Morumbala, four thousand feet in height, bounds for many miles the
view on the right as we ascend the Shiré. Beyond it we reach one of the
marshes or old lake-beds which form one of the features of this valley.
The bounding lines of hills make each a semicircular curve, and inclose
a vast morass, through the centre of which the river drains slowly
between dripping walls of sedge and mud. No human inhabitant can dwell
in these impenetrable swamps; but they are far from empty of life. Great
flights of wild geese, ducks, waders, and other water-fowl abound here in
prodigious numbers, and rise from the brake at the noise of the passing
boat or steamer——for already steamers now ply on the waters of the river
below and the great lake above.
The discovery of the lake was due to Livingstone who had heard of
the “Great Water” somewhere to the north of the Zambesi and far amid
the mountains of the Shiré. His first attempt to reach it was a
failure, through reticence of the people respecting it and the natural
difficulties he encountered. But his worst enemy was his guide who misled
him until all were completely lost. The party were in a desperate strait.
Suspicion of treachery filled every bosom except Livingstone’s. One of
his faithful Makololos came up to him, and remarked, in a matter-of-fact
way, “That fellow is taking us into mischief. My spear is sharp. There is
no one here. Shall I cast him into the long grass?” A gesture of assent,
or even silence, and the unlucky guide would have been run through the
body; but Livingstone was not the man to permit blood to be spilt, even
on an apparently well-grounded suspicion of treachery. After all, it
turned out to be merely a blunder, and no treachery. The party were led
safely to the margin of the “great lake” of the district——the elephant
marsh that they had passed some time before while ascending the river!
The second trip resulted in a discovery of an inland sea, though not
the one they were in search of. Climbing over the shoulder of the high
mountains east of the Shiré, the party came in sight of Lake Shirwa,
lying in an isolated, pear-shaped basin, nearly two thousand feet above
sea-level. Magnificent mountain scenery surrounds the lake, the waters
of which, contrary to the rule in Central Africa, are salt, or rather
brackish. Although the area of Shirwa is large, it is but a mill-pond
compared with Nyassa and some of the other African lakes. Yet, girt in
though it is with hills, it shows to one standing near its southern end
a boundless sea-horizon towards the north. Opposite on the eastern shore
a lofty range rises to a height of eight thousand feet above sea-level,
while behind, the table-topped Mount Zomba, only one thousand feet lower,
dominates the Shiré valley.
All this mountainous mass seems habitable, and, in fact, is inhabited
to its very summits; and its temperate climate, healthful breezes, and
freedom from malaria and mosquitoes, have led to its being chosen as
the site of the Church of Scotland mission to the Nyassa country——their
station, Blantyre, being named after the Scottish village where
Livingstone first saw the light.
In ascending to the Nyassa, the opposite or western side of the Shiré is
generally chosen, and travellers prefer to make a wide détour into the
healthy Manganja uplands to struggling through the rocky, broken, and
wooded country through which the river tears its impetuous way. It is
delightful to breathe the bracing air of these high plains after escaping
from the humid, stifling atmosphere of the valley. The change of scenery
and climate puts a new life into the veins of the traveller. Many novel
views of African life come under his notice among the Manganja highlands.
The path up the long ascent is toilsome, but the eye is cheered by the
glorious views of the deep valley lying below and the blue domes and
peaks that rise ahead. The country is open and park-like, full of grand
forest trees and flowing streams.
[Illustration: VILLAGE SCENE ON LAKE NYASSA.]
In the evening we halt at a Manganja village and receive a
hearty——perhaps an uproarious——welcome. The villages are surrounded by
thick-set hedges of the poisonous euphorbia; and however busy at work
or at feasting the inhabitants are inside, a guard is always kept on
vigilant watch at the entrance, to give warning if a foraging band of
Mazitu heave in sight in the mountains, or the white robes of a party of
Arab slave-hunters are seen ascending the valley. When it is known that
it is friends who are approaching, the villagers are not long in making
amends for the shyness of their first greetings. Mats of reeds and bamboo
are spread for the wayfarers under the shade of the banian tree at the
“boalo,” an open space for the public entertainment of strangers at one
end of the village, the favorite spot for lounging and smoking, and
where on moonlight nights the young people indulge in singing and dancing
and their elders in hard drinking bouts. The whole community troop out
to see the white visitors, who are regarded with just such a mixture
of curiosity and fear as a company of Red Indians would be looked upon
by English rustics. Presents are exchanged with the chief, and then a
brisk trade sets in, the villagers bartering food and articles of native
manufacture for beads, looking-glasses, cloth, and other surprising
products of Europe. Generally there follow dancing, pombe-drinking, and
serenading in honor of the visitor, a homage which the latter is often
glad to escape from by strolling out for a night-hunt for elephant
or other game, or to note down by the clear light of the moon his
observations for the day.
Soon it is time to descend into the valley, where the Shiré is found
again flowing deep and slow, as below the falls, and opening up into
a marshy lakelet, Pamalombe, with a strong family resemblance to the
swamps of the lower river. It ought to be recorded, in justice to African
honesty, that when the _Ilala_, the first steamer that floated on the
Nyassa, was conveyed in pieces from the Lower to the Upper Shiré by a
band of some hundreds of porters, under Captain Young’s leadership, it
was found, on putting the little craft together, that not a single bolt
or screw had been mislaid or stolen, though the temptation to fling away
or decamp with their burdens must have sorely tried the carriers.
Even when almost within sight of the Nyassa. Livingstone could hear
nothing of the goal of which he was in search. The chief of the “Great
Lake” village on the Shiré told him that the river stretched on for
“two months’ journey,” and then emerged from two rocks that towered
perpendicularly to the skies. “We shall go and see these wonderful
rocks,” said the doctor. “And when you see them,” objected his Makololo
companions, “you will just want to see something else.” Next day they
continued their march, and before noon came in sight of the lake.
Like the Tanganyika and Albert Lakes, Nyassa is a long and comparatively
narrow body of water lying in a deep depression of the plateau of Central
Africa. From the outlet of the Shiré one can sail on its waters for
more than three hundred miles towards the equator; but it is nowhere
more than sixty miles in width, and in some places less than half that
distance across. It resembles the more northerly lakes, the Albert Nyanza
and the Tanganyika, but especially the latter, in its general shape and
direction; and it was for many years a favorite theory with “closet
geographers” that the three lakes formed one continuous sheet of water.
Such an attenuated “river-sea,” fifteen hundred miles in length and with
no breadth to speak of, would have been a new thing in nature, and would,
besides, have been an extremely useful factor in opening up Africa.
Unfortunately, like other pretty theories, it did not stand the test of
actual examination; and we have seen that the three lakes form parts of
three different though not disconnected systems.
The shores of Nyassa seem to be overhung on all sides by tall mountains,
although near the southern end there is generally a margin of more
level country between the bases of the hills and the lake. As we
proceed northwards, the distinctive features of the lake shores become
more pronounced and majestic. The strip of plain narrows until it
disappears. The range increases in altitude and approaches nearer, the
rocky buttresses spring directly from the water, and the torrents that
rush down their sides plunge in cascades into the lake; and the extreme
northern end is encircled by dark mountains, whose frowning tops are
ten thousand feet or more above sea-level. But when we ascend from the
sweltering western margin of the lake to the cool and breezy heights that
look down on it, we find that instead of being on the summit of a range
of mountains we are only on the edge of a wide table-land. There is no
steep slope corresponding to that which we have ascended so toilsomely,
only a gentle incline towards the Zambesi.
On his last great expedition to Africa, Dr. Livingstone passed round
the southern end of the lake, and, ascending the table-land, traced the
water-shed between the lake and the streams flowing to the westward,
until he descended into the valley of the Chambesi, and began that
investigation of the Congo which is hereafter more fully described. The
contour of the country reminded him strongly of that of Southern India.
There was the flat country covered with thick jungle and tiger-grass,
succeeded by dense forest, gradually thinning away to clumps of
evergreens as the higher levels are reached, the scattered masses
of boulders, the deeply-trenched “nullahs” or water-courses, and all
the other familiar features of the fine scenery of the Ghauts, while
the tableland above resembled closely the high plains of the Deccan.
But what a contrast in the social and industrial condition of the two
countries! Instead of seeing at every step, as in India, the traces of a
long-founded civilization and a race of industrious tillers of the soil
dwelling in peace and security under the strong arm of the law, we meet
only with anarchy, misery, and barbarism.
The whole of this region is a hunting-ground of the Mazitu or Mavitu
Zulus, whose only business is war and pillage. The wretched inhabitants
of these hills dwell in constant apprehension of their raids. On no
night can they sleep even within the shelter of their well-guarded
stockades with the assurance that the Mavitu will not be upon them ere
morning. Originally weak in numbers, this tribe has gathered strength
by amalgamating with themselves the clans they have conquered. The
terror which their deeds have inspired has been heightened by their
wild and fantastic dress and gestures as they advance to battle, and by
their formidable weapons. They carry the long Zulu shield and both the
flinging and the stabbing assegai. Their hair is plumed with feathers,
and their bodies painted in fiendish devices with red and white clay.
So abject is the fear entertained for these redoubtable champions among
the surrounding tribes, that the mere mention of their name is enough to
make a travelling party take to their heels. Livingstone found this a
constant source of annoyance and delay. Twice it was the cause of reports
of his death being brought home. On the last occasion, the Johanna
men——natives of the Comoro Isles——who formed his escort, were seized with
the infectious panic, and, abandoning him in a body, brought down to the
coast the story of the explorer having been murdered in the interior. The
falsity of their report was only ascertained after Mr. Edward Young had
made a special expedition to the Nyassa, and learned on the spot that the
intrepid missionary, in spite of the cowardly desertion of his followers,
was safe and well, and still pushing forward towards his goal.
In one respect, if in no other, the Zulu “Rob Roys” of these hills have
a feeling in common with the travellers and missionaries who have found
their way to the Nyassa countries——they are the inveterate enemies of
the slave-hunters, and will not permit these gentry to practice the
arts of kidnapping and murder within reach of their spears. The eastern
side of the Nyassa basin, on the other hand, is one of the principal
scenes of the slave-traders’ operations. In conjunction with predatory
negro tribes, such as the Ajawa on the left bank of the Shiré, they have
made a wilderness of all the country between the Nyassa and the Indian
Ocean. Nothing can exceed the waste and havoc they have wrought in this
beautiful and fruitful land. The books of the explorers are full of
details of almost incredible atrocities committed under their eyes, and
which they were powerless to prevent. Whole populations have been swept
into the slave-gangs and hurried down to the coast, leaving the country
behind them a desert, and their path marked by the skeletons of those who
have succumbed to exhaustion or the cruelty of their brutal drivers. The
miserable remnant of the population roost in trees, or seek shelter in
the deepest recesses of the forest: while the jungle overruns the fields
of maize, cotton, manioc, and sorghum and the charred ruins of their
villages.
In Livingstone’s Journals we come upon such entries as: “Passed a slave
woman shot or stabbed through the body; a group, looking on, said an
Arab had done it that morning in anger at losing the price he had given
for her, because she was unable to walk.” “Found a number of slaves
with slave sticks (logs six feet long with a cleft at one end in which
the head of the unfortunate is fastened) abandoned by their master from
want of food; they were too weak to speak or say where they had come
from.” “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.” This
evidence is abundantly supported by the statements of other observers.
Consul Elton describes passing a caravan of three hundred slaves from
the Nyassa, while travelling through the clove and gum-copal forests on
the Mozambique coast. “All,” he says, “were in wretched condition. One
gang of lads and women, chained together with iron neck-rings, was in
a horrible state, their lower extremities coated with dry mud and torn
with thorns, their bodies mere frameworks, and their skeleton limbs
slightly stretched-over with parchment-like skin. One wretched woman
had been flung against a tree for slipping her rope, and came screaming
to us for protection, with one eye half out, and her face and bosom
streaming with blood. We washed her wounds, and that was the only piece
of interference on our part with the caravan, although the temptation was
strong to cast all adrift, and give them at any rate a chance of starving
to death peaceably in the woods.” Can it be wondered at that the pioneers
of civilization and Christianity in these regions have sometimes been
carried away by their feelings, and at the risk of ruining their whole
plans have forcibly interfered between these Arab miscreants and their
victims?
During the period to which Consul Elton’s accounts apply, it was computed
that the Lake Nyassa region supplied some fifteen thousand slaves
annually to the markets of Kilwa and other coast towns. Dr. Livingstone
is convinced from his own observations, that, so far as regards the Shiré
country, not a tenth of those who are captured survive the horrors of the
land journey. It may be wondered how this waste of human life can go on
and the country not to be completely depopulated. In spite, however, of
their terrible losses, there is still a large population settled on the
Nyassa. They have been chased down from the hills by the Mavitu and the
slaver, and are huddled together on the lake margin, where their enemies
can swoop down and make them an easy prey.
