Among these we made our way. We found that the other canoes which were arriving at the same time were loaded with people bringing things for sale, carried in large baskets upon the backs of women, the greater portion of the weight being supported by a band over the forehead, similar to the manner in which a fish-wife carries her creel.
On arriving at the houses we found a large open space close by crowded with people buying and selling. On Tipolo saying to me, “There’s the soko,” I learned that soko, besides being the name of an ape, also meant a market.
There must have been at least two thousand people present—the representatives of many tribes, who, though hostile to each other in all other places, met in this and other markets without fighting or strife. The Wagenya were there with their pottery. Others brought fish, both dried and fresh. Pigs, fowls, eggs, grain, ground-nuts, bananas, palm oil, goats, were bartered for such things as their possessors wanted, while for a few beads and cowries the Arab traders were able to obtain provisions for their numerous followers. The noise and confusion were indescribable. Buyers and sellers were so crowded together that it was almost impossible to make way through them, though apparently there was space enough for the market people to have spread themselves about and carried on their business in comfort, instead of jostling against each other and damaging many of their wares.
When we got through this mass of humanity we found ourselves before a large house with a large veranda, the floor of which was raised about two feet above the ground. Here mats and cushions were spread, and soon traders and their men crowded round, longing to learn what our news was. Hatibu and Bilal were welcomed by their wives with loud expressions of joy. The wives of the poor fellows who had been killed were most noisy and demonstrative in their grief, daubing themselves with white, and going round to all the houses of the settlement, wailing and clapping their hands in a measured cadence.
The news of the success of Tipolo in his expedition, was received with much applause, while admiration was lavished on Hatibu, Bilal, and the Mzungu (European) for the bravery they had displayed. We were likened to simba (lions), mwamba (crocodiles), tembe (elephants), and mboys (or buffaloes); and much wonder was expressed that I, a white man, had come from the farther sea, of the existence and position of which the people assembled had only a dim and distant knowledge. They were astonished that I had passed years among the Washenzi, or heathen, as the people of “the island” call all the pagan tribes of Central Africa, without being killed and eaten. But their astonishment rose to its greatest height when they heard that I had escaped from the dwarfs, whose quiver of poisoned
NYANGWE MARKET.
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