Urundi differs from the lake regions generally in being a strictly monarchical country, locally governed by Watware or headmen, who transmit the customs and collections at stated periods to their suzerain. The Mwame, it is said, can gather in a short time a large host of warriors who are the terror of the neighbouring tribes. The Warundi are evidently natives of a high cold country; they are probably the “white people resembling Abyssinians,” and dwelling near the Lake, of whom European geographers have heard from Zanzibar. The complexion varies from a tawny yellow, the colour of the women, to a clear dark brown, which is so brightened by the daily use of ochre mixed with palm-oil, that in few cases the real tint is discernible. The men tattoo with circles and lines like cupping-cuts; some burn up alti rilievi of large shining lumps an inch in diameter, a decoration not a little resembling large boils; others chip the fore teeth like the Wanyamwezi. Their limbs are stout and well proportioned, many stand upwards of six feet high, and they bear the appearance of a manly and martial race. Their dress is the mbugu, worn in the loosest way; their arms are heavy spears, sime, and unusually strong arrows; their ornaments are beads, brass wire, and streaks of a carmine-coloured substance, like the red farinaceous powder called in India gulal, drawn across the head and forehead. The Waganga, or priests of Urundi, wear a curious hood, a thatch of long white grass or fibre, cut away at the face and allowed to depend behind over the shoulders; their half-naked figures, occasionally rattling wooden clappers, and capering causelessly like madmen, present a savage and horrid appearance. Honourable women wear long tobes of American domestics from below the arms to the ankles; they are followed by hosts of female slaves, and preserve an exceptionally modest and decorous demeanour. Their features are of the rounded African type of beauty. Their necks and bosoms support a profusion of sofi and other various-coloured beads; their foreheads are bound with frontlets, fillet-like bands of white and coral porcelain, about three fingers deep, a highly becoming ornament probably derived from Karagwah; and those who were seen by the Expedition invariably walked about with thin staves five or six feet long, pointed and knobbed as the walking-sticks of ancient Egypt.
At the northern extremity of the Urundi sea-face, and at the head of the Tanganyika, lies the land of Uzige; it is rarely visited except by the Lakist traders. This people, who, like their neighbours, cannot exist without some form of traffic, have, it is said, pursued the dows of the earlier Arab explorers with a flotilla of small canoes; it is probable that negro traders would be better received. In their country, according to the guides, six rivers fall into the Tanganyika in due order from the east: the Kuryamavenge, the Molongwe, the Karindira, the Kariba, the Kibaiba, and westernmost the Rusizi or Lusizi. The latter is the main drain of the northern countries, and the best authorities, that is to say those nearest the spot, unanimously assert that it is an influent.
The races adjoining Uzige, namely, the Wavira on the north-western head of the Tanganyika, and their southern neighbours, the Wabembe cannibals, have already been mentioned. The Wasenze inhabit the hills within or westwards of the Wabembe. Further southwards and opposite Kawele in Ujiji are the Wagoma highlanders. The lower maritime lands belonging to the Wagoma supply the gigantic mvule trees required for the largest canoes. These patriarchs of the forest are felled and shaped with little axes on the spot; when finished they are pushed and dragged down the slopes by the workmen, and are launched and paddled over to the shores of Ujiji.
