Expedition to the Mountains of the Moon

of the party. With illimitable energy, they ranged up and down the column, keeping it under tight control and driving the men on with loud shouts of, “Hopa! Hopa! Go on! Go on!”

The expedition soon came upon one of Africa's many challenges: a forest, thick and dark and crawling with biting ants. They struggled through it, with low branches snagging at the loads the porters carried on their heads. Honesty had great difficulty in forcing the harvester through the unruly foliage.

They eventually broke free and descended a long gentle slope into a ragged and marshy valley. Here, the mules sank up to their knees and blundered and complained and had to be driven on by the energetic application of a bakur-the African cat-o'-nine-tails. After a long delay, with the fiery sun beating down on them, they reached firmer ground and struggled up through thick, luxuriant grass to higher terrain. From here, they could see the village of Mkwaju. Once again, the prospect of a gigantic spider approaching sent the villagers racing away.

“This is an advantage I hadn't anticipated,” Burton told William Trounce. “They're too scared of the harvestman to hold us up with demands for hongo. Damnation! If only we had all our vehicles! Without the crabs to clear a route through the jungles, we'll soon reach a point where the harvester will be stymied and we'll be forced to abandon it.”

Mkwaju was little more than a few hovels and a palaver house, but it was significant in that it was the last village under the jurisdiction of Bagamoyo. The expedition was now entering the Uzamaro district.

The sun was at its zenith, and the soporific heat drained the energy out of all of them, but they were determined to reach Nzasa before resting, so they plodded on, glassy-eyed, the sweat dripping off them.

The loss of the harvestman came much sooner than Burton expected. Less than two hours after he'd expressed his concern to Trounce, they encountered a thick band of jungle too dense to chop a wide enough path through and too high for the vehicle to pick its way across. Honesty ran the spider along the edge of the barrier for a mile southward, then back and for a mile to the north. He returned and shouted down from the cabin: “Stretches as far as the eye can see. No way through. Shall I go farther?”

“No,” Burton called back. “It wouldn't do to get separated. I don't want to lose you! We'll have to leave it. We knew it was going to happen at some point. I suppose this is it. And at least the porters will be able to dump the coal supply.”

Honesty turned off the machine's engine and climbed down a leg. “Should destroy it,” he said. “Prussians might follow. Don't want them to have it.”

Burton considered a moment then nodded. “You're right.”

While the safari began to machete its way through the dense undergrowth, the king's agent and the detective tied a rope around the upper part of one of the harvestman's legs and used it to pull the vehicle over onto its side. Honesty drew his Adams police-issue revolver and emptied its chamber into the machine's water tank. They picked up rocks and used them to batter one of the spider's leg joints until it broke.

“That'll do,” Burton said. “Let's press on to Nzasa. The sooner we get there, the better. We're all tired and hungry!”

The band of jungle sloped down to a narrow river. Mosquitoes swarmed over the water and crocodiles basked on its banks. The crossing was difficult, perilous, and uncomfortable, and by the time the expedition emerged from the tangle of vegetation on the other side, everyone was covered with mud, scratches, leeches, insect bites, and stings.

They moved out onto cultivated land and trudged past scattered abodes concealed by high grass and clumps of trees.

They were seeing kraals now-large round huts or long sheds built from sticks woven through with grass. Around these, in a wide circle, thorny barriers had been erected. Constructed by slaver caravans, their presence indicated that the inhabitants of this region were hostile and didn't welcome strangers at their villages.

The trail broadened and the going became easier. They slogged up a hill then descended into the valley of the Kingani River-called Wady el Maut and Dar el Jua, the Valley of Death and Home of Hunger-which they followed until they spotted Nzasa, which Burton knew was one of the rare friendly settlements in the area.

He and Said rode ahead. They were met by three p'hazi, or headmen, each with a patterned cotton sheet wrapped around his loins and slung over his shoulder, each sheltering under an opened umbrella. The Africans announced themselves as Kizaya, Kuffakwema, and Kombe la Simba. The latter, in the Kiswahili language, greeted the two visitors with the words: “I am old and my beard is grey, yet never in all the days I have lived have I beheld a catastrophe like this-the muzungo mbaya once again in the land of my people!”

Muzungo mbaya translated as “the wicked white man.”

“I understand thy dismay,” Burton responded. “Thou remembers me not then, O Kombe?

The ancient chief frowned and asked, “I am known to thee?” He squinted at Burton, then his eyebrows shot up and he exclaimed: “Surely thou art not the Murungwana Sana?”

Burton bowed his head and murmured, “I am pleased that thou recollects me as such,” for the words meant “real free man” and were the equivalent of being called a “gentleman.”

Kombe suddenly gave a broad smile, his jet-black face folding into a thousand wrinkles, his mouth displaying teeth that had been filed to points. “Ah!” he cried. “Ah! Ah! Ah! I see all! Thou art hunting the shetani?”

“The devil?”

“Aye! The muzungo mbaya of the long soft beard and gun that never ceases!”

“Thou art speaking of my former companion, John Speke? Thou hast seen him of late?”

“No, but a man from the village of Ngome, which is far north of here, came to us this many-” he extended the word to indicate the time that had passed: maaaannny, “-days ago and told of a bad man with bad men who came to his village intent on bad things. They were led by the muzungo mbaya, and when he was described to me, I remembered the one thou callest Speke, though now they say his head is half of metal.”

Burton said, “So his expedition is taking the northern trail eastward?”

“Aye, and killing and stealing as he goes. Dost thou mean to do the same?”

“Absolutely not! My people seek only to rest for a single night, and for this we shall pay with copper wire and cotton cloth and glass beads.”

“And tobacco?”

“And tobacco.”

“And drink that burns the throat in a pleasurable manner?”

“And drink that burns the throat in a pleasurable manner.”

“I must consult with my brothers.”

The three p'hazi stepped away and conversed out of Burton's earshot.

Said gave a snort of contempt and said, in a low voice, “They will come back and demand much hongo to allow us passage through their territory.”

“Of course,” Burton answered. “What else do they have to bargain with?”

Sure enough, Kombe returned with what amounted to an extravagant shopping list. Burton and Said, both experienced in such matters, bartered until an agreement was reached. The village would receive around two-thirds of the specie demanded-which, in fact, was a much better deal than the elders had expected.

Kombe, well satisfied, allowed the expedition to set up camp beside Nzasa and announced that a feast would be held to honour the arrival of the Murungwana Sana.

Their first full day of African travel had exhausted them all. Isabella Mayson said to Burton, “I'm confused, Sir Richard. My body tells me we've travelled many miles, but my head says we've hardly progressed at all.”

“Such is the nature of our task,” he replied. “This was a good day. On a bad, a single step must be counted an achievement.”

As the afternoon wore into evening, the tents were put up, the animals corralled, and the supplies secured.

The rains came.

There were no warning droplets or preliminary showers. One minute the sky was clear, the next it was a dark purple, then the Msika fell, a sheet of unbroken water. It hit the tents like an avalanche,