CHAPTER VI.KARONGA TO KITUTA ACROSS THE TANGANYIKA PLATEAU.On arrival at Karonga I was much disappointed to find that Sharp, tired of waiting, had left two days before to try and arrange transport on Tanganyika. As it was the season for sowing their crops, very few carriers were available, and it was evident that I should have to wait some time before I could obtain sufficient men to transport our loads. I commenced operations by repacking all the food-boxes and discarding everything that was not absolutely necessary, as well as the considerable quantity of stuff that had spoilt through being improperly packed. The firm responsible, either as a practical joke or an experiment in the cultivation of fungus, had packed chocolate in paper wrappers and laid them in hay in a leaky wooden box. As a practical joke it was weak, but as a venture in fungi-culture a complete success. In fact, unpacking the boxes reminded me forcibly of the days when, as a youthful disciple of Isaac Walton, I used to dig for worms in the garden manure-heap. A series of remarkable tins of sausages added materially to the excitement of these excavations, one and all having assumed the outward and visible form of a Rugby football; while as to the inward invisible grace, I was careful to throw them down wind, when they exploded on contact with the ground in a manner most satisfactory, to the utter consternation of six Kaffir dogs and a hyæna. They, having followed up the wind of the first (a comparatively mild one), were so overcome by its successors that they clapped their tails between their legs, and, with a dismal howl, fled, convinced of the superiority of the white man, even in what they had hitherto considered the black man's monopoly. Native rumour has it that they are running still.Having arranged everything and reduced the loads to a minimum, I succumbed to a dose of fever, and spent Christmas Day in bed, on a cup of tea. Dr. Castellote, the medical officer of Mr. Mohun's expedition, was most kind, and when I had sufficiently recovered, we went out together for a few days' shooting on the River Songwe, which, flowing into the extreme north-western point of Lake Nyassa, forms part of the Anglo-German boundary-line.Before starting, however, I went to a neighbouring village and called for volunteers to accompany us on our long journey north. I informed the people in the guest's resting-place, which is kept apart in every village, that the journey would take many moons; that we should go to Tanganyika, that north of Tanganyika we should find another lake, then mighty mountains that made fire, then another lake, then still mightier mountains so high that the water became as stones; then a fourth lake, out of which flowed a great river which, after several moons, took one to the dwelling-places of the white man--large even as hills--where the white men were even as the sands of the lake-shore; that there we should find the sea--the water without end--and that I would send back in steamers large as villages those who came with me, so that they might return to their homes and tell their brothers of all the wonderful things they had seen. The people were much impressed and evidently considered me a very extra special line in liars. They asked me how I knew what was there--"had I been there to see?" I told them that the white man knew much, and what he did not know he could find in books (showing them one). Then they realized that I must be even a finer liar than they had at first taken me to be. After a little more talking four stalwart Watonga volunteered to come, thinking it a pity not to see more of such a transcendent Ananias. One of them, Makanjira, was a small chief on the lake-shore, and those four men stuck to me through thick and thin, and all arrived safely at Cairo; but I regret to say that I have just heard that one of them, Chacachabo, died during the voyage down the coast. The next day a nude dirty little ruffian came and asked to go too; he, though but a small boy, came through safely, and is now setting up a reputation as a liar on his own account. Later on I obtained twelve more recruits, whom I handed over to Mr. Mohun's sergeant to be drilled: these men, as it will later transpire, deserteden massea few days north of Ujiji. They were Asiska, and a very unwholesome lot of ruffians.The doctor and I started off along the lake-shore on a couple of donkeys lent to us by Mr. Mohun. We had much trouble in inducing them to cross a large stream that flows into the lake a few miles north of Karonga, and eventually had to take them bodily by the four legs and throw them in.At Chikopolo's there is a Government station in charge of a few native police; here we stayed for a day, but finding nothing more interesting than waterbuck and reedbuck, moved north and camped on the Songwe, which is a stream of considerable importance, and navigable for several miles from the lake. I was informed that there was a German post on the northern bank of the river at its junction with the lake, and accordingly went across to pay my respects. On arrival I found that the station was in charge of a Goanese native, who promptly endeavoured to annex my rifle, saying that I had brought it into the country without a permit. I called upon Mirambo, a splendid old Arab who used to be a great man in the country. He entertained me with true Arab courtesy, and loaded my boys with magnificent pine-apples and lemons when I went away. It was pitiable to see the poor old man, who a few years ago had commanded thousands, putting on the faded relics of his greatness to do me honour.On the way back to camp I came upon an enormous native fishing weir: there were two or three natives wading waist-deep in the water above the weir pulling fish out of the baskets, while down-stream, with nothing but the crazy sticks between, the water was being lashed into foam by the gyrations of scores of huge crocodiles. I shot fourteen in as many minutes, averaging fifteen feet in length. The natives flocked in to express their satisfaction, and actually brought me a present of some fish. There were a few pookoo on the plain. They are most beautiful little antelopes and carry themselves exactly like a waterbuck. The hair is reddish, long, and curly, and the hide (as with all the waterbucks) very tough and thick. It has been obtained by comparatively few sportsmen, as it is only found on the Upper Zambesi, Loangwa, Chambesi, and Mweru district.On the 13th I moved my camp twelve miles up the river to a village called N'kana. Here the hills close in upon the river, but leave a series of delightful little green glades, most likely places for finding roan antelope, which are numerous in the country. But I was unsuccessful, though there was some spoor about. While crossing one of these small glades, a shout of Njoka (snake) from my gun-bearer made me spring to one side. I found that I had put my foot so close to a sleeping puff-adder that it would have been impossible to have slipped a visiting-card between us. The brute still slept; on, till I crushed the life out of it with an enormous log of wood. It rather scared me, as I was hunting with bare legs. All this country is infested with puff-adders, which are the most dangerous snakes in Africa, as they do not dart away like other snakes, but lie sleeping in the dust till they are trodden upon. They differ from other snakes in that they strike backwards. Later on, near the Chambesi, I actually trod upon one; it struck, but missed me, and turned a back somersault in the air, leaving the ground entirely. After that I always wore gaiters or stockings. I have heard of another instance of a puff-adder springing clear of the ground. This is rendered possible by their habit of striking backwards. The natives complained of the hut tax and of being forbidden to kill game: they said that many had crossed over into the German sphere; but they have all come back in a hurry.Failing to find roan antelope, I marched back to Chikopolo's across the hills, and was much struck by the number of butterflies in the woods; some of them were very beautiful, but so rapid was their flight that it was exceedingly difficult to catch them. Everywhere there was splendid cattle country, but unfortunately very little cattle. Before the rinderpest the whole of the Songwe valley was black with buffalo; now I do not believe there is a single beast, except in some jungle two days' march to the north, which the natives told me was haunted by a few buffalo and elephants. And only a very few head survive of the countless herds of cattle which were characteristic of the Wankonde. The Wankonde are a very pleasant-mannered, intelligent people, who were saved from absolute extinction at the hands of the Angoni, Watonga, and Arabs by the British occupation of the country. Ethnologically they are extremely interesting: their ethnographical position in the races has not yet been satisfactorily ascertained. Their huts, which are very neat and picturesque, are sometimes square, sometimes round, and worked in a pattern of round knobs of clay stuck in between the rush walls. Many are built on a raised clay foundation with a trench to draw off the rain. The roof is worked in fancy patterns. Their metal work is first-class, in fact the most finished that I have seen on the east side of Africa. They have a fair breed of cattle, goats, and sheep, and grow pineapples, bananas, and pumpkins in profusion. Probably owing to Arab influence their villages are well laid out, and the banana palms are planted in carefully aligned avenues. The Arab influence on their music is obvious. And despite Arab influence they are an exceedingly moral race. Being a peaceful, pastoral, and agricultural people, they fell an easy prey to their warlike neighbours and the slave-raiding Arabs. Lugard speaks of them as having been shot down in the most merciless manner by the Arabs in his time.The natives informed me that Mr. Mohun and Captain Verhellen, the Belgian officer in command of the telegraph escort, were camped on the Songwe, so I marched back and joined them. They were out for a short hunting-trip, and I found them ignominiously slaughtering a goat for meat, although the whole plain was alive with game. On examining Mr. Mohun's rifle, which he had just bought from a local man of God, I found that the barrel was so badly worn that it was almost possible to insert the whole cartridge at the muzzle. That explained his having fired forty shots without effect. In the evening we strolled out together, and after a very difficult stalk I pulled off a long shot of three hundred yards at a good bull pookoo. Captain Verhellen informed me that he had seen four small grey antelopes, one of which he had wounded and lost. I could not imagine what they could be; so on the following morning turned out with his boy to show me where he had seen them. I had only walked about three miles when I saw one standing in a patch of green grass. It appeared to be a reedbuck of a beautiful bright silver-grey colour. There was a small ant-hill between the buck and me which made stalking easy, and I approached without difficulty to within sixty yards. I was just pressing the trigger when an ordinary reedbuck sprang out at my feet and dashed away with a shrill whistle; this started the grey one, and I only got a running snapshot. The bullet struck it in the stern but failed to stop it, and the second barrel only grazed the side. I galloped wildly in pursuit, but the buck kept on its course for nearly two miles before it stopped. The distance between us was fully four hundred yards, but I had to take the shot, as it was watching me, and was evidently prepared to resume its flight. The bullet struck it far back, and it again galloped away, the second barrel going wide. Fortunately the plain was extensive and the grass in most places short, so that I managed to keep it in view for the next four miles. Then it stood again, near some bushes; I endeavoured to approach under cover of these, but was again spotted, and the weary chase recommenced. The country became more broken, and I lost sight of the brute for some time, but eventually saw it lying down a thousand yards away. I approached to a tree, whence I could see if it moved, and waited in the hope that it would get stiff and allow me to come within certain shooting-range. After waiting half an hour I commenced to stalk it, crawling flat on my stomach; there was a convenient bush within fifty yards of where it was lying, and I made for this. After half an hour's desperate crawl through thorns in a blazing sun, I reached the much-desired spot, and peering cautiously round the edge found, to my infinite disgust, that it had moved on. I searched high and low, but could find no trace, and soon lost the spoor which showed but faintly on the grass. As a last effort I made a circuit of two miles, but returned to where I had lost it without result. Then I sat down, waiting for my boys to arrive with my water-bottle. The pace had been so hot that they were completely lost, and I waited in vain. The fever from which I was still suffering made my thirst intolerable, and I rose with the intention of returning to camp. Then a bright idea struck me, and taking the siren whistle which I carried on my belt, I blew a piercing blast. A rustle! and the buck leapt out of some grass which I imagined would not have covered a mouse, and dashed off. To throw down the whistle was the work of a second, and a quick double-barrel brought the little brute at last to grass. I was more than delighted, and realizing that I had obtained a new species of antelope, as the eyes, lips, horns, and hoofs showed no trace of albinoism, skinned it with loving care, and carried it back to camp. Dr. Sclater of the Zoological Society has kindly described it for me. I called it Thomasina's reedbuck (Cervicapra Thomasinæ) after the lady who is now my wife.The following day I slew another good bull pookoo, which took more killing than any buck I have ever shot. The pookoo's tenacity of life is proverbial among those who are acquainted with this most beautiful little antelope. They have a curious gland about 4 in. below the head in the side of the neck.The Wankonde play a curious little musical instrument resembling in conception a zither: the strings (six or seven in number) are stretched on a back of hollow reeds; it is held under the leg when sitting, and fingered like the Maderia machette with the right hand, the strings being stopped with the left. They also play on a bow with a gourd or cocoanut-shell as a sounder, and a species of guitar.Having received a note to the effect that porters had at last come in, I returned to Karonga to prepare for my final march of two hundred and ten miles west to Tanganyika.On the way I stopped for a day with Mr. Fox, who was managing the telegraph construction across the plateau. The line was just opened to Karonga from Salisbury, and Mr. Mohun had put up the first telephone seen on Lake Nyassa between Karonga and Mr. Fox's camp. The work of construction up the west coast of Lake Nyassa had been attended with the greatest possible difficulties from the precipitous and densely-wooded nature of the country, and the pestilential climate. These had, however, by superhuman efforts, been overcome in the stipulated time by the handful of men engaged on the work. A wide track, straight as an arrow, up hill, down dale, across abysmal chasms, and through swamps, had been cleared, and iron posts set in iron shoes supported the wire. No one at home can realize the stupendous difficulties that have been overcome. But I from observation know, and take off my hat in awed admiration of that gallant band who, quietly, relentlessly, and without a murmur, have accomplished the seemingly impossible. It stands out in bold relief as a colossal monument of what the Anglo-Saxon can do, and will ever sigh to the African wind the greatness of that master mind which, in spite of the fossilized apathy of the British Government, has raised a British South Africa to be a dominant factor in the world's history of the