“Seis mezes de polvo,
Seis mezes de lodo.”
In 1857 the Masika, or rains, commenced throughout Eastern Unyamwezi on the 14th of November. In the northern and western provinces the wet monsoon begins earlier and lasts longer. At Msene it precedes Unyanyembe about a month; in Ujiji, Karagwah, and Uganda, nearly two months. Thus the latter countries have a rainy season which lasts from the middle of September till the middle of May.
The moisture-bearing wind in this part of Africa is the fixed south-east trade, deflected, as in the great valley of the Mississippi and in the island of Ceylon, into a periodical south-west monsoon. As will appear in these pages, the downfalls begin earlier in Central Africa than upon the eastern coast, and from the latter point they travel by slow degrees, with the northing sun, to the north-east, till they find a grave upon the rocky slopes of the Himalayas.
The rainy monsoon is here ushered in, accompanied, and terminated by storms of thunder and lightning, and occasional hail-falls. The blinding flashes of white, yellow, or rose colour play over the firmament uninterruptedly for hours, during which no darkness is visible. In the lighter storms thirty and thirty-five flashes may be counted in a minute: so vivid is the glare that it discloses the finest shades of colour, and appears followed by a thick and palpable gloom, such as would hang before a blind man’s eyes, whilst a deafening roar simultaneously following the flash, seems to travel, as it were, to and fro overhead. Several claps sometimes sound almost at the same moment, and as if coming from different directions. The same storm will, after the most violent of its discharges, pass over, and be immediately followed by a second, showing the superabundance of electricity in the atmosphere. When hail is about to fall, a rushing noise is heard in the air, with sudden coolness and a strange darkness from the canopy of brownish purple clouds. The winds are exceedingly variable: perhaps they are most often from the east and north-east during summer, from the north-west and south-west in the rains; but they are answered from all quarters of the heavens, and the most violent storms sail up against the lower atmospheric currents. The Portuguese of the Mozambique attribute these terrible discharges of electricity to the quantity of mineral substances scattered about the country; but a steaming land like Eastern Africa wants, during the rains, no stronger battery. In the rainy season the sensation is that experienced during the equinoctial gales in the Mediterranean, where the scirocco diffuses everywhere discomfort and disease. The fall is not, as in Western India, a steady downpour, lasting sometimes two or three days without a break. In Central Africa, rain seldom endures beyond twelve hours, and it often assumes for weeks an appearance of regularity, re-occurring at a certain time. Night is its normal season; the mornings are often wet, and the torrid midday is generally dry. As in Southern Africa, a considerable decrease of temperature is the consequence of long-continued rain. Westward of Unyanyembe, hail-storms, during the rainy monsoon, are frequent and violent; according to the Arabs, the stones sometimes rival pigeons’ eggs in size. Throughout this monsoon the sun burns with sickly depressing rays, which make earth reek like a garment hung out to dry. Yet this is not considered the unhealthy period: the inundation is too deep, and evaporation is yet unable to extract sufficient poison from decay.
As in India and the southern regions of Africa, the deadly season follows the wet monsoon from the middle of May to the end of June. The kosi or south-west wind gives place to the kaskazi, or north-east, about April, a little later than at Zanzibar. The cold gales and the fervid suns then affect the outspread waters; the rivers, having swollen during the weeks of violent downfall that usher in the end of the rains, begin to shrink, and miry morasses and swamps of black vegetable mud line the low-lands whose central depths are still under water. The winds, cooled by excessive evaporation and set in motion by the heat, howl over the country by night and day, dispersing through the population colds and catarrhs, agues and rheumatisms, dysenteries and deadly fevers. It must, however, be remarked that many cases which in India and Sindh would be despaired of, survived in Eastern Africa.
