And as the dance waxed warm certain movements of the loins appeared, as might be expected. A crowd of half-breeds and sooty sons of Africa stood around to enjoy the ‘pi-pi’ of the flutes, the ‘bom-bom’ of the huge drums, the mjimbo (singing) of the men, and the vijelejeh (lullalooing) of the women. After half-an-hour’s endurance of this purgatory we were led to our sleeping place, the upper rooms, or rather room, of the Wali or Governor’s house—its owner was one Meriko, a burly black freedman of the late Sayyid Said—and there the evening was spent by us over considerations of ways and means.

In the heroic ages of Bruce and Mungo Park, Denham and Clapperton, Hornemann and Caillié, African travel had a prestige which, after living through a generation, came, as is the fate of all things sublunary, to a natural end. The public glutted with adventure and invention, which the ‘damnable license of printing’ ushered into the world, soon suffered from the humours of a severe surfeit: it learned to nauseate the monotonous tale of rapine, treachery, and murder; of ugly and unsavoury savagery—the mala gens, as was said anent certain South countrymen, of a bona terra—of bleared misery by day and animated impurity by night, and of hunting adventures and hair-breadth escapes, which often made the reader regret the inevitable absence of a catastrophe. It felt the dearth of tradition and monuments of the olden time, the lack of romance, variety, and history, whilst the presence of a ‘future,’ almost too remote for human interest, was rather an aggravation than a palliation of the evil. A temporary revival of interest was, it is true, recited by the Egyptian hippopotamus and Gordon Cumming’s trophies: Livingstone’s first journey and Paul du Chaillu’s gorilla also caused a transient burst of enthusiasm. But this soon had its day, and the night that followed was darker than before. In fact it still glooms.

Yet African travel still continues to fulfil all the conditions of attractiveness as laid down by that great city authority, Leigh Hunt. The theme has remoteness and obscurity of place, difference of custom, marvellousness of hearsay; events passing strange yet credible; sometimes barbaric splendour, generally luxuriance of nature, savage life, personal danger and suffering always borne (in books) with patience, dignity, and even enthusiasm. Moreover, no hours are more fraught with smiling recollections to the author: nothing can he more charming than the contrast between his vantage ground of present ease, as he takes up his pen at home, and that past perspection of want, hardships, and accidents upon which he gazes through the softening, beautifying atmosphere of time. And the animus of the writer must to some extent inspire his readers.

We arose early in the morning after making Panga-ni, and repaired to the terrace for the better enjoyment of the view. The river-vista, with cocoa avenues to the north, with yellow cliffs on the southern side, some 40 feet high, abrupt as those of the Indus, and green clad above; with a distance of plum-blue hill, upon which eye and mind both love to rest; the mobile swelling water bounded by strips of emerald verdure and golden sand, and the still and azure sea dotted with ‘diabolitos,’ little black rocks, not improperly called ‘devilings,’ wanted nothing but the finish and polish of art to bring out the infinite variety, the rude magnificence of nature. A few grey ruins upon the hills would enable it to compare with the most admired prospects of the Rhine, without looking as if it had been made picturesque by contrast, to attract tourists, and with half-a-dozen white Kiosks and Serais, minarets and latticed summer villas, it would almost rival that gem of creation, the Bosphorus.

Panga-ni^[31] ‘in the hole,’ or ‘between the highlands,’ as was said of the River Lee, and its smaller neighbour, Kumba, hug the left or northern bank of its river: the site is a flat Maremma bounded by the sea and by a hill range, ten or eleven miles distant. Opposite are Mbweni and Mzimo Mpia, small villages built under tall bluffs of yellow sandstone, precipitous and impenetrably covered with wild growth. The stream which separates these rival pairs of settlements may be 200 yards broad: the mouth has an ugly line of bar-breakers, awash at low tide; the only fairway course is a narrow channel to the south, and the entrance is intricate, with reef and shoal. This in Capt. Owen’s time was some 12 feet deep: now it it is reduced to seven or eight: although a report had been spread that the ‘Shah Allum’ had crossed it, nothing but country craft can safely enter, as some of our enterprising compatriots have discovered, to their cost. Panga-ni Bay is shown to the mariner by its ‘verdurous wall’ of palms and by its dotting of small dark rocks; by Maziwi Island, a green-capped gem in a bezel of golden sand, bearing S. East, and southwards by the yellow cliffs of Mbweni. Vessels lie snugly in the outer roads, but when making the inner harbour even Hamid, most niggardly of Suris, expended a dollar upon a pilot. At low water in the dry season the bed of this tidal stream is partly exposed, and its produce during the flow is briny as the main: the rains cause it to swell with the hill-freshets, and then it becomes almost potable. The wells produce heavy and brackish drink, but who, ask the people, will take the trouble to fetch sweeter? The climate is said to be tolerably healthy; throughout the long and severe rainy monsoon, however, the place is rich in dysenteries and in fatal bilious remittents.

Panga-ni boasts some 19 or 20 stone houses of the usual box style: the rest is a mass of cajan huts, each with its large and mat-encircled patio or courtyard, whose outer lines form the streets, and wherein almost all the business of life is transacted. The settlement is surrounded by a thick thorny jungle, harbouring not a few leopards. One of these felines lately scaled the high terrace of our house, and seized a slave-girl: her master, the burly Wáli, who was sleeping by her side, snatched up his sword, hurried into the house and bolted the door, heedless of the miserable cry, ‘B’ana, help me!’ The wretch was carried into the jungle, and incontinently devoured. As full of crocodiles is the river: whilst we were at Panga-ni a boy disappeared. When asked by strangers why they do not kill their crocodiles and burn their bush, the people reply that the former bring good luck, and that the latter is a fort to which they can fly when need drives them. Plantains, arecas, and cocoas grow all about the town; around it are plantations of papaws, betel, and Jamlis, whilst further lie extensive Shambas, or plantations, of holcus, maize, sesamum, and other grains. The clove flourishes, and, as elsewhere upon the Zanzibar coast, a little cotton is raised for household purposes; it will be long, however, before East-African cotton can influence the English market, and as yet it has proved only a snare and a delusion. A notable and narrow-minded party-cry of these modern days, as applied to Africa, are the three Cs—Cotton, Civilization, and Christianity: they ‘pay,’ however, better than to beg in the name of roads and schools, steamers and steam engines—the true means which will eventually lead to the wished-for end.