future. It was instructive to mark the characteristic distinction between Mr. Rhodes' telegraph expedition and the expedition of the King of the Belgians. On the one hand was an unassuming handful of men (without a single armed man), whose very existence might easily have been overlooked by the casual passer-by. Yet behind them lay many hundreds of miles of perfected work which brought the far interior of Africa within a minute of Cape Town; before them stretched an arrow-like clearing to Tanganyika (two hundred miles long), waiting for the transport service to bring poles and wire. Quiet men, rotten with fever, were being carried to and fro--inspecting, measuring, and trenching. Above their base floated a diminutive Union Jack; no pomp, no fuss, not even a bugle; yet all worked like clock-work. On the other hand, a huge camp thundering with the tramp of armed men, uninhabitable from the perpetual blare of bugles, a very wilderness of flags. Gorgeous and fussy Belgians strutting about in uniforms, screaming and gesticulating, with a few sad-visaged Englishmen doing the work--piles and piles of loads--and ever those bugles. It resembled the triumphant march of an army through the land, and the cost must have been appalling. Yet months after they had eventually arrived at Mtowa, nothing had been accomplished. The petty jealousy of the local officials proved an impenetrable barrier, and now if anything has been accomplished, the wire has been merely slung on trees. According to the latest reports, there had been trouble with the natives, and the whole expedition had been broken up, with the loss of most of the plant. There is undoubtedly a quiet something about the Anglo-Saxon that gets there somehow.Fever overcame me once more, and I was confined to my bed for several days; but at last, on January 24th, I made a start, and marched to Mpata, the first camping-place on the Stevenson Road. The Stevenson Road is a clearing through the bush that covers the greater part of the plateau, and barely deserves the title of road, although in some places a few logs have been thrown across the streams, and the more swampy portions have been trenched.The second stage brings one to Mkongwés, about twenty-seven miles from Karonga. Chumbu, the next halting-place, is fourteen miles further. The country is very hilly, and the scenery not very attractive. At intervals, intersecting the road, the telegraph clearing sweeps on in its relentless line, looking like a gigantic ride, where one expects every minute to see the white tail of a scared bunny or a gorgeous cock-pheasant bowling along as though on wheels. But one looks in vain; no sign of life breaks that monotonous line stretching away over the far hills till the trees at the side merge together, and it is lost in the far distant horizon.A very long day's march brought us to Fort Hill, the frontier station of Nyassaland, which is in charge of a few black police. It had been very wet, as the rains had broken, and I was exceedingly thankful to take cover in the substantial house which is in the centre of the stockade. I had a bull-calf with me, and gave it in charge of one of my Askaris, who retaliated in the usual annoying way of natives by coming and asking for some string to lead it by. Asking for string is a common and intangible form of insolence, as they make string from the bark of several kinds of trees, very common all over the country. But this time I scored. I had a large coil of Alpine rope weighing about 20 lbs. I gave him this, and told him on pain of death not to cut it. Then he said, "It did not matter, he would make some." But I was relentless. "He had asked for string, and I never refused a reasonable request." That youth never again asked for string. At Nyala the telegraph people have built a substantial house, which is to be a telegraph station and general depository of material; they have selected an admirable position. A large blood-sucking fly made life rather a burden; they settled so quietly that one never felt them till they had driven a proboscis, like a red-hot bodkin, half an inch into one's neck or face. Amazing downpours every morning added to the joys of life, and for several days I had to live in wet clothes and sleep in wet blankets, while it was almost impossible to start a fire. I had a sou'-wester and an oilskin, but they were of no avail. The rain fell like a wave, and with such force that it splashed up underneath, and one was soon drenched to the neck by capillary attraction. Passing through Mpansa we reached Ikawa on the 31st.Ikawa is the first station of Northern Charterland, on the Tanganyika Plateau. Mr. Mackinnon, the collector, had gone to the Chambesi district to neutralize the political machinations of a fractious missionary.Nine miles further on is Fife, the A.L.C. station, and the oldest settlement on the plateau. Mr. McCulloch, who has been in charge for several years, tells some delightful stories about his exciting experiences in the old days of Arab predominance. Two members of Lieut. Schleufer's expedition, which was endeavouring to transport a steamer for the German Government to Lake Tanganyika, were camped outside the walls waiting for porters. They had some heavy loads with them on carts, and had taken seven weeks to make the journey from Karonga. Fife is the half-way house between Nyassa and Tanganyika. From the verandah I looked out with longing eyes over the vast Awemba country that lies at the foot of the plateau. The view was superb, and typical of Africa in its misty uncanniness. Mr. McCulloch has planted splendid gardens, and we revelled in green peas, new potatoes, cabbage, lettuce, and many other European vegetables, all of which grow luxuriantly on these altitudes. In the days of overcrowding not far distant there will be a fine country for European settlement on the Tanganyika Plateau. There is much fever at present, but I think most of it is brought from the low countries. The nights were quite cold, and fires necessary for comfort. Mr. McCulloch has a wonderful knowledge of the native; he is considered as a chief by the large village close to the station, and is much respected by the native chiefs for many miles round. I purchased some beautiful wooden snuff-bottles from the Mambwe people, and some extraordinary ear-plugs which are worn by the women in the lobe of the ear; some of them were 2 in. in diameter.The Anglo-German Boundary Commission had just completed its task, and the new boundary enclosed many of the large labour centres in the German sphere: some of the chiefs, however, availed themselves of the time limit allowed by proclamation, and came across to British territory. But the Germans, contrary to the terms of the agreement, had posted native police to intercept and terrorize them into remaining. The Germans did not behave very well over the boundary settlement, but insisted on retaining a small strip of territory that fell to their share, but which cut across the Stevenson Road, though they were offered a handsomequid pro quoelsewhere. However, the British collector set to work at once, and in a few days took the road round the obstructing strip.At Ikomba, another B.S.A. station, I found that Mr. Forbes had gone home, and promptly looted the excellent new potatoes which I found in his garden. On February 9th I reached Mambwe, and from there made a trip down to the Awemba country, which is described in the next chapter. On our return to Mambwe I was laid up with a very severe attack of fever which did not leave me for two months, till I reached the highlands around Kivu. I was delirious for some time, but improved sufficiently to be carried to Kawimbi, a mission station near Abercorn. Mr. and Mrs. May were most kind to me; the station is very pretty, and looks like an English village with its picturesque little cottages and numerous flower-beds. The following morning I was carried on to Abercorn, although the missionaries kindly pressed me to stay, promising to nurse me and make me well. I was sorely tempted, but felt bound to hurry on. At Abercorn I utterly collapsed for several days, and in the intervals of delirium eked out a precarious existence on Worcester sauce and limes. Here I heard a lion story. The hero of the story (also the author) having been told that a leopard was taking toll of the goats, built a platform in a tree and sat up over a goat. Nothing, however, turned up; but in the morning, tired of doing nothing, he fired an arrow at a venture into a patch of grass, and on going to pick it up, found that it had transfixed the heart of a stupendous black-maned lion. Considering the state of my health, I thought this rather unkind. At last I was sufficiently recovered to move once more, and was carried in a machila, under Mr. Boyd's care, to Kituta, the A.L.C. station at the south-eastern extremity of Tanganyika. The first glimpse of those waters, round which so many dark tragedies have been enacted, cheered me considerably. I had realized another ambition, and had arrived at the real starting-point of our Odyssey.Kituta is a beautiful but pestilential spot, chiefly remarkable for its abominable smells. It is also the scene of another lion story which deserves perpetuation.There was once a very nervous agent in charge of the station with a particular horror of lions. One of these brutes commenced eating the natives of the village; so the agent barricaded himself in his room and slept with six native watchmen in case of attack. Hearing, or thinking that he heard, the lion prowling round, he fired out of the window and knocked a hole through the administration boat. The following night he again heard sounds and fired, bagging the collector's donkey at the first shot. A certain well-known sportsman, who was hunting in the vicinity, wrote in and congratulated him on shooting his first lion. He rose to the occasion, and now silences all sceptics by producing the letter, and has acquired quite a reputation as a hunter of big game.While purchasing trade-cloth for the journey north, the carelessness of the British manufacturer was again brought home to me. All the loads contained different lengths, and as the marks had been rubbed off, the operation lasted several hours instead of ten minutes; and they were so badly packed that after a week's knocking about most of them came undone, and the contents were consequently in part spoiled. I wonder when the British exporter will realize the advisability of studying the requirements of his markets. Kituta was at one time the call-place of many Arab caravans, but now it has sunk into insignificance, although there is a flourishing rubber trade in the country, which is paying very handsomely.CHAPTER VII.THE CHAMBESI.On reaching Mambwe I had the good fortune to find Mr. C. R. Palmer, the assistant-collector, on the point of starting for the Chambesi, with the object of waking up one or two of the chiefs who had been tardy in sending in labour. His offer to take me with him, and his glowing description of the game to be found there, were so tempting that next morning I found myself on the march to Tanzuka, a border village of the Mambwe; and on the following day we entered the country of the Awemba, a very powerful tribe apparently of Zulu origin. The difference between these people and the neighbouring Mambwe is as cheese from chalk: whereas the latter are of the ordinary dirty, stunted, cringing or insolent, ill-fed type of Central Africa, the former are of a very striking caste. Among the upper class are some magnificent specimens of the native, tall men of powerful build, with much of the well-bred carriage of the Zulu; their noses are straight and thin cut, their colour bronze; and their hair, which they wear in grotesque tufts down the middle of their head, is the only conspicuous negro characteristic. Many of the young women, with their regular features, beautiful colour, and small, delicate hands and feet, are quite pleasing. Until the advent of the Chartered Co. they led the rollicking life of the old Zulus; herding cattle and depending for the meaner necessaries of life and the replenishing of their harems on the efforts of their neighbours. Far and wide they used to raid even to the Atonga country on the east coast of Tanganyika, and many and wonderful are the tales told of their stupendous forced marches, when the weaker members used to fall out and die from sheer exhaustion. All the chiefs of any standing maintain bands, composed of singers, drummers, and players on the castanets, in which they take great pride. On the approach of any visitors to whom they wish to do honour, the band is sent forward to meet them; the leading part is usually taken by a man who sings the theme, some of them having remarkably fine voices, while the refrain is taken up by other men, playing drums of hollow wood with lizard or snake skin stretched over the apertures, and a chorus of boys rattling pods containing dry seeds; the whole is accompanied by grotesque dancing, the main object of which appeared to be to go as near falling down as possible without actually doing so. The strain, like most African music, plays on about three notes with untiring repetition, and, though rather pleasing at first, palls after the fourth or fifth hour. Should a chief find any singer of unusual power, he promptly removes his eyes to prevent him from going elsewhere, and many men thus mutilated are to be seen in every district. In fact mutilation in various forms appears to be the chief recreation of these autocrats. Mr. Palmer told me of three youths who came in to him without their eyes, which had been removed by their chief, because he thought his people were getting out of hand; so to teach them that he was still master he had selected haphazard these three unfortunates. I also heard of some women who had had their ears, lips, hands, and breasts cut off, and who actually travelled a distance of about sixty miles immediately afterwards to the collector of the district. I myself saw many men who had similarly lost their ears, lips, hands, or privates, and sometimes all these parts.Mr. Law, the able collector at Abercorn, who is known to the natives by the appellation of the "Just man" (and who, by the way, charged me £25 for my rhino about six hours before I sailed north), when on some punitive expedition in the Awemba country, captured a delightful example of the grim humour of these pleasing gentry. It consisted of a large sable horn rudely adorned and fitted with a mask, into which the patient's head was fitted, his throat having been previously cut with a ferocious-looking knife, chiefly remarkable for its bluntness; the blood spurting forth into the horn rang a bell, a performance that gave general satisfaction, with, I suppose, one exception. Some of their old kraals are veritable fortresses, consisting of an outer ringed palisade banked with clay and loopholed; inside is a deep trench, and again an inner palisade similarly banked and loopholed, with, in many cases, a third palisade containing the chief's huts. The site is invariably selected on the edge of a dense thicket, into which the women and cattle are driven on the advent of strangers; nearly every respectable member of society has a gun imported by Arab traders from the north and Portuguese from the south, and there must be several thousand in the country. Such is the people who have been changed in half a dozen short years from a cruel, murdering, widespread curse into a quiet agricultural fraternity; and by whom? By a mere handful of men with less than a hundred native police, agents of that oppressor of the native, the Chartered Company; and this without fuss and practically without bloodshed. The chief industries of the country are pombe[#]-drinking and the making of bark cloth, which is a strong fibrous textile of a pleasing reddish-brown colour, made by beating out the bark of the fig-tree with little wooden hammers, till of the required thinness. A curious custom prevails here, and one that I have not noticed elsewhere in Africa, of wearing mourning for dead relatives; bands of cloth being tied round the head.