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

we should go a little to the northeast, and pass through the people called Babimpe, and we saw some of that people, who invited us to come that way on account of its being smoother; but, feeling anxious to get back to the Zambesi again, we decided to cross the hills toward its confluence with the Kafue.

The distance, which in a straight line is but small, occupied three days.

The precipitous nature of the sides of this mass of hills knocked up the oxen and forced us to slaughter two, one of which, a very large one, and ornamented with upward of thirty pieces of its own skin detached and hanging down, Sekeletu had wished us to take to the white people as a specimen of his cattle. We saw many elephants among the hills, and my men ran off and killed three. When we came to the top of the outer range of the hills we had a glorious view.

At a short distance below us we saw the Kafue, wending away over a forest-clad plain to the confluence, and on the other side of the Zambesi, beyond that, lay a long range of dark hills. A line of fleecy clouds appeared lying along the course of that river at their base. The plain below us, at the left of the Kafue, had more large game on it than any where else I had seen in Africa. Hundreds of buffaloes and zebras grazed on the open spaces, and there stood lordly elephants feeding majestically, nothing moving apparently but the proboscis. I wished that I had been able to take a photograph of a scene so seldom beheld, and which is destined, as guns increase, to pass away from earth. When we descended we found all the animals remarkably tame. The elephants stood beneath the trees, fanning themselves with their large ears, as if they did not see us at 200 or 300 yards distance. The number of animals was quite astonishing, and made me think that here I could realize an image of that time when Megatheria fed undisturbed in the primeval forests.

We saw great numbers of red-colored pigs (`Potamochoerus') standing gazing at us in wonder. The people live on the hills, and, having no guns, seldom disturb the game. They have never been visited, even by half-castes; but Babisa traders have come occasionally.

Continuous rains kept us for some time on the banks of the Chiponga, and here we were unfortunate enough to come among the tsetse.

Mr. J. N. Gray, of the British Museum, has kindly obliged me with a drawing of the insect, with the ravages of which I have unfortunately been too familiar. (For description, see p. 94-96 [Chapter 4 Paragraphs 16-20].) No. 1 is the insect somewhat smaller than life, from the specimen having contracted in drying; they are a little larger than the common house-fly.

No. 2 is the insect magnified; and No. 3 shows the magnified proboscis and poison-bulb at the root.*

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Unfortunately, these illustrations can not be presented in this ASCII text.

Fortunately, information on the Tsetse is no longer difficult to find.

The "somewhat smaller than life" drawing is about 1 cm from head to tail, not including wings or proboscis. -- A. L., 1997.

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We tried to leave one morning, but the rain coming on afresh brought us to a stand, and after waiting an hour, wet to the skin, we were fain to retrace our steps to our sheds. These rains were from the east, and the clouds might be seen on the hills exactly as the "Table-cloth" on Table Mountain. This was the first wetting we had got since we left Sesheke, for I had gained some experience in traveling.

In Londa we braved the rain, and, as I despised being carried in our frequent passage through running water, I was pretty constantly drenched; but now, when we saw a storm coming, we invariably halted.

The men soon pulled grass sufficient to make a little shelter for themselves by placing it on a bush, and, having got my camp-stool and umbrella, with a little grass under my feet, I kept myself perfectly dry.

We also lighted large fires, and the men were not chilled by streams of water running down their persons, and abstracting the heat, as they would have been had they been exposed to the rain.

When it was over they warmed themselves by the fires, and we traveled on comfortably. The effect of this care was, that we had much less sickness than with a smaller party in journeying to Loanda. Another improvement made from my experience was avoiding an entire change of diet. In going to Loanda I took little or no European food, in order not to burden my men and make them lose spirit, but trusted entirely to what might be got by the gun and the liberality of the Balonda; but on this journey I took some flour which had been left in the wagon, with some got on the island, and baked my own bread all the way in an extemporaneous oven made by an inverted pot. With these precautions, aided, no doubt, by the greater healthiness of the district over which we passed, I enjoyed perfect health.

When we left the Chipongo on the 30th we passed among the range of hills on our left, which are composed of mica and clay slate.

At the bottom we found a forest of large silicified trees, all lying as if the elevation of the range had made them fall away from it, and toward the river. An ordinary-sized tree standing on end, measured 22 inches in diameter: there were 12 laminae to the inch.

