The Country Is Uniformly Well Covered With Trees
And Large Grasses, Which, In The Rainy Season, Are Too Thick,
Tall, And Green To Be Pleasant; Though In The Dry Season, After
The Grasses Have Been Burnt, It Is Agreeable Enough, Though Not
Pretty, Owing To The Flatness Of The Land.
The villages are not
large or numerous, but widely spread, consisting generally of
conical grass huts, while others are gable-ended, after the
coast-fashion - a small collection of ten or twenty comprising one
village.
Over these villages certain headmen, titled Phanze,
hold jurisdiction, who take black-mail from travellers with high
presumption when they can. Generally speaking, they live upon
the coast, and call themselves Diwans, headsmen, and subjects of
the Sultan Majid; but they no sooner hear of the march of a
caravan than they transpose their position, become sultans in
their own right, and levy taxes accordingly.
The Wazaramo are strictly agriculturists; they have no cows, and
but few goats. They are of low stature and thick set and their
nature tends to the boisterous. Expert slavehunters, they mostly
clothe themselves by the sale of their victims on the coast,
though they do business by the sale of goats and grain as well.
Nowhere in the interior are natives so well clad as these
creatures. In dressing up their hair, and otherwise smearing
their bodies with ochreish clay, they are great dandies. They
always keep their bows and arrows, which form their national arm,
in excellent order, the latter well poisoned, and carried in
quivers nicely carved. To intimidate a caravan and extort a hongo
or tax, I have seen them drawn out in line as if prepared for
battle; but a few soft words were found sufficient to make them
all withdraw and settle the matter at issue by arbitration in
some appointed place. A few men without property can cross their
lands fearlessly, though a single individual with property would
stand no chance, for they are insatiable thieves. But little is
seen of these people on the journey, as the chiefs take their
taxes by deputy, partly out of pride, and partly because they
think they can extort more by keeping in the mysterious distance.
At the same time, the caravan prefers camping in the jungles
beyond the villages to mingling with the inhabitants, where rows
might be engendered. We sometimes noticed Albinos, with greyish-
blue eyes and light straw-coloured hair. Not unfrequently we
would pass on the track side small heaps of white ashes, with a
calcined bone or two among them. These, we were told, were the
relics of burnt witches. The caravan track we had now to travel
on leads along the right bank of the Kingani valley, overlooking
Uzegura, which, corresponding with Uzaramo, only on the other
side of the Kigani, extends northwards to the Pangani river, and
is intersected in the centre by the Wami river, of which more
hereafter.
Starting on a march with a large mixed caravan, consisting of 1
corporal and 9 privates, Hottentots - 1 jemadar and 25 privates,
Beluchs - 1 Arab Cafila Bashi and 75 freed slaves - 1 Kirangozi, or
leader, and 100 negro porters - 12 mules untrained, 3 donkeys, and
22 goats - one could hardly expect to find everybody in his place
at the proper time for breaking ground; but, at the same time, it
could hardly be expected that ten men, who had actually received
their bounty-money, and had sworn fidelity, should give one the
slip the very first day. Such, however, was the case. Ten out
of the thirty-six given by the Sultan ran away, because they
feared that the white men, whom they believed to be cannibals,
were only taking them into the interior to eat them; and one
pagazi, more honest than the freed men, deposited his pay upon
the ground, and ran away too. Go we must, however; for one
desertion is sure to lead to more; and go we did. Our procession
was in this fashion: The Kirangozi, with a load on his shoulder,
led the way, flag in hand, followed by the pagazis carrying
spears of bows and arrows in their hands, and bearing their share
of the baggage in the shape either of bolster-shaped loads of
cloth and beads covered with matting, each tied into the fork of
a three-pronged stick, or else coils of brass or copper wire tied
in even weights to each end of sticks which they laid on the
shoulder; then helter-skelter came the
Wanguana, carrying carbines in their hands, and boxes, bundles,
tents, cooking-pots - all the miscellaneous property - on their
heads; next the Hottentots, dragging the refractory mules laden
with ammunition-boxes, but very lightly, to save the animals for
the future; and, finally, Sheikh Said and the Beluch escort;
while the goats, sick women, and stragglers, brought up the rear.
From first to last, some of the sick Hottentots rode the hospital
donkeys, allowing the negroes to tug their animals; for the
smallest ailment threw them broadcast on their backs. In a
little while we cleared from the rich gardens, mango clumps, and
cocoa-but trees, which characterise the fertile coast-line. After
traversing fields of grass well clothed with green trees, we
arrived at the little settlement of Bomani, where camp was
formed, and everybody fairly appointed to his place. The process
of camp-forming would be thus: Sheikh Said, with Bombay under
him, issues cloths to the men for rations at the rate of one-
fourth load a-day (about 15 lb.) amongst 165; the Hottentots cook
our dinners and their own, or else lie rolling on the ground
overcome with fatigue; the Beluchs are supposed to guard the
camp, but prefer gossip and brightening their arms. Some men are
told off to look after the mules, donkeys, and goats, whilst out
grazing; the rest have to pack the kit, pitch our tents, cut
boughs for huts, and for fencing in the camp - a thing rarely
done, by-the-by.
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