On Monday, January 5, 1857, began our trial trip, which homely term was justly written large as ‘tentative expedition,’ by the then President of the Royal Geographical Society. But a stiff north-easter blowing dead in our teeth, the crew of the Riámi would not wear round by day, and at night all showed a predilection for the ‘Safar khoriyah,’ i. e. anchoring in some snug bay. Consequently the old tub, with knees and mast loose like a slaver’s, did not make Kokoto-ni, the usual departure point from Zanzibar Island, till 7 A. M. on January 8.
Kokoto-ni ‘(at or in) the pebbles,’ is an anchorage 18.30 direct geographical miles from, and north with 3 miles east of, Zanzibar City. Formed by a bight with a streamlet, and the Island of Tumbatu, with its little outliers, Manawamána and Popo (in Owen Moina and Benoth), this roadstead is rendered dangerous during the Azyab, or N. East monsoon, by a heavy rolling sea and a coral-bound lee-shore. The coast has the usual edging of sand, clear as crystal, and of bright green mangrove, whilst an inner belt of darker jungle defends a country, here, as everywhere around, prodigiously fertile, green, and monotonous. The interior is a mass of cultivation, manioc and sweet potato (Jezar) from Madagascar, superb mangoes and cocoas waving in the clear sea-breeze, and limes and oranges, the latter disposed, as by the Paraguayans, in long rows, which, at a distance, imitate the tea-field. Clove plantations adorn the uplands, and the giant Calabash (Adansonia digitata) stretches its stumpy, crooked arms over the clustering huts. The tree is at once majestic and grotesque; the tall conical column of spongy and porous wood, covered with a soft, glossy rind, which supplies half Africa with bast, will have a girth of forty to fifty feet, far exceeding the cedars of Lebanon, whilst the general aspect is that of a giant asparagus. Like the arbutus, some trees will be bare, others in leaf, and others in flower, all at the same season. When thickly clothed with foliage growing almost stalkless from the wood; topped with snowy blossoms, like the fairest and lightest of water-lilies, and hung about with four or five hundred gourds; ovals somewhat larger than a cocoa-nut, dressed in green velvet with the nap on, and attached by a long thin cord, like tassels which wave with every breath of the zephyr, its appearance is striking as it is novel. Nothing, in fact, after the negro can be more typically and distinctly African.
Escorted by Said bin Salim and his slave, we visited the village Mwándá. It is the normal collection of cajan-thatched huts, with wattle and dab walls, gathering round a little Mosque and grave-yard. There are no stone dwellings, but scatters of such hovels extend far and wide. The settlement was mostly tenanted by women who hid themselves, by children who ran away, and by slave-girls who squatted, combing and plaiting one another’s locks; these grinned merrily enough, having nought to fear. The faces were hideous to look upon, with black, coarse skins, scarred and seamed by small-pox; huge mouths, and rolling eyes. Not a few were lame and toothless, and the general dress was the ungraceful swaddle of blue, checked or indigo-dyed stuff. Presently we were addressed by an old man, carrying a spear, and attired in Arab fashion, of red cap, loin-cloth (Futah), and Tobe (Taub), or shoulder-scarf. Taking us for traders, who came to buy cocoa and cloves, he placed a Kitandah (cot) under the central calabash, the gossip-place of the village, and brought us cocoanut-water, which here takes the place of coffee. In vain we offered high prices for meat; geese, ducks, and fowls, however, were abundant.
After a short rest we set out northwards, to inspect the plantations. Most of the men were at work in their Mashamba; the weeds had been burned for manure, the primitive manner of restoring nutrition to the soil, and the peasant, with his rude implements, was smoothing the lowlands for paddy. Already the light showers of the Azyab had flooded the ground, and the stagnant stream which we forded was choked with rush and sedge. A ‘Tell,’ or dwarf rise, was occupied by a farm belonging to the late Sayyid; here we were again seated and supplied with mangoes. This fruit, curious to say, would never fall upon the Prince’s head, although his courtiers often suffered severe contusions—at least, so we were assured.
After a long walk, which crippled my naked arms and legs with sunburns, we returned to the shore, and Said complaining, with a visage like Falstaff’s ‘wet cloak ill-laid up,’ that never before had he endured such fatigue, we signalled the Riámi for a boat. It was five hours coming, the wind blew off shore, and we had some trouble in persuading certain Tumbatu men to carry off the party of six in a monoxyle, a single log of wood, propelled by a scarf. A few dates and a dollar sent them back happy, and the Riámi had used her time well in washing decks and taking in water.
