The several plagues of locusts,
fleas, and lice sink into utter insignificance compared with this
fearful one of earwigs. It is true they did not bite, and they
did not irritate the cuticle, but what their presence and numbers
suggested was something so horrible that it drove one nearly
insane to think of it. Who will come to East Africa without
reading the experiences of Burton and Speke? Who is he that
having read them will not remember with horror the dreadful
account given by Speke of his encounters with these pests?
My intense nervous watchfulness alone, I believe, saved me
from a like calamity.
Second to the earwigs in importance and in numbers were the white
ants, whose powers of destructiveness were simply awful. Mats,
cloth, portmanteaus, clothes, in short, every article I possessed,
seemed on the verge of destruction, and, as I witnessed their
voracity, I felt anxious lest my tent should be devoured while
I slept. This was the first khambi since leaving the coast where
their presence became a matter of anxiety; at all other camping
places hitherto the red and black ants had usurped our attention,
but at Mpwapwa the red species were not seen, while the black
were also very scarce.
After a three days' halt at Mpwapwa I decided of a march to
Marenga Mkali, which should be uninterrupted until we reached Mvumi
in Ugogo, where I should be inducted into the art of paying tribute
to the Wagogo chiefs. The first march to Kisokweh was purposely
made short, being barely four miles, in order to enable Sheikh
Thani, Sheikh Hamed, and five or six Wasawahili caravans to come
up with me at Chunyo on the confines of Marenga Mkali.
CHAPTER VII. MARENGA MKALI, UGOGO, AND UYANZI, TO UNYANYEMBE.
Mortality amongst the baggage animals. - The contumacious Wagogo -
Mobs of Maenads. - Tribute paying. - Necessity of prudence. - Oration
of the guide. - The genuine "Ugogians." - Vituperative power. - A
surprised chief. - The famous Mizanza. - Killing hyaenas. - The Greeks
and Romans of Africa. - A critical moment. - The "elephant's back." -
The wilderness of Ukimbu. - End of the first stage of the search. -
Arrival at Unyanyembe.
The 22nd of May saw Thani and Hamed's caravans united with my own
at Chunyo, three and a half hours' march from Mpwapwa. The road
from the latter place ran along the skirts of the Mpwapwa range;
at three or four places it crossed outlying spurs that stood
isolated from the main body of the range. The last of these hill
spurs, joined by an elevated cross ridge to the Mpwapwa, shelters
the tembe of Chunyo, situated on the western face, from the stormy
gusts that come roaring down the steep slopes. The water of Chunyo
is eminently bad, in fact it is its saline-nitrous nature which has
given the name Marenga Mkali - bitter water - to the wilderness which
separates Usagara from Ugogo. Though extremely offensive to the
palate, Arabs and the natives drink it without fear, and without
any bad results; but they are careful to withhold their baggage
animals from the pits. Being ignorant of its nature, and not
exactly understanding what precise location was meant by Marenga
Mkali, I permitted the donkeys to be taken to water, as usual
after a march; and the consequence was calamitous in the extreme.
What the fearful swamp of Makata had spared, the waters of
Marenga Mkali destroyed. In less than five days after our
departure from Chunyo or Marenga Mali, five out of the nine donkeys
left to me at the time - the five healthiest animals - fell victims.
We formed quite an imposing caravan as we emerged from inhospitable
Chunyo, in number amounting to about four hundred souls. We were
strong in guns, flags, horns, sounding drums and noise. To Sheikh
Hamed, by permission of Sheikh Thani, and myself was allotted the
task of guiding and leading this great caravan through dreaded
Ugogo; which was a most unhappy selection, as will be seen
hereafter.
Marenga Mali, over thirty miles across, was at last before us.
This distance had to be traversed within thirty-six hours, so that
the fatigue of the ordinary march would be more than doubled by this.
From Chunyo to Ugogo not one drop of water was to be found. As a
large caravan, say over two hundred souls, seldom travels over one
and three-quarter miles per hour, a march of thirty miles would
require seventeen hours of endurance without water and but little
rest. East Africa generally possessing unlimited quantities of
water, caravans have not been compelled for lack of the element
to have recourse to the mushok of India and the khirbeh of Egypt.
Being able to cross the waterless districts by a couple of long
marches, they content themselves for the time with a small gourdful,
and with keeping their imaginations dwelling upon the copious
quantities they will drink upon arrival at the watering-place.
The march through this waterless district was most monotonous,
and a dangerous fever attacked me, which seemed to eat into my very
vitals. The wonders of Africa that bodied themselves forth in the
shape of flocks of zebras, giraffes, elands, or antelopes,
galloping over the jungleless plain, had no charm for me; nor
could they serve to draw my attention from the severe fit of
sickness which possessed me. Towards the end of the first march
I was not able to sit upon the donkey's back; nor would it do,
when but a third of the way across the wilderness, to halt until
the next day; soldiers were therefore detailed to carry me in a
hammock, and, when the terekeza was performed in the afternoon,
I lay in a lethargic state, unconscious of all things.
