03 - Chapter 2
CHAPTER II.
Effect of _Pioneer’s_ former visit. The poodle Chitané. Result of tsetse bites. Death of camels and buffaloes. Disaffection of followers. Disputed right of ferry. Mazitu raids. An old friend.
Severe privations. The River Loendi. Sepoys mutiny. Dr. Roscher.
Desolation. Tattooing. Ornamental teeth. Singular custom. Death of the Nassick boy, Richard. A sad reminiscence.
_1st May, 1866._--We now came along through a country comparatively free of wood, and we could move on without perpetual cutting and clearing. It is beautiful to get a good glimpse out on the surrounding scenery, though it still seems nearly all covered with great masses of umbrageous foliage, mostly of a dark green colour, for nearly all of the individual trees possess dark glossy leaves like laurel. We passed a gigantic specimen of the Kumbé, or gum-copal tree. Kumba means to dig. Changkumbé, or things dug, is the name of the gum; the Arabs call it "sandarusé." Did the people give the name Kumbé to the tree after the value of the gum became known to them? The Malolé, from the fine grained wood of which all the bows are made, had shed its fruit on the ground; it looks inviting to the eye--an oblong peach-looking thing, with a number of seeds inside, but it is eaten by maggots only. When we came to Ntandé’s village, we found it enclosed in a strong stockade, from a fear of attack by Mabiha, who come across the river and steal their women when going to draw water: this is for the Ibo market. They offered to pull down their stockade and let us in if we would remain over-night, but we declined. Before reaching Ntandé we passed the ruins of two villages; the owners were the attacking party when we ascended the Rovuma in 1862. I have still the old sail, with four bullet-holes through it, made by the shots which they fired after we had given cloth and got assurances of friendship. The father and son of this village were the two men seen by the second boat preparing to shoot; the fire of her crew struck the father on the chin and the son on the head. It may have been for the best that the English are thus known as people who can hit hard when unjustly attacked, as we on this occasion most certainly were: never was a murderous assault more unjustly made or less provoked. They had left their villages and gone up over the highlands away from the river to their ambush whilst their women came to look at us.
_2nd May, 1866._--Mountains again approach us, and we pass one which was noticed in our first ascent from its resemblance to a table mountain. It Isaiah 600 or 800 feet high, and called Liparu: the plateau now becomes mountainous, giving forth a perennial stream which comes down from its western base and forms a lagoon on the meadow-land that flanks the Rovuma. The trees which love these perpetual streams spread their roots all over the surface of the boggy banks, and make a firm surface, but at spots one may sink a yard deep. We had to fill up these deep ditches with branches and leaves, unload the animals, and lead them across. We spent the night on the banks of the Liparu,[9] and then proceeded on our way.
_3rd May, 1866._--We rested in a Makoa village, the head of which was an old woman. The Makoa or Makoané are known by a half-moon figure tattooed on their foreheads or elsewhere. Our poodle dog Chitané chased the dogs of this village with unrelenting fury, his fierce looks inspired terror among the wretched pariah dogs of a yellow and white colour, and those looks were entirely owing to its being difficult to distinguish at which end his head or tail lay. He enjoyed the chase of the yelping curs immensely, but if one of them had turned he would have bolted the other way. A motherly-looking woman came forward and offered me some meal; this was when we were in the act of departing: others had given food to the men and no return had been made. I told her to send it on by her husband, and I would purchase it, but it would have been better to have accepted it: some give merely out of kindly feeling and with no prospect of a return.
Many of the Makoa men have their faces thickly tattooed in double, raised lines of about half an inch in length. After the incisions are made charcoal is rubbed in and the flesh pressed out, so that all the cuts are raised above the level of the surface. It gives them rather a hideous look, and a good deal of that fierceness which our kings and chiefs of old put on whilst having their portraits taken.
_4th May, 1866._--The stream, embowered in perpetual shade and overspread with the roots of water-loving, broad-leaved trees, we found to be called Nkonya. The spot of our encampment was an island formed by a branch of it parting and re-entering it again: the owner had used it for rice. The buffaloes were bitten again by tsetse on 2nd, and also to-day, from the bites of other flies (which look much more formidable than tsetse), blood of arterial colour flows down; this symptom I never saw before, but when we slaughtered an ox which had been tsetse bitten, we observed that the blood had the arterial hue. The cow has inflammation of one eye, and a swelling on the right lumbar portion of the pelvis: the grey buffalo has been sick, but this I attribute to unmerciful loading; for his back is hurt: the camels do not seem to feel the fly, though they get weaker from the horrid running sores upon them and hard work. There are no symptoms of tsetse in mules or donkeys, but one mule has had his shoulder sprained, and he cannot stoop to eat or drink.
