I was detained at Kazeh from the 8th November to the 14th December, 1857, and the delay was one long trial of patience.

It is customary for stranger-caravans proceeding towards Ujiji to remain six weeks or two months at Unyanyembe for repose and recovery from the labours which they have, or are supposed to have, endured: moreover, they are expected to enjoy the pleasures of civilised society, and to accept the hospitality offered to them by the resident Arabs. In Eastern Africa, I may again suggest, six weeks is as the three days’ visit in England.

On the morning after our arrival at Kazeh, the gang of Wanyamwezi porters that had accompanied us from the coast withdrew their hire from our cloth-bales; and not demanding, because they did not expect, bakhshish, departed, without a sign of farewell, to their homes in Western Unyamwezi. The Kirangozi or guide received a small present of domestics: his family being at Msene, distant five marches ahead, he fixed, after long haggling, the term of fifteen days as his leave of absence, after which he promised to join me with a fresh gang for the journey to Ujiji.

The rest of the party apparently considered Unyanyembe, not Ujiji, the end of the exploration; it proved in effect a second point of departure, easier than Kaole only because I had now gained some experience.

Two days after our arrival, the Baloch, headed by their Jemadar, appeared in full toilette to demand a “Hakk el Salamah,” or reward for safe-conduct. I informed them that this would be given when they had reached the end of the up-march. The pragmatical Darwaysh declared that without bakhshish there would be no advance; he withdrew his words, however, when my companion was called in to witness their being committed to paper—a proceeding always unpalatable to the Oriental. The Baloch then subsided into begging for salt and spices, and having received more than they had probably ever possessed in their lives, they privily complained of my parsimony to Said bin Salim. They then sent for tobacco, a goat, gunpowder, bullets—all which they obtained. Their next manœuvre was to extract four cloths for tinning their single copper pot and for repairing the matchdogs and stocks of two old matchlocks. They then sold a keg of gunpowder committed to their charge. They had experienced every kindness from Snay bin Amir, from Sallum bin Hamid, in fact, from all the Arab merchants of Kazeh. They lodged comfortably in Musa Mzuri’s house, and their allowance, one Shukkah of domestics per diem, enabled them to buy goats, sheep, and fowls—luxuries unknown in their starving huts at Zanzibar. Yet they did not fail, with their foul tongues, ever ready, as the Persians say, for “spitting at Heaven,” to charge their kind hosts with the worst crime that the Arab knows—niggardness.

On the 8th November, I had arranged with Kidogo, as well as with the Kirangozi, to resume the march at the end of a fortnight. Ten days afterwards I again sent for him to conclude the plans concerning the journey: evidently something lay deep within his breast, but the difficulty was to extract it. He began by requiring a present for his excellent behaviour—he received, to his astonishment, four cloths. He next demanded leave to visit his Unyamwezi home for a week, and was unpleasantly surprised when it was granted. He then “hit the right nail on the head.” The sons of Ramji, declaring that I had promised them a bullock on arrival at Kazeh, had seized, hamstrung, and cut up a fine fat animal sent to me by Sallum bin Hamid; yet Kidogo averred that the alleged promise must be fulfilled to them. When I refused, he bluntly informed me that I was quite equal to the task of collecting porters for myself; I replied that this was his work and not mine. He left the house abruptly, swearing that he would not trouble himself any longer, and, moreover, for the future that his men should not carry the lightest load, nor assist us even in threading beads. At last, on the 27th November, I sent for Kidogo, and told him that the march was positively fixed for the next week. After sitting for a time “cupo concentrato,” in profound silence, the angry slave arose, delivered a volley of rattling words with the most theatrical fierceness, and rushed from the room, leaving the terrified Said bin Salim gazing upon vacancy like an idiot. Accompanied by his followers, who were shouting and laughing, he left the house, when—I afterwards heard—they drew their sabres, and waving them round their heads, they shouted, for the benefit of Arabs, “Tume-shinda Wazungu”—“We have conquered the Whites!” I held a consultation with my hosts concerning the advisability of disarming the recreant sons of Ramji. But Sallum bin Hamid, the “papa” of the colony, took up the word, and, as usual with such deliberative bodies, the council of war advised peace. They informed me that in Unyamwezi slaves and muskets are the stranger’s sole protection, and as they were unanimous in persuading me to temporise, to “swallow anger” till after return, I felt bound, after applying for it, to be guided by their advice. At the consultation, however, the real object which delayed the sons of Ramji at Kazeh oozed out: their patroon, Mr. Rush Ramji, had written to them that his and their trading outfit was on its way from the coast; consequently, they had determined to await, and to make us await, its arrival before marching upon Ujiji.

On the 14th November, the Masika or wet season, which had announced its approach by premonitory showers and by a final burst of dry heat, set in over the Land of the Moon with torrents of rain and “rain-stones,” as hail is here called, and with storms of thunder and lightning, which made it more resemble the first breaking of an Indian than the desultory fall of a Zanzibar wet-monsoon. I was still under the impression that we were encountering the Choti Barsat or Little Rains of Bengal and Bombay; and curious to say, the Arabs of Unyanyembe one and all declared, even after the wet-monsoon had reached its height, that the Masika in Unyamwezi is synchronous with that of the island and the coast, namely, in early April.

