A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries

Except the small rapids by Mparira island, near the mouth of the Chobé, the rest of the way to Sesheké by water is smooth.  Herds of cattle of two or three varieties graze on the islands in the river: the Batoka possessed a very small breed of beautiful shape, and remarkably tame, and many may still be seen; a larger kind, many of which have horns pendent, and loose at the roots; and a still larger sort, with horns of extraordinary dimensions,—apparently a burden for the beast to carry.  This breed was found in abundance at Lake Ngami.  We stopped at noon at one of the cattle-posts of Mokompa, and had a refreshing drink of milk.  Men of his standing have usually several herds placed at different spots, and the owner visits each in turn, while his head-quarters are at his village.  His son, a boy of ten, had charge of the establishment during his father’s absence.  According to Makololo ideas, the cattle-post is the proper school in which sons should be brought up.  Here they receive the right sort of education—the knowledge of pasture and how to manage cattle.

Strong easterly winds blow daily from noon till midnight, and continue till the October or November rains set in.  Whirlwinds, raising huge pillars of smoke from burning grass and weeds, are common in the forenoon.  We were nearly caught in an immense one.  It crossed about twenty yards in front of us, the wind apparently rushing into it from all points of the compass.  Whirling round and round in great eddies, it swept up hundreds of feet into the air a continuous dense dark cloud of the black pulverized soil, mixed with dried grass, off the plain.  Herds of the new antelopes, lechwé, and poku, with the kokong, or gnus, and zebras stood gazing at us as we passed.  The mirage lifted them at times halfway to the clouds, and twisted them and the clumps of palms into strange unearthly forms.  The extensive and rich level plains by the banks, along the sides of which we paddled, would support a vast population, and might be easily irrigated from the Zambesi.  If watered, they would yield crops all the year round, and never suffer loss by drought.  The hippopotamus is killed here with long lance-like spears.  We saw two men, in a light canoe, stealing noiselessly down on one of these animals thought to be asleep; but it was on the alert, and they had quickly to retreat.  Comparatively few of these animals now remain between Sesheké and the Falls, and they are uncommonly wary, as it is certain death for one to be caught napping in the daytime.

On the 18th we entered Sesheké.  The old town, now in ruins, stands on the left bank of the river.  The people have built another on the same side, a quarter of a mile higher up, since their headman Moriantsiané was put to death for bewitching the chief with leprosy.  Sekeletu was on the right bank, near a number of temporary huts.  A man hailed us from the chiefs quarters, and requested us to rest under the old Kotla, or public meeting-place tree.  A young Makololo, with the large thighs which Zulus and most of this tribe have, crossed over to receive orders from the chief, who had not shown himself to the people since he was affected with leprosy.  On returning he ran for Mokelé, the headman of the new town, who, after going over to Sekeletu, came back and conducted us to a small but good hut, and afterwards brought us a fine fat ox, as a present from the chief.  “This is a time of hunger,” he said, “and we have no meat, but we expect some soon from the Barotsé Valley.”  We were entirely out of food when we reached Sesheké.  Never was better meat than that of the ox Sekeletu sent, and infinitely above the flesh of all kinds of game is beef!

A constant stream of visitors rolled in on us the day after our arrival.  Several of them, who had suffered affliction during the Doctor’s absence, seemed to be much affected on seeing him again.  All were in low spirits.  A severe drought had cut off the crops, and destroyed the pasture of Linyanti, and the people were scattered over the country in search of wild fruits, and the hospitality of those whose ground-nuts (Arachis hypogœa) had not failed.  Sekeletu’s leprosy brought troops of evils in its train.  Believing himself bewitched, he had suspected a number of his chief men, and had put some, with their families, to death; others had fled to distant tribes, and were living in exile.  The chief had shut himself up, and allowed no one to come into his presence but his uncle Mamiré.  Ponwané, who had been as “head and eyes” to him, had just died; evidence, he thought, of the potent spells of those who hated all who loved the chief.  The country was suffering grievously, and Sebituané’s grand empire was crumbling to pieces.  A large body of young Barotsé had revolted and fled to the north; killing a man by the way, in order to put a blood-feud between Masiko, the chief to whom they were going, and Sekeletu.  The Batoka under Sinamané, and Muemba, were independent, and Mashotlané at the Falls was setting Sekeletu’s authority virtually at defiance.  Sebituané’s wise policy in treating the conquered tribes on equal terms with his own Makololo, as all children of the chief, and equally eligible to the highest honours, had been abandoned by his son, who married none but Makololo women, and appointed to office none but Makololo men.  He had become unpopular among the black tribes, conquered by the spear but more effectually won by the subsequent wise and just government of his father.

Strange rumours were afloat respecting the unseen Sekeletu; his fingers were said to have grown like eagle’s claws, and his face so frightfully distorted that no one could recognize him.  Some had begun to hint that he might not really be the son of the great Sebituané, the founder of the nation, strong in battle, and wise in the affairs of state.  “In the days of the Great Lion” (Sebituané), said his only sister, Moriantsiané’s widow, whose husband Sekeletu had killed, “we had chiefs and little chiefs and elders to carry on the government, and the great chief, Sebituané, knew them all, and everything they did, and the whole country was wisely ruled; but now Sekeletu knows nothing of what his underlings do, and they care not for him, and the Makololo power is fast passing away.” [3 - In 1865, four years after these forebodings were penned, we received intelligence that they had all come to pass.  Sekeletu died in the beginning of 1864—a civil war broke out about the succession to the chieftainship; a large body of those opposed to the late chief’s uncle, Impololo, being regent, departed with their cattle to Lake Ngami; an insurrection by the black tribes followed; Impololo was slain, and the kingdom, of which, under an able sagacious mission, a vast deal might have been made, has suffered the usual fate of African conquests.  That fate we deeply deplore; for, whatever other faults the Makololo might justly be charged with, they did not belong to the class who buy and sell each other, and the tribes who have succeeded them do.]