We saw the last of the flanking range on the north. The country in front is plain, with a few detached granitic peaks shot up. The Makoa in large numbers live at the end of the range in a place called Nyuchi. At Nyamba, a village where we spent the night of the 5th, was a doctoress and rain-maker, who presented a large basket of soroko, or, as they call it in India, "mung," and a fowl. She is tall and well made, with fine limbs and feet, and was profusely tattooed all over; even her hips and buttocks had their elaborate markings: no shame is felt in exposing these parts. A good deal of salt is made by lixiviation of the soil and evaporating by fire. The head woman had a tame khanga tolé or tufted guinea-fowl, with bluish instead of white spots. In passing along westwards after leaving the end of the range, we came first of all on sandstone hardened by fire; then masses of granite, as if in that had been contained the igneous agency of partial metamorphosis; it had also lifted up the sandstone, so as to cause a dip to the east. Then the syenite or granite seemed as if it had been melted, for it was all in striae, which striae, as they do elsewhere, run east and west. With the change in geological structure we get a different vegetation. Instead of the laurel-leaved trees of various kinds, we have African ebonies, acacias, and mimosae: the grass is shorter and more sparse, and we can move along without wood-cutting. We were now opposite a hill on the south called Simba, a lion, from its supposed resemblance to that animal. A large Mabiha population live there, and make raids occasionally over to this side for slaves.
_6th May, 1866._--Tsetse again. The animals look drowsy. The cow’s eye is dimmed; when punctured, the skin emits a stream of scarlet blood. The people hereabouts seem intelligent and respectful. At service a man began to talk, but when I said, "Ku soma Mlungu,"--"we wish to pray to God," he desisted. It would be interesting to know what the ideas of these men are, and to ascertain what they have gained in their communings with nature during the ages past. They do not give the idea of that boisterous wickedness and disregard of life which we read of in our own dark ages, but I have no one to translate, although I can understand much of what is said on common topics chiefly from knowing other dialects.
_7th May, 1866._--A camel died during the night, and the grey buffalo is in convulsions this morning. The cruelty of these sepoys vitiates my experiment, and I quite expect many camels, one buffalo, and one mule to die yet; they sit down and smoke and eat, leaving the animals loaded in the sun. If I am not with them, it is a constant dawdling; they are evidently unwilling to exert themselves, they cannot carry their belts and bags, and their powers of eating and vomiting are astounding. The Makondé villages are remarkably clean, but no sooner do we pass a night in one than the fellows make it filthy. The climate does give a sharp appetite, but these sepoys indulge it till relieved by vomiting and purging. First of all they breakfast, then an hour afterwards they are sitting eating the pocketfuls of corn maize they have stolen and brought for the purpose, whilst I have to go ahead, otherwise we may be misled into a zigzag course to see Ali’s friends; and if I remain behind to keep the sepoys on the move, it deprives me of all the pleasure of travelling. We have not averaged four miles a day in a straight line, yet the animals have often been kept in the sun for eight hours at a stretch. When we get up at 4 A.M. we cannot get under weigh before 8 o’clock. Sepoys are a mistake.
_7th May, 1866._--We are now opposite a mountain called Nabungala, which resembles from the north-east an elephant lying down. Another camel, a very good one, died on the way: its shiverings and convulsions are not at all like what we observed in horses and oxen killed by tsetse, but such may lie the cause, however. The only symptom pointing to the tsetse is the arterial-looking blood, but we never saw it ooze from the skin after the bite of the gad-fly as we do now.
_8th May, 1866._--We arrived at a village called Jpondé, or Lipondé, which lies opposite a granitic hill on the other-side of the river (where we spent a night on our boat trip), called Nakapuri; this is rather odd, for the words are not Makondé but Sichuana, and signify goat’s horn, from the projections jutting out from the rest of the mass. I left the havildar, sepoys, and Nassick boys here in order to make a forced march forward, where no food is to be had, and send either to the south or westwards for supplies, so that after they have rested the animals and themselves five days they may come. One mule is very ill; one buffalo drowsy and exhausted; one camel a mere skeleton from bad sores; and another has an enormous hole at the point of the pelvis, which sticks out at the side. I suspect that this was made maliciously, for he came from the field bleeding profusely; no tree would have perforated a round hole in this way. I take all the goods and leave only the sepoys’ luggage, which is enough for all the animals now.
