Geology and description of the Waiyau land. Leaves Mataka's. The
Nyumbo plant. Native iron-foundry. Blacksmiths. Makes for the
Lake Nyassa. Delight at seeing the Lake once more. The Manganja
or Nyassa tribe. Arab slave crossing. Unable to procure passage
across. The Kungu fly. Fear of the English amongst slavers. Lake
shore. Blue ink. Chitané changes colour. The Nsaka fish.
Makalaosé drinks beer. The Sanjika fish. London antiquities.
Lake rivers. Mukaté's. Lake Pamalombé. Mponda's. A slave gang.
Wikatani discovers his relatives and remains.
_28th July, 1866._--We proposed to start to-day, but Mataka said that
he was not ready yet: the flour had to be ground, and he had given us
no meat. He had sent plenty of cooked food almost every day. He asked
if we would slaughter the ox he would give here, or take it on; we
preferred to kill it at once. He came on the 28th with a good lot of
flour for us, and men to guide us to Nyassa, telling us that this was
Moembé, and his district extended all the way to the Lake: he would
not send us to Loséwa, as that place had lately been plundered and
burned.
In general the chiefs have shown an anxiety to promote our safety. The
country is a mass of mountains. On leaving Mataka's we ascended
considerably, and about the end of the first day's march, near
Magola's village, the barometer showed our greatest altitude, about
3400 feet above the sea. There were villages of these mountaineers
everywhere, for the most part of 100 houses or more each. The springs
were made the most use of that they knew; the damp spots drained, and
the water given a free channel for use in irrigation further down:
most of these springs showed the presence of iron by the oxide oozing
out. A great many patches of peas are seen in full bearing and flower.
The trees are small, except in the hollows: there is plenty of grass
and flowers near streams and on the heights. The mountain-tops may
rise 2000 or 3000 feet above their flanks, along which we wind, going
perpetually up and down the steep ridges of which the country is but a
succession.
Looking at the geology of the district, the plateaux on each side of
the Rovuma are masses of grey sandstone, capped with masses of
ferruginous conglomerate; apparently an aqueous deposit. When we
ascend the Rovuma about sixty miles, a great many pieces and blocks of
silicified wood appear on the surface of the soil at the bottom of the
slope up the plateaux. This in Africa is a sure indication of the
presence of coal beneath, but it was not observed cropping out; the
plateaux are cut up in various directions by wadys well supplied with
grass and trees on deep and somewhat sandy soil: but at the confluence
of the Loendi highlands they appear in the far distance. In the sands
of the Loendi pieces of coal are quite common.[16]
Before reaching the confluence of the Rovuma and Loendi, or say about
ninety miles from the sea, the plateau is succeeded by a more level
country, having detached granitic masses shooting up some 500 or 700
feet. The sandstone of the plateau has at first been hardened, then
quite metamorphosed into a chocolate-coloured schist. As at Chilolé
hill, we have igneous rocks, apparently trap, capped with masses of
beautiful white dolomite. We still ascend in altitude as we go
westwards, and come upon long tracts of gneiss with hornblende. The
gneiss is often striated, all the striae looking one way--sometimes
north and south, and at other times east and west. These rocks look as
if a stratified rock had been nearly melted, and the strata fused
together by the heat. From these striated rocks have shot up great
rounded masses of granite or syenite, whose smooth sides and crowns
contain scarcely any trees, and are probably from 3000 to 4000 feet
above the sea. The elevated plains among these mountain masses show
great patches of ferruginous conglomerate, which, when broken, look
like yellow haematite with madrepore holes in it: this has made the
soil of a red colour.
On the watershed we have still the rounded granitic hills jutting
above the plains (if such they may be called) which are all ups and
downs, and furrowed with innumerable running rills, the sources of the
Rovuma and Loendi. The highest rock observed with mica schist was at
an altitude of 3440 feet. The same uneven country prevails as we
proceed from the watershed about forty miles down to the Lake, and a
great deal of quartz in small fragments renders travelling-very
difficult. Near the Lake, and along its eastern shore, we have mica
schist and gneiss foliated, with a great deal of hornblende; but the
most remarkable feature of it is that the rocks are all tilted on
edge, or slightly inclined to the Lake. The active agent in effecting
this is not visible. It looks as if a sudden rent had been made, so as
to form the Lake, and tilt all these rocks nearly over. On the east
side of the lower part of the Lake we have two ranges of mountains,
evidently granitic: the nearer one covered with small trees and lower
than the other; the other jagged and bare, or of the granitic forms.
But in all this country no fossil-yielding rock was visible except the
grey sandstone referred to at the beginning of this note. The rocks
are chiefly the old crystalline forms.
One fine straight tall tree in the hollows seemed a species of fig:
its fruit was just forming, but it was too high for me to ascertain
its species. The natives don't eat the fruit, but they eat the large
grubs which come out of it. The leaves were fifteen inches long by
five broad: they call it Unguengo.
_29th July, 1866._--At Magola's village. Although we are now rid of
the sepoys, we cannot yet congratulate ourselves on being rid of the
lazy habits of lying down in the path which they introduced. A strong
scud comes up from the south bringing much moisture with it: it blows
so hard above, this may be a storm on the coast. Temperature in
mornings 55°.
