Volume 1 — CHAP. III. TRANSIT OF THE VALLEY OF THE KINGANI AND THE MGETA RIVERS.

It was a gallant sight to see the Baloch, as with trailed matchlocks, and in bravery of shield, sword, and dagger, they hurried in Indian file out of the Kaole cantonments, following their blood-red flag and their high-featured, snowy-bearded chief, the “Shaib Mohammed,”—old Mohammed. The band, “like worms,” as they expressed its numbers, which amounted to nearly a hundred, about one-third of the venerable Jemadar’s command, was marching forth to bid us farewell, in token of respect, at Mgude or Kuingani, “the cocoa-plantation near the sea.” It is a little settlement, distant an hour and a half’s walk from Kaole: hither my companion had preceded me, and hence we were to make our second departure. Accompanied by Said bin Salim, Valentine my Goanese servant, three Baloch, and two slaves, I followed in the wake of the main body, bringing up the rear of the baggage on three Unyamwezi asses bought that morning at the custom-house. The animals had been laden with difficulty: their kicking and plunging, rearing and pawing, had prevented the nice adjustment of their packs, and the wretched pads, which want of time had compelled me to take, instead of panels or pack-saddles, loosely girthed with rotten coir rope, could not support a heap of luggage weighing at least 200 lbs. per load. On the road they rushed against one another; they bolted, they shied, and they threw their impediments with such persistence, that my servant could not help exclaiming, “Unká nám gadha”—“Their name is jackass.” At last, as the sun neared the salt sea, one of these half-wild brutes suddenly sank, girth-deep, in a patch of boggy mire, and the three Baloch, my companions, at once ran away, leaving us to extricate it as best we could. This little event had a peculiar significancy to one about to command a party composed principally of asses and Baloch.

The excitement of finding myself on new ground, and the peculiarities of the scenery, somewhat diverted melancholy forebodings. Issuing from the little palisade of Kaole, the path winds in a south-westerly direction over a sandy soil, thick with thorns and bush, which in places project across the way. Thence ascending a wave of ground where cocoas and the wild arrow-root flourish, it looks down upon park land like that described by travellers in Kaffraria, a fair expanse of sand veiled with humus, here and there growing rice, with mangoes and other tall trees, regularly disposed as if by the hand of man. Finally, after crossing a muddy grass-grown swamp, and a sandy bottom full of water when rain has been heavy, the path, passing through luxuriant cultivation, enters Kuingani. Such is the “nakl,” or preparatory-stage of Arab travellers, an invariable first departure, where porters who find their load too heavy, or travellers who suspect that they are too light, can return to Kaole and re-form.

The little settlement of Kuingani is composed of a few bee-hive huts, and a Bandani or wall-less thatched roof—the village palaver-house—clustering orderless round a cleared central space. Outside, cocoas, old and dwarfed, mangoes almost wild, the papaw, the cotton shrub, the perfumed Rayhan or Basil, and a sage-like herb, the sugarcane, and the Hibiscus called by the Goanese “Rosel,” vary the fields of rice, holcus, and “Turiyan,” or the Cajanus Indicus. The vegetation is, in fact, that of the Malabar coast; the habitations are peculiarly African.

The 28th of June was a halt at Kuingani, where I was visited by Ramji and two brother Bhattias, Govindji and Kesulji. The former was equipped, as least becomes the Banyan man, with sword, dudgeon, and assegai. But Ramji was a heaven-made soldier; he had taken an active part in the military operations directed by His Highness the late Sayyid Said against the people of the mainland, and about thirteen years ago he defended Kaole against a host of Wazaramo, numbering, it is said, 3,000 men, when, lacking balls, he had loaded his honeycombed cannon and his rusty matchlocks with pointed sticks. The Europeans of Zanzibar called him “Rush,”—the murderer. His fellow-countrymen declared him to be a “sharp practiser,” who had made a reputation by spending other people’s money, and I personally had proofs which did not allow me to doubt his “savoir faire.”

The nights at Kuingani were not pleasant. The air was stifling, the mosquitoes buzzed without intermission, and I had neglected to lay in “essence of pennyroyal” against certain other plagues. On the second evening, seeing by the hang-dog look of my Jemadar that he was travailing in mind, I sent for a Mganga or medicine-man, and having previously promised him a Surat skull-cap for a good haul of prophecy, I collected the Baloch to listen. The Mganga, a dark old man, of superior rank, as the cloth round his head and his many bead necklaces showed, presently reappeared with a mat-bag containing the implements of his craft. After taking his seat opposite to me he demanded his fee—here, as elsewhere, to use the words with which Kleon excited the bile of Tiresias,

—without which prediction would have been impossible. When gratified he produced a little gourd snuff-box and indulged himself with a solemn and dignified pinch. He then drew forth a larger gourd which contained the great medicine, upon which no eye profane might gaze: the vessel, repeatedly shaken, gave out a vulgar sound as if filled with pebbles and bits of metal. Presently, placing the implement upon the ground, Thaumaturges extracted from the mat-bag two thick goat’s horns connected by a snake-skin, which was decorated with bunches of curiously-shaped iron bells; he held one in the left hand, and with the right he caused the point of the other to perform sundry gyrations, now directing it towards me, then towards himself, then at the awe-struck bystanders, waving his head, muttering, whispering, swaying his body to and fro, and at times violently rattling the bells. When fully primed with the spirit of prophecy, and connected by ekstasis with the ghosts of the dead, he spake out pretty much in the style of his brotherhood all the world over. The journey was to be prosperous. There would be much talking, but little killing.—Said bin Salim, in chuckling state, confessed that he had heard the same from a Mganga consulted at Zanzibar.—Before navigating the sea of Ujiji a sheep or a parti-coloured hen should be killed and thrown into the lake.—Successful voyage.—Plenty of ivory and slaves.—Happy return to wife and family.

This good example of giving valuable advice was not lost upon Mr. Rush Ramji. He insisted upon the necessary precautions of making a strong kraal and of posting sentinels every night; of wearing a kerchief round the head after dark, and of avoiding the dangerous air of dawn; of not eating strange food, and of digging fresh wells, as the Wazaramo bewitch water for travellers; of tethering the asses, of mending their ropes, and of giving them three lbs. of grain per diem. Like the medical directions given to the French troops proceeding to China, the counsel was excellent, but impracticable.

The evening concluded with a nautch. Yusuf, a Baloch, produced a saringi—the Asiatic viol—and collected all the scamps of the camp with a loud scraping. Hulluk, the buffoon, acted dancing-girl to perfection. After the normal pantomime, somewhat broadly expressed, he did a little work in his own character; standing on his head with a peculiar tremulousness from the hips upwards, dislocating his person in a sitting position, imitating the cry of a dog, cat, ape, camel, and slave-girl, and finally reproducing me with peculiar impudence before my face. I gave him a dollar, when, true to his strain, he at once begged another.

All accounts and receipts being finally duly settled with the Hindus, the last batch of three donkeys having arrived, and the baggage having been laden with great difficulty, I shook hands with old Mohammed and the other dignitaries, and mounting my ass, gave orders for immediate departure from Kuingani. This was not effected without difficulty: every one and everything, guide and escort, asses and slaves, seemed to join in raising up fresh obstacles. Four P.M. sped before we turned out of the little settlement. Among other unpleasant occurrences, Rahmat, a Baloch knave, who had formed one of my escort to Fuga, levelled his long barrel, with loud “Mimí ná pigá” (I am shooting him), when his company was objected to. His Jemadar, Yaruk, seized the old shooting-iron, which was probably unloaded, and Rahmat, with sotto-voce snarls and growls, slunk back to his kennel. A turbaned Negroid, who appeared on the path, was asked to point out the way, and, on his refusal, my bull-headed slave Mabruki struck him on the face, when, to the consternation of all parties, he declared himself a Diwan. The blow, according to the Jemadar, would infallibly lead to bloodshed.

After a second short march of one hour and a half, we pitched tents and obtained lodgings in Bomani, “the Stockade,” a frontier village, but within the jurisdiction of Bagamoyo. On this road, which ascended the old sea-beach, patches of open forest and of high rank grass divided cultivated clearings, where huts and hamlets appeared, and where modest young maidens beckoned us as we passed. The vegetation is here partly African, partly Indian. The Mbuyu,—the baobab, Adansonia digitata, monkey-bread, or calabash, the Mowana of the southern and the Kuka of the northern regions,—is of more markedly bulbous form than on the coast, where the trunk is columnar; its heavy extremities, depressed by the wind, give it the shape of a lumpy umbrella shading the other wild growths. There appear to be two varieties of this tree, similar in bole but differing in foliage and in general appearance. The normal Mbuyu has a long leaf, and the drooping outline of the mass is convex; the rarer, observed only upon the Usagara Mountains, has a small leaf, in colour like the wild indigo, and the arms striking upwards assume the appearance of a bowl. The lower bottoms, where the soil is rich, grow the Mgude, also called Mparamusi (Taxus elongatus, the Geel hout or Yellow-wood of the Cape?) a perfect specimen of arboreal beauty. A tall tapering shaft, without knot or break, straight and clean as a main-mast forty or forty-five feet in height, and painted with a tender greenish-yellow, is crowned with parachute-shaped masses of vivid emerald foliage, whilst sometimes two and even three pillars spring from the same root. The Mvumo,—a distorted toddy tree, or Hyphæna allied to the Daum palm of Egypt and Arabia,—has a trunk rough with the drooping remnants of withered fronds, above which it divides itself into branches resembling a system of Y’s. Its oval fruit is of a yellowish red, and when full-sized it is as large as a child’s head; it is eaten even unripe by the people, and is said to be the favourite food of the elephant. Pulpless, hard, and stringy, it has, when thoroughly mature, a slight taste of gingerbread, hence it is also called the Gingerbread-tree. The Ukhindu or brab, of whose fronds mats and the grass kilts worn by many of the tribes are made, flourishes throughout the country, proving that the date-tree might be naturalised. The Nyara or Chamærops humilis, the dwarf fan-palm or palmetto of Southern Europe, abounds in this maritime region. The other growths are the Mtogwe and the Mbungo-bungo, varieties of the Nux vomica; the finest are those growing in the vicinity of water. The fruit contains within its hard rind, which, when ripe, is orange-coloured, large pips, covered with a yellow pulp of a grateful agro-dolce flavour, with a suspicion of the mango. The people eat them with impunity; the nuts, which contain the poisonous principle, being too hard to be digested. The Mtunguja (the Punneeria coagulans of Dr. Stocks), a solanaceous plant called by the Indians Jangli bengan, or the wild egg-plant, by the South Africans Toluane, and by the Baloch Panír, or cheese, from the effect of the juice in curdling milk, is here, as in Somaliland, a spontaneous growth throughout the country. The same may be said of the castor plant, which, in these regions, is of two kinds. The Mbono (Jatropha curcas?) is the Gumpal of Western India, a coarse variety, with a large seed; its fetid oil, when burnt, fouls the lamp; yet, in Africa, it is used by all classes as an unguent. The Mbarika, or Palma Christi, the Irindi of India, is employed in medicine. The natives extract the oil by toasting and pounding the bean, adding a little hot water and skimming off what appears upon the surface. The Arabs, more sensibly, prefer it “cold-drawn.” These plants, allowed to grow unpruned, often attain the height of eighteen to twenty feet.

