On the 7th of February news was brought that Sheikh Snay had carried out his intention of attacking Manua Sera, whom he found ensconced in a house at Tura. Manua, however, made his escape, when Snay plundered the whole district, and shot and murdered every one he fell in with, carrying off a number of slaves. The chief, in consequence, threatened to attack Caze as soon as the merchants had gone off on their expeditions in search of ivory.
Soon after this it was reported that Snay and other Arabs had been killed, as well as a number of slaves. This proved to be true.
Finding that nothing more could be done at Caze, the travellers, assembling their caravan, commenced their march northward on the 17th of March.
On the 24th they reached Mininga, where they were received by an ivory merchant named Sirboko. Here one of Sirboko's slaves, who had been chained up, addressed Speke, piteously exclaiming: "Oh, my lord, take pity on me! When I was a free man, I saw you on the Tanganyika lake; my people were there attacked by the Watuta, and, being badly wounded, I was left for dead, when, recovering, I was sold to the Arabs. If you will liberate me, I will never run away, but serve you faithfully."
Touched by this appeal, Speke obtained the freedom of the poor man from his master, and he was christened Farham, or Joy, and enrolled among his other freemen.
The abominable conduct of the Arabs, who persisted in attacking the natives and devastating the country, placed the travellers in an awkward position. The Hottentots, too, suffered so much from sickness that, as the only hope of saving their lives, it was necessary to send them back to Zanzibar. Speke therefore found it necessary to return to Caze, which he reached on the 2nd of May, leaving Grant, who was ill, behind at Mininga.
He here heard of a tribe of cannibals, who, when they cannot get human flesh, give a goat to their neighbours for a dying child, considering such as the best flesh. They are, however, the only cannibals known in that district.
They were still in the country of the Weezee, of whose curious customs they had an opportunity of seeing more. Both sexes are inveterate smokers. They quickly manufacture their pipes of a lump of clay and a green twig, from which they extract the pith. They all grow tobacco, the leaves of which they twist up into a thick rope like a hay-band, and then coil it into a flattened spiral, shaped like a target. They are very fond of dancing. A long strip of bark or cow-skin is laid on the ground, and the Weezee arrange themselves along it, the tallest man posting himself in the centre. When they have taken their places the musicians begin playing on their instruments, while the dancers commence a strange chant, more like a howl than a song. They bow their heads, putting their hands on their hips and stamping vigorously. The men not dancing look on, encouraging their friends by joining in the chorus, while the women stand behind without speaking. Meantime, the elders sit on the ground drinking _pomba_. On one of these occasions the chief, who was present, drank more _pomba_ than any of the people.
While the party were thus engaged, two lads, with zebra manes tied over their heads, and two bark tubes, formed like huge bassoons, in their hands, leaped into the centre of the dancers, twisting and turning and blowing their horns in the most extraordinary manner. The men, women, and children, inspired by the sound of the music, on this began to sing and clap their hands in time.
_Pomba_ is a sort of spirituous liquor, produced from a kind of grain grown in the country, which is cultivated by women, who nearly entirely superintend the preparation of the drink.
They received a visit from Sultan Ukulima, of Unyamuezi, a fine hale old man, who was especially fond of this beverage, drinking it all day long.
He was pleasant enough in manner, and rather amusing when he happened not to be tipsy. Being fond of a practical joke, he used to beg for quinine, which he would mix slyly with _pomba_, and then offer it to his courtiers, enjoying the wry faces they made when partaking of the bitter draught. He used to go round to the houses of his subjects, managing to arrive just as the pomba-brewing was finished, when he would take a draught, and then go on to the next. He sometimes sucked it through a reed, just as a sherry cobbler is taken, while one of his slaves held the jar before him.
The women and men do not drink it together. It is the custom of the ladies to assemble in the house of the sultana, and indulge in it in her company.
The women, as has been said, are employed in the cultivation of the grain from which it is made. When it is green, they cut off the ears with a knife. These are then conveyed to the village in baskets, and spread out in the sun to dry. The men next thrash out the grain with long, thin flails. It is afterwards stacked in the form of corn-ricks, raised from the ground on posts, or sometimes it is secured round a tall post, which is stuck upright in the ground, swelling out in the centre somewhat in the shape of a fisherman's float. When required for use, it is pounded in wooden mortars, and afterwards ground between two stones.