_30th July, 1866._--A short march brought us to Pezimba's village,
which consists of 200 houses and huts. It is placed very nicely on a
knoll between two burns, which, as usual, are made use of for
irrigating peas in winter time. The headman said that if we left now
we had a good piece of jungle before us, and would sleep twice in it
before reaching Mbanga. We therefore remained. An Arab party, hearing
of our approach, took a circuitous route among the mountains to avoid
coming in contact with us. In travelling to Pezimba's we had commenced
our western descent to the Lake, for we were now lower than Magola's
by 300 feet. We crossed many rivulets and the Lochesi, a good-sized
stream. The watershed parts some streams for Loendi and some for
Rovuma. There is now a decided scantiness of trees. Many of the
hill-tops are covered with grass or another plant; there is pleasure
now in seeing them bare. Ferns, rhododendrons, and a foliaged tree,
which looks in the distance like silver-fir, are met with.
The Mandaré root is here called Nyumbo, when cooked it has a slight
degree of bitterness with it which cultivation may remove. Mica schist
crowned some of the heights on the watershed, then gneiss, and now, as
we descend further, we have igneous rocks of more recent eruption,
porphyry and gneiss, with hornblende. A good deal of ferruginous
conglomerate, with holes in it, covers many spots; when broken, it
looks like yellow haematite, with black linings to the holes: this is
probably the ore used in former times by the smiths, of whose
existence we now find still more evidence than further east.
_31st July, 1866._--I had presented Pezimba with a cloth, so he cooked
for us handsomely last night, and this morning desired us to wait a
little as he had not yet sufficient meal made to present: we waited
and got a generous present.
It was decidedly milder here than at Mataka's, and we had a clear sky.
In our morning's march we passed the last of the population, and went
on through a fine well-watered fruitful country, to sleep near a
mountain called Mtéwiré, by a stream called Msapo. A very large Arab
slave-party was close by our encampment, and I wished to speak to
them; but as soon as they knew of our being near they set off in a
pathless course across country, and were six days in the
wilderness.[17]
_1st August, 1866._--We saw the encampment of another Arab party. It
consisted of ten pens, each of which, from the number of fires it
contained, may have held from eighty to a hundred slaves. The people
of the country magnified the numbers, saying that they would reach
from this to Mataka's; but from all I can learn, I think that from 300
to 800 slaves is the commoner gang. This second party went across
country very early this morning. We saw the fire-sticks which the
slaves had borne with them. The fear they feel is altogether the
effect of the English name, for we have done nothing to cause their
alarm.
_2nd August, 1866._--There was something very cheering to me in the
sight at our encampment of yellow grass and trees dotted over it, as
in the Bechuana country. The birds were singing merrily too, inspired
by the cold, which was 47°, and by the vicinity of some population.
Gum-copal trees and bushes grow here as well as all over the country;
but gum is never dug for, probably because the trees were never large
enough to yield the fossil gum. Marks of smiths are very abundant and
some furnaces are still standing. Much cultivation must formerly have
been where now all is jungle.
We arrived at Mbanga, a village embowered in trees, chiefly of the
euphorbia, so common in the Manganja country further south. Kandulo,
the headman, had gone to drink beer at another village, but sent
orders to give a hut and to cook for us. We remained next day. Took
lunars.
We had now passed through, at the narrowest part, the hundred miles of
depopulated country, of which about seventy are on the N.E. of Mataka.
The native accounts differ as to the cause. Some say slave wars, and
assert that the Makoa from the vicinity of Mozambique played an
important part in them; others say famine; others that the people have
moved to and beyond Nyassa.[18] Certain it is, from the potsherds
strewed over the country, and the still remaining ridges on which
beans, sorghum, maize, and cassava, were planted, that the departed
population was prodigious. The Waiyau, who are now in the country,
came from the other side of the Rovuma, and they probably supplanted
the Manganja, an operation which we see going on at the present day.
_4th August, 1866._--An hour and a half brought us to Miulé, a village
on the same level with Mbanga; and the chief pressing us to stay, on
the plea of our sleeping two nights in the jungle, instead of one if
we left early next morning, we consented. I asked him what had become
of the very large iron-smelting population of this region; he said
many had died of famine, others had fled to the west of Nyassa: the
famine is the usual effect of slave wars, and much death is thereby
caused--probably much more than by the journey to the coast. He had
never heard any tradition of stone hatchets having been used, nor of
stone spear-heads or arrowheads of that material, nor had he heard of
any being turned up by the women in hoeing. The Makondé, as we saw,
use wooden spears where iron is scarce. I saw wooden hoes used for
tilling the soil in the Bechuana and Bataka countries, but never stone
ones. In 1841 I saw a Bushwoman in the Cape Colony with a round stone
and a hole through it; on being asked she showed me how it was used by
inserting the top of a digging-stick into it, and digging a root. The
stone was to give the stick weight.
[Illustration.]
The stones still used as anvils and sledge-hammers by many of the
African smiths, when considered from their point of view, show sounder
sense than if they were burdened with the great weights we use. They
are unacquainted with the process of case-hardening, which, applied to
certain parts of our anvils, gives them their usefulness, and an anvil
of their soft iron would not do so well as a hard stone. It is true a
small light one might be made, but let any one see how the hammers of
their iron bevel over and round in the faces with a little work, and
he will perceive that only a wild freak would induce any sensible
native smith to make a mass equal to a sledge-hammer, and burden
himself with a weight for what can be better performed by a stone. If
people are settled, as on the coast, then they gladly use any mass of
cast iron they may find, but never where, as in the interior, they
have no certainty of remaining any length of time in one spot.
