“These men,” replied my interpreter, “neither buy nor sell; they do not inquire into price, nor do they covet profit.”
An extravagant present—for at that time I was ignorant of the price I ought to pay—opened the chiefs’ hearts, and they appointed one of their body to accompany me as far as the western half of the Kingani valley. They also caused to be performed a dance of ceremony in my honour. A line of small, plump, chestnut-coloured women, with wild, beady eyes and thatch of clay-plastered hair, dressed in their loin-cloths, with a profusion of bead necklaces and other ornaments, and with their ample bosoms tightly corded down, advanced and retired in a convulsion of wriggle and contortion, whose fit expression was a long discordant howl. I threw them a few strings of green beads, and one of these falling to the ground, I was stooping to pick it up when Said, my interpreter whispered, in my ear, “Bend not; they will say ‘He will not bend even to take up beads.’”
In some places I found the attentions of the fair sex somewhat embarrassing, but when I entered the fine green fields that guarded the settlements of Muhoewee, I was met en masse by the ladies of the
villages, who came out to stare, laugh, and wonder at the white man.
“What would you think of these whites as husbands?” asked one of the crowd.
“With such things on their legs, not by any means!” was the unanimous reply, accompanied by peals of merriment.
On July 8th I fell into what my Arab called the “Valley of Death and the Home of Hunger,” a malarious level plain. Speke, whom I shall henceforth call my companion, was compelled by sickness to ride. The path, descending into a dense thicket of spear grass, bush, and thorny trees based on sand, was rough and uneven, but when I arrived at a ragged camping kraal, I found the water bad, and a smell of decay was emitted by the dark, dank ground. It was a most appalling day, and one I shall not lightly forget. From the black clouds driven before furious blasts pattered raindrops like musket bullets, splashing the already saturated ground. Tall, stiff trees groaned and bent before the gusts; birds screamed as they were driven from their resting-places; the asses stood with heads depressed, ears hung down, and shrinking tails turned to the wind; even the beasts of the wild seemed to have taken refuge in their dens.
Despite our increasing weakness, we marched on the following day, when we were interrupted by a body of about fifty Wazaramo, who called to us to halt. We bought them off with a small present of cloth and beads, and they stood aside to let us pass.
I could not but admire the athletic and statuesque figures of the young warriors, and their martial attitudes, grasping in one hand their full-sized bows, and in the other sheaths of grinded arrows, whose black barbs and necks showed a fresh layer of poison.
Though handicapped by a very inadequate force, in eighteen days we accomplished, despite sickness and every manner of difficulty, a march of one hundred and eighteen miles, and entered K’hutu, the safe rendezvous of foreign merchants, on July 14th. I found consolation in the thought that the expedition had passed without accident through the most dangerous part of the journey.