At noon, on the 16th of June, 1857, the corvette Artémise, after the usual expenditure of gunpowder which must in Eastern lands announce every momentous event, from the birth of a prince to the departure of a bishop, slowly gliding out of Zanzibar harbour, afforded us a farewell glance at the whitewashed mosques and houses of the Arabs, the cadjan-huts, the cocoa-grown coasts, and the ruddy hills striped with long lines of clove. Onwards she stole before a freshening breeze, the balmy breath of the Indian Ocean, under a sun that poured a flood of sparkling light over the azure depths and the bright green shallows around, between the “elfin isles” of Kumbeni, with its tall trees, and Chumbi, tufted with dense thickets, till the white sandstrip mingled with the blue ocean, the gleaming line of dwarf red cliff and scaur dropped into the water’s edge, the land faded from emerald to brown, and from brown to hazy purple, the tufts of the trees seemed first to stand out of, then to swim upon, the wave, and as evening, the serenest of tropical evenings, closed in over sky, earth, and sea, a cloud-like ridge, dimly discernible from our quarter, was all that remained of Zanzibar.

I will not here stay the course of my narrative to inform the reader that Zanzibar is not, as the Cyclopædias declare, “an island of Africa, governed by a king who is subject to the Portuguese;” that it is not, as the Indian post-offices appear to believe, a part of the Persian Gulf; nor, as homekeeping folk, whose notions of African geography are somewhat dim and ill-defined, have mentally determined, a rock in the Red Sea, nor a dependency of the Niger, nor even an offshoot of the Cape of Storms.

The Artémise is a kind of “Jackass-frigate,” an 18-gun corvette, teak-built in Bombay, with a goodly breadth of beam, a slow sailer, but a sure. In the days of our deceased ally, Sayyid Said, the misnamed “Imaum of Muscat,” she had so frequently been placed by his Highness at the disposal of his old friend Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton, that she had acquired the sobriquet of “the Balyuz or Consul’s yacht.” On this occasion she had been fitted up for a cruise to the mainland; her yards, usually struck, had been swayed up and thrown across; her top spars had been transferred from the hold to their proper place; her ropes and rigging, generally hanging in tatters about her sticks, had been carefully overhauled; her old sails had been bent, and her usual crew, a few slaves that held their own with difficulty against a legion of rats and an army of cockroaches, had been increased to its full complement of twenty men. His Highness the Sayyid Majid, who after the demise of his father had assumed the title of “Sultan of Zanzibar and the Sawahil,” came on board accompanied by his four brothers, of whom two—Sayyids Jamshid and Hamdan—died of small-pox before our return, and one—Sayyid Barghash—has lately become a state prisoner at Bombay, to bid what proved a last adieu to his father’s friend. At the same time His Highness honoured me, through his secretary, Ahmed bin Nuuman, more generally known as Wajhayn, or “Two-faces,” with three letters of introduction, to Musa Mzuri, the Indian doyen of the merchants settled at Unyamwezi, to the Arabs there resident, and to all his subjects who were travelling into the interior.

The Artémise conveyed the personnel and the matériel of the East African Expedition, namely, the two European members—my companion and myself—two Portuguese, or rather half-caste Goanese “boys,” two Negro gun-carriers, the Seedy Mubarak Mombai (Bombay), and Muinyi Mabruki, his “brother,” and finally, eight so-called “Baloch” mercenaries, a guard appointed by the Sultan to accompany me. Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton, at that time Her Majesty’s consul and Hon. East India Company’s agent at Zanzibar, though almost lethargic from the effects of protracted illness—he lived only in the evening—had deemed it his duty to land us upon the coast, and to superintend our departure from the dangerous seaboard. He was attended by Mr. Frost, the apothecary attached to the consulate, whose treatment for a fatal liver-complaint appeared to consist of minute doses of morphia and a liberal diet of sugar.

By Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton’s advice, I ventured to modify the scheme of the East African Expedition, as originally proposed by the Expeditionary Committee of the Royal Geographical Society of London. In 1855, M. Erhardt, an energetic member of the hapless “Mombas Mission,” had on his return to London offered to explore a vast mass of water, about the size of the Caspian, which, from the information of divers “natives,” he had deposited in slug or leech shape in the heart of Intertropical Africa, thus prolonging the old “Maravi,” or “Moravim Lake” of Portuguese travellers and school atlases, to the north of the equator, and thus bringing a second deluge upon sundry provinces and kingdoms thoroughly well known for the last half century. He had proposed to land, with an outfit of 300 dollars[1], at Kilwa, one of the southern ports of the Zanzibar mainland, to hire a score of Wasawahili porters, to march with a caravan upon the nearest point of his own water, and to launch an adventurous canoe upon a lake which, according to his map, could not be traversed under twenty-five days. Messrs. Erhardt and Krapf, of the “Mombas Mission,” spent, it is true, a few hours at Kilwa, where they were civilly entreated by the governor and the citizens; but they egregiously deceived themselves and others, when they concluded that they could make that place their ingress-point. Lieut. Christopher, I.N., who visited the East African coast in 1843, wisely advised explorers to avoid the neighbourhood of Kilwa. Wisely, I repeat: the burghers of that proud old settlement had, only a year before my arrival, murdered, by means of the Wangindo savages, an Arab merchant who ventured to lay open the interior.