The native doctors had given the case of Sekeletu up.  They could not cure him, and pronounced the disease incurable.  An old doctress from the Manyeti tribe had come to see what she could do for him, and on her skill he now hung his last hopes.  She allowed no one to see him, except his mother and uncle, making entire seclusion from society an essential condition of the much longed-for cure.  He sent, notwithstanding, for the Doctor; and on the following day we all three were permitted to see him.  He was sitting in a covered wagon, which was enclosed by a high wall of close-set reeds; his face was only slightly disfigured by the thickening of the skin in parts, where the leprosy had passed over it; and the only peculiarity about his hands was the extreme length of his finger-nails, which, however, was nothing very much out of the way, as all the Makololo gentlemen wear them uncommonly long.  He has the quiet, unassuming manners of his father, Sebituané, speaks distinctly, in a low pleasant voice, and appears to be a sensible man, except perhaps on the subject of his having been bewitched; and in this, when alluded to, he exhibits as firm a belief as if it were his monomania.  “Moriantsiané, my aunt’s husband, tried the bewitching medicine first on his wife, and she is leprous, and so is her head-servant; then, seeing that it succeeded, he gave me a stronger dose in the cooked flesh of a goat, and I have had the disease ever since.  They have lately killed Ponwané, and, as you see, are now killing me.”  Ponwané had died of fever a short time previously.  Sekeletu asked us for medicine and medical attendance, but we did not like to take the case out of the hands of the female physician already employed, it being bad policy to appear to undervalue any of the profession; and she, being anxious to go on with her remedies, said “she had not given him up yet, but would try for another month; if he was not cured by that time, then she would hand him over to the white doctors.”  But we intended to leave the country before a month was up; so Mamiré, with others, induced the old lady to suspend her treatment for a little.  She remained, as the doctors stipulated, in the chief’s establishment, and on full pay.

Sekeletu was told plainly that the disease was unknown in our country, and was thought exceedingly obstinate of cure; that we did not believe in his being bewitched, and we were willing to do all we could to help him.  This was a case for disinterested benevolence; no pay was expected, but considerable risk incurred; yet we could not decline it, as we had the trading in horses.  Having, however, none of the medicines usually employed in skin diseases with us, we tried the local application of lunar caustic, and hydriodate of potash internally; and with such gratifying results, that Mamiré wished the patient to be smeared all over with a solution of lunar caustic, which he believed to be of the same nature as the blistering fluid formerly applied to his own knee by Mr. Oswell.  Its power he considered irresistible, and he would fain have had anything like it tried on Sekeletu.

It was a time of great scarcity and hunger, but Sekeletu treated us hospitably, preparing tea for us at every visit we paid him.  With the tea we had excellent American biscuit and preserved fruits, which had been brought to him all the way from Benguela.  The fruits he most relished were those preserved in their own juices; plums, apples, pears, strawberries, and peaches, which we have seen only among Portuguese and Spaniards.  It made us anxious to plant the fruit-tree seeds we had brought, and all were pleased with the idea of having these same fruits in their own country.

Mokelé, the headman of Sesheké, and Sebituané’s sister, Manchunyané, were ordered to provide us with food, as Sekeletu’s wives, to whom this duty properly belonged, were at Linyanti.  We found a black trader from the West Coast, and some Griqua traders from the South, both in search of ivory.  Ivory is dear at Sesheké; but cheaper in the Batoka country, from Sinamané’s to the Kafué, than anywhere else.  The trader from Benguela took orders for goods for his next year’s trip, and offered to bring tea, coffee, and sugar at cent. per cent. prices.  As, in consequence of a hint formerly given, the Makololo had secured all the ivory in the Batoga country to the east, by purchasing it with hoes, the Benguela traders found it unprofitable to go thither for slaves.  They assured us that without ivory the trade in slaves did not pay.  In this way, and by the orders of Sekeletu, an extensive slave-mart was closed.  These orders were never infringed except secretly.  We discovered only two or three cases of their infraction.

Sekeletu was well pleased with the various articles we brought for him, and inquired if a ship could not bring his sugar-mill and the other goods we had been obliged to leave behind at Tette.  On hearing that there was a possibility of a powerful steamer ascending as far as Sinamané’s, but never above the Grand Victoria Falls, he asked, with charming simplicity, if a cannon could not blow away the Falls, so as to allow the vessel to come up to Sesheké.

To save the tribe from breaking up, by the continual loss of real Makololo, it ought at once to remove to the healthy Batoka highlands, near the Kafué.  Fully aware of this, Sekeletu remarked that all his people, save two, were convinced that, if they remained in the lowlands, a few years would suffice to cut off all the real Makololo; they came originally from the healthy South, near the confluence of the Likwa and Namagari, where fever is almost unknown, and its ravages had been as frightful among them here, as amongst Europeans on the Coast.  Sebituané’s sister described its first appearance among the tribe, after their settling in the Barotsé Valley on the Zambesi.  Many of them were seized with a shivering sickness, as if from excessive cold; they had never seen the like before.  They made great fires, and laid the shivering wretches down before them; but, pile on wood as they might, they could not raise heat enough to drive the cold out of the bodies of the sufferers, and they shivered on till they died.  But, though all preferred the highlands, they were afraid to go there, lest the Matebelé should come and rob them of their much-loved cattle.  Sebituané, with all his veterans, could not withstand that enemy; and how could they be resisted, now that most of the brave warriors were dead?  The young men would break, and run away the moment they saw the terrible Matebelé, being as much afraid of them as the black conquered tribes are of the Makololo.  “But if the Doctor and his wife,” said the chiefs and counsellors, “would come and live with us, we would remove to the highlands at once, as Moselekatsé would not attack a place where the daughter of his friend, Moffat, was living.”