Animals are here rare. Cows soon die after eating the grass, and even the Banyans despair of keeping them alive. Sheep are scarcely to be found, and goats, being almost wild, give very little milk, and that only before yeaning. But fish is abundant; poultry thrives, as it does all over Africa, though not so much on the coast as in the interior; and, before the late feuds began, clarified butter, that ‘one source’ of the outer East, was cheap and plentiful. Made in the interior by the Wazegura, and other Washenzi, with rich milk, stored in clean vessels, and sold when fresh, it reminded me of the J’aferabádi ‘Ghi,’ so celebrated throughout Western India.

Panga-ni, with its three neighbours, may contain a total of 4000 inhabitants, Arabs and Wasawahili, slaves and heathenry: of these a large proportion are feminines and concubines. Twenty Banyans manage the lucrative ivory trade of the Chaga, Nguru, and Umasai countries, which produce the whitest, largest, heaviest, softest, and, perhaps, finest ivory known. The annual export is said to be 35,000 lbs., besides 1750 lbs. of black rhinoceros horn, and 160 lbs. of hippopotamus’ teeth; the latter is an article which, since porcelain teeth were invented, has lost in value.^[32] The other exports are holcus, maize, ghi, and Zanzibar rafters, cut near the river mouth, and up stream.

Trading parties travel to the Umasai, Chaga, and Nguru countries at all seasons, even when the rainy monsoon makes the higher Panga-ni difficult to cross. As many as 1000 Wasawahili and slavers, directed by a few Arabs, set out, laden with iron and brass wires (Nos. 7 and 8), some 50 of the former to 3 of the latter; with small brass chains which, fastened together, are used as kilts (Mkifu)(Mkifu) by the Wamasai; with American domestics, indigo-dyed calicoes (Kiniki), and checks, with beads of sorts, especially the white and the blue. Each man carries a pack worth from $15 to $25: consequently the total venture is of £4000. The caravan reaches its ground in about 20 days, and returns after a period varying between two and six months. The purchase of slaves is not on a large scale; nor is the coast journey distinguished by inhumanity. Here the free traveller dies as frequently as the servile. The merchants complain loudly of the ‘Pagazi,’ or porters: these fellows are prepaid $10 for the trip, and the proprietor congratulates himself if, after payment, only 15 per cent. abscond. The Hindu’s profit must here be enormous, I saw one man to whom $26,000 were owed by the people. What part do interest and compound interest play in making up such a sum, when even Europeans will demand 40 per cent. for moneys lent on safe mortgage or bottomry? We heard of another case, in which a bond worth $60, and sold for $30, became, by post-obits and other processes, $10,000: the affair was referred to the Zanzibar Government, which allowed $1000 by way of indemnification. Some of their gains are swallowed up by the rapacity of these savages, whose very princes are inveterate beggars. The pliant Banyan always avoids refusals, like the diplomatic Spaniard, ‘saying no, although he may do no’; consequently he will find at his door every evening some 70 or 80 suitors, who besiege him with cries for grain, butter, or a little oil.

After the dancing ceremony arose a variety of difficulties, resulting from the African traveller’s twin banes—the dollar and the blood-feud. Panga-ni, Mbweni, and the other settlements on this coast, nominally belong, by right of conquest and succession, to the Sayyid of Zanzibar, who invests and confirms the Governors and Diwans. At Panga-ni, however, these officials are par congé d’élire, selected by Kimwere, Sultan of Usumbara, whose ancestors received tribute from the Mountains of Paré eastward to the Indian Ocean, and who still claims the northern villages. On the other hand, Mbweni and the southern settlements are in the territory of the Wazegura, a violent and turbulent tribe, inveterate slave-dealers, and cunning at kidnapping, whilst the Christian merchants of Zanzibar have been thoughtlessly allowed by the Prince Regnant to supply them freely with muskets and ammunition. Of course the two tribes, Wasumbara and Wazegura, are inveterate, deadly foes: moreover, about a year ago, a violent intestine feud broke out amongst the latter, who at the time of our visit were burning and plundering, selling and murdering one another in all directions. About two months had passed since they had cut the throat of one Moyya, a slave belonging to the Sayyid of Zanzibar; and, as usual, the murder was left unpunished. The citizens of Panga-ni, therefore, hearing that we were bearers of a letter from the Sayyid of Zanzibar to Sultan Kimwere, marked out for us the circuitous route viâ Mtangata, where no plundering Wazegura from the south of the Panga-ni river could try their valour. We, on the other hand, wishing to inspect that same stream, determined upon proceeding by the directest line, along its left or northern bank. The timid townsmen had also circulated a report that we were bound for Chaga and Kilima-njaro; the Wamasai were ‘out,’ the rains were setting in, and they saw us without armed escort. They resolved, therefore, not to accompany us; but nevertheless did each man expect his gift of dollars and his bribe of inducement.

