The 2nd of September saw us en route to Márengá Mk’hali, or the “brackish water.” Fording the Rumuma above the spot where it receives the thin supplies of the Márengá Mk’hali, we marched over stony hills and thorny bushes, dotted with calabash and mimosa, the castor-shrub and the wild egg-plant, and gradually rising, we passed into scattered fields of holcus and bajri, pulse and beans. Here, for the first time, bee-hives, called by the coast-people Mazinga, or cannons, from their shape, hollowed cylindrical logs, closed with grass and puddle at both ends, and provided with an oval opening in the centre, were seen hanging to the branches of the foliaged trees. Cucumbers, water-melons, and pumpkins grew apparently without cultivation. The water-melon, called by the Arabs Johh, and by the Wasawahili Tikiti, flourishes throughout the interior, where it is a favourite with the people. It is sown before the rainy season, gathered after six months, and placed to ripen upon the flat roofs of the villages. Like the produce of Kafir-land, it is hard, insipid, fleshy, and full of seeds, having nothing but the name in common with the delicious fruit of Egypt and Afghanistan. The Junsal, or Boga, the pumpkin, is, if possible, worse than the water-melon. Its red meat, simply boiled, is nauseously sweet; it is, however, considered wholesome, and the people enjoy the seeds toasted, pounded, and mixed with the “Mboga,” or wild vegetables, with which a veritable African can, in these regions, keep soul and body together for six months. About 10 A.M., I found Khalfan’s caravan halted in a large kraal amongst the villages, on the eastern hill above the “brackish water.” They were loading for the march, and my men looked wistfully at the comfortable huts; but their halt had been occasioned by small-pox, I therefore hurried forwards across the streamlet to a wind-swept summit of an opposite hill. The place was far from pleasant, the gusts were furious; by night the thermometer showed 54° F., by day there was but scanty shelter from the fiery sun, and the “Márengá Mk’hali,” which afforded the only supplies of water, was at a considerable distance. Moreover our umbrellas and bedding suffered severely from a destructive host of white ants, that here became troublesome for the first time. The “Chunga Mchwa,” or termite, abounds throughout the sweet red clay soils, and cool damp places, avoiding heat, sand, and stone, and it acts like a clearer and scavenger; without it, indeed, some parts of the country would be impassable, and it is endowed with extraordinary powers of destruction. A hard clay-bench has been drilled and pierced like a sieve by these insects in a single night, and bundles of reeds placed under bedding, have in a few hours been converted into a mass of mud; straps were consumed, cloths and umbrellas were reduced to rags, and the mats used for covering the servants’ sleeping-gear were, in the shortest possible time, so tattered as to be unserviceable. Man revenges himself upon the white ant, and satisfies his craving for animal food, which in these regions becomes a principle of action,—a passion,—by boiling the largest and fattest kind, and eating it as a relish with his insipid ugali, or porridge. The termite appears to be a mass of live water. Even in the driest places it finds no difficulty in making a clay-paste for the mud-galleries, like hollow tree-twigs, with which it disguises its approach to its prey. The phenomenon has been explained by the conjecture that it combines by vital force the atmospheric oxygen with the hydrogen evolved by its food. When arrived at the adult state, the little peoples rise ready-winged, like thin curls of pipe-smoke, generally about even-tide, from the ground. After a flight of a few yards, the fine membranes, which apparently serve to disperse the insects into colonies, drop off. In East Africa there is also a semi-transparent brown ant, resembling the termite in form, but differing in habits, and even exceeding it in destructiveness. It does not, like its congener, run galleries up to the point of attack. Each individual works for itself in the open air, tears the prey with its strong mandibles, and carries it away to its hole. The cellular hills of the termites in this country rarely rise to the height of three feet, whereas in Somali-land they become dwarf towers, forming a conspicuous feature in the view.