The Makololo are by far the most intelligent and enterprising of the tribes we have met.  None but brave and daring men remained long with Sebituané, his stern discipline soon eradicated cowardice from his army.  Death was the inevitable doom of the coward.  If the chief saw a man running away from the fight, he rushed after him with amazing speed, and cut him down; or waited till he returned to the town, and then summoned the deserter into his presence.  “You did not wish to die on the field, you wished to die at home, did you? you shall have your wish!” and he was instantly led off and executed.  The present race of young men are inferior in most respects to their fathers.  The old Makololo had many manly virtues; they were truthful, and never stole, excepting in what they considered the honourable way of lifting cattle in fair fight.  But this can hardly be said of their sons; who, having been brought up among the subjected tribes, have acquired some of the vices peculiar to a menial and degraded race.  A few of the old Makololo cautioned us not to leave any of our property exposed, as the blacks were great thieves; and some of our own men advised us to be on our guard, as the Makololo also would steal.  A very few trifling articles were stolen by a young Makololo; and he, on being spoken to on the subject, showed great ingenuity in excusing himself, by a plausible and untruthful story.  The Makololo of old were hard workers, and did not consider labour as beneath them; but their sons never work, regarding it as fit only for the Mashona and Makalaka servants.  Sebituané, seeing that the rival tribes had the advantage over his, in knowing how to manage canoes, had his warriors taught to navigate; and his own son, with his companions, paddled the chief’s canoe.  All the dishes, baskets, stools, and canoes are made by the black tribes called Manyeti and Matlotlora.  The houses are built by the women and servants.  The Makololo women are vastly superior to any we have yet seen.  They are of a light warm brown complexion, have pleasant countenances, and are remarkably quick of apprehension.  They dress neatly, wearing a kilt and mantle, and have many ornaments.  Sebituané’s sister, the head lady of Sesheké, wore eighteen solid brass rings, as thick as one’s finger, on each leg, and three of copper under each knee; nineteen brass rings on her left arm, and eight of brass and copper on her right, also a large ivory ring above each elbow.  She had a pretty bead necklace, and a bead sash encircled her waist.  The weight of the bright brass rings round her legs impeded her walking, and chafed her ankles; but, as it was the fashion, she did not mind the inconvenience, and guarded against the pain by putting soft rag round the lower rings.

Justice appears upon the whole to be pretty fairly administered among the Makololo.  A headman took some beads and a blanket from one of his men who had been with us; the matter was brought before the chief, and he immediately ordered the goods to be restored, and decreed, moreover, that no headman should take the property of the men who had returned.  In theory, all the goods brought back belonged to the chief; the men laid them at his feet, and made a formal offer of them all; he looked at the articles, and told the men to keep them.  This is almost invariably the case.  Tuba Mokoro, however, fearing lest Sekeletu might take a fancy to some of his best goods, exhibited only a few of his old and least valuable acquisitions.  Masakasa had little to show; he had committed some breach of native law in one of the villages on the way, and paid a heavy fine rather than have the matter brought to the Doctor’s ears.  Each carrier is entitled to a portion of the goods in his bundle, though purchased by the chief’s ivory, and they never hesitate to claim their rights; but no wages can be demanded from the chief, if he fails to respond to the first application.

Our men, accustomed to our ways, thought that the English system of paying a man for his labour was the only correct one, and some even said it would be better to live under a government where life and labour were more secure and valuable than here.  While with us, they always conducted themselves with propriety during Divine service, and not only maintained decorum themselves, but insisted on other natives who might be present doing the same.  When Moshobotwané, the Batoka chief, came on one occasion with a number of his men, they listened in silence to the reading of the Bible in the Makololo tongue; but, as soon as we all knelt down to pray, they commenced a vigorous clapping of hands, their mode of asking a favour.  Our indignant Makololo soon silenced their noisy accompaniment, and looked with great contempt on this display of ignorance.  Nearly all our men had learned to repeat the Lord’s Prayer and the Apostles’ Creed in their own language, and felt rather proud of being able to do so; and when they reached home, they liked to recite them to groups of admiring friends.  Their ideas of right and wrong differ in no respect from our own, except in their professed inability to see how it can be improper for a man to have more than one wife.  A year or two ago several of the wives of those who had been absent with us petitioned the chief for leave to marry again.  They thought that it was of no use waiting any longer, their husbands must be dead; but Sekeletu refused permission; he himself had bet a number of oxen that the Doctor would return with their husbands, and he had promised the absent men that their wives should be kept for them.  The impatient spouses had therefore to wait a little longer.  Some of them, however, eloped with other men; the wife of Mantlanyané, for instance, ran off and left his little boy among strangers.  Mantlanyané was very angry when he heard of it, not that he cared much about her deserting him, for he had two other wives at Tette, but he was indignant at her abandoning his boy.

CHAPTER VIII

Life amongst the Makololo—Return journey—Native hospitality—A canoe voyage on the Zambesi.

While we were at Sesheké, an ox was killed by a crocodile; a man found the carcass floating in the river, and appropriated the meat.  When the owner heard of this, he requested him to come before the chief, as he meant to complain of him; rather than go, the delinquent settled the matter by giving one of his own oxen in lieu of the lost one.  A headman from near Linyanti came with a complaint that all his people had run off, owing to the “hunger.”  Sekeletu said, “You must not be left to grow lean alone, some of them must come back to you.”  He had thus an order to compel their return, if he chose to put it in force.  Families frequently leave their own headman and flee to another village, and sometimes a whole village decamps by night, leaving the headman by himself.  Sekeletu rarely interfered with the liberty of the subject to choose his own headman, and, as it is often the fault of the latter which causes the people to depart, it is punishment enough for him to be left alone.  Flagrant disobedience to the chief’s orders is punished with death.  A Moshubia man was ordered to cut some reeds for Sekeletu: he went off, and hid himself for two days instead.  For this he was doomed to die, and was carried in a canoe to the middle of the river, choked, and tossed into the stream.  The spectators hooted the executioners, calling out to them that they too would soon be carried out and strangled.  Occasionally when a man is sent to beat an offender, he tells him his object, returns, and assures the chief he has nearly killed him.  The transgressor then keeps for a while out of sight, and the matter is forgotten.  The river here teems with monstrous crocodiles, and women are frequently, while drawing water, carried off by these reptiles.