The expense of the journey was an even more serious consideration. In these lands the dollar is almighty. If it be lacking, you must travel alone, unaccompanied, at least, by any but blacks; without other instrument but a pocket-compass, and with few weapons. You must conform to every nauseous custom; you will be subjected at the most interesting points to perpetual stoppages; the contents of your note-book will be well-nigh worthless; and unless you be one in a million, you may make up your mind that want and hardship will conduct you to illness and perhaps to death. This is one extreme, and from it to the other there is no ‘golden mean.’ With abundance of money—say £5000 per annum—an exploring party in these parts could trace its own line, paying off all opposers. It could study, if it pleases, even infusoria; handle sextants in the presence of negroes, who would willingly cut every throat for one inch of brass; and, by travelling comfortably, it would secure the best chance of return. Either from Mombasah or from Panga-ni we might have marched through the plundering Wamasai to Chaga and Kilima-njaro; but an escort of at least 100 matchlocks would have been necessary. Pay, porterage, and provisions for such a party would have amounted to at least £100 per week; and a month and a half would have absorbed the whole of our scanty supplies. Thus it was, gentle reader, that we were compelled to rest contented with a walking trip to Fuga.

Presently the plot thickened. Muigni Khatib, eldest son and heir of Sultan Kimwere, a black of unprepossessing physiognomy, with a ‘villainous trick of the eye and a foolish hanging of the nether lip;’ a prognathous jaw garnished with cat-like mustachios and cobweb beard; with a sour frown and abundant surliness by way of dignity, dressed like an Arab, and raised above his fellows by El Islam, sent a presumptuous message requesting us to place in his hands what we intended for his father. This chief was then journeying to Zanzibar with fear and trembling: he had tried to establish at his village, Kirore, a Romulian asylum for fugitive slaves, and having partially succeeded in enticing away many ruffians, he dreaded the consequences. The Baloch Jemadar strongly urged us privily to cause his detention in the Island, a precaution somewhat too Oriental for our taste; he refused, however, the Muigni’s request in his own tone. Following princely example, the dancing Diwans claimed a fee for permitting us to reside. As they worded it El Ada—the habit—basing it upon an ancient present from Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton, and as they were in palpable, manifest process of establishing a local custom, which in Africa becomes law to the latest posterity, we flatly objected, showed our letters, and in the angriest of moods, threatened reference to Head Quarters. Briefly, all began to angle for bakhshish, but I cannot remember any one catching it: they revenged themselves by promising to show us a minaret, and by showing only an old tomb—poor reward for 16 miles in the burning sun.

Weary of negro importunities, we resolved to visit Chogwe, the nearest Baloch outpost upon the Rufu^[33] (Lufu), or Upper Pangani river, and thence, aided by the Jemadar, who had preceded us, to push for Fuga, the capital village of Usumbara. We made our preparations silently, paid off the Riámi, rejected the Diwans who wished to accompany us as spies, left Said bin Salim and Caetano, the Goanese lad, in the house of the Wali Meriko, who presently accompanied his Muigni to Zanzibar; and under pretext of a short shooting excursion, we hired a long canoe and four men, loaded it with the luggage required for a fortnight, and started with the tide, at 11 A.M. on January 6, 1858.

First we grounded, then a puff of wind drove us on at railway speed, and then we scraped again: it was impossible to avoid being taken aback, so abrupt are the windings of the bed. At last we were successful in turning the first dangerous angle: here, where sea-breeze and tide meet the buffing stream, forming a ‘Lahr,’ as the Baloch call it, navigation becomes perilous to small craft. There is, as usual at and near the mouths of African rivers where the water acts as wind conductor, a little gale blowing upstream, a valuable aid to craft bound inland, but not without its risks; here many a boat has filled and sunk beneath the ridge of short chopping waves. After five miles, during which the turbulent river, streaked with lines of froth, gradually narrowed, we found it barely brackish, and somewhat farther it was sweet as the celebrated creek-water of Guiana.

Often since that day, while writing amid the soughing blasts, the dashing rain, and the darkened air of a wet season in West Africa and the Brazil, have I remembered with yearning the bright and beautiful spectacle of those Zangian streams, whose charm, like the repose of the dead, seems heightened by proximity to decay. We had soon exchanged the amene and graceful, though somewhat tame scenery of the sandstone formation on the seaboard, for a view most novel and characteristic. Behemoth now reared his head from the foaming waters, gazed upon us, snorted at us, and sank back surlily and suspiciously into the depths of his home. Crocodiles, terrified by the splash of paddles, waddled down, as dowagers might, with their horrid claws dinting the slimy bank, and lay upon the water like yellow-brown tree-trunks, measuring us with small malignant green eyes, deep set under warty brows. Monkeys rustled the tall trees, here peeping with curiosity almost human, there darting away in fear amidst the wondrous frondage and foliage; now gambolling and frolicking up and down the corkscrew-like bush-ropes, nature’s cables, shrouds, and stays; then disappearing amidst the gloom of virgin forest. Below, their younger brethren, the jungle men and women—

planted their shoulder-cloths, their rude crates, and their coarse weirs upon the muddy inlets where fish abounded. The sky was sparkling blue, the water was bluer, and over both spread the thinnest blue haze, tempering raw tones of colour to absolute beauty. On both sides of the shrinking stream a dense curtain of many-tinted vegetation,

shadowed swirling pools, where the current swept over the growth of intertwisted fibres. The stunted Mkindu, brab or wild date (Phœnix sylvestris), much used for mats, contrasted with the Nakhl el Shaytan, or Devil’s Date (Raphia Vinifera), which, eccentric in form and frondage, curved arms sometimes 30 and even 35 feet long, over the dancing wave: this dwarf-giant of the palms has no trunk to speak of, but each midrib is thick as a man’s thigh, and the vegetable kingdom cannot show such length of foliage. Not a few of the trees were so distinguished by oppositions of tall and sturdy trunk supporting frail and tender belongings, that they seemed to bear leaves and blossoms not their own. Upon the watery margin large lilies of snowy robe, some sealed by day, others wide expanded and basking in light and air, gleamed beautifully against the black-green growth and the clear bitumen-brown of the bank-water. In scattered spots were inhuman traces of human presence; tall arecas and cocoas waving over a now impenetrable jungle; whilst plantains, sugar-canes, limes, and bitter oranges, choked with wild verdure, still lingered about the broken homestead and around the falling walls, blackened by the murderer’s fire. And above all reigned the peculiar African and tropical stillness of noontide, deep and imposing, broken only by the curlew’s scream or by the tepid breeze rustling the tree-tops in fitful gusts, whispering among the matted foliage, and swooning away upon the warm bosom of the wave.

