Chapter XVII Albert Lake and Upper Nile to Wadelai
An hour’s walk into the valley of death brought us to a cluster of villages with a large population, which was in a state of utter destitution. The people, who were very nervous at first, eventually gathered round in numbers with the same tale of rapine and murder, and the chief gave me a guide to take me to the foot of the hills. Another hour brought us to Nsabe, which, though generally depicted on maps in large letters, consists of about five dirty little muck-heaps, only recognizable as human habitations by the filthy smell that emanated from them. All the inhabitants fled, leaving their spears, bows, and beer in their hurry, and no amount of shouting and yelling would induce them to return. Our guide promptly made a bundle of the spears and other movables, with a view to appropriation, which when complete I placed against a tree, accompanying the movement by a vigorous application of my boot to the toughest portion of his anatomy. Incorrigible, bullying, thieving curs, one is often tempted to think that the Boer method of treating natives is, after all, the only one they deserve. Their Mark Tapleyism is their sole redeeming feature, and that is attributable to the incapacity of their intellect to hold anything but the impression of the moment. Although of the same tribe and close neighbours, I expect he would have thoroughly enjoyed seeing me burn and loot the place; it is the same everywhere—a guide amongst his own people is a worse thief even than a Manyema porter. He then took us by a devious route to the shore of the lake, and seemed greatly astonished to find that the village he had mentioned did not exist; nor had it left any trace behind. I could see by the way he was behaving that he intended to bolt, and knowing that without a native of the country there was very little chance of inducing the people, in their frightened state, to remain in their villages, I kept a close eye on him. As I expected, when I sat down on the shore to wait for the boys to close up, he began edging off towards the jungle; but when he looked round to see if it was all clear, he found himself covered by my.303. I had him brought back, and explained to him that his chief had sent him to show the way to the foot of the hills, that he had led me into the wilderness and could now lead me out, the two alternatives being villages, another guide, and a present, or a race with a.303 bullet. He chose the former, and seeing that fooling was a glut in the market, promptly took us to a village of the Wakoba called Kahoma, and in Kahuma’s country. Here all the people fled, but he followed, and persuaded them to bring food to trade. They, too, had been raided, and had lost two women and two children captured. They could not tell me how many white men or Askaris there were, as they had not waited to see. The majority of them are fine, well-made men, and intensely black. One in particular took my fancy. He was a tremendous swell, with anything from 15 to 20 lbs. of red clay on his head, an enormous ivory bracelet, and multitudes of iron rings. The Wakoba live all along the lake-shore and in the fringe of the hills, and, curiously enough, their villages are mixed indiscriminately with those of the Balegga, with whom they seem to be on the best of terms, although the two peoples are quite distinct, the Balegga being real out-and-out bestial little savages, while the Wakoba are much above the Central African average of intelligence, with quite a wide knowledge of local affairs. They are both in a state of parallel expansion, the Balegga working to the north into the Lendu country, and the Wakoba in the opposite direction encroaching on the Wanyabuga.
Two miles north of Kahoma the hills come down to the water’s edge, leaving only a narrow shingly beach, and thenceforward our progress became painfully slow; at intervals the headlands jut out into the water, and the work of transporting the loads round these obstructions with only two or three small and very unstable canoes was one of considerable difficulty, even the latitude of Doctor Johnson’s dictionary proving insufficient on occasions; scores of little streams come tumbling down into the lake, each one forming a small delta, on many of which there are Wakoba villages with a few banana palms, and signs of scratching on the hillside, where I presume something was intended to grow, but had turned dizzy and given up the attempt. After Kahanama’s, which is in Kahuma’s sphere, Mpigwa is the big man, and I passed through many of his villages, some of the largest being Kabora, Zingi (?), Bordo, Nsessi, and Kiboko. Most of the scenery is very fine, the little white cascades gleaming in the shadow of immense trees, many of which are covered with scarlet and yellow blossoms, and in the midst of luxuriant tangles of vegetation the great gaunt slabs of slimy rock deep-set in their snow-white bed of sand, over which the little waves come tumbling in, gurgling and splashing round their feet and moaning and sobbing into a thousand miniature caves; while great apes and little brown-eyed monkeys drop from branch to branch and sit leering and gibbering at us as we paddle past.
