But work remained undone; it was necessary to awake from this lethargy. Being determined to explore the northern extremity of the Tanganyika Lake, whence, according to several informants, issued a large river, flowing northwards, and seeing scanty chance of success, and every prospect of an accident, if compelled to voyage in the wretched canoes of the people, I at first resolved to despatch Said bin Salim across the water, and, by his intervention, to hire from an Arab merchant, Hamid bin Sulayyam, the only dow, or sailing-craft then in existence. But the little Arab evidently shirked the mission, and he shirked so artistically, that, after a few days, I released him, and directed my companion to do his best about hiring the dow, and stocking it with provisions for a month’s cruise.
Then arose the preliminary difficulties of the trip. Kannena and all his people, suspecting that my only object was economy in purchasing provisions, opposed the project; they demanded exorbitant sums, and often when bargained down and apparently satisfied, they started up and rushed away, declaring that they washed their hands of the business. At length, Lurinda, the neighbouring headman, was persuaded to supply a Nakhoda and a crew of twenty men. An Arab pays on these occasions, besides rations, ten per cent. upon merchandise; the white men were compelled to give four coil-bracelets and eight cloths for the canoe; besides which, the crew received, as hire, six coil-bracelets, and to each individual provisions for eight days, and twenty khete of large blue-glass beads, and small blue-porcelains were issued. After many delays, my companion set out on the 2nd of March, in the vilest weather, and spent the first stormy day near the embouchure of the Ruche River, within cannon shot of Kawele. This halt gave our persecutors time to change their minds once more, and again to forbid the journey. I was compelled to purchase their permission by sending to Kannena an equivalent of what had been paid for the canoe to Lurinda, viz. four coil-bracelets and eight cloths. Two days afterwards my companion, supplied with an ample outfit, and accompanied by two Baloch and his men—Gaetano and Bombay—crossed the bay of Ukaranga, and made his final departure for the islands.
During my twenty-seven days of solitude the time sped quickly; it was chiefly spent in eating and drinking, smoking and dozing. Awaking at 2 or 3 A.M., I lay anxiously expecting the grey light creeping through the door-chinks and making darkness visible; the glad tidings of its approach were announced by the cawing of the crows and the crowing of the village cocks. When the golden rays began to stream over the red earth, the torpid Valentine was called up; he brought with him a mess of Suji, or rice-flour boiled in water, with a little cold milk as a relish. Then entered Muhabanya, the “slavey” of the establishment, armed with a leafy branch to sweep the floor, and to slay the huge wasps that riddled the walls of the tenement. This done he lit the fire—the excessive damp rendered this precaution necessary—and sitting over it he bathed his face and hands—luxurious dog!—in the pungent smoke. Ensued visits of ceremony from Said bin Salim and the Jemadar, who sat, stared, and, somewhat disappointed at seeing no fresh symptoms of approaching dissolution, told me so with their faces, and went away. From 7 A.M. till 9 A.M., the breakfast hour, Valentine was applied to tailoring, gun-cleaning, and similar light work, over which he groaned and grumbled, whilst I settled down to diaries and vocabularies, a process interrupted by sundry pipes. Breakfast was again a mess of Suji and milk,—such civilised articles as tea, coffee, and sugar, had been unknown to me for months. Again the servants resumed their labour, and they worked, with the interval of two hours for sleep at noon, till 4 P.M. During this time the owner lay like a log upon his cot, smoking almost uninterruptedly, dreaming of things past, and visioning things present, and sometimes indulging himself in a few lines of reading and writing.
Dinner was an alternation of fish and fowl, game and butchers’ meat being rarely procurable at Ujiji. The fish were in two extremes, either insipid and soft, or so fat and coarse that a few mouthfuls sufficed; most of them resembled the species seen in the seas of Western India, and the eels and small shrimps recalled memories of Europe. The poultry, though inferior to that of Unyanyembe, was incomparably better than the lean stringy Indian chicken. The vegetables were various and plentiful, tomatoes, Jerusalem artichokes, sweet potatoes, yams, and several kinds of beans, especially a white harricot, which afforded many a purée; the only fruit procurable was the plantain, and the only drink—the toddy being a bad imitation of vinegar—was water.
As evening approached I made an attempt to sit under the broad eaves of the Tembe, and to enjoy the delicious spectacle of this virgin Nature, and the reveries to which it gave birth.
“A pleasing land of drowsihed it was,
Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye,
And of gay castles in the clouds that pass,
For ever flushing round a summer sky.”
It reminded me of the loveliest glimpses of the Mediterranean; there were the same “laughing tides,” pellucid sheets of dark blue water, borrowing their tints from the vinous shores beyond; the same purple light of youth upon the cheek of the earlier evening, the same bright sunsets, with their radiant vistas of crimson and gold opening like the portals of a world beyond the skies; the same short-lived grace and loveliness of the twilight; and, as night closed over the earth, the same cool flood of transparent moonbeam, pouring on the tufty heights and bathing their sides with the whiteness of virgin snow.
At 7 P.M., as the last flush faded from the occident, the lamp—a wick in a broken pot full of palm oil—was brought in; Said bin Salim appeared to give the news of the day,—how A. had abused B., and how C. had nearly been beaten by D., and a brief conversation led to the hour of sleep. A dreary, dismal day, you will exclaim, gentle reader; a day that
“lasts out a night in Russia,
When nights are longest there.”
Yet it had its enjoyments. There were no post-offices, and this African Eden had other advantages, which, probably, I might vainly attempt to describe.