This dense population is, however, only found towards the southern end
of Nyassa. Further north, the Mavitu have taken possession of the shore
as well as the hills, and practice with equal success the vocation of
pirates on the water and of robbers on land. An expedition in this
direction was, till lately, certain to be attended with no small
excitement and clanger. If the journey were made by land, the travellers
were liable to be surprised at some point where the road was more rocky
and difficult than usual, by the apparition of a wild-looking crew
starting up from behind boulder or tree, and advancing with brandished
spears and unearthly yells. White explorers are not accustomed to turn
and flee at the first alarm. They stand, quietly awaiting the attack;
and the Mavitu disconcerted at conduct so utterly unlike what they had
calculated upon, run away themselves instead. If the excursion is made
by water, a crowd of boats, pulled by swift rowers, will perhaps be seen
putting out from a secluded bight, or from behind a wooded promontory,
and giving chase to the strangers, with loud outcries to stop. The
navigators of this inland sea, however, are missionaries, merchants and
men of peace. They have no desire to do harm to their savage pursuers,
and, secure in the speed of their little steamer and the superior range
of their guns, they can afford to laugh at the attempts to capture them.
[Illustration: STORM ON LAKE NYASSA.]
Much more serious is the danger arising from the sudden and furious
storms that sweep down upon the lake from the gullies of its encircling
hills. Livingstone narrowly escaped shipwreck on its waters, and from his
experiences of it proposed to have Nyassa named the “Lake of Storms.”
An old seaman of his party, who had been over the world, and at home
had spent many a squally night off the wild coasts of Connaught and
Donegal, said he had never encountered such waves as were raised in a
few minutes by the tornadoes on the Nyassa. Succeeding voyagers——Young,
Elton, Cotterill, Drs. Laws and Stewart, of the Scottish missions——report
similar experiences. Mr. Cotterill’s little craft, the _Herya_, a present
from the Harrow boys, was driven ashore on the western coast, June
1877, and he lost his journals, goods, and medical stores, saving only
one bottle of quinine, which, remembering the fate of Livingstone and
Mackenzie, he threw ashore as he neared the breakers in the darkness. The
most dreaded waves on the Nyassa come rolling on in threes, “with their
crests,” says Livingstone, “streaming in spray behind them.” A short lull
follows each charge; and then another white-maned trio come rushing on
and threaten to ingulf the voyagers and their frail bark.
A curious natural phenomenon has been noticed by most observers on the
Nyassa. A light blue cloud will be observed floating for many miles over
the surface of the lake, like the trailing smoke of some distant fire.
When it is reached, we discover that it consists of nothing else but
myriads of insects, of a species peculiar to the region, and known as
the “kungo fly.” So dense is the mass that immense quantities of them
are caught by the natives and pounded into cakes, resembling in size
and shape a “Tam o’Shanter” bonnet. They are not particular as to what
they eat, these hunger-bitten natives of the Nyassa shores. Neither are
they unreasonably extravagant in the matter of dress, some of the tribes
absolutely dispensing with clothes. Their notion of making up for their
scanty attire by liberally anointing their bodies with rancid fish oil
and hippopotamus fat, and smearing themselves with fancy designs in red
and white clay, does not recommend them to the European eye and nostril.
From our point of view, too, their attempts at decoration by means of
tattooing are in nowise improvements, the result being to give their
faces and limbs the appearance of being thickly studded with pimples.
The most hideous device of all, however, is the “pelele,” or lip ring,
an ornament without which no Nyassa belle would dream of appearing in
public. This consists of a broad ring of tin or stone, an inch or more
in diameter, inserted by slow degrees into the upper lip, causing it
to stand out at right angles to its natural direction, and revealing
beneath the rows of teeth sharpened to fine points like those of a saw.
The native ladies of rank sometimes have a corresponding ring in the
under lip, with the result that while the wearers of the single “pelele”
can only lisp, the ladies of fashion are scarcely able to speak at all.
Considering that these poor people have not been lavishly endowed with
natural charms, the effect of their duck-like mouths may be imagined.
Some handsome faces may, however, be seen among the natives of the
Nyassa, and many of them, it has been observed, have regular Jewish
or Assyrian features. Dr. Livingstone saw one man who bore a striking
resemblance to a distinguished London actor in the part of the “Moor of
Venice,” while another was the exact counterpart, in black, of the late
Lord Clyde.
The magnificent alpine country at the north end of the lake is, as yet,
comparatively unknown. The sole spot where there is any level ground is a
great elephant marsh. Here Elton and his companions counted no fewer than
three hundred of these noble animals standing knee-deep in the swamp,
the elders lazily swinging their trunks and fanning themselves with
their huge ears; while the juniors of the herd disported themselves in
their elephantine way, rolling luxuriously in the mud, or tearing down
branches of trees in the riotous enjoyment of their enormous strength.
Elton’s party enjoyed several days of most exciting elephant-stalking
in the neighboring hills. Sallying out one morning into a part of the
forest where the great brutes were known to abound, the herd was at
length sighted; two or three of the elephants dozing under the shade
of some trees, others engaged in munching branches, or shaking the
boughs and picking up one by one with their trunks the berries that were
scattered below. They were soon aroused from this delightful Elysium of
rest and enjoyment by the hunters, who had crept up to within ten or
fifteen yards unseen. Singling out the biggest elephant, a huge tusker,
who stood blinking contemplatively under the shadow of a tree, Elton and
his companion, Mr. Rhodes, each planted a bullet behind his shoulder.
He trumpeted, staggered forward, tripped over into the rocky bed of a
“nullah,” scrambled out on the other side, and there receiving another
two shots, crashed down lifeless into a second dry water-course.
[Illustration: AN ELEPHANT CHARGE.]
Chase was then given up a mountain gorge to the next largest elephant
which deliberately charged back at Elton, the nearest of her pursuers.
Allowing her to approach to within about three yards, he gave her a
forehead shot, which turned her round; and then Rhodes “doubled her
over like a rabbit.” The retreating herd were pursued to the top of the
pass, where the last of the line, a big bull elephant, receiving a shot,
stumbled and fell, while Elton, with “the pace on,” nearly fell on the
top of him; “and,” he says, “holding my Henry rifle like a pistol, I shot
him again at the root of the tail. The shock was irresistible; over the
edge of the ravine he went, head foremost, the blood gushing out of his
trunk, and his fall into space only broken by a stout acacia, in which
he hung suspended, his fore and hind legs on either side——dead.” Still
the hunt was continued, and on a second rocky slope a wounded elephant
was found laboring up, supported and helped on by a friend on either
side, while a fourth urged him on from behind with his forehead. This
last faced round, and stood defiantly at bay, his ears “spread-eagled.”
Elton’s last cartridge missed fire; Rhodes shot; a tremendous report
followed; the elephant, with a groan, plunged over a cliff, and hung
suspended by a thorn-tree in mid-air, like his predecessor; while Mr.
Rhodes, casting his gun from him, ran down the declivity to the river,
his face streaming with blood; and the survivors of the herd, toiling
painfully up the mountain-side, disappeared over the sky-line, “uttering
loud grumblings of disapprobation and distress.” The chamber of the rifle
had burst, cutting Mr. Rhodes severely in the face; and his companion
endeavored to console him by telling him that many a man at home would
have given one thousand pounds for such a day’s sport, and suffered the
cut in the forehead into the bargain.
Such sport is, however, getting every day more difficult to obtain; for
this lordly animal, the true “king of beasts,” is retreating before the
march of civilization, and becoming gradually more scarce even in the
African solitudes. This is not to be wondered at, considering the vast
numbers——probably from fifteen thousand to twenty thousand——that are
killed annually for the sake of their ivory.
It may be remarked that Elton’s escape from the elephant’s charge was
a remarkably close one. There is only one other instance known of the
“forehead shot” being effectual in stopping the course of an African
elephant. This adventure happened in the Abyssinian highlands to Sir
Samuel Baker. That mighty hunter was at the time new to African sport,
and imagining that planting a bullet in the forehead, the favorite method
with hunters of the wild elephant of India and Ceylon, would be equally
effectual in the case of his big-eared kinsman of Central Africa, he
awaited the charge of an elephant until she was within five yards of the
muzzle of his rifle. The bullet happened to strike a vulnerable spot in
the skull, and dropped the animal dead; but the lookers-on for several
moments regarded the hunter as a dead man.
In both these cases the elephant shot was a female, which possesses in a
less marked degree than the male the solid structure of skull that, along
with their immense ears, convex foreheads, and greater size, distinguish
the African from the Asiatic variety. When not struck in a vital spot,
the elephant is remarkably tenacious of life; and Livingstone tells how
he fired twelve bullets into one that had fallen into a hole, and had
about a hundred native spears sticking in him, and next morning found
that the animal had scrambled out and escaped into the forest. Perhaps
the most perilous experience that ever befell a white hunter when after
elephants occurred to Mr. Oswell, far to the southward, on the banks of
the Zouga. Chasing an elephant through a thorny thicket on horseback, he
suddenly found the animal had wheeled round and was bearing straight down
upon him. Attempting to turn his horse, he was thrown, face downwards,
before the elephant. Twisting round, he saw the huge fore foot about
to descend on his legs, parted them, and drew in his breath, expecting
the other foot to be planted on his body; but saw the whole of the
“under-side” of the huge creature pass over him, and rose unhurt to his
feet, saved almost by miracle.
But this has carried us far away from the elephant marsh, from the
borders of which Messrs. Elton, Cotterill, Rhodes, and Hoste made their
ascent of the mountain barrier of Nyassa. The lowest pass over the
Konde, or Livingstone range, is eight thousand eight hundred feet above
sea-level; and the ascent embraces every variety of climate and scenery,
from stifling tropical swamp to breezy moorlands of fern and bracken,
carpeted with wild thyme, daisies, dandelions, and buttercups, like our
hills at home. From the top a magnificent landscape is viewed. Elton
says: “The country we have passed through is without exception the finest
tract in Africa I have yet seen. Towards the east we were walled in with
mountains rising to a height of from twelve to fourteen thousand feet,
inclosing undulating, well-watered valleys, lovely woodland slopes,
hedged-in fields, and knolls dotted with native hamlets. There is nothing
to equal it either in fertility or in grazing land in Natal, the reputed
‘garden of South Africa.’ It is the most exceptionally favorable country
for semi-tropical cultivation I have ever seen.”
A serious obstacle to the development of this beautiful highland region
is probably the exceptionally deadly climate of the country through
which it must be approached. Already many precious lives have been
sacrificed in the attempt to open up the Nyassa. Livingstone got here
his “death-sentence.” The German Roscher, who, travelling in the guise
of an Arab from the east coast, viewed the lake only two months later
than the great missionary, was basely murdered at a little village near
its shores. Bishop Mackenzie is buried in the Shiré swamps; and near him
lie nearly the whole staff of the University Mission to this region,
all stricken down with marsh fever. Thornton, the intrepid companion
of Livingstone on his first visit to the Nyassa, after having ascended
half-way up the snow-capped mountain Kilimandjaro, far to the northward,
returned to this quarter, only to die at the foot of the Murchison
Rapids. Mrs. Livingstone, the devoted wife of the missionary, rests
under a gigantic baobab tree a little way below the Shiré mouth; and
near her grave is that of Kirkpatrick, of the Zambesi Survey Expedition
of 1826. Another baobab, in Ugogo, shades the resting-place of Consul
Elton, whom we have just seen full of life and hope, at the head of the
pass overhanging the north end of the lake. Only a few marches to the
northward of the pass, while toiling across a droughty plain, and weak
from hunger and fever, he succumbed to sunstroke, and a most useful
and promising career closed at the early age of thirty-seven. Still
younger was Mr. Keith Johnston, who died from dysentery, while leading
an expedition from Zanzibar territory to Nyassa. Dr. Black is buried on
Cape Maclear, the rocky promontory cleaving the southern end of the lake,
where the Free Church of Scotland Mission Station of Livingstonia has
been planted; and the little cemetery contains many other graves of white
persons.
The Scottish mission stations on the Shiré and Lake Nyassa are not
the only outposts which Christianity has planted in the far interior
of the “Dark Continent.” Similar colonies, for the moral improvement
and industrial training of the natives of Africa, have been placed on
the shores of the Victoria Nyanza and Tanganyika by the London and
University Missionary Societies. The example is being followed by
similar associations in France and America; and the Zambesi country has
been mapped out for a renewal of the long-abandoned work of the Jesuit
fathers. Science, commerce, and philanthropy have enlisted by the side
of religion in the task of opening up Africa. The chief outlets of the
slave-trade have at length, it is hoped, been closed, thanks mainly to
the efforts of England, and the hearty co-operation of the government of
Portugal, Egypt and Zanzibar.
AFRICAN RESOURCES.
