The district of Tura, though now held, like Jiwe la Mkoa and Mgongo T’hembo, by Wakimbu, is considered the eastern frontier of Unyamwezi proper, which claims superiority over the minor neighbouring tribes. Some, however, extend the “land of the moon” eastward as far as Jiwe la Mkoa, and the porters when entering the “Fiery Field,” declare that they are setting foot upon their own ground. The word “Tura,” pronounced by the Wanyamwezi “Tula” or “Itula,” means “put down!” (scil. your pack): as the traveller, whether from the east or from the west, will inevitably be delayed for some days at this border settlement. Tula is situated in S. lat. 5° 2′ and E. long. 33° 57′, and the country rises 4,000 feet above sea level. After the gloomy and monotonous brown jungles and thorn forests of Mgunda Mk’hali, whose sinuous line of thick jungle still girds the northern horizon, the fair champaign, bounded on either hand by low rolling and rounded hills of primary formation, with a succession of villages and many a field of holcus and sesamum, maize, millet, and other cereals, of manioc and gourds, water melons and various pulses, delights the sight, and appears to the African traveller a Land of Promise.

The pertinacious Kidogo pressed me to advance, declaring the Wakimbu of Tura to be a dangerous race: they appeared however a timid and ignoble people, dripping with castor and sesamum oil, and scantily attired in shreds of unclean cotton or greasy goat-skins. At Tura the last of the thirty asses bought at Zanzibar paid the debt of nature, leaving us, besides the one belonging to the Jemadar, but three African animals purchased on the road. A few extra porters were therefore engaged. Our people, after the discomforts of the bivouac, found the unsavoury village a perfect paradise; they began somewhat prematurely to beg for Bakhshish, and Muinyi Wazira requested dismissal on the plea that a slave sent by him on a trading-expedition into the interior had, by dying, endangered the safety of the venture. On the morning of the 30th October Kidogo led us over the plain through cultivation and villages to another large settlement on the western outskirt of the Tura district. As I disappointed him in his hopes of a Tirikeza, he passed the night in another Tembe, which was occupied by the caravans of Coast-Arabs and their slave girls, to one of whom, said Scan. Mag., he had lost his heart, and he punished me by halting through the next day. As we neared the end of the journey the sons of Ramji became more restive under their light loads; their dignity was hurt by shouldering a pack, and day after day, till I felt weary of life, they left their burdens upon the ground. However, on the 1st November, they so far recovered temper that the caravan was able to cross the thin jungle, based upon a glaring white soil, which divides the Tura from the Rubuga District. After a march of 6 hrs. and 30′, we halted on the banks of the Kwale or “Partridge” Nullah, where, though late in the season, we found several long pools of water. The porters collected edible bivalves and caught a quantity of mud-fish by the “rough and ready” African process, a waist-cloth tied to a pair of sticks, and used by two men as a drag-net. At Rubuga, which we reached in 5 hrs. and 45′, marching over a plain of black earth, thinly garnished with grass and thorn-trees, and then through clearings overgrown with stubble, I was visited by an Arab merchant, Abdullah bin Jumah, who, with a flying-caravan, had left Konduchi on the coast 2 months and 20 days after our departure. According to him his caravan had lately marched thirty miles in the twenty-four hours: it was the greatest distance accomplished in these regions; but the Arabs are fond of exaggeration, the party was small and composed of lightly laden men, and moreover it required two days’ rest after so unusual an exertion. This merchant unwittingly explained a something which had puzzled me; whenever an advance beyond Unyanyembe had been made the theme of conversation, Said bin Salim’s countenance fell, and he dropped dark hints touching patience and the power of Allah to make things easy. Abdullah rendered the expression intelligible by asking me if I considered the caravan strong enough to dare the dangers of the road—which he grossly exaggerated—between Unyamwezi-Land and Ujiji. I replied that I did, and that even if I did not, such bugbears should not cause delay; Abdullah smiled, but was too polite to tell me that he did not believe me.

A “doux marcher” of 2 hrs. 40′ on the 3rd November, led us to the western limit of the Rubuga District. During the usual morning-halt under a clump of shady milk-bush, I was addressed by Maura or Maula, the Sultan of a large neighbouring village of Wanyamwezi: being a civilised man and a coast-traveller, he could not allow the caravan of the “Wazungu” to pass his quarters without presenting to him a bullock, and extracting from him a little cloth. Like most chiefs in the “Land of the Moon,” he was a large-limbed, gaunt, angular, tall old man, with a black oily skin, seamed with wrinkles; and long wiry pigtails thickened with grease, melted butter, and castor-oil, depending from the sides of his purbald head. His dress—an old Barsati round the loins, and a grimy Subai loosely thrown over the shoulders—was redolent of boiled frankincense; his ankles were concealed by a foot depth of brass and copper “Sambo,” thin wires twisted round a little bundle of elephant’s, buffalo’s, or zebra’s hair; and he wore single-soled sandals, decorated with four disks of white shell, about the size of a crown-piece, bound to the thongs that passed between the toes and girt the heel. He recognised the Baloch, greeted all kindly, led the way to his village, ordered lodgings to be cleared and cleaned, caused the cartels or bedsteads,—the first seen by us for many months,—to be vacated, and left us to look for a bullock. At the village door I had remarked a rude attempt at fashioning a block of wood into what was palpably intended for a form human and feminine; the Moslems of course pronounced it to be an idol, but the people declared that they paid no respect to it. They said the same concerning the crosses and the serpent-like ornaments of white ashes—in this land lime is unknown—with which the brown walls of their houses were decorated.

We made bonne chère at Rubuga, which is celebrated for its milk and meat, ghee and honey. On the wayside were numerous hives, the Mazinga or “cannons,” before described; here however they were raised out of the reach of the ants, white and black, upon a pair of short forked supports, instead of being suspended from the branches of a tall tree. My companion brought from a neighbouring swamp a fine Egyptian, or ruddy goose, and a brace of crane-like water-fowl: these the Wanyamwezi porters, expecting beef, disdained, because rejected by the Baloch, yet at Inenge they had picked the carcase of a way-spent ass. Presently we were presented by the Sultan with one of the fattest of his fine bulls; it was indeed

withal, so violent and unmanageable that no man could approach, much less secure it: it rushed about the village like a wild buffalo, scattering the people, who all fled except the Sultan, till it was stopped dead in a most determined charge, with a couple of rifle-bullets, by my companion. In return, Maula received a crimson cloth and two domestics, after which he begged for everything, including percussion caps, for which he had no gun. He appeared most anxious to detain the caravan, and in the evening his carefully concealed reasons leaked out—he wanted me to cure his son of fever, and to “put the colophon” upon a neighbouring hostile chief. At 8 P.M., I was aroused by my gun-carrier, Mabruki, who handed to me my Ferrara, and by the Baloch Riza, who reported that the palisade was surrounded by a host of raging blacks. I went out into the village, where the guard was running about in a state of excitement which robbed them of their wits, and I saw a long dark line of men sitting silently and peaceably, though armed for fight, outside the strong stockade. Having caused our cloth to be safely housed, and given orders to be awakened if work began, I returned to the hut, determined to take leave of Sultan Maura and his quarrels on the next day.

The porters were all gorged with beef, and three were “stale-drunk” with the consequences of pombe; yet so anxious were they rendered by the gathering clouds, and the spitting showers to reach their homes before the setting in of the “sowing rains,” that my task was now rather to restrain than to stimulate their ardour: the moon was resplendent, and had I wished it, they would have set out at midnight. On the 4th November we passed through another jungle-patch, to a village in the fertile slopes of Ukona, where the Cannabis and the Datura, with its large fetid flowers, disputed the ground with brinjalls and castor-plants, holcus and panicum: tobacco grew luxuriantly, and cotton-plots, carefully hedged round against the cattle, afforded material for the loom, which now appeared in every village.

