A Large Coast-Bound
Caravan, Carrying Ivory Tusks With Double-Toned Bells Suspended
To Them, Ting-Tonging As They Moved Along, Was Met On The Way;
And As Some Of The Pagazis Composing It Were Men Who Had Formerly
Taken Me To The Victoria N'yanza, Warm Recognitions Passed
Between Us.
The water found here turned our brandy and tea as
black as ink.
The chief, being a man of small pretensions, took
only one sahari and four yards merikani.
Instead of going on to the next village we halted in this jungly
place for the day, that I might comply with the desire of the
Royal Geographical Society to inspect Muhonyera, and report if
there were really any indications of a "raised sea-beach" there,
such as their maps indicate. An inspection brought me to the
conclusion that no mind but one prone to discovering sea-beaches
in the most unlikely places could have supposed for a moment that
one existed here. The form and appearance of the land are the
same as we have seen everywhere since leaving Bomani - a low
plateau subtended by a bank cut down by the Kingani river, and
nothing more. There are no pebbles; the soil is rich reddish
loam, well covered with trees, bush, and grass, in which some
pigs and antelopes are found. From the top of this enbankment we
gain the first sight of the East Coast Range, due west of us,
represented by the high elephant's-back hill, Mkambaku, in
Usagara, which, joining Uraguru, stretches northwards across the
Pangani river to Usumbara and the Kilimandjaro, and southwards,
with a westerly deflection, across the Lufiji to Southern
N'yassa. What course the range takes beyond those two extremes,
the rest of the world knows as well as I. Another conspicuous
landmark here is Kidunda (the little hill), which is the
southernmost point of a low chain of hills, also tending
northwards, and representing an advance-guard to the higher East
Coast Range in its rear. At night, as we had no local "sultans"
to torment us, eight more men of sultan Majid's donation ran
away, and, adding injury to injury, took with them all our goats,
fifteen in number. This was a sad loss. We could keep ourselves
on guinea-fowls or green pigeons, doves, etc.; but the Hottentots
wanted nourishment much more than ourselves, and as their dinner
always consisted of what we left, "short-commons" was the fate in
store for them. The Wanguana, instead of regarding these poor
creatures as soldiers, treated them like children; and once, as a
diminutive Tot - the common name they go by - was exerting himself
to lift his pack and place it on his mule, a fine Herculean
Mguana stepped up behind, grasped Tot, pack and all, in his
muscular arms, lifted the whole over his head, paraded the Tot
about, struggling for release, and put him down amidst the
laughter of the camp, then saddled his mule and patted him on the
back.
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