No watch was kept by the Baloch at Márengá Mk’hali, though we were then in the vicinity of the bandit Wahumba. On the next day we were harangued by Kidogo, who proceeded to expound the principles that must guide us through the unsafe regions ahead. The caravan must no longer straggle on in its usual disorder, the van must stop short when separated from the main body, and the rear must advance at the double when summoned by the sound of the Barghumi, or the koodoo-horn, which acts as bugle in Eastern Africa. I thought, at the time, that Kidogo might as well address his admonitions to the wind, and I thought rightly.
The route lay through the lateral plain which separates the Mukondokwa or second, from the Rubeho or third parallel range of the Usagara Mountains. At Márengá, Mk’hali, situated as it is under the lee of the two eastern walls, upon which the humid N. E. and S. E. trade-winds impinge, the eye no longer falls, as before, upon a sheet of monotonous green, and the nose is not offended by the death-like exhalations of a pestilent vegetation. The dew diminishes, the morning-cloud is rare upon the hill-top, and the stratus is not often seen in the valley; rain, moreover, seldom falls heavily, except during its single appointed season. The climate is said to be salubrious, and the medium elevation of the land, 2500 feet, raises it high above the fatal fever-level, without attaining the altitudes where dysentery and pleurisy afflict the inhabitants. For many miles beyond Márengá Mk’hali water is rarely found. Caravans, therefore, resort to what is technically called a “Tirikeza,” or afternoon march. In the Kisawahili, or coast-language, “ku Tirikeza,” or “Tilikeza,” and in Kinyamwezi, “ku Witekezea,” is the infinitive of a neuter verb signifying “to march after noon-day”; by the Arabs it is corrupted into a substantive. Similarly the verb ku honga, to pay “dash”, tribute, passage-money, or blackmail, becomes in the mouths of the stranger, ku honga, or Honga. The tirikeza is one of the severest inflictions that African travelling knows. At 11 A.M. everything is thrown into confusion, although two or three hours must elapse before departure; loads are bound up, kitchen-batteries are washed and packed, tents are thrown, and stools are carried off by fidgeting porters and excited slaves. Having drunk for the last time, and filled their gourds for the night, the wayfarers set out when the midday ends. The sun is far more severely felt after the sudden change from shade, than during the morning marches, when its increase of heat is slow and gradual. They trudge under the fireball in the firmament, over ground seething with glow and reek, through an air which seems to parch the eyeballs, and they endure this affliction till their shadows lengthen out upon the ground. The tirikeza is almost invariably a lengthy stage, as the porters wish to abridge the next morning’s march, which leads to water. It is often bright moonlight before they arrive at the ground, with faces torn by the thorns projecting across the jungly path, with feet lacerated by stone and stub, and occasionally a leg lamed by stumbling into deep and narrow holes, the work of field-rats and of various insects.
We left Márengá Mk’hali at 1 P.M., on the 3rd September, and in order to impressionise a large and well-armed band of the country people that had gathered to stare at, to criticise, and to deride us, we indulged in a little harmless sword-play, with a vast show of ferocity and readiness for fight. The road lay over several rough, steep, and bushy ridges, where the wretched asses, rushing away to take advantage of a yard of shade, caused constant delays. The Wanyamwezi animals having a great persistency of character, could scarcely be dislodged; and when they were, they threw their loads in pure spite. After topping a little “col” or pass, we came in sight of an extensive basin, bounded by distant blue hills, to which the porters pointed with a certain awe, declaring them to be the haunts of the fierce Wahumba. A descent of the western flank led us to a space partially cleared by burning, when the cry arose that men were lurking about. We then plunged into a thick bush of thorny trees, based upon a red clayey soil caked into the semblance of a rock. Contrary to expectation, when crossing a deep nullah trending northwards, we found a little rusty, ochreish water, in one of the cups and holes that dented the sandstone of the soles. Thence the path, gradually descending, fell into a coarse