Panga-ni, with its three neighbours, may contain a total of 4000 inhabitants, Arabs and Wasawahili, slaves and heathenry: of these a large proportion are feminines and concubines. Twenty Banyans manage the lucrative ivory trade of the Chaga, Nguru, and Umasai countries, which produce the whitest, largest, heaviest, softest, and, perhaps, finest ivory known. The annual export is said to be 35,000 lbs., besides 1750 lbs. of black rhinoceros horn, and 160 lbs. of hippopotamus’ teeth; the latter is an article which, since porcelain teeth were invented, has lost in value.[[32]] The other exports are holcus, maize, ghi, and Zanzibar rafters, cut near the river mouth, and up stream.
Trading parties travel to the Umasai, Chaga, and Nguru countries at all seasons, even when the rainy monsoon makes the higher Panga-ni difficult to cross. As many as 1000 Wasawahili and slavers, directed by a few Arabs, set out, laden with iron and brass wires (Nos. 7 and 8), some 50 of the former to 3 of the latter; with small brass chains which, fastened together, are used as kilts (Mkifu)[(Mkifu)] by the Wamasai; with American domestics, indigo-dyed calicoes (Kiniki), and checks, with beads of sorts, especially the white and the blue. Each man carries a pack worth from $15 to $25: consequently the total venture is of £4000. The caravan reaches its ground in about 20 days, and returns after a period varying between two and six months. The purchase of slaves is not on a large scale; nor is the coast journey distinguished by inhumanity. Here the free traveller dies as frequently as the servile. The merchants complain loudly of the ‘Pagazi,’ or porters: these fellows are prepaid $10 for the trip, and the proprietor congratulates himself if, after payment, only 15 per cent. abscond. The Hindu’s profit must here be enormous, I saw one man to whom $26,000 were owed by the people. What part do interest and compound interest play in making up such a sum, when even Europeans will demand 40 per cent. for moneys lent on safe mortgage or bottomry? We heard of another case, in which a bond worth $60, and sold for $30, became, by post-obits and other processes, $10,000: the affair was referred to the Zanzibar Government, which allowed $1000 by way of indemnification. Some of their gains are swallowed up by the rapacity of these savages, whose very princes are inveterate beggars. The pliant Banyan always avoids refusals, like the diplomatic Spaniard, ‘saying no, although he may do no’; consequently he will find at his door every evening some 70 or 80 suitors, who besiege him with cries for grain, butter, or a little oil.
After the dancing ceremony arose a variety of difficulties, resulting from the African traveller’s twin banes—the dollar and the blood-feud. Panga-ni, Mbweni, and the other settlements on this coast, nominally belong, by right of conquest and succession, to the Sayyid of Zanzibar, who invests and confirms the Governors and Diwans. At Panga-ni, however, these officials are par congé d’élire, selected by Kimwere, Sultan of Usumbara, whose ancestors received tribute from the Mountains of Paré eastward to the Indian Ocean, and who still claims the northern villages. On the other hand, Mbweni and the southern settlements are in the territory of the Wazegura, a violent and turbulent tribe, inveterate slave-dealers, and cunning at kidnapping, whilst the Christian merchants of Zanzibar have been thoughtlessly allowed by the Prince Regnant to supply them freely with muskets and ammunition. Of course the two tribes, Wasumbara and Wazegura, are inveterate, deadly foes: moreover, about a year ago, a violent intestine feud broke out amongst the latter, who at the time of our visit were burning and plundering, selling and murdering one another in all directions. About two months had passed since they had cut the throat of one Moyya, a slave belonging to the Sayyid of Zanzibar; and, as usual, the murder was left unpunished. The citizens of Panga-ni, therefore, hearing that we were bearers of a letter from the Sayyid of Zanzibar to Sultan Kimwere, marked out for us the circuitous route viâ Mtangata, where no plundering Wazegura from the south of the Panga-ni river could try their valour. We, on the other hand, wishing to inspect that same stream, determined upon proceeding by the directest line, along its left or northern bank. The timid townsmen had also circulated a report that we were bound for Chaga and Kilima-njaro; the Wamasai were ‘out,’ the rains were setting in, and they saw us without armed escort. They resolved, therefore, not to accompany us; but nevertheless did each man expect his gift of dollars and his bribe of inducement.
