home, and promptly looted the excellent new potatoes which I found in
his garden. On February 9th I reached Mambwe, and from there made a
trip down to the Awemba country, which is described in the next chapter.
On our return to Mambwe I was laid up with a very severe attack of fever
which did not leave me for two months, till I reached the highlands
around Kivu. I was delirious for some time, but improved sufficiently
to be carried to Kawimbi, a mission station near Abercorn. Mr. and Mrs.
May were most kind to me; the station is very pretty, and looks like an
English village with its picturesque little cottages and numerous
flower-beds. The following morning I was carried on to Abercorn,
although the missionaries kindly pressed me to stay, promising to nurse
me and make me well. I was sorely tempted, but felt bound to hurry on.
At Abercorn I utterly collapsed for several days, and in the intervals
of delirium eked out a precarious existence on Worcester sauce and
limes. Here I heard a lion story. The hero of the story (also the
author) having been told that a leopard was taking toll of the goats,
built a platform in a tree and sat up over a goat. Nothing, however,
turned up; but in the morning, tired of doing nothing, he fired an arrow
at a venture into a patch of grass, and on going to pick it up, found
that it had transfixed the heart of a stupendous black-maned lion.
Considering the state of my health, I thought this rather unkind. At
last I was sufficiently recovered to move once more, and was carried in
a machila, under Mr. Boyd's care, to Kituta, the A.L.C. station at the
south-eastern extremity of Tanganyika. The first glimpse of those
waters, round which so many dark tragedies have been enacted, cheered me
considerably. I had realized another ambition, and had arrived at the
real starting-point of our Odyssey.
Kituta is a beautiful but pestilential spot, chiefly remarkable for its
abominable smells. It is also the scene of another lion story which
deserves perpetuation.
There was once a very nervous agent in charge of the station with a
particular horror of lions. One of these brutes commenced eating the
natives of the village; so the agent barricaded himself in his room and
slept with six native watchmen in case of attack. Hearing, or thinking
that he heard, the lion prowling round, he fired out of the window and
knocked a hole through the administration boat. The following night he
again heard sounds and fired, bagging the collector's donkey at the
first shot. A certain well-known sportsman, who was hunting in the
vicinity, wrote in and congratulated him on shooting his first lion. He
rose to the occasion, and now silences all sceptics by producing the
letter, and has acquired quite a reputation as a hunter of big game.
While purchasing trade-cloth for the journey north, the carelessness of
the British manufacturer was again brought home to me. All the loads
contained different lengths, and as the marks had been rubbed off, the
operation lasted several hours instead of ten minutes; and they were so
badly packed that after a week's knocking about most of them came
undone, and the contents were consequently in part spoiled. I wonder
when the British exporter will realize the advisability of studying the
requirements of his markets. Kituta was at one time the call-place of
many Arab caravans, but now it has sunk into insignificance, although
there is a flourishing rubber trade in the country, which is paying very
handsomely.
*CHAPTER VII.*
*THE CHAMBESI.*
On reaching Mambwe I had the good fortune to find Mr. C. R. Palmer, the
assistant-collector, on the point of starting for the Chambesi, with the
object of waking up one or two of the chiefs who had been tardy in
sending in labour. His offer to take me with him, and his glowing
description of the game to be found there, were so tempting that next
morning I found myself on the march to Tanzuka, a border village of the
Mambwe; and on the following day we entered the country of the Awemba, a
very powerful tribe apparently of Zulu origin. The difference between
these people and the neighbouring Mambwe is as cheese from chalk:
whereas the latter are of the ordinary dirty, stunted, cringing or
insolent, ill-fed type of Central Africa, the former are of a very
striking caste. Among the upper class are some magnificent specimens of
the native, tall men of powerful build, with much of the well-bred
carriage of the Zulu; their noses are straight and thin cut, their
colour bronze; and their hair, which they wear in grotesque tufts down
the middle of their head, is the only conspicuous negro characteristic.
Many of the young women, with their regular features, beautiful colour,
and small, delicate hands and feet, are quite pleasing. Until the
advent of the Chartered Co. they led the rollicking life of the old
Zulus; herding cattle and depending for the meaner necessaries of life
and the replenishing of their harems on the efforts of their neighbours.
