At 5 A.M. on February 3rd, having shipped a pilot, we hoisted sail; after three hours we ran past Maziwi Island and slipped down before the light and tepid morning breeze to the port of Panga-ni. It was necessary to land with some ceremony at a place which I determined to make our starting-point into the interior. Presently after arrival I sent Said bin Salim, in all his bravery, to deliver the Sayyid of Zanzibar’s circular letters addressed to the Wáli, or Governor, to the Jemadar, to the Collector of Customs, and to the several Diwáns. All this preparation for a trifle of 80 miles! But we are in Africa; and even in Europe such a raid, through an enemy’s country is not always easy.
My companion and I landed in the cool of the evening with our Portuguese servants and our luggage. We were received with all honours of noise and crowding. The orchestra consisted of three monstrous drums (Ngoma Khu), caissons of cocoa-trunk, covered at both ends with goat-leather, and pounded, like the pulpit, with fist; and of Siwa or bassoons of hard blackwood, at least five feet long. These were enlivened by a pair of Zumari, or flageolets, whose vile squeaking set the teeth on edge; by the Zeze, or guitar; the Kinanda, or banjo; by the Barghumi or Kudu horn; and by that instrument of dignity, the Upatu, a brass pan, the primitive cymbal, whose bottom is performed upon by little sticks like cabbage-stalks. The Jemadar, Asad Ullah, came en grand’ tenue. The Diwans capered and pyrrhic’d before us with the pomp and circumstance of drawn swords, whilst the prettiest of the slave girls, bare-headed and with hair à la Brutus, sang and flapped their skirts over the ground, performing a pavane with a very modest and downcast demeanour, as if treading upon a too hot floor. They reminded me of a deceased friend’s clever doggrel—
You look so demure, ma’am, so quiet, so calm,
Ever chanting a hymn, ever singing a psalm;
Yet your thoughts are on heaven and virtue no more
Than the Man’s in the Moon’—
And as the dance waxed warm certain movements of the loins appeared, as might be expected. A crowd of half-breeds and sooty sons of Africa stood around to enjoy the ‘pi-pi’ of the flutes, the ‘bom-bom’ of the huge drums, the mjimbo (singing) of the men, and the vijelejeh (lullalooing) of the women. After half-an-hour’s endurance of this purgatory we were led to our sleeping place, the upper rooms, or rather room, of the Wali or Governor’s house—its owner was one Meriko, a burly black freedman of the late Sayyid Said—and there the evening was spent by us over considerations of ways and means.
CHAPTER VI.
FROM PANGA-NI TOWN TO TONGWE OUTPOST. THE
BALOCH GUARD.
Ma tutta insieme poi tra verdi sponde
In profondo canal l’acqua s’aduna,