Characters
Amina is the beautiful and “sweet gazelle‐eyed daughter of Othman bin Ghees, of the tribe of the Beni‐Abbas,” the “favourite wife” of Sheikh Amer bin Osman of the Sultanate of Zanzibar, and the mother of Selim. She has a “noble disposition” and is “queen and mistress” of the harem.
Sheikh Amer bin Osman is “a noble Arab of the tribe of Beni‐Hassan” who lives in a “large roomy mansion” on a flourishing estate in the Sultanate of Zanzibar and who is “noble in disposition, noble in his large liberal charity, and noble in his treatment of his numerous black dependents.” Amina is his “favourite wife,” and Selim is their only son.
Selim (bin Amer) is the teenage son of Sheikh Amer bin Osman of the Sultanate of Zanzibar and his “favourite wife” Amina. He has “handsome features, large glowing black eyes, and clear complexion … unto that of rich cream,” as well as a “graceful vigorous form.” His “appearance at once challenged attention from his frank, ingenuous, honest face, his clear complexion, his beautiful eyes, and the promise which his well‐formed graceful figure gave of a perfect manhood in the future.”
Isa is a “tall dark‐coloured boy, son of Sheikh Thani” (but apparently mistakenly called “son of Salim” in ch. 1).
Ludha Damha (only mentioned so far) is the collector of customs.
Khamis bin Abdullah is “a wealthy African trader” who has been on a recent expedition to the African interior, returning “with an immense number of ivory tusks and slaves.”
Sheikh Mohammed is “a native of Zanzibar, a neighbour and kinsman of Amer” and a slaveowner. He has “a deep voice, which resembled the bellow of a wild buffalo.” His brother is Rashid bin Sulieman (whose son is Mohammed).
Sheikh Thani, son of Mussoud, is “an experienced old trader in Africa” and a slaveowner.
Sheikh Mussoud, son of Abdullah, is “a portly, fine‐looking Arab of Muscat,” a “florid‐faced chief” and a slaveowner.
Sheikhs Hamdan and Amran, are “natives of Zanzibar, though pure‐blooded Arabs.”
Suleiman and Soud are “nephews of Amer bin Osman, gaudily‐dressed youths.”
Abdullah and Mussoud are Selim’s “boyfriends,” “two boys of fourteen and twelve years respectively, sons of Sheikh Mohammed, whose complexions were as purely white as black‐eyed descendants of Ishmael can well be.”
Sayd, the son of Habib, (only mentioned so far) is a great Arab traveler who has been throughout Africa and “has married a wife from among the white people who live at San Paul de Loanda.” His son married “a tall, lithesome girl of sixteen years or so” from Rua (Rwanda?) who was “beautiful as a Peri‐banou,” whose “lower limbs were as clean and well‐made as those of an antelope,” who “walked like the daughter of a chief,” whose “eyes were like two deep wells of shining moving water,” and whose “face was like the moon, in colour and form … almost as clear and light as … Selim’s.”
Banyan Ramji (only mentioned so far) is an Indian usurer.
Simba (Lion) is a faithful servant of Sheikh Amer bin Osman who is placed with Moto in charge of the caravan to Rua. He is “a giant in form, and a lion, as his name denoted, in strength and courage. He was originally from Urundi, a large country bordering the northeastern part of Lake Tanganika. He was the son of a chief, and was captured when a boy in battle when Moeni Khheri’s father sided with the Wasige against Makala, a quarrelsome king living in the northern districts of Urundi. Being a chief’s son he of course belonged to the Wahuma, a superior race of bronze coloured people who formerly migrated from Ethiopia, and from whom only chiefs are selected in the countries of Urundi, Ruanda, Uganda, and Karagwah. ¶Simba was now in the prime of his manhood, and he had lived in the household of Amer bin Osman for twenty years, for Amer, after his arrival in Zanziibar, within a year of his capture, had purchased him, and seeing him to be docile and good‐tempered, though uncommonly strong, had almost adopted him as his son. ¶Some of Simba’s feats of strength bordered on the marvellous. Taught by the young kinsmen of Amer the use of the long, sharp sword of the Arabs, and being apt, he had acquired a terrible proficiency with it. He had often walked up alongside of a full‐grown goat, and had with one well dealt blow halved the animal from head to tail. Many of his negro admirers verily believed he could perform the same feat upon an ass, so extraordinary was his strength …. He had once carried a three‐year‐old bullock on his back half way around the plantation of his master, Amer. He had often taken one of the large white donkeys of Muscat by the ears and by a sudden movement of his right foot, had prostrated the animal on his back; and once, upon an extraordinary occasion, had actually carried twelve men on his back and shoulders and chest around his master’s house …. He could toss an ordinary man ten feet high into the air, and catch him as easily as an ordinary man would catch a small child. … By measurement he stood six feet and five inches in his bare feet, and from shoulder to shoulder he measured thirty‐two inches.” He has a deep voice.
