The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death Volume I Part 12

_Mem._--The people a.s.sent by lifting up the head instead of nodding it down as we do; deaf mutes are said to do the same.

_22nd November, 1866._--Leaving Mokatoba village, and proceeding down the valley, which on the north is shut up apparently by a mountain called Kokwe, we crossed the Kasamba, about two miles from Mokatoba, and yet found it, though so near its source, four yards wide, and knee deep. Its source is about a mile above Mokatoba, in the same valley, with the Bua and Tembwe. We were told that elephants were near, and we saw where they had been an hour before; but after seeking about could not find them. An old man, in the deep defile between Kokwe and Yasika Mountains, pointed to the latter, and said, "Elephants! why, there they are. Elephants, or tusks, walking on foot are never absent;" but though we were eager for flesh, we could not give him credit, and went down the defile which gives rise to the Sandili River: where we crossed it in the defile, it was a mere rill, having large trees along its banks, yet it is said to go to the Loangwa of Zumbo, N.W. or N.N.W. We were now in fact upon the slope which inclines to that river, and made a rapid descent in alt.i.tude. We reached Silubi's village, on the base of a rocky detached hill. No food to be had; all taken by Mazitu, so Silubi gave me some Masuko fruit instead. They find that they can keep the Mazitu off by going up a rocky eminence, and hurling stones and arrows down on the invaders: they can defend themselves also by stockades, and these are becoming very general.

On leaving Silubi's village, we went to a range of hills, and after pa.s.sing through found that we had a comparatively level country on the north: it would be called a well-wooded country if we looked at it only from a distance. It is formed into long ridges, all green and wooded; but clumps of large trees, where villages have been, or are still situated, show that the sylvan foliage around and over the whole country is that of mere hop-poles. The whole of this upland region might be called woody, if we bear in mind that where the population is dense, and has been long undisturbed, the trees are cut down to the size of low bush. Large districts are kept to about the size of hop-poles, growing on pollards three or four feet from the ground, by charcoal burners, who, in all instances, are smiths too.

On reaching Zeore's village, on the Lokuzhwa, we found it stockaded, and stagnant pools round three sides of it. The Mazitu had come, pillaged all the surrounding villages, looked at this, and then went away; so the people had food to sell. They here call themselves Echewa, and have a different marking from the Atumboka. The men have the hair dressed as if a number of the hairs of elephants' tails were stuck around the head: the women wear a small lip-ring, and a straw or piece of stick in the lower lip, which dangles down about level with the lower edge of the chin: their clothing in front is very scanty.

The men know nothing of distant places, the Manganja being a very stay-at-home people. The stockades are crowded with huts, and the children have but small room to play in the narrow s.p.a.ces between.

_25th November, 1866._--Sunday at Zeore's. The villagers thought we prayed for rain, which was much needed. The cracks in the soil have not yet come together by the welling of soil produced by moisture. I disabused their minds about rain-making prayers, and found the headman intelligent.

I did not intend to notice the Lokuzhwa, it is such a contemptible little rill, and not at present running; but in going to our next point, Mpande's village, we go along its valley, and cross it several times, as it makes for the Loangwa in the north. The valley is of rich dark red loam, and so many lilies of the Amaryllis kind have established themselves as completely to mask the colour of the soil.

They form a covering of pure white where the land has been cleared by the hoe. As we go along this valley to the Loangwa, we descend in alt.i.tude. It is said to rise at "Nombe rume," as we formerly heard.

_27th November, 1866._--Zeore's people would not carry without prepayment, so we left our extra loads as usual and went on, sending men back for them: these, however, did not come till 27th, and then two of my men got fever. I groan in spirit, and do not know how to make our gear into nine loads only. It is the knowledge that we shall be detained, some two or three months during the heavy rains that makes me cleave to it as means of support.

Advantage has been taken by the people, of spots where the Lokuzhwa goes round three parts of a circle, to erect their stockaded villages.

