THE natives in the vicinity of the camp are called Wassukuma. They are a fairly representative people of the country, not the best type, but peaceable, long suffering sort of human beings that make good porters and die by droves when the white man crushes them with the heel of civilization, as occurred in the late war. In ancient days they furnished the gangs of slaves that the Portuguese led out of the country with chains on their necks. They are hunters with the bow, and only incidentally agricultural and pastoral in their pursuits.
During the late war, Tanganyika was the theatre of diminutive military campaigns, and the Wassukuma were requisitioned as porters by both sides. The care given them was so bad, it is said, that hundreds died of overwork, starvation and disease.
It was quite natural then that they abandoned their villages and all took to the nomadic life in the bush, which is so close to their native habit. Consequently, they raised no corn and could pay no annual hut tax. Now, hunting has been forbidden them with the object of forcing them to plant and raise crops. Each native must pay the British Government five shillings annually as a hut tax, and more if he has more than one wife. As it stands at present the Wassukuma have no chance to earn the five shillings except from occasional porter service or from the sale of wildebeest tails to other tribes. These of course they get by hunting.
Wildebeest tails are used as fly swatters by natives, also as decorative features to their costumes. So they are in steady demand, selling for a shilling apiece to the neighboring tribes.
Working as porters, as they do for Leslie Simson, and for other hunting safaris, these people earn about ten shillings a month, or two and a half dollars. Wages have gone up in modern days. A gun bearer earns sixty to eighty shillings a month. He must be an especially trained man, and risks his life for twenty dollars. But few can reach such heights as these.
Most Africans carry their loads on their heads but the Wassukuma carry their burdens on their shoulders and ordinarily pack sixty pounds all day long, usually fifteen to twenty miles.
We have just sent out thirty porters for gasolene and they are to be given a bonus of one shilling to each man that carries a case of petrol, or eighty pounds.
They were eager for the job and are due tomorrow from a two hundred and sixty mile jaunt.
Ten days ago they started out, each man with a stick and a rope, a little cotton blanket, a gourd of water and a bag of corn meal with dried meat. They carry no arms save a spear or two and a couple of bows and arrows that appear rather impotent when you remember that every night hyenas, leopards and lions circulate about their camp, and their watch fires are never overstocked with wood.