On the next day, we passed out of the fertile slopes of Ukona, and traversed an open wavy country, streaked with a thin forest of Mimosa, the Mtogwe or wood-apple, and a large quadrangular cactus. Beyond this point, a tract of swampy low level led to the third district of Eastern Unyamwezi, called Kigwa, or Mkigwa. We found quarters in a Tembe which was half-burned and partly pulled down, to be re-erected.

The 6th November saw us betimes in the ill-omened Forest, that divided us from the Unyanyembe district; it is a thin growth of gum-trees, mimosas, and bauhinias, with tiers, earth-waves, and long rolling lines of tawny-yellow hill—mantled with umbrella-shaped trees, and sometimes capped with blocks and boulders—extending to a considerable distance on both sides. The Sultan of Kigwa, one Manwa, has taken an active part in the many robberies and murders which have rendered this forest a place of terror, and the Arabs have hitherto confined themselves to threats, though a single merchant complains that his slave-caravans have at different times lost fifty loads of cloth. Manwa is aided and counselled by Mansur, a Coast-Arab, who, horse-whipped out of the society of his countrymen at Kazeh, for drunken and disorderly conduct, has become a notorious traitor. Here also Msimbira, a Sultan of the Wasukuma, or Northern Wanyamwezi, who has an old and burning hatred against the Arabs, sends his plundering parties. On the 6th November the Baloch set out at 1 A.M., we followed at 2.15 A.M.: they had been prevented from obtaining beads on false pretences, consequently they showed temper, and determined to deny their escort. Their beards were now in my hand, they could neither desert nor refuse to proceed, but they desired to do me a harm, and they did it. During the transit of the forest, an old porter having imprudently lagged behind, was clubbed and cruelly bruised by three black Mohawks, who relieved him of his load, a leathern portmanteau, containing clothes, umbrellas, books, ink, journals, and botanical collections. I afterwards heard that the highwaymen had divided their spoils in the forest, and that separating into two parties, they had taken the route homewards. On the way, however, they were seized by a plundering expedition sent by Kitambi, the Sultan of Uyuwwi, a district half a day’s march N.E. from Kazeh. The delict was flagrant; the head of one robber at once decorated the main entrance of Kitambi’s village, but the other two escaped Jeddart-justice with their share of the plunder to his mortal enemy Msimbira. A present of a scarlet waistcoat and four domestics recovered our clothes from Kitambi; but Msimbira, threatening all the penalties of sorcery, abused, plundered, and expelled Masud ibn Musallam el Wardi, an old Arab merchant, sent to him from Unyanyembe for the purpose of recovering the books, journals, and collections. The perpetual risk of loss discourages the traveller in these lands; he never knows at what moment papers which have cost him months of toil may be scattered to the winds. As regards collections, future explorers are advised to abandon the hope of making them on the march upwards, reserving their labour for the more leisurely return. The precautions with which I prefaced our down-march may not be useless as suggestions. My field and sketch-books were entrusted to an Arab merchant, who preceded me to Zanzibar; they ran no other danger except from the carelesness of the Consul who, unfortunately for me, succeeded Lieut.-Col. Hamerton. My companion’s maps, papers, and instruments, were committed to a heavy “petarah,” a deal-box with pent-lid and hide-bound as a defence against rain, to be carried “Mziga-ziga,” as the phrase is—suspended on a pole between the two porters least likely to desert. I loaded one of the sons of Ramji with an enamelled leathern bag, converted from a dressing-case into a protection for writing and sketching materials; and a shooting-bag, hung during the march over the shoulders of Nasiri, a Coast-Arab youth engaged as ass-leader at Unyanyembe, contained my vocabularies, ephemeris, and drawing-books.

Considering the conduct of the escort, I congratulated myself upon having passed through the Kigwa forest without other accident. Two or three days after our arrival at Kazeh several loads of beads were plundered from a caravan belonging to Abdullah bin Salih. Shortly afterwards Msimbira sent a large foraging party with a view to cutting off the road: they allowed themselves to be surprised during sleep by Mpagamo’s men, who slew twenty-five of their number and dispersed the rest. This accident, however, did not cure their propensity for pillage; on our return-march, when halted at a village west of the Kigwa forest, a body of slaves passed us in hot haste and sore tribulation: they had that day been relieved by bandits of all their packs.

Passing from the Kigwa forest and entering the rice-lands of the Unyanyembe district we found quarters—a vile cow-house—in a large dirty village called Hanga. The aspect of the land became prepossessing: the route lay along a valley bisected by a little rivulet of sweet water, whose course was marked by a vivid leek-green line; the slopes were bright with golden stubble upon a surface of well-hoed field, while to the north and south ran low and broken cones of granite blocks and slabs, here naked, there clothed from base to brow with dwarf parasol-shaped trees, and cactaceæ of gigantic size.

From this foul village I was urged by Kidogo to conclude by a tirikeza the last stage that separated the caravan from Kazeh in Unyanyembe, the place which he and all around him had apparently fixed as the final bourne of the exploration. But the firmament seemed on fire, the porters were fagged, and we felt feverish, briefly, an afternoon’s march was not judged advisable. To temper, however, the wind of refusal, I served out to each of the sons of Ramji five rounds of powder for blowing away on entering the Arab head-quarters. All of course had that private store which the Arabs call “El Akibah”—the ending; it is generally stolen from the master and concealed for emergencies with cunning care. They had declared their horns to be empty, and said Kidogo, “Every pedlar fires guns here—shall a great man creep into his Tembe without a soul knowing it?”

On the 7th November, 1857,—the 134th day from the date of our leaving the coast—after marching at least 600 miles, we prepared to enter Kazeh, the principal Bandari of Eastern Unyamwezi, and the capital village of the Omani merchants. We left Hanga at dawn. The Baloch were clothed in that one fine suit without which the Eastern man rarely travels: after a few displays the dress will be repacked, and finally disposed of in barter for slaves. About 8 A.M., we halted for stragglers at a little village, and when the line of porters becoming compact began to wriggle, snake-like, its long length over the plain, with floating flags, booming horns, muskets ringing like saluting mortars, and an uproar of voice which nearly drowned the other noises, we made a truly splendid and majestic first appearance. The road was lined with people who attempted to vie with us in volume and variety of sound: all had donned their best attire, and with such luxury my eyes had been long unfamiliar. Advancing I saw several Arabs standing by the wayside, they gave the Moslem salutation and courteously accompanied me for some distance. Amongst them were the principal merchants, Snay bin Amir, Said bin Majid, a young and handsome Omani of noble tribe, Muhinna bin Sulayman, who, despite elephantiasis, marched every year into Central Africa, and Said bin Ali el Hinawi, whose short, spare, but well-knit frame, pale face, small features, snowy beard, and bald head, surmounted by a red fez, made him the type of an Arab old man.

I had directed Said bin Salim to march the caravan to the Tembe kindly placed at my disposal by Isá bin Hijji, and the Arabs met at Inenge. The Kirangozi and the porters, however, led us on by mistake (?) to the house of “Musa Mzuri”—handsome Moses—an Indian merchant settled at Unyanyembe for whom I bore an introductory letter, graciously given by H. H. the Sayyid Majid of Zanzibar. As Musa was then absent on a trading-journey to Karagwah, his agent, Snay bin Amir, a Harisi Arab, came forward to perform the guest-rites, and led me to the vacant house of Abayd bin Sulayman who had lately returned to Zanzibar.