At the same time I had laid before the Council of the Royal Geographical Society my desire to form an expedition primarily for the purpose of ascertaining the limits of the “Sea of Ujiji, or Unyamwezi Lake,” and secondarily, to determine the exportable produce of the interior, and the ethnography of its tribes. I have quoted exactly the words of the application. In these days every explorer of Central Africa is supposed to have set out in quest of the coy sources of the White Nile, and when he returns without them, his exploration, whatever may have been its value, is determined to be a failure. The Council honoured my plans with their approval. At their solicitation, the Foreign Office granted the sum of 1000l. for the outlay of the exploration, and the defunct Court of Directors of the late East India Company, who could not be persuaded to contribute towards the expenses, generously allowed me two years’ leave of absence from regimental duty, for the purpose of commanding the Expedition. I also received instructions to report myself to his Excellency the Lord Elphinstone, then Governor of Bombay, and to Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton, from whose influence and long experience much was expected.

When the starting-point came to be debated, the Consul strongly objected to an Expedition into the interior viâ Kilwa, on account of the opposition to be expected at a port so distant from the seat of government, where the people, half-caste Arabs and Wasawahili, who are under only a nominal control, still retained a strong predilection for protection, and a violent hostility to strangers. These reasons led him to propose my landing upon the coast opposite Zanzibar, and to my thence marching with a strong escort, despatched by the Arab prince, through the maritime tribes, whose cruel murder of M. Maizan, the first European known to have penetrated beyond the sea-board, was yet fresh in the memories of men. This notion was accepted the more readily, as during my short preliminary sojourn at Zanzibar, I had satisfactorily ascertained from Arab travellers that the Maravi or Kilwa Lake is distinct from the “Sea of Ujiji;” that the former is of comparatively diminutive dimensions; that there is no caravan route between the two; and therefore that, by exploring the smaller, I should lose the chance of discovering the larger water. Moreover, the general feeling of the Zanzibarites—of the Christian merchants, whom I had offended by collecting statistics about copal-digging, ivory, and sesamum—of the Bhattias or Hindus of Cutch, who systematically abuse the protection of the British flag to support the interest of the slave trade—of the Arabs, who remembered nothing but political intrigue in the explorations of the “Mombas Mission,” and the lamentable result of Dr. Krapf’s political intrigues—and of the Africans generally, who are disposed to see in every innovation some new form of evil—had been conveyed to my ears explicitly enough to warrant my apprehensions for the success of the Expedition, had I insisted upon carrying out the project proposed by M. Erhardt.

I must here explain, that before my departure from England, the Church Missionary Society had supplied me, after a personal interview in Salisbury Square, with a letter to their employé, M. Rebmann, the last remnant of that establishment at Mombasah, which had, it is said, expended about 12,000l. with the minimest of results. The missionaries had commenced operations with vigour, and to the work of conversion they had added certain discoveries in the unknown lands of the interior, which attracted the attention of European geographers. Unhappily Dr. Krapf, the principal, happened to commit himself by the following assertion:—“The Imaum of Muskat has not an inch of ground on the coast between the Island of Wassin and the Pangani River; this tract, in fact, belonging to King Kmeri of Usumbara, down from 4° 30′ to 5° 30′ S. The tract, which is very low, is inhabited by the Wasegua tribes, and is the chief slave-market for supplying Zanzibar.”

This “information,” put forth in the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society (vol. i. p. 203), was copied into the Proceedings (vol. xxiii. p. 106), with the remark, that the territory alluded to was a “supposed possession” of the Imaum. Orientals are thin-skinned upon questions of land; the assertion was directly opposed to fact, and the jealousy of the rival representatives at Zanzibar each on his own side, exaggerated its tendency. Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton, who felt his influence sapped by this error on the part of his protégé, had reported the facts to his government. Dr. Krapf had quitted the scene of his labours and discoveries, but his Highness the Sultan and the sadat, or court, retained a lively remembrance of the regretable incident. Before the arrival of the Expedition, “Muhiyy-el-Din,” the Shafei Kazi of the island, had called upon Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton, probably by direction of his superiors, and had received an answer, fortified by an oath, that the Expedition was wholly independent of “Dutchmen,” as the missionaries were called by the Zanzibarites. I was compelled, somewhat unwillingly, to dispense with urging M. Rebmann’s presence. By acting in any other way I should have lost the assistance of the consul, and the Arabs, with a ready display of zeal, would have secured for me an inevitable failure.