The Rains in Eastern Africa are, like the summer in England, the only healthy and enjoyable season: the contrast between the freshness of the air and the verdure of the scenery after the heat, dust, and desolation that preceded the first showers, was truly luxurious. Yet the Masika has many disadvantages for travellers. The Wanyamwezi, who were sowing their fields, declined to act porters, and several Arab merchants, who could not afford the expenditure required to hire unwilling men, were halted perforce in and near Unyanyembe. The peasants would come in numbers; offer to accompany the caravan; stand, stare, and laugh their vacant laughs; lift and balance their packs; chaffer about hire; promise to return next morning, and definitively disappear. With the utmost exertion Snay bin Amir could collect only ten men, and they were all ready to desert. Moreover, the opening of the Masika is ever unhealthy; strangers suffer severely from all sudden changes of temperature; Unyamwezi speedily became

Another cause of delay became imminent; my companion was comparatively strong, but the others were prostrated by sickness. Valentine first gave in; he was nearly insensible for three days and nights, the usual period of the Mukunguru or “Seasoning” of Unyamwezi—a malignant bilious remittent—which left him weaker and thinner than he had ever been before. When he recovered, Gaetano fell ill, and was soon in the happy state of unconsciousness which distinguished all his fevers. The bull-headed slave Mabruki also retired into private life, and Bombay was laid up by a shaking ague, whilst the Baloch and the sons of Ramji, who had led a life so irregular that the Arabs had frequently threatened them with punishment, also began to pay the penalty of excess.

Snay bin Amir was our principal doctor. An adept in the treatment, called by his countrymen “camel-physic,” namely, cautery and similar counter-irritants, he tried his art upon me when I followed the example of the party. At length, when the Hummah, or hot fit, refused to yield to its supposed specific, a coating of powdered ginger, he insisted upon my seeing a Mganga, or witch, celebrated for her cures throughout the country-side. She came, a wrinkled old beldame, with a greasy skin, black as soot, set off by a mass of tin-coloured pigtails: her arms were adorned with copper bangles like manacles, and the implement of her craft was, as usual, a girdle of small gourds dyed red-black with oil and use.

After demanding and receiving her fee in cloth, she proceeded to search my mouth, and to inquire anxiously concerning poison. The question showed the prevalence of the practice in the country, and indeed the people, to judge from their general use of “Mithridates,” seem ever to expect it. She then drew from a gourd a greenish powder, which was apparently bhang, and having mixed it with water, she administered it like snuff, causing a convulsion of sneezing, which she hailed with shouts and various tokens of joy. Presently she rubbed my head with powder of another kind, and promising to return the next day, she left me to rest, declaring that sleep would cause a cure. The prediction, however, was not fulfilled, nor was the promise. Having become wealthy, she absconded to indulge in unlimited pombe for a week. The usual consequences of this “seasoning,” distressing weakness, hepatic derangements, burning palms, and tingling soles, aching eyes, and alternate thrills of heat and cold, lasted, in my case, a whole month.

Our departure from Kazeh had now been repeatedly deferred. The fortnight originally fixed for the halt had soon passed in the vain search for porters. Sickness then delayed the journey till the 1st December, and Snay bin Amir still opined that want of carriage would detain me till the 19th of that month; he would not name the 18th, which was an unlucky day. When they recovered from their ailments, the Jemadar and the Baloch again began to be troublesome. All declared that a whole year, the term for which they had been sent by their Prince, had elapsed, and therefore that they had now a right to return. The period was wholly one of their own, based perhaps upon an answer which they had received from Lieut.-Col. Hamerton touching the probable duration of the Expedition, “a year or so.” Even of that time it still wanted five months, but nothing from myself or from Said bin Salim could convince men who would not be convinced, of that simple fact. Ismail, the Baloch, who was dying of dysentery, reported himself unable to proceed: arrangements were made to leave him and his “brother” Shahdad—the fearful tinkling of whose sleepless guitar argued that the sweet youth was in love—under the charge of Snay bin Amir, at Kazeh. Greybeard Mohammed was sulking with his fellows. He sat apart from them; and complaining that he had not received his portion of food, came to me for dismissal, which was granted, but not accepted. The Jemadar required for himself and the escort a porter per man. When this was refused, he changed his tactics, and began to lament bitterly the unavoidable delay. He annoyed me with ceaseless visits, which were spent in harping upon the one string, “When do we march?” At last I forbade all allusion to the subject. In wrath he demanded leave, declaring that he had not come to settle in Africa, and much “excessiveness” to the same effect. He was at last brought to his senses by being summarily turned out of the house for grossly insulting my companion. A reaction then ensued; the Baloch professed penitence, and all declared themselves ready to march or to halt as I pleased. Yet, simulating impatience to depart, they clung to the pleasures of Kazeh; they secretly caused the desertion of the porters, and they never ceased to spread idle reports, vainly hoping that I might be induced to return to the coast.

