| British India Steam Navigation Company Ltd. |
Richard Douglas Crow
Reminiscences of a marine pilot serving, initially with The Tanganyika Railways and Ports Services which, after amalgamation with the Kenya and Uganda Railways became the Tanganyikan arm of the East African Railways and Harbours, mostly in the port and capital, Dar-Es-Salaam but also in the port of Tanga, during the late 1940’s and the 1950’s.
Between the wars and until the early 1960’s Tanganyika was a U.N. Trust Territory administered by Great Britain. It was run on the conventional colonial paternalistic pattern headed by the Governor from Government House in the capital at Dar-Es-Salaam. Between the wars it was a very much male orientated society as very few of the junior officials or commercial staff were accompanied by wives. This was reflected by the type of housing provided both by Government and commercial firms for their expatriate staff.
The East African Railways and Harbours was a quasi Government organisation, the expatriate officers were recruited through the Colonial Office and enjoyed salary scales and service conditions, i.e. 3 year tours of duty and Home leave, similar to Government officials yet dealt, on a commercial basis, in the port department with the ships of the many nationalities that traded with Tanganyika and their Agents, so that they, to some extent, bridged the gap between the Official and Commercial communities. The Government Officials were mostly British, and the Commercials comprised mostly of British and other Europeans and many Asian traders. The work force was predominantly African with European and Asian supervision.
While English was the official language, Swahili was the lingua franca of the country and for government officials a degree of proficiency in it was necessary for promotion.
A series of topical cartoons by Geoff Green were published in the 1950’s in the local newspaper, the Tanganyika Standard. These highlighted and reflected every day life as seen from the Government and Commercial viewpoints. The trials and tribulations suffered by Government officials swotting for their Swahili examinations, offset by the award of a Cost of Living Allowance to Government salaries, and the romantic repercussions occasioned by a Flag Showing visit of an R.N. ship were all gist to the cartoonists mill. A few typical cartoons are attached below. Some of the figures depicted could, at the time, be related to well known personalities in the communities. For example, the toga clad figure wearing an official plumed solar toupee presiding over the arena in which the Commercials are being fed to the Cost of Living Lions bears a striking resemblance to His Excellency Sir Edward Twining, the then Governor of Tanganyika.
Geoff Green cartoons
Membership of the Dar-Es-Salaam Club was restricted to European males and even in the 50's Ladies were only admitted to parts of the club on special occasions and then, as far as some of the “old timers” were concerned, only on sufferance.
Many of the single Europeans or those whose wives were on home leave would use the clubs facilities for lunch and dinner etc. The Gymkhana Sports club with its cricket, tennis, golf and other sporting facilities had a more liberal attitude and allowed ladies as members.
Cricket was a popular game; the Europeans had the country wide club of the Tanganyika Twigas (Giraffes) matched by a similar Asian club, the Tanganyika Tembos (Elephants), while at a local level the European Sports Club and the Railways and Harbours Club fielded teams that played the many Asian teams.
In the late 15th century Vasco da Gama, the Portuguese navigator, took many months to reach East Africa. In pre-World War II days, the passage by sea in one of the BI ‘M’ class ships, admittedly no ocean greyhounds took some three weeks to or from East Africa/UK. In 1949 my wife flew out from Heathrow (when the facilities were still Nissan Huts) in a ‘York,’ which I believe was the civilian version of the ‘Lancaster’ bomber, in three days stopping at night during the three-day flight. When I mentioned in the Dar Club that she was due to do this the old timers all shook their heads and opinioned that it was far too quick and she would never stand the sudden change of climate. In 1997 I flew from Germany non-stop to Mombassa in just over eight and a half hours. Time flies! No doubt in the not too distant future a person will be able to step into a capsule and say something like ‘Beam Me Up Scottie’ to be transported in minutes to anywhere in the world.