Though the coasts of Africa lie within sight of the most civilized
countries, its depths are still mysteries. Though the valley of the Nile
was, in the earliest ages of history, the seat of commerce, the arts and
sciences, it is only now that we read of a new source for that sacred
stream in Lake Edward Nyanza.
This wonderful continent, the Negroland of our school books, the marvel
of modern times as the light of exploration pierces its forests and
reveals its lakes, rivers and peoples, is a vast peninsula, triangular
in shape, containing 12,300,000 square miles. This vast area renders a
conception of its geographic details difficult, yet by taking several
plain views of it, the whole may be brought out so that one can grasp
it with a fair degree of intelligence. One way to look at it is to
regard the entire seacoast as the rind of the real Africa. Follow its
Mediterranean boundary on the north, its Red Sea and Indian Ocean
boundary on the east, its Atlantic Ocean boundary on the south and west,
and the lowland rind is always present, in some places quite thin, in
others many miles thick.
This rind, low, swampy, reedy, channeled by oozy creeks, or many mouthed
rivers, is the prelude to something wholly different within. On the
north, north-east and north-west, we know it introduces us to the barren
Sahara. In all other parts it introduces us to an upland Africa, which,
for height and variety of plateaus, has no equal in the world. These
plateaus are variegated with immense mountain chains, like those of
the Atlas, the Moon, the Kong, the Gupata, and those just revealed by
Stanley extending between the two great lakes Albert Nyanza and Victoria
Nyanza, and to a height of 18,000 feet, fully 6,000 of which are clad
in perpetual snow, even though lying under the Equator. Here too are
those vast stretches of water which vie in size and depth with the lake
systems of any other continent, and which feed mighty rivers, even though
evaporation be constantly lifting their volume into the tropical air.
No traveler has ever looked with other than awe upon those superb lakes
Albert Nyanza, Edward Nyanza, Victoria Nyanza, Tanganyika, Leopold II.,
Nyassa, Bangweola, and dozens of smaller ones whose presence came upon
him like a revelation. And then out of these plateaus, thousands of feet
high, run all those mighty rivers which constitute the most unique and
mightiest water system in the world——the Zambezi, the Congo, the Niger,
the Senegal and the Nile.
This would be Africa in a general sense. But in view of the importance
of this opening continent, we must get a fuller view of it. The Africa
of antiquity and of the Middle Ages extended from the Red Sea to the
Atlantic and from the Mediterranean to the land of the Berbers, and other
strange, if not mythical peoples. It embraced Egypt, Nubia and Abyssinia
on the east. On the north it was skirted by the Barbary States. But its
great, appalling feature was the great desert of Sahara, forbidden to
Greek or Roman, Persian or Egyptian, till the Arab came on his camel, and
with the flaming sword of Mohammed in hand, to pierce its waste places
and make traffic possible amid its sandy wastes.
South of the Western Sahara is a fairly defined section extending from
Timbuctoo to the Gulf of Guinea, or in other words nearly to the Equator.
It is divided by the Kong chain of mountains, and embraces the water
systems of the Senegal and Niger Rivers. This was the part of Africa
which first drew European enterprise after Portugal and Spain became the
world’s sailors, and began to feel their way toward the Cape of Good
Hope. Three hundred years ago it was what Central Africa is to-day, a
wonderland full of venturesome travelers, a source of national jealousy,
a factor in European politics, a starting point for a thousand theories
respecting colonization and of as many enterprises having for their
object the introduction of commerce, the arts and Christianity among the
natives, who were by no means as peaceably inclined as in the present
day. As other natives came to find out something of the commercial
value of the Senegal and Niger countries, they stepped in to get their
share of the honor and profit of possession, and so this part of Africa
was partitioned, till we find on the Atlantic, south of the Niger, the
British colony of Sierra Leone, the kingdoms of Ashantee and Dahomey,
the republic of Liberia, the coast towns of the Bight of Benin, and the
strong French possessions lying just north of the Congo and extending
indefinitely inland.
Back of this section, and extending south of the Sahara, to the
head-waters of the Nile, is the great central basin whose waters converge
in the vast estuary known as Lake Tchad. It may be somewhat vaguely
termed the Soudan region, which is divided into Northern and Equatorial
Soudan, the former being the seat of the recent uprising of the Mahdi,
and the latter the center of the kingdom which Emin Pasha sought to wrest
from Mohammedan grasp. Along the Indian Ocean coast, from Cape Guardafui
to Mozambique, is a lowland stretch from two to three hundred miles wide,
watered by small, sluggish rivers which find their way into the Indian
Sea.
Passing down the eastern side of the continent, we come to the immense
basin of the Zambezi, second only in extent to that of the Congo,
stretching almost to the Atlantic coast, seat of mighty tribes like the
Macololos, teeming with commercial possibilities, and even now a source
of such envy between England and Portugal as to raise a question of war.
South of the Zambezi comes the great Kalahari desert as a balance to
the northern Sahara, and then that fringe of civilization embraced in
Transvaal, the Orange Free State, Cape Colony, and so around till the
Portuguese kingdoms of Benguela and Angola are reached, all of whose
waters run by short courses to the sea. These great natural divisions
comprise the entire area of the African continent except that vast
equatorial basin drained by the Congo.
This mighty region, the Central Africa of to-day, is now largely embraced
in the new Congo Free State. To the south of the mouth of the Congo is
the State of Angola, and to the north, the State of Congo, claimed by
the French. The great river was originally called the Zaire, and by
some the Livingstone. Its first, or ocean, section extends from Banana
Point to Boma, a distance of 70 miles, and is in fact an arm of the
sea. Thence, upward to Vivi, a distance of 40 miles, there is a deep,
broad channel, with a moderate current. Vivi is the head of the lower
river navigation, being at the foot of the cataracts, which extend for
over 200 miles through a system of cañons, with more than fifty falls of
various heights. They are known as Livingstone Falls, and have stretches
of navigable water between them. After the cataracts are passed, Stanley
Pool is reached, where are the towns of Leopoldville, Kinshassa and
others, founded recently as trading or missionary stations. The vertical
descent of the river from the broad, tranquil expanse of Stanley Pool
to the level at Vivi, is about 1,000 feet, and from thence to the sea
fully 250 feet more. Stanley Pool, or basin, is about 20 miles long and
nearly 10 broad, and is filled with low wooded islands, natural homes
for hippopotami, crocodiles, elephants, and all tropical animals. From
Leopoldville to Stanley Falls there is uninterrupted navigation, and
the distance is 1,068 miles, with a comparatively straight course and a
vertical descent of four inches to the mile. Stanley Falls 1,511 feet
above the sea level. The affluents of the river below Stanley Falls
present a navigable surface estimated at 4,000 miles. In the wide and
elevated portion of the river above Stanley Falls it is known as the
Lualaba. Its course is now nearly north, and it was this fact that
deceived Livingstone into the belief that he was on the Nile. This
portion, though abounding in vast lake stretches and rich in affluents,
is navigable only for shallow craft. It drains a fertile country whose
centre is Nyangwe, the best-known market town of Central Africa and the
capital of Tippoo Tib’s dominions, the conqueror of the Manyuema, and the
craftiest of all the Arab potentates in Central Africa.
To the east of the Upper Congo, or Lualaba, is a magnificent stretch
of grass country, extending to Lake Tanganyika, whose waters flow into
the Congo, making a descent of 1,200 feet in 200 miles. As the western
shores of that lake rise fully 2,500 feet, this region becomes a sort or
Switzerland in tropical Africa. North and east of Tanganyika, are the
Nile sources, in Lakes Albert, Edward and Victoria Nyanza——a fertile and
populous region, fitted by nature for her thriftiest and best peoples.
Thus we have Africa again mapped, and her grandest portion embraced
in the Congo State, with its 1,500,000 square miles, its countless
population, its abundance of navigable streams, its remarkably fertile
soil, its boundless forests, all its requisites for the demands of an
advanced civilization.
[Illustration: NATIVE HUNTERS KILLING SOKOS.]
To the naturalist Africa opens a field for research equalled by no other
continent. The whole organic world offers no such number of giant animal
and plant forms. It unfolds five times as many quadrupeds as Asia, and
three times as many as the Americas. Its colossal hippopotami, huge
giraffes, infinite variety of antelopes, and water-bucks, the curious
diving sheep, or goat, called the Quichobo, long armed apes, fierce
sokos, and swarms of sprightly monkeys, excel those of Asia in size. That
mammoth bird, the ostrich, whose feathers delight our modern slaves of
fashion, is exclusively indigenous to Africa. The Arab may have brought
the camel from the deserts of Sinai, but Africa has made a home for
it. Africa is the habitat of the rhinoceros, elephant, lion, panther,
leopard, ounce, jackal, hyena, wolf, fox, dog, cat, bat, rat, hare,
rabbit, bear, horse, ass, zebra, sheep, with wool and without, goat,
buffalo, gazelle, cattle of all kinds, some of them the finest specimens
in nature, deer of the fallow type, which put to shame the sleek breeds
of European parks.
[Illustration: AFRICAN ANT-EATER.]
[Illustration: TERRIFIC FIGHT OF JUNGLE MONARCHS.]
[Illustration: AFRICAN QUICHOBO.]
The birds are equally numberless as to variety. There are eagles, hawks,
flamingoes, kingfishers, many varieties of parrots, peacocks, partridges,
pheasants, widow and cardinal birds, weavers, cuckoos, doves, pigeons,
ducks, geese, and crown-birds, the plumage of the last being the most
beautiful of the feathered tribe. The reptilia embraces crocodiles,
the python, the boa and hundreds of smaller snakes, some harmless and
some highly venomous. The rivers and lakes swarm with fish, though the
variety is not so great as in more northern waters. The forests and the
earth swarm with termites and ants of great variety, which draw after
them a host of ant-eaters of the armadillo type; and at times spiders,
caterpillars, and armies of locusts infest the trees or darken the sun.
Insect life knows no limit in Africa——some the most beautiful, some
the most horrid. The tsetse fly is no less a torment to cattle than
the “devil of the road” is to the woe-begone traveler. And everywhere,
especially in tropical Africa, vegetation has a force and vigor peculiar
to that continent. Nature seems to rejoice in unfolding her strength
through the seeds deposited in the soil. “Some fifty and some an hundred
fold” is the law of increase, when the least care is given to planting
and cultivation. Maize produces two crops a year. Tree life is gigantic,
and the variety of wood infinite. Of the picturesque trees, the boabab,
or monkey bread-fruit tree, whose crown of green sometimes forms a circle
of over 100 feet, takes a front rank, followed by the ceiba, with its
stem of 60 feet and its rich crown of foliage extending fully 60 feet
further.
[Illustration: THE “DEVIL OF THE ROAD” AND OTHER AFRICAN WASPS, WITH
CATERPILLAR NESTS.]
[Illustration: BUSH-BUCKS OF RIVER CHOBE.]
All of torrid Africa revels in plants and fruits of the most nutritious
and medicinal quality, suited to the wants and well-being of the people.
There is both food and medicine in the fruits of the palm, banana,
orange, shaddock, pine-apple, tamarind, and the leaves and juice of the
boabab. The butter-tree gives not only butter, but a fine medicine. The
ground-nut yields in six weeks from the planting. The natives produce
for eating, wheat, corn, rice, barley, millet, yams, lotus berries, gum,
dates, figs, sugar, and various spices, and for drink, coffee, palm-wine,
cocoanut milk and Cape wine. No less than five kinds of pepper are known,
and the best indigo is produced, along with other valuable dyes. Cotton,
hemp and flax are raised for clothing.
It has always been a fiction that Africa contained more gold than any
other continent. The “gold coast” was a temptation to venturesome
pioneers for a long time. Precisely how rich in minerals the “dark
continent” is, remains to be proved. But it is known that iron abounds
in many places, that saltpetre and emery exist in paying quantities,
that amber is found on the coasts, and that diamonds are plenty in the
Kimberly region. That the continent is rich in useful minerals may be
taken for granted, but as these things are not perceptible to the naked
eye, time must bring the proof.
Various estimates have been put upon the population of Africa. Stanley
estimated the population of the Congo basin at 50,000,000. The Barbary
States we know are very populous. Africa has in all probability
contributed twenty-five millions of slaves to other countries within
two-hundred and fifty years without apparent diminution of her own
population.
So she must be not only very populous but very prolific. It would be
safe to estimate her people at 200,000,000, counting the Ethiopic or
true African race, and the Caucasian types, which embrace the Nubians,
Abyssinians, Copts and Arabs. The Arabs are not aborigines, yet have
forced themselves, with their religion, into all of Northern and Central
Africa, and their language is the leading one wherever they have obtained
a foot-hold. The Berber and Shelluh tongues are used in the Barbary
States. The Mandingo speech is heard from the Senegal to the Joliba. On
the southwestern coast there is a mixture of Portuguese. Among the true
natives the languages spoken are as numerous as the tribes themselves.