Speke reached Mininga again on the 15th, where he found Grant greatly recovered. During his absence three villagers had been attacked by a couple of lions. The men took to flight, and two gained the shelter of their hut, but the third, just as he was about to enter, was seized by the monsters and devoured.
Difficulties of all sorts beset them: the chief was obtaining porters; Musa, too, who pretended to be so friendly, did not keep faith with them; but, rather than be delayed, Speke paid the beads demanded, and once more set off.
At length he obtained a _kirangozi_, or leader, by name Ungurue, which may be translated the Pig. He had frequently conducted caravans to Karague, and knew the languages of the country. He proved to be what his name betokened--a remarkably obstinate and stupid fellow.
Speke was still detained by the difficulty of procuring porters, some being engaged in harvest, while others declared that they feared the Watuta and other enemies in the districts through which they would have to pass.
An Arab caravan which had followed them was in the same condition.
At length, having obtained a part of the number he required, a camp was formed at Phunze, where Grant, with Bombay to attend on him, remained in charge of part of the baggage, while Speke, with the Pig as his guide and Baraka as his attendant, pushed on ahead.
The chiefs of every district through which they passed demanded _hongo_, or tribute, without which the travellers could not move forward. This caused numberless provoking delays, as the chiefs were often not content with what was offered to them.
On the 9th of June he arrived in a district governed by a chief called Myonga, famed for his extortions and infamous conduct, in consequence of which no Arabs would pass that way. On approaching his palace, war drums were heard in every surrounding village. The Pig went forward to obtain terms for the caravan to pass by. Myonga replied that he wished to see a white man, as he had never yet set eyes on one, and would have a residence prepared for him. Speke declined the favour, but sent Baraka to arrange the _hongo_. Baraka amused himself, as usual, for some hours, with firing off volleys of ammunition, and it was not till evening that the palace drums announced that the _hongo_ had been settled, consisting of six yards of cloth, some beads, and other articles. On this Speke immediately gave orders to commence the march, but two cows had been stolen from the caravan, and the men declared that they would not proceed without getting them back. Speke knew that if he remained more cloths would be demanded, and as soon as the cows arrived he shot them and gave them to the villagers. This raised a mutiny among his men, and the Pig would not show the way, nor would a single porter lift his load. Speke would not enter the village, and his party remained, therefore, in the open all night. The next morning, as he expected, Myonga sent his prime minister, who declared that the ladies of his court had nothing to cover their nakedness, and that something more must be paid. This caused fresh difficulties, the drums beat, and at length, much against his inclination, Speke paid some more yards of cloth for the sake of Grant, who might otherwise have been annoyed by the scoundrel.
This is a specimen of some of the lighter difficulties which the travellers had to encounter on their journey.
Having passed a number of villages, they entered a tract of jungle in which a stream formed the boundary between the great country of the Moon and the kingdom of Uzinga.
The district Speke next entered was ruled by two chieftains descended from Abyssinians. They were as great extortioners, however, as any of the pure negro race.
The Pig continued his tricks, and the travellers were heavily taxed and robbed at every step. The porters, too, refused to advance, declaring that they should be murdered, as the Watuta, their great enemies, were out on a foray: finally, they ran away and hid themselves. These Watuta, they said, were desperate fellows, who had invaded their country and killed their wives and children, and had despoiled them of everything they held dear. Baraka also showed the white feather.
Speke, however, put on a bold front, and declared that he would return to Caze and collect men who would not be afraid to accompany him to Usui. He carried his plan into execution, rejoined Grant, and obtained two fresh guides, Bui and Nasib, a steady old traveller. Still he was unable to obtain fresh porters to carry on his baggage, and he was once more obliged to part from Grant.
Having gone some way, Speke was taken seriously ill, while, again, his guides refused to proceed. This occurred while he was in the district of a chief, named Lumeresi, who insisted on his coming to his village, feeling jealous that he had remained in that of another inferior chief.
Lumeresi was not in when Speke arrived, but on his return, at night, he beat all his drums to celebrate the event, and fired a musket; in reply to which Speke fired three shots. The chief, however, though he pretended to be very kind, soon began to beg for everything he saw.
