June, 1874On joining the caravan we were welcomed with all outward civility, but little else. The traders were naturally glad that a well-armed party should accompany them across Manyuéma, as they had barely sixty guns amongst them, many of those being useless Tower and other flint guns while the best were merely French trade percussion single barrels.
Of course we could not expect to start from Pakhûndi without wasting a day for the men of the two caravans to enjoy their gossip; but on the 22nd of June we marched, and passing through a hilly and diversified country watered by a few streams - some working to the Rubumba, now about twenty miles north of us, and others flowing away to the Lukuga - arrived at Kwaséré.
Here a prosperous village once stood, but it had evidently been destroyed in some recent fight, together with others lying near.
Stools, pots, mortars and other articles of household furniture were lying about in confusion, instead of being removed as would have been the case had the flitting been premeditated; and growing crops were left standing.,/p>
I firmly believe the traders had something to do with this work of destruction, for they now took the precaution of building a very strong fence round their camp, although they had not previously done so since leaving Tanganyika. But in answer to my enquiries they asserted that no disturbance whatever had occurred here.
In Kwaséré there were two or three small foundries about twelve feet square with a raised bank round the sides, the centre of the floor sloping towards a deep trough which was placed to receive the molten metal. The remains of a furnace lay in one corner, and clay nozzles for the wooden bellows were scattered about in all directions. The whole of the floors of these foundries were well plastered with smooth and polished clay burnt quite red in many places.
This day the thermometer at half-past one registered 100° in complete shade, and 142° in the sun.
The grass through which we forced our way had grown to such an extent as to be almost impenetrable. In many places it was upwards of twelve feet in height and so dense that leaning against it scarcely made any impression, the stalks of the main stems being often thicker than my thumb.
Even where the grass had been burnt down these stems remained four or five feet high and scratched one's face and hands in a most horrid manner.
And in addition to this the ashes, blown about by the slightest breeze, filled eyes, nose, mouth, hair and ears. After marching an hour ot two through a strip of burnt country one had much the appearance and feeling of having been in a coal-pit.
For some days we marched in company with the Arabs through well-watered, fertile, and fairly populated country, with crops of matama growing in luxuriance.
But along the whole route a very hollow peace seemed to reign, the traders owing their security to the fear inspired by their guns. Yet the inhabitants constantly came into camp with slaves and ivory for sale, as well as flour and other provisions.
Slaves were usually gagged by having a piece of wood, like a snaffle, tied into their mouths. Heavy slave-forks were placed round their necks and their hands were fastened behind their backs. They were then attached by a cord to the vendor's waist.
I believe that as a general rule they were much better treated when bought by the traders than whilst they remained in the hands of their native owners.
They were mostly captives, surprised when in the woods a short way from their own villages, and had of course to be kept in chains by their masters to prevent their escaping; otherwise they were not really badly used, being fairly fed and not overloaded.
In the few cases of bad treatment which came under my notice the owners were either slaves themselves, or freedmen who on beginning to taste the delights of freedom seemed anxious to prevent any one lower in the scale from rising to a like state of happiness.
Many of the villages through which we passed had their "public parks" - large open spaces preserved in their centres and shaded by fine trees. Large trunks of the fan-palm were laid upon the ground and on these we usually found the male population seated for a stare when we went by, whilst the women and children, though kept in the background, rivalled them in curiosity.
The men saluted the principal people of the caravan as they passed by singing, "Maji muko," in chorus, and clapping their hands; and on being answered in the same manner they vociferated, "Eh hân."
Notwithstanding this apparent desire to be civil they were churlish and disobliging. If asked for a drink of water or a light for a pipe, they would reply that the river would be found near or that the fire was their own; although had they been more obliging they would have received a small present of beads, or a pinch of salt, of which they are inordinately covetous, having none in their country.
We were now passing through Uhiya, and the people differed materially from their neighbours in dress and habits.
