Kebrabasa Rapids--Tette--African fever--Exploration of the
Shire--Discovery of Lake Shirwa.
Our curiosity had been so much excited by the reports we had heard of the
Kebrabasa rapids, that we resolved to make a short examination of them,
and seized the opportunity of the Zambesi being unusually low, to
endeavour to ascertain their character while uncovered by the water. We
reached them on the 9th of November. The country between Tette and Panda
Mokua, where navigation ends, is well wooded and hilly on both banks.
Panda Mokua is a hill two miles below the rapids, capped with dolomite
containing copper ore.
Conspicuous among the trees, for its gigantic size, and bark coloured
exactly like Egyptian syenite, is the burly Baobab. It often makes the
other trees of the forest look like mere bushes in comparison. A hollow
one, already mentioned, is 74 feet in circumference, another was 84, and
some have been found on the West Coast which measure 100 feet. The lofty
range of Kebrabasa, consisting chiefly of conical hills, covered with
scraggy trees, crosses the Zambesi, and confines it within a narrow,
rough, and rocky dell of about a quarter of a mile in breadth; over this,
which may be called the flood-bed of the river, large masses of rock are
huddled in indescribable confusion. The drawing, for the use of which,
and of others, our thanks are due to Lord Russell, conveys but a faint
idea of the scene, inasmuch as the hills which confine the river do not
appear in the sketch. The chief rock is syenite, some portions of which
have a beautiful blue tinge like _lapis lazuli_ diffused through them;
others are grey. Blocks of granite also abound, of a pinkish tinge; and
these with metamorphic rocks, contorted, twisted, and thrown into every
conceivable position, afford a picture of dislocation or unconformability
which would gladden a geological lecturer's heart; but at high flood this
rough channel is all smoothed over, and it then conforms well with the
river below it, which is half a mile wide. In the dry season the stream
runs at the bottom of a narrow and deep groove, whose sides are polished
and fluted by the boiling action of the water in flood, like the rims of
ancient Eastern wells by the draw-ropes. The breadth of the groove is
often not more than from forty to sixty yards, and it has some sharp
turnings, double channels, and little cataracts in it. As we steamed up,
the masts of the "Ma Robert," though some thirty feet high, did not reach
the level of the flood-channel above, and the man in the chains sung out,
"No bottom at ten fathoms." Huge pot-holes, as large as draw-wells, had
been worn in the sides, and were so deep that in some instances, when
protected from the sun by overhanging boulders, the water in them was
quite cool. Some of these holes had been worn right through, and only
the side next the rock remained; while the sides of the groove of the
flood-channel were polished as smooth as if they had gone through the
granite-mills of Aberdeen. The pressure of the water must be enormous to
produce this polish. It had wedged round pebbles into chinks and
crannies of the rocks so firmly that, though they looked quite loose,
they could not be moved except with a hammer. The mighty power of the
water here seen gave us an idea of what is going on in thousands of
cataracts in the world. All the information we had been able to obtain
from our Portuguese friends amounted to this, that some three or four
detached rocks jutted out of the river in Kebrabasa, which, though
dangerous to the cumbersome native canoes, could be easily passed by a
steamer, and that if one or two of these obstructions were blasted away
with gunpowder, no difficulty would hereafter be experienced. After we
had painfully explored seven or eight miles of the rapid, we returned to
the vessel satisfied that much greater labour was requisite for the mere
examination of the cataracts than our friends supposed necessary to
remove them; we therefore went down the river for fresh supplies, and
made preparation for a more serious survey of this region.
The steamer having returned from the bar, we set out on the 22nd of
November to examine the rapids of Kebrabasa. We reached the foot of the
hills again, late in the afternoon of the 24th, and anchored in the
stream. Canoe-men never sleep on the river, but always spend the night
on shore. The natives on the right bank, in the country called Shidima,
who are Banyai, and even at this short distance from Tette, independent,
and accustomed to lord it over Portuguese traders, wondered what could be
our object in remaining afloat, and were naturally suspicious at our
departing from the universal custom.
They hailed us from the bank in the evening with "Why don't you come and
sleep onshore like other people?"
The answer they received from our Makololo, who now felt as independent
as the Banyai, was, "We are held to the bottom with iron; you may see we
are not like your Bazungu."
This hint, a little amplified, saved us from the usual exactions. It is
pleasant to give a present, but that pleasure the Banyai usually deny to
strangers by making it a fine, and demanding it in such a supercilious
way, that only a sorely cowed trader could bear it. They often refuse to
touch what is offered--throw it down and leave it--sneer at the trader's
slaves, and refuse a passage until the tribute is raised to the utmost
extent of his means.
Leaving the steamer next morning, we proceeded on foot, accompanied by a
native Portuguese and his men and a dozen Makololo, who carried our
baggage. The morning was pleasant, the hills on our right furnished for
a time a delightful shade; but before long the path grew frightfully
rough, and the hills no longer shielded us from the blazing sun. Scarcely
a vestige of a track was now visible; and, indeed, had not our guide
assured us to the contrary, we should have been innocent of even the
suspicion of a way along the patches of soft yielding sand, and on the
great rocks over which we so painfully clambered. These rocks have a
singular appearance, from being dislocated and twisted in every
direction, and covered with a thin black glaze, as if highly polished and
coated with lamp-black varnish. This seems to have been deposited while
the river was in flood, for it covers only those rocks which lie between
the highest water-mark and a line about four feet above the lowest.