In the Sahara alone there are no less than forty-three dialects. Mr.
Guinness, of London, president of the English Baptist Missionary Society
operating in Africa, says there are 600 languages spoken in Africa,
belonging principally to the great Soudanese group.
Of the human element in Africa, we present the summary given by Rev.
Geo. L. Taylor. He says:——“Who and what are the races occupying our New
Africa? The almost universally accepted anthropology of modern science
puts Japheth (the Aryans), Shem (the Semites), and Ham (the Hamites),
together as the Caucasian race or variety (not species) of mankind; and
makes the Ugrians, the Mongols, the Malays and the Negroes (and some
authorities make other divisions also) each another separate variety of
the one common species and genus _homo_, man.
[Illustration: NATIVE TYPES IN SOUTHERN SOUDAN.]
“Leaving the radical school of anthropology out of the question, it
cannot be denied that the vast preponderance of conservative scientific
opinion is, at least, to this effect, namely: While the Berbers
(including the Twareks, Copts and Tibbus) are Hamitic, but differentiated
toward the Semitic stock, the true Negroes are also probably Hamitic, but
profoundly differentiated in the direction of some other undetermined
factor, and the Ethiopians or Abyssinians are an intermediate link
between the Caucasian Hamite and the non-Caucasian Negro, with also a
prehistoric Semite mixture from southern Arabia. Barth, whose work is a
mine of learning on the Soudan, concededly the best authority extant on
the subject, says that while the original population of the Soudan was
Negro, as was all the southern edge of the Sahara, nevertheless the
Negro has been crowded southward along the whole line by the Moor (a mixt
Arab) in the west, by the Berber (including both Twareks and Tibbus) in
the centre, and by the Arab in the east. Timbuctoo is a city of Berber,
not of Negro origin, founded before the Norman conquest of England,
since conquered by Moors, and now ruled by the Fulbé, or Fellatah, who
are neither Moor, Berber, Arab, nor Negro but a distinct race between
the Arab and Berber on the one side and the Negro stock on the other,
and whose language and physiognomy, and only semi-woolly hair, are
more Mongoloid or Kaffir than Negro; but who are the most intelligent,
energetic and rapidly becoming the most powerful people in the Soudan,
and whose influence is now felt from Senegambia to Baghirmi, through half
a dozen native states. In all the Niger basin only the Mandingo and the
Tombo countries about the head of the Joliba, or Niger, are now ruled by
pure Negro dynasties, the former being a splendid and capable jet-black
people, probably the finest purely Negro race yet known to Europeans.
In the central Soudan the Kanuri of Kanem and Bornu came to Kanem as a
conquering Tibbu-Berber stock over 500 years ago, and are now Negroid.
Farther east Tibbu and Arab are the ruling elements. Haussa, Sokoto and
Adamawa are now Fellatah States. The southward pressure of Moor, Twarek,
Tibbu and Arab is still going on; and the Fulbé, in the midst of the
native states, is rapidly penetrating them, subverting the few native
Negro dynasties still existing, and creating a new and rising race and
power that is, at any rate, not Negro. Thus ancient Nigritia is rapidly
ceasing to be “Negroland,” the races being more and more mixt, and newer
and ruling elements of Moor, Berber and Arab constantly flowing in. This
is the testimony of a long line of scholars from Barth down to Prof. A.
H. Keane, author of the learned article on “Soudan,” in the _Encyclopedia
Britannica_.
“The people commonly considered Negro, in Africa, consist mainly of
three great stocks——the Nigritians of the Soudan, the great Bantu stock
reaching from the southern bounds of the Soudan to the southern rim of
the Zambesi basin, and the great Zulu stock. All these differ widely from
each other in physiology, languages, arts and customs. The Nigritians
are declining under Arab and Berber pressure; the Zulus, a powerful
and semi-Negro race, are rapidly extending their conquests northward
beyond the Zambesi into east central Africa. The Bantus are mainly
agriculturists. They fill the Congo basin, and extend eastward to the
Indian Ocean, between Uganda (which is Bantu) and Unyanyembé. They have
only recently been discovered, and are not yet much studied by Europeans.
[Illustration: BARI OF GONDOKORO.]
“But not all so-called Negroes are true Negroes. As for the eastern
highland regions of the two Niles, and thence southward from the
Abyssinians and the Shillooks at Khartoum to the Bari of Gondokoro and
the Waganda of Uganda——the Niam-Niam of Monbuttoo, the Manyuema of the
Lualaba, and the Makololo on the Zambesi——the ruling and paramount native
tribes are Negroid, but not Negro, unless our ordinary conception of the
Negro is a good deal revised. As Livingstone says of the Makololo, so of
all these, they are a “coffee-and-milk color;” or we may say all these
peoples are from a dark coffee-brown to brownish-white, like coffee,
depending on the amount of milk added. They are mostly tall, straight,
leanish, wiry, active, of rather regular features, fair agriculturists
and cattle-raisers, with much mechanical capacity, born merchants and
traders, and almost everywhere hold darker and more truly negro tribes
in slavery to themselves, where any such tribes exist. Where they have
none or few domestic animals for meat, they are frequently cannibals.
In the middle Congo basin the tribes are more truly Negro, and here the
true Negroes are freemen, independent and capable, though in a somewhat
low state of development. But, so far as now known, the true Negro, in
an independent condition, holds and rules but a comparatively small part
of Africa. As to capability for improvement these peoples——the Negroid
races at least and probably the Negroes——are as apt and civilizable as
any Caucasian or Mongolian people have originally been, if we consider
how their geographical and climatic isolation has hitherto cut them
off from the rest of the world and the world from them. We know that
if we leave Revelation out of the account, all Caucasian civilization,
whether Aryan, Semitic, or Hamitic, can be traced backward till, just
on the dawn of history, it narrows down to small clans or families,
with whom the light began and from whom it spread. We know the same,
also, as to the non-Caucasian Chinese and Nahua civilizations of Asia
and America. Had the spread of the germs of these civilizations been
prevented by conditions like those in Africa, who shall say that the
stage of development might not be about the same to-day? There seems to
be but one uncivilizable race——if, indeed, they are such——in Africa; and
that is the dwarfs. The Akka, found by Schweinfurth south of the Welle,
called themselves “Betua,” the same word as the “Batua” on the Kassai.
The dwarfs of the upper Zambesi call themselves by a similar word, and
so with the Bushmen in South Africa. Many things go to prove that these
dwarf nations are all one race, the diminutive remnants of a primeval
stock of one of the lowest types of man, who have never risen above the
hunter stage of life. They have been scattered, and almost exterminated,
by the incoming of the powerful Bantu stock, that is now spread from
the Soudan to Zululand. These dwarfs are the best living examples of
similar races once scattered over Europe and Asia, whose real existence
lies at the bottom of all the lore of fairies, brownies, elfs, gnomes,
etc. They constitute one of the most pregnant subjects of study in all
anthropology. They are seemingly always uncivilizable.”
In his “Africa in a Nutshell,” Rev. Geo. Thompson thus sketches the
country, especially the central belt:——
“The Central Belt of Africa——say from 15° north to 15° south of the
equator, about 2,000 miles in width——is, heavily-timbered, of the jungle
nature. There are numerous large trees (one to six feet through, and
50 to 150 feet high) with smaller ones, and bushes intermingled, while
vines of various kinds intertwine, from bottom to top, making progress
through them, except in paths, very difficult. Only experience can give
a realizing idea of an African forest——of the tangle, and the density of
its shade.
“While traveling through them, even in the dry season, when the sun
shines brightest, one cannot see or feel the warming rays. The leaves
drip with the dews of the night, and the traveler becomes chilled, and
suffers exceedingly.
“But the whole country is not now covered with such forests. They are
found in places, from ten to twenty-five miles in extent, where the
population is sparse, but the larger portion of the country has been
cleared off and cultivated; and, while much of it is in crops all the
time, other large patches are covered with bushes, of from one to three
years’ growth——for they clear off a new place every year. The farm of
this year is left to grow up to bushes two or three years, to kill out
the grass, and then it is cleared off again. Thus, in thickly settled
portions of the country, but little large timber is found, except along
rivers, or on mountains. Such is the country north of the Gulf of Guinea,
to near the Desert.
“The people are numerous, and the cities larger (the largest cities in
Africa; they are from one to six miles through), and much of the country
is under cultivation. And so of the central portion of Africa, in the
vicinity of Lake Tchad.
[Illustration: CHASING GIRAFFES.]
“But in that portion of Africa lying 500 miles south and north of the
Equator, and from the Atlantic Coast, 1,000 miles eastward, the jungle
and heavy forests are the most extensive, and towns farther between, and
not so large.
“This is the home of the gorilla, which grows from five to six feet high,
of powerful build, and with arms that can stretch from seven to nine
feet; a formidable enemy to meet. It is also the home of that wonderfully
varied and gigantic animal life——elephants, lions, leopards, zebras,
giraffes, rhinoceri, hippopotami, crocodile etc., which distinguishes
African Zoology from that of every other continent.
“This central belt of Africa is capable of sustaining a vast population.
It can be generally cultivated, and its resources are wonderful. The soil
is productive. The seasons are favorable, and crops can be kept growing
the year through.
“Rice, of three or four kinds and of excellent quality, Indian corn,
three kinds of sweet potatoes, beans, peanuts, melons, squashes,
tomatoes, ginger, pepper, arrowroot, coffee, sugar cane, yams, cocoa,
casada, and other grains and vegetables, besides all tropical fruits, are
cultivated.
“The coffee is a wild forest tree, growing seventy-five feet high and
eighteen inches through. It is also cultivated largely in Liberia. Many
of the people have from 100 to 1,000 acres of coffee trees.
“The Liberian coffee is of such superior quality and productiveness, that
millions of plants have been sent to Java and old coffee countries, for
seed. Its fame is already world-wide. The wild coffee is as good as any,
but the bean is smaller. And new settlements soon become self-supporting
by the culture of coffee. Sugar cane is also raised, and much sugar is
made in this colony. Many steam sugar mills are in operation on St.
Paul’s River and at other places.
“On the Gulf of Guinea the people are quite generally raising cotton and
shipping it to England. Hundreds of cotton presses and gins have been
bought, and used by them, and Africa will yet be the greatest cotton,
coffee and sugar country in the world. All nations can be supplied
therefrom.
“Cotton is cultivated, in small quantities, in widely-extended portions
of Africa, and manufactured into cloth which is very durable. They also
make leather of a superior quality.
“Gold, copper, coal, the richest iron ore in the world, and other
valuable metals are abundant; from them the natives manufacture their
tools, ornaments and many things of interest. Ivory, hides, gums, rubber,
etc., are abundant. It is said that 50,000 elephants are killed yearly,
for their ivory, in Africa.
“The country only needs development; and the many exploring parties
from Europe, who are penetrating every part, seeking trade, will aid in
opening its boundless treasures. Gold-mining companies are operating on
the Gulf of Guinea, with paying results.
“And the natives secure and sell to the merchants large amounts of gold,
in form of rough, large rings. They make fine gold ornaments, and wear
vast quantities.
“This trade with Interior Africa, so eagerly sought, will soon lead to
railroads, in different directions——from Liberia to the Niger, and across
to Zanzibar from South Africa; and in other directions. The work is
begun, and will not stop.
“The French and the English are planning for railroads in different
directions. The former are building one from Senegal to Timbuctoo.
“The nations of Europe are, to-day, in a strife to secure the best
locations for trade with this rich country. And soon there will be no
more ‘unexplored regions.’
“The coasts on the west and east are generally low and unhealthy. But the
interior is higher, and will be more suited to the white man.
“It is, in the main, an elevated table-land, from 1,000 to 6,000 feet
above the sea, variegated with peaks and mountains, from 3,000 to 20,000
feet high, snow-capped, and with valleys and broad plains, hot springs,
and salt pans, and innumerable springs, inlets and streams.
“In some regions, for a distance often to twenty miles, there is a
scarcity of water in the dry season. Other places are flat plains, which
are overflowed in the rainy season, so they cannot be inhabited or
cultivated, except in the dry season. And such localities are unhealthy.
“But by far the greater part of the country is capable of being inhabited
and cultivated——with an abundance of timber of many kinds, suitable for
all the purposes of civilization, for boats, houses, wagons, furniture
and implements——but all different from anything in America. Some kinds
are equal to fine mahogany.
“This central portion of Africa is blessed with numerous large lakes,
three large rivers, and many smaller.
“The Niger rises 200 miles back of Liberia, runs northeasterly, to near
Timbuctoo, then southward to the Gulf of Guinea. It is already navigated
for hundreds of miles by English steamers.
“In fourteen years the exports have increased from $150,000 to
$10,000,000; trading factories from two to fifty-seven; and steamers from
two to twenty, and other boats.
