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

I have the like pleasure in confessing my thankfulness to the Astronomer Royal at the Cape, Thomas Maclear, Esq., for enabling me to recall the little astronomical knowledge which constant manual labor and the engrossing nature of missionary duties had effaced from my memory, and in adding much that I did not know before. The promise he made on parting, that he would examine and correct all my observations, had more effect in making me persevere in overcoming the difficulties of an unassisted solitary observer than any thing else; so whatever credit may be attached to the geographical positions laid down in my route must be attributed to the voluntary aid of the excellent and laborious astronomer of the Cape observatory.

Having given the reader as rapid a sketch as possible of events which attracted notice between 1840 and 1852, I now proceed to narrate the incidents of the last and longest journey of all, performed in 1852-6.

Chapter 5.

Start in June, 1852, on the last and longest Journey from Cape Town --

Companions -- Wagon-traveling -- Physical Divisions of Africa --

The Eastern, Central, and Western Zones -- The Kalahari Desert --

Its Vegetation -- Increasing Value of the Interior for Colonization --

Our Route -- Dutch Boers -- Their Habits -- Sterile Appearance of the District -- Failure of Grass -- Succeeded by other Plants --

Vines -- Animals -- The Boers as Farmers -- Migration of Springbucks --

Wariness of Animals -- The Orange River -- Territory of the Griquas and Bechuanas -- The Griquas -- The Chief Waterboer --

His wise and energetic Government -- His Fidelity -- Ill-considered Measures of the Colonial Government in regard to Supplies of Gunpowder --

Success of the Missionaries among the Griquas and Bechuanas --

Manifest Improvement of the native Character -- Dress of the Natives --

A full-dress Costume -- A Native's Description of the Natives --

Articles of Commerce in the Country of the Bechuanas --

Their Unwillingness to learn, and Readiness to criticise.

Having sent my family home to England, I started in the beginning of June, 1852, on my last journey from Cape Town. This journey extended from the southern extremity of the continent to St. Paul de Loando, the capital of Angola, on the west coast, and thence across South Central Africa in an oblique direction to Kilimane (Quilimane) in Eastern Africa. I proceeded in the usual conveyance of the country, the heavy, lumbering Cape wagon drawn by ten oxen, and was accompanied by two Christian Bechuanas from Kuruman -- than whom I never saw better servants any where -- by two Bakwain men, and two young girls, who, having come as nurses with our children to the Cape, were returning to their home at Kolobeng. Wagon-traveling in Africa has been so often described that I need say no more than that it is a prolonged system of picnicking, excellent for the health, and agreeable to those who are not over-fastidious about trifles, and who delight in being in the open air.

Our route to the north lay near the centre of the cone-shaped mass of land which constitutes the promontory of the Cape. If we suppose this cone to be divided into three zones or longitudinal bands, we find each presenting distinct peculiarities of climate, physical appearance and population.

These are more marked beyond than within the colony. At some points one district seems to be continued in and to merge into the other, but the general dissimilarity warrants the division, as an aid to memory.

The eastern zone is often furnished with mountains, well wooded with evergreen succulent trees, on which neither fire nor droughts can have the smallest effect (Strelitzia',Zamia horrida', Portulacaria afra',Schotia speciosa', Euphorbias', andAloes arborescens'); and its seaboard gorges are clad with gigantic timber.

It is also comparatively well watered with streams and flowing rivers.

The annual supply of rain is considerable, and the inhabitants (Caffres or Zulus) are tall, muscular, and well made; they are shrewd, energetic, and brave; altogether they merit the character given them by military authorities, of being "magnificent savages".

Their splendid physical development and form of skull show that, but for the black skin and woolly hair, they would take rank among the foremost Europeans.

The next division, that which embraces the centre of the continent, can scarcely be called hilly, for what hills there are are very low.

It consists for the most part of extensive, slightly undulating plains.

There are no lofty mountains, but few springs, and still fewer flowing streams. Rain is far from abundant, and droughts may be expected every few years. Without artificial irrigation no European grain can be raised, and the inhabitants (Bechuanas), though evidently of the same stock, originally, with those already mentioned, and closely resembling them in being an agricultural as well as a pastoral people, are a comparatively timid race, and inferior to the Caffres in physical development.

The western division is still more level than the middle one, being rugged only near the coast. It includes the great plain called the Kalahari Desert, which is remarkable for little water and very considerable vegetation.