We met a venerable warrior, sole survivor, probably, of the Mantatee host which threatened to invade the colony in 1824.  He retained a vivid recollection of their encounter with the Griquas: “As we looked at the men and horses, puffs of smoke arose, and some of us dropped down dead!”  “Never saw anything like it in my life, a man’s brains lying in one place and his body in another!”  They could not understand what was killing them; a ball struck a man’s shield at an angle; knocked his arm out of joint at the shoulder; and leaving a mark, or burn, as he said, on the shield, killed another man close by.  We saw the man with his shoulder still dislocated.  Sebetuané was present at the fight, and had an exalted opinion of the power of white people ever afterwards.

The ancient costume of the Makololo consisted of the skin of a lamb, kid, jackal, ocelot, or other small animal, worn round and below the loins: and in cold weather a kaross, or skin mantle, was thrown over the shoulders.  The kaross is now laid aside, and the young men of fashion wear a monkey-jacket and a skin round the hips; but no trousers, waistcoat, or shirt.  The river and lake tribes are in general very cleanly, bathing several times a day.  The Makololo women use water rather sparingly, rubbing themselves with melted butter instead: this keeps off parasites, but gives their clothes a rancid odour.  One stage of civilization often leads of necessity to another—the possession of clothes creates a demand for soap; give a man a needle, and he is soon back to you for thread.

This being a time of mourning, on account of the illness of the chief, the men were negligent of their persons, they did not cut their hair, or have merry dances, or carry spear and shield when they walked abroad.  The wife of Pitsané was busy making a large hut, while we were in the town: she informed us that the men left house-building entirely to the women and servants.  A round tower of stakes and reeds, nine or ten feet high, is raised and plastered; a floor is next made of soft tufa, or ant-hill material and cowdung.  This plaster prevents the poisonous insects, called tumpans, whose bite causes fever in some, and painful sores in all, from harbouring in the cracks or soil.  The roof, which is much larger in diameter than the tower, is made on the ground, and then, many persons assisting, lifted up and placed on the tower, and thatched.  A plastered reed fence is next built up to meet the outer part of the roof, which still projects a little over this fence, and a space of three feet remains between it and the tower.  We slept in this space, instead of in the tower, as the inner door of the hut we occupied was uncomfortably small, being only nineteen inches high, and twenty-two inches wide at the floor.  A foot from the bottom it measured seventeen inches in breadth, and close to the top only twelve inches, so it was a difficult matter to get through it.  The tower has no light or ventilation, except through this small door.  The reason a lady assigned for having the doors so very small was to keep out the mice!

The children have merry times, especially in the cool of the evening.  One of their games consists of a little girl being carried on the shoulders of two others.  She sits with outstretched arms, as they walk about with her, and all the rest clap their hands, and stopping before each hut sing pretty airs, some beating time on their little kilts of cowskin, others making a curious humming sound between the songs.  Excepting this and the skipping-rope, the play of the girls consists in imitation of the serious work of their mothers, building little huts, making small pots, and cooking, pounding corn in miniature mortars, or hoeing tiny gardens.  The boys play with spears of reeds pointed with wood, and small shields, or bows and arrows; or amuse themselves in making little cattle-pens, or in moulding cattle in clay; they show great ingenuity in the imitation of various-shaped horns.  Some too are said to use slings, but as soon as they can watch the goats, or calves, they are sent to the field.  We saw many boys riding on the calves they had in charge, but this is an innovation since the arrival of the English with their horses.  Tselané, one of the ladies, on observing Dr. Livingstone noting observations on the wet and dry bulb thermometers, thought that he too was engaged in play; for on receiving no reply to her question, which was rather difficult to answer, as the native tongue has no scientific terms, she said with roguish glee, “Poor thing, playing like a little child!”

Like other Africans, the Makololo have great faith in the power of medicine; they believe that there is an especial medicine for every ill that flesh is heir to.  Mamiré is anxious to have children; he has six wives, and only one boy, and he begs earnestly for “child medicine.”  The mother of Sekeletu came from the Barotsé Valley to see her son.  Thinks she has lost flesh since Dr. Livingstone was here before, and asks for “the medicine of fatness.”  The Makololo consider plumpness an essential part of beauty in women, but the extreme stoutness, mentioned by Captain Speke, in the north, would be considered hideous here, for the men have been overheard speaking of a lady whom we call “inclined to embonpoint,” as “fat unto ugliness.”

Two packages from the Kuruman, containing letters and newspapers, reached Linyanti previous to our arrival, and Sekeletu, not knowing when we were coming, left them there; but now at once sent a messenger for them.  This man returned on the seventh day, having travelled 240 geographical miles.  One of the packages was too heavy for him, and he left it behind.  As the Doctor wished to get some more medicine and papers out of the wagon left at Linyanti in 1853, he decided upon going thither himself.  The chief gave him his own horse, now about twelve years old, and some men.  He found everything in his wagon as safe as when he left it seven years before.  The headmen, Mosalé and Pekonyané, received him cordially, and lamented that they had so little to offer him.  Oh! had he only arrived the year previous, when there was abundance of milk and corn and beer.

