Chapter 26

Chapter 26.

Departure from Linyanti—A Thunder-storm—An Act of genuine Kindness— Fitted out a second time by the Makololo—Sail down the Leeambye— Sekote's Kotla and human Skulls; his Grave adorned with Elephants' Tusks—Victoria Falls—Native Names—Columns of Vapor—Gigantic Crack— Wear of the Rocks—Shrines of the Barimo—"The Pestle of the Gods"— Second Visit to the Falls—Island Garden—Store-house Island— Native Diviners—A European Diviner—Makololo Foray—Marauder to be fined—Mambari—Makololo wish to stop Mambari Slave-trading—Part with Sekeletu—Night Traveling—River Lekone—Ancient fresh-water Lakes—Formation of Lake Ngami—Native Traditions—Drainage of the Great Valley—Native Reports of the Country to the North—Maps—Moyara's Village—Savage Customs of the Batoka—A Chain of Trading Stations—Remedy against Tsetse—"The Well of Joy"—First Traces of Trade with Europeans—Knocking out the front Teeth—Facetious Explanation—Degradation of the Batoka—Description of the Traveling Party—Cross the Unguesi—Geological Formation—Ruins of a large Town— Productions of the Soil similar to those in Angola—Abundance of Fruit.

On the 3d of November we bade adieu to our friends at Linyanti, accompanied by Sekeletu and about 200 followers. We were all fed at his expense, and he took cattle for this purpose from every station we came to. The principal men of the Makololo, Lebeole, Ntlarie, Nkwatlele, etc., were also of the party. We passed through the patch of the tsetse, which exists between Linyanti and Sesheke, by night. The majority of the company went on by daylight, in order to prepare our beds. Sekeletu and I, with about forty young men, waited outside the tsetse till dark. We then went forward, and about ten o'clock it became so pitchy dark that both horses and men were completely blinded. The lightning spread over the sky, forming eight or ten branches at a time, in shape exactly like those of a tree. This, with great volumes of sheet-lightning, enabled us at times to see the whole country. The intervals between the flashes were so densely dark as to convey the idea of stone-blindness. The horses trembled, cried out, and turned round, as if searching for each other, and every new flash revealed the men taking different directions, laughing, and stumbling against each other. The thunder was of that tremendously loud kind only to be heard in tropical countries, and which friends from India have assured me is louder in Africa than any they have ever heard elsewhere. Then came a pelting rain, which completed our confusion. After the intense heat of the day, we soon felt miserably cold, and turned aside to a fire we saw in the distance. This had been made by some people on their march; for this path is seldom without numbers of strangers passing to and from the capital. My clothing having gone on, I lay down on the cold ground, expecting to spend a miserable night; but Sekeletu kindly covered me with his own blanket, and lay uncovered himself. I was much affected by this act of genuine kindness. If such men must perish by the advance of civilization, as certain races of animals do before others, it is a pity. God grant that ere this time comes they may receive that Gospel which is a solace for the soul in death!

While at Sesheke, Sekeletu supplied me with twelve oxen—three of which were accustomed to being ridden upon—hoes, and beads to purchase a canoe when we should strike the Leeambye beyond the falls. He likewise presented abundance of good fresh butter and honey, and did every thing in his power to make me comfortable for the journey. I was entirely dependent on his generosity, for the goods I originally brought from the Cape were all expended by the time I set off from Linyanti to the west coast. I there drew 70 Pounds of my salary, paid my men with it, and purchased goods for the return journey to Linyanti. These being now all expended, the Makololo again fitted me out, and sent me on to the east coast. I was thus dependent on their bounty, and that of other Africans, for the means of going from Linyanti to Loanda, and again from Linyanti to the east coast, and I feel deeply grateful to them. Coin would have been of no benefit, for gold and silver are quite unknown. We were here joined by Moriantsane, uncle of Sekeletu and head man of Sesheke, and, entering canoes on the 13th, some sailed down the river to the confluence of the Chobe, while others drove the cattle along the banks, spending one night at Mparia, the island at the confluence of the Chobe, which is composed of trap, having crystals of quartz in it coated with a pellicle of green copper ore. Attempting to proceed down the river next day, we were detained some hours by a strong east wind raising waves so large as to threaten to swamp the canoes. The river here is very large and deep, and contains two considerable islands, which from either bank seem to be joined to the opposite shore. While waiting for the wind to moderate, my friends related the traditions of these islands, and, as usual, praised the wisdom of Sebituane in balking the Batoka, who formerly enticed wandering tribes to them, and starved them, by compelling the chiefs to remain by his side till all his cattle and people were ferried over. The Barotse believe that at certain parts of the river a tremendous monster lies hid, and that it will catch a canoe, and hold it fast and motionless, in spite of the utmost exertions of the paddlers. While near Nameta they even objected to pass a spot supposed to be haunted, and proceeded along a branch instead of the main stream. They believe that some of them possess a knowledge of the proper prayer to lay the monster. It is strange to find fables similar to those of the more northern nations even in the heart of Africa. Can they be the vestiges of traditions of animals which no longer exist? The fossil bones which lie in the calcareous tufa of this region will yet, we hope, reveal the ancient fauna.