Travellers who have visited the rapids of the Orinoco and the Congo say
that the rocks there have a similar appearance, and it is attributed to
some deposit from the water, formed only when the current is strong. This
may account for it in part here, as it prevails only where the narrow
river is confined between masses of rock, backed by high hills, and where
the current in floods is known to be the strongest; and it does not exist
where the rocks are only on one side, with a sandy beach opposite, and a
broad expanse of river between. The hot rocks burnt the thick soles of
our men's feet, and sorely fatigued ourselves. Our first day's march did
not exceed four miles in a straight line, and that we found more than
enough to be pleasant.
The state of insecurity in which the Badema tribe live is indicated by
the habit of hiding their provisions in the hills, and keeping only a
small quantity in their huts; they strip a particular species of tree of
its bitter bark, to which both mice and monkeys are known to have an
antipathy, and, turning the bark inside out, sew it into cylindrical
vessels for their grain, and bury them in holes and in crags on the
wooded hill-sides. By this means, should a marauding party plunder their
huts, they save a supply of corn. They "could give us no information,
and they had no food; Chisaka's men had robbed them a few weeks before."
"Never mind," said our native Portuguese, "they will sell you plenty when
you return, they are afraid of you now, as yet they do not know who you
are." We slept under trees in the open air, and suffered no
inconvenience from either mosquitoes or dew: and no prowling wild beast
troubled us; though one evening, while we were here, a native sitting
with some others on the opposite bank was killed by a leopard.
One of the Tette slaves, who wished to be considered a great traveller,
gave us, as we sat by our evening fire, an interesting account of a
strange race of men whom he had seen in the interior; they were only
three feet high, and had horns growing out of their heads; they lived in
a large town and had plenty of food. The Makololo pooh-poohed this
story, and roundly told the narrator that he was telling a downright lie.
"_We_ come from the interior," cried out a tall fellow, measuring some
six feet four, "are _we_ dwarfs? have _we_ horns on our heads?" and thus
they laughed the fellow to scorn. But he still stoutly maintained that
he had seen these little people, and had actually been in their town;
thus making himself the hero of the traditional story, which before and
since the time of Herodotus has, with curious persistency, clung to the
native mind. The mere fact that such absurd notions are permanent, even
in the entire absence of literature, invests the religious ideas of these
people also with importance, as fragments of the wreck of the primitive
faith floating down the stream of time.
We waded across the rapid Luia, which took us up to the waist, and was
about forty yards wide. The water was discoloured at the time, and we
were not without apprehension that a crocodile might chance to fancy a
white man for dinner. Next day one of the men crawled over the black
rocks to within ten yards of a sleeping hippopotamus, and shot him
through the brain. The weather being warm, the body floated in a few
hours, and some of us had our first trial of hippopotamus flesh. It is a
cross-grained meat, something between pork and beef,--pretty good food
when one is hungry and can get nothing better. When we reached the foot
of the mountain named Chipereziwa, whose perpendicular rocky sides are
clothed with many-coloured lichens, our Portuguese companion informed us
there were no more obstructions to navigation, the river being all smooth
above; he had hunted there and knew it well. Supposing that the object
of our trip was accomplished we turned back; but two natives, who came to
our camp at night, assured us that a cataract, called Morumbwa, did still
exist in front. Drs. Livingstone and Kirk then decided to go forward
with three Makololo and settle the question for themselves. It was as
tough a bit of travel as they ever had in Africa, and after some painful
marching the Badema guides refused to go further; "the Banyai," they
said, "would be angry if they showed white men the country; and there was
besides no practicable approach to the spot, neither elephant, nor
hippopotamus, nor even a crocodile could reach the cataract." The slopes
of the mountains on each side of the river, now not 300 yards wide, and
without the flattish flood-channel and groove, were more than 3000 feet
from the sky-line down, and were covered either with dense thornbush or
huge black boulders; this deep trough-like shape caused the sun's rays to
converge as into a focus, making the surface so hot that the soles of the
feet of the Makololo became blistered. Around, and up and down, the
party clambered among these heated blocks, at a pace not exceeding a mile
an hour; the strain upon the muscles in jumping from crag to boulder, and
wriggling round projections, took an enormous deal out of them, and they
were often glad to cower in the shadow formed by one rock overhanging and
resting on another; the shelter induced the peculiarly strong and
overpowering inclination to sleep, which too much sun sometimes causes.
This sleep is curative of what may be incipient sunstroke: in its first
gentle touches, it caused the dream to flit over the boiling brain, that
they had become lunatics and had been sworn in as members of the Alpine
club; and then it became so heavy that it made them feel as if a portion
of existence had been cut out from their lives. The sun is excessively
hot, and feels sharp in Africa; but, probably from the greater dryness of
the atmosphere, we never heard of a single case of sunstroke, so common
in India. The Makololo told Dr. Livingstone they "always thought he had
a heart, but now they believed he had none," and tried to persuade Dr.