At six P.M. on Wednesday, the 17th of June, 1857, the Artémise cast anchor off Wale Point, a long, low bush-grown sandspit, about eighty-four miles distant from the little town of Bagamoyo. Our sailing-master, Mohammed bin Khamis, anchored in deep water, throwing out double the length of chain required. For this prudence, however, there was some reason. The road-steads are open; the muddy bottom shelves gradually, almost imperceptibly; the tides retire ten or eleven feet, and a strong gale, accompanied by the dangerous raz de marée, or rollers from seaward, especially at the seasons of the syzygies, with such a shore to leeward, is justly dreaded by the crews of square-rigged vessels.

There is a something peculiarly interesting in the first aspect of the “Mrima,” the hill-land, as this portion of the African coast is called by the islanders of Zanzibar. On one side lies the Indian Ocean, illimitable towards the east, dimpled with its “anerithmon gelasma,” and broken westward by a thin line of foam, creaming upon the whitest and finest of sand, the detritus of coralline and madrepore. It dents the coast deeply, forming bays, bayous, lagoons, and backwaters, where, after breaking their force upon bars and black ledges of sand and rock, upon diabolitos, or sun-stained masses of a coarse conglomerate, and upon strong weirs planted in crescent shape, the waters lie at rest in the arms of the land like sheets of oil. The points and islets formed by these sea-streams are almost flush with the briny surface, yet they are overgrown with a profuse vegetation, the result of tropical suns and copious showers, which supply the want of rich soil. The banks of the backwaters are lined with forests of white and red mangrove. When the tide is out, the cone-shaped root-work supporting each tree rises naked from the deep sea-ooze; parasitical oysters cluster over the trunks at water-level, and between the adults rise slender young shoots, tipped with bunches of brilliant green. The pure white sand is bound together by a kind of convolvulus, whose large fleshy leaves and lilac-coloured flowers creep along the loose soil. Where raised higher above the ocean level, the coast is a wall of verdure. Plots of bald old trees, bent by the regular breezes, betray the positions of settlements which, generally sheltered from sight, besprinkle the coast in a long straggling line, like the suburbs of a populous city. Of these, thirteen were counted in a space of three miles. The monotony of green that clothes the soil is relieved in places by dwarf earth-cliffs and scaurs of rufous hue—East Africa is mostly a red land—and behind the foreground of littoral or alluvial plain, at a distance varying from three to five miles, rises a blue line of higher level, conspicuous even from Zanzibar Island, the sandy raised beach now the frontier of the wild men. To this sketch add its accompaniment; by day, the plashing of the wave, and the scream of the gull, with the perpetual hum and buzz of insect life; and, after sunset, the deep, dead silence of a tropical night, broken only by the roar of the old bull-crocodile at his resting-time, the qua-qua of the night-heron, and the shouts and shots of the watchmen, who know from the grunts of the hippopotamus, struggling up the bank, that he is quitting his watery home to pay a visit to their fields.

We were delayed ten days off Wale Point by various preliminaries to departure. Said bin Salim, a half-caste Arab of Zanzibar, who, sorely against his will, was ordered by the prince to act as Ras Kafilah, or caravan-guide, had, after ceaseless and fruitless prayers for delay, preceded us about a fortnight, for the purpose of collecting porters. The timid little man, whose nerves were shaken to weeping-point by the terrors of the way, and by the fancy that, thus cooperating with the exploration, he was incurring the hatred of his fellows, had “taken the shilling,” in the shape of 500 dollars, advanced from public funds by the consul, with a promise of an ample reward in hard coin, and a gold watch, “si se bene gesserit:” at the same time Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton had warned me against trusting to a half-caste. Accompanied by a Cutch Banyan of the Bhattia caste, by name Ramji—of whom more anon—he had crossed over, on the 1st of June, to the main-land, and had hired a gang of porters, who, however, hearing that their employer was a Muzungu, a “white man,” at once dispersed, forgetting to return their hire. About one hundred and seventy men were required; only thirty-six were procurable. The large amount of carriage was necessitated by the bulky and ponderous nature of African specie, cotton cloth, brass-wire, and beads, of which a total of seventy loads was expended in one year and nine months. Moreover, under the impression that “vert and venison” abounded in the interior, I had provided ammunition for two years,—ten thousand copper-caps of sizes, forty boxes, each restricted, for convenience of porterage, to forty pounds, and containing ball, grape, and shot, six fire-proof magazines, and two small barrels of fine powder, weighing in total fifty pounds, together with four ten-pound kegs of a coarser kind for the escort,—in all, two hundred rounds for each individual of the party. This supply was deemed necessary on account of the immense loss to which ammunition is subjected by theft and weather in these lands.

