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

He soon afterward sent us a basket of green maize boiled, another of manioc-meal, and a small fowl. The maize shows by its size the fertility of the black soil of all the valleys here, and so does the manioc, though no manure is ever applied.

We saw manioc attain a height of six feet and upward, and this is a plant which requires the very best soil.

During this time Manenko had been extremely busy with all her people in getting up a very pretty hut and court-yard, to be, as she said, her residence always when white men were brought by her along the same path.

When she heard that we had given an ox to her uncle, she came forward to us with the air of one wronged, and explained that "this white man belonged to her; she had brought him here, and therefore the ox was hers, not Shinte's." She ordered her men to bring it, got it slaughtered by them, and presented her uncle with a leg only. Shinte did not seem at all annoyed at the occurrence.

19TH. I was awakened at an early hour by a messenger from Shinte; but the thirst of a raging fever being just assuaged by the bursting forth of a copious perspiration, I declined going for a few hours.

Violent action of the heart all the way to the town did not predispose me to be patient with the delay which then occurred, probably on account of the divination being unfavorable: "They could not find Shinte."

When I returned to bed, another message was received, "Shinte wished to say all he had to tell me at once." This was too tempting an offer, so we went, and he had a fowl ready in his hand to present, also a basket of manioc-meal, and a calabash of mead.

Referring to the constantly-recurring attacks of fever, he remarked that it was the only thing which would prevent a successful issue to my journey, for he had men to guide me who knew all the paths which led to the white men. He had himself traveled far when a young man.

On asking what he would recommend for the fever, "Drink plenty of the mead, and as it gets in, it will drive the fever out." It was rather strong, and I suspect he liked the remedy pretty well, even though he had no fever.

He had always been a friend to Sebituane, and, now that his son Sekeletu was in his place, Shinte was not merely a friend, but a father to him; and if a son asks a favor, the father must give it. He was highly pleased with the large calabashes of clarified butter and fat which Sekeletu had sent him, and wished to detain Kolimbota, that he might send a present back to Sekeletu by his hands. This proposition we afterward discovered was Kolimbota's own, as he had heard so much about the ferocity of the tribes through which we were to pass that he wished to save his skin.

It will be seen farther on that he was the only one of our party who returned with a wound.

We were particularly struck, in passing through the village, with the punctiliousness of manners shown by the Balonda.

The inferiors, on meeting their superiors in the street, at once drop on their knees and rub dust on their arms and chest; they continue the salutation of clapping the hands until the great ones have passed. Sambanza knelt down in this manner till the son of Shinte had passed him.

We several times saw the woman who occupies the office of drawer of water for Shinte; she rings a bell as she passes along to give warning to all to keep out of her way; it would be a grave offense for any one to come near her, and exercise an evil influence by his presence on the drink of the chief. I suspect that offenses of the slightest character among the poor are made the pretext for selling them or their children to the Mambari. A young man of Lobale had fled into the country of Shinte, and located himself without showing himself to the chief. This was considered an offense sufficient to warrant his being seized and offered for sale while we were there. He had not reported himself, so they did not know the reason of his running away from his own chief, and that chief might accuse them of receiving a criminal. It was curious to notice the effect of the slave-trade in blunting the moral susceptibility: no chief in the south would treat a fugitive in this way.

My men were horrified at the act, even though old Shinte and his council had some show of reason on their side; and both the Barotse and the Makololo declared that, if the Balonda only knew of the policy pursued by them to fugitives, but few of the discontented would remain long with Shinte.

My men excited the wonder of his people by stating that every one of them had one cow at least in his possession.

Another incident, which occurred while we were here, may be mentioned, as of a character totally unknown in the south. Two children, of seven and eight years old, went out to collect firewood a short distance from their parents' home, which was a quarter of a mile from the village, and were kidnapped; the distracted parents could not find a trace of them.

This happened so close to the town, where there are no beasts of prey, that we suspect some of the high men of Shinte's court were the guilty parties: they can sell them by night.