The hot season, or summer, lasting from the end of June till nearly the middle of November, forms the complement of the year. The air now becomes healthy and temperate; the cold, raw winds rarely blow, and the people recover from their transition diseases. At long intervals, during these months, but a few grateful and refreshing showers, accompanied by low thunderings, cool the air and give life to the earth. These phenomena are expected after the change of the moon, and not, as in Zanzibar, during her last quarter. The Arabs declare that here, as in the island, rain sometimes falls from a clear sky—a phenomenon not unknown to African travellers. The drought affects the country severely, a curious exception to the rule in the zone of perpetual rain; and after August whirlwinds of dust become frequent. At this time the climate is most agreeable to the senses; even in the hottest nights a blanket is welcome, especially about dawn, and it is possible to dine at 3 or 4 P.M., when in India the exertion would be impracticable. During the day a ring-cloud, or a screen of vapour, almost invariably tempers the solar rays; at night a halo, or a corona, generally encircles the moon. The clouds are chiefly cumulus, cumulo-stratus, and nimbus; the sky is often overcast with large white masses floating, apparently without motion, upon the milky haze, and in the serenest weather a few threads are seen pencilled upon the expanse above. Sunrise is seldom thoroughly clear, and, when so, the clouds, sublimed in other regions and brought up by the rising winds, begin to gather in the forenoon. They are melted, as it were, by the fervent heat of the sun between noon and 3 P.M., at which time also the breezes fall light. Thick mists collect about sunset, and by night the skies are seldom free from clouds. The want of heat to dilate the atmosphere at this season, and the light-absorbing vegetation which clothes the land, causes a peculiar dimness in the Galaxy and “Magellan’s Clouds.” The twilight also is short, and the zodiacal light is not observed. The suffocating sensation of the tropics is unknown, and at noon in the month of September—the midsummer of this region—the thermometer, defended from the wind, in a single-fold Arab tent, never exceeded 113° Fahr. Except during the rains, the dews are not heavy, as in Zanzibar, in the alluvial valleys, and in Usagara and Ujiji: the people do not fear exposure to them, though, as in parts of France, they consider dew-wetted grass unwholesome for cattle. The Arabs stand bathing in the occasional torrents of rain without the least apprehension. The temperature varies too little for the European constitution, which requires a winter. The people, however, scarcely care to clothe themselves. The flies and mosquitoes—those pests of most African countries—are here a minor annoyance.
The principal cause of disease during the summer of Unyamwezi is the east wind, which, refrigerated by the damp alluvial valleys of the first region and the tree-clad peaks and swampy plains of Usagara, sweeps the country, like the tramontanas of Italy, with a freezing cold in the midst of an atmosphere properly tepid. These unnatural combinations of extremes, causing sudden chills when the skin perspires, bring on inevitable disease; strangers often suffer severely, and the influenza is as much feared in Unyamwezi as in England. The east wind is even more dangerous in the hut than in the field: draughts from the four quarters play upon the patient, making one side of the body tremble with cold, whilst the other, defended by the wall or heated by the fire, burns with fever-glow. The gales are most violent immediately after the cessation of the rains; about the beginning of August they become warmer and fall light. At this time frequent whirlwinds sweep from the sun-parched land clouds of a fine and penetrating clay-dust; and slight shocks of earthquakes are by no means uncommon. Three were observed by the Expedition—at noon on the 14th of June, 1858; on the morning of the 13th of June; and at 5 P.M. on the 22nd of November, 1858. The motion, though mild, was distinctly perceptible; unfortunately, means of ascertaining the direction were wanted. The people of the country call this phenomenon “Tetemeka,” or the trembling; and the Arabs remember a shock of a serious nature which took place at Unyanyembe in the hot season of 1852. After September, though the land is parched with drought, the trees begin to put forth their leaves; it is the coupling season of beasts, and the period of nidification and incubation for birds. The gradual lowering of the temperature, caused by the southern declination of the sun, acts like the genial warmth of an English spring. As all sudden changes from siccity to humidity are prejudicial to man, there is invariably severe disease at the end of the summer, when the rains set in.