Kirk to return, on the ground that it must be evident that, in attempting
to go where no living foot could tread, his leader had given
unmistakeable signs of having gone mad. All their efforts of persuasion,
however, were lost upon Dr. Kirk, as he had not yet learned their
language, and his leader, knowing his companion to be equally anxious
with himself to solve the problem of the navigableness of Kebrabasa, was
not at pains to enlighten him. At one part a bare mountain spur barred
the way, and had to be surmounted by a perilous and circuitous route,
along which the crags were so hot that it was scarcely possible for the
hand to hold on long enough to ensure safety in the passage; and had the
foremost of the party lost his hold, he would have hurled all behind him
into the river at the foot of the promontory; yet in this wild hot
region, as they descended again to the river, they met a fisherman
casting his hand-net into the boiling eddies, and he pointed out the
cataract of Morumbwa; within an hour they were trying to measure it from
an overhanging rock, at a height of about one hundred feet. When you
stand facing the cataract, on the north bank, you see that it is situated
in a sudden bend of the river, which is flowing in a short curve; the
river above it is jammed between two mountains in a channel with
perpendicular sides, and less than fifty yards wide; one or two masses of
rock jut out, and then there is a sloping fall of perhaps twenty feet in
a distance of thirty yards. It would stop all navigation, except during
the highest floods; the rocks showed that the water then rises upwards of
eighty feet perpendicularly.
Still keeping the position facing the cataract, on its right side rises
Mount Morumbwa from 2000 to 3000 feet high, which gives the name to the
spot. On the left of the cataract stands a noticeable mountain which may
be called onion-shaped, for it is partly conical and a large concave
flake has peeled off, as granite often does, and left a broad, smooth
convex face as if it were an enormous bulb. These two mountains extend
their bases northwards about half a mile, and the river in that distance,
still very narrow, is smooth, with a few detached rocks standing out from
its bed. They climbed as high up the base of Mount Morumbwa, which
touches the cataract, as they required. The rocks were all water-worn
and smooth, with huge potholes, even at 100 feet above low water. When
at a later period they climbed up the north-western base of this same
mountain, the familiar face of the onion-shaped one opposite was at once
recognised; one point of view on the talus of Mount Morumbwa was not more
than 700 or 800 yards distant from the other, and they then completed the
survey of Kebrabasa from end to end.
They did not attempt to return by the way they came, but scaled the slope
of the mountain on the north. It took them three hours' hard labour in
cutting their way up through the dense thornbush which covered the
ascent. The face of the slope was often about an angle of 70 degrees,
yet their guide Shokumbenla, whose hard, horny soles, resembling those of
elephants, showed that he was accustomed to this rough and hot work,
carried a pot of water for them nearly all the way up. They slept that
night at a well in a tufaceous rock on the N.W. of Chipereziwa, and never
was sleep more sweet.
A band of native musicians came to our camp one evening, on our own way
down, and treated us with their wild and not unpleasant music on the
Marimba, an instrument formed of bars of hard wood of varying breadth and
thickness, laid on different-sized hollow calabashes, and tuned to give
the notes; a few pieces of cloth pleased them, and they passed on.
The rainy season of Tette differs a little from that of some of the other
intertropical regions; the quantity of rain-fall being considerably less.
It begins in November and ends in April. During our first season in that
place, only a little over nineteen inches of rain fell. In an average
year, and when the crops are good, the fall amounts to about thirty-five
inches. On many days it does not rain at all, and rarely is it wet all
day; some days have merely a passing shower, preceded and followed by hot
sunshine; occasionally an interval of a week, or even a fortnight, passes
without a drop of rain, and then the crops suffer from the sun. These
partial droughts happen in December and January. The heat appears to
increase to a certain point in the different latitudes so as to
necessitate a change, by some law similar to that which regulates the
intense cold in other countries. After several days of progressive heat
here, on the hottest of which the thermometer probably reaches 103
degrees in the shade, a break occurs in the weather, and a thunderstorm
cools the air for a time. At Kuruman, when the thermometer stood above
84 degrees, rain might be expected; at Kolobeng, the point at which we
looked for a storm was 96 degrees. The Zambesi is in flood twice in the
course of the year; the first flood, a partial one, attains its greatest
height about the end of December or beginning of January; the second, and
greatest, occurs after the river inundates the interior, in a manner
similar to the overflow of the Nile, this rise not taking place at Tette
until March. The Portuguese say that the greatest height which the March
floods attain is thirty feet at Tette, and this happens only about every
fourth year; their observations, however, have never been very accurate
on anything but ivory, and they have in this case trusted to memory
alone. The only fluviometer at Tette, or anywhere else on the river, was
set up at our suggestion; and the first flood was at its greatest height
of thirteen feet six inches on the 17th January, 1859, and then gradually
fell a few feet, until succeeded by the greater flood of March. The
river rises suddenly, the water is highly discoloured and impure, and
there is a four-knot current in many places; but in a day or two after
the first rush of waters is passed, the current becomes more equally
spread over the whole bed of the river, and resumes its usual rate in the
channel, although continuing in flood. The Zambesi water at other times
is almost chemically pure, and the photographer would find that it is
nearly as good as distilled water for the nitrate of silver bath.
