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Updated: June 23, 2025
Before we could arrange our camp and set the tents up, down poured the furious harbinger of the Masika season in torrents sufficient to damp the ardor and newborn love for East Africa I had lately manifested.
South of Mpokwa, the valley broadens, and the mountains deflect eastward and westward, and beyond this point commences the plain known as the Rikwa, which, during the Masika is inundated, but which, in the dry season, presents the same bleached aspect that plains in Africa generally do when the grass has ripened.
To which of these rains should I compare this dreadful Masika of East Africa? Did not Burton write much about black mud in Uzaramo? Well, a country whose surface soil is called black mud in fine weather, what can it be called when forty days' rain beat on it, and feet of pagazis and donkeys make paste of it?
She bestowed, however, every care on her white guest, and contributed much by her skill to restore him to health. Whenever she and her son could get Sayd to interpret for them, they would come and sit by Ned's couch, listening eagerly to the accounts he gave them of Baraka, as well as to the adventures he himself had met with. "Wonderful, wonderful!" exclaimed Masika.
Ned felt in better spirits than he had done for a long time, as he was once more able to march alongside Sayd, Chando, who was now not only a freed man, but was looked upon as a person of considerable consequence, being generally in their company. Masika, carried in a sort of litter by four bearers, followed close behind them.
After which I felt convinced that my cloth bales, and one year's ammunition, were safe, and that I could defy the Masika. In the hurry of departure from Zanzibar, and in my ignorance of how bales should be made, I had submitted to the better judgment and ripe experience of one Jetta, a commission merchant, to prepare my bales for carriage.
The distance from Bagamoyo to Simbamwenni we found to be 119 miles, and was accomplished in fourteen marches. But these marches, owing to difficulties arising from the Masika season, and more especially to the lagging of the fourth caravan under Maganga, extended to twenty-nine days, thus rendering our progress very slow indeed but a little more than four miles a-day.
It was not until we had entered the valley of the Mukondokwa River that we experienced anything like privation or hardship from the Masika. Here the torrents thundered and roared; the river was a mighty brown flood, sweeping downward with, an almost resistless flow.
Masika also addressed her followers, reminding them of their character for courage, and urging them to fight bravely in defence of their white friends, and of her and her son. The men responded with loud cheers, which were heard by their advancing foes.
On, on, we kept steadily until, at 1 P.M., we sighted the little lake of Musunya, as wearied as possible with our nine hours march. Lake Musunya is one of the many circular basins found in this part of Uhha. There was quite a group of them. The more correct term of these lakes would be immense pools. In the Masika season, Lake Musunya must extend to three or four miles in length by two in breadth.
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