The weather now set seriously against us. The thermometer fell some 5° (F.), and heavy showers, mostly in the morning, wetted us clean through, despite all precautions. Lightning from the N. West appeared; the ‘egg of the cloud’ showed the focus of electric matter, and tornados, exactly resembling those of the Guinea coast, made the crew down sail, and satisfy themselves with one knot an hour. They had a peculiar style of keeping watch; all sat up singing till 10-11 P. M., after which every man slept as unanimously. The only waker was poor Said, who with red eyes and peeling nose suffered crispations when the squalls came on. About 9 A. M. (January 10) we sighted for the first time Pemba, the Emerald Isle of these Eastern Seas; and after three days’ stumbling over 33 miles from Kokoto-ni, Pemba channel, with the hills of the Mrima clear on our left, appeared at 3 P. M. To the right rose the tree-grown banks, and the verdant coral-ledges, which have given a name to the Green Island of the Arabs. Except from the mast-head it is invisible at an offing of 12 miles, this forest-clump emerging from the blue and buoyant wave, and therefore it was neglected by the Periplus. In A. D. 1698 the bold buccaneer Captain Kidd here buried his blood-stained hoards of gold and jewels, the plunder of India and of the further Orient. The people have found pots of ‘nuggets,’ probably intended for buttons, in order that the pirate might wear his wealth. Thus it is that the modern skipper, landing at Madagascar, or other robber haunts of the older day, still frequently witnesses the disappearance of his brass buttons, whilst the edge of a knife resting upon his throat secures the quiescence essential to the rapid performance of the operation.
The complicated entrance to Chak-Chak, or Shak-Shak as the Arabs call it, the chief port, fort, and town, has that silent, monotonous, melancholy beauty, the loveliness of death, which belongs to the creeks and rivers of those regions. The air was pure and sparkling; a light breeze played with the little blue waves; the beach, wherever it appeared, was of the purest golden hue, creamed over with the whitest of foam; and luxuriant trees of the brightest green drooped from their coralline beds over a sea, here deeply azure, there verdigris coloured by the sun shining through it upon a sand-shoal. But animated nature was wanting: we heard not a voice, we saw no inhabitant—all was profoundly still, a great green grave. A chain of islets forms the approach to a creek, below all mangrove and black vegetable mud, which stains the water, and bears roots upsticking like a system of harrows; above on both sides are rounded swelling hillocks, crowned with the cocoa and the clove. We sailed about on various tacks, and near sunset we anchored in the outer port, four or five miles distant from the town. On a wooded eminence rose the white walls and the tall tower of Fort Chak-ChakChak-Chak, standing boldly out from its dark green background, and apparently commanded by higher land, nowhere, however, exceeding 150 feet, while the spars of an Arab craft peered above the curtained trees. With the distinctest remembrance of Indian rivers, my companion and I could not but wonder at the scene before us.
Early on the next morning we manned the Louisa, and rowed slowly through a gate, formed on the right by Ra’as Kululu, and on the left by a high plantation Ra’as Bannani. It led to a broad, deep basin, where two or three Sayas, small Arab vessels, not wishing to approach the town, lay at anchor. After a couple of hours, during which progress was of the mildest, we entered a narrow creek, bordered by a luxuriant growth of mangroves. The black and fœtid sea-ooze, softer than mud, which supports these forests of the sea, contrasts strangely with the gay green of their foliage, and the place was haunted by terns, grey kingfishers, and hawks of black and white robe, big as the ‘Ak-baba,’ and said to be game birds. Here and there a tall man paddled a tiny canoe, and an old slave woman went to catch fish with a body-cloth, used as a net: she suggested the venerable comparison of the letter S mounted on ‘No. 11.’ The old Arab geographers seem to have been struck by the piscatorial peculiarities of these coasts. El Idrisi (1st climate, 7th section) informs us that ‘the people supply themselves from the sea without craft or without standing upon the shore. They use, whilst swimming or diving, little nets which they themselves make of woven grass; they tie them to their feet, and by slip-knots and lashings held in their hands, they draw fast the snare when they feel that a fish has entered it. All this they do with exceeding art and with a cunning bred by long experience: they also teach land reptiles to drive their prey’—possibly the iguana.
The tide, which hereabouts rises from twelve to thirteen feet, was then rapidly ebbing. At high water large boats run up under the walls of Chak-Chak; during the ebb the creek within several yards of the landing-place is a quaking bog, which receives a man to his waist. After three hours of persistent grounding, and nearly despairing to reach our mark, a sharp turn showed us the fort almost above our heads: we disembarked and waded up to the landing-place.