Many adopted the horrid practice of chipping all their teeths to points, giving them the appearance of wild beasts, and their head-dresses were both hideous and curious.
Some wore a huge bowl-shaped leather chignon having a hole in the center out of which hung a kind of leather tongue. Others plastered their hair with mud and oil, and so frizzed and trained it as to present a certain resemblance to a judge's wig, and others divided it into crests and ridges.
Tatooing was common amongst both sexes, but there was no beauty or design in the patterns as amongst the Waguhha; indeed, the appearance of the ghastly scars left by some of the gashes was most abhorrent. Amongst the most favourite marks were rude attempts at crescents, Maltese crosses, and a trellis-work formed of deep cuts disposed irregularly over the body.
The clothing of the men usually consisted of a short kilt of skins or bark cloth. The women wore leather belts - divided into two or three strips - which supported a small square of cloth behind and a very minute apron in front. Some were even more scantily attired, having only a string round the waist with a small leather apron, about three inches wide and four or five deep, cut into strips no wider than a boot-lace.
I heard that a short distance further west the people were perfectly nude, but that they managed, by constant manipulation when the children were very young, to cause the fatty covering of the lower part of their bellies to hang down like an apron almost to the middle of the thigh. And this was allowed to answer the purpose of dress.
On mentioning this to H.E. the Governor-General of Angola, Admiral Andradé, on my arrival at Loanda, he informed me that he had witnessed a similar peculiarity amongst tribes in the interior near Mozambique.
Instead of pounding their corn in mortars, the people here made use of trunks of trees let flush into floors of hardened earth, and in consequence of their having small holes in them, the flour they made was even more gritty than that prepared in wooden mortars.
Close to the western end of Uhiya we crossed the Luwika, a considerable stream falling into the Lukuga according to the evidence of a travelled Mguhha who had settled in Uhiya as chief of a village. The latter river he said he had traced to its confluence with the Lualaba.
Just before leaving Uhiya we camped in a deserted village. the whilom inhabitants of which had, in accordance with a very common custom, flitted on accountof the death of their chief and were now busily engaged in building a new village not far from their former habitation.
They had planted young bark-cloth trees round the site of their new home and had erected the frame-work of their huts and granaries. These they were now plastering with red clay obtained from the large ant-hills. This clay is also used for making pottery.
The huts were square, and were constructed of stakes four feet in height planted in the ground and kept secure by a couple of binders wattled in.
To the head of each of these stakes, which were about eight inches apart, a long tapering flexible wand was tied. These were bound together at the top, and horizontal rings of small sticks were fastened to them at every three feet. In this stage the huts looked exactly like huge birdcages.
The walls were then filled in with mud, and the roof thatched with long grass, the eaves reaching nearly to the ground. A couple of stout logs were planted on each side of the doorway and, with some extra sticks worked in and the thatch trimmed, formed a sort of porch.
In the interior, the floor, walls and lower part of the roof were plastered smoothly with clay, while the remainder of the roof was lined with a spiral wisp of grass something after the manner of a straw beehive.
The only aperture by which smoke could escape or light enter was the door, and at night this was most jealously kept shut and a whole family of six or eight people - together with fowls, goats, dogs and sheeps - with a fire burning in their midst, remain hermetically closed until the morning. How they manage to exist without a better supply of oxygen is a mistery to me.
The granaries are circular, of hurdle-work daubed with clay, and stand eight feet high and four in diameter, being placed on small platforms two feet from the ground. They have movable, conical, thatched roofs.
In the deserted village there were many very fine bark-cloth trees, and the late inhabitants sent people over to prevent our injuring them when making our camp.
From this place we crossed a level plain along which the Luwika ran, lying between two almost cliff-like ranges of hills, but on arriving at a village our road suddenly turned to the right and we had to clamber up the face of so steep a cliff that hands and knees were used almost more than feet.
At the summit we had about ten yards level walking and then an equally steep descent into a rich and fertile valley full of villages.