_9th May, 1866._--I went on with the Johanna men and twenty-four carriers, for it was a pleasure to get away from the sepoys and Nassick boys; the two combined to overload the animals. I told them repeatedly that they would kill them, but no sooner had I adjusted the burdens and turned my back than they put on all their things. It was however such continual vexation to contend with the sneaking spirit, that I gave up annoying myself by seeing matters, though I felt certain that the animals would all be killed. We did at least eight miles pleasantly well, and slept at Moedaa village. The rocks are still syenite. We passed a valley with the large thorny acacias of which canoes are often made, and a euphorbiaceous tree, with seed-vessels as large as mandarin oranges, with three seeds inside. We were now in a country which, in addition to the Mazitu invasion, was suffering from one of those inexplicable droughts to which limited and sometimes large portions of this country are subject. It had not been nearly so severe on the opposite or south side, and thither too the Mazitu had not penetrated. Rushes, which plagued us nearer the coast, are not observed now; the grass is all crisp and yellow; many of the plants are dead, and leaves are fallen off the trees as if winter had begun. The ground is covered with open forest, with here and there thick jungle on the banks of the streams. All the rivulets we have passed are mere mountain torrents filled with sand, in which the people dig for water.
We passed the spot where an Arab called Birkal was asked payment for leave to pass. After two and a half days’ parley he fought, killed two Makondé, and mortally wounded a headman, which settled the matter; no fresh demand has been made. Ali’s brother also resisted the same sort of demand, fought several times, or until three Makondé and two of his people were killed; they then made peace, and no other exactions have been made.
_11th May, 1866._--We now found a difficulty in getting our carriers along, on account of exhaustion from want of food. In going up a sand stream called Nyédé, we saw that all moist spots had been planted with maize and beans, so the loss caused by the Mazitu, who swept the land like a cloud of locusts, will not be attended by much actual starvation. We met a runaway woman: she was seized by Ali, and it was plain that he expected a reward for his pains. He thought she was a slave, but a quarter of a mile off was the village she had left, and it being doubtful if she were a runaway at all, the would-be fugitive slave-capture turned out a failure.
_12th May, 1866._--About 4’ E.N.E. of Matawatawa, or Nyamatololé, our former turning point.
_13th May, 1866._--We halted at a village at Matawatawa. A pleasant-looking lady, with her face profusely tattooed, came forward with a bunch of sweet reed, or _Sorghum saceliaratum_, and laid it at my feet, saying, "I met you here before," pointing to the spot on the river where we turned. I remember her coming then, and that I asked the boat to wait while she went to bring us a basket of food, and I think it was given to Chiko, and no return made. It is sheer kindliness that prompts them sometimes, though occasionally people do make presents with a view of getting a larger one in return: it is pleasant to find that it is not always so. She had a quiet, dignified manner, both in talking and walking, and I now gave her a small looking-glass, and she went and brought me her only fowl and a basket of cucumber-seeds, from which oil is made; from the amount of oily matter they contain thov are nutritious when roasted and eaten as nuts. She made an apology, saying they were hungry times at present. I gave her a cloth, and so parted with Kanañgoné, or, as her name may be spelled, Kanañoné. The carriers were very useless from hunger, and we could not buy anything for them; for the country is all dried up, and covered sparsely with mimosas and thorny acacias.
_14th May, 1866._--I could not get the carriers on more than an hour and three-quarters: men tire very soon on empty stomachs. We had reached the village of Hassané, opposite to a conical hill named Chisulwé, which is on the south side of the river, and evidently of igneous origin. It is tree-covered, while the granite always shows lumps of naked rock. All about lie great patches of beautiful dolomite. It may have been formed by baking of the tufa, which in this country seems always to have been poured out with water after volcanic action. Hassané’s daughter was just lifting a pot of French beans, boiled in their pods, off the fire when we entered the village, these he presented to me, and when I invited him to partake, he replied that he was at home and would get something, while I was a stranger on a journey. He, like all the other headmen, is a reputed doctor, and his wife, a stout old lady, a doctoress; he had never married any wife but this one, and he had four children, all of whom lived with their parents. We employed one of his sons to go to the south side and purchase food, sending at the same time some carriers to buy for themselves. The siroko and rice bought by Hassané’s son we deposited with him for the party behind, when they should arrive. The amount of terror the Mazitu inspire cannot be realized by us. They shake their shields and the people fly like stricken deer. I observed that a child would not go a few yards for necessary purposes unless grandmother stood in sight. Matumora, as the Arabs call the chief at Ngomano, gave them a warm reception, and killed several of them: this probably induced them to retire.
_15th and 16th May, 1866._--Miserably short marches from hunger, and I sympathise with the poor fellows. Those sent to buy food for themselves on the south bank were misled by a talkative fellow named Chikungu, and went off north, where we knew nothing could be had. His object was to get paid for three days, while they only loitered here. I suppose hunger has taken the spirit out of them; but I told them that a day in which no work was done did not count: they admitted this. We pay about two feet of calico per day, and a fathom or six feet for three days’ carriage.