The continual wetting and rock-climbing had the most disastrous effect on my already attenuated wardrobe, and for two or three days I was compelled to disport myself clad in a simple shirt, which, thanks to a classical education and consequent ignorance of the art of washing, had contracted to the modest and insufficient dimensions of a chest-preserver, while assuming the durable but inappropriate consistency of a piece of oil-cloth. The roseate hues of early dawn “weren’t in it” with my nether limbs after the first day’s exposure to a pitiless sun, and I became a sort of perambulating three-tiered Neapolitan ice, coffee, vanilla and raspberry, a phenomenon that greatly astonished a savage who surprised me in my bath, and who immediately fetched all his kith and kin to see; on the second day, however, the alarming desertion of a third of my epidermis so pained me mentally and physically, that after a great effort I produced a double-barrelled garment that in the absence of Poole-bred critics served its turn.
Of the various arts and crafts that one is called upon to undertake in Africa, such as cooking, shoe-mending, washer-womaning, doctoring, butchering, taxiderming, armoury work, carpentering, etc., ad infinitum, I think perhaps tailoring is the most trying; the cotton will not go into the eye of the needle, and the needle will go into one’s fingers, and then when you think it is all over, you find you have sewn the back of your shirt to the front, or accomplished something equally unexpected and equally difficult to undo.
At Nsessi, two miles south of Kiboko, there is a superb waterfall; it has a drop of about 500 ft., and is divided into three stages, all at a different angle to one another, falling 100 ft., then swirling round at an angle, plunging into the next pool, and then a last long slide to the level of the lake. Stupendous silver-trunked trees, with foliage the colour of the ilex and brilliant splashes of scarlet bloom, crowd round on either side of the gorge wherever the wild rocks afford a footing; above towers a pointed peak showing bright above the dense gloom of the gorge, and a white stripe of sand fringes the little village, nestling in its banana grove, at the base.
These natives lead a curious existence, shut in between precipitous hills and the lake, their sole means of communication with one another being their leaky little 10 ft. dug-outs. They are wonderfully clever at handling them, and perform the extraordinary feat of crossing the lake, dodging in and out between the waves in the most marvellous manner. As a means of transport they are not to be recommended; the shape of a cross-section being that of an egg with its top off, one slides in with comparative ease like a pickle into a pickle-jar: once in, as with the pickle, extrication is a matter of time and patience. It needs one of Lear’s Jumblies to feel thoroughly at home, as they leak like a sieve, and only perpetual bailing will keep them afloat.
The first day, in the sweet innocence of youth, I set off to round a headland with my guns and a tin box containing my indispensables on board, fearing to trust them to a native. All went smoothly at first, till I had arrived well off the rocks with a slight swell on and no landing-place near, and then she began slowly to heel over, while water seemed to be rushing in through the wood itself. After prodigious efforts I succeeded in running into the rocks, the water being then within an inch of the gunwale. I saved my guns and box, but smashed the canoe, and after that turned passenger. It looks so easy when they come dancing along, each with a native kneeling in the stern and plying a huge curved-bladed paddle; but it is a very different thing when one is wedged in oneself; physically incapable of squatting in a kneeling posture, as a native does, one finds bailing out an impossibility; the whole of the bottom of the canoe seems to be covered with boots, and the incurved edges catch the wooden bailing-dish and jerk the contents into one’s lap.
Although the lake teems with fish, many of large size, the Wakoba make no attempt to catch them, trusting to the occasional chance of purchasing from the natives on the other shore or from Kasenyi.
One day I shot a baboon at the natives’ request, a performance, by the way, that I shall not repeat, nor would I recommend it to any one but the most hardened villain. A frantic scramble took place for the flesh, and when I asked them what it tasted like, they “smole a smile.” Amongst the countless troops of monkeys that are for ever coughing and dancing amongst the rocks and trees, I saw a small family of very beautiful little fellows with bright fox-red fringes down their sides, but I could not bring myself to shoot at them after seeing that unfortunate baboon, although I have never seen them described, or elsewhere in Africa.
