In the outer roads, at the time of our visit, lay a French six-gun schooner, l’Estafette, with loose rigging, no flamme, and only one white face visible on deck. ‘Frenchman good only to steal men,’ said the people of Kilwa: the vessel, however, was escorting a ‘free emigrant ship,’ in plain English, a slaver, which rode three miles out, and which was taking in ‘casimir noir’ for Bourbon. Many of the crew braved the danger of cholera, and came on shore. I saw the captain, and was not a little surprised when recognizing him some years afterwards on his own quarterdeck during a voyage to ——. He hinted that the spec. had been of the best that he had ever made, and no wonder. During the death-in-life above described Banyans and Baloch, Arabs and Africans, all began to sell their surviving slaves, and an A. B. adult could be bought for a maximum of $6—‘what a price for the noblest work of God!’ Kidnapping was also common,—three men were shown to me who had lately escaped from Angazijeh or Great Comoro.
A few words upon ‘free labour,’ the latest and most civilized form of slavery in East and West Africa. The Imperial Government, doubting nothing, authorized their colonies of Bourbon, Mayotte, and Nosi-bé to import from East Africa the Coolies, whom we export from Western India to the Mauritius. The plan was weak: constrained free labour is a contradiction, and the system was foully perverted by the people of Bourbon, at that time the least worthy, perhaps, of the colonies of France. They required a total of 100,000 head to begin with, and a biennial item of 10,000 for contingencies. Within 18 months about 47,000 were embarked for the African coasts, and the free emigration was managed thus wise. Slave owners taught their chattels a nod of assent to every question proposed, and brought them before the French agent, who, in his own tongue, asked the candidate if he was willing to serve as a free labourer for so many years. A ‘bob’ and a scratch upon a contract-paper consigned the emigrant to a ship anchored so far out that he could not save himself by swimming. The freemen sometimes threw themselves overboard, with the idea that once in the sea they would be carried back to their country: under these circumstances, the older slavers used mostly to shoot them in the water. The modern style of levanting was tried at Aden with great success by the Somal, who swim like fishes. The ouvrier libre was at once put in irons till the hour for sailing came. The usual price of slaves being on the coast $7 to $10, the agents satisfied the trader by paying $14: the scruples of the Portuguese governors were quieted by the usual fee, equivalent to the value of the purchase, and four additional crowns were distributed amongst the Custom House officers. Thus the total price of the engagé freeman was $32 (= £6 5s.). Arrived at Bourbon, Messieurs les Sauvages were politely informed that they were no longer slaves, and they were at once knocked down to the highest bidder. They were worked 15 or 16 hours a day; their pay was $2 per mensem, hardly sufficient to support life; and when they fell sick their miserable pittance was cut. The expiration of the engagement-period found them heavily in debt, without the hope of working off their liabilities; and seven years of hard labour at Bourbon might be considered almost certain death. When the idea of travailleurs libres was detailed to the Sayyid Said, he treated it as a mauvaise plaisanterie: the coast people also unanimously rejected the liberal offer of free men becoming slaves for $2 a month. The French Consul, M. de Beligny, was at first strongly opposed to the system: a few weeks at Bourbon changed, it seems, his opinion. His successor, M. Ladislas Cochet, energetically and conscientiously rejected all compromise. Bourbon might easily supply herself with Coolies, as the Mauritius does, by paying $4 per mensem, by treating the labourer well, and by ordering him a passage home after three or four years, whether in debt or not. It was, however, I believe, a mistake on our part to purchase the putting down of this system by permitting the French to enlist Coolies in Hindostan. This country wants every hand born within its limits: strangers viewing the densely crowded ports, the capitals, the chief cities and their neighbourhoods, are apt to believe the vast and wealthy peninsula over-populated, when it abounds in tracts of primeval forest, through which a man may march a fortnight without seeing a human being. Our first duty is evidently to the land which belongs to us.