The Mambari erect large huts of a square shape to stow these stolen ones in; they are well fed, but aired by night only. The frequent kidnapping from outlying hamlets explains the stockades we saw around them; the parents have no redress, for even Shinte himself seems fond of working in the dark. One night he sent for me, though I always stated I liked all my dealings to be aboveboard. When I came he presented me with a slave girl about ten years old; he said he had always been in the habit of presenting his visitors with a child. On my thanking him, and saying that I thought it wrong to take away children from their parents, that I wished him to give up this system altogether, and trade in cattle, ivory, and bees'-wax, he urged that she was "to be a child" to bring me water, and that a great man ought to have a child for the purpose, yet I had none.

As I replied that I had four children, and should be very sorry if my chief were to take my little girl and give her away, and that I would prefer this child to remain and carry water for her own mother, he thought I was dissatisfied with her size, and sent for one a head taller; after many explanations of our abhorrence of slavery, and how displeasing it must be to God to see his children selling one another, and giving each other so much grief as this child's mother must feel, I declined her also. If I could have taken her into my family for the purpose of instruction, and then returned her as a free woman, according to a promise I should have made to the parents, I might have done so; but to take her away, and probably never be able to secure her return, would have produced no good effect on the minds of the Balonda; they would not then have seen evidence of our hatred to slavery, and the kind attentions of my friends would, as it almost always does in similar cases, have turned the poor thing's head.

The difference in position between them and us is as great as between the lowest and highest in England, and we know the effects of sudden elevation on wiser heads than hers, whose owners had not been born to it.

Shinte was most anxious to see the pictures of the magic lantern; but fever had so weakening an effect, and I had such violent action of the heart, with buzzing in the ears, that I could not go for several days; when I did go for the purpose, he had his principal men and the same crowd of court beauties near him as at the reception. The first picture exhibited was Abraham about to slaughter his son Isaac; it was shown as large as life, and the uplifted knife was in the act of striking the lad; the Balonda men remarked that the picture was much more like a god than the things of wood or clay they worshiped. I explained that this man was the first of a race to whom God had given the Bible we now held, and that among his children our Savior appeared. The ladies listened with silent awe; but, when I moved the slide, the uplifted dagger moving toward them, they thought it was to be sheathed in their bodies instead of Isaac's. "Mother! mother!" all shouted at once, and off they rushed helter-skelter, tumbling pell-mell over each other, and over the little idol-huts and tobacco-bushes: we could not get one of them back again. Shinte, however, sat bravely through the whole, and afterward examined the instrument with interest. An explanation was always added after each time of showing its powers, so that no one should imagine there was aught supernatural in it; and had Mr. Murray, who kindly brought it from England, seen its popularity among both Makololo and Balonda, he would have been gratified with the direction his generosity then took. It was the only mode of instruction I was ever pressed to repeat. The people came long distances for the express purpose of seeing the objects and hearing the explanations.

One can not get away quickly from these chiefs; they like to have the honor of strangers residing in their villages. Here we had an additional cause of delay in frequent rains; twenty-four hours never elapsed without heavy showers; every thing is affected by the dampness; surgical instruments become all rusty, clothing mildewed, and shoes mouldy; my little tent was now so rotten and so full of small holes that every smart shower caused a fine mist to descend on my blanket, and made me fain to cover the head with it. Heavy dews lay on every thing in the morning, even inside the tent; there is only a short time of sunshine in the afternoon, and even that is so interrupted by thunder-showers that we can not dry our bedding.

The winds coming from the north always bring heavy clouds and rain; in the south, the only heavy rains noticed are those which come from the northeast or east. The thermometer falls as low as 72 Degrees when there is no sunshine, though, when the weather is fair, the protected thermometer generally rises as high as 82 Degrees, even in the mornings and evenings.

24TH. We expected to have started to-day, but Sambanza, who had been sent off early in the morning for guides, returned at midday without them, and drunk. This was the first case of real babbling intoxication we had seen in this region. The boyaloa, or beer of the country, has more of a stupefying than exciting nature; hence the beer-bibbers are great sleepers; they may frequently be seen lying on their faces sound asleep.