Ascending the sea-slope, I was struck, even after Goa and Zanzibar, by the wondrous fertility of the land. All that meets the eye is luscious green; cocoas, jacks, limes, and the pyramidal mangoes grow in clumps upon the rises; the wild solanum with bright yellow apples, and the castor shrub, rich in berries, spread over the uncultivated slopes; excellent rice, of which the Island formerly paid tribute, clothes the lowlands, and the little fields bear crops of holcus and sesamum, vetches as Thur (Cajanus Indicus), Mung (Phaseolus radiatus), and Chana or Gram (Cicer arietinum), with manioc, and many species of garden-stuff and fruit-trees, especially oranges and citrons. The eternal humidity—páni jo ghano sukh, say the Banyans—unfavourable to human, fosters vegetable development in a luxuriance more oppressive than admirable. After a few minutes’ climb we entered Chak-Chak, which, like a Brazilian country-town, consists of one long narrow lane. It is formed by square huts of wattle and dab, raised upon platforms of tamped clay: each tenement has a ‘but’ and a ‘ben,’ and most are fronted by a deep verandah, where poultry, fruit, and stale fish are exposed for sale by many familiar faces hailing from Hindostan.
My first visit was to the Wali or Governor, Mohammed bin Nasif bin Khalaf. In his absence at Zanzibar, we were received by his brother Sulayman, who lay upon his bed shaking with fever: the house was like its neighbours, and the verandah was partly occupied by a wooden ship’s-tank. We then took refuge against the sun at the shed called Place of Customs, where we were duly welcomed, whilst cloves were being weighed by the slaves. The Collector of government dues was a nephew of Ladha Damha, this Pisuji was at the head of some ten Bhattias: they are readily distinguished by red conical fools’ caps, and by their Indian Dhotis, or loin-cloths. His reception was far more cordial than it would have been in his own land, where Banyans are by no means famous for hospitality to the Mlenchha, or outcaste. We determined him to be an exceptional man, but afterwards, on the coast, we received the same civilities from all the Hindu and almost all the Hindi (Moslem) merchants. Pisu reproached Saíd for not landing us last night, seated us on cots, and served upon a wooden tray sliced mango and pineapple, rice, ghee, and green tea. An old Sindi tailor, Fakir Mohammed, son of a petty officer who had served as a Turkish gunner in Yemen, brought a bottle, and invited us to carouse with ‘wuh safed,’ that white one—probably gin. Our refusal to taste it did us good service with the Sherif Mohammed, a Hazramaut man, educated in Sind, and chief of the 25 to 30 Indians who compose the little colony. We were visited by the Jemadar, Musa Khan, who commands a score of Baloch mercenaries, readily distinguished by close-fitting lips and oval heads in this land of muzzles and cocoa-nut skulls. They greatly admired our weapons, specially my basket-hilted Andrea Ferrara, the gift of an old friend, Archibald McLaren, and one young fellow volunteered to accompany us up country. The Wasawahili were the least civil; they heard that certain Muzungu Kafirs had visited their town, and came to stare accordingly.
The good Pisu sent for our casks, and had them filled from the Mto-ni, behind the fort. This streamlet, some 15 feet broad and armpit deep, supplies water far superior to that of the wells and the brackish produce of the sands near the anchorage ground. Finally, he accompanied us, with the chief notables, to the landing-place, and sent us off in his own boat, which he had loaded with rice and fruits.
Pemba is an irregular coralline bank, composed of some 15 or 20 smaller items, covered with the richest vegetable humus. It is, in fact, an archipelago growing up into an island. Like Zanzibar, it is a low bank perched upon the summits of submarine mountains, which rise from depths not yet fathomed. Its extreme length is 42 miles, from Ra’as Kigomathe (Kegomatchy of Owen), the N. West point in S. lat. 4° 47′, and Ra’as Msuka (Said Point), in S. lat. 5° 29′ 30″. The long narrow steep varies in breadth from 2 to 10 miles (Owen), between E. long. (G.) 39° 39′, and 39° 48′, to which 5′ must be added since Bombay[1] and the Cape of Good Hope have been found to be placed that much too far west. Ra’as Kigomathe, the point nearest the mainland, is separated from it by Pemba Channel, here 19 to 20 miles broad, and the greatest width is 35 miles. The western sea-board, where calmer waters under a lea land favour the labours of the polypus, is evidently advancing rapidly, and here the coast-line is notably broken compared with that of Zanzibar and with its own eastern or windward coast. In this point it resembles Jutland, Iceland, and Norway, where the S. West, a prevalent wind, tears to pieces the occidental shores, and deposits the débris upon the leeward half. The reefs and shoals, branching in all directions, but especially westward, are still unexplored, and every ship that sounds does new work. The height of the Island nowhere exceeds 180 feet, and the soil is purely vegetable. The streamlets are not worth mentioning, and the general unimportance of the long narrow bank unfits it for representing the Menouthian depôt.
