The high woody hills of Karagwah attract a quantity of rain. The long and copious wet monsoon divides the year into two seasons—a winter of seven or eight, and a summer of four or five months. The Vuli, or lesser rains, commence, as at Zanzibar, with the Nayruz (29th of August); and they continue with little intermission till the burst of the Masika, which lasts in Karagwah from October to May or June. The winds, as in Unyamwezi, are the Kaskazi, or north and north-east gales, which shift during the heavier falls of rain to the Kosi, the west and south-west. Storms of thunder and lightning are frequent, and the Arabs compare the down-pour rather to that of Zanzibar island than to the scanty showers of Unyamwezi. The sowing season at Karagwah, as at Msene and Ujiji, begins with the Vuli, when maize and millet, the voandzeia, various kinds of beans and pulse, are committed to the well-hoed ground. Rice being unknown, the people depend much upon holcus: this cereal, which is sown in October to prepare for the Masika in November, has, in the mountains, a short cane and a poor insipid grain of the red variety. The people convert it into pombe; and they make the wine called mawa from the plantains, which in several districts are more abundant than the cereals. Karagwah grows according to some, according to others imports from the northern countries, along the western margin of the Nyanza Lake, a small wild coffee, locally called mwámí. Like all wild productions, it is stunted and undeveloped, and the bean, which, when perfect, is about the size of a corking-pin’s head, is never drunk in decoction. The berry gathered unripe is thrown into hot water to defend it from rot, or to prevent its drying too rapidly—an operation which converts the husk to a dark chocolate colour—the people of this country chew it like tobacco, and, during visits, a handful is invariably presented to the guest. According to the Arabs, it has, like the kishr of Yemen, stimulating properties, affects the head, prevents somnolency, renders water sweet to the taste, and forms a pleasant refreshing beverage, which the palate, however, never confounds with the taste of the Mocha-berry. In Karagwah a single khete of beads purchases a kubabah (from 1 lb. to 2 lbs.) of this coffee; at Kazeh and Msene, where it is sometimes brought by caravans, it sells at fancy prices. Another well-known production of all these regions is the mt’hípít’hípí, or Abrus precatorius, whose scarlet seeds are converted into ornaments for the head.
The cattle is a fine variety, with small humps and large horns, like that of Ujiji and Uviva. The herds are reckoned by Gundu, or stallions, in the proportion of 1 to 100 cows. The late Sultan Ndagara is said to have owned 200 Gundu, or 20,000 cows, which late civil wars have reduced to 12,000 or 13,000. In Karagwah cattle forms wealth, and everywhere in Africa wealth, and wealth only, secures defenders and dependants. The surplus males are killed for beef; this meat, with milk in its various preparations, and a little of the fine white hill-honey, forms the food of the higher classes.
The people of Karagwah, who are not, according to South African fashion, called Wakaragwah, are divided into two orders—Wahuma and Wanyambo—who seem to bear to each other the relation of patron and client, patrician and plebeian. The Wahuma comprises the rich, who sometimes possess 1000 head of cattle, and the warriors, a militia paid in the milk of cows allotted to their temporary use by the king. The Wanyambo—Fellahs or Ryots—are, it is said, treated by the nobles as slaves. The men of Karagwah are a tall stout race, doubtless from the effect of pure mountain-air and animal food. Corpulence is a beauty: girls are fattened to a vast bulk by drenches of curds and cream thickened with flour, and are duly disciplined when they refuse. The Arabs describe them as frequently growing to a monstrous size, like some specimens of female Boers mentioned by early travellers in Southern Africa. Fresh milk is the male, sour the female beverage. The complexion is a brown yellow, like that of the Warundi. The dress of the people, and even of the chiefs, is an apron of close-grained mbugu, or bark-cloth, softened with oil, and crimped with fine longitudinal lines made with a batten or pounding club. In shape it resembles the flap of an English saddle, tied by a prolongation of the upper corners round the waist. To this scarcely decent article the chiefs add a languti, or Indian-T-bandage of goat’s skin. Nudity is not uncommon, and nubile girls assume the veriest apology for clothing, which is exchanged after marriage for short kilts and breast coverings of skin. Both sexes wear tiara-shaped and cravat-formed ornaments of the crimson abrus-seed, pierced and strung upon mondo, the fine fibre of the mwale or raphia-palm. The weapons are bows and arrows, spears, knobsticks, and knives; the ornaments are beads and coil-bracelets, which, with cattle, form the marriage settlement. The huts are of the conical and circular African shape, with walls of stakes and roofs so carefully thatched that no rain can penetrate them: the villages, as in Usagara, are scattered upon the crests and ridges of the hills.
