After allowing me, as is the custom, a day to rest and to dismiss the porters, who at once separated to their homes, all the Arab merchants, then about a dozen, made the first ceremonious call, and to them was officially submitted the circular addressed by the Prince of Zanzibar to his subjects resident in the African interior. Contrary to the predictions of others, nothing could be more encouraging than the reception experienced from the Omani Arabs; striking, indeed, was the contrast between the open-handed hospitality and the hearty good-will of this truly noble race, and the niggardness of the savage and selfish African—it was heart of flesh after heart of stone. A goat and a load of the fine white rice grown in the country were the normal prelude to a visit and to offers of service which proved something more than a mere vox et præterea nihil. Whatever I alluded to, onions, plantains, limes, vegetables, tamarind-cakes, coffee from Karagwah, and similar articles, only to be found amongst the Arabs, were sent at once, and the very name of payment would have been an insult. Snay bin Amir, determining to surpass all others in generosity, sent two goats to us and two bullocks to the Baloch and the sons of Ramji: sixteen years before, he had begun life a confectioner at Maskat, and now he had risen to be one of the wealthiest ivory and slave-dealers in Eastern Africa. As his health forbade him to travel he had become a general agent at Kazeh, where he had built a village containing his store-houses and his depôts of cloth and beads, slaves and ivory. I have to acknowledge many an obligation to him. Having received a “wakalat-namah,” or “power of attorney” he enlisted porters for the caravan to Ujiji. He warehoused my goods, he disposed of my extra stores, and, finally, he superintended my preparations for the down-march. During two long halts at Kazeh he never failed, except through sickness, to pass the evening with me, and from his instructive and varied conversation was derived not a little of the information contained in the following pages. He had travelled three times between Unyamwezi and the coast, besides navigating the great Lake Tanganyika and visiting the northern kingdoms of Karagwah and Uganda. He first entered the country about fifteen years ago, when the line of traffic ended at Usanga and Usenga, and he was as familiar with the languages, the religion, the manners, and the ethnology of the African, as with those of his natal Oman. He was a middle-aged man with somewhat of the Quixotic appearance, high-featured, sharp and sunken-eyed, almost beardless, light-coloured, tall, gaunt, and large-limbed. He had read much, and, like an oriental, for improvement, not only for amusement: he had a wonderful memory, fine perceptions and passing power of language. Finally, he was the stuff of which friends are made; brave as all his race, prudent withal, ready to perish for the “Pundonor,” and,—such is not often the case in the East,—he was as honest as he was honourable.
Before proceeding with the thread of my narrative, the reader is requested to bear with the following few lines upon the subject of Unyanyembe.
Unyanyembe, the central and principal province of Unyamwezi, is, like Zungomero in Khutu, the great Bandari or meeting-place of merchants, and the point of departure for caravans which thence radiate into the interior of Central Intertropical Africa. Here the Arab merchant from Zanzibar meets his compatriot returning from the Tanganyika Lake and from Uruwwa. Northwards well-travelled lines diverge to the Nyanza Lake, and the powerful kingdoms of Karagwah, Uganda, and Unyoro; from the south Urori and Ubena, Usanga and Usenga, send their ivory and slaves; and from the south-west the Rukwa Water, K’hokoro, Ufipa, and Marungu must barter their valuables for cottons, wires, and beads. The central position and the comparative safety of Unyanyembe have made it the head-quarters of the Omani or pure Arabs, who, in many cases, settle here for years, remaining in charge of their depôts, whilst their factors and slaves travel about the country and collect the items of traffic. At Unyanyembe the merchants expect some delay. The porters, whether hired upon the coast or at the Tanganyika Lake, here disperse, and a fresh gang must be collected—no easy task when the sowing season draws nigh.
Unyanyembe, which rises about 3480 feet above sea-level, and lies 356 miles in rectilinear distance from the eastern coast of Africa, resembles in its physical features the lands about Tura. The plain or basin of Ihárá, or Kwihárá, a word synonymous with the “Bondei” or low-land of the coast, is bounded on the north and south by low, rolling hills, which converge towards the west, where, with the characteristically irregular lay of primitive formations, they are crossed almost at right angles by the Mfuto chain. The position has been imprudently chosen by the Arabs; the land suffers from alternate drought and floods, which render the climate markedly malarious. The soil is aluminous in the low levels—a fertile plain of brown earth, with a subsoil of sand and sandstone, from eight to twelve feet below the surface; the water is often impregnated with iron, and the higher grounds are uninhabited tracts covered with bulky granite-boulders, bushy trees, and thorny shrubs.
Contrary to what might be expected this “Bandari-district” contains villages and hamlets, but nothing that can properly be termed a town. The Mtemi or Sultan Fundikira, the most powerful of the Wanyamwezi chiefs, inhabits a Tembe, or square settlement, called “Ititenya,” on the western slope of the southern hills. A little colony of Arab merchants has four large houses at a neighbouring place, “Mawiti.” In the centre of the plain lies “Kazeh,” another scattered collection of six large hollow oblongs, with central courts, garden-plots, store-rooms, and outhouses for the slaves. Around these nuclei cluster native villages—masses of Wanyamwezi hovels, which bear the names of their founders.