[#] Pombe: an intoxicating drink made from millet.The following day we arrived at Changala's kraal; he is a large, powerful man, with a face expressive of determination and character. He came out two miles to meet us, carried on the shoulders of one of his men, as is the custom (for the chiefs never walk), with a following of two or three hundred people. He, as in fact did all the Awemba, gave us a very hearty reception. Having amicably settled all outstanding questions with Changala, we visited Makasa, the big man of the country, whose head village lies about twenty-six miles south-east of Changala's. He is a portly old gentleman of unprepossessing countenance, and rather inclined to make trouble--at a distance; however, guessing our intentions, he had made great preparations for our reception. On arrival we found our tents already pitched and grass shelters built above them to keep off the sun; while large crowds of obsequious gentlemen came out to meet us and insisted on carrying in our machilas at a run, a form of attention that would not be appreciated by Accident Insurance Companies. His village, which cannot contain less than five hundred huts, is of the usual Awemba pattern, and is a great centre of the bark-cloth industry.Tales of rhino and elephant galore raised our hopes to the highest pitch, and after a day's rest we launched forth into the game country--a triangular patch of country that lies at the junction of the Chambesi, and its main tributary the Chosi--camping near Chipiri, the original site of the French mission. Here we got our first glimpse of the Chambesi, which, flowing with a devious course into Lake Bangweolo, is the real source of the Congo. It rises between Mambwe and Abercorn, and at Chipiri is already a river of some size, flowing through a beautiful grass plain clothed with patches of waving spear-grass. The plain, varying in width from a half to five miles, is hemmed in by forest bush and park land, dotted over with innumerable ant-hills, some 30 ft. in height, and is the haunt of countless herds of pookoo, two of which graced our larder shortly after pitching camp.The next afternoon we moved further down the river to the Mafunso; and our carriers started a rhino on the path, the spoor of which we followed in thick brush. But, getting our wind, he departed with a derisive squeal, and, though I nearly came up with him again, I was compelled to give up the chase by nightfall, and only found camp with considerable difficulty. Still further down the river we camped in a delightful hunting-country, the Chambesi plain lying to our south, the vast plain of the Chosi to our east, and north, just behind the camp, strips of bush alternating with glades and groves of mahobahoba. The bush was ploughed up with rhino spoor, and that afternoon both Palmer and I unsuccessfully followed spoor of the morning. Never having seen roan antelope, I was very anxious to shoot one, and the following day started out with that intention. I found several fresh spoors, but failed to make anything of them, but on my way home I found recent lion tracks. These I followed for about two hours; at times it was very difficult, their soft pads leaving no impression on the carpets of dead leaves in the patches of bush, but I managed by casting round to pick the track up again when at fault, and eventually, hearing a low growl, I caught a glimpse of four yellow bodies disappearing round the end of a bush-covered ant-hill. I ran as fast as possible to the other side and almost into their midst; they had tried the old, old lion tactics of doubling. At sight of me they stood, and I put in a right and left; off they galloped, I in hot pursuit, following, as I thought, the first, who had got a fair shoulder-shot, and not wishing to lose sight of her, because of the thickness of some of the bush. I could just see her bounding round an ant-hill, and was making a desperate spurt to see if she would double, when I rushed round the corner of a bush right on to the top of a tail. I lost no time in skipping to one side; however, she was at her last gasp, gnawing her forepaw and making that peculiar deep gurgle, once heard, never forgotten, the lion's death-groan. I found she was the recipient of the first barrel, and the one I was following, which had dropped for a moment to my second barrel, must have crossed when I lost sight of them behind an ant-hill. Then to my disgust I remembered that I had had a solid bullet in my second barrel in case of an unexpected rhino. I picked up her spoor and followed her all round the country for about three hours, but she was playing the fool with me, and though several times I must have been very near, I never obtained another sight of her. The other two, which were three parts grown, found her after a while, and their spoor led over the top of all the ant-hills, where they had stopped to watch me till I came too close. To judge by the blood, I had hit her too far back, and the solid bullet going right through would make very little impression. This was the second time I had dropped a right and left and lost one, and I was grievously disappointed. The one I killed was a superb lioness with unusually long hair, and she measured 8 ft. 5-½ in., from tip to tip, in the flesh. Owing to the hot, rainy weather I had much difficulty in curing the skin, but eventually made a complete success of it. I made a raised quadrangular frame, upon which I stretched the skin, with a grass roof to keep off the showers; then, in default of any better preservative, I had wood-ash continually rubbed in by relays of men.Making short afternoon marches and hunting in the morning, we gradually worked down the river to the Chosi junction, then up the Chosi, which is a fine stream about forty yards wide, with a large body of water, till we arrived at Kalungu, a small isolated village, and the only one between Makasa's village and the Chosi. I made a circuit of the plain, waded some swamps, and emerged on a second plain. Here, in the distance, I saw three huge unwieldy monsters slowly threading their way in and out of the numerous ant-hills, till they vanished behind one larger than the rest. I had left my glasses behind, and owing to the slight mirage could not be sure whether they were rhino or hippo. Having loaded the double 4-bore, I hurried forward, creeping from ant-hill to ant-hill, till at last I arrived in a line with the one behind which the brutes were still hidden. Crawling cautiously up, I climbed to the top, the big gun at the present, then peered over while my heart beat the devil's tattoo. There they were, not fifteen yards off, three of them, neither rhino nor hippo, but camp boys, with three loads of wood by their sides, peacefully smoking a hubble-bubble. I looked at them, then back at the sickly grey face of my gun-bearer, his teeth chattering with fright, and then marched into camp, to find that Palmer had shot a splendid roan on the high road.Turning out early the next morning I struck the spoor of the herd of roan, and after sixteen miles through water ankle-deep, came up with them; but they saw me first, and I only succeeded in dropping a good cow, which stood on an ant-hill to have a last look at me. I had arranged to join Palmer and the boys at Nondo, which lies at the junction of the Mwenda and Chosi, but found that he had gone further up the Mwenda and camped at Chupi, which lies on the border of Luwala, thepièce de résistanceof our trip. At Nondo the Chosi forms a wide pool, formerly the abode of numerous hippo till the advent of one of the French priests, who murdered the majority, for the satisfaction, I suppose, of seeing them float down-stream. The same enterprising individual, with other kindred spirits, organized a drive of the herds of pookoo on the plain. Huge fences were built at one end with funnel-shaped openings, where the gallant sportsmen stationed themselves, and, if report speaks true, slaughtered about two hundred. I wonder how many they wounded? By the side of the pool is an enormous pile of old hippo skulls that is regarded with superstitious awe by the natives, and close by is a sacred tree, the burial-place of some old chief, where quite a respectable herd of cattle has accumulated from the native offerings. East of the Chosi there is another Awemba god, who dwells in a thicket decorated by a wonderful collection of horns.When a big chief dies, they smoke him for a year and then bury him in bark-cloth. The general belief is that his spirit enters into a lion, an animal that they hold in superstitious awe, and refuse to kill.From Chupi we marched into Luwala, a hitherto unexplored tract of country. During the rains it is under water, and is consequently quite uninhabited, a few natives only camping there for fishing purposes, as the waters begin to leave the plain. On the north and east it is bounded by the Chosi for a distance of about sixty miles, and on the west by a slight ridge covered with bush, through which numerous streams flow and lose themselves in the marshes, eventually draining into the Chosi by the Mwenda.Unfortunately we were too late in the season, the rains having already broken, and were consequently unable to penetrate far from the west side; even there we were compelled to wade from camp to camp through water from 6 in. to 3 ft. deep. The natives told us that when the rains are drying up, immense numbers of game come out from the bush to feed on the new grass round the rapidly diminishing pools, and that often they could see as many as half a dozen rhino at a time. It is also a favourite haunt of the comparatively few elephant that still roam over this country. On the first day's trek we crossed rhino spoor about four to five hours old, and as Palmer, who was out of form, was unwilling to risk a long chase, I started off in pursuit. After following for about an hour, I passed quite close to a large herd of roan containing three or four magnificent bulls, which stood and watched me at about forty yards. I was sorely tempted, but held to my principle of never leaving a spoor except for something better. For some time the rhino had been travelling very fast, but suddenly the spoor freshened, and from the side of an ant-hill I saw a great pink body in the distance moving slowly through the grass. It is curious how decidedly pink hippo and rhino look at a distance. As there were many large ant-hills about I followed the spoor right out, and coming round the corner of one, suddenly saw him about forty yards off just walking out into the huge bare plain; but the birds, many of which were on his back, saw me and gave the alarm. In turning he gave me my broadside chance, and I fired the 4-bore, burning fourteen drams and throwing a four-ounce spherical ball; then, as he swung round to bolt, I popped in a forward raking second barrel, which quickened his pace considerably. He rushed round in a half-circle to try and get my wind, while I peppered him with .303 solid bullets, which appeared to have about the same effect as hailstones. When he got my wind he stopped short and faced me, then swayed from side to side, staggered, recovered himself, and finally, with a shrill squeal, toppled over, kicking his four fat little legs in the air, and gave up the ghost, or the rhino's equivalent, there being nothing very spectral about these incongruous old survivals of the past. Choleric, dyspeptic, unsociable old fellows with a lordly contempt for, and fixed determination to suppress all such indecent innovations as guns, Cape wagons, and Mombasa railway-trains, they always remind me of those fire-eating, civilian-repressing, cheroot-smoke-belching Bagstocks who frequent Madeira, the Lake of Geneva, and other temperate and economical resorts, and who glare at all newcomers with that peculiar bloodshot ferocity only to be acquired by many years of curry, Bombay duck, and unlimited authority over servile millions. Owing to the difficulty of providing food for the large mob of Mambwe who had accompanied us to see in safety their old masters, the Awemba, the meat was very acceptable. The rhino was a large bull. Being particularly anxious to preserve the head, I took the trouble to cut through the hide all round to be sure of having sufficient neck-skin, and, to avoid any possibility of mistake, I left a boy by the carcase; yet in the evening it arrived in two detachments, having been considerately hacked in two to facilitate carriage.After floundering about the country for miles and camping on isolated ant-hills, surrounded by sheets of water, and as, owing to the continued rains in the hills, the water was daily rising, we were compelled to retreat north-west. Here we made two more ineffectual efforts to penetrate into the interior. So, cursing the rains, we marched to the Luchewe, the largest of the streams which flow into Luwala, and following its valley, arrived at Kyambi, the mission station of the Pères Blancs. Here, with their usual enterprise and abilities, they have constructed a splendid two-storied building with a large cloister-like verandah, surrounded, as are all their other stations, by a solid, fortified wall; outside they have collected a large village and laid out extensive irrigated gardens well stocked with bananas, limes, lemons, and other fruits. The priests were most charming hosts. Their hospitality is, indeed, famed throughout Central Africa.From Kyambi we marched straight into Mambwe, where we arrived drenched to the skin; and two days later I was down with an attack of fever which lasted till I reached the highlands of Kivu.CHAPTER VIII.TANGANYIKA.At last, on April 2nd, we sailed from Kituta in theGood News.Mr. Mohun and a large number of his Zanzibaris were with me. Consequently there was not much room. TheGood Newswas originally the property of an English Mission on the Lake, and when the Mission moved to find healthier quarters, the steamer was sold at a ridiculously low figure to the African Lakes Corporation, although, I believe, the Administration of Northern Rhodesia offered a larger sum. A large hole had been knocked in her bottom and filled up with cement; and the machinery was tied together with string and strips of sardine-tins. Vast cockroaches were in possession, and night was made hideous by their peregrinations; some of them were almost as large as mice, and it was a great strain on one's mosquito-curtain when they climbed up the sides in droves. Mr. Mohun endured them all night, but I, in a very few minutes, gave up the unequal fight and retired on deck.Our noble captain, who was quite new to the lake, did not know where he was going, nor did he care. His idea of navigating a boat consisted in sleeping in his bunk until the natives told him we had arrived somewhere; even then, he never inquired what the place was. His only anxiety was lest he should oversleep himself and miss a meal.In the evening we arrived at the Congo Free State post of M'liro, which is at the south-western corner of the lake, a few miles over the Anglo-Congolese boundary.On board I discovered two of the boys who had gone up with Sharp, and who had been left at Kituta. At Kituta I had given instructions that they were to be sent back; so the following morning, having crossed the lake to a wooding station, on the eastern shore, I turned them off with their pay and cloth to buy food on the road; but one of them, on adventure bent, slipped on board again. During the night, finding the sleeping-places rather limited, he calmly threw a crate containing twenty-eight fowls, belonging to Mr. Mohun, overboard.On April 4th we recrossed the lake and arrived at the French Mission Station of M'bala. This station is of several years' standing, and the Fathers, who are seven in number, with several lay brothers, have built themselves a substantial and comfortable home. They have also built a magnificent cathedral, capable of holding many hundred devotees. I am afraid it would need a large expenditure of cloth and medals to fill it. There are also elaborate workshops, and the gardens, which are very extensive, are planted with numbers of