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

A third expedition was successful, although the whole party came near perishing for want of water, and their cattle, which had been bitten by the `Tsetse', died.

This insect -- the `Glossina moritans' of the naturalists --

deserves a special paragraph. It is a brown insect about as large as our common house-fly, with three or four yellow bars across its hinder part. A lively, buzzing, harmless-looking fellow is the tsetse. Its bite produces a slight itching similar to that caused by the mosquito, and in the case of men and some species of animals no further ill effects follow. But woe to the horse, the ox, and the dog, when once bitten by the tsetse. No immediate harm appears; the animal is not startled as by the gad-fly; but in a few days the eyes and the nose begin to run; the jaws and navel swell; the animal grazes for a while as usual, but grows emaciated and weak, and dies, it may be, weeks or months after. When dissected, the cellular tissue seems injected with air, the fat is green and oily, the muscles are flabby, the heart is so soft that the finger may be pushed through it. The antelope and buffalo, the zebra and goat, are not affected by its bite; while to the ox, the horse, and the dog it is certain death. The mule and donkey are not troubled by it, nor are sucking calves, while dogs, though fed upon milk, perish.

Such different effects produced upon animals whose nature is similar, constitute one of the most curious phenomena in natural history.

Sebituane, who had heard of the approach of his visitors, came more than a hundred miles to meet them. He was a tall, wiry, coffee-and-milk colored man, of five-and-forty. His original home was a thousand miles to the south, in the Bakwain country, whence he had been driven by the Griquas a quarter of a century before.

He fled northward, fighting his way, sometimes reduced to the utmost straits, but still keeping his people together. At length he crossed the desert, and conquered the country around Lake Ngami; then having heard of white men living on the west coast, he passed southwestward into the desert, hoping to be able to open intercourse with them. There suffering from the thirst, he came to a small well; the water was not sufficient for his men and his cattle; one or the other must perish; he ordered the men to drink, for if they survived they could fight for more cattle.

In the morning his cattle were all gone, and he returned to the north.

Here a long course of warfare awaited him, but in the end he triumphed over his enemies, and established himself for a time on the great river Zambesi. Haunted with a longing for intercourse with the whites, he proposed to descend the river to the eastern coast.

He was dissuaded from this purpose by the warnings of a native prophet.

"The gods say, Go not thither!" he cried; then turning to the west, "I see a city and a nation of black men -- men of the water; their cattle are red; thine own tribe are perishing, and will all be consumed; thou wilt govern black men, and when thy warriors have captured the red cattle, let not their owners be killed; they are thy future tribe; let them be spared to cause thee to build." So Sebituane went westward, conquered the blacks of an immense region, spared the lives of the men, and made them his subjects, ruling them gently. His original people are called the Makololo; the subject tribes are styled Makalaka.

Sebituane, though the greatest warrior in the south, always leading his men to battle in person, was still anxious for peace. He had heard of cannon, and had somehow acquired the idea that if he could only procure one he might live in quiet. He received his visitors with much favor.

"Your cattle have all been bitten by the tsetse," he said, "and will die; but never mind, I will give you as many as you want."

He offered to conduct them through his country that they might choose a site for a missionary station. But at this moment he fell ill of an inflammation of the lungs, from which he soon died.

"He was," writes Mr. Livingstone, "the best specimen of a native chief I ever met; and it was impossible not to follow him in thought into the world of which he had just heard when he was called away, and to realize somewhat of the feeling of those who pray for the dead.

The deep, dark question of what is to become of such as he must be left where we find it, believing that assuredly the Judge of all the earth will do right."

Although he had sons, Sebituane left the chieftainship to his daughter Mamochisane, who confirmed her father's permission that the missionaries might visit her country. They proceeded a hundred and thirty miles farther, and were rewarded by the discovery of the great river Zambesi, the very existence of which, in Central Africa, had never been suspected. It was the dry season, and the river was at its lowest; but it was from three to six hundred yards broad, flowing with a deep current toward the east.

A grander idea than the mere founding of a missionary station now developed itself in the mind of Mr. Livingstone. European goods had just begun to be introduced into this region from the Portuguese settlements on the coast; at present slaves were the only commodity received in payment for them. Livingstone thought if a great highway could be opened, ivory, and the other products of the country, might be bartered for these goods, and the traffic in slaves would come to an end.