scrub, varied with small open savannahs, and broken, like the rest of the road, by deep, narrow watercourses, which carry off the waters of the southern hills to the northern lowlands. About 6 P.M., we came upon a cleared space in a thick thorn-jungle, where we established ourselves for the night. The near whine of the hyæna, and the alarm of the asses, made sleep a difficulty. The impatience and selfishness of thirst showed strongly in the Baloch. Belok had five large gourds full of water, perhaps three gallons, yet he would not part with a palmful to the sick Ismail. That day I was compelled to dismiss my usual ass-leader Shahdad, the zeze-player and fracturer of female hearts, who preferring the conversation of his fellows, dragged the animal through thorns and alongside of trees so artistically, that my nether garments were soon in strips. I substituted for him Musa the Greybeard, who, after a few days, begged, with bitter tears, to be excused. It was his habit to hurry on towards the kraal and shade, and the slow hobble of the ass detained him a whole hour in sore discomfort. The task was then committed to the tailor-youth Hudul, who lost no time in declaring that I had abused him—that he was a Baloch—that he was not an asinego. Then I tried Abdullah,—the good young man. I dismissed him because every day brought with it a fresh demand for cloth or beads, gourds or sandals, for a “chit” to the Balyuz—the Consul, or a general good character as regards honesty, virtue, and the et ceteras. Finally the ass was entrusted to the bull-headed slave Mabruki, who thinking of nothing but chat with his “brother,” Seedy Bombay, and having that curious mania for command which seems part of every servile nature, hurried my monture so recklessly, that earth-cracks and rat-holes caused us twain many a severe fall. My companion had entrusted himself to Bombay, who, though he did nothing well rarely did anything very badly.
The 4th September began with an hour’s toil through the dense bush, to a rapid descent over red soil and rocks, which necessitated frequent dismounting,—no pleasant exercise after a sleepless night. Below, lay a wide basin of rolling ground, surrounded in front by a rim of hills. It was one of the many views which “catching the reflex of heaven,” and losing by indistinctness the harshness of defined outline and the deformity of individual feature, assume, viewed from afar, a peculiar picturesqueness. Traces of extensive cultivation, flocks and herds, were descried in the lower levels, which were a network of sandy nullahs; and upon the rises, the regular and irregular square or oblong habitations, called “Tembe,” were seen for the first time. Early September is, in this region, the depth of winter. Under the burning, glaring sun, the grass becomes white as the ground; the fields, stubbles stiff as harrows, are stained only by the shadow of passing clouds; the trees, except upon the nullah-banks, are gaunt and bare, the animals are walking skeletons, and nothing seems to flourish but flies and white ants, caltrops and grapple-plants. After crossing deep water-cuts trending N.E. and N.N.E., we descended a sharp incline and a rough ladder of boulders, and found a dirty and confined kraal, on the side of a rocky khad[8] or ravine, which drains off the surplus moisture of the westerly crags and highlands, and which affords sweet springs, that cover the soil as far as they extend with a nutritious and succulent grass. As this was to be a halting-place, a more than usually violent rush was made by the Baloch, the sons of Ramji, and the porters, to secure the best quarters. The Jemadar remaining behind with three of the Wanyamwezi, who were unable to walk, did not arrive till after noon, and my companion, suffering from a paroxysm of bilious fever, came in even later. Valentine was weaker than usual, and Gaetano groaned more frequently, “ang duk’hta”—body pains! To add other troubles, an ass had been lost, and “Khamsin,”—No. 50—my riding-animal, had by breaking a tooth in fighting incapacitated itself for food or drink: its feebleness compelled me to transfer the saddle to the last of the Zanzibar riding-asses, Siringe,—the Quarter-dollar—and Siringe, sadly back-sore, cowering in the hams, and slipping from under me every few minutes, showed present signs of giving in.
[8] The Indian “khad” is the deep rocky drain in hilly countries, thus differing from the popular idea of a “ravine,” and from the nullah, which is a formation in more level lands.