“The Binué is a large branch coming in from the eastward.
“And the Congo, rising nearly 15° south of the equator, runs through
various lakes, making a northward course for more than 1,000 miles, to
2-1/2° north of the equator, then bends westward and southwesterly to the
Atlantic; being from one to sixteen miles wide, and very deep; filled
with inhabited islands and abounding in magnificent scenery. The banks
along the rapids rise from 100 to 1,200 feet high. It freshens the ocean
for six miles from land, and its course can be seen in the ocean for
thirty-six miles.
“There are two series of rapids in it——a great obstacle to
navigation——but the desire for trade will overcome these.
“The first series of rapids commences about 100 miles from the sea, and
extends some 200 miles in falls and cascades——with smoother stretches
between——to Stanley Pool. There are thirty-two of these falls. From
thence is a broad, magnificent river, with no obstruction for nearly
1,000 miles, to the next series of rapids at Stanley Falls. From this,
again, is another long stretch of navigable river. It pours nearly five
times the amount of water of the Mississippi.
“Between Lake Bangweola and Stanley Pool, the Congo falls 2,491 feet;
between the pool and ocean, 1,147 feet, making 3,638 feet in all.
“The Nile falls over 1,200 feet between Victoria and Albert Lakes, and
2,200 from Albert to the sea.
“Most of the rivers which rise in the interior of Africa have heavy fall.
“Then there are numerous large rivers emptying into the Congo, on each
side, which can be ascended far into the interior. Those on the north
can be easily connected with the head waters of the Gaboon River, and
those on the south with the head waters of the Zambesi, emptying into the
Indian Ocean; and on the east, with Lake Tanganyika.
“It will be seen that the Congo River will be of vast importance in the
development of Africa. A railroad will soon be built around the falls, to
connect with the steamers above.
“The soil of Upper Congo is very rich, the forests are exceedingly
valuable, the climate quite favorable, and the people numerous and kind.
“A few years ago the trade of the Congo was only a few thousand dollars
yearly. It is now, so soon, from $10,000,000 to $20,000,000 a year.
Trading houses and steamers are multiplying.
“The Congo Valley contains over 5,000 miles of navigable river and lake.
The nations can be supplied from this region with cotton, coffee, sugar,
gum copal, ivory, rubber, valuable dyes, iron, gold, copper, and many
other things——when it shall be civilized and a market formed.
“Many are running to and fro, and knowledge is being rapidly increased in
those parts.
“Then there are the rivers Senegal, Gambia (navigable for 200 miles),
Sierra Leone, Calabar, etc.
“The lakes are numerous, from the size of Lake Michigan, or larger, to
those covering only a few square miles.
“Lake Tchad, in the centre of the continent, is nearly the size of Lake
Michigan, with marshy surroundings, from which as yet no outlet has been
discovered, though the Tshaddi, or River Binué, _may_ be found to be the
outlet of this lake.
“In Central East Africa is a lake system of vast extent. Victoria Nyanza
is about 250 miles long, surrounded mostly with hills and mountains, from
300 to 6,000 feet high. It contains many islands, and numerous large
rivers empty into it. It is nearly 4,000 feet above the sea, and, with
its rivers, constitutes the principal and most southern source of the
Nile. The equator crosses its northern end. It is nearly as large as Lake
Superior.
“West of this, about 200 miles, is the Albert Nyanza, 400 miles long,
and 2,720 feet above the level of the sea. This receives the outlet of
the Victoria; and from this the Nile bursts forth, a large river, and
runs its course of nearly 3,000 miles to the Mediterranean Sea.
“Albert is nearly three times as large as Lake Erie.
“South and west of these two lakes are numerous smaller ones——some of
them very beautiful——all emptying into the Victoria Nyanza, or “Big
Water.”
“South of these, and separated by a mountain ridge, is Lake Tanganyika,
380 miles long and very deep, from twelve to forty miles wide, surrounded
by mountains 2,000 to 5,000 feet high. It is 2,756 feet above the sea.
Till about 1875 it was an internal sea, receiving large rivers, but
having no outlet, as proven by Stanley, who circumnavigated it on purpose
to settle this point. But near midway, on the west, was a low place,
where the bank was only three feet above the water. And here, after
steadily rising for ages, it broke over, and cut a channel to the Congo,
into which it now empties, in a deep, rapid stream.
“West and south of this is a series of lakes, connected with the great
Congo River. The most southerly, in latitude 13° or 14°, is Bangweola,
about 175 miles long and sixty wide. (Dr. Livingstone, in his last
journey, crossed this from the north and died in the marsh on its
southern border, May 4, 1873.) This empties into Lake Moero, nearly 3,000
feet above the sea.
“North and west of this are a number of other lakes, all emptying into
and swelling the mighty Congo.
“Northeast of Victoria are other large lakes, as reported by the natives,
but not yet accurately delineated. Thomson has lately discovered one
6,000 feet above the sea.
“Southeast of Tanganyika, about 250 miles, is Nyassa Lake, 300 miles
long, first definitely described by Dr. Livingstone. This is 1,800 feet
above the sea. There is a small steamer on this lake——as also on Victoria
and Tanganyika. And steamers are briskly plying up and down the Congo.
“Ere many years there will be a railroad from Nyassa to Tanganyika——an
easy route——and from Zanzibar to the great lakes——a more difficult route.
The pressing demands of trade insure these results. A wagon road is
already partly constructed between the two lakes, making a speedier,
safer and easier route to the interior via Zambesi and Shiré Rivers,
Lakes Nyassa and Tanganyika, with a land carriage of only seventy-five
miles between the rapids on the Shiré and Lake Nyassa.”
That portion of Africa below the tropics, and known in general as South
Africa, has resources of animal, forest, soil, climate, water and mineral
which have proved inviting to Europeans, though there is nothing to
render them any more acceptable than similar features as found in other
sub-tropical or temperate latitudes, excepting, perhaps, the peculiar
mineral deposits in the Kimberly section, which yield diamonds of great
value, and a richness of animal life which formerly proved fascinating to
the hunter and adventurer.
[Illustration: NATIVE RAT TRAP.]
The belt extending clear across the continent from Angola and Benguela,
south of the Congo, to the mouth of the Zambesi, and which is a water
shed between the Congo basin and rivers running southward, till the
great valley of the Zambesi is reached, has all the peculiarities of
soil, climate, forest and people found in the Congo basin. Its tribes,
according to Pinto, are of the same general type as those further
north. The rivers abound in hippopotami and crocodiles, the forests in
antelope and buffaloes, elephants, lions and wild birds. There is the
same endless succession of wooded valleys and verdure clad plains, and
the same products under cultivation. The natives are if anything better
skilled in the uses of iron, and are more ingenious in turning it to
domestic account, as in the manufacture of utensils, traps and other
conveniences. They are natural herdsmen, dress better, at least more
fantastically, perpetuate all of the native superstitions, and are more
confirmed traders, having for a longer time been in remote contact with
the Portuguese influence penetrating the Zambesi, and extending inland
from Loanda and Benguela.
We therefore turn to Equatorial, or Central Africa, in quest of those
resources which are distinguishing, and which give to the continent its
real value in commercial eyes. And in so doing, there is no authority
superior to that of Stanley, whose opportunity for observation has been
greatest. We can readily detect in his narrative the enthusiasm of a
pioneer, but at the same time must feel persuaded that fuller and more
exact research, and, especially the supreme trial to which commercial
development puts all things natural, will far more than verify his first
impressions.
[Illustration: AFRICAN HATCHET.]
This Africa is typed by the Congo Basin, which stretches practically
across Africa, interweaving with the Zambesi water system on the south
and the Nile system on the north. The Congo is the feature of its
basin, and the kernel of the greatest commercial problem of the age.
To understand it, is to understand more of African resource than any
other natural object furnishes. It has its maritime region, which is the
African rind before alluded to. This region extends from Banana Point
at the mouth of the great river to Boma, seventy miles from the sea,
and the river passes through it in the form of a broad deep estuary. At
Boma the hilly, mountainous region commences, the groups of undulations
rising gradually to a height of 2000 feet above the sea. The river is
still navigable in this region, up to Vivi, 110 miles from the sea,
though the channel is reduced to a width of 1500 yards. From Vivi to
Isangila, a distance of fifty miles, is the lower series of Livingstone
Falls. From Isangila to Manyanga is a navigable stretch of eighty-eight
miles. Then comes the upper series of Livingstone Falls, extending for
eighty-five miles, from Manyanga to Leopoldville, on Stanley Pool. This
practically brings the mighty flood through the mountainous region of 240
miles in width, and opens a navigable stretch of 1068 miles, extending
from Stanley Pool to Stanley Falls. From Stanley Falls to Nyangwe, in the
fruitful country of the Manyuema, a nation in themselves, and notorious
in Central Africa for their valor and cruelty in war, is a course of 385
miles, navigable for light craft. From Nyangwe to Lake Moero the river
course is 440 miles. This lake is sixty-seven miles long. Thence is a
river stretch of 220 miles to Lake Bangweola which is 161 miles long.
It then begins to lose itself in its head waters in the Chibalé Hills,
though its main affluent here, the Chambesi, has a length of 360 miles.
This gives a total length of main stream equal to 3034 miles. It divides
itself into five geographic sections; the maritime section, from the sea
to Leopoldville; the Upper Congo section, extending from Leopoldville
to Stanley Falls; the Lualaba (so called by Livingstone) section from
Stanley Falls to the Chambesi; the Chambesi, or head water section; and
the Tanganyika section.
The first section, which includes the really maritime and the
mountainous, is, in its lower part next to the sea, but thinly populated,
owing to the slave trade and the effect of internal wars. But the natives
are, as a rule, tractable and amenable to improvement and discipline.
They are industrious and perfectly willing to hire themselves as
porters. In its mountainous part, the country is composed of swells of
upland separated by gorges and long, winding water courses, showing that
the land has been gradually stripped for centuries of its rich loam by
the tropical rains. On the uplands are groves of palm and patches of
tropical forest. In the hollows are rich vegetable products, so thick as
to be impenetrable. The round-nut, palm-nut, rubber, gum-copal, orchilla,
and various other articles of commerce, are natural products of this
section.
[Illustration: NATIVES RUNNING TO WAR.]
Through the second section the Congo sweeps in the shape of an ox-bow,
1068 miles, crossing the Equator twice. Here is that mighty system of
tributaries which more than double the navigable waters of the great
basin. On the south are the Kwa, navigable up to Lake Leopold II, a
distance of 281 miles; the Lukanga with its shores lined with shrewd
native traders; the Mohindu, navigable for 650 miles; the Ikelemba, seat
of the Bakuti tribe, navigable for 125 miles; the Lulungu, reported to
be more populous than the Congo, navigable for 800 miles; the Lubiranzi,
navigable for twenty-five miles.
On the north side is the Lufini, navigable for thirty miles; the Alima,
navigable for fifty miles; the Likuba, with fifty miles of navigation;
the Bunga, 150 miles; the Balui, 350, the Ubanga and Ngala, 450 miles,
together; the Itimbiri, 250 miles; the Nkukù, sixty miles; the Biyerre
ninety-six miles; the Chofu, twenty-five miles.
This section alone, therefore, gives a direct steam mileage of 5250
miles, and the rivers drain an area of over 1,000,000 square miles.
Stanley says the wealth of Equatorial Africa lies in this section. It is
cut by the Equator, whose rain-belt discharges showers for ten months in
the year. North and south from the Equator, the dry periods are longer.
The population of the section, Stanley estimates to be 43,500,000. His
observations were, of course, confined to the river districts, but other
travelers confirm his estimates. Weissman says of the Lubilash country,
“It is densely peopled and some of the villages are miles in length. They
are clean, with commodious houses shaded by oil-palms and bananas, and
surrounded by carefully divided fields in which, quite contrary to the
usual African practice, man is seen to till the fields while women attend
to household offices. From the Lubilash. to the Lumani there stretches
almost uninterruptedly a prairie region of great fertility, the future
pasture grounds of the world. The reddish loam, overlying the granite,
bears luxuriant grass and clumps of trees, and only the banks are densely
wooded. The rain falls during eight months of the year, from September to
April, but they are not excessive. The temperature varies, from 63° to
81°, but occasionally, in the dry season, falls as low as 45°.”
The southeastern portion of this section is, on the authority of Tippoo
Tib, who doubtless ranged it more extensively than any other man,
dotted with villages, some of which took him two hours to pass through.
