Part 9

During my twenty-seven days of solitude the time sped quickly; it was chiefly spent in eating and drinking, dozing and smoking. Awaking at 2 a.m. or 3 a.m., I lay anxiously expecting the grey light creeping through the door chinks; the glad tidings of its approach were announced by the cawing of the crows and the crowing of the village cocks. When the golden rays began to stream over the red earth, my torpid servant was called out, and he brought me a mass of suji, or rice-flour boiled in water, with a little cold milk as a relish. Then entered the “slavey” of the establishment, armed with a leafy branch, to sweep the floor and slay the huge wasps that riddled the walls of the tenement. This done, he lit the fire, as the excessive damp rendered this precaution necessary. Then ensued visits of ceremony from Said bin Salim and another, who sat, stared, and seeing that I was not yet dead, showed disappointment in their faces and walked away. So the morning wore on. My servant was employed with tailoring, gun-cleaning, and similar light work, over which he grumbled perpetually, whilst I settled down to diaries and vocabularies, a process interrupted by sundry pipes. We had two hours’ sleep at noon, and I may say that most of the day I lay like a log upon my cot, smoking almost uninterruptedly, dreaming of things past and visioning things present, and sometimes indulging myself in a few lines of reading and writing.

Dinner was an alternation of fish and fowl, butchers’ meat being extremely rare at Ujiji. At evening I used to make an attempt to sit under the broad eaves of the tembe and enjoy the delicious spectacle of this virgin nature. I was still very weak.

At 7 p.m., as the last flush faded from the occident, the lamp, a wick in a pot full of palm oil, was brought in, Said bin Salim would appear, and a brief conversation led to the hour of sleep. A dreary, dismal day, yet it had its enjoyments.

On March 29th the rattling of the matchlocks announced my companion’s return. I never saw a man so thoroughly moist and mildewed; he justified even the French phrase, “Wet to the bone.” His paraphernalia were in a similar state; his guns were grained with rust, and his fireproof powder magazine had admitted the monsoon rain. I was sorely disappointed; he had done literally nothing. I cannot explain where the mismanagement lay, but the result was that he had come back to me without boat or provisions to report ill-success.

It now became apparent that the rainy season was drawing to a close, and the time for navigation was beginning. After some preliminaries with Said bin Salim, Kannena, who had been preparing for a cruise northward, was summoned before me. He agreed to convey me; but when I asked him the conditions on which he would show me the mtoni, or river, he jumped up, discharged a volley of oaths, and sprang from the house like a baboon. I was resolved, however, at all costs, even if we were reduced to actual want, to visit this mysterious stream. I made other overtures to Kannena, made him many promises, and threw over his shoulders a six-feet length of scarlet broadcloth, which made him tremble with joy. I ultimately secured two large canoes and fifty-five men.

On April 12th my canoe, bearing for the first time the British flag, stood out of Bangwe Bay, and, followed by my companion in another canoe, we made for the cloudy and storm-vexed north. There were great rejoicings at our arrival at Uvira, the northernmost station to which merchants had at that time been admitted. Opposite still, rose in a high, broken line the mountains of the inhospitable Urundi, apparently prolonged beyond the northern extremity of the waters. The breadth of the Tanganyika here is between seven and eight miles. Now my hopes were dashed to the ground; the stalwart sons of the chief Maruta visited me, and told me that they had been to the northern extremity, and that the Rusizi enters into, and does not flow out of, the Tanganyika. I was sick at heart. It appears that my companion had misunderstood, and our guide now told us that he had never been beyond Uvira, and never intended to go; so we stopped here nine days, and I got such a bad ulceration of the tongue that I could not speak. The chiefs came and claimed their blackmail, and also Kannena, so I had to pay up all for nothing, as the gales began to threaten, and our crews insisted on putting to lake on May 6th.

We touched at various stages about the lake, and anchored at Mzimu, but we left again at sunset; the waves began to rise, the wind also, and it rained in torrents. It was a doubt whether the cockleshell craft could live through a short, choppy sea in heavy weather. I sheltered myself in my mackintosh as best I might. Fortunately the rain beat down the wind and the sea, or nothing could have saved us. The next morning Mabruki rushed into my tent, thrust a sword into my hands, and declared the Warundi were upon us, and that the crews were rushing to the boats and pushing them off. Knowing that they would leave us stranded in case of danger, we hurried in without delay; but no enemy appeared. It was a false alarm.

On May 11th we paddled about a grassy inlet; on the 12th we paddled again, and the next day we spent in Bangwe Bay. We were too proud to sneak home in the dark; we had done the expedition, and we wanted to be looked at by the fair and howled at by the valiant.

