The villagers are cultivators, tame, harmless heathen, to all but one another: unfortunately they have become masters of muskets, and they use the power to plunder, and oppress those who have it not. ‘Sultan Mamba,’ the crocodile,[[37]] a stout, jolly, beardless young black, with the laugh of a boatswain, and the voice of one calling in the wilderness, has made himself a thorn in Kimwere’s side. In supplying us with beef and milk, he jerked his thumb back towards the blue hills of Usumbara, upon whose mountain-pass the smoke of watch-fires curled high, and declared, with gusto, that we had already become the hill-king’s guests. Our Baloch guard applauded this kindred soul, clapped him upon the shoulder, and swore that with a score of men-at-arms like themselves he might soon make himself monarch of all the mountains.
‘Sultan Mamba’ once visited Zanzibar, where his eyes were at once opened to Koranic truth by the Kazi Muhiyy el Din: this distinguished Msawahili D. D. conferred upon the neophyte the name of Abdullah bin Muhiyy el Din, and thus called him son. But the old Mamba returned strong upon Abdullah when he sniffed once more his natal air: he fell away from prayer and ablution and grace generally, to the more congenial practices of highwaying and of hard drinking. This amiable youth, who was endowed with an infinite power of surprise and an inveterate itching for beggary, sat with us half the day and inspected our weapons for hours, wondering how he could obtain something of the kind. He asked at one time for the Colt, at another for a barrel of gunpowder: now he offered to barter slaves for arms and ammunition, and when night fell he privily sent Hamdan to request a bottle of cognac. All these things were refused in turn, and the Sultan was fain to be content with two caps, a pair of muslins, and a cotton shawl. He seriously advised us to return with some twenty kegs of the best gunpowder, which, as the article was ever in demand, would bring, he assured us, excellent business in ‘black diamonds.’ He stated that his people had but three wants—powder, ball, and brandy, and that they could supply in return three things—men, women, and children. Our parting was truly pathetic. He swore that he loved us, and promised us on the down march the use of his canoe. But when we appeared with empty hands, and neither caps nor muslins remained, Sultan Mamba scarcely deigned to notice us, and the river became a succession of falls and rapids.
After a night, in which the cimex lectularius had by a long chalk the advantage of the drowsy god, we were ferried at 7 A.M., on February 13, across the stream, attended by sundry guides. The start was generally too late. A seasoned traveller easily bears scorching heat if he sets out with the dawn and works into the sultry hours: after a morning spent in the shade he will suffer more or less severely from sudden exposure. From Kohode, which is more than half way, there are two roads to Fuga. The direct line, running nearly due north, crosses the Highlands: at this season it is waterless. That along the river is more than double the length: it begins to the N. West and then turns sharply to the East. We determined to see the stream, and we doubted the power of our heavily-laden men to front the passes in such heat: the worst of these walking journeys is that the least accident disables the traveller, and accidents will happen to the best of marching parties.
Presently emerging from the thicket, we fell into the beaten track over the dark alluvial river-plain, which here, as at Chogwe, must during rains be a sheet of water. This is the first section of our line; the second will be the red land with rises and falls, but gently upsloping to the west, whilst the third and last will be the granite and sandstone flanks of Usumbara. After a few minutes’ march we crossed by a bridge composed of a fallen tree the Luangera (miscalled Luere by Herr Augustus Petermann): this deep sullen affluent of the Rufu, 23 to 24 feet broad, drains the North-Eastern Bamburri mountains. Then stretching over the grassy expanse, we skirted two small red cones, the Ngua outliers of the high Vugiri range. Like its eastern neighbour Usagama, this buttress of Usumbara is the normal precipice with bluff sides of rock, well wooded on the summit, and looking a proper place for ibex: of this animal, a well-marked species (C. Walie), with thick and prominently ribbed horns, has been found in the snowy heights of Abyssinia, and it probably extends to the gigantic peaks of the Æthiopic Olympus. The Vugiri forms part of the escarpment line separating the highlands from the river plain to the south. The people assured us that the summit is a fertile rolling plateau which supports an abundant population of Washenzi, serfs, and clients, subject to King Kimwere.
