THE NATIVES OF BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA
[Illustration: WOMEN CARRYING WATER-JARS, CHIROMO]
The Native Races of the British Empire
THE NATIVES
OF
BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA
BY
A. WERNER
WITH THIRTY-TWO FULL-PAGE
ILLUSTRATIONS
LONDON
ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE
AND COMPANY, LTD.
1906
Edinburgh: T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty
IN MEMORIAM
J. R. W.
ELMINA, AUGUST 16, 1891
... ‘_Desiderio_ ...
_Tam cari capitis_....’
CONTENTS
PAGE
LIST OF PLATES xi
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY
Geography. Botany: bush-fire. Climate. Fauna: beasts, birds,
fish, insects, 1
CHAPTER II
INHABITANTS
Classification of tribes. Physical characters. Keloids and
tribal marks. Ear ornaments. Tooth-chipping. Hair, 24
CHAPTER III
RELIGION AND MAGIC—I
Ancestor-worship. Offerings. Mulungu. Mpambe. Chitowe.
Evil spirits. Spirits of the dead. Dreams. Morality, 46
CHAPTER IV
RELIGION AND MAGIC—II
Creation. Origin of death. Lake Nyasa. Rain-making. Charms.
Witchcraft. Lycanthropy, Divination. Food tabus. Dances, 70
CHAPTER V
NATIVE LIFE—I. CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
Villages. Huts. Birth. Naming. Dress. Childhood’s rights.
Games. Plastic art-work. Daily life, 99
CHAPTER VI
NATIVE LIFE—II
Initiation. Marriage. Division of labour. Meals. Food.
Hut-building. The _bwalo_. Affection, 123
CHAPTER VII
FUNERAL RITES
Wailing and mourning. The grave. Inheritance. The cause of
death. Ordeal, 154
CHAPTER VIII
ARTS, INDUSTRIES, ETC.
Agriculture: Maize, tobacco, gardens, etc. Hunting, trapping.
Ant-catching. Fishing. Weaving. Basket-making. Bark
cloth. Ironwork. Wood-carving. Pottery. Salt, 176
CHAPTER IX
LANGUAGE AND ORAL LITERATURE
Structure of the Bantu languages. Riddles. Songs. Music and
dancing. Story-telling, 208
CHAPTER X
FOLK-STORIES
Methods of story-telling. Animal stories. _Brer Rabbit._
Borrowed tales. Value of native folk-lore, 230
CHAPTER XI
TRIBAL ORGANISATION, GOVERNMENT, ETC.
Totemistic clans. Kinship counted through women. The paramount
chief: his powers. Succession to the chieftainship.
Administration of justice. Crime and punishment. Slavery, 252
CHAPTER XII
TRADITIONS AND HISTORY
Probable origin of the Yaos. The Makalanga. Undi. Migrations
of the Angoni. The Tambuka, 276
BIBLIOGRAPHY, 288
ADDENDA, 289
GLOSSARY, 292
INDEX, 295
ERRATA
Page 42, line 23, _for_ fourth, _read_ first.
” 100, line 12. The illustration referred to has not been included
in the volume, but the same type of square house may be
seen in Plate 16.
” 192, last line. This illustration has not been included.
” 199, last line, _for_ Pl. 23, _read_ Pl. 18.
LIST OF PLATES
PLATE
I. Women carrying water-jars, Chiromo, _Frontispiece_
II. Carriers resting in the Bush, _facing page_ 9
III. Chingomanje Stream, Mlanje, ” 16
IV. Hut built on platform as a defence against lions, ” 18
V. Two Yao women, ” 32
VI. Group of Anguru, ” 33
VII. A Mnguru, showing keloids, ” 39
VIII. Fashions in tooth-chipping, ” 42
IX. (1) Exceptional coiffure of Mngoni, } ” 44
(2) Women making porridge, }
X. The Progress of Civilisation! ” 45
XI. Tree with offerings, Ndirande Mountain, ” 50
XII. (1) Women on Likoma Island, } ” 105
(2) A Makua family, }
XIII. (1) _Mchombwa_ game, } ” 113
(2) Nyanja ball-game, }
XIV. (1) Boys digging out field-mice, } ” 120
(2) Caught, }
(3) Roasting, }
(4) Eating, }
XV. (1) Boy extracting jigger from a companion’s } ” 122
foot, }
(2) Herd-boys cooking their midday meal, }
XVI. Women pounding maize in Yao village, ” 135
XVII. Two men eating, ” 137
XVIII. Gang of Angoni at Mandala, ” 138
XIX. Nguru hut, ” 139
XX. Grinding snuff, ” 178
XXI. Women weeding maize-garden, ” 181
XXII. Women carrying baskets of maize, ” 185
XXIII. Boy with bow, ” 187
XXIV. Canoes at Liwonde’s, ” 194
XXV. (1) Mat-making, } ” 196
(2) Native loom, }
XXVI. Making _mtanga_ basket, ” 198
XXVII. Boy with crate of fowls, ” 199
XXVIII. Knives and ‘Angoni handkerchief,’ ” 203
XXIX. The ‘Dancing-man,’ ” 221
XXX. Musical instruments, ” 222
XXXI. Preparing for the dance, ” 226
XXXII. Angoni warriors, ” 278
THE NATIVES OF BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY
Geography. Botany: bush-fire. Climate. Fauna: beasts, birds,
fish, insects.