South of the Wagoma are the Waguhha, who have been mentioned as the proprietors of the islets south-west of Ujiji. In their lands, according to the Arabs, is a lake or large water called Mikiziwá, whence the tribe upon its banks derives its name Wamikiziwá. Through the country of the Waguhha lies the route to Uruwwa, at present the western terminus of the Zanzibar trade. The merchant crossing the sea-arm which separates Kasenge from the mainland of the Tanganyika, strikes towards Uruwwa; the line runs over low levels shelving towards the lake, cut by a reticulation of streams unfordable after rain, and varied by hilly and rolling ground. Provisions are everywhere procurable, but the people, like the Wavinza, are considered dangerous. At Uruwwa the khete, or string of beads, is half the size of that current in other countries. The price of ivory per frasilah is 15 miranga, or 150 large khete of white, small-blue, and coarse-red porcelain beads, the latter called Lungenga; besides which a string of sungomaji (pigeon-egg beads), and a few sámesáme, or coral-beads, are thrown in. The route numbers nine long or sixteen short stages; the general direction is south-westerly. Kiyombo, the sultan of Uruwwa, is at present friendly with the Arabs; he trades in ivory, slaves, and a little copper from Katata or Katanga, a district distant fifteen marches north-west of Usenda, the now well-known capital of the great chief Kazembe. The grandfather of the present Kazembe, the “viceroy” of the country lying south-west of the Tanganyika, and feudatory to Mwátá yá Nvo, the sovereign of “Uropua,” was first visited by Dr. Lacerda, governor of the Rios de Sena, in 1798-99. The traveller died, however, after being nine months in the country, without recording the name and position of the African capital; the former was supplied by the expedition sent under Major Monteiro and Captain Gamitto in 1831-32; it is variously pronounced Lucenda, Luenda, and by the Arabs Usenda, the difference being caused probably by dialect or inflexion. According to the Arabs, the Kazembe visited by the Portuguese expedition in 1831, died about 1837, and was succeeded by his son the present chief. He is described as a man of middle age, of light-coloured complexion, handsomely dressed in a Surat cap, silk coat, and embroidered loin cloth; he is rich in copper, ivory, and slaves, cloth and furniture, muskets and gunpowder. Many Arabs, probably half-castes, are said to be living with him in high esteem, and the medium of intercourse is the Kisawahili. Though he has many wives, he allows his subjects but one each, puts both adulterer and adulteress to death, and generally punishes by gouging out one or both eyes.
On the Uruwwa route caravans are composed wholly of private slaves; the races of the Tanganyika will not carry loads, and the Wanyamwezi, unmaritime savages like the Kafirs, who have a mortal dread and abhorrence of water, refuse to advance beyond Ujiji. On account of its dangers, the thriving merchants have hitherto abandoned this line to debtors and desperate men.
South of Uguhha lies the unimportant tribe of Wat’hembwe, whose possessions are within sight of Kawele in Ujiji. The race adjoining them is the Wakatete or Wakadete, and the country is called by the Arabs Awwal Marungu, on the northern frontier of Marungu. Marungu is one of the most important divisions of the lands about the Tanganyika. Amayr bin Said el Shaksi, a sturdy old merchant from Oman, who, wrecked about twelve years ago on that part of the coast, had spent five months with the people, living on roots and grasses, divides the region generically termed Marungu into three distinct provinces—Marungu to the north, Karungu in the centre, and Urungu on the south. Others mention a western Marungu, divided from the eastern by the Runangwa River, and they call the former in contradistinction Marungu Tafuna, from its sultan.
Western Marungu extends according to the Arabs in depth from Ut’hembwe to the Wabisa, a tribe holding extensive lands westward of the Nyassa Lake. Travellers from Unyamwezi to K’hokoro meet, near Ufipa, caravans of the northern Wabisa en route to Kilwa. Between Marungu and Usenda, the capital of the Kazembe, the road lies through the district of Kavvire, distant seven marches; thence nine stages conduct them to the end of the journey. There is an upper land route through Uruwwa for those travelling from Ujiji to Usenda, and many caravans have passed from Unyanyembe direct through K’hokoro and Ufipa, to the country of the Kazembe. Mr. Cooley (“Geography of N’yassi,” p. 7) conjectures that the Ambios or Imbies, Zimbas or Muzimbas, celebrated by the old Portuguese historians of Africa on account of an irruption, in 1570, from the north as far as the Zambezi River, “were no other than the M’Biza, or Moviza, as they are called by the Portuguese who still occupy its (the Nyassa’s) south-western banks.” The proper name of this well-known tribe is Wábísá (in the sing. Mbisá), not Wábíshá, as it is pronounced at Zanzibar, where every merchant knows “Bisha ivory.” The Wábísá extend according to the Arabs from the west of the Nyassa or Kilwa Lake towards the south of the Tanganyika. They dress in bark-cloth, carry down their fine ivory to Tete and Kilimani (Quillimane); and every four or five years a caravan appears at Kilwa, where, confounding their hosts with the Portuguese, they call every Arab “muzungu,” or white man. They are a semi-pastoral tribe, fond of commerce, and said to be civil and hospitable to strangers. It must be observed that those geographers are in error who connect the Wabisa with the Wanyamwezi; they are distinct in manners and appearance, habits and language. Mr. Cooley has, for instance, asserted that “the ‘Moviza’ and the ‘Monomoezi’ are similar in physical character and national marks.” The only mark known to the Wabisa is the kishshah, or crest of hair; not, as Khamisi Wa Tani asserted to Mr. Cooley (“Inner Africa laid Open,” p. 61), a dotted line on the nose and forehead; whereas, the Wanyamwezi, as has been seen, puncture the skin. Thus Lacerda calls the “Moviza” a frizzled and periwigged people. The Arabs deny the assertion of Pereira, recorded by Bowdich, that the Moviza, like the Wahiao, file their teeth.
