Here, In Certain Places
Where Water Is Obtainable Throughout The Year, And Wars, Or
Slave-Hunts More Properly Speaking, Do Not Disturb The Industry
Of The People, Cultivation Thrives Surprisingly; But Such A Boon
Is Rarely Granted Them.
It is in consequence of these
constantly- recurring troubles that the majority of the Wasagara
villages are built on hill-spurs, where the people can the better
resist attack, or, failing, disperse and hide effectually.
The
normal habitation is the small conical hut of grass. These
compose villages, varying in number according to the influence of
their head men. There are, however, a few mud villages on the
table-lands, each built in a large irregular square of chambers
with a hollow yard in the centre, known as tembe.
As to the people of these uplands, poor, meagre-looking wretches,
they contrast unfavourably with the lowlanders on both sides of
them. Dingy in colour, spiritless, shy, and timid, they invite
attack in a country where every human being has a market value,
and are little seen by the passing caravan. In habits they are
semi-pastoral agriculturalists, and would be useful members of
society were they left alone to cultivate their own possessions,
rich and beautiful by nature, but poor and desolate by force of
circumstance. Some of the men can afford a cloth, but the
greater part wear an article which I can only describe as a grass
kilt. In one or two places throughout the passage of these hills
a caravan may be taxed, but if so, only to a small amount; the
villagers more frequently fly to the hill-tops as soon as the
noise of the advancing caravan is heard, and no persuasions will
bring them down again, so much ground have they, from previous
experience, to fear treachery. It is such sad sights, and the
obvious want of peace and prosperity, that weary the traveller,
and make him every think of pushing on to his journey's end from
the instant he enters Africa until he quits the country.
Knowing by old experience that the beautiful green park in the
fork of these rivers abounded in game of great variety and in
vast herds, where no men are ever seen except some savage hunters
sitting in the trees with poisoned arrows, or watching their
snares and pitfalls, I had all along determined on a hunt myself,
to feed and cheer the men, and also to collect some specimens for
the home museums. In the first object we succeeded well, as "the
bags" we made counted two brindled gnu, four water-boc, one
pallah-boc, and one pig, - enough to feed abundantly the whole
camp round. The feast was all the better relished as the men
knew well that no Arab master would have given them what he could
sell; for if a slave shot game, the animals would be the
master's, to be sold bit by bit among the porters, and
compensated from the proceeds of their pay.
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