When you steam up the Shiré, you pass on the first, second, or some
subsequent day (according to the state of the river and the capabilities
of your craft), after turning out of the Zambezi at Chimwara, a tree
on the western bank. This tree bears a notice-board which marks the
beginning of the British Central Africa Protectorate.
But the globe-trotter who is anxious to record in his diary the precise
hour and minute of all momentous events of a monotonous voyage may easily
overlook the all-important tree. The most eager inquirer may find his
experiences pall upon him when for hour after hour he sees nothing but
level shore, and a foreground of green _bango_-reeds festooned with dull
magenta convolvulus. In fact, the reason why the boundary had to be
marked by a board affixed to a tree, is because this particular angle
of alluvial land is so level and devoid of natural features that, in
the rainy season, there is usually one navigable channel, if not more,
cutting it off into an island, by connecting the Shiré and Zambezi.
On the eastern bank we have left Mount Morambala behind—a massive
ridge, extending over several miles and reaching a height of 4000 feet.
Beyond the flats in the north-east you see the strangely shaped cone of
Chinga-Chinga Mountain against the sky, and later on other ranges come
into view; but just here the river valley is a marsh (some parts of it an
actual lake) in the wet season, and a dusty plain at the end of the dry.
The Portuguese territory on the eastern bank extends a little farther
north till it reaches a more tangible boundary in the river Ruo, which
rushes down from Matapwiri’s Mountain in the north-east, throwing itself
over a fall of 200 feet, and then, winding through the same sort of plain
as that already described, enters the Shiré through a sort of miniature
delta, by the reedy island of Malo and the ‘lip’ of land where now stands
the British township of Chiromo.
I have spoken all along of the Shiré River; and it is not now to be
expected that Europeans will ever call it anything else; but it is
perhaps unnecessary to say that no native, unless thoroughly accustomed
to Europeans and their ways, would ever know it by that name. To him it
is the _Nyanja_, or, if he happens to be a Yao, the _Nyasa_—a word which
means any large body of water, whether river or lake. To those living
near Lake Nyasa, it is the lake which is Nyanja or Nyasa, as the case may
be; it is only European usage which has stereotyped the Yao word on our
maps. _Chiri_, in the Mang’anja language, means ‘a steep bank,’ and was
misunderstood (by the Portuguese, probably, as it seems to have been in
use before Livingstone penetrated the country) as the name of the river;
since a native would say, ‘I am going to the _bank_,’ where we should
say, ‘I am going to the _river_.’ As Sir H. H. Johnston has remarked, the
Zambezi is the only one of the four great African rivers which bears a
name given by, or even known to, the people dwelling on it.
Roughly speaking, the British Protectorate, to which we have been
referring, comprises the basin of Lake Nyasa and its outlet, the Shiré.
This general statement, of course, requires some qualification. The north
end of the lake (the British boundary is the Songwe River, running out in
about 10° of S. latitude) and nearly half the eastern side are German;
south of that, _i.e._ from 11° 30´ S. to Fort Maguire, is Portuguese.
From Fort Maguire, the border-line runs south-east to the small lake
called Chiuta, then south, by the salt lake Chilwa and Mlanje Mountain to
the Ruo.
The western frontier of the Protectorate is an irregular line, following
more or less the watershed between the streams that flow into the lake
and those that flow into the Luangwa (a tributary of the Zambezi which,
unlike most tributaries, goes up-stream to join its river—in this case in
a south-westerly direction), and meeting the Portuguese border about 14°
S. Thence it keeps on to the south-east, as far as the point on the Shiré
already mentioned, where the notice-board is affixed to the tree.
Measurements in square miles convey little or nothing to my mind, as
a rule, and I shall abstain as far as possible from inflicting them
on the reader; but it may as well be noted here that the area of the
Protectorate is estimated at 40,980.
