To talk very affably.
He remembered my predecessors, Burton, Speke, and Grant, very well;
declared me to be much younger than any of them; and, recollecting
that one of the white men used to drink asses' milk (Burton?),
offered to procure me some. The way I drank it seemed to give
him very great satisfaction.
His son, Unamapokera, was a tall man of thirty or thereabouts,
and he conceived a great friendship for me, and promised that the
tribute should be very light, and that he would send a man to show
me the way to Myumi, which was a village on the frontier of Kanyenyi,
by which I would be enabled to avoid the rapacious Kisewah, who was
in the habit of enforcing large tribute from caravans.
With the aid of Unamapokera and his father, we contrived to be
mulcted very lightly, for we only paid ten doti, while Burton was
compelled to pay sixty doti or two hundred and forty yards of cloth.
On the 1st of April, rising early, we reached Myumi after a four
hours' march; then plunged into the jungle, and, about 2 P.M.
arrived at a large ziwa, or pond, situate in the middle of a
jungle; and on the next day, at 10 A.M., reached the fields of
Mapanga. We were passing the village of Mapanga to a resting-place
beyond the village, where we might breakfast and settle the honga,
when a lad rushed forward to meet us, and asked us where we were
going. Having received a reply that we were going to a
camping-place, he hastened on ahead, and presently we heard him
talking to some men in a field on our right.
In the meantime, we had found a comfortable shady place, and had
come to a halt; the men were reclining on the ground, or standing
up near their respective loads; Bombay was about opening a bale,
when we heard a great rush of men, and loud shouts, and,
immediately after, out rushed from the jungle near by a body of
forty or fifty armed men, who held their spears above their
heads, or were about to draw their bows, with a chief at their
head, all uttering such howls of rage as only savages can, which
sounded like a long-drawn "Hhaat-uh - Hhaat-uhh-uhh," which meant,
unmistakably, "You will, will you? No, you will not!" - at once
determined, defiant, and menacing.
I had suspected that the voices I heard boded no good to us,
and I had accordingly prepared my weapons and cartridges. Verily,
what a fine chance for adventure this was! One spear flung at us,
or one shot fired into this minatory mob of savages, and the
opposing' bands had been plunged into a fatal conflict! There
would have been no order of battle, no pomp of war, but a murderous
strife, a quick firing of breech-loaders, and volleys from
flint-lock muskets, mixed with the flying of spears and twanging
of bows, the cowardly running away at once, pursued by yelping
savages; and who knows how it all would have terminated? Forty
spears against forty guns - but how many guns would not have
decamped? Perhaps all, and I should have been left with my
boy gunbearers to have my jugular deliberately severed, or
to be decapitated, leaving my head to adorn a tall pole in
the centre of a Kigogo village, like poor Monsieur Maizan's
at Dege la Mhora, in Uzaramo. Happy end of an Expedition!
And the Doctor's Journal lost for ever - the fruits of six
years' labor!
But in this land it will not do to fight unless driven to the very
last extremity. No belligerent Mungo Park can be successful in
Ugogo unless he has a sufficient force of men with him. With five
hundred Europeans one could traverse Africa from north to south,
by tact, and the moral effect that such a force would inspire.
Very little fighting would be required.
Without rising from the bale on which I was seated, I requested the
kirangozi to demand an explanation of their furious hubbub and
threatening aspect; if they were come to rob us.
"No," said the chief; "we do not want to stop the road, or to
rob you; but we want the tribute."
"But don't you see us halted, and the bale opened to send it to
you? We have come so far from your village that after the tribute
is settled we can proceed on our way, as the day is yet young."
The chief burst into a loud laugh, and was joined by ourselves.
He evidently felt ashamed of his conduct for he voluntarily offered
the explanation, that as he and his men were cutting wood to make
a new fence for his village, a lad came up to him, and said that
a caravan of Wangwana were about passing through the country
without stopping to explain who they were. We were soon very
good friends. He begged of me to make rain for him, as his crops
were suffering, and no rain had fallen for months. I told him that
though white people were very great and clever people, much
superior to the Arabs, yet we could not make rain. Though very
much disappointed, he did not doubt my statement, and after
receiving his honga, which was very light, he permitted us to go
on our way, and even accompanied us some distance to show us the
road.
At 3 P.M. we entered a thorny jungle; and by 5 P.M. we had
arrived at Muhalata, a district lorded over by the chief Nyamzaga.
A Mgogo, of whom I made a friend, proved very staunch. He belonged
to Mulowa, a country to the S.S.E., and south of Kulabi; and was
active in promoting my interests by settling the tribute, with
the assistance of Bombay, for me.