Speke, who felt that his best chance of recovering from his illness was change of air, ordered his men to prepare a hammock in which he might be conveyed. Although he had already given the chief a handsome _hongo_, or tribute, consisting of a red blanket, and a number of pretty common cloths for his children, no sooner did he begin to move than Lumeresi placed himself in his way and declared that he could not bear the idea of his white visitor going to die in the jungle. His true object, however, was to obtain a robe, or _deole_, which Speke had determined not to give him. However, at length, rather than be detained, he presented the only one which he had preserved for the great chief, Rumanika, into whose territories he was about to proceed. Scarcely had the chief received it, than he insisted on a further _hongo_, exactly double what had previously been given him. Again Speke yielded, and presented a number of brass-wire bracelets, sixteen cloths, and a hundred necklaces of coral beads, which were to pay for Grant as well as himself.
When about to march, however, Bui and Nasib were not to be found. On this, Speke determined to send back Bombay to Caze for fresh guides and interpreters, who were to join Grant on their return.
In the meantime, while lying in a fearfully weak condition, reduced almost to a skeleton, he was startled, at midnight, out of his sleep by hearing the hurried tramp of several men. They proved to be Grant's porters, who, in short excited sentences, told him that they had left Grant standing under a tree with nothing but a gun in his hand; that his Wanguann porters had been either killed or driven away, having been attacked by Myonga's men, who had fallen upon the caravan, and shot, speared, and plundered the whole of it.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN.
SPEKE AND GRANT'S TRAVELS CONTINUED.
CAPTAIN GRANT--HIS DESCRIPTION OF A WEEZEE VILLAGE AND THE CUSTOMS OF THE PEOPLE--SLAVERY--SETS OUT, AND IS ATTACKED BY MYONGA--GRANT AND SPEKE UNITE--JOURNEY TO KARAGUE--THE COUNTRY DESCRIBED--RUMANIKA RECEIVES THEM--THE PEOPLE AND THEIR CUSTOMS--WILD ANIMALS--SPEKE SETS OUT FOR UGANDA.
We must now return to Captain Grant, who had been left in the Unyamuezi country, about which, during his stay, he made numerous observations.
"In a Weezee village," he tells us, "there are few sounds to disturb the traveller's night rest. The horn of the new-comers, and the reply to it from a neighbouring village, an accidental alarm, the chirping of crickets, and the cry from a sick child occasionally, however, broke the stillness. At dawn the first sounds were the crowing of cocks, the lowing of cows, the bleating of calves, and the chirruping of sparrows (which might have reminded him of Europe). Soon after would be heard the pestle and mortar shelling corn, or the cooing of wild pigeons in the neighbouring palm-grove." The huts were shaped like corn-stacks, dark within as the hold of a ship. A few earthen jars, tattered skins, old bows and arrows, with some cups of grass, gourds, and perhaps a stool constitute the furniture.
Different tribes vary greatly in appearance. Grant describes some as very handsome. He mentions two Nyambo girls, who, in the bloom of youth, sat together with their arms affectionately twined round each other's neck, and, when asked to separate that they might be sketched, their arms were dropped at once, exposing their necks and busts, models for Greek slaves. Their woolly hair was combed out, and raised up from the forehead and over their ears by a broad band from the skin of a milk-white, cow, which contrasted strangely with their transparent, light-copper skins. The Waha women are like them, having tall, erect, graceful figures and intelligent features.
An Arab trader, whom they had met, had sixty wives, who lived together in a double-poled tent, with which he always travelled. One of them was a Watusi, a beautiful, tall girl, with large, dark eyes, and the smallest mouth and nose, with thin lips and small hands. Her noble race will never become slaves, preferring death to slavery.
The Wanyamuezi treat the Watusi with great respect. When two people of these tribes meet, the former presses his hands together, the Watusi uttering a few words in a low voice. If a Watusi man meets a woman of his own tribe, she lets her arms fall by her side, while he gently presses them below the shoulders, looking affectionately in her face.
The class of Arabs met with were a most degraded set: instead of improving the country, they brought ruin upon it by their imperiousness and cruelty. All traded in slaves and generally treated them most harshly. Several gangs were met with in chains. Each slave was dressed in a single goat's skin, and at night they kept themselves warm by lying near a fire. Never, by day or night, is the chain unfastened; should one of them require to move, the whole must accompany him. All ate together boiled sweet potato, or the leaves of the pumpkin plant, and were kept in poor condition to prevent their becoming troublesome.
Any meat or bones left from the travellers' dinners were therefore given them, and accepted thankfully. One gang was watched over by a small lad, whose ears had been cut off, and who treated them with unfeeling coarseness. A sick slave having recovered, it was the boy's duty to chain him to his gang again, and it was grievous to see the rough way he used the poor, emaciated creature.
