WITH LIVINGSTONE IN SOUTH AFRICA
BY W. COTTON OSWELL
[The Editors are fully aware that the following cannot be
considered as coming strictly under the head of Big Game
Shooting. It is, however, the special wish of the late Mr.
Oswell’s family that the whole MS. should appear as he left it,
and the Editors willingly comply with the request.--ED.]
A few lines about my companion in my Zambesi journey. The description
of the route taken may be found in his book, and of the man himself
two Lives have been written. But I knew him well personally, and there
was one trait in his character which, _me judice_, has never been made
enough of--a kind of firm persistence to do whatever he had set his
mind on. In an Englishman we might, I think, have called the phase
obstinacy, but with Livingstone it was ‘Scottishness.’ It was not the
_sic volo sic jubeo_ style of imperiousness, but a quiet determination
to carry out his own views in his own way, without feeling himself
bound to give any reason or explanation further than that he intended
doing so and so. This was an immense help to him, for it made him
supremely self-reliant, and if he had not been, he could never have
done half that he did. He was the Fabius of African travel. _Vicit
cunctando_ might well be his epitaph. He believed, as I do, that the
way was to be won, not forced, if any good results were to follow. I
have sat seven weeks with him on the bank of a swamp because he was
unwilling to run counter to the wishes of the people. I pressed him to
move on with the horses; no active opposition would have been offered,
but he would not wound the prejudices of the natives--and he was right.
We had our reward, for, after satisfying themselves that we meant
no harm, we were given free passports, and even helped on our way,
journeying, as an Indian would say, on ‘the back of an elephant.’ With
his quiet endurance, and entire lack of fussiness and excitability,
content to wait and let patience have her perfect work, quite satisfied
that the day should bring forth what it liked, he was eminently the
‘_justum et tenacem propositi virum_,’ on whom man or elements make but
slight impression, yet strangely withal very enthusiastic. This nature
fitted him for the successful traveller and trustworthy companion.
His inner man and noble aspirations belong to the histories of his
life. We were the firmest of friends, both a trifle obstinate, but we
generally agreed to differ, and in all matters concerning the natives,
I, of course, waived my crude opinions to his matured judgment. I had
the management of trekking and the cattle, after he, with his great
knowledge of the people and their language, had obtained all the
information he could about the waters and the distances between them.
This worked well.
When we reached the Chobé River, Sebitoani was on an island thirty
miles down stream, but sent his own canoe with twelve paddlers to bring
us to him. It was a pleasant trip, the men going with the current
about eight miles an hour. At three in the afternoon we reached our
destination and landed. Presently this really great chief and man
came to meet us, shy and ill at ease. We held out our hands in the
accustomed way of true Britons, and I was surprised to see that his
mother-wit gave him immediate insight into what was expected of him,
and the friendly meaning of our salutation; though he could never
have witnessed it before, he at once followed suit and placed his
hand in ours as if to the manner born. I felt troubled at the evident
nervousness of the famous warrior, for he had been, and still was, a
mighty fighter, with very remarkable force of character. Surrounded
by his tribesmen, he stood irresolute and quite overcome in the
presence of two ordinary-looking Europeans. Livingstone entered at once
into conversation with him, and by degrees partly reassured him; but
throughout that day and the next, a sad, half-scared look never faded
from his face. He had wished us to visit him, had sent an ambassage
to Livingstone at Kolobeng, but the reality of our coming, with all
its possibilities, dangers, and advantages seemed to flit through the
man’s mind as in a vision. He killed an ox for us, and treated us right
royally; he was far and away the finest Kafir I ever saw in mien and
manner.
He had been told that Livingstone and I occasionally wrote a letter to
one another, if by chance we were separated for a day or two and wished
to communicate or arrange a meeting at a certain point, and asked us if
his information were true that we could make one another hear when far
apart, and if we could give him an example of our power. Livingstone
took a man out of even Kafir earshot, four or five hundred yards away,
and then whisperingly asked him his own and his wife’s name, and
writing them on a scrap of paper sent him to me. ‘Well, Ra’chobe, and
how is Seboni your wife?’I asked. The chief and his headmen, who were
gathered expectant round, were amazed and somewhat frightened, taking
it for magic, though they soon got over it.