This is the case here, and the water, being stagnant, engenders disease. The country abounds in a fine light blue flowering perennial pea, which the people make use of as a relish. At present the blossoms only are collected and boiled. On inquiring the name, _chilobe_, the men asked me if we had none in our country. On replying in the negative, they looked with pity on us: "What a wretched, country not to have chilobe." It is on the highlands above; we never saw it elsewhere! Another species of pea _(Chilobe Weza)_, with reddish flowers, is eaten in the same way; but it has spread but little in comparison. It is worth remarking that porridge of maize or sorghum is never offered without some pulse, beans, or bean leaves, or flowers, they seem to feel the need of it, or of pulse, which is richer in flesh-formers than the porridge.

Last night a loud clapping of hands by the men was followed by several half-suppressed screams by a woman. They were quite _eldritch_, as if she could not get them out. Then succeeded a lot of utterances as if she were in ecstasy, to which a man responded, "Moio, moio." The utterances, so far as I could catch, were in five-syllable s.n.a.t.c.hes--abrupt and laboured. I wonder if this "bubbling or boiling over" has been preserved as the form in which the true prophets of old gave forth their "burdens"? One sentence, frequently repeated towards the close of the effusion, was "_linyama uta_," "flesh of the bow,"

showing that the Pythoness loved venison killed by the bow. The people applauded, and attended, hoping, I suppose, that rain would follow her efforts. Next day she was duly honoured by drumming and dancing.[35]

Prevalent beliefs seem to be persistent in certain tribes. That strange idea of property in man that permits him to be sold to another is among the Arabs, Manganja, Makoa, Waiyau, but not among Kaffirs or Zulus, and Bechuanas. If we exclude the Arabs, two families of Africans alone are slavers on the east side of the Continent.

_30th November, 1866._--We march to Chilunda's or Embora's, still on the Lokuzhwa, now a sand-stream about twenty yards wide, with pools in its bed; its course is pretty much north or N.N.W. We are now near the Loangwa country, covered with a dense dwarf forest, and the people collected in stockades. This village is on a tongue of land (between Lokuzhwa and another sluggish rivulet), chosen for its strength. It is close to a hill named Chipemba, and there are ranges of hills both east and west in the distance. Embora came to visit us soon after we arrived--a tall man with a Yankee face. He was very much tickled when asked if he were a Motumboka. After indulging in laughter at the idea of being one of such a small tribe of Manganja, he said proudly, "That he belonged to the Echewa, who inhabited all the country to which I was going." They are generally smiths; a ma.s.s of iron had just been brought in to him from some outlying furnaces. It is made into hoes, which are sold for native cloths down the Loangwa.

_3rd December, 1866._--March through a hilly country covered with dwarf forest to Kande's village, still on the Lokuzhwa. We made some westing. The village was surrounded by a dense hedge of bamboo and a species of bushy fig that loves edges of water-bearing streams: it is not found where the moisture is not perennial. Kande is a fine tall smith; I asked him if he knew his antecedents; he said he had been bought by Babisa at Chipeta, and left at Chilunda's, and therefore belonged to no one. Two Waiyau now volunteered to go on with us, and as they declared their masters were killed by the Mazitu, and Kande seemed to confirm them, we let them join. In general, runaway slaves are bad characters, but these two seem good men, and we want them to fill up our complement: another volunteer we employ as goatherd.

A continuous tap-tapping in the villages shows that bark cloth is being made. The bark, on being removed from the-tree, is steeped in water, or in a black muddy hole, till the outer of the two inner barks can be separated, then commences the tapping with a mallet to separate and soften the fibres. The head of this is often of ebony, with the face cut into small furrows, which, without breaking, separate and soften the fibres.

[Ill.u.s.tration.]

_4th December, 1866._--Marched westwards, over a hilly, dwarf forest-covered country: as we advanced, trees increased in size, but no people inhabited it; we spent a miserable night at Katette, wetted by a heavy thunder-shower, which lasted a good while. Morning _(5th December_) muggy, clouded all over, and rolling thunder in distance.

