Dundas to be navigable for more than 200 miles from
the s e a ; and, in consequence, it seemed to us a suitable
point at which to commence our journey. It was our
intention to ascend the river, and, upon reaching the
limits of navigation, to strike to the north, and penetrate
as far as possible into the interior.
From information received, we had come to the conclusion
that the Somali tribes did not extend their
wanderings many miles from the coast lying between
Kismayu and Lamoo, at the mouth of the Tana River,
and that the Juba River formed the southern boundary
of the wanderings of the Somali inhabiting the country
immediately south of Berbera; so that, by taking the
Tana route, we should effect an entrance into the
country without coming into contact with the Somali.
Of the tribes inhabiting the country between the
Juba and the Tana rivers we had no definite knowledge.
Lieutenant von Hohnel and Count Teleki, on
their former journey along the eastern shore of Lake
Rudolph, saw signs and gathered intelligence of a large
tribe called Rendile. The exact habitat of this tribe
was unknown, but they were supposed to range from
Lake Stephanie, in the north, to some point near Mount
Kenya, in the south. They were said to be possessed
of vast herds of camels, horses, donkeys, sheep, goats,
and cattle. This wealth had made them the object
of attacks from the Somali on the coast, and from the
Masai and other tribes lying to the south and west of
them. Owing to this fact, it was said, they were continually
on the move — stopping but long enough in
one place to exhaust the pasturage, and then moving
on again in search of food and water for their flocks.
The presence of this tribe in the part of the country to
which I have referred we took for granted; and the fact
that they were possessed of beasts of burden, suitable
for the purposes of a caravan, entered largely into our
calculations.
In the make-up and personnel of our caravan we had
so arranged matters that, upon meeting this tribe, we
might renew our means of porterage (sure to be weakened
and reduced by the journey); we hoped that our
caravan, strengthened by this means, would be enabled
to proceed without difficulty for a great distance and
length of time in search of fresh fields for exploration.
Both Lieutenant von Hohnel and I had come to the
conclusion, that the use of men as a means of porterage
was not only troublesome and costly, but, from the very
exigencies of African travel, cruel in the extreme. Our
ideas then turned in the direction of obviating, as far as
possible, the necessity of using men; but not knowing
whether the climatic conditions of the country lying between
the coast and the Rendile (from whom we hoped
to purchase cattle, etc.) were suited for beasts of burden,
we were forced to employ, at least for the outset of our
expedition, men for the transportation of our goods.
To these we added fifteen camels, fifty donkeys, and
ten oxen. The porters used in East Africa are the
people called “ Zanzibari,” and made famous by Stanley
and other travellers. Few of these people are natives of
Zanzibar — being mostly slaves bought by the Arabs
from the numerous tribes in the interior, and leased out
by their masters as porters to any European making up
a caravan. As is to be expected, their intelligence is
not of a high order, and they are accustomed to but one