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ALVMNVS BOOK FVND
BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA
List of Previous Works by the same Author
the river congo, from its mouth to bolobo the kilimanjaro expedition the life of a slave the life of livingstone
> ^ Or T- 1 -
or
UNIV2 „ -JY
j€. f^ .-^wif*^^
AN ANGONl WARRIOR
British Central Africa
AN ATTEMPT TO GIVE SOME ACCOUNT OF A PORTION OF
THE TERRITORIES UNDER BRITISH INFLUENCE NORTH OF THE ZAMBEZI
By
SIR HARRY H. JOHNSTON, K.C.B.
F.Z.S., F.R.G.S., F.R.S.G.S., Fellow of Anthropological Institute QJ^-C X
Royal Colonial Institute, etc. H.M. Commissioner and Consul -General in British Central Africa
WITH SIX MAPS AND 220 ILLUSTRATIONS reproduced from the author's drawings or from photographs
METHUEN & CO.
36, ESSEX street, strand
LONDON
1897
ir'St
1}
V^J
PLYMOUTH
WILLIAM BRBNDON AND SON
PRINTERS
'•'} :;
DEDICATION
WHATEVER MAY BE WORTHY OF PRAISE IN THIS BOOK
I DEDICATE TO MY COMRADES IN BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA
TO THE MEMORY OF THOSE WHO DIED IN A MANFUL STRUGGLE —
Captain CECIL MAGUIRE, Dr. SORABJI BOYCE, JOHN KYDD
J. G. BAINBRIDGE
Lieut. S. ARGYLL GILLMORE, ALFRED PEILE
L. M. FOTHERINGHAM, JOHN BUCHANAN, G. HAMPDEN
CHARLES A. GRAY, H. BRIGHTON
GILBERT STEVENSON, J. G. KING, J. L. NICOLL
EDWARD ALSTON, and Lieut. -Colonel C. A. EDWARDS—
AND TO THE ACCEPTANCE OF THOSE
STILL LIVING AND WORKING
IN THE SERVICE OF QUEEN AND COMPANY
WHO HAVE WROUGHT WITH ME ^INCE 1 889 IN THE
BUILDING UP OF THIS CINDERELLA AMONG THE PROTECTORATES
PREFACE
NORTH of the Zambezi and in the South Central portion of the continent of Africa, bounded on the north by Lake Tanganyika and the Congo Free State, on the north-east by German East Africa, on the east, south-east and west by Portuguese possessions, lies what is now termed British Central Africa, Protectorate and Sphere of Influence. The Sphere of Influence is much larger than the actual Protectorate, which is chiefly confined to the districts bordering on Lake Nyasa and on the river Shire. The Sphere of Influence is at present administered under the Charter of the British South Africa Company ; the Protectorate has always been administered directly under the Imperial Government from the time of its inception. Circumstances were so ordered that I happened to be the chief agent in bringing all this territory, directly or indirectly, under British Influence, both on behalf of the Imperial Government and of the Chartered Company; and though I was ably seconded by Mr. Alfred Sharpe (now Her Majesty's Deputy Com- missioner), the late Mr. Joseph Thomson, Mr. J. L. NicoU, and Mr. A. J. Swann, it lay with me to propose a name, a geographical and political term for the mass of territory thus secured as a dependency of the British Empire.
On the principle that it is disastrous to a dog's interest to give him a bad name, it should be equally true that much is gained at the outset of any enterprise by bestowing on it a promising title. I therefore chose that of '• British Central Africa " because I hoped the new sphere of British influence might include much of Central Africa where, at the time these deeds were done, the territories of Foreign Powers were in a state of flux, no hard and fast boundaries having been determined ; therefore by fair means Great Britain's share north of the Zambezi might be made to connect her Protectorate on the Upper Nile with her Empire south of the Zambezi.
viii PREFACE
Treaties indeed were obtained which advanced British Territory from the south end to the north end of Lake Tanganyika, where the British flag was planted at the request of the natives by Mr. Swann in the spring of 1890; but the said Treaties arrived too late for them to be taken into consideration at the time the Anglo-German Convention was drawn up.
Consequently all our Government could do was to secure from Germany a right of way across the intervening strip of territory; and the boundaries of German East Africa and of the Congo Free State were*^ henceforth cpn- terminous in the district immediately north of Tanganyika.
Similarly the agents of the King of the Belgians were able to make good their claims to the country west and south-west of Tanganyika. Therefore British Central Africa did not ultimately attain the geographical limits to which I had originally aspired, and which would have amply justified its title. I write this in (perhaps needless) apology for a name, which after all is a fairly correct designation of a territory in the South Central portions of the continent separated by several hundred miles from the East or West Coasts and stretching up to the equatorial regions. An almost exact geographical parallel to the British Central Africa Protectorate is the State of Paraguay^ in South America; which, like British Central Africa, has only free access to the sea by the course of a navigable river under international control.
This book, however, will deal only with that Eastern portion of British Central Africa which has more or less come within my personal experience, that is to say it is principally confined to the regions bordering on Lakes Tanganyika and Nyasa and the River Shire.
Although for seven years I have been connected with these countries, and have been gathering notes all that time, it is not to be supposed for a moment that the results of my workwhich I now publish deal more than partially with the many aspects and problems of this small section of Central Africa. The careful reader will be conscious of gaps in my knowledge; but I think he will not find his time wasted by vague generalisations. Such information as I have to give is definite and practical. During my present leave of absence I have deemed it wise to gather together and publish the information I possess while an opportunity offered and before such information is useless
PREFACE
IX
or stale. Two years' more residence might have enabled me to answer to my satisfaction many questions about which I am dubious, or of which I know nothing. There will be room for specialists to take up many sections of my book, and using, perhaps, this arrangement of material as a basis, to correct and supplement the statements I have made.
MY TABLE IN THE WILDERNESS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
IT gives me great pleasure to acknowledge the help I have received from many friends and acquaintances in the production of this book. Sir Thomas Sanderson, k.cb., Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, has revised the proofs for me ; and Sir Clement Hill, k.c.m.g., and the African Department of the Foreign Office have enabled me to obtain information on various subjects ; Mr. Alfred Sharpe, H. M. Deputy Commissioner and Consul for British Central Africa, has given me from time to time interesting notes, and has taken a number of photographs for the special purposes of the book ; Mr. J. B. Yule, b.c.a.a., of the North Nyasa district, has lent me many of his photographs and has supplied me with information on native manners and customs; Dr. David Kerr Cross, m.b., has allowed me to use his valuable notes on Anthropology and the Diseases prevalent among Europeans and natives ; Mr. P. L. Sclater, f.r.s.. Secretary of the Zoological Society, has rendered me great help in preparing the chapters on Zoology, to which also Mr. Oldfield Thomas, Dr. A. G. Butler, Mr. W. F. Kirby and other officials of the British Museum of Natural History, and Mr. W. E. de Winton, f.z.s., have contributed information. Mr. Thiselton Dyer, cm.g., Director of the Royal Gardens, Kew, on this occasion (as indeed on all others when I have applied to him) has given his assistance with promptness and cordiality. Mr. Alexander Whyte, f.z.s. (Principal scientific officer in British Central Africa), has supplied me with much interesting information during six years ; Mr. J. F. Cunningham, Secretary of the British Central Africa Administration, and Mr. Wm. Wheeler, Chief accountant to the same, have obtained for me photographs and informa- tion under many heads ; the Rev. D. C. Ruifele-Scott, b.d. (of the Church of Scotland Mission, Blantyre), collected five vocabularies for me : I have found his dictionary of the Ci-nyanja (Chi-mananja) language a useful book of reference. The proprietors of the Graphic have been very kind in permitting the reproduction in these pages of certain drawings which originally appeared in one or other of their journals. Mr. Fred Moir, the Secretary to the African Lakes Company, placed his photographs at my disposal and helped me in various ways. The Rev. A. CJ. B. Glossop, m.a., Mr. R. Webb, and Miss Palmer, of the Universities Mission, have been particularly kind in obtaining and lending photographs. I have also derived much information from the notes and reports of the late Lieut.-Colonel C. A. Edwards, of Commander Percy Cullen, Captain W. H. Manning, and Messrs. J. E. McMaster, A. J. Swann, R. Codrington, H. A. Hillier, J. O. Bowhill, the late J. L. Nicoll and Gilbert Stevenson, H. C. McDonald,
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xi
J. McClounie, Donald Malloch, and the late E. G. Alston, of the British Central Africa Administration ; while I have also to acknowledge the loan of photographs from Messrs. E. Harrhy^ the late Gilbert Stevenson, Commander Percy Cullen, and many others.
A special mention should be made of the valuable Appendix to my chapter on "The Botany of British Central Africa" — the list of all the known species of plants collected there from 1859 to the present day. This list has been prepared for inclusion in my book, under the direction of Mr. Thiselton Dyer, by Mr. I. H. Burkill, B.A., a member of the Scientific Staff at Kew.
It will be seen from this long Ust of persons to whom I am indebted for information that my book represents the summing-up of others' researches as well as of my own, and that if praise be awarded to the book, as to the seven years' work of which it is the record, that praise must be fairly distributed among many workers. It is pleasant to me to think that one of my collaborators in this work is a native of British Central Africa.
H. H. JOHNSTON.
ORTHOGRAPHY
THE orthography of native words and names used throughout this book (except in the Vocabularies) is that of the Royal Geographical Society. All the consonants are pronounced as in English (except "n," which stands for the nasal sound in "ri«§i«^"), and the vowels as in Italian. Where the spelling of an African name is established in a European language it is not altered : Examples — Congo (Kongo), Mo9ambique (Msambiki), Quelimane (Keliman).
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter I. „ II.
APPENDIX I
Chapter III.
„ IV. appendix I
Chapter V.
„ VI.
APPENDIX I » 2
Chapter VII. „ VIII.
APPENDIX I
Chapter IX.
APPENDIX I 2
3 4 5 6
7 8
n if n
Chapter X.
APPENDIX I
Chapter XI. appendix i
Index
WHAT THE COUNTRY LOOKS LIKE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY
ANALYSIS OF NYASALAND COAL .
HISTORY . . . .
THE FOUNDING OF THE PROTECTORATE
THE pkESENT METHOD OF ADMINISTRATION
THE SLAVE TRADE .... THE EUROPEAN SETTLERS
BILIOUS HiEMOGLOBINURIC OR " BLACK-WATER " FEVER HINTS ON OUTFIT ....
MISSIONARIES ....
BOTANY .....
THE USEFUL FOREST TREES OF BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA
A LIST OF THE KNOWN PLANTS OF BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA
ZOOLOGY .....
LIST OF KNOWN MAMMALS OF BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA
REGULATIONS FOR PRESERVING BIG GAME
LIST OF KNOWN "BIRDS ....
LIST OF KNOWN REPTILES, BATRACHIANS, AND FISH
LIST OF KNOWN LAND SHELLS, MOLLUSCA, ETC
LIST OF KNOWN SPIDERS, CENTIPEDES, ETC
LIST OF KNOWN ORTHOPTERA, ETC.
LIST OF KNOWN LEPIDOPTERA .
LIST OF KNOWN COLEOPTERA
THE NATIVES OF BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA
DISEASES OF THE NATIVES OF BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA
LANGUAGES .....
VOCABULARIES ....
PAGE
I
35 51
52
So 152
155
160 184 185
189
207 227 233
285 322 326
347 361 363 365 380
381 385
389 473
479 488
533
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
Frontispiece . Vignette on Title-page
TITLE
An Angoni Warrior Portrait of the Author .
ix '' My table in the wilderness" . . . .
2 Borassus Palms on the Shire . ...
3 Tropical Vegetation on the banks of the Shire
5 The Leopard's resting-place : a mountain stream in Central Africa . . ...
7 A Tree Fern . . ...
8 " The Genius of the Woods " (green Turaco)
9 A Bamboo Thicket . . ...
10 ''Jack in the Beanstalks" Country
1 1 On the Plateau . . ...
12 The Mlanje Cedar Forests . ...
13 A Mlanje Mountain . . ...
14 A Rock Garden on Mlanje . ...
15 Papyrus Marsh and Saddle-billed Storks
22 The ** Sultan's Baraza" . . . .
25 Mount Kapemba, Tanganyika . ...
26 On Tanganyika . . ...
32 Niamkolo : South end of Tanganyika
33 " His Last Fight " . . ...
35 Forest on Mount Cholo, British Central Africa .
36 The Mlanje Range, seen from Zomba after rainfall
37 Native Clearing in Forest Country
38 The Shire at Chikwawa, just below the Murchison
FaUs . . . ...
39 Pinda Mountain and Pinda Marsh, Lower Shire.
40 Part of the Falls of the Ruo at Zoa
41 A Mountain Stream in Central Africa
42 First View of Mlanje Mountain from the Lower Shire
43 On the Upper Ruo . . ...
45 The Mlanje Range from the Tuchila Plain
46 Chambi Peak, Mlanje
47 The Likubula Gorge, Mlanje
48 On Lake Nyasa
49 The Lichenya River, Mlanje
50 The Shire Highlands . 53 Portrait of a Young Bushman
57 Governor's House, Tete
58 The Island of Mozambique, seen from the Mainland
SOURCE
Drawing by the Author. Photograph by Miss Kate Pragnell,
** The Lady Photographers, " Sloane
Street, S.W. Photograph by the Author.
»i »» »i
Drawing by the Author.
Painting by the Author. Drawing by the Author. Painting by the Author. Photograph by the Author.
Photograph by Mr. Wm. Wheeler. Photograph by the Author. Drawing by the Author.
»» »» »i
Photograph by the Author. Photograph by Mr. J. B. Yule. Photograph by Mr. Alfred Sharpe. Photograph by Mr. Fred. M. Moir. Painting by the Author. Photograph by the Author. Drawing by the Author. Photograph by the Author.
Drawing by the Author.
»» »» »>
Photograph by the Author.
>i »» »»
Drawing by the Author.
»» »i »»
>> )) ff
Photograph by the Author. Drawing by the Author. Photograph by Mr. J. B. Yule. Photograph by the Author.
»» »» >>
From a photograph.
»» »»
Drawing by the Author.
XVI
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE TITLE
6i The Point on the South Shore of Lake Nyasa whence the Lake was first seen by Dr. Livingstone and Sir John Kirk in 1859 . ...
67 Mandala House, near Blantyre.
72 L. Monteith Fothering-ham . ...
72 John Lowe Nicoll . . ...
73 Group of Wankonde (North Nyasa)
74 John W. Moir . . ...
74 Frederick Maitland Moir . ...
75 Mr. Alfred Sharpe in 1890 . ... 79 On the Chinde, Mouth of the Zambezi .
83 Sergeant-Major Ali Kiongwe . ...
85 Mr. John Buchanan . . ...
87 Masea and Mwitu, two of Livingstone's Makololo .
91 Outskirts of Kotakota . ...
92 The late Tawakali Sudi ; Jumbe of Kotakota, etc. .
93 North Nyasa Arabs : Bwana 'Omari in the foreground 95 Langenburg, Capital of German Nyasaland
98 Sikh Soldiers of the Contingent now serving in British
Central Africa . . ...
99 H.M.S. MosquitOy a Zambezi Gunboat .
1 01 Fort Johnston in 1895 . ...
103 Captain Cecil Montgomery Maguire
107 Mr. William Wheeler . ...
109 Mr. Ntcoll's House at Fort Johnston
no Trees planted by Mr. Nicoll at Fort Johnston (two years' growth) , . ...
1 1 1 The Nyasa Gunboats in Nkata Bay, West Nyasa
112 Lake Road, Chiromo . . . .
1 14 The Katunga Road in pre- Administration Days
115 Captain Sclater's Road to Katunga in process of
making . . ' . . .
1 16 Mr. J. F. Cunningham , ...
1 18 Lieut. -Colonel C. A. Edwards . ...
119 A Sikh Soldier in the B.C. A. uniform
1 19 A Sikh Soldier in fighting kit . . . .
1 20 A Sikh Soldier in fighting kit . . . .
120 Sikh Soldier in undress . . . .
121 Collector's House at Fort Lister
122 Captain W. H. Manning . ...
1 23 The Raphia Palm Marsh behind Chiwaura's
1 25 On the Beach at Monkey Bay . ...
1 26 One of Makanjira's Captured Daus at Monkey Bay .
1 27 The Hoisting of the Flag at Fort Maguire
1 29 The Beach at Makanjira's . ...
130 Three of Makanjira's Captured Daus (Fort Maguire)
131 A Rural Post Office, B.C.A. . ...
132 Watch Tower at Fort Johnston
133 A Sikh Sergeant-Major of the B.C.A. Contingent
134 Native Soldiers, B.C.A. . ...
135 An Atonga Soldier . . ...
136 In Zarafi's Town . . ...
SOURCE
Photograph by Mr. E. Harrhy. Photograph by Mr. Fred. M. Moir. Photograph by Mr. J. B. Yule.
»» >i »i
Photograph by the Author. From a photograph.
)t »»
Photograph by Mr. Fred. M. Moir. Photograph by Mr. J. B. Yule. Photograph by Commander Percy
Cullen. Photograph by Mr. J. Trotter. Photograph by the Author.
Photograph by Mr. Wm. Wheeler. From a photograph. Photograph by the Author. From a photograph. Photograph by the Author. Photograph by Mr. J. B. Yule.
Photograph by Mr. J. B. Yule. Photograph by the Author. Photograph by Mr. R. Webb. Photograph by the Author.
Photograph by the Author. Photograph by Mr. Wm. Wheeler.
f» )f »>
Photograph by the late Gilbert
Stevenson. Photograph by Mr. E. Harrhy.
»» II II
Photograph by Mr. J. B. Yule. Photograph by the late Gilbert
Stevenson. Photograph by Mr. Wm. Wheeler. Photograph by the Author. Photograph by Mr. J. B. Yule.
i» i» II
Photograph by the Author.
II i» II
Photograph by Rev. A. G. B. Glossop. Photograph by Mr. E. Harrhy. Photograph by Rev. A. G. B, Glossop. Photograph by Mr. Wm. Wheeler.
Photograph by the Author.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
xvu
(made by the B.C.A.
PAGE TITLE
137 Deep Bay Station
138 Mlozi, Chief of the North Nyasa Arabs
139 The Transports on their way to Karonga arriving in
Likoma Bay
141 A corner of Mlozi's Stockade
142 The Nyasa-Tanganyika Road
Administration)
143 The Nyasa-Tanganyika Road
144 In Fort Hill
145 The Stockade, Fort Hill
146 Mr. Alfred Sharpe in 1896
147 The Zomba-Mlanje Road
148 A Footbridge across the Mlungusi (Zomba)
150 The Gardens of the Residency, Zomba .
151 Mr. Whyte in the Gardens at Zomba 153 Barracks at Fort Johnston
156 A Swahili Slave-trader
157 Arab and Swahili Slave-traders captured by the
B.C.A. Forces
158 A ** Ruga-Ruga " (Mnyamwezi, Slave-raider employed
by the Arabs)
161 The Consulate, Blantyre
162 A CoflFee Tree in bearing
163 A Planter's temporary House . 165 Morambala Mount from the River Shire . 167 Sharrer's Store at Katunga 169 A**Capitao"
172 In Camp after a day's shooting
174 Natives making Bricks
'75 Cyprus Avenue, Blantyre
176 Eucalyptus Avenue
177 A Planter ....
178 An Ivory Caravan arriving at Kotakota
181 Ivory at Mandala Store (African Lakes Co.)
182 Kahn & Co.'s Trading Store at Kotakota 191 (r) Bishop Hornby (formerly of Nyasaland). (2) The
late Bishop Maples of Likoma
194 Native Church at Msumba, Lake Nyasa (Universities
Mission) .....
199 Blantyre Church (Church of Scotland Mission)
207 Flowers of the Gardenia Tree .
208 Lissochilus Orchids . . . .
209 An Angrcecum Orchis . . .
210 The ^»s^//f a or "Tiger" Orchis
211 A Red Lily . . ......
212 Oil Palms near the Songvve River, North Nyasa
212 Pl Raphia ^SiXm . . . .
213 Raphia Palm Fruiting
214 Borassus Palms . . . .
214 Wild Date Palms ....
215 A Kced SraXiQ (Phragw,ites communis) .
217 Plumes and Young Shoot of /%m§7//«V^j.
218 Barbed Seeds of Stipa . ...
SOURCE
Photograph by the Author. Photograph by Mr. Fred Moir.
Photograph by Miss Palmer. Drawing by the Author.
Photograph by Mr. J. B. Yule.
Photograph by the Author.
• >» »» »»
Photograph by Mr. Wm. Wheeler.
»> >» »»
Photograph by the Author.
»> »f if
Photograph by Mr. Wm. Wheeler.
Photograph by Mr. Fred Moir.
Photograph by Mr. E. Harrhy.
Photograph by Mr. Wm. Wheeler.
Photograph by Mr. Alfred Sharpe.
Drawing by the Author.
From a photograph.
Photograph by the late Gilbert
Stevenson. Photograph by Mr. E. Harrhy. Photograph by Mr. J. B. Yule. Photograph by Mr. Fred Moir. Photograph by the Author. Photograph by Mr. J. F. Cunningham. From a photograph. Photograph by Mr. Fred Moir. From a photograph.
Photograph by Miss Palmer.
Photograph by Mr. R. Webb. Photograph by Mr. Fred Moir. Drawing by the Author.
Photograph by the Author.