_5th August, 1866._--We left Miulé, and commenced our march towards
Lake Nyassa, and slept at the last of the streams that flow to the
Loendi. In Mataka's vicinity, N.E., there is a perfect brush of
streams flowing to that river: one forms a lake in its course, and the
sources of the Rovuma lie in the same region. After leaving Mataka's
we crossed a good-sized one flowing to Loendi, and, the day after
leaving Pezimba's, another going to the Chiringa or Lochiringa, which
is a tributary of the Rovuma.
_6th August, 1866._--We passed two cairns this morning at the
beginning of the very sensible descent to the Lake. They are very
common in all this Southern Africa in the passes of the mountains, and
are meant to mark divisions of countries, perhaps burial-places, but
the Waiyau who accompanied us thought that they were merely heaps of
stone collected by some one making a garden. The cairns were placed
just about the spot where the blue waters of Nyassa first came fairly
into view.
We now came upon a stream, the Misinjé, flowing into the Lake, and we
crossed it five times; it was about twenty yards wide, and thigh deep.
We made but short stages when we got on the lower plateau, for the
people had great abundance of food, and gave large presents of it if
we rested. One man gave four fowls, three large baskets of maize,
pumpkins, eland's fat--a fine male, as seen by his horns,--and pressed
us to stay, that he might see our curiosities as well as others. He
said that at one day's distance south of him all sorts of animals, as
buffaloes, elands, elephants, hippopotami, and antelopes, could be
shot.
_8th August, 1866._--We came to the Lake at the confluence of the
Misinjé, and felt grateful to That Hand which had protected us thus
far on our journey. It was as if I had come back to an old home I
never expected again to see; and pleasant to bathe in the delicious
waters again, hear the roar of the sea, and dash in the rollers. Temp.
71° at 8 A.M., while the air was 65°. I feel quite exhilarated.
The headman here, Mokalaosé, is a real Manganja, and he and all his
people exhibit the greater darkness of colour consequent on being in a
warm moist climate; he is very friendly, and presented millet,
porridge, cassava, and hippopotamus meat boiled and asked if I liked
milk, as he had some of Mataka's cattle here. His people bring sanjika
the best Lake fish, for sale; they are dried on stages over slow
fires, and lose their fine flavour by it, but they are much prized
inland. I bought fifty for a fathom of calico; when fresh, they taste
exactly like the best herrings, _i.e._ as we think, but voyagers' and
travellers' appetites are often so whetted as to be incapable of
giving a true verdict in matters of taste.
[It is necessary to explain that Livingstone knew of an Arab
settlement on the western shore of the Lake, and that he hoped to
induce the chief man Jumbé to give him a passage to the other side.]
_10th August, 1866._--I sent Seyed Majid's letter up to Jumbé, but the
messenger met some coast Arabs at the Loangwa, which may be seven
miles from this, and they came back with him, haggling a deal about
the fare, and then went off, saying that they would bring the dhow
here for us. Finding that they did not come, I sent Musa, who brought
back word that they had taken the dhow away over to Jumbé at Kotakota,
or, as they pronounce it, Ngotagota. Very few of the coast Arabs can
read; in words they are very polite, but truthfulness seems very
little regarded. I am resting myself and people--working up journal,
lunars, and altitudes--but will either move south or go to the Arabs
towards the north soon.
Mokalaosé's fears of the Waiyau will make him welcome Jumbé here, and
then the Arab will some day have an opportunity of scattering his
people as he has done those at Kotakota. He has made Loséwa too hot
for himself. When the people there were carried off by Mataka's
people, Jumbé seized their stores of grain, and now has no post to
which he can go there. The Loangwa Arabs give an awful account of
Jumbé's murders and selling the people, but one cannot take it all in;
at the mildest it must have been bad. This is all they ever do; they
cannot form a state or independent kingdom: slavery and the
slave-trade are insuperable obstacles to any permanence inland; slaves
can escape so easily, all therefore that the Arabs do is to collect as
much money as they can by hook and by crook, and then leave the
country.
We notice a bird called namtambwé, which sings very nicely with a
strong voice after dark here at the Misinjé confluence.
_11th August, 1866._--Two headmen came down country from villages
where we slept, bringing us food, and asking how we are treated; they
advise our going south to Mukaté's, where the Lake is narrow.
_12th-14th August, 1866._--Map making; but my energies were sorely
taxed by the lazy sepoys, and I was usually quite tired out at night.
Some men have come down from Mataka's, and report the arrival of an
Englishman with cattle for me, "he has two eyes behind as well as two
in front:" this is enough of news for awhile!
Mokalaosé has his little afflictions, and he tells me of them. A wife
ran away, I asked how many he had; he told me twenty in all: I then
thought he had nineteen too many. He answered with the usual reason,
"But who would cook for strangers if I had but one?"
We saw clouds of "kungu" gnats on the Lake; they are not eaten here.
An ungenerous traveller coming here with my statement in his hand,
and finding the people denying all knowledge of how to catch and cook
them, might say that I had been romancing in saying I had seen them
made into cakes in the northern part of the Lake; when asking here
about them, a stranger said, "They know how to use them in the north;
we do not."
Mokalaosé thinks that the Arabs are afraid that I may take their dhows
from them and go up to the north. He and the other headmen think that
the best way will be to go to Mukaté's in the south. All the Arabs
flee from me, the English name being in their minds inseparably
connected with recapturing slavers: they cannot conceive that I have
any other object in view; they cannot read Seyed Majid's letter.
_21st August, 1866._--Started for the Loangwa, on the east side of the
Lake; hilly all the way, about seven miles. This river may be twenty
yards wide near its confluence; the Misinjé is double that: each has
accumulated a promontory of deposit and enters the Lake near its apex.