Went three hours with, for a wonder, no water, but made westing chiefly, and got on to the Lokuzhwa again: all the people are collected on it.

_6th December, 1866._--Too ill to march.

_7th December, 1866._--Went on, and pa.s.sed Mesumbe's village, also protected by bamboos, and came to the hill Mparawe, with a village perched on its northern base and well up its sides. The Babisa have begun to imitate the Mazitu by attacking and plundering Manganja villages. Muasi's brother was so attacked, and now is here and eager to attack in return. In various villages we have observed miniature huts, about two feet high, very neatly thatched and plastered, here we noticed them in dozens. On inquiring, we were told that when a child or relative dies one is made, and when any pleasant food is cooked or beer brewed, a little is placed in the tiny hut for the departed soul, which is believed to enjoy it.

The Lokuzhwa is here some fifty yards wide, and running. Numerous large pitholes in the fine-grained schist in its bed show that much water has flowed in it.

_8th December, 1866._--A kind of bean called "chitetta" is eaten here, it is an old acquaintance in the Bechuana country, where it is called "mositsane," and is a mere plant; here it becomes a tree, from fifteen to twenty feet high. The root is used for tanning; the bean is pounded, and then put into a sieve of bark cloth to extract, by repeated was.h.i.+ngs, the excessively astringent matter it contains.

Where the people have plenty of water, as here, it is used copiously in various processes, among Bechuanas it is scarce, and its many uses unknown: the pod becomes from fifteen to eighteen inches long, and an inch in diameter.

_9th December, 1866._--A poor child, whose mother had died, was unprovided for; no one not a relative will nurse another's child. It called out piteously for its mother by name, and the women (like the servants in the case of the poet Cowper when a child), said, "She is coming." I gave it a piece of bread, but it was too far gone, and is dead to-day.

An alarm of Mazitu sent all the villagers up the sides of Mparawe this morning. The affair was a chase of a hyaena, but everything is Mazitu! The Babisa came here, but were surrounded and nearly all cut off. Muasi was so eager to be off with a party to return the attack on the Mazitu, that, when deputed by the headman to give us a guide, he got the man to turn at the first village, so we had to go on without guides, and made about due north.

_11th December, 1866._--We are now detained in the forest, at a place called Chonde Forest, by set-in rains. It rains every day, and generally in the afternoon; but the country is not wetted till the "set-in" rains commence; the cracks in the soil then fill up and everything rushes up with astonis.h.i.+ng rapidity; the gra.s.s is quite crisp and soft. After the fine-grained schist, we came on granite with large flakes of talc in it. This forest is of good-sized trees, many of them mopane. The birds now make much melody and noise--all intent on building.

_12th December, 1866._--Across an undulating forest country north we got a man to show us the way, if a pathless forest can so be called.

We used a game-path as long as it ran north, but left it when it deviated, and rested under a baobab-tree with a marabou's nest--a bundle of sticks on a branch; the young ones uttered a hard chuck, chuck, when the old ones flew over them. A sun-bird, with bright scarlet throat and breast, had its nest on another branch, it was formed like the weaver's nest, but without a tube. I observed the dam picking out insects from the bark and leaves of the baobab, keeping on the wing the while: it would thus appear to be insectivorous as well as a honey-bibber. Much spoor of elands, zebras, gnus, kamas, pallahs, buffaloes, reed-bucks, with tsetse, their parasites.

_13th December, 1866._--Reached the Tokosusi, which is said to rise at Nombe Rume, about twenty yards wide and knee deep, swollen by the rains: it had left a cake of black tenacious mud on its banks. Here I got a pallah antelope, and a very strange flower called "katende,"

which was a whorl of seventy-two flowers sprung from a flat, round root; but it cannot be described. Our guide would have crossed the Tokosusi, which was running north-west to join the Loangwa, and then gone to that river; but always when we have any difficulty the "lazies" exhibit themselves. We had no grain; and three remained behind spending four hours at what we did in an hour and a quarter.