He therefore resolved to take his family to Cape Town, and thence send them to England, while he returned alone to the interior, with the purpose of making his way either to the east or the west coast.

He reached the Cape in April, 1852, being the first time during eleven years that he had visited the scenes of civilization, and placed his family on board a ship bound for England, promising to rejoin them in two years.

In June he set out from Cape Town upon that long journey which was to occupy five years. When he approached the missionary stations in the interior, he learned that the long-threatened attack by the Boers had taken place.

A letter from Sechele to Mr. Moffat told the story. Thus it ran: "Friend of my heart's love and of all the confidence of my heart, I am Sechele. I am undone by the Boers, who attacked me, though I had no guilt with them. They demanded that I should be in their kingdom, and I refused. They demanded that I should prevent the English and Griquas from passing. I replied, These are my friends, and I can not prevent them. They came on Saturday, and I besought them not to fight on Sunday, and they assented. They began on Monday morning at twilight, and fired with all their might, and burned the town with fire, and scattered us. They killed sixty of my people, and captured women, and children, and men. They took all the cattle and all the goods of the Bakwains; and the house of Livingstone they plundered, taking away all his goods. Of the Boers we killed twenty-eight."

Two hundred children, who had been gathered into schools, were carried away as slaves. Mr. Livingstone's library was wantonly destroyed, not carried away; his stock of medicines was smashed, and his furniture and clothing sold at auction to defray the expenses of the foray.

Mr. Pretorius, the leader of the marauding party, died not long after, and an obituary notice of him was published, ending with the words, "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord."

Leaving his desolate home, Livingstone proceeded on his journey. On the way he met Sechele, who was going, he said, to see the Queen of England.

Livingstone tried to dissuade him.

"Will not the Queen listen to me?" asked the chief.

"I believe she would listen, but the difficulty is to get to her."

"Well, I shall reach her."

And so they parted. Sechele actually made his way to the Cape, a distance of a thousand miles, but could get no farther, and returned to his own country. The remnants of the tribes who had formerly lived among the Boers gathered around him, and he is now more powerful than ever.

It is slow traveling in Africa. Livingstone was almost a year in accomplishing the 1500 miles between Cape Town and the country of the Makololo. He found that Mamochisane, the daughter of Sebituane, had voluntarily resigned the chieftainship to her younger brother, Sekeletu.

She wished to be married, she said, and have a family like other women.

The young chief Sekeletu was very friendly, but showed no disposition to become a convert. He refused to learn to read the Bible, for fear it might change his heart, and make him content with only one wife, like Sechele. For his part he wanted at least five.

Some months were passed in this country, which is described as fertile and well-cultivated -- producing millet, maize, yams, sweet potatoes, cassava, beans, pumpkins, water-melons, and the like.

The sugar-cane grows plentifully, but the people had never learned the process of making sugar. They have great numbers of cattle, and game of various species abounds. On one occasion a troop of eighty-one buffaloes defiled slowly before their evening fire, while herds of splendid elands stood, without fear, at two hundred yards' distance. The country is rather unhealthy, from the mass of decayed vegetation exposed to the torrid sun.

After due consideration, Livingstone resolved to make his way to Loanda, a Portuguese settlement on the western coast. Sekeletu, anxious to open a trade with the coast, appointed twenty-seven men to accompany the traveler; and on the 11th of November, 1853, he set out on his journey.

Three or four small boxes contained all the baggage of the party.

The only provisions were a few pounds of biscuits, coffee, tea, and sugar; their main reliance being upon the game which they expected to kill, and, this failing, upon the proceeds of about ten dollars' worth of beads.

They also took with them a few elephants' tusks, which Sekeletu sent by way of a trading venture.

The river up which they paddled abounds in hippopotami.

These are in general harmless, though now and then a solitary old bull who has been expelled from the herd vents his spleen by pitching into every canoe that passes. Once their canoe was attacked by a female whose calf had been speared, and nearly overturned. The female carries her young upon her back, its little round head first appearing above the surface when she comes up to breathe.

By the order of the chief the party had been furnished with eight oxen for riding, and seven intended for slaughter. Some of the troop paddled the canoes, while others drove the cattle along the bank.

African etiquette requires that a company of travelers, when they come in sight of a village, shall seat themselves under a tree, and send forward a messenger to announce their arrival and state their object.

The chief then gives them a ceremonious reception, with