The next morning we appeared at the entrance of Kawele, and had a triumphal entrance. The people of the whole country-side assembled to welcome us, and pressed waist-deep into the water. My companion and I were repeatedly called for, but true merit is always modest. We regained our old tembe, were salaamed to by everybody, and it felt like a return home. The upshot of it all was this――we had expended upwards of a month exploring the Tanganyika Lake.

I had explored it thoroughly. My health now began to improve, my strength increased; my feet were still swollen, but my hands lost their numbness, and I could again read and write. A relieved mind had helped on this recovery――the object of my expedition was now effected――and I threw off the burden of grinding care with which the prospect of a probable failure had sorely laden me.[6]

The rainy monsoon broke up after our return to Kawele, and the climate became most enjoyable, but it was accompanied by that inexplicable melancholy peculiar to tropical countries. I have never felt this sadness in Egypt and Arabia, but I was never without it in India and Zanzibar. We were expecting stores and provisions, but we got not one single word from the agents who were to forward our things, and want began to stare us in the face. Money was a necessity, or its equivalent. I had to engage porters for the hammocks, feed seventy-five mouths, to fee several chieftains, and to incur the heavy expenses of two hundred and sixty miles’ marching back to Unyamyembe, so I had to supplement the sum allowed me by the Royal Geographical Society with my own little patrimony. One thousand pounds does not go very far when it has to be divided amongst two hundred greedy savages in two and a half years.

On May 22nd our ears were gladdened by the sound of musket-shots announcing arrivals, and then, after a long silence of eleven months, there arrived a caravan with boxes, bales, porters, slaves, and a parcel of papers and letters from Europe, India, and Zanzibar. How we pounced upon them! Here we first knew of the Indian Mutiny. The caravan arrived at a crisis when it was really wanted, but as my agent could not find porters for all the packages, he had kept back some of them, and what he sent me were the least useful. They would suffice to take us back to Unyamyembe, but were wholly inadequate for exploring the southern end of Tanganyika, far less for returning to Zanzibar _viâ_ the Nyassa Lake and Kilwa, as I had hoped to do.

On May 26th, 1858, we set out on our homeward journey, and left Kawele _en route_ for Unyamyembe. I shall never forget my last sunrise look on Tanganyika. The mists, luminously fringed with purple, were cut by filmy rays; the living fire shot forth broad beams over the light blue waters of the lake, and a soft breeze, the breath of the morning, awoke the waves into life.

I had great difficulties in getting away, but at nine o’clock we departed with a full gang of porters, and advanced until the evening. Many troubles arose: a porter placed his burden upon the ground and levanted, and being cognac and vinegar it was deeply regretted; then the Unyamwezi guide, because his newly purchased slave girl had become footsore and unable to walk, cut her head off. All these disagreeables I was obliged to smooth down as best I could. Then there was a great dread of savage tribes, and there was also a fear of conflagration, a sort of prairie fire.

A sheet of flame, beginning with the size of a spark, would overspread the hillside, advancing on the wings of the wind with the roaring, rushing sound of many hosts, where the grass was thick, shooting huge forked tongues high into the air, and tall trees, the patriarchs of the forest, yielded their lives to the blast. Onward the fire would sweep, smouldering and darkening where the rock afforded scanty fuel, then flickering, blazing up, and soaring on again over the brow of the hill, until the sheet became a thin line of fire, gradually vanishing from the view.

On October 4th, after a week of halts and snails’ marches, we at last reached Hanga, our former quarters in the western confines of the Unyamyembe district. Here my companion was taken seriously ill, and immediately after our arrival at this foul village, where we were lodged in a sort of cow-house, full of vermin and exposed directly to the fury of the cold gales, he complained, in addition to the deaf ear, an inflamed eye, and a swollen face, of a mysterious pain, which he knew not whether to attribute to the liver or the spleen. Shortly after this his mind began to wander, and then he underwent three fits of an epileptic description, which more closely resembled those of hydrophobia than any I have ever witnessed. He was haunted by a crowd of hideous devils, giants, and lion-headed demons, who were wrenching and stripping the sinews and tendons of his legs. He began to utter a barking noise, with a peculiar chopping motion of the mouth and tongue. When the third spasm was over, he called for pen and paper, and, fearing that increased weakness of mind and body might prevent any further exertion, he wrote an incoherent letter of farewell to his family. That, however, was the crisis, and he afterwards spent a better night; the pains were mitigated, or, as he expressed it, “the knives were sheathed.”

As we were threatened with want of water on the way, I prepared for that difficulty by packing a box with empty bottles, which, when occasion required, might be filled at the springs. The zemzemiyah, or travelling canteen of the East African, was everywhere a long-necked gourd, slung to the shoulder by a string. But it became offensive after some use, and could never be entrusted to a servant for a mile before its contents were exhausted.