After allowing me, as is the custom, a day to rest and to dismiss the porters, who at once separated to their homes, all the Arab merchants, then about a dozen, made the first ceremonious call, and to them was officially submitted the circular addressed by the Prince of Zanzibar to his subjects resident in the African interior. Contrary to the predictions of others, nothing could be more encouraging than the reception experienced from the Omani Arabs; striking, indeed, was the contrast between the open-handed hospitality and the hearty good-will of this truly noble race, and the niggardness of the savage and selfish African—it was heart of flesh after heart of stone. A goat and a load of the fine white rice grown in the country were the normal prelude to a visit and to offers of service which proved something more than a mere vox et præterea nihil. Whatever I alluded to, onions, plantains, limes, vegetables, tamarind-cakes, coffee from Karagwah, and similar articles, only to be found amongst the Arabs, were sent at once, and the very name of payment would have been an insult. Snay bin Amir, determining to surpass all others in generosity, sent two goats to us and two bullocks to the Baloch and the sons of Ramji: sixteen years before, he had begun life a confectioner at Maskat, and now he had risen to be one of the wealthiest ivory and slave-dealers in Eastern Africa. As his health forbade him to travel he had become a general agent at Kazeh, where he had built a village containing his store-houses and his depôts of cloth and beads, slaves and ivory. I have to acknowledge many an obligation to him. Having received a “wakalat-namah,” or “power of attorney” he enlisted porters for the caravan to Ujiji. He warehoused my goods, he disposed of my extra stores, and, finally, he superintended my preparations for the down-march. During two long halts at Kazeh he never failed, except through sickness, to pass the evening with me, and from his instructive and varied conversation was derived not a little of the information contained in the following pages. He had travelled three times between Unyamwezi and the coast, besides navigating the great Lake Tanganyika and visiting the northern kingdoms of Karagwah and Uganda. He first entered the country about fifteen years ago, when the line of traffic ended at Usanga and Usenga, and he was as familiar with the languages, the religion, the manners, and the ethnology of the African, as with those of his natal Oman. He was a middle-aged man with somewhat of the Quixotic appearance, high-featured, sharp and sunken-eyed, almost beardless, light-coloured, tall, gaunt, and large-limbed. He had read much, and, like an oriental, for improvement, not only for amusement: he had a wonderful memory, fine perceptions and passing power of language. Finally, he was the stuff of which friends are made; brave as all his race, prudent withal, ready to perish for the “Pundonor,” and,—such is not often the case in the East,—he was as honest as he was honourable.

Before proceeding with the thread of my narrative, the reader is requested to bear with the following few lines upon the subject of Unyanyembe.

Unyanyembe, the central and principal province of Unyamwezi, is, like Zungomero in Khutu, the great Bandari or meeting-place of merchants, and the point of departure for caravans which thence radiate into the interior of Central Intertropical Africa. Here the Arab merchant from Zanzibar meets his compatriot returning from the Tanganyika Lake and from Uruwwa. Northwards well-travelled lines diverge to the Nyanza Lake, and the powerful kingdoms of Karagwah, Uganda, and Unyoro; from the south Urori and Ubena, Usanga and Usenga, send their ivory and slaves; and from the south-west the Rukwa Water, K’hokoro, Ufipa, and Marungu must barter their valuables for cottons, wires, and beads. The central position and the comparative safety of Unyanyembe have made it the head-quarters of the Omani or pure Arabs, who, in many cases, settle here for years, remaining in charge of their depôts, whilst their factors and slaves travel about the country and collect the items of traffic. At Unyanyembe the merchants expect some delay. The porters, whether hired upon the coast or at the Tanganyika Lake, here disperse, and a fresh gang must be collected—no easy task when the sowing season draws nigh.

Unyanyembe, which rises about 3480 feet above sea-level, and lies 356 miles in rectilinear distance from the eastern coast of Africa, resembles in its physical features the lands about Tura. The plain or basin of Ihárá, or Kwihárá, a word synonymous with the “Bondei” or low-land of the coast, is bounded on the north and south by low, rolling hills, which converge towards the west, where, with the characteristically irregular lay of primitive formations, they are crossed almost at right angles by the Mfuto chain. The position has been imprudently chosen by the Arabs; the land suffers from alternate drought and floods, which render the climate markedly malarious. The soil is aluminous in the low levels—a fertile plain of brown earth, with a subsoil of sand and sandstone, from eight to twelve feet below the surface; the water is often impregnated with iron, and the higher grounds are uninhabited tracts covered with bulky granite-boulders, bushy trees, and thorny shrubs.

Contrary to what might be expected this “Bandari-district” contains villages and hamlets, but nothing that can properly be termed a town. The Mtemi or Sultan Fundikira, the most powerful of the Wanyamwezi chiefs, inhabits a Tembe, or square settlement, called “Ititenya,” on the western slope of the southern hills. A little colony of Arab merchants has four large houses at a neighbouring place, “Mawiti.” In the centre of the plain lies “Kazeh,” another scattered collection of six large hollow oblongs, with central courts, garden-plots, store-rooms, and outhouses for the slaves. Around these nuclei cluster native villages—masses of Wanyamwezi hovels, which bear the names of their founders.

This part of Unyanyembe was first colonised about 1852, when the Arabs who had been settled nearly ten years at Kigandu of P’huge, a district of Usukuma, one long day’s march north of Kazeh, were induced by Mpagamo, to aid them against Msimbira, a rival chief, who defeated and drove them from their former seats. The details of this event were supplied by an actor in the scenes; they well illustrate the futility of the people. The Arabs, after five or six days of skirmishing, were upon the point of carrying the boma or palisade of Msimbira, their enemy, when suddenly at night their slaves, tired of eating beef and raw ground-nuts, secretly deserted to a man. The masters awaking in the morning found themselves alone, and made up their minds for annihilation. Fortunately for them, the enemy, suspecting an ambuscade, remained behind their walls, and allowed the merchants to retire without an attempt to cut them off. Their employer, Mpagamo, then professed himself unable to defend them; when, deeming themselves insecure, they abandoned his territory. Snay bin Amir and Musa Mzuri, the Indian, settled at Kazeh, then a desert, built houses, sunk wells, and converted it into a populous place.

It is difficult to average the present number of Arab merchants at Unyanyembe who, like the British in India, visit but do not colonise; they rarely, however, exceed twenty-five in number; and during the travelling season, or when a campaign is necessary, they are sometimes reduced to three or four; they are too strong to yield without fighting, and are not strong enough to fight with success. Whenever the people have mustered courage to try a fall with the strangers, they have been encouraged to try again. Hitherto the merchants have been on friendly terms with Fundikira, the chief. Their position, however, though partly held by force of prestige, is precarious. They are all Arabs from Oman, with one solitary exception, Musa Mzuri, an Indian Kojah, who is perhaps in these days the earliest explorer of Unyamwezi. In July, 1858, an Arab merchant, Silim bin Masud, returning from Kazeh to his home at Msene, with a slave-porter carrying a load of cloth, was, though well armed and feared as a good shot, attacked at a water in a strip of jungle westward of Mfuto, and speared in the back by five men, who were afterwards proved to be subjects of the Sultan Kasanyare, a Mvinza. The Arabs organised a small expedition to revenge the murder, marched out with 200 or 300 slave-musketeers, devoured all the grain and poultry in the country, and returned to their homes without striking a blow, because each merchant-militant wished his fellows to guarantee his goods or his life for the usual diyat, or blood-money, 800 dollars. This impunity of crime will probably lead to other outrages.

The Arabs live comfortably, and even splendidly, at Unyanyembe. The houses, though single-storied, are large, substantial, and capable of defence. Their gardens are extensive and well planted; they receive regular supplies of merchandise, comforts, and luxuries from the coast; they are surrounded by troops of concubines and slaves, whom they train to divers crafts and callings: rich men have riding-asses from Zanzibar, and even the poorest keep flocks and herds. At Unyanyembe, as at Msene, and sometimes at Ujiji, there are itinerant fundi, or slave-artisans—blacksmiths, tinkers, masons, carpenters, tailors, potters, and rope-makers,—who come up from the coast with Arab caravans. These men demand exorbitant wages. A broken matchlock can be repaired, and even bullets cast; good cord is purchaseable; and for tinning a set of seventeen pots and plates five shukkah merkani are charged. A pair of Arab stirrups are made up for one shukkah besides the material, and chains for animals at about double the price. Fetters and padlocks, however, are usually imported by caravans. Pack-saddles are brought from Zanzibar: in caravans a man may sometimes be found to make them. There is, moreover, generally a pauper Arab who for cloth will make up a ridge-tent; and as most civilised Orientals can use a needle, professional tailors are little required. Provisions are cheap and plentiful; the profits are large; and the Arab, when wealthy, is disposed to be hospitable and convivial. Many of the more prosperous merchants support their brethren who have been ruined by the chances and accidents of trade. When a stranger appears amongst them, he receives the “hishmat l’il gharíb,” or the guest-welcome, in the shape of a goat and a load of white rice; he is provided with lodgings, and is introduced by the host to the rest of the society at a general banquet. The Arabs’ great deficiency is the want of some man to take the lead. About fifteen years ago Abdullah bin Salim, a merchant from Zanzibar, with his body of 200 armed slaves, kept the whole community in subjection: since his death, in 1852, the society has suffered from all the effects of disunion where union is most required. The Arab, however, is even in Africa a Pantisocrat, and his familiarity with the inferior races around him leads to the proverbial consequences.