flourishing fruit trees. The coffee-shrubs were particularly remarkable for their size and yield. On the walls were many gigantic sable heads. The horns of one that I measured were 46-½ in.; while many others were almost as long. All these antelope had been shot in the immediate vicinity by native hunters employed on the mission station. It was here that the record sable head which Mr. Boyd presented to me was obtained; and it is evident that these sable must be the largest in the world. They also had a few rhino horns, which had been shot in the neighbourhood.They gave us a tremendous dinner, with a bewildering profusion of courses and some luscious kinds of fruit, amongst which theceil-de-boeufwas particularly soothing; and delicious Algerian wine flowed freely round the festive board. There are two or three white sisters at the station; it was very sad to see how ill they looked.After dinner, some natives brought in a large catch of fish, amongst which was a splendid kind of white-fleshed salmon. The Fathers informed me that this fish, at that time of the year, runs up the small streams, and jumps up waterfalls of considerable height.The charming point about these white Fathers is that they never ply one with fantastic accounts of the work which they are doing. When we regretfully took our leave, they presented us with several large baskets of potatoes, tomatoes, pomegranates, and many other fruits and vegetables.Along this shore there are enormous dug-out canoes, and we were carried to and from the steamer in one very fine specimen, probably 40 ft. in length.On the run up to M'towa, we encountered a terrific sea, and were for several hours in imminent danger of turning turtle. The wind rushes down the narrow gulleys between the mountains that enclose the lake, and lashes the waters into a very frenzy. The arrival of these squalls is very sudden and impossible to predict; consequently, sailing on Lake Tanganyika is a most dangerous amusement. All the natives were most abominably ill, everything was wet, and the cabin and the captain formed an impossible combination.Early in the morning the tempest subsided and we made M'towa, which is the chief Congo station on the lake. Here all the officials in the district had collected, having ignominiously fled from the rebels. One gentleman who had retired from a station further up the lake, had thrown all the station ammunition and ivory into the lake, solely on a report that the rebels were within a hundred miles. The rebels, hearing of the action, went to the place and quietly fished up both the ivory and the cartridges, thereby gaining a new lease of life. At M'towa the Belgians had built elaborate defences and had protected all the approaches with barbed wire; and in case the rebels should come they had cut down all the bananas, and were consequently short of food. There were one or two unfortunate Scandinavians in the service, who were being thrown out as pickets. One of these gentlemen came and asked us for some poison, in case he should be caught by the rebels with his totally inadequate force.This chaotic condition has now lasted for five years, and there appears to be no man capable of grappling with the situation; it seems to me a great pity that they did not allow Commandant Henry, whom I afterwards met on the Nile, to follow up his preliminary successes against the rebels. Had he been given a free hand, in all probability the revolution would have been crushed long since.Mr. Mohun's expedition was camped on a hill about a mile from the Government station, and they complained of most indifferent treatment at the hands of the local officials. Although they had been ready to start operations for more than six weeks, the officials had failed to provide them with any labour. It was obvious that there was much jealousy and friction between the expedition and the authorities. Fortunately, the King of the Belgians had sent Mr. Mohun a supplementary commission, which would give him the free hand necessary to the successful carrying out of his difficult task.I was very pleased to again meet Sharp, as we had been separated for nearly three months. He was looking very ill, having only recently been laid up with fever in Ujiji. Dr. Castellote, the medical officer of Mr. Mohun's expedition, and who I am grieved to learn has recently died of fever, hearing of Sharp's sorry plight, crossed the lake and brought him over to the comparatively healthy uplands near M'towa.Sharp had visited the station of the white Fathers on the east coast of the lake, where we had only put in to obtain wood. He told me that there was an elaborate church of brick with stained-glass windows, where he had attended service. He had been much amused at watching dirty little nigger boys from the village passing in at one door, draped in the usual filthy strip of greasy cloth, and presently emerging from another door clad in scarlet cassocks and lace tippets, waving censers, etc.Bidding a regretful farewell to our good telegraph friends, and wishing them every luck in their venture, Sharp and I, with a mean temperature of 104°, repaired across the lake to Ujiji.It was with feelings of curiosity that I looked out for the first time on the one historic spot in Central Africa. A few mango trees and a few white buildings scattered about on the top of the long, gently sloping shore of the lake: such was Ujiji, the meeting-place of Stanley and Livingstone, and the heart of the great slave-raiding ulcer of the past.After considerable difficulty, we landed all our belongings by means of some unstable dug-out canoes; and having piled them on the beach, left them in charge of our boys, while we rode on donkeys, sent to us by the Greek merchant, through a gruesome array of grinning skulls that still lie scattered about the beach, the last relic of the days of Arab predominance.We were given beds in an old mission-house which is now tenanted by two Greek traders, who, by their enterprise, richly deserve the success which they are enjoying. The old mission-house is substantially built, and is surrounded by enormous mango and guava trees.Having fixed up our loads, we crawled up to the Government house to pay our respects to Hauptmann Bethe, the German chief of the station; he is a most delightful specimen of a German officer. He treated us with every kindness and showered the most lavish hospitality upon us. Without his cordial co-operation, we should never have been able to take the routeviaKivu, on which we had set our hearts. He strongly advised us to go by the hackneyed route by Tabora and the Victoria Nyanza, the road by which Dècle went from Ujiji to Uganda, and which is the high-road for all the caravans that ply between the Victoria Nyanza and Tabora, and Ujiji and Tabora. He informed us that it would be most risky to take the route which we intended without at least a hundred armed men.He also told us that the Congolese rebels had sent a deputation to him to tell him that they intended once more to attack the Belgians. They asked whether, in the event of failure, they would be allowed to hand their guns in to him, and to come over and settle in German territory. This is an indication of the natives' feeling towards the Congo Free State Administration.Unfortunately both Sharp and I were too ill to see much of Ujiji and its interesting people. Many charming old Arabs, clad in gorgeous array, came and paid their respects, and sent us many presents, such as fruit, eggs, and vegetables. It was sad to see these venerable old gentlemen in their then condition, and to think of how, in the good old days gone by, they had held undisputed sway over many, many thousand square miles.The day after our arrival we lunched with Hauptmann Bethe and his staff. We were plied with the most bewildering succession of drinks; starting with port, then through successive courses of champagne, brandy, beer, Vermouth, and claret, we slowly wended our way, with the temperature 110° in the shade. This diet, the Germans informed us, was absolutely essential to avoid fever. They protested that no teetotaller who had arrived in Ujiji had ever left Ujiji for any other place in this world; and certainly the Germans who were there were living examples of the efficacy of their treatment.The courtesy, assistance, and confidence which we received in the German sphere shone bright in contrast with much of the treatment which we received under our own flag; and our warmest thanks are due to those whole-hearted Germans who are upholding the honour of the Fatherland on the far distant shore of Tanganyika.My fever, which had now lasted for more than three weeks, took a decided turn for the worse, and I began to lose the proper control of my hands. Sharp, on the other hand, was slightly better.We witnessed several dances. It was quite easy to start one, by providing the funds necessary to obtain a considerable quantity of native beer, when the natives would arrive in hundreds in the market-place and perform the wildest and most grotesque dances imaginable. Hauptmann Bethe arranged a most elaborate one for our edification.At last, on April 12th, we had organized our caravan of one hundred and thirty men, and made a start up the lake. We had been compelled to leave some loads behind, and it was not till four in the afternoon that the last man left the courtyard. We had had no difficulty in recruiting as many men as we wanted, as the Germans afforded us every facility.We only marched out sufficiently far to get our caravan quite clear of Ujiji; and the Germans kindly sent out a few soldiers to avoid any trouble with the men, the last farewell of the natives being invariably accompanied by much pombe. However, they all turned up, and we got them into some sort of order. I had brought from Nyassa sixteen boys--ten of whom had been drilled for a few days by one of Mr. Mohun's Zanzibari sergeants--two of them were kitchen boys, and the other four gun-bearers and tent-pitchers: this made our caravan one hundred and fifty strong.Sharp ignored the mosquitoes the first night, and in consequence suffered severely from blood poisoning of the hands. The path led through a fertile country, but as the high grass overhung the narrow track, it was very wet travelling and not conducive to a speedy recovery from fever. The way became gradually worse and we had many sharp rises to face, and many small streams to cross, while satisfactory camping-grounds were hard to find. On the fourth day, after a struggle up an almost perpendicular hill, we camped at an elevation of nearly 6,000 ft., and obtained some lovely views over the country to the east--high, tree-covered hills, with a few native huts and their accompanying gardens in clearings where the ground was not too steep, and, down below, deep valleys covered with dense bush--while to the west we could just catch a glimpse of the lake backed by the rugged and forbidding-looking hills on the Congo side.A cold white mist came up in the afternoon, and put all thoughts of scenery away, driving us to refuge in tightly-closed tents.Next day we mounted still higher--about 7,000 ft.--and the scenery amply repaid the exertion. From thence we made a rapid descent by a path so steep and rough that we had to glissade at times with the aid of a strong spear. At the villages here we found the people wearing wooden tweezers on their noses; on inquiry we discovered that they injected snuff mixed with water, and then put the apparatus on to keep the concoction from wasting away at once. A day or two later we reached the lake-shore, and the path, such as it was, came to an end. We now had to make our way along the shingle. The bush overhung the water every few yards, and as it was mostly mimosa, or other equally prickly matter, we had to wade round to avoid it--often up to our middles in the water--while an occasional mountain torrent necessitated our being carried on our boys' shoulders. As the lake was swarming with crocodiles, this was rather exciting. Our Nyassa boys, who had earned the name of the Guinea-fowls, owing to their dress of dark-blue bird's-eye cotton and greeny-blue fezzes, had been a great comfort, pitching our tents and doing all the little odd jobs inseparable from camp life, and we were congratulating ourselves on having some natives of a different race to our Manyema porters.The heat and continual wetting now began to tell on the fever which we had not been able to shake off, so we hired two big canoes, and putting our deck-chairs in the largest, over which we rigged up an awning, we proceeded by water while our boys plodded through the shingle. On reaching the halting-place after our first day's canoeing, we were horrified to find that our ten Askaris and the cook had bolted, leaving their rifles and bayonets on the path. Though I was bad with fever I got a fresh crew for the big canoe, and made all haste back to our last night's camp. Nothing was to be seen or heard of the fugitives, and though I offered the Sultani (chief) of the village heavy rewards for each captive, we never heard any more of them, but trust that they did not escape their deserts when they reached Ujiji, if the natives on the way let them go free, which is more than doubtful. I had left Sharp to try his 'prentice hand at cooking, and returning wet through, very tired and full of fever, found his attempt at soup had ended in a few bones and a blob of fat at the bottom of the pan! The heat was intense, never a breath of air, and no shade, while the rays of the burning sun were refracted from the face of the water. At every camp one or more of the neighbouring chiefs came to pay his respects, bringing with him a present, according to his standing, of pombe, native beer, bananas, three or four fowls, and in the case of a big "swell," two or three goats or sheep. Each chief was followed by as large a retinue as he could gather, and most of them were dressed in semi-Arab fashion--a long, white shirt or "kanzu," a coloured cloth, and a turban or white head-dress. The natives had many knives of local manufacture, the sheaths of which were ornamented with well-carved patterns, while their spears were very thin and light, and often adorned with brass and copper wire. Of course we had to make return presents of cloth and beads to an equal value. Eggs were rather hard to obtain, and it was still more difficult to make the natives believe that we did not want them for electioneering purposes. My fever was now so bad that I had to depute my baking to Sharp, who was becoming quite a passable cook under my tuition, and retire to bed as soon as I could get my tent pitched. To add to our enjoyment Sharp got a sunstroke and a dose of fever, and we were consequently reduced to the most pitiable plight. My temperature went up to 106.9, and left me too weak to move, while Sharp, ill as he was, made superhuman efforts to look after me. At last, after several days of intolerable misery, we eventually arrived at Usambara, where the German official, Lieutenant von Gravert, took us in hand. Under his care we recovered slightly.Usambara, with characteristic German thoroughness, has been well laid out. Substantial buildings have been put up, good gardens made, and an immense avenue of pawpaws and bananas planted from the Government House to the lake shore. A small sailing-boat adds materially to the comfort and efficiency of the commanding officer.Every morning a large market is held, and the natives bring in enormous supplies of fish, bananas, beans, grains of different sort (even rice), and fowls. The German black troops keep splendid order, and the station has the most flourishing air. I am a great believer in the Germans' African methods. Of course they are severely handicapped by having such a poor country to work upon. But their methods are thorough and eminently practical, and not characterized by the stinginess which paralyzes most of our African efforts. The men selected for the work are given a practically free hand, and are not cramped by the ignorant babblings of sentimentalism.
CHAPTER VI.
KARONGA TO KITUTA ACROSS THE TANGANYIKA PLATEAU.