Travellers from Unyamwezi homeward returned often represent that country to be the healthiest in Eastern and Central Africa: they quote, as a proof, the keenness of their appetites and the quantity of food which they consume. The older residents, however, modify their opinions: they declare that digestion does not wait upon appetite; and that, as in Egypt, Mazanderan, Malabar, and other hot-damp countries, no man long retains rude health. The sequelæ of their maladies are always severe; few care to use remedies, deeming them inefficacious against morbific influences to them unknown; convalescence is protracted, painful, and uncertain, and at length they are compelled to lead the lives of confirmed invalids. The gifts of the climate, lassitude and indolence, according to them, predispose to corpulence; and the regular warmth induces baldness, and thins the beard, thus assimilating strangers in body as in mind to the aborigines. They are unanimous in quoting a curious effect of climate, which they attribute to a corruption of the “humours and juices of the body.” Men who, after a lengthened sojourn in these regions return to Oman, throw away the surplus provisions brought from the African coast, burn their clothes and bedding, and for the first two or three months eschew society; a peculiar effluvium rendering them, it is said, offensive to the finer olfactories of their compatriots.
The Mukunguru of Unyamwezi is perhaps the severest seasoning fever in this part of Africa. It is a bilious remittent, which normally lasts three days; it wonderfully reduces the patient in that short period, and in severe cases the quotidian is followed by a long attack of a tertian type. The consequences are severe and lasting even in men of the strongest nervous diathesis; burning and painful eyes, hot palms and soles, a recurrence of shivering and flushing fits, with the extremities now icy cold, then painfully hot and swollen, indigestion, insomnolency, cutaneous eruptions and fever sores, languor, dejection, and all the inconveniences resulting from torpidity of liver, or from an inordinate secretion of bile, betray the poison deep-lurking in the system. In some cases this fever works speedily; some even, becoming at once delirious, die on the first or the second day, and there is invariably an exacerbation of symptoms before the bilious remittent passes away.
The fauna of Unyamwezi are similar to those described in Usagara and Ugogo. In the jungles quadrumana are numerous; lions and leopards, cynhyænas and wild cats haunt the forests; the elephant and the rhinoceros, the giraffe and the Cape buffalo, the zebra, the quagga (?), and the koodoo wander over the plains; and the hippopotamus and crocodile are found in every large pool. The nyanyi or cynocephalus in the jungles of Usukuma attains the size of a greyhound; according to the people, there are three varieties of colour—red, black, and yellow. They are the terror of the neighbouring districts: women never dare to approach their haunts; they set the leopard at defiance, and, when in a large body, they do not, it is said, fear the lion. The Colobus guereza, or tippet monkey, the “polume” of Dr. Livingstone (ch. xvi.), here called mbega, is admired on account of its polished black skin and snowy-white mane. It is a cleanly animal, ever occupied in polishing its beautiful garb, which, according to the Arabs, it tears to pieces when wounded, lest the hunter should profit by it. The mbega lives in trees, seldom descending, and feeds upon the fruit and the young leaves. The Arabs speak of wild dogs in the vicinity of Unyanyembe, describing them as being about eighteen inches in height, with rufous-black and shaggy coats, and long thick tails; they are gregarious, running in packs of from 20 to 200; they attack indiscriminately man and the largest animals, and their only cry is a howl. About the time of our autumn the pools are visited by various kinds of aquatic birds, widgeon, plump little teal, fine snipe, curlew, and crane; the ardea, or white “paddy-bird” of India, and the “lily-trotter” (Parra Africana), are scattered over the country; and sometimes, though rarely, the chenalopex or common Egyptian-goose and the gorgeous-crowned crane (Balearica pavonina), the latter a favourite dish with the Arabs, appear. In several parts of Unyamwezi, especially in the north, there is a large and well-flavoured species of black-backed goose (Sakidornis melanota): the common wild duck of England was not seen. Several specimens of the Buceros, the secretary-bird (Serpentarius reptilivorus), and large vultures, probably