Amid such scenes we paddled and poled till the setting sun spread its cloak of purple over a low white cliff, upon whose feet the ripple broke and on whose head lingered venerable trees that stood out from the underwood of the lower banks. Here lies the Pir of Wasin, a saint described by our Baloch guide as a ‘very angry, holy man’ (bará jabrá Pir). A Sherif of pure strain, he gallantly headed, in times long gone by, his Moslem followers flying from Panga-ni, when it was attacked by a ravenous herd of heathenry. The infidels seem to have had the advantage in running: they collared the Faithful at these cliffs, and would have made mince-meat of them, when Mother Hertha, at the prayer of the Pir, opened wide and received them in her bowels. This Shaykh will not allow the trees to be felled or the floods to rise above the level of his grave: moreover, if the devotee, after cooking food at the tomb in honour of its tenant, venture to lick his fingers—the usual succedaneum for napkins in East Africa, and throughout the Moslem world—he is at once delivered over to the haunting Jinns. The Baloch never pass the place without casting a handful of leaves, a bullet, or a few grains of powder by way of humble heave-offering into the stream. Our guide told us, in accents of awe, how a Suri Arab, doubtless tainted with Wahhabi heresy, had expressed an opinion that this Pir had been a mere mortal, but little better, if at all better, than his own sinful self; how the shallow scoffer’s ship was wrecked within the year, and how he passed through water into the fire of Jehannum. Probatum est—defend us, Allah! from the sins of Reason.

We passed three small Arab timber-craft which were laying in a cargo of red and white mangrove trunks, and in many places floated small rafts of palm-fronds ready to be guided down-stream. At sunset the tide, running like a mill-race, compelled our crew to pole up a little inlet near Pombui or Kipombui, a village on the left bank, well stockaded with split areca trunks. The people who are subject to Zanzibar, and are claimed by Kimwere, flocked out to welcome their strangers, laid down a bridge of cocoa-ribs, brought chairs, and offered a dish of small green mangoes, here a great luxury. We sat under a tree till midnight, unsatiated with the charm of the darker hours. The moon rained molten silver over the black foliage and the huge fronds of the Devil’s Dates (Raphias); the stars gleamed like golden lamps hung unusually high in the limpid air, and Venus, the beautiful, glittered diamond-like upon the pure front of the firmament. The fireflies rose in a scatter of sparks—‘a shower of fire’ Southey has it—now all shone out simultaneously through the dark; then the glow melted away, as if by concerted impulse, amidst the glooms of the ground. At our feet rolled the black waters of the creek; in the jungle wild beasts roared fitfully; Leviathan and Behemoth crashed through the bush, and the night breeze mingled softly sighing sounds with the murmurs and the gurgling of the stream.

About midnight, when the tide flowed strong, we resumed our way. The river then became a sable streak down the avenue of lofty trees except where a bend suddenly opened its mirrory surface to the reflection of the moon, and stretched it before us like a silver ribbon. The deep roar of the hippopotamus, the snorting, and the occasional blowing sounded close to our stern, and the crew begged me to fire for the purpose of frightening a certain pernicious ‘rogue’ whose villanies had gained for him the royal title of ‘Sultan Mamba,’ or King Crocodile: now we heard the splashing of the huge beasts, as they scrambled over the shoals; then they struggled with hoarse grunts up the miry slippery banks which led to fields and plantations; then, again, all was quiet as the grave. After a protracted silence, deep and drear, the near voice of a man startled us as though it had been some ghostly sound. At 2 P.M., reaching a cleared tract on the river-side, the ‘ghaut’ or landing-place of Chogwe, we made fast the canoe, looked to our weapons, and covering our faces against the clammy dew and the blinding, paralyzing moonlight, we lay down to snatch an hour’s sleep. The total distance rowed was about 13½ miles.

We began the next morning with an inspection of Chogwe, the bazar, to which we were escorted with sundry honorary discharges of matchlocks, by the Jemadar, and 20 Bashi Buzuks. It was first occupied some few years ago, when the Church Missionary Intelligencer had published (Jan. 1850) a ‘fact,’ namely, that the ‘Imam of Zanzibar had not one inch of ground between the Island of Wasin and the Panga-ni river.’ The fact proved to be a fiction, and the late Sayyid at once garrisoned Chogwe and Tongwe with 25 Baloch. About this time, also, King Kimwere, with cheap generosity, had offered to Dr Krapf by way of mission-station a choice of Tongwe, of Pambire, or of Meringa, a lofty peak in the continuous range to the N. West. A certain French admiral declared that he would occupy these places where the ‘Imam’ had little authority; ‘if they do, I’ll burn the country faster than they can travel,’ was the Arab’s reply. M. Guillain next strove hard to prove that none of the Bu Saidi ever included even Makdishu in their dominions.

Chogwe is situated upon an eminence gently rising from the grassy plain of black alluvial soil which is flooded during the rains. It is seven direct miles distant from Panga-ni town, bearing west 288°; the walk over a rugged path occupies four or five hours, yet few men but slaves availed themselves of the short cut. The position is badly chosen, water is distant, the rugged soil produces nothing but stunted manioc, and when the inundation subsides in the lowlands it is exposed to miasma, whilst the frequent creeks must he crossed upon tree trunks acting bridges. The garrison at such times suffers severely from sickness, especially from fever and diarrhœa, and the men, dull as a whaler’s crew lorn of luck, abhor the wretched desolate out-station. Commanding, however, the main road to Usumbara, Chogwe affords opportunity for an occasional something in the looting line—which is a consideration.