The houses of the Arabs are Moslem modifications of the African Tembe, somewhat superior in strength and finish. The deep and shady outside-verandah, supported by stout uprights, shelters a broad bench of raised earthwork, where men sit to enjoy the morning cool and the evening serenity, and where they pray, converse, and transact their various avocations. A portcullis-like door, composed of two massive planks, with chains thick as a ship’s cable—a precaution rendered necessary by the presence of wild slaves—leads into the barzah, or vestibule. The only furniture is a pair of clay benches extending along the right and left sides, with pillow-shaped terminations of the same material; over these, when visitors are expected, rush mats and rugs are spread. From this barzah a passage, built at the angle proper to baffle the stranger’s curiosity, leads into the interior, a hollow square or oblong, with the several rooms opening upon a courtyard, which, when not built round, is completely closed by a “liwan”—a fence of small tree-trunks or reeds. The apartments have neither outward doors nor windows: small bull’s-eyes admit the air, and act as loop-holes in case of need. The principal room on the master’s side of the house has a bench of clay, and leads into a dark closet where stores and merchandise are placed. There are separate lodgings for the harem, and the domestic slaves live in barracoons or in their own outhouses. This form of Tembe is perhaps the dullest habitation ever invented by man. The exterior view is carefully removed from sight, and the dull, dirty courtyard, often swamped during the rains, is ever before the tenant’s eyes; the darkness caused by want of windows painfully contrasts with the flood of sunshine pouring in through the doors, and at night no number of candles will light up its gloomy walls of grey or reddish mud. The breeze is either excluded by careless frontage, or the high and chilling winds pour in like torrents; the roof is never water-tight, and the walls and rafters harbour hosts of scorpions and spiders, wasps and cockroaches. The Arabs, however, will expend their time and trouble in building rather than trust their goods in African huts, exposed to thieves and to the frequent fires which result from barbarous carelessness: everywhere, when a long halt is in prospect, they send their slaves for wood to the jungle, and superintend the building of a spacious Tembe. They neglect, however, an important precaution, a sleeping-room raised above the mean level of malaria.

Another drawback to the Arab’s happiness is the failure of his constitution: a man who escapes illness for two successive months boasts of the immunity; and, as in Egypt, no one enjoys robust health. The older residents have learned to moderate their appetites. They eat but twice a-day—after sunrise, and at noon—the midday meal concluded, they confine themselves to chewing tobacco or the dried coffee of Karagwah. They avoid strong meats, especially beef and game, which are considered heating and bilious, remaining satisfied with light dishes, omelets and pillaus, harísah, firni, and curded milk, and the less they eat the more likely they are to escape fever. Harisáh, in Kisawahili “boko-boko,” is the roast beef—the plat de résistance—of the Eastern and African Arab. It is a kind of pudding made with finely shredded meat, boiled with flour of wheat, rice, or holcus, to the consistence of a thick paste, and eaten with honey or sugar. Firni, an Indian word, is synonymous with the muhallibah of Egypt, a thin jelly of milk-and-water, honey, rice-flour, and spices, which takes the place of our substantial northern rice-pudding. The general health has been improved by the importation from the coast of wheat, and a fine white rice, instead of the red aborigen of the country, of various fruits, plantains, limes, and papaws; and of vegetables, brinjalls, cucumbers, and tomatos, which relieve the indigenous holcus and maize, manioc and sweet-potato, millet and phaseoli, sesamum and ground-nuts. They declare to having derived great benefit from the introduction of onions,—an antifebral, which flourishes better in Central than in Maritime Africa. The onion, so thriving in South Africa, rapidly degenerates upon the island of Zanzibar into a kind of houseleek. In Unyamwezi it is of tolerable size and flavour. It enters into a variety of dishes, the most nauseous being probably the sugared onion-omelet. In consequence of general demand, onions are expensive in the interior; an indigo-dyed shukkah will purchase little more than a pound. When the bulbs fail, the leaves chopped into thin circles and fried in clarified butter with salt, are eaten as a relish with meat. They are also inserted into marak or soups, to disguise the bitter and rancid taste of stale ghee. Onions may be sown at all seasons except during the wet monsoon, when they are liable to decay. The Washenzi have not yet borrowed this excellent and healthy vegetable from the Arabs. Garlic has also been tried in Unyanyembe, but with less success; moreover, it is considered too heating for daily use. As might be expected, however, amongst a floating population with many slaves, foreign fruits and vegetables are sometimes allowed to die out. Thus some enterprising merchant introduced into Unyanyembe the date and the mkungu, bidam, or almond-tree of the coast: the former, watered once every third day, promised to bear fruit, when, in the absence of the master, the Wanyamwezi cut up the young shoots into walking-sticks. Sugar is imported: the water-wanting cane will not thrive in arid Unyanyembe, and honey must be used as a succedaneum. Black pepper, universally considered cooling by Orientals, is much eaten with curry-stuffs and other highly-seasoned dishes, whereas the excellent chillies and bird-pepper, which here grow wild, are shunned for their heating properties. Butter and ghee are made by the wealthy; humbler houses buy the article, which is plentiful and good, from the Wanyamwezi. Water is the usual beverage. Some Arabs drink togwa, a sweet preparation of holcus; and others, debauchees, indulge in the sour and intoxicating pombe, or small-beer.

The market at Unyanyembe varies greatly according to the quantity of the rains. As usual in barbarous societies, a dry season, or a few unexpected caravans, will raise the prices, even to trebling; and the difference of value in grain before and after the harvest will be double or half of what it is at par. The price of provisions in Unyamwezi has increased inordinately since the Arabs have settled in the land. Formerly a slave-boy could be purchased for five fundo, or fifty strings of beads: the same article would now fetch three hundred. A fundo of cheap white porcelain-beads would procure a milch cow; and a goat, or ten hens its equivalent, was to be bought for one khete. In plentiful years Unyanyembe is, however, still the cheapest country in East Africa, and, as usual in cheap countries, it induces the merchant to spend more than in the dearest. Paddy of good quality, when not in demand, sells at twenty kayla (120lbs.) for one shukkah of American domestics; maize, at twenty-five; and sorghum, here the staff of life, when in large stock, at sixty. A fat bullock may be bought for four domestics, a cow costs from six to twelve, a sheep or a goat from one to two. A hen, or its equivalent, four or five eggs, is worth one khete of coral or pink porcelain beads. One fundo of the same will purchase a large bunch of plantains, with which máwá or plantain-wine, and siki or vinegar are made; and the Wanyamwezi will supply about a pint of milk every morning at the rate of one shukkah per mensem. A kind of mud-fish is caught by the slaves in the frequent pools which, during the cold season, dot the course of the Gombe Nullah, lying three miles north of Kazeh; and return-caravans often bring with them stores of the small fry, called Kashwá or Daga’a, from the Tanganyika Lake.

From Unyanyembe twenty marches, which are seldom accomplished under twenty-five days, conduct the traveller to Ujiji, upon the Tanganyika. Of these the fifth station is Msene, the great Bandari of Western Unyamwezi. It is usually reached in eight days; and the twelfth is the Malagarazi River, the western limit of the fourth region.