The 30th June was another forced halt, when I tasted all the bitterness that can fall to the lot of those who explore regions unvisited by their own colour. The air of Bomani is stagnant, the sun fiery, and clouds of mosquitoes make the nights miserable. Despite these disadvantages, it is a favourite halting-place for up-caravans, who defer to the last the evil days of long travel and short rations. Though impressed with the belief, that the true principle of exploration in these lands is to push on as rapidly and to return as leisurely as possible, I could not persuade the Baloch to move. In Asia, two departures usually suffice; in Africa there must be three,—the little start, the great start, and the start κατ’ εξοχην. Some clamoured for tobacco—I gave up my cavendish; others for guitar-strings—they were silenced with beads; and all, born donkey-drivers, complained loudly of the hardship and the indignity of having to load and lead an ass. The guide, an influential Mzaramo, promised by the Banyans Ladha and Ramji, declined, after receiving twenty dollars, to accompany the Expedition, and from his conduct the Baloch drew the worst of presages. Much ill-will was shown by them towards the European members of the Expedition. “Kafir end, márá bandirá na khenen” (they are infidels and must not carry our flag)—it was inscribed with the usual Moslem formula—was spoken audibly enough in their debased Mekrani to reach my ears: a faithful promise to make a target of the first man who might care to repeat the words, stopped that manner of nuisance. Again the most childish reports flew about the camp, making these jet-bearded and fierce-eyed hen-hearts faint with fears. Boxes had been prepared by the barbarians for myself, and gates had been built across the paths to arrest my party. P’hazi Mazungera, M. Maizan’s murderer, had collected a host that numbered thousands, and the Wazaramo were preparing a levée en masse. To no purpose I quoted the Arab’s proverb—“the son of fifty dieth not at thirty”; all would be heroic victims marching to gory graves. Such reports did real damage: the principal danger was the tremulous alacrity with which the escort prepared upon each trivial occasion for battle and murder, and sudden death. At one place a squabble amongst the villagers kept the Baloch squatting on their hams with lighted matches from dusk till dawn. At another, a stray Fisi or Cynhyæna entering the camp by night, caused a confusion which only the deadliest onslaught could have justified. A slave hired on the road, hearing these horrors, fled in dismay; this, the first of desertions, was by no means the last. The reader may realise the prevalence and the extent of this African traveller’s bane by the fact that during my journey to Ujiji there was not a soul in the caravan, from Said bin Salim the Arab, to the veriest pauper, that did not desert or attempt to desert.

Here, at the first mention of slaves, I must explain to the reader why we were accompanied by them, and how the guide and escort contrived to purchase them. All the serving-men in Zanzibar Island and on the coast of E. Africa are serviles; the Kisawahili does not contain even a word to express a hired domestic. For the evil of slave-service there was no remedy: I therefore paid them their wages and treated them as if they were freemen. I had no power to prevent Said bin Salim, the Baloch escort, and the “sons of Ramji,” purchasing whomever they pleased; all objections on my part were overruled by, “we are allowed by our law to do so,” and by declaring that they had the permission of the consul. I was fain to content myself with seeing that their slaves were well fed and not injured, and indeed I had little trouble in so doing, as no man was foolish enough to spoil his own property. I never neglected to inform the wild people that Englishmen were pledged to the suppression of slavery, and I invariably refused all slaves offered as return presents.

The departure from Bomani was effected on the 1st of July with some trouble; it was like driving a herd of wild cattle. At length, by ejecting skulkers from their huts, by dint of promises and threats, of gentleness and violence, of soft words and hard words, occasionally backed by a smart application of the “Bakur”—the local “cat”—by sitting in the sun, in fact by incessant worry and fidget from 6 A. M. to 3 P. M., the sluggish and unwieldy body acquired some momentum. I had issued a few marching orders for the better protection of the baggage: two Baloch were told off for each donkey, one to lead, the other to drive; in case of attack, those near the head of the file, hearing the signal, three shots, were to leave their animals and to hurry to the front, where my companion marched, whilst the remainder rallied round my flag in the rear: thus there would have been an attacking party and a reserve, between which the asses would have been safe. The only result of these fine manœuvres was, that after a two-mile tramp through an umbrageous forest in which caravans often lose the way, and then down an easy descent across fertile fields, into a broken valley, whose further side was thick with luxuriant grass, tall shrubs, and majestic trees, a confused straggling line,—a mere mob of soldiers, slaves, and asses,—arrived at the little village of Mkwaju la Mvuani,—the “Tamarind in the rains.”

The settlement is composed as usual of a few hovels and a palaver-house, with a fine lime-tree, the place of lounging and gossip, grain-husking, and mat-weaving, in the open centre. Provisions and rough muddy water being here plentiful, travellers often make a final halt to polish their weapons, and to prepare their minds for the Wazaramo. It is the last station under the jurisdiction of Bagamoyo; from Changahera, the crafty old Diwan, I obtained the services of his nephew Muinyi Wazírá, who received seventeen dollars as an inducement to travel in the interior, and was at once constituted linguist and general assistant to Said bin Salim. The day passed as usual, a snake was killed, and a gun-shot heard in the distance supplied conversation for some hours. The “sons of Ramji” carefully lost half a dozen of the axes, bill-hooks, and dibbles, with which they had been supplied, fearing lest they might be called upon to build the Síwá or Bomá, the loose thorn-fence with which the halting-place ought to be surrounded before the night, and 7 P. M. had passed before I could persuade the Baloch to catch, tether, and count the asses. One of the escort, Ismail, was attacked with dysentery and required to be mounted, although we were obliged by the want of carriage to wend our way on foot. During the last night, Said bin Salim had taken charge of three Wanguru porters, who, freshly trapped by Said el Hazrami, had been chained pro tempore to prevent desertion. The Arab boasted that he was a bad sleeper, but bad sleepers are worse watchers, because when they do sleep they sleep in earnest. The men were placed for the night in Said’s tent, surrounded by his five slaves, yet they stole his gun, and carrying off an axe and sundry bill-hooks, disappeared in the jungle. The watchful Said, after receiving many congratulations on his good fortune—fugitive slaves sometimes draw their knives across the master’s throat or insert the points into his eyes—sent off his own attendants to recover the fugitives. In the jungle, however, search was of scant avail: the Wanguru feared that if caught by the Baloch, they would lose their ears; three days would enable them to reach their own country; and their only risk was that if trapped by the Washenzi before their irons—a valuable capture to the captors—could be removed, they might again be sold to some travelling trader. As the day wore on, Said’s face assumed a deplorable expression: his slaves had not appeared, and though several of them were muwallid or born in his father’s house, and one was after a fashion his brother-in-law, he sorely dreaded that they also had deserted. He was proportionably delighted when in the dead of the night, entering Mkwaju la Mvuani, they reported ill-success; and though I could little afford the loss, I was glad to get rid of this chained and surly gang.

On the next day we began loading for the third and final departure, before dawn, and at 7.30 A. M. were on the dew-dripping way. Beyond the settlement a patch of jungle led to cultivated grounds belonging to the villagers, whose scattered and unfenced abodes were partially concealed by dense clumps of trees. The road then sweeping parallel with the river plain, which runs from N.W. to S.E., crossed several swamps, black muddy bottoms covered with tall thick rushes and pea-green paddy, and the heavily laden asses sunk knee-deep into the soft soil. Red copalliferous sand clothed the higher levels. On the wayside appeared for the first time the Khambi or substantial kraals, which evidence unsafe travelling and the unwillingness of caravans to bivouac in the villages. In this region they assumed the form of round huts and long sheds or boothies of straw or grass supported by a framework of rough sticks firmly planted in the ground and lashed together with bark-strips. The whole was surrounded with a deep circle of thorns which—the entrance or entrances being carefully closed at nightfall, not to reopen until dawn—formed a complete defence against bare feet and naked legs. About half-way a junction of the Mbuamaji road was reached, and the path became somewhat broader and less rough. Passing on the right, a hilly district, called Dunda or “the Hill,” the road fell from the ancient sea-beach into the alluvial valley of the Kinganí River; presently rising again, it entered the settlement of Nzasa, a name interpreted “level ground.”