The basin of Inenge lies at the foot of the Rubeho or “Windy Pass,” the third and westernmost range of the Usagara Mountains. The climate, like that of Rumuma, is ever in extremes—during the day a furnace, and at night a refrigerator—the position is a funnel, which alternately collects the fiery sunbeams and the chilly winds that pour down from the misty highlands. The villagers of the settlements overlooking the ravine, flocked down to barter their animals and grain. Here, for the first time since our departure from the coast, honey, clarified butter, and, greatest boon of all, milk, fresh and sour, were procurable. The man who has been restricted to a diet so unwholesome as holcus and bajri, with an occasional treat of kennel-food,—broth and beans,—will understand that the first unexpected appearance of milk, butter, and honey formed an epoch in our journey.
The halt was celebrated with abundant drumming and droning, which lasted half the night; it served to cheer the spirits of the men, who had talked of nothing the whole day but the danger of being attacked by the Wahumba. On the next morning arrived a caravan of about 400 Wanyamwezi porters marching to the coast, under the command of Isa bin Hijji and three other Arab merchants. An interchange of civilities took place. The Arabs lacking cloth could not feed their slaves and porters, who deserted daily, imperilling a valuable investment in ivory. The Europeans could afford a small contribution of three Gorah or pieces of domestics: they received a present of fine white rice, a few pounds of salt, and a goat, in exchange for a little perfumed snuff and assafœtida, which after a peculiar infusion is applied to wounds, and which, administered internally, is considered a remedy for many complaints. I was allured to buy a few yards of rope, indispensable for packing the animals. The number of our asses being reduced from thirty to fifteen, and the porters from thirty-six to thirty, it was necessary to recruit. The Arabs sold two Wanyamwezi animals for ten dollars each, payable at Zanzibar. One proved valuable as a riding ass, and carried me to the Central Lake, and back to Unyanyembe: the other, though caponized and blind on the off-side, had become by bad treatment so obstinate and so cleverly vicious, that the Baloch called him “Shaytan yek-cham,” or the “one-eyed fiend:” he carried, besides sundries, four boxes of ammunition, weighing together 160 pounds, and even under these he danced like a deer. Nothing was against him but his character: after a few days he was cast adrift in the wilderness of Mgunda M’khali, because no man dared to load and lead him. Knowing that the Arab merchants upon this line hold it a point of honour to discourage, by refusing a new engagement, the down-porters in their proclivity to desert, and believing that it was a stranger’s duty to be even stricter than they are, I gave most stringent orders that any fugitive porter detected in my caravan should be sent back a prisoner to his employers. But the Coast-Arabs and the Wasawahili ignore this commercial chivalry, and shamelessly offer a premium to “levanters:” moreover, in these lands it is hard to make men understand the rapport between sayings and doings. Seven or eight fellows, who secretly left the party, were sent back; one, however, was taken on without my knowledge. Said bin Salim persuaded the merchants to lend us the services of three Wanyamwezi, who for sums varying from eight Shukkah to two cloths, and a coil large enough to make three wire bracelets, undertook to carry packs as far as Unyanyembe. Our Ras Kafilah had increased in Uzaramo his suite by the addition of “Zawada,”—the “nice gift,” a parting present of the headman Kizaya. She was a woman about thirty, with a black skin shining like a patent-leather boot, a bulging brow, little red eyes, a wide mouth which displayed a few long, strong, scattered teeth, and a figure considerably too bulky for her thin legs, which were unpleasantly straight, like ninepins. Her morale was superior to her physique; she was a patient and hard-working woman, and respectable in the African acceptation of the term. She was at once married off to old Musangesi, one of the donkey-men, whose nose and chin made him a caricature of our dear old friend Punch. After detecting her in a lengthy walk, perhaps not solitary, through the jungle, he was palpably guilty of such cruelty that I felt compelled to decree a dissolution of the marriage. After passing through sundry adventures she returned safely to Zanzibar, where, for aught I know, she may still grace the harem of Said bin Salim. At Inenge another female slave was added to the troop, in the person of the lady Sikujui, “Don’t know,” a “mulier nigris dignissima barris,” whose herculean person and virago manner raised her value to six cloths and a large coil of brass wire. The channel of her upper lip had been pierced to admit a disk of bone; her Arab master had attempted to correct the disfigurement by scarification and the use of rock-salt, yet the distended muscles insisted upon projecting sharply from her countenance, like a duck’s bill, or the beak of an ornithorhyncus. This truly African ornamentation would have supplied another instance to the ingenious author of “Anthropometamorphosis.”[9] “Don’t know’s” morals were frightful. She was duly espoused—as the forlorn hope of making her an “honest woman”—to Goha, the sturdiest of the Wak’hutu porters; after a week she treated him with a sublime contempt. She gave him first one, then a dozen rivals; she disordered the caravan by her irregularities; she broke every article entrusted to her charge, as the readiest way of lightening her burden, and—“le moindre défaut d’une femme galante est de l’être”—she deserted so shamelessly that at last Said bin Salim disposed of her, at Unyanyembe, for a few measures of rice, to a travelling trader, who came the next morning to complain of a broken head.