Our guide became tired and turned, not before securing another; but he would not go over the Loangwa; no one likes to go out of his own country: he would go westwards to Maranda's, and nowhere else. A "set-in" rain came on after dark, and we went on through slush, the trees sending down heavier drops than the showers as we neared the Loangwa; we forded several deep gullies, all flowing north or north-west into it. The paths were running with water, and when we emerged from the large Mopane Forest, we came on the plain of excessively adhesive mud, on which Maranda's stronghold stands on the left bank of Loangwa, here a good-sized river. The people were all afraid of us, and we were mortified to find that food is scarce. The Mazitu have been here three times, and the fear they have inspired, though they were successfully repelled, has prevented agricultural operations from being carried on.

_Mem._--A flake of reed is often used in surgical operations among the natives, as being sharper than their knives.

FOOTNOTES:

[34] A cloth means two yards of unbleached calico.

[35] Chuma remembers part of the words of her song to be as follows:--

Kowe! kowe! n'andambwi, M'vula leru, korole ko okwe, Waie, ona, kordi, mvula!

He cannot translate it as it is pure Manganja, but with the exception of the first line--which relates to a little song-bird with a beautiful note, it is a mere reiteration "rain will surely come to-day."--ED.

CHAPTER VII.

Crosses the Loangwa. Distressing march. The king-hunter. Great hunger. Christmas feast necessarily postponed. Loss of goats.

Honey-hunters. A meal at last. The Babisa. The Mazitu again.

Chitembo's. End of 1866. The new year. The northern brim of the great Loangwa Valley. Accident to chronometers. Meal gives out.

Escape from a Cobra capella. Pushes for the Chambeze. Death of Chitane. Great pinch for food. Disastrous loss of medicine chest. Bead currency. Babisa. The Chambeze. Beaches Chitapangwa's town. Meets Arab traders from Zanzibar. Sends off letters. Chitapangwa and his people. Complications.

_16th December, 1866._--We could get no food at any price on 15th, so we crossed the Loangwa, and judged it to be from seventy to a hundred yards wide: it is deep at present, and it must always be so, for some Atumboka submitted to the Mazitu, and ferried them over and back again. The river is said to rise in the north; it has alluvial banks with large forest trees along them, bottom sandy, and great sandbanks are in it like the Zambesi. No guide would come, so we went on without one. The "lazies" of the party seized the opportunity of remaining behind--wandering, as they said, though all the cross paths were marked.[36] This evening we secured the lat.i.tude 12 40' 48" S., which would make our crossing place about 12 45' S. Clouds prevented observations, as they usually do in the rainy season.

_17 December, 1866._--We went on through a bushy country without paths, and struck the Pamazi, a river of sixty yards wide, in steep banks and in flood, and held on as well as we could through a very difficult country, the river forcing us north-west: I heard hippopotami in it. Game is abundant but wild; we shot two poku antelopes[37] here, called "tsebulas," which drew a hunter to us, who consented for meat and pay to show us a ford. He said that the Pamazi rises in a range of mountains we can now see (in general we could see no high ground during our marches for the last fortnight), we forded it, thigh deep on one side and breast deep on the other. We made only about three miles of northing, and found the people on the left bank uncivil: they would not lend a hut, so we soon put up a tent of waterproof cloth and branches.

_18th December, 1866._--As the men grumbled at their feet being pierced by thorns in the trackless portions we had pa.s.sed I was anxious to get a guide, but the only one we could secure would go to Molenga's only; so I submitted, though this led us east instead of north. When we arrived we were asked what we wanted, seeing we brought neither slaves nor ivory: I replied it was much against our will that we came; but the guide had declared that this was the only way to Casembe's, our next stage. To get rid of us they gave a guide, and we set forward northwards. The Mopane Forest is perfectly level, and after rains the water stands in pools; but during most of the year it is dry. The trees here were very large, and planted some twenty or thirty yards apart: as there are no branches on their lower parts animals see very far. I shot a gnu, but wandered in coming back to the party, and did not find them till it was getting dark. Many parts of the plain are thrown up into heaps, of about the size of one's cap (probably by crabs), which now, being hard, are difficult to walk over; under the trees it is perfectly smooth. The Mopane-tree furnishes the iron wood of the Portuguese Pao Ferro: it is pretty to travel in and look at the bright suns.h.i.+ne of early morning; but the leaves hang perpendicularly as the sun rises high, and afford little or no shade through the day,[38] so as the land is clayey, it becomes hard-baked thereby.

