Part 5

The district of Ukaranga extends from the Ruguvu or the Unguwwe River to the waters of the lake: on the south it is bounded by the region of Ut’hongwe, and on the north by the Ruche River. This small and sluggish stream, when near the mouth, is about forty yards in breadth, and, being unfordable at all seasons, two or three ferry-boats always ply upon its waters. The _rauque_ bellow of the hippopotamus is heard on its banks, and the adjacent lowlands are infested by mosquitoes in clouds. The villages of Ukaranga are scattered in clumps over the plain--wretched hamlets, where a few households live surrounded by rare cultivation in the drier parts of the swamps. The “port of Ukaranga” is an open roadstead, which seldom shows even a single canoe. Merchants who possess boats and can send for provisions to the islands across the lake sometimes prefer, for economy, Ukaranga to Kawele; it is also made a halting-place by those _en route_ to Uguhha, who would lose time by visiting Ujiji. The land, however, affords no supplies; a bazar is unknown; and the apathetic tribe, who cultivate scarcely sufficient grain for themselves, will not even take the trouble to cast a net. Ukaranga sends bamboos, rafters for building, and fire-wood, cut in the background of highlands, to Kawele and other parts of Ujiji, at which places, however, workmen must be hired.

Ukaranga signifies, etymologically, the “Land of Groundnuts.” This little district may, in earlier ages, have given name to the Mocarangas, Mucarongas, or Mucarangas, a nation which, according to the Portuguese historians, from João dos Sanctos (1586-97) to Don Sebastian Xavier Botelho (1835), occupied the country within the Mozambique, from S. lat. 5° to S. lat. 25°, under subjection to the sovereign and the people of “Monomotapa.” In the absence of history, analogy is the only guide. Either, then, the confusion of the Tanganyika and the Nyassa Lakes by the old geographers, caused them to extend the “Mocarangas” up to the northern water--and the grammatical error in the word “Mucaranga” justifies some suspicion as to their accuracy--or in the space of three centuries the tribe has declined from its former power and consequence, or the Wakaranga of the Tanganyika are a remnant of the mighty southern nation, which, like the Watuta tribe, has of late years been pressed by adverse circumstances to the north. Though Senhor Botelho, in his ‘Memoria Estatisca,’ denominates the “Monomoezi country” “Western Mucaranga,” it is certain that no Mnyamwezi in the present day owns to connection with a race speaking a different dialect, and distant about 200 miles from his frontier.

The land of Ujiji is bounded on the north by the heights of Urundi, and on the south by the Ukaranga country: eastward it extends to Ubuha, and westward it is washed by the waves of the Tanganyika Lake. On its north-east lies the land of Uhha, now reduced by the predatory Watuta to a luxuriant desert.

The head-quarter village of Ujiji was in 1858 Kawele. To the westward of this settlement was the district of Gungu, facing the islet rock Bangwe. This place was deserted by travellers on account of the plundering propensities of its former chief. His son “Lurinda,” however, labours to recover lost ground by courtesy and attention to strangers. South-eastwards of Kawele is the district of Ugoyye, frequented by the Arabs, who find the Sultans Habeyya and Marabu somewhat less extortionate than their neighbours. It is a sandy spot, clear of white ants, but shut out by villages and cultivation from the lovely view of the lake. To one standing at Kawele all these districts and villages are within two or three miles, and a distant glance discloses the possessions of half-a-dozen independent tribes.

Caravans entering Ujiji from the land side usually encamp in the outlying villages on the right or left bank of the Ruche, at considerable inconvenience, for some days. The origin of this custom appears to date from olden time. In East Africa, as a rule, every stranger is held to be hostile before he has proved friendly intentions, and many tribes do not admit him into their villages without a special invitation. Thus, even in the present day, the visitor in the countries of the Somal and Galla, the Wamasai and the Wakwafi, must sit under some tree outside the settlement till a deputation of elders, after formally ascertaining his purpose, escort him to their homes. The modern reason for the custom, which prevails upon the coast, as well as on the banks of the Tanganyika, is rather commercial than political. The caravan halts upon neutral ground, and the sultans or chiefs of the different villages send select messengers carrying various presents: in the interior ivory and slaves, and in the maritime regions cloth and provisions, technically called “Magubiko,” and intended as an earnest of their desire to open trade. Sweet words and fair promises win the day; the Mtongi, or head of the caravan, after a week of earnest deliberation with all his followers, chooses his host, temporary lodgings are provided for the guests, and the value of the retaining fees is afterwards recovered in Hongá and Kirembá--blackmail and customs. This custom was known in Southern Africa by the name of “marts;” that is, a “connection with a person belonging to another nation, so that they reside at each other’s houses when visiting the place, and make mutual presents.” The compulsory guest amongst the Arabs of Zanzibar and the Somal is called “Nezil.”