The Mkámá, or Sultan of Karagwah, in 1858, was Armanika, son of Ndagara, who, although the dignity is in these lands hereditary, was opposed by his younger brother Rumanika. The rebel, after an obstinate attack, was routed by Suna, the late despot of Uganda, who, bribed by the large present of ivory, which was advanced by Musa Mzuri of Kazeh, then trading with Armanika, threw a large force into the field. Rumanika was blinded and pensioned, and about four years ago peace was restored. Armanika resides in the central district, Weranhanja, and his settlement, inhabited only by the royal family, contains from forty to fifty huts. He is described as a man about thirty to thirty-five years old, tall, sturdy, and sinewy-limbed, resembling the Somal. His dress is, by preference, the mbugu, or bark-cloth, but he has a large store of fine raiment presented by his Arab visitors: in ornaments he is distinguished by tight gaiters of beads extending from knee to ankle. His diet is meat and milk, with sometimes a little honey, plantains, and grain: unlike his subjects, he eschews mawa and pombe. He has about a dozen wives, an unusually moderate allowance for an African chief, and they have borne him ten or eleven children. The royal family is said to be a race of centagenarians; they are buried in their garments, sitting and holding their weapons: when the king dies there is a funeral feast.
Under the Mkama is a single minister, who takes the title of Muhinda, and presides over the Wakungu, elders and headmen, whose duty it is to collect and to transmit to the monarch once every month his revenues, in the shape of slaves and ivory, cattle and provisions. Milk must be forwarded by proprietors of cows and herds even from a distance of three days’ march. Armanika is an absolute ruler, and he governs without squeamishness. Adulterers are punished by heavy fines in cattle, murderers are speared and beheaded, rebels and thieves are blinded by gouging out the eyes with the finger-joints of the right-hand, and severing the muscles. Subjects are forbidden to sell milk to those who eat beans or salt, for fear of bewitching the animals. The Mkama, who lives without state or splendour, receives travellers with courtesy. Hearing of their approach, he orders his slaves to erect four or five tents for shelter, and he greets them with a large present of provisions. He demands no blackmail, but the offerer is valued according to his offerings: the return gifts are carefully proportioned, and for beads which suit his taste he has sent back an acknowledgment of fifty slaves and forty cows. The price of adult male slaves varies from eight to ten fundo of white, green, or blue porcelain-beads: a woman in her prime costs two kitindi (each equal to one dollar on the coast), and five or six fundo of mixed beasts. Some of these girls, being light-coloured and well favoured, sell for sixty dollars at Zanzibar. The merchants agree in stating that a European would receive in Karagwah the kindest welcome, but that to support the dignity of the white face a considerable sum would be required. Arabs still visit Armanika to purchase slaves, cattle, and ivory, the whitest and softest, the largest and heaviest in this part of Central Africa. The land is rich in iron, and the spears of Karagwah, which are, to some extent, tempered, are preferred to the rude work of the Wafyoma. Sulphur is found, according to the Arabs, near hot springs amongst the mountains. A species of manatus (?) supplies a fine skin used for clothing. The simbi, or cowrie (Cypræa), is the minor currency of the country: it is brought from the coast by return caravans of Wanyamwezi.
The country of Karagwah is at present the head-quarters of the Watosi, a pastoral people who are scattered throughout these Lake Regions. They came, according to tradition, from Usingo, a mountain district lying to the north of Uhha. They refuse to carry loads, to cultivate the ground, or to sell one another. Harmless, and therefore unarmed, they are often plundered, though rarely slain, by other tribes, and they protect themselves by paying fees in cattle to the chiefs. When the Wahinda are sultans, the Watosi appear as councillors and elders; but whether this rank is derived from a foreign and superior origin, or is merely the price of their presents, cannot be determined. In appearance they are a tall, comely, and comparatively fair people; hence in some parts every “distinguished foreigner” is complimented by being addressed as “Mtosi.” They are said to derive themselves from a single ancestor, and to consider the surrounding tribes as serviles, from whom they will take concubines, but to whom they refuse their daughters. Some lodges of this people were seen about Unyanyembe and Msene, where they live by selling cattle, milk, and butter. Their villages are poor, dirty, and unpalisaded; mere scatters of ragged round huts. They have some curious practices: never eat out of their own houses, and, after returning from abroad, test, by a peculiar process, the fidelity of their wives before anointing themselves and entering their houses. The Arabs declare that they are known by their black gums, which they consider a beauty.