The expense of the journey was an even more serious consideration. In these lands the dollar is almighty. If it be lacking, you must travel alone, unaccompanied, at least, by any but blacks; without other instrument but a pocket-compass, and with few weapons. You must conform to every nauseous custom; you will be subjected at the most interesting points to perpetual stoppages; the contents of your note-book will be well-nigh worthless; and unless you be one in a million, you may make up your mind that want and hardship will conduct you to illness and perhaps to death. This is one extreme, and from it to the other there is no ‘golden mean.’ With abundance of money—say £5000 per annum—an exploring party in these parts could trace its own line, paying off all opposers. It could study, if it pleases, even infusoria; handle sextants in the presence of negroes, who would willingly cut every throat for one inch of brass; and, by travelling comfortably, it would secure the best chance of return. Either from Mombasah or from Panga-ni we might have marched through the plundering Wamasai to Chaga and Kilima-njaro; but an escort of at least 100 matchlocks would have been necessary. Pay, porterage, and provisions for such a party would have amounted to at least £100 per week; and a month and a half would have absorbed the whole of our scanty supplies. Thus it was, gentle reader, that we were compelled to rest contented with a walking trip to Fuga.
Presently the plot thickened. Muigni Khatib, eldest son and heir of Sultan Kimwere, a black of unprepossessing physiognomy, with a ‘villainous trick of the eye and a foolish hanging of the nether lip;’ a prognathous jaw garnished with cat-like mustachios and cobweb beard; with a sour frown and abundant surliness by way of dignity, dressed like an Arab, and raised above his fellows by El Islam, sent a presumptuous message requesting us to place in his hands what we intended for his father. This chief was then journeying to Zanzibar with fear and trembling: he had tried to establish at his village, Kirore, a Romulian asylum for fugitive slaves, and having partially succeeded in enticing away many ruffians, he dreaded the consequences. The Baloch Jemadar strongly urged us privily to cause his detention in the Island, a precaution somewhat too Oriental for our taste; he refused, however, the Muigni’s request in his own tone. Following princely example, the dancing Diwans claimed a fee for permitting us to reside. As they worded it El Ada—the habit—basing it upon an ancient present from Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton, and as they were in palpable, manifest process of establishing a local custom, which in Africa becomes law to the latest posterity, we flatly objected, showed our letters, and in the angriest of moods, threatened reference to Head Quarters. Briefly, all began to angle for bakhshish, but I cannot remember any one catching it: they revenged themselves by promising to show us a minaret, and by showing only an old tomb—poor reward for 16 miles in the burning sun.
Weary of negro importunities, we resolved to visit Chogwe, the nearest Baloch outpost upon the Rufu[[33]] (Lufu), or Upper Pangani river, and thence, aided by the Jemadar, who had preceded us, to push for Fuga, the capital village of Usumbara. We made our preparations silently, paid off the Riámi, rejected the Diwans who wished to accompany us as spies, left Said bin Salim and Caetano, the Goanese lad, in the house of the Wali Meriko, who presently accompanied his Muigni to Zanzibar; and under pretext of a short shooting excursion, we hired a long canoe and four men, loaded it with the luggage required for a fortnight, and started with the tide, at 11 A.M. on January 6, 1858.
FUGA, CAPITAL OF USUMBARA.
First we grounded, then a puff of wind drove us on at railway speed, and then we scraped again: it was impossible to avoid being taken aback, so abrupt are the windings of the bed. At last we were successful in turning the first dangerous angle: here, where sea-breeze and tide meet the buffing stream, forming a ‘Lahr,’ as the Baloch call it, navigation becomes perilous to small craft. There is, as usual at and near the mouths of African rivers where the water acts as wind conductor, a little gale blowing upstream, a valuable aid to craft bound inland, but not without its risks; here many a boat has filled and sunk beneath the ridge of short chopping waves. After five miles, during which the turbulent river, streaked with lines of froth, gradually narrowed, we found it barely brackish, and somewhat farther it was sweet as the celebrated creek-water of Guiana.
Often since that day, while writing amid the soughing blasts, the dashing rain, and the darkened air of a wet season in West Africa and the Brazil, have I remembered with yearning the bright and beautiful spectacle of those Zangian streams, whose charm, like the repose of the dead, seems heightened by proximity to decay. We had soon exchanged the amene and graceful, though somewhat tame scenery of the sandstone formation on the seaboard, for a view most novel and characteristic. Behemoth now reared his head from the foaming waters, gazed upon us, snorted at us, and sank back surlily and suspiciously into the depths of his home. Crocodiles, terrified by the splash of paddles, waddled down, as dowagers might, with their horrid claws dinting the slimy bank, and lay upon the water like yellow-brown tree-trunks, measuring us with small malignant green eyes, deep set under warty brows. Monkeys rustled the tall trees, here peeping with curiosity almost human, there darting away in fear amidst the wondrous frondage and foliage; now gambolling and frolicking up and down the corkscrew-like bush-ropes, nature’s cables, shrouds, and stays; then disappearing amidst the gloom of virgin forest. Below, their younger brethren, the jungle men and women—