On arrival at Karonga I was much disappointed to find that Sharp, tired of waiting, had left two days before to try and arrange transport on Tanganyika. As it was the season for sowing their crops, very few carriers were available, and it was evident that I should have to wait some time before I could obtain sufficient men to transport our loads. I commenced operations by repacking all the food-boxes and discarding everything that was not absolutely necessary, as well as the considerable quantity of stuff that had spoilt through being improperly packed. The firm responsible, either as a practical joke or an experiment in the cultivation of fungus, had packed chocolate in paper wrappers and laid them in hay in a leaky wooden box. As a practical joke it was weak, but as a venture in fungi-culture a complete success. In fact, unpacking the boxes reminded me forcibly of the days when, as a youthful disciple of Isaac Walton, I used to dig for worms in the garden manure-heap. A series of remarkable tins of sausages added materially to the excitement of these excavations, one and all having assumed the outward and visible form of a Rugby football; while as to the inward invisible grace, I was careful to throw them down wind, when they exploded on contact with the ground in a manner most satisfactory, to the utter consternation of six Kaffir dogs and a hyæna. They, having followed up the wind of the first (a comparatively mild one), were so overcome by its successors that they clapped their tails between their legs, and, with a dismal howl, fled, convinced of the superiority of the white man, even in what they had hitherto considered the black man's monopoly. Native rumour has it that they are running still.
Having arranged everything and reduced the loads to a minimum, I succumbed to a dose of fever, and spent Christmas Day in bed, on a cup of tea. Dr. Castellote, the medical officer of Mr. Mohun's expedition, was most kind, and when I had sufficiently recovered, we went out together for a few days' shooting on the River Songwe, which, flowing into the extreme north-western point of Lake Nyassa, forms part of the Anglo-German boundary-line.
Before starting, however, I went to a neighbouring village and called for volunteers to accompany us on our long journey north. I informed the people in the guest's resting-place, which is kept apart in every village, that the journey would take many moons; that we should go to Tanganyika, that north of Tanganyika we should find another lake, then mighty mountains that made fire, then another lake, then still mightier mountains so high that the water became as stones; then a fourth lake, out of which flowed a great river which, after several moons, took one to the dwelling-places of the white man--large even as hills--where the white men were even as the sands of the lake-shore; that there we should find the sea--the water without end--and that I would send back in steamers large as villages those who came with me, so that they might return to their homes and tell their brothers of all the wonderful things they had seen. The people were much impressed and evidently considered me a very extra special line in liars. They asked me how I knew what was there--"had I been there to see?" I told them that the white man knew much, and what he did not know he could find in books (showing them one). Then they realized that I must be even a finer liar than they had at first taken me to be. After a little more talking four stalwart Watonga volunteered to come, thinking it a pity not to see more of such a transcendent Ananias. One of them, Makanjira, was a small chief on the lake-shore, and those four men stuck to me through thick and thin, and all arrived safely at Cairo; but I regret to say that I have just heard that one of them, Chacachabo, died during the voyage down the coast. The next day a nude dirty little ruffian came and asked to go too; he, though but a small boy, came through safely, and is now setting up a reputation as a liar on his own account. Later on I obtained twelve more recruits, whom I handed over to Mr. Mohun's sergeant to be drilled: these men, as it will later transpire, deserteden massea few days north of Ujiji. They were Asiska, and a very unwholesome lot of ruffians.
The doctor and I started off along the lake-shore on a couple of donkeys lent to us by Mr. Mohun. We had much trouble in inducing them to cross a large stream that flows into the lake a few miles north of Karonga, and eventually had to take them bodily by the four legs and throw them in.
At Chikopolo's there is a Government station in charge of a few native police; here we stayed for a day, but finding nothing more interesting than waterbuck and reedbuck, moved north and camped on the Songwe, which is a stream of considerable importance, and navigable for several miles from the lake. I was informed that there was a German post on the northern bank of the river at its junction with the lake, and accordingly went across to pay my respects. On arrival I found that the station was in charge of a Goanese native, who promptly endeavoured to annex my rifle, saying that I had brought it into the country without a permit. I called upon Mirambo, a splendid old Arab who used to be a great man in the country. He entertained me with true Arab courtesy, and loaded my boys with magnificent pine-apples and lemons when I went away. It was pitiable to see the poor old man, who a few years ago had commanded thousands, putting on the faded relics of his greatness to do me honour.
On the way back to camp I came upon an enormous native fishing weir: there were two or three natives wading waist-deep in the water above the weir pulling fish out of the baskets, while down-stream, with nothing but the crazy sticks between, the water was being lashed into foam by the gyrations of scores of huge crocodiles. I shot fourteen in as many minutes, averaging fifteen feet in length. The natives flocked in to express their satisfaction, and actually brought me a present of some fish. There were a few pookoo on the plain. They are most beautiful little antelopes and carry themselves exactly like a waterbuck. The hair is reddish, long, and curly, and the hide (as with all the waterbucks) very tough and thick. It has been obtained by comparatively few sportsmen, as it is only found on the Upper Zambesi, Loangwa, Chambesi, and Mweru district.
On the 13th I moved my camp twelve miles up the river to a village called N'kana. Here the hills close in upon the river, but leave a series of delightful little green glades, most likely places for finding roan antelope, which are numerous in the country. But I was unsuccessful, though there was some spoor about. While crossing one of these small glades, a shout of Njoka (snake) from my gun-bearer made me spring to one side. I found that I had put my foot so close to a sleeping puff-adder that it would have been impossible to have slipped a visiting-card between us. The brute still slept; on, till I crushed the life out of it with an enormous log of wood. It rather scared me, as I was hunting with bare legs. All this country is infested with puff-adders, which are the most dangerous snakes in Africa, as they do not dart away like other snakes, but lie sleeping in the dust till they are trodden upon. They differ from other snakes in that they strike backwards. Later on, near the Chambesi, I actually trod upon one; it struck, but missed me, and turned a back somersault in the air, leaving the ground entirely. After that I always wore gaiters or stockings. I have heard of another instance of a puff-adder springing clear of the ground. This is rendered possible by their habit of striking backwards. The natives complained of the hut tax and of being forbidden to kill game: they said that many had crossed over into the German sphere; but they have all come back in a hurry.
Failing to find roan antelope, I marched back to Chikopolo's across the hills, and was much struck by the number of butterflies in the woods; some of them were very beautiful, but so rapid was their flight that it was exceedingly difficult to catch them. Everywhere there was splendid cattle country, but unfortunately very little cattle. Before the rinderpest the whole of the Songwe valley was black with buffalo; now I do not believe there is a single beast, except in some jungle two days' march to the north, which the natives told me was haunted by a few buffalo and elephants. And only a very few head survive of the countless herds of cattle which were characteristic of the Wankonde. The Wankonde are a very pleasant-mannered, intelligent people, who were saved from absolute extinction at the hands of the Angoni, Watonga, and Arabs by the British occupation of the country. Ethnologically they are extremely interesting: their ethnographical position in the races has not yet been satisfactorily ascertained. Their huts, which are very neat and picturesque, are sometimes square, sometimes round, and worked in a pattern of round knobs of clay stuck in between the rush walls. Many are built on a raised clay foundation with a trench to draw off the rain. The roof is worked in fancy patterns. Their metal work is first-class, in fact the most finished that I have seen on the east side of Africa. They have a fair breed of cattle, goats, and sheep, and grow pineapples, bananas, and pumpkins in profusion. Probably owing to Arab influence their villages are well laid out, and the banana palms are planted in carefully aligned avenues. The Arab influence on their music is obvious. And despite Arab influence they are an exceedingly moral race. Being a peaceful, pastoral, and agricultural people, they fell an easy prey to their warlike neighbours and the slave-raiding Arabs. Lugard speaks of them as having been shot down in the most merciless manner by the Arabs in his time.
The natives informed me that Mr. Mohun and Captain Verhellen, the Belgian officer in command of the telegraph escort, were camped on the Songwe, so I marched back and joined them. They were out for a short hunting-trip, and I found them ignominiously slaughtering a goat for meat, although the whole plain was alive with game. On examining Mr. Mohun's rifle, which he had just bought from a local man of God, I found that the barrel was so badly worn that it was almost possible to insert the whole cartridge at the muzzle. That explained his having fired forty shots without effect. In the evening we strolled out together, and after a very difficult stalk I pulled off a long shot of three hundred yards at a good bull pookoo. Captain Verhellen informed me that he had seen four small grey antelopes, one of which he had wounded and lost. I could not imagine what they could be; so on the following morning turned out with his boy to show me where he had seen them. I had only walked about three miles when I saw one standing in a patch of green grass. It appeared to be a reedbuck of a beautiful bright silver-grey colour. There was a small ant-hill between the buck and me which made stalking easy, and I approached without difficulty to within sixty yards. I was just pressing the trigger when an ordinary reedbuck sprang out at my feet and dashed away with a shrill whistle; this started the grey one, and I only got a running snapshot. The bullet struck it in the stern but failed to stop it, and the second barrel only grazed the side. I galloped wildly in pursuit, but the buck kept on its course for nearly two miles before it stopped. The distance between us was fully four hundred yards, but I had to take the shot, as it was watching me, and was evidently prepared to resume its flight. The bullet struck it far back, and it again galloped away, the second barrel going wide. Fortunately the plain was extensive and the grass in most places short, so that I managed to keep it in view for the next four miles. Then it stood again, near some bushes; I endeavoured to approach under cover of these, but was again spotted, and the weary chase recommenced. The country became more broken, and I lost sight of the brute for some time, but eventually saw it lying down a thousand yards away. I approached to a tree, whence I could see if it moved, and waited in the hope that it would get stiff and allow me to come within certain shooting-range. After waiting half an hour I commenced to stalk it, crawling flat on my stomach; there was a convenient bush within fifty yards of where it was lying, and I made for this. After half an hour's desperate crawl through thorns in a blazing sun, I reached the much-desired spot, and peering cautiously round the edge found, to my infinite disgust, that it had moved on. I searched high and low, but could find no trace, and soon lost the spoor which showed but faintly on the grass. As a last effort I made a circuit of two miles, but returned to where I had lost it without result. Then I sat down, waiting for my boys to arrive with my water-bottle. The pace had been so hot that they were completely lost, and I waited in vain. The fever from which I was still suffering made my thirst intolerable, and I rose with the intention of returning to camp. Then a bright idea struck me, and taking the siren whistle which I carried on my belt, I blew a piercing blast. A rustle! and the buck leapt out of some grass which I imagined would not have covered a mouse, and dashed off. To throw down the whistle was the work of a second, and a quick double-barrel brought the little brute at last to grass. I was more than delighted, and realizing that I had obtained a new species of antelope, as the eyes, lips, horns, and hoofs showed no trace of albinoism, skinned it with loving care, and carried it back to camp. Dr. Sclater of the Zoological Society has kindly described it for me. I called it Thomasina's reedbuck (Cervicapra Thomasinæ) after the lady who is now my wife.
The following day I slew another good bull pookoo, which took more killing than any buck I have ever shot. The pookoo's tenacity of life is proverbial among those who are acquainted with this most beautiful little antelope. They have a curious gland about 4 in. below the head in the side of the neck.
The Wankonde play a curious little musical instrument resembling in conception a zither: the strings (six or seven in number) are stretched on a back of hollow reeds; it is held under the leg when sitting, and fingered like the Maderia machette with the right hand, the strings being stopped with the left. They also play on a bow with a gourd or cocoanut-shell as a sounder, and a species of guitar.
Having received a note to the effect that porters had at last come in, I returned to Karonga to prepare for my final march of two hundred and ten miles west to Tanganyika.