On the second day after anchoring off Wale Point, a native boat brought on board the Artémise Ladha Damha, the collector of customs at Zanzibar, who, in compliment to Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton, of old his friend and patron, had torn himself from his beloved occupations to push the departure of the Expedition. Ladha, hearing that the Arab merchants had hastened to secure their gangs before corrupted by the more liberal offers of the “white men,”—“Pagazi,” or porters, being at that time scarce, because the caravans from the interior had not yet reached the coast,—proposed to send forward the thirty-six fellows hired by Said bin Salim, with orders to await the arrival of their employer at Zungomero, in the land of K’hutu, a point situated beyond the plundering maritime tribes. These men carried goods to the value of 654 dollars German crowns (each 4s. 2d.), and they received for hire 124 dollars; rations, that is to say, 1·50 lbs. of grain per diem, not included: they preferred to travel with the escort of two slave-musketeers rather than to incur the fancied danger of accompanying a “Muzungu,” though followed by a well-armed party. For the personal baggage and the outfit necessary for crossing the maritime region, which reached by waste the figure of 295 dollars, asses were proposed by Ladha Damha: Zanzibar and the mainland harbours were ransacked, and in a short time thirty animals, good, bad, and indifferent, were fitted for the roads with large canvas bags and vile Arab packsaddles, composed of damaged gunny-bags stuffed with straw. It was necessary to leave behind, till a full gang of porters could be engaged, the greater part of the ammunition, the iron boat which had proved so useful on the coasting voyage to Mombasah, and the reserve supply of cloth, wire, and beads, valued at 359 dollars. The Hindus promised faithfully to forward these articles, and received 150 dollars for the hire of twenty-two men, who were to start in ten days. Nearly eleven months, however, elapsed before they appeared; caravan after caravan came up from the coast, yet the apathetic Bhattias pretended want of porters as the cause of their delay. Evidently my preparations were hurriedly made; strong reasons, however, urged me on,—delay, even for a few days, might have been fatal.

During the brief detention off Wale Point, the latitudes and longitudes of the estuary of the Kingani, the main artery of these regions, and of the little settlements Bagamoyo and Kaole,—strongly against the advice of Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton, who declared that by such proceedings the Expedition was going to the bad,—were laid down by my companion: a novice lunarian, he was assisted by Mohammed bin Khamis, who had read his “Norie” in England. Various visits to the hippopotamus haunts produced little beyond the damaging of the corvette’s gig, which, suddenly uplifted from the water upon the points of two tusks, showed two corresponding holes in her bottom. Nor did I neglect to land as often as possible at Kaole, the point of departure upon the mainland, for the purpose of making sketches with the pen and pencil, of urging on preparations, and of gathering those items of “bazar-gup,” i. e., tittle-tattle, that represents the labours of the “fourth estate” in Eastern lands.

The little settlement of “Kaole”—an abbreviation of Kaole Urembo, meaning literally, in the ancient dialect of the coast, “to show beauty”—is the normal village-port in these regions, which, from Mombasah southwards to Kilwa, still ignore a town of masonry. You land, when the tide is out, upon half a mile of muddy sand, and if a “swell,” you are carried by four men upon the Kitanda—cot or cartel—which is slung along the side of your craft. Arrived at the strip of dry ground that marks the limit of the tide, you are let down, and amidst the shouts of the men, the shrieks of the women, and the naïve remarks of the juvenile population, you ascend by a narrow footpath, worn through the thick jungle and through the millet-fields which press upon the tattered palisade, a dwarf steep bank, on whose summit the settlement lies. Inside the fence are a dozen pent-roofed houses, claret-chests of wattle and dab, divided into three or more compartments by dwarf party-walls of the same material: each messuage is jealously separated from its neighbour by large enclosed “compounds” or court-yards appropriated to the women and children. The largest timber is that of the mangrove; the flying thatch-roof, so raised that, though windows are unknown, the interior enjoys tolerable ventilation, is of jauli, or rude cocoa-plaits, and under the long and projecting eaves, which rest upon strong perpendiculars, are broad earth-benches, divided by the entrance, and garnished with mats: these form the shops and sitting-rooms of the settlement. Some houses have a partial second story, like a ship’s bunk, a planking supported by rafters, and used as a store-closet or a dormitory. Around the larger habitations cluster masses of hovels, and the characteristic African haycock-huts. With closed doors in still weather, these dens are unendurable to a European; the people, however, fearing thieves and wild beasts, never fail to barricade themselves within at night. The only attempt at masonry in the settlement is the “Gurayza,” or fort, a square of lime and coralline, with store-rooms for the Banyan’s goods below, and provided with a crenelled terrace for watchmen.

