- The Arabs have sent me as many as forty-five letters
to carry to the coast. I am turned courier in my latter days;
but the reason is that no regularly organized caravans are permitted
to leave Unyanyembe now, because of the war with Mirambo. What if
I had stayed all this time at Unyanyembe waiting for the war to end!
It is my opinion that, the Arabs will not be able to conquer Mirambo
under nine months yet.
To-night the natives have gathered themselves together to give me
a farewell dance in front of my house. I find them to be the
pagazis of Singiri, chief of Mtesa's caravan. My men joined in,
and, captivated by the music despite myself, I also struck in, and
performed the "light fantastic," to the intense admiration of my
braves, who were delighted to see their master unbend a little from
his usual stiffness.
It is a wild dance altogether. The music is lively, and evoked
from the sonorous sound of four drums, which are arranged before
the bodies of four men, who stand in the centre of the weird
circle. Bombay, as ever comical, never so much at home as when in
the dance of the Mrima, has my water-bucket on his head; Chowpereh -
the sturdy, the nimble, sure-footed Chowpereh - has an axe in his
hand, and wears a goatskin on his head; Baraka has my bearskin,
and handles a spear; Mabruki, the "Bull-headed," has entered into
the spirit of the thing, and steps up and down like a solemn
elephant; Ulimengo has a gun, and is a fierce Drawcansir, and you
would imagine he was about to do battle to a hundred thousand,
so ferocious is he in appearance; Khamisi and Kamna are before
the drummers, back to back, kicking up ambitiously at the stars;
Asmani, - the embodiment of giant strength, - a towering Titan, -
has also a gun, with which he is dealing blows in the air, as if
he were Thor, slaying myriads with his hammer. The scruples and
passions of us all are in abeyance; we are contending demons under
the heavenly light of the stars, enacting only the part of a weird
drama, quickened into action and movement by the appalling energy
and thunder of the drums.
The warlike music is ended, and another is started. The choragus
has fallen on his knees, and dips his head two or three times in an
excavation in the ground, and a choir, also on their knees, repeat
in dolorous tones the last words of a slow and solemn refrain. The
words are literally translated: -
Choragus. Oh-oh-oh! the white man is going home!
Choir. Oh-oh-oh! going home!
Going home, oh-oh-oh!
Choragus. To the happy island on the sea,
Where the beads are plenty, oh-oh-oh!
Choir. Oh-oh-oh! where the beads are plenty,
Oh-oh-oh!