We got a house from a Waiyau man on a bank about forty feet above the
level of Nyassa, but I could not sleep for the manoeuvres of a crowd
of the minute ants which infested it. They chirrup distinctly; they
would not allow the men to sleep either, though all were pretty tired
by the rough road up.
_22nd August, 1866._--We removed to the south side of the Loangwa,
where there are none of these little pests.
_23rd August, 1866._--Proposed to the Waiyau headman to send a canoe
over to call Jumbé, as I did not believe in the assertions of the
half-caste Arab here that he had sent for his. All the Waiyau had
helped me, and why not he? He was pleased with this, but advised
waiting till a man sent to Loséwa should return.
_24th August, 1866._--A leopard took a dog out of a house next to
ours; he had bitten a man before, but not mortally. _29th August,
1866._--News come that the two dhows have come over to Loséwa
(Loséfa). The Mazitu had chased Jumbé up the hills: had they said, on
to an island, I might have believed them.
_30th August,1866._--The fear which the English have inspired in the
Arab slave-traders is rather inconvenient. All flee from me as if I
had the plague, and I cannot in consequence transmit letters to the
coast, or get across the Lake. They seem to think that if I get into a
dhow I will be sure to burn it. As the two dhows on the Lake are used
for nothing else but the slave-trade, their owners have no hope of my
allowing them to escape, so after we have listened to various lies as
excuses, we resolve to go southwards, and cross at the point of
departure of the Shiré from the Lake. I took lunars several times on
both sides of the moon, and have written a despatch for Lord
Clarendon, besides a number of private letters.
_3rd September, 1866._--Went down to confluence of the Misinjé and
came to many of the eatable insect "kungu,"--they are caught by a
quick motion of the hand holding a basket. We got a cake of these same
insects further down; they make a buzz like a swarm of bees, and are
probably the perfect state of some Lake insect.
I observed two beaches of the Lake: one about fifteen feet above the
present high-water mark, and the other about forty above that; but
between the two the process of disintegration, which results from the
sudden cold and heat in these regions, has gone on so much that seldom
is a well-rounded smoothed one seen; the lower beach is very well
marked.
The strike of large masses of foliated gneiss is parallel with the
major axis of the Lake, and all are tilted on edge. Some are a little
inclined to the Lake, as if dipping to it westwards, but others are as
much inclined the opposite way, or twisted.
I made very good blue ink from the juice of a berry, the fruit of a
creeper, which is the colour of port wine when expressed. A little
ferri carb. ammon., added to this is all that is required.
The poodle dog Chitané is rapidly changing the colour of its hair. All
the parts corresponding to the ribs and neck are rapidly becoming red;
the majority of country dogs are of this colour.
The Manganja, or Wa-nyassa, are an aboriginal race; they have great
masses of hair, and but little, if any, of the prognathous in the
profile. Their bodies and limbs are very well made, and the
countenance of the men is often very pleasant. The women are very
plain and lumpy, but exceedingly industrious in their gardens from
early morning till about 11 A.M., then from 3 P.M. till dark, or
pounding corn and grinding it: the men make twine or nets by day, and
are at their fisheries in the evenings and nights. They build the
huts, the women plaster them.
A black fish, the Nsaka, makes a hole, with raised edges, which, with
the depth from which they are taken, is from fifteen to eighteen
inches, and from two to three feet broad. It is called by the natives
their house. The pair live in it for some time, or until the female
becomes large for spawning; this operation over, the house is left.
I gave Mokalaosé some pumpkin seed and peas. He took me into his
house, and presented a quantity of beer. I drank a little, and seeing
me desist from taking more, he asked if I wished a servant-girl to
"_pata mimba_." Not knowing what was meant, I offered the girl the
calabash of beer, and told her to drink, but this was not the
intention. He asked if I did not wish more; and then took the vessel,
and as he drank the girl performed the operation on himself. Placing
herself in front, she put both hands round his waist below the short
ribs, and pressing gradually drew them round to his belly in front.
He took several prolonged draughts, and at each she repeated the
operation, as if to make the liquor go equally over the stomach. Our
topers don't seem to have discovered the need for this.
_5th September, 1866._--Our march is along the shore to Ngombo
promontory, which approaches so near to Senga or Tsenga opposite, as
to narrow the Lake to some sixteen or eighteen miles. It is a low
sandy point, the edge fringed on the north-west and part of the south
with a belt of papyrus and reeds; the central parts wooded. Part of
the south side has high sandy dunes, blown up by the south wind, which
strikes it at right angles there. One was blowing as we marched along
the southern side eastwards, and was very tiresome. We reached
Panthunda's village by a brook called Lilolé. Another we crossed
before coming to it is named Libesa: these brooks form the favourite
spawning grounds of the sanjika and mpasa, two of the best fishes of
the Lake. The sanjika is very like our herring in shape and taste and
size; the mpasa larger every way: both live on green herbage formed at
the bottom of the Lake and rivers.
_7th September, 1866._--Chirumba's village being on the south side of
a long lagoon, we preferred sleeping on the mainland, though they
offered their cranky canoes to ferry us over. This lagoon is called
Pansangwa.
_8th September, 1866._--In coming along the southern side of Ngombo
promontory we look eastwards, but when we leave it we turn southwards,
having a double range of lofty mountains on our left. These are
granitic in form, the nearer range being generally the lowest, and
covered with scraggy trees; the second, or more easterly, is some 6000
feet above the sea, bare and rugged, with jagged peaks shooting high
into the air. This is probably the newest range. The oldest people
have felt no earthquake, but some say that they have heard of such
things from their elders.