At Ujiji terminates, after twelve stages, which native caravans generally finish in a fortnight, all halts included, the transit of the fifth region. The traveller has now accomplished a total number of 85 long, or 100 short stages, which, with necessary rests, but excluding detentions and long halts, occupy 150 days. The direct longitudinal distance from the coast is 540 geo. miles, which the sinuosities of the road prolong to 955, or in round numbers 950 statute miles. The number of days expended by the Expedition in actual marching was 100, of hours 420, which gives a rate of 2·27 miles per hour. The total time was seven and a-half months, from the 27th June, 1857, to the 18th February, 1858; thus the number of the halts exceeded by one-third the number of the marches. In practice Arab caravans seldom arrive at the Tanganyika, for reasons before alluded to, under a total period of six months. Those lightly laden may make Unyanyembe in between two and a-half and three months, and from Unyanyembe Ujiji in twenty-five stages, which would reduce their journey to four months.

Dapper (‘Beschryving van Afrika,’ Amst. 1671) asserts that the “blacks of Pombo, _i. e._ the Pombeiros, or native travellers of W. Africa, when asked respecting the distance of the lake, say that it is at least a sixty days’ journey, going constantly eastwards.” But the total breadth of the continent between Mbuamaji and Loanda being, in round numbers, 1560 geographical miles, this estimate would give a marching rate of twenty-six geographical and rectilinear miles (or, allowing for deviation, thirty-six statute miles) per diem. When Da Couto (1565), quoting the information procured by Francisco Barreto, during his expedition in 1570, from some Moors (Arabs or Wasawahili) at Patta and elsewhere, says that “from Kilwa or Atondo (that is to say, the country of the Watondwe) the other sea of Angola might be reached with a journey of fifteen or twenty (150 or 200?) leagues,” he probably alludes to the Nyassa Lake, lying south-westwards of Kilwa, not to the Tanganyika. Mr. Cooley gives one itinerary, by Mohammed bin Nasur, an old Arab merchant, enumerating seventy-one marches from Buromaji (Mbuamaji) to Oha (Uhha), and a total of eighty-three from the coast to the lake; and a second by a native of Monomoezi, Lief bin Said (a misprint for Khalaf bin Saíd?) sixty-two to Ogara (Ugala), which is placed four or five days from Oha. In another page he remarks that “from Buromaji, near Point Puna, to Oha in Monomoezi is a journey of seventy-nine, or, in round numbers, eighty days, the shores of the lake being still six or eight days distant.” This is the closest estimate yet made. Mr. Macqueen, from the itinerary of Lief bin Said, estimates the lake, from the mouth of the river Pangani, at 604 miles, and seventy-one days of total march. It is evident, from the preceding pages, that African authorities have hitherto confounded the Nyanza, the Tanganyika, and the Nyassa Lakes. Still, in the estimate of the distance between the coast and Ujiji there is a remarkable and a most deceptive coherence.

Ujiji--also called Manyofo, which appears, however, peculiar to a certain sultanat or district--is the name of a province, not, as has been represented, of a single town. It was first visited by the Arabs about 1840; ten years after that they had penetrated to Unyamwezi; they found it conveniently situated as a mart upon the Tanganyika Lake, and a central point where their depôts might be established, and whence their factors and slaves could navigate the waters, and collect slaves and ivory from the tribes upon its banks. But the climate proved unhealthy, the people dangerous, and the coasting-voyages frequently ended in disaster; Ujiji, therefore, never rose to the rank of Unyanyembe or Msene. At present it is visited during the fair season, from May to September, by flying caravans, who return to Unyanyembe as soon as they have loaded their porters.