'M' Class ship
M Class ship steaming out of Dar Es Salaam
York Aeroplane
In those days, just after the war, such luxuries as refrigerators and other electrical appliances, new cars and many other manufactured goods were often in short supply. It must have been quite a shock for my wife when she arrived in 1949 from the UK to such conditions, especially as she found that, as junior pilot, our quarters were across the harbour entrance at the Signal Station and had no electric power or lighting. We were dependent on a wood fired Dover stove for cooking although our African ‘mpishi’ (cook) did very well with it. However my wife bought herself a ‘Valor’ kerosene oil cooker but it was not very successful as the sea breezes at the Signal Station kept causing it to ‘blackout’ covering everything with oily smuts. She did produce some rock cakes with it once but, unfortunately, they were true to their name and when I dropped one it nearly cracked the cement floor. We gave it to our dog that received it with delight but when she thought we were not looking, went and buried it in the garden. Lighting was also by kerosene, Alladin pressure lamps (which gave out a lot of heat in the hot season). And of course, we could not have electric fans.
Our first motorcar was a 1938 Morris 12 which had been cannibalised with lorry door handles and Standard car wheels. It sometimes refused to start, broke down at inconvenient moments and on one occasion the steering wheel came off in my hand but my wife and I, and our dog, had more fun with that old car than any of the new models we had later. It cost just £100 in 1949 and we sold it for £75 two years later when we went on home leave so it was certainly also value for money.
Bonkie and their first car, a 1938 Morris 12.
The local butcher, whose ‘douka’ (Shop), was painted red, presumably to hide the bloodstains, slaughtered in the early hours and in the days before we had a refrigerator we used to buy our fresh meat at daybreak. The meat was still warm, and the joints were often unconventional cuts although we found fillet steak was usually a good buy.
There was no such thing as TV, videos etc. and the old fashioned wireless, or radio, was the only contact with the outside world, and often a not very good contact at that so people were, in general, dependent on making their own entertainment. As was to be expected in a tropical climate sailing and swimming were popular pastimes catered for by Yacht clubs and organised outings and picnics to offshore islands and other beaches were popular at the weekends. Friends within their own circles and level would give and reciprocate with small dinner parties or with children’s outings, such occasions often helped to make useful official or commercial contacts.
I recall that at one such dinner party my wife was complimented on the flower arrangement of her dinner table. “Oh, that was Ali (our house boy) he got them for me” she replied. And I can guess where he got them from one guest remarked; Government House has masses of those flowers in their gardens. Horrified, my wife denied that her Ali would steal from G.H. but next week she was mortified to find that the truth was even worse. Going for a walk with a friend who was staying with us they passed a small Missionary Cemetery nearby where some of the graves were decorated with the self same flowers. Even in the ports of Dar-Es-Salaam and Tanga there was a certain amount of wildlife. During my first tour of duty as the junior pilot we lived in the signal station flat at the other side of the harbour entrance. A large baboon took up residence in our garden one weekend, on another occasion my wife was advised to stay indoors and keep her dog in too as a lion had been reported in the area, this was just after a resident only a mile away had had his dog seized from the verandah of his house by a leopard. The Africans usually quickly and effectively dealt with Snakes.
One year when the rains failed hippopotami were found in the south creek of the harbour at Dar-Es-Salaam and we had one in our garden at the port entrance. The following day, while servicing the channel leading lights I was startled by a hippopotamus rising up out of the water at the edge of the reef in front of me. That afternoon, piloting an American ship to sea I remarked to the Captain, “There’s a hippo in the channel just here” Right on cue, disturbed by he beat of the ship’s propeller, it stood up again.
A fair sized crocodile was shot in the harbour at Tanga while I was there. My wife, convalescing up country at the Lawns Hotel, Lushoto, shooed away what she thought was a large Ridgeback dog from outside her banda one evening but when it turned round and looked at her she realised that it was an adult lioness. She quickly retreated to her room and spent the rest of the night there.
One of the principal exports of Tanganyika in those days was sisal, especially through the smaller northern port of Tanga. The sisal plants, after being decorticated and processed were baled in large oblong bales for shipment. The sisal industry was controlled by the Tanganyika Sisal Growers Association. Mr Hitchcock was the President, the only other name I recall in that connection was Bennett of the Amboni Estates near Tanga.. Each year they held a grand “white”, or at the very least “black” tie dinner function at which senior Government Officials and the Managers of the main commercial firms were guests. When I was Pilot i/c Tanga in 1952 or 53 I was a guest at the dinner which was held that year aboard the B.I.S.N.Co’s brand new passenger vessel the SS Kenya. His Excellency Sir Edward Twining, the Governor of Tanganyika, was the guest of honour on that occasion and Captain Hamley, the Superintendent of Ports was the senior representative of the E.A.R & H.
