Chapter 28 (3)

We tried to leave one morning, but the rain coming on afresh brought us to a stand, and after waiting an hour, wet to the skin, we were fain to retrace our steps to our sheds. These rains were from the east, and the clouds might be seen on the hills exactly as the "Table-cloth" on Table Mountain. This was the first wetting we had got since we left Sesheke, for I had gained some experience in traveling. In Londa we braved the rain, and, as I despised being carried in our frequent passage through running water, I was pretty constantly drenched; but now, when we saw a storm coming, we invariably halted. The men soon pulled grass sufficient to make a little shelter for themselves by placing it on a bush, and, having got my camp-stool and umbrella, with a little grass under my feet, I kept myself perfectly dry. We also lighted large fires, and the men were not chilled by streams of water running down their persons, and abstracting the heat, as they would have been had they been exposed to the rain. When it was over they warmed themselves by the fires, and we traveled on comfortably. The effect of this care was, that we had much less sickness than with a smaller party in journeying to Loanda. Another improvement made from my experience was avoiding an entire change of diet. In going to Loanda I took little or no European food, in order not to burden my men and make them lose spirit, but trusted entirely to what might be got by the gun and the liberality of the Balonda; but on this journey I took some flour which had been left in the wagon, with some got on the island, and baked my own bread all the way in an extemporaneous oven made by an inverted pot. With these precautions, aided, no doubt, by the greater healthiness of the district over which we passed, I enjoyed perfect health.

When we left the Chipongo on the 30th we passed among the range of hills on our left, which are composed of mica and clay slate. At the bottom we found a forest of large silicified trees, all lying as if the elevation of the range had made them fall away from it, and toward the river. An ordinary-sized tree standing on end, measured 22 inches in diameter: there were 12 laminae to the inch. These are easily counted, because there is usually a scale of pure silica between each, which has not been so much affected by the weather as the rest of the ring itself: the edges of the rings thus stand out plainly. Mr. Quekett, having kindly examined some specimens, finds that it is "silicified CONIFEROUS WOOD of the ARAUCARIAN type; and the nearest allied wood that he knows of is that found, also in a fossil state, in New South Wales." The numbers of large game were quite astonishing. I never saw elephants so tame as those near the Chiponga: they stood close to our path without being the least afraid. This is different from their conduct where they have been accustomed to guns, for there they take alarm at the distance of a mile, and begin to run if a shot is fired even at a longer distance. My men killed another here, and rewarded the villagers of the Chiponga for their liberality in meal by loading them with flesh. We spent a night at a baobab, which was hollow, and would hold twenty men inside. It had been used as a lodging-house by the Babisa.

As we approached nearer the Zambesi, the country became covered with broad-leaved bushes, pretty thickly planted, and we had several times to shout to elephants to get out of our way. At an open space, a herd of buffaloes came trotting up to look at our oxen, and it was only by shooting one that I made them retreat. The meat is very much like that of an ox, and this one was very fine. The only danger we actually encountered was from a female elephant, with three young ones of different sizes. Charging through the centre of our extended line, and causing the men to throw down their burdens in a great hurry, she received a spear for her temerity. I never saw an elephant with more than one calf before. We knew that we were near our Zambesi again, even before the great river burst upon our sight, by the numbers of water-fowl we met. I killed four geese with two shots, and, had I followed the wishes of my men, could have secured a meal of water-fowl for the whole party. I never saw a river with so much animal life around and in it, and, as the Barotse say, "Its fish and fowl are always fat." When our eyes were gladdened by a view of its goodly broad waters, we found it very much larger than it is even above the falls. One might try to make his voice heard across it in vain. Its flow was more rapid than near Sesheke, being often four and a half miles an hour, and, what I never saw before, the water was discolored and of a deep brownish-red. In the great valley the Leeambye never becomes of this color. The adjacent country, so far north as is known, is all level, and the soil, being generally covered with dense herbage, is not abraded; but on the eastern ridge the case is different; the grass is short, and, the elevation being great, the soil is washed down by the streams, and hence the discoloration which we now view. The same thing was observed on the western ridge. We never saw discoloration till we reached the Quango; that obtained its matter from the western slope of the western ridge, just as this part of the Zambesi receives its soil from the eastern slope of the eastern ridge. It carried a considerable quantity of wreck of reeds, sticks, and trees. We struck upon the river about eight miles east of the confluence with the Kafue, and thereby missed a sight of that interesting point. The cloudiness of the weather was such that but few observations could be made for determining our position; so, pursuing our course, we went down the left bank, and came opposite the island of Menye makaba. The Zambesi contains numerous islands; this was about a mile and a half or two miles long, and upward of a quarter of a mile broad. Besides human population, it has a herd of buffaloes that never leave it. In the distance they seemed to be upward of sixty. The human and brute inhabitants understand each other; for when the former think they ought to avenge the liberties committed on their gardens, the leaders of the latter come out boldly to give battle. They told us that the only time in which they can thin them is when the river is full and part of the island flooded. They then attack them from their canoes. The comparatively small space to which they have confined themselves shows how luxuriant the vegetation of this region is; for were they in want of more pasture, as buffaloes can swim well, and the distance from this bank to the island is not much more than 200 yards, they might easily remove hither. The opposite bank is much more distant.