The traveller, by means of introductory letters to the Doyen of the Arab merchants at Kazeh, can always recruit his stock of country currency,—cloth, beads, and wire,—his requirements of powder and ball, and his supply of spices, comforts, and drugs, without which travel in these lands usually ends fatally. He will pay, it is true, about five times their market-value at Zanzibar: sugar, for instance, sells at its weight in ivory, or nearly one-third more than its weight in beads. But though the prices are exorbitant they preserve the buyer from greater evils, the expense of porterage, the risk of loss, and the trouble and annoyance of personally superintending large stores in a land where “vir” and “fur” are synonymous terms.

And now comfortably housed within a stone-throw of my new friend Shaykh Snay bin Amir, I bade adieu for a time to the march, the camp, and the bivouac. Perhaps the reader may not be unwilling to hear certain details concerning the “road and the inn” in Eastern Africa; he is familiar from infancy with the Arab Kafilah and its host of litters and camels, horses, mules, and asses, but the porter-journeys in Eastern Africa have as yet escaped the penman’s pen.

Throughout Eastern Africa made roads, the first test of progress in a people, are unknown. The most frequented routes are foot-tracks like goat-walks, one to two spans broad, trodden down during the travelling season by man and beast, and during the rains the path in African parlance “dies,” that is to say, it is overgrown with vegetation. In open and desert places four or five lines often run parallel for short distances. In jungly countries they are mere tunnels in thorns and under branchy trees, which fatigue the porter by catching his load. Where fields and villages abound they are closed with rough hedges, horizontal tree-trunks, and even rude stockades, to prevent trespassing and pilferage. Where the land is open, an allowance of one-fifth must be made for winding: in closer countries this must be increased to two-fifths or to one-half, and the traveller must exercise his judgment in distributing the marches between these two extremes. In Uzaramo and K’hutu the tracks run through tall grasses, which are laid by their own weight after rains, and are burned down during the hot seasons: they often skirt cultivated lands, which they are not allowed to enter, miry swamps are spanned, rivers breast-deep, with muddy bottoms and steep slippery banks, are forded, whilst deep holes, the work of rodents and insects, render them perilous to ridden cattle. In Usagara the gradients are surmounted either by beds of mountain torrents or by breasting steep and stony hills, mere ladders of tree-root and loose stones: laden animals frequently cannot ascend or descend them. The worst paths in this region are those which run along the banks of the many streams and rivulets, and which traverse the broken and thorny ground at the base of the hills. The former are “thieves’ roads,” choked with long succulent grass springing from slushy mud; the latter are continued rises and falls, with a small but ragged and awkward watercourse at every bottom. From Usagara to Western Unyamwezi the roads lead through thick thorn-jungle, and thin forests of trees blazed or barked along the track, without hill, but interrupted during the rains by swamps and bogs. They are studded with sign-posts, broken pots and gourds, horns and skulls of game and cattle, imitations of bows and arrows pointing towards water, and heads of holcus. Sometimes a young tree is bent across the path and provided with a cross-bar; here is a rush gateway like the yoke of the ancients, or a platform of sleepers supported by upright trunks; there a small tree felled and replanted, is tipped with a crescent of grass twisted round with bark, and capped with huge snail shells, and whatever barbarous imagination may suggest. Where many roads meet, those to be avoided are barred with a twig or crossed by a line drawn with the foot. In Western Uvinza and near Ujiji, the paths are truly vile, combining all the disadvantages of bog and swamp, river and rivulet, thorn-bush and jungle, towering grasses, steep inclines, riddled surface, and broken ground. The fords on the whole line are temporary as to season, but permanent in place: they are rarely more than breast-deep; and they average in dry weather a cubit and a half, the fordable medium. There are but two streams, the Mgeta and the Ruguvu, which are bridged over by trees; both could be forded higher up the bed; and on the whole route there is but one river, the Malagarazi, which requires a ferry during the dry season. Cross roads abound in the populous regions. Where they exist not, the jungle is often impassable, except to the elephant and the rhinoceros: a company of pioneers would in some places require a week to cut their way for a single march through the network of thorns and the stockade of rough tree-trunks. The directions issued to travellers about drawing off their parties for safety at night to rising grounds, will not apply to Eastern Africa; it would be far easier to dig for themselves abodes under the surface.

It is commonly asserted in the island of Zanzibar that there are no caravans in these regions. The dictum is true if the term be limited to the hosts of camels and mules that traverse the deserts and the mountains of Arabia and Persia. It is erroneous if applied to a body of men travelling for commercial purposes. From time immemorial the Wanyamwezi have visited the road to the coast, and though wars and blood-feuds may have temporarily closed one line, another necessarily opened itself. Amongst a race so dependent for comfort and pleasure upon trade, commerce, like steam, cannot be compressed beyond a certain point. Until a few years ago, when the extension of traffic induced the country people to enlist as porters, all merchants traversed these regions with servile gangs hired on the coast or island of Zanzibar, a custom still prevailing on the northern and southern routes from the sea-board to the lakes of Nyanza and Nyassa. Porterage, on the long and toilsome journey, is now considered by the Wanyamwezi a test of manliness, as the Englishman deems a pursuit or a profession necessary to clear him from the charge of effeminacy. The children imbibe the desire with their milk, and at six or seven years old they carry a little tusk on their shoulders—instinctive porters, as pointer-pups are hereditary pointers. By premature toil their shinbones are sometimes bowed to the front like those of animals too early ridden. “He sits in hut egg-hatching,” is their proverbial phrase to express one more elegant—

And they are ever quoting the adage that men who travel not are void of understanding—the African equivalent of what was said by the European sage: “The world is a great book, of which those who never leave home read but a page.” Against this traditional tendency reasons of mere hire and rations, though apparently weighty, are found wanting. The porter will bargain over his engagement to the utmost bead, saying that all men are bound to make the best conditions for themselves: yet, after two or three months of hard labour, if he chance upon a caravan returning to his home, a word from a friend, acting upon his innate debility of purpose, will prevail upon him to sacrifice by desertion all the fruits of his toil. On these occasions the porters are carefully watched; open desertion would, it is true, be condemned by the general voice, yet no merchant can so win the affections of his men that some will not at times disappear. Until the gangs have left their homes far behind, their presence seems to hang by a thread; at the least pretext they pack up their goods and vanish in a mass. When approaching their settlements—at the frontier districts of Tura and Mfuto, for instance—their cloth and hire are taken from them, packed in the employer’s bales, and guarded by armed slaves, especially at night, and on the line of march. Yet these precautions frequently fail, and, once beyond the camp limits, it is vain to seek the fugitive. In the act of desertion they show intelligence: they seldom run away when caravans first meet, lest their employer should halt and recover them by main force, and, except where thieves and wild beasts are unknown, they will not fly by night. The porter, however, has one point of honour; he leaves his pack behind him. The slave, on the other hand, certainly robs his employer when he runs away, and this, together with his unwillingness to work and the trouble and annoyance which he causes to his owner, counterbalances his superior dexterity and intelligence.

Caravans, called in Kisawahili safári (from the Arab safar, a journey) and by the African rugendo or lugendo, “a going,” are rarely wanting on the main trunk-lines. The favourite seasons for the upward-bound are the months in which the greater and the lesser Masika or tropical rains conclude—in June and September, for instance, on the coast—when water and provisions are plentiful. Those who delay till the dry weather has set in must expect hardships on the march; the expense of rations will be doubled and trebled, and the porters will frequently desert. The down-caravans set out in all seasons except the rainy; it is difficult to persuade the people of Unyanyembe to leave their fields between the months of October and May. They will abandon cultivation to the women and children, and merrily take the footpath way if laden with their own ivory, but from the merchant they will demand exorbitant wages, and even then they will hesitate to engage themselves.