This part of Unyanyembe was first colonised about 1852, when the Arabs who had been settled nearly ten years at Kigandu of P’huge, a district of Usukuma, one long day’s march north of Kazeh, were induced by Mpagamo, to aid them against Msimbira, a rival chief, who defeated and drove them from their former seats. The details of this event were supplied by an actor in the scenes; they well illustrate the futility of the people. The Arabs, after five or six days of skirmishing, were upon the point of carrying the boma or palisade of Msimbira, their enemy, when suddenly at night their slaves, tired of eating beef and raw ground-nuts, secretly deserted to a man. The masters awaking in the morning found themselves alone, and made up their minds for annihilation. Fortunately for them, the enemy, suspecting an ambuscade, remained behind their walls, and allowed the merchants to retire without an attempt to cut them off. Their employer, Mpagamo, then professed himself unable to defend them; when, deeming themselves insecure, they abandoned his territory. Snay bin Amir and Musa Mzuri, the Indian, settled at Kazeh, then a desert, built houses, sunk wells, and converted it into a populous place.
It is difficult to average the present number of Arab merchants at Unyanyembe who, like the British in India, visit but do not colonise; they rarely, however, exceed twenty-five in number; and during the travelling season, or when a campaign is necessary, they are sometimes reduced to three or four; they are too strong to yield without fighting, and are not strong enough to fight with success. Whenever the people have mustered courage to try a fall with the strangers, they have been encouraged to try again. Hitherto the merchants have been on friendly terms with Fundikira, the chief. Their position, however, though partly held by force of prestige, is precarious. They are all Arabs from Oman, with one solitary exception, Musa Mzuri, an Indian Kojah, who is perhaps in these days the earliest explorer of Unyamwezi. In July, 1858, an Arab merchant, Silim bin Masud, returning from Kazeh to his home at Msene, with a slave-porter carrying a load of cloth, was, though well armed and feared as a good shot, attacked at a water in a strip of jungle westward of Mfuto, and speared in the back by five men, who were afterwards proved to be subjects of the Sultan Kasanyare, a Mvinza. The Arabs organised a small expedition to revenge the murder, marched out with 200 or 300 slave-musketeers, devoured all the grain and poultry in the country, and returned to their homes without striking a blow, because each merchant-militant wished his fellows to guarantee his goods or his life for the usual diyat, or blood-money, 800 dollars. This impunity of crime will probably lead to other outrages.
The Arabs live comfortably, and even splendidly, at Unyanyembe. The houses, though single-storied, are large, substantial, and capable of defence. Their gardens are extensive and well planted; they receive regular supplies of merchandise, comforts, and luxuries from the coast; they are surrounded by troops of concubines and slaves, whom they train to divers crafts and callings: rich men have riding-asses from Zanzibar, and even the poorest keep flocks and herds. At Unyanyembe, as at Msene, and sometimes at Ujiji, there are itinerant fundi, or slave-artisans—blacksmiths, tinkers, masons, carpenters, tailors, potters, and rope-makers,—who come up from the coast with Arab caravans. These men demand exorbitant wages. A broken matchlock can be repaired, and even bullets cast; good cord is purchaseable; and for tinning a set of seventeen pots and plates five shukkah merkani are charged. A pair of Arab stirrups are made up for one shukkah besides the material, and chains for animals at about double the price. Fetters and padlocks, however, are usually imported by caravans. Pack-saddles are brought from Zanzibar: in caravans a man may sometimes be found to make them. There is, moreover, generally a pauper Arab who for cloth will make up a ridge-tent; and as most civilised Orientals can use a needle, professional tailors are little required. Provisions are cheap and plentiful; the profits are large; and the Arab, when wealthy, is disposed to be hospitable and convivial. Many of the more prosperous merchants support their brethren who have been ruined by the chances and accidents of trade. When a stranger appears amongst them, he receives the “hishmat l’il gharíb,” or the guest-welcome, in the shape of a goat and a load of white rice; he is provided with lodgings, and is introduced by the host to the rest of the society at a general banquet. The Arabs’ great deficiency is the want of some man to take the lead. About fifteen years ago Abdullah bin Salim, a merchant from Zanzibar, with his body of 200 armed slaves, kept the whole community in subjection: since his death, in 1852, the society has suffered from all the effects of disunion where union is most required. The Arab, however, is even in Africa a Pantisocrat, and his familiarity with the inferior races around him leads to the proverbial consequences.