_17th May, 1866._--With very empty stomachs they came on a few miles and proposed to cross to the south side; as this involved crossing the Luendi too, I at first objected, but in hopes that we might get food for them we consented, and were taken over in two very small canoes. I sent Ali and Musa meanwhile to the south to try and get some food. I got a little green sorghum for them and paid them off. These are the little troubles of travelling, and scarce worth mentioning. A granitic peak now appears about 15’ off, to the W.S.W. It is called Chihoka.
_18th May, 1866._--At our crossing place metamorphic rocks of a chocolate colour stood on edge; and in the country round we have patches of dolomite, sometimes as white as marble. The country is all dry: grass and leaves crisp and yellow. Though so arid now, yet the great abundance of the dried stalks of a water-loving plant, a sort of herbaceous acacia, with green pea-shaped flowers, proves that at other times it is damp enough. The marks of people’s feet floundering in slush, but now baked, show that the country can be sloppy. The headman of the village where we spent the night of 17th is a martyr to rheumatism. He asked for medicine, and when I gave some he asked me to give it to him out of my own hand. He presented me with a basket of siroko and of green sorghum as a fee, of which I was very glad, for my own party were suffering, and I had to share out the little portion of flour I had reserved to myself.
_19th May, 1866._--Coming on with what carriers we could find at the crossing place, we reached the confluence without seeing it; and Matumora being about two miles up the Loendi, we sent over to him for aid. He came over this morning early,--a tall, well-made man, with a somewhat severe expression of countenance, from a number of wrinkles on his forehead. He took us over the Loendi, which is decidedly the parent stream of the Rovuma, though that as it comes from the west still retains the name Loendi from the south-west here, and is from 150 to 200 yards wide, while the Rovuma above Matawatawa is from 200 to 250, full of islands, rocks, and sandbanks. The Loendi has the same character. We can see the confluence from where we cross about 2’ to the north. Both rivers are rapid, shoal, and sandy; small canoes are used on them, and the people pride themselves on their skilful management: in this the women seem in no way inferior to the men. In looking up the Loendi we see a large granitic peak called Nkanjé, some 20 miles off, and beyond it the dim outline of distant highlands, in which seams of coal are exposed. Pieces of the mineral are found in Loendi’s sands.
Matumora has a good character in the country, and many flee to him from oppression. He was very polite; sitting on the right bank till all the goods were carried over, then coming in the same canoe wifn me himself, he opened a fish basket in a weir and gave me the contents, and subsequently a little green sorghum. He literally has lost all his corn, for he was obliged to flee with his people to Marumba, a rocky island in Rovuma, about six miles above Matawatawa. He says that both Loendi and Rovuma come out of Lake Nyassa; a boat could not ascend, however, because many waterfalls are in their course: it is strange if all this is a myth. Matumora asked if the people through whose country I had come would preserve the peace I wished. He says he has been assailed on all sides by slave-hunters: he alone has never hunted for captives: if the people in front should attack me he would come and fight them: finally he had never seen a European before (Dr. Roscher travelled as an Arab), nor could I learn where Likumbu at Ngomano lives; it was with him that Roscher is said to have left his goods. The Mazitu had women, children, oxen and goats with them. The whole tribe lives on plundering the other natives by means of the terror their shields inspire; had they gone further down the Rovuma, no ox would have survived the tsetse.
_20th May, 1866._--I paid Ali to his entire satisfaction, and entrusted him with a despatch, "No. 2 Geographical," and then sent off four men south to buy food. Here we are among Matambwé. Two of Matumora’s men act as guides. We are about 2’ south and by west of the confluence Ngomano. Lat. 11° 26’ 23" S.; long. 37° 40’ 52" E.
Abraham, one of the Nassick boys, came up and said he had been sent by the sepoys, who declared they would come no further. It was with the utmost difficulty they had come so far, or that the havildar had forced them on, they would not obey him--would not get up in the mornings to march; lay in the paths, and gave their pouches and muskets to the natives to carry: they make themselves utterly useless. The black buffalo is dead; one camel ditto, and one mule left behind ill. Were I not aware of the existence of the tsetse, I should say they died from sheer bad treatment and hard work.
I sent a note to be read to the sepoys stating that I had seen their disobedience, unwillingness, and skulking, and as soon as I received the havildar’s formal evidence, I would send them back. I regretted parting with the havildar only. A leopard came a little after dark while the moon was shining, and took away a little dog from among us; it is said to have taken off a person a few days ago.
_22nd May, 1866._--The men returned with but little food in return for much cloth. Matumora is very friendly, but he has nothing to give save a little green sorghum, and that he brings daily. A south wind blows strongly every afternoon. The rains ceased about the middle of May, and the temperature is lowered. A few heavy night showers closed the rainy season.
_23rd--24th May, 1866._--I took some Lunar observations.