Very early the next morning the old town-crier, Ma-Pulenyané, of his own accord made a public proclamation, which, in the perfect stillness of the town long before dawn, was striking: “I have dreamed!  I have dreamed!  I have dreamed!  Thou Mosalé and thou Pekonyané, my lords, be not faint-hearted, nor let your hearts be sore, but believe all the words of Monaré (the Doctor) for his heart is white as milk towards the Makololo.  I dreamed that he was coming, and that the tribe would live, if you prayed to God and give heed to the word of Monaré.”  Ma-Pulenyané showed Dr. Livingstone the burying-place where poor Helmore and seven others were laid, distinguishing those whom he had put to rest, and those for whom Mafalé had performed that last office.  Nothing whatever marked the spot, and with the native idea of hiding the dead, it was said, “it will soon be all overgrown with bushes, for no one will cultivate there.”  None but Ma-Pulenyané approached the place, the others stood at a respectful distance; they invariably avoid everything connected with the dead, and no such thing as taking portions of human bodies to make charms of, as is the custom further north, has ever been known among the Makololo.

Sekeletu’s health improved greatly during our visit, the melancholy foreboding left his spirits, and he became cheerful, but resolutely refused to leave his den, and appear in public till he was perfectly cured, and had regained what he considered his good looks.  He also feared lest some of those who had bewitched him originally might still be among the people, and neutralize our remedies. [4 - It was with sorrow that we learned by a letter from Mr. Moffat, in 1864, that poor Sekeletu was dead.  As will be mentioned further on, men were sent with us to bring up more medicine.  They preferred to remain on the Shiré, and, as they were free men, we could do no more than try and persuade them to hasten back to their chief with iodine and other remedies.  They took the parcel, but there being only two real Makololo among them, these could neither return themselves alone or force their attendants to leave a part of the country where they were independent, and could support themselves with ease.  Sekeletu, however, lived long enough to receive and acknowledge goods to the value of £50, sent, in lieu of those which remained in Tette, by Robert Moffat, jun., since dead.]

As we expected another steamer to be at Kongoné in November, it was impossible for us to remain in Sesheké more than one month.  Before our departure, the chief and his principal men expressed in a formal manner their great desire to have English people settled on the Batoka highlands.  At one time he proposed to go as far as Phori, in order to select a place of residence; but as he afterwards saw reasons for remaining where he was, till his cure was completed, he gave orders to those sent with us, in the event of our getting, on our return, past the rapids near Tette, not to bring us to Sesheké, but to send forward a messenger, and he with the whole tribe would come to us.  Dr. Kirk being of the same age, Sekeletu was particularly anxious that he should come and live with him.  He said that he would cut off a section of the country for the special use of the English; and on being told that in all probability their descendants would cause disturbance in his country, he replied, “These would be only domestic feuds, and of no importance.”  The great extent of uncultivated land on the cool and now unpeopled highlands has but to be seen to convince the spectator how much room there is, and to spare, for a vastly greater population than ever, in our day, can be congregated there.

On the last occasion of our holding Divine service at Sesheké, the men were invited to converse on the subject on which they had been addressed.  So many of them had died since we were here before, that not much probability existed of our all meeting again, and this had naturally led to the subject of a future state.  They replied that they did not wish to offend the speaker, but they could not believe that all the dead would rise again: “Can those who have been killed in the field and devoured by the vultures; or those who have been eaten by the hyenas or lions; or those who have been tossed into the river, and eaten by more than one crocodile,—can they all be raised again to life?”  They were told that men could take a leaden bullet, change it into a salt (acetate of lead), which could be dissolved as completely in water as our bodies in the stomachs of animals, and then reconvert it into lead; or that the bullet could be transformed into the red and white paint of our wagons, and again be reconverted into the original lead; and that if men exactly like themselves could do so much, how much more could He do who has made the eye to see, and the ear to hear!  We added, however, that we believed in a resurrection, not because we understood how it would be brought about, but because our Heavenly Father assured us of it in His Book.  The reference to the truth of the Book and its Author seems always to have more influence on the native mind than the cleverness of the illustration.  The knowledge of the people is scanty, but their reasoning is generally clear as far as their information goes.

We left Sesheké on the 17th September, 1860, convoyed by Pitsané and Leshoré with their men.  Pitsané was ordered by Sekeletu to make a hedge round the garden at the Falls, to protect the seeds we had brought; and also to collect some of the tobacco tribute below the Falls.  Leshoré, besides acting as a sort of guard of honour to us, was sent on a diplomatic mission to Sinamané.  No tribute was exacted by Sekeletu from Sinamané; but, as he had sent in his adhesion, he was expected to act as a guard in case of the Matebelé wishing to cross and attack the Makololo.  As we intended to purchase canoes of Sinamané in which to descend the river, Leshoré was to commend us to whatever help this Batoka chief could render.  It must be confessed that Leshoré’s men, who were all of the black subject tribes, really needed to be viewed by us in the most charitable light; for Leshoré, on entering any village, called out to the inhabitants, “Look out for your property, and see that my thieves don’t steal it.”

Two young Makololo with their Batoka servants accompanied us to see if Kebrabasa could be surmounted, and to bring a supply of medicine for Sekeletu’s leprosy; and half a dozen able canoe-men, under Mobito, who had previously gone with Dr. Livingstone to Loanda, were sent to help us in our river navigation.  Some men on foot drove six oxen which Sekeletu had given us as provisions for the journey.  It was, as before remarked, a time of scarcity; and, considering the dearth of food, our treatment had been liberal.

By day the canoe-men are accustomed to keep close under the river’s bank from fear of the hippopotami; by night, however, they keep in the middle of the stream, as then those animals are usually close to the bank on their way to their grazing grounds.  Our progress was considerably impeded by the high winds, which at this season of the year begin about eight in the morning, and blow strongly up the river all day.  The canoes were poor leaky affairs, and so low in parts of the gunwale, that the paddlers were afraid to follow the channel when it crossed the river, lest the waves might swamp us.  A rough sea is dreaded by all these inland canoe-men; but though timid, they are by no means unskilful at their work.  The ocean rather astonished them afterwards; and also the admirable way that the Nyassa men managed their canoes on a rough lake, and even amongst the breakers, where no small boat could possibly live.