At Viboko I was compelled to wait, the shore in front being impracticable and the heights behind unscaleable, till Mswa sent down the canoes, which I had requested by numerous envoys. My boys were badly in need of a rest, the work having been very trying since Kahanama’s, and the fever from which I was suffering made it equally acceptable to me. In the afternoon two natives arrived, saying that a muzungu17 was coming down to meet me with ten canoes. After inquiries as to what kind of Askaris he had, etc., etc., I gathered that it must be a Belgian official, so killed the fatted calf in the guise of a skinny sheep and sundry osseous frames masquerading as dorkings, and then plunged for the second time into the turgid flow of Zola’s Rome, to cleanse my French of probable Swahili trespassers. I even exhumed a tie, and having produced a menu that exhausted all the possible combinations and permutations of an African larder, awaited anxiously his arrival, picturing to myself the joys of a little talkee-talkee once more. A stiff southerly breeze evidently was delaying them, and it was not till after dark that we heard the wild canoe-song of the flotilla, which had rounded the point and caught sight of our camp-fires. Giving a last twirl to my moustache and a nautical hitch to the Poolesque garment aforesaid, and composing my features to the iron-clad smirk indispensable to such occasions, I advanced to do the honours, and grasped the hand of a dirty, greasy little negro clad in, or rather smeared over with, a prehistoric piece of cloth! Here was my muzungu! here my gallant Belgian staggering under the gold braid of a hat of that peculiarly unbecoming shape affected by French guards and German tourists, and majestically trailing the orthodox 30-franc sword! Inquiries elicited the fact that the parasitic relic of Manchester above mentioned established a valid claim to the title of muzungu in these parts. However, he had brought the canoes, so I readily forgave him, and next day we arrived at the old Soudanese station, Mswa. Mswa is the name of the chief, who is a vassal of Tukenda, and Mahagi is the name of the country itself. He is an intelligent old native, and remembered seeing that ubiquitous officer, Bt.-Major Vandeleur, D.S.O., when he crossed from Kibero, and was delighted at the photograph which forms the frontispiece to his book entitled Campaigns on the Nile and Niger. Here let me recommend travellers to take out photographs of men who have gone before them; the effect is wonderful on those natives who can grasp the idea, though, of course, to many natives a picture is merely a piece of paper. It convinces those who can understand it that you are speaking the truth—a possibility so utterly foreign to the native mind. After exchanging presents he retired, promising to bring more boys in the morning to work the canoes; but in the morning none were forthcoming, and after waiting some time while Mswa rushed frantically round the country, shouting to his people, who walked off into the grass and laughed at him, I concluded that he was either incompetent or trying to make a fool of me, and, to his consternation, manned the canoes with my own men and started. As I expected, enough men were immediately forthcoming, but too late, and I held on my way.
We did not reach Mahagi till after dark. Here the hills again recede from the lake-shore, leaving an alluvial plain from one to two miles wide, which is densely populated by Lures, while in the hills there are numerous villages of Balegga. Tukenda is the big man, whose influence reaches from south of Mswa to Boki; he has a small herd of cattle and large flocks of goats, and his people are evidently flourishing and very friendly. So dense is the population that the natives have been emigrating down the lake, and have started new villages on the unoccupied sand-spits. At Boki a grand old tusker came sailing by the camp, and after a stern chase and much expenditure of powder, condescended to strike his colours. He was a perfect specimen of the Toro type above described, standing 11 ft. 1 in. at the shoulder, with a forefoot of 62 in., and measuring 5 ft. 6 in. round the elbow, while his tusks were 6 ft. 10 in. and 7 ft 1 in. long, weighing respectively 72 lbs. and 76 lbs. A small patch of forest about two miles by one mile comes down from the hills to the lake-shore, and as my boys had heard elephant there when cutting wood, I went for a stroll after the midday heat of the sun. Never have I seen a more delightful or interesting scene; countless herds of elephant had trampled down the undergrowth, leaving vast shady chambers joined in all directions by galleries. Some of these chambers were fully an acre in extent, and every vestige of vegetation underfoot had been crushed into a level carpet, upon which it was a pleasure to walk. As one entered these delightful retreats, troops and troops of monkeys lined the branches and gazed on us with fearless curiosity; while two or three hundred of the beautiful black-and-white colobus monkey performed the most amazing acrobatic feats overhead. Emerging on the far side I saw a herd of ten elephant. They were standing in long grass, but fortunately there was a small ant-hill close by; climbing up this I found them all with ears widespread advancing in line towards me, and had it not been for the fortuitous existence of this point of vantage they would have walked right on top of us, the grass being about 8 ft. high. They presented a glorious spectacle as they came sailing along, all canvas set (I can find no other word to express the motion of an elephant in grass), ten old tuskers, their ivory now and again gleaming white above the grass; on they came till, when within thirty yards, one turned and gave me a chance. He dropped to the shot, but quickly recovered; succumbing, however, after two more. I damaged three more considerably before exhausting the magazine, and then dashed off in pursuit, passing one which had dropped about five hundred yards off, and reached an ant-hill from which I could see number three evidently very sick. I dropped him with a forehead shot, but he recovered, and eventually reached the forest carrying another ten bullets. Here I followed again, but it was impossible to keep his spoor owing to the perfect maze of tracks, and after wandering around for some time, I climbed up an ant-hill with a large funnel down the middle. From this elevation I saw him standing not more than fifteen yards away. I fired the 10-bore, which staggered him, and knocked me down the funnel, but I scrambled out again just in time to give him the second barrel, which brought him down at the same time that I once more retired into my Stygian retreat; a 3 in. ridge of crumbling earth 15 ft. from the ground is not the most advisable basis from which to fire a 10-bore paradox. All these elephant were of the same type, huge solid beasts with shortish, thick tusks; 6 ft. 10 in., 7 ft. 3 in., 5 ft. 6 in., 5 ft. 6 in., 6 ft. 4 in., 6 ft. 5 in., and weighing 76 lbs., 78 lbs., 56 lbs., 56 lbs., 60 lbs., and 61 lbs. respectively.