This was the commencement of a second Uvinza, which must not be confounded with the Uvinza which we passed to the east of the Tanganyika.
Outside some of the villages there were large clay idols in different attitudes - sitting, standing, erect, and recumbent - all being placed under small sheds with pots of pombé and heads od corn lying round them.
We camped on the banks of the Lulumbijé, which - after breaking through the narrow ridge we had just crossed - joins the Luwika. The united streams are known indifferently as the Lulumbiké or Luwika until the junction with the Lukuga. This exactly coincides with the information given me by the chief at the entrance of the Lukuga, of a stream falling into that river at a place one month's journey from the lake.
The Uvinza people displayed more skill in carving than any I had hitherto met, and many of their walking-sticks were very creditable specimens of the carver's art.
Several of both sexes wore pieces of cane or rings of beads through the centre cartilage of the nose, and their hair was tastefully worked into cones and ridges finished off by plaits.
The Lulumbijé was crossed the next day, and after a heavy and hilly march - during which several affluents of that river were met with - we arrived at the village of Kolomamba, situated on the top of a high range of hills whence we obtained a distant view of a large grove of oil-palms surrounding Rohombo, the first village in Manyuéma.
At Kolomamba, the people were on the point of moving, having lately been worsted in one of those innumerable squabbles which are perpetually going on.
The arms of the people of Uhiya are light spears and large bows strung with strips of cane, throwing heavy arrows. Those of Manyuéma consist only of heavy spears and large wooden shields.
A harangue was now given by the kirangosi of the Arab caravan, to the effect that we were about to enter the dangerous country of Manyuéma, the natives of which were more cruel and treacherous than any with whom we had yet met. Consequently stragglers would most certainly be cut off, killed, and probably eaten.
I consoled myself with the idea that I was so very thin that they would not consider me worth the trouble of eating, for there was hardly a meal for one man on my bones.
Although Rohombo could be seen from Kolomamba some hours' weary tramping were necessary to reach it.
Open grassy glades interspersed with thickets of jungle were on either side of us, and as we drew near crowds of people lined the road eager to have a stare at the caravan.
I arrived with the leading part and being shown the camping-place - an open space with three small stockaded villages - ordered my tent to be pitched under a large tree standing on one side.
Soon afterwards I found it moved into the full blaze of the sun; and on enquiring the cause was told that the Arabs' kirangosi had directed it as he wanted the place under the tree for himself.
I, of course, would not stand this treatment and had my tent put back again. Upon which the kirangosi declared he would not camp here unless he had the place he wanted, so to end the dispute I told him he could go to the devil if he liked. He then moved on a mile further with his people, while I remained with mine; and later the Arabs apologised for his impertinence.
These kirangosis give themselves airs and do much as they please with their own masters, and I suppose the fellow thought I should submit to the same.
The people here were rough and dirty-looking, and wore their mud-plastered hair in irregular masses.
Food was fairly plentiful - bananas, fowls, eggs, flour and palm wine being obtained.
The oil-palms are climbed by means of a piece of the mid-rib of the palm-frond, flattened and softened, and a rope of creepers, the mid-rib being passed round the tree and the rope behind the man's back, and tied together. The tree is then climbed in the same manner as cocoa-nut palms frequently are in the West Indies.
During our two days'stay one of the natives constituted himself my showman. To each visitor to the camp he would point out my books, boxes, &c., and on my meals being brought would raise a shout that instantly caused a large crowd to assemble to witness my feeding. And I may add that the performance seemed to give general satisfaction.
The tameness of the goat excited an intense amount of wonder here, as indeed she usually did elsewhere, the people evidently thinking me a great magician to make her come to me when called.
Leaving this, we passed through a large and well-watered valley with streams running into Lake Lanji and commenced the ascent of the mountains of Bambarré.
