Sir Richard Francis Burton

“ On the road hosts of idlers, especially women, boys, and girls, will follow the caravan for hours; it is a truly offensive spectacle—these uncouth figures, running at a “gymnastic pace,” half clothed except with grease, with pendent bosoms shaking in the air, and cries that resemble the howls of beasts more than any effort of human articulation. This offensive ignorance of the first principles of social intercourse has been fostered in the races most visited by the Arabs, whose national tendency, like the Italian and the Greek, is ever and essentially republican. ”

“ At times, when excited by the morning coolness and by the prospect of a good haul, they indulge in a manner of merriment which resembles the gambols of sportive water-fowls: standing upright and balancing themselves in their hollow logs, which appear but little larger than themselves, they strike the water furiously with their paddles, skimming over the surface, dashing to and fro, splashing one another, urging forward, backing, and wheeling their craft, now capsizing, then regaining their position with wonderful dexterity. ”

“ A crowd of newly-engaged Pagazi are standing before me in the ecstasy of impatience: some poised like cranes upon the right foot, with the left sole placed against the knee, others with their arms thrown in a brotherly fashion round neighbours’ necks, whilst others squatted in the usual Asiatic and African position, with their posteriora resting upon their calves and heels, their elbows on their thighs, and their chins propped upon their hands, gazed at me with that long longing look which in these lands evidences a something sorely wanted. ”

“ Despite his best interests, he will indulge the mania for desertion caused by that mischievous love of change and whimsical desire for novelty that characterise the European sailor. Nor can even lucre prevail against the ingrained indolence of the race—an indolence the more hopeless as it is the growth of the climate. In these temperate and abundant lands Nature has cursed mankind with the abundance of her gifts; his wants still await creation, and he is contented with such necessaries as roots and herbs, game, and a few handfuls of grain—consequently improvement has no hold upon him. ”

“ The Land of the Moon, which is the garden of Central Intertropical Africa, presents an aspect of peaceful rural beauty which soothes the eye like a medicine after the red glare of barren Ugogo, and the dark monotonous verdure of the western provinces. ”

“ Women as well as men are fond of binding a wisp of white tree-fibre round their heads, like the ribbon which confines the European old person’s wig. There is not a trace of mustachio or whisker in the country; they are removed by the tweezers, and the climate, according to the Arabs, is, like that of Unyamwezi, unfavourable to beards. For cosmetics both sexes apply, when they can procure such luxuries, red earth to the face, and over the head a thick-coating of chalk or mountain-meal, which makes their blackness stand out hideously grotesque. ”

“ After eating, the East African invariably indulges in a long fit of torpidity, from which he awakes to pass the afternoon as he did the forenoon, chatting, playing, smoking, and chewing “sweet-earth.” Towards sunset all issue forth to enjoy the coolness: the men sit outside the Iwánzá, whilst the women and the girls, after fetching water for household wants from the well, collecting in a group upon their little stools, indulge in the pleasures of gossipred and the pipe. ”

“ The inhabitants are comparatively numerous in the villages, which rise at short intervals above their impervious walls of the lustrous green milk-bush, with its coral-shaped arms, variegating the well-hoed plains; whilst in the pasture-lands frequent herds of many-coloured cattle, plump, round-barrelled, and high-humped, like the Indian breeds, and mingled flocks of goats and sheep dispersed over the landscape, suggest ideas of barbarous comfort and plenty. There are few scenes more soft and soothing than a view of Unyamwezi in the balmy evenings of spring. ”

“ The eastern shore of the lake, along which we coasted, was a bluff of red earth pudding’d with separate blocks of sandstone. Beyond this headland the coast dips, showing lines of shingle or golden-coloured quartzose sand, and on the shelving plain appear the little fishing-villages. They are usually built at the mouths of the gaps, combes, and gullies, whose deep gorges winding through the background of hill-curtain, become, after rains, the beds of mountain-torrents. ”

“ No slave-owner, however, praises a slave or relies upon his fidelity. The common expression is, “There is no good in the bondsman.”
Like the Somal, a merry and light-hearted race in foreign countries, but rendered gloomy and melancholy by the state of affairs at home, the negroid slaves greatly improve by exportation: they lose much of the surliness and violence which distinguish them at Zanzibar, and are disciplined into a kind of respect for superiors. Thus, “Seedy Mubarak” is a prime favourite on board an Indian steamer; he has also strength and courage enough to make himself respected. ”

“ Nature, in these regions rarely sublime or beautiful, more often terrible and desolate, with the gloomy forest, the impervious jungle, the tangled hill, and the dread uniform waste tenanted by deadly inhabitants, arouses in his mind a sensation of utter feebleness, a vague and nameless awe. ”

“ Honey is the only sweetener in the country, except in the places where the sugar-cane grows, namely, the maritime and the Lakist regions. The people chew it, ignoring the simple art of extracting [289] and inspissating the juice; nor do they, like the natives of Usumbara, convert it into an inebrient. Yet sugar attracts them like flies; they clap their hands with delight at the taste; they buy it for its weight of ivory; and if a thimbleful of the powder happen to fall upon the ground, they will eat an ounce of earth rather than lose a grain of it. ”

“ Nothing, in fact, renders the stranger’s life safe in this land, except the timid shrinking of the natives from the “hot-mouthed weapon” and the necessity of trade, which induces the chiefs to restrain the atrocities of their subjects. To travellers the African is, of course, less civil than to merchants, from whom he expects to gain something. He will refuse a mouthful of water out of his abundance to a man dying of thirst; utterly unsympathising, he will not stretch out a hand to save another’s goods, though worth thousands of dollars. ”