Nzasa is the first district of independent Uzaramo. My men proceeded to occupy the Bandani, in the centre of the hamlet, when Said bin Salim, discovering with the sharp eye of fear a large drum, planted in readiness for the war-signal or the dance-signal, hurried about till he had turned all hands out of the village into a clump of trees hard by, a propitious place for surprise and ambuscade. Here I was visited by three P’hazi or headmen, Kizaya, Tumba Ihere or the “poison gourd,” and Kombe la Simba or the “lion’s hide.” They came to ascertain whether I was bound on peaceful errand or—as the number of our guns suggested—I was marching to revenge the murder of my “brother” Muzungu. Assured of our unwarlike intentions, they told me that I must halt on the morrow and send forward a message to the next chief. As this plan invariably loses three days,—the first being a dies non, the second being expended in dispensing exoteric information to all the lieges squatting in solemn conclave, whilst on the third the real message is privily whispered into the chieftain’s ear,—I replied through Said that I could not be bound by their rules, but was ready to pay for their infraction. During the debate upon this fascinating proposal for breaking the law, Yusuf, one of the most turbulent of the Baloch, drew his sword upon an old woman because she refused to give up a basket of grain. She rushed, with the face of a black Medusa, into the assembly, and provoked not very peaceable remarks concerning the peaceful nature of our intentions. When the excitement was allayed, the principal P’hazi began to ask what had brought the white man into their country, and in a breath to predict the loss of their gains and commerce, their land and liberty. “I am old,” pathetically quoth the P’hazi, “and my beard is grey, yet I have never beheld such a calamity as this!” “These men,” replied Said, “neither buy nor sell; they do not inquire into price, nor do they covet profit. Moreover,” he pursued, “what have ye to lose? The Arabs take your best, the Wasawahili your second best, and your trifling tribute is reduced to a yoke of bullocks, a few clothes, or half a dozen hoes.” An extravagant present—at that time ignorance of the country compelled me to intrust such matters to the honesty of Said bin Salim—opened the headmen’s hearts: they privily termed me Murungwana Sana, a real free-man, the African equivalent for the English “gentleman,” and they detached Kizaya to accompany me as far as the western half of the Kingani Valley. At 4 P. M. a loud drumming collected the women, who began to perform a dance of ceremony with peculiar vigour. A line of small, plump, chestnut-coloured beings, with wild beady eyes, and a thatch of clay-plastered hair, dressed in their loin-cloths, with a profusion of white disks, bead necklaces, a little square bib of beads called a t’hando, partially concealing the upper bosom, with short coils of thick brass wire wound so tightly round the wrists, the arms above the elbows, and the fat ankles, that they seemed to have grown into the flesh, and,—hideous perversion of taste!—with ample bosoms tightly corded down, advanced and retired in a convulsion of wriggle and contortion, whose fit expression was a long discordant howl, which seemed to

I threw them a few strings of green beads, which for a moment interrupted the dance. One of these falling to the ground, I was stooping to pick it up when Said whispered hurriedly in my ear, “Bend not; they will say ‘he will not bend even to take up beads!’”

In the evening I walked down to the bed of the Kingani river, which bisects a plain all green with cultivation,—rice and holcus, sweet potato and tobacco,—and pleasantly studded with huts and hamlets. The width of the stream, which here runs over a broad bed of sand, is about fifty yards; it is nowhere fordable, as the ferry-boat belonging to each village proves, and thus far it is navigable, though rendered dangerous by the crocodiles and the hippopotami that house in its waters. The colour is tawny verging upon red, and the taste is soft and sweet, as if fed by rain. The Kingani, like all streams in this part of the continent, is full of fish, especially a dark-green and scaleless variety (a Silurus?) called Kambari, and other local names. This great “miller’s thumb” has fleshy cirri, appears to be omnivorous, and tastes like animal mud. The night was rendered uncomfortable to the Baloch by the sound of distant drums, which suggested fighting as well as feasting, and by the uproar of the wild men, who, when reconnoitred by the scouts, were found to be shouting away the hippopotami.

In the hurry and the confusion of loading on the next morning one ass was left behind, and the packs were so badly placed that the fatigue of marching was almost doubled by their repeated falls. Whilst descending the well-wooded river terrace, my portion of the escort descried an imaginary white flag crossing the grassy valley below. This is the sign of a Diwan’s expedition or commando: it is unwisely allowed by the Arabs, whose proper colours are a plain blood-red. After marching a few miles over undulating ground, open and parklike, and crossing rough and miry beds, the path disclosed a view verging upon the pretty. By the way side was planted the peculiarly African Mzimu or Fetiss hut, a penthouse about a foot high, containing, as votive offerings, ears of holcus or pombe-beer in a broken gourd. There, too, the graves of the heathen met the eye. In all other parts of East Africa a mouldering skull, a scattered skeleton, or a few calcined bones, the remains of wizards and witches dragged to the stake, are the only visible signs of man’s mortality. The Wazaramo tombs, especially in the cases of chiefs, imitate those of the Wamrima. They are parallelograms, seven feet by four, formed by a regular dwarf paling that encloses a space cleared of grass, and planted with two uprights to denote the position of head and feet. In one of the long walls there is an apology for a door. The corpse of the heathen is not made to front any especial direction; moreover the centre of the oblong has the hideous addition of a log carved by the unartistic African into a face and a bust singularly resembling those of a legless baboon, whilst a white rag tied turbanwise round the head serves for the inscription “this is a man.” The Baloch took notice of such idolatrous tendency by spitting and by pronouncing certain national anathemas, which literally translated might sound unpleasant in Europeans’ ears. The abomination of iconism is avoided in the graves of Moslem travellers: they are usually cleared ovals, with outlines of rough stone and a strew of smooth pebbles, according to the custom of the Wasawahili. Several stumps of wood planted in the earth show that the corpse faces Mecca, and, as amongst the Jinga of Western Africa, the fragments of a china bowl or cup lying upon the ground are sacred to the memory of the departed. In Zanzibar Island, also, saucers, plates, and similar articles are mortared into the tombstones.

The number of these graves made the blackness of my companions pale. They were hurrying forward with sundry “la haul!” and with boding shakes of the head, when suddenly an uproar in the van made them all prepare for action. They did it characteristically by beginning with begging for ranjak—priming powder. Said bin Salim, much excited, sent forward his messmate Muinyi Wazira to ascertain the cause of the excitement. One Mviraru, the petty lord of a neighbouring village, had barred the road with about a dozen men, demanding “dash,” and insisting that Kizaya had no right to lead on the party without halting to give him the news. My companion, who was attended only by “Bombay,” his gun-carrier, and a few Baloch, remarked to the interferers that he had been franked through the country by paying at Nzasa. To this they obstinately objected. The Baloch began to light their matches and to use hard words. A fight appeared imminent. Presently, however, when the Wazaramo saw my flag rounding the hill-shoulder with a fresh party, whose numbers were exaggerated by distance, they gave way; and finally when Muinyi Wazira opened upon them the invincible artillery of his tongue, they fell back and stood off the road to gaze. The linguist returned to the rear in great glee, blowing his finger tips, as if they had been attached to a matchlock, and otherwise deriding the overboiling valour of the Beloch, who, not suspecting his purport, indulged in the wildest outbreak of boasting, offering at once to take the whole country and to convert me into its sultan. Towards the end of the march we crossed a shallow, salt, bitter rivulet, flowing cold and clear towards the Kingani River. On the grassy plain below noble game—zebra and koodoo—began to appear; whilst guinea-fowl and partridge, quail, green-pigeon, and the cuculine bird, called in India the Malabar-pheasant, became numerous. A track of rich red copalliferous soil, wholly without stone, and supporting black mould, miry during the rains, and caked and cracked by the potent suns of the hot season, led us to Kiranga-Ranga, the first dangerous station in Uzaramo. It is the name of a hilly district, with many little villages embosomed in trees, overlooking the low cultivated bottoms where caravans encamp in the vicinity of the wells.

Before establishing themselves in the kraal at Kiranga-Ranga, the two rival parties of Baloch,—the Prince’s permanent escort and the temporary guard sent by Ladha Damha from Kaole—being in a chronic state of irritability, naturally quarrelled. With the noise of choughs gathering to roost they vented their bile, till thirteen men belonging to a certain Jemadar Mohammed suddenly started up, and without a word of explanation set out on their way home. According to Said bin Salim, the temporary guard had determined not to proceed beyond Kiranga-Ranga, and this desertion was intended as a preliminary to others by which the party would have lost two-thirds of its strength. I at once summoned the Jemadars, and wrote in their presence a letter reporting the conduct of their men to the dreaded Balyuz, the consul, who was supposed to be still anchored off Kaole. Seeing the bastinado in prospect, the Jemadar Yaruk shouldered his sabre, slung his shield over his arm, set out in pursuit of the fugitives, and soon succeeded in bringing them back. He was a good specimen of the true Baloch mountaineer—a tall, gaunt, and large-boned figure, with dark complexion deeply pitted by small-pox, hard, high, and sun-burnt features of exceeding harshness; an armoury in epitome was stuck in his belt, and his hand seemed never to rest but upon a weapon.

The 4th of July was a halt at Kiranga-Ranga. Two asses had been lost, the back-sinews of a third had been strained, and all the others had been so wearied by their inordinate burdens, to which on the last march the meat of a koodoo, equal in weight to a young bullock, had been superadded, that a rest was deemed indispensable. I took the opportunity of wandering over and of prospecting the country. The scene was one of admirable fertility; rice, maize, and manioc grew in the rankest and richest crops, and the uncultivated lands bore the Corindah bush (Carissa Carandas), the salsaparilla vine, the small whitish-green mulberry (the Morus alba of India), and the crimson flowers of the Rosel. In the lower levels near the river rose the giants of the forest. The Mparamusi shot up its tall head, whose bunchy tresses rustled in the breeze when all below was still. The stately Msufi, a Bombax or silk-cotton tree, showed as many as four or five trunks, each two to three feet in diameter, rising from the same roots; the long tapering branches stood out stiffly at right angles from the bole; and the leaves, instead of forming masses of foliage, were sparsely scattered in small dense growth. The Msukulio, unknown to the people of Zanzibar, was a pile of dark verdure, which dwarfed the finest oaks and elms of an English park. No traces of game appeared in the likeliest of places; perhaps it preferred lurking in the tall gross grass, which was not yet in a fit state to burn.

At Kiranga-Ranga the weather began to be unpropitious. The Mcho’o, the heavy showers which fall between the Masika or vernal, and the Vuli or autumnal rains, set in with regularity, and accompanied us during the transit of the maritime plain. I therefore refused to halt more than one day, although the P’hazi or chiefs of the Wazaramo showed, by sending presents of goats and grain, great civility—a civility purchased, however, by Said bin Salim at the price of giving to each man whatever he demanded; even women were never allowed to leave the camp unpropitiated. I was not permitted in this part to enter the villages, although the Wazaramo do not usually exclude strangers who venture upon their dangerous hospitality. Girls are appointed to attend upon them, and in case of sickness or accident happening to any one in the settlement, they are severely interrogated concerning the morality of the guest, and an unfavourable account of it leads to extortion and violence. The Wazaramo, like the Wagogo, and unlike the other East African tribes, are jealous of their women; still “damages” will act, as they have acted in other lands, as salve to wounded honour and broken heart.