West of the territory thus defined, and between the Zambezi and the
upper waters of the Congo, lies a vast region known officially as
North-east Rhodesia, and reaching up to the south end of Lake Tanganika.
We shall have something to say about the tribes living in this part
of the country; some of them, indeed, are identical with those in the
Protectorate proper; but it is with the latter that we shall chiefly have
to do.
We have seen that British Central Africa is a land of lakes and rivers;
it is a land of mountains also. ‘Before the discovery of Lake Ng’ami and
the well-watered country in which the Makololo dwell,’ said Livingstone,
‘the idea prevailed that a large part of the interior of Africa consisted
of sandy deserts into which rivers ran and were lost.’ His great journey
of 1852-56 dispelled this idea, and ‘the peculiar form of the continent
was then ascertained to be an elevated plateau, somewhat depressed in the
centre, and with fissures in the sides by which the rivers escaped to the
sea.’ The great lakes all lie on this central plateau, and the rivers
which drain them to the sea escape over its edge in the cataracts which
for so many centuries, by interrupting navigation, have prevented the
exploration of the interior. The Zambezi first throws itself into a huge
crack in the earth in the Victoria Falls, and afterwards, between Zumbo
and Tete, come the Kebrabasa Rapids.
Lake Nyasa is a narrow trough, 360 miles long, between mountain-ranges
which hem it in closely on the west (sending down, during the rains,
innumerable small torrents from their steep slopes), and retreat
somewhat from it on the east, leaving room for a few larger, but still
inconsiderable streams, such as the Songwe, the Rukuru, the Bua, and one
or two more. The Shiré is the lake’s only outlet, flowing through a level
alluvial valley (something like a delta reversed) till, a little below
Matope, it comes to the edge of the plateau and plunges over in a series
of falls known as the Murchison Cataracts. These extend over forty miles
of river, and make a difference in its level of some 1200 feet, though
none of them, individually, are of any great height.
The level of the lake, and consequently of the river which it feeds,
is very different at different seasons of the year. During the rains,
and for some time after, steamers can go to the foot of the Murchison
Cataracts—the usual terminus is Katunga’s, about twelve miles below them.
In the dry season they cannot always come within sight of Chiromo, and,
during the great drought of 1903, the natives of that place were hoeing
their maize-gardens far out in the channel of the river. The salt Lake
Chilwa, east of the Shiré, disappeared almost, if not quite, at that
time, but reappeared with subsequent rains. It is thought, however, that
there is a continuous fall in the level of Nyasa, which is unaffected by
the rise and fall of successive seasons. In some places a series of old
beaches can be traced, ascending like terraces from the lake-shore to the
foot-hills.
This fall is attributed to several causes—the wearing away of the outlet
channel, allowing more water to escape; the disappearance of the forests
and consequent diminution of the rainfall; and the raising of the ground
by volcanic action. There are not now any active volcanoes in the
country, but earthquakes are common in the neighbourhood of the lake, and
there are hot springs near Kotakota, and also on Mount Morambala (Lower
Shiré). Mlanje Mountain is of volcanic origin; in the German territory,
north of Nyasa, there are numerous extinct volcanoes and crater-lakes.
The district called the Shiré Highlands proper is enclosed between
the Shiré, the Ruo, and Lake Chilwa. It was so named by Livingstone,
and others besides him have noticed the similarity to the Scottish
mountains, in these rugged peaks and crags of quartzite and grey granite,
especially in the dry season, when the brown grass is very nearly the
colour of the dead heather and bracken. Sochi, near Blantyre, is, in
general outline, not unlike Ben Cruachan. The highest of these mountains
are Mlanje and Zomba—they are ranges rather than mountains; or, more
precisely still, Mlanje is an isolated mass, a plateau with peaks rising
from it like buttresses—the highest point 9680 feet. The plateau has a
height of 6000 feet, and a temperate climate—cool enough for hoar-frost
at night. From these mountains the land sinks in a series of irregular
undulations, to the Shiré, covered sometimes with bush, sometimes with
the thick, coarse grass so feelingly described by all travellers, which
is really more like canes. After it is burned, as it is every year,
it is a greater nuisance than ever, for the larger stalks (about as
thick as one’s finger) never get quite consumed, and neither stand up
nor lie flat, but lie across each other at every conceivable angle—too
high to step on and too low to push one’s way under. Other mountains are
Chiperone, Chiradzulo and Tyolo, Nyambadwe and Ndirande—the two latter
close to Blantyre. It is difficult to make out their relation to each
other. At a bird’s-eye view—as from the top of Nyambadwe, or some point
on Ndirande—they look like a confused sea of peaks and ridges; but they
are more or less continuous to Zomba, and are separated from Mlanje by
the Chilwa plain and the valley of the Tuchila, which runs into the Ruo.
