The little settlement of “Kaole”—an abbreviation of Kaole Urembo, meaning literally, in the ancient dialect of the coast, “to show beauty”—is the normal village-port in these regions, which, from Mombasah southwards to Kilwa, still ignore a town of masonry. You land, when the tide is out, upon half a mile of muddy sand, and if a “swell,” you are carried by four men upon the Kitanda—cot or cartel—which is slung along the side of your craft. Arrived at the strip of dry ground that marks the limit of the tide, you are let down, and amidst the shouts of the men, the shrieks of the women, and the naïve remarks of the juvenile population, you ascend by a narrow footpath, worn through the thick jungle and through the millet-fields which press upon the tattered palisade, a dwarf steep bank, on whose summit the settlement lies. Inside the fence are a dozen pent-roofed houses, claret-chests of wattle and dab, divided into three or more compartments by dwarf party-walls of the same material: each messuage is jealously separated from its neighbour by large enclosed “compounds” or court-yards appropriated to the women and children. The largest timber is that of the mangrove; the flying thatch-roof, so raised that, though windows are unknown, the interior enjoys tolerable ventilation, is of jauli, or rude cocoa-plaits, and under the long and projecting eaves, which rest upon strong perpendiculars, are broad earth-benches, divided by the entrance, and garnished with mats: these form the shops and sitting-rooms of the settlement. Some houses have a partial second story, like a ship’s bunk, a planking supported by rafters, and used as a store-closet or a dormitory. Around the larger habitations cluster masses of hovels, and the characteristic African haycock-huts. With closed doors in still weather, these dens are unendurable to a European; the people, however, fearing thieves and wild beasts, never fail to barricade themselves within at night. The only attempt at masonry in the settlement is the “Gurayza,” or fort, a square of lime and coralline, with store-rooms for the Banyan’s goods below, and provided with a crenelled terrace for watchmen.
In the “garrison-towns” the soldiers and their families form the principal part of the population. These men, who call themselves Baloch, are, with few exceptions, originally from Mekran, and from the lowlands about Guadel. Many of them have been born and bred in Arabia. In former days their fathers migrated from their starving homes to Maskat, in the Arab dows which visited their ports, to buy horses, and to collect little cargoes of wheat and salt. In Arabia they were fakirs, sailors, porters, and day-labourers, barbers, date-gleaners, asinegos, beggars, and thieves. Sultan Bin Hamid, the father of the late Sayyid Said, first conceived the bright idea of putting matchlocks into their hands, and of dubbing them Askar, or soldiers, as a slight upon his less docile compatriots. The son of Sultan followed his sire’s plan, and succeeded in dividing and ruling by means of the antipathy prevailing between the more disciplinable mercenary and the unruly Arab subject. The Baloch are, however, rather hated than feared. They hang, say the Semites, their benefits behind their backs, whilst they wear their grievances in full view, woman-like, upon their breasts. Loud in debate, and turbulent in demeanour, they are called by the Arabs a “light folk,” and are compared to birds fluttering and chirruping round a snake. Abject slaves to the Great Gaster, they collect in swarms round a slaughtered goat, and they will feast their eyes for hours on the sight of a rice-bag. When in cantonment on the island or the coast, they receive as pay from 2·50 to 5 dollars per mensem; when in the field or on outpost duty, a “batta” of 10 dollars;—a sensible system, which never allows them to become, like the Indian Sepoy, independent. They are not averse to active service, as, when so employed, they have full permission to “pill and poll.” In camp they are commanded by a jemadar, who, assisted by a “moollah,”—some wretch who has retained, as sole traces of his better days, a smattering of reading, writing, and arithmetic,—robs them and his government with the recklessness of impunity. Thus the jemadar, or C. O., who also dispenses promotion, is a man having authority. Similarly our colonels in India, by superior position and allowances, commanded the respect of their men before centralisation, falling upon the land like a pestilence, systematically monopolised all power, and then rained blame upon those who had lost it. These Baloch are a tame copy of the Turkish Bashi Buzuk, or “mad-cap,” far inferior as desperadoes to the Kurd and Arnaut. They live the life of the Anglo-Indian soldier of the past generation, drinking beer when they can “come by it,” smoking, chatting, and arguing; the younger wrestle, shoot, and exchange kit; and the silly babbling patriarchs, with white beards and venerable brows, tell wondrous tales of scenes long gone by, and describe to unbelieving ears the ice and snow, the luscious fruits and the sweet waters of the mountains and valleys of far Balochistan.