I was the more careful minutely to report the free emigration system on account of an egregious deceit successfully passed off upon one of our officials. In 1856 a certain M. Lambert, agent at Aden for the house of Messrs Menon, Lambert, et Comie, of the Mauritius Steam Navigation Company, persuaded the Political Resident, Lieut.-Colonel Coghlan, that Zanzibar annually exported 49,000 slaves to Berberah, Zayla, Tajurrah, and the ports of Arabia and Southern Asia. This more than doubled the greatest number annually imported into the Island: and the latter no longer publicly exported slave-cargoes, although many ran away to seek fortune in India, whilst far more were kidnapped by the northern Arabs. In fact, it confounded Zanzibar Island with the whole coast of Eastern Africa, whose ports, especially those about Kilwa, were supported almost wholly by the slave trade. Lieut.-Colonel Coghlan had been long enough at Aden to know that Berberah, Zayla, and Tajurrah are slave-exporting as well as importing markets, and that every native craft sailing up coast always declares itself to be from ‘the Sawáhil,’ or, if that word be not understood, from Zanzibar. At the time when my first report was written an agent of the same Messrs Lambert was waiting passage at Kilima-ni with 1000 travailleurs libres: many of the wretches had died of the famine which had devastated the southern coast, and the speculator complained that he had lost $20,000 to $30,000. The same M. Lambert, in 1857, visited Tananarive, persuading poor Madame Ida Pfeiffer to accompany him: his object was not so much to ‘depose,’[[67]] as to dispose of, the old Queen, who was to be succeeded by a person more amenable to Christianity and French influence: the premature discovery of the plot caused the death of the lady who twice journeyed round the world. She had proposed accompanying me to the Lake Regions; but to travel with a grandmother would have been too compromising. Another grandmother volunteered from India; in fact, it appeared then my fate to have fallen upon grandmothers.
The ‘emigration’ had been strictly forbidden by the Imperial Government between her colonies and Madagascar. But ‘Delhi is distant.’ Lately (1857) a Bourbon ship, commanded by a French captain, touched at Boyannah Bay to embark 100 engagés, and took on board some 87 Sakalawas, who had been stolen from the interior. These men rose up whilst the commander was on shore completing his tale, murdered the crew, beheaded and quartered the captain’s son, a mere boy, ran the ship upon a reef, and escaped. Even since that massacre another French ship from Nosi-bé sailed for Boyannah Bay and its ill-omened vicinity.
The climate of Kilwa is bad and depressing: the people appeared to suffer from severe sores, and their aspect was eminently unhealthy—want of cleanliness is undoubtedly part cause. All complain that the air is dry[[68]] and costive, producing frequent agues and fevers, that sleep is heavy, not sound, and that in the morning they awake unrefreshed. Our small ailments increased, and my companion’s sight became much weaker. After a fine cool breeze, like that of the S. West monsoon, on the night of February 17 burst a furious storm, with large-dropped rains, more violent than during the regular wet season; the lightning was unusually pink (the effect of excessive nitrogen ?), the thunder seemed to roll close upon the roof, and the wind blew in the bamboo lattices of our dwelling-place. The outburst subsided on the morning of the 18th; the sky, however, remained overcast, and did not allow an observation of the sun. On the next day there were two fierce gales, with raw gusts strong enough to swamp a boat, and when they ended the weather became close and muggy with occasional chilling blasts. Heavy clouds ran before the wind, and steady rain set in from the south: the change of weather seemed to modify the cholera, and the health of the town at once improved.
On February 20 we proceeded to inspect the ruins of ancient Kilwa Kisimá-ni. A fine crisp breeze carried us out of the fetid harbour, through the floating carcases, and the larger craft that lay about a mile and a half from the land. The bay is here planted with four or five extensive Wigo, or fish weirs[weirs], stockades submerged at high tide, and detaining the fish when the waters ebb. The people of Kilwa are ichthyophagists, and the slaves usually bring the supply at 3 P. M. in their little Ngarawas; now, however, the fishermen are dead, and the citizens avoid eating what is supposed to prey upon Mizoga, or carrion.