_25th May, 1866._--Matumora is not Ndondé. A chief to the south-west of this owns that name and belongs to the Matumbwé tribe.
_26th May, 1866._--I sent Musa westwards to buy food, and he returned on the evening of 27th without success; he found an Arab slave-dealer waiting in the path, who had bought up all the provisions. About 11 P.M. we saw two men pass our door with two women in a chain; one man carried fire in front, the one behind, a musket. Matumora admits that his people sell each other.
_27th May, 1866._--The havildar and Abraham came up. Havildar says that all I said in my note was true, and when it was read to the sepoys they bewailed their folly, he adds that if they were all sent away disgraced, no one would be to blame but themselves. He brought them to Hassané’s, but they were useless, though they begged to be kept on: I may give them another trial, but at present they are a sad incumbrance. South-west of this the Manganja begin; but if one went by them, there is a space beyond in the south-west without people. The country due west of this is described by all to be so mountainous and beset by Mazitu, that there is no possibility of passing that way. I must therefore make my way to the middle of the Lake, cross over, and then take up my line of 1863.
_2nd June, 1866._--The men sent to the Matambwé south-east of this returned with a good supply of grain. The sepoys won’t come; they say they cannot,--a mere excuse, v because they tried to prevail on the Nassick boys to go slowly like them, and wear my patience out. They killed one camel with the butt ends of their muskets, beating it till it died. I thought of going down disarming them all, and taking five or six of the willing ones, but it is more trouble than profit, so I propose to start westwards on Monday the 4th, or Tuesday the 5th. My sepoys offered Ali eight rupees to take them to the coast, thus it has been a regularly organized conspiracy. From the appearance of the cow-buffalo, I fear the tsetse is its chief enemy, but there is a place like a bayonet wound on its shoulder, and many of the wounds or bruises on the camels were so probed that I suspect the sepoys.
Many things African are possessed of as great vitality in their line as the African people. The white ant was imported accidentally into St. Helena from the coast of Guinea, and has committed such ravages in the town of St. James, that numerous people have been ruined, and the governor calls out for aid against them. In other so-called new countries a wave of English weeds follows the tide of English emigration, and so with insects; the European house-fly chases away the blue-bottle fly in New Zealand. Settlers have carried the house-fly in bottles and boxes for their new locations, but what European insect will follow us and extirpate the tsetse? The Arabs have given the Makondé bugs, but we have the house-fly wherever we go, the blue-bottle and another like the house-fly, but with a sharp proboscis; and several enormous gad-flies. Here there is so much room for everything. In New Zealand the Norwegian rat is driven off by even the European mouse; not to mention the Hanoverian rat of Waterton, which is lord of the land. The Maori say that "as the white man’s rat has driven away the native rat, so the European fly drives away our own; and as the clover kills our fern, so will the Maori disappear before the white man himself." The hog placed ashore by Captain Cook has now overrun one side of the island, and is such a nuisance that a large farmer of 100,000 acres has given sixpence per head for the destruction of some 20,000, and without any sensible diminution; this would be no benefit here, for the wild hogs abound and do much damage, besides affording food for the tsetse: the brutes follow the ewes with young, and devour the poor lambs as soon as they make their appearance.
_3rd June, 1866._--The cow-buffalo fell down foaming at the mouth, and expired. The meat looks fat and nice, and is relished by the people, a little glariness seemed to be present on the foreleg, and I sometimes think that, notwithstanding the dissimilarity of the symptoms observed in the camels and buffaloes now, and those we saw in oxen and horses, the evil may be the tsetse, after all, but they have been badly used, without a doubt. The calf has a cut half an inch deep, the camels have had large ulcers, and at last a peculiar smell, which portends death. I feel perplexed, and not at all certain as to the real causes of death.
I asked Matumora if the Matambwé believed in God, he replied, that he did not know Him, and I was not to ask the people among whom I was going if they prayed to Him, because they would imagine that I wished them to be killed. I told him that we loved to speak about Him, &c. He said, when they prayed they offered a little meal and then prayed, but did not know much about Him.
They have all great reverence for the Deity, and the deliberate way in which they say "We don’t know Him" is to prevent speaking irreverently, as that may injure the country. The name is "Mulungu": Makochera afterwards said, that "He was not good, because He killed so many people."
_4th June, 1866._--Left Ngomano. I was obliged to tell the Nassick boys that they must either work or return, it was absurd to have them eating up our goods, and not even carrying their own things, and I would submit to it no more: five of them carry bales, and two the luggage of the rest. Abraham and Richard are behind. I gave them bales to carry, and promised them ten rupees per month, to begin on this date. Abraham has worked hard all along, and his pay may be due from 7th April, the day we started from Kindany.
