May, 1874The cheering hope of getting boats at Nyangwé and of floating down the unknown waters of the Kongo to the West Coast in two or three months, rallied my spirits to the highest pitch as I started on my first journey west of Tanganyika.
Syde Mezrui had assured me that he could procure canoes almost immediately on my arrival at Nyangwé, as he was friendly with chiefs who possessed many. This was, I considered, a great point in his favour when I engaged him as a guide, because none of my men would have followed me west unless accompanied by some person wel acquainted with the road.
Passing over very steep hills - the last spurs of the mountains of Ugoma which end abruptly over the lake - and across some small torrents we reached Ruanda, the capital of Uguhha. It is a considerable town situated on a very fertile, flat, alluvial plain extending from the mountains of Ugoma to the river Lukuga, and intersected by the Lugumba and smaller streams flowing into the lake.
The populace turned out to stare at me, the crowd forming quite a lane as I passed through the place; and an unfortunate sheep getting hemmed in just before me heralded my approach by a frantic baaing which gave rather a ludicrous aspect to the scene.
On leaving the town I sat down to allow the caravan to overtake me, and then continuing the march for a short distance went into camp after crossing a stream which must be of considerable size in the rains.
In the afternoon a messenger informed me that the chief would call on me. But soon afterwards I heard with some regret that he and S.P.Q.R were so greatly under the influence of the rosy god that any attempt at reaching my camp would be attended with very serious difficulty. The visit was therefore abandoned.
My efforts at obtaining copper in exchange for singo-mazzi were somewhat hampered by the discovery that in the free fight arising between Mr. and Mrs. Bombay, on the attempted reorganization of the lady, most of them had been rendered unmarketable. But four or five pieces of copper and some goats were given for those that remained undamaged.
This copper comes from Urua in pieces called "handa," varying in weight from two and a half to three pounds. They are cast in the rough shape of St. Andrew's cross, and the diagonal measurement is from fifteen to sixteen inches, while the arms are about two inches wide and half an inch thick. Many of them have a raised rib along the centre of the arms.
June, 1874These were said to be in great demand in Manyuéma and singo-mazzi were useless beyond Uguhha.
To avoid the necessity of employing extra men to assist further in carrying our stores, as on the road drom Kasengé, I distributed a lot of beads as a month's ration in advance and opened and issued a box of cartridges.
What the men did with their ammunition it was difficult to understand. At Bagamoyo I served out a hundred and thirty rounds of ball cartridge, and at Unyanyembé twenty-five per gun besides blank, yet now many had not even a single cartridge. They seemed to think themselves renarkably clever in getting rid of them,and came with a grim on their faces, saying, "Hapana Bwana" (There aere none, master).
By this reduction of loads I thought it would be possible to get along without further trouble, but Bombay exercised an almost flendish ingenuity in making work and upsetting my plans.
Out of loads which I had broken up and distributed amongst the askari, and of shots, wads, and cartridges belonging to my own guns which I put into the lighter loads in order to equalise the weight of all, he made extra ones. And when I ordered the start in the morning he reported that four loads were unprovided with carriers !
Rearranging matters delayed our moving, and our next camp was not reached until nearly two o'clock after a heavy march under a most powerful sun. The thermometer, in partial shade under a tree, registered 131°.
It was all the more trying from our having to walk through stinking fetid mud at some marshy spots.
At noon we forded the Lugumba forty yards wide and mid-thigh deep, running two and a half knots, with the water glittering in the sun from the number of particles of quartz held in suspension.
Thus far we had skirted the base of the landward spurs of the southern end of the mountains of Ugoma; but now they were left and a small independent line of hills was before us, forming the watershed between the Lugumba and Lukuga.
A painful accident occurred to one of the pagazi when crossing a deep but narrow nullah. He unfortunately stumbled, and in falling forward one of the sticks forming the cradle of his load ran into his eye, completely destroying the eyeball and lacerating the lid. I wished to apply a cold-water dressing, but he said he wanted "stronger medicine" than water; so I handed him over to the care of a native doctor in a village near the camp. His treatment consisted of a plaister of mud and dirt, and his fee was forty strings of beads.
As this poor fellow was totally incapacitated from carrying a load and some other men were suffering from the effects of excesses at Ujiji, I tried to procure the services of some wahuhha as carriers to Mékéto, where our next halt was to be. Some volunteered to go but afterwards hauled off, so I served out more beads as rations - making an advance till the end of July - and redistributed loads, giving the sick men light weights according to their powers.
A sharp touch of fever, brought on by exposure to the sun on the march from Ruanda, added greatly to the worry and trouble I experienced in managing matters.