>» ft >»
Drawing by the Author. Photograph by Mr. Alfred Sharpe. Photograph by the Author. Drawing by the Author,
XVlll
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE TITLE
2i8 Papyrus
2i8 A Large Duckweed (Pistia stratiotes)
219 An Alhiszia Tree
220 The Mucuna Bean
221 A Baobab Tree
222 The Euphorbia of the Plains
222 Candelabra Euphorbias
223 A Landolphia Liana .
224 Sansevieria Fibre Plant
225 Growth of Branches ; Foliage ; and Cones of the
Mlanje Cedar ( Widdringtonia wkytet) ,
226 Young Mlanje Cedar . 290 A Spotted Hyena 293 The Central African Zebra 297 Head of a Hippopotamus 299 A Wart Hog
302 Head of a Buffalo
303 Horns of Congo Buffalo
304 Livingstone's Eland .
305 Horns of Livingstone's Eland
306 A Male Bushbuck
307 Head of a Male Kudu
310 Diagram showing origin and relationships of modern
groups of Homed Ruminants
311 A Klipspringer
312 A Male Reedbuck
312 A Male Reedbuck's Head
313 A Male Waterbuck
314 A Female Waterbuck .
315 The Sable Antelope .
318 A Roan Antelope
319 Johnston's Pallah
320 The Nyasaland Gnu (Connochates taurinus johnstont) 329 The Elephant Marsh 335 The Syndactylous Foot
338 Spur- winged Geese .
339 Crowned Cranes 343 A Pelican of Tanganyika
343 A Stilt Plover
344 Head and foot of Fruit-pigeon
345 The Warlike Crested Eagle (SpiacBtus bellicosus)
346 A Small Falcon (Falco minor) 357 Nyasa Crocodiles
360 Chromis squamipennis ; Hemichromis Hvingsh
Fish of Lake Nyasa
361 Engraulicypris pinguis
371 A Termite Ant-hill
372 A Stick Insect
373 A Locustid Insect 378 The Tsetse Fly . 388 An Angoni Man from the West Nyasa district
390 A Mnyanja ....
391 A Yao Man ....
SOURCE
Drawing by the Author.
}) f) ft
Photograph by Mr. Wm. Wheeler. Drawing by the Author. Photograph by Mr. J. B. Yule.
»i »» >»
Drawing by the Author.
»» »» i»
Photograph by Mr. Foulkes.
Drawing by the Author.
»i II »»
Photograph by the Author. Drawing by the Author. From a photograph. Drawing by the Author.
Engraving lent by the Zoological
Society. Drawing by the Author.
Photograph by Mr. Alfred Sharpe. Drawing by the Author.
Photograph by the Author. Drawing by the Author.
Zoological Society's Proceedings.
»i ♦» »»
Photograph by Miss Palmer. Drawing by the Author.
Photograph by Mr. Wm. Wheeler.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
XIX
PAGE TITLE
393 An Arab of Tanganyika (Rumaliza)
395- A Mtonga Man (to show profile)
397 A Yao of the Upper Shire
398 An Angoni from Mombera's country
399 Boy with well-developed breasts
400 A Young Mother (showing pendent breasts)
401 Wankonde Men 403 A Munkonde from North Nyasa 405 Sketch of Muscular Development in a Yao 407 A Yao Woman 411 Young Munkonde Girl 414 A Mtonga Man 416 ** A Good Mother " (Sketch of a Mnyanja woman)
420 A Yao of Zomba
421 A "Ruga-Ruga"
423 Specimens of Tatooing ; Comb ; Plugs for insertion
in ear, lips, nose, etc.
424 Example of ** Pelele" in upper lip
424 Another example of the " Pelele "
425 Wooden Hoe ; and wooden Hammer for beating out
bark cloth
427 North Nyasa Native smoking hemp
428 Banana Grove (Mlanje) 431 Wankonde Cattle 433 The Domestic Goat of -South and Central Africa
453 A typical Native House in South Nyasaland
454 A Nkonde House 457 Natives making a prone tree trunk into a canoe
457 A River Pilot
458 Weaving in Angoniland
459 Weaving on the Nyasa-Tanganyika Plateau
460 Women making Pots .
461 Pipes for hemp and tobacco
462 Central African Weapons, etc. .
464 African Dancer and Drum Players
465 A Mu-lungu of South Tanganyika blowing
trumpet ....
467 A ** Sansi " .
470 Angoni Warriors
470 Head stuck on a pole after a native war .
472 "Young Africa"
SOURCE
Photograph by Mr. Fred Moir. Drawing by the Author.
Photograph by Mr. J. B. Yule. Drawing by the Author. Photograph by the Author. Photograph by Mr. Alfred Sharpe. Drawing by the Author. Photograph by Mr. Wm. Wheeler. Photograph by Mr. J. B. Yule. Drawing by the Author.
ivory
480
Map showing the lines of migration of the Bantu tribes in their invasion of Southern Africa
Photograph by Mr. Wm. Wheeler.
Drawing by the Author.
»i »> »»
Photograph by the Author. Photograph by Mr. Fred Moir. Drawing by the Author. Photograph by the Author.. Photograph by Mr. Fred Moir. Photograph l>y Mr. Yule. Photograph by Mr. R. Webb. Photograph by Mr. Fred Moir.
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Photograph by Mr. Yule. Drawing by the Author.
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From a photograph.
Drawing by the Author from a
photograph by Mr. Yule. Drawing by the Author. Photograph by Mr. J. F.Cunningham. Drawing by the Author. Photograph by the late Gilbert
Stevenson.
Drawing by the Author.
MAPS
1. Map of British Central Africa, showing approximate rainfall, naviga
bility of rivers, etc.
2. showing Orographical features
3- showing Administrative divisions
4. Map of the Shire Highlands
5. Map of British Central Africa, showing density of population and
aistribution of native tribes
6. showing Mission Stations and Foreign Settlers and Settlements
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To face |
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41 46 |
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154 188 |
BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA
CHAPTER I. WHAT THE COUNTRY LOOKS LIKE
BEFORE I begin to discourse on the dull facts of history and geography let me try to give my reader some idea of what the country looks like by describing certain set scenes and panoramas. Perhaps from these he may <lerive a clearer impression of the general appearance and the many diverse aspects of British Central Africa.
A steadily flowing river. In the middle of the stream an islet of very green grass, so lush and so thick that there are no bright lights or sharp shadows — simply a great splodge of rich green in the middle of the shining water which reflects principally the whitish-blue of the sky ; though this general tint becomes opaline and lovely as mother-of-pearl, owing to the swirling of the current and the red-gold colour of the concealed sand-banks which in shallow places permeates the reflections. Near to the right side of the grass islet separated only by a narrow mauve-tinted band of water is a sand-bank that has been uncovered, and on this stands a flock of perhaps three dozen small white egrets -closely packed, momentarily immoveable, and all stiffly regardant of the approaching steamer, each bird with a general similarity of outline almost Egyptian in its monotonous repetition.
The steamer approaches a little nearer, and the birds rise from the sand-bank with a loose flapping flight and strew themselves over the landscape like a shower of large white petals. On the left bank of the river looking down stream is a grove of borassus palms rising above the waterside fringe of white flowered reeds and apple-green mopheads of papyrus. The trunks of the taller palms are smooth and whitish, but those of younger growth nearer to the ground are still girt about by a fierce spiky hedge of dead black-stemmed fronds. The crowns of the palm trees are symmetrical and fan-shaped in general outline, while each individual frond has in its inner side a horse-shoe curve. The colour of the fronds is a deep bluish-green singularly effective in contrast with the grey-white column they surmount. The fruit of the palms, when they can be descried, are like huge yellow-green apples thickly clustered on pendent racemes protruding from the centre round which the fronds radiate.
2 BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA
Behind the palm forest is a long line of blue mountain so far away that it is just a faint blue silhouette against the paler blue sky. The afternoon is well advanced^ and in the eastern sky, which is a warm pinkish blue, the full moon has already risen and hangs there a yellow-white shield with no radiance. On the opposite bank of the river to the palm trees is a clump of tropical forest of the richest green with purple shadows, lovely and seductive in its warm tints under the rays of the late afternoon sun. Here are large albizzia trees.* Over the water- side hang thick bushes overgrown with such a drapery of convolvulus creepers
BORASSUS PALMS ON THE SHIRE
that the foliage of the bush is almost hidden. This green lacework is beauti- fully lit up by large mauve flowers. Above the bushes rise the heads of the wild date palm, and amid the fronds of this wild date here and there a cluster of its small orange fruit peeps out. These palms rise over masses of foliage, and occasionally top the higher trees, growing within their canopy in almost parasitic fashion. This cluster of tropical vegetation will be here and there scooped out into fairy bowers by the irregularities of the bank. Sometimes the trees will overhang the stream where the bank has been washed away. Tiny kingfishers of purple-blue and chestnut-orange flit through the dark network of gnarled trunks, and deep in this recess of shade small night-herons and bitterns stand bolt upright, so confident in their assumed invisibility against a back-
' A genus related to the acacia with the thickest foliage of pinnate leaves looking at a distance like green velvet.
WHAT THE COUNTRY LOOKS LIKE 3
ground of brown and grey that they do not move even when the steamer passes so close by them as to brush against the tangle of convolvulus and knock down sycomore figs from the glossy-leaved, many-rooted fig trees.
It is a backwater on the Shire river, or perhaps not so much a backwater as a sluggish branch of the stream which the main current has deserted and left hidden away between bosky islands and the high wooded bank. The flow of the current is not discernible, and the reflections are glassy and mirror-like in their exactitude, except that the surface of the water in the foreground is strewn with oval lotus leaves looking in shape and even colour exactly like those copper ashtrays or cardtrays made in Indian ware with slightly turned -up crinkled edges. The scene is much framed in with overarching foliage and branches from island and opposite hank. On this shore of the mainland
TROPICAL VEGETATION ON THE BANKS OF THE SHIRE
there are tall acacia trees with smooth pale-green trunks and whitish-green branches, and a feathery light-green foliage spangled with hanging clumps of tiny golden-stamened, petalless flowers which exhale the most penetrating, absolute, and honeyed of all flower scents, a scent so strong that it may be wafted on a still, hot day across a mile of water. In the middle distance is a fine group of trees, elm-like in shape, growing on the river bank above the flood limit. In the farthest distance a few sparse-foliaged acacias stand out against the grey-blue sky above a high fence of reeds. In the nearer distance one clump of spear-like reeds rises from the waterlilies and shows some fine white flowering plumes against the dark background of the forest clump. In the foreground is a huge snag, the relic of a fine forest tree that has been washed down in the flood and stranded in the mud of this backwater. On its branches are perched darters with sheeny plumaged bodies of greenish-black and chestnut-coloured necks ending in a head and spear-like beak, so slim that it seems a mere termination of the angular weapon of the neck. Amongst the waterlily leaves rise the beautiful blue-pink flowers that are styled the lotus.
4 BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA
We are going to climb a mountain. First there are the low foothills to surmount. The soil is red and hard ; the grass is scattered and in yellow wisps, and the many wild flowers are drooping, for it is the end of the dry season. The trees are in foliage, though the rains have not yet fallen, and the young leaves at this stage are seldom green, but the most beautiful shades of carmine pink, of pinkish yellow, of greenish mauve, and even inky purple. Here and there sprays of foliage are in a more advanced development, and are green with a bluish bloom, or of the brightest emerald. But the height of the trees is not great, and their leaves, though large, are scattered in a tufty growth that yields but a feeble patchwork of shade from the hot sun ; the branches are coarse, and thick, and seldom straight, they look just like the branches of trees drawn from imagination by amateur water-colour artists. In many cases the bark is still black and sooty with the scorching of the recent bush fires. The general impression of all this vegetation, though one is forced to admire the individual tints of the newly-opened leaves, is disappointing. It is scrubby. The land- scape has not the dignity of a blasted heath, or the simplicity of a sandy desert; its succession of undulations of low scattered forest of such a harlequin variation of tints is such as to produce no general effect of definite form and settled colour on the eye. But this is a good game country. As you plod along the hard red path, baked almost into brick by the blazing sun acting on the red mud of the rainy season, you will suddenly catch sight of a splendid sable antelope with ringed horns, almost in a half oval, a black and white face, a glossy black body, white^ stomach, fringed and tufted tail, and heavy black mane ; or, it may be, his beautiful female of almost equal bulk, but with smaller horns, and with all the markings and coloration chestnut and white instead of white and black. Unless you are very quick with your rifle, the beast will soon be hid and almost undiscoverable amongst the low trees and bushes.
The path is broken here and there by seams of granite. Every now and then there is a regular scramble over wayworn rocks; granite boulders are more and more interspersed amongst the red clay. Between the boulders grow aloes with fleshy leaves of green, spotted with red, and long flower spikes of crimson which end in coral -coloured flower buds — buds which open grudgingly at the tip; the edges of the sprawling aloe leaves are dentelated, and in their tendency to redness sometimes all green is merged in a deep vinous tint.
Now there is less scrub, and the trees as we ascend become larger and more inclined to stand in clumps; their foliage is thicker. We are approaching a stream, and its course is marked by a forest of a different type, fig trees of various species, tall parinariums (a tree which bears a purple plum), huge- leaved gomphias, and velvet-foliaged albizzias. On either side of the stream, also, there is a jungle of bamboos, and the path descends from out of the weary- glare of the white sunlight on the red clay into a cool, moist, green tunnel through the numberless spear-heads of bamboo leaves. There are many ferns on either side of the stream bank and beautiful carmine lilies^ are growing by the water*s edge, but as the rains are still withheld there is but a thin film of water slipping down over the grey rocks and brown pebbles, and the stream may be easily crossed from stepping stone to stepping stone. Then a clamber up the opposite bank and through the bamboo out once more into the scorching sunshine, and so on and on along a winding path through a native village
' See illustration, page 211.
THE leopard's RESTING-PLACE: A MOUNTAIN STREAM IN CENTRAL AFRICA
WHAT THE COUNTRY LOOKS LIKE
7
with its untidy haycocks of huts, its clumps of bananas, plantations of sweet potatoes and tobacco, and adjoining stubble fields where gaunt isolated stalks of sorghum still linger. The blue mountain wall towards which we are aiming rises higher into the sky, and its blue vagueness becomes resolvable into a detail of purple and yellow grey. But though the sun is hotter than ever as it approaches the zenith our continual ascent brings us to a region that enjoys more benign conditions of nioisture and coolness at night time. The young green grass is more advanced than down below, the herbage is so thick that the red soil is almost hidden. The wild flowers commence to be beautiful. There are innumerable ground orchids in various shades of mauve or yellow, or with strange green blossoms, or flowers of richest orange. A beautiful white clematis grows from an upright stalk, and here and there are bushes of a kind of mallow, which bears large azalea -like clusters of the most perfect blush pink. Higher up still there are more and more flowers in many shades of blue and mauve and yellow. There is a small kind of sunflower that is a deep maroon crimson, and another coreopsis more like the cultivated sunflower with flaming yellow petals. In moist places — and the path is now constantly crossing small brooks — grows the dissotis, with large flowers of deep red -mauve. The path curves and twists and runs up above heights and then down into deep ravines, and still the flowers grow thicker and thicker and more lovely, till in the ecstasy of a colour dream, all remembrance of the sun's heat, of your great fatigue and your sweat -drenched clammy garments is for- gotten. On the hill-sides there are frequent clumps of wild date palms, some of which rise to a great height with their slender stems often bowed or curved and seldom
perpendicular. Then you come to your first tree-fern, or if you are a botanist you are delighted with a rare cycad growing majestically alone and looking very much as though it were an admirable piece of artificial foliage executed in green bronze. Still ascending, with a pause here and a rest there in the absolute shade of the great forest trees, tree-ferns become so abundant at last as to make fairy forests of themselves, excluding other arborescence. Then they give way again to densely- packed thick -foliaged forest trees of low growth through which a path winds over many a bole and through many a bamboo bower in deep green gloom. Through this gloom flit the crimson - winged turacos, the lovely genii of the African forest — birds of purple-blue, bluish-green and grass-green silky plumage with a white-tipped crest, red parrot- like beaks, and bare red cheeks, but always, no matter what their species, with the broad, rounded pinion feathers of the wing the most perfect scarlet-crimson ever seen in nature. The loud parrot cries of these
A TREE-FERN
8
BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA
birds (not unmelodious) echo and re-echo through the forest glades as the>r call to one another; and here is a crimson flash, and there is a long crimson streak drawn across the green background as they fly backwards and forwards before the delighted intruder.
Runnels of water will at times trickle through the black leaf mould of the scarcely discernible path, and you will come to many a fairy glen where the dark, clear, cold water lies in deep pools amongst the ferns.
'*THK GENIUS OF THE WOODS " (GREEN TURACO)
The forest for a time will give place to a bamboo thicket, the bamboos perhaps of a different species to those lower down, with smaller and finer leaves of a deeper green ; nothing more beautiful than these bamboo glades is to be seen in the way of vegetation. It is difficult to express in words the effect which is produced by thousands of narrow, pointed leaves of shiny surface shaped like small spear blades — a wall of green facets — moving at times with a faint tremor which sends a shimmering of green around you, accompanied by the tiniest whispering sound. No transformation scene ever shown on the stage was so beautiful as a bamboo glade on the high mountain side with, invariably,, water falling down the centre of the picture in tiny cascades and the soft ground carpeted with a deposit of cast leaves like thin spear blades of pale gold.
WHAT THE COUNTRY LOOKS LIKE 9
Beyond the bamboos the path becomes terrible. You emerge from the gloom of this first forest belt on to bare rock and obtain glorious views over the flower-braided hill-slopes below, over the band of dark green velvet forest, and beyond into plains that are purple-blue with a diamond flash of water here and there till the horizon is closed up with the palest silhouettes of other mountains.
The path is now scarcely apparent. It is a hazardous progress up a steep face of smooth polished rock from grass clump to grass clump. Here and there on ledges of the rock where a little vegetable soil may have collected tussocks of grass are growing, and these afibrd a precarious foothold ; nevertheless though there is no good path it is obvious' that men often pass this way up and down the mountains since the tussocks of grass that are regularly trodden
A BAMBOO THICKET
on are grey and dead in comparison to those untouched by the human foot, which remain green. Here the difficulty of your ascent will be lightened by the joy you must feel in the lobelias, if you have any sense of colour. In the crevices of these glabrous-looking mountain ribs will grow bunches of lobelias extravagant in their thousands of blue flowerets.
At last the ascent of this mountain wall is safely accomplished, and you fling yourself panting on short wiry turf growing in clumps and know that you have reached the limits of " J ack-in-the- Beanstalk's" country.
All the great mountains of South Central Africa seem to be isolated fragments of an older plateau, and most of them present more or less precipitous wall-like sides rising above the foot hills, which latter are created by land slides and dibriSy or represent smaller remains of the plateau that in course of time have been more worn away than the larger blocks constituting the big mountains or the long mountain ranges. These wall-like sides are naturally difficult of ascent ; but when one has clambered up over the edge, and on to
lO
BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA
the more level surface of the upraised tableland, it is a veritable " Jack-in-the Beanstalk's" country, quite different in aspect to the tropical plains below. Turning your eyes away, however, from the blue gulf which yawns beneath the precipitous ascent of several thousand feet — which blue gulf after analysis by the eye resolves itself into the faint map of many leagues of surrounding countries — you find that the plateau on which you stand is a little world in itself. The general surface is rolling grass land and beautifully-shaped downs, with little streams and little lakes, and little forests ; and again from out of this tableland little mountains of one to three thousand feet, chiefly of granite, rise up into the clouds and in their austere rockiness contrast charmingly with the lawns of short grass, the flowery vales, and the rich woodlands at their base. Altogether the scenery is pretty rather than grand, and if you could forget the ascent you have made and your geographical position, you might imagine
*'JACK-IN.THE-BEANSTALK*S'* COUNTRY
yourself in Wales, and believe that country of this sort stretched inimitably before you for miles and miles, were it not that upon walking a few steps in another direction you suddenly stop shuddering on the sharp edge of an awful gulf— a gulf which on a misty day might be the end and edge of the world.
It is a " Jack-in-the-Beanstalk" country. A little section of land upraised and quite apart from the rest of Tropical Africa with a climate and flora of its own, and as a rule without indigenous human inhabitants. The fauna of these altitudes has usually peculiar features though most of the mammals differ but little from those of the plains. Antelopes, buffalos, and even elephants will scramble to these heights, if they be in any way accessible, for the sake of the sweet herbage ; therefore in your ramblings over these plateaux you may catch sight of big game, and even meet in its train the lion and leopard. The woods of Cape-oak and other evergreens — the branches of which are hung with long sprays of greenish-white lichen, "the old man's beard "^ — are resonant with the
^ Ustteay the * * orchilla '' weed of commerce.
WHAT THE COUNTRY LOOKS LIKE
1 1
cries of turacos, possibly a species slightly differing from that found in the warmer climate of the plains or hill-sides. Most of the other birds will be allied to South African, Abyssinian or even European species — large purple pigeons with yellow beaks or pretty doves with roseate tinge and white heads ; orioles of green and yellow and grey; chats, buntings, fly-catchers, plump speckled francolin and tiny harlequin-quails ; few, if any birds of prey, but many great-billed black and white ravens and an occasional black crow. The wild flowers remind one touchingly of home. There are violets, there is a rare primula, there are buttercups, forget-me-nots, St. John's wort, anemones, vivid blue hound's-tongue and heather. Unfamiliar, however, are the lovely ground orchids, the strange proteas and the " everlasting " flowers. Also there are strag- gling arborescent heaths, almost like small conifers in appearance, though other forms more closely resemble our own heather. Near the edges of the plateau
ON THE PLATEAU
amongst the rocks grows a big kind of tree-lily with a gouty, pachydermatous, branching stem and tufts of grass-like leaves. If it be, as I imagine, the early spring when you are ascending the mountain, these otherwise ugly shrubs will be covered with white lily-like blossoms.