Porterage varies with every year and in every caravan. It knows but two limits: the interest of the employer to disburse as little as possible by taking every advantage of the necessities of his employé, and the desire of the employé to extract as much as he can by presuming upon the wants of his employer. In some years there is a glut of porters on the coast; when they are rare quarrels take place between the several settlements, each attempting a monopoly of enlistment to the detriment of its neighbours, and a little blood is sometimes let. When the Wanyamwezi began to carry, they demanded for a journey from the coast to their own country six to nine dollars’ worth of domestics, coloured cloths, brass-wires, and the pigeon’s-egg bead called sungomaji. The rate of porterage then declined; the increase of traffic, however, has of late years greatly increased it. In 1857 it was 10 dollars, and it afterwards rose to 12 dollars per porter. In this sum rations are not included; the value of these—which by ancient custom are fixed at 1 kubabah (about 1·5 lbs.) of grain per diem, or, that failing, of manioc, sweet potatoes, and similar articles, with the present of a bullock at the frontier—is subject to greater variations, and is even less reducible to an average than the porter’s pay. It is needless to say that the down-journey is less expensive than the up-march, as the carriers rely upon a fresh engagement on the coast. The usual hire from Unyanyembe would be nine cloths, payable on arrival at the sea-port, where each is worth 25 cents, or about 1 shilling. The Arabs roughly calculate—the errors balancing one another—that, rations included, the hire of a porter from the coast to the Tanganyika Lake and back amounts to a total of 20 dollars = 4l. 3s. From the coast, Wanyamwezi porters will not engage themselves for a journey westward of their own country; at Unyanyembe they break up, and a fresh gang must be enlisted for a march to the Tanganyika or to the Nyanza Lake. It is impossible to average the numbers of an East African caravan, which varies from half a dozen to 200 porters, under a single Mundewa or merchant. In dangerous places travellers halt till they form an imposing force; 500 is a frequent figure, and even bodies of 1000 men are not rare. The only limit to the gathering is the incapability of the country to fill more than a certain number of mouths. The larger caravans, however, are slow and cumbrous, and in places they exhaust the provision of water.

Caravans in East Africa are of three kinds. The most novel and characteristic are those composed only of Wanyamwezi; secondly, are the caravans directed and escorted by Wasawahili freemen or fundi (slave fattori), commissioned by their patrons; and, lastly, those commanded by Arabs.

The porter, called pagazi or fagazi—the former is the African, the latter the ridiculous Arabised form of the word—corresponds with the carregador of West Africa. The Wanyamwezi make up large parties of men, some carrying their own goods, others hired by petty proprietors, who for union and strength elect a head Mtongi, Ras Kafilah, or leader. The average number of these parties that annually visit the coast is far greater than those commanded by stranger-merchants. In the Unyamwezi caravan there is no desertion, no discontent, and, except in certain spots, little delay. The porters trudge from sunrise to 10 or 11 A.M., and sometimes, though rarely, they will travel twice a day, resting only during the hours of heat. They work with a will, carrying uncomplainingly huge tusks, some so heavy that they must be lashed to a pole between two men—a contrivance technically called mziga-ziga. Their shoulders are often raw with the weight, their feet are sore, and they walk half or wholly naked to save their cloth for displays at home. They ignore tent or covering, and sleep on the ground; their only supplies are their country’s produce, a few worn-down hoes, intended at times to purchase a little grain or to be given as blackmail for sultans, and small herds of bullocks and heifers that serve for similar purposes if not lost, with characteristic African futility, upon the road. Those who most consult comfort carry, besides their loads and arms, a hide for bedding, an earthen cooking pot, a stool, a kilindo or bark-box containing cloth and beads, and perhaps a small gourd full of ghee. They sometimes suffer severely from exposure to a climate which forbids long and hard work upon short and hard fare. Malignant epidemics, especially small-pox, often attack caravans as they approach the coast; generally, however, though somewhat lean and haggard, the porters appear in better condition than might be expected. The European traveller will repent accompanying these caravans: as was said of a similar race, the Indians of Guiana, “they will not deviate three steps from the regular path.”

Porters engaged by Arab Mtajiri or Mundewa—the former is the Kisawahili, the latter is the Inner African term for a merchant or travelling trader—are known by their superior condition; they eat much more, work much less, and give far greater trouble to their commanders. They expend part of the cloth and beads which they have received as hire to procure for themselves occasional comforts; and on the down-journey they take with them a few worn-down hoes to retain the power of desertion without starving. The self-willed wretches demean themselves with the coolest impudence; reply imperiously, lord it over their leaders, regulate the marches and the halts, and though they work they never work without loud complaints and open discontent. Rations are a perpetual source of heart-burning: stinted at home to a daily mess of grain-porridge, the porters on the line of march devote, in places where they can presume, all their ingenuity to extort as much food as possible from their employers. At times they are seized with a furore for meat. When a bullock is slaughtered, the Kirangozi or guide claims the head, leaving the breast and loin to the Mtongi or principal proprietor, and the remainder is equally portioned amongst the khambi or messes into which the gang divides itself. As has been remarked, the Arab merchant, next to the Persian, is the most luxurious traveller in the East; a veteran of the way, he well knows the effects of protracted hardship and scarcity upon a wayfarer’s health. The European traveller, however, will not enjoy the companionship of the Arab caravan, which marches by instinct rather than by reason. It begins by dawdling over the preliminaries; it then pushes hurriedly onwards till arrested by epidemic or desertion; and finally it lingers over the end of the journey, thus loosing time twice. This style of progress is fatal to observation; moreover, none but a special caravan, consisting of slaves hired for the purpose in the island of Zanzibar or on the coast, and accompanied by their own Ahbab or patron—without whom they will obey no employer, however generous or energetic—will enable the explorer to strike into an unbeaten path, or to progress a few miles beyond the terminus of a main trunk-road. The most enterprising of porters will desert, leaving the caravan-leader like a water-logged ship.

Between these two extremes are the trading parties directed by the Wasawahili, the Wamrima, and the slave Fundi—the Pombeiros of West Africa—kindred souls with the Pagazi, understanding their languages and familiar with their habits, manners, and customs. These “Safari” are neither starved like those composed of Wanyamwezi, nor pampered like those headed by the Arabs. There is less fatigue during the march, and more comfort at the halting-place, consequently there are fewer cases of disease and death. These semi-African Mtongi, hating and jealousing Arabs and all strangers, throw every obstacle in their way, spread reports concerning their magical and malevolent powers which are dangerous amongst the more superstitious barbarians, they offer a premium for desertion, and in fine, they labour hard though fruitlessly, to retain their ancient monopoly of the profits derived from the interior.

I will now describe the day’s march and the halt of the East African caravan.

At 3 A.M., all is silent as the tomb, even the Mnyamwezi watchman nods over his fire. About an hour later the red-faced apoplectic chanticleer—there are sometimes half-a-dozen of them—the alarum of the caravan, and a prime favourite with the slaves and porter, who carry him on their banghy-poles by turns, and who drench him with water when his beak opens under the sun,—flaps his wings and crows a loud salutation to the dawn: he is answered by every cock and cockerel within ear-shot. I have been lying awake for some time, longing for the light, and when in health, for an early breakfast. At the first paling of the East, the torpid Goanese are called up to build a fire, they tremble with the cold—thermometrically averaging 60° F.—and they hurry to bring food. Appetite somewhat difficult at this hour, demands a frequent change of diet, we drink tea or coffee when procurable, or we eat rice-milk and cakes raised with whey, or a porridge not unlike water-gruel. Whilst we are so engaged, the Baloch chanting the spiritual songs which follow prayers, squat round a cauldron placed upon a roaring fire, and fortify the inner man with boiled meat and grain, with toasted pulse and tobacco.