From this place we moved on the 5th of June for Mékéto. On our two days' journey we passed over many hills and crossed rivulets flowing into the Lugumba and Lukuga, the valley of which could be plainly seen running away to the W.S.W. From the highest of these hills - the day before reaching Mékéto - I had a last view of the Tanganyika, a patch of bright blue backed by sombre masses of mountains near Ras Kungwé.
We saw many tracks of big game, and where a large herd of elephants had passed the scene of destruction was amazing.
A small but dishonest party of Warua, carrying oil to the lake to exchange for the salt of Uvinza, camped near us, and in the morning all my goats excepting Dinah and one given me at Ujiji were missing. The Warua had also departed.
Mékéto lies in a broad, deep valley, drained by the Kaça, an affluent of the Lakuga, and viewed from the hill which forms its eastern side is almost perfect in its rural beauty. Many fields of green matama and cassava, contrasting with the already sun-dried yellow grass; tiny hamlets of thatched huts clustering at the foot of groves of fine trees, with wreathes of pale blue smoke curling up from the fires; and in the foreground a line of heavy vegetation along the Kaça which here and there reflected a ray of the sun as from a surface of burnished silver, combined in making a most beautiful scene.
Here we remained three days to obtain supplies and carriers for the journey to Kwamrora Kaséa, five marches off, as a number of the men pleaded illness to avoid carrying their loads.
During the stay the chief sent civil messages with excuses for not coming to see me on account of the distance. I also received from him a fat goat for which I, of course, sent a present in return and paid his messengers. He did me further good service in providing carriers.
A native slave-dealer brought into camp a little boy of ten or eleven with his neck in a slave-fork, and wanted to sell him. The poor child had evidently been brutally used, and was crying so bitterly that my first impulse was to set him free and give his master a sound trashing. Yet, knowing that directly my back was turned any punishment would be repaid to the child with interest, I had to content myself with ordering off the brutal dealer.
People thronged the camp, bringing ground-nuts, corn, sweet potatoes, and other articles of food for sale.
They were chiefly women, the men being away on journeys; for, like the Warua of whom they are a branch, they are a travelling and trading race.
The women wore their hair after the fashion of those at the entrance of the Lukuga already described. Their ornaments consisted of coiled bracelets of brass wire, bangles of iron, brass, and copper round their ankles, strings of large singo-mazzi round their necks and waists, and a band of cowries or small beads bound around their heads.
The upper part of the forehead was often painted in stripes of vermilion and black, which had not such an unpleasing effect as might be supposed.
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| Dress and tatooing of woman of Uguhha |
Round the waist was a piece of fringed grass cloth about eighteen inches deep and open in front, but in the hiatus they wore a narrow apron reaching to the knees and frequently ornamented by lines of cowries or beads down the centre.
The hoes used in this district are large and heavy, but their hatchets are the smallest and most useless I ever saw, the blade being only an inch and a half wide. Their arrows are, however, broad-headed, deeply barbed, and poisoned.
All the men carry whistles with which they signal to each other on the road.
Some Warua arrived whilst we were here, having dried fish and the scented oil of the mpafu-tree for sale; and it occurred to me as curious that although the Tanganyika abounds in fish, the people dry only the small minnow-like "dagaa," and are always ready to buy that brought a distance of a hundred and fifty miles or more by the Warua.
After leaving Mékéto we did not make another halt until the 16th of June, when we reached the village of Pakwanywa, chief of Ubûdjwa, one long march beyond Kwamrora Kaséa.
Streams without number were passed during this march. The principal, the Rubumba - one of the most important affluents of Luama and often confused with the Lugumba - we crossed twice, and found it so wide and deep that it was necessary to throw a rope of creepers across for the men to hold on by to prevent their being swept away.
Many of the streams were particularly beautiful, especially the Lugungwa, a short way below the ford, where it had cut a channel fully fifty feet deep in the soft sandstone and not more than eight feet wide at the top. On the projections of its cliff-like sides most lovely ferns and mosses grew, and large trees on both banks mingled their branches and formed a perfect arch of verdure over the river.
The hills along which we had been marching now joined the Ugoma mountains, having hitherto been separated by the valley of the Lugumba.
Tracks of all kinds of large game - except giraffes, which do not exist much to the westward of Unyanyembé - were very numerous; and on a sandy island the tracks of buffalo were so thick as to give the appearance of a large herd having been penned there. The grass on each side of the path was almost too thick and heavy to penetrate in search of sport.
And it was also needful for me to keep in rear of the caravan to prevent my men from straggling. With all my care they often eluded me and lay hidden in the jungle till I had passed in order to indulge in skulking.
The men carrying my tent and bath were especially prone to this habit although their loads were light, and I frequently waited long after camp was reached for these necessary appliances to come to the front.
