On May 11, accompanied by Sidi Bombay and by Said bin Salim, with his by no means merry men, I set out in the ‘Mtope’ (the Mud), a small Machua manned by the slaves of Mr Banyan Ramji. Running before a fair wind, and ‘rushed’ by an occasional raffale, we crossed in five hours the Manche that separates Zanzibar from Sa’adani, a trading port on the Continent, nearly parallel with the northern cape of the Island. The settlement is not seen till within the shortest distance, when the mangroves disclose it. The landing-place is bad; if the water is out small craft must lie about half-a-mile from the shore; at flood-tide they round a small sandspit, and enter the shallow, rushy Khor (bay), which passes the settlement. Passengers then disembark in canoes. The site of the village is frontier-land: to the north are the Wazegura savages, and southward, behind ‘Utondwe,’ lie the Wadoe, who are reported by all to have learned cannibalism during their wars with the Wakamba.[[47]] I should say ‘lay’: these Wadoe have of late years been driven away from their ancient seats by the Wamasai, and like the Waboni, they have occupied the lands on the north bank of the Adi or Sabaki river. The Wakamba, again, have been expelled, and the Wazeramo, a fierce and unmanageable tribe, has now transferred itself to the interior. The point or headland bounding the bay southwards, and giving a name to the little maritime province whose southern limit is Whinde (Uende of M. Rebmann), is still known as Utondwe, and is said to show ruins of habitations. Thus Watondwi, which Mr Cooley translates ‘picking-grounds,’ i. e. places where shell-fish are gathered, would mean the people of Utondwe. Nothing can be more misleading than such expressions as ‘the kingdom of Atondo,’ used by Do Couto and others. These royalties are mere districts ruled by petty headmen, of which each port-village has one, potent within their own bounds or palisades, but powerless a mile beyond them. They correspond with the River Kings and Hill Kings of Guinea, the ridiculous King Jacks and King Boys of the Western Coast—both degraded by intercourse with superior races, these with Europeans, those with the Arabs. ‘Otondo’ is mentioned in the Portuguese inscription over the fort gate of Mombasah; and in 1528 its Shaykh came to the assistance of Nuno da Cunha with five or six thousand black archers, probably slaves and savages, who are described as very agile and trained to war.
Sa’adani stands upon a swampy green flat, defended, as are most of these places, against the sea, which is apparently but little below its level, by a high sandbank and natural dykes. From Panga-ni, southward, the littoral suddenly falls flat, becoming an alluvial plain of green swamps, cut by hundreds of mangrove creeks: it is backed by higher ground, the blue line seen from Zanzibar Island, and the habitat of the wilder races. The harbours are mostly open roads or inlets, into which only native craft can run, whilst square-rigged ships must lie three miles in the offing, and much exposed. The deeper water abounds in fish, and the tides retire 12 to 13 feet, leaving a broad expanse of naked mud. Constant troubles with neighbours have caused this port-village to be surrounded by a strong stockade of tree-trunks, and have greatly reduced its extent. The hundred huts of thatch, wattle and dab, may now contain 700 to 800 souls, including a Banyan, a Kasimi Arab, and a stray Baloch: a few years ago it could turn out 300 matchlocks. The two stone mosques, which the people declare to be ancient, are in ruins. Here the Wasawahili, who in a thin fringe line the whole coast, appear to be healthier than on the Island of Zanzibar. As usual, there is less rain, and the little Msika is often wanting. They send at all seasons foot caravans to Nguru—the Ngu of M. Rebmann—a hilly region seven to eight days’ march, nearly due west. The normal ventures are beads, cloth, and wires, and the returns are ivory and slaves, with smaller items, such as rhinoceros’ horn and various hides. The trading parties are absent about six weeks, when no news of them will be held good news: formerly the wild Wanguru used to visit the coast, till deterred by Moslem ‘Avanies.’ The village exports sheep and ghi, holcus, maize, and especially copal. A little cotton (pamba) for domestic use is grown on the sandy landward slope of the natural dyke, about one mile from the sea: the shrub is allowed to run to wood. A few words upon cotton-growing in Zanzibar and East Africa generally may not be misplaced here.
The mountains of Harar, that ancient capital of the Adel Empire, are a granitic mass covered with red argillaceous soil: they produce in plenty a fine, long-stapled, firm and heavy cotton, with peculiarly flexible and tenacious filament. Yarn is hand-spun by the women with two wooden bobbins, and the primitive loom is worked by both sexes: the result is a cloth, warm and soft as silk, which surpasses in beauty and durability the vapid produce of our power-looms, as much as the perfect hand of man excels the finest machinery. The ‘Tobe’ of Harar consists of a double length of 11 × 2 cubits, with a bright scarlet border, and the value of a good article even in the city is $8. The laziness of the people and the risks of the journey, 15 days of wild travel to the coast, prevent any exportation of made cloth, and years must elapse before the obstacles are removed.
The coast of Eastern Intertropical Africa produces everywhere, as far as my wanderings extended, a small quantity of cotton now used only for domestic purposes. The rich ochreous clays and the black earths fat with decayed vegetation, cause the neglected shrub to grow luxuriantly. The mountains of Usumbara north of the Panga-ni river are peculiarly fitted by climate and geological formation for growing the shrub. I afterwards found it in Unyamwezi planted here and there amongst the huts, and in N. lat. 4° Capt. Grant observed the Gossypium punctatum, a perennial whose produce was woven into women’s aprons. There is no reason to despair of producing in East Africa a cotton which might rival the celebrated growths of Algeria and Egypt; at present, however, as Dr Livingstone’s second Expedition proved, the conditions of export are far inferior to those of Abeokuta and of Accra a whole generation ago.