On the way I stopped for a day with Mr. Fox, who was managing the telegraph construction across the plateau. The line was just opened to Karonga from Salisbury, and Mr. Mohun had put up the first telephone seen on Lake Nyassa between Karonga and Mr. Fox's camp. The work of construction up the west coast of Lake Nyassa had been attended with the greatest possible difficulties from the precipitous and densely-wooded nature of the country, and the pestilential climate. These had, however, by superhuman efforts, been overcome in the stipulated time by the handful of men engaged on the work. A wide track, straight as an arrow, up hill, down dale, across abysmal chasms, and through swamps, had been cleared, and iron posts set in iron shoes supported the wire. No one at home can realize the stupendous difficulties that have been overcome. But I from observation know, and take off my hat in awed admiration of that gallant band who, quietly, relentlessly, and without a murmur, have accomplished the seemingly impossible. It stands out in bold relief as a colossal monument of what the Anglo-Saxon can do, and will ever sigh to the African wind the greatness of that master mind which, in spite of the fossilized apathy of the British Government, has raised a British South Africa to be a dominant factor in the world's history of the future. It was instructive to mark the characteristic distinction between Mr. Rhodes' telegraph expedition and the expedition of the King of the Belgians. On the one hand was an unassuming handful of men (without a single armed man), whose very existence might easily have been overlooked by the casual passer-by. Yet behind them lay many hundreds of miles of perfected work which brought the far interior of Africa within a minute of Cape Town; before them stretched an arrow-like clearing to Tanganyika (two hundred miles long), waiting for the transport service to bring poles and wire. Quiet men, rotten with fever, were being carried to and fro--inspecting, measuring, and trenching. Above their base floated a diminutive Union Jack; no pomp, no fuss, not even a bugle; yet all worked like clock-work. On the other hand, a huge camp thundering with the tramp of armed men, uninhabitable from the perpetual blare of bugles, a very wilderness of flags. Gorgeous and fussy Belgians strutting about in uniforms, screaming and gesticulating, with a few sad-visaged Englishmen doing the work--piles and piles of loads--and ever those bugles. It resembled the triumphant march of an army through the land, and the cost must have been appalling. Yet months after they had eventually arrived at Mtowa, nothing had been accomplished. The petty jealousy of the local officials proved an impenetrable barrier, and now if anything has been accomplished, the wire has been merely slung on trees. According to the latest reports, there had been trouble with the natives, and the whole expedition had been broken up, with the loss of most of the plant. There is undoubtedly a quiet something about the Anglo-Saxon that gets there somehow.
Fever overcame me once more, and I was confined to my bed for several days; but at last, on January 24th, I made a start, and marched to Mpata, the first camping-place on the Stevenson Road. The Stevenson Road is a clearing through the bush that covers the greater part of the plateau, and barely deserves the title of road, although in some places a few logs have been thrown across the streams, and the more swampy portions have been trenched.
The second stage brings one to Mkongwés, about twenty-seven miles from Karonga. Chumbu, the next halting-place, is fourteen miles further. The country is very hilly, and the scenery not very attractive. At intervals, intersecting the road, the telegraph clearing sweeps on in its relentless line, looking like a gigantic ride, where one expects every minute to see the white tail of a scared bunny or a gorgeous cock-pheasant bowling along as though on wheels. But one looks in vain; no sign of life breaks that monotonous line stretching away over the far hills till the trees at the side merge together, and it is lost in the far distant horizon.
A very long day's march brought us to Fort Hill, the frontier station of Nyassaland, which is in charge of a few black police. It had been very wet, as the rains had broken, and I was exceedingly thankful to take cover in the substantial house which is in the centre of the stockade. I had a bull-calf with me, and gave it in charge of one of my Askaris, who retaliated in the usual annoying way of natives by coming and asking for some string to lead it by. Asking for string is a common and intangible form of insolence, as they make string from the bark of several kinds of trees, very common all over the country. But this time I scored. I had a large coil of Alpine rope weighing about 20 lbs. I gave him this, and told him on pain of death not to cut it. Then he said, "It did not matter, he would make some." But I was relentless. "He had asked for string, and I never refused a reasonable request." That youth never again asked for string. At Nyala the telegraph people have built a substantial house, which is to be a telegraph station and general depository of material; they have selected an admirable position. A large blood-sucking fly made life rather a burden; they settled so quietly that one never felt them till they had driven a proboscis, like a red-hot bodkin, half an inch into one's neck or face. Amazing downpours every morning added to the joys of life, and for several days I had to live in wet clothes and sleep in wet blankets, while it was almost impossible to start a fire. I had a sou'-wester and an oilskin, but they were of no avail. The rain fell like a wave, and with such force that it splashed up underneath, and one was soon drenched to the neck by capillary attraction. Passing through Mpansa we reached Ikawa on the 31st.
Ikawa is the first station of Northern Charterland, on the Tanganyika Plateau. Mr. Mackinnon, the collector, had gone to the Chambesi district to neutralize the political machinations of a fractious missionary.
Nine miles further on is Fife, the A.L.C. station, and the oldest settlement on the plateau. Mr. McCulloch, who has been in charge for several years, tells some delightful stories about his exciting experiences in the old days of Arab predominance. Two members of Lieut. Schleufer's expedition, which was endeavouring to transport a steamer for the German Government to Lake Tanganyika, were camped outside the walls waiting for porters. They had some heavy loads with them on carts, and had taken seven weeks to make the journey from Karonga. Fife is the half-way house between Nyassa and Tanganyika. From the verandah I looked out with longing eyes over the vast Awemba country that lies at the foot of the plateau. The view was superb, and typical of Africa in its misty uncanniness. Mr. McCulloch has planted splendid gardens, and we revelled in green peas, new potatoes, cabbage, lettuce, and many other European vegetables, all of which grow luxuriantly on these altitudes. In the days of overcrowding not far distant there will be a fine country for European settlement on the Tanganyika Plateau. There is much fever at present, but I think most of it is brought from the low countries. The nights were quite cold, and fires necessary for comfort. Mr. McCulloch has a wonderful knowledge of the native; he is considered as a chief by the large village close to the station, and is much respected by the native chiefs for many miles round. I purchased some beautiful wooden snuff-bottles from the Mambwe people, and some extraordinary ear-plugs which are worn by the women in the lobe of the ear; some of them were 2 in. in diameter.
The Anglo-German Boundary Commission had just completed its task, and the new boundary enclosed many of the large labour centres in the German sphere: some of the chiefs, however, availed themselves of the time limit allowed by proclamation, and came across to British territory. But the Germans, contrary to the terms of the agreement, had posted native police to intercept and terrorize them into remaining. The Germans did not behave very well over the boundary settlement, but insisted on retaining a small strip of territory that fell to their share, but which cut across the Stevenson Road, though they were offered a handsomequid pro quoelsewhere. However, the British collector set to work at once, and in a few days took the road round the obstructing strip.
At Ikomba, another B.S.A. station, I found that Mr. Forbes had gone home, and promptly looted the excellent new potatoes which I found in his garden. On February 9th I reached Mambwe, and from there made a trip down to the Awemba country, which is described in the next chapter. On our return to Mambwe I was laid up with a very severe attack of fever which did not leave me for two months, till I reached the highlands around Kivu. I was delirious for some time, but improved sufficiently to be carried to Kawimbi, a mission station near Abercorn. Mr. and Mrs. May were most kind to me; the station is very pretty, and looks like an English village with its picturesque little cottages and numerous flower-beds. The following morning I was carried on to Abercorn, although the missionaries kindly pressed me to stay, promising to nurse me and make me well. I was sorely tempted, but felt bound to hurry on. At Abercorn I utterly collapsed for several days, and in the intervals of delirium eked out a precarious existence on Worcester sauce and limes. Here I heard a lion story. The hero of the story (also the author) having been told that a leopard was taking toll of the goats, built a platform in a tree and sat up over a goat. Nothing, however, turned up; but in the morning, tired of doing nothing, he fired an arrow at a venture into a patch of grass, and on going to pick it up, found that it had transfixed the heart of a stupendous black-maned lion. Considering the state of my health, I thought this rather unkind. At last I was sufficiently recovered to move once more, and was carried in a machila, under Mr. Boyd's care, to Kituta, the A.L.C. station at the south-eastern extremity of Tanganyika. The first glimpse of those waters, round which so many dark tragedies have been enacted, cheered me considerably. I had realized another ambition, and had arrived at the real starting-point of our Odyssey.
Kituta is a beautiful but pestilential spot, chiefly remarkable for its abominable smells. It is also the scene of another lion story which deserves perpetuation.
There was once a very nervous agent in charge of the station with a particular horror of lions. One of these brutes commenced eating the natives of the village; so the agent barricaded himself in his room and slept with six native watchmen in case of attack. Hearing, or thinking that he heard, the lion prowling round, he fired out of the window and knocked a hole through the administration boat. The following night he again heard sounds and fired, bagging the collector's donkey at the first shot. A certain well-known sportsman, who was hunting in the vicinity, wrote in and congratulated him on shooting his first lion. He rose to the occasion, and now silences all sceptics by producing the letter, and has acquired quite a reputation as a hunter of big game.
While purchasing trade-cloth for the journey north, the carelessness of the British manufacturer was again brought home to me. All the loads contained different lengths, and as the marks had been rubbed off, the operation lasted several hours instead of ten minutes; and they were so badly packed that after a week's knocking about most of them came undone, and the contents were consequently in part spoiled. I wonder when the British exporter will realize the advisability of studying the requirements of his markets. Kituta was at one time the call-place of many Arab caravans, but now it has sunk into insignificance, although there is a flourishing rubber trade in the country, which is paying very handsomely.
CHAPTER VII.
THE CHAMBESI.
On reaching Mambwe I had the good fortune to find Mr. C. R. Palmer, the assistant-collector, on the point of starting for the Chambesi, with the object of waking up one or two of the chiefs who had been tardy in sending in labour. His offer to take me with him, and his glowing description of the game to be found there, were so tempting that next morning I found myself on the march to Tanzuka, a border village of the Mambwe; and on the following day we entered the country of the Awemba, a very powerful tribe apparently of Zulu origin. The difference between these people and the neighbouring Mambwe is as cheese from chalk: whereas the latter are of the ordinary dirty, stunted, cringing or insolent, ill-fed type of Central Africa, the former are of a very striking caste. Among the upper class are some magnificent specimens of the native, tall men of powerful build, with much of the well-bred carriage of the Zulu; their noses are straight and thin cut, their colour bronze; and their hair, which they wear in grotesque tufts down the middle of their head, is the only conspicuous negro characteristic. Many of the young women, with their regular features, beautiful colour, and small, delicate hands and feet, are quite pleasing. Until the advent of the Chartered Co. they led the rollicking life of the old Zulus; herding cattle and depending for the meaner necessaries of life and the replenishing of their harems on the efforts of their neighbours. Far and wide they used to raid even to the Atonga country on the east coast of Tanganyika, and many and wonderful are the tales told of their stupendous forced marches, when the weaker members used to fall out and die from sheer exhaustion. All the chiefs of any standing maintain bands, composed of singers, drummers, and players on the castanets, in which they take great pride. On the approach of any visitors to whom they wish to do honour, the band is sent forward to meet them; the leading part is usually taken by a man who sings the theme, some of them having remarkably fine voices, while the refrain is taken up by other men, playing drums of hollow wood with lizard or snake skin stretched over the apertures, and a chorus of boys rattling pods containing dry seeds; the whole is accompanied by grotesque dancing, the main object of which appeared to be to go as near falling down as possible without actually doing so. The strain, like most African music, plays on about three notes with untiring repetition, and, though rather pleasing at first, palls after the fourth or fifth hour. Should a chief find any singer of unusual power, he promptly removes his eyes to prevent him from going elsewhere, and many men thus mutilated are to be seen in every district. In fact mutilation in various forms appears to be the chief recreation of these autocrats. Mr. Palmer told me of three youths who came in to him without their eyes, which had been removed by their chief, because he thought his people were getting out of hand; so to teach them that he was still master he had selected haphazard these three unfortunates. I also heard of some women who had had their ears, lips, hands, and breasts cut off, and who actually travelled a distance of about sixty miles immediately afterwards to the collector of the district. I myself saw many men who had similarly lost their ears, lips, hands, or privates, and sometimes all these parts.
Mr. Law, the able collector at Abercorn, who is known to the natives by the appellation of the "Just man" (and who, by the way, charged me £25 for my rhino about six hours before I sailed north), when on some punitive expedition in the Awemba country, captured a delightful example of the grim humour of these pleasing gentry. It consisted of a large sable horn rudely adorned and fitted with a mask, into which the patient's head was fitted, his throat having been previously cut with a ferocious-looking knife, chiefly remarkable for its bluntness; the blood spurting forth into the horn rang a bell, a performance that gave general satisfaction, with, I suppose, one exception. Some of their old kraals are veritable fortresses, consisting of an outer ringed palisade banked with clay and loopholed; inside is a deep trench, and again an inner palisade similarly banked and loopholed, with, in many cases, a third palisade containing the chief's huts. The site is invariably selected on the edge of a dense thicket, into which the women and cattle are driven on the advent of strangers; nearly every respectable member of society has a gun imported by Arab traders from the north and Portuguese from the south, and there must be several thousand in the country. Such is the people who have been changed in half a dozen short years from a cruel, murdering, widespread curse into a quiet agricultural fraternity; and by whom? By a mere handful of men with less than a hundred native police, agents of that oppressor of the native, the Chartered Company; and this without fuss and practically without bloodshed. The chief industries of the country are pombe[#]-drinking and the making of bark cloth, which is a strong fibrous textile of a pleasing reddish-brown colour, made by beating out the bark of the fig-tree with little wooden hammers, till of the required thinness. A curious custom prevails here, and one that I have not noticed elsewhere in Africa, of wearing mourning for dead relatives; bands of cloth being tied round the head.
[#] Pombe: an intoxicating drink made from millet.
