Chapter 30 (4)

The birds here sing very sweetly, and I thought I heard the canary, as in Londa. We had a heavy shower of rain, and I observed that the thermometer sank 14 Deg. in one hour afterward. From the beginning of February we experienced a sensible diminution of temperature. In January the lowest was 75 Deg., and that at sunrise; the average at the same hour (sunrise) being 79 Deg.; at 3 P.M., 90 Deg.; and at sunset, 82 Deg. In February it fell as low as 70 Deg. in the course of the night, and the average height was 88 Deg. Only once did it rise to 94 Deg., and a thunder-storm followed this; yet the sensation of heat was greater now than it had been at much higher temperatures on more elevated lands.

We passed several villages by going roundabout ways through the forest. We saw the remains of a lion that had been killed by a buffalo, and the horns of a putokwane (black antelope), the finest I had ever seen, which had met its death by a lion. The drums, beating all night in one village near which we slept, showed that some person in it had finished his course. On the occasion of the death of a chief, a trader is liable to be robbed, for the people consider themselves not amenable to law until a new one is elected. We continued a very winding course, in order to avoid the chief Katolosa, who is said to levy large sums upon those who fall into his hands. One of our guides was a fine, tall young man, the very image of Ben Habib the Arab. They were carrying dried buffalo's meat to the market at Tete as a private speculation.

A great many of the Banyai are of a light coffee-and-milk color, and, indeed, this color is considered handsome throughout the whole country, a fair complexion being as much a test of beauty with them as with us. As they draw out their hair into small cords a foot in length, and entwine the inner bark of a certain tree round each separate cord, and dye this substance of a reddish color, many of them put me in mind of the ancient Egyptians. The great mass of dressed hair which they possess reaches to the shoulders, but when they intend to travel they draw it up to a bunch, and tie it on the top of the head. They are cleanly in their habits.

As we did not come near human habitations, and could only take short stages on account of the illness of one of my men, I had an opportunity of observing the expedients my party resorted to in order to supply their wants. Large white edible mushrooms are found on the ant-hills, and are very good. The mokuri, a tuber which abounds in the Mopane country, they discovered by percussing the ground with stones; and another tuber, about the size of a turnip, called "bonga", is found in the same situations. It does not determine to the joints like the mokuri, and in winter has a sensible amount of salt in it. A fruit called "ndongo" by the Makololo, "dongolo" by the Bambiri, resembles in appearance a small plum, which becomes black when ripe, and is good food, as the seeds are small. Many trees are known by tradition, and one receives curious bits of information in asking about different fruits that are met with. A tree named "shekabakadzi" is superior to all others for making fire by friction. As its name implies, women may even readily make fire by it when benighted.

The country here is covered over with well-rounded shingle and gravel of granite, gneiss with much talc in it, mica schist, and other rocks which we saw 'in situ' between the Kafue and Loangwa. There are great mounds of soft red sand slightly coherent, which crumble in the hand with ease. The gravel and the sand drain away the water so effectually that the trees are exposed to the heat during a portion of the year without any moisture; hence they are not large, like those on the Zambesi, and are often scrubby. The rivers are all of the sandy kind, and we pass over large patches between this and Tete in which, in the dry season, no water is to be found. Close on our south, the hills of Lokole rise to a considerable height, and beyond them flows the Mazoe with its golden sands. The great numbers of pot-holes on the sides of sandstone ridges, when viewed in connection with the large banks of rolled shingle and washed sand which are met with on this side of the eastern ridge, may indicate that the sea in former times rolled its waves along its flanks. Many of the hills between the Kafue and Loangwa have their sides of the form seen in mud banks left by the tide. The pot-holes appear most abundant on low gray sandstone ridges here; and as the shingle is composed of the same rocks as the hills west of Zumbo, it looks as if a current had dashed along from the southeast in the line in which the pot-holes now appear; and if the current was deflected by those hills toward the Maravi country, north of Tete, it may have hollowed the rounded, water-worn caverns in which these people store their corn, and also hide themselves from their enemies. I could detect no terraces on the land, but, if I am right in my supposition, the form of this part of the continent must once have resembled the curves or indentations seen on the southern extremity of the American continent. In the indentation to the S.E., S., S.W., and W. of this, lie the principal gold-washings; and the line of the current, supposing it to have struck against the hills of Mburuma, shows the washings in the N. and N.E. of Tete.

We were tolerably successful in avoiding the villages, and slept one night on the flanks of the hill Zimika, where a great number of deep pot-holes afforded an abundant supply of good rain-water. Here, for the first time, we saw hills with bare, smooth, rocky tops, and we crossed over broad dikes of gneiss and syenitic porphyry: the directions in which they lay were N. and S. As we were now near to Tete, we were congratulating ourselves on having avoided those who would only have plagued us; but next morning some men saw us, and ran off to inform the neighboring villages of our passing. A party immediately pursued us, and, as they knew we were within call of Katolosa (Monomotapa), they threatened to send information to that chief of our offense, in passing through the country without leave. We were obliged to give them two small tusks; for, had they told Katolosa of our supposed offense, we should, in all probability, have lost the whole. We then went through a very rough, stony country without any path. Being pretty well tired out in the evening of the 2d of March, I remained at about eight miles distance from Tete, Tette, or Nyungwe. My men asked me to go on; I felt too fatigued to proceed, but sent forward to the commandant the letters of recommendation with which I had been favored in Angola by the bishop and others, and lay down to rest. Our food having been exhausted, my men had been subsisting for some time on roots and honey. About two o'clock in the morning of the 3d we were aroused by two officers and a company of soldiers, who had been sent with the materials for a civilized breakfast and a "masheela" to bring me to Tete. (Commandant's house: lat. 16d 9' 3" S., long. 33d 28' E.) My companions thought that we were captured by the armed men, and called me in alarm. When I understood the errand on which they had come, and had partaken of a good breakfast, though I had just before been too tired to sleep, all my fatigue vanished. It was the most refreshing breakfast I ever partook of, and I walked the last eight miles without the least feeling of weariness, although the path was so rough that one of the officers remarked to me, "This is enough to tear a man's life out of him." The pleasure experienced in partaking of that breakfast was only equaled by the enjoyment of Mr. Gabriel's bed on my arrival at Loanda. It was also enhanced by the news that Sebastopol had fallen and the war was finished.