The air of these lofty plateaux is cool and bracing and the sunshine harmless in the day-time. When the weather is fine the sky is a lovely pale-blue. Daylight under these conditions is one long inexhaustible joy of living. F*atigue is not felt ; the sun's heat is pleasantly warm ; a moderate thirst can be delightfully quenched in the innumerable ice-cold brooks ; but when the sun is set — set amid indescribable splendour in what appears to be the middle of the sky, so high is the horizon — nature wears a different even an alarming aspect : unless you have a cheerful log-hut to enter or a well-pitched comfortable tent (with a roaring fire burning at a safe distance from the tent porch) you will feel singularly dismal. Perhaps a thunder-storm may have come on. Enormous masses of cloud may be bearing down on and enveloping you — thunder of the most deafening description breaks around you and
12
BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA
re-echoes worse than any roar of artillery in battle from every ravine and hill-side. The drenching rain or the driving mist may be chilling your half-naked followers into blue numbness, and even bringing them, if they are unsheltered, dangerously near death from cold. Even if it be a fine night, and the moon shining, there will be something a little repellent and awe- striking in the world outside your tent. The forest, to the vicinity of which you have come for shelter, is very black, and the strange cries of bird and beast coming from these depths quite confirm the native belief that the trees are haunted with the spirits of the departed. The stars seem so near to you.
I'HE MLANJE CEDAR FORESTS
and if in the moonlight you have found your way over the tussocky grass to the edge of the plateau and looked forth on a sleeping universe you feel a little frightened — so completely are you aloof from the living world of man. It is much pleasanter, therefore, to be shut up in a good tent or log cabin, snugly ensconced in bed (for it is probably freezing hard) reading a novel.
We are on the upper plateau of Mlanje, grandest of all British Central African mountains. It is early morning, say 6.30 a.m. We have been roused by our native attendants, have had a warm bath and a cup of coffee and are now inspecting our surroundings in the glory of the early sunshine. On the short wiry grass there lies a white rime of frost as we walk down the slope to the cedar woods. Here rises up before us a magnificent forest of straight and noble trees, of conifers ^ which in appearance resemble cedars of Lebanon
' IVuidrini^foftia whyiei.
WHAT THE COUNTRY LOOKS LIKE
13
though they have also a look of the Scotch pine and are actually in their natural relationship allied to the cypress. Their trunks are straight and the outer bark is often bleached white ; the wood is the tint of a cedar pencil. The foliage which on the older trees grows in scant tufts (leaving a huge white skeleton of sprawling branches) on the younger trees is abundant, bluish-green
ON MLANJE MOUNTAIN
below and the dark, sombre green of the fir tree above. The extremities of each branch have a pretty upward curl.
Much of the undergrowth of these cedar woods is a smaller species of Widdringtonia with a lighter green foliage, most gracefully pendent and starlike in each cluster of needles.
Oh ! the deep satisfying peace of these cedar woods. The air is thick with the odour of their wholesome resin. The ground at our feet is a springy
14
BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA
carpet of emerald green moss out of which peep anemones and primulas. Here indeed when the mild warmth of the day has dried up the night dews might one lie half stupefied by the rich aroma of the cedar wood, " the world forgetting, by the world forgot," while the big purple pigeons with white- streaked necks and yellow beaks resume their courtship on the branches above
A ROCK GARDEN ON MLANJE
our heads. Beyond the cedar wood is the mountain-side strewn with innumer- able boulders and cubes of rock which are interspersed with huge everlasting flowers and a strange semi-Alpine vegetation. If we are trying to scramble up these to reach the summit we shall hear from time to time the musical trickle of water in caverns and holes, closed in by these strong boulders and thickly hung with mosses and ferns. Should we then have reached any of the great summits of Mlanje and looked down into its central crater we shall realise that here must have been at one time volcanic action. The
PAPYRUS MARSH AND SADDLE-BILLRD STORKS
WHAT THE COUNTRY LOOKS LIKE 17
scene before us is an indescribable wilderness of stones and boulders which look as though they had been hurled right and left from some central eruption.^
On the left-hand side stretches an arid plain of loose friable soil once formed below the water, and white with the lime of decomposed shells blazing in the reverberating sunshine of noonday — the refracted heat of its surface so great that the horizon quivers in wavy lines before our half-blinded eyes ; on the other side a papyrus marsh with open pools of stagnant water. Beyond the arid waste of light soil on which a few grey wisps of grass are growing, lie the deep blue waters of a lake — almost an indigo blue at noonday and seen from this angle. Behind the papyrus marsh is a line of pale blue-grey mountains — a flat wash of colour, all detail veiled by the heat haze. We are at the mouth of a great river and the marshes on one side of us repre- sent either its abandoned channels half dried up or its back water at times of overflow. For a mile or so the eye, turning away with relief from the scorching, bleached, barren plain which lies between us and the lake, looks over many acres of apple-green papyrus. The papyrus, as you will observe, is a rush with a smooth, round, tubelike stem, sometimes as much as six feet in height. The stem terminates in a great mop-head of delicate green filaments which are often bifid at their ends. Three or four narrow leaflets surround the core from which the filaments diverge. If the papyrus be in flower small yellow-green nodules dot the web of the filaments. With the exception of this inflorescence the whole rush — stem, leaves, and mop-head — is a pure apple- green and the filaments are like shining silk.
The water in the open patches in between the islands and peninsulas of papyrus is quite stagnant and unruffled and seemingly clear. Sometimes the water is black and foetid but its tendency to corruption is often kept in check by an immense growth of huge duck weed, — the Pistia stratioteSy for all the world like a pale green lettuce.
A pair of saddle-billed storks are wading through the marsh, searching for fish and frogs and snakes. Their huge beaks are crimson -scarlet, with a black band, and their bodies are boldly divided in coloration between snowy white, inky-black, and bronze-green.
On Lake Nyasa. The steamer on which you are a passenger, in imagina- tion, has left her safe anchorage in the huge harbour of Kotakota in the early morning and rounding the long sandspit which shields the inlet from the open lake, finds herself breasting a short, choppy sea. The waves at first are a muddy green where the water is shallow but soon this colour changes to a deep, cold, unlovely indigo. A strong southern breeze is blowing in your teeth and each billow is crested with white foam. The " Mwera " or south-easter — the wind which ravages the lake at certain times— is to-day against you, and you are condemned by circumstances to steam southwards opposed by this strong gale. As you get out into the middle of the lake the situation is almost one of danger, for the vessel on which you are travelling, though dignified with the name of "steamer," is not much larger than a Thames steam launch. In such weather as this she could not possibly go far with the billows on her beam
* These isolated fragments of granitic rock are found miles away from the Mlanje mountain in the plains below bearing all the appearance of having been hurled through the air for miles into the surround- ing country. Mlanje mountain is evidently a large slice left of the pre-existing tableland from which again volcanic cones have risen.
1 8 BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA
or she would be rolled over ; then again if the steamer went northwards with a following sea she would be speedily swamped ; her only course — and it happens on this occasion to fit in with preconcerted arrangements — is to steam southwards, facing both wind and waves. At times the vessel seems to be standing on end as she crests some huge ridge of water ; and as she descends into the furrow this broad-backed roller comes up under her stern and floods the upper deck. Then again she mounts, to fall again and mount again and fall again, until the best sailor in the world would be dizzy with this hateful see-saw motion. In fact, if it were not quite so dangerous, an ordinary passenger would give way to seasickness ; yet on this occasion you are too frightened that the ship may be swamped and founder to bestow much attention on the qualms of your stomach.
But the captain is hopeful, and tells you that as this is the third day the wind has been blowing it will probably cease towards the evening. Overhead, in spite of the whistling wind, the sky is clear of clouds and a pale blue. The lake is dark indigo, flecked with white foam — not the rich, creamy, thick, white froth of saltwater, but a transparent clear foam like innumerable glass drops reflecting the sunlight coldly from many facets.
The lake is perhaps forty miles broad. North and south there is a clear sea horizon. East and west there are pale greyish-blue outlines of mountain ranges ; but owing to the driving wind and the slight diffusion of ' spray at lower levels, or some such atmospheric cause, the lower slopes of the mountains are invisible and the distant land has no direct connection with the sharp-cut line of the indigo, foam-flecked water.
But with the afternoon heat the wind gradually lessens in force — lessens to a positive calm an hour before sunset ; and the waters of the lake so easily aroused are as quickly and as easily appeased. As the wind diminishes in force the waves grow less and less till they are but a gentle swell or a mere ripple. At last, half an hour before sunset, you have the following scene before you. The steamer is now travelling smoothly and on an even keel along the south-east coast of Nyasa. The eastern sky is a yellowish white, which near the horizon becomes a very pale russet pink. The distant range of mountains facing the rays of the almost setting sun has its hollows and recesses and ravines marked in faint shadows of pinkish-purple, while the parts bathed in sunlight are yellowish grey. On the left-hand side of the picture the land projects somewhat into the lake in a long spit surmounted with low wooded hills, where the ground is reddish-brown dotted with white rocks, and the trees are a warm russet green in their lights and mauve-blue in their shadows. In the middle of the view, breaking the long line of the water horizon under the distant mountains are three warm-tinted blots of brown-pink, that represent three islets.
The water of the lake, however, gives the greatest feast of colour. Its ground tint near the horizon is a lemon white, which changes insensibly to silver-blue close up to the ship's side. But this immobile sheet of lemon- white, melting into palest azure, is scratched here and smeared there (like plush which has had the nap brushed the wrong way) with streaks and patches of palest amber. The whole effect is that of a great mirror of tarnished silver. The amber-white of these disconnected areas of ripples, where the expiring breeze faintly ruffles the perfect calm of the reflected sky, resembles the pinkish brown stains on a silver surface just becoming discoloured from exposure to the light.
WHAT THE COUNTRY LOOKS LIKE 19
Presently it will be night with a sky of purple grey studded with pale gold specks of stars and planets, all of which will be reflected in the calm lake, so that the steamer will seem to be carving her way through a liquid universe.
In a native village near to a great river there are three Europeans in a hut. Although styled generically a " hut '' this native dwelling is of considerable size, with a high-peaked thatched roof like a broad-mouthed funnel in shape, the straggling ends of the thatch coming down to within a couple of feet of the ground and so, to some extent, shielding from the sun the raised verandah of grey mud which runs half round the outside. But the low-hanging thatch screens the doorway into the hut, making the interior dark even though the European occupants have broken small holes in the clay walls to let in a little more light from the shaded verandah. Inside, the rafters of palm ribs, which form the structure of the roof, are all shiny cockroach-black with the smoke of many months which has ascended to the roof and found its way out through the thatch. Cobwebs, covered with soot, hang from the rafters.
Of the three white men inside this hut two are well and hearty — faces red, and arms sun-tanned — and are seated upon empty provision cases : the third is sick unto death, with dull eyes, haggard cheeks and — if there is daylight enough to see it by — a complexion of yellowish-grey. He is stfetched on a low camp bed, is dressed in a dirty sleeping suit, and partially covered by two trade blankets of garish red, blue and yellow, one of which slips untidily to the dusty floor of hardened earth. The two healthy men are smoking pipes vigorously ; but the smell of strong Boer tobacco is not sufficient to disguise the nauseous odours of the sick room, and the fumes of whisky, which arise both from an uncorked bottle and from the leavings of whisky and water in two enamelled- iron cups.
By the sick man's bedside on a deal box is an enamelled-iron basin con- taining grey gruel-like chicken broth, in which large bits of ship's biscuit are floating. The soup has been made evidently without skill or care, for it has the yellow chicken fat floating on the top and even an occasional drowned feather attached to the sodden remnants of fowl. Also, there are a cup containing strong whisky and water (untouched), a long-necked bottle of lime juice, and a phial of Quinine pills.
The sick man turns ever and anon to the further side of the bed to vomit, and after one of these attacks he groans with the agony of futile nausea. " Cheer up, old chap !" says one of his companions, *' we sent yesterday morning to the doctor-man at the mission station : it is only about thirty miles away and he ought to be here this afternoon." The doorway is darkened for a moment but not with the doctor's advent. A negro girl has stooped under the thatch to enter through the low doorway and for a moment obscures the dubious light refracted from the small piece of blazing sun-lit ground visible under the eaves. " Here, ^V, you black slut," shouts one of the men (he with the sandy beard and pockmarked face), lifting up a short whip of hippopotamus hide to enforce his remark. ** Hold on," says the other healthy one, a tall brawny Cornishman, with dark eyes and black beard, " it is only his girl ; harmless enough too, poor thing, considering she has known him more'n a fortnight. It's wonderful what these nigger girls '11 do for a white man.'
** There are all sorts of girls, there is every kind of girl,
There are some that are foolish, and many that are wise, You can trust them all, no doubt, but be careful to look out For the harmless little girlie with the downcast eyes,"
20 BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA
sings the pockmarked man, in reminiscence of a smoking concert he attended months ago at Salisbury, before he and his companions tramped northwards across the Zambezi in search of gold and any other profitable discoveries they might make in the unknown North.
The woman, who has taken little or no notice of the other men, has seated herself on the floor near the sick man's bed and is fanning away the flies from his death-like face. He scarcely notices this attention, con- tinuing as before to roll his head languidly across the rolled-up coat which serves as pillow.
Outside the hut it is a bright world enough — a sky of pure cobalt, with white cumulus clouds moving across it before a pleasant breeze. Except where these clouds cast a momentary shadow there is a flood of sunshine, making the dry thatched roofs of the round haycock houses glitter; and as to the bare beaten ground of the village site, in this strong glare of sunshine you would hardly realise it is mere red clay : it has an effulgent blaze of flame -tinted white except where objects cast on it circumscribed shadows of a purple black.
Tw^o or three native curs, of the usual fox-coloured, pariah type, lie sleeping or grubbing for fleas in the sunshine. A lank, wretched-looking mangy bitch, with open sores on her ears and fly-infested dugs, trails herself wearily from hut to hut, seeking food, but only to be repulsed by kicks from unseen feet, or missiles hurled by unseen hands. Little chocolate -coloured children are playing in the dust, or baking in the sun clay images they have made with dust and water. Most of the houses have attached to them a woman's compound at the back, fenced in with a high reed fence. If you entered this compound from the verandah, or peeped over the high fence, you would see cheerful garrulous women engaged in preparing food. A steady " thud, thud ! " " thud, thud ! " comes from one group of hearty girls with plump upstanding breasts who, glistening with perspiration, are alternately pounding corn in a wooden mortar shaped like a dice box. Each in turn, as she takes the pestle, spits on her hands and thumps the heavy piece of wood up and down on the bruised corn. Another woman is grinding meal on the surface of a large flat stone by means of a smaller stone which is smooth and round ; again, another wife with the aid of other flattened stones bruises green herbs mixed with oil and salt into a savoury spinach. In all the compounds and about the streets are hens and broods of chickens. Mongrel game-cocks are sheltering themselves from the heat under shaded verandahs, which they share with plump goats of small size and diverse colours — white, black, chestnut, grey; black and white, white and chestnut, grey and white. The sun-smitten village at high noon is silent but for the low-toned talk of the women, of the " thud, thud " of the corn-mortars, the baaing and bleating of an imprisoned kid, or the sudden yelp of the half-starved bitch when a missile strikes her.
Beyond the collection of haycock huts (occupying perhaps a half square mile in area), is a fringe of bananas, and beyond the bananas from one point of view the glint of a river, and across the river a belt of black-green forest. In other directions, away from the water-side is red rising ground sprinkled with scrubby thin-foliaged trees, among which here and there grows a huge gouty baobab, showing at this season digitate leaves like a horse-chestnut's, and large tarnished white flowers that depend by a straight string-like stalk from the pink and glabrous branches.
Noon declines to afternoon. The two men who are whole still remain in
WHAT THE COUNTRY LOOKS LIKE 21
the hut ; the sick man is obviously sicker than before. His face is an obscure yellow, he has ceased to vomit, he is no longer restless, he lies in a stupor, breathing stertorously. The black-bearded man smokes, and reads a tattered novelette, glancing from time to time uneasily at the one who lies so ill, but trying to still his anxiety by assuring himself '' that the poor beggar has got to sleep at last." The man with the red hair and pockmarked cheeks sings snatches of music-hall songs at intervals and drinks whisky and water, trying hard to keep up his courage. For he is in a cold-sweating dread of death by fever — a death which can come so quickly. A month ago- there were four of them, all in riotous health, revelling in the excitements of exploring a new country, confident that they had found traces of gold, merrily slaughtering buffalo, eland, kudu and sable ; sometimes after elephant with the thought of the hundreds of pounds' worth of ivory they might secure with a few lucky shots ; killing "hippo" in the river and collecting their great curved tusks for subsequent sale at a far-off trading station ; trafficking with the natives in the flesh of all the beasts they slew and getting in exchange the unwholesome native meal, bunches of plantains, calabashes of honey, red peppers, rice, sugar cane, fowls, eggs, and goat's milk. They had not treated the natives badly, and the natives in a kind of way liked these rough pioneers who offered no violence beyond an occasional kick, who were successful in sport and consequently generous in meat distribution, and who gave them occasional "tots" of "kachaso,"* and paid for the temporary allotment of native wives in pinches of gunpowder, handfuls of caps, yards of cloth, old blankets and clasp knives. Yes ; a month ago they were having a very good time, they were not even hampered by the slight restraints over their natural instincts which might exist in Mashonaland. They had found obvious signs of payable gold — " an ounce to the tori if only machinery could be got up there for crushing the rock " — they would return to the south and float a company ; meantime they had intended to see a little more of this bounteous land blessed with an abundant rainfall, a rich soil, a luxuriant vegetation, a friendly people, grand sport, and heaps of food ; and then, all at once, one of them after a bottle of whisky overnight and a drenching in a thunderstorm next day, complains of a bad pain in his back. A few hours afterwards he commences to vomit, passes black-water, turns bright yellow, falls into a stupor, and in two days is dead. "Was it the whisky, or the wetting, or neither? It could not be the whisky: good liquor was what was wanted to counteract this deadly climate ; no, it could not be the whisky ; on the contrary," thought the man who turns these thoughts over musingly in his mind, " he himself must take more whisky to keep his spirits up. When old Sampson was better and could be carried in a hammock, they would all make straight for the Lake and the steamers and so pass out of the country, perhaps returning to work the gold, perhaps not."
The heat of the afternoon increases. The man on the bed still snores, the woman still fans, Blackbeard has fallen asleep over his novelette and Redhead over his whisky and water. The silence of the village is suddenly broken by a sound of voices and the tramp of feet Blackbeard wakes up, rubs his eyes and staggers out into the sunshine to greet a thin wiry European with bright eyes and a decided manner. " Oh . . . you are the Mission doctor, aren't you ? Come in — in here. He is pretty bad, poor chap, but I expect you will do him a lot of good." ...
It is early evening. The two mining prospectors have left the hut, advised
' Fire-water — whisky.
22
BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA
by the doctor to chuck their whisky bottles into the river and go out shooting. The former piece of advice they have not followed, but the latter they have gladly adopted, frightened at the aspect of their dying comrade, and only too glad to leave the responsibility of his care to the Mission doctor, who for two hours has tried all he knows to restore the patient to consciousness, without success. The woman has helped him as far as she was able, the doctor much too anxious about his patient to concern himself about the propriety of her position in the case. Outside the hut there is a cheerful noise of the aw^akening village settling down to its evening meal. Flights of spurwinged geese, black storks and white egrets pass in varied flocks and phalanxes across the rosy western sky. But inside, by the light of two candles stuck in bottles, which the doctor has lit to replace the daylight, it may be seen that his patient is nearing the end; yet as the end comes there is a momentary return to consciousness. The stertorous breathing has given way to a scarcely perceptible respiration, and as the doctor applies further means of restoration a sudden brightness and light of recognition come into the dull eyes. The expiring man tries to raise his head — cannot ! and to speak — but no sound comes from his whitened lips, then one long drawn bubbling sigh and the end has come.
A great, untidy, Arab town near the shores of a lake, the blue waters of which can be seen over the unequal ground of the village outskirts and through a fringe of wind-blown banana trees. On one of the little squares of blue water thus framed in by dark-green fronds may be seen part of a dau at anchor with a tall, clumsy^ brown mast, thick rigging, and a hull somewhat gaudily
painted in black and pink. We are sitting under the broad verandah of a large house, a house which is in reality no- thing but a structure of timber and lath covered with a thick coating of black mud ; but the mud has been so well laid on and is so smooth, time-worn and shiny as to have the appearance of very dark stone. The roof is of thatch, descend- ing from some forty feet above the ground to scarcely more than five feet over the edge of the verandah. This verandah only occupies one. side of the house and is large enough to be — what it is — an outer hall of audience;^ fifteen feet broad and with a raised dais of polished mud on either side of the passage which crosses the verandah to enter the main dwelling. As the interior rooms of this house are mostly unfurnished with windows and only derive their light from the central passage (which has an open door at either end) they are quite dark inside and even in the daytime little Arab lamps (earthenware saucers filled with oil and with cotton wicks) have to be lighted to see one's way about.
^ Called by Zanzilxiris *'baraza."
THE "sultan's BARAZA'
WHAT THE COUNTRY LOOKS LIKE 23
In front of the house, in the open public square, is a fine cocoanut tree which has been planted from a cocoanut brought from the East Coast of Africa. Across the square a ramshackle building is pointed out as the Mosque, and Arabs of all shades — of negro blackness and of European whiteness — are walking backwards and forwards through the blazing sunshine to perform their ablutions in the court of the Mosque, or to enter the building to pray.
