The Discovery of the Source of the NileSpeke, John Hanning
History
The Discovery of the Source of the Nile
Speke, John Hanning
Africa, East -- Description and travel; Nile River; Nile River Valley -- Discovery and exploration; Uganda -- Description and travel
The Wazaramo are strictly agriculturists; they have no cows, and but few
goats. They are of low stature and thick set and their nature tends to
the boisterous. Expert slavehunters, they mostly clothe themselves by
the sale of their victims on the coast, though they do business by the
sale of goats and grain as well. Nowhere in the interior are natives so
well clad as these creatures. In dressing up their hair, and otherwise
smearing their bodies with ochreish clay, they are great dandies. They
always keep their bows and arrows, which form their national arm, in
excellent order, the latter well poisoned, and carried in quivers nicely
carved. To intimidate a caravan and extort a hongo or tax, I have seen
them drawn out in line as if prepared for battle; but a few soft words
were found sufficient to make them all withdraw and settle the matter at
issue by arbitration in some appointed place. A few men without property
can cross their lands fearlessly, though a single individual with
property would stand no chance, for they are insatiable thieves. But
little is seen of these people on the journey, as the chiefs take their
taxes by deputy, partly out of pride, and partly because they think they
can extort more by keeping in the mysterious distance. At the same
time, the caravan prefers camping in the jungles beyond the villages
to mingling with the inhabitants, where rows might be engendered.
We sometimes noticed Albinos, with greyish-blue eyes and light
straw-coloured hair. Not unfrequently we would pass on the track side
small heaps of white ashes, with a calcined bone or two among them.
These, we were told, were the relics of burnt witches. The caravan
track we had now to travel on leads along the right bank of the Kingani
valley, overlooking Uzegura, which, corresponding with Uzaramo, only on
the other side of the Kigani, extends northwards to the Pangani river,
and is intersected in the centre by the Wami river, of which more
hereafter.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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