West of the Shiré we have the Kirk Mountains, running north and south,
with some striking peaks—Dzonze, a collection of rounded humps; Mvai, a
rocky pyramid, with a three-cleft peak; Lipepete; and, far to the north,
Chirobwe, with a sharp rock pointing from its summit like a finger.
These mountains are mostly granite and quartzite. West of the lake and
the Shiré, there are outcrops of sandstone, and this part of the country
also contains coal. Iron ore is abundant almost everywhere, especially
the form called hæmatite—a soft, red stone, known to the natives as
_ng’ama_ or _kundwe_, and used by them as paint, and as medicine; lumps
of this can be picked up in the beds of all the mountain streams.
Graphite, or black lead, is found in the same way, and is used by the
women for colouring their pottery, to which it gives an effect exactly
like stove-polish. I think these are the only minerals of which they
themselves take much account. Gold exists in the quartz in some places,
and Sir Harry Johnston says: ‘In the valleys of the rivers flowing south
to the Zambezi (in Mpezeni’s country), gold really does exist, and
was worked at Misale by the half-caste Portuguese,’ in the eighteenth
century, and even later. But the Mang’anja and Yaos only know it through
their dealings with Portuguese and Arabs, and have no word for it in
their languages. _Ndalama_, which, with the addition of ‘red,’ means
gold, and of ‘white,’ silver, and by itself = ‘money,’ is, I fancy, a
borrowed word—the Arabic _dirhem_. I once bought (in the West Shiré
district) a bangle of pure copper, which was vaguely said to have been
obtained from a place to the north-west, but where it had been worked, I
could not ascertain. The brass which is fashioned by native craftsmen is
always bought from traders.
[Illustration: CARRIERS RESTING IN THE BUSH]
There are no deserts in this part, neither are there any dense forests of
huge trees, such as we usually think of when Central Africa is mentioned,
and such as are really to be found in the Upper Congo basin, on the Gold
Coast, and elsewhere. Two Yao boys, who had served in Ashanti with the
King’s African Rifles, spoke of the West African forest with the same
sort of surprise and wonder as any English rustic might have done. Both,
independently, answered the question, ‘What is that country like?’ with
the same expression—‘_Palibe kuona_, one cannot see!’ adding that the
trees were high—very high (with an upward gesture of hands and eyes)—away
up above one’s head. Large trees, growing close together, are just what
one does not find, as a rule, in the country we are thinking of. The Bush
(_tengo_, or _chire_) usually consists of small trees, thinly scattered,
with tufts of grass, small bushes, and various herbaceous plants growing
between them, and here and there a large tree standing by itself—perhaps
a baobab, or a wild fig, or a silver-thorn acacia, covered with bright
golden blossom. Or we have the kind of scenery described by travellers as
park-like—open glades, covered with short grass (which, however, never
makes turf; you can see the soil between the separate tufts), and dotted
with clumps of scrub and small trees, singly or in groups. This is the
kind of place where the zebras come to graze—not that I ever had the
luck to see any. The small boys who had held out hopes of this treat,
said, when we passed the place early in the afternoon, that it was still
too hot—the _mbidzi_ were all hidden in the bush, resting in the shade;
they would come out to feed on the _dambo_ when it grew cooler. When we
returned along the same path the sun was declining, but there were still
no _mbidzi_—a party of natives on their way to the village we had left
had scared them.
Where there are no trees or bushes, the grass is usually of the tall,
coarse-growing kind already referred to, which is used in hut-building,
and has to be burned off at the end of every dry season—otherwise it
would become an impenetrable jungle. The grass-fires serve a double
purpose—that of clearing the ground and manuring it—but they nearly
always spread to the bush, even if it is not fired purposely, to clear a
space for new gardens, or accidentally, by some travellers’ camp-fire.
These fires cause the scarcity of large trees, which, as a rule, are
only found either in deep ravines along watercourses, which have always
escaped the flames, or in the burying-grounds (the sacred groves called
_nkalango_), where the people carefully beat out the fire before it
reaches them.