The Sultan of the place, in one of whose houses we are tarrying (in imagination) is about to have his noontide meal, and asks us to join. He himself is seated on a mattress placed on a mud bench against the wall under the verandah, and is clothed in a long, white garment reaching down to his heels, over which he wears a sleeveless, orange-coloured waistcoat richly embroidered with silver, a shawl-sash wound round his waist, and over one shoulder a light Indian cloth of chequered pattern brightly fringed. Through the shawl waistband peep out the hilt and part of the scabbard of one of those ornamental curved daggers which are worn at Zanzibar and in the Persian Gulf; this hilt and scabbard are of richly-chased silver.
The Sultan has a face which in some respects is prepossessing. It is certainly not cruel though he is known to have done many cruel things. The once fine eyes are somewhat clouded with premature age and the exhaustion of a polygamist ; but there are a sensitiveness and refinement about the purple- lipped mouth and well-shaped chin, the outlines of which can be seen through the thin grey beard. The hands have slender, knotted fingers and the nails are short and exquisitely kept.
The taking of food is preceded by the washing of hands. Attendants — who are either black coast Arabs, gorgeously habited in embroidered garments of black, silver and gold, or else dirty, blear-eyed, negro boys, scarcely clothed at all and with grey, scurvy skins (the dirtiest and stupidest-looking of these boys is the Sultan's factotum in the household and carries his keys on a string round his lean neck) come to us with brass ewers and basins. The ewers are long-spouted, like coffee pots. Water is poured over our hands, which after rinsing we dry as best we can on our pocket handkerchiefs, while the Sultan wipes his on his Indian cloth which is slung over his shoulder and is used indifferently as napkin and handkerchief. Then a brass platter of large size, covered with a pyramid of steaming rice, is placed on the dais and alongside it an earthenware pot (very hot) containing curried chicken. The Sultan having rolled up a ball of rice between his fingers and dipped it into the curry, invites us to do the same. Our fingers are scalded by the rice ; but it must be admitted that the flavour of the curry is excellent. When this course is finished a bowl of pigeons stewed with lentils is brought on, and this also is eaten by the aid of our fingers. For drink we have cold, pure water from an earthenware cooler, and the milk of unripe cocoanuts.
The meal finishes with bananas and roasted ground nuts. Then more washing of hands and we recline on some dirty cushions or on lion skins, whilst the Sultan gives audience to messengers, courtiers and new arrivals. Some of these last-named glance suspiciously at us and are not disposed to be very communicative about their recent experiences in the presence of Europeans. The Sultan sees this and enjoys the humour of the situation. He is himself indifferent to the slave trade, having secured his modest competence years ago and now caring for nothing more than the friendship of European potentates, which will enable him to finish his days in peace and tranquillity. After he is gone he knows that in all probability there will be no other Sultan in his
24 BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA
place, but a European official. In his heart of hearts, of course, he sees no harm in the slave trade. He is well aware that he is entertaining at one and the same time European officials of high standing and five or six powerful Arab slave dealers, and that his large, rambling metropolis of several square miles in area harbours simultaneously not only the Europeans and their porters, servants, and escort, but perhaps three hundred raw slaves from the Ludlaba. But he is not going to give his compatriots away unless they make fools of themselves by any attempt to molest the Europeans, in which case, and in any case if it comes to a choice of sides, he will take the part of the European. In his dull way this unlettered man, who has read little else than the Koran and a few Arab books of obscenities, or of fortune- telling, has grasped the fact that from their own inherent faults and centuries of wrong-doing, Islam and Arab civilisation must yield the first place to the religion and influence of the European. He has no prejiSdice against Christianity — on the contrary, perhaps a greater belief in its supernatural character than some of the Englishmen he entertains from time to time — but if his inchoate thoughts could be interpreted in one sentence it would be " Not in our time, O Lord ! " The change must come but may it come after his death. Meantime he hopes that you will not drive home too far the logic of your rule. When he is gone the Christian missionary may come and build there, but while he lasts he prefers to see nothing but the ramshackle mosques of his own faith and to have his half- caste children taught in the Arab fashion. He points out some to you who are sitting in the verandah of an opposite hut, under the shade of a knot of papaw trees ; a hideous old negroid Arab with a dark skin and pockmarked face is teaching them to read. Each child has a smooth wooden board with a long handle, something like a hand-mirror in shape. The surface of this board is whitened with a thin coating of porcelain clay ; and Arab letters, verses of the Koran and sentences for parsing are written on it by means of a reed pen dipped in ink or by a piece of charcoal.
There is a certain pathos about this uneducated old coast Arab who has been a notable man in his day as conqueror and slave raider but who has had sufficient appreciation of the value of well-doing not to be always a slave raider, who has sought to inspire a certain amount of affection among the populations he enslaved. These in time have come to regard him as their natural sovereign, though the older generation can remember his first appearance in the country as an Arab adventurer at the head of a band of slavers. His soldiers, most of them now recruited from amongst his negro subjects, cheerfully raid the territories of other chiefs in the interior, but slave raiding within his own especial kingdom has long since ceased and a certain degree of order and security has been established. Let us set off against the crimes of his early manhood the good he has done subsequently by introducing from Zanzibar the cocoanut- palm, the lime tree, the orange, good white rice, onions, cucumbers and other useful products of the East ; by sternly repressing cannibalism, abolishing witchcraft trials, improving the architecture, and teaching many simple arts and inducing the negroes to clothe their somewhat extravagant nudity in seemly, tasteful garments.
He has known Livingstone and may even have secured a good word from that Apostle of Africa for hospitality and for relative humanity, as compared to other and wickeder Arabs. This casual mention of him in the book of the great ** Dottori"^ will cause him a childish pleasure if you point it out. " Has
^ The name by which Livingstone is almost universally known in Central Africa.
WHAT THE COUNTRY LOOKS LIKE
25
the 'Quini' read this book?" he asks. "Yes," you reply. "Then the Queen has seen my name?" and this reflection apparently causes him much satisfaction, for he repeats the observation to himself at intervals and even forces it on the attention of a sullen-looking black-bro\Ved Maskat Arab who is waiting in the baraza to settle with the Sultan the amount of tribute he must pay for the passage of his slave and ivory caravan across the territory and over the lake by means of the Sultan's daus.
I will transport you to the south end of Lake Tanganyika. In the background to this scene is a fine mountain which, like most Central African mountains, presents from below the appearance of a cake that has been
MOUNT KAPEMBA, TANGANYIKA
cut and is crumbling. There is first of all the granite wall of undulating out- line bearing a thin line of trees along its crest. Then half-way down its slope begins below the bare shining rock walls a ribbed slope of debris, which slope is covered with luxuriant purple-green forest : the whole estomp^ with a film of blue atmosphere, which sets it back to its proper place in the distance, so that if you half close your eyes the general effect of this mountain mass is a greyish purple.
As if in abrupt contrast to this upreared mass of rocks and trees towering at)[least 4000 feet into the sky is a slice of bright green swamp, separating the mountain slopes from the lake water. The foreground to this picture is the broad estuary of a river at its entrance to Tanganyika. On your right hand
26 BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA
you have a spit of yellow sand which separates the unruffled mirror of this calm water from the boisterous waves of the open lake. These are greenish blue with brown marblings and muddy white crests where they are receiving the alluvium of the river ; and fierce indigo streaked with blazing white foam where the lake is open, deep and wind-swept On your left hand the estuary of this
river (where the water is a speckless mirror of the blue sky and its cream -white grey-shadowed clouds) is studded with many green islets of papyrus and girt with hedges of tall reeds — the reeds with the white plumes and pointed dagger leaves that I have once or twice before described.
This conjunction of mountain, river, marsh, estuary, sandspit, open lake and papyrus tangle brings about such a congeries of bird life that I have thought it worth the trouble to bring you all the way to Tanganyika to ON TANGANYIKA gaze at this huge aviary. And al-
though on many of these journeys you are supposed to be looking on the scene with the eye of the spirit and not of the flesh, and therefore able to see Nature undisturbed by the presence of man, still on this spot you might stand in actuality, as I have stood, and, provided you did not fire a gun, see this collection of birds as though they were enclosed in some vast Zoological Gardens. For some cause or other has brought the fish down from the upper reaches of the stream or up from the lake. The water of the estuary is of unruffled smoothness. Most waterbirds detest the rough waves of the open lake, or the current of a rapid stream ; even now if you turn your eyes lakewards the only birds you will see are small grey gulls with black barred faces and black tipped wings and the large scissor-billed terns (grey and white with crimson beaks) flying with seeming aimlessness over the troubled waters. But in the estuary, what an assemblage ! There are pelicans of grey, white and salmon pink, with yellow pouches, riding the water like swans, replete with fish and idly floating. Egyptian geese (fawn-coloured, white, and green- bronze) ; spur winged geese (bronze-green, white shouldered, white flecked, and red cheeked) ; African teal (coloured much like the English teal) ; a small jet black pochard with a black crest and yellow eyes ; whistling tree duck (which are black and white, zebra-barred, and chestnut); other tree ducks (chestnut and white) ; that huge Sarcidiornis (a monstrous duck with a knobbed beak, a spurred wing, and a beautiful plumage of white and bronzed-blue with a green- blue speculum in the secondaries of the wing). All these ducks and geese hang about the fringe of the reeds and the papyrus. The ducks are diving for fish, but the geese are more inclined to browse off" the water-weed. Every now and then there is a disturbance, and the reflexions of the water are broken by a thousand ripples as the ducks scutter over the surface or the geese rise with much clamour for a circling flight. Farthest away of all the birds (for they are always shy) is a long file of rosy flamingoes sifting the water for small fish and molluscs. Thev are so far off that their movements are
WHAT THE COUNTRY LOOKS LIKE 27
scarcely perceptible ; against the green background of the marsh they look like a vast fringe of pale pink azaleas in full blossom.
Small bronze-green cormorants are plunging into the water for fish, diving and swimming under water, and flying away. Fish-catching on a more modest scale and quite close to where we stand is being carried on by black and white Ceryle kingfishers, who with their bodies nearly erect and the head and beak directed downwards will poise themselves in the air with rapidly fluttering wings and then dart unerringly head foremost on some tiny fish under the surface of the \<^ater.
On the sandspit two dainty crowned cranes are pacing the sand and the scattered wiry grass looking for locusts. Even at this distance — and especially if you use a glass — you can distinguish the details of their coloration. It will be seen that they have a short, finely-shaped beak of slatey black, a large eye of bluish grey, surrounded by a black ring ; and the cheeks covered with bare porcelain-like skin, pure white, which is much enhanced by an edging of crimson developing below the throat into two bright crimson wattles. The head is fitly crowned with a large aigrette of golden filaments, tipped with black. The neck with its long hackles is dove grey. The back and the breast are slate colour, the mass of the wing is snow white, and its huge broadened pinions are reddish chocolate, the white secondaries being prolonged into a beautiful golden fringe hanging gracefully over the chocolate quill feathers.
The quacking of the ducks, the loud cries of the geese and the compound sound of splashings and divings and scuttering flights across the water, are dominated from time to time by the ear-piercing screams of a fish eagle, perched on one of the taller poles of a fishing weir. The bird is as full of fish as he can hold, but yet seems annoyed at the guzzling that is going on around him, and so relieves his feelings at odd moments by piercing yells. He is a handsome bird — head and neck and breast snow white, the rest of the plumage chocolate brown.
Add to the foregoing enumeration of birds stilt plovers of black and white ; spur-winged plovers with yellow wattles ; curlew ; sandpipers ; crimson-beaked pratincoles; sacred ibis (pure white and indigo- purple) ; hagedash ibis (irides- cent-blue, green, and red-bronze) ; gallinules (verditer blue with red beaks) ; black water-rails with lemon beaks and white pencillings; black coots; other rails that are blue and green with turned-up white tails ; squacco herons (white and fawn-coloured) ; large grey herons ; purple-slate-coloured herons ; bluish- gray egrets ; white egrets ; large egrets with feathery plumes ; small egrets with snowy bodies and yellow beaks ; Goliath herons (nut-brown and pinkish-grey) ; small black storks, with open and serrated beaks ; monstrous bare-headed marabu storks ; and dainty lily-trotters^ (black and white, golden-yellow and chocolate-brown) ; and you will still only have got half way through the enumeration of this extraordinary congregation of water birds at the estuary of the river Lofu, on the south coast of Tanganyika.
Civilisation. — We are going to spend a Sunday at Blantyre, a European settlement in the Shire Highlands. Except for the name, however, there is no similarity between the little manufacturing town, which was Livingstone's birth- place, and the chief focus of European interests here in South Central Africa. These are the characteristics of the African Blantyre on a bright Sunday
^ Parra Africana,
28 BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA
morning in May: — A glorious blue sky; floods of sunshine; a cool breeze and a sparkling freshness in the atmosphere which reminds one of Capetown ; clean red roads, neat brick houses, purple mountains, and much greenery.
The organ is giving forth a hymn of Mendelssohn's by way of introit as we enter the church, and as, simultaneously, the choir and clergy take their places. The Norman architecture of the interior, the stained glass windows, the embroidered altar cloths, the brass lecterns and their eagles, the carved altar rails, the oak pulpit, the well-appointed seats with scarlet cushions — even the sunlight checked in its exuberance by passing through the diamond panes of the tinted windows — produce an effect on the newcomer of absolute astonish- ment. He requires to fix his eyes on the black choir in their scarlet and white vestments to realise that he is in Africa and not in Edinburgh or Regent's Park. The congregation consists mainly of Europeans and the service is in English. {The natives will assemble at other hours when worship is conducted in their own language.] A short service with good music, well sung by the black choir, and a quarter of an hour's sermon: then we are out once more in the sunny square, in a temperature not hotter than a mild summer's day at home, exchanging greetings with many acquaintances, almost all of whom are habited in such clothes as they would wear on a Sunday in Scotland. Some of the men turn out in black coats, light trousers, top hats, patent leather boots, white spats and brown gloves ; and the ladies are wearing silk blouses and cloth skirts, with all the furbelows and puffs and pinchings and swellings which were the height of the fashion in London not more than four months ago, for there is an almost pathetic desire on the part of the Blantyre settlers to keep in touch with civilisation.^
In the bare, open space which so fittingly surrounds this handsome church, groups of mission boys are standing, respectably clothed in not badly-fitting European garments and wearing black felt hats. They are conversing in low tones, a little afraid of having their remarks overheard by the critical Europeans. They have a slight tendency to giggle, of which they are conscious and some- what ashamed. A long file of mission girls, modestly and becomingly clad in scarlet and white, crosses the square to the native quarters of the mission under the guidance of a lady in dove-grey with a black bonnet and a grass-green parasol. By way of quaint contrast to these reclaimed guardians of the flock is the aboriginal wolf in the persons of some Angoni carriers who, forgetting or ignoring that Sunday was a day of rest with the European, are bringing up loads from the Upper Shire. Stark naked, all but a tiny square of hide or a kilt of tiger-cat tails, with supple, lithe bodies of glistening chocolate (shiny with perspiration), with the hair of their heads screwed up into curious little tufts by means of straw, they glide past the church with their burdens, alter- nately shy and inquisitive — ready to drop the burden and dart away if a European should address them roughly; on the other hand gazing with all their eyes at the wonderfully dressed white w^omen, and the obviously powerful " wafumo " 2 amongst the white men. A smartly-uniformed negro policeman in yellow khaki and black fez hurries them off the scene, shocked at their nudity, which was his own condition a year ago.
A good-looking Sikh soldier — over on a day's leave from the neighbouring garrison, or else accompanying some official as orderly — loiters respectfully on the fringe of the European crowd. He is in undress and wears a huge blush- rose turban, a loose snow-white shirt, a fawn-coloured waistcoat, white paijamas
^ Blantyre in fact is like an Indian Hill Station. - Chiefs.
WHAT THE COUNTRY LOOKS LIKE 29
(baggy over the hips but tight-fitting round the calves) and pointed Persian shoes of crimson leather. His long, black beard has been rolled up after the fashion of the Sikhs, so that it makes a tidy fringe round the jaws from ear to ear ; and the black moustache is fiercely curled.
We walk away home over a smooth road that is vinous-red, as all the earth is hereabout. First there is an avenue of sombre cypresses mixed with shimmering eucalyptus ; then the road will be bordered by bananas or by the gardens of Europeans' houses, with neat fences. In all directions other roads branch off, and above the greenery of Indian corn patches, of banana-groves,^ of plantations of conifers, acacias, and eucalyptus, or clumps of Misuko trees, can be seen the house-roofs of grey corrugated iron, or rose-pink, where that iron has been coloured with anti-corrosive paint.
Bright moonlight. In a Hyphaene palm forest. Out of the shadow of the trees it is almost as bright as day, every detail can be seen in the dry grass — even the colours of some few flowers blooming in spite of the dry weather. The effect is that of a photograph — a little too much devoid of half-tones, being sharply divided into bright lights, full of minute detail and deep grey shadows,, like blots, in which no detail can be descried. It is clear that this forest lies far from the haunts of man, for all the palm stems still retain the jagged stems of withered fronds. This gives them an untidy and forbidding aspect ; for these grey mid-ribs stick out at an angle of forty degrees from the main trunk. The faded leaf filaments have long since disappeared from the extremities of the dead fronds which themselves are so dry and so lightly attached to the stem that a few blows from a stout pole would knock them off and the palm trunk would be left bare and smooth. This is the condition of almost all palms near a native village in Africa because the natives climb them for the fruit, or more often for the sap which they tap at the summit and make into a fermented drink. Therefore whenever in tropical Africa you find palms in a forest retaining their old fronds from the ground upwards you may know that indigenous man is nowhere near.
Each palm is surmounted by a graceful crown of fan-shaped leaves in an almost symmetrical oval mass, radiating from the summit as from a centre. The fruit which is clustered thickly on racemes is — seen by daylight — a bright chestnut brown and the size of a Jaffa orange. This brown husk covering an ivory nut is faintly sweet to the taste and is adored by elephants. It is on that account that I have brought you here to see with the eye of the spirit a herd of these survivors of past geological epochs.
Somehow or other, it seems more fitting that we should see the wild elephant by moonlight at the present day. He is like a ghost revisiting the glimpses of the moon — this huge grey bulk, wrinkled even in babyhood, with his monstrous nose, his monstrous ears and his extravagant incisor teeth.
There! I have hypnotised you, and having suggested the idea of "elephants" you declare that you really begin to see huge forms assuming definite outline and chiaro-scuro from out of the shadows of the palms. Now you hear the noise they make — an occasional reverberating rattle through the proboscis as they examine objects on the ground half seriously, half playfully ; and the swishing they make as they pass through the herbage ; or the rustle of branches which are being plucked to be eaten. But they are chiefly bent on the ginger- bread nuts of the palms and to attain this, where they hang out of reach, they will pause occasionally to butt the palm trees with their flattened foreheads.
30 BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA
The dried stems and the dead fronds crash down before this jarring blow. If the fruit does not fall and the tree is not tilted over at an angle [its crown within reach of the animal's trunk], then the great beast will either strive to drag it down with his proboscis or to kneel and uproot it with his tusks The elephants pause every now and then in their feasting, the mothers to suckle the little ones from the two great paps between the fore-legs, a huge bull to caress a young female amorously with his twining trun<c, or the childless cows to make semblance of fighting, and the half-grown young to chase each other with shrill trumpetings.
But the moon is dropping over to the west. You did not think the moon- light could be exceeded in brightness. Yet in the advent of d^y it is only after all a betterment of night. Before the first pale pink light of early dawn the moonlight seems an unreality. In a few minutes the moon is no more luminous than a round of dirty paper and with the yellow radiance of day the elephants cease their gambollings and feasting, form into line, and swing into one of those long marches which will carry them over sixty miles of forest, plain and mountain to the next halting place in their seeming-purposeful journey.
There has been a war. The black man trained and taught by the Arab has been fighting the black man officered and directed by the European and, not unnaturally, has got the worst of it. But the fight has been a stiff one. We have had to take that walled town in the red plain, behind which are gleams of water and stretches of green swamp interspersed with clumps of raphia palms. There has been the preliminary bombardment, the straw huts within the red walls have gone up in orange flame and mighty columns of smoke [transparent black and opaque yellow according to the material burning] into the heavens above and are now falling in a gentle rain of black wisps. Here and there a barrel of gunpowder has exploded, or the bursting of a shell has elicited a terrible cry from an otherwise stolid, silent enemy. Then there has been the first charge up to the clay walls and the inevitable casualties from the enemy's fusillade directed through the loop-holes. A white officer has fallen forward on hi3 face, revolver in hand, biting the dust literally. He is not dead, he announces cheerfully, " Only my arm smashed, I think " ; but a Sikh who is attempting to arrange for his transport to the doctor out of the range of the enemy's fire, is shot through the heart, and with the last dying instinct swerves his fall to avoid falling on the officer's shattered arm. The bulk of the small force of white men, Sikhs, and negro soldiers in khaki uniforms and black fezzes, has either scaled the clay rampart or has shattered a gateway and burst into the strong- hold, and the officer can now swoon away comfortably without much risk of dying, as the doctor can be seen in the distance hurrying up his little band of native hospital assistants and a couple of hammocks for the transport of wounded men. A tremendous rattle of musketry is going on. The native guns go off seldom now, but make a loud reverberating boom from the quantity of powder with which they are charged ; the Snider rifles, on the other hand, give short cracks. From some of the unburnt housetops in the more distant part of the town the enemy is still keeping up a dropping fire, and in fact as we stand in imagination over the wounded officer we can hear overhead that curious *' ping," that singing sound of bullets travelling high above our heads. We are not out of but under the enemy's range. Gradually the gun fire ceases, though every now and then a few more cracking shots will be heard, until the victory is complete and absolute, and the place is wholly taken.