Hour after hour we toiled up their steep sides, having often to assist our feet by clutching at the trees and creepers growing on their well-wooded slopes; and in the evening we camped at the village Koana Mina, now deserted for another erected rather more than a mile further on.
Resuming our ascent in the early morning we followed for an hour the winding path and then turned into a dense mass of forest and immediately began to descend.
The northern side of the Bambarré mountains differs grealy from the southern, for instead of being a simple slope they are seamed into enormous gullies and ravines. Sometimes our path was at the very bottom of them, then again at the top, and at another time along their precipitous sides.
No sunlight or breeze ever penetrates into these dark depths, for a mass of monster trees with spreading heads shuts out the slightest glimpse of sky.
And what trees they were ! Standing on the edge of a ravine a hundred and fifty feet deep these giants of the sylvan world were seen springing from its depths; and looking upwards their trunks were lost amongst their dense foliage at an equal height above our heads.
Magnificent creepers festooned the trees, and every here and there some dead monarch of the wood was prevented from falling by the clinging embraces of these parasites which linked him to some of his surviving brothers.
The ground was damp and cool, and mosses and ferns grew luxuriantly. Still, notwithstanding the coolness of the temperature, the lack of circulation of the air caused a deadly oppressiveness, and it was with feelings of relief that I again saw blue sky and sunlight streaming between the tree-trunks as they grew fewer and smaller towards the bottom of the hills.
Emerging from this truly primeval forest, we entered upon a fair country with green plains, running streams, wooded knolls, much cultivation and many villages. The first we reached was half an hour's march from the jungle.
And here we seemed to be in an entirely new country, for though Rohombo may be, conventionally, the commencement of Manyuéma, there is no doubt that its proper boundary, both ethnologically and geographically, is the mountain range of Bambarré.
In their dress the people were different from any I had previously seen.
The men wore aprons of dressed deerskin about eight inches wide and reaching to their knees. They carried a single heavy spear and a small knife with which to eat their food.
Chiefs were armed with short two-edged swords with broadened crescent-shaped ends, the scabbards being ornamented with iron and copper bells; and instead of leather aprons they wore large kilts of gaily coloured grass cloth.
The heads of the male were generally plastered with clay so worked in with the hair as to form cones and plates. Occasionally long flakes, both flat and round, hung down on the neck, and in these holes were punched for the insertion of iron and copper rings. Between the clay patches the scalp was shaven perfectly bare.
The women, who were prevented by the men from crowding round us on our arrival, had better figures and were better-looking -with the exception of a hanging lower lip - than any I had seen for some time.
In many instances their hair was worked into the shape of an old-fashioned bonnet deeply shading the face, whilst long ringlets flowed down their backs. But some, despising the bonnet or more confident of their charms, drew their hair off their foreheads and tied it together at the nape of the neck, letting it fall behind in tresses.
Their dress was particularly simple, it consisted of a cord round their waist - on which beads were strung by the richer ones - and two small grass-cloth aprons. The front one was about the size of a half-sheet of ordinary notepaper, and that behind just a trifle larger.
Notwithstanding their small dimensions these aprons were often elaborately stiched and ornamented with beads and cowries; and when the women went working in the fields or fishing in the streams they took off those gay clothes for fear of spoiling them, and replaced them with a small bunch of leaves.
The goats and sheep, as well as the people, differed from those on the other side of the mountains, being precisely similar to those described by Dr. Schweinfurth in the Dinka country, and this breed also extends all through Manyuéma and Urua. The sheep when well fed put on fat, and the caponised goats are particularly large and good. The she goats are particularly prolific, constantly producing three at a birth. I have heard of instances in which five and six have been born at one time, and have witnessed several cases of four at a birth.
We soon came to a larger village, where we camped; and the people came in from the surrounding country to gaze at a white man, although they had seen Livingstone, who stayed for some months with a neighbouring chief, Moéné Kussu. He had died and had been succeeded by his sons, Moéné Bugga and Moéné Gohé. The latter visited us, and offered - on the part of himself and brother - all hospitality to a countryman of Livingstone, whose peaceful and unoffending progress through this land had tended to make an Englishman respected by the natives.