Abundant humidity and a fertile soil, evidenced by the large forest trees and the abundance of ferns, render Ujiji the most productive province in this section of Africa: vegetables, which must elsewhere be cultivated, here seem to flourish almost spontaneously. Rice of excellent quality was formerly raised by the Arabs upon the shores of the Tanganyika; it grew luxuriantly, attaining, it is said, the height of eight or nine feet. The inhabitants, however, preferring sorghum, and wearied out by the depredations of the monkey, the elephant, and the hippopotamus, have allowed the more civilised cereal to degenerate. The principal grains are the holcus and the Indian nagli or nanchni (Eleusine coracano); there is no bajri (panicum or millet) in these regions; the pulses are phaseoli and the voandzeia, groundnuts, beans, and haricots of several different species. The manioc, egg-plant, and sweet-potato, the yam, the cucumber, an edible white fungus growing subterraneously, and the Indian variety of the Jerusalem artichoke, represent the vegetables: the people, however, unlike the Hindus, despise, and consequently will not be at the pains to cultivate them. Sugar-cane, tobacco, and cotton are always purchasable in the bazar. The fruits are the plantain and the Guinea-palm. The mdizi or plantain-tree is apparently an aborigen of these latitudes: in certain parts, as in Usumbara, Karagwah, and Uganda, it is the staff of life: in the hilly countries there are, it is said, about a dozen varieties, and a single bunch forms a load for a man. It is found in the island and on the coast of Zanzibar, at K’hutu in the head of the alluvial valley, and, though rarely, in the mountains of Usagara. The best fruit is that grown by the Arabs at Unyanyembe: it is still a poor specimen, coarse and insipid, stringy and full of seeds, and strangers rarely indulge in it, fearing flatulence. Upon the Tanganyika Lake there is a variety called mikono t’hembu, or elephant’s-hands, which is considerably larger than the Indian “horse-plantain.” The skin is of a brickdust red, in places inclining to rusty-brown; the pulp is a dull yellow, with black seeds, and the flavour is harsh, strong, and drug-like. The Elæis Guiniensis, locally called mchikichi, which is known by the Arabs to grow in the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba, and more rarely in the mountains of Usagara, springs apparently uncultivated in large dark groves on the shores of the Tanganyika, where it hugs the margin, rarely growing at any distance inland. The bright-yellow drupe, with shiny purple-black point, though nauseous to the taste, is eaten by the people. The mawezi or palm-oil, of the consistency of honey, rudely extracted, forms an article of considerable traffic in the regions about the Lake. This is the celebrated extract, whose various officinal uses in Europe have already begun to work a social reformation in W. Africa. The people of Ujiji separate, by pounding, the oily sarcocarpium from the one seed of the drupe, boil it for some hours, allow the floating substance to coagulate, and collect it in large earthen pots. The price is usually about one doti of white cotton for thirty-five pounds, and the people generally demand salt in exchange for it from caravans. This is the “oil of a red colour” which, according to Mr. Cooley, is bought by the Wanyamwezi “from the opposite or south-western side of the lake.” Despite its sickly flavour, it is universally used in cooking, and it forms the only unguent and lamp-oil in the country. This fine Guinea-palm is also tapped, as the date in Western India, for toddy; and the cheapness of this tembo--the sura of West Africa--accounts for the prevalence of intoxication, and the consequent demoralisation of the Lakist tribes.

The bazar at Ujiji is well supplied. Fresh fish of various kinds is always procurable except during the violence of the rains: the people, however, invariably cut it up and clean it out before bringing it to market. Good honey abounds after the wet monsoon. By the favour of the chief, milk and butter may be purchased every day. Long-tailed sheep and well-bred goats, poultry and eggs--the two latter are never eaten by the people--are brought in from the adjoining countries: the Arabs breed a few Manilla ducks, and the people rear but will not sell pigeons. The few herds at Ujiji which have escaped the beef-eating propensities of the Watuta are a fine breed, originally, it is said, derived by the Wahha from the mountains of Karagwah. Their horns in these lands appear unusually large; their stature combines with the smallness of the hump to render them rather like English than Indian or African cattle. They are rarely sold of later days, except for enormous prices, an adult slave being the lowest valuation of a cow. The cattle is never stalled or grain-fed, and the udder is little distended; the produce is about one quarter that of a civilised cow, and the animals give milk only during the few first months after calving. The “tulchan” of Tibet is apparently unknown in Central Africa; but the people are not wanting in barbarous contrivances to persuade a stubborn animal to yield her produce.

