The 10th October ushered in an ugly march. Emerging betimes from the glaring white and red plains of Kanyenye, dotted with fields, villages, and calabashes, we unloaded in a thin jungle of mimosa and grass-bunches, near sundry pools, then almost dried up, but still surrounded by a straggling growth of chamærops and verdurous thorns. The bush gave every opportunity to the porters, who had dispersed in the halt, to desert with impunity. In our hurried morning tramp, want of carriage had caused considerable confusion, and at 2 P.M., when again the word “load” was given for a tirikeza, everything seemed to go wrong. Said bin Salim and the Jemadar hurried forwards, leaving me to manage the departure with Kidogo, who, whilst my companion lay under a calabash almost unable to move, substituted for his strong Mnyamwezi ass a wretched animal unable to bear the lightest load. The Baloch Belok was asked to carry our only gourd full of water; he pleaded sickness as an excuse. And, when the rear of the caravan was about to march, Kidogo, who alone knew the way, hastened on so fast that he left us to wander through a labyrinth of elephants’ tracks, hedged in by thorns and brambly trees, which did considerable damage to clothes and cutis.
Having at length found the way, we advanced over a broad, open, and grassy plain, striped with southwards-trending sandy water-courses of easy ascent and descent, and lined with a green aromatic vegetation, in which the tall palm suggested a resemblance to the valley-plains of the Usagara Mountains. As night fell upon us like a pall, we entered the broken red ground that limits the flat westwards, and, ascending a dark ridge of broken, stony, ground, and a dense thorn-bush, we found ourselves upon a higher level. The asses stumbled, the men grumbled, and the want of water severely tried the general temper.
From this cold jungle—the thermometer showed a minimum of 54° F.—we emerged at dawn on the 11th October, and after three hours’ driving through a dense bush of various thorns, with calabashes reddened by the intense heat, and tripping upon the narrow broken path that ran over rolling ground, we found the porters halted at some pits full of sweet clear water. Here the caravan preserved a remarkable dead silence. I inquired the cause. The Coast-Arabs who accompanied us were trying an experiment, which, had it failed, would have caused trouble, expense, and waste of time; they were attempting to pass without blackmail the little clearing of Usek’he, which lay to the south of the desert-road, and they knew that its Sultan, Ganza Mikono, usually posted a party upon the low masses of bristling hill hard by, to prevent caravans evading his dues. As no provisions were procurable in the jungle, it was judged better to proceed, and the sun was in the zenith before we reached the district of K’hok’ho. We halted under a spreading tree, near the head-quarter village of its villanous Sultan, in an open plain of millet and panicum-stubbles. Presently Kidogo, disliking the appearance of things—the men, rushing with yells of excitement from their villages, were forming a dense ring around us; the even more unmanageable old women stared like sages femmes, and already a Mnyamwezi porter had been beaten at the well—stirred us up and led the way to an open jungle about a mile distant. There we were safe; no assailant would place himself upon the plain, the Coast-Arabs were close at hand, and in the bush we should have been more than a match for the Wagogo.
The Baloch, fatigued by the tedious marches of the last two days, had surlily refused their escort to our luggage, as well as to ourselves. When the camp was pitched, I ordered a goat to be killed; and, serving out rations to the sons of Ramji and the porters, I gave them none, a cruel punishment to men whose souls centered in their ingesta. The earlier part of the evening was spent by them in enumerating their grievances—they were careful to speak in four dialects, so that all around might understand them, in discussing their plans of desertion, and in silencing the contradiction of their commander, the monocular Jemadar, who, having forsworn opium, now headed the party in opposition to the mutineers. They complained that they were faint for want of meat—the fellows were driving a bullock and half a dozen goats, which they had purchased with cloth, certainly not their own. I had, they grumbled, given them no ghee or honey, consequently they were obliged to “eat dry”—they knew this to be false, as they had received both at Kanyenye. We had made them march ten “Cos” in our eagerness to obtain milk—they were the first to propose reaching a place where provisions were procurable. The unmanageables, Khudabakhsh, Shahdad, and Belok, proposed an immediate departure, but a small majority carried the day in favour of desertion next morning. Kidogo and the sons of Ramji ridiculed, as was their wont, the silly boasters with, “Of a truth, brethren! the coast is far off, and ye are hungry men!” On the ensuing day, when a night’s reflection had cooled down their noble bile, they swallowed their words like buttered parsnips. I heard no more of their plans, and in their demeanour they became cringing as before.
The transit of the K’hok’ho clearing, which is also called the Nyika, or wilderness, is considered the nucleus of travellers’ troubles in Ugogo. The difficulty is caused by its Sultan, M’ana Miaha, popularly known as Maguru Mafupi, or Short-shanks. This petty tyrant, the most powerful, however, of the Wagogo chiefs, is a toothache to strangers, who complain that he cannot even plunder à l’aimable. He was described to me as a short elderly man, nearly bald, chocolate-coloured, and remarkable for the duck-like conformation which gave origin to his nickname. His dress was an Arab check round his loins, and another thrown over his shoulders. He becomes man, idiot, and beast with clockwork-regularity every day; when not disguised in liquor he is surly and unreasonable, and when made merry by his cups he refuses to do business. He is in the habit of detaining Wanyamwezi caravans to hoe his fields, and he often applies them to a corvée of five or six days during the spring-time, before he will consent to receive his blackmail.