We hugged the shore to get dead water: here, according to the pilots, during the N. East monsoon there is a current setting to the east, and this trend, during the S. West monsoon, is deflected to the N. West. After expending six hours upon the 12.25 miles south of mainland Kilwa, we reached the Island, and landed on the N. Western side to inspect the Fort. An inscription over the entrance dates it from Muharram 23, A. H. 1231, therefore only 44 years old (1857); but evidently, like those of Unguja and Chak Chak, it is a Portuguese foundation restored. The building is now a mere dickey, with three shells of towers standing, and the fourth clean gone; the bastions are crenellated in the Arab fashion, and one has a port-hole for cannon. A few long iron carronades, possibly Lusitanian, lay upon the ground, and the entrance was shaded by a noble ‘Persian Almond,’ large leaved as the Almendreiras (Sterculiæ) which adorn Pernambuco.[[69]] Huge sycamores and tamarisks were scattered around, and the luxuriant vegetation had in places breached the defences; the trees shaded the huts, and the carpeted earth benches upon which the Baloch garrison lolled and played at Báo—cups and counters.
As the next morning was windless, we set out in a four-oared boat to visit the western shore of the Island. The latter is a low flat breakwater of sand and coralline about five miles long, defending a fine deep sea-arm, land-locked on both sides: the entrance is from east to west. The northern arm has only seven to eight feet depth, ships therefore must prefer Pactolus Gap between Kilwa Island and Songo Mnárá. On the Barr el Moli, or mainland at the bottom of the bay to the south, is the Mavuji Creek, so called from the district through which it passes, and higher up, where hippopotami are numerous, it receives the Mtera streamlet. Ten days’ marching southwards (about 120 direct geographical miles) lead to the Rufuma river.[[70]] The path crosses ‘Kitarika,’ a ridge of highland, to which extend the plantations of the Shirazi Wasawahili, who are here mixed with the Wamachinga tribe.
We found the shallow waters off the Island shore lined with Wigos, weeds, and mangroves, in which sandy breaks represented the old Bandars or ports. Southwards, at the bottom of the bay, appeared the islet of Sánje Kati, and opposite lay the Mlango, or gate where the depth diminishes from 80 to 6 fathoms, and leads to Sánje Májoma. This may be the Changa of the Kilwa Chronicle, whose ‘King’ Matata Mandelima expelled in early days Daud, the Sultan of Kilwa. We then landed again at a gap in the verdure, and ascending a slope of coralline rock, smooth near the water and rough above, we reached the sandy shore-line, and thence, turning south through trees and grass, we came upon the ruins.
The most remarkable are the remnants of the Nabháni mosque, which, blackened and decayed, represents the 366 of Kilwa Island in her day of pride: the well-cut gateway, the Mihrab decorated with Persian tiles, and the vestiges of ghaut-steps, and masonry lining the shore, showed a considerable amount of civilization. Around it lay the tombs of the Shirazi Shaykhs, shaped like those of Zanzibarian Mnazi Moyya, and strewed with small water-washed pebbles. This is an ancient custom of the country: a few days after the decease small stones are washed, perfumed, and sun-dried; finally, they are strewed with prayers upon the tomb. Some travellers have imagined that they take the place of the defunct’s rosary, which in old days was devoted to this purpose: it appears to me simply the perpetuation of a Bedawi practice which dates from the remotest antiquity. As usual, inscriptions, those landmarks of history, were wanting. The large old town beyond was even more ruinous than Changa Ndumi, near Mtangata, and vegetation occupied every dwelling: one of the mosques is said to have had 360 columns, of which we did not see a vestige—the trees had filled and buried them all. Another Msikiti (Masjid) stood deep in mangroves and was flooded by every high tide: here the islet is sinking, and it may return to its original condition, a group of three reefs, the southernmost being Songo Mnárá. The Shirazi fort was a parallelogram about 500 feet each way, with a curtain loop-holed for musketry, and square bastions—lodgings for the garrison—at the angles: the entrance was high, the northern wall was breached, and the interior preserved a dry masonry-revetted well, 40 feet deep by 2 across. Of these there are several on the Island: drinking water, however, is usually drawn from pits which are higher than sea-level. The Governor’s palace, a double-storied building with torn roof and rafters projecting from the walls, seemed to contain only corpses indecently buried in shallow graves: it resembled the relics about Tongo-ni, and doubtless the architects were of the same race. Kilwa, we are told, was a mass of wooden huts for some 200 years, till the reign of the Amir Sulayman Hasan, who, 198 to 200 years after Sulayman bin Hasan, built it of stone, embellished it with mosques, and strengthened it with forts and towers of coralline and lime.