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

While at this latter place we met a native of Bihe who has visited the country of Shinte three times for the purposes of trade. He gave us some of the news of that distant part, but not a word of the Makololo, who have always been represented in the countries to the north as a desperately savage race, whom no trader could visit with safety.

The half-caste traders whom we met at Shinte's had returned to Angola with sixty-six slaves and upward of fifty tusks of ivory.

As we came along the path, we daily met long lines of carriers bearing large square masses of beeswax, each about a hundred pounds weight, and numbers of elephants' tusks, the property of Angolese merchants.

Many natives were proceeding to the coast also on their own account, carrying beeswax, ivory, and sweet oil. They appeared to travel in perfect security; and at different parts of the road we purchased fowls from them at a penny each. My men took care to celebrate their own daring in having actually entered ships, while the natives of these parts, who had endeavored to frighten them on their way down, had only seen them at a distance. Poor fellows!

they were more than ever attentive to me; and, as they were not obliged to erect sheds for themselves, in consequence of finding them already built at the different sleeping-places, all their care was bestowed in making me comfortable. Mashauana, as usual, made his bed with his head close to my feet, and never during the entire journey did I have to call him twice for any thing I needed.

During our stay at Tala Mungongo, our attention was attracted to a species of red ant which infests different parts of this country.

It is remarkably fond of animal food. The commandant of the village having slaughtered a cow, slaves were obliged to sit up the whole night, burning fires of straw around the meat, to prevent them from devouring most of it. These ants are frequently met with in numbers like a small army.

At a little distance they appear as a brownish-red band, two or three inches wide, stretched across the path, all eagerly pressing on in one direction. If a person happens to tread upon them, they rush up his legs and bite with surprising vigor. The first time I encountered this by no means contemptible enemy was near Cassange.

My attention being taken up in viewing the distant landscape, I accidentally stepped upon one of their nests. Not an instant seemed to elapse before a simultaneous attack was made on various unprotected parts, up the trowsers from below, and on my neck and breast above.

The bites of these furies were like sparks of fire, and there was no retreat.

I jumped about for a second or two, then in desperation tore off all my clothing, and rubbed and picked them off seriatim as quickly as possible. Ugh! they would make the most lethargic mortal look alive. Fortunately, no one observed this rencounter, or word might have been taken back to the village that I had become mad.

I was once assaulted in a similar way when sound asleep at night in my tent, and it was only by holding my blanket over the fire that I could get rid of them. It is really astonishing how such small bodies can contain so large an amount of ill-nature. They not only bite, but twist themselves round after the mandibles are inserted, to produce laceration and pain, more than would be effected by the single wound.

Frequently, while sitting on the ox, as he happened to tread near a band, they would rush up his legs to the rider, and soon let him know that he had disturbed their march. They possess no fear, attacking with equal ferocity the largest as well as the smallest animals.

When any person has leaped over the band, numbers of them leave the ranks and rush along the path, seemingly anxious for a fight. They are very useful in ridding the country of dead animal matter, and, when they visit a human habitation, clear it entirely of the destructive white ants and other vermin. They destroy many noxious insects and reptiles.

The severity of their attack is greatly increased by their vast numbers, and rats, mice, lizards, and even the `Python natalensis', when in a state of surfeit from recent feeding, fall victims to their fierce onslaught. These ants never make hills like the white ant.

Their nests are but a short distance beneath the soil, which has the soft appearance of the abodes of ants in England.

Occasionally they construct galleries over their path to the cells of the white ant, in order to secure themselves from the heat of the sun during their marauding expeditions.

JANUARY 15TH, 1855. We descended in one hour from the heights of Tala Mungongo. I counted the number of paces made on the slope downward, and found them to be sixteen hundred, which may give a perpendicular height of from twelve to fifteen hundred feet. Water boiled at 206 Degrees at Tala Mungongo above, and at 208 Deg. at the bottom of the declivity, the air being at 72 Deg. in the shade in the former case, and 94 Deg. in the latter. The temperature generally throughout the day was from 94 Deg. to 97 Deg. in the coolest shade we could find.

The rivulets which cut up the valley of Cassange were now dry, but the Lui and Luare contained abundance of rather brackish water.