“ Eastern history preserves instances of the valour and faithfulness of bondsmen, as the annals of the West are fond of recording the virtues of dogs. Yet all the more civilised races have a gird at the negro. In the present day the Persians and other Asiatics are careful, when bound on distant or dangerous journeys, to mix white servants with black slaves; they hold the African to be full of strange childish caprices, and to be ever at heart a treacherous and bloodthirsty barbarian. ”

“ It was an ascent plunging into the hills, which, however, on this line are easy to traverse, compared with those of the northern route; the paths were stony and rugged, and the earth was here white and glaring, there of a dull red colour. Water pure and plentiful was found in pits about fifteen feet deep, which dented the sole of a picturesque Fiumara. The people assembled to stare with the stare pertinacious; they demanded large prices for their small reserves of provisions, but they sold tobacco at the rate of two or three cakes, each weighing about one pound and a half, for a shukkah. ”

“ In laying in a stock the traveller must not trust himself to these men, who seize the opportunity of palming off the waste and refuse of their warehouses: he is advised to ascertain from respectable Arab merchants, on their return from the interior, the varieties requisite on the line of march. Any neglect in choosing beads, besides causing daily inconvenience, might arrest an expedition on the very threshold of success: towards the end of these long African journeys, when the real work of exploration commences, want of outfit tells fatally. ”

“ A patriarchal or purely republican form of government is unknown in East Africa. The Wasagara, it is true, choose their chief like the Banyai of “Monomotapa,” but, once elected, he becomes a monarch. Loyalty—or, to reduce it to its elements, veneration for the divinity that hedges in a king—is a sentiment innate in the African mind. Man, however, in these regions is not a political animal; he has a certain instinctive regard for his chief and a respect for his elders. ”

“ The custom, however, is not uncommon upon both coasts of Africa: it takes, in fact, the place of the mastic of Chios, the kat of Yemen, the betel and toasted grains of India and the farther East, and the ashes of the Somali country. The Wanyamwezi, and indeed the East-African tribes generally, have some curious food prejudices. Before their closer intercourse with the Arabs they used to keep poultry, but, like the Gallas and the Somal, who look upon the fowl as a kind of vulture, they would not eat it: even in the present day they avoid eggs. ”

“ As the hours of darkness draw nigh, the village doors are carefully closed, and, after milking his cows, each peasant retires to his hut, or passes his time squatting round the fire with his friends in the Iwánzá. He has not yet learned the art of making a wick, and of filling a bit of pottery with oil. When a light is wanted, he ignites a stick of the oleaginous mtata, or msásá-tree—a yellow, hard, close-grained, and elastic wood, with few knots, much used in making spears, bows, and walking staves—which burns for a quarter of an hour with a brilliant flame. ”

“ Exposed to the full break of the rainy monsoon, and the frequent outbursts of fiery sun, I could not but admire the marvellous fertility of the soil; an impervious luxuriance of vegetation veils the lowlands, clothes the hill-sides, and caps their rounded summits. After marching five hours and twenty minutes, we found a large kraal in the district of Kinawani: the encamping ground,—partially cleared of the thick, fetid, and putrescent vegetation around,—hugs the right bank of the Malagarazi, and faces the village of Sultan Mzogera on the southern or opposite side. ”

“ For centuries he has been in direct intercourse with the more advanced people of the eastern coast, and though few have seen an European, there are not many who have not cast eyes upon an Arab. Still he has stopped short at the threshold of progress; he shows no signs of development; no higher and more varied orders of intellect are called into being. Even the simple truths of El Islam have failed to fix the thoughts of men who can think, but who, absorbed in providing for their bodily wants, hate the trouble of thinking. ”

“ Usually the colour becomes lamp-black; in Usagara, however, the potter’s clay burns red, like the soil—the effect of iron. A cunning workman will make in a day four of these pots, some of them containing several gallons, and their perfect regularity of form, and often their picturesqueness of shape, surprise the stranger. The best are made in Ujiji, Karagwah, and Ugunda: those of Unyamwezi are inferior, and the clay of Zanzibar is of all the worst. ”

“ All, Banyans, Wasawahili, and Arabs, like semi-civilised people generally, abhor and oppose a free trade, which they declare would be as injurious to themselves as doubtless advantageous to the country. Here, as in Europe, the battle of protection has still to be fought; and here, unlike Europe, the first step towards civilisation, namely, the facility of intercourse between the interior and the coast, has yet to be created. ”

“ It perpetuates the vile belief in Uchawi or black magic: when captives are in demand, the criminal’s relations are sold into slavery. It affords a scope for the tyranny of a chief, who, if powerful enough, will enrich himself by vending his subjects in wholesale and retail. By weakening the tie of family, it acts with deadly effect in preventing the increase of the race.
On the coast and in the island of Zanzibar the slaves are of two kinds—the Muwallid or domestic, born in captivity, and the wild slave imported from the interior. ”

“ Thus men date from foray to foray, and pass their days in an interminable blood-feud and border war. A poor and powerful chief will not allow his neighbours to rest wealthier than himself; a quarrel is soon found, the stronger attacks the weaker, hunts and harries his cattle, burns his villages, carries off his subjects and sells them to the first passing caravan. The inhabitants of the land have thus become wolves to one another ”

“ In consequence of being ever armed, the African like the Asiatic is nothing without his weapons; he cannot use his strength, and when he comes to blows he fights like a woman. Thus the habitual show of arms is a mere substitute for courage; in dangerous countries, as in Ugogo, the Wanyamwezi do not dare to carry them for fear of provocation, whereas at home and in comparative safety they never appear without spear or knobstick. ”