In the “garrison-towns” the soldiers and their families form the principal part of the population. These men, who call themselves Baloch, are, with few exceptions, originally from Mekran, and from the lowlands about Guadel. Many of them have been born and bred in Arabia. In former days their fathers migrated from their starving homes to Maskat, in the Arab dows which visited their ports, to buy horses, and to collect little cargoes of wheat and salt. In Arabia they were fakirs, sailors, porters, and day-labourers, barbers, date-gleaners, asinegos, beggars, and thieves. Sultan Bin Hamid, the father of the late Sayyid Said, first conceived the bright idea of putting matchlocks into their hands, and of dubbing them Askar, or soldiers, as a slight upon his less docile compatriots. The son of Sultan followed his sire’s plan, and succeeded in dividing and ruling by means of the antipathy prevailing between the more disciplinable mercenary and the unruly Arab subject. The Baloch are, however, rather hated than feared. They hang, say the Semites, their benefits behind their backs, whilst they wear their grievances in full view, woman-like, upon their breasts. Loud in debate, and turbulent in demeanour, they are called by the Arabs a “light folk,” and are compared to birds fluttering and chirruping round a snake. Abject slaves to the Great Gaster, they collect in swarms round a slaughtered goat, and they will feast their eyes for hours on the sight of a rice-bag. When in cantonment on the island or the coast, they receive as pay from 2·50 to 5 dollars per mensem; when in the field or on outpost duty, a “batta” of 10 dollars;—a sensible system, which never allows them to become, like the Indian Sepoy, independent. They are not averse to active service, as, when so employed, they have full permission to “pill and poll.” In camp they are commanded by a jemadar, who, assisted by a “moollah,”—some wretch who has retained, as sole traces of his better days, a smattering of reading, writing, and arithmetic,—robs them and his government with the recklessness of impunity. Thus the jemadar, or C. O., who also dispenses promotion, is a man having authority. Similarly our colonels in India, by superior position and allowances, commanded the respect of their men before centralisation, falling upon the land like a pestilence, systematically monopolised all power, and then rained blame upon those who had lost it. These Baloch are a tame copy of the Turkish Bashi Buzuk, or “mad-cap,” far inferior as desperadoes to the Kurd and Arnaut. They live the life of the Anglo-Indian soldier of the past generation, drinking beer when they can “come by it,” smoking, chatting, and arguing; the younger wrestle, shoot, and exchange kit; and the silly babbling patriarchs, with white beards and venerable brows, tell wondrous tales of scenes long gone by, and describe to unbelieving ears the ice and snow, the luscious fruits and the sweet waters of the mountains and valleys of far Balochistan.

The other items of the population are the Wamrima[2]—Western Negroids of a mixed Arab and African descent, who fringe the shore in a thin line. These “coast-clans” support themselves in idleness and comparative luxury, by amicably plundering the down-caravans, and by large plantations of cereals and vegetables, with which they, or rather their slaves, supply the island of Zanzibar, and even the shores of Arabia. The Wamrima are an ill-conditioned race; they spend life in eating, drinking, and smoking, drinking and dancing, visits, intrigue, and low debauchery. They might grow cotton and coffee, and dig copal to almost any extent; but whilst a pound of grain remains in bin, no man will handle a hoe. The feminine part of the community is greatly superior in number to the masculine, and this leads to the usual result: on a “Siku ku” or fête-day, the ladies of the village, with yellow pigment over their faces and their woolly heads, perform in their cups impromptu-dances upon the open, enter a stranger’s house as if it were their own, and call for something to drink, as if they had been educated at Cremorne, or the Rue Cadet. The Wamrima are ruled by Diwans, or headmen, locally called “Chomwi;” these officials are subject to Zanzibar, and their numbers are everywhere in inverse ratio to the importance of the places. The Chomwi enjoys the privileges of “dash,” fines and extortions; he has also certain marks of distinction. For instance, he is authorised to wear turbands and the wooden pattens called by the Arabs “kabkab;” he may also sit upon cots, chairs, and the mkeka, a fine dyed mat; whereas a commoner venturing upon such display would infallibly be mulcted in goats or cattle. At the Ngoma Ku or great dance, which celebrates every event in this land of revelry, only the Chomwi may perform the morris with drawn sword before the admiring multitude. A subject detected in intrigue with the wife of a headman must, under penalty of being sold, pay five slaves; the fine is reduced to one head in the case of a plebeian. With this amount of dignity the Diwan naturally expects to live, and to support his family with the fat of the land, and without sweat of brow. When times are hard, he organises a kidnapping expedition against a weaker neighbour, and fills his purse by selling the proceeds. But his income is derived chiefly from the down-caravans bringing ivory and slaves from Unyamwezi and the far interior. Though rigidly forbidden by the Prince of Zanzibar to force caravans to his particular port, he sends large armed parties of his kinsmen and friends, his clients and serfs, as far as 150 and 200 miles inland, where they act less like touters than highwaymen. By every petty art of mercantile diplomacy,—now by force, then by fraud, by promises, or by bribes of cloth and sweetmeats,—they induce the caravan to enter the village, when the work of plunder begins. Out of each Frasilah (thirty-five lbs. avoirdupois) of ivory, from eight to fourteen dollars are claimed as duties to the Government of Zanzibar; the headmen, then, demand six dollars as their fee, under various technical names, plus one dollar for “ugali” or porridge—the “manche,”—and one dollar for the use of water—the “pour boire.” The owner of the tusk is then handed over to the tender mercies of the Banyan, from whom the Diwan has received a bribe, called his “rice”; and the crafty Hindu buys for eighteen to twenty dollars an article worth, at Zanzibar, fifty. If the barbarian be so unwise as to prefer cash, being intellectually unfit to discriminate between a cent and a dollar, he loses even more than if he had taken in barter the coarse and trashy articles provided for him by the trade. An adept at distinguishing good from bad cloth and a cunning connoisseur in beads of sorts, he has yet no choice: if he reject what is worthless, he must return home with his ivory and without an investment. Such is an outline of the present system. It is nowhere the same in its details; but everywhere the principle is one—the loss is to the barbarian, and the profits are to the coast-clans, the Wamrima and their headmen. Hence the dislike to strangers and the infinite division into little settlements, where people might be expected to prefer the comfort and safety of large communities. The 10th article of the commercial treaty, concluded on the 31st May, 1839, between Her Majesty’s Government and His Highness Sayyid Said of Muscat and Zanzibar, secured to the possessors of the Mrima a monopoly in the articles of ivory and gum-copal on that part of the east coast of Africa from the port of Tangata (Mtangata), situated in about 5¹⁄₂° S. lat. to the port of Quiloa (Kilwa) lying in about 7° S. of the equator. It is not improbable that the jealousy of European nations, each fearing the ambitious designs of its neighbour, brought about this invidious prohibitionist measure.