We left Hanga, my companion being now better, on October 13th. Seven short marches between that place and Tura occupied fifteen days, a serious waste of time, caused by the craving of the porters for their homes.

The stages now appeared shorter, the sun cooler, the breeze warmer, for, after fourteen months of incessant fevers, we had become tolerably acclimatised; we were now loud in praise, as we had been in censure, of the water and air. Before re-entering the Fiery Field the hire for carrying hammocks became so exorbitant that I dismissed the bearers, drew on my jackboots, mounted the Zanzibar ass, and appeared once more as the mtongi of a caravan. My companion was also now able to ride.

At Eastern Tura, where we arrived on October 28th, a halt was occasioned by the necessity of providing and preparing food for the week’s march through the Fiery Field. The caravan was then mustered, and it completed altogether a party of one hundred and fifty-two souls.

On November 3rd the caravan, issuing from Tura, plunged manfully into the Fiery Field, and after seven marches in as many days――we halted for breath and forage at the Round Stone――Jiwe la Mkoa. Here we procured a few rations, and resumed our way on November 12th, and in two days exchanged, with a sensible pleasure, the dull expanse of dry brown bush and brushwood for the fertile red plain of Mdaburn. At that point began our re-transit of Ugogo, where I had been taught to expect accidents; they resolved themselves into nothing more than the disappearance of cloth and beads in inordinate quantities. The Wanyamwezi porters seemed even more timid on the down journey than on the up march. They slank about like curs, and the fierce look of a Mgogo boy was enough to strike terror into their hearts. One of them would frequently indulge me in a dialogue like the following, which may serve as a specimen of our conversation in East Africa:――

“The state, Mdula?” (_i.e._, Abdullah, a word unpronounceable to negroid organs).

“The state is very! (well), and thy state?”

“The state is very! (well), and the state of Spikka?” (my companion).

“The state of Spikka is very! (well).”

“We have escaped the Wagogo, white man O!”

“We have escaped, O my brother!”

“The Wagogo are bad!”

“They are bad!”

“The Wagogo are very bad!”

“They are very bad!”

“The Wagogo are not good!”

“They are not good!”

“The Wagogo are not at all good!”

“They are not at all good!”

“I greatly feared the Wagogo, who killed the Wanyamwezi!”

“Exactly so!”

“But now I don’t fear them. I call them ――――s and ――――s, and I would fight the whole tribe, white man O!”

“Truly so, O my brother!”

And so on for two mortal hours.

The transit of Ugogo occupied three weeks, from November 14th to December 5th. In Kanyenye we were joined by a large caravan of Wanyamwezi, carrying ivories. On December 6th we arrived at a halting place in the Ugogi Dhun, and were greeted by another caravan, freshly arrived, commanded by Hindus, who, after receiving and returning news with much solemnity, presently drew forth a packet of papers and letters, which as usual promised trouble, and the inevitable――to me――“official wigging.” I also received the following pleasant letter:――

DEAR BURTON,

Go ahead! Vogel and Macguire dead――murdered. Write often to

Yours truly, N.S.

At Ugogo, which, it will be remembered, is considered the half-way station between Unyamyembe and the coast, we were detained a day through difficulties with porters, who declared there was a famine upon the road we had previously traversed, and also that a great chief, who was also a great extortioner, was likely to insist upon our calling upon him in person, which would involve a change of route. However, there was nothing to be done but to take the road. We loaded on December 7th, and began the passage of the Usagara Mountains, going this time by the Kiringawana route.

Travelling by a roundabout way, we arrived at the village of the chief Kiringawana on December 19th, and the next day proceeded to palaver. After abundant chaffering, the chief accepted from the expedition three expensive coloured cloths and other things, grumbling the while because we had neglected to reserve for him something more worthy his acceptance; he returned a fat bullock, which was instantly shot and devoured.

We resumed our march on December 22nd, which was almost entirely down-hill. We crossed in a blazing sun the fœtid plain, and after finding with some difficulty the jungly path, we struck into a pleasant forest. Presently we emerged again upon the extremity of the Makata Plain, a hideous low level of black vegetable earth, peaty in appearance, and bearing long puddles of dark and stagnant rain-water――mere horse-ponds, with the additional qualities of miasma and mosquitoes. The transit of this plain took some days.

The dawn of Christmas Day, 1858, saw us toiling along the Kikoboga River, which we forded four times. The road presently turned up a rough rise, from whose crest began the descent of the Mabruki Pass. The descent was very steep and rough; the path, spanning rough ground at the hill base, led us to the plains of Uziraha in K’hutu.

We had reserved a bullock in honour of Christmas Day, but as he was lost, I ordered the purchase of half a dozen goats to celebrate it, but the porters were too lazy to collect them. My companion and I made good cheer upon a fat capon, which acted as roast beef, with a mess of ground-nuts sweetened with sugar-cane, which did duty as plum-pudding.