On this march I first saw the mpafu, from which the scented oil is obtained. It is a magnificent tree, often thirty feet and more in circumference and rising to eighty or a hundred feet before spreading and forming a head, the branches of which are immense. The oil is obtained by soaking the fruit - which has some resemblance to an olive - for a few days in large pits of water, and when the oil collects on the surface it is skimmed off. It is usually of a reddish colour, very pure and clear, with an agreable smell.
Under the bark are great masses of scented gum, used by the natives in fumigating themselves.
Besides the mpafu there were several other trees perfectly new to me, one having a soft dense wood out of which the natives make beautifully finished bowls.
A man whom I watched at this work had felled two or three trees and cut them into logs of about the same length as the diameter of the trunk, i.e. from one to two feet. These he split into halves, and with a very sharp and small single-handed adze made them into bowls as truly formed as though he had been a master-turner.
At this stage of their manufacture they are rubbed with a rough leaf, which answers the purpose of sandpaper, until the marks of the adze are perfectly smoothed down. In many instances lips are hollowed out with a knife and patterns are also occasionally carved on them.
Staining the outside a dark red is the finishing touch, and when new this effectively contrasts with the white of the inside; but with use they become perfectly black from dirt and grease.
I also a peculiarly shaped wooden drum hollowed out from a solid block of wood, the outside being modelled with adzes like those used in the bowl-making, and the inside by chisel-shaped pieces of iron with wooden handles three feet long.
We passed through many strips of thick and intricate tangled jungle. The creepers were principally indiarubber vines with stems the thickness of a man's thigh; and in cutting them away in order to clear a passage we were well bedaubed with the sap, which was very plentiful. Indeed, sufficient indiarubber to supply the wants of the civilised world might easily be collected here.
All the villages possessed fetish huts with little carved idols, under whose protection they were supposed to be; and in fields rougher idols were placed to watch over the crops. Offerings of pombé and corn were often made to these images, and on occasions of harvesting or sowing a goat or a fowl was sometimes lavished upon them.
The last march before arriving at Pakwanywa's village was one of the most exhausting and trying I had up to that time experienced. The road led us over a succession of small hills, and the sun beat down upon us from a cloudless sky.
The heat of the parched ground scorched my feet through thick boots, knitted stockings and socks. Drawing a breath was like inhaling the fumes of a heated furnace.
On entering the village I was thoroughly beaten by heat and thirst, and the agony was increased by the people crowding round to stare at me.
Water seemed to be unattainable. But at least a kind-hearted old man pushed through the crowd and handed me a large calabash full, and if ever I blessed a man it was that one. With a continuous draught I drained the calabash, large as it was, and the friendly old native sent for more; and when I offered him a small present of beads for his thoughtfulness and trouble he declined to accept any reward whatever.
At Pakwanywa's I heard that a large caravan under the leadership of Muinyi Hassani was waiting for us a few days in front, and although I had no desire to join them it was better to yield and avoid opposition on their part.
The men engaged at Mékéto declined to go any further with us, nor would other natives volunteer to assist; so I issued two more loads of beads as rations instead of abandoning them for lack of carriers.
Others of my followers were malingering, and Bombay and Bilâl instead of assisting me in the slightest were ever ready to throw difficulties in my way in the vain hope of inducing me to turn back and abandon the expedition.
Syde Mezrui "made brothers" with Pakwanywa, and I went to the village to witness the interesting ceremony.
Pakwanywa I found sitting out in the open superintending the painting of his wife's forehead, and a serious matter it seemed to be. The artist, having the different colours prepared with oil - each in a separate leaf - plastered them on with a knife and then carefully scraped the edges of the various tints till they were exactly true and formed the required pattern.
This being finished, Pakwanywa invited me into his hut, which was about twenty feet square and smoothly plastered on the inside to the height of four feet. The walls were ornamented with squares of red, white, and yellow, bordered with black and white stripes, some left plain and others profusely dotted with white finger-marks.
On two sides of the building a raised earthen bench three feet wide and covered with mats served as a divan.
A pile of large logs out of which the wooden bowls are made was placed in one corner to season; and in another was a sunken fireplace for use at night or in rainy weather. The sole means of obtening light, air, and ventilation was by the doorway, consequently the inside of the roof, where bows and spear-staves were seasoning, was black and shiny with soot. The floor was of clay and was perfectly smooth.
On entering it was with dificulty I could distinguish anything, but as my eyes became accustomed to the absence of light I noticed gourds and cooking pots hanging up, and everything appeared to be in its place, showing Mrs. Pakwanywa to be a "notable housewife."
After a certain amount of palaver Syde and Pakwanywa exchanged presents, much to the advantage of the former - more especially as he borrowed the beads from me and afterwards forgot to repay me. Pakwanywa then played a tune on his harmonium, or whatever the instrument might be called, and the business of fraternising was proceeded with.
