“Sæpe illæ long-cut vel short-cut flare tobacco
Sunt solitæ pipos.”
They smoke with an intense enjoyment, slowly and deeply inhaling the glorious weed, and exhaling clouds from their nostrils; at times they stop to cool the mouth with slices of raw manioc, or cobs of green maize roasted in the ashes; and often some earnest matter of local importance causes the pipes to be removed for a few minutes, and a clamour of tongues breaks the usual silence. The pipe also requires remark: the bowl is of imperfect material—the clay being half-baked—but the shape is perfect. The African tapering cone is far superior to the European bowl: the former gives as much smoke as possible whilst the tobacco is fresh and untainted, and as little when it becomes hot and unpleasant; the latter acts on the contrary principle. Amongst the fair of Yombo, there were no less than three beauties—women who would be deemed beautiful in any part of the world. Their faces were purely Grecian; they had laughing eyes, their figures were models for an artist, with—
“Turgide, brune e ritondette mamme,”
like the “bending statue that delights the world” cast in bronze. The dress—a short kilt of calabash fibre,—rather set off than concealed their charms, and though destitute of petticoat or crinoline they were wholly unconscious of indecorum. It is a question that by no means can be positively answered in the affirmative, that real modesty is less in proportion to the absence of toilette. These “beautiful domestic animals” graciously smiled when in my best Kinyamwezi I did my devoir to the sex; and the present of a little tobacco always secured for me a seat in the undress circle.
After hiring twenty porters—five lost no time in deserting—and mustering the Baloch, of whom eleven now were present, I left Yombo on the 18th December, and passing through a thick green jungle, with low, wooded, and stony hills rising on the left hand, to about 4000 feet above sea-level, I entered the little settlement of Pano. The next day brought us to the clearing of Mfuto, a broad, populous, and fertile rolling plain, where the stately tamarind flourished to perfection. A third short march, through alternate patches of thin wood and field, studded with granite blocks, led to Irora, a village in Western Mfuto, belonging to Salim bin Salih, an Arab from Mbuamaji, and a cousin of Said bin Mohammed, my former travelling companion, who had remained behind at Kazeh. This individual, a fat, pulpy, and dingy-coloured mulatto, appeared naked to the waist, and armed with bow and arrows: he received me surlily, and when I objected to a wretched cow-shed outside his palisade, he suddenly waxed furious: he raved like a madman, shook his silly bow, and declared that he ignored the name of the Sayyid Majid, being himself as good a “Sultan” as any other. He became pacified on perceiving that his wrath excited nothing but the ridicule of the Baloch, found a better lodging, sent a bowl of fresh milk wherein to drown differences, and behaved on this and a subsequent occasion more like an Arab Shaykh, than an African headman.
On the 22nd December my companion rejoined me, bringing four loads of cloth, three of beads, and seven of brass wire: they formed part of the burden of the twenty-two porters who were to join the Expedition ten days after its departure from the coast. The Hindus, Ladha Damha and Mr. Rush Ramji, after the decease of Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton, had behaved with culpable neglect. The cloth was of the worst and flimsiest description; the beads were the cheap white and the useless black—the latter I was obliged to throw away; and as they sent up the supply without other guard than two armed slaves, “Mshindo” and “Kirikhota,” the consequence was that the pair had plundered ad libitum. No letters had been forwarded, and no attention had been paid to my repeated requests for drugs and other stores. My companion’s new gang, levied at Kazeh, affected the greatest impatience. They refused to halt for a day,—even Christmas day. They proposed double marches, and they resolved to proceed by the straight road to Msene. It was deemed best to humour them. They arrived, however, at their destination only one day before my party, who travelled leisurely, and who followed the longer and the more cultivated route.
We left Irora on the 23rd December, and marched from sunrise till noon to the district of Eastern Wilyankuru. There we again separated. On the next day I passed alone through the settlement called Muinyi Chandi, where certain Arabs from Oman had built large Tembe, to serve as barracoons and warehouses. This district supplies the adjoining countries with turmeric, of which very little grows in Unyanyembe. After this march disappeared the last of the six hammals who had been hired to carry the hammocks. They were as unmanageable as wild asses, ever grumbling and begging for “kitoweyo,”—“kitchen;”—constitutionally unfitted to obey an order; disposed, as the noble savage generally is, to be insolent; and, like all porters in this part of the world, unable to carry a palanquin. Two men, instead of four, insisted upon bearing the hammock; thus overburdened and wishing to get over the work, they hurried themselves till out of breath. When one was fagged, the man that should have relieved him was rarely to be found, consequently two or three stiff trudges knocked them up and made them desert. Said bin Salim, the Jemadar, and the Baloch, doubtlessly impressed with the belief that my days were numbered, passed me on the last march without a word—the sun was hot, and they were hastening to shade—and left me with only two men to carry the hammock, in a dangerous strip of jungle where, shortly afterwards, Salim bin Masud, an Arab merchant of Msene, was murdered.