A stiff snake-fence surrounds the hill-crest and defends the cajan penthouses of the Bashi Buzuks: the only works are two platforms for matchlock-men planted on high poles like the Maychan of Hindostan and the Mintar of Syria. The Washenzi savages sometimes creep up at night, shoot a few arrows into the huts, set fire to the matting with the spicula ignita, and after other such amenities, hurriedly levant. The Wazegura, though fighting with one another, did not when we visited the place molest the Baloch. To the North and West of Chogwe rises a continuous range, the outliers of Usumbara: about 15 miles S. Westward (233° 15′) in the plains of the Wazegura beyond the river is a succession of detached hills of which the most remarkable, Tongwe Mwanapiro, in our charts called Genda-genda, may be seen from Zanzibar. Here rules one Mwere, a chief hostile to the mercenaries, who boast that if they numbered 50 they could overrun and plunder the whole land: the Asiatics, not caring to soil their hands with negro blood, make their slaves fight his men even as the ingenuous youth, of Eton offered their scouts to meet in the cricket-field the ambitious youth of Rugby. It is certain that a few stout fellows, with a competent leader and a little money for good arms and ammunition, might easily establish an absolute monarchy over the independent blacks, and filibuster for Zanzibar, as the Khedive is now doing for Egypt.

These Baloch mercenaries merit some notice. They were first entitled Askar in the days of Sultan bin Ahmad, father of the late Sayyid Said, who preferred them to his unruly self-willed Omani Arabs and his futile half-castes and blacks: he acted upon the same principle which made the Ayyubite sultans of Syria and Egypt arm first Kurdish and afterwards Circassian ‘Mamluks.’ From 1000 to 1500 men were scattered over the country in charge of the forts: the ruler knew that they were hated by all Arabs, and to create dissensions even amongst his own children was ever the astute Sayyid’s policy. The Wáli and the Jemadar, like the Turkish Wáli and Mushir, are rarely on speaking terms, and if not open enemies, they are at least rivals. The people nickname these foreigners Kurára Kurára—to sleep! to sleep! ‘rárá’ being the Asiatic mispronunciation of lálá. Boasting themselves to be Baloch, they are mostly from the regions about Kech and Bampur: they are mixed up with a rabble rout of Arabs and Afghans, of Sidis^[34] and Hindostan men. The corps spoke some half-a-dozen different languages, and many of the members have left their country for their country’s good—a body of convicts, however, generally fights well. The Mekrani especially are staunch men behind walls, and if paid, drilled, and officered, they would make as ‘varmint’ light-bobs as any Arnauts. They have a knightly fondness for arms: a ‘young barrel and an old blade’ are their delight: like schoolboys, they think nothing so fine as the report of a gun; consequently ammunition is kept by the C. O., and is never served out except before a fight. All use the matchlock: while good shots are rare, many are tolerably skilful with sword and shield. Their nominal pay is from $2 to $3 per mensem, a pittance of some 20 pice (120 pice=$1) per diem: this must find them in clothes and rations as well as in arms; often there is not a sandal amongst them, and they are as ragged a crew as ever left the barren wolds of Central Asia in quest of African fortune. They live in tattered hovels, which they build for themselves, upon one meal a day, which is shared by their slave concubines. To the natural greed of mountain-races, the poor devils who come in horse and salt-boats, and act barbers and sailors, porters, labourers, and date-gleaners, add the insatiable desires of beggars. The Banyans have a proverb that a Baloch, a Brahman, and a buck-goat eat the trees to which they are tied. Sudden and sharp in quarrel, they draw their daggers upon the minutest provocation; they have no mitigation nor remorse of voice, and they pray in the proportion of one to a dozen. Africa is to them what the Caucasus is to the Russians, Kabylie to the French, and Sind to the English soldier. All look forward to ‘Hindostan—bagh o bostan,’ India the flower-garden; but the Arabs have a canny proverb inporting that the fool who falleth into the fire rarely falleth out of it.

Fraudare stipendio, saith ancient Justin, was the proverb of the Great King’s satraps: the custom has been religiously preserved by the modern East. Each station is commanded by a Jemadar, who receives $4 to $5 per month, and ample license to pay himself by peculation. This class is at once under-salaried, and over-trusted. The Jemadar advances money upon usury to his men; he keeps them six months in arrears, and not a few of them never see the colour of Government coin from the year’s beginning to the end. He exacts perquisites from all who fear his hate and who need his aid; and he falsifies the muster-rolls impudently and with impunity, giving 25 names to perhaps four men. Thus, like the Turkish Colonel of Nizam, the Jemadar lives in great state. He has a wife or two, and perhaps a dozen slaves; he sports a fine coat of scarlet broadcloth, a silver-hilted sword and dagger, and a turban of rich silk. He keeps flocks of sheep and goats, and he trades with the interior for ivory and captives. Such has been, such is, and such ever will be till Europe steps in, that false economy which throughout the ‘East,’ from Stambul to Japan, grasps the penny and flings away the pound. It is a state inseparable from the conditions of society and of government, where public servants are not paid, they must, of course, pay themselves; and they often prefer the latter mode, as they pay themselves far better than they would otherwise be paid. About a century ago we did the same thing in India, where men amassed fortunes, and until the late reforms, such was notoriously the case throughout the Russian empire. Perhaps in the present day the best place to study the system of all peculation and no pay is Damascus.