We passed very many sites of old villages, which are easily known by
the tree euphorbia planted round an umbelliferous one, and the sacred
fig. One species here throws out strong buttresses in the manner of
some mangroves instead of sending down twiners which take root, as is
usually the ease with the tropical fig. These, with millstones--stones
for holding the pots in cooking--and upraised clay benches, which have
been turned into brick by fire in the destruction of the huts, show
what were once the "pleasant haunts of men." No stone implements ever
appear. If they existed they could not escape notice, since the eyes
in walking are almost always directed to the ground to avoid stumbling
on stones or stumps. In some parts of the world stone implements are
so common they seem to have been often made and discarded as soon as
formed, possibly by getting better tools; if, indeed, the manufacture
is not as modern as that found by Mr. Waller. Passing some navvies in
the City who were digging for the foundation of a house, he observed a
very antique-looking vase, wet from the clay, standing on the bank. He
gave ten shillings for it, and subsequently, by the aid of a scrubbing
brush and some water, detected the hieroglyphics "Copeland late Spode"
on the bottom of it!
Here the destruction is quite recent, and has been brought about by
some who entertained us very hospitably on the Misinjé, before we came
to the confluence. The woman chief, Ulenjelenjé, or Njelenjé, bore a
part in it for the supply of Arab caravans. It was the work of the
Masininga, a Waiyau tribe, of which her people form a part. They
almost depopulated the broad fertile tract, of some three or four
miles, between the mountain range and the Lake, along which our course
lay. It was wearisome to see the skulls and bones scattered about
everywhere; one would fain not notice them, but they are so striking
as one trudges along the sultry path, that it cannot be avoided.
_9th September, 1866._--We spent Sunday at Kandango's village. The men
killed a hippopotamus when it was sleeping on the shore; a full-grown
female, 10 feet 9 inches from the snout to the insertion of the tail,
and 4 feet 4 inches high at the withers. The bottom here and all along
southwards now is muddy. Many of the _Siluris Glanis_ are caught equal
in length to an eleven or a twelve-pound salmon, but a great portion
is head; slowly roasted on a stick stuck in the ground before the fire
they seemed to me much more savoury than I ever tasted them before.
With the mud we have many shells: north of Ngombo scarcely one can be
seen, and there it is sandy or rocky.
_10th September, 1866._--In marching southwards we came close to the
range (the Lake lies immediately on the other side of it), but we
could not note the bays which it forms; we crossed two mountain
torrents from sixty to eighty yards broad, and now only ankle deep. In
flood these bring down enormous trees, which are much battered and
bruised among the rocks in their course; they spread over the plain,
too, and would render travelling here in the rains impracticable.
After spending the night at a very civil headman's chefu, we crossed
the Lotendé, another of these torrents: each very lofty mass in the
range seemed to give rise to one. Nothing of interest occurred as we
trudged along. A very poor headman, Pamawawa, presented a roll of salt
instead of food: this was grateful to us, as we have been without that
luxury some time.
_12th September, 1866._--We crossed the rivulet Nguena, and then went
on to another with a large village by it, it is called Pantoza
Pangone. The headman had been suffering from sore eyes for four
months, and pressed me to stop and give him medicine, which I did.
_13th September, 1866._--We crossed a strong brook called Nkoré. My
object in mentioning the brooks which were flowing at this time, and
near the end of the dry season, is to give an idea of the sources of
supply of evaporation. The men enumerate the following, north of the
Misinjé. Those which are greater are marked thus +, and the lesser
ones -.
1. Misinjé + has canoes.
2. Loangwa -
3. Leséfa -
4. Lelula -
5. Nchamanjé -
6. Musumba +
7. Fubwé +
8. Chia -
9. Kisanga +
10. Bweka -
11. Chifumero + has canoes.
12. Loangwa -
13. Mkoho -
14. Mangwelo - at N. end of Lake.
Including the above there are twenty or twenty-four perennial brooks
and torrents which give a good supply of water in the dry season; in
the wet season they are supplemented by a number of burns, which,
though flowing now, have their mouths blocked up with bars of sand,
and yield nothing except by percolation; the Lake rises at least four
feet perpendicularly in the wet season, and has enough during the year
from these perennial brooks to supply the Shiré's continual flow.
[It will be remembered that the beautiful river Shiré carries off the
waters of Lake Nyassa and joins the Zambesi near Mount Morambala,
about ninety miles from the sea. It is by this water-way that
Livingstone always hoped to find an easy access to Central Africa.
The only obstacles that exist are, first, the foolish policy of the
Portuguese with regard to Customs' duties at the mouth of the Zambesi;
and secondly, a succession of cataracts on the Shiré, which impede
navigation for seventy miles. The first hindrance may give way under
more liberal views than those which prevail at present at the Court of
Lisbon, and then the remaining difficulty--accepted as a fact--will be
solved by the establishment of a boat service both above and below the
cataracts. Had Livingstone survived he would have been cheered by
hearing that already several schemes are afoot to plant Missions in
the vicinity of Lake Nyassa, and we may with confidence look to the
revival of the very enterprise which he presently so bitterly deplores
as a thing of the past, for Bishop Steere has fully determined to
re-occupy the district in which fell his predecessor, Bishop
Mackenzie, and others attached to the Universities Mission.]