The following day we arrived at Changala's kraal; he is a large, powerful man, with a face expressive of determination and character. He came out two miles to meet us, carried on the shoulders of one of his men, as is the custom (for the chiefs never walk), with a following of two or three hundred people. He, as in fact did all the Awemba, gave us a very hearty reception. Having amicably settled all outstanding questions with Changala, we visited Makasa, the big man of the country, whose head village lies about twenty-six miles south-east of Changala's. He is a portly old gentleman of unprepossessing countenance, and rather inclined to make trouble--at a distance; however, guessing our intentions, he had made great preparations for our reception. On arrival we found our tents already pitched and grass shelters built above them to keep off the sun; while large crowds of obsequious gentlemen came out to meet us and insisted on carrying in our machilas at a run, a form of attention that would not be appreciated by Accident Insurance Companies. His village, which cannot contain less than five hundred huts, is of the usual Awemba pattern, and is a great centre of the bark-cloth industry.
Tales of rhino and elephant galore raised our hopes to the highest pitch, and after a day's rest we launched forth into the game country--a triangular patch of country that lies at the junction of the Chambesi, and its main tributary the Chosi--camping near Chipiri, the original site of the French mission. Here we got our first glimpse of the Chambesi, which, flowing with a devious course into Lake Bangweolo, is the real source of the Congo. It rises between Mambwe and Abercorn, and at Chipiri is already a river of some size, flowing through a beautiful grass plain clothed with patches of waving spear-grass. The plain, varying in width from a half to five miles, is hemmed in by forest bush and park land, dotted over with innumerable ant-hills, some 30 ft. in height, and is the haunt of countless herds of pookoo, two of which graced our larder shortly after pitching camp.
The next afternoon we moved further down the river to the Mafunso; and our carriers started a rhino on the path, the spoor of which we followed in thick brush. But, getting our wind, he departed with a derisive squeal, and, though I nearly came up with him again, I was compelled to give up the chase by nightfall, and only found camp with considerable difficulty. Still further down the river we camped in a delightful hunting-country, the Chambesi plain lying to our south, the vast plain of the Chosi to our east, and north, just behind the camp, strips of bush alternating with glades and groves of mahobahoba. The bush was ploughed up with rhino spoor, and that afternoon both Palmer and I unsuccessfully followed spoor of the morning. Never having seen roan antelope, I was very anxious to shoot one, and the following day started out with that intention. I found several fresh spoors, but failed to make anything of them, but on my way home I found recent lion tracks. These I followed for about two hours; at times it was very difficult, their soft pads leaving no impression on the carpets of dead leaves in the patches of bush, but I managed by casting round to pick the track up again when at fault, and eventually, hearing a low growl, I caught a glimpse of four yellow bodies disappearing round the end of a bush-covered ant-hill. I ran as fast as possible to the other side and almost into their midst; they had tried the old, old lion tactics of doubling. At sight of me they stood, and I put in a right and left; off they galloped, I in hot pursuit, following, as I thought, the first, who had got a fair shoulder-shot, and not wishing to lose sight of her, because of the thickness of some of the bush. I could just see her bounding round an ant-hill, and was making a desperate spurt to see if she would double, when I rushed round the corner of a bush right on to the top of a tail. I lost no time in skipping to one side; however, she was at her last gasp, gnawing her forepaw and making that peculiar deep gurgle, once heard, never forgotten, the lion's death-groan. I found she was the recipient of the first barrel, and the one I was following, which had dropped for a moment to my second barrel, must have crossed when I lost sight of them behind an ant-hill. Then to my disgust I remembered that I had had a solid bullet in my second barrel in case of an unexpected rhino. I picked up her spoor and followed her all round the country for about three hours, but she was playing the fool with me, and though several times I must have been very near, I never obtained another sight of her. The other two, which were three parts grown, found her after a while, and their spoor led over the top of all the ant-hills, where they had stopped to watch me till I came too close. To judge by the blood, I had hit her too far back, and the solid bullet going right through would make very little impression. This was the second time I had dropped a right and left and lost one, and I was grievously disappointed. The one I killed was a superb lioness with unusually long hair, and she measured 8 ft. 5-½ in., from tip to tip, in the flesh. Owing to the hot, rainy weather I had much difficulty in curing the skin, but eventually made a complete success of it. I made a raised quadrangular frame, upon which I stretched the skin, with a grass roof to keep off the showers; then, in default of any better preservative, I had wood-ash continually rubbed in by relays of men.
Making short afternoon marches and hunting in the morning, we gradually worked down the river to the Chosi junction, then up the Chosi, which is a fine stream about forty yards wide, with a large body of water, till we arrived at Kalungu, a small isolated village, and the only one between Makasa's village and the Chosi. I made a circuit of the plain, waded some swamps, and emerged on a second plain. Here, in the distance, I saw three huge unwieldy monsters slowly threading their way in and out of the numerous ant-hills, till they vanished behind one larger than the rest. I had left my glasses behind, and owing to the slight mirage could not be sure whether they were rhino or hippo. Having loaded the double 4-bore, I hurried forward, creeping from ant-hill to ant-hill, till at last I arrived in a line with the one behind which the brutes were still hidden. Crawling cautiously up, I climbed to the top, the big gun at the present, then peered over while my heart beat the devil's tattoo. There they were, not fifteen yards off, three of them, neither rhino nor hippo, but camp boys, with three loads of wood by their sides, peacefully smoking a hubble-bubble. I looked at them, then back at the sickly grey face of my gun-bearer, his teeth chattering with fright, and then marched into camp, to find that Palmer had shot a splendid roan on the high road.
Turning out early the next morning I struck the spoor of the herd of roan, and after sixteen miles through water ankle-deep, came up with them; but they saw me first, and I only succeeded in dropping a good cow, which stood on an ant-hill to have a last look at me. I had arranged to join Palmer and the boys at Nondo, which lies at the junction of the Mwenda and Chosi, but found that he had gone further up the Mwenda and camped at Chupi, which lies on the border of Luwala, thepièce de résistanceof our trip. At Nondo the Chosi forms a wide pool, formerly the abode of numerous hippo till the advent of one of the French priests, who murdered the majority, for the satisfaction, I suppose, of seeing them float down-stream. The same enterprising individual, with other kindred spirits, organized a drive of the herds of pookoo on the plain. Huge fences were built at one end with funnel-shaped openings, where the gallant sportsmen stationed themselves, and, if report speaks true, slaughtered about two hundred. I wonder how many they wounded? By the side of the pool is an enormous pile of old hippo skulls that is regarded with superstitious awe by the natives, and close by is a sacred tree, the burial-place of some old chief, where quite a respectable herd of cattle has accumulated from the native offerings. East of the Chosi there is another Awemba god, who dwells in a thicket decorated by a wonderful collection of horns.
When a big chief dies, they smoke him for a year and then bury him in bark-cloth. The general belief is that his spirit enters into a lion, an animal that they hold in superstitious awe, and refuse to kill.
From Chupi we marched into Luwala, a hitherto unexplored tract of country. During the rains it is under water, and is consequently quite uninhabited, a few natives only camping there for fishing purposes, as the waters begin to leave the plain. On the north and east it is bounded by the Chosi for a distance of about sixty miles, and on the west by a slight ridge covered with bush, through which numerous streams flow and lose themselves in the marshes, eventually draining into the Chosi by the Mwenda.
Unfortunately we were too late in the season, the rains having already broken, and were consequently unable to penetrate far from the west side; even there we were compelled to wade from camp to camp through water from 6 in. to 3 ft. deep. The natives told us that when the rains are drying up, immense numbers of game come out from the bush to feed on the new grass round the rapidly diminishing pools, and that often they could see as many as half a dozen rhino at a time. It is also a favourite haunt of the comparatively few elephant that still roam over this country. On the first day's trek we crossed rhino spoor about four to five hours old, and as Palmer, who was out of form, was unwilling to risk a long chase, I started off in pursuit. After following for about an hour, I passed quite close to a large herd of roan containing three or four magnificent bulls, which stood and watched me at about forty yards. I was sorely tempted, but held to my principle of never leaving a spoor except for something better. For some time the rhino had been travelling very fast, but suddenly the spoor freshened, and from the side of an ant-hill I saw a great pink body in the distance moving slowly through the grass. It is curious how decidedly pink hippo and rhino look at a distance. As there were many large ant-hills about I followed the spoor right out, and coming round the corner of one, suddenly saw him about forty yards off just walking out into the huge bare plain; but the birds, many of which were on his back, saw me and gave the alarm. In turning he gave me my broadside chance, and I fired the 4-bore, burning fourteen drams and throwing a four-ounce spherical ball; then, as he swung round to bolt, I popped in a forward raking second barrel, which quickened his pace considerably. He rushed round in a half-circle to try and get my wind, while I peppered him with .303 solid bullets, which appeared to have about the same effect as hailstones. When he got my wind he stopped short and faced me, then swayed from side to side, staggered, recovered himself, and finally, with a shrill squeal, toppled over, kicking his four fat little legs in the air, and gave up the ghost, or the rhino's equivalent, there being nothing very spectral about these incongruous old survivals of the past. Choleric, dyspeptic, unsociable old fellows with a lordly contempt for, and fixed determination to suppress all such indecent innovations as guns, Cape wagons, and Mombasa railway-trains, they always remind me of those fire-eating, civilian-repressing, cheroot-smoke-belching Bagstocks who frequent Madeira, the Lake of Geneva, and other temperate and economical resorts, and who glare at all newcomers with that peculiar bloodshot ferocity only to be acquired by many years of curry, Bombay duck, and unlimited authority over servile millions. Owing to the difficulty of providing food for the large mob of Mambwe who had accompanied us to see in safety their old masters, the Awemba, the meat was very acceptable. The rhino was a large bull. Being particularly anxious to preserve the head, I took the trouble to cut through the hide all round to be sure of having sufficient neck-skin, and, to avoid any possibility of mistake, I left a boy by the carcase; yet in the evening it arrived in two detachments, having been considerately hacked in two to facilitate carriage.
After floundering about the country for miles and camping on isolated ant-hills, surrounded by sheets of water, and as, owing to the continued rains in the hills, the water was daily rising, we were compelled to retreat north-west. Here we made two more ineffectual efforts to penetrate into the interior. So, cursing the rains, we marched to the Luchewe, the largest of the streams which flow into Luwala, and following its valley, arrived at Kyambi, the mission station of the Pères Blancs. Here, with their usual enterprise and abilities, they have constructed a splendid two-storied building with a large cloister-like verandah, surrounded, as are all their other stations, by a solid, fortified wall; outside they have collected a large village and laid out extensive irrigated gardens well stocked with bananas, limes, lemons, and other fruits. The priests were most charming hosts. Their hospitality is, indeed, famed throughout Central Africa.
From Kyambi we marched straight into Mambwe, where we arrived drenched to the skin; and two days later I was down with an attack of fever which lasted till I reached the highlands of Kivu.
CHAPTER VIII.
TANGANYIKA.
At last, on April 2nd, we sailed from Kituta in theGood News.
Mr. Mohun and a large number of his Zanzibaris were with me. Consequently there was not much room. TheGood Newswas originally the property of an English Mission on the Lake, and when the Mission moved to find healthier quarters, the steamer was sold at a ridiculously low figure to the African Lakes Corporation, although, I believe, the Administration of Northern Rhodesia offered a larger sum. A large hole had been knocked in her bottom and filled up with cement; and the machinery was tied together with string and strips of sardine-tins. Vast cockroaches were in possession, and night was made hideous by their peregrinations; some of them were almost as large as mice, and it was a great strain on one's mosquito-curtain when they climbed up the sides in droves. Mr. Mohun endured them all night, but I, in a very few minutes, gave up the unequal fight and retired on deck.
Our noble captain, who was quite new to the lake, did not know where he was going, nor did he care. His idea of navigating a boat consisted in sleeping in his bunk until the natives told him we had arrived somewhere; even then, he never inquired what the place was. His only anxiety was lest he should oversleep himself and miss a meal.
In the evening we arrived at the Congo Free State post of M'liro, which is at the south-western corner of the lake, a few miles over the Anglo-Congolese boundary.
On board I discovered two of the boys who had gone up with Sharp, and who had been left at Kituta. At Kituta I had given instructions that they were to be sent back; so the following morning, having crossed the lake to a wooding station, on the eastern shore, I turned them off with their pay and cloth to buy food on the road; but one of them, on adventure bent, slipped on board again. During the night, finding the sleeping-places rather limited, he calmly threw a crate containing twenty-eight fowls, belonging to Mr. Mohun, overboard.