About such time, 5 A.M., the camp is fairly roused, and a little low chatting becomes audible. This is a critical moment. The porters have promised overnight, to start early, and to make a long wholesome march. But, “uncertain, coy, and hard to please,” they change their minds like the fair sex, the cold morning makes them unlike the men of the warm evening, and perhaps one of them has fever. Moreover, in every caravan there is some lazy, loud-lunged, contradictory and unmanageable fellow, whose sole delight is to give trouble. If no march be in prospect, they sit obstinately before the fire warming their hands and feet, inhaling the smoke with everted heads, and casting quizzical looks at their fuming and fidgety employer. If all be unanimous, it is vain to attempt them, even soft sawder is but “throwing comfits to cows.” We return to our tent. If, however, there be a division, a little active stimulating will cause a march. Then a louder conversation leads to cries of Kwecha! Kwecha! Pakia! Pakia! Hopa! Hopa! Collect! pack! set out! Safari! Safari leo! a journey, a journey to-day! and some peculiarly African boasts, P’hunda! Ngami! I am an ass! a camel! accompanied by a roar of bawling voices, drumming, whistling, piping, and the braying of Barghumi, or horns. The sons of Ramji come in a body to throw our tents, and to receive small burdens, which, if possible, they shirk; sometimes Kidogo does me the honour to inquire the programme of the day. The porters, however, hug the fire till driven from it, when they unstack the loads piled before our tents and pour out of the camp or village. My companion and I, when well enough to ride, mount our asses, led by the gunbearers, who carry all necessaries for offence and defence; when unfit for exercise, we are borne in hammocks, slung to long poles, and carried by two men at a time. The Baloch tending their slaves hasten off in a straggling body, thinking only of escaping an hour’s sun. The Jemadar, however, is ordered to bring up the rear with Said bin Salim, who is cold and surly, abusive and ready with his rattan. Four or five packs have been left upon the ground by deserters, or shirkers, who have started empty-handed, consequently our Arab either double-loads more willing men, or persuades the sons of Ramji to carry a small parcel each, or that failing, he hires from some near village a few porters by the day. This, however, is not easy, the beads have been carried off, and the most tempting promises without pre-payment, have no effect upon the African mind.

When all is ready, the Kirangozi or Mnyamwezi guide rises and shoulders his load, which is ever one of the lightest. He deliberately raises his furled flag, a plain blood-red, the sign of a caravan from Zanzibar, much tattered by the thorns, and he is followed by a privileged Pagazi, tom-toming upon a kettle-drum much resembling a European hour-glass. The dignitary is robed in the splendour of scarlet broadcloth, a narrow piece about six feet long, with a central aperture for the neck, and with streamers dangling before and behind; he also wears some wonderful head-dress, the spoils of a white and black “tippet-monkey,” or the barred skin of a wild cat, crowning the head, bound round the throat, hanging over the shoulders, and capped with a tall cup-shaped bunch of owl’s feathers, or the gorgeous plumes of the crested crane. His insignia of office are the kipungo or fly-flapper, the tail of some beast which he affixes to his person as if it were a natural growth, the kome, or hooked iron spit, decorated with a central sausage of parti-coloured beads, and a variety of oily little gourds containing snuff, simples, and “medicine,” for the road, strapped round his waist. He leads the caravan, and the better to secure the obedience of his followers he has paid them in a sheep or a goat, the value of which he will recover by fees and superiority of rations—the head of every animal slaughtered in camp and the presents at the end of the journey are exclusively his. A man guilty of preceding the Kirangozi is liable to fine, and an arrow is extracted from his quiver to substantiate his identity at the end of the march. Pouring out of the kraal in a disorderly mob, the porters stack their goods at some tree distant but a few hundred yards, and allow the late, the lazy, and the invalids to join the main body. Generally at this conjuncture the huts are fired by neglect or mischievousness. The khambi, especially in winter, burns like tinder, and the next caravan will find a heap of hot ashes and a few charred sticks still standing. Yet by way of contrast the Pagazi will often take the trouble to denote by the usual signposts to those following them that water is at hand. Here and there a little facetiousness appears in these erections, a mouth is cut in the tree-trunk to admit a bit of wood, simulating a pipe, with other representations still more waggish.

After the preliminary halt, the caravan, forming into the order of march, winds, like a monstrous land-serpent, over hill, dale, and plain. The Kirangozi is followed by an Indian file, those nearest to him, the grandees of the gang, are heavily laden with ivories: when the weight of the tusk is inordinate, it is tied to a pole and is carried palanquin-fashion by two men. A large cowbell, whose music rarely ceases on the march, is attached to the point which is to the fore; to the bamboo behind is lashed the porter’s private baggage,—his earthen cooking-pot, his water-gourd, his sleeping-mat, and his other necessaries. The ivory-carriers are succeeded by the bearers of cloth and beads, each man, poising upon either shoulder, and sometimes raising upon the head for rest, packs that resemble huge bolsters, six feet long by two in diameter, cradled in sticks, which generally have a forked projection for facility of stacking and reshouldering the load. The sturdiest fellows are usually the lightest loaded: in Eastern Africa, as elsewhere, the weakest go to the wall. The maximum of burden may be two farasilah, or seventy pounds, avoirdupois. Behind the cloth bearers straggles a long line of porters and slaves, laden with the lighter stuff, rhinoceros-teeth, hides, salt-cones, tobacco, brass wire, iron hoes, boxes and bags, beds and tents, pots and water-gourds, mats and private stores. With the Pagazi, but in separate parties, march the armed slaves, who are never seen to quit their muskets, the women, and the little toddling children, who rarely fail to carry something, be it only of a pound weight, and the asses neatly laden with saddle-bags of giraffe or buffalo-hide. A “Mganga” almost universally accompanies the caravan, not disdaining to act as a common porter. The “parson” not only claims, in virtue of his sacred calling, the lightest load; he is also a stout, smooth, and sleek-headed man, because, as usual with his class, he eats much and he works little. The rear is brought up by the master or the masters of the caravan, who often remains far behind for the convenience of walking and to prevent desertion.

All the caravan is habited in its worst attire, the East African derides those who wear upon a journey the cloth which should be reserved for display at home. If rain fall they will doff the single goat-skin hung round their sooty limbs, and, folding it up, place it between the shoulder and the load. When grain is served out for some days’ march, each porter bears his posho or rations fastened like a large “bussel” to the small of his back. Upon this again, he sometimes binds, with its legs projecting outwards, the three-legged stool, which he deems necessary to preserve him from the danger of sitting upon the damp ground. As may be imagined, the barbarians have more ornament than dress. Some wear the ngala, a strip of zebra’s mane bound round the head with the bristly parti-coloured, hair standing out like a saint’s “gloria:” others prefer a long bit of stiffened ox-tail, rising like a unicorn’s horn, at least a foot above the forehead. Other ornaments are the skins of monkeys and ocelots, rouleaus and fillets of white, blue, or scarlet cloth, and huge bunches of ostrich, crane, and jay’s feathers, crowning the head like the tufts of certain fowls. Their arms are decorated with massive ivory bracelets, heavy bangles of brass or copper, and thin circlets of the same metal, beads in strings and bands, adorn their necks, and small iron bells, a “knobby” decoration, whose incessant tinkling harmonises, in African ears, with the regular chime-like “Ti-ti! Ti-ti! tang!” of the tusk-bells, and the loud broken “Wa-ta-ta!” of the horns, are strapped below the knee or round the ankle by the more aristocratic. All carry some weapon; the heaviest armed have a bow and a bark-quiver full of arrows, two or three long spears and assegais, a little battle-axe borne on the shoulder, and the sime or dudgeon.