Marungu is described by the Arabs as a hilly country like Ujiji and Uvira: the precincts of the lake, however, are here less bold than the opposite shore. Off the coast lie four or five islands, two of which, according to the Arabs, are of considerable size; the only name given is Ukungwe, which appears, however, to be rather the name of the farthest point visible from Kasenge, and bearing S. 58° E. On the north-western frontier of Marungu, and about three marches from the lake, is the district called Utumbara, from Mtumbara its sultan. This Utumbara, which must not be confounded with the district of the same name in Northern Unyamwezi, is said by the Arabs to be fifteen to twenty days’ march from Usenda.
Marungu, though considered dangerous, has often been visited by Arab merchants. After touching at Kasenge they coast along Uguhha for four days, not daring to land there in consequence of an event that happened about 1841-42. A large Arab caravan of 200 armed slaves, led by Mohammed bin Salih and Sulayman bin Nasir, and with four coadjutors, Abd el Al and Ibn Habib, Shiahs of Bahrayn, Nasir and Rashid bin Salim el Harisi (who soon afterwards died at Marungu) took boat to Marungu, and in due time arrived at Usenda. They completed their cargo, and were returning in a single boat, when they were persuaded by the Sultan Mtumbara to land, and to assist him in annihilating a neighbour, Sámá or Kipyoká, living at about one day’s march from the Lake. The Arabs, aided by Africans, attacked a boma, or palisade, where, bursting in, they found Sámá’s brother sitting upon pombe, with his wife. The villagers poured in a shower of arrows, to which the Arabs replied by shooting down the happy couple over their cups. Sámá’s people fled, but presently returning they massacred the slaves of the Arabs, who were obliged to take refuge in the grass till aid was afforded by their employer Mtumbara. Sámá, thus victorious, burned the Arab boat, and, compelling the merchants to return to Usenda, seized the first opportunity of slaying his rival. The Arabs have found means of sending letters to their friends, but they appear unable to leave the country. Their correspondence declares them to be living in favour with the Kazembe, who has presented them with large rice-shambas, that they have collected ivory and copper in large quantities, but are unable to find porters. This being highly improbable in a land where in 1807 a slave cost five, and a tusk of ivory six or seven squares of Indian piece-goods, and as, moreover, several merchants, deluded by exaggerated accounts of the Kazembe’s wealth and liberality, intrusted these men with considerable ventures, of which no tidings have as yet reached the creditors’ ears, the more acute Arabs suspect that their countrymen are living from hand to mouth about Usenda, and are cultivating the land with scant prospect of quitting it.
The people of Marungu are called Wámbozwá by the Arabs; they are subject to no king, but live under local rulers, and are ever at war with their neighbours. They are a dark and plain, a wild and uncomely race. Amongst these people is observed a custom which connects them with the Wangindo, Wahiao, and the slave races dwelling inland from Kilwa. They pierce the upper lip and gradually enlarge the aperture till the end projects in a kind of bill beyond the nose and chin, giving to the countenance a peculiar duck-like appearance. The Arabs, who abhor this hideous vagary of fashion, scarify the sides of the hole and attempt to make the flesh grow by the application of rock-salt. The people of Marungu, however, are little valued as slaves; they are surly and stubborn, exceedingly depraved, and addicted to desertion.