Having confided our project to the Jemadar of Chogwe, he promised his good-will—for a consideration. He undertook to start us the next day, and, curious to relate, for as usual he was a Cathaian of the first water, he kept his word. The small garrison, however, could afford but four matchlock-men as a guard, and the same number of slave-boys acting porters. The C. O., therefore, engaged for us, nominally paying $10, and doubtless retaining one half, a couple of guides, who proved to be a single guide and his chattel.

After a night spent in the Maychan, where wind, dust, and ants conspired to make us miserable, we arose to prepare for marching. We reduced our kit to the strictest necessaire, surveying instruments, weapons, waterproof blankets, tea, sugar, and tobacco for ten days, a bag of dates, and three bags of rice. About noon, issuing from our shed, we placed the baggage in the sun; thus mutely appealing to the ‘Sharm’—shame or sense of honour—possessed by our Baloch employés. A start was not effected till 5 P.M.; every slave grumbling loudly at his load, snatching up the lightest of packs, fighting to avoid the heavier burdens, and rushing forward regardless of what was left behind. This nuisance endured till abated by an outward application easily divined. I had only to hope that after a march or two the scramble would subside into something like order. At length, escorted in token of honour by the consumptive Jemadar and most of his company, we set out, in a straggling Indian file, towards Tongwe.

The track wound over stony ridges, and after an hour it plunged into a dense, thorny thicket, which during the rains must be impassable. The evening belling of the deer and the near ‘clock clock’ of the partridge struck our ears pleasantly. In open places lay the dry lesses of elephants, and footprints retained by the last year’s mud: these animals, as in the Harar country, descend to the plains during the rainy monsoon, and when the heats set in retire to the cool hills—a regular annual migration. The Baloch shoot, the wild people kill them with poisoned arrows. More than once during our march we found the gravelike trap-pits in India called Ogi. They are wedge-shaped holes 10 feet deep, artfully placed in the little rises frequented by the beasts, and the size must exactly fit the victim, which easily extricates itself from one too large or too small: if fairly jammed, however, it cannot escape. We did not sight a single specimen; but judging from the footprints—three to three and a half circumferences showing the shoulder-height—the elephant here is not of tall stature. From the further interior come tusks commonly weighing 100 lbs. each; those of 175 lbs. are not rare, and I have heard of a par nobile sent from Delagoa Bay to the King of Portugal, whose joint weight was 560 lbs. We also saw many traces of lion, antelope, and wild cattle, here called buffalo. It was a severe disappointment to us that we could not revisit, as we had promised ourselves, this country during the rains; but Lieut.-Col. Hamerton strongly dissuaded us from again risking jungle fever; and we had other work to do in Inner Africa. Sporting, indeed, must occupy the whole man, and even to shoot for specimens is often to waste time in two ways. The ‘serious traveller’ must indulge himself by taking at times a week or a fortnight’s leave from geographicalgeographical work, and even then he will frequently find circumstances interfere with his plans. Throughout our march in these regions game was rarely seen; none lives where the land is peopled; in the parts near the stations it is persecuted by the Baloch, and the wild Jägers will kill and eat even rats. We heard, however, many tales of Mabogo, or wild cattle, and of lions; of leopards in plenty; of a hog, probably the masked boar; amongst many antelopes, of one resembling the Nilghai (A. Picta), and of an elk said to be like the Sambar of Hindostan.

Another hour’s marching, and a total of six miles, as shown by the pedometer, brought us to the Makam Sayyid Sulayman, a partially cleared ring in the thorny jungle. It was bounded on one side by a rocky and tree-fringed nullah, where water stagnates in pools during the dry season; and here ensued a comical scene. The whole party went to drink, when suddenly all began to dance and shout like madmen, pulling off their clothes and frantically snatching at their lower limbs. It was our first experience of that formican fiend, the bull-dog ant (Siyáfú or Ch’hungu Fundo),^[35] black, and a good half inch long, which invariably reserves its attentions for the tenderest portions of the person attacked. The bite of this wretch, properly called ‘atrox,’ burns like the point of a red-hot needle, and whilst engaged in its cannibal meal, literally beginning to devour man alive, even when its doubled-up body has been torn from the head, the pincers will remain embedded in flesh. Moreover, there are the usual white ants (Ch’hungu Mchwa, Termes fatalis), death upon your property; the ginger-coloured Ch’hungu ya moto, whose name ‘fire-ant’ describes its bite, and the hopper ant, who, like the leopard, takes a flying leap from the nearest branch, and cleverly alighting upon the victim, commences operations. And where the ant is in legions, one of the most troublesome is the smelling ant (Ch’hungu Uvundo), which suggests that carrion is concealed behind every bush. Verily, in Africa, as was said of the Brazil, the ant is king, and he rules like a tyrant.

We spent the night in a small Babel of Baloch. It was a savage opera scene. One recited his Koran, another prayed, a third told funny stories, whilst a fourth trolled out in minor key lays of love and war, made familiar to my ear upon the rugged Sindian hills. This was varied by slapping away the lank mosquitoes that flocked to the gleaming camp-fires, by rising occasionally to rid ourselves of the ants, and by challenging the small parties of savages who, armed with bows and arrows, passed amongst us, carrying grain to Panga-ni. The Baloch kept a truly oriental watch. They sang and shouted, and they carefully fed the camp fire during early night, when there is no danger; but all slept like the dead through the ‘small hours,’ the time always chosen by the African freebooters, and indeed by almost all savages, to make their unheroic onslaughts. Similarly, throughout our expedition to the Lake Regions, the ‘soldiers’ never dreamed of any precaution whilst in dangerous regions. As we approached the coast, however, sentinels were carefully set, that all might be well which ends well.