Far and wide they used to raid even to the Atonga country on the east
coast of Tanganyika, and many and wonderful are the tales told of their
stupendous forced marches, when the weaker members used to fall out and
die from sheer exhaustion. All the chiefs of any standing maintain
bands, composed of singers, drummers, and players on the castanets, in
which they take great pride. On the approach of any visitors to whom
they wish to do honour, the band is sent forward to meet them; the
leading part is usually taken by a man who sings the theme, some of them
having remarkably fine voices, while the refrain is taken up by other
men, playing drums of hollow wood with lizard or snake skin stretched
over the apertures, and a chorus of boys rattling pods containing dry
seeds; the whole is accompanied by grotesque dancing, the main object of
which appeared to be to go as near falling down as possible without
actually doing so. The strain, like most African music, plays on about
three notes with untiring repetition, and, though rather pleasing at
first, palls after the fourth or fifth hour. Should a chief find any
singer of unusual power, he promptly removes his eyes to prevent him
from going elsewhere, and many men thus mutilated are to be seen in
every district. In fact mutilation in various forms appears to be the
chief recreation of these autocrats. Mr. Palmer told me of three youths
who came in to him without their eyes, which had been removed by their
chief, because he thought his people were getting out of hand; so to
teach them that he was still master he had selected haphazard these
three unfortunates. I also heard of some women who had had their ears,
lips, hands, and breasts cut off, and who actually travelled a distance
of about sixty miles immediately afterwards to the collector of the
district. I myself saw many men who had similarly lost their ears, lips,
hands, or privates, and sometimes all these parts.
Mr. Law, the able collector at Abercorn, who is known to the natives by
the appellation of the "Just man" (and who, by the way, charged me L25
for my rhino about six hours before I sailed north), when on some
punitive expedition in the Awemba country, captured a delightful example
of the grim humour of these pleasing gentry. It consisted of a large
sable horn rudely adorned and fitted with a mask, into which the
patient's head was fitted, his throat having been previously cut with a
ferocious-looking knife, chiefly remarkable for its bluntness; the blood
spurting forth into the horn rang a bell, a performance that gave
general satisfaction, with, I suppose, one exception. Some of their old
kraals are veritable fortresses, consisting of an outer ringed palisade
banked with clay and loopholed; inside is a deep trench, and again an
inner palisade similarly banked and loopholed, with, in many cases, a
third palisade containing the chief's huts. The site is invariably
selected on the edge of a dense thicket, into which the women and cattle
are driven on the advent of strangers; nearly every respectable member
of society has a gun imported by Arab traders from the north and
Portuguese from the south, and there must be several thousand in the
country. Such is the people who have been changed in half a dozen short
years from a cruel, murdering, widespread curse into a quiet
agricultural fraternity; and by whom? By a mere handful of men with
less than a hundred native police, agents of that oppressor of the
native, the Chartered Company; and this without fuss and practically
without bloodshed. The chief industries of the country are
pombe[#]-drinking and the making of bark cloth, which is a strong
fibrous textile of a pleasing reddish-brown colour, made by beating out
the bark of the fig-tree with little wooden hammers, till of the
required thinness. A curious custom prevails here, and one that I have
not noticed elsewhere in Africa, of wearing mourning for dead relatives;
bands of cloth being tied round the head.
[#] Pombe: an intoxicating drink made from millet.
The following day we arrived at Changala's kraal; he is a large,
powerful man, with a face expressive of determination and character. He
came out two miles to meet us, carried on the shoulders of one of his
men, as is the custom (for the chiefs never walk), with a following of
two or three hundred people. He, as in fact did all the Awemba, gave us
a very hearty reception. Having amicably settled all outstanding
questions with Changala, we visited Makasa, the big man of the country,
whose head village lies about twenty-six miles south-east of Changala's.
He is a portly old gentleman of unprepossessing countenance, and rather
inclined to make trouble--at a distance; however, guessing our
intentions, he had made great preparations for our reception. On
arrival we found our tents already pitched and grass shelters built
above them to keep off the sun; while large crowds of obsequious
gentlemen came out to meet us and insisted on carrying in our machilas
at a run, a form of attention that would not be appreciated by Accident
Insurance Companies. His village, which cannot contain less than five
hundred huts, is of the usual Awemba pattern, and is a great centre of
the bark-cloth industry.