The last feature of importance in Karagwah is the Kitangure River on its northern frontier. This stream, deriving its name from a large settlement on its banks, according to some travellers flows through a rocky trough, according to others it traverses a plain. Some, again, make it thirty yards, others 600, and even half a mile, in breadth. All these statements are reconcileable. The river issues from Higher Urundi, not far from the Malagarazi; but whilst the latter, engaged in the Depression of Central Africa, is drawn towards the Tanganyika, the former, falling into the counterslope, is directed to the north-east into the Nyanza Lake. Its course would thus lie through a mountain-valley, from which it issues into a lacustrine plain, the lowlands of Unyoro and Uganda. The dark and swift stream must be crossed in canoes even during the dry season, but, like the Malagarazi, about June or at the end of the rains, it debords over the swampy lands of its lower course.
From the Kitangure River fifteen stations conduct the traveller to Kibuga, the capital district of Uganda, and the residence of its powerful despot. The maximum of these marches would be six daily, or a total of ninety rectilinear geographical miles. Though there are no hills, the rivers and rivulets—said to be upwards of a hundred in number—offer serious obstacles to rapid travelling. Assuming then, the point where the Kitangure River is crossed to be in S. lat. 1° 14′, Kibuga may be placed in S. lat. 0° 10′. Beyond Weranhanja no traveller with claims to credibility has seen the Nyanza water. North of Kibuga all is uncertain; the Arabs were not permitted by Suna, the last despot, to penetrate farther north.
The two first marches from the Kitangure River traverse the territory of “dependent Unyoro,” so called because it has lately become subject to the Sultan of Uganda. In former times Unyoro in crescent-shape, with the cusps fronting eastwards and westwards, almost encompassed Uganda. From dependent Unyoro the path, crossing a tract of low jungle, enters Uganda in the concave of the crescent. The tributary Wahayya, under Gaetawa, their sultan, still extend to the eastward. North of the Wahayya, of whose territory little is known, lies “Kittara,” in Kinyoro (or Kiganda?), a word interpreted to mean “mart,” or “meeting-place.” This is the region which supplies Karagwah with coffee. The shrub is propagated by sowing the bean. It attains the height of five feet, branching out about half-way; it gives fruit after the third, and is in full vigour after the fifth year. Before almost every hut-door there is a plantation, forming an effective feature in the landscape of rolling and wavy hill, intersected by a network of rivers and streams: the foliage is compared to a green tapestry veiling the ground; and at times, when the leaves are stripped off by wind and rain, the plant appears decked with brilliant crimson cherry-like berries. The Katonga River, crossed at Kitutu, is supposed to fall into the Nyanza, the general recipient of the network of streams about Karagwah. This diagonality may result from the compound incline produced by the northern counterslope of the mountains of Karagwah and the south-westward depression necessary to form and to supply the lake. The Katonga is a sluggish and almost stagnant body of considerable breadth, and when swollen it arrests the progress of caravans. Some portions of the river are crossed, according to the Arabs, over a thick growth of aquatic vegetation, which forms a kind of matwork, capable of supporting a man’s weight, and cattle are towed over in the more open parts by cords attached to their horns. Four stations lead from the Katonga River to Kibuga, the capital district of Uganda.
Kibuga is the residence of the great Mkámá or chief of Uganda. Concerning its population and peculiarities the Arabs must be allowed to tell their own tale. “Kibuga, the settlement, is not less than a day’s journey in length; the buildings are of cane and rattan. The sultan’s palace is at least a mile long, and the circular huts, neatly ranged in line, are surrounded by a strong fence which has only four gates. Bells at the several entrances announce the approach of strangers, and guards in hundreds attend there at all hours. They are commanded by four chiefs, who are relieved every second day: these men pass the night under hides raised upon uprights, and their heads are forfeited if they neglect to attend to the summons of the king. The harem contains about 3000 souls—concubines, slaves, and children. No male nor adult animal may penetrate, under pain of death, beyond the Barzah, a large vestibule or hall of audience where the king dispenses justice and receives his customs. This palace has often been burned down by lightning: on these occasions the warriors must assemble and extinguish the fire by rolling over it. The chief of Uganda has but two wants with which he troubles his visitors—one, a medicine against death; the other, a charm to avert the thunderbolt: and immense wealth would reward the man who could supply either of these desiderata.”