It does not do to introduce Kafirs too suddenly to the common things
of civilised life. I once lost an admiring audience by an act of this
kind. A laughing circle was round me, and I was dispensing beads, brass
wire, and tiny looking-glasses to ingratiate myself with a new tribe,
the Macoba, when by way of amusing them I took a burning-glass from
my pocket and ignited a pinch of gunpowder strewed on the waggon-box,
telling them what I was going to do, and preparing them for it. With
the puff, man, woman, and child, vanished; it was days before I could
regain their confidence, and throughout my stay with them I was looked
upon with awe as the wizard of the sun.
Sebitoani had allotted to us a bright clean kotla for eating and
sleeping in, and after supper we lay down on the grass, which had been
cut for our beds by the thoughtful attention of the chief. In the dead
of the night he paid us a visit alone, and sat down very quietly and
mournfully at our fire. Livingstone and I woke up and greeted him, and
then he dreamily recounted the history of his life, his wars, escapes,
successes and conquests, and the far-distant wandering in his raids.
By the fire’s glow and flicker among the reeds, with that tall dark
earnest speaker and his keenly attentive listeners, it has always
appeared to me one of the most weird scenes I ever saw. With subdued
manner and voice Sebitoani went on through the livelong night till near
the dawn, his low tones only occasionally interrupted by an inquiry
from Livingstone. He described the way in which he had circumvented
a strong ‘impi’ of Matabili on the raid, and raised his voice for
a minute or two as he recounted how, hearing of their approach, he
had sent men to meet the dreaded warriors of ’Umsilegas, feigning
themselves traitors to him in order to lure them to destruction by
promising to guide them to the bulk of the cows and oxen which they
said, in fear of their coming, had been placed in fancied security on
one of the large islands of the Chobé; how the Zulus fell into the
trap, and allowed themselves to be ferried over in three or four canoes
hidden there for the purpose, and how when the last trip had been made
the boatmen, pulling out into midstream, told them they could remain
where they were till they were fetched off, and in the meantime might
search for the cattle; how, after leaving them till they were worn
and weak with hunger, for there was nothing to eat on the island, he
passed over, killed the chiefs, and absorbed the soldiers into his
own ranks, providing them with wives, a luxury they were not entitled
to under Zulu military law until their spears had been well reddened
in fight. Then he waved his hand westwards, and opened out a story of
men over whom he had gained an easy triumph ‘away away very far by
the bitter waters,’ and to whom, when they asked for food, wishing to
bind them with fetters of kindness, he sent a fat ox, and, ‘“Would
you believe it? they returned it, saying they didn’t eat ox.” “Then
what do you eat?” I asked; “_we_ like beef better than anything.” “We
eat _men_,” said they. I had never heard of this before. But they were
very pressing, so at last I sent them two slaves of Macobas--the river
people--who, as you know, are very dark in colour, but they brought
them back, saying they did not like _black_ men, but preferred the
redder variety, and as that meant sending my own fighting men, I told
them they might go without altogether.’ This was the only intimation we
ever had that cannibalism existed in our part of Africa.
This chief afterwards died close to our waggons from pneumonia set up
by the irritation of some old spear wounds in his chest. He was beloved
by the Makololo, was the fastest runner and best fighter among them;
just, though stern, with wonderful power of attaching men to him. He
was a gentleman in thought and manner, well disposed to Europeans, and
very proud of their visiting him. Had he not died he might have been
of the greatest use in civilising and missionary work. His kingdom
has, I am afraid, melted away. The sceptre descended to his daughter,
who thought, as man took a plurality of wives, a queen might allow
herself like liberty in the way of husbands. Bickering and strife
arose, and though the rule went to her brother after her resignation,
he was not of the same calibre as his father, and disintegration of
the heterogeneous elements of the carefully put together and wisely
ruled kingdom soon set in. The nation lost its unity, and resolved
itself into its separate nationalities--in the course, I believe, of
a very few years. Such has been the fate of all African kingdoms; one
great man has made and held them together, and at his death they have
returned to the several petty tribal royalties out of which they were
welded.