S.S. Kenya
Coffee grown in the Arusha area was another export from Tanga.
The ill-fated Ground Nuts Scheme after WW2 did provide a welcome impetus to the trade of Tanganyika and a new port, “Mtwara”, was built in the Southern Province. Until the 50’s Dar-as-Salaam port had no deep water quays so that vessels had to be manoeuvred under their own power and anchored in the harbour to discharge and load their cargoes by lighters. In the early 50’s after the amalgamation of the railways and ports into the East African Railways and Harbours a ship handling steam tug was provided for Dar-Es-Salaam which greatly expedited ship movements and enabled moorings to be laid in the south creek to accommodate larger vessels and an oil tanker berth for the importation of fuel oil for the railways.
By the late 1950’s deep water quays had also been built at Dar-Es-Salaam thus providing the port with all the up to date facilities expected of a modern port.
The central line railway to Kigoma, provided a link to the Belgian Congo from Dar-Es-Salaam via Lake Tanganyika, which allowed trade to and from the Congo to a Belgian enclave, “The Bel Base”, in the port of Dar-Es-Salaam.
Dhows from the Persian Gulf have traded with the west coast of India and the east coast of Africa since Biblical times. ‘Dhow’ is really a generic word similar to our ‘ship’ but there are many different types. On the Indian coast you will find ‘Baggala’s; with more pronounced and ornate poops, influenced no doubt, by the 18th. Century European ships then familiar to those waters. In East Africa the large seagoing dhows were usually ‘Booms’. They were of a more traditional design, with one or two masts and lateen sails. The larger ones with their raked stems and sterns could be well over 100 feet in length. Originally they would have sailed down from the Gulf with the northeast monsoon and return with the first of the southwest monsoon. Nowadays most of them are fitted with diesel engines. They would bring from the Gulf such goods as Persian carpets ( I still have a Persian carpet at home bought from an Arab dhow in Dar-Es-Salaam) and return with biriti poles (there is little timber in the Gulf) and, no doubt in the old days, a full quota of slaves. Bagamoyo, a roadstead port some miles north of Dar-Es-Salaam used to be the principal port of the area before Dar was established in the 19th. Century. It was also at the end of one of the slave trails to the interior. When my wife and I visited it in 1950 the remains of the slave pens could be clearly seen and there were an abundance of mango trees, planted, we were told, by the slavers to feed their unfortunate captives.
Tanganyika was, I think, in general, more rural and African than neighbouring Kenya with its larger towns, commercial atmosphere, tourists and numerous white settlers. Life in Tanganyika seemed to be lived at a slower pace. The Tanganyikan Africans were also, in my experience, less sophisticated, more rustic and more susceptible to old traditions and superstitions than their more city dwelling counterparts in Kenya. For example, one day our shamba boy and some of the younger boat boys did not turn up for work. Kombo, the Head Signalman, told me that they were afraid to leave their village as they were frightened that the Mumiani would get them. He explained that the Mumiani were bloodsuckers who originated long ago in the days of the Portuguese occupation of the East African coast. (The standard Swahili/English dictionary says “Mumiani, a dark coloured gum like substance used by some Arabs, Indians and Swahili for medicinal purposes. It is said to be brought from Persia but many natives firmly believe that it is dried coagulated blood taken from victims murdered for the purpose”.) I was told later that the scare was started when the Sewa Haji Native Hospital sent out a team seeking volunteer blood donors. to replenish its blood bank. Q.E.D.
On another occasion a rather deadly snake of, I believe, the mamba family was killed at the Signal station. The Africans cut its head off and buried the head and the body separately quite a considerable distance apart, otherwise, they told my wife, the two parts would join up at sunset and chase them for killing it.
In the circumstances I suppose it is not surprising that after the amalgamation of the Railways and Harbours our colleagues in the big port of Mombassa used to refer to Dar-Es-Salaam as “The Sleepy Hollow”.