Finally, Said bin Salim fulfilled at Kazeh Lieut.-Col. Hamerton’s acute prophecy. The Bukini blood of his mother—a Malagash slave—got the better of his Omani descent. I had long reformed my opinion concerning his generosity and kindheartedness, hastily concluded during a short cruise along the coast. “Man’s heart,” say the Arabs, “is known only in the fray, and man’s head is known only on the way.” But though high-flown sentiment and studied courtesy had disappeared with the first days of hardship and fatigue, he preserved for a time the semblance of respectability and respect. Presently, like the viler orders of Orientals, he presumed upon his usefulness, and his ability to forward the Expedition; the farther we progressed from our “point d’appui” the coast, the more independent became his manner,—of course it afterwards subsided into its former civility,—and an overpowering egotism formed the motive of his every action. I had imprudently allowed him to be accompanied by the charming Halimah. True to his servile origin, he never seemed happy except in servile society, where he was “king of his company.” At Kazeh, jealous of my regard for Snay bin Amir, and wearied by long evening conversations, where a little “ilm” or knowledge in the shape of history and divinity used to appear,—his ignorance and apathy concerning all things but A. bin B., and B. bin C., who married his son D. to the daughter of E., prevented his taking part in them,—he became first sulky, and then “contrarious.” Formerly he was wont, on the usual occasions, to address a word of salutation to my companion: this ceased, and presently he would pass him as if he had been a bale of cloth. He affected in society the indecorous posture of a European woman stretched upon a sofa, after crouching for months upon his shins,—in fact he was, as the phrase is, “trailing his jacket” for a quarrel.

Through timidity he had been profuse in expending the goods entrusted to his charge, and he had been repeatedly reproved for serving out, without permission, cloth and beads to his children. Yet, before reaching Unyanyembe,I never had reason to suspect him of dishonesty or deceit. At Kazeh, however, he was ordered to sell a keg of gunpowder, before his slaves could purloin the whole. He reported that he had passed on the commission to Snay bin Amir. I also forbade him to issue hire to porters for a return-march from the Lake, having been informed that such was the best way to secure their desertion; and the information proved true enough, as twenty-five disappeared in a single night. He repeatedly affirmed that he had engaged and paid them for the up-march only. When he stood convicted of a double falsehood, he had not spoken about the gunpowder, and he had issued whole hire to several of the porters, I improved the occasion with a mild reproach. The little creature became vicious as a weasel, screamed like a hyæna, declared himself no tallab or “asker,” but an official under his government, and poured forth a torrent of justification. I cut the same short by leaving the room—a confirmed slight in these lands—and left him to rough language on the part of Snay bin Amir. Some hours subsequently he recovered his temper, and observed that “even husband and wife must occasionally have a gird at each other.” Not caring, however, for a repetition of such puerilities, I changed the tone of kindness in which he had invariably been addressed, for one of routine command, and this was preserved till the day of our final parting on the coast.

The good Snay bin Amir redoubled his attentions. His slaves strung in proper lengths, upon the usual palm-fibre, the beads sent up loose from Zanzibar; and he distributed the bales in due proportions for carriage. Our lights being almost exhausted, he made for us “dips,” by ladling over wicks of unravelled “domestics” the contents of a cauldron filled with equal parts of hot wax and tallow. My servant, Valentine, who, evincing uncommon aptitude for cooking, had as yet acquired only that wretched art of burlesquing coarse English dishes which renders the table in Western India a standing mortification to man’s palate, was apprenticed to Mama Khamisi, a buxom housekeeper in Snay’s establishment. There, in addition to his various Goanese accomplishments—making curds and whey, butter, cheese, and ghee; potting fish, pickling onions and limes, and preparing jams and jelly from the pleasant and cooling rosel,—he learned the art of yeasting bread with whey or sour bean-flour (his leathery scones of coarse meal were an abomination to us); of straining honey, of preparing the favourite “Kawurmeh,” jerked or smoked meat chipped up and soused in ghee; of making Firni, rice-jelly, and Halwa, confectionery, in the shape of “Kazi’s luggage,” and “hand-works:” he was taught to make ink from burnt grain; and last, not least, the trick of boiling rice as it should be boiled. We, in turn, taught him the various sciences of bird-stuffing, of boiling down isinglass and ghee, of doctoring tobacco with plantain, heeart, and tea leaves, and of making milk-punch, cigars, and guraku for the hookah. Snay bin Amir also sent into the country for plantains and tamarinds, then unprocurable at Kazeh, and he brewed a quantity of beer and mawa or plantain-wine. He admonished the Baloch and the sons of Ramji to be more careful, as regards conduct and expenditure. He lent me valuable assistance in sketching the outlines of the Kinyamwezi, or language of Unyamwezi, and by his distances and directions we were enabled to lay down the Southern limits, and the general shape of the Nyanza or Northern Lake, as correctly—and the maps forwarded from Kazeh to the Royal Geographical Society will establish this fact—as they were subsequently determined, after actual exploration, by my companion. He took charge of our letters and papers intended for home, and he undertook to forward the lagging gang still expected from the Coast: as the future will prove, his energy enabled me to receive the much wanted reserve in the “nick of time.”

At length, it became apparent that no other porters were procurable at Kazeh, and that the restiff Baloch and the sons of Ramji disdaining Cæsar’s “ite,” required his “venite.” I therefore resolved to lead them, instead of expending time and trouble in driving them, trusting that old habit, and that the difficulties attending their remaining behind would induce them to follow me. After much murmuring, my companion preceded me on the 5th December, and “made a Khambi,” at Zimbili, a lumpy hill, with a north and south lay, and conspicuous as a landmark from the Arab settlements, which are separated from it by a march of two hours. On the third day I followed him, in truth, more dead than alive,—the wing of Azrael seemed waving over my head,—even the movement of the Manchila was almost unendurable. I found cold and comfortless quarters in a large village at the base of Zimbili, no cartel was procurable, the roof leaked, and every night brought with it a furious storm of lightning, wind, and rain. By slow degrees, the Baloch began to drop in, a few of the sons of Ramji, and the donkey-men followed, half-a-dozen additional porters were engaged, and I was recovering strength to advance once more, when the report that our long-expected caravan was halted at Rubuga, in consequence of desertion, rendered a further delay necessary. My companion returned to Kazeh, to await the arrival of the reserve-supplies, and I proceeded onwards to collect a gang for the journey westwards.