Having descended about ten miles, we came to the island of Nampene, at the beginning of the rapids, where we were obliged to leave the canoes and proceed along the banks on foot. The next evening we slept opposite the island of Chondo, and, then crossing the Lekone or Lekwine, early the following morning were at the island of Sekote, called Kalai. This Sekote was the last of the Batoka chiefs whom Sebituane rooted out. The island is surrounded by a rocky shore and deep channels, through which the river rushes with great force. Sekote, feeling secure in his island home, ventured to ferry over the Matebele enemies of Sebituane. When they had retired, Sebituane made one of those rapid marches which he always adopted in every enterprise. He came down the Leeambye from Naliele, sailing by day along the banks, and during the night in the middle of the stream, to avoid the hippopotami. When he reached Kalai, Sekote took advantage of the larger canoes they employ in the rapids, and fled during the night to the opposite bank. Most of his people were slain or taken captive, and the island has ever since been under the Makololo. It is large enough to contain a considerable town. On the northern side I found the kotla of the elder Sekote, garnished with numbers of human skulls mounted on poles: a large heap of the crania of hippopotami, the tusks untouched except by time, stood on one side. At a short distance, under some trees, we saw the grave of Sekote, ornamented with seventy large elephants' tusks planted round it with the points turned inward, and there were thirty more placed over the resting-places of his relatives. These were all decaying from the effects of the sun and weather; but a few, which had enjoyed the shade, were in a pretty good condition. I felt inclined to take a specimen of the tusks of the hippopotami, as they were the largest I had ever seen, but feared that the people would look upon me as a "resurrectionist" if I did, and regard any unfavorable event which might afterward occur as a punishment for the sacrilege. The Batoka believe that Sekote had a pot of medicine buried here, which, when opened, would cause an epidemic in the country. These tyrants acted much on the fears of their people.

As this was the point from which we intended to strike off to the northeast, I resolved on the following day to visit the falls of Victoria, called by the natives Mosioatunya, or more anciently Shongwe. Of these we had often heard since we came into the country; indeed, one of the questions asked by Sebituane was, "Have you smoke that sounds in your country?" They did not go near enough to examine them, but, viewing them with awe at a distance, said, in reference to the vapor and noise, "Mosi oa tunya" (smoke does sound there). It was previously called Shongwe, the meaning of which I could not ascertain. The word for a "pot" resembles this, and it may mean a seething caldron, but I am not certain of it. Being persuaded that Mr. Oswell and myself were the very first Europeans who ever visited the Zambesi in the centre of the country, and that this is the connecting link between the known and unknown portions of that river, I decided to use the same liberty as the Makololo did, and gave the only English name I have affixed to any part of the country. No better proof of previous ignorance of this river could be desired than that an untraveled gentleman, who had spent a great part of his life in the study of the geography of Africa, and knew every thing written on the subject from the time of Ptolemy downward, actually asserted in the "Athenaeum", while I was coming up the Red Sea, that this magnificent river, the Leeambye, had "no connection with the Zambesi, but flowed under the Kalahari Desert, and became lost;" and "that, as all the old maps asserted, the Zambesi took its rise in the very hills to which we have now come." This modest assertion smacks exactly as if a native of Timbuctoo should declare that the "Thames" and the "Pool" were different rivers, he having seen neither the one nor the other. Leeambye and Zambesi mean the very same thing, viz., the RIVER.

