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. When, on the next day, we passed
through Kulabi on our way to Mvumi, and the Wagogo were about to
stop us for the honga, he took upon himself the task of relieving
us from further toll, by stating we were from Ugogo or Kanyenyi.
The chief simply nodded his head, and we passed on. It seems that
the Wagogo do not exact blackmail of those caravans who intend only
to trade in their own country, or have no intention of passing
beyond their own frontier.
Leaving Kulabi, we traversed a naked, red, loamy plain, over which
the wind from the heights of Usagara, now rising a bluish-black
jumble of mountains in our front, howled most fearfully.