The fauna appear rare upon the borders of the Tanganyika: all men are hunters; every human being loves animal food, from white ants to elephants; the tzetze was found there, and probably the luxuriance of the vegetation, in conjunction with the extreme humidity, tends to diminish species and individuals. Herds of elephants exist in the bamboo-jungles which surround the sea, but the heaps of ivory sold in the markets of Ujiji are collected from an area containing thousands of square miles. Hippopotami and crocodiles are common in the waters, wild buffaloes in the plains. The hyænas are bold thieves, and the half-wild “Pariah-dogs” that slink about the villages are little inferior as depredators. The people sometimes make pets of them, leading them about with cords; but they do not object to see them shot after a raid upon the Arab’s meat, butter, or milk. These animals are rarely heard to bark; they leave noise to the village cocks. The huts are as usual haunted by the grey and the musk-rat. Of birds there is a fine fish-eagle, about the size of a domestic cock, with snowy head and shoulders relieving a sombre chocolate plume: he sits majestically watching his prey upon the tall trees overhanging the waves of the Tanganyika. A larus, or sea-gull, with reddish legs, lives in small colonies upon this lake. At the end of the monsoon in 1858 these birds were seen to collect in troops upon the sands, as they are accustomed to do at Aden when preparing to migrate. The common kingfisher is a large bird with a white and grey plume, a large and strong black bill, and a crest which somewhat resembles that of the Indian bulbul: it perches upon the branches over the waters, and in flight and habits resembles other halcyons. A long and lank black plotus, or diver, is often seen skimming the waters, and sandpipers run along the yellow sands. The other birds are the white-breasted “parson-crow,” partridges, and quails seen in Urundi; swallows in passage, curlews, motacillæ, muscicapæ, and various passerines. Ranæ, some of them noisy in the extreme, inhabit the sedges close to the lake. The termite does great damage in the sweet red soils about Kawele: it is less feared when the ground is dry and sandy. The huts are full of animal life--snakes, scorpions, ants of various kinds, whose armies sometimes turn the occupants out of doors; the rafters are hollowed out by xylophagous insects; the walls are riddled by mason-bees, hideous spiders veil the corners with thick webs, the chirp of the cricket is heard both within and out of doors, cockroaches destroy the provisions, and large brown mosquitoes and flies, ticks and bugs, assault the inhabitants.

The rise in the price of slaves and ivory has compelled Arab merchants, as will be seen in another chapter, to push their explorations beyond the Tanganyika Lake. Ujiji is, however, still the great slave-mart of these regions, the article being collected from all the adjoining tribes of Urundi, Uhha, Uvira, and Marungu. The native dealers, however, are so acute, that they are rapidly ruining this their most lucrative traffic. They sell cheaply, and think to remunerate themselves by aiding and abetting desertion. Merchants, therefore, who do not chain or cord together their gangs till they have reached the east bank of the Malagarazi River, often lose 20 per cent. The prevalence of the practice has already given Ujiji a bad name, and, if continued, will remove the market to another place, where the people are somewhat less clever and more sensible. It is impossible to give any idea of the average price of the human commodity, which varies, under the modifications of demand and supply, from two to ten doti or tobes of American domestics. Yet as these purchases sell in Zanzibar for fourteen or fifteen dollars per head, the trade realises nearly 500 per cent., and will, therefore, with difficulty be put down.

The principal tribes in this region are the Wajiji, the Wavinza, the Wakaranga, the Watuta, the Wabuha, and the Wahha.