On the 5th of July we set out betimes, and traversing the fields around Kiranga-Ranga, struck through a dense jungle, here rising above, there bending into the river valley, to some stagnant pools which supply the district with water. The station, reached in 3^hrs 30′, was called Tumba Ihere, after the headman, who accompanied us. Here we saw cocos emerging from a fetid vegetation, and for the last time the Mwembe or mango, a richly foliaged but stunted tree which never attains the magnificent dimensions observed at Zanzibar. Several down-caravans were halted at Tumba Ihere; the slaves brought from the interior were tied together by their necks, and one obstinate deserter was so lashed to a forked pole with the bifurcation under his chin, that when once on the ground he could not rise without assistance. These wretches scarcely appeared to like the treatment; they were not, however, in bad condition. The Wanyamwezi porters bathed in the pools and looked at us without fear or shame. Our daily squabble did not fail to occur. Riza, a Baloch, drew his dagger on one of Said bin Salim’s “children,” and the child pointed his Tower-musket at the Baloch; a furious hubbub arose; the master, with his face livid and drawn like a cholera patient’s, screamed shrilly as a woman, and the weapons returned to their proper places bloodless as those wielded by Bardolph, Nym, and ancient Pistol. My companion began to suffer from the damp heat and the reeking miasma; he felt that a fever was coming on, and the fatigue of marching under these circumstances prevented our mustering the party. The consequence was, that an ass laden with rice disappeared,—it had probably been led out of the road and unburdened by the Baloch;—whilst axes, cords, and tethers could nowhere be found when wanted.

On the next morning we left Tumba Ihere, and tramped over a red land through alternate strips of rich cultivation and tangled jungle, which presently opened out into a forest where the light-barked Msandarusi, or copal-tree, attains its fullest dimensions. This is one of the richest “diggins,” and the roadsides are everywhere pitted with pockets two or three feet deep by one in diameter. Rain fell in huge drops, and the heaviness of the ground caused frequent accidents to the asses’ loads. About noon we entered the fine grain-fields that gird the settlements of Muhogwe, one of the most dreaded in dreaded Uzaramo. In our case, however, the only peril was the levée en masse of the fair sex in the villages, to stare, laugh, and wonder at the white men. “What should you think of these whites as husbands?” asked Muinyi Wazira of the crowd. “With such things on their legs?—Sivyo!—not by any means!”—was the unanimous reply, accompanied with peals of merriment.

Beyond Muhogwe all was jungle and forest, tall trees rising from red copalliferous sand, and shading bright flowers, and blossoming shrubs. After crossing a low mud overgrown with rush and tiger-grass, and a watercourse dotted with black stagnant pools, we ascended rising well-forested ground, and lastly debouched upon the kraals of Muhonyera.

The district of Muhonyera occupies the edge of the plateau forming the southern terrace of the Kingani River; and the elevated sea-beach is marked out by lines of quartsoze pebbles running along the northern slope of the hill upon which we encamped. Water is found in seven or eight reedy holes in the valley below; it acquires from decomposed vegetation an unnaturally sweet and slimy taste. This part of the country, being little inhabited by reason of its malarious climate, abounds in wild animals. The guides speak of lions, and the cry of the Fisi or Cynhyæna was frequently heard at night, threatening destruction to the asses. The Fisi, the Wuraba of the Somal, and the Wilde Honde of the Cape, is the wolf of Africa, common throughout the country, where it acts as scavenger. Though a large and powerful variety, it seldom assaults man, except when sleeping, and then it snatches a mouthful from the face, causing a ghastlier disfigurement even than the scalping of the bear. Three asses belonging to the Expedition were destroyed by this beast; in all cases they were attacked by night with a loud wrangling shriek, and the piece of flesh was raggedly torn from the hind quarter; after affording a live rump-steak, they could not be driven like Bruce’s far-famed bullock. These, however, were the animals brought from Zanzibar; that of Unyamwezi, if not tied up, defends itself successfully against its cowardly assailant with teeth and heels, even as the zebra, worthy of Homeric simile, has, it is said, kept the lion at bay. The woods about Muhonyera contain large and small grey monkeys with black faces; clinging to the trees they gaze for a time at the passing caravan imperturbably, till curiosity being satisfied, they slip down and bound away with long plunging leaps, like a greyhound at play. The view from the hill-side was suggestive. The dark green plain of sombre monotony, with its overhanging strata of mist-bank and dew-cloud, appeared in all the worst colours of the Oude Tirhai and the Guzerat jungles. At that season, when the moisture of the rainy monsoon was like poison distilled by the frequent bursts of fiery sunshine, it was a valley of death for unacclimatised travellers. Far to the west, however, rose Kidunda, “the hillock,” a dwarf cone breaking the blurred blue line of jungle, and somewhat northward of it towered a cloud-capped azure wall, the mountain-crags of Duthumi, upon which the eye, long weary of low levels, rested with a sensation of satisfaction.

It was found necessary to halt a day at Muhonyera: according to some authorities no provisions were procurable for a week; others declared that there were villages on the road, but were uncertain whether rations could be purchased. Said bin Salim sent Ambari, a favourite slave, back to buy grain at Muhogwe, whence he had hurried us on in fear of the Wazaramo; and the youth, after wasting a day, returned on the evening of the 2nd July with about sixty lbs.,—a poor supply for eighty-eight hungry bodies. This proceeding naturally affronted the Baloch, who desired for themselves the perquisites proceeding from the purchases. Two of their number, Yusuf and Salih Mohammed, came to swear officially on the part of their men that there was not an ounce of grain in camp. Appearing credulous, I paid them a visit about half an hour afterwards; all their shuffling and sitting upon the bags could not conceal a store of about 100 lbs. of fine white rice, whose quality,—the Baloch had been rationed at Kaole with an inferior kind,—showed whence it came.

After repairing the “boma,” or fenced kraal,—it had been burnt down, as often happens, by the last caravan of Wanyamwezi,—I left my companion, who was prostrate with fever, and went out, gun in hand, to inspect the country, and to procure meat, that necessary having fallen short. The good P’hazi, Tumba Ihere, accompanied me, and after return he received an ample present for his services, and departed. The Baloch employed themselves in cleaning their rusty matchlock-barrels with a bit of kopra,—dried cocoa-nut meat,—in weaving for themselves sandals, like the spartelle of the Pyrenees, with green palmetto-leaves; in preparing calabash fibre for fatilah or gun-matches, and in twisting cords for the asses. The best material is supplied by an aloetic plant, the Hig or Haskul of Somaliland, here called by the Arabs Bag, and by the natives Mukonge. The Mananazi, or pine-apple, grows wild as far as three marches from the coast, but its fibrous qualities are unknown to the people. Ismail, the invalid Baloch, was the worse for remedies; and two other men gave signs of breaking down.

During the first week, creeping along at a slug’s pace, we heard the booming of the Artémise’s evening gun, an assurance that refuge was at hand. Presently these reports ceased. Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton, seized with mortal sickness, had left Kaole suddenly, and he died on board the Artémise on the 5th July, shortly after his return to Zanzibar. The first letters announcing the sad event were lost: with characteristic African futility the porter despatched with the parcel from the island, finding that the Expedition had passed on to the mountains of Usagara, left his charge with a village headman, and returned to whence he came. Easterns still hold that

The report, spread by a travelling trader, was discussed throughout the camp, but I was kept in ignorance of it till Khudabakhsh, a Baloch, who had probably been deputed by his brethren to ascertain what effect the decease of the consul would have upon me, “hardened his heart,” and took upon himself the task of communicating the evil intelligence. I was uncertain what to believe. Said bin Salim declared, when consulted, that he fully trusted in the truth of the report, but his reasons were somewhat too Arabo-African to convince me. He had found three pieces of scarlet broadcloth damaged by rats,—an omen of death; and the colour pointed out the nationality of the departed.

The consul’s death might have proved fatal to the Expedition, had its departure been delayed for a week. The court of Zanzibar had required the stimulus of a strong official letter from Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton, before it would consent, as requested by the Foreign Office, “to procure a favourable reception on the coast, and to ensure the protection of the chiefs of the country” for the travellers. The Hindus, headed by Ladha Damha, showed from first to last extreme unwillingness to open up the rich regions of copal and ivory to European eyes: they had been deceived by my silence during the rainy season at Zanzibar into a belief that the coast-fever had cooled my ardour for further adventure; and their surprise at finding the contrary to be the case was not of a pleasant nature. The home-sick Baloch would have given their ears to return, they would have turned back even when arrived within a few marches from the Lake. Said bin Salim took the first opportunity of suggesting the advisability of his returning to Zanzibar for the purpose of completing carriage. I positively refused him leave; it was a mere pretext to ascertain whether His Highness the Sayyid Majid had or had not, in consequence of our changed position, altered his views.

Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton’s death, however, was mourned for other than merely selfish considerations. His hospitality and kindness had indeed formed a well-omened contrast with my unauspicious reception at Aden in 1855, before my departure to explore the Eastern Horn of Africa, when the coldness of some, and the active jealousy of other political authorities, thwarted all my projects, and led to the tragic disaster at Berberah.[4] Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton had received two strangers like sons, rather than like passing visitors. During the intervals between the painful attacks of a deadly disease, he had exerted himself to the utmost in forwarding my views; in fact, he made my cause his own. Though aware of his danger, he had refused to quit, until compelled by approaching dissolution, the post which he considered his duty to hold. He was a loss to his country, an excellent linguist, a ripe oriental scholar, and a valuable public servant of the old Anglo-Indian school; he was a man whose influence over Easterns, based upon their respect for his honour and honesty, his gallantry and determination, knew no bounds; and at heart a “sad good Christian,”—the Heavens be his bed!

On the 8th of July we fell into what our Arab called Wady el Maut and Dar el Jua—the Valley of Death and the Home of Hunger—the malarious river-plain of the Kingani River. My companion was compelled by sickness to ride, and thus the asses, now back-sore and weak with fatigue, suffered an addition of weight, and a “son of Ramji” who was upon the point of deserting openly required to be brought back at the muzzle of the barrel. The path descending into a dense thicket of spear grass, bush, and thorny trees based on sand, with a few open and scattered plantations of holcus, presently passed on the left Dunda Nguru, or “Seer-fish-hill,” so called because a man laden with such provision had there been murdered by the Wazaramo. After 2^hrs. 45′ a ragged camping-kraal was found on the tree-lined bank of a half-dry Fiumara, a tributary of the neighbouring Kingani: the water was bad, and a mortal smell of decay was emitted by the dark dank ground. It was a wild day. From the black brumal clouds driven before furious blasts pattered rain-drops like musket-bullets, splashing the already saturated ground. The tall stiff trees groaned and bent before the gusts; the birds screamed as they were driven from their perching places; the asses stood with heads depressed, ears hung down, and shrinking tails turned towards the weather, and even the beasts of the wild seemed to have taken refuge in their dens. Provisions being unprocurable at “Sagesera,” the party did what men on such occasions usually do—they ate double quantities. I had ordered a fair distribution of the rice that remained, consequently they cooked all day. Yusuf, a Jemadar of inferior rank, whose friends characterised him as “sweet of tongue but bitter at heart,” vainly came to beg, on plea of hunger, dismissal for himself and his party; and another Baloch, Wali, reported as uselessly that a sore foot would prevent him advancing.