We were delayed five days at K’hok’ho to lay in provisions for four marches, and by the usual African pretexts, various and peculiar. On the afternoon of arrival it would have been held indecent haste to trouble His Highness. On the first morning His Highness’s spouse was unwell, and during the day he was “sitting upon Pombe,” in other words, drinking beer. On the second he received, somewhat scurvily, a deputation headed by Said bin Salim, the Coast-Arab merchants, and the Jemadar. Two Wazagira, or chief-councillors, did the palaver, which was conducted, for dignity, outside the royal hovel. He declared that the two caravans must compound separately, and that in my case he would be satisfied with nothing under six porters’ loads. As about one-twelfth of his demand was offered to him, he dismissed them with ignominy, affirming that he held me equal to the Sayyid of Zanzibar, and accordingly that he should demand half the outfit. The third day was spent by the Coast-Arabs in haggling with the courtiers before His Highness, who maintained a solemn silence, certainly the easiest plan; and the present was paraded, as is customary on such occasions, in separate heaps, each intended for a particular person, but Her Highness, justly offended by the flimsiness of a bit of chintz, seized a huge wooden ladle and hooted and hunted the offenders out of doors. After high words the Arabs returned, and informed me that things were looking desperate. I promised assistance in case of violence being offered to them,—a civility which they acknowledged by sending a shoulder of beef. The fourth day was one of dignified idleness. We received a message that the court was again sitting upon Pombe, and we too well understood that His Highness, with his spouse and cabinet, were drunk as drunk could be. On the morning of the fifth day, a similar delaying process was attempted; but as the testy Kidogo, who had taken the place of the tame Said, declared that the morrow should see us march in the afternoon, the present was accepted, and the two or three musket shots usual on such occasions sounded the joyful tidings that we were at liberty to proceed. The unconscionable extortioner had received one coil of brass wire, four “cloths with names,” eight domestics, eight blue cottons, and thirty strings of coral beads. Not contented with this, he demanded two Arab checks, and these failing, a double quantity of beads, and another domestic. I compromised the affair with six feet of crimson broadcloth, an article which I had not produced, as the Coast-Arabs, who owned none, declared that such an offering would cause difficulties in their case. But as they charged me double and treble prices for the expensive cloths which the Sultan required, and which, as they had been omitted in our outfit, it was necessary to purchase from them, I at length thought myself justified in economising by the only means in my power. The fiery-tempered Coast-Arabs left K’hok’ho with rage in their hearts and curses under their tongues. These men usually think outside their heads, but they know that in Ugogo the merest pretext—the loosing a hot word, touching a woman, offending a boy, or taking in vain the name of the Sultan—infallibly leads to being mulcted in cloth.
I was delighted to escape from the foul strip of crowded jungle in which we had halted. A down-caravan of Wanyamwezi had added its quotum of discomfort to the place. Throughout the fiery day we were stung by the Tzetze, and annoyed by swarms of bees and pertinacious gadflies. On one occasion an army of large poisonous siyafu, or black pismire, drove us out of the tent by the wounds which it inflicted between the fingers and on other tender parts of the body, before a kettle of boiling water persuaded them to abandon us. These ant-fiends made the thin-skinned asses mad with torture. The nights were cold and raw, and when we awoke in the morning we found some valuable article rendered unserviceable by the termites. K’hok’ho was an ill-omened spot. There my ass “Seringe,” sole survoice of the riding animals brought from Zanzibar, was so torn by a hyæna that I was compelled to leave it behind. I was afterwards informed that it had soon died of its wounds. The next mishap was the desertion of the fifteen Wanyamwezi porters who had been hired and paid at Ugogi. These men had slept in the same kraal with the somnolent sons of Ramji, and had stealthily disappeared during the night. As usual, though they carried off their own, they had left our loads behind, that they might reach their homes with greater speed. They would choose a jungle road, to avoid the danger of slavery, and living the while upon roots and edible grasses, would traverse the desert separating them from their country in three or four days. This desertion of fifteen men first suggested to me that my weary efforts and wearing anxiety about carriage were to a certain extent self-inflictions. Expecting to see half the outfit left upon the ground, I was surprised by the readiness with which it disappeared. The men seemed to behave best whenever things were palpably at the worst; besides which, as easily as the baggage of 50 porters was distributed amongst 100, so easily were the loads of 100 men placed upon the shoulders of 50. Indeed, the original Wanyamwezi gang, who claimed by right extra pay for carrying extra weight, though fiercely opposed to lifting up an empty gourd gratis, were ever docile when a heavier pack brought with it an increase of cloth and beads.