Tales of rhino and elephant galore raised our hopes to the highest
pitch, and after a day's rest we launched forth into the game country--a
triangular patch of country that lies at the junction of the Chambesi,
and its main tributary the Chosi--camping near Chipiri, the original
site of the French mission. Here we got our first glimpse of the
Chambesi, which, flowing with a devious course into Lake Bangweolo, is
the real source of the Congo. It rises between Mambwe and Abercorn, and
at Chipiri is already a river of some size, flowing through a beautiful
grass plain clothed with patches of waving spear-grass. The plain,
varying in width from a half to five miles, is hemmed in by forest bush
and park land, dotted over with innumerable ant-hills, some 30 ft. in
height, and is the haunt of countless herds of pookoo, two of which
graced our larder shortly after pitching camp.
The next afternoon we moved further down the river to the Mafunso; and
our carriers started a rhino on the path, the spoor of which we followed
in thick brush. But, getting our wind, he departed with a derisive
squeal, and, though I nearly came up with him again, I was compelled to
give up the chase by nightfall, and only found camp with considerable
difficulty. Still further down the river we camped in a delightful
hunting-country, the Chambesi plain lying to our south, the vast plain
of the Chosi to our east, and north, just behind the camp, strips of
bush alternating with glades and groves of mahobahoba. The bush was
ploughed up with rhino spoor, and that afternoon both Palmer and I
unsuccessfully followed spoor of the morning. Never having seen roan
antelope, I was very anxious to shoot one, and the following day started
out with that intention. I found several fresh spoors, but failed to
make anything of them, but on my way home I found recent lion tracks.
These I followed for about two hours; at times it was very difficult,
their soft pads leaving no impression on the carpets of dead leaves in
the patches of bush, but I managed by casting round to pick the track up
again when at fault, and eventually, hearing a low growl, I caught a
glimpse of four yellow bodies disappearing round the end of a
bush-covered ant-hill. I ran as fast as possible to the other side and
almost into their midst; they had tried the old, old lion tactics of
doubling. At sight of me they stood, and I put in a right and left; off
they galloped, I in hot pursuit, following, as I thought, the first, who
had got a fair shoulder-shot, and not wishing to lose sight of her,
because of the thickness of some of the bush. I could just see her
bounding round an ant-hill, and was making a desperate spurt to see if
she would double, when I rushed round the corner of a bush right on to
the top of a tail. I lost no time in skipping to one side; however, she
was at her last gasp, gnawing her forepaw and making that peculiar deep
gurgle, once heard, never forgotten, the lion's death-groan. I found
she was the recipient of the first barrel, and the one I was following,
which had dropped for a moment to my second barrel, must have crossed
when I lost sight of them behind an ant-hill. Then to my disgust I
remembered that I had had a solid bullet in my second barrel in case of
an unexpected rhino. I picked up her spoor and followed her all round
the country for about three hours, but she was playing the fool with me,
and though several times I must have been very near, I never obtained
another sight of her. The other two, which were three parts grown,
found her after a while, and their spoor led over the top of all the
ant-hills, where they had stopped to watch me till I came too close. To
judge by the blood, I had hit her too far back, and the solid bullet
going right through would make very little impression. This was the
second time I had dropped a right and left and lost one, and I was
grievously disappointed. The one I killed was a superb lioness with
unusually long hair, and she measured 8 ft. 5-1/2 in., from tip to tip,
in the flesh. Owing to the hot, rainy weather I had much difficulty in
curing the skin, but eventually made a complete success of it. I made a
raised quadrangular frame, upon which I stretched the skin, with a grass
roof to keep off the showers; then, in default of any better
preservative, I had wood-ash continually rubbed in by relays of men.
Making short afternoon marches and hunting in the morning, we gradually
worked down the river to the Chosi junction, then up the Chosi, which is
a fine stream about forty yards wide, with a large body of water, till
we arrived at Kalungu, a small isolated village, and the only one
between Makasa's village and the Chosi. I made a circuit of the plain,
waded some swamps, and emerged on a second plain. Here, in the
distance, I saw three huge unwieldy monsters slowly threading their way
in and out of the numerous ant-hills, till they vanished behind one
larger than the rest. I had left my glasses behind, and owing to the
slight mirage could not be sure whether they were rhino or hippo.