Besides the Baloch and the Wamrima, the settlements usually contain a few of the “Washenzi” or barbarians from the interior, who visit them to act as day-labourers, and who sometimes, by evincing a little disrespect for the difference between the “mine” and the “thine,” leave their heads to decorate tall poles at the entrance. The Wazaramo tribe send, when there is no blood-feud, numbers to Kaole, where they are known by their peculiar headdress, a single or a double line of pips or dilberries of ochre and grease surrounding the head. They regard the stranger with a wild and childish stare, and whenever I landed, they slunk away from me, for reasons which will appear in the course of this narrative. The list of floating population concludes with a few Banyans,—there are about fifty in Kaole and its vicinity—a race national as the English, who do their best to import into Eastern Africa the cows and curries, the customs and the costumes, of Western India.

The first visit to Kaole opened up a vista of unexpected difficulties. My escort had been allowed to leave the Artémise, and their comrades in arms had talked them half-crazy with fear. Zahri, a Baloch, who had visited Unyamwezi, declared that nothing less than 100 guards, 150 guns, and several cannon could enable them to fight a way through the perils of the interior. Tulsi, the Banyan, warned them that for three days they must pass amongst savages, who sit on trees and discharge poisoned arrows into the air with such dexterity that they never fail to fall upon the travellers’ pate; he strongly advised them therefore, under pain of death, to avoid trees—no easy matter in a land all forest. Then the principal Chomwi assured them that the chiefs of the Wazaramo tribe had sent six several letters to the officials of the coast forbidding the white man to enter their country. Ladha Damha also obscurely hinted that the Wazaramo might make caches of their provisions in the jungle, and that the human stomach cannot march without feeding. Divers dangers of the way were incidentally thrown in: I learned for the first time that the Kargadan or rhinoceros kills 200 men, that armies of elephants attack camps by night, and that the craven hyæna does more damage than the Bengal tiger. In vain I objected that guns with men behind them are better than cannon backed by curs, that mortals can die but once, that the Wazaramo are unable to write, that rations might be carried where not purchaseable, and that powder and ball have been known to conquer rhinoceroses, elephants, and hyænas. A major force was against me.

Presently the cause of intimidation crept into sight. The Jemadar and the eight Baloch detached by His Highness the Sayyid Majid of Zanzibar could not march without a reinforcement of four others, afterwards increased by a fifth in the person of an “Ustad,” a tailor-boy. The garrison of Kaole having no employment, was ready, with the prospect of the almighty dollar, to march anywhere on this side of Jehannum. The perils of the path rendered it absolutely necessary that we should be escorted by a temporary guard of thirty-four men and their Jemadar Yaruk: and they did not propose to do the good deed gratis. Ramji, the Banyan clerk of the customs at Zanzibar, had a number of slaves whom he called his “sons;” they were “eating off their heads” in idleness at Zanzibar. He favoured me by letting out ten of these youths at the rate of thirty dollars ahead for a period of six months: for the same sum every man might have been purchased in the market. When asses were proposed ass-men were necessary; in the shortest space of time five were procured, and their pay for the whole journey was fixed at thirty dollars, about twice the sale-value of the article. I cannot plead guilty to not having understood the manœuvre,—a commercial speculation on the part of the rascal Ramji. Yet at times,—need I say it?—it is good to appear a dupe. It is wise, when your enemies determine you to be that manner of sable or ermine contrivance into which ladies insert their fair hands, to favour the hypothesis. I engaged the men, I paid the men, and mentally I chronicled a vow that Ramji should in the long run change places with me.