At 10 A.M., on the 15th December, I mounted the Manchila, carried by six slaves, hired by Snay bin Amir, from Khamis bin Salim at the rate of three pounds of white beads each, for the journey to Msene. After my long imprisonment, I was charmed with the prospect, a fine open country, with well-wooded hills rolling into blue distance on either hand. A two hours’ ride placed me at Yombo, a new and picturesque village of circular tents, surrounded by plantains and wild fruit-trees. The Mkuba bears an edible red plum, which, though scanty of flesh, as usual, where man’s care is wanting, was found by no means unpalatable. The Metrongoma produces a chocolate-coloured fruit, about the size of a cherry: it is eaten, but it lacks the grateful acid of the Mkuba. The gigantic Palmyra or Borassus, which failed in the barren platform of Ugogo, here re-appears, and hence extends to the Tanganyika Lake.

I halted two days at Yombo: the situation was low and unhealthy, and provisions were procurable in homœopathic quantities. My only amusement there was to watch the softer part of the population. At eventide, when the labours of the day were past and done, the villagers came home in a body, laden with their implements of cultivation, and singing a kind of “dulce domum,” in a simple and pleasing recitative. The sunset hour, in the “Land of the Moon,” is replete with enjoyments. The sweet and balmy breeze floats in waves, like the draught of a fan; the sky is softly and serenely blue; the fleecy clouds, stationary in the upper firmament, are robed in purple and gold, and the beautiful blush, crimsoning the west, is reflected by all the features of earth. At this time, all is life. The vulture soars with silent flight, high in the blue expanse; the small birds preen themselves for the night, and sing their evening hymns; the antelopes prepare to couch in the bush; the cattle and flocks frisk and gamble, whilst driven from their pastures; and the people busy themselves with the simple pleasures that end the day. Every evening there is a smoking party, which particularly attracts my attention. All the feminine part of the population, from wrinkled grandmother to the maiden scarcely in her teens, assemble together, and sitting in a circle upon dwarf stools and logs of wood, apply themselves to their long black-bowl’d pipes.

They smoke with an intense enjoyment, slowly and deeply inhaling the glorious weed, and exhaling clouds from their nostrils; at times they stop to cool the mouth with slices of raw manioc, or cobs of green maize roasted in the ashes; and often some earnest matter of local importance causes the pipes to be removed for a few minutes, and a clamour of tongues breaks the usual silence. The pipe also requires remark: the bowl is of imperfect material—the clay being half-baked—but the shape is perfect. The African tapering cone is far superior to the European bowl: the former gives as much smoke as possible whilst the tobacco is fresh and untainted, and as little when it becomes hot and unpleasant; the latter acts on the contrary principle. Amongst the fair of Yombo, there were no less than three beauties—women who would be deemed beautiful in any part of the world. Their faces were purely Grecian; they had laughing eyes, their figures were models for an artist, with—

like the “bending statue that delights the world” cast in bronze. The dress—a short kilt of calabash fibre,—rather set off than concealed their charms, and though destitute of petticoat or crinoline they were wholly unconscious of indecorum. It is a question that by no means can be positively answered in the affirmative, that real modesty is less in proportion to the absence of toilette. These “beautiful domestic animals” graciously smiled when in my best Kinyamwezi I did my devoir to the sex; and the present of a little tobacco always secured for me a seat in the undress circle.

After hiring twenty porters—five lost no time in deserting—and mustering the Baloch, of whom eleven now were present, I left Yombo on the 18th December, and passing through a thick green jungle, with low, wooded, and stony hills rising on the left hand, to about 4000 feet above sea-level, I entered the little settlement of Pano. The next day brought us to the clearing of Mfuto, a broad, populous, and fertile rolling plain, where the stately tamarind flourished to perfection. A third short march, through alternate patches of thin wood and field, studded with granite blocks, led to Irora, a village in Western Mfuto, belonging to Salim bin Salih, an Arab from Mbuamaji, and a cousin of Said bin Mohammed, my former travelling companion, who had remained behind at Kazeh. This individual, a fat, pulpy, and dingy-coloured mulatto, appeared naked to the waist, and armed with bow and arrows: he received me surlily, and when I objected to a wretched cow-shed outside his palisade, he suddenly waxed furious: he raved like a madman, shook his silly bow, and declared that he ignored the name of the Sayyid Majid, being himself as good a “Sultan” as any other. He became pacified on perceiving that his wrath excited nothing but the ridicule of the Baloch, found a better lodging, sent a bowl of fresh milk wherein to drown differences, and behaved on this and a subsequent occasion more like an Arab Shaykh, than an African headman.

