The whole body was palsied, powerless, motionless, and the limbs appeared to wither and die; the feet had lost all sensation, except a throbbing and tingling, as if pricked by a number of needle points; the arms refused to be directed by will, and to the hands the touch of cloth and stone was the same. Gradually the attack seemed to spread upwards till it compressed the ribs; there, however, it stopped short.

This, at a distance of two months from medical aid, and with the principal labour of the Expedition still in prospect! However, I was easily consoled. Hope, says the Arab, is woman, Despair is man. If one of us was lost, the other might survive to carry home the results of the exploration. I had undertaken the journey in the “nothing-like-leather” state of mind, with the resolve either to do or die. I had done my best, and now nothing appeared to remain for me but to die as well.

Said bin Salim, when sent for, declared, by a “la haul!” the case beyond his skill; it was one of partial paralysis brought on by malaria, with which the faculty in India are familiar. The Arab consulted a Msawahili Fundi, or caravan-guard, who had joined us on the road, and this man declared that a similar accident had once occurred to himself and his little party in consequence of eating poisoned mushrooms. I tried the usual remedies without effect, and the duration of the attack presently revealed what it was. The contraction of the muscles, which were tightened like ligatures above and below the knees, and those λυτα γουνατα, a pathological symptom which the old Greek loves to specify, prevented me from walking to any distance for nearly a year; the numbness of the hands and feet disappeared even more slowly. The Fundi, however, successfully predicted that I should be able to move in ten days—on the tenth I again mounted my ass.

This unforeseen misfortune detained the caravan at Kajjanjeri till porters could be procured for the hammock. On the 21st January four men were with difficulty persuaded to carry me over the first march to Usagozi. This gang was afterwards increased to six men, who severally received six cloths for the journey to Ujiji; they all “bolted” eight days after their engagement, and before completing half the journey. These men were sturdier than the former set of Hammals, but being related to the Sultan of Usagozi, they were even more boisterous, troublesome, and insolent. One of them narrowly escaped a pistol bullet; he ceased, however, stabbing with his dagger at the slave Mabruki before the extreme measure became necessary.

Usagozi was of old the capital province of Unyamwezi, and is still one of its principal and most civilised divisions. Some authorities make Usagozi the western frontier of Unyamwezi, others place the boundary at Mukozimo, a few miles to the westward; it is certain, however, that beyond Usagozi the Wanyamwezi are but part-proprietors of the soil. The country is laid out in alternate seams of grassy plains, dense jungle, and fertile field. The soil is a dark vegetable humus, which bears luxuriant crops of grain, vegetables, and tobacco; honey-logs hang upon every large tree, cattle are sold to travellers, and the people are deterred by the aspect of a dozen discoloured skulls capping tall poles, planted in a semicircle at the main entrance of each settlement, from doing violence to caravans. When I visited Usagozi it was governed by “Sultan Ryombo,” an old chief “adorned with much Christian courtesy.” His subjects are Wakalaganza, the noble tribe of the Wanyamwezi, mixed, however with the Watosi, a fine-looking race, markedly superior to their neighbours, but satisfied with leaky, ragged, and filthy huts, and large but unfenced villages. The general dress of the Wakalaganza is bark-cloth, stained a dull black.

We halted three days on the western extremity of the Usagozi district, detained by another unpleasant phenomenon. My companion, whose blood had been impoverished, and whose system had been reduced by many fevers, now began to suffer from “an inflammation of a low type, affecting the whole of the interior tunic of the eyes, particularly the iris, the choroid coat, and the retina;” he describes it as “an almost total blindness, rendering every object enclouded as by a misty veil.” The Goanese Valentine became similarly afflicted, almost on the same day; he complained of a “drop serene” in the shape of an inky blot—probably some of the black pigment of the iris deposited on the front of the lens—which completely excluded the light of day; yet the pupils contracted with regularity when covered with the hand, and as regularly dilated when it was removed. I suffered in a minor degree; for a few days webs of flitting muscæ obscured smaller objects and rendered distant vision impossible. My companion and servant, however, subsequently, at Ujiji, were tormented by inflammatory ophthalmia, which I escaped by the free use of “camel-medicine.”

Quitting Usagozi on the 26th January, we marched through grain fields, thick jungle-strips, and low grassy and muddy savannahs to Masenza, a large and comfortable village of stray Wagara or Wagala, an extensive tribe, limiting Unyamwezi on the S. and S.E., at the distance of about a week’s march from the road. On the 27th January, after traversing cultivation, thick jungles, and low muddy bottoms of tall grass chequered with lofty tamarinds, we made the large well-palisadoed villages of the Mukozimo district, inhabited by a mixture of Wanyamwezi, with Wagara from the S.E. and Wawende from the S.W. The headman of one of these inhospitable “Kaya,” or fenced hamlets, would not house “men who ride asses.” The next station was Uganza, a populous settlement of Wawende, who admitted us into their faubourg, but refused to supply provisions. The 29th January saw us at the populous and fertile clearing of Usenye, where the mixed races lying between the Land of the Moon eastward, and Uvinza westward, give way to pure Wavinza, who are considered by travellers even more dangerous than their neighbours.

Beyond Usenye we traversed a deep jungle where still lingered remains of villages which had been plundered and burned down by the Wawende and the Watuta, whose hills rose clearly defined on the right hand. Having passed the night at Rukunda, or Lukunda, on the 31st January we sighted the plain of the Malagarazi River. Northwards of the road ran the stream, and the low level of the country adjoining it had converted the bottoms into permanent beds of soft, deep, and slippery mire. The rest of the march was the usual country—jungle, fields, and grasses—and after a toilsome stretch, we unpacked at the settlement of Wanyika.