WHAT THE COUNTRY LOOKS LIKE 31
When there is no longer any doubt about the result the native allies, who have hung on the outskirt3 of the white man's camp, dash forward in skirmish- ing order to cut off the fugitives. They are a motley crowd, these " friendlies," armed with flint-locks, muzzle-loading guns, old pistols, or with spear and assegai, bow and arrow. It would be difficult to tell them from the opposing force — for the auxiliaries of the Arab are often own brothers to the white man's helpers — but that each " friendly " has a large piece of white cloth tied round the upper part of his left arm. The chief efforts of the Europeans and the Sikhs are now directed towards restraining these inconvenient allies who would seek to perpetrate on the flying enemy, or on his wounded, the same barbarities that the Arabs and their followers recently inflicted on the tribes allied with the European — which barbarities are the cause of the white man's presence here to-day with a country at his back to help him.
War is always horrible, even if it be waged in a righteous cause, and nowhere so horrible as in savage Africa. Let us, as a useful lesson, pick our way through this bombarded town as far as the heat of the still burning houses will permit. Here amongst the black ashes of a hut is a poor, domestic cat frizzled into a ghastly mummy and close to her are numerous broiled rats : all alike were unable to escape in time from the burning building. High above our heads— for some reason I think the saddest sight of all — are the homeless pigeons, circling round and round unable to settle on the burning roof trees, dazed and stupefied with the smoke and occasionally falling down into the flames to die. Shrieking fowls are flying in all directions and after them excited *' friendlies " or porters of the expedition in pursuit, heedless of the hot ashes under foot. Our first dead body : a negro soldier of the Administration, neatly clad, spick and span in spite of his scramble over the eight-foot wall. Soon after entering the town he must have been shot dead and he has fallen on his back still grasping his rifle and, strange to say, with a faint smile of triumph and no look of pain whatever on the face. A little distance beyond him lies a wretched savage who has boen killed by a shell. His stomach has been torn out and his head split in two. Here and there a black arm or leg or a dead face with wide-open eyes may be descried amongst the debris of the huts, indicating the presence of others who have fallen in the fight. The doctor will presently come and search the shattered huts in case there may be any wounded and living requiring attention.
We have now reached the centremost stronghold of the town, and it is seen that great as the conflagration appeared from the outside it has destroyed but a small portion of the town. The Sikhs are now busily engaged in isolating the burning huts and putting out the fire. The officers have been examining the large houses around the Sultan's compound and have brought to light an extraordinary number of wretched women and children most of them slaves — the adults both men and women — still weighted with the slave stick. ^
Many of these slaves are entirely naked and utterly barbarous, and all are whimpering, not with joy at the prospect of freedom but in the imminent dread that they will be immediately killed and eaten by the white men, that being the idea implanted in their minds by the Arab. A little apart from the great mass
* The slave slick is usually a young tree of heavy wood barked and all the branches removed with the exception of a bifurcation at the end. Into this bifurcation the slave's neck is thrust and the two ends of the stick are united by an iron band at the back of his neck so that this heavy log is attached to the front of the man's body. In this condition he is quite unable to run away.
32
BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA
of still fettered slaves is an Arab prisoner, his hands tied behind his back, kneeling or reclining with his ankles also fastened. There is a slight wound on his forehead; his face bears the expression of a caged wolf, his pale yellow skin is livid with pain, fear, and hatred. He has lost his round, white cap or fez, or turban, and his bald head looks mean and out of keeping with his careful clothes, which though soiled in warfare are still' neat and presentable. Round his neck in a dirty cloth bag hangs a copy of the Koran.
From such a scene as this I walked away once over the battlefield. The fight was ended, but we were only just starting to look for the wounded. It was early afternoon; a lovely day, bright sunshine, pale blue sky. A cool breeze had blown away the smoke; apart from the scene of the chief struggle in the captured town there was no indication that war w^as being waged. In a secluded part of the precincts amid the scattered vegetation of the village outskirts I suddenly came across the body of a fine-looking Angoni, not many minutes dead. He might have been fighting on our side; he might have been hired by the Arabs as one of their raiders, but someone had killed him with a bullet through the head and he had fallen in his tracks, in all his panoply of war, scarcely conscious of the object for which he fought. His right hand still grasped the stabbing spear, his left still held the ox-hide shield. His throw- ing spears had flown from his hand and were scattered on the ground. Grimmest sight of all — four vultures had already arrived on the' scene to examine him. Two birds promenaded up and down with a watchful eye, ready on noting any sign of returning consciousness to take their departure; another bird, somewhat bolder, stood on one leg and inspected him as might a thoughtful surgeon; and the fourth whirled in circles on out-spread pinions round the body, wishing to settle but frightened, in case after all it was a swoon and not a death.
NIAMKOLO: SOUTH END OF TANGANYIKA
CHAPTER II.
PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY
IN looking through the pictures I have tried to paint in the preceding chapter to illustrate the scenery of British Central Africa, it will be noticed that I have made no mention of any desert, of any open sandy tract or stony region devoid of vegetation. The fact is that so far as my own researches and those of other explorers go, British Central Africa, east of the Kafue river, holds no desert, no stretch of country that is not more or less covered with abundant vegetation. Here and there on the line of water parting between the river systems there may be a little harsh scenery where the trees are poor and scrubby and the plants grow in scattered tufts. But, take it as a whole, the eastern half of British Central- Africa is very well clothed with vegetation, es- pecially in the Nyasa province. There is nowhere any large continuous area of thick tropi- cal forest such as one sees in Western Africa, but in favoured districts where the soil is permeated with many springs there may be an occasional patch of woodland quite West African in char- acter, and not only containing oil palms, of the genus Elms (which are usually thought to be peculiarly characteristic of West Africa), but also not a few birds and mammals hitherto considered to be con- fined in their range to the West African region. From this and other facts, I am sometimes led to believe that
FOREST ON MOUNT CHOLO, BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA
36
BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA
the whole of Africa was once covered with more or less dense forest, but that the climate in the eastern half of the continent being drier than in the west, the ravages of the bush fires started by man have made greater headway than the reparatory influence of nature. Only in specially favoured tracts enjoying exceptional rainfall or else provided with underground springs could the forest remain always green and full of sap all the year round, and thus be able to choke out the fire or, in the wet season, to make sufficient growth to repair the ravages sustained by bush fires.
We have therefore a well clothed country to deal with ; but our abundant vegetation is undoubtedly the cause of malarial fever. The essentially healthy
THK MLANJE RAN(;E, SEEN FROM ZOMBA AFTER RAINFALL
portions of tropical Africa are those like Somaliland, much of the Sudan, a good deal of East Africa and all South West Africa, where the rainfall is trifling and vegetation is mainly confined to the banks of rivers.
From observations made and records kept by various officials throughout the Protectorate proper and the adjoining regions under the sway of the British South Africa Company I should compute the average rainfall of the greater part of British Central Africa at 50 inches per annum. But this average fluctuates somewhat (according to the remembrances of white men longest in the country and the traditions of the natives) ; and I should say that the rainfall ranged from 35 inches in years of extreme drought to 60 inches in years of excessive rainfall. There arc certainly traces of a larger rainfall having once prevailed in these countries in past ages. In travelling about British Central
PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY
37
Africa one is constantly encountering marshes which even in native tradition (to say nothing of the geographical evidence) were once large lakes. Again, there are fertile depressions which are no longer marshes. Dry stream valleys mark the courses of once powerful torrents. This tendency towards decreased rainfall is undoubtedly due, in my opinion, to the action of man. It is scarcely exaggeration to say that had British Central Africa been left for another couple of hundred years simply aqd solely to the black man and the black man had continued to exist without thought for the future as he does at present, this country would have become treeless, as many portions of it were becoming when we embarked on its administration. Livingstone describes in his Last Journals the process that is going on in Manyema, to the west of Tanganyika, a country once covered with the densest forest. The natives make clearings for
NATIVE CLEARING IN FOREST COUNTRY
their plantations. They cut down the trees, leave them to dry and then set fire to them and sow their crops amongst the fertilising ashes. The same type of forest never grows up again. It is replaced by grass or by a growth of scrubby trees — trees of a kind which can to a greater extent resist the annual scorching of the bush fires. Besides this wanton destruction of forest for the growing of food crops (and as a rule the native merely grows one crop of corn and then moves off to another patch of virgin soil, leaving the old plantation to be covered with grass and weeds) the annual bush fires play a considerable and (if unchecked) an increasing part in the disforesting of the country. Even where large continuous areas of dense forest remain, so evergreen and full of sap as not to burn easily, each year the raging fire will sere and dry and kill those trees which are on the forest outskirts. The next year these dead trees are consumed by the fire which again dries up and kills another rank ; so year by year the forest diminishes in area to extinction, unless protected by happening to grow in
38
BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA
a deep valley with abrupt cliffs ; though this condition of course restricts its area of growth.
Still, although we must, I think, admit a certain diminution in rainfall owing to the decrease of forest or other causes, the rate at which this decrease is going on has been exaggerated, and as we come to know the country better and our records grow with years of occupation, we see that there are signs of cycles of greater and less rain dependent on atmospheric conditions which we have not yet realised. The marks on the rocks show that during some ages there has been a slight — but a very slight — fall in Lake Nyasa, varied by periods of extraordinar>' diminution as for instance some seventy years ago when according to the natives' traditions the north end of the lake became so shallow between Deep Bay and Amelia Bay that a chief and his men waded across where it is now many fathoms deep. The highest watermark on these polished rocks is perhaps at most six feet above the present high levels of the lake in good rainy seasons. In years of relative drought I^ke Nyasa may be as much as six feet below its best rainy season average. This means, of course, that instead of there being nine feet of water on the bar of the Shire where that river quits the lake there are only three feet ; consequently the navigability of the Shire in the dry season becomes much embarrassed and in these bad years it can only be
navigated all the year round by vessels not drawing more than one and a half feet. Yet we know that in the later " fifties " and early ** sixties " Livingstone constantly travelled up and down the Shire on a vessel drawing five feet. Even in the year 1889 the James Steifcnson which draws about three feet of water was able to navigate the Shire through al- most all the year up to the Murchison falls, while vessels of five feet draught have in like manner navigated the Upper Shire above the falls. But from 1 891 till 1896 the Shire fell lower and lower until at last not even Chiromo was the limit of navigation from the sea, but the Pinda rapids near the Zambezi, while the Upper Shire was practically divided into a few navigable stretches with very shallow water in between. But after the rainy season of 1895-96 Lake Nyasa rose to a height which had not been reached for many years and is apparently still continuing to rise. The result is that the Lower Shire is now as navigable as it was in Livingstone's day, while on the Upper Shire many of our low-lying stations are threatened by the flood
THE SHIRE AT CHIKWAWA JUST BELOW THE MURCHISON FAILS
PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY
39
Similar fluctuations are recorded of Tanganyika ; while in the case of Bangweolo and Mweru fluctuations of level would also seem to occur in cycles. The differences between Livingstone's map of Bangweolo and the map made by Giraud, the observations of Mr. Joseph Thomson, Mr. Alfred Sharpe, and Mr. Poulett Weatherley of the same lake may all be reconciled by this theory of a few feet fluctuation in its rise and fall. A few feet, more or less, would make the vast lake of M. Giraud the *' restricted open water " of Livingstone, and the wide marsh with a few open pools conjectured by Sharpe and Thomson.^
Of course the average rainfall I have quoted must not be taken as the rainfall of each part of British Central Africa. So far as our observations go some districts receive no more than 35 inches per annum.^ These again, especially if they contain mountains of great height like Mlanje, may record a rainfall exceeding 100 inches. A rainfall of 60 inches is common.
PINDA NfOUNTAIN AND PINDA MARSH, LOWER SHIRE
In consequence .of this fairly good supply of rain the country is well watered by perennial streams and rivers. At the extreme end of the dry season there are streams which dry up though water can almost always be found a short distance below the surface. Still compared to other parts of East Central Africa the bulk of our rivers and rivulets may be described as perennial, that is to say containing running water all the year round. This is not suprising as so much of the country is mountainous and in these highlands the rain is spread a little less unequally over the area. It may safely be said that above altitudes of 4000 feet (and a large proportion of the land is above 4000 feet) no month passes without a fall of rain. Even at Zomba where the altitude is only 3000 feet it is a rare occurrence for no rain to fall in any given month.
But the year is clearly divided into seasons of rain and drought. The rainy season generally begins at the end of the month of November and heavy rains fall in December. There is often a short lull about Christmas time, but
* Since this passage was penned Mr. Poulett Weatherley, the explorer and sportsman, has thoroughly circumnavigated and mapped it. His observations concur rather with those of Livingstone than of Giraud.
• A small patch at the south end of Lake Nyasa in one year only received 26*62 inches of rain.
40
BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA
early in January the rains recommence and become torrential, continuing to fall very heavily until the end of March. April is a delightful month as it is in Europe, of alternate showers and sunshine. A little rain falls in May and an occasional shower in June. July is the height of the winter — cold, dry, spark- ling— but is never without a few drops of rain. In August there will sometimes be a week's rain of a decided character, especially in the highlands. A shower
PART OF THE FALLS OF THE RUG AT ZOA
or two will follow in September. October is quite the driest month and in low- lands passes without a drop of rain, though in the highlands there may be an occasional thunder storm. Towards the close of November (the first half being terribly hot and dry) the big rains recommence.
As regards temperature there is considerable variation also dependent on altitude. In the valley of the Shire, on the south coast of Lake Nyasa, in the great Luangwa Valley and on the Central Zambezi, the heat is frightful just
I J SS to 4S iTichet
l^^^l ih to f>0
|^meotoT5
^^^^H Over A Red Lviif thus.
of Ripert^ or tTtdonin^ an area of Latft.
mdicatrt the LixniU fyf Kttvi^abHitjt aU thf
yt^ar ruund /trr vt^seis drawing ^ f^«t of
vmt^r. I
'-A dotted Ited Litif thtit-^^m^m^mindicatet eo-mi •
(fling during the height 0/ the ravny t^agmi, I
Hit £diii}iur||L Gflo^BjjIiLr-Al lojUtxitf
PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY
41
before the rains, registering occasionally temperatures as high as 118'' in the shade, though at night time falling to 85^ thus rendering it possible to live. In the height of the rainy season the range of the thermometer is not so high, but the heat is often more unbearable owing to its greater uniformity and the moist- ness of the temperature. In the months of January, February, and March the thermometer may be 100** in the daytime and only fall to 85° or 90** at night.
A MOUNTAIN STREAM IN CENTRAL AFRICA
But on the high plateaux and amongst the mountains — and these high districts after all represent the bulk of our territory — the temperature is at all times much more tolerable. Such a place as Zomba^ for instance may be taken as a fair sample of the British Central Africa climate. Here during the cold season from May till September we have a day temperature not exceeding 75" and a night temperature ranging from 40" to 60°. In the months of September,
^ Altitude 3000 feet above the sea.
42 BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA
October, November the day temperature may rise to 98'' and fall at night to 65 ^ During the height of the rainy season the day temperature ranges from 75" to 95" and the night from 65^ to 80".
In the rainy season the wind usually blows from a northerly direction and is what one may call a benign wind, being warm and wet. During the dry season the curbed south-easter prevails. This hated wind comes up from the South Pole and is cold and dry. It is the equivalent of our east wind in England and produces much the same effects on health when it blows strongly. In the excessively dry months of September, October, and November this wind blow- ing across large areas of burnt plain — where the bush fires have destroyed the vegetation and the sun has baked the soil — has a bad effect on cultivated crops. It seres the leaves and causes many delicate plants to wither. Happily it soon loses its effect by passing over the mountains which are always attended by watery vapour. When the south wind prevails there is a curious mistiness in the atmosphere. This is partly caused by the diffused smoke of the bush fires, but it is also due to some other causes not yet explained. At this time of the year mists often prevail to a striking extent in the early morning. These are similar to the " smokes " which are so marked a feature in the dry season on the
FIRST VIEW OF MLANJE MOUNTAIN FROM LOWER SHIRE
West Coast of Africa. One understands how these dense fogs occur on any large river or lake, for instance. The temperature of the water is much higher than that of the air in the early morning, and so one may see clouds and vapour rising from "the water surface, just as though it were boiling, and these gradually form low dense fogs which, minus the addition of smoke, are quite as thick as those we are accustomed to in the Thames Valley, which no doubt arise from the same cause.
One of the accompanying maps will give some idea of the distribution of the rainfall, and the names, length, and navigability of the more important streams. It might be mentioned that almost all the streams given in this map are perennial as far as our knowledge of them goes. Another map gives the relative height of the land and the names and altitudes of the principal mountain ranges. Only a few of these latter require special mention. So far as we yet know the highest mountain in British Central Africa is Mlanje, at its extreme south-eastern corner. Mlanje consists of a huge plateau from which again rise mountain peaks representing ancient volcanoes. It reaches at its highest point an altitude of 9683 feet. The summit was scaled by Mr Sharpe and Captain Manning in 1895. Much of the up-reared mass, which is about 200 square miles in area, exceeds an altitude of 6000 feet and is eminently habitable. The Shire Highlands — or the district between the Ruo, the Shire
ON Till-: TIMER Rl'(^
PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY 45
and Lake Chilwa— are a mass of beautiful hills ranging from 3000 feet to nearly 7000 feet in height. The highest mountain in the Shire Highlands is Mount Zomba. This is a smaller mass than Mlanje but very similar to it in shape and arrangement. Like Mlanje it is a large plateau but its higher peaks are rather the up-reared edges of the plateau (like the rim of a dish) than independent cones that rise from the centre. The highest point of Zomba is computed to attain an altitude of 6900 odd feet. It may turn out on more careful investigation to actually reach 7000 feet. In Southern Angoniland, in the south-western portion of the Protectorate, Mount Dedza is computed at 7000 feet and other high mountains like Chongoni are not far off in altitude. In the mountains to the west of Lake Nyasa the higher peaks of the lofty Nyika plateau reach to over 8000 feet in height. The average altitude of the Nyika plateau is 7000 feet. One or two points on the Nyasa- Tanganyika plateau may touch 7000 feet and likewise in the northern part of the Muchinga (Lukinga) mountains west of the river Luangwa. Elsewhere
THE MLANJE RANC.E FROM THE TUCHILA PLAIN
in British Central Africa, in the basin of the Kafue and Lunsefwa rivers, and to the west of Lake Bangweolo there is probably no greater altitude than 6000 feet.
Although they are not in British territory and therefore not within the scope of this book, a passing mention should be made of the Livingstone Mountains which border the north-east coast of Lake Nyasa and extend under various names to the south end of Lake Rukwa. They reach to altitudes which possibly slightly exceed that of Mlanje and come very near to 10,000 feet.
This is pre-eminently a country of great lakes. Lake Tanganyika is over 400 miles in length with a breadth varying from 60 to 30 miles. Lake Nyasa is 360 miles long with a greatest breadth of 40 miles and a least breadth of 15. Lake Bangweolo^ is of such uncertain area that it is useless to give any guess at the
* The name of Bangweolo is quite unknown to the natives, and must have l)een given by Livingstone under some misapprehension. By the surrounding peoples it is known as " Lieml)a," or " M\*eru," or "Nyanja": more often as **Mweru." Mr. Alfred Shari)e conjectures that the name '* Bangweolo" may have arisen from the combination of " Pa-mweru ' or " Pa-mwelu "' (*'r'* and **l** are interchangeable in most African dialects) meaning "at Mweru." The natives are very much addicted to prefixing the locative prefix "Pa" to names of places. In the same way Livingstone
46
BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA
mileage of its open surface but it must contain at least 1500 square miles of navigable water. Lake Mweru is about 68 miles long by 24 broad. Lake Chilwa in the extreme south-east is also of varying extent according to the rainy season or dry season ; but it is as a rule about 50 miles long by 1 5 broad. The salt lake Mweru which lies between the great Mweru Lake and Tanganyika is chiefly a marsh with a few open pools about 35 miles long by 20 broad. North of Lake Chilwa and separated from it by only a few miles of sandy ridge is Lake Chiuta, the source of the river Lujenda. Chiuta is about 40 miles long with a breadth which nowhere exceeds eight miles and sometimes shrinks to two. In the Lubisa country to the west of the
CHAMBI PKAK, MLANJK
Luangwa there is a small mountain lakelet about 40 square miles in area, which was called Lake Moir by its discoverer, Mr. Joseph Thomson. Lastly, may be mentioned Lake Malombe through which the Upper, Shire flows. This lake had an area in 1893 of about 100 square miles ; but in 1894 and in the succeeding years a large sand island grew up in the centre which became covered with reeds, and the lake as I last saw it was little more than a broad channel of the Shire divided by an enormous, flat, reed-covered island from a narrower channel or back-water to the west. There is every sign that in spite of the great rise in Lake Nyasa this island will hold its own. We shall then witness the remarkable
himself called the lakelet Malombe, *' Pa-Mal.jmbe." The root " -<•///," or '' -<?/«," is a very old Bantu word for '*open water.*' With a different prefix it reappears far to the North as '* Rueru," one of the native names of the Albert Nyanza. It would seem to be connected wirh the root *' white." It might be mentioned, however, that Mr. Poulett VVeaiherley appears lo have heard the name ** Bangweulu " in use.
rEIES
^
^.I G BfcJliirilircne^
PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY 47
fact that in a little more than a year a lake which has existed beyond the memory of man has suddenly been resolved into a sandy marsh and a broad river channel.
