Their Colour Is A Soft Ruddy Brown, With A Slight Infusion
Of Black, Not Unlike That Of A Rich Plum.
Impulsive by nature,
and exceedingly avaricious, they pester travellers beyond all
conception, by thronging the road, jeering, quizzing, and
pointing at them; and in camp, by intrusively forcing their way
into the midst of the kit, and even into the stranger's tent.
Caravans, in consequence, never enter their villages, but camp
outside, generally under the big "gouty-limbed" trees - encircling
their entire camp sometimes with a ring-fence of thorns to
prevent any sudden attack.
To resume the thread of the journey: we found, on arrival in
Ugogo, very little more food than in Usagara for the Wagogo were
mixing their small stores of grain with the monkey-bread seeds of
the gouty-limbed tree. Water was so scarce in the wells at this
season that we had to buy it at the normal price of country beer;
and, as may be imagined where such distress in food was existing,
cows, goats, sheep, and fowls were also selling at high rates.
Our mules here gave us the slip again, and walked all the way
back to Marenga Mkhali, where they were found and brought back by
some Wagogo, who took four yards of merikani in advance, with a
promise of four more on return, for the job - their chief being
security for their fidelity. This business detained us two days,
during which time I shot a new variety of florikan, peculiar in
having a light blue band stretching from the nose over the eye to
the occiput. Each day, while we resided here, cries were raised
by the villagers that the Wahumba were coming, and then all the
cattle out in the plains, both far and near, were driven into the
village for protection.
At last, on the 26th, as the mules were brought it, I paid a
hongo or tax of four barsati and four yards of chintz to the
chief, and departed, but not until one of my porters, a Mhehe,
obtained a fat dog for his dinner; he had set his heart on it,
and would not move until he had killed it, and tied it on to his
load for the evening's repast. Passing through the next
villages - a collection called Kifukuro - we had to pay another
small tax of two barsati and four yards of chintz to the chief.
There we breakfasted, and pushed on, carrying water to a bivouac
in the jungles, as the famine precluded our taking the march more
easily.
Pushing on again, we cleared out of the woods, and arrived at the
eastern border of the largest clearance of Ugogo, Kanyenye. Here
we were forced to halt a day, as the mules were done up, and
eight of the Wanyamuezi porters absconded, carrying with them the
best part of their loads. There was also another inducement for
stopping here; for, after stacking the loads, as we usually did
on arriving in camp, against a large gouty-limbed tree, a hungry
Mgogo, on eyeing our guns, offered his services to show us some
bicornis rhinoceros, which, he said paid nightly visits to
certain bitter pools that lay in the nullah bottoms not far off.
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