[9] Anthropometamorphosis: Man-transformed: or the Artificial Changeling, historically presented, In the mad and cruel Gallantry, foolish Bravery, Ridiculous Beauty, filthy Finenesse, and loathsome Loveliness of most NATIONS, fashioning and attiring their Bodies from the mould intended by NATURE; with figures of these Transfigurations. To which artificial and affected Deformations are added, all the Native and National Monstrosities that have appeared to disfigure the Humane Fabrick. With a VINDICATION of the Regular Beauty and Honesty of NATURE. With an Appendix of the Pedigree of the ENGLISH GALLANT. Scripsit J. B. Cognomento Chirosophus, M.D “In nova fert animus, mutatas dicere formas.” London: Printed by William Hunt, Anno. Dom. 1653.
Isa bin Hijji did us various good services. He and his companions kindly waited some days to superintend our preparations for crossing the Rubeho Range. They supplied useful hints for keeping the caravan together at different places infamous for desertion. They gave me valuable information about Ugogo and Ujiji, and they placed at my disposal their house at Unyanyembe. They “wigged” the Kirangozi, or guide, for carelessness in not building a kraal-fence every night, and for not bringing in, as the custom is, wood and water. Kidogo was reproved for allowing his men to load our asses with their luggage, and the Baloch for their continual complaints about food. The latter had long forgotten the promises made at Muhama; they returned at every opportunity to their old tactic, that of obtaining, by all manner of pretexts, as much cloth and beads as possible, ostensibly for provisions, really for trading and buying slaves. At Rumuma they declared that one cloth per diem starved them. Said bin Salim sent them its value, about fifty pounds of beans, and they had abundant rations of beef and mutton, but they could not eat beans. At Inenge they wanted flour, and as the country people sold only grain, they gave themselves up to despair. I sent for the Jemadar and told him, in presence of the merchants, that, as a fitting opportunity had presented itself, I was willing to weed the party, by giving official dismissal to Khudabakhsh and Belok, to the invalid Ismail and his musical “brother” Shahdad. All four, when consulted, declared that they would die rather than blacken their faces by abandoning the “Haji Abdullah;” that same evening, however, as I afterwards learned, they wrote, by means of the Arabs, a heartrending complaint to their chief Jemadar at Zanzibar, declaring that he had thrown them into the fire (of affliction), and that their blood was upon his hands. My companion prepared official papers and maps for the Secretary of the Royal Geographical Society, and I again indented upon the Consul and the Collector of Customs for drugs, medical comforts, and an extra supply of cloth and beads, to the extent of 400 dollars, for which a cheque upon my agents in Bombay was enclosed. The Arabs took leave of us on the 2nd September. I charged them repeatedly not to spread reports of our illness, and I saw them depart with regret. It had really been a relief to hear once more the voice of civility and sympathy.