Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa by David Livingstone (fun to read .txt) 📕

It made me quite unfit to move, or even know what was passing outside my little tent. Senhor Pascoal, who had been detained by the severe rain at a better spot, at last came up, and, knowing that leeches abounded in the rivulets, procured a number, and applied some dozens to the nape of the neck and the loins. This partially relieved the pain.

He was then obliged to move forward, in order to purchase food for his large party. After many days I began to recover, and wished to move on, but my men objected to the attempt on account of my weakness. When Senhor Pascoal had been some time at the village in front, as he had received instructions from his employer, Captain Neves, to aid me as much as possible, and being himself a kindly-disposed person, he sent back two messengers to invite me to come on, if practicable.

It happened that the head man of the village where I had lain twenty-two days, while bargaining and quarreling in my camp for a piece of meat, had been struck on the mouth by one of my men. My principal men paid five pieces of cloth and a gun as an atonement; but the more they yielded, the more exorbitant he became, and he sent word to all the surrounding villages to aid him in avenging the affront of a blow on the beard. As their courage usually rises with success, I resolved to yield no more, and departed.

In passing through a forest in the country beyond, we were startled by a body of men rushing after us. They began by knocking down the burdens of the hindermost of my men, and several shots were fired, each party spreading out on both sides of the path. I fortunately had a six-barreled revolver, which my friend Captain Henry Need, of her majesty's brig "Linnet", had considerately sent to Golungo Alto after my departure from Loanda. Taking this in my hand, and forgetting fever, I staggered quickly along the path with two or three of my men, and fortunately encountered the chief. The sight of the six barrels gaping into his stomach, with my own ghastly visage looking daggers at his face, seemed to produce an instant revolution in his martial feelings, for he cried out, "Oh! I have only come to speak to you, and wish peace only."

Mashauana had hold of him by the hand, and found him shaking.

We examined his gun, and found that it had been discharged.

Both parties crowded up to their chiefs. One of the opposite party coming too near, one of mine drove him back with a battle-axe.

The enemy protested their amicable intentions, and my men asserted the fact of having the goods knocked down as evidence of the contrary.

Without waiting long, I requested all to sit down, and Pitsane, placing his hand upon the revolver, somewhat allayed their fears.

I then said to the chief, "If you have come with peaceable intentions, we have no other; go away home to your village." He replied, "I am afraid lest you shoot me in the back." I rejoined, "If I wanted to kill you, I could shoot you in the face as well." Mosantu called out to me, "That's only a Makalaka trick; don't give him your back."

But I said, "Tell him to observe that I am not afraid of him;"

and, turning, mounted my ox. There was not much danger in the fire that was opened at first, there being so many trees.

The enemy probably expected that the sudden attack would make us forsake our goods, and allow them to plunder with ease.

The villagers were no doubt pleased with being allowed to retire unscathed, and we were also glad to get away without having shed a drop of blood, or having compromised ourselves for any future visit. My men were delighted with their own bravery, and made the woods ring with telling each other how "brilliant their conduct before the enemy" would have been, had hostilities not been brought to a sudden close.

I do not mention this little skirmish as a very frightful affair.

The negro character in these parts, and in Angola, is essentially cowardly, except when influenced by success. A partial triumph over any body of men would induce the whole country to rise in arms, and this is the chief danger to be feared. These petty chiefs have individually but little power, and with my men, now armed with guns, I could have easily beaten them off singly; but, being of the same family, they would readily unite in vast numbers if incited by prospects of successful plunder.

They are by no means equal to the Cape Caffres in any respect whatever.

In the evening we came to Moena Kikanje, and found him a sensible man.

He is the last of the Chiboque chiefs in this direction, and is in alliance with Matiamvo, whose territory commences a short distance beyond. His village is placed on the east bank of the Quilo, which is here twenty yards wide, and breast deep.

The country was generally covered with forest, and we slept every night at some village. I was so weak, and had become so deaf from the effects of the fever, that I was glad to avail myself of the company of Senhor Pascoal and the other native traders.

Our rate of traveling was only two geographical miles per hour, and the average number of hours three and a half per day, or seven miles.

Two thirds of the month was spent in stoppages, there being only ten traveling days in each month. The stoppages were caused by sickness, and the necessity of remaining in different parts to purchase food; and also because, when one carrier was sick, the rest refused to carry his load.