We started off again and entered Zungomero on December 29th. An army of black musketeers, in scanty but various and gaudy attire, came out to meet us, and with the usual shots and shouts conducted us to the headman’s house. They then stared at us, as usual, for half a dozen consecutive hours, which done, they retired to rest.

We stayed at Zungomero some time and celebrated the New Year there, but January 21st, 1859, enabled us to bid it adieu and merrily take to the footpath way. We made Konduchi on February 3rd, after twelve marches, which we accomplished in fourteen days. There is little of interest or adventure to record in this return line, for we travelled over much the same ground we had done before.

As the mud near Dut’humi was throat-deep, we crossed it lower down――a weary trudge of several miles through thick, slabby mire, which admitted a man to his knees. In places, after toiling under a sickly sun, we crept under tunnels of thick jungle growth, the dank and fœtid cold causing a deadly sensation of faintness, which was only relieved by the glass of æther sherbet, a pipe or two of the strongest tobacco, and half an hour’s rest.

On January 30th our natives of Zanzibar screamed with delight at the sight of the monkey-tree, an old, familiar sight to them. On February 2nd we greeted, with doffed caps, and with three times three and one more, as Britons will do on such occasions, the kindly, smiling face of our father Neptune as he lay basking in the sunbeams between earth and air. February 3rd saw us winding through the poles decorated with skulls――a sort of negro Temple Bar――which pointed out the way into the little village of Konduchi.

Our return was attended with much ceremony: the war-men danced, shot, and shouted; a rabble of adults, youths, and boys crowded upon us; the fair sex lulliloo’d with vigour; and a general procession conducted us to a hut, swept, cleaned, and garnished for us by the principal banyan of the village, and there they laughed and stared at us until they could laugh and stare no more.

We were detained at Konduchi for some days, and on February 9th the battela and the stores required for our trip arrived from Zanzibar, and the next day saw us rolling down the coast towards the Island of Zanzibar, where we landed on March 4th, 1859. I was taken ill there, and my companion went home alone――thereby hangs a tale. But I recovered after a while, and left Zanzibar for Aden to catch the homeward boat. I bade adieu to the “coal-hole of the East” on April 28th, 1859, and in due time arrived once more on the shores of Old England, after an absence of two years and eight months.

[6] At the time of which I write (1858) the Tanganyika had never before been visited by any European.

_THE CITY OF THE MORMONS_

1860

I

_THE JOURNEY_

I had long determined to add the last new name――Great Salt Lake City――to my list of Holy Cities; to visit the new rival, _soi-disant_, of Memphis, Benares, Jerusalem, Rome, and Meccah; and to observe the origin and working of a regular go-ahead Western revelation. Mingled with the wish of prospecting the city of the Mormons from a spiritual point of view was the mundane desire of enjoying a little skirmishing with the savages, who had lately been giving the “pale-faces” tough work to do.

The man was ready, the hour hardly appeared propitious for other than belligerent purposes. Throughout the summer of 1860 an Indian war was raging in Nebraska; the Comanches, Kiowas, and Cheyennes were “out”; the Federal Government had despatched three columns to the centres of confusion; intestine feuds amongst the aborigines were talked of; the Dakota, or Sioux, had threatened to “wipe out” their old foe the Pawnee. Both tribes were possessors of the soil over which the road to Great Salt Lake City ran. Horrible accounts of murdered post-boys and cannibal emigrants, grossly exaggerated as usual, filled the papers. “Going amongst the Mormons!” said a friend to me at New Orleans. “They are shooting and cutting one another in all directions. How can _you_ expect to escape?” But sagely reflecting that “dangers which loom large from afar generally lose size as one draws near,” and that even the Mormons might turn out less black than they were painted, I resolved to run the risk of the “red nightcap” from the bloodthirsty Indians and the poisoned bowie-dagger from the jealous Latter-Day Saints. I therefore applied myself to then audacious task of an expedition to the City of the Mormons.

There were three roads to be chosen from――the three main lines, perhaps, for a Pacific railway between the Mississippi and the Western Ocean――the northern, the central, and the southern. The first, or British, was not to be thought of, since it involved semi-starvation, a possible plundering by the Bedouins, and, what was far worse, five or six months of slow travel. The third, or southern, took twenty-four days and nights, and the journey was accompanied by excessive heat in a malarial climate, to say nothing of poisonous food. There remained only the central road, which has two branches; of these I chose the great emigrant road from Missouri to California. The mail coach on this line was not what one would call luxurious, and the hours of halting-places were badly selected. The schedule time from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Great Salt Lake City was twenty-one days; we accomplished it, it turned out, in nineteen. I therefore travelled to St. Joseph, disrespectfully known as St. Jo, bought my ticket, and prepared to start.