In the course of this day's march we were pushed close to the Lake by
Mount Gomé, and, being now within three miles of the end of the Lake,
we could see the whole plainly. There we first saw the Shiré emerge,
and there also we first gazed on the broad waters of Nyassa.
Many hopes have been disappointed here. Far down on the right bank of
the Zambesi lies the dust of her whose death changed all my future
prospects; and now, instead of a check being given to the slave-trade
by lawful commerce on the Lake, slave-dhows prosper!
An Arab slave-party fled on hearing of us yesterday. It is impossible
not to regret the loss of good Bishop Mackenzie, who sleeps far down
the Shiré, and with him all hope of the Gospel being introduced into
Central Africa. The silly abandonment of all the advantages of the
Shiré route by the Bishop's successor I shall ever bitterly deplore,
but all will come right some day, though I may not live to
participate in the joy, or even see the commencement of better times.
In the evening we reached the village of Cherekalongwa on the brook
Pamchololo, and were very jovially received by the headman with beer.
He says that Mukaté,[19] Kabinga, and Mponda alone supply the
slave-traders now by raids on the Manganja, but they go S.W. to the
Maravi, who, impoverished by a Mazitu raid, sell each other as well.
_14th, September, 1866._--At Cherekalongwa's (who has a skin disease,
believed by him to have been derived from eating fresh-water turtles),
we were requested to remain one day in order that he might see us. He
had heard much about us; had been down the Shiré, and as far as
Mosambique, but never had an Englishman in his town before. As the
heat is great we were glad of the rest and beer, with which he very
freely supplied us.
I saw the skin of a Phenembe, a species of lizard which devours
chickens; here it is named Salka. It had been flayed by a cut up the
back--body, 12 inches; across belly, 10 inches.
After nearly giving up the search for Dr. Roscher's point of reaching
the Lake--because no one, either Arab or native, had the least idea of
either Nusseewa or Makawa, the name given to the place--I discovered
it in Lesséfa, the accentuated _é_ being sounded as our _e_ in _set_.
This word would puzzle a German philologist, as being the origin of
Nussewa, but the Waiyau pronounce it Loséwa, the Arabs Lusséwa, and
Roscher's servant transformed the _L_ and _é_ into _N_ and _ee_, hence
Nusseewa. In confirmation of this rivulet Leséfa, which is opposite
Kotakota, or, as the Arabs pronounce it, Nkotakota, the chief is
Mangkaka (Makawa), or as there is a confusion of names as to chief it
may be Mataka, whose town and district is called Moembé, the town
Pamoembe = Mamemba.
I rest content with Kingomango so far verifying the place at which he
arrived two months after we had discovered Lake Nyassa. He deserved
all the credit due to finding the way thither, but he travelled as an
Arab, and no one suspected him to be anything else. Our visits have
been known far and wide, and great curiosity excited; but Dr. Roscher
merits the praise only of preserving his _incognito_ at a distance
from Kilwa: his is almost the only case known of successfully assuming
the Arab guise--Burckhardt is the exception. When Mr. Palgrave came to
Muscat, or a town in Oman where our political agent Col. Desborough
was stationed, he was introduced to that functionary by an interpreter
as Hajee Ali, &c. Col. Desborough replied, "You are no Hajee Ali, nor
anything else but Gifford Palgrave, with whom I was schoolfellow at
the Charter House." Col. Desborough said he knew him at once, from a
peculiar way of holding his head, and Palgrave begged him not to
disclose his real character to his interpreter, on whom, and some
others, he had been imposing. I was told this by Mr. Dawes, a
Lieutenant in the Indian navy, who accompanied Colonel Pelly in his
visit to the Nejed, Riad, &c, and took observations for him.
_Tañgaré_ is the name of a rather handsome bean, which possesses
intoxicating qualities. To extract these it is boiled, then peeled,
and new water supplied: after a second and third boiling it is
pounded, and the meal taken to the river and the water allowed to
percolate through it several times. Twice cooking still leaves the
intoxicating quality; but if eaten then it does not cause death: it is
curious that the natives do not use it expressly to produce
intoxication. When planted near a tree it grows all over it, and
yields abundantly: the skin of the pod is velvety, like our broad
beans.
Another bean, with a pretty white mark on it, grows freely, and is
easily cooked, and good: it is here called _Gwingwiza_.
_15th September, 1866._--We were now a short distance south of the
Lake, and might have gone west to Mosauka's (called by some Pasauka's)
to cross the Shiré there, but I thought that my visit to Mukaté's, a
Waiyau chief still further south, might do good. He, Mponda, and
Kabinga, are the only three chiefs who still carry on raids against
the Manganja at the instigation of the coast Arabs, and they are now
sending periodical marauding parties to the Maravi (here named Malola)
to supply the Kilwa slave-traders. We marched three hours southwards,
then up the hills of the range which flanks all the lower part of the
Lake. The altitude of the town is about 800 feet above the Lake. The
population near the chief is large, and all the heights as far as the
eye can reach are crowned with villages. The second range lies a few
miles off, and is covered with trees as well as the first, the nearest
high mass is Mañgoché. The people live amidst plenty. All the chiefs
visited by the Arabs have good substantial square houses built for
their accommodation. Mukaté never saw a European before, and
everything about us is an immense curiosity to him and to his people.
We had long visits from him. He tries to extract a laugh out of every
remark. He is darker than the generality of Waiyau, with a full beard
trained on the chin, as all the people hereabouts have--Arab fashion.