The houses of the Arabs are Moslem modifications of the African Tembe, somewhat superior in strength and finish. The deep and shady outside-verandah, supported by stout uprights, shelters a broad bench of raised earthwork, where men sit to enjoy the morning cool and the evening serenity, and where they pray, converse, and transact their various avocations. A portcullis-like door, composed of two massive planks, with chains thick as a ship’s cable—a precaution rendered necessary by the presence of wild slaves—leads into the barzah, or vestibule. The only furniture is a pair of clay benches extending along the right and left sides, with pillow-shaped terminations of the same material; over these, when visitors are expected, rush mats and rugs are spread. From this barzah a passage, built at the angle proper to baffle the stranger’s curiosity, leads into the interior, a hollow square or oblong, with the several rooms opening upon a courtyard, which, when not built round, is completely closed by a “liwan”—a fence of small tree-trunks or reeds. The apartments have neither outward doors nor windows: small bull’s-eyes admit the air, and act as loop-holes in case of need. The principal room on the master’s side of the house has a bench of clay, and leads into a dark closet where stores and merchandise are placed. There are separate lodgings for the harem, and the domestic slaves live in barracoons or in their own outhouses. This form of Tembe is perhaps the dullest habitation ever invented by man. The exterior view is carefully removed from sight, and the dull, dirty courtyard, often swamped during the rains, is ever before the tenant’s eyes; the darkness caused by want of windows painfully contrasts with the flood of sunshine pouring in through the doors, and at night no number of candles will light up its gloomy walls of grey or reddish mud. The breeze is either excluded by careless frontage, or the high and chilling winds pour in like torrents; the roof is never water-tight, and the walls and rafters harbour hosts of scorpions and spiders, wasps and cockroaches. The Arabs, however, will expend their time and trouble in building rather than trust their goods in African huts, exposed to thieves and to the frequent fires which result from barbarous carelessness: everywhere, when a long halt is in prospect, they send their slaves for wood to the jungle, and superintend the building of a spacious Tembe. They neglect, however, an important precaution, a sleeping-room raised above the mean level of malaria.
Another drawback to the Arab’s happiness is the failure of his constitution: a man who escapes illness for two successive months boasts of the immunity; and, as in Egypt, no one enjoys robust health. The older residents have learned to moderate their appetites. They eat but twice a-day—after sunrise, and at noon—the midday meal concluded, they confine themselves to chewing tobacco or the dried coffee of Karagwah. They avoid strong meats, especially beef and game, which are considered heating and bilious, remaining satisfied with light dishes, omelets and pillaus, harísah, firni, and curded milk, and the less they eat the more likely they are to escape fever. Harisáh, in Kisawahili “boko-boko,” is the roast beef—the plat de résistance—of the Eastern and African Arab. It is a kind of pudding made with finely shredded meat, boiled with flour of wheat, rice, or holcus, to the consistence of a thick paste, and eaten with honey or sugar. Firni, an Indian word, is synonymous with the muhallibah of Egypt, a thin jelly of milk-and-water, honey, rice-flour, and spices, which takes the place of our substantial northern rice-pudding. The general health has been improved by the importation from the coast of wheat, and a fine white rice, instead of the red aborigen of the country, of various fruits, plantains, limes, and papaws; and of vegetables, brinjalls, cucumbers, and tomatos, which relieve the indigenous holcus and maize, manioc and sweet-potato, millet and phaseoli, sesamum and ground-nuts. They declare to having derived great benefit from the introduction of onions,—an antifebral, which flourishes better in Central than in Maritime Africa. The onion, so thriving in South Africa, rapidly degenerates upon the island of Zanzibar into a kind of houseleek. In Unyamwezi it is of tolerable size and flavour. It enters into a variety of dishes, the most nauseous being probably the sugared onion-omelet. In consequence of general demand, onions are expensive in the interior; an indigo-dyed shukkah will purchase little more than a pound. When the bulbs fail, the leaves chopped into thin circles and fried in clarified butter with salt, are eaten as a relish with meat. They are also inserted into marak or soups, to disguise the bitter and rancid taste of stale ghee. Onions may be sown at all seasons except during the wet monsoon, when they are liable to decay. The Washenzi have not yet borrowed this excellent and healthy vegetable from the Arabs. Garlic has also been tried in Unyanyembe, but with less success; moreover, it is considered too heating for daily use. As might be expected, however, amongst a floating population with many slaves, foreign fruits and vegetables are sometimes allowed to die out. Thus some enterprising merchant introduced into Unyanyembe the date and the mkungu, bidam, or almond-tree of the coast: the former, watered once every third day, promised to bear fruit, when, in the absence of the master, the Wanyamwezi cut up the young shoots into walking-sticks. Sugar is imported: the water-wanting cane will not thrive in arid Unyanyembe, and honey must be used as a succedaneum. Black pepper, universally considered cooling by Orientals, is much eaten with curry-stuffs and other highly-seasoned dishes, whereas the excellent chillies and bird-pepper, which here grow wild, are shunned for their heating properties. Butter and ghee are made by the wealthy; humbler houses buy the article, which is plentiful and good, from the Wanyamwezi. Water is the usual beverage. Some Arabs drink togwa, a sweet preparation of holcus; and others, debauchees, indulge in the sour and intoxicating pombe, or small-beer.