Having loaded the double 4-bore, I hurried forward, creeping from
ant-hill to ant-hill, till at last I arrived in a line with the one
behind which the brutes were still hidden. Crawling cautiously up, I
climbed to the top, the big gun at the present, then peered over while
my heart beat the devil's tattoo. There they were, not fifteen yards
off, three of them, neither rhino nor hippo, but camp boys, with three
loads of wood by their sides, peacefully smoking a hubble-bubble. I
looked at them, then back at the sickly grey face of my gun-bearer, his
teeth chattering with fright, and then marched into camp, to find that
Palmer had shot a splendid roan on the high road.
Turning out early the next morning I struck the spoor of the herd of
roan, and after sixteen miles through water ankle-deep, came up with
them; but they saw me first, and I only succeeded in dropping a good
cow, which stood on an ant-hill to have a last look at me. I had
arranged to join Palmer and the boys at Nondo, which lies at the
junction of the Mwenda and Chosi, but found that he had gone further up
the Mwenda and camped at Chupi, which lies on the border of Luwala, the
_piece de resistance_ of our trip. At Nondo the Chosi forms a wide
pool, formerly the abode of numerous hippo till the advent of one of the
French priests, who murdered the majority, for the satisfaction, I
suppose, of seeing them float down-stream. The same enterprising
individual, with other kindred spirits, organized a drive of the herds
of pookoo on the plain. Huge fences were built at one end with
funnel-shaped openings, where the gallant sportsmen stationed
themselves, and, if report speaks true, slaughtered about two hundred.
I wonder how many they wounded? By the side of the pool is an enormous
pile of old hippo skulls that is regarded with superstitious awe by the
natives, and close by is a sacred tree, the burial-place of some old
chief, where quite a respectable herd of cattle has accumulated from the
native offerings. East of the Chosi there is another Awemba god, who
dwells in a thicket decorated by a wonderful collection of horns.
When a big chief dies, they smoke him for a year and then bury him in
bark-cloth. The general belief is that his spirit enters into a lion,
an animal that they hold in superstitious awe, and refuse to kill.
From Chupi we marched into Luwala, a hitherto unexplored tract of
country. During the rains it is under water, and is consequently quite
uninhabited, a few natives only camping there for fishing purposes, as
the waters begin to leave the plain. On the north and east it is
bounded by the Chosi for a distance of about sixty miles, and on the
west by a slight ridge covered with bush, through which numerous streams
flow and lose themselves in the marshes, eventually draining into the
Chosi by the Mwenda.
Unfortunately we were too late in the season, the rains having already
broken, and were consequently unable to penetrate far from the west
side; even there we were compelled to wade from camp to camp through
water from 6 in. to 3 ft. deep. The natives told us that when the rains
are drying up, immense numbers of game come out from the bush to feed on
the new grass round the rapidly diminishing pools, and that often they
could see as many as half a dozen rhino at a time. It is also a
favourite haunt of the comparatively few elephant that still roam over
this country. On the first day's trek we crossed rhino spoor about four
to five hours old, and as Palmer, who was out of form, was unwilling to
risk a long chase, I started off in pursuit. After following for about
an hour, I passed quite close to a large herd of roan containing three
or four magnificent bulls, which stood and watched me at about forty
yards. I was sorely tempted, but held to my principle of never leaving a
spoor except for something better. For some time the rhino had been
travelling very fast, but suddenly the spoor freshened, and from the
side of an ant-hill I saw a great pink body in the distance moving
slowly through the grass. It is curious how decidedly pink hippo and
rhino look at a distance. As there were many large ant-hills about I
followed the spoor right out, and coming round the corner of one,
suddenly saw him about forty yards off just walking out into the huge
bare plain; but the birds, many of which were on his back, saw me and
gave the alarm. In turning he gave me my broadside chance, and I fired
the 4-bore, burning fourteen drams and throwing a four-ounce spherical
ball; then, as he swung round to bolt, I popped in a forward raking
second barrel, which quickened his pace considerably. He rushed round
in a half-circle to try and get my wind, while I peppered him with .303
solid bullets, which appeared to have about the same effect as
hailstones. When he got my wind he stopped short and faced me, then
swayed from side to side, staggered, recovered himself, and finally,
with a shrill squeal, toppled over, kicking his four fat little legs in
the air, and gave up the ghost, or the rhino's equivalent, there being
nothing very spectral about these incongruous old survivals of the past.