_5th June, 1866._--We slept at a village called Lamba, on the banks of the Rovuma, near a brawling torrent of 150 yards, or 200 perhaps, with many islands and rocks in it. The country is covered with open forest, with patches of cultivation everywhere, but all dried up at present and withered, partly from drought and partly from the cold of winter. We passed a village with good ripe sorghum cut down, and the heads or ears all laid neatly in a row, this is to get it dried in the sun, and not shaken out by the wind, by waving to and fro; besides it is also more easily watched from being plundered by birds. The sorghum occasionally does not yield seed, and is then the _Sorghum saccharatum_, for the stalk contains abundance of sugar, and is much relished by the natives. Now that so much has failed to yield seed, being indeed just in flower, the stalks are chewed as if sugar-cane, and the people are fat thereon; but the hungry time is in store when these stalles are all done. They make the best provision in their power against famine by planting beans and maize in moist spots. The common native pumpkin forms a bastard sort in the same way, but that is considered very inferior.
_6th June, 1866._--Great hills of granite are occasionally in sight towards the north, but the trees, though scraggy, close in the view. We left a village, called Mekosi, and goon came to a slaving party by a sand stream. They said that they had bought two slaves, but they had run away from them, and asked us to remain with them; more civil than inviting. We came on to Makochera, the principal headman in this quarter, and found him a merry laughing mortal, without any good looks to recommend his genial smile,--low forehead, covered with deep wrinkles; flat nose, somewhat of the Assyrian shape; a big mouth and lean body. He complained of the Machinga (a Waiyau tribe north of him and the Rovuma) stealing his people. Lat. of village, 11° 22’ 49" S. The river being about 2’ north, still shows that it makes a trend to the north after we pass Ngomano. Makochera has been an elephant hunter. Few acknowledge as a reason for slaving that sowing and spinning cotton for clothing is painful. I waited some days for the Nassick boys, who are behind, though we could not buy any food except at enormous prices and long distances off.
_7th June, 1866._--The havildar and two sepoys came up with Abraham, but Richard, a Nassick boy, is still behind from weakness. I sent three off to help him with the only cordials we could muster. The sepoys sometimes profess inability to come on, but it is unwillingness to encounter hardship: I must move on whether they come or not, for we cannot obtain food here. I sent the sepoys some cloth, and on the 8th proposed to start, but every particle of food had been devoured the night before, so we despatched two parties to scour the country round, and give any price rather than want.
I could not prevail on Makochera to give me a specimen of poetry; he was afraid, neither he nor his forefathers had ever seen an Englishman. He thought that God was not good because He killed so many people. Dr. Roscher must have travelled as an Arab if he came this way, for he was not known.[10]
_9th June, 1866._--We now left and marched through the same sort of forest, gradually ascending in altitude as we went west, then we came to huge masses of granite, or syenite, with flakes peeling off. They are covered with a plant with grassy-looking leaves and rough stalk which strips into portions similar to what are put round candles as ornaments. It makes these hills look light grey, with patches of black rock at the more perpendicular parts; the same at about ten miles off look dark blue. The ground is often hard and stony, but all covered over with grass and plants: looking down at it, the grass is in tufts, and like that on the Kalahari desert. Trees show uplands. One tree of which bark cloth is made, pterocarpus, is abundant. Timber-trees appear here and there, but for the most part the growth is stunted, and few are higher than thirty feet. We spent the night by a hill of the usual rounded form, called Njeñgo. The Rovuma comes close by, but leaves us again to wind among similar great masses. Lat. 11° 20’ 05" S.
_10th June, 1866._--A very heavy march through the same kind of country, no human habitation appearing; we passed a dead body--recently, it was said, starved to death. The large tract between Makochera’s and our next station at Ngozo hill is without any perennial stream; water is found often by digging in the sand streams which we several times crossed; sometimes it was a trickling rill, but I suspect that at other seasons all is dry, and people are made dependent on the Rovuma alone. The first evidence of our being near the pleasant haunts of man was a nice little woman drawing water at a well. I had become separated from the rest: on giving me water she knelt down, and, as country manners require, held it up to me with _both_ hands. I had been misled by one of the carriers, who got confused, though the rounded mass of Ngozo was plainly visible from the heights we crossed east of it. An Arab party bolted on hearing of our approach: they don’t trust the English, and this conduct increases our importance among the natives. Lat. 11° 18’ 10" S.
_11th June, 1866._--Our carriers refuse to go further, because they say that they fear being captured here on their return.
_12th June, 1866._--I paid off the carriers, and wait for a set from this. A respectable man, called Makoloya, or Impandé, visited me, and wished to ask some questions as to where I was going, and how long I should be away. He had heard from a man who came from Ibo, or Wibo, about the Bible, a large book which was consulted.
[Illustration: Tattoo of Matambwé.]