The country is a succession of prairies and parks, of rare fertility
and beauty. On the north and northeast of this section is the residence
of the Monbuttus, Niam-Niams and Dinkas, all powerful tribes, living
in comparative peace, having neat villages surrounded by fruitful
plantations, lovers of the chase, rich in herds of fine cattle, skilled
in the manufacture of spears and utensils of iron, experts in pottery
making and ornamentation, light of form but wonderfully agile, a copper
rather than black color, and very numerous. Says Sweinfurth, “From the
Wellé river to the residence of the Monbuttu king, Munza, the way leads
through a country of marvellous beauty, an almost unbroken line of the
primitively simple dwellings extending on either side of the caravan
route.” The Niam-Niam country alone he estimates at 5400 square miles in
extent, with a population of 2,000,000 which would give the extraordinary
rate of 370 to the square mile.
Stanley’s own observation on the Mohindu and Itimbiri river fully
confirmed the story of Miyongo respecting the Lulungu, that the further
he traveled from the banks of the river the thicker he would find the
population.
All of this immense section is capable of the richest and most varied
vegetable productions. True, until intercourse comes about by steam,
or otherwise, but little use can be made of these products, yet there
they are in abundance now, and susceptible of infinite additions under
the care of intelligent tillage. There is an almost infinite variety
of palms, the most useful of which is the oil-palm, whose nut supplies
the dark-red palm oil, which has proved such a source of wealth in the
Oil-river regions of the Niger country and on the west coast in general.
The kernel of these nuts makes an oil-cake which is excellent for
fattening and conditioning cattle. This palm towers in every forest grove
and beautifies every island in the rivers. In many places it constitutes
the entire forest, to the exclusion of trees of harder wood and sturdier
growth. As each tree yields from 500 to 1000 nuts, some idea of the
commercial value of each can be gathered.
Another valuable plant in commerce and one which abounds in this section
is the India rubber plant. It is of three kinds, all of them prolific,
and all as yet untouched. Stanley estimates that enough india rubber
could be gathered on the islands of the Congo and in the adjacent
forests on the shores, in one year, to pay for the construction of a
Congo railway. Then there are other gums, useful for varnishes, as the
white and red opal. These are gathered and treasured by the natives of
the fishing villages, and used as torches while fishing, but they know
nothing of their value in the arts. Vegetable oils are extracted from
the ground-nut, the oil-berry and the castor plant. The ground-nut oils
are used by the natives for lights, the extract of the oil-berry is used
for cooking, while the castor-oils are used as medicine, just as with
civilized people.
[Illustration: UBANGI BLACKSMITHS.]
Whole areas of forest are covered with dense canopies of orchilla, useful
as a dye, and every village has a supply of red-wood powder. But in
nothing are the forests and plains of this immense section so remarkable
as in the variety and quality of the vegetation capable of producing
commercial fibres. Here are endless supplies of paper material, rope
material, material for baskets, mattings and all kinds of cloths, such as
we now make of hemp and jute.
The more industrious and ingenious tribes run to specialties in turning
luxuriant nature into account. The red-wood powder of Lake Mantamba is
counted the best. Iboco palm-fibre matting ranks as the jute textiles of
Scotland. The Irebu are the Japanese sun-shade and floor-mat makers. The
Yalulima are artists in the manufacture of double bells. The Ubangi are
the Toledo sword-makers of Africa. How bountiful their supply of iron is
remains to be ascertained, but it is presumably a plentiful mineral, and
its use among these people, not to say numerous other tribes, is evidence
that the stone age of Africa was past, long before the heathen of Europe
and America had ceased to strike fire by flints in their chilly caverns,
or crush one another’s skulls with granite tomahawks. The iron spears and
swords of some of these African tribes are models in their way, keen as
Damascus blades and bright as if mirrored on Sheffield emery wheels.
One of the comforts of civilization, the buffalo robe, is fast becoming
a thing of the past. Africa may yet furnish a supply, or at least a
valuable skin for tanning purposes, out of the numerous herds of buffalo
which are found everywhere in this great central section. The kings
and chiefs of the African tribes affect monkey skin drapery as royal
dresses. If they knew the favor in which similar dresses were held upon
our boulevards, they might take contracts to supply the fashionable
outside world for generations, and thereby enrich themselves. Our
tanneries, furrier-shops and rug-makers would go wild with delight over
African invoices of goat-skins, antelope hides, lion and leopard skins,
if annual excursions of traders and hunters could be sent to the Upper
Congo country, at the cost of a through passage on an express train. And
how our milliners would rejoice over the beauty and variety of bonnet
decorations if they could reduce to possession even a tithe of the
gorgeous plumage which flits incessantly through the forest spaces of
tropical Africa.
Then where in Africa is there not honey, sweet as that of Hybla or
Hymettus, with its inseparable product, bees-wax? Not all the perfumes
of Arabia nor of the Isles of the Sea can equal in volume and fragrance
the frankincense and myrrh of the Congo region. As to ivory, Stanley
estimates the elephant herds of the Congo basin at 15,000 in number,
each herd numbering twelve to fifteen elephants——a total of 200,000
giants, each one walking about with fifty pounds of ivory in his head,
or 10,000,000 pounds in all, worth in the rough $25,000,000, or when
manufactured, a sum sufficient to enrich a kingdom. Nor does he consider
this estimate too large, for he had met travelers who had seen as many
as 300 elephants in a single herd, and who had killed so many that their
carcasses blocked the stream they were crossing. Major Vetch had killed
twenty in one locality, and a missionary, Mr. Ingham, had, more in a
self-supporting than in a sporting spirit, shot twenty-five and turned
their tusks into money. For a century, the ivory trade has been an
important one on the eastern coast of Africa, yet the field of supply has
only been skirted.
[Illustration: NATIVES KILLING AN ELEPHANT.]
But civilization must tap and destroy this source of wealth, unless parks
could be preserved and elephants reared for the sake of their ivory.
Wonderful as are his figures respecting this resource, Stanley regards
it as of little moment in comparison with other resources of the great
basin. It would not equal in commercial value the pastime of the idle
warriors of the basin, if each one were to find such in the picking of
a third of a pound of rubber a day for a year, or in the melting of
two-thirds of a pound of palm-oil, for then the aggregate of either would
exceed $25,000,000 in value, and nature would be none the poorer for the
drain upon her resources. The same could be said if each warrior picked
half a pound of gum-copal per day, collected half a pound of orchilla, or
ground out half a pound of red-wood powder.
Stanley, and indeed all explorers of Central Africa, are convinced that
iron ore abounds. It must be that the iron formations are manifest,
for the natives are not given to mining, yet most of the tribes are
iron-workers, patient and skillful, according to the unanimous testimony
of travelers, and as the trophies sent home testify. Near Phillipville
are copper mines which supply a large portion of Western Africa with
copper ingots. Among the Manyanga tribes, copper ingots are a commodity
as common as vegetables and fowls. To the southeast of the Upper Congo
section are copper supplies for the numerous caravans that find ingress
and egress by way of the Zambesi. Both Livingstone and Pinto found tribes
on the Upper Zambesi who were skillful copper-smiths. It is known that
black-lead exists in the Congo region. It has ever been a dream that
Africa possessed rich gold fields. Though this dream was early dispelled
as to the Gold Coast, it appertains as to other regions, for the roving
Arabs are accustomed to return from their inland visits bearing bottles
filled with gold dust, which they say they have filled from the beds of
streams which they crossed.
Every observer can inform himself as to the agricultural resources of
Central Africa. It is an exception on the Upper Congo, and for that
matter anywhere in Central Africa, to find a village without its cleared
and cultivated plats for maize and sugarcane, and some of these plats
have the extent and appearance of well-ordered plantations. Everywhere
the banana and plantain flourish, and yield a bountiful supply of
wholesome, nourishing food. Millet is grown among some tribes for the
sake of the flour it yields; but everywhere on the main river the chief
dependence for a farinaceous diet is on the manioc plant, which yields
the tapioca of commerce. The black bean grows almost without cultivation,
and yields prolifically.
There is hardly anything in the vegetable line that does not find a
home in tropical Africa. The sweet-potato grows to immense size, as do
cucumbers, melons of all kinds, pumpkins, tomatoes, while cabbages, the
Irish potato, the onion and other garden vegetables introduced from the
temperate zone thrive in a most unexpected manner.
Wherever the Arab traders and settlers have struck this section from the
east they have introduced the cultivation of rice and wheat with success,
and they have carried along the planting of the mangoe, lime, orange,
lemon, pine-apple and guava, all of which take hold, grow vigorously and
produce liberally. All of these last have been tried on the Congo with
the greatest encouragement.
Then there is practically no limit to the spice plants found growing
naturally in the Congo section and capable of introduction. Ginger and
nutmeg are quite common amid the rich plant growth of the entire section.
As the immense prairie stretches of the Upper Congo and the Lake regions
may at no distant day become the grazing ground for the world’s cattle
supply, or the granary of nations, so the river bottoms, and the uplands
as well, may become the cotton producing areas of the manufacturing
world. Cotton is indigenous and grows everywhere. It is especially fond
of the cleared spots which mark the site of deserted villages, and
asserts itself to the exclusion of other vegetation. It has neither frost
nor drought to contend with, and nature has given it a soil in which it
may revel, without the requirement of sedulous cultivation.
It may well be asked in connection with this section, what is there
which civilization demands, or is used to, for its table, its factory,
or store-house, that it does not produce, or cannot be made to produce?
If it supports a population almost equal to that of Europe, a population
without appliances for farming and manufacturing, a population of
comparative idlers, what a surplus it might produce under intelligent
management and with a moderate degree of industry. The native energy of
Africa, even with the most advanced tribes, is sadly misdirected, or
rather, not directed at all. The best muscle of every tribe is diverted
to warlike pursuits or to the athleticism of the chase. Whilst it is
not a rule that it is undignified for a full grown male to work, the
customs are such as to attract him into other channels of effort, so
that the burden of work is thrown upon the women. They are the vegetable
gardeners, the raisers of fowls and goats, and in the cattle regions of
the Upper Congo and Zambesi, they are the milk-maids, the calf-raisers
and herd attendants. Therefore, African labor is today like African
vegetation; it is labor run wild. It is a keen, excellent labor under the
spur of reward, just as the African commercial sense is alive to all the
tricks of trade. What it requires is instruction and proper direction,
and with these one may find in tropical Africa a resource of far more
value, both at home and abroad, than all the untold wealth of forest,
soil or mine.
We see and hear too little of the human resources of Africa. By this we
do not mean that religion does not regard the African as a fit subject
for conversion, nor that ethnology does not seek to study him as a
curiosity, nor that commerce fails to use him as a convenience, nor
that the lust of the Orient has ceased to discuss him as a source of
gratification, but we do mean that with all the writing about African
resources and possibilities, the fertility of soil, the luxuriance
of forest, the plenitude of minerals, the exuberance of animal life,
there is but meagre discussion of the place the native himself is to
fill, considered also in the light of a natural resource. While we
grow infatuated with descriptions of African wealth and possibility, we
almost skip the mightiest problem Africa can reveal, the relationship
its own people are to bear to its material development, their status
as factors in unfolding the inner continent to the outer world. The
eyes of commercial and manufacturing Europe are so set upon the main
advantage, to wit, that of grabbing African lands and appropriating at
a cheap rate whatever is accessible, as to overlook the future of the
native. Our own eyes have been so dimmed by the melancholy sight of the
North American Indian fading away before our boasted civilization, or
by sight of the sons of Africa forced into degradation at the behest of
hard-hearted greed, as that they are actually blind to the human factor
in African enterprise. With all our respect for civilization, it must
be confessed that it has failed signally to use to advantage what it
found God-made and at hand, when it struck new continents and islands.
It has destroyed and supplanted, as on the American continents, the
Pacific islands, in Southern Africa, in the East Indies. Is that to be
the role of civilization in Central Africa? Does not that continent
present a higher and more humanitarian problem? Driven to desperation
by a baffling climate, yet spurred by an inordinate cupidity, will not
the civilization of the white man be compelled to the exercise of a
genius which shall embrace the native populations, classify them as an
indispensable resource, lift them to a plain of intelligent energy, look
upon them as things of equality, and ultimately regard them as essentials
in the art of progress and the race for development? We regard extinction
of the African races as fatal to African development. There is no place
in the world where the civilized commercial instinct crosses so directly
the natural laws of the universe as in Africa. There is no place in the
world where the ordinary forces of colonization are so nonplussed as
in Africa. If we are to go ahead with our humanitarian and commercial
and political problems in Africa, in the old fashioned, uncompromising,
brutal way; if Africa is to be civilized by the rejection of Africans, by
their extinction or degradation; then will civilization commit a graver
mistake and more heinous crime than when it forced the Indian into the
lava-bed, the Aztec into the Pacific or the Inca into bondage, and death
in the mine. America has its race problem on hand, to be solved more
by blacks than whites. Africa presents the same problem to the world.
Whatever the white man may make out of African resource by following the
usual formula of civilization, reduction, extirpation and so on, on the
unchristian plea that the end justifies the means, that result can be
safely increased a thousand times if only it is not forgotten that the
native is the true, the natural, factor in any rational and permanent
scheme of development.
