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

The only article of barter my men had was a little fat saved from the ox we slaughtered at Katema's, so I was obliged to give them a portion of the stock of beads. One day (29th) of westing brought us from the Kasai to near the village of Katende, and we saw that we were in a land where no hope could be entertained of getting supplies of animal food, for one of our guides caught a light-blue colored mole and two mice for his supper.

The care with which he wrapped them up in a leaf and slung them on his spear told that we could not hope to enjoy any larger game. We saw no evidence of any animals besides; and, on coming to the villages beyond this, we often saw boys and girls engaged in digging up these tiny quadrupeds.

Katende sent for me on the day following our arrival, and, being quite willing to visit him, I walked, for this purpose, about three miles from our encampment. When we approached the village we were desired to enter a hut, and, as it was raining at the time, we did so.

After a long time spent in giving and receiving messages from the great man, we were told that he wanted either a man, a tusk, beads, copper rings, or a shell, as payment for leave to pass through his country.

No one, we were assured, was allowed that liberty, or even to behold him, without something of the sort being presented. Having humbly explained our circumstances, and that he could not expect to "catch a humble cow by the horns" -- a proverb similar to ours that "you can't draw milk out of a stone" -- we were told to go home, and he would speak again to us next day. I could not avoid a hearty laugh at the cool impudence of the savage, and made the best of my way home in the still pouring rain. My men were rather nettled at this want of hospitality, but, after talking over the matter with one of Katende's servants, he proposed that some small article should be given, and an attempt made to please Katende.

I turned out my shirts, and selected the worst one as a sop for him, and invited Katende to come and choose any thing else I had, but added that, when I should reach my own chief naked, and was asked what I had done with my clothes, I should be obliged to confess that I had left them with Katende. The shirt was dispatched to him, and some of my people went along with the servant; they soon returned, saying that the shirt had been accepted, and guides and food too would be sent to us next day. The chief had, moreover, expressed a hope to see me on my return. He is reported to be very corpulent.

The traders who have come here seem to have been very timid, yielding to every demand made on the most frivolous pretenses.

One of my men, seeing another much like an acquaintance at home, addressed him by the name of the latter in sport, telling him, at the same time, why he did so; this was pronounced to be a grave offense, and a large fine demanded; when the case came before me I could see no harm in what had been done, and told my people not to answer the young fellow.

The latter felt himself disarmed, for it is chiefly in a brawl they have power; then words are spoken in anger which rouse the passions of the complainant's friends. In this case, after vociferating some time, the would-be offended party came and said to my man that, if they exchanged some small gift, all would be right, but, my man taking no notice of him, he went off rather crestfallen.

My men were as much astonished as myself at the demand for payment for leave to pass, and the almost entire neglect of the rules of hospitality.

Katende gave us only a little meal and manioc, and a fowl.

Being detained two days by heavy rains, we felt that a good stock of patience was necessary in traveling through this country in the rainy season.

Passing onward without seeing Katende, we crossed a small rivulet, the Sengko, by which we had encamped, and after two hours came to another, the Totelo, which was somewhat larger, and had a bridge over it.

At the farther end of this structure stood a negro, who demanded fees.

He said the bridge was his; the path his; the guides were his children; and if we did not pay him he would prevent farther progress.

This piece of civilization I was not prepared to meet, and stood a few seconds looking at our bold toll-keeper, when one of my men took off three copper bracelets, which paid for the whole party. The negro was a better man than he at first seemed, for he immediately went to his garden and brought us some leaves of tobacco as a present.

When we had got fairly away from the villages, the guides from Kangenke sat down and told us that there were three paths in front, and, if we did not at once present them with a cloth, they would leave us to take whichever we might like best. As I had pointed out the direction in which Loanda lay, and had only employed them for the sake of knowing the paths between villages which lay along our route, and always objected when they led us in any other than the Loanda direction, I wished my men now to go on without the guides, trusting to ourselves to choose the path which would seem to lead us in the direction we had always followed. But Mashauana, fearing lest we might wander, asked leave to give his own cloth, and when the guides saw that, they came forward shouting "Averie, Averie!"