Moto (Fire) is a faithful servant of Sheikh Amer bin Osman who is placed with Simba in charge of the caravan to Rua. “Moto, or ‘fire,’ could not have been better designated. His name, which his master had given him, had been bestowed upon him for his peppery, irascible temper. He was from Urori, as almost anyone acquainted with the peculiarities of the various tribes in Central Africa could have sworn. A small wiry frame, indicating cat‐like activity, strength, indomitability, capable of enduring great fatigue, characterised the form of Moto. He had also been brought to Zanzibar when a child by a slave‐trader, and from a mere caprice had been purchased for twenty dollars by Amer. But his master had never regretted the purchase, for next to Simba, Amer bin Osman preferred Moto. … He was a great hunter, he could track the soft velvet foot of the leopard upon a rock, could tell what animal had broken a blade of grass if a single hair but adhered to it, could stalk an elephant and tickle his belly with a straw without letting the enormous brute know what deadly foe intruded on his presence; and a man slightly inclined to exaggeration, and not at all noted for his veracity, declared by this and by that, that Moto had at one time dragged himself into a jungle after a lion, and, finding the lion asleep, had from sheer bravado walked noiselessly up to him and stepped over his body before he shot him through the head. ¶If you knew Moto as well as his own best friends knew him, you would describe him as being as brave as a lion, active as a cat, keen‐eyed as the fish‐eagle, hot as pepper, as hardy as an ass, and faithful as a dog. If you will add that he was a little vain, and never disposed to resent any kind friend boasting of his prowess, you will have a perfect picture of Moto the Mrori.”
Sulieman, son of Prince Majid, is a friend of Selim.
Sultan, son of Ali, is “a strong and wise man … of about fifty, or perhaps fifty‐five, of strongly‐marked features, who had keen black eyes.” He “had been an officer of high rank in the army of Prince Thouweynee of Muscat, who had often eulogised Sultan for his daring, obstinacy, forethought, and skill in handling his wild cavalry. He was still, as might be seen, in the prime of mature manhood, which age had not deteriorated in the least.” He is a slaveowner.
Niani (Monkey) is Moto’s nephew, naked while listening to Moto’s story in ch. 2. When Moto threatens him with a kurbash for interrupting his storytelling, Niani leaps from seat to escape and accidentally landed in a dish of simmering rice.
Kisesa is the leader of a caravan in Moto’s story. While in Ukonongo (Katavi Region?), Kisesa sends Moto out for game but kills an elephant for its ivory instead.
• Simba and Moto were both brought to Zanzibar as boys as part of the East African slave trade by traders from the Sultanate of Oman.
• Simba is a Tutsi giant and a chieftain’s son who was captured as a boy during a regional conflict and thus became a high‐ranking, loyal servant of Amer bin Osman, a wealthy Arab from Zanzibar. He is capable of stupendous feats of strength and is also a proficient swordsman. He is chief overseer of Amer’s caravan into Central Africa.
• Moto is a wiry, catlike hunter from the East Africa Protectorate. He is Sangu.
• Kalulu is also Sangu, the son of King Mostana of Kwikuru. In a battle between the Arab chief Kisesa and King Mostana of Kwikuru, the king’s son Kalulu is allowed to flee to safety by Moto, a fellow Sangu in Kisesa’s caravan.
• The British Medical Journal (1870–71); Through the Dark Continent (1878) (IA) (IA); The Autobiography of Henry M. Stanley (1909).
• The Boy Travellers on the Congo … (1888), by Thomas W. Knox.
Chapter synopses
Preface: Relating which fictional personages are inspired by which actual ones from How I Found Livingstone, 1872.
Ch. 1: In the 1860s, at an “evening symposium” on the beach near Amer bin Osman’s mansion in the Sultanate of Zanzibar, a group of slaveowner sheikhs, inspired by exaggerated secondhand tales of riches seen there by Sayd, son of Habib, decide to embark on a large (480‐man) expedition into Rua (Rwanda?) in search of “ivory, slaves, and copper, and light‐colored wives.” Envisioning leaving his boyhood in the harem behind in order to progress towards manhood, Amer’s son Selim breaks the news to his shocked mother that he’ll be accompanying the caravan, and twenty‐four days later, the first group of them departs for Bagamoyo, the first stop on the African mainland.
Ch. 2: After Amer and Selim bid Amina a tearful goodbye, their section of the caravan crosses the river, happily sets up a circular encampment and begins to tell uproarious stories. Moto tells of the time he killed an elephant for Kisesa, leader of a caravan wherewith he was traveling. (42)