Sidebilder
PDF
ePub
[blocks in formation]

upon it with the utmost rapidity, and bore off the whole from our Zanzibar men, who were left in vacant amazement without redress. On killing a goat, I observed they never spilt a drop of blood, but smashed its head with a stick or stone. Out shooting they were invaluable as guides, first-rate spoorers, and never at a loss for anything: a pipe would be made by putting a grit of clay an inch or so into the end of a tube of bark. "Duncan's smoking mixture" they preferred stuffing as far as possible up their noses. When an animal was shot they always stole the fat. They had extraordinary knowledge of edible roots and herbs, and under almost any circumstances would not starve. They had no particular superstitions or sacred days, either in the week or year. They were intelligent and amusing enough, but had no claim to honour or honesty-113 of them, although handsomely paid, deserted us, carrying away a considerable quantity of property. Perhaps they treated us in this way in consequence of having been badly paid by Arab

traders on former occasions.

A few of their women accompanied us: quiet, decent, well-conducted, tidy creatures, generally carrying a child each on their backs, a small stool and et ceteras on their heads, and inveterately smoking during the march. They would prepare some savoury dish of herbs for their men on getting into camp, where they lived in bell-shaped erections made with boughs of trees.

CHAPTER IV.

SOJOURN AT KAZEH, LAT. 5° S., LONG. 33° E.-PROVINCE OF UNYANYEMBE-CROPS, CATTLE, ETC.-MOOSSAH, AN INDIAN TRADER, HIS WIVES, ATTENDANTS, AND COWHERDS—THE WATUSI DISASTROUS EFFECTS OF WAR

ACCOUNT OF THE NORTHERN KINGDOM.

MOOSSAH'S

WE were delayed here for fifty-one days on account of the falling rains, the flooded state of the river ahead, and the impossibility of getting porters to move at such a season, when grain was not procurable. Our arrival was hailed with great delight. Moossah, an excellent friend of Speke's, several Arabs and many followers, all in holiday attire, came out a mile to welcome our ragged-looking Indian file. Guns were fired, yambos and salaams with shaking of hands followed, and we were lodged once more under a hospitable roof.

The country is surrounded by low bare hills, which every morning till eight or nine were obscured by an unhealthy coloured mist, filling the wide valley where we lay. There was nothing to cheer the eye-no river, no trees: it reminded Speke of the Crimea. Rills ran here and there through grass, and opened out on

REMEDIES FOR FEVER.

45

white sand one of these, collecting in a pool, formed the drinking water of the inhabitants. Scarcely a man amongst us escaped fever. We arrived on the 25th of January, and by the 1st February several were laid up. My first attack lasted seven days, the 2d, 4th, 6th, 7th, and 8th terminating in headaches every morning. After twelve days another sharper attack, with delirium at night, but no ague, lasted three days. The third and least severe came on fifteen days afterwards, with drowsiness and profuse perspiration, and terminated in three days. All suffered from after-weakness in the limbs; some from blindness of one eye, the eyelid much inflamed and drooping, accompanied with excessive watering; or no inflammation of the eye, but total blindness of it, and no disease or scale observable. Acute pain rarely accompanied this complaint. Our men ascribed their bad health to not having got accustomed to the water of the country. The natives had no efficient remedies for preventing the recurrence of fever, but took pinches of a pounded plant or wood to cure their headaches, or cupped themselves in the following curious manner: A man put some beeswax into his mouth, applied a small cow's horn to cuts made in the temple of the patient, exhausted the air by suction, and with his tongue shut the hole at the end of the horn with the wax. We had only one fatal case. Quinine and applications of blistering tissue behind the ear and on the temples partially restored health and eyesight. During our stay the prevalent winds were the E., N.E., and S.E., but the coldest were the westerly after rain. The mornings were foggy, the grass dripped with the night-dew, which interfered with

46

CLIMATE AND AGRICULTURE.

Speke's observation of the stars by dimming the instruments. The days were often dark and hazy; pelting showers beat down from the N.W., but we sometimes had a fresh English morning, with a clear sky, a N.E. wind, and temperature only 69° at 9 A.M. We had no striking or beautiful sunsets like the equatorial at sea, but in the evening the flowering grasses, gorgeously lit up by the rays of the setting sun, had a singularly fine effect; and such evenings were often followed by a few dry days, and a temperature of 82°. This hot weather occurred when, at the short twilight, the sun appeared to set in the east, and the whole sky was an arched illumination. On an average we had rain two-fifths of the time we halted, and the greatest fall noted in twenty-four hours was two inches. These African rains we did not find followed by the disagreeable steamy or muggy feeling experienced in India; all was cool and fresh after them. We had thunder and lightning, but rain did not always follow.

This province of Unyanyembe has nearly four months of rain, commencing in the end of November, and winding up with the greatest fall in February. As soon as the soil of sand, or black spongy mould, has softened, the seed is dropped, and by the 1st of February all is as green as an emerald. The young rice has to struggle for fifteen days against the depredations of a small black caterpillar, green underneath. It is a precarious time for the agriculturist; for if rain does not fall the crop is lost, being eaten close by this insect. Women walk in the fields, with small handpicks, loosening the soil, clearing it of weeds and There is only one crop in the year, and all the cereals known in Zanzibar are grown here. Cotton

worms.

SUBURBS OF UNYANYEMBE.

47

was considered by an Indian resident to be as fine as that grown in Kutch, but he said they had no use for it, merely burning it as wicks. As the previous year's corn had been consumed, the poorer classes gathered the heads of a wild grass (Dactyloctum Ægyptiacum), and prepared it for stirabout by sun-drying, beating on the rocks, and rubbing it into flour on their flagstones. They also fed upon mushrooms, growing amongst the rank "dub" grass, after drying, roasting, and peeling them. They were five inches in diameter, and sienna-coloured. Another variety was white, and half the size. All the cattle and goats in the country seemed to have found their way into the folds of the Arabs, and had been captured in a war still going on between them and the native population. The surrounding country is devoid of game, but within a long day's march a forest was visited, where various antelopes, giraffes, lions, and a few elephants might be met with along the valley of the Wallah river. The scales. of an armadillo were seen worn as a charm, three inches across, and striated or lined at one end. men had a superstition that the person who found a live armadillo would become a king-meaning, I imagine, that it was so rare. However, we came upon a pet one at 3° N. latitude. About the cultivations near the village no singing-birds are ever heard, but the plumage of those seen is often very brilliant. Flocks of beautiful little birds, with black bodies, goldentinted scarlet heads and backs, pecked at the ears of corn; or in the rice-fields the favourite of the Cape farmers, the "locust bird," black, and looking like a curlew when walking, went tamely about. Crows, with a ring of white round the neck, were seen in twos

Our

« ForrigeFortsett »