On the night of the 17th we slept on the left bank of the Majeelé, after having had all the men ferried across.  An ox was slaughtered, and not an ounce of it was left next morning.  Our two young Makololo companions, Maloka and Ramakukané, having never travelled before, naturally clung to some of the luxuries they had been accustomed to at home.  When they lay down to sleep, their servants were called to spread their blankets over their august persons, not forgetting their feet.  This seems to be the duty of the Makololo wife to her husband, and strangers sometimes receive the honour.  One of our party, having wandered, slept at the village of Nambowé.  When he laid down, to his surprise two of Nambowé’s wives came at once, and carefully and kindly spread his kaross over him.

A beautiful silvery fish with reddish fins, called Ngwesi, is very abundant in the river; large ones weigh fifteen or twenty pounds each.  Its teeth are exposed, and so arranged that, when they meet, the edges cut a hook like nippers.  The Ngwesi seems to be a very ravenous fish.  It often gulps down the Konokono, a fish armed with serrated bones more than an inch in length in the pectoral and dorsal fins, which, fitting into a notch at the roots, can be put by the fish on full cock or straight out,—they cannot be folded down, without its will, and even break in resisting.  The name “Konokono,” elbow-elbow, is given it from a resemblance its extended fins are supposed to bear to a man’s elbows stuck out from his body.  It often performs the little trick of cocking its fins in the stomach of the Ngwesi, and, the elbows piercing its enemy’s sides, he is frequently found floating dead.  The fin bones seem to have an acrid secretion on them, for the wound they make is excessively painful.  The Konokono barks distinctly when landed with the hook.  Our canoe-men invariably picked up every dead fish they saw on the surface of the water, however far gone.  An unfragrant odour was no objection; the fish was boiled and eaten, and the water drunk as soup.  It is a curious fact that many of the Africans keep fish as we do woodcocks, until they are extremely offensive, before they consider them fit to eat.  Our paddlers informed us on our way down that iguanas lay their eggs in July and August, and crocodiles in September.  The eggs remain a month or two under the sand where they are laid, and the young come out when the rains have fairly commenced.  The canoe-men were quite positive that crocodiles frequently stun men by striking them with their tails, and then squat on them till they are drowned.  We once caught a young crocodile, which certainly did use its tail to inflict sharp blows, and led us to conclude that the native opinion is correct.  They believed also that, if a person shuts the beast’s eyes, it lets go its hold.  Crocodiles have been known to unite and kill a large one of their own species and eat it.  Some fishermen throw the bones of the fish into the river but in most of the fishing villages there are heaps of them in various places.  The villagers can walk over them without getting them into their feet; but the Makololo, from having softer soles, are unable to do so.  The explanation offered was, that the fishermen have a medicine against fish-bones, but that they will not reveal it to the Makololo.

We spent a night on Mparira island, which is four miles long and about one mile broad.  Mokompa, the headman, was away hunting elephants.  His wife sent for him on our arrival, and he returned next morning before we left.  Taking advantage of the long-continued drought, he had set fire to the reeds between the Chobé and Zambesi, in such a manner as to drive the game out at one corner, where his men laid in wait with their spears.  He had killed five elephants and three buffaloes, wounding several others which escaped.

On our land party coming up, we were told that the oxen were bitten by the tsetse: they could see a great difference in their looks.  One was already eaten, and they now wished to slaughter another.  A third fell into a buffalo-pit next day, so our stock was soon reduced.

The Batoka chief, Moshobotwané, again treated us with his usual hospitality, giving us an ox, some meal, and milk.  We took another view of the grand Mosi-oa-tunya, and planted a quantity of seeds in the garden on the island; but, as no one will renew the hedge, the hippopotami will, doubtless, soon destroy what we planted.  Mashotlané assisted us.  So much power was allowed to this under-chief, that he appeared as if he had cast off the authority of Sekeletu altogether.  He did not show much courtesy to his messengers; instead of giving them food, as is customary, he took the meat out of a pot in their presence, and handed it to his own followers.  This may have been because Sekeletu’s men bore an order to him to remove to Linyanti.  He had not only insulted Baldwin, but had also driven away the Griqua traders; but this may all end in nothing.  Some of the natives here, and at Sesheké, know a few of the low tricks of more civilized traders.  A pot of milk was brought to us one evening, which was more indebted to the Zambesi than to any cow.  Baskets of fine-looking white meal, elsewhere, had occasionally the lower half filled with bran.  Eggs are always a perilous investment.  The native idea of a good egg differs as widely from our own as is possible on such a trifling subject.  An egg is eaten here with apparent relish, though an embryo chick be inside.

We left Mosi-oa-tunya on the 27th, and slept close to the village of Bakwini.  It is built on a ridge of loose red soil, which produces great crops of mapira and ground-nuts; many magnificent mosibe-trees stand near the village.  Machimisi, the headman of the village, possesses a herd of cattle and a large heart; he kept us company for a couple of days to guide us on our way.

We had heard a good deal of a stronghold some miles below the Falls, called Kalunda.  Our return path was much nearer the Zambesi than that of our ascent,—in fact, as near as the rough country would allow,—but we left it twice before we reached Sinamané’s, in order to see Kalunda and a Fall called Moömba, or Moamba.  The Makololo had once dispossessed the Batoka of Kalunda, but we could not see the fissure, or whatever it is, that rendered it a place of security, as it was on the southern bank.  The crack of the Great Falls was here continued: the rocks are the same as further up, but perhaps less weather-worn—and now partially stratified in great thick masses.  The country through which we were travelling was covered with a cindery-looking volcanic tufa, and might be called “Katakaumena.”