Despite our increasing weakness, we marched seven hours on the 9th of July, over a plain wild but prodigiously fertile, and varied by patches of field, jungle and swamp, along the right bank of the Kingani river, to another ragged old kraal, situated near a bend in the bed. This day showed the ghost of an adventure. At the “Makutaniro,” or junction of the Mbuamaji trunk-road with the other lines branching from various minor sea-ports, my companion, who was leisurely proceeding with the advance guard, found his passage barred by about fifty Wazaramo standing across the path in a single line that extended to the travellers’ right, whilst a reserve party squatted on the left of the road. Their chief stepping to the front and quietly removing the load from the foremost porter’s head, signalled the strangers to halt. Prodigious excitement of the Baloch, whose loud “Hai, hui!” and nervous anxiety contrasted badly with the perfect sang froid of the barbarians. Presently, Muinyi Wazira coming up, addressed to the headman a few words, promising cloth and beads, when this African modification of the “pike” was opened, and the guard moved forward as before. As I passed, the Wazaramo stood under a tree to gaze. I could not but admire the athletic and statuesque figures of the young warriors and their martial attitude, grasping in one hand their full-sized bows, and in the other sheaths of grinded arrows, whose black barbs and necks showed a fresh layer of poison.

At Tunda, “the fruit,” so called from its principal want, after a night passed amidst the rank vegetation, and within the malarious influence of the river, I arose weak and depressed, with aching head, burning eyes, and throbbing extremities. The new life, the alternations of damp heat and wet cold, the useless fatigue of walking, the sorry labour of waiting and re-loading the asses, the exposure to sun and dew, and last, but not least, of morbific influences, the wear and tear of mind at the prospect of imminent failure, all were beginning to tell heavily upon me. My companion had shaken off his preliminary symptoms, but Said bin Salim, attacked during the rainy gusty night by a severe Mkunguru or seasoning-fever, begged hard for a halt at Tunda—only for a day—only for half a day—only for an hour. Even this was refused. I feared that Tunda might prove fatal to us. Said bin Salim was mounted upon an ass, which compelled us to a weary trudge of two hours. The animals were laden with difficulty; they had begun to show a predilection for lying down. The footpath, crossing a deep nullah, spanned a pestilential expanse of spear-grass, and a cane, called from its appearance Gugu-mbua, or the wild sugar plant, with huge calabashes and natural clearings in the jungle, where large game appeared. After a short march I saw the red flag of the vanguard stationary, and turning a sharp corner found the caravan halted in a little village, called from its headman Ba̓ńá Dirungá. This was premature. I had ordered Muinyi Wazira to advance on that morning to Dege la Mhora, the “large jungle-bird,” the hamlet where M. Maizan’s blood was shed. Said and Wazira had proposed that we should pass it ere the dawn of the next day broke; the advice was rejected, it was too dangerous a place to show fear. The two diplomatists then bethought themselves of another manœuvre, and led me to Ba̓ńá Dirungá, calling it Dege la Mhora.

We halted for a day at the little hamlet, embosomed in dense grass and thicket. On our appearance the villagers fled into the bush, their country’s strength; but before nightfall they took heart of grace and returned. The headman appeared to regard us with fear, he could not comprehend why we carried so much powder and ball. When reassured he offered to precede us, and to inform the chief of the “large jungle-bird” that our intentions had been misrepresented,—a proposal which seemed to do much moral good to Said, the Jemadar, and Wazira.

On the eleventh day after leaving Kaole I was obliged to mount by a weakness which scarcely allowed me to stand. After about half an hour, through a comparatively open country, we passed on the left a well-palisaded village, belonging formerly to P’hazi Mazungera, and now occupied by his son Hembe, or the “wild buffalo’s horn.” Reports of our warlike intentions had caused Hembe to “clear decks for action;” the women had been sent from the village, and some score of tall youths, archers and spearmen, admirably appointed, lined the hedges, prepared, at the levelling of the first matchlock, to let loose a flight of poisoned arrows, which would certainly have dispersed the whole party. A halt was called by the trembling Said, who at such conjunctures would cling like a woman to my companion or to me. During the few minutes’ delay the “sons of Ramji,” who were as pale as blacks could be, allowed their asses to bump off half a dozen loads. Presently Hembe, accompanied by a small guard, came forward, and after a few words with Wazira and Said, the donkey from which I had not dismounted was hurried forward by the Baloch. Hembe followed us with a stronger escort to Madege Madogo, the next station. Illness served me as an excuse for not receiving him: he obtained, however, from Said a letter to the headmen of the coast, bespeaking their good offices for certain of his slaves sent down to buy gunpowder.

An account of the melancholy event which cut short at Dege la Mhora the career of the first European that ever penetrated beyond this portion of the coast may here be inserted.

M. Maizan, an enseigne de vaisseau, and a pupil of the Polytechnic School, after a cruise in the seas off Eastern Africa, conceived, about the end of 1843, the project of exploring the lakes of the interior, and in 1844 his plans were approved of by his government. Arrived at Bourbon, he was provided with a passage to Zanzibar, in company with M. Broquant, the Consul de France, newly appointed after the French Commercial Treaty of the 21st Nov. 1844, on board the corvette Le Berceau, Capitaine, afterwards Vice-Admiral, Romain Desfossés, commanding. At the age of twenty-six M. Maizan had amply qualified himself by study for travel, and he was well provided with outfit and instruments. His “kit,” however, was of a nature calculated to excite savage cupidity, as was proved by the fact that his murderer converted the gilt knob of a tent-pole into a neck ornament, and tearing out the works of a gold chronometer, made of it a tobacco-pouch. He has been charged with imprudence in carrying too much luggage—a batterie de déjeuner, a batterie de dîner, and similar superfluities. But he had acted rightly, when bound upon a journey through countries where outfit cannot be renewed, in providing himself with all the materials for comfort. On such explorations a veteran traveller would always attempt to carry with him as much, not as little as possible,—of course prepared to abandon all things, and to reduce himself, whenever the necessity might occur, to the “simple besace du pélerin.” It is easy to throw away a superfluity, and the best preparation for severe “roughing it,” is to enjoy ease and comfort whilst attainable.

But M. Maizan fell upon evil times at Zanzibar. Dark innuendos concerning French ambition—that nation being even suspected of a desire to establish itself in force at Lamu, Pangani, and other places on the coast of East Africa—filled Hindu and Hindi with fear for their profits. These men influenced the inhabitants of the island and the sea-coast, who probably procured the co-operation of their wild brethren in the interior. For the purpose of learning the Kisawahili, M. Maizan delayed nearly eight months at Zanzibar, and, seeing a French vessel entering the harbour, he left the place precipitately, fearing a recall. Vainly also M. Broquant had warned him against his principal confidant, a noted swindler, and Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton had cautioned him to no purpose that his glittering instruments and his numerous boxes, all of which would be supposed to contain dollars, were dangerous. He visited the coast thrice before finally landing, thus giving the Wasawahili time and opportunity to mature their plans. He lowered himself in the eyes of the Arabs by “making brotherhood” with a native of Unyamwezi. Finally, fearing Arab apathy and dilatoriness, he hastened into the country without waiting for the strong armed escort promised to him by His Highness the late Sayyid Said.

These were grave errors; but they were nothing in comparison with that of trusting himself unarmed, after the fatal habit of Europeans, and without followers, into the hands of an African chief. How often has British India had to deplore deaths “that would have dimmed a victory,” caused by recklessness of danger or by the false shame which prevents men in high position from wearing weapons where they may be at any moment required, lest the safe mediocrities around them should deride such excess of cautiousness!

After the rains of 1845 M. Maizan landed at Bagamoyo, a little settlement opposite the island of Zanzibar. There leaving the forty musketeers, his private guard, he pressed on, contrary to the advice of his Mnyamwezi brother, escorted only by Frédérique, a Madagascar or Comoro man, and by a few followers, to visit P’hazi Mazungera, the chief of the Wákámbá, a subtribe of the Wazaramo, at his village of Dege la Mhora. He was received with a treacherous cordiality, of which he appears to have been completely the dupe. After some days of the most friendly intercourse, during which the villain’s plans were being matured, Mazungera, suddenly sending for his guest, reproached him as he entered the hut with giving away goods to other chiefs. Presently working himself into a rage, the African exclaimed, “Thou shalt die at this moment!” At the signal a crowd of savages rushed in, bearing two long poles. Frédérique was saved by the P’hazi’s wife: he cried to his master to run and touch her, in which case he would have been under her protection; but the traveller had probably lost presence of mind, and the woman was removed. The unfortunate man’s arms were then tightly bound to a pole lashed crosswise upon another, to which his legs and head were secured by a rope tied across the brow. In this state he was carried out of the village to a calabash-tree, pointed out to me, about fifty yards on the opposite side of the road. The inhuman Mazungera first severed all his articulations, whilst the war-song and the drum sounded notes of triumph. Finding the sime, or double-edged knife, somewhat blunt, he stopped, when in the act of cutting his victim’s throat, to whet the edge, and, having finished the bloody deed, he concluded with wrenching the head from the body.

Thus perished an amiable, talented, and highly educated man, whose only fault was rashness—too often the word for enterprise when Fortune withholds her smile. The savage Mazungera was disappointed in his guest’s death. The object of the torture was to discover, as the Mganga had advised, the place of his treasures, whereas the wretched man only groaned and implored forgiveness of his sins, and called upon the names of those friends whose advice he had neglected. The P’hazi then attempted to decoy from Bagamoyo the forty musketeers left with the outfit, but in this he failed. He then proceeded to make capital of his foul deed. When Snay bin Amir, a Maskat merchant,—of whom I shall have much to say,—appeared with a large caravan at Dege la Mhora, Mazungera demanded a new tribute for free passage; and, as a threat, he displayed the knife with which he had committed the murder. But Snay proved himself a man not to be trifled with.