A third visit to Kebrabasa was made for the purpose of ascertaining
whether it might be navigable when the Zambesi was in flood, the chief
point of interest being of course Morumbwa; it was found that the rapids
observed in our first trip had disappeared, and that while they were
smoothed over, in a few places the current had increased in strength. As
the river fell rapidly while we were on the journey, the cataract of
Morumbwa did not differ materially from what it was when discovered. Some
fishermen assured us that it was not visible when the river was at its
fullest, and that the current was then not very strong. On this occasion
we travelled on the right bank, and found it, with the additional
inconvenience of rain, as rough and fatiguing as the left had been. Our
progress was impeded by the tall wet grass and dripping boughs, and
consequent fever. During the earlier part of the journey we came upon a
few deserted hamlets only; but at last in a pleasant valley we met some
of the people of the country, who were miserably poor and hungry. The
women were gathering wild fruits in the woods. A young man having
consented for two yards of cotton cloth to show us a short path to the
cataract led us up a steep hill to a village perched on the edge of one
of its precipices; a thunderstorm coming on at the time, the headman
invited us to take shelter in a hut until it had passed. Our guide
having informed him of what he knew and conceived to be our object, was
favoured in return with a long reply in well-sounding blank verse; at the
end of every line the guide, who listened with deep attention, responded
with a grunt, which soon became so ludicrous that our men burst into a
loud laugh. Neither the poet nor the responsive guide took the slightest
notice of their rudeness, but kept on as energetically as ever to the
end. The speech, or more probably our bad manners, made some impression
on our guide, for he declined, although offered double pay, to go any
further.
A great deal of fever comes in with March and April; in March, if
considerable intervals take place between the rainy days, and in April
always, for then large surfaces of mud and decaying vegetation are
exposed to the hot sun. In general an attack does not continue long, but
it pulls one down quickly; though when the fever is checked the strength
is as quickly restored. It had long been observed that those who were
stationed for any length of time in one spot, and lived sedentary lives,
suffered more from fever than others who moved about and had both mind
and body occupied; but we could not all go in the small vessel when she
made her trips, during which the change of place and scenery proved so
conducive to health; and some of us were obliged to remain in charge of
the expedition's property, making occasional branch trips to examine
objects of interest in the vicinity. Whatever may be the cause of the
fever, we observed that all were often affected at the same time, as if
from malaria. This was particularly the case during a north wind: it was
at first commonly believed that a daily dose of quinine would prevent the
attack. For a number of months all our men, except two, took quinine
regularly every morning. The fever some times attacked the believers in
quinine, while the unbelievers in its prophylactic powers escaped.
Whether we took it daily, or omitted it altogether for months, made no
difference; the fever was impartial, and seized us on the days of quinine
as regularly and as severely as when it remained undisturbed in the
medicine chest, and we finally abandoned the use of it as a prophylactic
altogether. The best preventive against fever is plenty of interesting
work to do, and abundance of wholesome food to eat. To a man well housed
and clothed, who enjoys these advantages, the fever at Tette will not
prove a more formidable enemy than a common cold; but let one of these be
wanting--let him be indolent, or guilty of excesses in eating or
drinking, or have poor, scanty fare,--and the fever will probably become
a more serious matter. It is of a milder type at Tette than at
Quillimane or on the low sea-coast; and, as in this part of Africa one is
as liable to fever as to colds in England, it would be advisable for
strangers always to hasten from the coast to the high lands, in order
that when the seizure does take place, it may be of the mildest type.
Although quinine was not found to be a preventive, except possibly in the
way of acting as a tonic, and rendering the system more able to resist
the influence of malaria, it was found invaluable in the cure of the
complaint, as soon as pains in the back, sore bones, headache, yawning,
quick and sometimes intermittent pulse, noticeable pulsations of the
jugulars, with suffused eyes, hot skin, and foul tongue, began. {1}
Very curious are the effects of African fever on certain minds.
Cheerfulness vanishes, and the whole mental horizon is overcast with
black clouds of gloom and sadness. The liveliest joke cannot provoke
even the semblance of a smile. The countenance is grave, the eyes
suffused, and the few utterances are made in the piping voice of a
wailing infant. An irritable temper is often the first symptom of
approaching fever. At such times a man feels very much like a fool, if
he does not act like one. Nothing is right, nothing pleases the fever-
stricken victim. He is peevish, prone to find fault and to contradict,
and think himself insulted, and is exactly what an Irish naval surgeon
before a court-martial defined a drunken man to be: "a man unfit for
society."