The reason, probably, why so little rain falls on this extensive plain is that the prevailing winds of most of the interior country are easterly, with a little southing. The moisture taken up by the atmosphere from the Indian Ocean is deposited on the eastern hilly slope; and when the moving mass of air reaches its greatest elevation, it is then on the verge of the great valley, or, as in the case of the Kalahari, the great heated inland plains; there, meeting with the rarefied air of that hot, dry surface, the ascending heat gives it greater capacity for retaining all its remaining humidity, and few showers can be given to the middle and western lands in consequence of the increased hygrometric power.

This is the same phenomenon, on a gigantic scale, as that which takes place on Table Mountain, at the Cape, in what is called the spreading of the "table-cloth". The southeast wind causes a mass of air, equal to the diameter of the mountain, suddenly to ascend at least three thousand feet; the dilatation produced by altitude, with its attendant cold, causes the immediate formation of a cloud on the summit; the water in the atmosphere becomes visible; successive masses of gliding-up and passing-over air cause the continual formation of clouds, but the top of the vapory mass, or "table-cloth", is level, and seemingly motionless; on the lee side, however, the thick volumes of vapor curl over and descend, but when they reach the point below, where greater density and higher temperature impart enlarged capacity for carrying water, they entirely disappear.

Now if, instead of a hollow on the lee side of Table Mountain, we had an elevated heated plain, the clouds which curl over that side, and disappear as they do at present when a "southeaster" is blowing, might deposit some moisture on the windward ascent and top; but the heat would then impart the increased capacity the air now receives at the lower level in its descent to leeward, and, instead of an extended country with a flora of the Disa grandiflora',gladiolus', rushes', andlichens', which now appear on Table Mountain, we should have only the hardy vegetation of the Kalahari.

Why there should be so much vegetation on the Kalahari may be explained by the geological formation of the country. There is a rim or fringe of ancient rocks round a great central valley, which, dipping inward, form a basin, the bottom of which is composed of the oldest silurian rocks.

This basin has been burst through and filled up in many parts by eruptive traps and breccias, which often bear in their substances angular fragments of the more ancient rocks, as shown in the fossils they contain. Now, though large areas have been so dislocated that but little trace of the original valley formation appears, it is highly probable that the basin shape prevails over large tracts of the country; and as the strata on the slopes, where most of the rain falls, dip in toward the centre, they probably guide water beneath the plains but ill supplied with moisture from the clouds.

The phenomenon of stagnant fountains becoming by a new and deeper outlet never-failing streams may be confirmatory of the view that water is conveyed from the sides of the country into the bottom of the central valley; and it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that the wonderful river system in the north, which, if native information be correct, causes a considerable increase of water in the springs called Matlomagan-yana (the Links), extends its fertilizing influence beneath the plains of the Kalahari.

The peculiar formation of the country may explain why there is such a difference in the vegetation between the 20th and 30th parallels of latitude in South Africa and the same latitudes in Central Australia. The want of vegetation is as true of some parts too in the centre of South America as of Australia; and the cause of the difference holds out a probability for the success of artesian wells in extensive tracts of Africa now unpeopled solely on account of the want of surface water. We may be allowed to speculate a little at least on the fact of much greater vegetation, which, from whatever source it comes, presents for South Africa prospects of future greatness which we can not hope for in Central Australia. As the interior districts of the Cape Colony are daily becoming of higher value, offering to honest industry a fair remuneration for capital, and having a climate unequaled in salubrity for consumptive patients, I should unhesitatingly recommend any farmer at all afraid of that complaint in his family to try this colony. With the means of education already possessed, and the onward and upward movement of the Cape population, he need entertain no apprehensions of his family sinking into barbarism.

The route we at this time followed ran along the middle, or skirted the western zone before alluded to, until we reached the latitude of Lake Ngami, where a totally different country begins.

While in the colony, we passed through districts inhabited by the descendants of Dutch and French refugees who had fled from religious persecution. Those living near the capital differ but little from the middle classes in English counties, and are distinguished by public spirit and general intelligence; while those situated far from the centres of civilization are less informed, but are a body of frugal, industrious, and hospitable peasantry.

A most efficient system of public instruction was established in the time of Governor Sir George Napier, on a plan drawn up in a great measure by that accomplished philosopher, Sir John Herschel.

The system had to contend with less sectarian rancor than elsewhere; indeed, until quite recently, that spirit, except in a mild form, was unknown.

The population here described ought not to be confounded with some Boers who fled from British rule on account of the emancipation of their Hottentot slaves, and perhaps never would have been so had not every now and then some Rip Van Winkle started forth at the Cape to justify in the public prints the deeds of blood and slave-hunting in the far interior. It is therefore not to be wondered at if the whole race is confounded and held in low estimation by those who do not know the real composition of the Cape community.

Population among the Boers increases rapidly; they marry soon, are seldom sterile, and continue to have children late.

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