The other items of the population are the Wamrima[2]—Western Negroids of a mixed Arab and African descent, who fringe the shore in a thin line. These “coast-clans” support themselves in idleness and comparative luxury, by amicably plundering the down-caravans, and by large plantations of cereals and vegetables, with which they, or rather their slaves, supply the island of Zanzibar, and even the shores of Arabia. The Wamrima are an ill-conditioned race; they spend life in eating, drinking, and smoking, drinking and dancing, visits, intrigue, and low debauchery. They might grow cotton and coffee, and dig copal to almost any extent; but whilst a pound of grain remains in bin, no man will handle a hoe. The feminine part of the community is greatly superior in number to the masculine, and this leads to the usual result: on a “Siku ku” or fête-day, the ladies of the village, with yellow pigment over their faces and their woolly heads, perform in their cups impromptu-dances upon the open, enter a stranger’s house as if it were their own, and call for something to drink, as if they had been educated at Cremorne, or the Rue Cadet. The Wamrima are ruled by Diwans, or headmen, locally called “Chomwi;” these officials are subject to Zanzibar, and their numbers are everywhere in inverse ratio to the importance of the places. The Chomwi enjoys the privileges of “dash,” fines and extortions; he has also certain marks of distinction. For instance, he is authorised to wear turbands and the wooden pattens called by the Arabs “kabkab;” he may also sit upon cots, chairs, and the mkeka, a fine dyed mat; whereas a commoner venturing upon such display would infallibly be mulcted in goats or cattle. At the Ngoma Ku or great dance, which celebrates every event in this land of revelry, only the Chomwi may perform the morris with drawn sword before the admiring multitude. A subject detected in intrigue with the wife of a headman must, under penalty of being sold, pay five slaves; the fine is reduced to one head in the case of a plebeian. With this amount of dignity the Diwan naturally expects to live, and to support his family with the fat of the land, and without sweat of brow. When times are hard, he organises a kidnapping expedition against a weaker neighbour, and fills his purse by selling the proceeds. But his income is derived chiefly from the down-caravans bringing ivory and slaves from Unyamwezi and the far interior. Though rigidly forbidden by the Prince of Zanzibar to force caravans to his particular port, he sends large armed parties of his kinsmen and friends, his clients and serfs, as far as 150 and 200 miles inland, where they act less like touters than highwaymen. By every petty art of mercantile diplomacy,—now by force, then by fraud, by promises, or by bribes of cloth and sweetmeats,—they induce the caravan to enter the village, when the work of plunder begins. Out of each Frasilah (thirty-five lbs. avoirdupois) of ivory, from eight to fourteen dollars are claimed as duties to the Government of Zanzibar; the headmen, then, demand six dollars as their fee, under various technical names, plus one dollar for “ugali” or porridge—the “manche,”—and one dollar for the use of water—the “pour boire.” The owner of the tusk is then handed over to the tender mercies of the Banyan, from whom the Diwan has received a bribe, called his “rice”; and the crafty Hindu buys for eighteen to twenty dollars an article worth, at Zanzibar, fifty. If the barbarian be so unwise as to prefer cash, being intellectually unfit to discriminate between a cent and a dollar, he loses even more than if he had taken in barter the coarse and trashy articles provided for him by the trade. An adept at distinguishing good from bad cloth and a cunning connoisseur in beads of sorts, he has yet no choice: if he reject what is worthless, he must return home with his ivory and without an investment. Such is an outline of the present system. It is nowhere the same in its details; but everywhere the principle is one—the loss is to the barbarian, and the profits are to the coast-clans, the Wamrima and their headmen. Hence the dislike to strangers and the infinite division into little settlements, where people might be expected to prefer the comfort and safety of large communities. The 10th article of the commercial treaty, concluded on the 31st May, 1839, between Her Majesty’s Government and His Highness Sayyid Said of Muscat and Zanzibar, secured to the possessors of the Mrima a monopoly in the articles of ivory and gum-copal on that part of the east coast of Africa from the port of Tangata (Mtangata), situated in about 51⁄2° S. lat. to the port of Quiloa (Kilwa) lying in about 7° S. of the equator. It is not improbable that the jealousy of European nations, each fearing the ambitious designs of its neighbour, brought about this invidious prohibitionist measure.
