The climate of the Island is hotter, healthier, and drier than that of Zanzibar. The rains begin with storms in early April, or before the setting in of the S. West monsoon. They are violent in May, and from that time they gradually decrease. Between December and March there are a few showers, for which the cultivator longs; and, as may be imagined in an island ever subject to the sea-breeze, the dews are exceptionally heavy. The people suffer little from dysentery and fever: Europeans, however, complain that they are never free from the latter. The endemic complaint is a sphagadenic ulcer upon the legs and parts most distant from the seat of circulation. Here, as in Abyssinia, in Yemen, in the Hejaz, and at Jerusalem, the least scratch becomes an ugly wound, which will, if neglected, destroy life. The cause may be found in the cachectic and scorbutic habit induced by the want of vegetables and by brackish water; the pure element is, indeed, to be found in the old wells beyond the town and on the mainland; but the people save trouble by preferring the nearer pits, where water percolates through briny coralline. The town has suffered severely from epidemics, small-pox, and what strangers call the plague. The citizens still remember the excessive mortality of 1818, 1832, and 1835. At Mombasah I heard nothing about the curious influence which the climate is said to exercise upon cats, causing a sandy-coloured fur to be exchanged for ‘a coat of beautiful short white hair’; and producing, according to others, complete baldness, like the Remedio dogs of the Brazil and the Argentine Republic.
Mombasah, as has been seen, trades with the Wanyika for copal, with the people of Chaga and Ukamba-ni for ivory, and with the inner tribes generally for hippopotamus’ teeth, rhinoceros’ horns, cattle, cereals, and provisions. Slaves are brought from Zanzibar, natives of the country about and south of Kilwa being preferred. The imports are chiefly cottons, glass, beads, and hardware. There is no manufacturing industry, except a few cloths, hand-made in the town. Besides Harar, Mombasah is the only tropical African city which boasts an indigenous coinage. During the wars with Sayyid Said, the Mazrui chief, finding a want of small change, melted down a bronze cannon, and converted it into pieces a little larger than our six-pence. The bit, which bears on the obverse the name of Mombasah, whilst the reverse assures the owner that it is ‘money,’ was forcibly circulated, and the value was established at an equivalent to the measure (Kibabah) of Maize. Since the fall of the Mazara this purely conventional coin has fallen into disuse, and I was unable to find specimens of it.
CHAPTER III.
VISIT TO THE KISULODI-NI MISSION HOUSE.
Tremolavano i rai del sol nascente
Sovra l’onde del mar purpuree e d’oro,
E in vesti di zaffiro il ciel ridente,
Specchiar parea le sue bellezze in loro.
D’Africa i venti fieri e d’Oriente,
Sovra il letto del mar prendean ristoro.—Tassoni.
Leaving directions with Lakhmidas to land and lodge our cockroach-gnawed luggage, and deputing Saíd bin Salim, supported by our two Portuguese servants and his three slaves, to protect it, we set out on the morning after our arrival to visit M. Rebmann of the ‘Mombas Mission’ at Kisulodi-ni, his station. Before the sun gained power to destroy the dewy freshness of dawn, we slowly punted up the northern sea-arm which bounds the Mombasah islet: in our heavy ‘dau’—here all the lesser craft are so called—manned by two men and a small boy, we justified the stern Omar’s base comparison for those who tempt the sea, ‘worms floating upon a log.’ Whilst threading the channel our attention was attracted by groups of market people, especially women, who called to be ferried across. On the part of our crew the only acknowledgment was an African modification of Marlow Bridge, far-famed amongst bargees. Sundry small settlements, bosomed in thick undergrowth, relieved by brabs, cocoas, and the W-shaped toddy-tree, appeared upon each ‘adverse strand.’ After a two miles’ progress, lame as the march of civilisation at S’a Leone, we entered Port Tudor, a salt-water basin, one of the canals of Mombasah Bay, about two miles broad, and in depth varying from one to fifteen fathoms. Broken only by the ‘Rock of Rats,’ and hedged on both sides by the water-loving mangrove, it prolongs itself towards the interior in two tidal river-like channels for about ten miles, till stopped by high ground. The northern is named ‘Water of the Wakirunga,’ and the north-western ‘Water of the Rabai,’ from tribes owning the banks. Captain Owen has christened them respectively William Creek and River Barrette, after the officers who aided in his survey. Similarly, Port Reitz, to the south-west, projects a briny line called ‘Water of Doruma’—the region which it drains—and receiving the Muache, a sweet rivulet that flows from uplands 20 to 30 miles from the coast. Such in nature is the Tuaca, or Nash river, which defaces our maps. It is a mere confusion with Mtu Apa, the ‘River Matwapa’ of Captain Owen, a village and a little runnel five miles north of Mombasah. Lieut. Emery mentions the ‘hamlet of Mtuapa, situated at the entrance of a small river, which runs about sixteen miles into the country.’ Like the Cuavo, or great ‘Quiloa river,’ a salt-water inlet receiving during the rainy season the surface drainage of a seaward slope, the ‘Tuaca’ becomes a noble black streak, dispensing the blessings of intercourse and irrigation athwart three inches of white paper. The presence of such rivers must always be suspected: they would long ago have fundamentally altered the social condition of the interior. We may remark the same of Ptolemy’s three great Arabian streams, which could have existed only in the imagination of travellers.