A strong current runs between Zanzibar and Pemba, carrying ships northwards sometimes at the rate of 50 miles per diem. The principal settlement, Chak-Chak, is built upon a deep inlet on the western coast, where the Island is narrowest. The distance is some 17 direct geographical miles (or 25 by course) north with easting from the southern Cape, and the approach is winding and difficult. The most objectionable part of the Green Isle is its climate. No man here is in rude health, laming ulcers on the legs exactly resembling syphilitic sores, stomach pains, and violent indigestions afflict new comers: hydrocele is a plague, and the population is decimated by small-pox, dumb agues, and bilious fevers.
In its palmy day many Portuguese, merchants and soldiers, settled at Pemba upon large plantations, and with the abundance of water and provisions, amongst which cattle are specified, consoled themselves for the insalubrity of the atmosphere. At the end of the sixteenth century, when that celebrated corsair the Amir Ali Bey had raised the coast, the ‘Moors’ of Pemba revolted against their Shaykh, and murdered the foreign settlers—men, women, and children. The chief, with a few fugitives, took refuge in Melinde, and was speedily restored to his own by the Captain-Major Thomé de Souza Coutinho, brother of the Viceroy of India. He was again expelled shortly after A.D. 1594; and this time he retired to Mombasah, became a Christian, and married a Portuguese orphan: he eventually visited India with D. Francisco da Gama, who also promised to restore him, and the promise seems to have been kept. In December, 1608, the Island was visited by Capt. Sharpey, en route to India, and the treacherous Europeans persuaded the ‘Moors’ to attack his crew, after inveigling them on shore by a show of hospitality. Hence the ‘villanies of Pemba’ became a proverb on the coast.
A steep path, a yellow streak on the dark green ground, leads up to the Fort, which, situated beyond the settlement, commands the creek and landing-place. It is evidently an old Portuguese building. The frontage is a loop-holed curtain of masonry, flanked on the right by a round tower—a mere shell—and on the left by a square turret, pent-housed, with cajan mats. A few iron guns, honeycombed to the core, lie around the walls; the entrance is dilapidated; and the place, now undergoing repairs, is like most ‘Forts’ in these regions, about as capable of defence as the castled crag of Drachenfels. Hearing the people of Pemba call it, as at Maskat, ‘Gurayza,’ evidently a corruption of Igreja, and now meaning a combination of fortress and jail, I inquired about Portuguese ruins, and heard of two deserted churches, in one of which a bit of steeple is still standing. The Lusitanians, in later times, long made the Green Isle one of their principal slave-depôts: even in 1822 their ships traded regularly to Chak-Chak. I did not visit the ruins, which are said to be distant one day’s march: there is nothing to interest man in the relics of the semi-barbarous European rule. The Island also boasts of a single mosque. The Pemba men pray at home, and they are said to pray little. The population is held to be half that of Zanzibar, upon less than two-thirds, perhaps only one-half, of the area; but this appears a considerable exaggeration.
CHAK CHAK FORT (PEMBA ISLAND).
Pemba supplies her bigger sister-isle with a little excellent ghee and poor rice. The principal exports are cocoas and cloves; and here, as every where along the coast, cowries are plentiful. Bullocks, reared on the island, cost from $6 to $10; sheep, brought from the mainland, $3 to $4; and goats, which are rare and dear, from $7 to $9. Cash is evidently not wanting. Fowls are sold at 20 to 23 for $1—half the price of Zanzibar,—and eggs are very cheap, two or three being procured for a pice. The people complain that this year all provisions are exceptionally dear. The Banyans, who make Pemba their head-quarters, demand high agio for small change, giving only 111 pice for the German crown, whereas 128 is the legal rate at the capital. They also regulate the price of provisions according to the Zanzibar market. They have different weights and measures—the Kaylah, for instance, is greater—and, as usual in these regions, they keep the gross amount of exports and imports a profound secret.