Finding that it was impossible to take our steamer of only ten-horse
power through Kebrabasa, and convinced that, in order to force a passage
when the river was in flood, much greater power was required, due
information was forwarded to Her Majesty's Government, and application
made for a more suitable vessel. Our attention was in the mean time
turned to the exploration of the river Shire, a northern tributary of the
Zambesi, which joins it about a hundred miles from the sea. We could
learn nothing satisfactory from the Portuguese regarding this affluent;
no one, they said, had ever been up it, nor could they tell whence it
came. Years ago a Portuguese expedition is said, however, to have
attempted the ascent, but to have abandoned it on account of the
impenetrable duckweed (_Pistia stratiotes_.) We could not learn from any
record that the Shire had ever been ascended by Europeans. As far,
therefore, as we were concerned, the exploration was absolutely new. All
the Portuguese believed the Manganja to be brave but bloodthirsty
savages; and on our return we found that soon after our departure a
report was widely spread that our temerity had been followed by fatal
results, Dr. Livingstone having been shot, and Dr. Kirk mortally wounded
by poisoned arrows.
Our first trip to the Shire was in January, 1859. A considerable
quantity of weed floated down the river for the first twenty-five miles,
but not sufficient to interrupt navigation with canoes or with any other
craft. Nearly the whole of this aquatic plant proceeds from a marsh on
the west, and comes into the river a little beyond a lofty hill called
Mount Morambala. Above that there is hardly any. As we approached the
villages, the natives collected in large numbers, armed with bows and
poisoned arrows; and some, dodging behind trees, were observed taking aim
as if on the point of shooting. All the women had been sent out of the
way, and the men were evidently prepared to resist aggression. At the
village of a chief named Tingane, at least five hundred natives collected
and ordered us to stop. Dr. Livingstone went ashore; and on his
explaining that we were English and had come neither to take slaves nor
to fight, but only to open a path by which our countrymen might follow to
purchase cotton, or whatever else they might have to sell, except slaves,
Tingane became at once quite friendly. The presence of the steamer,
which showed that they had an entirely new people to deal with, probably
contributed to this result; for Tingane was notorious for being the
barrier to all intercourse between the Portuguese black traders and the
natives further inland; none were allowed to pass him either way. He was
an elderly, well-made man, grey-headed, and over six feet high. Though
somewhat excited by our presence, he readily complied with the request to
call his people together, in order that all might know what our objects
were.
In commencing intercourse with any people we almost always referred to
the English detestation of slavery. Most of them already possess some
information respecting the efforts made by the English at sea to suppress
the slave-trade; and our work being to induce them to raise and sell
cotton, instead of capturing and selling their fellow-men, our errand
appears quite natural; and as they all have clear ideas of their own self-
interest, and are keen traders, the reasonableness of the proposal is at
once admitted; and as a belief in a Supreme Being, the Maker and Ruler of
all things, and in the continued existence of departed spirits, is
universal, it becomes quite appropriate to explain that we possess a Book
containing a Revelation of the will of Him to whom in their natural state
they recognise no relationship. The fact that His Son appeared among
men, and left His words in His Book, always awakens attention; but the
great difficulty is to make them feel that they have any relationship to
Him, and that He feels any interest in them. The numbness of moral
perception exhibited, is often discouraging; but the mode of
communication, either by interpreters, or by the imperfect knowledge of
the language, which not even missionaries of talent can overcome save by
the labour of many years, may, in part, account for the phenomenon.
However, the idea of the Father of all being displeased with His
children, for selling or killing each other, at once gains their ready
assent: it harmonizes so exactly with their own ideas of right and wrong.
But, as in our own case at home, nothing less than the instruction and
example of many years will secure their moral elevation.
The dialect spoken here closely resembles that used at Senna and Tette.
We understood it at first only enough to know whether our interpreter was
saying what we bade him, or was indulging in his own version. After
stating pretty nearly what he was told, he had an inveterate tendency to
wind up with "The Book says you are to grow cotton, and the English are
to come and buy it," or with some joke of his own, which might have been
ludicrous, had it not been seriously distressing.
In the first ascent of the Shire our attention was chiefly directed to
the river itself. The delight of threading out the meanderings of
upwards of 200 miles of a hitherto unexplored river must be felt to be
appreciated. All the lower part of the river was found to be at least
two fathoms in depth. It became shallower higher up, where many
departing and re-entering branches diminished the volume of water, but
the absence of sandbanks made it easy of navigation. We had to exercise
the greatest care lest anything we did should be misconstrued by the
crowds who watched us. After having made, in a straight line, one
hundred miles, although the windings of the river had fully doubled the
distance, we found further progress with the steamer arrested, in 15
degrees 55 minutes south, by magnificent cataracts, which we called, "The
Murchison," after one whose name has already a world-wide fame, and whose
generous kindness we can never repay. The native name of that figured in
the woodcut is Mamvira. It is that at which the progress of the steamer
was first stopped. The angle of descent is much smaller than that of the
five cataracts above it; indeed, so small as compared with them, that
after they were discovered this was not included in the number.
A few days were spent here in the hope that there might be an opportunity
of taking observations for longitude, but it rained most of the time, or
the sky was overcast. It was deemed imprudent to risk a land journey
whilst the natives were so very suspicious as to have a strong guard on
the banks of the river night and day; the weather also was unfavourable.