The description we received of the Moamba Falls seemed to promise something grand.  They were said to send up “smoke” in the wet season, like Mosi-oa-tunya; but when we looked down into the cleft, in which the dark-green narrow river still rolls, we saw, about 800 or 1000 feet below us, what, after Mosi-oa-tunya, seemed two insignificant cataracts.  It was evident that Pitsané, observing our delight at the Victoria Falls, wished to increase our pleasure by a second wonder.  One Mosi-oa-tunya, however, is quite enough for a continent.

We had now an opportunity of seeing more of the Batoka, than we had on the highland route to our north.  They did not wait till the evening before offering food to the strangers.  The aged wife of the headman of a hamlet, where we rested at midday, at once kindled a fire, and put on the cooking-pot to make porridge.  Both men and women are to be distinguished by greater roundness of feature than the other natives, and the custom of knocking out the upper front teeth gives at once a distinctive character to the face.  Their colour attests the greater altitude of the country in which many of them formerly lived.  Some, however, are as dark as the Bashubia and Barotsé of the great valley to their west, in which stands Sesheké, formerly the capital of the Balui, or Bashubia.

The assertion may seem strange, yet it is none the less true, that in all the tribes we have visited we never saw a really black person.  Different shades of brown prevail, and often with a bright bronze tint, which no painter, except Mr. Angus, seems able to catch.  Those who inhabit elevated, dry situations, and who are not obliged to work much in the sun, are frequently of a light warm brown, “dark but comely.”  Darkness of colour is probably partly caused by the sun, and partly by something in the climate or soil which we do not yet know.  We see something of the same sort in trout and other fish which take their colour from the ponds or streams in which they live.  The members of our party were much less embrowned by free exposure to the sun for years than Dr. Livingstone and his family were by passing once from Kuruman to Cape Town, a journey which occupied only a couple of months.

We encamped on the Kalomo, on the 1st of October, and found the weather very much warmer than when we crossed this stream in August.  At 3 p.m. the thermometer, four feet from the ground, was 101 degrees in the shade; the wet bulb only 61 degrees: a difference of 40 degrees.  Yet, notwithstanding this extreme dryness of the atmosphere, without a drop of rain having fallen for months, and scarcely any dew, many of the shrubs and trees were putting forth fresh leaves of various hues, while others made a profuse display of lovely blossoms.

Two old and very savage buffaloes were shot for our companions on the 3rd October.  Our Volunteers may feel an interest in knowing that balls sometimes have but little effect: one buffalo fell, on receiving a Jacob’s shell; it was hit again twice, and lost a large amount of blood; and yet it sprang up, and charged a native, who, by great agility, had just time to climb a tree, before the maddened beast struck it, battering-ram fashion, hard enough almost to have split both head and tree.  It paused a few seconds—drew back several paces—glared up at the man—and then dashed at the tree again and again, as if determined to shake him out of it.  It took two more Jacob’s shells, and five other large solid rifle-balls to finish the beast at last.  These old surly buffaloes had been wandering about in a sort of miserable fellowship; their skins were diseased and scabby, as if leprous, and their horns atrophied or worn down to stumps—the first was killed outright, by one Jacob’s shell, the second died hard.  There is so much difference in the tenacity of life in wounded animals of the same species, that the inquiry is suggested where the seat of life can be?—We have seen a buffalo live long enough, after a large bullet had passed right through the heart, to allow firm adherent clots to be formed in the two holes.

One day’s journey above Sinamané’s, a mass of mountain called Gorongué, or Golongwé, is said to cross the river, and the rent through which the river passes is, by native report, quite fearful to behold.  The country round it is so rocky, that our companions dreaded the fatigue, and were not much to blame, if, as is probably the case, the way be worse than that over which we travelled.  As we trudged along over the black slag-like rocks, the almost leafless trees affording no shade, the heat was quite as great as Europeans could bear.  It was 102 degrees in the shade, and a thermometer placed under the tongue or armpit showed that our blood was 99.5 degrees, or 1.5 degrees hotter than that of the natives, which stood at 98 degrees.  Our shoes, however, enable us to pass over the hot burning soil better than they can.  Many of those who wear sandals have corns on the sides of the feet, and on the heels, where the straps pass.  We have seen instances, too, where neither sandals nor shoes were worn, of corns on the soles of the feet.  It is, moreover, not at all uncommon to see toes cocked up, as if pressed out of their proper places; at home, we should have unhesitatingly ascribed this to the vicious fashions perversely followed by our shoemakers.

On the 5th, after crossing some hills, we rested at the village of Simariango.  The bellows of the blacksmith here were somewhat different from the common goatskin bags, and more like those seen in Madagascar.  They consisted of two wooden vessels, like a lady’s bandbox of small dimensions, the upper ends of which were covered with leather, and looked something like the heads of drums, except that the leather bagged in the centre.  They were fitted with long nozzles, through which the air was driven by working the loose covering of the tops up and down by means of a small piece of wood attached to their centres.  The blacksmith said that tin was obtained from a people in the north, called Marendi, and that he had made it into bracelets; we had never heard before of tin being found in the country.

Our course then lay down the bed of a rivulet, called Mapatizia, in which there was much calc spar, with calcareous schist, and then the Tette grey sandstone, which usually overlies coal.  On the 6th we arrived at the islet Chilombé, belonging to Sinamané, where the Zambesi runs broad and smooth again, and were well received by Sinamané himself.  Never was Sunday more welcome to the weary than this, the last we were to spend with our convoy.

We now saw many good-looking young men and women.  The dresses of the ladies are identical with those of Nubian women in Upper Egypt.  To a belt on the waist a great number of strings are attached to hang all round the person.  These fringes are about six or eight inches long.  The matrons wear in addition a skin cut like the tails of the coatee formerly worn by our dragoons.  The younger girls wear the waist-belt exhibited in the woodcut, ornamented with shells, and have the fringes only in front.  Marauding parties of Batoka, calling themselves Makololo, have for some time had a wholesome dread of Sinamané’s “long spears.”  Before going to Tette our Batoka friend, Masakasa, was one of a party that came to steal some of the young women; but Sinamané, to their utter astonishment, attacked them so furiously that the survivors barely escaped with their lives.  Masakasa had to flee so fast that he threw away his shield, his spear, and his clothes, and returned home a wiser and a sadder man.