Choleric, dyspeptic, unsociable old fellows with a lordly contempt for,
and fixed determination to suppress all such indecent innovations as
guns, Cape wagons, and Mombasa railway-trains, they always remind me of
those fire-eating, civilian-repressing, cheroot-smoke-belching Bagstocks
who frequent Madeira, the Lake of Geneva, and other temperate and
economical resorts, and who glare at all newcomers with that peculiar
bloodshot ferocity only to be acquired by many years of curry, Bombay
duck, and unlimited authority over servile millions. Owing to the
difficulty of providing food for the large mob of Mambwe who had
accompanied us to see in safety their old masters, the Awemba, the meat
was very acceptable. The rhino was a large bull. Being particularly
anxious to preserve the head, I took the trouble to cut through the hide
all round to be sure of having sufficient neck-skin, and, to avoid any
possibility of mistake, I left a boy by the carcase; yet in the evening
it arrived in two detachments, having been considerately hacked in two
to facilitate carriage.
After floundering about the country for miles and camping on isolated
ant-hills, surrounded by sheets of water, and as, owing to the continued
rains in the hills, the water was daily rising, we were compelled to
retreat north-west. Here we made two more ineffectual efforts to
penetrate into the interior. So, cursing the rains, we marched to the
Luchewe, the largest of the streams which flow into Luwala, and
following its valley, arrived at Kyambi, the mission station of the
Peres Blancs. Here, with their usual enterprise and abilities, they have
constructed a splendid two-storied building with a large cloister-like
verandah, surrounded, as are all their other stations, by a solid,
fortified wall; outside they have collected a large village and laid out
extensive irrigated gardens well stocked with bananas, limes, lemons,
and other fruits. The priests were most charming hosts. Their
hospitality is, indeed, famed throughout Central Africa.
From Kyambi we marched straight into Mambwe, where we arrived drenched
to the skin; and two days later I was down with an attack of fever which
lasted till I reached the highlands of Kivu.
*CHAPTER VIII.*
*TANGANYIKA.*
At last, on April 2nd, we sailed from Kituta in the _Good News_.
Mr. Mohun and a large number of his Zanzibaris were with me.
Consequently there was not much room. The _Good News_ was originally
the property of an English Mission on the Lake, and when the Mission
moved to find healthier quarters, the steamer was sold at a ridiculously
low figure to the African Lakes Corporation, although, I believe, the
Administration of Northern Rhodesia offered a larger sum. A large hole
had been knocked in her bottom and filled up with cement; and the
machinery was tied together with string and strips of sardine-tins.
Vast cockroaches were in possession, and night was made hideous by their
peregrinations; some of them were almost as large as mice, and it was a
great strain on one's mosquito-curtain when they climbed up the sides in
droves. Mr. Mohun endured them all night, but I, in a very few minutes,
gave up the unequal fight and retired on deck.
Our noble captain, who was quite new to the lake, did not know where he
was going, nor did he care. His idea of navigating a boat consisted in
sleeping in his bunk until the natives told him we had arrived
somewhere; even then, he never inquired what the place was. His only
anxiety was lest he should oversleep himself and miss a meal.
In the evening we arrived at the Congo Free State post of M'liro, which
is at the south-western corner of the lake, a few miles over the
Anglo-Congolese boundary.
On board I discovered two of the boys who had gone up with Sharp, and
who had been left at Kituta. At Kituta I had given instructions that
they were to be sent back; so the following morning, having crossed the
lake to a wooding station, on the eastern shore, I turned them off with
their pay and cloth to buy food on the road; but one of them, on
adventure bent, slipped on board again. During the night, finding the
sleeping-places rather limited, he calmly threw a crate containing
twenty-eight fowls, belonging to Mr. Mohun, overboard.
On April 4th we recrossed the lake and arrived at the French Mission
Station of M'bala. This station is of several years' standing, and the
Fathers, who are seven in number, with several lay brothers, have built
themselves a substantial and comfortable home. They have also built a
magnificent cathedral, capable of holding many hundred devotees. I am
afraid it would need a large expenditure of cloth and medals to fill it.
There are also elaborate workshops, and the gardens, which are very
extensive, are planted with numbers of flourishing fruit trees. The
coffee-shrubs were particularly remarkable for their size and yield. On
the walls were many gigantic sable heads. The horns of one that I
measured were 46-1/2 in.; while many others were almost as long. All
these antelope had been shot in the immediate vicinity by native hunters
employed on the mission station. It was here that the record sable head
which Mr. Boyd presented to me was obtained; and it is evident that
these sable must be the largest in the world. They also had a few rhino
horns, which had been shot in the neighbourhood.