[2] It must be borne in mind, that, in the Kisawahili and its cognates, the vowel u prefixed to a root, which, however, is never used without some prefix, denotes, through a primary idea of causality, a country or region, as Uzaramo, the region of Zaramo. Many names, however, exceptionally omit this letter, as the Mrima, K’hutu, Fuga, and Karagwah. The liquid m, or, before a vowel and an aspirated h, mu, to prevent hiatus, being probably a synæresis of Mtu, a man, denotes the individual, as Mzaramo, a man or woman of Zaramo. When prefixed to the names of trees, as has been instanced, it is evidently an abbreviation of Mti, a tree. The plural form of m and mu is Wá, a contraction of Wátu, men, people; it is used to signify the population, as Wamrima, the “coast-clans,” Wazaramo, the people or tribe of Zaramo, and Wasawahíli (with a long accent upon the penultimate, consonant with the spirit of the African language, and contrary to that of the Arabic), the population of the Sawahil. Finally, the syllable ki—prefixed to the theoretical root—denotes anything appertaining to a country, as the terminating ish in the word English. It especially refers in popular usage to language, as Kizaramo, the language of Zaramo; Kisawahíli, the language of the Sawahil, originally called Ki-ngozi, from the district of Ngozi, on the Ozi River. It has been deemed advisable to retain these terse and concise distinctions, which, if abandoned, would necessitate a weary redundance of words.
Besides the Baloch and the Wamrima, the settlements usually contain a few of the “Washenzi” or barbarians from the interior, who visit them to act as day-labourers, and who sometimes, by evincing a little disrespect for the difference between the “mine” and the “thine,” leave their heads to decorate tall poles at the entrance. The Wazaramo tribe send, when there is no blood-feud, numbers to Kaole, where they are known by their peculiar headdress, a single or a double line of pips or dilberries of ochre and grease surrounding the head. They regard the stranger with a wild and childish stare, and whenever I landed, they slunk away from me, for reasons which will appear in the course of this narrative. The list of floating population concludes with a few Banyans,—there are about fifty in Kaole and its vicinity—a race national as the English, who do their best to import into Eastern Africa the cows and curries, the customs and the costumes, of Western India.
The first visit to Kaole opened up a vista of unexpected difficulties. My escort had been allowed to leave the Artémise, and their comrades in arms had talked them half-crazy with fear. Zahri, a Baloch, who had visited Unyamwezi, declared that nothing less than 100 guards, 150 guns, and several cannon could enable them to fight a way through the perils of the interior. Tulsi, the Banyan, warned them that for three days they must pass amongst savages, who sit on trees and discharge poisoned arrows into the air with such dexterity that they never fail to fall upon the travellers’ pate; he strongly advised them therefore, under pain of death, to avoid trees—no easy matter in a land all forest. Then the principal Chomwi assured them that the chiefs of the Wazaramo tribe had sent six several letters to the officials of the coast forbidding the white man to enter their country. Ladha Damha also obscurely hinted that the Wazaramo might make caches of their provisions in the jungle, and that the human stomach cannot march without feeding. Divers dangers of the way were incidentally thrown in: I learned for the first time that the Kargadan or rhinoceros kills 200 men, that armies of elephants attack camps by night, and that the craven hyæna does more damage than the Bengal tiger. In vain I objected that guns with men behind them are better than cannon backed by curs, that mortals can die but once, that the Wazaramo are unable to write, that rations might be carried where not purchaseable, and that powder and ball have been known to conquer rhinoceroses, elephants, and hyænas. A major force was against me.