These fires have from the earliest ages formed one of the characteristic
features of African travel. One of the oldest records of exploration—the
_Periplus_ of Hanno—describes them, with other phenomena, in a weird
and mysterious passage which fascinated my youth, and has not lost its
charm even when the marvels are resolved into tolerably commonplace
occurrences:—
‘Having taken in water, we sailed thence straight-forwards, until we
came to a great gulf, which the interpreters said was called the Horn
of the West.’ (This must have been somewhere near Sierra Leone, since
the farthest point reached by the expedition seems to have been Sherbro
Island.) ‘In it was a large island, and in the island a lake like a sea,
and in this another island, on which we landed; and by day we saw nothing
but woods, but by night we saw many fires burning, and heard the sound of
flutes and cymbals, and the beating of drums, and an immense shouting.
Fear came upon us, and the soothsayers bade us quit the island.’
Evidently the people were ‘playing,’ as the Anyanja say—and their
dances last sometimes from dark to daylight, even now—or there was a
lyke-wake on. Or else, maybe, they were well aware of the presence of the
strangers, and kept out of sight by day, and the effect of the drums and
flutes on the Carthaginian soothsayers was that desired by the performers.
‘Having speedily set sail, we passed by a burning country full of
incense, and from it huge streams of fire flowed into the sea; and the
land could not be walked upon because of the heat. Being alarmed, we
speedily sailed away thence also, and going along four days, we saw by
night the land full of flame, and in the midst was a lofty fire, greater
than the rest, and seeming to touch the stars. This by day appeared as
a vast mountain, called the Chariot of the Gods. On the third day from
this, sailing by fiery streams, we came to a gulf called the Horn of the
South.’
This, though the uninitiated would think it referred to a volcanic
eruption, is really a very good description of a bush-fire on a large
scale. On a moonless night in September, perhaps, you will see the
black hills seamed with curved and zigzag lines of fire, as the blaze
advances. Here and there a clump of dry scrub, or a dead tree, will burst
into a sheet of flame, lighting up the dense white clouds of smoke. The
heated air within the hollow stalks of grass and reeds expands till
they burst with a sound like the firing of guns, which rises above a
roar loud as that of the traffic of a great city. The smoke, rising
from several points at once, hangs in the air and collects into a dense
canopy of cloud, making the heat still more stifling, till, at last,
sheet-lightnings begin to play about it, followed by low growls of
thunder, and, perhaps, by the blessed relief of a shower. I have seen
this happen more than once, though some writers appear to doubt it.
While these fires are going on, the air is full of black particles, which
come floating down like an unnatural kind of snow, and the ground is
covered with charred, crunching vegetation and grey ashes. The native
name for this burning, or rather burnt stuff, is _lupsya_, and the early
rains, which wash it away, are called _kokalupsya_, ‘that which sweeps
away the _lupsya_.’ These rains are usually expected in October, and are
a kind of prelude to the real rains, which should begin in November,
but are sometimes delayed another month or even longer. While they last
there may be continuous, soaking rains for three days together; but,
more commonly, after a fine morning, the clouds begin to gather about 2
P.M., then a more or less heavy thunderstorm comes up, and the rain which
follows continues into the night. By morning it is fine again, and then
follows a half-day of the most exquisite weather, when you can almost
feel things growing—till the thunderstorm comes up again as before. This
will go on, day after day, till you get one without rain, as a change,
or maybe a spell of steady rain, as aforesaid. There is usually a break
of a few weeks about the end of the year—then the rains begin again, and
last till March or April. Then begins the ‘hungry time,’ when the old
food is done and the new crops are not yet ripe; it is sometimes a time
of real scarcity, as the supplies barely last out the year, and leave no
margin for emergencies. This is not so much from improvidence as from
the difficulty of preserving the stores from mice and weevils. But some
relief comes before long when the pumpkins, gourds, and cucumbers—many of
which may be gathered wild—are ready, and they help to bridge over the
time before the first ears of green maize can be plucked, though there is
always a good deal of more or less serious illness at this season. About
May the crops are ripe, and the dry season has fairly set in. There are
occasional cold showers in June and July, and sometimes in the hills a
week’s rain in August. At this time a chilly wind blows from the Indian
Ocean, bringing with it heavy clouds, which, on some days, hang low,
drifting along the slopes of the hills, and hurrying away to the west.
Now and then, too, there is a thick white mist, like a sea-fog. But the
sunny days, in the cold season, are bright and exhilarating. On such a
day the difference between the temperature at noon and at night may be as
much as 30°; and the dews are very heavy; a walk through long grass in
the early morning drenches one like heavy rain. After this the air gets
hotter and drier every day, and when the fires begin, it becomes still
more oppressive. The most trying time of the year is the three or four
weeks when the earth and all that is on it are ‘waiting for the rains.’