On the 22nd December my companion rejoined me, bringing four loads of cloth, three of beads, and seven of brass wire: they formed part of the burden of the twenty-two porters who were to join the Expedition ten days after its departure from the coast. The Hindus, Ladha Damha and Mr. Rush Ramji, after the decease of Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton, had behaved with culpable neglect. The cloth was of the worst and flimsiest description; the beads were the cheap white and the useless black—the latter I was obliged to throw away; and as they sent up the supply without other guard than two armed slaves, “Mshindo” and “Kirikhota,” the consequence was that the pair had plundered ad libitum. No letters had been forwarded, and no attention had been paid to my repeated requests for drugs and other stores. My companion’s new gang, levied at Kazeh, affected the greatest impatience. They refused to halt for a day,—even Christmas day. They proposed double marches, and they resolved to proceed by the straight road to Msene. It was deemed best to humour them. They arrived, however, at their destination only one day before my party, who travelled leisurely, and who followed the longer and the more cultivated route.

We left Irora on the 23rd December, and marched from sunrise till noon to the district of Eastern Wilyankuru. There we again separated. On the next day I passed alone through the settlement called Muinyi Chandi, where certain Arabs from Oman had built large Tembe, to serve as barracoons and warehouses. This district supplies the adjoining countries with turmeric, of which very little grows in Unyanyembe. After this march disappeared the last of the six hammals who had been hired to carry the hammocks. They were as unmanageable as wild asses, ever grumbling and begging for “kitoweyo,”—“kitchen;”—constitutionally unfitted to obey an order; disposed, as the noble savage generally is, to be insolent; and, like all porters in this part of the world, unable to carry a palanquin. Two men, instead of four, insisted upon bearing the hammock; thus overburdened and wishing to get over the work, they hurried themselves till out of breath. When one was fagged, the man that should have relieved him was rarely to be found, consequently two or three stiff trudges knocked them up and made them desert. Said bin Salim, the Jemadar, and the Baloch, doubtlessly impressed with the belief that my days were numbered, passed me on the last march without a word—the sun was hot, and they were hastening to shade—and left me with only two men to carry the hammock, in a dangerous strip of jungle where, shortly afterwards, Salim bin Masud, an Arab merchant of Msene, was murdered.

On Christmas day I again mounted ass, and passing through the western third of the Wilyankuru district, was hospitably received by a wealthy proprietor, Salim bin Said, surnamed, probably on account of his stature, Simba, or the Lion, who had obtained from the Sultan Mrorwa permission to build a large Tembe. The worthy and kind-hearted Arab exerted himself strenuously to promote the comfort of his guest. He led me to a comfortable lodging, placed a new cartel in the coolest room, supplied meat, milk, and honey, and spent the evening in conversation with me. He was a large middle-aged man, with simple, kindly manners, and an honesty of look and words which rendered his presence exceedingly prepossessing.

After a short and eventless march, on the 26th December, to Masenge, I reached on the following day the little clearing of Kirira. I was unexpectedly welcomed by two Arabs, Masud ibn Musallam el Wardi, and Hamid bin Ibrahim el Amuri. The former, an old man of the Beni Bu Ali clan, and personally familiar with Sir Lionel Smith’s exploits, led me into the settlement, which was heaped round with a tall green growth of milkbush, and placed me upon a cartel in the cool and spacious barzah or vestibule of the Tembe. From my vantage-ground I enjoyed the pleasant prospect of those many little miseries which Orientals—perhaps not only Orientals—create for themselves by “ceremony” and “politeness.” Weary and fagged by sun and dust, the Baloch were kept standing for nearly half an hour before the preliminaries to sitting down could be arranged and the party could be marshalled in proper order,—the most honourable man on the left hand of the host, and the “lower class” off the dais or raised step;—and, when they commenced to squat, they reposed upon their shins, and could not remove their arms or accoutrements till especially invited to hang them up. Hungry and thirsty, they dared not commit the solecism of asking for food or drink; they waited from 9 A.M. till noon, sometimes eyeing the door with wistful looks, but generally affecting an extreme indifference as to feeding. At length came the meal, a mountain of rice, capped with little boulders of mutton. It was allowed to cool long before precedence round the tray was settled, and ere the grace, “Bismillah,”—the signal to “set to,”—was reverentially asked by Said bin Salim. Followed a preparation of curdled milk, for which spoons being requisite, a wooden ladle did the necessary. There was much bustling and not a little importance about Hamid, the younger host, a bilious subject twenty-four or twenty-five years old, who for reasons best known to himself assumed the style and title of Sarkal,—Government servant. The meal concluded with becoming haste, and was followed by that agreeable appearance of repletion which is so pleasing to the Oriental Amphitryon. The Baloch returned to squat upon their shins, and they must have suffered agonies till 5 P.M., when the appearance of a second and a more ceremonious repast enabled them once more to perch upon their heels. It was hard eating this time; the shorwa, or mutton broth, thickened with melted butter, attracted admiration; the guests, however, could only hint at its excellences, because in the East if you praise a man’s meat you intend to slight his society. The plat de résistance was, as usual, the pillaw, or, as it is here called, pulao,—not the conventional mess of rice and fowl, almonds and raisins, onion-shreds, cardomoms, and other abominations, which goes by that name amongst Anglo-Indians, but a solid heap of rice, boiled after being greased with a handful of ghee—