And now, having had my say on Big Game, one word on the ‘biggest
beasts’ of Africa--the slave traders--and one on the country, and I
have done. It was on the Chobé that we first came across the slaver’s
work. We had travelled all night through the sleeping flies. I was
in advance with the gun and half a dozen Kafirs with axes, with which
they had been clearing the way. In the very early morning we reached
the river, narrow, but deep, with steep banks. I asked the guide if
we could cross it. ‘Do they swim?’ he asked, pointing to the waggons.
‘No,’ I answered; ‘where’s the ford?’ There was none, he said. ‘Are
there tsétsé here?’ I inquired, and he replied that there were plenty.
‘What are we to do with the animals?’ and he told me to drive them as
near as possible to the water, into the reeds, as the flies were not
there, only in the bush. The pests were beginning to buzz about as the
sun rose, so we took the man’s advice, and while the others lay down
for a rest of an hour or two I volunteered to keep watch. Putting my
back against a tree, I kept my eyes steadfastly fixed on my charge for
a time, and then I suppose I must have closed them, though of course I
should deny that I was asleep.
Suddenly I was roused from my reverie by a salutation in
Sechuana--‘Rumélá.’ I looked up, and before me stood a tall stalwart
Kafir, clothed in a lady’s dressing-gown. It came scantily to his knee,
and in other parts seemed hardly to have been made for him, and his
appearance was so queer that I burst into a laugh. I saw the blood rise
in his dusky face as he asked what I was laughing at. ‘Why, you have
got on a woman’s dress from my country,’ I told him. ‘I don’t know
about that,’ he said, ‘but I gave a woman for it last year.’ We had
come unaware upon the southern limit of the slave trade. It was months
since we had last seen any products of European manufacture except
those we had brought with us, and here they were in 18° S. Lat., in the
middle of South Africa, 1,500 to 1,800 miles from any sea. Livingstone
woke up, smoothed down my visitor, and inquired what we could do with
the cattle. We could not leave them where they were; they would find
nothing to eat, and besides, when the sun got hot the flies would
find their way to them. We must drive them across the river, as there
were no tsétsé there, the man told us; and we found it was so, the
narrowest lines frequently defining the limits of safety and danger.
Nothing, however, would persuade them to take the jump from the bank
into the deep black water. Our friend whistled, and from the fringe of
reeds on the opposite side four or five canoes full of men shot across
the narrow channel. As they landed they presented the most motley
appearance. They had evidently dressed to astonish us, and each bore
about his neck or shoulders some article of European manufacture. Here
was a fellow with a yard and a half of green baize or red drugget tied
with a leathern thong about his throat, the ends streaming away behind
him; another with a yard or two of some cheap gaudy cloth with a hole
cut in the middle, wearing it _à la poncho_; two yards of calico of
the commonest adorned the person of a third; it was a most ridiculous
sight, but was evidently considered most impressively overwhelming.
Still the cattle resisted our united efforts. At last, a canoe was
paddled over to the other side, and in three or four minutes appeared
again with a tiny cow and a most diminutive calf as passengers. The
little cow was lifted on to the bank, and the canoe paddled back with
the calf; we got our oxen as much together in a lump as we could,
close to the river, surrounded them on three sides, loosed the lowing
little mother, who instantly took a header into the water, and then by
shouting, pushing, and twisting tails induced our oxen to follow the
example set them, and they were safe. The horses gave no trouble.
On questioning these Kafirs and their chief (Sebitoani) afterwards as
to the mystery of the fine clothes, this was the interpretation. ‘Do
you see that little hill? A number of men with hair like yours and with
guns came from the eastwards and sat down on that hill. We sent to ask
them what they wanted, and they said “to buy men.” We explained we had
none to sell; it was the first time they had ever come to us, though we
had heard of them before. Wouldn’t they buy ivory or ostrich feathers?