Curiously enough, the trees burst into leaf—with a greater variety of
colour than our own in autumn—just _before_ the rain comes, when the
ground is so baked and hard that any growth seems impossible.
The variety of trees and plants growing in this country is very great,
though it is somewhat difficult to give any clear idea of them, for most
have no names except native ones, which are pretty, but convey nothing to
the reader, and botanical ones, which are ugly, and in most cases convey
not much more. Such a general term as ‘palms,’ for instance, is of little
use; still, every one knows, to a certain extent, what the different
kinds of palms are like. We have several, all growing on the lower
levels; none are to be found so high as Blantyre, unless cultivated,
except the wild date, which grows beside the streams. The tall, graceful
fan-palms (_Borassus_ and _Hyphæne_) are very abundant in the plains. I
remember quite a forest of them near Maparera, on the Shiré. When you
descend from the hills either towards the river or towards Lake Chilwa,
baobabs and fan-palms make their appearance and remind you that you are
leaving the temperate heights behind and entering the hotter zone of the
low country.
Ferns are numerous—from the tree-fern, growing in the gorges of Mlanje,
to the smallest and most delicate species of maiden-hair, to be found in
the damp crevices of rocks, and beside the streams. The asparagus and
parsley ferns, and a beautiful kind of large hart’s-tongue, with the tip
of the frond cleft in two, are among the more noticeable forms.
Though, as we have seen, there are no forests on a large scale, a fair
number of fine timber-trees are to be found. There is the _mbawa_, a kind
of mahogany, and the _mpingo_, or ebony, both of large size and handsome
growth, and the Mlanje cedar (really a _Widdringtonia_), the only
indigenous conifer, and growing nowhere but on that mountain. Its wood
is pale red, smooth, and deliciously scented. Most of the native wood
which can be used at all is hard and heavy, and somewhat difficult to
work; but the result, especially in the case of the cedar, is worth the
trouble. Another useful timber-tree, whose wood is never attacked by the
destructive borer-beetle, is the _msuku_ (_Napaca Kirkii_), only found at
a height of over two thousand feet, and very common on the hills about
Blantyre. It bears the favourite wild fruit of the natives, consisting
of a skin and a quantity of large seeds, with a little sweet pulp, and
a moderate allowance of juice; what there is of it is so good that it
would be well worth cultivation. Other wild fruits are not so attractive
to the European palate. There is one about the size of an orange, with a
hard shell, and seeds embedded in a juicy pulp, slightly bitter, slightly
acid, and slightly sweet, and at the same time not unpleasant in flavour.
I believe the tree is a kind of _Strychnos_, consequently one would
expect the fruit to be poisonous, yet native children eat any quantity,
and seem none the worse.
The _myombo_, with leaves like our ash, is a very common tree, and the
one from which bark-cloth is usually obtained. The bark of the wild fig
is used for the same purpose.
The thorn-trees—acacias and mimosas—are among the most characteristic
plants of the country, and some of them have very handsome flowers. The
_mlungusi_, which has particularly vicious, hooked thorns, is sometimes
planted in hedges. Another tree which makes a very effectual hedge is the
cactus euphorbia. Of the same family (Spurges) are the weird candelabrum
euphorbia, growing in the hills, and a leafless, fleshy, pale-green
kind, often found in the villages, whose acrid, milky juice is used for
stupefying fish.
There is no season of the year quite without flowers, and no place in
which some kind or other is not to be found; but, of course, the best
time is the first few weeks of the rains. It would be hopeless to attempt
a description, or even a mere enumeration, of the lovely and wonderful
forms to be found side by side with familiar home growths, such as
buttercups, penny-royal, and self-heal. Some slight idea of what is to
be seen in the Shiré Highlands, and especially on Mlanje, where you
pass from tropical to temperate, and even to Alpine, vegetation, may be
gathered from the botanical chapter in Sir H. H. Johnston’s _British
Central Africa_.
We must say a few words about the _fauna_ of British Central Africa,
not only because it is interesting in itself, but because it plays an
important part in the life and thought of the people. Elephants are less
numerous than they were forty years ago, when herds of them haunted the
marsh to which they have given their name; but they are still frequently
seen between Chikala and Mangoche, north-east of Lake Chilwa, and since
they have been protected by Government, have even been returning to the
banks of the Shiré. In 1877 the late Consul Elton saw a herd of over
three hundred near the north end of Lake Nyasa.