(I must here indulge in a little digression. For the past century, which concluded with reducing India to the rank of a British province, the proud invader has eaten her rice after a fashion which has secured for him the contempt of the East. He deliberately boils it, and after drawing off the nutritious starch or gluten called “conjee,” which forms the perquisite of his Portuguese or his Pariah cook, he is fain to fill himself with that which has become little more nutritious than the prodigal’s husks. Great, indeed, is the invader’s ignorance upon that point. Peace be to the manes of Lord Macaulay, but listen to and wonder at his eloquent words!—“The Sepoys came to Clive, not to complain of their scanty fare, but to propose that all the grain should be given to the Europeans, who required more nourishment than the natives of Asia. The thin gruel, they said, which was strained away from the rice would suffice for themselves. History contains no more touching instance of military fidelity, or of the influence of a commanding mind.” Indians never fail to drink the “conjee.” The Arab, on the other hand, mingles with his rice a sufficiency of ghee to prevent the extraction of the “thin gruel,” and thus makes the grain as palatable and as nutritious as Nature intended it to be.)

—and dotted over with morsels of fowl, so boiled that they shredded like yarn under the teeth. This repast again concluded with a bowl of sweetened milk, and other entremets, for which both hosts amply apologised; the house had lately been burned down, and honey had been used instead of sugar. The day concluded with prayers, with a seance in the verandah and with drinking fresh milk out of gourds—a state of things which again demanded excuses. A multitude of “Washenzi” thronged into the house, especially during the afternoon, to gaze at the Muzungu. I was formally presented to the Sultan Kafrira, a tall and wrinkled elder, celebrated for ready wits and spear. The sons of Ramji had often looked in at the door whilst preparations for feeding were going on, but they were not asked to sit down: the haughty host had provided them with a lean goat, in return for which they privily expressed an opinion that he was a “dog.” Masud, boasting of his intimacy with the Sultan Msimbira, whose subjects had plundered our portmanteau, offered on return to Unyanyembe his personal services in ransoming it. I accepted with joy; but the Shaykh Masud, as afterwards proved, nearly “left his skin” in the undertaking.

The climate of Kíríra is called by the Arabs a medicine. They vaunt its virtues, which become apparent after the unhealthy air of Kazeh, and after a delicious night spent in the cool barzah, I had no reason to question its reputation. I arose in the morning wonderfully refreshed, and Valentine, who had been prostrated with fever throughout the day, became another man. Yet the situation was apparently unpropitious; the Gombe Nullah, the main drain of this region, a line of stagnant pools, belted with almost impassable vegetation, lies hard by, and the background is an expanse of densest jungle.

Three short and eventless marches through thick jungle, with scattered clearings, led me, on the 30th December, to the district of Msene, where the dense wild growth lately traversed suddenly opens out and discloses to the west a broad view of admirable fertility. Before entering the settlements, the caravan halted, as usual, to form up. We then progressed with the usual pomp and circumstance; the noise was terrific, and the streets, or rather the spaces between the houses, were lined with Negroid spectators. I was led to the Tembe of one Saadullah, a low-caste Msawahili, and there found my companion looking but poorly. Gaetano, his “boy,” was so excited by the scene, that he fell down in a fit closely resembling epilepsy.

Msene, the chief Bandari of Western Unyamwezi, may be called the capital of the Coast Arabs and the Wasawahili, who, having a natural antipathy to their brethren of Oman, have abandoned to them Unyanyembe and its vicinity. Of late years, however, the Omani merchants, having been driven from the neighbouring districts by sundry murders into Msene, may at times be met there to the number of four or five. The inhabitants are chiefly Wasumbwá, a subtribe of the Wanyamwezi race. There is, however, besides Arabs and Wasawahili, a large floating population of the pastoral clan called Watosi, and fugitives from Uhha. In 1858 the chief of Msene was the Sultan Masanza. Both he and Funza, his brother, were hospitable and friendly to travellers, especially to the Arabs, who but a few years ago beat off with their armed slaves a large plundering party of the ferocious Watuta. This chief has considerable power, and the heads of many criminals elevated upon poles in front of his several villages show that he rules with a firm hand. He is never approached by a subject without the clapping of hands and the kneeling which in these lands are the honours paid to royalty. He was a large-limbed, gaunt, and sinewy old man, dressed in a dirty Subai or Arab check, over a coating of rancid butter, with a broad brass disk, neatly arabesqued, round his neck, with a multitude of little pigtails where his head was not bald, and with some thirty sambo or flexible wire rings deforming, as if by elephantiasis, his ankles. Like the generality of sultans, he despises beads as an article of decoration, preferring coils of brass or copper. He called several times at the house occupied by the Expedition, and on more than one occasion brought with him a bevy of wives, whose deportment was, I regret to say, rather naïve than decorous.