The courts of his women cover a large space, our house being on one
side of them. I tried to go out that way, but wandered, so the ladies
sent a servant to conduct me out in the direction I wished to go, and
we found egress by passing through some huts with two doors in them.
_16th September, 1866._--At Mukaté's. The Prayer Book does not give
ignorant persons any idea of an unseen Being addressed, it looks more
like reading or speaking to the book: kneeling and praying with eyes
shut is better than, our usual way of holding Divine service.
We had a long discussion about the slave-trade. The Arabs have told
the chief that our object in capturing slavers is to get them into our
own possession, and make them of our own religion. The evils which we
have seen--the skulls, the ruined villages, the numbers who perish on
the way to the coast and on the sea, the wholesale murders committed
by the Waiyau to build up Arab villages elsewhere--these things Mukaté
often tried to turn off with a laugh, but our remarks are safely
lodged in many hearts. Next day, as we went along, our guide
spontaneously delivered their substance to the different villages
along our route. Before we reached him, a headman, in convoying me a
mile or two, whispered to me, "Speak to Mukaté to give his forays up."
It is but little we can do, but we lodge a protest in the heart
against a vile system, and time may ripen it. Their great argument is,
"What could we do without Arab cloth?" My answer is, "Do what you did
before the Arabs came into the country." At the present rate of
destruction of population, the whole country will soon be a desert.
An earthquake happened here last year, that is about the end of it or
beginning of this (the crater on the Grand. Comoro Island smoked for
three months about that time); it shook all the houses and everything,
but they observed no other effects.[20] No hot springs are known here.
_17th September, 1866._--We marched down from Mukaté's and to about
the middle of the Lakelet Pamalombé. Mukaté had no people with canoes
near the usual crossing place, and he sent a messenger to see that we
were fairly served. Here we got the Manganja headmen to confess that
an earthquake had happened; all the others we have inquired of have
denied it; why, I cannot conceive. The old men said that they had felt
earthquakes twice, once near sunset and the next time at night--they
shook everything, and were accompanied with noise, and all the fowls
cackled; there was no effect on the Lake observed. They profess
ignorance of any tradition of the water having stood higher. Their
traditions say that they came originally from the west, or west
north-west, which they call "Maravi;" and that their forefathers
taught them to make nets and kill fish. They have no trace of any
teaching by a higher instructor; no carvings or writings on the rocks;
and they never heard of a book until we came among them. Their
forefathers never told them that after or at death they went to God,
but they had heard it said of such a one who died, "God took him."
_18th September, 1866._--We embarked the whole party in eight canoes,
and went up the Lake to the point of junction between it and the
prolongation of Nyassa above it, called Massangano ("meetings"), which
took us two hours. A fishing party there fled on seeing us, though we
shouted that we were a travelling party (or "Olendo ").
Mukaté's people here left us, and I walked up to the village of the
fugitives with one attendant only. Their suspicions were so thoroughly
aroused that they would do nothing. The headman (Pima) was said to be
absent; they could not lend us a hut, but desired us to go on to
Mponda's. We put up a shed for ourselves, and next morning, though we
pressed them for a guide, no one would come.
From Pima's village we had a fine view of Pamalombé and the range of
hills on its western edge, the range which flanks the lower part of
Nyassa,--on part of which Mukaté lives,--the gap of low land south of
it behind which Shirwa Lake lies, and Chikala and Zomba nearly due
south from us. People say hippopotami come from Lake Shirwa into Lake
Nyassa. There is a great deal of vegetation in Pamalombé, gigantic
rushes, duckweed, and great quantities of aquatic plants on the
bottom; one slimy translucent plant is washed ashore in abundance.
Fish become very fat on these plants; one called "kadiakola" I eat
much of; it has a good mass of flesh on it.
It is probable that the people of Lake Tanganyika and Nyassa, and
those on the Rivers Shiré and Zambesi, are all of one stock, for the
dialects vary very little.[21] I took observations on this point. An
Arab slave-party, hearing of us, decamped.
_19th September, 1866._--When we had proceeded a mile this morning we
came to 300 or 400 people making salt on a plain impregnated with it.
They lixiviate the soil and boil the water, which has filtered through
a bunch of grass in a hole in the bottom of a pot, till all is
evaporated and a mass of salt left. We held along the plain till we
came to Mponda's, a large village, with a stream running past. The
plain at the village is very fertile, and has many large trees on it.
The cattle of Mponda are like fatted Madagascar beasts, and the hump
seems as if it would weigh 100 lbs.[22] The size of body is so
enormous that their legs, as remarked by our men, seemed very small.
Mponda is a blustering sort of person, but immensely interested in
everything European. He says that he would like to go with me. "Would
not care though he were away ten years." I say that he may die in the
journey.--"He will die here as well as there, but he will see all the
wonderful doings of our country." He knew me, having come to the boat,
to take a look _incognito_ when we were here formerly.
We found an Arab slave-party here, and went to look at the slaves;
seeing this; Mponda was alarmed lest we should proceed to violence in
his town, but I said to him that we went to look only. Eighty-five
slaves were in a pen formed of dura stalks _(Holcus sorghum_). The
majority were boys of about eight or ten years of age; others were
grown men and women. Nearly all were in the taming-stick; a few of the
younger ones were in thongs, the thong passing round the neck of each.