the condor of the Cape, were observed in Unyamwezi; the people do not molest them, holding the flesh to be carrion. The Cuculus indicator, called in Kisawahili “tongoe,” is common; but, its honey being mostly hived, it does not attract attention. Grillivori, and a species of thrush, about the size of common larks, with sulphur-yellow patches under the eyes, and two naked black striæ beneath the throat, are here migratory birds; they do good service to the agriculturist against the locust. A variety of the Loxia or grossbill constructs nests sometimes in bunches hanging from the lower branches of the trees. The mtiko, a kind of water-wagtail (Motacilla), ventures into the huts with the audacity of a London sparrow, and the Africans have a prejudice against killing it. Swallows and martins of various kinds, some peculiarly graceful and slender, may be seen migrating at the approach of winter in regular travelling order: of these, one variety resembles the English bird. The Africans declare that a single species of hirundo, probably the sand-martin, builds in the precipitous earth-banks of the nullahs: their nests were not seen, however, as in Southern Africa, under the eaves of houses. There are a few ostriches, hawks, ravens, plovers, nightjars (Caprimulgidæ), red and blue jays of brilliant plume, muscicapæ, blackcaps or mock nightingales (Motacilla atrocapilla?), passerines of various kinds, hoopoes, bulbuls, wrens, larks, and bats. We saw but few poisonous animals. Besides the dendrophis, the only ophidia killed in the country were snakes, with slate-coloured backs, and silver bellies, resembling the harmless “mas” or “hanash” of Somaliland, the Psammophis sibilaris (L.); C. moniliger Lacépède,—according to Mr. Blyth (“Journal of the As. Soc. of Bengal,” vol. xxiv., p. 306), who declares it to be not venomous—they abound in the houses and destroy the rats. The people speak of a yellow and brown-coated snake, eight feet long by five or six inches in diameter; it is probably a boa or rock-snake. Chúrá or frogs are numerous in the swamps, where the frog-concerts resemble those of the New World; and in the regions about the Tanganyika Lake a large variety makes night hideous with its croakings. Of the ranæ there are many species. The largest is probably the “matmalelo” of S. Africa; it is eaten by the Wagogo and other tribes. A smaller kind is of dark colour, and with long legs, which enable it to hop great distances. A third is of a dirty yellow, with brownish speckles. There is also a little green tree-frog, which adheres to the broad and almost perpendicular leaves of the thicker grasses. The leech is found in the lakes and rivers of the interior, as well as in Zanzibar and on both coasts of Africa; according to the Arabs they are of two kinds, large and small. The people neither take precautions against them when drinking at the streams, as the Somal do, nor are they aware of any officinal use for the animals; moreover, it is impossible to persuade a Msawahili to collect them: they are of P’hepo or fiendish nature, and never fail to haunt and harm their captor. Jongo, or huge millepedes, some attaining a length of half a foot, with shiny black bodies and red feet, are found in the fields and forests, especially during the rains: covered with epizoa, these animals present a disgusting appearance, and they seem, to judge from their spoils, to die off during the hot weather. At certain seasons there is a great variety of the papilionaceous family in the vicinity of waters where libellulæ or dragon-flies also abound. The country is visited at irregular times by flights of locusts, here called nzige. In spring the plants are covered in parts with the p’hánzí, a large pink and green variety, and the destructive species depicted and described by Salt: they rise from the earth like a glowing rose-coloured cloud, and die off about the beginning of the rains. The black leather-like variety, called by the Arabs “Satan’s ass,” is not uncommon: it is eaten by the Africans, as are many other edibles upon which strangers look with disgust. The Arabs describe a fly which infests the forest-patches of Unyamwezi: it is about the size of a small wasp, and is so fatal that cattle attacked by it are at once killed and eaten before they become carrion from its venomous effects. In parts the country is dotted with ant-hills, which, when old, become hard as sandstone: they are generally built by the termite under some shady tree, which prevents too rapid drying, and apparently the people have not learned, like their brethren in South Africa, to use them as ovens.