Every so often you should throw into the bowl some snake poison, the skin of a toad, then leaves from the forest, grass from the meadows, dust from the path, some shadow.”
“Shadow?” I exclaimed.
“Yes, and the idea is that for the man or animal hit by a poisoned arrow, everything should bring poison, death, and destruction. Surely an animal hit by an arrow will try and find relief by resting in the shadow of trees? Well, then, that shadow must strengthen the effect of the poison. What if he lies down on the grass? That grass must also become poison for him. What if the dust from the path sticks to his feet? That dust must also be poisonous for him, just as the water he drinks and the leaves he nibbles simply add to the poison. Nothing can make him better: he is lost, he has to die.”
“Then,” I asked, “is there no cure?”
“There is,” he said. “It is a root ground into powder. We carry it on us in wartime and we swallow it with water or saliva. But often we have not the time to take it to the man who has been hit. As you have asked me for it, I am giving you some of this poison, but do not let your younger brothers and sisters keep it. You are laughing? Well, if you shoot an arrow which is carrying this poison into the bark of a tree, the next day its leaves will fall.”
“And,” I said, “if your arrow hits a man?”
“He is as good as dead.”
I followed the advice of my old friend. I did not hand over my supply of poison to my little brothers and sisters. Instead, I handed it over to a highly competent Parisian scientist, Dr J. V. Laborde, who made a thorough study and produced a detailed report. The tests he applied show that this poison first affects the nervous system and then brings death “by suspending the influence of the heart on the breathing organs.” Dr. Laborde is very skeptical about the possibility of an antidote in view of the extremely toxic nature of this substance.
Chapter 5: At Gasi
The Digo people have always found themselves trapped between two enemies: the Maasai, who carry off their cattle, and the Swahili, who take their young people, their women, and their children. The main center for Swahili raiding is at Gasi, where the notorious Mbaruku rules. Mbaruku, Embareuk, Baraka, and Baruch come from the same Semitic word meaning “blessing.” It is rather ironical that this should be the name of the chief of Gasi.
Mbaruku was descended from the powerful old family of the Mazrui. This family was given power over Mombasa by the Imam of Muscat in the eighteenth century. When the Busaidi Dynasty established itself at Zanzibar, the Mazrui family refused to recognize them. Mbaruku spent his life fighting against Seyyid Said, Seyyid Majid and Seyyid Barghash. Practically all his time he concealed himself with a band of followers in the hinterland on the upper slopes of Mount Mwele, and had friendly contacts with the Arabs to whom he provided slaves and from whom he got the gunpowder and rifles necessary to raid the ill-equipped Digo villages. When the European powers began—some years ago—to look with covetous eyes on this part of Africa, Mbaruku was exactly the man for whom they were looking. He played his part, accepting in turn the various flags that were offered to him. Finally, since the place where he was living was made British territory, the British gave him Gasi as his capital, paid him a salary, and gave him enough guns and soldiers for him to regard himself as the local sultan. I do not know how he makes use of his power. But the Digo unanimously state that in the past he turned their villages into ruins, turned the magnificent countryside into lonely deserts, and sent three-quarters of the population into slavery in the island of Pemba or Arabia.
Sometimes, one asks oneself, on seeing so few of the coastal ethnic groups much influenced by Islam, how and why they have remained traditionalist. The answer is very simple. The Muslims have freely avoided propagating Islam among them, in order to be able to gain regular profits from them. They regard these neighboring tribes as simply a slave reserve kept going and also exploited in a businesslike manner, where a family is allowed to reproduce itself, by having, say, six children. At the right moment, four of these are taken and two are left to keep the family going.
Mbaruku! We were delighted to see with our own eyes this bold adventurer. A little turning toward the coast brought us to his capital. Many slaves were busy in rice farms; we went through fields of guinea corn and beyond a big lagoon which we managed to pass without wetting our feet. We soon saw two rows of houses in Swahili style, new, even unfinished. In each house four walls formed an oblong building, with a little veranda at the front and a number of separate rooms inside. Some rooms are built with stones, but the majority have trellis work with earth inside, covered with coconut palms. There is only one road, but surprisingly, it is entirely straight.
Our porters installed themselves on an unclaimed stretch of ground at the way into Gasi, and we went straight to what we were told was the sheikh’s residence. We had to wait a long time in an inner room where the local big men were seated in two lines. The conversation was far from lively, rather formal, somewhat embarrassed, such as you might imagine you would have with visitors when you would prefer to be a hundred leagues away. Finally, Mbaruku arrived in Arab dress. He was a big lad of about forty, light-skinned even though his mother was entirely African. His face was calm and had nothing to remind us of Ali Baba, whose exploits he had imitated in this country, with the help of the forty thieves who had been his companions and who were still at hand.
He welcomed us as though he was very interested in us. We told him that we were only passing through, that we were going to Vanga, and from there to Kilimanjaro, and that we had not wished to travel across the country without paying him a formal visit. He heard what we said but did not believe it. In his career as a local ruler, he had already met quite a number of Europeans, and, as each of them had put forward political proposals, he expected to see us, at any moment, pull some flag or other out of our pockets. He tried to see what we wanted, asking questions and then putting them a little differently: he asked us a good many things in a rather probing way.
“Why did you take this road? What are you going to do at Kilimanjaro? Is it true that that mountain is covered with silver? Do you know where precious stones are hidden? What are Europeans looking for in this country? Are the French still in Madagascar? What is your impression of the Sultan of Zanzibar? Is he not very mean? Do you think the British will suppress slavery? Is Sir Francis (the British Company’s administrator) a decent sort? Have you yourselves plans to take over some country? Are you rich? Have you nothing to say to me in private? What do you want me to do for you?”
This final question was the most practical one, and we could, at least, reply to it unambiguously. “Great Sheikh, let us rest, for we are tired (meaning, but not saying, “Of your questioning.”). With that we withdrew, we set up our tents where our men had settled and we took a stroll to know the place a bit.
With a definitive peace, the new village came into being. It has the name of Kau-Kabani, wisely taken from the Quran, and it is Mbaruku’s official residence. The real Gasi faces it, on the other side of a little lagoon which is covered by the tide almost every day. We went there and found that it consists of a few fisherman’s houses. Certainly a rather sad place, but it is a good shelter for slave-traders, as it is out of the way and unknown and cannot be approached by big ships.
Embarking
Moreover, when the wind blows favorably, one can sail in one night from there to the Isle of Pemba, where there is always someone in this land of abundant clove trees who will buy “the commodity that works and speaks.” If need be, supposing one sees the smoke of a British warship on the horizon, nothing is simpler than to tie a stone to the slave’s foot and throw him overboard. You can see, below a verandah, half-a-dozen unhappy slaves, their ankles fettered with iron shackles, sitting in a kind of dazed silence, waiting to be shipped. At one side, the slave superintendent looks out to sea, a whip in his hand.
Coming back to the camp, we found a plate of rice and another with chicken. Each one was kept hot under a kind of cone-shaped covering of plaited straw, ornamented with designs in colored wool, as used in the best Muslim society: they had been sent by the Sheikh. His rice was excellent; but the cook had spoilt the sauce