At Wanyika we were delayed for a day by the necessity of settling Kuhonga, or blackmail, with the envoys of Mzogera. This great man, the principal Sultan of Uvinza, is also the Lord of the Malagarazi River. As he can enforce his claims by forbidding the ferrymen to assist strangers, he must be carefully humoured. He received about forty cloths, white and blue, six Kitindi or coil bracelets, and ten Fundo (or 100 necklaces) of coral beads. It is equivalent in these lands to 50l. in England. When all the items had been duly palavered over, we resumed our march on the 2nd February. The road, following an incline towards the valley of the river, in which bush and field alternated with shallow pools, black mud, and putrid grass, led to Unyanguruwwe, a miserable settlement, producing, however, millet in abundance, sweet potatoes, and the finest manioc. On the 3rd February we set out betimes. Spanning cultivation and undulating grassy ground, and passing over hill-opens to avoid the deeper swamps, we debouched from a jungle upon the river-plain, with the swift brown stream, then about fifty yards broad, swirling through the tall wet grasses of its banks on our right hand, hard by the road. Upon the off side a herd of elephants, forming Indian file, slowly broke through the reed-fence in front of them: our purblind eyes mistook them for buffaloes. Northwards lay an expanse of card-table plain, over which the stream, when in flood, debords to the distance of two miles, cutting it with deep creeks and inlets. The flat is bounded in the far offing by a sinuous line of faint blue hills, the haunts of the Watuta; whilst, westward and southward, rises the wall-shaped ridge, stony and wooded, which buttresses the left bank of the river for some days’ journey down the stream. We found lodgings for the night in a little village, called from its district Ugaga; we obtained provisions, and we lost no time in opening the question of ferryage. The Sultan Mzogera had sold his permission to cross the river. The Mutware, or Mutwale, the Lord of the Ferry, now required payment for his canoes.

Whilst delayed at Ugaga by the scabrous question of how much was to be extracted from me, I will enter into a few geographical details concerning the Malagarazi River.

The Malagarazi, corrupted by speculative geographers to Mdjigidgi,—the uneuphonious terminology of the “Mombas Mission Map,”—to “Magrassie” and to “Magozi,” has been wrongly represented to issue from the Sea of Ujiji. According to all travellers in these regions, it arises in the mountains of Urundi, at no great distance from the Kitangure, or River of Karagwah; but whilst the latter, springing from the upper counterslope, feeds the Nyanza or Northern Lake, the Malagarazi, rising in the lower slope of the equatorial range, trends to the south-east, till it becomes entangled in the decline of the Great Central African Depression—the hydrographical basin first indicated in his Address of 1852 by Sir Roderick I. Murchison, President of the Royal Geographical Society of London.[10] Thence it sweeps round the southern base of Urundi, and, deflected westwards, it disembogues itself into the Tanganyika. Its mouth is in the land of Ukaranga, and the long promontory behind which it discharges its waters, is distinctly visible from Kawele, the head-quarters of caravans in Ujiji. The Malagarazi is not navigable; as in primary and transition countries generally, the bed is broken by rapids. Beyond the ferry, the slope becomes more pronounced, branch and channel-islets of sand and verdure divide the stream, and as every village near the banks appears to possess one or more canoes, it is probably unfordable. The main obstacle to crossing it on foot, over the broken and shallower parts near the rock-bars, would be the number and the daring of the crocodiles.

The Lord of the Ferry delayed us at Ugaga by removing the canoes till he had extracted fourteen cloths and one coil-bracelet,—half his original demand. Moreover, for each trip the ferryman received from one to five khete of beads, according to the bulk, weight, and value of the freight. He was as exorbitant when we returned; then he would not be satisfied with less than seven cloths, a large jar of palm oil, and at least three hundred khete. On the 4th February we crossed to Mpete, the district on the right or off bank of the stream. After riding over the river plain, which at that time, when the rains had not supersaturated the soil, was hard and dry, we came upon the “Ghaut,” a muddy run or clearing in the thicket of stiff grass which crossed the stream. There we found a scene of confusion. The Arabs of Kazeh had described the canoes as fine barges, capable of accommodating fifty or sixty passengers. I was not, however, surprised to find wretched “baumrinden”—tree-rind—canoes, two strips of “myombo” bark, from five to seven feet in length, sown together like a doubled wedge with fibres of the same material. The keel was sharp, the bow and stern were elevated, and the craft was prevented from collapsing by cross-bars—rough sticks about eighteen inches long, jammed ladder-wise between the sides. When high and dry upon the bank, they look not unlike castaway shoes of an unusual size. We entered “gingerly.” The craft is crankier than the Turkish caïque, and we held on “like grim death” to the gunwale with wetted fingers. The weight of two men causes these canoes to sink within three or four inches of water-level. An extra sheet of stiff bark was placed as a seat in the stern; but the interior was ankle-deep in water, and baling was necessary after each trip. The ferryman, standing amidships or in the fore, poled or paddled according to the depth of the stream. He managed skilfully enough, and on the return-march I had reason to admire the dexterity with which he threaded the narrow, grass-grown and winding veins of deep water, that ramified from the main trunk over the swampy and rushy plains on both sides. Our riding asses were thrown into the river, and they swam across without accident. Much to my surprise, none of the bales were lost or injured. The ferrymen showed decision in maintaining, and ingenuity in increasing, their claims. On the appearance of opposition they poled off to a distance, and squatted, quietly awaiting the effect of their decisive manœuvre. When the waters are out, it is not safe to step from the canoe before it arrives at its destination. The boatman will attempt to land his passenger upon some dry mound emerging from deep water, and will then demand a second fee for salvage.

END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.

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