The next section of Central Africa which comes under observation is
that which is watered by the Lualaba, or in other words, the Congo,
from Stanley Falls to Lake Bangweola. This is an immense section,
embracing 246,000 square miles, or a length of 1260 miles. This section
comprehends the several lakes on the Lualaba and the drainage system on
both sides of that river, but excluding Tanganyika, and that part of the
reservoir system known as the Muta Nzigé. Lake Bangweola covers 10,000
square miles; Lake Moero, 2,700 square miles; and Lake Kassali, 2,200
square miles. From Stanley Falls to Nyangwé is 327 miles, all navigable,
except the six miles below Nyangwé. On the right side, going up, the
Lualaba receives the Leopold river, navigable for thirty miles; the
Lowa, navigable for an unknown distance; the Ulindi, 400 yards wide, and
navigable; the Lira, a deep, clear stream, 300 yards wide; the Luama, 250
miles long; the Luigi, and Lukuga, the latter being the outlet of Lake
Tanganyika.
On the left side, the Lualaba receives the Black River, the Lumani, and
the Kamolondo. Above Nyangwé, the main stream is again navigable to
Moero Lake. Altogether there are 1,100 miles of navigable water in this
section. It has, for twenty years, been a favorite stamping ground for
slave traders, and its population has therefore been greatly decimated,
yet Stanley estimates it at 6,000,000, embraced in nine principal and
many subordinate tribes. On the Lower Lualaba are four important trading
points, long used by the Arabs for their nefarious purposes, and all
readily accessible to the eastern coast of Africa, over well defined
routes. These points are Kasongo, Nyangwé, Vibondo, and Kirundu. They are
even more accessible from the west coast by way of the Congo, and Stanley
regards them as valuable points for the gathering and dissemination of
trade, since their populations have had twenty years of experience in
traffic with outsiders. With their assistance the fine herds of cattle
reared by the tribes of the plains east of the Lualaba might be brought
to that river, and distributed along the entire length of the Congo, or
even carried to European markets. This section is just as rich in natural
products as that of the Upper Congo, and of the same general character.
The Chambesi is the main stream pouring into Lake Bangweola. Stanley
makes it give a name to the section which embraces the head-waters of
the Congo. It is a basin, walled in by high mountains whose sides and
ravines furnish the springs of the Congo, and whose heights form the
water-shed between the Congo and Zambesi. The Chambesi is a large,
clear, swift stream, with several important affluents. It runs through
a country, overgrown with papyrus, rushes, and tall grasses, which are
most wearisome to the traveler. The country abounds in food, and the
people are “civil and reasonable,” as Livingstone says. The interminable
prairies are broken only by occasional rows of forest, indicative of a
stream or ravine. Much of the land is inundated during the rainy season,
giving rise to swamps of great extent and of difficult passage. Where
this is not the case, the land affords rich pasturage for the herds of
the Babisa and other tribes engaged in stock raising. This remote but
interesting section is not over 46,000 miles in extent, with a population
of 500,000.
As Stanley depends on Livingstone for his description of the Chambesi and
Upper Lualaba country, and as this region was the object of a special
journey by Livingstone——unfortunately for science and humanity, his last
journey——it is proper to get an impression of it from the great explorer
himself.
He started for it from Delagoa Bay, by way of the Rovuma river, which
empties into Delagoa Bay, on the east coast nearly half way between the
mouth of the Zambesi and Zanzibar. This river has its source well inland
toward Lake Nyassa, and hence its ascent would bring him into the Lake
region. All this ground has now become historic through the English and
Portuguese struggle for its permanent possession.
Though the last of Livingstone’s journeys it was his most hopeful.
Says he:——“The mere animal pleasure of traveling in a wild, unexplored
country is very great. When on lands of a couple of thousand feet
elevation, brisk exercise imparts elasticity to the muscles, fresh and
healthy blood circulates through the brain, the mind works well, the
eye is clear, the step is firm, and the day’s exertion always makes the
evening’s repose thoroughly enjoyable. We have usually the stimulus of
remote chances of danger from man or beast. Our sympathies are drawn out
toward our humble, hardy companions by a community of interests, and
it may be of perils, which make us all friends. Nothing but the most
pitiable puerility would lead any manly heart to make their inferiority
a theme for self-exaltation. However, that is often done, as if with the
vague idea that we can, by magnifying their deficiencies, demonstrate
our own perfections. The effect of travel on a man whose heart is in
the right place is, that the mind is made more self-reliant. It becomes
more confident of its own resources——there is greater presence of mind.
The body is soon well knit. The muscles of the limbs grow as hard as a
board, and seem to have no fat. The countenance is bronzed and there is
no dyspepsia. Africa is a most wonderful country for the appetite, and
it is only when one gloats over marrow bones or elephants’ feet that
indigestion is possible. No doubt much toil is involved, and fatigue
of which travelers in the more temperate climes can form but a faint
conception. But the sweat of one’s brow is no longer a curse when
one works for God. It proves a tonic to the system and is actually a
blessing. No one can truly appreciate the charm of repose unless he has
undergone severe exertion.”
Thus buoyantly he started for the interior, employing a retinue of human
carriers and servants, and supplementing them with camels, mules and
trained buffaloes. It was, in some respects, the most unique caravan of
exploration that ever entered an unknown land. As to camels for carriers,
away from the desert and through trackless jungle and forest, it was
in the nature of an experiment which soon grew tiresome and ended in
failure. As to the mules, they soon fell a prey to the tsetse fly. As
to the buffaloes, which, together with the native oxen, had stood him
in good stead through all his wanderings in the Kalahari desert, where
they are in daily use as beasts of burden and the saddle by the natives,
these too fell a victim to the merciless attack of the tsetse. He was
therefore left with his two faithful attendants, Chuma and Susi, and his
retinue of native carriers.
[Illustration: ON A JOURNEY IN THE KALAHARI DESERT.]
Passing through the wonderful country which borders the Rovuma, a
country of peaceful tribes and plentiful products, with nothing more
than the usual adventures of an African traveler, he at last arrived at
Lake Nyassa. At this lake, Livingstone was on the west side of what is
now known as the Mozambique territory, though it is more familiar as
Nyassaland. The lake is part of the northern Zambesi water system, and
its outlet into that stream is through the river Shiré. On account of the
absence of boats, which were all in the hands of suspicious Arab slave
merchants, he was forced to pass down the east side of the lake and cross
over its outlet, the Shiré. It was by the waters of this beautiful river
and the Zambesi that Livingstone always hoped to secure an easy access to
Central Africa. The only obstacles then were the foolish policy of the
Portuguese with regard to custom duties at the mouth of the Zambesi, and
the falls on the Shiré which obstruct its navigation for seventy miles.
Had he lived a few more years he would have seen both of these obstacles
in part overcome, and the mission work of Bishop Steere, supplementing
that of Bishop Mackenzie, so far forward as to girdle the lake with
prosperous mission stations. As Livingstone rounded the southern end of
the lake, he could not help recalling the fact that far down the Shiré
lay in its last sleep the body of the lamented Mackenzie, and that
further down on the right bank of the Zambesi slept the remains of her
whose death had changed all his future prospects. His prophecy that at
no distant day civilization and the Gospel would assert itself in this
promising land is now meeting with fulfillment in the claims of England
to a right of way into Central Africa through this very region, at the
expense of Portugal, whose older right has been forfeited by non-use.
In striking westward from the lake, Livingstone found the people to be
a modification of the great Waiyau branch, which extends from the lake
to Mozambique. He was also impressed with the fact that but one stock
inhabited all the country on the Zambesi, Shiré, Lake Nyassa and Lake
Tanganyika, owing to the slight difference in their dialects. The first
tribe he came in contact with were both pastoral and agricultural. Their
cattle ranged over grassy, fertile plains, and were characterized by the
large hump on the shoulders, which seemed, in some instances, to weigh
as much as a hundred pounds. They cultivated very fine gardens, and all
seemed to work, though the burden of labor fell on the slaves. Wild
animals were plenty, and during Livingstone’s stay in the village a woman
was carried away and wholly devoured by a lion.
[Illustration: WOMEN CARRIERS.]
In passing westward to the next village, his escort consisted of a large
party of Waiyau, accompanied by six women carriers, who bore supplies
for their husbands, a part of which consisted of native beer. His
course brought him upon that peculiarity of soil which characterizes
all the head streams of the Shire county, the Zambesi and the Congo. He
designates it as earth sponge. The vegetation about the streams falls
down, but is not incorporated with the earth. It forms a rich, black
loamy mass, two or three feet thick which rests on the sand of the
streams. When dry it cracks into gaps of two or three inches in width,
but when wet it is converted into a sponge, which presents all the
obstacles of a swamp or bog to the foot of the traveler.
On this journey, he witnessed a native method of hunting with dogs
and the basket trap. The trap is laid down in the track of some small
animal and the dogs are put on the trail. The animal in its flight runs
into the open mouth of the trap, and through a set of converging bamboo
splits which prevent its return. Mice and rats are caught in similarly
constructed traps, which are made of wire instead of wood. A similar
method of catching wild animals of larger growth was formerly in vogue
in the southern Zambesi section. Long leads of wattled palisading were
erected, open at the base and gradually narrowing to an apex, in which
a pit was dug covered over with a layer of grass. Hunters scoured the
plains in extended circles, beating in all the game within the circles.
The frightened beasts, pushed by the gradually closing hunters and
demoralized by their antics and noises, rush into the trap prepared for
them and fall helplessly into the pit, where they are captured. This
method of hunting is called “_hopo_.”
[Illustration: DRIVING GAME INTO THE HOPO.]
[Illustration: PIT AT END OF HOPO.]
The village he reached was inhabited by the Manganza, who are extremely
clever in the art of manufacture. Their looms turn out a strong
serviceable cotton cloth. Their iron weapons show a taste for design
not equalled by any of their neighbors, and it is the same with all
implements relating to husbandry. Though far better artisans than the
more distinctive Waiyau, they are deficient in dash and courage. He was
now at an elevation of 4,000 feet above the sea, in the midst of a very
fine country, where the air was delightfully clear and delicious. The
cultivation was so general, and the fields so regularly laid out, that
it required but little imagination to picture it as an English scene.
The trees were only in clumps, and marked the tops of ridges, the sites
of villages or the places of sepulture. The people go well armed with
bows and arrows, and fine knives of domestic manufacture, and being great
hunters they have pretty well rid their section of game. The women wear
their hair long, dress in reasonably full clothing, and have somewhat the
appearance of the ancient Egyptians.
The westward journey brought him to the Kanthunda people, partly
plain-dwellers and partly mountaineers. They are very pompous and
ceremonious. Food was found in plenty, raised by their own hands, since
game was well nigh extinct. The villages were now very frequent, mostly
situated in groves composed of large trees. The country was broken into
high ranges of hills with broad valley sweeps between. The thermometer
frequently sank to 64° at night, but the sun was intolerably hot during
the day, necessitating short journeys.
All this time Livingstone had been passing westward through the system
which drains either into Lake Nyassa or directly into the Zambesi. His
objective being the basin which supplies the head streams of the Congo,
he turned his journey northward in the direction of the mountains which
divide the two great river systems.
The tribes he now struck were greatly harassed by the Mazuti, who stole
their corn annually and made frequent raids for the capture of slaves.
Yet they were hospitable and prosperous, being skillful weavers and
iron-workers. The country was mountainous, for he was on the divide
between the waters which drain into Lake Nyassa and those which flow into
the Loangwa on the west, the latter being an important affluent of the
Zambesi. Striking the head-waters of the Lokushwa, a tributary of the
Loangwa, he followed its course to the main stream, through a country of
dwarf forests, and peoples collected in stockades, who were the smiths
for a large region, making and selling hoes and other iron utensils.
He crossed the Loangwa at a point where it is 100 yards wide, and in
a country abounding in game. It was here that he indulged in those
regretful thoughts respecting the gradual passing away of the magnificent
herds of wild animals——zebras, elands, buffaloes, giraffes, gnus, and
numerous species of deer and antelope——which once roamed all over Central
and South Africa, down to the Cape of Good Hope, which are every year
being thinned away, or driven northwards. The lion——the boasted king
of animals——makes a poor figure beside the tsetse fly in travellers’
records. The general impression about him is that, in spite of his
formidable strength, his imposing roaring, and his majestic mane, he
is a coward and a skulker. Livingstone had a hearty contempt for the
brute, though in his time he had been severely mauled and bitten by
him. The lion, however, when sore pressed by hunger, has been known to
pluck up sufficient courage to tear off the flimsy roof of a native hut
and leap down upon the sleeping inmates. The elephant——a much grander
animal in every respect——occasionally performs a similar feat, his motive
being curiosity, or perhaps mischief, if one of his periodical fits of
ill-nature is upon him. A sight may now and again be got of a roaming
rhinoceros tramping stolidly with surly gruntings through the depths of
the thicket: a glade will be suddenly opened up where a group of shaggy
buffaloes are grazing; or a herd of startled giraffes will break away in
a shambling gallop, their long necks swinging ungracefully to and fro, as
they crash their way through the forest, like “locomotive obelisks.” Now
and then a shot may be got at a troop of zebras, pallahs, wild beeste, or
other big-game animals, and the scanty larder be replenished for a time;
but the traveler must often lay his account with being absolutely in want
of food, and be fain, like Livingstone, to draw in his belt an inch or
two in lieu of dinner.