In the afternoon of this day we came to a valley about a mile wide, filled with clear, fast-flowing water. The men on foot were chin deep in crossing, and we three on ox-back got wet to the middle, the weight of the animals preventing them from swimming.

A thunder-shower descending completed the partial drenching of the plain, and gave a cold, uncomfortable "packing in a wet blanket" that night.

Next day we found another flooded valley about half a mile wide, with a small and now deep rivulet in its middle, flowing rapidly to the S.S.E., or toward the Kasai. The middle part of this flood, being the bed of what at other times is the rivulet, was so rapid that we crossed by holding on to the oxen, and the current soon dashed them to the opposite bank; we then jumped off, and, the oxen being relieved of their burdens, we could pull them on to the shallower part.

The rest of the valley was thigh deep and boggy, but holding on by the belt which fastened the blanket to the ox, we each floundered through the nasty slough as well as we could. These boggy parts, lying parallel to the stream, were the most extensive we had come to: those mentioned already were mere circumscribed patches; these extended for miles along each bank; but even here, though the rapidity of the current was very considerable, the thick sward of grass was "laid" flat along the sides of the stream, and the soil was not abraded so much as to discolor the flood. When we came to the opposite side of this valley, some pieces of the ferruginous conglomerate, which forms the capping to all other rocks in a large district around and north of this, cropped out, and the oxen bit at them as if surprised by the appearance of stone as much as we were; or it may have contained some mineral of which they stood in need.

We had not met with a stone since leaving Shinte's. The country is covered with deep alluvial soil of a dark color and very fertile.

In the afternoon we came to another stream, nyuana Loke (or child of Loke), with a bridge over it. The men had to swim off to each end of the bridge, and when on it were breast deep; some preferred holding on by the tails of the oxen the whole way across. I intended to do this too; but, riding to the deep part, before I could dismount and seize the helm the ox dashed off with his companions, and his body sank so deep that I failed in my attempt even to catch the blanket belt, and if I pulled the bridle the ox seemed as if he would come backward upon me, so I struck out for the opposite bank alone. My poor fellows were dreadfully alarmed when they saw me parted from the cattle, and about twenty of them made a simultaneous rush into the water for my rescue, and just as I reached the opposite bank one seized my arm, and another threw his around my body. When I stood up, it was most gratifying to see them all struggling toward me. Some had leaped off the bridge, and allowed their cloaks to float down the stream. Part of my goods, abandoned in the hurry, were brought up from the bottom after I was safe.

Great was the pleasure expressed when they found that I could swim, like themselves, without the aid of a tail, and I did and do feel grateful to these poor heathens for the promptitude with which they dashed in to save, as they thought, my life. I found my clothes cumbersome in the water; they could swim quicker from being naked. They swim like dogs, not frog-fashion, as we do.

In the evening we crossed the small rivulet Lozeze, and came to some villages of the Kasabi, from whom we got some manioc in exchange for beads. They tried to frighten us by telling of the deep rivers we should have to cross in our way. I was drying my clothes by turning myself round and round before the fire. My men laughed at the idea of being frightened by rivers. "We can all swim: who carried the white man across the river but himself?"

I felt proud of their praise.

SATURDAY, 4TH MARCH. Came to the outskirts of the territory of the Chiboque. We crossed the Konde and Kaluze rivulets.

The former is a deep, small stream with a bridge, the latter insignificant; the valleys in which these rivulets run are beautifully fertile.

My companions are continually lamenting over the uncultivated vales in such words as these: "What a fine country for cattle!

My heart is sore to see such fruitful valleys for corn lying waste."

At the time these words were put down I had come to the belief that the reason why the inhabitants of this fine country possess no herds of cattle was owing to the despotic sway of their chiefs, and that the common people would not be allowed to keep any domestic animals, even supposing they could acquire them; but on musing on the subject since, I have been led to the conjecture that the rich, fertile country of Londa must formerly have been infested by the tsetse, but that, as the people killed off the game on which, in the absence of man, the tsetse must subsist, the insect was starved out of the country. It is now