Has sung its death-dirge o’er the ruined fanes.
Queen Mab.
Not a head of game, not a hippopotamus, was to be found near Mombasah. We finished our geographical inquiries; shook hands with divers acquaintances; re-shipped, after sundry little difficulties, on board the Riami; and on the 24th of January we left the turbulent island with gladdened hearts. The accidents of voyage now turned in our favour: there was a bright fresh breeze and a counter-current running southward thirty or thirty-five miles a day. After 6 hours of drowsy morning sailing, Ra’as Tewi, a picturesque headland, hove in sight, and two hours more brought the Riami to anchor at Sandy Point, in Gasi (جاسى) Bay. It lies half-way \[Arabic] between Mombasah and Wasin Island, and the position is correctly laid down in the ‘Mission Map.’[[21]] It is a mere roadstead, without other protection against the long sweep and swell of the Indian Ocean than a few scattered ‘washes,’ and a coralline islet. The settlement lies at some distance from the shore, deep-bosomed in trees, behind a tall screen of verdant mangrove; only the nodding cocoa, sure indicator of man’s presence in East Africa, towering high over the plebeian underwood, betrays its position to the mariner. The large village of wattle and dab huts is inhabited, like Mtuapa and Takaungu, by remnants of the proud Mazrui irreconcileables, still self-exiled from Mombasah. They live under the Shaykh Abdullah bin Khamis, and a sister of Shaykh Mubarak of Mombasah, who is said to display peculiar energy. They have given refuge to fugitive slaves from Marka, and behind the coast-line they have founded a new settlement, Mwasagnombe. It is not improbable that, in common with their brethren established in other villages, they look forward to recovering Mombasah, their old appanage.
Gasi is surrounded by plantations, and the Arabs, unmolested by the Wadigo savages, to whom the fertile land belongs, live in comparative comfort. Our crew armed themselves to accompany my companion, who, despite the bad name of the people, was civilly received on shore, with sundry refreshments of cocoa-nut milk and cake of rasped pulp and rice-flour. The footprints of a small lion appeared upon the sands, but we were not young enough to undertake the fruitless toil of tracking it. This was the breeding season, as the frequent birds’-nests proved. Ensued a cool, breezy night on board the Riami, the thermometer showing 75° (F.). Our gallant captain, the melancholist, sat up till dawn, chatting with Said bin Salim, who trembled at the sound of scattered washes, and at the wind moaning over the coral bank and through the barren ‘forests of the sea.’
About sunrise we again made sail, and, guided by that excellent landmark, the Peaks of Wasin, whose height is in charts 2500 feet, we entered, after three hours, the narrow channel, with never less than 5 fathoms of water, which, running nearly due east and west, separates Wasin Island from the continent. The north of this coralline bank, an ‘insula opaca,’ about 2¼ miles long by 1 in breadth, is defended by sundry outlying ledges and diminutive cliffs, where the gulls and terns take refuge, and upon which the combing sea breaks its force. The low southern shore is rich in the gifts of floatsom and jetsom; here the tide, flowing amongst the mangrove fringes and under shady crags, forms little bays, by no means unpicturesque. To windward, or south, lies the Wasin Bank, with three or four plateaux of tree-tufted rock emerging a few feet above sea-level.
The Island, which does a little cultivation, belongs to Zanzibar, and the only settlement, about the centre of its length, is on the northern shore, fronting Wanga Bandar on the Continent. Wasin contains three Mosques, long flat-roofed rooms of coral rag and lime ranged obliquely to face Meccah, and scattered amongst little huts and large houses of ‘bordi’ or mangrove timber: the latter are tied with coir rope and plastered over with clay, which in rare cases is whitewashed. The sloping thatch-roof already approaches in size and in sharpness of pitch the disproportions of the Madagascar cottage. Huge calabashes extend their fleshy arms over the hovels, affording the favourite luxury of a cool lounge, and giving from afar a something of pleasant village aspect to the squalid settlement. Water must be brought from the mainland; the people own it to be brackish, but declare that it is not unwholesome. The climate is infamous for breeding fever and helcoma, the air being poisoned by cowries festering under a tropical sun, and by two large graveyards—here also, as at Zanzibar, the abodes of the dead are built amongst the habitations of the living. The population is a bigoted and low-minded race, Hassádin (envious fellows) of evil eye, say the Zanzibarians; a mixture of lymphatic Arabs, hideous Wasawahili, ignoble half-castes, and thievish slaves. The Sayyid maintains no garrison here; the Banyans have been forbidden to deal in cowries, and the native merchants have all the profits such as they are.