They had not much work to do, the sole object of the owner being to keep them alive and prevent their running away till sold at the coast. They generally looked sullen and full of despair; but occasionally, at night, they danced and became even riotous, till a word from the earless imp restored them to order.
Among them was a poor fellow who had been five years in chains. The travellers took compassion on him, and released him from bondage. His chains were struck off with a hammer, and, once on his feet, a freedman, he seemed scarcely to believe the fact; when, however, attired in a clean calico shirt, he strutted about and soon came to make his new master his best bow. On his body were numerous spear-wounds. He had been captured by the Watuta, who had cut off several of his toes. This man never deserted them during the journey, accompanying them to Cairo, having gained the character of a faithful servant.
The Arab in Africa takes presents for everything he does, and it was believed that the white men would do the same. If a bullet was extracted, a gun repaired, an old sultan physicked, or the split lobe of an ear mended, a cow or cows were at hand to be paid when the task was finished.
When slaves were brought for sale and declined by the Englishmen, the natives could not understand their indifference to such traffic, but would turn from them with a significant shrug, as much as to say: "Why are you here then?" The most horrible punishments are inflicted on those who offend against the laws of the country. A woman and lad, who had been accused of bewitching the sultan's brother, were found with their arms tied behind them, writhing in torture on their faces. No sympathy was shown them from the jeering crowd. The lad at last cried out: "Take me to the forest; I know a herb remedy." He was allowed to go, while the woman was kept in the stocks near the sick patient. The lad was put to death, and Captain Grant suspected, tortured before a fire. Another man, for a crime in the sultan's harem, was stripped, tied to railings, and his person smeared with grease and covered with greased rags, which were then set fire to, when he was dragged forth to a huge fire outside the village. On his way, _assegais_ were darted at him by the son and daughter-in-law of the sultan, and when he fell he was dragged out by one leg.
Grant had the same difficulties in moving that Speke had experienced.
At length, on the 12th of September, he got away, but on the 16th, as he was passing through the territory of Sultan Myonga, his men moving in Indian file, a band of two hundred natives, armed with _assegais_ and bows and arrows, burst upon him, springing over the ground like cats.
The uplifted _assegais_ and the shouts of the robbers frightened the porters, who gave up their loads and attempted to escape from the ruffians, who were pulling their clothes and loads from them. Grant endeavoured without bloodshed to prevent this, but, as he had only one of his gun-men and two natives by him, he could do nothing. Little Rohan the sailor, one of his Zambesi men, was found with his rifle in hand at full cock, defending two loads against five men. He had been urged to fly for his life. The property, he answered, was his life.
Grant made his way, however, to Myonga, seeing as he went the natives dressed out in the stolen clothes of his men. Though honour was dear, the safety of the expedition was so likewise, and one false step would have endangered it.
Myonga pretended to be very indignant, and said that he had cut off the hand of one of his men, and promised that the property should be restored. Some of the loads were given back, but others had been broken open and rifled, and the chief demanded an enormous _hongo_ for permitting Grant to proceed. This was the origin of the alarming intelligence Captain Speke had received.
At length the two travellers united their forces, and together they continued their journey towards Karague. To reach it they had first to pass through the province of Usui, the chief of which, Suwarora, pillaged them as usual. Here the little grass-hut villages were not fenced by a _boma_, but were hidden in large fields of plantains.
Cattle were numerous, kept by the Wahuma, who would not sell their milk, because the Englishmen eat fowls. Their camp, night after night, was attacked by thieves. One night, as Speke was taking an observation, a party of these rascals enquired of two of the women of the camp what he was about. While the latter were explaining, the thieves whipped off their clothes and ran away with them, leaving the poor creatures in a state of absolute nudity. Speke had not taken much notice of the goats and other things which had been stolen, but, in consequence of this, he ordered his men to shoot any thieves who came near. A short time afterwards, another band approaching, one of the men was shot, who turned out to be a magician, and was till then thought invulnerable. He was tracked by his blood, and afterwards died of his wound. The next day some of Speke's men were lured into the huts of the natives by an invitation to dinner, but, when they got them there, they stripped them stark-naked and let them go again. At night the same rascals stoned the camp. After this another thief was shot dead and two others were wounded. Bombay and Baraka gave their masters also a good deal of trouble. The former, who was looked upon as an excellent fellow, more than once got very drunk, and stole their property in order to purchase a wife for himself, besides which the two men quarrelled desperately with each other.