Said bin Salim having formerly been Governor of Sa’adani, we were received by the crowd with all the honours. The Chief Bori was absent, visiting Kipombui, a village lying a few miles north: he was preparing to fight one Abdullah Mákitá, a Msegeju chief living near Tanga, and his intimate relations with Muigni Khatib of Usumbara would allow him free passage along the coast. He is famed through all the country-side for a mighty soul contained in a little body, and for a princely generosity which fills his house with hungry feeders. At present he is on bad terms with his brother Mohammed, Chief of Urumwi, a settlement three hours to the south, and the latter lately burned down Sa’adani. Here when a Diwan is poor he has only to attack a wealthy neighbour, drive off a hundred head of slaves, and send to market those not wanted as home-hands—this eternal state of feud of course greatly demoralizes the people.
One of Bori’s many cousins led us to the ‘Government House,’ which was surrounded with a wall of stone and lime: he found lodgings for us in a large hut and a broad verandah; after some delay we were fed with dates and coffee, with rice and cream pressed from pounded cocoa-nut meat, and with fowls and mutton, the victim being a dun-coloured sheep with a long fat tail, very unlike the Somali breed. In the evening there was a Ngoma Khu, the normal dance of honour, preluded by the loud singing of the women inside the house, and by the warning sound of three drums. The corps de ballet, a dozen strong, young and old, then defiled before us. Their heads were clean shaven, or half grown, or covered with short stiff curls intensely black and forming the least grotesque of African coiffures: the dress was an indigo-dyed stuff with large red stripes and border extending to the feet, and round the bosom a white cloth or some coloured cotton contrasted with the blue. Presently the ballerinas formed line and divided into two parties, facing inwards; the performance consisted of trampling and twirling with heads inclined on one side, and eyes modestly fixed upon the ground, whilst palms were kneaded as if washing
‘—with invisible soap,
In imperceptible water.’
A passing sail drew off all the spectators as though they had been Cornish wreckers in the olden times, who had successfully fastened their lantern to a bullock’s horns. The most interesting of the crowd were the sylvan men in skin aprons stained with Mimosa-bark: their widely opened mouths proved that curiosity was reciprocal. Some of the younger girls had the beauty of negrodom, and none appeared to be bégueules: here the people pass all the time not given to trade in love-making and intrigue. As in the Bombay of 1857, damages have been made cheap and feasible for the co-respondent: an affair with a Diwan’s wife costs five slaves, with a ‘common person’ one slave, with the chattel of another man five to six cloths, and so on.
The day after our arrival was a forced halt, the copal-diggers had set out in another direction before dawn, and no donkey-saddle was to be found: the next, however, was more propitious. Led by Mánji, the Akida’ao, Mtu-Mkuba, Mukaddam, or headman of the gang, we walked west over an alluvial plain of blue earth, veiled with white sand, a narrow path, threading the dwarf plantations of maize and manioc, of cucumber, pulse (Lobiya), and the castor plant growing everywhere wild. Crossing, after some 200 yards, a sandy Nullah, which supplies sweet water, we came to a rank and reeking, a thorny and cloth-tearing vegetation, and to thick, coarse spear-grass, burned down in the dry weather: this is the home of the spur-fowl, the Kudu, and other antelopes. Three miles (by pedometer) of damp trudging, a shower having fallen last night, placed us before the first Msandarúsi,[[48]] or copal tree (Hymenœa verrucosa. Boivin). It was growing in a thicket upon a flat covered with Mimosas, Hyphœnas, and various palms, the cocoa being absent. The specimen, though young, was some 30 feet tall, and measured about a yard in girth: it was not in flower nor in fruit; the latter, according to the people, is a berry like a grain of Muhindi (maize). Climbing up the straight, smooth trunk to secure specimens of wood, bark, and leaf, I was pitilessly assaulted by the Maji-Moto (boiling water), a long ginger-coloured and semi-transparent ant, whose every bite drew blood. From the trunk and on the ground I picked up specimens of the gum which exudes from the bole and boughs when injured by elephants, or other causes. This is the Chakazi, raw copal, whence the local ‘Jackass copal:’ it has rarely any ‘gooseskin,’ and it floats, whilst the older formation sinks, in water. Valueless to us, it produces the magnificent varnishes of China and Japan. In a paper lately read before the Linnæan Society, my friend Dr Kirk, H. B. M.’s Acting Consul at Zanzibar, declared that the fossil resin when first dug up shows no trace of the characteristic ‘goose-skin,’ which appears only when the surface is cleaned by brushing. I believe that this phenomenon is shown simply by removing the sand which fills up the interstices. But it is hard to make anything of Captain Grant’s statement—‘the true copal-gum tree is a climber, which ascends to a great height among the forest trees, and finally becomes completely detached from the original root, when the copal exudes from the extremities of these detached roots.’ He must allude, not to the well-known Msandarúsi (mentioned by M. Guillain, i. 24, ‘le M’sandarouss est un bois dur et résineux, qui donne aussi des pièces de mâture’[mâture’]), but to some other and unknown genus.