[Illustration: CAPSIZED BY A HIPPOPOTAMUS.]
But the most gallant sport in these regions——excelling in danger and
excitement even elephant-hunting——is the chase of the hippopotamus.
On the Loangwa Livingstone met an entire tribe, the Makomwe, devoted
exclusively to hippopotamus hunting. They reside in temporary huts on the
islands, and when game gets scarce in one place they move to another.
The flesh of the animals they kill is exchanged for grain brought to
the river by the more settled tribes. In hunting, two men have charge
of a long, shapely canoe. The men, one in the bow and one in the stern,
use short, broad paddles, and as they guide the canoe down the river
upon the sleeping hippopotamus, not a ripple is seen on the water. The
paddlers seem to be holding their breaths and communicate by signs only.
As they near their prey, the harpooner in the bow, lays down his paddle,
rises slowly up, with his harpoon poised in his hand, and at the right
moment plunges it into the animal near the heart. His companion in the
stern now backs the canoe. At this stage there is little danger, for
the beast remains for a time at the bottom of the river. But soon his
surprise is over, the wound begins to smart, he feels the need of air,
through exhaustion. The strong rope attached to the harpoon has a float
fastened to one end, and this float designates the spot occupied by the
beast. It is known that he will soon come to the surface, and the canoe
now approaches the float, the harpooner having another harpoon poised in
hand ready for a second throw. The situation is full of danger. Perhaps
the second lunge is successful, but the beast generally comes up with an
angry bellow and is ready to smash the canoe in his enormous jaws. Woe
betide the occupants, unless they seek safety in the water. This they
are often forced to do, but even then are not safe, unless they swim
below the surface. Other canoes now come up and each one sends an harpoon
into the body of the prey. Then they all begin to pull on the connecting
ropes, dragging the beast hither and thither, till it succumbs through
loss of blood. Swarms of crocodiles invariably crowd about the scene,
attracted by the scent of the bleeding carcass.
The people he met with after passing the Loangwa were less civil, yet by
no means hostile. The forests were of larger growth and more extensive.
Animal life was rich in variety, as much so as on the Zambesi itself, and
it was nothing unusual to bring down a gnu, an eland, and other royal
animals in the same day. The country was a wide valley stretch, clothed
with vegetation and very fertile. It reached to the Lobemba country,
whose people are crafty and given to falsehoods. They are fond of hunting
and attack the elephant with dogs and spears. The land is beautiful and
fruitful, but the tribes have been torn by slave-raiders and intestinal
wars.
The Babisa people, further north, are franker and better off. They
trade without urging, and are given to much social gaiety. Livingstone
witnessed in their midst the performance of the rain dance by four
females, who appeared with their faces smeared, with war hatchets in
their hands, and singing in imitation of the male voice. These people
degenerate as the northern brim of the Loangwa valley is approached, and
are dependent for food on wild fruits, roots and leaves.
[Illustration: HUNTER’S PARADISE.]
Passing further up among the head-streams of the Loangwa, the country
becomes a succession of enormous earth waves, sustaining a heavy growth
of jungle, without traces of paths. Marks of elephant and buffalo feet
are frequent in the oozy soil about the streams, but the animals are shy.
Serpents are plenty, and every now and then cobras and puff-adders are
seen in the trails. The climate is delightful, bordering on cool, for now
it must be understood, the elevation is high, the traveller being well up
on the water-shed between the Congo and Zambesi.
At length the mountain ranges are scaled, and the streams begin to run
westward into the Chambesi, the main head stream of the Congo. The wet
season dawns and all the rivulets are full. The sponge which composes
their banks is soggy, so that the feet slip and are constantly wet. All
around is forest, deep and luxuriant. The low tribes of the Babisa extend
over the mountain tips and partly down the western slopes, carrying
along their mean habits and showing the wreck occasioned by the Arab
slave merchants. They could furnish only mushrooms and elephants to
Livingstone, and these at fancy prices.
It was here that Livingstone met with that mishap which contributed
to his untimely end. His two Waiyau guides deserted, taking along his
medicine chest. He felt as if he had received his death sentence, like
poor Bishop Mackenzie, for the forest was damp and the rain almost
incessant. From this time on, Livingstone’s constitution was continually
sapped by the effect of fever-poison, which he was powerless to
counteract.
Livingstone was now clearly on the Congo water-shed and was making his
way toward the Chambesi. The people were shrewd traders, but poorly
off for food. Camwood and opal trees constituted the forests. There
was an abundance of animal life. Pushing his way down the Movushi
affluent, he at length reached the Chambesi, wending its way toward
Lake Bangweola, in a westerly direction. It is a full running stream,
abounding in hippopotami, crocodiles and lizards. A crossing was made
with difficulty, and the journey lay through extensive flooded flats. The
villages were now mostly in the lowlands and surrounded by stockades as
a protection against wild beasts. Elephants and buffaloes were plenty.
Lions frequently picked off the villagers, and two men were thus killed
at the village of Molemba the day before Livingstone’s arrival. Forests
were still deep and dark, but the gardens were large. At Molemba he met
King Chitapangwa, who gave him the royal reception described elsewhere in
this volume, and presented him with a cow, plenty of maize and calabashes
and a supply of hippopotamus flesh. The king was one of the best natured
men Livingstone had met. The huts literally swarmed with a bird, like the
water wag-tail, which seemed to be sacred, as in the Bechuana country.
Here too the boys were of a lively type and fond of sport. They captured
smaller game and birds, but were not as skillful as the young people of
Zulu and Bechuana land, where the kiri weapon is handled with so much
skill. This kiri is made of wood or rhinoceros horn, and varies from a
foot to a yard in length, having at one end a knob as large as a hen’s
egg. It is often used in hand to hand conflicts, but is the favorite
weapon of the hunter, who hurls it, even at game on the wing, with
marvellous precision.
[Illustration: BATLAPIN BOYS THROWING THE KIRI.]
Livingstone did not descend into the lowlands on the lower Chambesi and
about Lake Bangweola, but kept heading northward on the skirts of the
Congo water-shed, in the direction of Tanganyika. He found about all the
streams the spongy soil which so impeded his steps, the same alternations
of hill and plain, forest and jungle. Everywhere were evidences of that
gigantic and plentiful animal life which characterizes tropical Africa.
To this wonderful exuberance was now added herds of wild hogs, whose
leaders were even more formidable looking than the boars of the German
forests.
[Illustration: PURSUIT OF THE WILD BOAR.]
In his course toward Tanganyika he passed the people of Moamba who
import copper from Kantanga and manufacture it into a very fine wire for
ornaments and animal traps. The Babemba villages were passed, a tribe
living within close stockades, and more warlike than those to the south.
The banana now begins to flourish, and herds of cattle denote a pastoral
life. Tobacco is grown in quantities sufficient for a home supply.
Hunting is carried on by means of the hopo hedges, within whose bounds
the wild beasts are frightened by circles of hunters.
In the Balungu country, Livingstone found Lake Liemba, amid a beautiful
landscape. The chief, Kasongo, gave him a royal reception. He was
gratified here to find men from Tanganyika. The lake is at the bottom
of a basin whose sides are nearly perpendicular but tree-covered. Down
over the rocks pour beautiful cascades, and buffaloes, elephants and
antelopes wander on the more level spots, while lions roar by night.
The villages are surrounded by luxuriant palm-oil trees, whose bunches
of fruit grow so large as to require two men to carry them. The Balungu
are an excessively polite people, but chary of information and loth to
trade. This is because they have been so much raided by the Arabs and
native Mazitu. The waters of this lake appeared to drain to the north
into Tanganyika, but more probably by some other outlet to the Congo.
Livingstone had never seen elephants so plenty as in this section. They
came all about his camp and might be seen at any time eating reachable
foliage, or grubbing lustily at the roots of small trees in order to
prostrate them so as to get at their stems and leaves.
At Mombo’s village were found cotton fields and men and women skilled in
weaving. Elephants abounded and did much damage to the sorghum patches,
and corn-safes. Leopards were destructive to the goat-herds. Bird life
was even more various than on the Zambesi.
Though weakened by fever, Livingstone determined to deflect westward
toward Lake Moero, on the line of the Lualaba, and in the heart of the
basin which gathers the Congo waters. The route lay through a prairie
region, well watered by brisk streams. The Wasongo people have herds
of cattle, which they house with care, and a plentiful supply of milk,
butter and cheese. But they were frequently disturbed by Arab slave
stealers, and their supplies of cattle were often raided by hostile
neighbors.
[Illustration: RAIDING THE CATTLE SUPPLY.]
It was here that Livingstone came upon the caravan of Tippoo Tib, who
even at that date seems to have been a marauding genius, greatly feared
by the natives for his craftiness and cruelty. The tribe of King Nsama
proved to be an interesting one. “The people are regular featured
and good looking, having few of the lineaments of their darker coast
brethren. The women wear their hair in tasteful fashion and are of comely
form.” King Nsama seemed to have been a Napoleon in the land, till about
the time of Livingstone’s visit when he had received a Waterloo at the
hand of the Arabs.
[Illustration: HUNTING ZEBRAS.]
Livingstone now came to the Chisera river, a mile wide, and flowing into
Lake Moero. The land on both sides of the stream sloped down to the
banks in long, fertile stretches over which roamed elephants, buffaloes
and zebras. The people were numerous and friendly. They find plenty of
food in the large game which inhabits their district. There was the
same plenty of zebras, buffalo and hippopotami over the flat stretch
which brought him to the Kamosenga river. Crossing this stream he was
in the country of the Karungu, who live in close stockades and are by
nature timid. They were chary traders, though they had abundance of
ivory and their granaries were filled with corn. It was all the result
of intimidation by the Arab slavers; and, it must be remembered that
Livingstone was following in the track of one of their caravans.
Bending a little to the southwest the country was well wooded and
peopled. Large game was still plenty and the natives captured an abundant
supply of food. The Choma river was reached, abounding in hippopotami and
crocodiles. The natives fled on the approach of the party and it was with
difficulty that a supply of food could be bought. Beyond, and over a long
line of hills, the natives became less timid. Here the party met a large
herd of buffaloes from which a supply of meat was obtained.
Their course now bore them to the Luao, flanked by granite hills which
continue all the way to Moero. All the valleys in this part of the Congo
basin are beautiful, reminding one of English or American scenery. The
soil is very rich. The people live amid plenty, procured from their
gardens and the chase. They would be friendly if left alone, but they can
hardly be said to lead natural lives owing to the frequency and cruelty
of Arab raids.
As the lake is neared, the villages become more frequent. The lake is
reached at last. It is a large body of water flanked by mountains on
the east and west. The immediate banks are sand, skirted by tropical
vegetation, in the midst of which the fishermen build their huts. There
are many varieties of fish in the waters, and some of them are large
and fine. At the north end is the outflow of the lake into the Lualaba
river, whose continuation becomes the Congo. The inflow at the south
end, Livingstone calls the Luapula, which name, he says, it keeps up to
Lake Bangweola. Beyond that it is the Chambesi whose head-waters he had
already crossed. West of the lake is the Rua country. The people about
the lake are Babemba, timid to a fault and hard to trade with.
Though reduced by fever, the infatuation of travel was so strong in
Livingstone, that he turned southerly along the lake and struck for
the unknown regions, about its southern end. He crossed an important
tributary, the Kalongosi, whose waters were literally alive with fish,
from the lake, seeking places to spawn. South of this stream the people
are the Limda, not friendly disposed, yet not hostile. They are of
the true negro type, and are great fishermen and gatherers of salt on
the lake. The forests are not of rank growth, and the wood is chiefly
bark-cloth and gum-opal, the latter exuding its gum in large quantities,
which enters the ground and is preserved in large cakes for the use of
future generations.
The streams are now very frequent, and difficult to cross when swollen.
After crossing the Limda he was in the Cassembe country, which is very
rich and populous, growing the finest of palm-oil and ground-nuts. The
capital village is in the centre of a plain, and is more a Mohammedan
than a native town. As neither goats, sheep nor cattle thrive, the people
depend on fish and vegetables for food. Every hut had a cassava garden
about it, and honey and coffee were plenty, as were maize, beans and nuts.