One of the Pombeiros had eight good-looking women in a chain whom he was taking to the country of Matiamvo to sell for ivory.

They always looked ashamed when I happened to come near them, and must have felt keenly their forlorn and degraded position.

I believe they were captives taken from the rebel Cassanges.

The way in which slaves are spoken of in Angola and eastern Africa must sound strangely even to the owners when they first come from Europe.

In Angola the common appellation is "o diabo", or "brutu"; and it is quite usual to hear gentlemen call out, "O diabo! bring fire."

In eastern Africa, on the contrary, they apply the term "bicho" (an animal), and you hear the phrase, "Call the ANIMAL to do this or that."

In fact, slave-owners come to regard their slaves as not human, and will curse them as the "race of a dog". Most of the carriers of my traveling companions were hired Basongo, and required constant vigilance to prevent them stealing the goods they carried.

Salt, which is one of the chief articles conveyed into the country, became considerably lighter as we went along, but the carriers shielded themselves by saying that it had been melted by the rain.

Their burdens were taken from them every evening, and placed in security under the guardianship of Senhor Pascoal's own slaves. It was pitiable to observe the worrying life he led. There was the greatest contrast possible between the conduct of his people and that of my faithful Makololo.

We crossed the Loange, a deep but narrow stream, by a bridge.

It becomes much larger, and contains hippopotami, lower down.

It is the boundary of Londa on the west. We slept also on the banks of the Pezo, now flooded, and could not but admire their capabilities for easy irrigation. On reaching the River Chikapa (lat. 10d 10' S., long. 19d 42' E.), the 25th of March, we found it fifty or sixty yards wide, and flowing E.N.E. into the Kasai.

The adjacent country is of the same level nature as that part of Londa formerly described; but, having come farther to the eastward than our previous course, we found that all the rivers had worn for themselves much deeper valleys than at the points we had formerly crossed them.

Surrounded on all sides by large gloomy forests, the people of these parts have a much more indistinct idea of the geography of their country than those who live in hilly regions. It was only after long and patient inquiry that I became fully persuaded that the Quilo runs into the Chikapa.

As we now crossed them both considerably farther down, and were greatly to the eastward of our first route, there can be no doubt that these rivers take the same course as the others, into the Kasai, and that I had been led into a mistake in saying that any of them flowed to the westward. Indeed, it was only at this time that I began to perceive that all the western feeders of the Kasai, except the Quango, flow first from the western side toward the centre of the country, then gradually turn, with the Kasai itself, to the north; and, after the confluence of the Kasai with the Quango, an immense body of water, collected from all these branches, finds its way out of the country by means of the River Congo or Zaire on the west coast.

The people living along the path we are now following were quite accustomed to the visits of native traders, and did not feel in any way bound to make presents of food except for the purpose of cheating: thus, a man gave me a fowl and some meal, and, after a short time, returned.

I offered him a handsome present of beads; but these he declined, and demanded a cloth instead, which was far more than the value of his gift.

They did the same with my men, until we had to refuse presents altogether.

Others made high demands because I slept in a "house of cloth", and must be rich. They seemed to think that they had a perfect right to payment for simply passing through the country.

Beyond the Chikapa we crossed the Kamaue, a small deep stream proceeding from the S.S.W., and flowing into the Chikapa.

On the 30th of April we reached the Loajima, where we had to form a bridge to effect our passage. This was not so difficult an operation as some might imagine; for a tree was growing in a horizontal position across part of the stream, and, there being no want of the tough climbing plants which admit of being knitted like ropes, Senhor P. soon constructed a bridge.

The Loajima was here about twenty-five yards wide, but very much deeper than where I had crossed before on the shoulders of Mashauana.

The last rain of this season had fallen on the 28th, and had suddenly been followed by a great decrease of the temperature.

The people in these parts seemed more slender in form, and their color a lighter olive, than any we had hitherto met. The mode of dressing the great masses of woolly hair which lay upon their shoulders, together with their general features, again reminded me of the ancient Egyptians.

Several were seen with the upward inclination of the outer angles of the eye, but this was not general. A few of the ladies adopt a curious custom of attaching the hair to a hoop which encircles the head, giving it somewhat the appearance of the glory round the head of the Virgin (wood-cut No. 1*).

Some have a small hoop behind that represented in the wood-cut.

Others wear an ornament of woven hair and hide