Presently Mr. Frost with brow severe and official manner, informed me that the state of Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton’s health forbade a longer stay near the coast. To this there was no reply: I contented myself with remarking once more that morphia appeared a curious cure for a confirmed liver complaint, and I made preparations for landing at once. Mr. Frost replied that the doses of morphia were very “little ones,”—an excuse which, according to Capt. Marryat, has been urged under somewhat dissimilar circumstances by the frail ancilla. I confided to Mr. Frost’s care two MSS. addressed through the Foreign Office, one to Mr. John Blackwood, the other to Dr. Norton Shaw, of the Royal Geographical Society. As the former arrived in safety, whilst the latter,—a detailed report concerning the commerce and capabilities of Zanzibar,—was lost, I cannot help suspecting that it came somehow to an untimely end. Lieutenant-Colonel Hamerton had repeatedly warned me that by making inquiries into the details of profit I was exciting the jealousy of the natives and the foreigners of Zanzibar. According to him the mercantile community was adopting the plan which had secured the foul murder of M. Maizan: the Christians had time and opportunity to alarm the Banyans, and the latter were able to work upon the Wasawahíli population. These short-sighted men dreaded that from throwing open the country, competition might result: Oriental-like, thinking only of the moment, of themselves, they could not perceive that the development of resources would benefit all concerned in their exploitation. There were, however, honourable exceptions, amongst whom I am bound to mention M. Bérard, agent to Mess. Rabaud, frères, of Marseilles, who by direction of his employers offered me every manner of assistance; and the late M. Sam. Masury, a Salem merchant, to whose gratuitous kindness I was indebted for several necessaries when separated from civilisation by one half of Africa. They contrasted sharply with the rest of the community: in the case of a certain young gentleman, Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton was,—he informed me,—compelled to threaten a personal chastisement, unless he ceased to fill native ears with his malignant suspicions.

The weary labour of verifying accounts and of writing receipts duly concluded, I took a melancholy leave of my warm-hearted friend Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton, upon whose form and features death was written in legible characters. He gave me his last advice, to march straight ahead despising “walnut and velvet-slipper men,” who afford opinions, and conciliating the Arabs as much as possible. Then he spoke of himself: he looked forward to death with a feeling of delight, the result of his religious convictions; he expressed a hope that if I remained at Kaole, he might be buried at sea; and he declared himself, in spite of my entreaties, determined to remain near the coast until he heard of our safe transit through the lands of the dreaded Wazaramo. This courage was indeed sublime! Such examples are not often met with amongst men!

After this affecting farewell, I took leave of the Artémise and landed definitively at Kaole. The Baloch driving the asses were sent off to the first station on the road westwards, headed by my companion, on the same evening, lest a longer sojourn in the lands of semi-civilisation should thoroughly demoralise them. The Wanyamwezi porters, whose open faces and laughing countenances strongly prepossessed me in their favour, had already passed beyond their centre of attraction, the coast. I spent that evening with Ladha Damha, inside the gloomy Gurayza. He lectured me for the last time upon my development of what the French cartomantiste calls “la bosse de la témérité.” Might not the Sahib be a great Sahib in his own land—Cutch or Guzerat? Are there not other great Sahibs there, A—Sahib and B—Sahib, for instance, who only kill pigs and ignore the debtor and creditor side of an account in Guzeratee?

I must mention that, on the morning of the same day, I was present at a conversation held by the Ladha, the respectable collector of the customs, with the worthy Ramji, his clerk. I had insisted upon their inserting in the estimate of necessaries the sum required to purchase a boat upon the “Sea of Ujiji.”

“Will he ever reach it?” asked the respectable Ladha, conveying his question through the medium of Cutchee, a dialect of which, with the inconsequence of a Hindu, he assumed me to be profoundly ignorant.

“Of course not,” replied the worthy Ramji; “what is he that he should pass through Ugogi?” (a province about half way.)

At the moment I respected their “sharm,” or shame, a leading organ in the oriental brain, which apparently has dwindled to inconsequential dimensions amongst the nations of the West. But when Ladha was alone, I took the opportunity to inform him that I still intended to cross Ugogo, and to explore the “Sea of Ujiji.” I ended by showing him that I was not unacquainted with Cutchee, and even able to distinguish between the debits and the credits of his voluminous sheets.