Our gallant captain of the beard—‘the Lord have mercy upon him for a hen!’—determined to doze away the day, and to pass a snug sleepy night, anchored in some quiet bight. His crew also, although living upon Jack fruit, and supplied with only two skins of fresh water, grumbled exceedingly when I ordered a δρομος νυχθημερος. For a whole day they had tacked about the creek and basin till the shades of evening fell, and force was required to keep the canvas aloft. Presently, when running out of Pemba, grave doubts and misgivings about the wisdom of the proceeding came over me as the moonless night fell like a pall, and, exaggerated by the dim twinkling of the stars, rose within biscuit-toss the silhouettes of islet and flat rock, whence proceeded the threatening sounds of a ‘wash.’ Soon, however, emerging from the reefs, we smelt sea air, and we felt with pleasure the throb of the Indian Ocean.
During the three days that followed our patience was sorely tried. The sky was now misty, hiding the shore, so that sometimes we went south instead of north; then the spitting deepened to heavy rain, whilst the thermometer stood at 83° (F.). The Azyab or N. East wind, high and contrary, blew great guns, and a strong current set clean against us. The combing sea, with waves raised some five feet, was most unpleasant during the long moonless nights: on this coast there are more shoals and coralline reefs than harbours, and the lee-shore, within a few yards of which we were periodically drifted, was steep to, with rocky banks and bars. Mariners rarely sail by night, except before a fair and steady wind, and in the open roadsteads they are ill-defended from the strong N. East monsoon. We long sighted the two high hummocks called Wasin Peaks, and we were compelled to ride at anchor off Gasi Bay, the strained old Riami creaking at every timber, and rolling gunwales under. Pleasant scenes were the rule. Mutton-livered Saíd, groaning and weeping, started up every half-hour during that ‘black night,’ and screamed with voice altered by violent flesh-quake, till he makes us all nervous as himself. The captain, sitting on the Zuli (deck), cried, Rih! Rih!—wind! wind!—asked what could be done, and more than once, as we were driven on towards a reef, definitively declared the Riami lost. The sailors, green and yellow with hard work and hunger, tacking out with the Barri (land breeze), and in with the Azyab, would not bale except under the stick. The iron boat sinking once, and twice snapping her painter in the long rolling sea, gave us abundant trouble. At last, as a thick cloud veiled Jupiter and Venus, a cry arose that she had again broken loose; and we resolved to make Mombasah, trusting that Tate would restore her. More than once we thought of landing, and of walking along the shore to our destination: for if all was unpleasant outside the ‘Beden,’ the inside, with its atmosphere of cockroaches, bilge water, and rotting wood, was scarcely more attractive. Hitherto, from the moment of our leaving England, the expedition had met with little but ill luck.
At length, on January 16th, after long and wistfully gazing, as the mist rose, at the three conical heads, which the Portuguese call ‘Corôa de Mombaça,’ and when almost despairing of reaching them, the wind suddenly became favourable, and we were driven round Ra’as Betani into the land-locked harbour, right joyful to cast anchor opposite English Point, and to pass the quiet night of which we had disappointed our crew at Pemba Island.
The run into Mombasah was truly characteristic of Africa. The men hailed us from afar with the query, ‘What news?’ We were unmercifully derided as Whites by the black nymphs, bathing in the costume of Camoens’ Nereids. And the sable imps, sunning themselves upon the white sand, shouted the free-and-easy Muzungu—‘Europeans!’
I was not a little astonished at the first sight of this ‘indomitable village,’ whose history is that of the whole East African coast. Can this paltry settlement have been the capital of the King of the Zing, concerning whom Arab travellers and geographers have written such marvels? Is this the place whose stubborn patriotism and turbulent valour rendered her for nearly two centuries a thorn in the side of the Portuguese? that gave them more trouble than all the 2000 miles of shore? that allowed herself to be burnt three times to the ground, and that twice succeeded in massacring an enemy whom she had failed to expel? Can this miserable village have produced heroes, the Samson-like Ahmad bin Mohammed; the generous and chivalrous Abdullah bin Ahmad, and Mubarak, whose daring valour displayed during the war against Sayyid Said, still lives in popular song? Of the second named a story is told, which might belong to the knightly days of Europe. During the siege of Lamu, where, by-the-by, he lent his shoulders as a scaling-ladder to his father’s soldiers, the young chief received a poulet from a fair friend, containing these words: ‘I hear that under our walls is a person named Abdullah; if he be the man I love, he will not remain so near me without claiming my hospitality!’ To hear was to obey. The Mazrui, taking his trusty sabre, proved himself capable of the perilous enterprise, and after returning to his father’s camp, he sent a slave to the governor with the simple message: ‘Last night I slept in Lamu, and right soon I will sleep in it with all my men.’
MOMBASAH FORT