Ranges of hills appear now to run parallel with the Zambesi, and are about fifteen miles apart. Those on the north approach nearest to the river. The inhabitants on that side are the Batonga, those on the south bank are the Banyai. The hills abound in buffaloes, and elephants are numerous, and many are killed by the people on both banks. They erect stages on high trees overhanging the paths by which the elephants come, and then use a large spear with a handle nearly as thick as a man's wrist, and four or five feet long. When the animal comes beneath they throw the spear, and if it enters between the ribs above, as the blade is at least twenty inches long by two broad, the motion of the handle, as it is aided by knocking against the trees, makes frightful gashes within, and soon causes death. They kill them also by means of a spear inserted in a beam of wood, which being suspended on the branch of a tree by a cord attached to a latch fastened in the path, and intended to be struck by the animal's foot, leads to the fall of the beam, and, the spear being poisoned, causes death in a few hours.

We were detained by continuous rains several days at this island. The clouds rested upon the tops of the hills as they came from the eastward, and then poured down plenteous showers on the valleys below. As soon as we could move, Tomba Nyama, the head man of the island, volunteered the loan of a canoe to cross a small river, called the Chongwe, which we found to be about fifty or sixty yards broad and flooded. All this part of the country was well known to Sekwebu, and he informed us that, when he passed through it as a boy, the inhabitants possessed abundance of cattle, and there were no tsetse. The existence of the insect now shows that it may return in company with the larger game. The vegetation along the bank was exceedingly rank, and the bushes so tangled that it was difficult to get on. The paths had been made by the wild animals alone, for the general pathway of the people is the river, in their canoes. We usually followed the footpaths of the game, and of these there was no lack. Buffaloes, zebras, pallahs, and waterbucks abound, and there is also a great abundance of wild pigs, koodoos, and the black antelope. We got one buffalo as he was rolling himself in a pool of mud. He had a large piece of skin torn off his flank, it was believed by an alligator.

We were struck by the fact that, as soon as we came between the ranges of hills which flank the Zambesi, the rains felt warm. At sunrise the thermometer stood at from 82 Deg. to 86 Deg.; at midday, in the coolest shade, namely, in my little tent, under a shady tree, at 96 Deg. to 98 Deg.; and at sunset it was 86 Deg. This is different from any thing we experienced in the interior, for these rains always bring down the mercury to 72 Deg. or even 68 Deg. There, too, we found a small black coleopterous insect, which stung like the mosquito, but injected less poison; it puts us in mind of that insect, which does not exist in the high lands we had left.

JANUARY 6TH, 1856. Each village we passed furnished us with a couple of men to take us on to the next. They were useful in showing us the parts least covered with jungle. When we came near a village, we saw men, women, and children employed in weeding their gardens, they being great agriculturists. Most of the men are muscular, and have large plowman hands. Their color is the same admixture, from very dark to light olive, that we saw in Londa. Though all have thick lips and flat noses, only the more degraded of the population possess the ugly negro physiognomy. They mark themselves by a line of little raised cicatrices, each of which is a quarter of an inch long; they extend from the tip of the nose to the root of the hair on the forehead. It is remarkable that I never met with an Albino in crossing Africa, though, from accounts published by the Portuguese, I was led to expect that they were held in favor as doctors by certain chiefs. I saw several in the south: one at Kuruman is a full-grown woman, and a man having this peculiarity of skin was met with in the colony. Their bodies are always blistered on exposure to the sun, as the skin is more tender than that of the blacks. The Kuruman woman lived some time at Kolobeng, and generally had on her bosom and shoulders the remains of large blisters. She was most anxious to be made black, but nitrate of silver, taken internally, did not produce its usual effect. During the time I resided at Mabotsa, a woman came to the station with a fine boy, an Albino. The father had ordered her to throw him away, but she clung to her offspring for many years. He was remarkably intelligent for his age. The pupil of the eye was of a pink color, and the eye itself was unsteady in vision. The hair, or rather wool, was yellow, and the features were those common among the Bechuanas. After I left the place the mother is said to have become tired of living apart from the father, who refused to have her while she retained the son. She took him out one day, and killed him close to the village of Mabotsa, and nothing was done to her by the authorities. From having met with no Albinos in Londa, I suspect they are there also put to death. We saw one dwarf only in Londa, and brands on him showed he had once been a slave; and there is one dwarf woman at Linyanti. The general absence of deformed persons is partly owing to their destruction in infancy, and partly to the mode of life being a natural one, so far as ventilation and food are concerned. They use but few unwholesome mixtures as condiments, and, though their undress exposes them to the vicissitudes of the temperature, it does not harbor vomites. It was observed that, when smallpox and measles visited the country, they were most severe on the half-castes who were clothed. In several tribes, a child which is said to "tlola", transgress, is put to death. "Tlolo", or transgression, is ascribed to several curious cases. A child who cut the upper front teeth before the under was always put to death among the Bakaa, and, I believe, also among the Bakwains. In some tribes, a case of twins renders one of them liable to death; and an ox, which, while lying in the pen, beats the ground with its tail, is treated in the same way. It is thought to be calling death to visit the tribe. When I was coming through Londa, my men carried a great number of fowls, of a larger breed than any they had at home. If one crowed before midnight, it had been guilty of "tlolo", and was killed. The men often carried them sitting on their guns, and, if one began to crow in a forest, the owner would give it a beating, by way of teaching it not to be guilty of crowing at unseasonable hours.