Sinamané’s people cultivate large quantities of tobacco, which they manufacture into balls for the Makololo market.  Twenty balls, weighing about three-quarters of a pound each, are sold for a hoe.  The tobacco is planted on low moist spots on the banks of the Zambesi; and was in flower at the time we were there, in October.  Sinamane’s people appear to have abundance of food, and are all in good condition.  He could sell us only two of his canoes; but lent us three more to carry us as far as Moemba’s, where he thought others might be purchased.  They were manned by his own canoe-men, who were to bring them back.  The river is about 250 yards wide, and flows serenely between high banks towards the North-east.  Below Sinamané’s the banks are often worn down fifty feet, and composed of shingle and gravel of igneous rocks, sometimes set in a ferruginous matrix.  The bottom is all gravel and shingle, how formed we cannot imagine, unless in pot-holes in the deep fissure above.  The bottom above the Falls, save a few rocks close by them, is generally sandy or of soft tufa.  Every damp spot is covered with maize, pumpkins, water-melons, tobacco, and hemp.  There is a pretty numerous Batoka population on both sides of the river.  As we sailed slowly down, the people saluted us from the banks, by clapping their hands.  A headman even hailed us, and brought a generous present of corn and pumpkins.

Moemba owns a rich island, called Mosanga, a mile in length, on which his village stands.  He has the reputation of being a brave warrior, and is certainly a great talker; but he gave us strangers something better than a stream of words.  We received a handsome present of corn, and the fattest goat we had ever seen; it resembled mutton.  His people were as liberal as their chief.  They brought two large baskets of corn, and a lot of tobacco, as a sort of general contribution to the travellers.  One of Sinamané’s canoe-men, after trying to get his pay, deserted here, and went back before the stipulated time, with the story, that the Englishman had stolen the canoes.  Shortly after sunrise next morning, Sinamané came into the village with fifty of his “long spears,” evidently determined to retake his property by force; he saw at a glance that his man had deceived him.  Moemba rallied him for coming on a wildgoose chase.  “Here are your canoes left with me, your men have all been paid, and the Englishmen are now asking me to sell my canoes.”  Sinamané said little to us; only observing that he had been deceived by his follower.  A single remark of his chief’s caused the foolish fellow to leave suddenly, evidently much frightened and crestfallen.  Sinamané had been very kind to us, and, as he was looking on when we gave our present to Moemba, we made him also an additional offering of some beads, and parted good friends.  Moemba, having heard that we had called the people of Sinamané together to tell them about our Saviour’s mission to man, and to pray with them, associated the idea of Sunday with the meeting, and, before anything of the sort was proposed, came and asked that he and his people might be “sundayed” as well as his neighbours; and be given a little seed wheat, and fruit-tree seeds; with which request of course we very willingly complied.  The idea of praying direct to the Supreme Being, though not quite new to all, seems to strike their minds so forcibly that it will not be forgotten.  Sinamané said that he prayed to God, Morungo, and made drink-offerings to him.  Though he had heard of us, he had never seen white men before.

Beautiful crowned cranes, named from their note “ma-wang,” were seen daily, and were beginning to pair.  Large flocks of spur-winged geese, or machikwe, were common.  This goose is said to lay her eggs in March.  We saw also pairs of Egyptian geese, as well as a few of the knob-nosed, or, as they are called in India, combed geese.  When the Egyptian geese, as at the present time, have young, the goslings keep so steadily in the wake of their mother, that they look as if they were a part of her tail; and both parents, when on land, simulate lameness quite as well as our plovers, to draw off pursuers.  The ostrich also adopts the lapwing fashion, but no quadrupeds do: they show fight to defend their young instead.  In some places the steep banks were dotted with the holes which lead into the nests of bee-eaters.  These birds came out in hundreds as we passed.  When the red-breasted species settle on the trees, they give them the appearance of being covered with red foliage.

On the morning of the 12th October we passed through a wild, hilly country, with fine wooded scenery on both sides, but thinly inhabited.  The largest trees were usually thorny acacias, of great size and beautiful forms.  As we sailed by several villages without touching, the people became alarmed, and ran along the banks, spears in hand.  We employed one to go forward and tell Mpandé of our coming.  This allayed their fears, and we went ashore, and took breakfast near the large island with two villages on it, opposite the mouth of the Zungwé, where we had left the Zambesi on our way up.  Mpandé was sorry that he had no canoes of his own to sell, but he would lend us two.  He gave us cooked pumpkins and a water-melon.  His servant had lateral curvature of the spine.  We have often seen cases of humpback, but this was the only case of this kind of curvature we had met with.  Mpandé accompanied us himself in his own vessel, till we had an opportunity of purchasing a fine large canoe elsewhere.  We paid what was considered a large price for it: twelve strings of blue cut glass neck beads, an equal number of large blue ones of the size of marbles, and two yards of grey calico.  Had the beads been coarser, they would have been more valued, because such were in fashion.  Before concluding the bargain the owner said “his bowels yearned for his canoe, and we must give a little more to stop their yearning.”  This was irresistible.  The trading party of Sequasha, which we now met, had purchased ten large new canoes for six strings of cheap coarse white beads each, or their equivalent, four yards of calico, and had bought for the merest trifle ivory enough to load them all.  They were driving a trade in slaves also, which was something new in this part of Africa, and likely soon to change the character of the inhabitants.  These men had been living in clover, and were uncommonly fat and plump.  When sent to trade, slaves wisely never stint themselves of beer or anything else, which their master’s goods can buy.