Presently the cause of intimidation crept into sight. The Jemadar and the eight Baloch detached by His Highness the Sayyid Majid of Zanzibar could not march without a reinforcement of four others, afterwards increased by a fifth in the person of an “Ustad,” a tailor-boy. The garrison of Kaole having no employment, was ready, with the prospect of the almighty dollar, to march anywhere on this side of Jehannum. The perils of the path rendered it absolutely necessary that we should be escorted by a temporary guard of thirty-four men and their Jemadar Yaruk: and they did not propose to do the good deed gratis. Ramji, the Banyan clerk of the customs at Zanzibar, had a number of slaves whom he called his “sons;” they were “eating off their heads” in idleness at Zanzibar. He favoured me by letting out ten of these youths at the rate of thirty dollars ahead for a period of six months: for the same sum every man might have been purchased in the market. When asses were proposed ass-men were necessary; in the shortest space of time five were procured, and their pay for the whole journey was fixed at thirty dollars, about twice the sale-value of the article. I cannot plead guilty to not having understood the manœuvre,—a commercial speculation on the part of the rascal Ramji. Yet at times,—need I say it?—it is good to appear a dupe. It is wise, when your enemies determine you to be that manner of sable or ermine contrivance into which ladies insert their fair hands, to favour the hypothesis. I engaged the men, I paid the men, and mentally I chronicled a vow that Ramji should in the long run change places with me.
Presently Mr. Frost with brow severe and official manner, informed me that the state of Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton’s health forbade a longer stay near the coast. To this there was no reply: I contented myself with remarking once more that morphia appeared a curious cure for a confirmed liver complaint, and I made preparations for landing at once. Mr. Frost replied that the doses of morphia were very “little ones,”—an excuse which, according to Capt. Marryat, has been urged under somewhat dissimilar circumstances by the frail ancilla. I confided to Mr. Frost’s care two MSS. addressed through the Foreign Office, one to Mr. John Blackwood, the other to Dr. Norton Shaw, of the Royal Geographical Society. As the former arrived in safety, whilst the latter,—a detailed report concerning the commerce and capabilities of Zanzibar,—was lost, I cannot help suspecting that it came somehow to an untimely end. Lieutenant-Colonel Hamerton had repeatedly warned me that by making inquiries into the details of profit I was exciting the jealousy of the natives and the foreigners of Zanzibar. According to him the mercantile community was adopting the plan which had secured the foul murder of M. Maizan: the Christians had time and opportunity to alarm the Banyans, and the latter were able to work upon the Wasawahíli population. These short-sighted men dreaded that from throwing open the country, competition might result: Oriental-like, thinking only of the moment, of themselves, they could not perceive that the development of resources would benefit all concerned in their exploitation. There were, however, honourable exceptions, amongst whom I am bound to mention M. Bérard, agent to Mess. Rabaud, frères, of Marseilles, who by direction of his employers offered me every manner of assistance; and the late M. Sam. Masury, a Salem merchant, to whose gratuitous kindness I was indebted for several necessaries when separated from civilisation by one half of Africa. They contrasted sharply with the rest of the community: in the case of a certain young gentleman, Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton was,—he informed me,—compelled to threaten a personal chastisement, unless he ceased to fill native ears with his malignant suspicions.
The weary labour of verifying accounts and of writing receipts duly concluded, I took a melancholy leave of my warm-hearted friend Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton, upon whose form and features death was written in legible characters. He gave me his last advice, to march straight ahead despising “walnut and velvet-slipper men,” who afford opinions, and conciliating the Arabs as much as possible. Then he spoke of himself: he looked forward to death with a feeling of delight, the result of his religious convictions; he expressed a hope that if I remained at Kaole, he might be buried at sea; and he declared himself, in spite of my entreaties, determined to remain near the coast until he heard of our safe transit through the lands of the dreaded Wazaramo. This courage was indeed sublime! Such examples are not often met with amongst men!
After this affecting farewell, I took leave of the Artémise and landed definitively at Kaole. The Baloch driving the asses were sent off to the first station on the road westwards, headed by my companion, on the same evening, lest a longer sojourn in the lands of semi-civilisation should thoroughly demoralise them. The Wanyamwezi porters, whose open faces and laughing countenances strongly prepossessed me in their favour, had already passed beyond their centre of attraction, the coast. I spent that evening with Ladha Damha, inside the gloomy Gurayza. He lectured me for the last time upon my development of what the French cartomantiste calls “la bosse de la témérité.” Might not the Sahib be a great Sahib in his own land—Cutch or Guzerat? Are there not other great Sahibs there, A—Sahib and B—Sahib, for instance, who only kill pigs and ignore the debtor and creditor side of an account in Guzeratee?