These are easily counted, because there is usually a scale of pure silica between each, which has not been so much affected by the weather as the rest of the ring itself: the edges of the rings thus stand out plainly. Mr. Quekett, having kindly examined some specimens, finds that it is "silicified CONIFEROUS WOOD of the ARAUCARIAN type; and the nearest allied wood that he knows of is that found, also in a fossil state, in New South Wales." The numbers of large game were quite astonishing. I never saw elephants so tame as those near the Chiponga: they stood close to our path without being the least afraid.

This is different from their conduct where they have been accustomed to guns, for there they take alarm at the distance of a mile, and begin to run if a shot is fired even at a longer distance. My men killed another here, and rewarded the villagers of the Chiponga for their liberality in meal by loading them with flesh. We spent a night at a baobab, which was hollow, and would hold twenty men inside. It had been used as a lodging-house by the Babisa.

As we approached nearer the Zambesi, the country became covered with broad-leaved bushes, pretty thickly planted, and we had several times to shout to elephants to get out of our way. At an open space, a herd of buffaloes came trotting up to look at our oxen, and it was only by shooting one that I made them retreat.

The meat is very much like that of an ox, and this one was very fine.

The only danger we actually encountered was from a female elephant, with three young ones of different sizes. Charging through the centre of our extended line, and causing the men to throw down their burdens in a great hurry, she received a spear for her temerity.

I never saw an elephant with more than one calf before.

We knew that we were near our Zambesi again, even before the great river burst upon our sight, by the numbers of water-fowl we met.

I killed four geese with two shots, and, had I followed the wishes of my men, could have secured a meal of water-fowl for the whole party.

I never saw a river with so much animal life around and in it, and, as the Barotse say, "Its fish and fowl are always fat."

When our eyes were gladdened by a view of its goodly broad waters, we found it very much larger than it is even above the falls. One might try to make his voice heard across it in vain. Its flow was more rapid than near Sesheke, being often four and a half miles an hour, and, what I never saw before, the water was discolored and of a deep brownish-red.

In the great valley the Leeambye never becomes of this color.

The adjacent country, so far north as is known, is all level, and the soil, being generally covered with dense herbage, is not abraded; but on the eastern ridge the case is different; the grass is short, and, the elevation being great, the soil is washed down by the streams, and hence the discoloration which we now view. The same thing was observed on the western ridge. We never saw discoloration till we reached the Quango; that obtained its matter from the western slope of the western ridge, just as this part of the Zambesi receives its soil from the eastern slope of the eastern ridge. It carried a considerable quantity of wreck of reeds, sticks, and trees. We struck upon the river about eight miles east of the confluence with the Kafue, and thereby missed a sight of that interesting point. The cloudiness of the weather was such that but few observations could be made for determining our position; so, pursuing our course, we went down the left bank, and came opposite the island of Menye makaba. The Zambesi contains numerous islands; this was about a mile and a half or two miles long, and upward of a quarter of a mile broad. Besides human population, it has a herd of buffaloes that never leave it. In the distance they seemed to be upward of sixty. The human and brute inhabitants understand each other; for when the former think they ought to avenge the liberties committed on their gardens, the leaders of the latter come out boldly to give battle. They told us that the only time in which they can thin them is when the river is full and part of the island flooded.

They then attack them from their canoes. The comparatively small space to which they have confined themselves shows how luxuriant the vegetation of this region is; for were they in want of more pasture, as buffaloes can swim well, and the distance from this bank to the island is not much more than 200 yards, they might easily remove hither.

The opposite bank is much more distant.

Ranges of hills appear now to run parallel with the Zambesi, and are about fifteen miles apart. Those on the north approach nearest to the river.

The inhabitants on that side are the Batonga, those on the south bank are the Banyai. The hills abound in buffaloes, and elephants are numerous, and many are killed by the people on both banks. They erect stages on high trees overhanging the paths by which the elephants come, and then use a large spear with a handle nearly as thick as a man's wrist, and four or five feet long. When the animal comes beneath they throw the spear, and if it enters between the ribs above, as the blade is at least twenty inches long by two broad, the motion of the handle, as it is aided by knocking against the trees, makes frightful gashes within, and soon causes death. They kill