‘So withered and so wild in their attire,
That look not like th’ inhabitants o’ th’ earth,
And yet are on’t’—
planted their shoulder-cloths, their rude crates, and their coarse weirs upon the muddy inlets where fish abounded. The sky was sparkling blue, the water was bluer, and over both spread the thinnest blue haze, tempering raw tones of colour to absolute beauty. On both sides of the shrinking stream a dense curtain of many-tinted vegetation,
‘Yellow and black, and pale and hectic red,’
shadowed swirling pools, where the current swept over the growth of intertwisted fibres. The stunted Mkindu, brab or wild date (Phœnix sylvestris), much used for mats, contrasted with the Nakhl el Shaytan, or Devil’s Date (Raphia Vinifera), which, eccentric in form and frondage, curved arms sometimes 30 and even 35 feet long, over the dancing wave: this dwarf-giant of the palms has no trunk to speak of, but each midrib is thick as a man’s thigh, and the vegetable kingdom cannot show such length of foliage. Not a few of the trees were so distinguished by oppositions of tall and sturdy trunk supporting frail and tender belongings, that they seemed to bear leaves and blossoms not their own. Upon the watery margin large lilies of snowy robe, some sealed by day, others wide expanded and basking in light and air, gleamed beautifully against the black-green growth and the clear bitumen-brown of the bank-water. In scattered spots were inhuman traces of human presence; tall arecas and cocoas waving over a now impenetrable jungle; whilst plantains, sugar-canes, limes, and bitter oranges, choked with wild verdure, still lingered about the broken homestead and around the falling walls, blackened by the murderer’s fire. And above all reigned the peculiar African and tropical stillness of noontide, deep and imposing, broken only by the curlew’s scream or by the tepid breeze rustling the tree-tops in fitful gusts, whispering among the matted foliage, and swooning away upon the warm bosom of the wave.
Amid such scenes we paddled and poled till the setting sun spread its cloak of purple over a low white cliff, upon whose feet the ripple broke and on whose head lingered venerable trees that stood out from the underwood of the lower banks. Here lies the Pir of Wasin, a saint described by our Baloch guide as a ‘very angry, holy man’ (bará jabrá Pir). A Sherif of pure strain, he gallantly headed, in times long gone by, his Moslem followers flying from Panga-ni, when it was attacked by a ravenous herd of heathenry. The infidels seem to have had the advantage in running: they collared the Faithful at these cliffs, and would have made mince-meat of them, when Mother Hertha, at the prayer of the Pir, opened wide and received them in her bowels. This Shaykh will not allow the trees to be felled or the floods to rise above the level of his grave: moreover, if the devotee, after cooking food at the tomb in honour of its tenant, venture to lick his fingers—the usual succedaneum for napkins in East Africa, and throughout the Moslem world—he is at once delivered over to the haunting Jinns. The Baloch never pass the place without casting a handful of leaves, a bullet, or a few grains of powder by way of humble heave-offering into the stream. Our guide told us, in accents of awe, how a Suri Arab, doubtless tainted with Wahhabi heresy, had expressed an opinion that this Pir had been a mere mortal, but little better, if at all better, than his own sinful self; how the shallow scoffer’s ship was wrecked within the year, and how he passed through water into the fire of Jehannum. Probatum est—defend us, Allah! from the sins of Reason.
We passed three small Arab timber-craft which were laying in a cargo of red and white mangrove trunks, and in many places floated small rafts of palm-fronds ready to be guided down-stream. At sunset the tide, running like a mill-race, compelled our crew to pole up a little inlet near Pombui or Kipombui, a village on the left bank, well stockaded with split areca trunks. The people who are subject to Zanzibar, and are claimed by Kimwere, flocked out to welcome their strangers, laid down a bridge of cocoa-ribs, brought chairs, and offered a dish of small green mangoes, here a great luxury. We sat under a tree till midnight, unsatiated with the charm of the darker hours. The moon rained molten silver over the black foliage and the huge fronds of the Devil’s Dates (Raphias); the stars gleamed like golden lamps hung unusually high in the limpid air, and Venus, the beautiful, glittered diamond-like upon the pure front of the firmament. The fireflies rose in a scatter of sparks—‘a shower of fire’ Southey has it—now all shone out simultaneously through the dark; then the glow melted away, as if by concerted impulse, amidst the glooms of the ground. At our feet rolled the black waters of the creek; in the jungle wild beasts roared fitfully; Leviathan and Behemoth crashed through the bush, and the night breeze mingled softly sighing sounds with the murmurs and the gurgling of the stream.
About midnight, when the tide flowed strong, we resumed our way. The river then became a sable streak down the avenue of lofty trees except where a bend suddenly opened its mirrory surface to the reflection of the moon, and stretched it before us like a silver ribbon. The deep roar of the hippopotamus, the snorting, and the occasional blowing sounded close to our stern, and the crew begged me to fire for the purpose of frightening a certain pernicious ‘rogue’ whose villanies had gained for him the royal title of ‘Sultan Mamba,’ or King Crocodile: now we heard the splashing of the huge beasts, as they scrambled over the shoals; then they struggled with hoarse grunts up the miry slippery banks which led to fields and plantations; then, again, all was quiet as the grave. After a protracted silence, deep and drear, the near voice of a man startled us as though it had been some ghostly sound. At 2 P.M., reaching a cleared tract on the river-side, the ‘ghaut’ or landing-place of Chogwe, we made fast the canoe, looked to our weapons, and covering our faces against the clammy dew and the blinding, paralyzing moonlight, we lay down to snatch an hour’s sleep. The total distance rowed was about 13½ miles.
We began the next morning with an inspection of Chogwe, the bazar, to which we were escorted with sundry honorary discharges of matchlocks, by the Jemadar, and 20 Bashi Buzuks. It was first occupied some few years ago, when the Church Missionary Intelligencer had published (Jan. 1850) a ‘fact,’ namely, that the ‘Imam of Zanzibar had not one inch of ground between the Island of Wasin and the Panga-ni river.’ The fact proved to be a fiction, and the late Sayyid at once garrisoned Chogwe and Tongwe with 25 Baloch. About this time, also, King Kimwere, with cheap generosity, had offered to Dr Krapf by way of mission-station a choice of Tongwe, of Pambire, or of Meringa, a lofty peak in the continuous range to the N. West. A certain French admiral declared that he would occupy these places where the ‘Imam’ had little authority; ‘if they do, I’ll burn the country faster than they can travel,’ was the Arab’s reply. M. Guillain next strove hard to prove that none of the Bu Saidi ever included even Makdishu in their dominions.