During the conversation, the loud wail of death rang wildly through the grave-like stillness of night. “O son, hope of my life! O brother, dearest of brothers! O husband! O husband!” these were the cries which reached our ears. We ran to the door of the Gurayza. The only son of the venerable Diwan Ukwere, who had been ascending the Kingani river on a mercantile expedition, with five slaves, had been upset by a vengeful hippopotamus, and, with two of his attendants, had lost his life.

“Insaf Karo! be honest!” said the Banyan, with whom I had had many discussions as to whether it be lawful or unlawful to shoot the hippopotamus, “and own that this is the first calamity which you have brought upon the country by your presence.”

I could only reply with the common-places of polemics. Why should Ladha, who by purchasing their spoils encouraged the destruction of herds of elephants, object to the death of a “creek-bull”? and why should the man who would not kill the “creek-bull” be ready to ruin a brother-man for making a better bargain about its tusks? Ladha received these futile objections contemptuously, as you would, right reverend father, were I to suggest that you, primate and spiritual peer, are not exactly following in the footsteps of certain paupers whom you fondly deem to have been your prototypes,—your exemplars.

When Ladha left, my spirits went with him. In the solitude and the silence of the dark Gurayza, I felt myself the plaything of misfortune. At Cairo I had received from the East India House an order to return to London, to appear as a witness on a trial by court-martial then pending. The missive was, as usual, so ineptly worded, that I did not think proper to throw overboard the Royal Geographical Society—to whom my services had been made over—by obeying it: at the same time I well knew what the consequences would be. Before leaving Egypt, an interview with the Count d’Escayrac de Lauture, had afforded me an opportunity of inspecting an expedition thoroughly well organised by His Highness Said Pacha, of military predilections, and the contrast between an Egyptian and an English exploration impressed me unpleasantly. Arrived at Aden, I had enlisted the services of an old and valued friend, Dr. Steinhaeuser, civil surgeon at that station: a sound scholar, a good naturalist, a skilful practitioner, endowed, moreover, with even more inestimable personal qualities, his presence would have been valuable in a land of sickness, skirmishes, and sporting adventures, where the people are ever impressed with the name of “medicine-man,” and in a virgin field promising subjects of scientific interest. Yet though recommended for the work by his Excellency the Governor of Bombay, Dr. Steinhaeuser had been incapacitated by sickness from accompanying me: I had thus with me a companion and not a friend, with whom I was “strangers yet.” The Persian war had prevented the fitting-out of a surveying vessel, ordered by the Court of Directors to act as a base of operations upon the African coast; no disposable officer of the Indian navy was to be found at the Presidency; and though I heard in Leadenhall Street of an “Observatory Sergeant” competent to conduct the necessary astronomical and meteorological observations, in the desert halls of the great Bungalow at Colaba only a few lank Hindus met my sight. Nor was this all. His Highness the late Sayyid Said, that estimable ally of the English nation, had for many years repeatedly made the most public-spirited offers to his friend Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton. He was more than once upon the point of applying for officers selected to map the caravan routes of Eastern Africa, and he professed himself willing to assist them with men, money, and the weight of his widely extended influence. This excellent prince had died forty days before the Expedition arrived at Zanzibar. Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton, also, whose extraordinary personal qualities enabled him to perform anything but impossibilities amongst the Arabs, was compelled by rapidly failing health, during my stay at Zanzibar, to lead a recluse life, which favoured the plans of my opponents. Finally, as Indian experience taught me, I was entering the unknown land at the fatal season, when the shrinking of the waters after the wet monsoon would render it a hotbed of malaria.

The hurry of departure, also, had caused a necessary neglect of certain small precautions, which, taken in time, save much after trouble. I should have shunned to have laid down limits of space and time for the Expedition, whereas my friend and adviser had specified the “Sea of Ujiji.” I intended to have drawn out every agreement in an official form, registered at the Consulate, and specifying all particulars concerning rations and presents for the escort, their ammunition, and their right of sporting—that is to say, of scaring the game before it could be shot—their reward for services, and their punishments for ill conduct. Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton’s state of health, however, rendered him totally unfit for the excitement of business; and, without his assistance, a good result was not to be expected from measures so unfamiliar, and therefore so unpalatable, to the people whom they most concerned.

Excuse, amiable reader, this lengthy and egotistical preface to a volume of adventure. Do not think that I would invert the moral of the Frog-fable, by showing that what is death to you, may become fun to me. As we are to be companions—not to say friends—for an hour or two, I must put you in possession of certain facts, trivial in themselves, and all unworthy of record, yet so far valuable, that they may enable us to understand each other. Au reste, to quote the ballad so much admired by the Authoress of “Our Village”:—