises hills, and it appears scattered for miles over the paths. Like the other species, it knows neither fear nor sense of fatigue; it rushes to annihilation without hesitating, and it cannot be expelled from a hut except by fire or boiling water. Its bite, which is the preamble to its meal, burns like a pinch with a red-hot needle; and when it sets to work, twisting itself round and “accroupi” in its eagerness for food, it may be pulled in two without relaxing its hold. The favourite food of this pismire is the termite: its mortal enemy is a large ginger-coloured ant, called from its painful wound “maji m’oto,” or “hot-water.” In this foul jungle our men also suffered severely from the tzetze. This fly, the torment of Cape travellers, was limited, by Dr. Livingstone, to the regions south of the Zambezi river. A specimen, brought home by me and submitted to Mr. Adam White, of the British Museum, was pronounced by him to be a true Glossina morsitans, and Mr. Petherick has fixed its limits about eight degrees north of the equator. On the line followed by the Expedition, the tzetze was found extending from Usagara westward as far as the Central Lakes; its usual habitat is the jungle-strip which encloses each patch of cultivated ground, and in the latter it is rarely seen. It has more persistency of purpose even than the Egyptian fly, and 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 even through a canvas hammock. It is not feared by the naked traveller; the sting is as painful as that of an English horsefly, and leaves a lasting trace, but this hard-skinned people expect no evil consequences from it. In the vicinity of Kilwa it was heard of under the name of “kipanga,” the “little sword.” It is difficult to conceive the purpose for which this plague was placed in a land so eminently fitted for breeding cattle and for agriculture, which without animals cannot be greatly extended, except as an exercise for human ingenuity to remove. Possibly at some future day, when the country becomes valuable, the tzetze may be exterminated by the introduction of some insectivorous bird, which will be the greatest benefactor that Central Africa ever knew.
After about an hour’s march, the narrow tunnel in the jungle—it was so close that only one ass could be led up and unloaded at a time—debouched upon the Mukondokwa ford. The view was not unpleasing. The swift brown stream was broadened by a branch-islet in its upper bed to nearly a hundred yards, and its margins were fringed with rushes backed by a screen of dense verdure and tall trees which occupied the narrow space between the water and the hills. The descent and the landing-place were equally bad. Slipping down the steep miry bank the porters sank into the river breast-deep, causing not a little damage to their loads: the ford now wetted the waist then the knee, and the landing-place was a kind of hippopotamus-run of thick slushy mud, floored with roots and branches, snags and sawyers, and backed by a quagmire rendered passable only by its matwork of tough grass-canes laid by their own weight. Having crossed over on our men’s backs, we ascended a little rise and lay down somewhat in the condition of travelling Manes fresh from the transit of the Styx. I ordered back Kidogo with a gang of porters to assist Said bin Salim who was bringing up the rear: he promised to go but he went the wrong way—forwards. Resuming our march along the river’s left or northern bank, we wound along the shoulders and the bases of hills, sometimes ascending the spurs of stony and jungly eminences, where the paths were unusually rough and precipitous, at other times descending into the stagnant lagoons, the reedy and rushy swamps, and the deep bogs which margin the stream. After a total of six hours we reached a kraal situated upon the sloping ground at the foot of the northern walls which limit the grassy river basin: through this the Mukondokwa flows in a dark turbid stream now narrowed to about forty feet. The district of “Kadetamare” was formerly a provisioning station where even cattle were purchaseable, a rare exception to the rule in the smaller settlements of Usagara. I at once sent men to collect rations, none, however, were procurable: meeting a small party that were bringing grain from Rumuma, they learned that there was a famine in the land.