_13th June, 1866._--Makoloya brought his wife and a little corn, and says that his father told him that there is a God, but nothing more. The marks on their foreheads and bodies are meant only to give beauty in the dance, they seem a sort of heraldic ornament, for they can at once tell by his tattoo to what tribe or portion of tribe a man belongs. The tattoo or tembo of the Matambwé and Upper Makondé very much resembles the drawings of the old Egyptians; wavy lines, such as the ancients made to signify water, trees and gardens enclosed in squares, seem to have been meant of old for the inhabitants who lived on the Rovuma, and cultivated also, the son takes the tattoo of his father, and thus it has been perpetuated, though the meaning now appears lost. The Makoa have the half or nearly full moon, but it is, they say, all for ornament. Some blue stuff is rubbed into the cuts (I am told it is charcoal), and the ornament shows brightly in persons of light complexion, who by the bye are common. The Makondé and Matambwé file their front teeth to points; the Machinga, a Waiyan tribe, leave two points on the sides of the front teeth, and knock out one of the middle incisors above and below.
[Illustration: Machinga and Waiyan Teeth.]
_14th June, 1866._--I am now as much dependent on carriers as if I had never bought a beast of burden--but this is poor stuff to fill a journal with. We started off to Metaba to see if the chief there would lend some men. The headman, Kitwanga, went a long way to convoy us; then turned, saying he was going to get men for Musa next day. We passed near the base of the rounded masses Ngozo and Mekanga, and think, from a near inspection, that they are over 2000 feet above the plain, possibly 3000 feet, and nearly bare, with only the peculiar grassy plant on some parts which are not too perpendicular. The people are said to have stores of grain on them, and on one the chief said there is water; he knows of no stone buildings of the olden time in the country. We passed many masses of ferruginous conglomerate, and I noticed that most of the gneiss dips westwards. The striae seem as if the rock had been partially molten: at times the strike is north and south, at others east and west; when we come to what may have been its surface, it is as if the striae had been stirred with a rod while soft.
We slept at a point of the Rovuma, above a cataract where a reach of comparatively still water, from 150 to 200 yards wide, allows a school of hippopotami to live: when the river becomes fordable in many places, as it is said to do in August and September, they must find it difficult to exist.
_15th June, 1866._--Another three hours’ march brought us from the sleeping-place on the Rovuma to Metaba, the chief of which, Kinazombé, is an elderly man, with a cunning and severe cast of countenance, and a nose Assyrian in type; he has built a large reception house, in which a number of half-caste Arabs have taken up their abode. A great many of the people have guns, and it is astonishing to see the number of slave-taming sticks abandoned along the road as the poor wretches gave in, and professed to have lost all hope of escape. Many huts have been built by the Arabs to screen themselves from the rain as they travelled. At Kinazombé’s the second crop of maize is ready, so the hunger will not be very much felt.
_16th June, 1866._--We heard very sombre accounts of the country in front:--four or five days to Mtarika, and then ten days through jungle to Mataka’s town: little food at Mtarika’s, but plenty with Mataka, who is near the Lake. The Rovuma trends southerly after we leave
Ngozo, and Masusa on that river is pointed out as south-west from Metaba, so at Ngozo the river may be said to have its furthest northing. Masusa is reported to be five days, or at least fifty miles, from Metaba. The route now becomes south-west. The cattle of Africa are like the Indian buffalo, only partially tamed; they never give their milk without the presence of the calf or its stuffed skin, the "fulchan." The women adjacent to Mozambique partake a little of the wild animal’s nature, for, like most members of the inferior races of animals, they refuse all intercourse with their husbands when enceinte and they continue this for about three years afterwards, or until the child is weaned, which usually happens about the third year. I was told, on most respectable authority, that many fine young native men marry one wife and live happily with her till this period; nothing will then induce her to continue to cohabit with him, and, as the separation is to continue for three years, the man is almost compelled to take up with another wife: this was mentioned to me as one of the great evils of society. The same absurdity prevails on the West Coast, and there it is said that the men acquiesce from ideas of purity.
It is curious that trade-rum should form so important an article of import on the West Coast while it is almost unknown on the East Coast, for the same people began the commerce in both instances. If we look north of Cape Delgado, we might imagine that the religious convictions of the Arabs had something to do with the matter, but the Portuguese south of Cape Delgado have no scruples in the matter, and would sell their grandfathers as well as the rum if they could make money by the transaction, they have even erected distilleries to furnish a vile spirit from the fruit of the cashew and other fruits and grain, but the trade does not succeed. They give their slaves also rewards of spirit, or "maata bicho" ("kill the creature," or "craving within"), and you may meet a man who, having had much intercourse with Portuguese, may beg spirits, but the trade does not pay. The natives will drink it if furnished gratis. The indispensable "dash" of rum on the West Coast in every political transaction with independent chiefs is, however, quite unknown. The Moslems would certainly not abstain from trading in spirits were the trade profitable. They often asked for brandy from me in a sly way--as medicine; and when reminded that their religion forbade it, would say, "Oh, but we can drink it in secret."