No, they didn’t want anything of that sort; they had beautiful cloths,
which they showed us.’ ‘I told them,’ said Sebitoani, ‘that I thought
it was an “ugly” thing to sell men, but they sat there day after day,
and showed us fresh cloths so beautiful that you would have sold your
grand-mother for them. Then I somehow remembered there were men whom
we had taken in our last raid. And I at length consented to part with
them. But they were not many, and they wanted more. I said I had none;
if I sold now it must be my own people, and I would not do that. Then
they asked, “Don’t you want oxen?” What could I say--doesn’t a chief
always want oxen? “Well, as we came here, about five days off we passed
through a country where the oxen were like the grass for number. Lend
us 400 or 500 of your warriors, and we will help with our guns, and let
us attack that tribe. We will take the men and women, and you shall
take the oxen.” What could I say? This appeared a very good plan to me,
so we attacked. They got two great tens (200) of men and women, and I
got all those cattle,’ pointing to a plain on which a herd of these
diminutive little creatures were feeding. I forget whether Livingstone
described them, but they were most remarkably small things, like sturdy
Durham oxen three feet high. There was not the least difficulty in
carrying them about bodily; we put one into a waggon, hoping to bring
it out, but it died. Pretty little gentle beasts, I wish I had taken
more trouble to secure specimens. When the men milked them they held
them by the hind leg as you would a goat. On the other hand, by the
shores of Lake ’Ngami, a gigantic long-horned breed is found, stolen in
a raid from the Ba-Wangketsi thirty years before our visit. They were
originally remarkable for their heads, but in four or five generations,
from feeding on the silicious coated reeds and succulent grasses near
the lake, had developed wonderfully in horns and height. Through
Livingstone I obtained one 6 ft. 2 in. high, with horns measuring from
tip to tip 8 ft. 7 in. and 14 ft. 2 in. round from one point to the
other taking in the base of the skull. We had cleared a way for the
waggons through the bush, but had in many places on our return to widen
it for my ox. I hoped to have brought him home and to have presented
him to the Zoological Gardens, but after driving him 800 miles the
grass got very short, and his horns coming to the ground before his
nose, prevented him feeding. I was obliged to shoot him, and his head
now hangs over the sideboard in my dining-room.
These slave-dealers, with their devilish counsels and temptations,
were Mambari, a kind of half-caste Portuguese, who fifty years ago
were agents for the export slave-trade. When the survivors of the
gangs reached the coast they were packed away in a slave-ship, like
herrings in a cask, and transported. Through the vigilance of English
cruisers this iniquitous traffic has been greatly reduced, and, but for
the refusal of the right of search by the French, would be very small
and unremunerative; but the Arab curse still continues, and though,
now that the sea-board is partially occupied by Europeans, greater
difficulty will be placed in its way, I am of opinion that through the
avarice and cupidity of man--African and European--it will not entirely
disappear so long as there is any ivory left. That once exhausted, is
there anything else worth bringing a ten-mile journey to the coast?
In the late very cool partitioning of Africa we may congratulate
ourselves in having obtained possession of Mashonaland, a district
healthy enough for colonisation, and apparently rich enough to repay
it. The tsétsé, that great enemy to the cattle-breeder, will disappear
before the approach of civilisation, and the killing off of the game,
especially the buffalo, its standing dish, as it has done many times
already in African lore. I am speaking of the tracts south of the
Zambesi. Of tropical lands to the north I know nothing, save from what
I read and am told, and I cannot yet see how they are to be settled.
Fever and general unhealthiness must weight immigration heavily, and
even if the country is capable of supplying the needs of the world
in the future, what philanthropic society will subsidise the workers
until the industries are developed? It must be remembered the greatest
prophylactics in an evil climate are movement, and its consequent
excitement, and change of scene--the settler dies where the traveller
lives. The railway, if made, will help to suppress slavery, by giving
carriage for the ivory, its only cause at present--no ivory, no
slavery. May the venture turn out better than many another has done,
and not end in that very questionable blessing, a rum-civilisation!
The influx of immigrants into Mashonaland will, in time, with the gold
and diamond seeking population further south, tend to minimise the
power of the Boers over the native tribes. Dutchmen are slow colonists,
and will not be able to hold their own with the incomers in enterprise,
or in a few years in numbers or power, and the evil influence and
oppression they have at times exercised upon the black race will be
at an end. I hope no worse _régime_ may come in with the new rule.