I think I have enumerated all the known permanent lakes of the country, though I should not be surprised if travellers who read this book came forward and said, " You have forgotten such and such a lake in the Chambezi Valley, or the small lakelet between Chilwa and Mlanje, or the great sheet of open water on the Upper Tuchila, or such and such a lake in the Luangwa Basin." None of these sheets of water, however, as far as is yet known; have any permanent existence. They are only the creation of the rainy season floods. . Seen at that time, of course, their existence is recorded ; in the dry season they would be found either not to exist at all or to be confined to a patch of marsh. There were lakes at one time, undoubtedly, near the junction of the Ruo and the Shire (the Elephant Marsh) and at the junction of the Shire and Zambezi (Morambala Marsh) ; but in the course of time the alluvium of the rivers, together, even,
THE LIKUBULA (JORGE, MLANJE
with a slight upheaval of the ground, or more probably still the deeper cutting of the river-channel have turned these former lakes into marshes or vast extents of dry alluvial soil. In like manner Nyasa was evidently united not many centuries ago with Lake Malombe ; and it may be, also, that Lake Chilwa was joined with Lake Chiuta and was then the head waters of the great Lujenda- Ruvuma river. Much of the decrease in volume of the great lakes must be attributed to a slow and slight process of upheaval which has caused their waters to more rapidly drain away ; but the disappearance of these shallow lakes along the courses of the rivers is chiefly due to the rivers having in course of time cut their channels deeper, so that the lakes which formerly represented their overflow have their bottoms now removed even above flood limit.
The geology of British Central Africa would appear to be relatively simple. The commonest formation, perhaps, is a mixture of metamorphic rocks, grauwacke, clay -slates, gneiss and schists. This prevails over much of the country lying between the west of Lake Nyasa and the Luapula River, on the Nyasa-Tanganyika plateau, in parts of the Shire Highlands, and north of the Zambezi. The valleys of the great and sluggish rivers, however, (the Shire,
48
BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA
the Chambezi, the Luangwa) contain an upper stratum of alluvial deposit where the valleys are broad and the rocks do not strike through. The principal mountain ranges are mostly granite ; and granite with its upper layers often rotten and even turned into red ferruginous clay constitutes the formation of much of the Shire Highlands. There is an outcrop of sandstone on the north- west and north-east coasts of Lake Nyasa (Mount Waller and the hills of Amelia Bay are examples) ; a little way back from the lake shore at the north end (in German territory) ; to the west of the River Shire near the Portuguese frontier ; at the south end of Tanganyika ; and all round about Lake Mweru and in the countries adjoining the River Luapula. Volcanic lavas and tuffs are present on parts of the upper plateau of Mlanje and at the north end of Lake
ON LAKE NYASA
N)'asa. There is a good deal of quartz in the mountains to the west of Lake Nyasa, especially to the south-west, and in parts of the Shire Highlands (such as Mlanje). The low flat hills in the Upper Shire district are composed of marble which yields a very good building lime. Much the same lime is also obtained from places on the west coast of Lake Nyasa, where there must be likewise a kind of limestone amongst the low hills near the lake shore. The surface of much of the low-lying country on the banks of the Upper Shire is little else than a deposit of the shells of molluscs mixed with black vegetable earth.
This black " cotton " soil, which is usually extremely rich for cultivation, and is so much valued in India, is found plentifully in many stream valleys and depressions, especially in the Nyasaland provinces, and is classed by me as alluvium.
On the east coast of Lake Nyasa, a few miles inland from Msumbo and Chisanga (Stations of the Universities Mission), a soap stone has been found by
PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY
49
Commander Cullen, R.N.R.,^ who had noticed that the natives made use of this stone in building the mission church at Chisanga. This soap stone, according to Commander Cullen, is the same as that found in parts of Europe and used as a lubricant packing by engineers. When prepared for this purpose it is worth £S a ton. It is qaite easily worked, can be cut with a knife, and is not much — if at all — affected by weather.
In the sandstone formation of the West Shire district and round the northern half of Lake Nyasa, coal is found. On the surface it is a little shaley, but there
THE LICHENYA RIVER, MLANJE
is evidence that good combustible coal lies underneath. In the Marimba and Central Angoniland districts, also in the mountains of the West Nyasa coast region, and in parts of the Shire Highlands, a gold-bearing quartz exists.- Alluvial gold is reported to exist on the Northern Angoni plateau, in the West Nyasa district, and at the head-waters of the River Bua (Central Angoniland), just within the Protectorate. In the valleys of the rivers flowing south to the Zambezi (in Mpezeni's country) gold really does exist, and was worked at Misale by the half-caste Portuguese in the last, and in part of the present century. Although there are many reports that payable gold has been found in
^ Senior Naval Officer in the service of the B.C. A. Administration.
^ Between Nkata Bay and Sisya. The reef here is said to liave slate walls.
5°
BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA
the rock, which only needs the requisite machinery to crush out, at anything from lO dwts. to i oz. per ton, no conclusive evidence has yet been offered to support these statements by specimens which can be submitted to analysis. In 1889, however, long before Europeans turned their eyes in this direction, the old Jumbe of Kotakota told me that the quartz in his country contained gold, and
THE SHIRE HIGHLANDS
soon afterwards he entered into an agreement with the African Lakes Company that this gold should be worked. The Lakes Company turned over their agreement to the British South Africa Company, on whose account prospectors have entered the Marimba district.
Specimens of something very like cinnabar were once submitted to Mr. Sharpe and myself for examination. They came from the country to the west of the Lower Shire. We attempted an analysis but although there seemed to be traces of mercury in the pan we could not authoritatively state that the
PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY 51
substance was cinnabar. Since that time no further specimens have reached us. It is beyond dispute that the country of Katanga is rich in copper and also possesses gold. The copper of Katanga, however, is widely spread in a currency of ingots over South Central Africa. Malachite also comes from that region. There is no reason why this copper should not also be found in the same formation to the east of the river Luapula and Lake Mweru.
Specimens of lead and of graphite have been shown to me, but I was unable to identify the districts from which they were obtained, though I understood that some specimens of graphite came from the hills to the west of the Lower Shire.
Iron ore is nearly everywhere abundant. Excellent haematite iron comes from the Upper Shire district. We have actually used some of this iron — have had it smelted and worked by native blacksmiths — for making the parts of a gun and such other relatively simple things which were within the scope of native blacksmiths or Sikh artizans.
Garnets are found in the stream valleys of Mlanje. On the same mountain beautiful quartz crystals are met with and persons seeing them for the first time are often deluded into the belief that they have obtained diamonds. No trace of the blue diamond clay has ever yet been met with in Central Africa.^
There are no deposits of rock-salt, so far as I am aware, but salt is obtained from the brackish marsh called by the name of Mweru which lies between the great lake Mweru and Tanganyika ; also from the marsh country in the West Shire district, and from the brackish Lake Chilwa.^
But salt is also obtained both good and abundant — though rather dark in colour — from the ashes of grasses and other plants growing on the mountain plateaux and in the vicinity of rivers and lakes. On the whole, in one way or another British Central Africa may be considered to be well supplied with salt manufactured by the natives, which is a favourite article of commerce and is even a good deal used by Europeans, who in their cooking, if not on their tables, at any rate in their kitchens, use it in preference to the imported article.
' Commander Cullen supplies the following note:— ** In the upper waters of the Lintipe river ^Central Angoniland) the formation is the same as that of the Vaal River Valley : and as garnets and crystals are found in it, if it were properly worked it seems probable it might prove diamondiferous. "
^ Mr. Sharpe describes as follows the way in which the natives extract salt from the Mweru swamp : — '* The natives dwelling round the great Mweru 'Salt swamp take the salt-impregnated earth round the lake shore and put it into funnels made of closely woven grass rope. They then pour in water and stir up the salt earth. The water takes up the salt and filtering through the grass funnel, carries the salt in solution into pots placed below. The water is then evaporated and cakes of pure salt are left.'*
APPENDIX THE COAL OF NYASALAND
Report by the Director of the Scientific Department of the Imperial Institute on two samples of coal from
Nyasaland, received through Mr. P. L. Sclater, F.R.S., from Mr. Alfred Sharpe, Acting Commissioner
and Consul-General for British Central Africa: —
Specimen K.— Coal from North Nyasaland—Y'wtA carbon, 57*63 % ; ash, I5'57 % ; volatile matter, 26*80 % ; sulphur, 0*10 % ; coke, 73 "20 % ; calorific value, 5520 units. This is a non-caking coal of very fine quality, which is likely to be useful for most purposes for which coal is employed. The percentage of ash is rather high, but the coal is remarkably free from sulphur.
Specimen B. — Supposed Coal from the Songwe River — Fixed carbon, 47*46 % ; ash, 8*4 % ; volatile matter, 44*54; sulphur, 0*52 ; coke, 55-5 ; calorific value, 6050 units. This also is a non-caking coal of good, quality, yielding very little ash, and containing but little sulphur. This coal would be serviceable either for heating or for metallurgical purposes. (Signed) Wvndham R. Dunstan.
CHAPTER III HISTORY
BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA only comes within the domain of written history quite recently, Tanganyika and much of Nyasa scarcely forty years ago. It is just barely possible that the south end of Lake Nyasa, and it is certain that a portion of the river Shire which flows from it, were known to the Portuguese explorers at the latter end of the sixteenth century. The unwritten history, the history which can be deduced from researches into language, examinations of racial type, native traditions, and archaeological researches, extends back into the usual remoteness connected with the movements of the human genus, though in no part of the world is it so indefinite or is there such scanty and slight material on which to construct theories.
It may be that something of this kind occurred. Until further facts come to light, the tendency of such little knowledge as we at present possess of the past history of the evolution of man is to lead us to believe that he was developed from the pithecoid type somewhere in Asia, not improbably in India.^ It would seem, at any rate, as if the earliest known race of man, inhabiting what is now British Central Africa, was akin to the Bushman- Hottentot type of-negro. Rounded 5tones, with a hole through the centre, similar to those which are used by the Bushmen in the south for weighting their digging sticks, have been found at the south end of Lake Tanganyika, and specimens of them were brought home thence by me and given to the British Museum. I have heard that other examples of these " Bushman " stones have been found nearer to Lake Nyasa, but I have not seen the alleged specimens. In one instance I alighted on a curious tradition, which would make it appear
* At any moment this theory, which at present holds the field, may be upset by unlooked-for discoveries in African pakeontology. Quite recently a discovery oi the most extraordinary importance and interest has been made by Dr. Forsyth Major in Madagascar, an island which was united to Africa in the early part of the tertiary epoch. This consists of the fossil remains of a monkey-like form calle<I Nesopitheais^ a form intermediate between the Cebidie and the Old World monkeys. The Cebidae we the American monkeys, a type which is connected with the Lemuroids by transitional forms. Mr. R. Lydekker deduces from these discoveries that the primal stock of the monkeys had its home in Africa ; that from the African continent branched off the Cebidae, which found their way to America, and there lingered, while they became extinguished in the Old World; and the Simiidae, or Old World monkeys, which in turn gave rise to the anthropoid apes and man. So far as we yet know evidence preponderates in favour of the anthropoid apes having arisen in Southern Asia, whence they penetrated Africa; and the famous discovery by Dr. Dubois, in Java, of Pithecanthropus erecius^ a form almost intermediate between the anthropoid ape and the human species, would lead us to imagine that man likewise originated in the Asiatic continent, which ser\'ed as a distributing centre. The lowest known forms of man living at the present time, or only recently extinct, are found in Tasmania, Australia, South Eastern Asia, and Central and Southern Africa. At the same time further discoveries may equallv well show that the development of the anthropoid ape into man took place in Africa, a guess once hazarded by Darwin.
52
HISTORY
53
that until recently the Bushman type was lingering on the upper plateau of the Mlanje mountain mass at the south-east corner of the Protectorate. The Maftanja natives of that district assert positively that there used to live on the upper part of the mountain, a dwarf race of light yellow complexion with hair growing in scattered tufts, and with that large development of the buttocks characteristic of the Bushman -Hottentot type. They gave these people a specific name, " Arungu," but I confess that this term inspired me with some distrust of the value of their tradition, as it was identical with the word for "gods."^ The resemblance, however, may have been accidental. They declare this people to have been found on the top of Mlanje until quite recently. Similar rumours were collected by a Portuguese officer stationed at Mlanje, and by him communicated to me, quite independently of my own re- searches, and the same idea occurred to him as to myself, that the traditions referred to a Bushman type. I have at different times exhaustively searched, or caused to be searched, the upper parts of the Mlanje mountain ; but although traces of human residence in some of the caves have been reported, no definite proof of the existence of any people differing from the modern type was discovered. That is to say, traces of human habitation in those caves and hollows consisted chiefly of fragments of pottery, which is certainly not a characteristic sign of Bushman habitation. It is probably known to my readers, however, that real undisputed Bushmen are found (I have seen them myself) in South Western Africa, in the same latitudes as the southern part of the British Protectorate under review. Bushman tribes were discovered by Serpa Pinto and other explorers as far north almost as the 14th parallel south latitude, in the countries near the Upper Kunene river.
Here and there, in Nyasaland, one meets with faces and forms amongst the natives which suggest a cropping out of the Hottentot type, as though the present Bantu races had, on their first invasion of these countries, absorbed their Bushman predecessors by intermarriage. This Bushman- Hottentot mixture, however, is not nearly so apparent as it is in the Basuto and certain Kafir tribes of South Africa. Indeed when South African negroes come to Nyasaland for work and one is able to contrast them with the local natives, one is struck at once by the resemblance they offer to Hottentots, in their paler skins, more prominent cheek bones, deep set eyes and flattened nose. It is evident that the Basuto - Bechuana people especially have much mingled with the Hottentots in times past. It would seem from the researches of Mr. Theodore Bent in the ruined cities of
* Murungn=a god. A-rungu = gods. Yet this is not the ordinary phiral which is Mi-hingu or Mi-ningu, though it is A-rungu in the more northern dialects.
PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG BUSHMAN
54 BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA
Mashonaland that those earlier settlers from Southern Arabia, who mined for gold some two thousand years ago and less, in South Central Africa, were only acquainted with native inhabitants of a Bushman- Hottentot type, to judge by the drawings, engravings and models they have left, intended to depict natives engaged in the chase.
The evidence which I have quoted at length in my book on Kilimanjaro,^ and in the prefatory chapters to the Life of Livingstone, derived from a com- parative study of the Bantu languages, leads me to believe that the invasion of the southern half of Africa by big black negro races, nowadays so familiar to us, was relatively recent in the history of man — perhaps not much more than 2O0O years ago. Some cause, such as the dense forests of the Congo Basin, must have checked their descent of the continent from the Sudan. They may also have been held back for a long time — especially on the eastern side of the continent where the forests could never have been in recent times a serious obstacle— -by the sturdy opposition of the prior inhabitants of Bushman- Hottentot type. Be that as it may, I do not think the black negroes, the V present inhabitants of South Central Africa, have been in possession of those countries from time immemorial, and in their own traditions they vaguely recall a descent from the North.
It is possible that when the Sabaeans and Arabs traded with South-east Africa, during the first half of the Christian era, one or another of them may have penetrated into the countries round Lake Nyasa. With this proviso, however, as to the possibility of such a journey having taken place, it must be stated that as far as we know, the Arabs did little more in regard to British Central Africa than to settle on the coast of the Indian Ocean, or to establish a trading dep6t at Sena, on the Lower Zambezi.
It would seem to me as though 3000 years ago the distribution of races in Africa had stood thus. The southern half of the continent, from a little north of the Equator to the Cape of Good Hope, was very sparsely populated with a low Negroid type, of which the Bushmen and Hottentots, and possibly the pigmy tribes of the Congo forests,^ are the descendants. The North and North-east of Africa, from Morocco to Egypt and Egypt to Somaliland, was p>eopled mainly by the Hamites, a race akin in origin and language to the Semitic type, which latter was certainly a higher development from a parent Hamitic stock. The Hamites themselves, however, obviously originated as a superior ascending variety of the Negritic species, from which basal stock had been derived in still earlier times the Bushman- Hottentot group, whose languages — especially that of the Hottentot — are thought by some authorities to show remote affinities in structure to the Hamitic tongues. Westward of the Hamites, and an earlier divergence from the original Negritic group, were the true black negroes, more closely allied in origin perhaps to the Bushmen- Hottentots than to the more divergent Hamites. But 3000 years ago, I am inclined to believe that the true negroes were bounded in their distribution by the northern limits of the Sahara Desert, the Atlantic Ocean, the great forests of the Congo Basin, and either the Nile Valley or the Abyssinian Highlands on the East. Here and there these different sections of the Negritic stock mingled, producing races superior to the pure negro, like the Nubians, the Somalis, and the Fulbe, which dwell more or less on the borderland between the negro and the Hamite. When the true negroes invaded the southern half
* The Kilimanjaro Expedition^ pp. 478-48.^.
' These latter much mixed I am sure with the black negroes.
HISTORY S5
of the African continent, some 2000 to 3000 years ago, they carried with them such culture, domestic animals, and cultivated plants as they had derived indirectly from Egypt. I should think that in Nyasaland and along the shores of Lake Tanganyika, the history of negro culture has been retrograde, until the coming of the Arab and the European. In one or two places on the shores of Lake Nyasa old pottery has been dug up at a considerable depth below the surface, with trees of great girth and age growing over these remains. The pottery has been found imbedded in the sand of an ancient shore-line of Nyasa, now covered by about 5 feet of humus, in which baobab trees are strongly rooted. From the approximate age of the trees, and the time it should have taken to accumulate this vegetable soil, some of this pottery must have been 500 or 600 years old. One large pot thus found has been deposited by me in the British Museum. These few remains exhibit evidences of greater skill and taste than is shown by the pottery at the present time in the same districts. Researches founded on the study of languages, of religions, of traditions, and on the records of Portuguese explorers in West Africa, would also seem to show that in Western Africa many of the negro States were in a far higher state of culture 500 years ago than they are now.
The line of the migration of the Bantu negroes in British Central Africa will be treated of in Chapter XL, which describes their languages. It will be sufficient to say, as regards history, that we may presume them to have entered into possession of these countries — driving out or absorbing the antecedent Bushman race — about 1000 years ago.
With the doubtful exception of the visit of an occasional Arab slave dealer, they had no contact with the outer world until the arrival of the Portuguese on the East Coast of Africa, which is the first definite landmark in the history of this portion of the continent. Vasco da Gama, after rounding the Cape of Good Hope in 1495, stopped at the Arab settlements of Sofala (near the modern Beira) and Mogambique, and thence passed onwards to Malindi (near Mombasa) and India. On his return from India he further explored the South-east Coast of Africa, and (probably from information given by Arab pilots) entered with his little fleet the Quelimane River,^ which was connected intermittently with the main Zambezi, and which, until the other day, was thought to be the only certain means of reaching the Zambezi above its delta. This river he called the " Rio dos Bons Signaes," or the " River of Good Indications." The name " Quelimane," which he applied to a small village 12 miles inland from the mouth of the river (the origin of the now important town of Quelimane, the capital of Portuguese Zambezia) is stated by the Portuguese to have the following etymology. This village belonged to a certain individual who acted as interpreter between the Portuguese and the natives. He appears to have been an Arab, or a half Arab. In those days Portuguese navigators seem to have been acquainted with Arabic, a language which probably still lingered in the southern part of Portugal, where Moorish kingdoms existed till the twelfth century. The name which the Portuguese applied to this individual was " Quelimane " (pronounced Keliman). Now in the corrupt Coast Arabic "Kaliman" is the word for "Interpreter."^ Consequently the name of the modern town Quelimane* is simply derived
^ On Jan. 22nd, 1498. ^ In Swahili this becomes Mkalimani.
* I have taken the opportunity to give this bit of etymology as there has long been a misapprehension as to the correct spelling of Quelimane, which was thought wrongly to be derived from "Kilimani," which means in Swahili ** on the hill." But there is no hill within eighty miles of Quelimane. The true native name of this place is *' Chuabo."
56
BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA
from the term " Interpreter," applied to this guide and go-between of Vasco da Gama.
For some five centuries before the Portuguese arrived the Arabs of Southern and Eastern Arabia had formed or re-formed settlements along the East Coast of Africa from Somaliland to Sofala.^ In the direction of British Central Africa they were chiefly established at Mozambique, Ngoji (Angoche), and Sena on the Zambezi. They apparently found no direct entrance into the Zambezi River which could be easily navigated by their daus, and preferred to use the Quelimane River. This in exceptional rainy seasons at the present day becomes connected with the Zambezi river, by overflow creeks ; and possibly some centuries ago was the most northern branch of the delta. The Arabs would seem, therefore, to have gone up this river past Quelimane, and then to have travelled either by water when the river was full, or pverland at other seasons, to Sena, a settlement not far from the junction of the Zambezi and the Shire. From Sena again they had overland communication to their settlements at Sofala, near the modem town of Beira.^
At first the Portugu^e were received by the Arabs in a friendly fashion, and several of the Portuguese were taken up by Arab guides from Quelimane to Sena. Before many years ^ were over the Portuguese had dispossessed the Arabs, and driven them away. From Sofala to Mozambique they replaced them so completely, with the exception of their settlements at Angoche,* that they disappeared entirely and never returned, even after the temporary decay of the Portuguese power which enabled the Arabs to reconquer the East Coast of Africa as far south as Kilwa.