After sending presents and messages to two of the chiefs, we returned to
Tette. In going down stream our progress was rapid, as we were aided by
the current. The hippopotami never made a mistake, but got out of our
way. The crocodiles, not so wise, sometimes rushed with great velocity
at us, thinking that we were some huge animal swimming. They kept about
a foot from the surface, but made three well-defined ripples from the
feet and body, which marked their rapid progress; raising the head out of
the water when only a few yards from the expected feast, down they went
to the bottom like a stone, without touching the boat.
In the middle of March of the same year (1859), we started again for a
second trip on the Shire. The natives were now friendly, and readily
sold us rice, fowls, and corn. We entered into amicable relations with
the chief, Chibisa, whose village was about ten miles below the cataract.
He had sent two men on our first visit to invite us to drink beer; but
the steamer was such a terrible apparition to them, that, after shouting
the invitation, they jumped ashore, and left their canoe to drift down
the stream. Chibisa was a remarkably shrewd man, the very image, save
his dark hue, of one of our most celebrated London actors, {2} and the
most intelligent chief, by far, in this quarter. A great deal of
fighting had fallen to his lot, he said; but it was always others who
began; he was invariably in the right, and they alone were to blame. He
was moreover a firm believer in the divine right of kings. He was an
ordinary man, he said, when his father died, and left him the
chieftainship; but directly he succeeded to the high office, he was
conscious of power passing into his head, and down his back; he felt it
enter, and knew that he was a chief, clothed with authority, and
possessed of wisdom; and people then began to fear and reverence him. He
mentioned this, as one would a fact of natural history, any doubt being
quite out of the question. His people, too, believed in him, for they
bathed in the river without the slightest fear of crocodiles, the chief
having placed a powerful medicine there, which protected them from the
bite of these terrible reptiles.
Leaving the vessel opposite Chibisa's village, Drs. Livingstone and Kirk
and a number of the Makololo started on foot for Lake Shirwa. They
travelled in a northerly direction over a mountainous country. The
people were far from being well-disposed to them, and some of their
guides tried to mislead them, and could not be trusted. Masakasa, a
Makololo headman, overheard some remarks which satisfied him that the
guide was leading them into trouble. He was quiet till they reached a
lonely spot, when he came up to Dr. Livingstone, and said, "That fellow
is bad, he is taking us into mischief; my spear is sharp, and there is no
one here; shall I cast him into the long grass?" Had the Doctor given
the slightest token of assent, or even kept silence, never more would any
one have been led by that guide, for in a twinkling he would have been
where "the wicked cease from troubling." It was afterwards found that in
this case there was no treachery at all, but a want of knowledge on their
part of the language and of the country. They asked to be led to "Nyanja
Mukulu," or Great Lake, meaning, by this, Lake Shirwa; and the guide took
them round a terribly rough piece of mountainous country, gradually
edging away towards a long marsh, which from the numbers of those animals
we had seen there we had called the Elephant Marsh, but which was really
the place known to him by the name "Nyanja Mukulu," or Great Lake. Nyanja
or Nyanza means, generally, a marsh, lake, river, or even a mere rivulet.
The party pushed on at last without guides, or only with crazy ones; for,
oddly enough, they were often under great obligations to the madmen of
the different villages: one of these honoured them, as they slept in the
open air, by dancing and singing at their feet the whole night. These
poor fellows sympathized with the explorers, probably in the belief that
they belonged to their own class; and, uninfluenced by the general
opinion of their countrymen, they really pitied, and took kindly to the
strangers, and often guided them faithfully from place to place, when no
sane man could be hired for love or money.
The bearing of the Manganja at this time was very independent; a striking
contrast to the cringing attitude they afterwards assumed, when the cruel
scourge of slave-hunting passed over their country. Signals were given
from the different villages by means of drums, and notes of defiance and
intimidation were sounded in the travellers' ears by day; and
occasionally they were kept awake the whole night, in expectation of an
instant attack. Drs. Livingstone and Kirk were desirous that nothing
should occur to make the natives regard them as enemies; Masakasa, on the
other hand, was anxious to show what he could do in the way of fighting
them.
The perseverance of the party was finally crowned with success; for on
the 18th of April they discovered Lake Shirwa, a considerable body of
bitter water, containing leeches, fish, crocodiles, and hippopotami. From
having probably no outlet, the water is slightly brackish, and it appears
to be deep, with islands like hills rising out of it. Their point of
view was at the base of Mount Pirimiti or Mopeu-peu, on its S.S.W. side.
Thence the prospect northwards ended in a sea horizon with two small
islands in the distance--a larger one, resembling a hill-top and covered
with trees, rose more in the foreground. Ranges of hills appeared on the
east; and on the west stood Mount Chikala, which seems to be connected
with the great mountain-mass called Zomba.