Sekeletu intended to accompany me, but, one canoe only having come instead of the two he had ordered, he resigned it to me. After twenty minutes' sail from Kalai we came in sight, for the first time, of the columns of vapor appropriately called "smoke", rising at a distance of five or six miles, exactly as when large tracts of grass are burned in Africa. Five columns now arose, and, bending in the direction of the wind, they seemed placed against a low ridge covered with trees; the tops of the columns at this distance appeared to mingle with the clouds. They were white below, and higher up became dark, so as to simulate smoke very closely. The whole scene was extremely beautiful; the banks and islands dotted over the river are adorned with sylvan vegetation of great variety of color and form. At the period of our visit several trees were spangled over with blossoms. Trees have each their own physiognomy. There, towering over all, stands the great burly baobab, each of whose enormous arms would form the trunk of a large tree, beside groups of graceful palms, which, with their feathery-shaped leaves depicted on the sky, lend their beauty to the scene. As a hieroglyphic they always mean "far from home", for one can never get over their foreign air in a picture or landscape. The silvery mohonono, which in the tropics is in form like the cedar of Lebanon, stands in pleasing contrast with the dark color of the motsouri, whose cypress-form is dotted over at present with its pleasant scarlet fruit. Some trees resemble the great spreading oak, others assume the character of our own elms and chestnuts; but no one can imagine the beauty of the view from any thing witnessed in England. It had never been seen before by European eyes; but scenes so lovely must have been gazed upon by angels in their flight. The only want felt is that of mountains in the background. The falls are bounded on three sides by ridges 300 or 400 feet in height, which are covered with forest, with the red soil appearing among the trees. When about half a mile from the falls, I left the canoe by which we had come down thus far, and embarked in a lighter one, with men well acquainted with the rapids, who, by passing down the centre of the stream in the eddies and still places caused by many jutting rocks, brought me to an island situated in the middle of the river, and on the edge of the lip over which the water rolls. In coming hither there was danger of being swept down by the streams which rushed along on each side of the island; but the river was now low, and we sailed where it is totally impossible to go when the water is high. But, though we had reached the island, and were within a few yards of the spot, a view from which would solve the whole problem, I believe that no one could perceive where the vast body of water went; it seemed to lose itself in the earth, the opposite lip of the fissure into which it disappeared being only 80 feet distant. At least I did not comprehend it until, creeping with awe to the verge, I peered down into a large rent which had been made from bank to bank of the broad Zambesi, and saw that a stream of a thousand yards broad leaped down a hundred feet, and then became suddenly compressed into a space of fifteen or twenty yards. The entire falls are simply a crack made in a hard basaltic rock from the right to the left bank of the Zambesi, and then prolonged from the left bank away through thirty or forty miles of hills. If one imagines the Thames filled with low, tree-covered hills immediately beyond the tunnel, extending as far as Gravesend, the bed of black basaltic rock instead of London mud, and a fissure made therein from one end of the tunnel to the other down through the keystones of the arch, and prolonged from the left end of the tunnel through thirty miles of hills, the pathway being 100 feet down from the bed of the river instead of what it is, with the lips of the fissure from 80 to 100 feet apart, then fancy the Thames leaping bodily into the gulf, and forced there to change its direction, and flow from the right to the left bank, and then rush boiling and roaring through the hills, he may have some idea of what takes place at this, the most wonderful sight I had witnessed in Africa. In looking down into the fissure on the right of the island, one sees nothing but a dense white cloud, which, at the time we visited the spot, had two bright rainbows on it. (The sun was on the meridian, and the declination about equal to the latitude of the place.) From this cloud rushed up a great jet of vapor exactly like steam, and it mounted 200 or 300 feet high; there condensing, it changed its hue to that of dark smoke, and came back in a constant shower, which soon wetted us to the skin. This shower falls chiefly on the opposite side of the fissure, and a few yards back from the lip there stands a straight hedge of evergreen trees, whose leaves are always wet. From their roots a number of little rills run back into the gulf, but, as they flow down the steep wall there, the column of vapor, in its ascent, licks them up clean off the rock, and away they mount again. They are constantly running down, but never reach the bottom.