The next day I found the fourth that I had hit very hard. He had fallen within two hundred yards of the other two, but owing to the long grass I had not seen him. His tusks weighed 49 lbs., and measured 6 ft. and 5 ft. 10 in., making a total of 633 lbs. for the day.
Between Boki and Munyagora there is a ten-mile stretch of inhospitable scrub covered with a species of acacia, with huge white thorns springing in pairs from hard bulbous excrescences. Formerly there was a settlement named Mjamori about half way, but the chief Akem has fled with his people to Munyagora; he told me that he had fled from the Belgians. I here made the discovery that “Billygee” is a generic term for the Congo officials, and not, as I had previously imagined, the name of an individual. From Munyagora to Igara, which lies at the bend of the river, the country is thickly populated. The Lures build very primitive shelters and surround each village with a scherm of thorn-tree; they do not appear to cultivate the soil, but breed large numbers of goats, which look very sleek and comely. The country, which is very barren and parched, is admirably adapted to that abominable quadruped, which is never so happy as when confined to a little sand and the rancid smell of its own kind.
I was an object of the greatest curiosity, especially to the ladies of these communities, who came in large numbers to inspect me (front seats at bath time being in great request), and who, whether from a ridiculous sense of modesty or a laudable desire to do honour to the occasion, donned over and above the national costume of a small piece of string tied round the waist, a hopelessly inadequate apron of dried grass: a garment that, from the simplicity of its cut and the small quantity of material employed in its composition, I should have no hesitation in classing with the species of female extravagance known, I believe, to the fair sex as tailor-made. The men, who seem to be of a hopeful disposition, spend much time in making wicker baskets resembling two lobster-pots fastened together like a cottage loaf; these they leave in the river tied to sticks and without bait. I saw many hundreds of these, and large numbers of natives visiting them, but only one fish, though my olfactory sense warned me of the vicinity of at least one more. They have a pretty little myth about buying food from the Balegga for fish, and as they do not kill their goats and certainly had not been buying lately, I cannot imagine what they live on; but I do know that in six hours they removed every scrap of five large bull elephant, hides, bones, and all; a small trifle of about twenty tons; so conclude they live a kind of boa-constrictor’s existence. Many of the young men aggravate the natural ugliness of their faces by inserting pieces of glass about 5 in. long in their under-lip. One and all carry small bows, with reed arrows tipped with long thin spikes of iron neither barbed nor feathered. Most of the chiefs and elders are obviously of different race, some having the Galla features more or less pronounced. Here at the north end of the lake one emerges quite suddenly from the “Bantu” peoples to the Nilotic, and the line of division is wonderfully sharply defined. There are numbers of reedbuck and nsunu, and in the bush a small very red oribi of which I failed to procure a specimen. I also saw a herd of hartebeeste, and shot a cow; they closely resembled the Lichtenstein, though the rump was not so white, and the horns lie closer together and stand more erect than those of Lichtenstein. Mr. Cape tells me that Jackson’s hartebeeste, which it appears to resemble in other respects, is a considerably larger beast; so that it is to be hoped that he will be able to take a skull and hide home for identification.
Notes
17 Muzungu: white man.