Trade and Travel
My lords,
Our trading post is established!Here where there is a great pooling of the Zaire river, we have set up huts, next to those of our fisherman neighbours. They call this place Nkuna. A little tributary river, the Mfoa, runs at times strongly enough toward the Zaire to power a waterwheel we've set up for our mill.
Martin, you will be pleased to know we have already made three modest ZK sailboats to head further upriver. Their shallow draft, maneuverability, and our ability to put them together more and more quickly are all helping us know the river rather better. Our Teke fisher friends were at first skeptical of sailing, but are already learning to enjoy river travel with less paddling.
We send men upriver in those three boats now, to meet whomever they can find.
The rest remain behind, milling, building the next ZKs a little more slowly, and starting to lay out a really good warehouse. We're also planning to make the overland side of our operation a little easier. We may put some stone steps into the harder climbs on our way. We'll place huts and storage for those who bring goods from Nkuna to the Loango coast. We'll look to see where some small rivers may be worth bridging to make our cart-road a little better. Alongside our friends in Loango, we should soon have the most efficient avenue to trade with the river, faster than anything Kongo or the Portuguese vassal kingdoms nearby could manage. When our sailors come back, we can hope to begin drawing the trade to ourselves.
Also! I am to be married! Sara (the green-eyed beauty Martin may remember listening to my fireside stories) and I will be wed at the Temple overlooking the gorge, in June, around the solstice.
Anyone from Fernau is welcome, of course. Send word if we shall have to expand the temple to hold more guests. Sara, her father and I will divide our time between Diosso and Nkuna. I guess we will divide most our lifetime between Diosso and Nkuna, and possibly places upriver.
Be well up in Fernau, my lords.
Motke
- - -
We met the Obi of Nnewi. Obi means something like Duke, but this Obi is apparently also a king. He is one of many Obis around here, but the one whose authority seems most political of those nearby. We have permission to build our trading quarter at a place most seem to call Onitsha. I write "most" because different groups are are jumbled nearby, with the river doing only a halfway good job of serving as a boundary between groups. Onitsha seems only a few dozen years old, so we have plenty of flexibility as to land to choose. Nnewi is east of the river, and the Obi there is formidably old. But he values river trade, and if we bring more of it to his side of the river, he will value us.
We are about 70 miles upriver from where the Joliba branches out into its formidable delta. The start of the delta is in turn about 70 miles from the sea, depending on which branch you choose. The Portuguese set up small trade posts at the mouths of at least one or two on the west side. Though they seem in disuse, we avoid those channels to conceal our presence upriver from them for now.
The maps from the Joliba expedition suggest the place its leader stayed to heal is another 150 to 200 miles upriver from here. We've sent men to retrieve him in your name, assuming he still lives. Once we are established here, we will see to sending men upriver to explore his place of rapids as a further post. I don't know how many petty kingdoms they will pass through to get there and back. This place is like a Black Germany, full of little overlapping places and enclaves each ruled by someone with a different title. Maybe these aren't savages at all, politically speaking. Maybe Germans are.
The delta has some annoyingly shallow silted bits. We shall have to map the more reliable channels better. We'll have to find the sweet spot of ship sizes to both handle the river's delta and then cross to Fernau. A few more crossings will solve it.
- - -
We were immensely surprised as we were rounding the Cape to find a pinkish flag flying there. We signalled to the Dutch ships of our fellow-travellers that we would tack closer. What a surprise to find a flag just like our own, though with rather faded colour. We saw Courland's Ark at anchor and put settled in nearby. The men there said they'd been present only weeks, but they would happily share with us from their stores - saying it would be good practice for their future.
I am leaving you this letter with them, alongside a number of promising plants. Some are sadly starting to suffer from too long at sea, and we will hope your Cape gardeners can revive those plants requiring a kinder balance of sun and shade we could offer on deck or below while at sea. It may well be we deposit more at Saint Helena.
The short version of our tale is this: the Eastern leg of our journey with the VOC ships was a success. We return laden with many harvested spices. There is silk that impressed us, though the Dutch say it is third-rate. Cinnamon and Cardamom and a variety of other things besides. As expected, the Dutch have insisted on everything with particularly high value for its weight travel on their ships. We have the lesser and bulkier goods. But though they would not tolerate us taking samples of the finest spice plants, they did accept us taking other plants. I'm sure they thought we would choose food plants, and we did indeed return with some of those.
We met people along one shoreline east and opposite of India, while we paused for fresh water. They had little to trade that interested our Dutch friends, but discovering that was still worth their while. You will see on our map. I think the Dutch will keep to those great islands in the southeast of it after this.
Still: these people on the river we stopped at had the most ancient-looking boats. I do not mean their style, though all simple boats moved by paddles resemble each other somewhat. They looked so dented and pocked, and yet remained afloat despite looking older than some of the people paddling in them. Most of us paused for leisure in the mouth of the river. But a few men rowed upriver with the local men. We gave them the usual brass tools and inexpensive but useful goods popular with those who see traders rarely. They gave us many saplings, and many seeds of the same trees from which their boats were made.
The Dutch had in fact seen similar woods before, and told us we could see plantations of the stuff near Batavia. It wasn't clear whether someone made those before the Dutch came, but it's theirs now. We did put in at Batavia as well, rather later, and learned how best to germinate and plant those seeds. The Dutch, particular as ever, wouldn't give us live trees, but didn't mind us collecting more seeds, given that we already had some.
We also return with other trees, and fruit and even preserves made from fruit we could not eat fast enough: the crew has taken a liking to mango.
We also picked up vanilla plants from the Mascarene Islands on the way back. They're apparently hell to grow, which is why we were allowed to have them.
I feel I'm forgetting worthy details, but the men are already looking forward to Saint Helena. Whatever I've forgotten, I will send from there. We also have a gift for them: some lovely young spice island girls!