What Led to the Discovery of the Source of the NileSpeke, John Hanning
History
What Led to the Discovery of the Source of the Nile
Speke, John Hanning
Horn of Africa -- Description and travel; Nile River; Tanganyika, Lake
The party is decidedly motley. The man of quaintest aspect in it is
Sidi Mabarak Bombay. He is of the Wahiyow tribe, who make the best
slaves in Eastern Africa. His breed is that of the true woolly-headed
negro, though he does not represent a good specimen of them
physically, being somewhat smaller in his general proportions than
those one generally sees as stokers in our steamers that traverse the
Indian Ocean. His head, though woodeny, like a barber's block, is lit
up by a humorous little pair of pig-like eyes, set in a generous
benign-looking countenance, which, strange to say, does not belie him,
for his good conduct and honesty of purpose are without parallel. His
muzzle projects dog-monkey fashion, and is adorned with a regular set
of sharp-pointed alligator teeth, which he presents to full view as
constantly as his very ticklish risible faculties become excited. The
tobacconist's "jolly nigger," stuck in the corner house of ----
street, as it stands in mute but full grin, tempting the patronage of
accidental passengers, is his perfect counterpart. This wonderful man
says he knows nothing of his genealogy, nor any of the dates of the
leading epochs of his adventurous life,--not even his birth, time of
captivity, or restoration.
But his general history he narrated to me as follows, which I give as
he told it me, for this sketch may be of interest, presenting, as it
does, a good characteristic account of the manner in which slave-hunts
are planned and carried into execution. It must be truthful, for I
have witnessed tragedies of a similar nature. The great slave-hunters
of Eastern Africa are the Wasuahili or coast people; formerly slaves
themselves, they are more enlightened, and fuller of tricks than the
interior people, whom they now in their turn catch. Having been once
caught themselves, they know how to proceed, and are consequently very
cautious in their movements, taking sometimes years before they
finally try to accomplish their object. They first ensnare the
ignorant unsuspicious inlanders by alluring and entangling them in the
treacherous meshes of debt, and then, by capturing and mercilessly
selling their human game, liquidate the debt, insinuatingly advanced
as an irresistible decoy to allure their confiding victims.
Bombay says: "I am a Mhiyow; my father lived in a village in the
country of Uhiyow (a large district situated between the east coast
and the Nyassa (Lake) in latitude 11° S.) Of my mother I have but the
faintest recollection; she died whilst I was in my infancy. Our
village was living in happy contentment, until the fated year when I
was about the age of twelve. At that period a large body of Wasuahili
merchants and their slaves, all equipped with sword and gun, came
suddenly, and, surrounding our village, demanded of the inhabitants
instant liquidation of their debts (cloths and beads), advanced in
former times of pinching dearth, or else to stand the consequences of
refusal.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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