The Wahumba, like their congeners the Wakwafi, bandage the infant’s leg from ankle to knee, and the ligature is not removed till the child can stand upright. Its object is to prevent the development of the calf, which, according to their physiology, diminishes the speed and endurance of the runner. The specimens of Wahumba seen in different parts of Ugogo showed the soleus and gastrocnemeius muscles remarkably shrunken, and the projection of the leg rising close below the knee.
VIEW IN UNYAMWEZI.
Ladies’ Smoking Party.
CHAP. X.
WE ENTER UNYAMWEZI, THE FAR-FAMED LAND OF THE MOON.
The district of Tura, though now held, like Jiwe la Mkoa and Mgongo T’hembo, by Wakimbu, is considered the eastern frontier of Unyamwezi proper, which claims superiority over the minor neighbouring tribes. Some, however, extend the “land of the moon” eastward as far as Jiwe la Mkoa, and the porters when entering the “Fiery Field,” declare that they are setting foot upon their own ground. The word “Tura,” pronounced by the Wanyamwezi “Tula” or “Itula,” means “put down!” (scil. your pack): as the traveller, whether from the east or from the west, will inevitably be delayed for some days at this border settlement. Tula is situated in S. lat. 5° 2′ and E. long. 33° 57′, and the country rises 4,000 feet above sea level. After the gloomy and monotonous brown jungles and thorn forests of Mgunda Mk’hali, whose sinuous line of thick jungle still girds the northern horizon, the fair champaign, bounded on either hand by low rolling and rounded hills of primary formation, with a succession of villages and many a field of holcus and sesamum, maize, millet, and other cereals, of manioc and gourds, water melons and various pulses, delights the sight, and appears to the African traveller a Land of Promise.
The pertinacious Kidogo pressed me to advance, declaring the Wakimbu of Tura to be a dangerous race: they appeared however a timid and ignoble people, dripping with castor and sesamum oil, and scantily attired in shreds of unclean cotton or greasy goat-skins. At Tura the last of the thirty asses bought at Zanzibar paid the debt of nature, leaving us, besides the one belonging to the Jemadar, but three African animals purchased on the road. A few extra porters were therefore engaged. Our people, after the discomforts of the bivouac, found the unsavoury village a perfect paradise; they began somewhat prematurely to beg for Bakhshish, and Muinyi Wazira requested dismissal on the plea that a slave sent by him on a trading-expedition into the interior had, by dying, endangered the safety of the venture. On the morning of the 30th October Kidogo led us over the plain through cultivation and villages to another large settlement on the western outskirt of the Tura district. As I disappointed him in his hopes of a Tirikeza, he passed the night in another Tembe, which was occupied by the caravans of Coast-Arabs and their slave girls, to one of whom, said Scan. Mag., he had lost his heart, and he punished me by halting through the next day. As we neared the end of the journey the sons of Ramji became more restive under their light loads; their dignity was hurt by shouldering a pack, and day after day, till I felt weary of life, they left their burdens upon the ground. However, on the 1st November, they so far recovered temper that the caravan was able to cross the thin jungle, based upon a glaring white soil, which divides the Tura from the Rubuga District. After a march of 6 hrs. and 30′, we halted on the banks of the Kwale or “Partridge” Nullah, where, though late in the season, we found several long pools of water. The porters collected edible bivalves and caught a quantity of mud-fish by the “rough and ready” African process, a waist-cloth tied to a pair of sticks, and used by two men as a drag-net. At Rubuga, which we reached in 5 hrs. and 45′, marching over a plain of black earth, thinly garnished with grass and thorn-trees, and then through clearings overgrown with stubble, I was visited by an Arab merchant, Abdullah bin Jumah, who, with a flying-caravan, had left Konduchi on the coast 2 months and 20 days after our departure. According to him his caravan had lately marched thirty miles in the twenty-four hours: it was the greatest distance accomplished in these regions; but the Arabs are fond of exaggeration, the party was small and composed of lightly laden men, and moreover it required two days’ rest after so unusual an exertion. This merchant unwittingly explained a something which had puzzled me; whenever an advance beyond Unyanyembe had been made the theme of conversation, Said bin Salim’s countenance fell, and he dropped dark hints touching patience and the power of Allah to make things easy. Abdullah rendered the expression intelligible by asking me if I considered the caravan strong enough to dare the dangers of the road—which he grossly exaggerated—between Unyamwezi-Land and Ujiji. I replied that I did, and that even if I did not, such bugbears should not cause delay; Abdullah smiled, but was too polite to tell me that he did not believe me.
A “doux marcher” of 2 hrs. 40′ on the 3rd November, led us to the western limit of the Rubuga District. During the usual morning-halt under a clump of shady milk-bush, I was addressed by Maura or Maula, the Sultan of a large neighbouring village of Wanyamwezi: being a civilised man and a coast-traveller, he could not allow the caravan of the “Wazungu” to pass his quarters without presenting to him a bullock, and extracting from him a little cloth. Like most chiefs in the “Land of the Moon,” he was a large-limbed, gaunt, angular, tall old man, with a black oily skin, seamed with wrinkles; and long wiry pigtails thickened with grease, melted butter, and castor-oil, depending from the sides of his purbald head. His dress—an old Barsati round the loins, and a grimy Subai loosely thrown over the shoulders—was redolent of boiled frankincense; his ankles were concealed by a foot depth of brass and copper “Sambo,” thin wires twisted round a little bundle of elephant’s, buffalo’s, or zebra’s hair; and he wore single-soled sandals, decorated with four disks of white shell, about the size of a crown-piece, bound to the thongs that passed between the toes and girt the heel. He recognised the Baloch, greeted all kindly, led the way to his village, ordered lodgings to be cleared and cleaned, caused the cartels or bedsteads,—the first seen by us for many months,—to be vacated, and left us to look for a bullock. At the village door I had remarked a rude attempt at fashioning a block of wood into what was palpably intended for a form human and feminine; the Moslems of course pronounced it to be an idol, but the people declared that they paid no respect to it. They said the same concerning the crosses and the serpent-like ornaments of white ashes—in this land lime is unknown—with which the brown walls of their houses were decorated.
We made bonne chère at Rubuga, which is celebrated for its milk and meat, ghee and honey. On the wayside were numerous hives, the Mazinga or “cannons,” before described; here however they were raised out of the reach of the ants, white and black, upon a pair of short forked supports, instead of being suspended from the branches of a tall tree. My companion brought from a neighbouring swamp a fine Egyptian, or ruddy goose, and a brace of crane-like water-fowl: these the Wanyamwezi porters, expecting beef, disdained, because rejected by the Baloch, yet at Inenge they had picked the carcase of a way-spent ass. Presently we were presented by the Sultan with one of the fattest of his fine bulls; it was indeed