Pakwanywa's headman acted as his sponsor, and one of my askari assumed the like office for Syde.
The first operation consisted of making an incision on each of their right wrists just sufficient to draw blood, a little of which was scraped off and smeared on the other's cut, after which gunpowder was rubbed in.
The concluding part of the ceremony was performed by Pakwanywa's sponsor holding a sword resting on his(Pakwanywa's) shoulder, whilst he who acted for Syde went through the motions of sharpening a knife on it. Both sponsors meanwhile made a speech, calling down imprecations on Pakwanywa;s and all his relations, past, present, and future, and praying that their graves might be defiled by pigs if he broke the brotherhood in word, thought, or deed. The same form having been gone through with respect to Syde, the sponsors changing duties, the brother-making was complete.
This custom of "brother-making" I believe to be really of Semitic origin, and to have been introduced into Africa by the heathen Arabs trading there before the time of Mahomet; and this idea is strengthened by the fact that when the first traders from Zanzibar crossed the Tanganyika the ceremony was unknown to the westward of that lake.
That which I have termed Pakwanywa's harmonium, for want of a better name, was composed of a board to which were attached a number of springy iron keys of different lengths and breadths to give variety to their tone, and a gourd was placed behind to act as a sounding board. The keys are played on by the thumbs, and a fair amount of music can be extracted from this instrument by a clever performer. They are called Kinanda by the natives, but Kinanda is a generic term for almost all musical instruments.
The following is a description of Mrs. Pakwanywa as I wrote it at the time of my visit : -
"She is a merry sort of person and really lady-like in her manners. It was great fun showing her a looking-glass, she had never seen one before, and was half-afraid of it and ashamed to show whe was afraid. She is a very dressy body, double row of cowries round her head, besides copper, iron, and ivory ornaments stuck in her hair, and just above and in front of each ear a little tassel of red and white beads. A large necklace of shells (viongwa) round her neck, and round her wrist a string of opal coloured singo-mazzi, and a roll (or rope) made of strings of a dull, red-coloured bead. Her front apron was a leopard-skin, and the rear one of coloured grass cloth, with its fringe strung with beads and cowries sewn on it in a pattern; bright iron rings round her ankles, anc copper and ivory bracelets on her arms. Her hair was shaved a little back from her forehead, and three lines, each about a quarter of an inch wide, painted below it. The one nearest the hair was red, the next black, and the next white, and to crown all she was freshly anointed with mpafu oil, and looked sleek and shiny."
The upper classes of Ubûdjwa wear similar dresses, ornaments and tatoo marks to those of the Waguhha and Warua, and are apparently of the same race.
The lower orders, whom I believe to be the aborigines, are quite different in features and dress. Their women perforate their upper lips and insert a piece of stone or wood which is gradually increased in size until the lip frequently protrudes an inch and a half or two inches, giving a particularly hideous expression and making their articulation very indistinct.
Their clothing consists of from one to three leather cushions, very muh like buffaloes' horns in shape, the thickest part being placed behind and the tapering points in front. A small piece of bark cloth, about six inches wide by eight or ten deep, is tucked into the front part to serve as an apron. Skin aprons are worn by the men, who smear the unclipped wool with red clay and grease.
They also tatoo their faces and rub in lampblack after a fashion that gives them the appearance of having been badly scratched by a cat, black blood having been drawn instead of red.
Both sexes of all classes carry little carved images round their necks or tied to the upper part of their arms as a charm against evil spirits. They are usually hollow and filled with filth by the fetish man
We left Pakwanywa's on the 19th of June for Pakhûndi; and directly after starting passed a stream rising in a hot spring, the water where we crossed being 107° Farenheit, whilst the air was only 70°. At the spring the water bubbled up in a sort of fountain, and there the heat must have been much greater, but it was impossible to reach it on account of mud and weeds. Notwithstanding the temperature of the water, trees, plants and frogs flourished in it.
To Pakhûndi the road lay across fairly level country, partly jungle and partly clearing, and one sandy plain with many palms. There were several small streams all flowing toward the Rubumba, excepting the last - the Katamba - which ran south, towards the valley of the Lukuga.
Near some villages were small iron foundries, and in dangerous proximity to the path there were many pits from which the ore, a kind of red hæmatite, is obtained.
The caravan awaiting us at Pakhûndi consisted of Muinyi Hassani and his people; a party under charge of a slave of Syde ibn Habib; and two small traders, Muinyi Brahim and Muinyi Bokhari. The two latter had each only about a dozen men, whilst the remainder, about two hundred and fifty in number, were equally divided between Muinyi Hassani and Syde ibn Habib's slave. There were also a few freedmen, smiths and carpenters, travelling on their own account with one or two slaves.