At first Sena, on the Lower Zambezi, was the headquarters of the Portu- guese Administration, and from hence various expeditions, during the sixteenth century, were sent southwards to discover the gold mines of Manika — expedi- tions which were mostly unsuccessful, owing to the unhealthiness of the climate and the presence of the Tsetse fly. Another obstacle in the way of Portuguese enterprise was the kingdom of Monomotapa,^ a powerful empire of Bantu negroes, probably related in stock to the Zulus. The influence of Monomotapa must have ranged from the vicinity of the south end of Lake Nyasa to the Limpopo River. Simultaneously with the first Portuguese '* Conquistadores "
^ I say "re-formed" because we are now practically certain that some races of Southern Arabia had founded their ancient settlements — possibly in connection with the Phoenicians— in South-eastern Africa, not only on the East Coast but far in the interior of Mashonaland. These settlements were, it is supposed, destroyed by the advent of the Bantu tribes from the North, who were far more formidable enemies to tackle than the feeble Bushmen and Hottentots. It is possible that the natives of Arabia did not entirely
five up their African trade, though they had to quit the interior and confine their settlements to the coast. lut whether or no there was a gap in Arab enterprise in the early part of the Christian era, there was a great revival in the tenth century, and in the eleventh century a strong Arab kingdom was formed at Kilwa (midway between Zanzibar and Mo9ambique) which exercised a kmd of suzerainty over the other settlements or Sultanates. Mosques were built at this period, the remains of which may be seen at the present day.
'^ Beira was the name given to this place not many years ago by the Portuguese, when it was first founded, after Col. Paiva d*Andrada's explorations of the Pungwe river. ** Beira'* is the name of one of the principal provinces of Portugal, and the eldest son of the heir to the throne of Portugal always bears the title of ** Principe da Beira." Beira is pronounced **Bay-ra" in Portuguese. Consequently, with their usual perversity, the English people have decided to call it "By-ra," for it is one of our national peculiarities to devote all our best energy to a mispronunciation of foreign words.
^ I believe the Arabs remained in possession of Sena until near the end of the sixteenth century.
* Which really remain unconquered to this day.
* This name was derived from the native appellation of the Makaranga chief, and is apparently a corruption of **Mwene Mutapa " = * * I^rd Hippopotamus"; or *' Mwana-Mutapa" — ** Child of the Hippopotamus." The hippopotamus was much reverenced by the tribes of the Central Zambezi, and is so, to some extent, still.
HISTORY
S7
and mining adventurers came lion-hearted Jesuit Missionaries, resolved on repeating in the Zambezi countries the successes they had obtained in Christianising the kingdom of the Congo. Several of these men were martyred by the orders of the Emperor of Monomotapa ; but eventually they established themselves at Zumbo, on the Central Zambezi, at the con- fluence of the great Luangwa River.
The modern capital of Tete,^ which is the most important town on the Zambezi, was not founded until the middle of the seventeenth century, and was merely a station of Jesuit Missionaries originally, though afterwards taken over by the Portuguese Government. At first, however, the principal towns were Zumbo and Sena.
governor's house, tete
The Portuguese soon penetrated northward of the Zambezi, in the direction of the Maravi country and the watershed of Lake Nyasa. Here they dis- covered, or re-discovered, from hints given by Arabs or natives, the gold deposits of Misale,^ and for some century or so afterwards these gold mines were extensively worked. Curiously enough, however, the chief mineral dis- coveries of the Portuguese at this time lay in the direction of silver, though at the present time we have no knowledge of any existing silver mines in the Zambezi countries.
In 1616 a Portuguese, named Jaspar Bocarro, offered to carry samples of Zambezi silver overland from the Central Zambezi to Malindi, a Portuguese settlement to the north of Mombasa, without going near Mozambique. The
' Tete is the name for a reed. The plural ** Matete" means '*a reed-bed." It is possible that this was the etymology of the name, as the shore is very reedy about that part of the Zambezi. But the native name of Tete is " Nyungwi."
2 Nowadays Misale lies within the British sphere of influence, and a British company is attempting to work its gold.
58
BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA
THE ISLAND OF MO<j'AMDIQUE, SEEN FROM THE MAINLAND
motive of this offer lay in the fact that considerable friction existed between the Central Government of Mozambique, which was under the Viceroys of India, and the Portuguese adventurers on the Zambezi, who strongly objected to the grinding monopolies which the Mozambique Government sought to establish. Jaspar Bocarro apparently journeyed from where the town of Tete now stands to the Upper Shire River, crossing that stream near its junction with the Ruo ; and then, passing through the Anguru country in the vicinity of Lake Chilwa, he entered the Lujenda Valley, and so travelled on to the Ruvuma River, and thence to the coast at Mikindani. ^From Mikindani he continued his journey to Malindi by sea. So far as reliable records go, this was the first European to enter what is now styled " British Central Africa."
The Jesuit priests from Zumbo had journeyed westward into the country of the Batonga or Batoka,^ and northwards up the Luangwa River. They
^ Sir John Kirk, when travelling with Livingstone, in 1859, discovered groves of fruit trees in the Batoka country which may have been introduced by the Jesuits.
HISTORY 59
transmitted rumours of a great lake (Nyasa), which they styled Lake " Maravi." This really meant ** a lake in the country of the Maravi," Maravi being an old name (now nearly extinct) of the Nyanja tribes in the south-west of Nyasa- land. But in the middle of the eighteenth century the Jesuits were expelled from all the Portuguese Dominions by order of the Marquez de Pombal ; and after their departure from the Central Zambezi there was a temporary diminu- tion of Portuguese activity. At the very end of the last century, however, the interest of the Portuguese Government in its East African possessions was revived by the British Government having taken possession of the Cape of Good Hope at the outbreak of the war with France. In the year following the seizure of Cape Town^ by an English force, Dr. Francisco Jos^ Maria de Lacerda e Almeida, a distinguished scientific man who was a native of Brazil,, and a Doctor of Mathematics at Coimbra University (Portugal), addressed a very remarkable letter to the Portuguese Government, setting forth that the results of the English invasion of Capetown would be the creation of a great British South African Empire, which would, if not counteracted in time, spread north- wards across the Zambezi, and separate the Portuguese Dominions of Angola and Mozambique. This, I think, at the period and with the limited geographical knowledge then possessed by even a Portuguese University, was one of the most remarkable instances of political foresight which can be quoted. The Portuguese Government was so struck with Dr. Lacerda's arguments that it appointed him Governor of the Rios de Sena,^ and authorised him to conduct an expedition "d contra-costa " — across Africa from the Zambezi countries to Angola, establishing Portuguese Suzerainty along his route.
It should be stated at this juncture that not nearly so many white Portuguese had assisted in opening up the East African territories, as had settled in Angola,, and on the West Coast of Africa. In those days the Portuguese East African possessions were generally knit up with their Viceroyalty of India, and the pure-blooded Portuguese in the Zambezi countries were few in number compared to the "Canarins'' or Canarese These people were half-caste natives of Goa, with more or less Indian blood in their veins, and constituted the principal element in the Portuguese Zambezi settlements. They were very enterprising men, though they relapsed into semi-savagery, and as slave-traders and robbers had a record almost more evil than that of the Arabs. Nevertheless the European blood in their veins sharply distinguished these Goanese from the unlettered black people, and of some of their journeys they kept more or less intelligent records. Two Goanese of the name of Pereira, father and son, had gone gold hunting to the north of the Zambezi, and had eventually pushed on with their armed slaves till they reached the Kazembe*s country, near Lake Mweru. The reports which they gave of the Kazembe (a lieutenant or satrap of the Muata Yanvo of Lunda) decided Dr. Lacerda to proceed thither on his way across to Angola. His expedition numbered about 75 white Portuguese, and the two Pereiras accompanied it as guides. Dr. Lacerda, however, only succeeded in reaching Kazembe's capital, near the south end of Lake Mweru, and eventually died there on the i8th October, 1798. After his death the expedition became so disorganised that instead of continuing the journey to Angola it returned to Tete.
At the beginning of the present century two half-caste Portuguese, named Baptista and Amaro Jose, crossed from the Kwango River in the interior
^ Which took place in 1795. * The old name for the Zambezi.
6o BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA
of Angola to the Kazembe's country, near Lake Mweru, and thence to Tete on the Zambezi. In 1831 Major Monteiro and Captain Gamitto conducted a mission from Tete to the Kazembe, and some years subsequently Silva Porto, a Portuguese colonist, of Bihe, in the interior of Benguela, is also said to have rambled over much of South Central Africa ; further, a certain Candido de Costa Cardoso claimed that he sighted the south-west corner of Lake Nyasa in 1846; but none Of these explorers, with the exception of Dr. Lacerda, possessed any scientific qualifications, and their journeys led to little or no geographical information or political ascendancy. Indeed, what is remarkable about Dr. Lacerda, to say nothing of the other explorers, was the extraordinary bad luck which prevented him from sighting any important river or lake. He reached a point within a few miles of the large Lake Mweru, and yet either never saw it, or thought it not worth mention. He heard vague rumours of Tanganyika and of Nyasa, but did not direct his steps in either direction ; and, stranger still, he missed the recognition of the remarkable Luapula, which we now know to be the Upper Congo, though he must have actually been within sight of it.
The real history of British Central Africa begins with the advent of Livingstone. This intrepid missionary had gradually pushed his explorations northwards from the Cape of Good Hope until he reached the Central Zambezi in 185 1, accompanied by the celebrated sportsman Mr. Oswell. Impressed with the importance of his discovery Livingstone returned to Cape Town, and with the generous assistance of Mr. Oswell, was enabled not only to send his wife and children out of harm's way, but to equip himself for the tremendous exploration of South Central Africa, which he had determined to accomplish. Having perfected himself in astronomical observ^ations, under the tuition of the Astronomer-Royal of Cape Town, Livingstone started for the North and once more reached the Zambezi, near its confluence with the Chobe. Thence he travelled up the Zambezi to its source, and across to Angola and again back from Angola and down the Zambezi to its mouth, or more correctly speaking to Quelimane, on the Indian Ocean. This epoch-making journey had important and far-reaching results. Livingstone was sent back by the British Government at the head of a well-equipped expedition, and was accompanied amongst others by Dr., now Sir John, Kirk, who, besides being medical officer, was the naturalist of the expedition.
After a journey to Tete and visits to the " Quebrabago *' Rapids for the purpose of determining the navigability of the Zambezi above Tete, Livingstone determined to search for and find the reported great lake out of which the Shire^ flowed to join the Zambezi. At this date the Portuguese knew scarcely anything of the Shire beyond its confluence with the Zambezi. They seem to have lost all remembrance of the one or two earlier journeys in that direction of Portuguese explorers. Consequently, before Livingstone and his party had ascended the Shire very far they found themselves in a country absolutely new to the white man. After several futile attempts to reach Lake Nyasa, in the course of one of which they discovered the brackish Lake Chilwa, which lies to the south-east of the greater lake, and Lake Malombe, which
^ The name of the "Shire" river was formerly written by the Portuguese **Cherim" (pronounce, "Shdring"); this was later still written **Chire," which if the "ch" be pronounced as in ** church" fairly represents the native pronunciation. But the Portuguese pronounce **ch" like **sh," therefore Livingstone heard them speak of this river as the ** Shire," and thus transcribed it in English. The correct native pronunciation is '*Chiri" (Cheeree), and the word means in Chinyanja **a steep bank "— Nyanja ya chiri, ** the river with the steep banks."
HISTORY
6i
is a widening of the Upper Shire, Livingstone and his companions finally reached the southern extremity of Nyasa, near the site of the modem settle- ment of Fort Johnston, on the i6th of September, 1859, the first white men, as far as we know with any certainty, who stood on the shores of Lake Nyasa. As the district in which Livingstone discovered this third greatest of the lakes of Africa was under Yao domination, he recorded its name as pronounced by the Yao, i.e. Nyasa; but its most common appellation is Nyanja. This is the same word as Nyanza farther north, and Nyasa, Nyanja, and Nyanza are derived from an archaic and widespread Bantu root -anza, which means **a broad water." ^
Livingstone and his party extended their explorations of the western coast of Lake Nyasa as far north as about 11*30 south latitude, a little more than
THE POINT ON THE SOUTH SHORE OF LAKE NYASA WHENCE THE LAKE WAS FIRST SEEN BY DR. LIVINGSTONE AND SIR JOHN KIRK IN 1859
half-way up the lake. Subsequently Livingstone travelled inland west of Lake Nyasa till he reached the watershed of the great Luangwa River, and it was upon hearing at that point of a not far distant lake that he resolved, on his succeeding journey, to proceed along the same route, and thus discovered the south end of Lake Tanganyika, Lake Mweru, the Luapula River, and Lake Bangweolo. Whilst Livingstone and Kirk were exploring Lake Nyasa and the Shire Highlands, however, they were joined by a Christian Mission under Bishop Mackenzie, which had been sent out from the two great English Universities, and which exists to this day under the name of the " Universities Mission to Central Africa." These missionaries settled in the eastern part of the Shire Highlands, just as the invasions of the Muhammadan Yao slave raiders were beginning.
^ This root is found even among the more corrupt Bantu tongues of Western Equatorial Afriai. For instance, the broad estuary of the Cameroons River is called in the Duala tongue " Muanza.'* and the same name is given to the Lower Congo.
62 BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA
Following on the Portuguese expeditions at the end of the i8th century to Kazembe's country, a great intercourse had sprung up between the Babisa tribe, which inhabits the district to the west of the great I.uangwa River and the Zanzibar coast. The Babisa had acquired guns from the Portuguese, and, armed in this way, had asserted themselves effectually against tribes still armed with the bow and spear. They became an enterprising people and resolved to trade directly with the Coast. Not liking the Portuguese, however, they preferred to journey farther north, and trafficked with the Arabs of Zanzibar. About this time the Zanzibar Sultanate was increasing gradually in power. It was an appanage of the Imamate of Maskat ('Oman), and already the Maskat Arabs (who had replaced the Portuguese in all the trading settlements of Eastern Africa, between the Ruvuma River and Somaliland) had begun to push their slave and ivory trading enterprises into the interior of Eastern Africa, especially in the direction of Tanganyika. Attracted, however, by the accounts which the Babisa caravans gave of the fertile country in which they dwelt, and struck with the docility of the slaves brought down by the Babisa from the Nyasa countries, certain Arabs accompanied the Babisa caravans back to their place of origin, which was, as I have said, the countries lying to the west of the great Luangwa River. The route they followed was from ports like Kilwa on the East Coast to Lake Nyasa thence across Nyasa and south- west or due west to the Lubisa country.
In the course of these journeys the Arabs became acquainted with that race of fine physical development and stubborn character, the Yao, who inhabit much of the high country lying between the Indian Ocean and Lake Nyasa. In the Yao they found willing confederates in the slave trade, and a people much inclined to Muhammadanism. Eventually the poor Babisa were attacked and enslaved by neighbouring tribes who had been armed by the Arabs, and their importance passed away. The Arabs and Yao between them began to dominate Nyasaland. Now the inhabitants of the bulk of Nyasaland proper, with the exception of its north-west portion, belonged in the main to what may be called the A-nyanja stock. These people who are referred to by Portuguese of an earlier date as the Amaravi, and who are of the same race as the indigenous inhabitants of the Zambezi Valley between Tete and Sena and of the whole course of the Shire, are of a singularly docile and peaceful disposition, devoted to agriculture and timid in warfare — a race consequently that is always falling under the domination of more powerful and energetic tribes. Before what may be called the Yao invasion of the Shire Highlands the Nyanja people had been oppressed by Zulu invaders coming from the south-west. The convulsions which had been taking place in Zululand in the early part of this century had resulted in a most curious recoil of the Zulu race on Central Africa. It is probably not many centuries since the forerunners of the Zulus swept down from Central Africa, from the region of the great lakes, across the Zambezi, into Southern Africa, driving themselves like a wedge through the earlier Bantu invaders, the ancestors of the Basuto-Bechuana, and further displacing and destroying the feebler Hottentot people. Now, however, with the Indian Ocean in front of them, and internal commotions and increase of population com- j)elling them to find more space for settlement, sections of them began to turn their faces back towards the Zambezi. The foundations of the Matabele^ kingdom were laid, and band after band of Zulus crossed the Zambezi about
^ Or Amandabele, as it ought to be written but that we English love inaccuracy in pronunciation iind spelling for its own sake. Maiabele is the Se-chuana corniption of the Zulu ** Amandabele.''
HISTORY 63
1 825-6, and in their raids and conquests almost penetrated as far as the southern shores of the Victoria Nyanza, whilst they were constantly heard of on the east coast of Tanganyika. In the west and south-west of Nyasaland they had founded kingdoms and enslaved the local inhabitants, when the Yao from the north-east hurled themselves on the fertile Shire districts. So that the unfor- tunate Nyanja people were caught between Zulu and Yao, and suffered greatly. The British missionaries and explorers, however, saw little of the Zulu raiders in those earlier days.^ At the beginning of the "sixties" they were chiefly concerned with the Yao invasion. After in vain attempting to defend their Nyanja converts from the attacks of the Yao, the Universities Mission lost so many of its members from sickness, and was additionally so discouraged by the abandonment of Dr. Livingstone's schemes, that it withdrew from the* country for a time. Livingstone and his Expedition were recalled by the British Government at the end of 1863, and quitted Zambezia in 1864.
The fact was that the British Government was at that time discouraged from any further work in the Zambezi countries by the following obstacles : the political opposition shown by the Portuguese j^ the acknowledged sway of the Portuguese over the coast line which made it impossible to communicate with any British Possessions which might be founded in the interior; the unhealthiness of the coast lands ; and the seeming absence of any easy way into the Zambezi River, all the known mouths of which were cursed with <langerous and shallow bars. The discovery of the Chinde mouth, which afterwards revolutionised the whole question, had not then been made ; or. it may be, the Chinde branch of the Zambezi as an easily navigated river did not then exist, for there have evidently been great fluctuations in the Zambezi Delta with regard to the course taken by the principal body of its water.
Following on Livingstone's first journey across South Central Africa, a great interest had sprung up in France and Germany regarding the existence of the reported Central African lakes. The German Missionaries in the pay of the Church Missionary Society in East Africa, had discovered the snow mountains of Kenia and Kilimanjaro and had reported, from native information, the existence of the Victoria Nyanza, of Tanganyika and of Lake Nyasa. Fore- most amongst the African explorers of that day, and, at the time, second in importance to Livingstone only, was a young lieutenant in the Indian Army — Richard Francis Burton — who, stationed at Aden, had attempted the exploration of Somaliland with a brother-officer named Speke. After some difficulty Burton had induced the Geographical Society and Her Majesty's Government to provide him with the funds for an expedition which would start from opposite Zanzibar to discover the great Central African lake or lakes. He chose Lieut Speke as his companion, and together they discovered Lake Tanganyika, Speke afterwards being dispatched by Burton to look for the great lake of Ukerewe, which Speke declared with truth to be the main source of the Nile and which he named the Victoria Nyanza. Burton and Speke were the first Europeans to arrive on the shores of Lake Tanganyika. They explored its northern half, but not very much work was done in the way of
* Livingstone however came in contact with them when he explored the western shores of Lake Nyasa.
^ But it must be distinctly stated that throughout the whole course of Livingstone's first and second Zambezi expeditions though the Portuguese Government may have viewed with distaste the interest evinced by England in the Zambezi and the interior of East Central Africa, the courtesy and kindness shown by the Portuguese authorities to Livingstone and the rest of his expedition were praiseworthy in the extreme. For particulars of this see my Life. of Livin^tone,
64 BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA
mapping beyond visiting the western shore and making a rough outline of the northern portion of the lake. Prior to Burton's journey, a young Frenchman started from Zanzibar for the same purpose, but had been murdered on the way to Tanganyika, and after Burton's expedition a German doctor, named Ernst Roscher, had set out for Lake Nyasa in the disguise of an Arab. He reached the eastern shore of the lake at a place called Lusewa, on the 19th November, 1859, ^wo months after Livingstone's discovery. On his attempted return to the coast, however, he was murdered by the Yao, a murder which was to some extent avenged by the Sultan of Zanzibar, who brought influence to bear on the Yao chiefs to send the ostensible murderers to Zanzibar to be executed. Another German traveller of some celebrity. Baron von der Decken, who was the first systematic explorer of Kilimanjaro, had attempted to reach Lake Nyasa, but scarcely got half way.
Meantime Livingstone, after a year's sojourn in England, had managed to scrape together funds for another Central Africa exploration. He was very desirous of resuming his journeys in search of other lakes to the west of Lake Nyasa. Travelling by Bombay and Zanzibar he landed at Mikindani at the end of March, 1866. He was, I believe, the first explorer to attempt taking with him natives of India as guards or soldiers ; but it must be confessed that although the employment of Indians in Central Africa has since proved very successful, the Muhammadan Sepoys who accompanied Livingstone turned out utter failures, and were eventually sent back from Mataka's, a town in the Yao country. Livingstone also tried to introduce the Indian buffalo, an experiment not repeated until my reintroduction of this animal from India in 1895. It is interesting to note that Livingstone's buffalos passed through the tsetse fly country, and, seemingly, were not affected by the bites of that insect, though they all subsequently died as the result of maltreatment at the hands of the Sepoys.
Livingstone again reached the shores of Lake Nyasa, at its south-eastern gulf, on the 8th of August, 1866 ; but being unable to cross without a dau he walked right round the southern end, and thence turned his steps northwards. At Marenga's town, near the south-west corner of Lake Nyasa, there were rumours of Angoni-Zulu raids, which greatly scared the coast -men of Livingstone's caravan, who consequently abandoned him here; and to excuse themselves at Zanzibar for their act of bad faith, they reported, with much corroborative detail, the death of Livingstone at the hands of the Angoni.