[Illustration: CHINGOMANJE STREAM, MLANJE]
The hippopotamus is found in the Shiré and Lake Nyasa, and indeed almost
in any stream or lake where the water is deep enough to cover him. The
rhinoceros is known, but not very common. There are many Cape buffaloes
in the plains and marshes of the Shiré, and the solitary bulls, driven
out of the herd on account of bad temper or other defects, are sometimes
extremely savage. Such an animal, in 1894, charged out of the long
grass on a party of carriers, near Chiromo, and knocked down, gored and
trampled on, one man, who was rescued from him with difficulty. This
man, a Tonga named Kajawa, when treated at Blantyre, was found to have
seventeen wounds about him, but ultimately recovered.
Of other large animals, we have already mentioned the zebra; and the
eland, though not very common, is also met with. There are several
kinds of smaller antelopes, and, in the mountains, the beautiful little
creature called the klipspringer, or, by the natives, the _gwapi_, which
is something like a chamois.
Of monkeys, there are baboons, which go about in troops and plunder the
growing crops, when they get a chance, and several smaller kinds.
The curious ant-eater called _Manis_ or ‘Pangolin,’ and by the natives
_nkaka_, is three or four feet long, shaped like a lizard and covered
with lozenge-shaped brown scales, more like those on a fir-cone (the
long, thin-scaled cones of the Norway spruce) than anything else I can
think of. With his powerful claws he digs his way into the hills of the
white ants on which he feeds, catching them on his sticky tongue, as
he has no teeth wherewith to eat them. He is a slow-moving, nocturnal
creature, and seldom seen, unless dug out of his burrow.
Another underground creature who ventures out by night is the porcupine,
whose black and white quills are sometimes picked up in the bush
and brought for sale by natives. It is fond of pumpkins and other
vegetables, and often comes to feed on the crops at night.
Of beasts of prey we have the lion, the leopard, several smaller kinds
of cats, the spotted hyena (disgusting in habits and contemptible in
character, but interesting from his place in native folk-lore), jackals,
and wild dogs (_mimbulu_), which hunt in packs like wolves.
Lions are common enough to be a plague. Thirteen years ago they were
looked on as a thing of the past at Blantyre, though even then they were
met with a few miles out on the Matope road, and I have heard, though
not seen, them in the Upper Shiré district. (The roaring we heard two or
three times, on stormy nights, came, we were assured, from the banks of
the Kapeni, six miles away.) But the mysterious disease among the wild
buffaloes, antelopes, and other game, which in 1894 spread westward to
the lakes and then southward, and when it attacked the cattle in South
Africa was known as rinderpest, deprived them of their food, and drove
them to invade the more settled districts. Twelve were shot within a few
weeks on one plantation, and a planter in the neighbourhood of Zomba,
who was riding a bicycle, was chased for some miles by a lion, but
ultimately escaped. In some parts, as, for instance, on the low ground
near the Shiré, below the Murchison Cataracts, the natives build their
huts on raised platforms so as to be safe from lions at night. Leopards
also are apt to be dangerous; they prowl about habitations by night,
usually in the hope of getting into the goat-kraal, or picking up some
stray dog unlucky enough to have been left outside, and are by no means
above carrying off the miserable fowls to be found in native villages,
one of which can scarcely be a mouthful. But they frequently attack human
beings; and at one village a leopard had made a habit of waiting in the
grass beside a certain path along which the women went to fetch water
from the river, and had killed several before he was shot. Wizards are
supposed to take this shape, among others.
[Illustration: HUT, NEAR SHIRÉ RIVER]
Domestic animals are not numerous, but we shall come back to them in a
later chapter.
British Central Africa, says Sir H. H. Johnston, ‘is a country singularly
rich in bird life.’ On the Shiré we have a wonderful variety of
water-birds—flamingoes, herons, cranes, ducks, geese, plovers—and, to
mention no more (these two are among the first noticed by the new comer),
the handsome black-and-white fishing-eagle, and the tiny kingfisher,
‘like a flash of blue light.’ Among the hills we have strange forms,
like the hornbill, and gorgeous colouring, as in the plantain-eaters and
rollers and some of the fly-catchers, and familiar home birds, and their
near relations—swallows, thrushes, larks, woodpeckers (the native name
for the latter, _gogompanda_, is very expressive). As to singing-birds,
I may quote again from Sir Harry Johnston: ‘Both Mr. Whyte and myself
have remarked with emphasis at different times on the beauty of the
birds’ songs in the hilly regions of British Central Africa. The chorus
of singing-birds is quite as beautiful as anything one hears in Europe,
thus quite disposing of one of the numerous fictions circulated by early
travellers about the tropics, to the effect that the birds, though
beautiful, had no melodious songs, and the flowers, though gorgeous, no
sweet and penetrating scents. The song of the Mlanje thrush is scarcely
to be told from that of the English bird.’ This entirely accords with
my own experience. A bird which often sang at night sounded just like a
thrush.