Frédérique returned to Zanzibar shortly after the murder, and was examined by M. Broquant. An infamous plot would probably have come to light had he not fled from the fort where he was confined. Frédérique disappeared mysteriously. He is said now to be living at Marungu, on the Tanganyika Lake, under the Moslem name of Muhammádí. His flight served for a pretext to mischievous men that the prince was implicated in the murder: they also spread a notoriously false report that Mazungera, an independent chief, was a vassal of the suzerain of Zanzibar.

In 1846 the brig-of-war Le Ducoüedic, of the naval division of Bourbon, M. Guillain, Capitaine de Vaisseau, commanding, was charged, amongst other commercial and political interests, with insisting upon severe measures to punish the murderers. In vain His Highness Sayyid Said protested that Mazungera was beyond his reach; the fact of the robber-chief having been seen at Mbuamaji on the coast after the murder was deemed conclusive evidence to the contrary. At length the Sayyid despatched up-country three or four hundred musketeers, mercenaries, and slaves, under command of Juma Mfumbi, the late, and Bori, the present, Diwan of Saadani. The little troop marched some distance into the country, when they were suddenly confronted by the Wazaramo, commanded by Hembe, the son of Mazungera, who, after skirmishing for a couple of days, fled wounded by a matchlock-ball. The chief result of the expedition was the capture of a luckless clansman who had beaten the war-drum during the murder. He was at once transferred to Zanzibar, and passed off by these transparent African diplomatists as P’hazi Mazungera. For nearly two years he was chained in front of the French Consulate; after that time he was placed in the fort heavily ironed to a gun under a cadjan shed, where he could hardly stand or lie down. The unhappy wretch died about a year ago, and Zanzibar lost one of its lions.

After the slaughter of M. Maizan the direct route through Dege la Mhora was long closed, it is said, and is still believed, by a “ghul,” a dragon or huge serpent, who, of course, was supposed to be the demon-ghost of the murdered man. The reader will rejoice to hear that the miscreant Mazungera, who has evaded human, has not escaped divine punishment. The miserable old man is haunted by the P’hepo or spirit of the guest so foully slain: the torments which he has brought upon himself have driven him into a kind of exile; and his tribe, as has been mentioned, has steadily declined from its former position with even a greater decline in prospect. The jealous national honour displayed by the French Government on the occasion of M. Maizan’s murder has begun to bear fruit.

Its sensitiveness contrasts well with our proceedings on similar occasions. Rahmat, the murderer of Captain Milne, still wanders free over the hills in sight of Aden. By punishing the treacherous slaughter of a servant of Government, the price of provisions at the coal-hole of the East would have been raised. Au Ali, the murderer of Lieut. Stroyan, is still at large in the neighbourhood of Berberah, when a few dollars would have brought in his head. The burlesque of a blockade,—Capt. Playfair, in a work previously characterised, has officially mistermed it, to the astonishment of Aden, “a rigid blockade,” a “severe punishment,” and so forth,—was considered sufficient to chastise the Somal of Berberah for their cowardly onslaught on strangers and guests; and though the people offered an equivalent for the public and private property destroyed by them, the spirit of Centralisation, by an exercise of its peculiar attributes, omniscience and omnipresence, decided that the indemnity, which in such cases is customary throughout the East, must not be accepted, because—forsooth!—it was not deserved by the officers. This is a new plan, a system lately adopted by the nation once called “la plus orgueilleuse et la plus perilleuse”—to win and preserve respect in lands where prestige is its principal power. The Arabs of Yemen have already learned from it to characterise their invaders as Sahib Hilah,—a tricky, peddling manner of folk. They—wiser men than we—will not take upon themselves the pains and penalties of subject-hood, without its sole counterweight, the protection of their rulers, in cases where protection is required.

At Madege Madogo, the “little birds,” so called in contradistinction to its western and neighbouring district, Madege Makuba, the “great birds,” we pitched tent under a large sycamore; and the Baloch passed a night of alarms, fancying in every sound the approach of a leopard, a hippopotamus, or a crocodile. On the 13th July, we set out after dawn, and traversing forest, jungle, and bush, chequered with mud and morass, hard by the bending and densely-wooded line of the Kingani River, reached in three hours’ march an unwholesome camping-ground, called from a conspicuous landmark Kidunda, the “little hill.” Here the scenery is effective. The swift, yellow stream, about fifty yards broad, sweeps under tall, stiff earth-works, ever green with tangled vegetation and noble trees. The conical huts of the cultivators are disposed in scattered patches to guard their luxuriant crops, whilst on the northern bank the woody hillock, and on the southern rising ground, apparently the ancient river-terrace, affect the sight agreeably after the evergreen monotony of the river-plain. A petty chief, Mvirama, accompanied by a small party of armed men, posted himself near the cantonment, demanding rice, which was refused with asperity. At this frontier station the Wazaramo, mixed up with the tribes of Udoe, K’hutu, and Usagara, are no longer dreaded.

From Kidunda, the route led over sandy ground, with lines and scatters of water-worn pebbles, descended the precipitous inclines of sandstone, broken into steps of slabs and flags, and crossed the Manyora, a rough and rocky Fiumara, abounding in blocks of snowy quartz, grey and pink syenites, erratic boulders of the hornblende used as whetstones, and strata of a rude sandstone conglomerate. Thence it spanned grass, bush, and forest, close to the Kingani, and finally leaving the stream on the right hand, it traversed sandy soil, and, ascending a wave of ground, abutted upon the Mgeta or rivulet, a large perennial influent, which, rising in the mountains of Duthumi, drains the head of the River-valley.

This lower portion of the Mgeta’s bed was unfordable after the heavy rains: other caravans, however, had made a rude bridge of trees, felled on each side, lashed with creepers, and jammed together by the force of the current. The men perched upon the trunks and boughs, tossed or handed to one another the loads and packages, whilst the asses, pushed by force of arm down the banks, were driven with sticks and stones across the stream. Suddenly a louder cry than usual arose from the mob; my double-barrelled elephant-gun found a grave below the cold and swirling waters. The Goanese Gaetano had the courage to plunge in; the depth was about twelve feet; the sole was of roots and loose sand, and the stream ran with considerable force. I bade farewell to that gun;—by the bye it was the second accident of the kind that had occurred to it;—the country people cannot dive, and no one ventures to affront the genius loci, the mamba or crocodile. I found consolation in the thought that the Expedition had passed without accident through the most dangerous part of the journey. In 18 days, from the 27th of June, to the 14th of July, I had accomplished, despite sickness and all manner of difficulties, a march of 118 indirect statute miles, and had entered K’hutu, the safe rendezvous of foreign merchants.

Resuming our march on the 15th July, we entered the “Doab,”[5] on the western bank of the Mgeta, where a thick and tangled jungle, with luxuriant and putrescent vegetation, is backed by low, grassy grounds, frequently inundated. Presently, however, the dense thicket opened out into a fine park country, peculiarly rich in game, where the calabash and the giant trees of the seaboard gave way to mimosas, gums, and stunted thorns. Large gnus, whom the porters regard with a wholesome awe, declaring that they are capable of charging a caravan, pranced about, pawing the ground, and shaking their formidable manes; hartebeest and other antelopes clustered together on the plain, or travelled in herds to slake their thirst at the river. The homely cry of the partridge resounded from the brake, and the guinea-fowls looked like large bluebells upon the trees. Small land-crabs took refuge in the pits and holes, which made the path a cause of frequent accidents; whilst ants of various kinds, crossing the road in close columns, attacked man and beast ferociously, causing the caravan to break into a halting, trotting hobble, ludicrous to behold. Whilst crossing a sandy Fiumara, Abdullah, a Baloch, lodged by accident four ounces of lead, the contents of my second elephant-gun, in the head of an ass. After a march of six hours we entered Kiruru, a small, ragged, and muddy village of Wak’hutu, deep in a plantation of holcus, whose tall, stiff canes nearly swept me from the saddle. The weather was a succession of raw mist, rain in torrents, and fiery sunbursts; the land appeared rotten, and the jungle smelt of death. At Kiruru I found a cottage, and enjoyed for the first time an atmosphere of sweet warm smoke. My companion remained in the reeking, miry tent, where he partially laid the foundation of the fever which threatened his life in the mountains of Usagara.

Despite the danger of hyænas, leopards, and crocodiles to an ass-caravan, we were delayed by the torrents of rain and the depth of the mud for two days at Kiruru. According to the people, the district derives its name “palm leaves,” from a thirsty traveller, who, not knowing that water was near, chewed the leaves of the hyphæna-palm till he died. One of the Baloch proposed a “Hammam,”—a primitive form of the “lamp-bath,” practised in most parts of Central Asia,—as a cure for fever: he placed me upon one of the dwarf stools used by the people, and under the many abas or hair-cloaks with which I was invested he introduced a bit of pottery containing live coal and a little frankincense. At Kiruru I engaged six porters to assist our jaded animals as far as the next station. The headman was civil, but the people sold their grain with difficulty.

On the 18th July we resumed our march over a tract which caused sinking of the heart in men who expected a long journey under similar circumstances. Near Kiruru the thick grass and the humid vegetation, dripping till midday with dew, rendered the black earth greasy and slippery. The road became worse as we advanced over deep thick mire interlaced with tree-roots through a dense jungle and forest, chiefly of the distorted hyphæna-palm, in places varied by the Mparamusi and the gigantic Msukulío, over barrens of low mimosa, and dreary savannahs cut by steep nullahs. In three places we crossed bogs from 100 yards to a mile in length, and admitting a man up to the knee; the porters plunged through them like laden animals, and I was obliged to be held upon the ass. This “Yegea Mud,” caused by want of water-shed after rain, is sometimes neck-deep; it never dries except when the moisture has been evaporated by sun and wind during the middle of the Kaskazi or N. E. monsoon. The only redeeming feature in the view was a foreground of lovely hill, the highlands of Dut’humi, plum-coloured in the distance and at times gilt by a sudden outburst of sunshine. Towards the end of the march, I forged ahead of the caravan, and passing through numerous villages, surrounded by holcus-fields, arrived at a settlement tenanted by Sayf bin Salim, an Arab merchant, who afterwards proved to be a notorious “mauvais sujet.” A Harisi from Birkah in Oman, he was a tall thin-featured venerable-looking man, whose old age had been hurried on by his constancy to pombe-beer. A long residence in Unyamwezi had enabled him to incur the hostility of his fellow-merchants, especially one Salim bin Said el Sawwafi, who, with other Arabs, persuaded Mpagamo, an African chief, to seize upon Sayf, and after tying him up in full view of the plundering and burning of his store-house, to drive him out of the country. Retreating to Dut’humi, he had again collected a small stock in trade, especially of slaves, whom he chained and treated so severely that all men predicted for him an evil end. “Msopora,” as he was waggishly nicknamed by the Wanyamwezi, instantly began to backbite Said bin Salim, whom he pronounced utterly unfit to manage our affairs; I silenced him by falling asleep upon a cartel placed under the cool eaves of a hut. Presently staggered in my companion almost too ill to speak; over-fatigue had prostrated his strength. By slow degrees, and hardly able to walk, appeared the Arab, the Baloch, the slaves and the asses, each and every having been bogged in turn. On this occasion Wazira had acted guide, and used to “bog-trotting,” he had preferred the short cut to the cleaner road that rounds the swamps.