There were many good points in the Dutch farmers, and I think they
compare very favourably with English squatters in other lands. Where
antagonistic races are brought together, the minority, the whites,
if they are to hold their ground, are almost inevitably forced for
very existence to terrorise the black majority that would otherwise
overwhelm them. I am not arguing that their conduct is moral or legal,
but it has been, and will continue to be, the rule where whites
settle in black men’s lands uninvited. We may hold up our hands in a
Pharisaical way, and when we are once secure, I grant we try to improve
our subjects; but they must be our subjects first. But would Englishmen
under similar conditions have done much better than the Dutchmen? I
think not. Without the pale of law, they would hardly have been so much
of a law unto themselves. No doubt the Boers have many faults, and with
respect to the native races have shown great cruelty--my contention is
they could hardly have held their own without. We must not be too hard
on them because they have twice got the better of us in the field, and
twice in diplomacy. Englishmen have not forgotten Laings Nek and the
Majuba Hills. Diplomatically, too, we were twice worsted: the Boers
had very troublesome neighbours, and sought the suzerainty of our
Queen for their own ends, not by a unanimous vote I know; but there
are ‘oppositions’ everywhere, and at all events the seekers were the
majority. The troublesome neighbours, now we are masters, call upon
us to rectify the frontier line, which had been greatly encroached
upon by the Boers. We refuse, or delay, to set matters right. Boers’
troublesome neighbours become ours. The Zulus are conquered with some
difficulty, and the Boers, relieved from their anxieties, demand and
obtain the withdrawal of the suzerainty. This is not my opinion alone.
The Zulus were our fast friends till we refused to undo the wrongs they
had suffered at the hands of the Dutchmen--the whole story, including
the subsequent withdrawal of our troops, is a page that one would like
to tear out of our annals.
The character of the country in its different stages is well given in
the illustrations. There are no striking features; no mountains, no
large river, except the Zambesi, and only one rather uninteresting
lake, ’Ngami; no great forests, no tropical vegetation; the rains are
scanty, the soil dry, the plains large. What you see one day you may
see for a week. In most countries you would have to describe nature
in her many phases, but in South Africa one might take a paint-brush
and give a broad, general idea of the land, with four or five streaks
of colour--the widely extending, ascending, nearly treeless flats
from Kuruman to the Molopo River; the broken, fairly clothed region
of the Bakatla; and the open park-like scenery between them and the
rocky homes of the Bakaa and Ba-Mungwato. Throughout this area the
prevailing trees are mimosas; the flowers are of the same genera and
orders, undisturbed by man--sheets of different kinds are often spread
out side by side, parterre fashion, in separate beds, not mingling even
at the edges. They have fought the battle out amongst themselves, and
it has ended in the survival of the fittest, aliens less suited to the
particular border being crowded out by the stronger natives.
From the Ba-Mungwato, however, as you dive into the Kalahari desert by
the Bushmen sucking-holes of ’Serotli, thirty yards of sand suffice
to change the growth and families of trees and flowers. On the side
we struck the hollow, they were old friends; on the other, entire
strangers--not even recognised by the Kafirs who had accompanied us
from the south.
We had turned over a fresh leaf in Nature’s book, and it lasted us
until the sluggish waters of the Zouga River and Lake Kamadou came in
sight, with their lonely palm-trees, and, on the upper reaches of the
river, unusually thick bush. You thence passed through a country cut up
with narrow sleepy streams, or by the dry barren road, eastward of Lake
Kamadou, to the open flats of the Zambesi, the approach from the side
of the Chobé being studded with euphorbia-trees, quaint of growth, and
excellently named candelabra. Throughout these parts you hardly see a
hillock; so rare, indeed, is the sight, that one tiny, isolated mound
is named ‘Sisalébue’--‘we are still looking at you’--by the Kafirs, in
recognition of the scarcity of even such haycocks. Beyond the Zouga the
wonderful abundance of animal life is not maintained. There is game,
but not in large herds. The happy hunting grounds in my time began at
the Molopo and ended at the Zouga.
Throughout South Africa the sparseness of the population has favoured
the increase of the game, coupled with the fact that the people were
not adequately armed for its destruction. The massing of animals in
particular localities, dependent on the waters, which are few and far
between, may perhaps have led to an exaggerated idea of the sum total;
but put it as you will, after all real and imaginary deductions from
whatsoever cause, there never was a land so full of wild life since
antediluvian days. It will die out before guns and civilisation, and
that quickly, though the fly may bar the way to _mounted_ sportsmen,
for there are no dense jungles or inaccessible ranges of mountains for
the beasts to fall back upon.
[Illustration: Dead buffalo]