We observed that the people had placed corn-granaries at different parts of this forest, and had been careful to leave no track to them--a provision in case of further visits of Mazitu.

King-hunters[39] abound, and make the air resound with their stridulous notes, which commence with a sharp, shrill cheep, and then follows a succession of notes, which resembles a pea in a whistle.

Another bird is particularly conspicuous at present by its chattering activity, its nest consists of a bundle of fine seed-stalks of gra.s.s hung at the end of a branch, the free ends being left untrimmed, and no attempt at concealment made. Many other birds are now active, and so many new notes are heard, that it is probable this is a richer ornithological region than the Zambesi. Guinea-fowl and francolins are in abundance, and so indeed are all the other kinds of game, as zebras, pallahs, gnus.

_19th December, 1866._--I got a fine male kudu. We have no grain, and live on meat alone, but I am better off than the men, inasmuch as I get a little goat's-milk besides. The kudu stood five feet six inches high; horns, three feet on the straight.

_20th December, 1866._--Reached Casembe,[40] a miserable hamlet of a few huts. The people here are very suspicious, and will do nothing but with a haggle for prepayment; we could get no grain, nor even native herbs, though we rested a day to try.

After a short march we came to the Nyamazi, another considerable rivulet coming from the north to fall into the Loangwa. It has the same character, of steep alluvial banks, as Pamazi, and about the same width, but much shallower; loin deep, though somewhat swollen; from fifty to sixty yards wide. We came to some low hills, of coa.r.s.e sandstone, and on crossing these we could see, by looking back, that for many days we had been travelling over a perfectly level valley, clothed with a mantle of forest. The barometers had shown no difference of level from about 1800 feet above the sea. We began our descent into this great valley when we left the source of the Bua; and now these low hills, called Ngale or Ngaloa, though only 100 feet or so above the level we had left, showed that we had come to the sh.o.r.e of an ancient lake, which probably was let off when the rent of Kebra-basa on the Zambesi was made, for we found immense banks of well-rounded s.h.i.+ngle above--or, rather, they may be called mounds of s.h.i.+ngle--all of hard silicious schist with a few pieces of fossil-wood among them. The gullies reveal a stratum of this well-rounded s.h.i.+ngle, lying on a soft greenish sandstone, which again lies on the coa.r.s.e sandstone first observed. This formation is identical with that observed formerly below the Victoria Falls. We have the mountains still on our north and north-west (the so-called mountains of Bisa, or Babisa), and from them the Nyamazi flows, while Pamazi comes round the end, or what appears to be the end, of the higher portion. _(22nd December, 1866.)_ Shot a bush-buck; and slept on the left bank of Nyamazi.

_23rd December, 1866._--Hunger sent us on; for a meat diet is far from satisfying: we all felt very weak on it, and soon tired on a march, but to-day we hurried on to Kavimba, who successfully beat off the Mazitu. It is very hot, and between three and four hours is a good day's march. On sitting down to rest before entering the village we were observed, and all the force of the village issued to kill us as Mazitu, but when we stood up the mistake was readily perceived, and the arrows were placed again in their quivers. In the hut four Mazitu s.h.i.+elds show that they did not get it all their own way; they are miserable imitations of Zulu s.h.i.+elds, made of eland and water-buck's hides, and ill sewn.

A very small return present was made by Kavimba, and nothing could be bought except at exorbitant prices. We remained all day on the 24th haggling and trying to get some grain. He took a fancy to a s.h.i.+rt, and left it to his wife to bargain for. She got the length of cursing and swearing, and we bore it, but could get only a small price for it. We resolved to hold our Christmas some other day, and in a better place.