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Updated: June 3, 2025
Within three-quarters of an hour we were seated on the mud veranda of the tembe of Sultan bin Ali, who, because of his age, his wealth, and position being a colonel in Seyd Burghash's unlovely army is looked upon by his countrymen, high and low, as referee and counsellor. His boma or enclosure contains quite a village of hive-shaped huts and square tembes.
Burton, Speke, and Grant years ago had visited it, and described it, came the Arab magnates from Tabora to congratulate me. Tabora* is the principal Arab settlement in Central Africa. It contains over a thousand huts and tembes, and one may safely estimate the population, Arabs, Wangwana, and natives, at five thousand people.
Our eyes were constantly directed towards unfortunate Tabora. It has been said that three tembes only have stood the brunt of the attack. Abid bin Suliman's house has been destroyed, and over two hundred tusks of ivory that belonged to him have become the property of the African Bonaparte. My tembe is in as efficient a state of defence as its style and means of defence will allow.
I sent word that I would not go; that they ought to feel perfectly at home in their tembes against such a force as Mirambo had, that I should be glad if they could induce him to come to Kwihara, in which case I would try and pick him off. They say that Mirambo, and his principal officer, carry umbrellas over their heads, that he himself has long hair like a Mnyamwezi pagazi, and a beard.
They live near the N'yanza where it is connected by a strait with a salt lake, and drained by a river to the northward in comfortable houses, built like the tembes of Unyamuezi. When killing a cow, they kneel down in an attitude of prayer, with both hands together, held palm upwards, and utter Zu, a word the meaning of which he did not know.
In an hour and a half, we arrived at our camp in the Kinyamwezi village of Mkwenkwe, the birthplace of our famous chanter Maganga. My tent was pitched, the goods were stored in one of the tembes; but one-half the men had returned to Kwihara, to take one more embrace of their wives and concubines. Towards night I was attacked once again with the intermittent fever.
The square, flat-topped tembes had now been left behind, and instead the villagers lived in small collections of grass huts, surrounded by palisades of tall poles. Proceeding on we put up at the small settlement of Usenda, the proprietor of which was a semi-negro Arab merchant called Sangoro. He had a large collection of women here, but had himself gone north with a view to trade in Karague.
Benta was well supplied with Indian corn and a grain which the natives called choroko, which I take to be vetches. I purchased a large supply of choroko for my own personal use, as I found it to be a most healthy food. The corn was stored on the flat roofs of the tembes in huge boxes made out of the bark of the mtundu-tree. The largest box I have ever seen in Africa was seen here.
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