At Dut’humi we were detained nearly a week; the malaria had brought on attacks of marsh fever, which in my case lasted about 20 days; the paroxysms were mild compared with the Indian or the Sindhian type, yet, favoured by the atonic state of the constitution, they thoroughly prostrated me. I had during the fever-fit, and often for hours afterwards, a queer conviction of divided identity, never ceasing to be two persons that generally thwarted and opposed each other; the sleepless nights brought with them horrid visions, animals of grisliest form, hag-like women and men with heads protruding from their breasts. My companion suffered even more severely, he had a fainting-fit which strongly resembled a sun-stroke, and which seemed permanently to affect his brain. Said bin Salim was the convalescent of the party; the two Goanese yielded themselves wholly to maladies, brought on mainly by hard eating, and had they not been forced to rise, they would probably never have risen again. Our sufferings were increased by other causes than climate. The riding asses having been given up for loads, we were compelled, when premonitory symptoms suggested rest, to walk, sometimes for many miles in a single heat, through sun and rain, through mud and miasmatic putridities. Even ass-riding caused over-fatigue. It by no means deserves in these lands the reputation of an anile exercise, as it does in Europe. Maître Aliboron in Africa is stubborn, vicious and guilty of the four mortal sins of the equine race, he shies and stumbles, he rears and runs away: my companion has been thrown as often as twice in two hours. The animals are addicted to fidgetting, plunging and pirouetting when mounted, they hog and buck till they burst their frail girths, they seem to prefer holes and hollows, they rush about pig-like when high winds blow, and they bolt under tree-shade when the sun shines hot. They must be led, or, ever preferring the worst ground, they disdain to follow the path, and when difficulties arise the slave will surely drop the halter, and get out of harm’s way. If a pace exceeding two miles an hour be required, a second man must follow and flog each of these perfect slugs during the whole march. The roundness of their flanks, the shortness of their backs, and their want of shoulder, combine to make the meagre Arab packsaddle unsafe for anything but a baboon or a boy, whilst the straightness and the rigidity of their goat-like pasterns render the pace a wearisome, tripping hobble. We had, it is true, Zanzibari riding-asses, but the delicate animals soon chafed and presently died; we were then reduced to the Koroma or half-reclaimed beast of Wanyamwezi. The laden asses gave us even more trouble. The slaves would not attend to the girthing and the balancing of parcels—the great secret of donkey-loading—consequently the burdens were thrown at every mud or broken ground: the unwilling Baloch only grumbled, sat down and stared, leaving their Jemadars with Said bin Salim and ourselves to reload. My companion and I brought up the rear by alternate days, and sometimes we did not arrive before the afternoon at the camping ground. The ropes and cords intended to secure the herd were regularly stolen, that I might be forced to buy others: the animals were never pounded for the night, and during our illness none of the party took the trouble to number them. Thus several beasts were lost, and the grounding of the Expedition appeared imminent and permanent. The result was a sensation of wretchedness, hard to describe; every morning dawned upon me with a fresh load of cares and troubles, and every evening reminded me as it closed in, that another and a miserable morrow was to dawn. But “in despair,” as the Arabs say, “are many hopes;” though sorrow endured for the night—and many were “white” with anxiety—we never relinquished the determination to risk everything, ourselves included, rather than to return unsuccessful.

Dut’humi, one of the most fertile districts in K’hutu, is a plain of black earth and sand, choked with vegetation where not corrected by the axe. It is watered by the perennial stream of the same name, which, rising in the islands, adds its quotum to the waters of the Mgazi, and eventually to the Mgeta and the Kingani Rivers. In such places artificial irrigation is common, the element being distributed over the fields by hollow ridges. The mountains of Dut’humi form the northern boundary of the plain. They appear to rise abruptly, but they throw off southerly lower eminences, which diminish in elevation till confounded with the almost horizontal surface of the champaign; the jagged broken crests and peaks argue a primitive formation. Their lay is to the N.N.W.; after four days’ journey, according to the guides, they inosculate with the main chain of the Usagara Mountains, and they are probably the southern buttress of Ngu, or Nguru, the hill region westward of Saadani. This chain is said to send forth the Kingani River, which, gushing from a cave or fissure in the eastern, is swollen to a large perennial stream by feeders from the southern slopes, whilst the Mgeta flows from the western face of the water-parting, and circles the southern base. The cold temperature of these cloud-capped and rainy crags, which never expose their outlines except in the clearest weather, affects the plains; by day bleak north-east and north-west gusts pour down upon the sun-parched Dut’humi, and at night the thermometer will sink to 70°, and even to 65° F. Water is supposed to freeze upon the highlands, yet they are not unhealthy; sheep, goats, and poultry abound; betel-pepper grows there, according to the Arabs, and, as in the lowlands, holcus and sesamum, manioc and sweet-potatoes (Convolvulus batata), cucumbers, the turai (Luffa acutangula), and beans, plantains, and sugar-cane, are plentiful. The thick jungle at the base of the hills shelters the elephant, the rhinoceros in considerable numbers, the gnu, and the koodoo, which, however, can rarely be found when the grass is high; a variety of the ngole—a small Dendraspis—haunts the patriarchs of the forest, and the chirrup of the mongoose, which the people enjoy, as Europeans do the monotonous note of the cricket, is heard in the brakes at eventide. This part of the country, about six hours’ march northward from Dut’humi, is called the Inland Magogoni; and it is traversed by the “Mdimu” nullah, which falls into the Mgeta River. The fertile valleys in the lower and southern folds are inhabited by the Wákumbáku(?),[6] and by the Wásuop’hángá tribes; the higher elevations, which apparently range from 3000 to 4000 feet, by the Waruguru. They are compelled to fortify themselves against the cold and the villanous races around them. The plague of the land is now one Kisabengo, a Mzegura of low origin, who, after conquering Ukami, a district extending from the eastern flank of the Dut’humi hills seawards, from its Moslem diwan, Ngozi, alias Kingaru, has raised himself to the rank of a Shene Khambi, or principal headman. Aided by the kidnapping Moslem coast clans of Whinde, a small coast town opposite the island of Zanzibar, and his fellow tribemen of Uzegura, he has transferred by his frequent commandos almost all the people of Ukámí, chiefly Wásuop’hángá and Wárúgúrú, to the slave-market of Zanzibar, and, thus compelled to push his depredations further west, he has laid waste the lands even beyond the Mukondokwa river-valley. The hill tribes, however, still receive strangers hospitably into their villages. They have a place visited even by distant Wazaramo pilgrims. It is described as a cave where a P’hepo or the disembodied spirit of a man, in fact a ghost, produces a terrible subterraneous sound, called by the people Kurero or Bokero; it arises probably from the flow of water underground. In a pool in the cave women bathe for the blessing of issue, and men sacrifice sheep and goats to obtain fruitful seasons and success in war. These hill-races speak peculiar dialects, which, according to the guides, are closely connected with Kik’hutu.

Despite the bad name of Dut’humi as regards climate, Arabs sometimes reside there for some months for the purpose of purchasing slaves cheaply and to repair their broken fortunes for a fresh trip to the interior. This keeps up a perpetual feud amongst the chiefs of the country, and scarcely a month passes without fields being laid waste, villages burnt down, and the unhappy cultivators being carried off to be sold.

At Dut’humi a little expedition was sent against Manda, a petty chief, who, despite the presence of the Sayyid’s troops, had plundered a village and had kidnapped five of the subjects of Mgota, his weaker neighbour. I had the satisfaction of restoring the stolen wretches to their hearths and homes, and two decrepid old women that had been rescued from slavery thanked me with tears of joy.

This easy good deed done, I was able, though with swimming head and trembling hands, to prepare accounts and a brief report of proceedings for the Royal Geographical Society. These, together with other papers, especially an urgent request for medical comforts and drugs, especially quinine and narcotics, addressed to Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton, or, in case of accidents, to M. Cochet, Consul de France, were entrusted to Jemadar Yaruk, whom, moreover, I took the liberty of recommending to the prince for the then vacant command of the Bagamoyo garrison. The escort from Kaole, reduced in number by three desertions, was dismissed. All the volunteers had been clamouring to return, and I could no longer afford to keep them. Besides the two supplies of cloth, wire, and beads, which preceded, and which were left to follow us, I had been provided by Ladha Damha with a stock of white and blue cottons, some handsome articles of dress, 20,000 strings of white and black, pink, blue, and green, red and brown porcelain-beads, needles, and other articles of hardware, to defray transit-charges through Uzarama. This provision, valued at 295 dollars, should have carried us to the end of the third month; it lasted about three weeks. Said bin Salim, to whom it had been entrusted, had been generous, through fear, to every half-naked barbarian that chose to stretch forth the hand of beggary; moreover, whilst too ill to superintend disbursements, he had allowed his “children,” aided by the Baloch and the “sons of Ramji,” to “loot” whatever they could seize and secrete. Ladha Damha, unable to complete our carriage, had hit upon the notable device of converting eighteen pieces of American domestics into saddle-cloths for the asses: the stuff was used at halts as bedding by the Baloch and others; and,—a proof that much had fallen into wrong hands,—the thirteen men composing our permanent guard, increased the number of their laden asses from two to five; moreover, for many weeks afterwards, the “sons of Ramji” could afford to expend four to five cloths upon a goat. On the 21st July the escort from Kaole departed with a general discharge of matchlocks. Their disappearance was hailed as a blessing; they had pestered me for rations, and had begged for asses till midnight. They were the refuse of their service; they thought of, they dreamed of, nothing but food; they would do no work; they were continually attempting violence upon the timid Wak’hutu, and they seemed resolved to make the name of Baloch equally hateful and contemptible.