As to reptiles, crocodiles abound in the Shiré and the lake, and are
so dangerous that in many places the women draw water from the top of
a high bank by means of a calabash attached to a long pole, instead
of going down to the edge of the stream, as they would naturally do.
Though accidents are so frequent, the crocodile can hardly be called a
habitual eater of human flesh. His staple food is fish, and ‘it is only
a rare incident for them to capture a mammal of any size; an incident
which, given a number of crocodiles in any stream or lake, can only occur
to each one at most once a year on an average.’[1] The natives (women
sometimes do take the precaution I have mentioned) are strangely reckless
in venturing into the water; they provide themselves with ‘crocodile
medicine’ in whose efficacy they firmly believe; and if any bather comes
to grief notwithstanding, it is presumed that his ‘medicine’ was not of
the right kind, or had lost its power. But it seems that the crocodile
will only seize a solitary person; consequently, if a whole party go into
the water together, as usually happens, and make a great splashing, they
are comparatively safe.
Of other reptiles, we shall have to notice the iguana and the tortoise
(of which there are several kinds) in connection with folk-lore. There
are also several kinds of chameleon and some small lizards, very
beautifully coloured. Snakes, venomous and non-venomous, are of all
sizes, from the python downward to the harmless little _mitu iwiri_ or
‘two-heads,’ silver-grey, and not much thicker than a pencil. It is a
kind of slow-worm, and gets its native name from the bluntness of its
tail, which makes it difficult to see which end is which.
Fish are numerous, but as yet insufficiently studied.
As for the insects, volumes might be written on them; though the beetles
and butterflies are, on the whole, less gorgeous in colouring, and the
objectionable insects less execrable than in other tropical countries. It
is curious that, while the native languages have a word for ‘butterfly’
(usually more or less expressive of the peculiar movements of its
flight—_chipuluputwa_ in Yao, _peperu_ and _gulugufe_ in Nyanja), they
never seem to distinguish between different kinds. Every kind of beetle,
on the other hand, has its own name, but I could never get hold of a
designation for beetles as a class. Perhaps this is the outcome of a
severely practical turn of mind—beetles can be utilised, and therefore
compel a certain degree of individual attention—butterflies, so far as I
know, are not. Some beetles are eaten, for instance a glossy dark-green
one, about an inch and a half long, called _nkumbutera_, and another
kind is manufactured into a snuff-box; and the useful ball-rolling
beetles (all related to the sacred scarab of Egypt) have been observed
and named accordingly.
Archdeacon Woodward assures me that the natives at Magila (Wa-Bondei
and Wa-Shambala) absolutely refused to believe, till convinced by
ocular demonstration (which must have taken time and trouble), that the
butterfly came from the caterpillar. I did not ascertain whether this
was the case at Blantyre; on the whole, the people seemed fairly good
observers of insects and their ways. But, on consideration, it seems
probable, for there are names for many different kinds of caterpillars;
and the reason for this closer observation is similar to that in the
case of the beetles—some destroy man’s food (as the _mpeza_ which eats
the young maize), and others are food for him—notably a green and yellow
striped kind which is roasted on the equivalent for a hot shovel.
Ants, of course, abound—those that get into the food, those that eat you
(or would if they got the chance), and those (only, properly speaking,
they are not ants at all) that build mounds and destroy wood-work,
besides others, which seem to do nothing in particular. The hill-building
termites vary their erections according to locality—the huge, conical
mounds are chiefly found on low land liable to floods. Sometimes they
build curious erections like irregular chimneys. The chapter devoted to
these in the late Professor Drummond’s _Tropical Africa_ shows that they
do an important work in the economy of Nature; but it is a mistake to
suppose that there are no earth-worms in Africa, though they are not so
common as with us. I do not know, however, if the Nyasaland ones are ever
as large as one I measured in Natal, which was 22 inches long, and except
for its size, just like those in our gardens. Bees make their nests in
hollow trees, or in boxes hung up for them; mason-wasps build tiny clay
nests the shape of the common native water-jar, about the length of one’s
finger-nail. One must not conclude even the most imperfect review without
a glance at the locusts (of which we shall have something to say later
on), grasshoppers, and the extraordinary group of insects which look like
leaves and sticks, and are comprehended under the name of Mantis.
Having now taken a hasty survey of the country in its main outlines, of
the vegetation which clothes it, and the wild creatures which (in their
various ways) enliven it, let us see, in the next chapter, who are the
people that live there.