Several pots were on the fires cooking dura and beans. A crowd went
with us, expecting a scene, but I sat down, and asked a few questions
about the journey, in front. The slave-party consisted of five or six
half-caste coast Arabs, who said that they came from Zanzibar; but the
crowd made such a noise that we could not hear ourselves speak. I
asked if they had any objections to my looking at the slaves, the
owners pointed out the different slaves, and said that after feeding
them, and accounting for the losses in the way to the coast, they made
little by the trip. I suspect that the gain is made by those who ship
them to the ports of Arabia, for at Zanzibar most of the younger
slaves we saw went at about seven dollars a head. I said to them it
was a bad business altogether. They presented fowls to me in the
evening.
_20th September, 1866._--The chief begged so hard that I would stay
another day and give medicine to a sick child, that I consented. He
promised plenty of food, and, as an earnest of his sincerity, sent an
immense pot of beer in the evening. The child had been benefited by
the medicine given yesterday. He offered more food than we chose to
take.
The agricultural class does not seem to be a servile one: all
cultivate, and the work is esteemed. The chief was out at his garden
when we arrived, and no disgrace is attached to the field labourer.
The slaves very likely do the chief part of the work, but all engage
in it, and are proud of their skill. Here a great deal of grain is
raised, though nearly all the people are Waiyau or Machinga. This is
remarkable, as they have till lately been marauding and moving from
place to place. The Manganja possessed the large breed of humped
cattle which fell into the hands of the Waiyau, and knew how to milk
them. Their present owners never milk them, and they have dwindled
into a few instead of the thousands of former times.[23]
A lion killed a woman early yesterday morning, and ate most of her
undisturbed.
It is getting very hot; the ground to the feet of the men "burns like
fire" after noon, so we are now obliged to make short marches, and
early in the morning chiefly.
Wikatani--Bishop Mackenzie's favourite boy--met a brother here, and he
finds that he has an elder brother and a sister at Kabinga's. The
father who sold him into slavery is dead. He wishes to stop with his
relatives, and it will be well if he does. Though he has not much to
say, what he does advance against the slave-trade will have its
weight, and it will all be in the way of preparation for better times
and more light.
The elder brother was sent for, but had not arrived when it was
necessary for us to leave Mponda's on the Rivulet Ntemangokwé. I
therefore gave Wikatani some cloth, a flint gun instead of the
percussion one he carried, some flints, paper to write upon, and
commended him to Mponda's care till his relatives arrived. He has
lately shown a good deal of levity, and perhaps it is best that he
should have a touch of what the world is in reality.
[In a letter written about this time Dr. Livingstone, in speaking of
Wikatani, says, "He met with a brother, and found that he had two
brothers and one or two sisters living down at the western shore of
Lake Pamelombé under Kabinga. He thought that his relatives would not
again sell him. I had asked him if he wished to remain, and he at once
said yes, so I did not attempt to dissuade him: his excessive levity
will perhaps be cooled by marriage. I think he may do good by telling
some of what he has seen and heard. I asked him if he would obey an
order from his chief to hunt the Manganja, and he said, 'No.' I hope
he won't. In the event of any mission coming into the country of
Mataka, he will go there. I gave him paper to write to you,[24] and,
commending him to the chiefs, bade the poor boy farewell. I was sorry
to part with him, but the Arabs tell the Waiyau chiefs that our object
in liberating slaves is to make them our own and turn them to our
religion. I had declared to them, through Wikatani as interpreter,
that they never became our slaves, and were at liberty to go back to
their relatives if they liked; and now it was impossible to object to
Wikatani going without stultifying my own statements." It is only
necessary to repeat that Wikatani and Chuma had been liberated from
the slavers by Dr. Livingstone and Bishop Mackenzie in 1861; they were
mere children when set free.
We must not forget to record the fact that when Mr. Young reached
Maponda, two years afterwards, to ascertain whether the Doctor really
had been murdered, as Musa declared, he was most hospitably received
by the chief, who had by this time a great appreciation of everything
English.]
The lines of tattoo of the different tribes serve for ornaments, and
are resorted to most by the women; it is a sort of heraldry closely
resembling the Highland tartans.
[Illustration: Manganja and Machinga women (from a Drawing by the late
Dr. Meller).]
FOOTNOTES:
[16] Coal was shown to a group of natives when first the _Pioneer_
ascended the river Shiré. Members of numerous tribes were present, and
all recognised it at once as Makala or coal.--ED.
[17] Dr. Livingstone heard this subsequently when at Casembe's.
[18] The greater part were driven down into the Manganja country by
war and famine combined, and eventually filled the slave gangs of the
Portuguese, whose agents went from Tette and Senna to procure
them.--ED.
[19] Pronounced Mkata by the Waiyau.--ED.
[20] Earthquakes are by no means uncommon. A slight shock was felt in
1861 at Magomero; on asking the natives if they knew the cause of it,
they replied that on one occasion, after a very severe earthquake
which shook boulders off the mountains, all the wise men of the
country assembled to talk about it and came to the following
conclusion, that a star had fallen from heaven into the sea, and that
the bubbling caused the whole earth to rock; they said the effect was
the same as that caused by throwing, a red-hot stone into a pot of
water.--ED.
[21] The Waiyau language differs very much from the Nyassa, and is
exceedingly difficult to master: it holds good from the coast to
Nyassa, but to the west of the Lake the Nyassa tongue is spoken over a
vast tract.--ED.
[22] We shall see that more to the north the hump entirely disappears.
[23] It is very singular to witness the disgust with which the idea of
drinking milk is received by most of these tribes when we remember
that the Caffre nations on the south, and again, tribes more to the
north, subsist principally on it. A lad will undergo punishment rather
than milk a goat. Eggs are likewise steadily eschewed.--ED.
[24] To myself.--ED.