To my mind this was a time for action: Ali bin Salim should see that it was ill trifling with a white man in earnest to start. I rode down to his house to ask him what he meant.
His reply was, Mabruki had told a lie as black as his face. He had never said anything approaching to such a thing. He was willing to become my slave—to become a pagazi himself. But here I stopped the voluble Ali, and informed him that I could not think of employing him in the capacity of a pagazi, neither could I find it in my heart to trouble Seyd Burghash to write a direct letter to him, or to require of a man who had deceived me once, as Ali bin Salim had, any service of any nature whatsoever. It would be better, therefore, if Ali bin Salim would stay away from my camp, and not enter it either in person or by proxy.
I had lost fifteen days, for Jemadar Sadur, at Kaole, had never stirred from his fortified house in that village in my service, save to pay a visit, after the receipt of the Sultan's letter. Naranji, custom-house agent at Kaoie, solely under the thumb of the great Ludha Damji, had not responded to Ludha's worded request that he would procure pagazis, except with winks, nods, and promises, and it is but just stated how I fared at the hands of Ali bin Salim. In this extremity I remembered the promise made to me by the great merchant of Zanzibar—Tarya Topan—a Mohammedan Hindi—that he would furnish me with a letter to a young man named Soor Hadji Palloo, who was said to be the best man in Bagamoyo to procure a supply of pagazis.
I despatched my Arab interpreter by a dhow to Zanzibar, with a very earnest request to Capt. Webb that he would procure from Tarya Topan the introductory letter so long delayed. It was the last card in my hand.
On the third day the Arab returned, bringing with him not only the letter to Soor Hadji Palloo, but an abundance of good things from the ever-hospitable house of Mr. Webb. In a very short time after the receipt of his letter, the eminent young man Soor Hadji Palloo came to visit me, and informed me he had been requested by Tarya Topan to hire for me one hundred and forty pagazis to Unyanyembe in the shortest time possible. This he said would be very expensive, for there were scores of Arabs and Wasawabili merchants on the look out for every caravan that came in from the interior, and they paid 20 doti, or 80 yards of cloth, to each pagazi. Not willing or able to pay more, many of these merchants had been waiting as long as six months before they could get their quota. "If you," continued he, "desire to depart quickly, you must pay from 25 to 40 doti, and I can send you off before one month is ended." In reply, I said, "Here are my cloths for pagazis to the amount of $1,750, or 3,500 doti, sufficient to give one hundred and forty men 25 doti each. The most I am willing to pay is 25 doti: send one hundred and forty pagazis to Unyanyembe with my cloth and wire, and I will make your heart glad with the richest present you have ever received." With a refreshing naivete, the "young man" said he did not want any present, he would get me my quota of pagazis, and then I could tell the "Wasungu" what a good "young man" he was, and consequently the benefit he would receive would be an increase of business. He closed his reply with the astounding remark that he had ten pagazis at his house already, and if I would be good enough to have four bales of cloth, two bags of beads, and twenty coils of wire carried to his house, the pagazis could leave Bagamoyo the next day, under charge of three soldiers.
"For," he remarked, "it is much better and cheaper to send many small caravans than one large one. Large caravans invite attack, or are delayed by avaricious chiefs upon the most trivial pretexts, while small ones pass by without notice."
The bales and the beads were duly carried to Soor Hadji Palloo's house, and the day passed with me in mentally congratulating myself upon my good fortune, in complimenting the young Hindi's talents for business, the greatness and influence of Tarya Topan, and the goodness of Mr. Webb in thus hastening my departure from Bagamoyo. I mentally vowed a handsome present, and a great puff in my book, to Soor Hadji Palloo, and it was with a glad heart that I prepared these soldiers for their march to Unyayembe.
The task of preparing the first caravan for the Unyanyembe road informed me upon several things that have escaped the notice of my predecessors in East Africa, a timely knowledge of which would have been of infinite service to me at Zanzibar, in the purchase and selection of sufficient and proper cloth.