I had been careful to bring from Zanzibar four hammocks, which, slung to poles, formed the conveyance, called by the Indians “manchil;” by the Portuguese “manchila;” and in West Africa “tipoia.” Sayf bin Salim agreed for the sum of ten dollars to hire his slaves as porters for ourselves and our outfit. On the 24th July, feeling strong enough to advance, we passed out of the cultivation of Dut’humi. Crossing a steep and muddy bed, knee-deep even in the dry season, we entered fields under the outlying hillocks of the highlands. These low cones, like similar formations in India, are not inhabited; they are even more malarious than the plains, the surface is rocky, and the woodage, not ceasing as in higher elevations, extends from base to summit. Beyond the cultivation the route plunges into a jungle, where the European traveller realises every preconceived idea of Africa’s aspect, at once hideous and grotesque. The general appearance is a mingling of bush and forest, which, contracting the horizon to a few yards, is equally monotonous to the eye and palling to the imagination. The black greasy ground, veiled with thick shrubbery, supports in the more open spaces screens of tiger and spear-grass, twelve and thirteen feet high, with every blade a finger’s breadth; and the towering trees are often clothed from root to twig with huge epiphytes, forming heavy columns of densest verdure, and clustering upon the tops in the semblance of enormous bird’s nests. The foot-paths, in places “dead,”—as the natives say,—with encroaching bush, are crossed by llianas, creepers and climbers, thick as coir-cables, some connecting the trees in a curved line, others stretched straight down the trunks, others winding in all directions around their supports, frequently crossing one another like network and stunting the growth of even the vivacious calabash, by coils like rope tightly encircling its neck. The earth, ever rain-drenched, emits the odour of sulphuretted hydrogen, and in some parts the traveller might fancy a corpse to be hidden behind every bush. To this sad picture of miasma the firmament is a fitting frame: a wild sky, whose heavy purple nimbi, chased by raffales and chilling gusts, dissolve in large-dropped showers; or a dull, dark grey expanse, which lies like a pall over the world. In the finer weather the atmosphere is pale and sickly; its mists and vapours seem to concentrate the rays of the oppressive “rain-sun.” The sensation experienced at once explains the apathy and indolence, the physical debility, and the mental prostration, that are the gifts of climates which moist heat and damp cold render equally unsalubrious and uncomfortable. That no feature of miasma might be wanting to complete the picture, filthy heaps of the rudest hovels, built in holes in the jungle, sheltered their few miserable inhabitants, whose frames are lean with constant intoxication, and whose limbs, distorted by ulcerous sores, attest the hostility of Nature to mankind. Such a revolting scene is East Africa from central K’hutu to the base of the Usagara Mountains.

Running through this fetid flat the path passed on the left sundry shallow salt-pits which, according to the Arabs, are wet during the dry and dry during the wet season. Presently after breaking through another fence of holcus, whose cane was stiffer than the rattans of an Indian jungle, we entered, and found lodgings in Bakera, a pretty little hamlet ringed with papaws and plantains, upon which the doves disported themselves. Here, on our return in 1859, a thick growth of grass waved over the ground-marks of hearth and roof-tree. The African has a superstitious horror of stone walls; he is still a semi-nomade, from the effects of the Wandertrieb, or man’s vagabond instinct, uncurbed by the habits of civilisation. Though vestiges of large and stable habitations have been discovered in the barbarous Eastern Horn, in these days, between the parallels of Harar and the ruined Portuguese towns near the Zambezi Rivers, inner Africa ignores a town of masonry. In our theoretical maps, the circlets used by cartographers to denote cities serve only to mislead; their names prove them to be Saltanats—lordships, districts or provinces.

Resuming our course on the next day through hollows and rice-swamps, where almost every ass fell or cast its load, we came after a long tramp to the nearest outposts of the Zungomero district; here were several caravans with pitched tents, piles of ivory and crowds of porters. The gang of thirty-six Wanyamwezi, who had preceded us, having located themselves at a distant hamlet, we resumed our march, and presently were met by a number of our men headed by their guard, the two “sons of Ramji.” Ensued a general sword and spear play, each man with howls and cheers brandished his blade or vibrated his missile, rushing about in all directions, and dealing death amongst ideal foes with such action as may often be observed in poultry-yards when the hens indulge in a little merry pugnacity. The march had occupied us four weeks, about double the usual time, and the porters had naturally began to suspect accidents from the Wazaramo.

Zungomero, the head of the great river-valley, is a plain of black earth and sand, prodigiously fertile. It is enclosed on all sides except the eastern, or the line of drainage; northwards rise the peaks of Dut’humi; westwards lie the little Wigo hills and the other spurs of Usagara, uncultivated and uninhabited, though the country is populous up to their feet; and southwards are detached cones of similar formation, steep, rocky, and densely wooded. The sea-breeze is here strong, but beyond its influence the atmosphere is sultry and oppressive; owing to maritime influences the kosi, or south-west wind, sometimes continues till the end of July. The normal day, which varies little throughout the year, begins with the light milky mist which forms the cloud-ring; by degrees nimbi and cumuli come up from the east, investing the heights of Dut’humi, and, when showers are imminent, a heavy line of stratus bisects the highlands and overlies the surface of the plain. At the epochs of the lunar change rain falls once or twice during the day and night, and, when the clouds burst, a fiery sun sucks up poison from the earth’s putridity. The early nights are oppressive, and towards the dawn condensation causes a copious deposit of heavy dew, which even the people of the country dread. A prolonged halt causes general sickness amongst the porters and slaves of a caravan. The humidity of the atmosphere corrodes everything with which it comes in contact; the springs of powder-flasks exposed to the damp snap like toasted quills; clothes feel limp and damp; paper, becoming soft and soppy by the loss of glazing, acts as a blotter; boots, books, and botanical collections are blackened; metals are ever rusty; the best percussion caps, though labelled waterproof, will not detonate unless carefully stowed away in waxed cloth and tin boxes; gunpowder, if not kept from the air, refuses to ignite; and wood becomes covered with mildew. We had an abundance of common German phosphor-matches, and the best English wax lucifers; both, however, became equally unserviceable, the heads shrank and sprang off at the least touch, and the boxes frequently became a mere mass of paste. To future travellers I should recommend the “good old plan;” a bit of phosphorus in a little phial half full of olive oil, which serves for light as well as ignition. When accompanied by matchlock-men, however, there is no difficulty about fire; their pouches always contain a steel and flint, and a store of cotton, or of the wild Bombex, dipped in saltpetre or gunpowder solution.

Yet Zungomero is the great Bandárí or centre of traffic in the eastern, as are Unyanyembe and Ujiji in the middle and the western regions. Lying upon the main trunk-road, it must be traversed by the up and down-caravans, and, during the travelling season, between June and April, large bodies of some thousand men pass through it every week. Kilwa formerly sent caravans to it, and the Wanyamwezi porters have frequently made that port by the “Mwera road.” The Arab merchants usually pitch tents, preferring them to the leaky native huts, full of hens and pigeons, rats and mice, snakes and lizards, crickets and cockroaches, gnats and flies, and spiders of hideous appearance, where the inmates are often routed by swarms of bees, and are ever in imminent danger of fires. The armed slaves accompanying the caravan seize the best huts, which they either monopolise or share with the hapless inmates, and the porters stow themselves away under the projecting eaves of the habitations. The main attraction of the place is the plenty of provisions. Grain is so abundant that the inhabitants exist almost entirely upon the intoxicating pombe, or holcus-beer,—a practice readily imitated by their visitors. Bhang and the datura plant, growing wild, add to the attractions of the spot. The Bhang is a fine large species of the Cannabis Indica, the bang of Persia, the bhang of India, and the benj of Arabia, the fasukh of northern, and the dakha of southern Africa. In the low lands of East Africa it grows before every cottage door. As in hot climates generally, the fibre degenerates, and the plant is only valued for its narcotic properties. The Arabs smoke the sun-dried leaf with, and the Africans without tobacco, in huge waterpipes, whose bowls contain a quarter of a pound. Both ignore the more luxurious preparations, momiya and hashish, ganja and sebzi, charas and maajun. Like the “jangli” or jungle (wild)-bhang of Sindh, affected by kalandars, fakirs, and other holy beggars, this variety, contracting the muscle of the throat, produces a violent whooping-cough, ending in a kind of scream, after a few long puffs, when the smoke is inhaled; and if one man sets the example the others are sure to follow. These grotesque sounds are probably not wholly natural; even the boys may be heard practising them; they appear to be a fashion of “renowning it”; in fact, an announcement to the public that the fast youths are smoking bhang. The Datura stramonium, called by the Arabs and by the Wasawahili “muranhá,” grows in the well-watered plains; it bears a large whitish flower and a thorn-apple, like that of India. The heathen, as well as their visitors, dry the leaves, the flowers, and the rind of the rootlet, which is considered the strongest preparation, and smoke them in a common bowl or in a water-pipe. This is held to be a sovereign remedy against zik el nafas (asthma) and influenza; it diminishes the cough by loosening the phlegm. The Washenzi never make that horrible use of the plant known to the Indian dhaturiya, or datura-poisoners: many accidents, however, occur from ignorance of its violent narcotism. Meat is scarce: the only cattle are those driven down by the Wanyamwezi to the coast; milk, butter, and ghee are consequently unprocurable. A sheep or a goat will not cost less than a shukkah, or four cubits of domestics, here worth twenty-five cents. The same will purchase only two fowls; and eggs and fruit—chiefly papaws and plantains, cocos and limes—are at fancy prices. For the shukkah eight rations of unhusked holcus, four measures of rice—which must here be laid in by those travelling up-country—and five cakes of tobacco, equal to about three pounds, are generally procurable. Thus the daily expenditure of a large caravan ranges from one dollar to one dollar fifty cents’ worth of cloth in the Zanzibar market. The value, however, fluctuates greatly, and the people will shirk selling even at any price.