The shore, near which they spent two nights, was covered with reeds and
papyrus. Wishing to obtain the latitude by the natural horizon, they
waded into the water some distance towards what was reported to be a
sandbank, but were so assaulted by leeches, they were fain to retreat;
and a woman told them that in enticing them into the water the men only
wanted to kill them. The information gathered was that this lake was
nothing in size compared to another in the north, from which it is
separated by only a tongue of land. The northern end of Shirwa has not
been seen, though it has been passed; the length of the lake may probably
be 60 or 80 miles, and about 20 broad. The height above the sea is 1800
feet, and the taste of the water is like a weak solution of Epsom salts.
The country around is very beautiful, and clothed with rich vegetation;
and the waves, at the time they were there breaking and foaming over a
rock on the south-eastern side, added to the beauty of the picture.
Exceedingly lofty mountains, perhaps 8000 feet above the sea-level, stand
near the eastern shore. When their lofty steep-sided summits appear,
some above, some below the clouds, the scene is grand. This range is
called Milanje; on the west stands Mount Zomba, 7000 feet in height, and
some twenty miles long.
Their object being rather to gain the confidence of the people by degrees
than to explore, they considered that they had advanced far enough into
the country for one trip; and believing that they could secure their end
by a repetition of their visit, as they had done on the Shire, they
decided to return to the vessel at Dakanamoio island; but, instead of
returning by the way they came, they passed down southwards close by
Mount Chiradzuru, among the relatives of Chibisa, and thence by the pass
Zedi, down to the Shire. The Kroomen had, while we were away, cut a good
supply of wood for steaming, and we soon proceeded down the river.
The steamer reached Tette on the 23rd of June, and, after undergoing
repairs, proceeded to the Kongone to receive provisions from one of H.M.
cruisers. We had been very abundantly supplied with first-rate stores,
but were unfortunate enough to lose a considerable portion of them, and
had now to bear the privation as best we could. On the way down, we
purchased a few gigantic cabbages and pumpkins at a native village below
Mazaro. Our dinners had usually consisted of but a single course; but we
were surprised the next day by our black cook from Sierra Leone bearing
in a second course. "What have you got there?" was asked in wonder. "A
tart, sir." "A tart! of what is it made?" "Of cabbage, sir." As we had
no sugar, and could not "make believe," as in the days of boyhood, we did
not enjoy the feast that Tom's genius had prepared. Her Majesty's brig
"Persian," Lieutenant Saumarez commanding, called on her way to the Cape;
and, though somewhat short of provisions herself, generously gave us all
she could spare. We now parted with our Kroomen, as, from their
inability to march, we could not use them in our land journeys. A crew
was picked out from the Makololo, who, besides being good travellers,
could cut wood, work the ship, and required only native food.
While at the Kongone it was found necessary to beach the steamer for
repairs. She was built of a newly invented sort of steel plates, only a
sixteenth of an inch in thickness, patented, but unfortunately never
tried before. To build an exploring ship of untried material was a
mistake. Some chemical action on this preparation of steel caused a
minute hole; from this point, branches like lichens, or the little ragged
stars we sometimes see in thawing ice, radiated in all directions. Small
holes went through wherever a bend occurred in these branches. The
bottom very soon became like a sieve, completely full of minute holes,
which leaked perpetually. The engineer stopped the larger ones, but the
vessel was no sooner afloat, than new ones broke out. The first news of
a morning was commonly the unpleasant announcement of another leak in the
forward compartment, or in the middle, which was worse still.
Frequent showers fell on our way up the Zambesi, in the beginning of
August. On the 8th we had upwards of three inches of rain, which large
quantity, more than falls in any single rainy day during the season at
Tette, we owed to being near the sea. Sometimes the cabin was nearly
flooded; for, in addition to the leakage from below, rain poured through
the roof, and an umbrella had to be used whenever we wished to write: the
mode of coupling the compartments, too, was a new one, and the action of
the hinder compartment on the middle one pumped up the water of the
river, and sent it in streams over the floor and lockers, where lay the
cushions which did double duty as chairs and beds. In trying to form an
opinion of the climate, it must be recollected that much of the fever,
from which we suffered, was caused by sleeping on these wet cushions.
Many of the botanical specimens, laboriously collected and carefully
prepared by Dr. Kirk, were destroyed, or double work imposed, by their
accidentally falling into wet places in the cabin.