The setting out of the first caravan enlightened me also on the subject of honga, or tribute. Tribute had to be packed by itself, all of choice cloth; for the chiefs, besides being avaricious, are also very fastidious. They will not accept the flimsy cloth of the pagazi, but a royal and exceedingly high-priced dabwani, Ismahili, Rehani, or a Sohari, or dotis of crimson broad cloth. The tribute for the first caravan cost $25. Having more than one hundred and forty pagazis to despatch, this tribute money would finally amount to $330 in gold, with a minimum of 25c. on each dollar. Ponder on this, O traveller! I lay bare these facts for your special instruction.
But before my first caravan was destined to part company with me, Soor Hadji Palloo—worthy young man—and I were to come to a definite understanding about money matters. The morning appointed for departure Soor Hadji Palloo came to my hut and presented his bill, with all the gravity of innocence, for supplying the pagazis with twenty-five doti each as their hire to Unyanyembe, begging immediate payment in money. Words fail to express the astonishment I naturally felt, that this sharp-looking young man should so soon have forgotten the verbal contract entered into between him and myself the morning previous, which was to the effect that out of the three thousand doti stored in my tent, and bought expressly for pagazi hire, each and every man hired for me as carriers from Bagamoyo to Unyanyembe, should be paid out of the store there in my tent, when I asked if he remembered the contract, he replied in the affirmative: his reasons for breaking it so soon were, that he wished to sell his cloths, not mine, and for his cloths he should want money, not an exchange. But I gave him to comprehend that as he was procuring pagazis for me, he was to pay my pagazis with my cloths; that all the money I expected to pay him, should be just such a sum I thought adequate for his trouble as my agent, and that only on those terms should he act for me in this or any other matter, and that the "Musungu" was not accustomed to eat his words.
The preceding paragraph embodies many more words than are contained in it. It embodies a dialogue of an hour, an angry altercation of half-an-hour's duration, a vow taken on the part of Soor Hadji Palloo, that if I did not take his cloths he should not touch my business, many tears, entreaties, woeful penitence, and much else, all of which were responded to with, "Do as I want you to do, or do nothing." Finally came relief, and a happy ending. Soor Hadji Palloo went away with a bright face, taking with him the three soldiers' posho (food), and honga (tribute) for the caravan. Well for me that it ended so, and that subsequent quarrels of a similar nature terminated so peaceably, otherwise I doubt whether my departure from Bagamoyo would have happened so early as it did. While I am on this theme, and as it really engrossed every moment of my time at Bagamoyo, I may as well be more explicit regarding Boor Hadji Palloo and his connection with my business.
Boor Hadji Palloo was a smart young man of business, energetic, quick at mental calculation, and seemed to be born for a successful salesman. His eyes were never idle; they wandered over every part of my person, over the tent, the bed, the guns, the clothes, and having swung clear round, began the silent circle over again. His fingers were never at rest, they had a fidgety, nervous action at their tips, constantly in the act of feeling something; while in the act of talking to me, he would lean over and feel the texture of the cloth of my trousers, my coat, or my shoes or socks: then he would feel his own light jamdani shirt or dabwain loin-cloth, until his eyes casually resting upon a novelty, his body would lean forward, and his arm was stretched out with the willing fingers. His jaws also were in perpetual motion, caused by vile habits he had acquired of chewing betel-nut and lime, and sometimes tobacco and lime. They gave out a sound similar to that of a young shoat, in the act of sucking. He was a pious Mohammedan, and observed the external courtesies and ceremonies of the true believers. He would affably greet me, take off his shoes, enter my tent protesting he was not fit to sit in my presence, and after being seated, would begin his ever-crooked errand. Of honesty, literal and practical honesty, this youth knew nothing; to the pure truth he was an utter stranger; the falsehoods he had uttered during his short life seemed already to have quenched the bold gaze of innocence from his eyes, to