We then entered upon cultivated ground, which seemed a garden after the red waste below Tongwe. Cocoas and tall trees concealed the Rufu, which above its junction with the Luangera becomes a mere mountain-torrent, roaring down a rocky, tortuous bed, and forming green, tufted islets, which are favourite sites for settlements. We can hardly, however, call them, with Boteler, an archipelago. Our guides presently took leave, alleging a blood-feud with the neighbouring villagers. The people, as we passed by, flocked over their rude bridges, which extend up coast to Brava, floors of narrow planks laid horizontally upon rough piers of cocoa-trunks, forked to receive cross-pieces, and planted a few feet apart. The structure is parapeted with coarse basket-work, and sometimes supplied with fibrous creepers, jungle-ropes, knotted in 20 places, by way of hand-rail. These the number and daring of the crocodiles render necessary. I was once innocently sitting upon a slab of stone surrounded by the water, and greatly enjoying the damp and the coolth, when, with a rush and a roar, as if it had been an attack, my men fell upon me, and hurried me to the bank. All here believe that the crocodile sweeps off its prey with a blow of the powerful tail, and once in the water, man is helpless against the big lizard. These constructions are at least more artful than the Pingela or single plank of the Brazil, and the tight-rope affairs of the Himalayas: they must much resemble the bridges of inner Devonshire, that ‘sleeping beauty of the (near) West,’ during the days of our grandfathers. Cows, goats, and long-tailed sheep clustered upon the plains, and gave a pastoral aspect to the out-of-the-way scene.
We halted from 10 A. M. to 4 P. M., under a spreading tamarind, near Zafura, a village on an island of the Panga-ni, distant about two miles from Mount Vugiri. Here we were surrounded by crowds, who feasted their eyes upon us for consecutive hours. They were unarmed and dressed in skins; they spoke the Kizegura dialect, which differs greatly from the Kisawahili; and they appeared rather timid than dangerous. Their sultan stalked about, spear in hand, highly offended by our not entering his hut, and dropping some cloth; whilst sundry Wasawahili in red caps looked daggers at the white interlopers. We tried to hire extra porters, but having neither Merkani (American domestics) nor beads, we notably failed.
Presently black nimbi capped the hill-tops, cooling the fierce Sirocco, and the low growling of distant thunder warned us forwards. Resuming our march at 3.30 P. M., we crossed a dry fiumara, trending towards the Rufu. We traversed a hill-spur of rolling and thorny red ground, to avoid a deep loop in the stream; we passed a place were rushes and tiger-grass choked the bed, and where the divided waters, apparently issuing from a black jungle and a dark rock, foamed down a steep and jagged incline. We crossed over two bridges, and at 5 P. M. we entered a village of Wazegura, distant from Kohode 12 miles. Msiki Mguru is a cluster of hay-cock huts touching one another, and built upon an island formed by divers rapid and roaring branches of the river. The headman was sick, but we found a hospitable reception. Uninitiated in the African secret of strewing ashes round the feet of the Kitanda or cartel, we spent our night, although we eschewed the dirty, close huts, battling with ant armies and other little slayers of sleep that shall be nameless. Our hosts, speaking about the Wamasai, expressed great terror, which was justified by the sequel. Scarcely had we left the country, when a band of wild spearmen attacked two neighbouring villages, slaughtered the hapless cultivators, and with pillage and pollage drove off the cattle in triumph. Our hosts watched with astonishment the magical process of taking an altitude of Capella, and they were anxious to do business in female slaves, honey, goats, and sheep. Some of the girls were rather comely, despite the tattoo that looked like boils. None showed the least fear or bashfulness; but when the Baloch chaffed them, and asked how they would like the ‘men in trowsers’ as husbands, they simply replied, ‘Not at all!’
At sunrise on the next morning we resumed our march, following the left bank of the Rufu, which is here called Kirua. For about three miles it is a broad line of flat boulders, thicket, grass, and sedge, with divers trickling streams between. At the Maurwi village the several branches anastomoze, forming a deep and strong but navigable stream, about 30 yards broad, and fenced with bulging masses of vegetation. Thence we bent northward, over rolling ground of red clay, here cultivated, there a thorny jungle, trending to Tamota, another bluff in the hill-curtain of Usumbara. The paths were crowded with a skin-clad and grass-kilted race, chiefly women and small girls; the latter, by-the-by, displaying very precocious developments, and leading children, each with a button of hair left upon its scraped crown. The adults, toiling under loads of manioc, holcus and maize, pumpkins and plantains, poultry, sugar-cane, and water-pots, in which tufts of leaves had been stuck to prevent splashing, were bound for a Golio (market) held in an open place. Here their own land begins: none started at or fled from the white face.
HILLS OF USUMBARA.