At daybreak on February 9, accompanied by a much reduced detachment, we resumed our march: the poitrinaire Jemadar, who was crippled by the moonlight and by the cold dew, resolved, when thawed, to return with the rest of his company Chogwe-wards. An hour’s hard walking brought us to the foot of rugged Tongwe, the Great Hill. Ascending the flank of the N. Eastern spur, we found ourselves at 8 A.M., after five or six bad miles, upon the chine of a little ridge, with summer facing the sea, and a wintry wind blowing from the deep and forested valley to landward. Thence, pursuing the rugged incline, after another half-hour we entered the ‘fort,’ a crenellated, flat-roofed, and whitewashed room, 14 feet square, supported inside by smooth blackened rafters. It was tenanted by two Baloch, who figure on the muster-rolls as 20 men. They complain of loneliness and of the horrors: though several goats have been sacrificed, an obstinate demon still haunts the hill, and at times the weeping and wailing of distressed spirits makes their thin blood run chill from their hearts.

Tongwe is the first offset of the massive mountain-terrace which forms the Region of Usumbara: here, in fact, begins the Highland block of Zangian and equatorial Africa, which culminates in Kilima-njaro and Doenyo Ebor, or Mount Kenia. It rises abruptly from the plain, and projects long spurs into the river valley, where the Panga-ni flows noisily through a rocky trough, and whence we could distinctly hear the roar of the celebrated waterfall. Situated N. West of (324°), and nine miles as the crow flies from, Chogwe, the hill summit, about 2000 feet above sea-level, is clothed with jungle, through which we had to cut a way with our swords, when seeking compass bearings of the Nguru hills. The thickness of the vegetation, which contains stunted cocoas, oranges grown wild and bitter, the Castor shrub, the Solanum, and the bird-pepper plant, with small berry, but very hot i’ the mouth, renders the eminence inaccessible from any but the Eastern and Northern flanks. The deserted grounds showed signs of former culture, and our negro guide sighed as he told us that his kinsmen had been driven by the Wazegura from their ancient seats to the far inner wilds. Around the Fort were slender plantations of maize and manioc springing amongst the ‘black jacks,’ which here, as in the Brazil, are never removed. The surface is a reddish, argillaceous, and vegetable soil, overlying grey and ruddy granite and schists. These rocks bear the ‘gold and silver complexion’ which was fatal to Colin Clout, the chivalrous ‘Shepherd of the Ocean,’ and the glistening spangles of mica still feed the fancy of the pauper Baloch mercenary. Below Tongwe hill, a deep hole in the northern face supplies the sweetest ‘rock-water,’ and upon the plain a boulder of well-weathered granite, striped with snowy quartz, contains two crevices ever filled by the purest springs. The climate appeared delicious, temperate in the full blaze of an African and tropical summer, and worthy of verse—

The temperature would correspond with a similar altitude upon the Fernando Po and the Camarones peaks. But whilst the hill was green the lower lands were baked like bread crust—the ‘fertile and flourishing regions about Tongwe’ belong to the category of things gone by.

We had much to do before leaving Tongwe. The Jemadar had, it is true, ordered for us an escort, but in these latitudes obedience to orders is an optional matter. Moreover, the Baloch, enervated by climate and by long habits of utter indolence, looked forward with scant pleasure to the discomforts of a mountain march. Shoeless, bedless, and almost ragless, they could hardly be induced, even by the offer of ‘stone dollars,’ to quit for a week their hovel homes, their black Venuses, and their whitey-brown piccaninnies. They felt truly happy with us at Tongwe, doing nothing beyond devouring, twice a day, vast quantities of our dates and rice, an unknown luxury; and they were at infinite pains to defer the evil hour of departure. One fellow declared it was absolutely impossible for him to travel without salt, and proposed sending back a slave to Chogwe: the move would have involved the loss of at least three days, so we thought it best at once to begin with firmly saying no.

By hard talking I managed at last to secure a small party, which demands a few words of introduction to the reader—it is the typical affair in this part of Africa, and the sketch may be useful to future travellers. We have four slave boys, idle, worthless dogs, who never work save under the rod, who think of nothing beyond their stomachs, and who are addicted to running away upon all occasions. Petty pilferers to the backbone, they steal, magpie-like, by instinct, and from their impudent fingers nothing is safe. On the march they lag behind to see what can be ‘prigged,’ and not being professional porters, they are as restive as camels when receiving their loads. ‘Am I not a slave?’ is their excuse for every detected delinquency, and we must admit its full validity. One of these youths happening to be brother-in-law—after a fashion—to the Jemadar, requires almost superhuman efforts to prevent him loading the others with his own share.

The guide, Muigni Wazira, is a huge broad-shouldered, thick-waisted, large-limbed Msawahili, with coal black skin and straight features, massive and regular, which look as if cut in jet; a kind of face that might be seen on the keystone of an arch. He frowns like the Jann spoken of in the Arabian Nights, and he often makes me wish for a photographer. He is purblind, a defect which does not, however, prevent his leading us by the shortest path into every village that aspires to mulct our slender store of sprig-muslin. Wazira is our rogue, rich in all the perfections of African cunning. A prayerless Sherif, he utterly despises all Makafiri or infidels; he has a hot temper, and when provoked he roars like a wild beast. He began by stubbornly refusing to carry any load; but he yielded when it was gently placed upon his heavy shoulder, with a significant gesture in case of recusance. He does not, however, neglect to pass it occasionally to his slave, who, poor wretch, is almost broken down by the double burden.