The Wajiji are a burly race of barbarians, far stronger than the tribes hitherto traversed, with dark skins, plain features, and straight, sturdy limbs: they are larger and heavier men than the Wanyamwezi, and the type, as it approaches Central Africa, becomes rather negro than negroid.[1] Their feet and hands are large and flat, their voices are harsh and strident, and their looks as well as their manners are independent even to insolence. The women, who are held in high repute, resemble, and often excel, their masters in rudeness and violence; they think little in their cups of entering a stranger’s hut, and of snatching up and carrying away an article which excites their admiration. Many of both sexes, and all ages, are disfigured by the small-pox--the Arabs have vainly taught them inoculation--and there are few who are not afflicted by boils and various eruptions; there is also an inveterate pandemic itch, which, according to their Arab visitors, results from a diet of putrid fish.

[1] My companion observes (in Blackwood, Nov. 1859), “It may be worthy of remark that I have always found the lighter coloured savages more boisterous and warlike than those of the dingier hue. The _ruddy black_, fleshy-looking Wazaramos and Wagogos are much _lighter_ in colour (!) than any of the other tribes, and certainly have a far superior, more manly and warlike independent spirit and bearing than any of the others.” The “dingiest” peoples are usually the most degraded, and therefore sometimes the least powerful; but the fiercest races in the land are the Wazaramo, the Wajiji and the Wataturu, who are at the same time the darkest.

This tribe is extensively tattooed, probably as a protection against the humid atmosphere, and the chills of the Lake Region. Some of the chiefs have ghastly scars raised by fire, in addition to large patterns marked upon their persons--lines, circles, and rays of little cupping-cuts drawn down the back, the stomach, and the arms, like the tattoo of the Wangindo tribe near Kilwa. Both sexes love to appear dripping with oil; and they manifestly do not hold cleanliness to be a virtue. The head is sometimes shaved; rarely the hair is allowed to grow; the most fashionable coiffure is a mixture of the two; patches and beauty-spots in the most eccentric shapes--buttons, crescents, crests, and galeated lines--being allowed to sprout either on the front, the sides, or the back of the head, from a carefully-scraped scalp. Women as well as men are fond of binding a wisp of white tree-fibre round their heads, like the ribbon which confines the European old person’s wig. There is not a trace of mustachio or whisker in the country; they are removed by the tweezers, and the climate, according to the Arabs, is, like that of Unyamwezi, unfavourable to beards. For cosmetics both sexes apply, when they can procure such luxuries, red earth to the face, and over the head a thick-coating of chalk or mountain-meal, which makes their blackness stand out hideously grotesque.

The chiefs wear expensive stuffs, checks, and cottons, which they extract from passing caravans. Women of wealth affect the tobe or coast-dress, and some were seen wearing red and blue broadcloths. The male costume of the lower orders is confined to softened goat, sheep, deer, leopard, or monkey skins, tied at two corners over either shoulder, with the flaps open at one side, and with tail and legs dangling in the wind. Women who cannot afford cloth use as a succedaneum a narrow kilt of fibre or skin, and some content themselves with a tassel of fibre or a leafy twig depending from a string bound round the waist, and displaying the nearest approach to the original fig-leaf. At Ujiji, however, the people are observed, for the first time, to make extensive use of the macerated tree-bark, which supplies the place of cotton in Urundi, Karagwah, and the northern kingdoms. This article, technically termed “mbugu,” is made from the inner bark of various trees, especially the mrimba and the mwale, or huge Raphia-palm. The trunk of the full-grown tree is stripped of its integument twice or thrice, and is bound with plantain-leaves till a finer growth is judged fit for manipulation. This bark is carefully removed, steeped in water, macerated, kneaded, and pounded with clubs and battens to the consistency of a coarse cotton. Palm-oil is then spirted upon it from the mouth, and it acquires the colour of chamois-leather. The Wajiji obtain the mbugu mostly from Urundi and Uvira. They are fond of striping it with a black vegetable mud, so as to resemble the spoils of leopards and wild cats, and they favour the delusion by cutting the edge into long strips, like the tails and other extremities of wild beasts. The price of the mbugu varies according to size, from six to twelve khete or strings of beads. Though durable, it is never washed: after many months’ wear the superabundance of dirt is removed by butter or ghee.