Livingstone, after the desertion of these coast-men (who were natives of the Comoro Islands) pursued his way northwards, and reached the great Luangwa river in December, 1866; on the 28th of January, 1867, he crossed the Chambezi river, which issues from the Bangweolo marshes, under the name of the Luapula, and is in reality the extreme Upper Congo. On the 1st of April he reached the south end of Lake Tanganyika, and for the time being, believed it to be a separate lake under the nam.e of Liemba ; on the 8th of November, 1867, he discovered Lake Mweru ; on the i8th of July, 1868, Lake Bangweolo. Returning from Bangweolo, he journeyed with an Arab caravan from Kazembe's town near the south end of Lake Mweru, to the west shore of Tanganyika, which he crossed to Ujiji, reaching that place in March, 1869. After attempting in vain to organize a caravan for a journey round the north end of Lake Tanganyika he recrossed the lake to the opposite side in July, and having joined a large party of Arabs and Swahilis, he wandered with them in the Manyema country for many months. His object was the Lualaba river
HISTORY 65
<the Upper Congo) of which he had heard much to excite his curiosity, and which river, he believed, with occasional misgivings, to be the Upper Nile. But so erratic were the wanderings of the Arabs to and fro in the Manyema country that Livingstone did not actually reach the banks of the Lualaba until March, 1871. Resolved to devote himself now to the tracing of what he believed to be the Upper Nile from its source on the Nyasa-Tanganyika plateau to its entrance into the Albert Nyanza, Livingstone decided to return to Ujiji and renew his stock of trade goods and provisions. His journey from the Lualaba to Ujiji was accompanied by indescribable hardships, which produced such an effect on his constitution that they eventually led to his -death two years later. Soon after returning to Ujiji he met Henry M. Stanley, who had been sent by the New York Herald to " find Dr. Livingstone, living or dead."
Stanley's arrival certainly added two years more to Livingstone's life, as by a series of accidents and frauds he found himself absolutely destitute of resources after his return to Ujiji. Together the two men made an ex- ploration of the north end of Lake Tanganyika, and then journeyed eastwards to Unyanyembe, half way to Zanzibar. Here Livingstone insisted on parting company with Stanley, though the latter earnestly entreated him to return to Europe ; but with Livingstone the idea of finding the ultimate sources of the Nile had become almost a monomania, and he was resolved not to return to Europe until he had mapped the upper waters of the Chambezi and the Luapula, together with the river Lualaba, which took its rise in the Katanga Highlands to the West. So he started off once more for Lake Bangweolo in August, 1872, passing round the south end of Lake Tanganyika, and reaching the eastern shores of Lake Bangweolo in the month of April, 1873. But his race was run, and he died at a village near the south end of that marshy lake on or about the ist of May, 1873.
Meantime Nyasaland had not long remained without English visitors. In 1867 Lieut. Young conducted an expedition to the south end of Lake Nyasa to examine into the reports as to the murder of Livingstone by the Angoni. Young (who only died a few months ago) conducted this expedition in a most remarkably successful manner. He left England in the middle of May, 1867, reached the Zambezi with three European companions and a steel boat on the 2Sth of July, journeyed with his baggage in the steel boat (which was named The Search^) and in a flotilla of smaller boats and canoes up the Zambezi and the Shire to the Murchison cataracts; conveyed the steel boat overland to the Upper Shire; reached Mponda's town at the south end of Lake Nyasa; collected a mass of information which conclusively proved that Livingstone was not killed but had started unmolested on his way to the West; returned to the Zambezi, and reached England at the beginning of 1868 after only eight months' absence.
Young had been greatly helped in his transit of the Shire Highlands by the Makololo whom Livingstone had left behind in that district after his withdrawal from the Zambezi in 1864. Those who have read the well-known works dealing with Dr. Livingstone's explorations will remember that on his first journey of discovery up and down the Zambezi he had been accom- panied by certain faithful Makololo porters who had followed him from the Barutse country, on the Upper Zambezi. The so-called Makololo were a section of the Bechuana people who, leaving Basutoland after tribal
^ And is slill plying on the ShirCt
66 BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA
disturbances, journeyed across the Kalahari Desert, and established themselves in the Barutse country.^ When Livingstone reached Tete on his journey back to the East Coast in 1856 he left behind at that place the so-called Makololo (about 25 in number), who had followed him from the Upper Zambezi. On his return in 1858 he picked them up again and added to their numbers several others who followed him of their own free will on his second visit to the Barutse country.
These men were very useful to his expedition in exploring the River Shire, and were of a masterful nature, easily imposing themselves as superior beings on the timid Maftanja people of the Central Shire. When Dr. Livingstone had to leave the country, anxious to put a check on the depredations of the Yao coming from the east, and the Angoni coming from the west, he armed these Makololo, and left them behind to protect the Maftanja natives. The result was that they very soon constituted themselves the chiefs of that country, and they subsequently played a most important part in checking the advances of the Yao and the Angoni, and in sturdily resisting any attempts on the part of the Portuguese to conquer the Shire countries.
In 1874 Mr. Faulkner, who was one of the party accompanying Lieut. Young, R.N., returned to the Shire as a hunter of big game. He was, I believe, eventually killed by the natives. He had a son by a native wife who now bears his name, and who was the first half-caste, so far as we know^ born in the Protectorate.
Livingstone's death caused a tremendous enthusiasm to spring up for the continuation of his work as a Missionary and as an Explorer. Cameron completed Burton's and Livingstone's map of Lake Tanganyika ; Stanley, at the expense of the Daily Telegi'aph, continued the exploration of the Cong^o from Nyangwe, where Livingstone had left it, to the Atlantic Ocean ; but in Nyasaland proper Livingstone's work was immediately continued by the Scotch Missionaries. The Livingstonia Free Church Mission was founded in 1874 and sent out its first party of Missionaries with a small steamer in sections, for Lake Nyasa, in 1875. They were joined, in 1876, by the Pioneers of the Church of Scotland Mission, who ch(jse the site of the present town of Blantyre, and established themselves in the Shire Highlands, while the Free Church applied itself to the evangelisation of Lake Nyasa. It is interesting to note that' the leader of the first Missionary expedition — Dr. Laws — who went out in 1875, and the engineer of the first Mission steamer placed on Lake Nyasa (the Ilala, which is still plying), Mr. A. C. Simpson, are still alive and well, and hard at work in Nyasaland, the one as a senior member of the Mission he has served so devotedly for twenty-one years, and the other as a prosperous planter at Mlanje.
Shortly after the Church of Scotland Mission had established itself at Blantyre, a young gardener, named John Buchanan, was sent from Scotland to assist the Mission in horticulture. ^
In 1878 Captain Frederick Elton had been appointed Consul at Mo9ambique, and had obtained permission to conduct an expedition to Lake Nyasa to report
' Barutse is stated to be derived from *'Bahurutse" the name of another of the Bechuana septs These Bechuana emij^rants who sometimes called themselves the Makololo had conquered the Barutse country, from its native chiefs of Baloi race. But as a matter of fact these famous Makololo porters who have played such a part in the history* of Nyasaland were very few of them of Bechuana blood. Many of them were slaves of lialoi, or kindred races of the Upper Zambezi. . t '^ lie was the means of introducing and planting the coft'cc shrub in Central Africa.
HISTORY 67
on the slave trade. He was accompanied by Mr. H. B. Cotterill, Mr. Herbert Rhodes,^ and Captain Hoste.
With the aid of the Httle Mission steamer Ilala Consul Elton explored the north end of Lake Nyasa, which he was able to show extended much farther northwards than had been supposed by Livingstone and Kirk. This northward extension of the Lake was further verified a few years afterwards by numerous observations for Latitude taken by Mr. James Stewart, an engineer in the employ of the African Lakes Company. Consul Elton first made known to us the remarkable Livingstone or Ukinga Mountains, at the end of Lake Nyasa, which attain an altitude, in parts, of nearly 10,000 feet. Unhappily Consul Elton died in Wunyamwezi on his way to Zanzibar.
The Missions had not been long established when they found it impossible
MANDALA HOUSE, NEAR BLANTYRE
to conduct the necessary trade with the natives (for provisions could only be obtained by barter) and the transport service between the coast and Lake Xyasa, in addition to the ordinary Missionary work ; so it was resolved, in Scotland, to found a small Company for trade and transport, subsequently styled "The African Lakes Company," which would be affiliated to the Missions (in so far that its employes should be required to do a certain amount of missionary work), but be conducted independently and on a commercial basis. Two brothers, John William Moir and Frederick Maitland Moir, were sent to Nyasaland as joint managers. They had been previously at work in the employ of the late Sir William Mackinnon, on a road to Lake Tanganyika which that philanthropist intended to construct inland from Dar-es-Salam, opposite Zanzibar. The headquarters of the Lakes Company were fixed at
' Mr. Herbert Rhodes was a brother of Mr. (now the Right Honourable) Cecil j. Rhodes, and had Cfjme to Nyasaland to shoot big game. He accompanied Consul hlton as far as the north end of Lake Nyasa, and then returned to the Upper Shire, where he established himself for some time shooting elephants. He gained a great reputation amongst the natives for bravery and fair dealing, and is .still spoken of by the older men at the present day under the name of ** Roza." He was burned to death in 1880 by the accidental setting on fire of his hut.
68 BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA
** Mandala " (now a suburb of Blantyre), about one mile from the headquarters of the Church of Scotland Mission. Mr. John Moir built a substantial house there, which still endures ; and as he wore spectacles he was called by the natives " Mandala," a name meaning ** glass.'* This nickname was soon applied to his residence, and gradually came to mean both the African Lakes Company, and the place where they settled near Blantyre. Mandala is now the official name of the headquarters of the African Lakes Company and of an important suburb of Blantyre.
The Church of Scotland Mission in those days — that is to say at the end of the seventies — was under the direction of two able -men, the Rev. Alexander Duff and the late Mr. Henry Henderson, the latter being the business manager and the principal lay member; but it had attached to it also certain lay members who were either badly chosen, or who developed into bad characters when they came into contact with African savagery. It is only necessary to specify one of these — George Fen wick — whose name cannot be ignored in the history of this Protectorate. These men soon began to treat the natives with great harshness, and taking advantage of the dread in which white men were held, to bully and extort, and raise themselves almost to the position of petty chiefs. Indeed, in reviewing all that has happened since - Europeans settled in this part of Africa, I have been increasingly struck with the rapidity with which such members of the white race as are not of the best class, can throw over the restraints of civilisation and develop into savages of unbridled lust and abominable cruelty. These lay members of the Mission attempted to exercise a kind of jurisdiction over the natives in the vicinity of the Mission stations, and so severe were their punishments that one native was sentenced to death and was shot, while other natives actually died from tjie awful floggings they received. Two English sportsmen, returning from Nyasaland, conveyed the news of these outrages to the consular authorities io Portuguese East Africa ; the Foreign Office took up the matter, and eventually the Church of Scotland Mission sent out commissioners to hold an enquiry into the charges. Mr. Nunes, H. M. Vice-Consul at *^Quelimane, represented Her Majesty*s Government on this enquiry, which resulted in the charges being in great measure proved.^ The ordained minister who was at the head of the Mission at Blantyre resigned ; though no blame was imputed to him, as he did not possess the means of controlling the actions of his subordinates. But after what had occurred he preferred to withdraw from the Mission* Mr. John Buchanan also at this time left the Mission, and set up for himself in- dependently, as a coffee planter. George Fenwick and other lay members of the Mission, who were implicated in the deeds* referred to, were dismissed, and the first-mentioned went to live among the natives as an elephant hunter In 1 88 1 the Revs. D. C. Scott and Alexander Hetherwick came out to Africa and took charge of the Church of Scotland Mission, implanting on its work a very different character to the ill-fame which had temporarily clouded its earlier days owing to the misdeeds of its lay assistants. The indirect result, however, of the increasing British settlement in Nyasaland^ was to induce Her Majesty's Government to establish a British Consul for Nyasa, and in 1883
* The evidence gathered by this commission makes very painful reading, and further ex|)atiation on this subject is tieither necessary nor desirable.
* See an excellently written book called Africaiia^ by the Rev. Alexander Duff (Sampson Low & Co.) — one of the best books ever written on Africa.
^ By this time the African Lakes Company had placed their small steamer. The Lady Nyasa^ on the Zambezi.
HISTORY 69
Capt. Foot, R.N., went to Blantyre with his wife and children, taking with him Mr. D. Rankin as private secretary.
During all these years the Makololo chiefs had become increasingly powerful. At first they had seemed disposed to welcome the British, but there were times when they became arrogant and exacting in their demands. Still, on the whole, they were a valuable counterpoise to the aggressive Yao, some of whom became highway robbers and rifled the Mission and African Lakes Company's caravans. There were two of the Makololo chiefs specially prominent — Ramakukane and Chipatula. Ramakukane was seemingly of real Makololo origin, and had been the son of a chief or headman in the Barutse country, who had accompanied Livingstone back to Nyasaland, after his second visit to the Barutse country. Chipatula was one of Livingstone's old porters. Ramakukane was established fit Katunga on the Central Shire, and Chipatula at or near the modem Chiromo, where the river Ruo joins the Shire, and where the present Anglo-Portuguese boundary runs. Ramakukane was, on the whole, friendly to the Europeans. Chipatula chiefly concerned himself in repelling the attempts of the black Portuguese from the Zambezi to establish themselves as slave traders on the Shire. He not only kept these half-castes at bay, but even extended his rule far down the Shire towards the Zambezi. The George Fenwick of whom I have made mention, after leaving the service of the Mission had set up for himself as a trader and elephant hunter. He was a headstrong, lawless man, who inspired fear and admiration alternately, in the minds of the natives. He had had several commercial transactions in selling ivory for Chipatula, and visited that chief at Chiromo in 1884 to settle accounts with him. Both men had been drinking spirits ; Chipatula refused to accept Fenwick s version of accounts and applied opprobrious terms to him. Fenwick started up in a rage and shot Chipatula dead. Before the chiefs astonished followers could take any action he rushed out of the hut towards the river shore, and shouted to them, " Yoiir chief is dead, I am your chief now," but seeing that the natives were rather more inclined to avenge Chipatula s death than to adopt his slayer as his successor, he got into a canoe at the river side, and paddled across the river to Malo Island. Here for three days he led a wretched existence attempting to defend himself from the attacks of the natives. He was at last overcome and killed, and his head was cut off*. The Makololo chiefs then became quite inimical to the white settlers. They shot at and sunk the little steamer Lady Nyasa, and they sent an insolent message to Blantyre, demanding that Mrs. Fenwick, the wife of the adventurer, should be delivered over to them, together with an enormous sum as compensation for the death of Chipatula. Consul Foot finally succeeded, with the help of Ramakukane, in restoring peace, and Mr. John Moir recovered the Lady Nyasa, Consul Foot, however, died not long afterwards from the effects of the fatigue and anxiety he had undergone. Chipatula was succeeded by a man named Mlauri, also one of Livingstone's men, but not friendly to the British ; and old Ramakukane died. The demeanour of the Makololo as the years went by became increasingly insolent and hostile towards the Europeans, English as well as Portuguese.
In 1 88 1 a fresh element of British influence had appeared on the shores of Lake Nyasa, in the arrival of the Rev. W. P. Johnson and Mr. Charles Janson, of the Universities Mission to Central Africa — that Mission whose first bishop, Mackenzie, had died near Chiromo on the Shire in 1862. It will be remembered that the Universities Mission had been founded at the instance
70 BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA
of Livingstone, but after establishing itself in the Shire highlands in 1862 had been obliged to quit that country owing to the hostilities shown by the Yao. Since that time the Mission had concentrated itself at Zanzibar, and had founded stations on the East Coast of Africa. That really great man, Bishop Steere, the third of the Missionary bishops to Central Africa, had set his heart on reopening work in Nyasaland. He walked overland from the Indian Ocean to the east coast of the lake. Subsequently Lake Nyasa was reached by the Rev. W. P. Johnson, accompanied by Mr. Charles Janson. The latter fell ill, and died on the shores of Lake Nyasa In his will he bequeathed a sum of money for the construction of a Mission steamer to be placed on the lake. Other subscriptions were raised, and eventually the Charles Janson was launched on Lake Nyasa, where she still exists. The Rev. Chauncey Maples and other recruits from the Mission had meantime joined Mr. Johnson. Bishop Steere had been succeeded by Bishop Smythies,^ who if anything took an increased interest in the establishment of his Mission on Lake Nyasa, to which lake he paid repeated visits. The Rev. Chauncey Maples was made Arch- deacon of Nyasa.2 Seeing the troublous condition of the Yao countries, and the shores of Lake Nyasa, where the unfortunate A-nyanja inhabitants were alternately raided by Magwangwara,* Arabs and Yao, the Universities Mission resolved to establish its headquarters on the Island of Likoma, which is distant about eight miles from the east coast of Lake Nyasa, and consequently is not so subject to the attacks of the Magwangwara or Yao.
The Livingstonia Mission under the able guidance of Dr. Robert Laws, M.D. had been for years making steady progress on the west coast of Lake Nyasa, Their first experiments at Cape Maclear,* a promontory which divides the southern end of the lake into two gulfs, were not very successful. The settle- ment of Livingstonia, — which still exists but where only native adherents of the Mission dwell at the present time, — proved to be extremely unhealthy for Europeans, and many missionaries died there. Dr. Laws decided, therefore, to transfer the headquarters of the Mission to Bandawe, about midway up the west coast of the lake, a place in the middle of the Atonga country. Here the Free Church Mission was confronted with an immediate difficulty in the shape of the Angoni-Zulu of the interior, who were gradually exterminating and enslaving the indigenous people of the lake-coast, known as the Atonga, who were related in origin to the A-nyanja stock. The Free Church Mission, therefore, set itself to work to conciliate the Angoni, and obtained such influence over them, after some years, that they stopped to a great extent their raids over the coast people. At any rate the Mission stations served as a harbour of refuge for the harried Atonga, who were eventually able to recover their position and assert themselves against the invaders.
About the end of the seventies the London Missionary Society resolved to take up Tanganyika as a sphere of work. Their journeys thither were made overland from Zanzibar ; but when they decided to have a steamer placed on Tanganyika they found it easier to send its sections by the Lake Nyasa route. The explorer, Joseph Thomson, had reached the north end of Lake Nyasa in 1880, and had journeyed thence to Tanganyika. This exploration
^ Died at sea on his way back to England in 1 894, worn out by ten years of incessant toil and physical fatigue.
* Became Bishop of Likoma in 1895, ^-"^ was drowned in Lake Nyasa a few months after^vards by the capsizing of his boat in a storm.
•* A section of the Angoni-Zulu. established east of I^ke Nyasa.
"* Named by Livingstone after the Astronomer- Royal of Cape Town.
HISTORY - 71
had assisted in fixing the relative position of the two lakes and showing that the land transit between them did not much exceed 200 miles. The African Lakes Company were entrusted with the contract for conveying the London Missionary Society's steamer from Nyasa to Tanganyika, an enterprise success- fully accomplished in 1885. Mr. James Stevenson, a director of the Lakes Company, was struck with the idea of making a permanent road from lake to lake, and subscribed a sum of, I believe, ;f 2000 or ;£'3000, for the purpose of making preliminary surveys. The Stevenson road, however, was never completed, but the route it was to follow was roughly cleared for about sixty miles from Lake Nyasa. The engineers concerned in this work died of fever, and further operations were checked by the outbreak of war with the Arabs. The London Missionary Society did not, at first, think much of the Lake Nyasa route to Tanganyika, but preferred the overland journey from Zanzibar. They therefore devoted their attention more to the middle portion of the lake, especially the west coast opposite to Ujiji, and established themselves here on the island of Kavala. The unhealthiness of this place, however, and the troubles which began to arise on Tanganyika after the first Belgian expeditions, and from the subsequent uprising against the Germans, obliged the London Missionary Society's agents to alter their plans. They transferred their establishments to the south end of the lake, in order to be brought into more direct communication with the British .settlements in Nyasaland.
The first serious danger which may be said to have menaced the infant settlements in Nyasaland, was the trouble with the Makololo chiefs, to which I have already referred. The next danger, and a much more serious one, arose from the conflict with the Arabs who had settled at the north end of Lake Nyasa. When Livingstone and Kirk first explored Lake Nyasa they practically only found the Arabs established in a few places — at one or other of the ports on what is now the Portuguese coast of Lake Nyasa, and at Kotakota on the western shore of the lake ; ^ at which latter place Livingstone visited an Arab settlement under the control of a person called "Jumbe," who was a coast Arab, and a representative or wali of the Sultan of Zanzibar. Jumbe means "prince" on the mainland opposite Zanzibar, and the Sultan had no doubt chosen as his representative a man who went to Nyasa for trade purposes principally, but who was of sufficiently good standing to exercise some show of authority, in the Sultan's name, over the Arabs wandering in those regions. When I use the term " Arabs " I mean both Arabs with white skins of pure blood (and usually natives of 'Oman or of Southern Arabia) and every degree of intermixture and type between the Arab and the negro, so that some of our so-called Arabs in Nyasaland are quite black, though in the shape of their features or in their beards, they may retain traces of the intermixture of a superior race. But all these so-called Arabs are sharply distinguished from the ordinary negroes by dressing in Arab costume, using the Arabic language, and by being stricter and more intelligent in their practices of the Muhammadan religion.
The first interference of the Arabs with Nyasaland was merely to secure a passage across the lake in their caravan journeys to the countries of Senga, Lubisa, and Luwemba, which journeys were undertaken for ivory, or slaves, and had commenced, as I have already related, by their following back into South Central Africa the Babisa caravans that formerly traded with Zanzibar. The
* ** Ngotangota " — as the natives call it, the Arabs having corrupted the name into the easier pronun- ciation of Kotakota.
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BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA
Arabs, however, soon established themselves in strong stockades in the Senga country, through which the great Luangwa River flows. Then they began to adopt, as an alternative route to the journey across Lake Nyasa, the direct journey from Zanzibar overland across the Nyasa-Tanganyika plateau ; and gradually the strong Arab dominion on Lake Tanganyika became connected with the settlements in the Senga country and on Lake Nyasa. The Arabs
had also found a friend and ally in Merere, an intelligent and enterprising chief of the Wa-sango people, who had his capital in the high mountainous region