On April 4th we recrossed the lake and arrived at the French Mission Station of M'bala. This station is of several years' standing, and the Fathers, who are seven in number, with several lay brothers, have built themselves a substantial and comfortable home. They have also built a magnificent cathedral, capable of holding many hundred devotees. I am afraid it would need a large expenditure of cloth and medals to fill it. There are also elaborate workshops, and the gardens, which are very extensive, are planted with numbers of flourishing fruit trees. The coffee-shrubs were particularly remarkable for their size and yield. On the walls were many gigantic sable heads. The horns of one that I measured were 46-½ in.; while many others were almost as long. All these antelope had been shot in the immediate vicinity by native hunters employed on the mission station. It was here that the record sable head which Mr. Boyd presented to me was obtained; and it is evident that these sable must be the largest in the world. They also had a few rhino horns, which had been shot in the neighbourhood.
They gave us a tremendous dinner, with a bewildering profusion of courses and some luscious kinds of fruit, amongst which theceil-de-boeufwas particularly soothing; and delicious Algerian wine flowed freely round the festive board. There are two or three white sisters at the station; it was very sad to see how ill they looked.
After dinner, some natives brought in a large catch of fish, amongst which was a splendid kind of white-fleshed salmon. The Fathers informed me that this fish, at that time of the year, runs up the small streams, and jumps up waterfalls of considerable height.
The charming point about these white Fathers is that they never ply one with fantastic accounts of the work which they are doing. When we regretfully took our leave, they presented us with several large baskets of potatoes, tomatoes, pomegranates, and many other fruits and vegetables.
Along this shore there are enormous dug-out canoes, and we were carried to and from the steamer in one very fine specimen, probably 40 ft. in length.
On the run up to M'towa, we encountered a terrific sea, and were for several hours in imminent danger of turning turtle. The wind rushes down the narrow gulleys between the mountains that enclose the lake, and lashes the waters into a very frenzy. The arrival of these squalls is very sudden and impossible to predict; consequently, sailing on Lake Tanganyika is a most dangerous amusement. All the natives were most abominably ill, everything was wet, and the cabin and the captain formed an impossible combination.
Early in the morning the tempest subsided and we made M'towa, which is the chief Congo station on the lake. Here all the officials in the district had collected, having ignominiously fled from the rebels. One gentleman who had retired from a station further up the lake, had thrown all the station ammunition and ivory into the lake, solely on a report that the rebels were within a hundred miles. The rebels, hearing of the action, went to the place and quietly fished up both the ivory and the cartridges, thereby gaining a new lease of life. At M'towa the Belgians had built elaborate defences and had protected all the approaches with barbed wire; and in case the rebels should come they had cut down all the bananas, and were consequently short of food. There were one or two unfortunate Scandinavians in the service, who were being thrown out as pickets. One of these gentlemen came and asked us for some poison, in case he should be caught by the rebels with his totally inadequate force.
This chaotic condition has now lasted for five years, and there appears to be no man capable of grappling with the situation; it seems to me a great pity that they did not allow Commandant Henry, whom I afterwards met on the Nile, to follow up his preliminary successes against the rebels. Had he been given a free hand, in all probability the revolution would have been crushed long since.
Mr. Mohun's expedition was camped on a hill about a mile from the Government station, and they complained of most indifferent treatment at the hands of the local officials. Although they had been ready to start operations for more than six weeks, the officials had failed to provide them with any labour. It was obvious that there was much jealousy and friction between the expedition and the authorities. Fortunately, the King of the Belgians had sent Mr. Mohun a supplementary commission, which would give him the free hand necessary to the successful carrying out of his difficult task.
I was very pleased to again meet Sharp, as we had been separated for nearly three months. He was looking very ill, having only recently been laid up with fever in Ujiji. Dr. Castellote, the medical officer of Mr. Mohun's expedition, and who I am grieved to learn has recently died of fever, hearing of Sharp's sorry plight, crossed the lake and brought him over to the comparatively healthy uplands near M'towa.
Sharp had visited the station of the white Fathers on the east coast of the lake, where we had only put in to obtain wood. He told me that there was an elaborate church of brick with stained-glass windows, where he had attended service. He had been much amused at watching dirty little nigger boys from the village passing in at one door, draped in the usual filthy strip of greasy cloth, and presently emerging from another door clad in scarlet cassocks and lace tippets, waving censers, etc.
Bidding a regretful farewell to our good telegraph friends, and wishing them every luck in their venture, Sharp and I, with a mean temperature of 104°, repaired across the lake to Ujiji.
It was with feelings of curiosity that I looked out for the first time on the one historic spot in Central Africa. A few mango trees and a few white buildings scattered about on the top of the long, gently sloping shore of the lake: such was Ujiji, the meeting-place of Stanley and Livingstone, and the heart of the great slave-raiding ulcer of the past.
After considerable difficulty, we landed all our belongings by means of some unstable dug-out canoes; and having piled them on the beach, left them in charge of our boys, while we rode on donkeys, sent to us by the Greek merchant, through a gruesome array of grinning skulls that still lie scattered about the beach, the last relic of the days of Arab predominance.
We were given beds in an old mission-house which is now tenanted by two Greek traders, who, by their enterprise, richly deserve the success which they are enjoying. The old mission-house is substantially built, and is surrounded by enormous mango and guava trees.
Having fixed up our loads, we crawled up to the Government house to pay our respects to Hauptmann Bethe, the German chief of the station; he is a most delightful specimen of a German officer. He treated us with every kindness and showered the most lavish hospitality upon us. Without his cordial co-operation, we should never have been able to take the routeviaKivu, on which we had set our hearts. He strongly advised us to go by the hackneyed route by Tabora and the Victoria Nyanza, the road by which Dècle went from Ujiji to Uganda, and which is the high-road for all the caravans that ply between the Victoria Nyanza and Tabora, and Ujiji and Tabora. He informed us that it would be most risky to take the route which we intended without at least a hundred armed men.
He also told us that the Congolese rebels had sent a deputation to him to tell him that they intended once more to attack the Belgians. They asked whether, in the event of failure, they would be allowed to hand their guns in to him, and to come over and settle in German territory. This is an indication of the natives' feeling towards the Congo Free State Administration.
Unfortunately both Sharp and I were too ill to see much of Ujiji and its interesting people. Many charming old Arabs, clad in gorgeous array, came and paid their respects, and sent us many presents, such as fruit, eggs, and vegetables. It was sad to see these venerable old gentlemen in their then condition, and to think of how, in the good old days gone by, they had held undisputed sway over many, many thousand square miles.
The day after our arrival we lunched with Hauptmann Bethe and his staff. We were plied with the most bewildering succession of drinks; starting with port, then through successive courses of champagne, brandy, beer, Vermouth, and claret, we slowly wended our way, with the temperature 110° in the shade. This diet, the Germans informed us, was absolutely essential to avoid fever. They protested that no teetotaller who had arrived in Ujiji had ever left Ujiji for any other place in this world; and certainly the Germans who were there were living examples of the efficacy of their treatment.
The courtesy, assistance, and confidence which we received in the German sphere shone bright in contrast with much of the treatment which we received under our own flag; and our warmest thanks are due to those whole-hearted Germans who are upholding the honour of the Fatherland on the far distant shore of Tanganyika.
My fever, which had now lasted for more than three weeks, took a decided turn for the worse, and I began to lose the proper control of my hands. Sharp, on the other hand, was slightly better.
We witnessed several dances. It was quite easy to start one, by providing the funds necessary to obtain a considerable quantity of native beer, when the natives would arrive in hundreds in the market-place and perform the wildest and most grotesque dances imaginable. Hauptmann Bethe arranged a most elaborate one for our edification.
At last, on April 12th, we had organized our caravan of one hundred and thirty men, and made a start up the lake. We had been compelled to leave some loads behind, and it was not till four in the afternoon that the last man left the courtyard. We had had no difficulty in recruiting as many men as we wanted, as the Germans afforded us every facility.
We only marched out sufficiently far to get our caravan quite clear of Ujiji; and the Germans kindly sent out a few soldiers to avoid any trouble with the men, the last farewell of the natives being invariably accompanied by much pombe. However, they all turned up, and we got them into some sort of order. I had brought from Nyassa sixteen boys--ten of whom had been drilled for a few days by one of Mr. Mohun's Zanzibari sergeants--two of them were kitchen boys, and the other four gun-bearers and tent-pitchers: this made our caravan one hundred and fifty strong.
Sharp ignored the mosquitoes the first night, and in consequence suffered severely from blood poisoning of the hands. The path led through a fertile country, but as the high grass overhung the narrow track, it was very wet travelling and not conducive to a speedy recovery from fever. The way became gradually worse and we had many sharp rises to face, and many small streams to cross, while satisfactory camping-grounds were hard to find. On the fourth day, after a struggle up an almost perpendicular hill, we camped at an elevation of nearly 6,000 ft., and obtained some lovely views over the country to the east--high, tree-covered hills, with a few native huts and their accompanying gardens in clearings where the ground was not too steep, and, down below, deep valleys covered with dense bush--while to the west we could just catch a glimpse of the lake backed by the rugged and forbidding-looking hills on the Congo side.
A cold white mist came up in the afternoon, and put all thoughts of scenery away, driving us to refuge in tightly-closed tents.
Next day we mounted still higher--about 7,000 ft.--and the scenery amply repaid the exertion. From thence we made a rapid descent by a path so steep and rough that we had to glissade at times with the aid of a strong spear. At the villages here we found the people wearing wooden tweezers on their noses; on inquiry we discovered that they injected snuff mixed with water, and then put the apparatus on to keep the concoction from wasting away at once. A day or two later we reached the lake-shore, and the path, such as it was, came to an end. We now had to make our way along the shingle. The bush overhung the water every few yards, and as it was mostly mimosa, or other equally prickly matter, we had to wade round to avoid it--often up to our middles in the water--while an occasional mountain torrent necessitated our being carried on our boys' shoulders. As the lake was swarming with crocodiles, this was rather exciting. Our Nyassa boys, who had earned the name of the Guinea-fowls, owing to their dress of dark-blue bird's-eye cotton and greeny-blue fezzes, had been a great comfort, pitching our tents and doing all the little odd jobs inseparable from camp life, and we were congratulating ourselves on having some natives of a different race to our Manyema porters.
The heat and continual wetting now began to tell on the fever which we had not been able to shake off, so we hired two big canoes, and putting our deck-chairs in the largest, over which we rigged up an awning, we proceeded by water while our boys plodded through the shingle. On reaching the halting-place after our first day's canoeing, we were horrified to find that our ten Askaris and the cook had bolted, leaving their rifles and bayonets on the path. Though I was bad with fever I got a fresh crew for the big canoe, and made all haste back to our last night's camp. Nothing was to be seen or heard of the fugitives, and though I offered the Sultani (chief) of the village heavy rewards for each captive, we never heard any more of them, but trust that they did not escape their deserts when they reached Ujiji, if the natives on the way let them go free, which is more than doubtful. I had left Sharp to try his 'prentice hand at cooking, and returning wet through, very tired and full of fever, found his attempt at soup had ended in a few bones and a blob of fat at the bottom of the pan! The heat was intense, never a breath of air, and no shade, while the rays of the burning sun were refracted from the face of the water. At every camp one or more of the neighbouring chiefs came to pay his respects, bringing with him a present, according to his standing, of pombe, native beer, bananas, three or four fowls, and in the case of a big "swell," two or three goats or sheep. Each chief was followed by as large a retinue as he could gather, and most of them were dressed in semi-Arab fashion--a long, white shirt or "kanzu," a coloured cloth, and a turban or white head-dress. The natives had many knives of local manufacture, the sheaths of which were ornamented with well-carved patterns, while their spears were very thin and light, and often adorned with brass and copper wire. Of course we had to make return presents of cloth and beads to an equal value. Eggs were rather hard to obtain, and it was still more difficult to make the natives believe that we did not want them for electioneering purposes. My fever was now so bad that I had to depute my baking to Sharp, who was becoming quite a passable cook under my tuition, and retire to bed as soon as I could get my tent pitched. To add to our enjoyment Sharp got a sunstroke and a dose of fever, and we were consequently reduced to the most pitiable plight. My temperature went up to 106.9, and left me too weak to move, while Sharp, ill as he was, made superhuman efforts to look after me. At last, after several days of intolerable misery, we eventually arrived at Usambara, where the German official, Lieutenant von Gravert, took us in hand. Under his care we recovered slightly.
Usambara, with characteristic German thoroughness, has been well laid out. Substantial buildings have been put up, good gardens made, and an immense avenue of pawpaws and bananas planted from the Government House to the lake shore. A small sailing-boat adds materially to the comfort and efficiency of the commanding officer.
Every morning a large market is held, and the natives bring in enormous supplies of fish, bananas, beans, grains of different sort (even rice), and fowls. The German black troops keep splendid order, and the station has the most flourishing air. I am a great believer in the Germans' African methods. Of course they are severely handicapped by having such a poor country to work upon. But their methods are thorough and eminently practical, and not characterized by the stinginess which paralyzes most of our African efforts. The men selected for the work are given a practically free hand, and are not cramped by the ignorant babblings of sentimentalism.