The next day led us over an elevated undulation cut by many jagged watercourses, and still flanked by the outlying masses which fall westward into the waste of Mgunda M’khali. After an hour’s march, we turned abruptly eastwards, and crossing a rugged stony fork, presently found a dwarf basin of red soil which supplied water. The Wahehe owners of the land have a chronic horror of the Warori; on sighting our peaceful caravan, they at once raised the war-cry, and were quieted only by the certainty that we were even more frightened than they were. At Kinganguku, the night was again wild and stormy; in fact, after leaving Ugogi, we were regularly rained upon till we had crossed the Mountains.
On the 9th December, we marched in six hours from Kinyanguku to Rudi, the principal district of Uhehe. It was an ascent plunging into the hills, which, however, on this line are easy to traverse, compared with those of the northern route; the paths were stony and rugged, and the earth was here white and glaring, there of a dull red colour. Water pure and plentiful was found in pits about fifteen feet deep, which dented the sole of a picturesque Fiumara. The people assembled to stare with the stare pertinacious; they demanded large prices for their small reserves of provisions, but they sold tobacco at the rate of two or three cakes, each weighing about one pound and a half, for a shukkah.
Passing from the settlements of Rudi, on the next morning we entered a thorn jungle, where the handiwork of the fierce Warori appeared in many a shell of smoke-stained village. We then crossed two Fiumaras exactly similar to those which attract the eye in the Somali country, broad white sandy beds, with high stiff earth-banks deeply water-cut, and with huge emerald-foliaged trees rising from a hard bare red plain. After a short march of three hours, we pitched under a tamarind, and sent our men abroad to collect provisions. Tobacco was cheap, as at Rudi, grain and milk, whether fresh or sour, were expensive, and two shukkahs were demanded for a lamb or a young goat. The people of Mporota are notorious pilferers. About noontide a loud “hooroosh” and the scampering of spearmen over the country announced a squabble; presently our people reappeared driving before them a flock which they had seized in revenge for a daring attempt at larceny. I directed them to retain one fine specimen—the lex talionis is ever the first article of the penal code in the East—and to return the rest. Notwithstanding these energetic measures, the youth Taufiki awaking in the night with a shriek like one affected by nightmare, found that a Mhehe robber had snatched his cloth, and favoured by the shades had escaped with impunity. The illness of Said bin Salim detained us for a day in this den of thieves.
The 12th December carried us in three hours from Mporota to Ikuka of Uhehe. The route wound over red steps amongst low stony hills, the legs of the spider-like system, and the lay of the heights was in exceeding confusion. Belted by thorny scrub and forests of wild fruit trees—some edible, others poisonous—were several villages, surrounded by fields, especially rich in ground-nuts. Beyond Ikuka the road entered stony and rugged land, with a few sparse cultivations almost choked by thick bushy jungle; the ragged villages contained many dogs, and a few peculiarly hideous human beings. Thence it fell into a fine Fiumara, with pure sweet water in pools, breaking the surface of loose white sand; upon the banks, red soil, varying from a few inches to 20 feet in depth, overlay bands and lines of rounded pebbles, based on beds of granite, schiste, and sandstone. After ascending a hill, we fell into a second watercourse, whose line was almost choked with wild and thorny vegetation, and we raised the tents in time to escape a pitiless pelting, which appeared to spring from a gap in the southern mountains. The time occupied in marching from Ikuka to Inena of Usagara was four hours, and, as usual in these short stages, there was no halt.
Two porters were found missing on the morning of the 14th December,—they had gone for provisions, and had slept in the villages,—moreover, heavy clouds hanging on the hill-tops threatened rain: a Tirikeza was therefore ordered. At 11 A.M. we set out over rises, falls, and broken ground, at the foot of the neighbouring highlands which enclose a narrow basin, the seat of villages and extensive cultivation. Small cascades flashing down the walls that hemmed us in showed the copiousness of the last night’s fall. After five hours’ heavy marching, we forded a rapid Fiumara, whose tall banks of stiff red clay, resting upon tilted-up strata of greenstone, enclosed a stream calf-deep, and from 10 to 12 feet broad. At this place, called Ginyindo, provisions were hardly procurable; consequently the caravan, as was its wont on such occasions, quarrelled for disport, and the Baloch, headed by “Gray-beard Musa,” began to abuse and to beat the Pagazis.
The morning of the 15th December commenced with a truly African scene. The men were hungry, and the air was chill. They prepared, however, to start quietly betimes. Suddenly a bit of rope was snatched, a sword flashed in the air, a bow-horn quivered with nocked arrow, and the whole caravan rushed frantically with a fearful row to arms. As no one dissuaded the party from “fighting it out,” they apparently became friends, and took up their loads. My companion and I rode quietly forward: scarcely, however, had we emerged from the little basin in which the camp had been placed, than a terrible hubbub of shouts and yells announced that the second act had commenced. After a few minutes, Said bin Salim came forward in trembling haste to announce that the Jemadar had again struck a Pagazi, who, running into the Nullah, had thrown stones with force enough to injure his assailant, consequently that the Baloch had drawn their sabres and had commenced a general massacre of porters. Well understanding this misrepresentation, we advanced about a mile, and thence sent back two of the sons of Ramji to declare that we would not be delayed, and that if not at once followed, we would engage other porters at the nearest village. This brought on a denouement: presently the combatants appeared, the Baloch in a high state of grievance, the Africans declaring that they had not come to fight but to carry. I persuaded them both to defer settling the business till the evening, when both parties well crammed with food listened complacently to that gross personal abuse, which, in these lands, represents a reprimand.
Resuming our journey, we crossed two high and steep hills, the latter of which suddenly disclosed to the eye the rich and fertile basin of Maroro. Its principal feature is a perennial mountain stream, which, descending the chasm which forms the northern pass, winds sluggishly through the plain of muddy black soil and patches of thick rushy grass, and diffused through watercourses of raised earth, covers the land with tobacco, holcus, sweet-potato, plantains, and maize. The cereals stood five feet high, and were already in ear: according to the people, never less than two, and often three and four crops are reaped during the year. This hill-girt district is placed at one month’s march from the coast. At the southern extremity, there is a second opening like the northern, and through it the “River of Maroro” sheds into the Rwaha, distant in direct line two marches west with southing.
THE BASIN OF MARORO.
Maroro, or Malolo, according to dialect, is the “Marorrer town” of Lt. Hardy, (Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society, from Sept. 1841 to May 1844,) who, in 1811-12, was dispatched with Capt. Smee by the Government of Bombay to collect information at Kilwa and its dependencies, and the East African coast generally. Mr. Cooley (Inner Africa Laid Open, p. 56) writes the word Marora, and explains it to mean “trade:” the people, however, ignore the derivation. It is not a town, but a district, containing as usual on this line a variety of little settlements. The confined basin is by no means a wholesome locality, the air is warm and “muggy,” the swamp vegetation is fetid, the mosquitos venomous, and the population, afflicted with fevers and severe ulceration, is not less wretched and degraded than the Wak’hutu. Their habitations are generally Tembe, but small and poor, and their fields are dotted with dwarf platforms for the guardians of the crops. Here a cow costs twelve cloths, a goat three, whilst two fowls are procurable for a shukkah. Maroro is the westernmost limit of the touters from the Mrima; there are seldom less than 150 muskets present, and the Wasagara have learned to hold strangers in horror.