Kondoa Boma

As a new country, Tanganyika has few buildings of historic interest, so this account of one of the more striking up-country Boraas may be of interest to readers of Tanganyika Notes and Records. Kondoa Irangi, as many travellers know, lies 100 miles north of Dodoma and two miles west of the (i-reat North Road. Kondoa, or Mkondoa, is the name of the river which runs through the station and Irangi that of the Surrounding tribal area. It is not known how the double name arose. Till the latter half of the nineteenth century the surrounding; area is said to have been thick inionibo forest, when two Irangi tribesmen, attracted by the never failing and abundant water supply, cleared holdings for themselves. They were shortly, followed by Arab ivory Traders with attendant native hunters, mostly of the Makua tribe. The first published reference that can be traced is in Karl Peters' “New Light on Dark Africa", English Edition, 1891, where he states of a certain Arab : "he possessed places of business in Irangi and was now following his caravan thither for the purpose of sending the ivory stored up there to the Coast’’. The Germans shortly followed and there is a record of a Herr Brekman : (Junior Officer) in 1807 and of Leutenant Bomstack and Ober-Leutenant Bomolah being stationed at Kondoa in 1898. In 1906 Medical, Police and Veterinary officers were posted there, and the town was laid out as a model up-country station, which developed into the headquarters of a District more than twice as large as now. Extending from and including Mkalama in the west and Kibaya in the east. It was also a big military centre, the troop’s of being housed in a fortified cantonment of which little remains except the I double-storeyed officers' quarters, which now comprise the District Headquarters.