It is something in the nature of the people quite inexplicable, that throughout the Makondé country hernia humoralis prevails to a frightful extent; it is believed by the natives to be the result of beer drinking, so they cannot be considered as abstemious.
_18th June, 1866._--Finding that Musa did not come up with the goods I left in his charge, and fearing that all was not right, we set off with all our hands who could carry, after service yesterday morning, and in six hours’ hard tramp arrived here just in time, for a tribe of Wanindi, or Manindi, who are either Ajawas (Waiyau),[11] or pretended Mazitu, had tried to cross the Rovuma from the north bank. They came as plunderers, and Musa having received no assistance was now ready to defend the goods. A shot or two from the people of Kitwanga made the Wanindi desert after they had entered the water.
Six sepoys and Simon had come up this length; Reuben and Mabruki reported Richard to be dead. This poor boy was left with the others at Lipondé, and I never saw him again. I observed him associating too much with the sepoys; and often felt inclined to reprove him, as their conversation is usually very bad, but I could not of my own knowledge say so. He came on with the others as far as Hassané or Pachassané: there he was too weak to come further, and as the sepoys were notoriously skulkers, I feared that poor Richard was led away by them, for I knew that they had made many attempts to draw away the other Nassick boys from their duty. When, however, Abraham came up and reported Richard left behind by the sepoys, I became alarmed, and sent off three boys with cordials to help him on: two days after Abraham left he seems to have died, and I feel very sorry that I was not there to do what I could. I am told now that he never consented to the sepoy temptation: he said to Abraham that he wished he were dead, he was so much troubled. The people where he died were not v$ry civil to Simon. The sepoys had now made themselves such an utter nuisance that I felt that I must take the upper hand with them, so I called them up this morning, and asked if they knew the punishment they had incurred by disobeying orders, and attempting to tamper with the Nassick boys to turn them back. I told them they not only remained in the way when ordered to march, but offered eight rupees to Ali to lead them to the coast, and that the excuse of sickness was nought, for they had eaten heartily three meals a day while pretending illness. They had no excuse to offer, so I disrated the naik or corporal, and sentenced the others to carry loads; if they behave well, then they will get fatigue pay for doing fatigue duty, if ill, nothing but their pay. Their limbs are becoming contracted from sheer idleness; while all the other men are well and getting stronger they alone are disreputably slovenly and useless-looking. Their filthy habits are to be reformed, and if found at their habit of sitting down and sleeping for hours on the march, or without their muskets and pouches, they are to be flogged. I sent two of them back to bring up two comrades, left behind yesterday. All who have done work are comparatively strong.
[We may venture a word in passing on the subject of native recruits, enlisted for service in Africa, and who return thither after a long absence. All the Nassick boys were native-born Africans, and yet we see one of them succumb immediately. The truth is that natives; under these circumstances, are just as liable to the effects of malaria on landing as Europeans, although it is not often that fever assumes a dangerous form in such cases. The natives of the interior have the greatest dread of the illnesses which they say are sure to be in store for them if they visit the coast.]
_19th June, 1866._--I gave the sepoys light loads in order to inure them to exercise and strengthen them, and they carried willingly so long as the fright was on them, but when the fear of immediate punishment wore off they began their skulking again. One, Perim, reduced his load of about 20 lbs. of tea by throwing away the lead in which it was rolled, and afterwards about 15 lbs. of the tea, thereby diminishing our stock to 5 lbs.
[Dr. Livingstone’s short stay in England in 1864-5 was mainly taken up with compiling an account of his travels on the Zambesi and Shiré: during this time his mother expired in Scotland at a good old age. When he went back to Africa he took with him, as part of his very scanty travelling equipment, a number of letters which he received from friends at different times in England, and he very often quoted them when he had an opportunity of sending letters home. We come to an entry at this time which shows that in these reminiscences he had not thus preserved an unmixed pleasure. He says:--] I lighted on a telegram to-day:--"Your mother died at noon on the 18th June." This was in 1865: it affected me not a little.
FOOTNOTES:
[9] Further on we found it called Nkonya.
[10] It will be remembered that this German traveller was murdered near Lake Nyassa. The native chiefs denounced his assassins, and sent them to Zanzibar, where they were executed.--ED.
[11] Further westward amongst the Manganja or Nyassa people the Waiyan tribe is called "Ajawa," and we find Livingstone always speaking of them as Ajawas in his previous explorations on the River Rovuma. (See ’The Zambesi and its Tributaries.’)--ED.