Msene, like Unyanyembe, is not a town, but a mass of detached settlements, which are unconscious of a regular street. To the northwards lie the villages of the Sultan—Kwihángá and Yovu. These are surrounded with a strong stockade, a deep moat, and a thick milk-bush hedge, intended for defence. The interior is occupied by thatched circular huts, divided by open squarelike spaces, and wynds and alleys are formed by milk-bush hedges and palisades. There are distinct places for the several wives, families, and slaves. The other settlements—Mbugání (“in the wild”) and Mji Mpia (“new town”), the latter being the place affected by the Wasawahili—cluster in a circle, separated by short cross-roads, which after rain are ankle-deep in mud, from Chyámbo, the favourite locale of the Coast Arabs. This settlement, which contained in 1858 nine large Tembe and about 150 huts, boasts of an African attempt at a soko or bazar, a clear space between the houses, where, in fine weather, bullocks are daily slaughtered for food, and where grain, vegetables, and milk are exposed for sale. At Msene a fresh outfit of cloth, beads, and wire can be procured for a price somewhat higher than at Unyanyembe. The merchants have small stores of drugs and spices, and sometimes a few comforts, as coffee, tea, and sugar. The latter is generally made of granulated honey, and therefore called sukárí zá ásalí. The climate of Msene is damp, the neighbouring hills and the thickly-vegetated country attracting an abundance of rain. It is exceedingly unhealthy, the result doubtless of filth in the villages and stagnant waters spread over the land. The Gombe Nullah, which runs through the district, about six hours’ march from the settlements, discharges after rain its superfluous contents into the many lakelets, ponds, and swamps of the lowlands. Fertilised by a wet monsoon, whose floods from the middle of October to May are interrupted only by bursts of fervent heat, the fat, black soil manured by the decay of centuries, reproduces abundantly anything committed to it. Flowers bloom spontaneously over the flats, and trees put forth their richest raiment. Rice of the red quality—the white is rare and dear—grows with a density and a rapidity unknown in Eastern Unyamwezi. Holcus and millet, maize and manioc, are plentiful enough to be exported. Magnificent palmyras, bauhinias and sycomores, plantains, and papaws, and a host of wild fruit-trees, especially the tamarind, which is extensively used, adorn the land. The other productions are onions, sweet potatoes, and egg-plants, which are cultivated; turmeric, brought from the vicinity; tomatos and bird-pepper, which grow wild; pulse, beans, pumpkins, water-melons, excellent mushrooms, and edible fungi. Milk, poultry, honey, and tobacco are cheap and plentiful. The currency at Msene in 1858—the date is specified, as the medium is liable to perpetual and sudden change, often causing severe losses to merchants, who, after laying in a large outfit of certain beads, find them suddenly unfashionable, and therefore useless—was the “pipe-stem,” white and blue porcelain-beads, called sofi in the string, and individually msaro. Of these ten were sufficient to purchase a pound of beef. The other beads in demand were the sungomaji, or pigeon-egg, the red-coral, the pink-porcelain, and the shell-decorations called kiwangwa. The cheaper varieties may be exchanged for grain and vegetables, but they will not purchase fowls, milk, and eggs. At this place only, the palmyra is tapped for toddy; in other parts of East Africa the people are unable to climb it. The market at Msene is usually somewhat cheaper than that of Unyanyembe, but at times the prices become very exorbitant.

The industry of Msene is confined to manufacturing a few cotton cloths, coarse mats, clay pipeheads, and ironmongery. As might be expected from the constitution of its society, Msene is a place of gross debauchery, most grateful to the African mind. All, from sultan to slave, are intoxicated whenever the material is forthcoming, and the relations between the sexes are of the loosest description. The drum is never silent, and the dance fills up the spare intervals of carouse, till exhausted nature can no more. The consequence is, that caravans invariably lose numbers by desertion when passing through Msene. Even household slaves, born and bred upon the coast, cannot tear themselves from its Circean charms.

There was “cold comfort” at Msene, where I was delayed twelve days. The clay roof of the Tembe was weed-grown like a deserted grave, and in the foul patio or central court-yard only dirty puddles set in black mud met the eye. The weather was what only they can realise who are familiar with a “Rainy Monsoon.” The temptations of the town rendered it almost impossible to keep a servant or a slave within doors; the sons of Ramji vigorously engaged themselves in trading, and Muinyi Wazira in a debauch, which ended in his dismissal. Gaetano had repeated epileptic fits, and Valentine rushed into the room half-crying to show a white animalcule—in this country called Funza—which had lately issued from his “buff.” None of the half-caste Arabs, except I’d and Khalfan, sons of Muallim Salim, the youths who had spread evil reports concerning us in Ugogo and elsewhere, called or showed any civility, and the only Arab at that time resident at Msene was the old Salim bin Masud. I received several visits from the Sultan Masanza. His first greeting was, “White man, what pretty thing hast thou brought up from the shore for me?” He presented a bullock, and received in return several cloths and strings of beads, and he introduced to us a variety of princesses, who returned the salutes of the Baloch and others with a wild effusion. As Christmas-day had been spent in marching, I hailed the opportunity of celebrating the advent of the New Year. Said bin Salim, the Jemadar, and several of the guard, were invited to an English dinner on a fair sirloin of beef, and a curious succedaneum for a plum-pudding, where neither flour nor currants were to be found. A characteristic trait manifested itself on this occasion. Amongst Arabs, the remnants of a feast must always be distributed to the servants and slaves of the guests;—a “brass knocker” would lose a man’s reputation. Knowing this, I had ordered the Goanese to do in Rome as the Romans do; and being acquainted with their peculiarities, I paid them an unexpected visit, where they were found so absorbed in the task of hiding, under pots and pans, every better morsel from a crowd of hungry peerers that the interruption of a stick was deemed necessary.