The banks are lined with palm, wild date-trees, and many guavas, the fruit of which was now becoming ripe. A tree much like the mango abounds, but it does not yield fruit. In these rivers a kind of edible muscle is plentiful, the shells of which exist in all the alluvial beds of the ancient rivers as far as the Kuruman. The brackish nature of the water probably enables it to exist here. On the open grassy lawns great numbers of a species of lark are seen. They are black, with yellow shoulders. Another black bird, with a long tail (`Centropus Senegalensis'), floats awkwardly, with its tail in a perpendicular position, over the long grass. It always chooses the highest points, and is caught on them with bird-lime, the long black tail-feathers being highly esteemed by the natives for plumes.

We saw here also the "Lehututu" (`Tragopan Leadbeaterii'), a large bird strongly resembling a turkey; it is black on the ground, but when it flies the outer half of the wings are white. It kills serpents, striking them dexterously behind the head. It derives its native name from the noise it makes, and it is found as far as Kolobeng.

Another species like it is called the Abyssinian hornbill.

Before we reached Cassange we were overtaken by the commandant, Senhor Carvalho, who was returning, with a detachment of fifty men and a field-piece, from an unsuccessful search after some rebels.

The rebels had fled, and all he could do was to burn their huts.

He kindly invited me to take up my residence with him; but, not wishing to pass by the gentleman (Captain Neves) who had so kindly received me on my first arrival in the Portuguese possessions, I declined.

Senhor Rego had been superseded in his command, because the Governor Amaral, who had come into office since my departure from Loanda, had determined that the law which requires the office of commandant to be exclusively occupied by military officers of the line should once more come into operation. I was again most kindly welcomed by my friend, Captain Neves, whom I found laboring under a violent inflammation and abscess of the hand. There is nothing in the situation of this village to indicate unhealthiness, except, perhaps, the rank luxuriance of the vegetation.

Nearly all the Portuguese inhabitants suffer from enlargement of the spleen, the effects of frequent intermittents, and have generally a sickly appearance.

Thinking that this affection of the hand was simply an effort of nature to get rid of malarious matter from the system, I recommended the use of quinine. He himself applied the leaf of a plant called cathory, famed among the natives as an excellent remedy for ulcers.

The cathory leaves, when boiled, exude a gummy juice, which effectually shuts out the external air. Each remedy, of course, claimed the merit of the cure.

Many of the children are cut off by fever. A fine boy of Captain Neves' had, since my passage westward, shared a similar fate. Another child died during the period of my visit. During his sickness, his mother, a woman of color, sent for a diviner in order to ascertain what ought to be done. The diviner, after throwing his dice, worked himself into the state of ecstasy in which they pretend to be in communication with the Barimo. He then gave the oracular response that the child was being killed by the spirit of a Portuguese trader who once lived at Cassange. The case was this: on the death of the trader, the other Portuguese merchants in the village came together, and sold the goods of the departed to each other, each man accounting for the portion received to the creditors of the deceased at Loanda.

The natives, looking on, and not understanding the nature of written mercantile transactions, concluded that the merchants of Cassange had simply stolen the dead man's goods, and that now the spirit was killing the child of Captain Neves for the part he had taken in the affair.

The diviner, in his response, revealed the impression made on his own mind by the sale, and likewise the native ideas of departed souls.

As they give the whites credit for greater stupidity than themselves in all these matters, the mother of the child came, and told the father that he ought to give a slave to the diviner as a fee to make a sacrifice to appease the spirit and save the life of the child. The father quietly sent for a neighbor, and, though the diviner pretended to remain in his state of ecstasy, the brisk application of two sticks to his back suddenly reduced him to his senses and a most undignified flight.

The mother of this child seemed to have no confidence in European wisdom, and, though I desired her to keep the child out of currents of wind, she preferred to follow her own custom, and even got it cupped on the cheeks.

The consequence was that the child was soon in a dying state, and the father wishing it to be baptized, I commended its soul to the care and compassion of Him who said, "Of such is the kingdom of heaven."

The mother at once rushed away, and commenced that doleful wail which is so affecting, as it indicates sorrow without hope.

She continued it without intermission until the child was buried.

In the evening her female companions used a small musical instrument, which produced a kind of screeching sound, as an accompaniment of the death wail.

In the construction of this instrument they make use of caoutchouc, which, with a variety of other gums, is found in different parts of this country.

The intercourse which the natives have had with white men does not seem to have much ameliorated their condition.

A great number of persons are reported to lose their lives annually in different districts of Angola