I could hear nothing of Mr Cooley’s ‘tribe named Masimba, on the coast at Wassína (Wasin Island), near Mombasa,’ a term which he translates ‘lions,’ and identifies with the Zimba invaders of Do Couto. There is, however, a district of that name between Wasin and Gasi; and it may be connected with the range crossed by M. Rebmann, in 1847, and usually written Shimba. In the interior the word Masimba is used when addressing man or woman, and the root appears to be identical with that of the Vazimba or aborigines of Ankova. The people of Wasin send caravans of 100 men to the interior, viâ Wanga Bandar. They set out about the end of February, make some 20 marches, and return with ivory and slaves after about four months.
Landing, we found the shore crowded with unarmed spectators, who did not even return our salams: we resolved in future to reserve such greetings for those who deserve them. After sitting half an hour in a mat-shed, redolent with drying cowries and dignified with the name of Furzeh, or Custom House, presided over by a young Bohrah from Cutch, we were civilly accosted by an old man, whose round head showed him to be a Hindostani. Abd el Karim led us to his house, seated us in chairs upon the terrace, and mixed for us a cooling sherbet in a kind of one-handled blue and white vase, not usually, in Europe at least, devoted to such purpose. The Riami discharging cargo, we walked into the jungle, followed by a ragged tail of men and boys, to inspect some old Portuguese wells: as we traversed the village all the women fled—a proof that El Islam here flourishes. This part of the island is thinly veiled with a red argillaceous soil which produces a thick and matted growth of thorny plants, creepers, and parasites: eastward, where the mould is deeper, there is richer vegetation, and a few stunted cocoas have taken root. After fighting through the jungle, we came upon two pits sunk in the soft rock: Said bin Salim was bitterly derided whilst he sounded the depth, 40 feet; and by way of revenge, I dropped a hint about buried gold, which has doubtless been the cause of aching arms and hearts to the churls of Wasin. There is no game on the Island or on the main: in the evening, after a warm bath amongst the mangroves, we left the dirty hole without a shade of regret.
The coast is here concealed by the usual thickset hedge of verdure, above which nod the tufts of straggling palms: its background is the rocky purple wall of Bondei—Capt. Owen’s ‘Sheemba Range of Hills, about 1500 feet high’—here and there broken by tall blue cones. After 1 h. 30 min. we sighted Wanga Bandar, where the land was smoking; this place has rarely the honour of appearing in maps. The environs belong to the Wadigo, amongst whom Said bin Salim lost a slave-girl: she had gone on leave of absence to her tribe, and though she never returned, he received from her an annual remittance of a dollar. These people, who are divided into half-a-dozen clans, occupy a fine high country which extends westward to Usumbara: they dwell in large villages, fenced to keep out the Wamasai, and they are agriculturists, fond of Jete, or public markets, at which they dispose of their grain to the coast-traders. Those whom we saw were poor-looking men: their bows were well turned and bent, with brass knobs and strings of cowgut; the notched and neatly feathered arrows had triangular iron piles. The women, who veiled the bosom, were remarkably plain, and apparently had never seen a European. These Wadigo with their southern neighbours, the Wasegeju, are porters of the inland traffic. Caravans, if they may so be called, numbering sometimes a hundred men, slaves included, set out at the beginning of the rains in March or April, from Wanga and other little ‘Bandars’ on the coast. If the capital be $1000, they distribute it into $400 of beads, and brass and iron wires (Nos. 7 and 8), with $400 of American domestics and cotton-stuff’s of sorts: the remainder serves to pay 40 porters, who each receive $10 per trip, half before starting and the rest upon return. After twenty days’ march, these trading parties arrive at Umasai and the adjacent countries; they remain there bartering for three or four months, and then march back laden with ivory and driving a few slaves purchased en route.
Our Nakhoda again showed symptoms of ‘dodging:’ he had been allowed to ship cargo from Mombasah to Wasin, and thereupon he founded a claim or rather a right to carry goods from Wasin to Tanga. Unable to disabuse his mind by mild proceedings, I threatened to cut the cable, and thus once more, the will of Japhet prevailing over that of Shem, we succeeded about 1 P.M., not without aid from an Omani craft, in hauling up our ground-tackle. The old Riami, groaning in every rib, flirted with some reefs, and floated into the open sea, whose combing waves were foaming under a stiff N. Easter. As we sped merrily along Said bin Salim busied himself in calculating the time it would take to round the several promontories. But when the water smoothened under the lee of Pemba Island he became bold enough to quote these martial lines:—