The normal recreations of a march are, whistling, singing, shouting, hooting, horning, drumming, imitating the cries of birds and beasts, repeating words which are never used except on journeys—a “chough’s language, gabble enough and good enough”—and abundant squabbling; in fact perpetual noise which the ear however, soon learns to distinguish for the hubbub of a halt. The uproar redoubles near a village, where the flag is unfurled and where the line lags to display itself. All give vent to loud shouts, “Hopa! hopa!—go on! go on! Mgogolo!—a stoppage! Food! food! Don’t be tired! The kraal is here—home is near! Hasten, kirangozi—Oh! We see our mothers! We go to eat!” On the road it is considered prudent as well as pleasurable to be as loud as possible, in order to impress upon plunderers an exaggerated idea of the caravan’s strength; for equally good reasons silence is recommended in the kraal. When threatened with attack and no ready escape suggests itself, the porters ground their loads and prepare for action. It is only self-interest that makes them brave; I have seen a small cow, trotting up with tail erect, break a line of 150 men carrying goods not their own. If a hapless hare or antelope cross the path, every man casts his pack, brandishes his spear, and starts in pursuit; the animal never running straight is soon killed, and torn limb from limb, each negroid helluo devouring his morsel raw. Sometimes a sturdy fellow “renowns it” by carrying his huge burden round and round, like a horse being ringed, and starts off at full speed. When two bodies meet, that commanded by an Arab claims the road. If both are Wanyamwezi, violent quarrels ensue, but fatal weapons, which are too ready at hand, are turned to more harmless purposes, the bow and spear being used as whip and cudgel. These affrays are not rancorous till blood is shed. Few tribesmen are less friendly for so trifling an affair as a broken head; even a slight cut or a shallow stab is little thought of; but, if returned with interest, great loss of life may arise from the slenderest cause. When friendly caravans meet, the two Kirangozis sidle up with a stage pace, a stride, and a stand, and with sidelong looks prance till arrived within distance; then suddenly and simultaneously “ducking,” like boys “giving a back,” they come to logger-heads and exchange a butt violently as fighting rams. Their example is followed by all with a rush and a crush, which might be mistaken for the beginning of a faction, but it ends, if there be no bad blood, in shouts of laughter. The weaker body, however, must yield precedence and offer a small present as blackmail.

About 8 A.M., when the fiery sun has topped the trees and a pool of water, or a shady place appears, the planting of the red flag, the braying of a Barghumi, or koodoo’s horn, which, heard at a distance in the deep forests, has something of the charm which endears the “Cor de Chasse” to every woodman’s ear, and sometimes a musket-shot or two, announces a short halt. The porters stack their loads, and lie or loiter about for a few minutes, chatting, drinking, and smoking tobacco and bhang, with the usual whooping, screaming cough, and disputing eagerly about the resting-place for the day. On long marches we then take the opportunity of stopping to discuss the contents of two baskets which are carried by a slave under the eye of the Goanese.

If the stage be prolonged towards noon, the caravan lags, straggles, and suffers sorely. The heat of the ground, against which the horniest sole never becomes proof, tries the feet like polished-leather boots on a quarter-deck in the dog-days near the Line, and some tribulation is caused by the cry M’iba hapa!—thorns here! The Arabs and the Baloch must often halt to rest. The slaves ensconce themselves in snug places; the porters, propping their burdens against trees, curl up, dog-like, under the shade; some malinger; and this, the opportunity preferred for desertion, is an anxious hour to the proprietor; who, if he would do his work “deedily,” must be the last in the kraal. Still the men rarely break down. As in Indian marching, the African caravan prefers to end the day, rather than to begin it, with a difficulty—the ascent of a hill, or the fording of a stream. They prefer the strip of jungle at the further end of a district or a plantation, for safety as well as for the comfort of shade. They avoid the vicinity of rocks; and on desert plains they occupy some slightly rising ground, where the night-cold is less severe than in the lower levels.

At length an increased hubbub of voices, blended with bells, drums, fifes, and horns, and sometimes a few musket-shots, announce that the van is lodged, and the hubbub of the halt confirms the pleasing intelligence that the journey is shortened by a stage. Each selfish body then hurries forward to secure the best boothy in the kraal, or the most comfortable hut in the village, and quarrels seem serious. Again, however, the knife returns home guiltless of gore, and the spear is used only as an instrument for sound belabouring. The more energetic at once apply themselves to “making all snug” for the long hot afternoon and the nipping night; some hew down young trees, others collect heaps of leafy boughs; one acts architect, and many bring in huge loads of firewood. The East African is so much accustomed to house-life, that the bivouac in the open appears to him a hardship; he prefers even to cut out the interior of a bush and to squat in it, the portrait of a comfortable cynocephalus. We usually spread our donkey-saddles and carpets in some shade, awaiting the arrival of our tents, and its erection by the grumbling sons of Ramji; if we want a hut, we draw out the man in possession like a badger,—he will never have the decency to offer it. As a rule, the villagers are more willing to receive the upward-bound caravans, than those who, returning, carry wealth out of instead of into the country. Merchants, on account of their valuable outfits, affect, except in the safest localities, the khambi rather than the village; the latter, however, is not only healthier, despite its uncleanliness in miasmatic lands, but is also more comfortable, plenty and variety of provisions being more readily procured inside than outside. The Arab’s khaymah is a thin pole or ridge-tent of flimsy domestics, admitting sun and rain, and, like an Irish cabin, permitting at night the occupant to tell time by the stars; yet he prefers it, probably for dignity, to the boothy which, in this land of verdure and cool winds, is a far more comfortable lodging.

The Wamrima willingly admit strangers into their villages; the Wazaramo would do the same, but they are constantly at feud with the Wanyamwezi, who therefore care not to avail themselves of the dangerous hospitality. In K’hutu caravans seize by force the best lodgings. Throughout Eastern Usagara travellers pitch tents in the dear central spaces, surrounded by the round huts of the peasantry, under whose low and drooping eaves the pagazi find shelter. In the western regions, where the Tembe or square village prevails, kraals form the nighting-place. In Ugogo strangers rarely enter the hamlets, the hovels being foul, and the people dangerous. Throughout Eastern and Central Unyamwezi caravans defile into the villages without hesitation. Some parties take possession of the Iwanza or public-house; others build for themselves tabernacles of leafy boughs, which they are expected to clear away before departure, and the headman provides lodgings for the Mtongi. In Western Unyamwezi the doors are often closed against strangers, and in Eastern Uvinza the people will admit travellers to bivouac, but they will not vacate their huts. In Western Uvinza, a desert like Marenga and Mgunda Mk’hali, substantial khambi occur at short intervals. At Ujiji, the Sultan, after offering the preliminary magubiko or presents, provides his guests with lodgings, which, after a time sufficient for enabling them to build huts, they must vacate in favour of new comers. In the other Lake Regions the reception depends mainly upon the number of muskets in a caravan, and the character of the headman and his people.

The khambi or kraal everywhere varies in shape and material. In the eastern regions, where trees are scarce, wattle frames of rough sticks, compacted with bark-fibre, are disposed in a circle; the forked uprights, made higher behind and lower in front, to form a sloping roof, support horizontal or cross poles, which are overlaid with a rough thatch of grass or grain-cane. The central space upon which the boothies open is occupied by one or more huts for the chiefs of the party; and the outer circle is a loose fence of thorn branches, flimsy, yet impassable to breech-less legs, unshod feet, and thin loose body-garments. When a kraal must be built, rations are not served out till enclosures made round the camp secure the cattle; if the leader be dilatory, or unwilling to take strong measures, he may be a serious loser. The stationary kraals become offensive, if not burnt down after a few months. The Masika-kraal, as it is called, is that occupied only during the rainy monsoon, when water is everywhere found. The vicinity and the abundance of that necessary are the main considerations in selecting the situation of encampments. The bark-kraals commence in Uvinza, where trees abound, and extend to the Tanganyika Lake; some are substantial, as the temporary villages, and may be a quarter of a mile in circumference. The Lakist population carry with them, when travelling, Karagwah or stiff mats of reed and rush; these they spread over and fasten to a firmly-planted framework of flexible boughs, not unlike a bird’s nest inverted, or they build a cone of strong canes, in the shape of piled muskets, with the ends lashed together. It is curious to see the small compass in which the native African traveller can contract himself: two, and even three, will dispose their heads and part of their bodies—leaving their lower limbs to the mercy of the elements—under a matting little more than a yard square.