Rahmat the Mekrani calls himself a Baloch, and bears the proud title of Shah-Sawar, or the Rider King. He is the Chelebi, the dandy or tiger of the party. A good-looking brown man, about 25 years of age, with a certain affectation and girlishness of speech and tournure which bode no good, the Rider King deals in the externals of respectability: he washes and prays with artificial regularity; he is ever combing his long hair and beard; he trains his bushy mustache to touch his eyes, and he binds on crookedly a huge turban. His cue is to affect the Jemadar, to take command. He would have monopolized, had I permitted him, the general store of gunpowder, a small leathern bottle wrung from the C. O. at Chogwe: and having somewhat high-flown ideas of discipline, he began by stabbing a slave-boy. He talks loud in his nasal native Balochki, debased Persian, ridiculous Arabic, and voluble Kisawahili; moreover, his opinion is ever to the fore. The Rider King, pleading soldier, refuses to carry anything but his matchlock and a private stock of dates, which he keeps ungenerously to himself. He boasts of prowess in vert and venison: I never saw him hit the mark, but we missed some powder and ball, with which perhaps he may be more fortunate. Literally, he was not worth his salt. Yet this knave had resolved to force himself upon me when in June I set out for the Lake Regions, and made a show of levelling his old shooting-iron. For sixpence a shot he might have fired ad libitum.

Hamdan, a Maskat Arab, has seen better days, of which strong waters and melancholia have removed all traces except a tincture of lettres. Our Mullah, or chaplain-and-secretary, is small, thin, brown-skinned, long-nosed, and green-eyed, with little spirit and less muscularity. A crafty old traveller, he has a store of creature comforts for the journey: he carries with his childish match-lock a drinking gourd and a Ghi-pot, and for more reasons than one he sits apart at the camping ground. Strongly contrasting with him is the ancient Mekrani Sha’ahan, a decrepit giant with the negroid type of countenance, pockmarked, and ugly enough to frighten. He is of the pig-headed, opposed to the soft-brained, order of old man, hard and opinionated, selfish and unmanageable. He smokes, and must drink water throughout the livelong day. He dispenses the wisdom of a Dogberry, whereat all laugh; and much to the disgust of his hearers, he either coughs or snores during the hours of night. This senior will carry nothing but his long greasy gun, gourd, and pipe; and, despite his grey beard, he is the drone of our party.

Jemal and Murad Ali are our working men, excellent specimens of the true Baloch, vieux grognards, with a grim sour humour, something like ‘wut,’ especially when the fair sex and its backslidings are concerned. They have dark frowning faces, wrinkled and rugged as their natal hills, with pads of muscle upon their short forearms and sinewy angular calves, remarkable in this land of sheepshanks. Sparing of words, they grunt the shortest answers when addressed; if they speak at all, it is in a roar or a scream: they are angry men, uncommonly handy with their well-polished daggers, and they think as little of cutting a negro’s as a sheep’s throat. At the promise of an extra dollar they walk off under heavy loads, besides carrying their arms and necessaries. These two, in fact, are good men and true.

The gem of the party, however, is one Sidi Mubarak, who has taken to himself the agnomen of ‘Bombay.’ His sooty skin, and teeth sharp-pointed like those of the reptilia, denote his origin from Uhiao: he is one of those model Seedies, runaway slaves, employed as lascars and coal-trimmers, who with chaff, grimace, and peals of laughter, varied now and then by dance and song, delight the passengers in an Anglo-Indian steamer. Bombay, sold at Kilwa in early youth, a process of which he talks with many broad grins, was carried to Cutch by some Banyan, and there became a libertinus: he looks fondly back upon the hour of his adoption, and he sighs for the day when a few dollars will enable him to return. His head is a triumph to phrenology; a high narrow cranium, denoting by arched and rounded crown, fuyant brow and broad base with full development of the moral region, deficiency of the reflectives, fine perceptives, and abundant animality. His hair is of the woolliest: his twinkling little eyes are set close together, and his lips and expansive mouth, especially in rare fits of ill-temper, project as in the cynocephali. He works on principle and he works like a horse, candidly declaring that not love of us but his duty to his belly make him work. With a sprained ankle and a load quite disproportioned to his chétif body, he insists upon carrying two guns, and after a 30 miles’ walk he is as fresh as before it began. He attends us everywhere, manages our purchases, carries all our messages, and when not employed by us, he is at every man’s beck and call. Speaking a little broken Hindostani, he has for all ‘jungly niggers’ an ineffable contempt, which he never attempts to conceal. He had enlisted under the Jemadar of Chogwe: we thought, however, so highly of his qualifications, that persuasion and paying his debts induced him after a little coqueting to take leave of soldiering and to follow our fortunes. He began by escorting us to Fuga as head gun-carrier: on our march to the Lakes he was the confidential servant and interpreter of my companion, he being the only man with whom the latter could converse, and in the Second Expedition of Capts Speke and Grant he was promoted to command the Wasawahili. Almost every black brain would have been turned by this rapid and dazzling rise: Sidi Mubarak Bombay did not, however, as I had anticipated, ‘prove himself a failure in the end.’

A machine so formed could hardly be expected to begin work without some creaking. The Baloch were not entirely and solely under us, and in the East no man will, even if he can, serve two masters. For the first few days many a muttered cursing and loud wrangling showed signs of dissolution. One would not proceed because the Rider King kept the gunpowder, another started on his way home because he was refused some dates, and, during the night after departure, all Bombay’s efforts, we afterwards heard, were in requisition to prevent a break-up en masse. But by degrees the component parts fitted smoothly and moved steadily, till at last we had little to complain of, and the men volunteered to follow wherever we might lead. By acting upon the old Oriental principle, ‘the word is gone forth and must be heard,’ we never failed to win a disputed point, and one success paved the way for others. Amongst these perverse and headstrong races, however, the traveller must be careful in committing himself to an ultimatum, and he must be prepared when he says he will do a thing, to do it. Otherwise he will speedily lose caste, and caste once lost is not to be regained—in Africa or, perhaps, elsewhere.

NOTE.

Since these pages were written, Sidi Mubarak Bombay has been made Chief of Caravan by Mr Stanley of New York, who is now (December 10, 1871) marching upon the Tanganyika Lake in quest of Dr Livingstone.