At length, on the 10th January, 1858, I left Msene with considerable difficulty. The Kirangozi, or guide, who had promised to accompany me, had sent an incompetent substitute, his brother, a raw young lad, who had no power to collect porters. The sons of Ramji positively refused to lend their aid in strengthening the gang. One of Said bin Salim’s children, the boy Faraj, had fled to Kazeh. The bull-headed Mabruki was brought back from flight only by the persuasion of his brother “Bombay,” and even “Bombay,” under the influence of some negroid Neæra, at the time of departure hid himself in his hut. All feared the march westwards. A long strip of blue hill lying northwards ever keeps the traveller in mind of the robber Watuta, and in places where the clans are mixed, all are equally hostile to strangers. Villages are less frequented and more meanly built, and caravans are not admitted beyond the faubourgs—the miserable huts outlying the fences. The land also is most unhealthy. After the rain, the rich dark loam becomes, like the black soils of Guzerat and the Deccan, a coat of viscid mire. Above is a canopy of cumulus and purple nimbus, that discharge their loads in copious day-long floods. The vegetation is excessive, and where there is no cultivation a dense matting of coarse grass, laid by wind and water and decayed by mud, veils the earth, and from below rises a clammy chill, like the thaw-cold of England, the effect of extreme humidity. And, finally, the paths are mere lines, pitted with deep holes, and worn by cattle through the jungle.

After an hour and thirty minutes’ march I entered Mb’hali, the normal cultivator’s village in Western Unyamwezi;—a heap of dwarf huts like inverted birds’ nests surrounding a central space, and surrounded by giant heaps of euphorbia or milk-bush. Tall grasses were growing almost up to the door-ways, and about the settlement were scattered papaws and plantains; the Mwongo, with its damson-like fruit, the Mtogwe or wood-apple tree, and the tall solitary Palmyra, whose high columnar stem, with its graceful central swell, was eminently attractive. We did not delay at Mb’hali, whence provisions had been exhausted by the markets of Msene. The 11th January led us through a dense jungle upon a dead flat, succeeded by rolling ground bordered with low hills and covered with alternate bush and cultivation, to Sengati, another similar verdure-clad village of peasantry, where rice and other supplies were procurable. On the 12th January, after passing over a dead flat of fields and of the rankest grass, we entered rolling ground in the vicinity of the Gombe Nullah, with scattered huts upon the rises, and villages built close to the dense vegetation bordering upon the stream. Sorora or Solola is one of the deadliest spots in Unyamwezi; we were delayed there, however, three long days, by the necessity of collecting a two months’ supply of rice, which is rarely to be obtained further west.

The non-appearance of the sons of Ramji rendered it necessary to take a strong step. I could ill afford the loss of twelve guns, but Kidogo and his men had become insufferable: moreover, they had openly boasted that they intended to prevent my embarking upon the “Sea of Ujiji.” Despite therefore the persuasions of the Jemadar and Said bin Salim, who looked as if they had heard their death-warrants, I summoned the slaves, who first condescended to appear on the 13th January—three days after my departure,—informed them that the six months for which they were engaged and paid had expired, and that they had better return and transact their proprietor’s business at Kazeh. They changed, it is true, their tone and manner, pathetically pleaded, as an excuse for their ill conduct, that they were slaves, and promised in future to be the most obedient of servants. But they had deceived me too often, and I feared that, if led forwards, they might compromise the success of the exploration. They were therefore formally dismissed, with a supply of cloth and beads sufficient to reach Kazeh, a letter to their master, and another paper to Snay bin Amir, authorising him to frank them to their homes. Kidogo departed, declaring that he would carry off perforce, if necessary, the four donkey-drivers who had been engaged and paid for the journey to the “Sea of Ujiji” and back: as two of these men, Nasibu and Hassani, openly threatened to desert, they were at once put in irons and entrusted to the Baloch. They took oaths on the Koran, and, by strong swearing, persuaded Said bin Salim and their guard to obtain my permission for their release. I gave it unwillingly, and on the next march they “levanted,” carrying off, as runaway slaves are wont to do, a knife, some cloth, and other necessaries belonging to Sangora, a brother donkey-driver. Sangora returning without leave, to recover his goods, was seized, tied up, and severely fustigated by the inexorable Kidogo, for daring to be retained whilst he himself was dismissed.

The Kirangozi and Bombay having rejoined at Sorora, the Expedition left it on the 16th January. Traversing a fetid marsh, the road plunged into a forest, and crossed a sharp elbow of the Gombe Nullah, upon whose grassy and reedy banks lay a few dilapidated “baumrinden” canoes, showing that at times the bed becomes unfordable. Having passed that night at Ukungwe, and the next at Panda, dirty little villages, where the main of the people’s diet seemed to be mushrooms resembling ours and a large white fungus growing over the grassy rises, on the 18th January we entered Kajjanjeri.

Kajjanjeri appeared in the shape of a circle of round huts. Its climate is ever the terror of travellers: to judge from the mud and vegetation covering the floors, the cultivators of the fields around usually retire to another place during the rainy season. Here a formidable obstacle to progress presented itself. I had been suffering for some days: the miasmatic air of Sorora had sown the seeds of fresh illness. About 3 P.M., I was obliged to lay aside the ephemeris by an unusual sensation of nervous irritability, which was followed by a general shudder as in the cold paroxysm of fevers. Presently the extremities began to weigh and to burn as if exposed to a glowing fire, and a pair of jack-boots, the companions of many a day and night, became too tight and heavy to wear. At sunset, the attack had reached its height. I saw yawning wide to receive me