We were delayed here by the illness of Muinyi Bokhari, one of the small traders of the caravan, who, thinking himself too poor to afford proper food, had actually been endeavouring to subsist on grass and earth. Consequently and very naturally, something had gone wrong in his interior.
July, 1874Marching again on July 1st through a populous and well-cultivated country with many streams of bright water all flowing to the Luama, we reached the village of Moéné Bugga, and we were warmly welcomed by the chief, who is held in respect by the surrounding villages. There is not that incessant petty warring in this part of Manyuéma as in other districts, where every village is constantly at variance with its neighbours.
Moéné Bugga follows his father's policy of maintaining cordial relations with traders, and, indeed, wishes them to establish a regular settlement at his village.
He spoke very warmly of Livingstone, who was evidently much liked whilst here.
Many chiefs accompanied by their musicians and arm-bearers called on us, and two of them each brought a dwarf who carried a rattle and shouted his master's name after this style, "Ohé Moéné Booté Ohé Ohé," and rattled the while.
Moéné Booté's dwarf was covered with blotches and had a deformed knee, and was altogether a repulsive-looking object.
The musicians played an instrument called "Marimba," formed of two rows of gourds of different sizes fitted into a framework. Over each pair of gourds was a clef made of hard wood, which gave a metallic sound when struck with sticks having indiarubber heads. Of these sticks there were different sizes, the player dexterously changing one for another as a sharper or duller sound was required.
Moéné Booté came shuffling up to me wih a sort of sliding, half-dancing step, which did not get him ahead much more than a yard a minute; and every two or three minutes he halted whilst his marimba-player and dwarf extolled his greatness.
The people here seemed very affectionate among themselves and decidedly more prolific than any other race I had seen in Africa; but though endowed with many good qualities it cannot be denied that they are cannibals, and most filthy cannibals.
Not only do they eat the bodies of enemies killed in battle but also of people who die of disease. They prepare the corpses by leaving them in running water until they are nearly putrid, and them devour them without any further cooking. They also eat all sorts of carrion, and their odour is very foul and revolting.
I was entertained with a song setting forth the delights of cannibalism, in which the flesh of men was said to be good but that of women was bad and only to be eaten in time of scarcity; nevertheless, it was not to be despised when man meat was unobtainable.
Dancing in Manyuéma is the prerogative of the chiefs. When they feel inclined for a Terpsichorean performance they single out a good-looking woman from the crowd, and the two go through much wriggling and curious gesticulation opposite each other. The village drums are brought out and vigorously beaten, the drummers meanwhile shooting, "Gamello ! Gamello!"
If the woman is unmarried the fact of a chief asking her to dance is equivalent to an offer of marriage, and many complications often occur in consequence.
At this place Muinyi Hassani thought himself unwell and detained us two days. Poor old Muinyi Bokhari was very ill and was informed that he would be left behind, unless he consented to part with some of his dearly hoarded cowries and beads to pay men to carry him. I tried to cure the old man, but my doctoring did not prove very successful.
Leaving Moéné Bugga's we passed villages and cultivated land, and then through a gap in a low range of hills full of enormous trees like those on the northern slopes of the Bambarré mountains.
Here I got into trouble for pigeon-shooting. I was walking along quietly in the middle of the caravan, and thought it as well to take the opportunity of shooting something for my supper. Instantly there was a tremendous hullabaloo and every one rushed towards me both from the front and rear enquiring the reason a gun had been fired, saying that on the march in Manyuéma no gun should ever be discharged unless the caravan were attacked. My ignorance of this rule had given them a fright.
After this we camped in a village belonging to another Moéné Booté, chief of the ferry across the Luama, and remained theretwo days chaffering about payment and because Muinyi Hassani was too lazy to continue to march.