On Christmas day I again mounted ass, and passing through the western third of the Wilyankuru district, was hospitably received by a wealthy proprietor, Salim bin Said, surnamed, probably on account of his stature, Simba, or the Lion, who had obtained from the Sultan Mrorwa permission to build a large Tembe. The worthy and kind-hearted Arab exerted himself strenuously to promote the comfort of his guest. He led me to a comfortable lodging, placed a new cartel in the coolest room, supplied meat, milk, and honey, and spent the evening in conversation with me. He was a large middle-aged man, with simple, kindly manners, and an honesty of look and words which rendered his presence exceedingly prepossessing.
After a short and eventless march, on the 26th December, to Masenge, I reached on the following day the little clearing of Kirira. I was unexpectedly welcomed by two Arabs, Masud ibn Musallam el Wardi, and Hamid bin Ibrahim el Amuri. The former, an old man of the Beni Bu Ali clan, and personally familiar with Sir Lionel Smith’s exploits, led me into the settlement, which was heaped round with a tall green growth of milkbush, and placed me upon a cartel in the cool and spacious barzah or vestibule of the Tembe. From my vantage-ground I enjoyed the pleasant prospect of those many little miseries which Orientals—perhaps not only Orientals—create for themselves by “ceremony” and “politeness.” Weary and fagged by sun and dust, the Baloch were kept standing for nearly half an hour before the preliminaries to sitting down could be arranged and the party could be marshalled in proper order,—the most honourable man on the left hand of the host, and the “lower class” off the dais or raised step;—and, when they commenced to squat, they reposed upon their shins, and could not remove their arms or accoutrements till especially invited to hang them up. Hungry and thirsty, they dared not commit the solecism of asking for food or drink; they waited from 9 A.M. till noon, sometimes eyeing the door with wistful looks, but generally affecting an extreme indifference as to feeding. At length came the meal, a mountain of rice, capped with little boulders of mutton. It was allowed to cool long before precedence round the tray was settled, and ere the grace, “Bismillah,”—the signal to “set to,”—was reverentially asked by Said bin Salim. Followed a preparation of curdled milk, for which spoons being requisite, a wooden ladle did the necessary. There was much bustling and not a little importance about Hamid, the younger host, a bilious subject twenty-four or twenty-five years old, who for reasons best known to himself assumed the style and title of Sarkal,—Government servant. The meal concluded with becoming haste, and was followed by that agreeable appearance of repletion which is so pleasing to the Oriental Amphitryon. The Baloch returned to squat upon their shins, and they must have suffered agonies till 5 P.M., when the appearance of a second and a more ceremonious repast enabled them once more to perch upon their heels. It was hard eating this time; the shorwa, or mutton broth, thickened with melted butter, attracted admiration; the guests, however, could only hint at its excellences, because in the East if you praise a man’s meat you intend to slight his society. The plat de résistance was, as usual, the pillaw, or, as it is here called, pulao,—not the conventional mess of rice and fowl, almonds and raisins, onion-shreds, cardomoms, and other abominations, which goes by that name amongst Anglo-Indians, but a solid heap of rice, boiled after being greased with a handful of ghee—
(I must here indulge in a little digression. For the past century, which concluded with reducing India to the rank of a British province, the proud invader has eaten her rice after a fashion which has secured for him the contempt of the East. He deliberately boils it, and after drawing off the nutritious starch or gluten called “conjee,” which forms the perquisite of his Portuguese or his Pariah cook, he is fain to fill himself with that which has become little more nutritious than the prodigal’s husks. Great, indeed, is the invader’s ignorance upon that point. Peace be to the manes of Lord Macaulay, but listen to and wonder at his eloquent words!—“The Sepoys came to Clive, not to complain of their scanty fare, but to propose that all the grain should be given to the Europeans, who required more nourishment than the natives of Asia. The thin gruel, they said, which was strained away from the rice would suffice for themselves. History contains no more touching instance of military fidelity, or of the influence of a commanding mind.” Indians never fail to drink the “conjee.” The Arab, on the other hand, mingles with his rice a sufficiency of ghee to prevent the extraction of the “thin gruel,” and thus makes the grain as palatable and as nutritious as Nature intended it to be.)