About the middle of August, after cutting wood at Shamoara, we again
steamed up the Shire, with the intention of becoming better acquainted
with the people, and making another and longer journey on foot to the
north of Lake Shirwa, in search of Lake Nyassa, of which we had already
received some information, under the name Nyinyesi (the stars). The
Shire is much narrower than the Zambesi, but deeper, and more easily
navigated. It drains a low and exceedingly fertile valley of from
fifteen to twenty miles in breadth. Ranges of wooded hills bound this
valley on both sides. For the first twenty miles the hills on the left
bank are close to the river; then comes Morambala, a detached mountain
500 yards from the river's brink, which rises, with steep sides on the
west, to 4000 feet in height, and is about seven miles in length. It is
wooded up to the very top, and very beautiful. The southern end, seen
from a distance, has a fine gradual slope, and looks as if it might be of
easy ascent; but the side which faces the Shire is steep and rocky,
especially in the upper half. A small village peeps out about halfway up
the mountain; it has a pure and bracing atmosphere; and is perched above
mosquito range. The people on the summit have a very different climate
and vegetation from those of the plains; but they have to spend a great
portion of their existence amidst white fleecy clouds, which, in the
rainy season, rest daily on the top of their favourite mountain. We were
kindly treated by these mountaineers on our first ascent; before our
second they were nearly all swept away by Mariano. Dr. Kirk found
upwards of thirty species of ferns on this and other mountains, and even
good-sized tree-ferns; though scarcely a single kind is to be met with on
the plains. Lemon and orange trees grew wild, and pineapples had been
planted by the people. Many large hornbills, hawks, monkeys, antelopes,
and rhinoceroses found a home and food among the great trees round its
base. A hot fountain boils up on the plain near the north end. It
bubbles out of the earth, clear as crystal, at two points, or eyes, a few
yards apart from each other, and sends off a fine flowing stream of hot
water. The temperature was found to be 174 degrees Fahr., and it boiled
an egg in about the usual time. Our guide threw in a small branch to
show us how speedily the Madse-awira (boiling water) could kill the
leaves. Unlucky lizards and insects did not seem to understand the
nature of a hot-spring, as many of their remains were lying at the
bottom. A large beetle had alighted on the water, and been killed before
it had time to fold its wings. An incrustation, smelling of sulphur, has
been deposited by the water on the stones. About a hundred feet from the
eye of the fountain the mud is as hot as can be borne by the body. In
taking a bath there, it makes the skin perfectly clean, and none of the
mud adheres: it is strange that the Portuguese do not resort to it for
the numerous cutaneous diseases with which they are so often afflicted.
A few clumps of the palm and acacia trees appear west of Morambala, on
the rich plain forming the tongue of land between the rivers Shire and
Zambesi. This is a good place for all sorts of game. The Zambesi canoe-
men were afraid to sleep on it from the idea of lions being there; they
preferred to pass the night on an island. Some black men, who
accompanied us as volunteer workmen from Shupanga, called out one evening
that a lion stood on the bank. It was very dark, and we could only see
two sparkling lights, said to be the lion's eyes looking at us; for here,
as elsewhere, they have a theory that the lion's eyes always flash fire
at night. Not being fireflies--as they did not move when a shot was
fired in their direction--they were probably glowworms.
Beyond Morambala the Shire comes winding through an extensive marsh. For
many miles to the north a broad sea of fresh green grass extends, and is
so level, that it might be used for taking the meridian altitude of the
sun. Ten or fifteen miles north of Morambala, stands the dome-shaped
mountain Makanga, or Chi-kanda; several others with granitic-looking
peaks stretch away to the north, and form the eastern boundary of the
valley; another range, but of metamorphic rocks, commencing opposite
Senna, bounds the valley on the west. After streaming through a portion
of this marsh, we came to a broad belt of palm and other trees, crossing
the fine plain on the right bank. Marks of large game were abundant.
Elephants had been feeding on the palm nuts, which have a pleasant fruity
taste, and are used as food by man. Two pythons were observed coiled
together among the branches of a large tree, and were both shot. The
larger of the two, a female, was ten feet long. They are harmless, and
said to be good eating. The Makololo having set fire to the grass where
they were cutting wood, a solitary buffalo rushed out of the
conflagration, and made a furious charge at an active young fellow named
Mantlanyane. Never did his fleet limbs serve him better than during the
few seconds of his fearful flight before the maddened animal. When he
reached the bank, and sprang into the river, the infuriated beast was
scarcely six feet behind him. Towards evening, after the day's labour in
wood-cutting was over, some of the men went fishing. They followed the
common African custom of agitating the water, by giving it a few sharp
strokes with the top of the fishing-rod, immediately after throwing in
the line, to attract the attention of the fish to the bait. Having
caught nothing, the reason assigned was the same as would have been given
in England under like circumstances, namely, that "the wind made the fish
cold, and they would not bite." Many gardens of maize, pumpkins, and
tobacco, fringed the marshy banks as we went on. They belong to natives
of the hills, who come down in the dry season, and raise a crop on parts
at other times flooded. While the crops are growing, large quantities of
fish are caught, chiefly _Clarias capensis_, and _Mugil Africanus_; they
are dried for sale or future consumption.
As we ascended, we passed a deep stream about thirty yards wide, flowing
in from a body of open water several miles broad. Numbers of men were
busy at different parts of it, filling their canoes with the lotus root,
called _Nyika_, which, when boiled or roasted, resembles our chestnuts,
and is extensively used in Africa as food. Out of this lagoon, and by
this stream, the chief part of the duckweed of the Shire flows. The
lagoon itself is called Nyanja ea Motope (Lake of Mud). It is also named
Nyanja Pangono (Little Lake), while the elephant marsh goes by the name
of Nyanja Mukulu (Great Lake). It is evident from the shore line still
to be observed on the adjacent hills, that in ancient times these were
really lakes, and the traditional names thus preserved are only another
evidence of the general desiccation which Africa has undergone.