However, the march on the 17th October had its trifling hardships. My companion rode forward on the ass lately given to us by Abdullah bin Nasib, whilst I, remaining behind and finding that no carriage could be procured for two bags of clothes and shoes, placed them upon my animal the Mnyamwezi bought at Inenge, inasmuch as it appeared somewhat stronger than the half-dozen wretched brutes that flung themselves upon the ground apparently too fagged to move. I had, however, overrated its powers: it soon became evident that I must walk, or that the valuable cargo must be left behind. Trembling with weakness, I set out to traverse the length of the Mdáburu Jungle. The memory of that march is not pleasant: the burning sun and the fiery reflected heat arising from the parched ground—here a rough, thorny, and waterless jungle, where the jasmine flowered and the frankincense was used for fuel; there a grassy plain of black and sun-cracked earth—compelled me to lie down every half-hour. The watergourds were soon drained by my attendant Baloch; and the sons of Ramji, who, after reaching the resting-place, had returned with ample stores for their comrades, hid their vessels on my approach. Sarmalla, a donkey-driver, the model of a surly negro, whose crumpled brow, tightened eyes and thick lips which shot-out on the least occasion of excitement, showed what was going on within his head, openly refused me the use of his gourd, and—thirst is even less to be trifled with than hunger—found ample reason to repent himself of the proceeding. Near the end of the jungle I came upon a party of the Baloch, who, having seized upon a porter belonging to a large caravan of Wanyamwezi that had passed us on that march, were persuading him, half by promises and half by threats, to carry their sleeping mats and their empty gourds. The strict and positive orders as regards enticing away deserters which I had issued at Inenge, were looked upon by them, in their all-engrossing egotism, as a mere string of empty words. I could do nothing beyond threatening to report their conduct to their master, and dismissing the man, who obviously stood in fear of death, with his tobacco and hoes duly counted back to him. Towards the end of that long march I saw with pleasure the kindly face of Seedy Bombay, who was returning to me in hot haste, leading an ass, and carrying a few scones and hard-boiled eggs. Mounting, I resumed my way, and presently arrived at the confines of Mdáburu, where, under a huge calabash, stood our tent, amidst a kraal of grass boothies, surrounded by a heaped-up ridge of thorns.
Mdáburu is the first important district in the land of Uyanzi, which, beginning from Western K’hok’ho, extends as far as Tura, the eastern frontier of Unyamwezi-land. It is a fertile depression of brick-red earth, bisected by a broad, deep, and sandy Fiumara, which, trending southwards, supplies from five pits water in plenty even during the driest season. It is belted on all sides by a dense jungle, over whose dark brown line appeared the summits of low blue cones, and beyond them long streaks of azure ridge, beautified by distance into the semblance of a sea. We were delayed two days at this, the fourth and westernmost district of Ugogo. It was necessary to lay in a week’s provision for the party—ever a tedious task in these regions, but more especially in the dead of winter—moreover, the Sultan Kibuya expected the settlement of his blackmail. From this man we experienced less than the usual incivility: by birth a Mkimbu foreigner, and fearing at that time wars and rumours of wars on the part of his villanous neighbour, Maguru Mafupi, he contented himself with a present which may be estimated at nineteen cloths, whereas the others had murmured at forty and fifty. However, he abated nothing of his country’s pretentious pride. A black, elderly man, dressed in a grimy cloth, without other ornament but a broad ivory bracelet covering several inches of his right wrist, he at first refused to receive the deputation because his “ministers” were absent; and during the discourse about the amount of blackmail, he sat preserving an apathetic silence, outside his dirty lodging in the huge kraal which forms his capital. The demand concluded with a fine silk-cotton cloth, on the part of his wife; and when “ma femme” appears on such occasions in these regions, as in others further west, it is a sure sign that the stranger is to be taken in. As usual with the East African chiefs, Kibuya was anxious to detain me, not only in order that his people might profitably dispose of their surplus stores, but also because the presence of so many guns would go far to modify the plans of his enemies. His attempts at delay, however, were skilfully out-manœuvred by Said bin Salim, who broke through all difficulties with the hardihood of fear. The little man’s vain terrors made him put the ragged kraal which surrounded us into a condition of defence, and every night he might be seen stalking like a troubled spirit amongst the forms of sleeping men.
At Mdáburu I hired two porters from the caravan that accompanied us; and Said bin Salim began somewhat tardily to take the usual precautions against desertion. He was ordered, before the disappearance of the porters that levanted at K’hok’ho, to pack their hire in our loads, and every evening to chain up the luggage heaped in front of our tent. The accident caused by his neglect rendered him now quasi-obedient. Moreover, two or three Baloch were told off to precede the line, and as many to bring up the rear. The porters, as I have said, hold it a point of honour not to steal their packs; but if allowed to straggle forwards, or to loiter behind, they will readily attempt the recovery of their goods by opening their burdens, which they afterwards abandon upon the road. The Coast-Arabs, in return for some small shot, which is here highly prized, assisted me by carrying some surplus luggage. Amongst other articles, two kegs of gunpowder were committed to them: both were punctually returned at Unyanyembe, where gunpowder sells at two cloths, or half a Frasilah (17·5 lbs.) of ivory per lb; but the bungs had been stove in, and a quarter of the contents had evaporated. The evening of the second day’s halt closed on us before the rations for the caravan were collected, and seventeen shukkah, with about a hundred strings of beads, barely produced a sufficiency of grain.