Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa by David Livingstone (interesting books to read for teens TXT) 📖

Naliele. They are of the Ambonda family, which inhabits the country southeast of Angola, and speak the Bunda dialect, which is of the same family of languages with the Barotse, Bayeiye, etc., or those black tribes comprehended under the general term Makalaka. They plait their hair in three-fold cords, and lay them carefully down around the sides of the head.

They are quite as dark as the Barotse, but have among them a number of half-castes, with their peculiar yellow sickly hue.

On inquiring why they had fled on my approach to Linyanti, they let me know that they had a vivid idea of the customs of English cruisers on the coast.

They showed also their habits in their own country by digging up and eating, even here where large game abounds, the mice and moles which infest the country. The half-castes, or native Portuguese, could all read and write, and the head of the party, if not a real Portuguese, had European hair, and, influenced probably by the letter of recommendation which I held from the Chevalier Duprat, his most faithful majesty's Arbitrator in the British and Portuguese Mixed Commission at Cape Town, was evidently anxious to show me all the kindness in his power.

These persons I feel assured were the first individuals of Portuguese blood who ever saw the Zambesi in the centre of the country, and they had reached it two years after our discovery in 1851.

The town or mound of Santuru's mother was shown to me; this was the first symptom of an altered state of feeling with regard to the female sex that I had observed. There are few or no cases of women being elevated to the headships of towns further south. The Barotse also showed some relics of their chief, which evinced a greater amount of the religious feeling than I had ever known displayed among Bechuanas. His more recent capital, Lilonda, built, too, on an artificial mound, is covered with different kinds of trees, transplanted when young by himself.

They form a grove on the end of the mound, in which are to be seen various instruments of iron just in the state he left them.

One looks like the guard of a basket-hilted sword; another has an upright stem of the metal, on which are placed branches worked at the ends into miniature axes, hoes, and spears; on these he was accustomed to present offerings, according as he desired favors to be conferred in undertaking hewing, agriculture, or fighting. The people still living there, in charge of these articles, were supported by presents from the chief; and the Makololo sometimes follow the example. This was the nearest approach to a priesthood I met. When I asked them to part with one of these relics, they replied, "Oh no, he refuses." "Who refuses?" "Santuru,"

was their reply, showing their belief in a future state of existence.

After explaining to them, as I always did when opportunity offered, the nature of true worship, and praying with them in the simple form which needs no offering from the worshiper except that of the heart, and planting some fruit-tree seeds in the grove, we departed.

Another incident, which occurred at the confluence of the Leeba and Leeambye, may be mentioned here, as showing a more vivid perception of the existence of spiritual beings, and greater proneness to worship than among the Bechuanas. Having taken lunar observations in the morning, I was waiting for a meridian altitude of the sun for the latitude; my chief boatman was sitting by, in order to pack up the instruments as soon as I had finished; there was a large halo, about 20 Deg. in diameter, round the sun; thinking that the humidity of the atmosphere, which this indicated, might betoken rain, I asked him if his experience did not lead him to the same view. "Oh no," replied he; "it is the Barimo (gods or departed spirits), who have called a picho; don't you see they have the Lord (sun) in the centre?"

While still at Naliele I walked out to Katongo (lat. 15d 16' 33"), on the ridge which bounds the valley of the Barotse in that direction, and found it covered with trees. It is only the commencement of the lands which are never inundated; their gentle rise from the dead level of the valley much resembles the edge of the Desert in the valley of the Nile. But here the Banyeti have fine gardens, and raise great quantities of maize, millet, and native corn (Holcus sorghum'), of large grain and beautifully white. They grow, also, yams, sugar-cane, the Egyptian arum, sweet potato (Convolulus batata'), two kinds of manioc or cassava (Jatropha manihot' andJ. utilissima', a variety containing scarcely any poison), besides pumpkins, melons, beans, and ground-nuts. These, with plenty of fish in the river, its branches and lagoons, wild fruits and water-fowl, always make the people refer to the Barotse as the land of plenty.

The scene from the ridge, on looking back, was beautiful. One can not see the western side of the valley in a cloudy day, such as that was when we visited the stockade, but we could see the great river glancing out at different points, and fine large herds of cattle quietly grazing on the green succulent herbage, among numbers of cattle-stations and villages which are dotted over the landscape. Leches in hundreds fed securely beside them, for they have learned only to keep out of bow-shot, or two hundred yards. When guns come into a country the animals soon learn their longer range, and begin to run at a distance of five hundred yards.

I imagined the slight elevation (Katongo) might be healthy, but was informed that no part of this region is exempt from fever. When the waters begin to retire from this valley, such masses of decayed vegetation and mud are exposed to the torrid sun that even the natives suffer severely from attacks of fever. The grass is so rank in its growth that one can not see the black alluvial soil of the bottom of this periodical lake.

Even when the grass falls down in winter, or is "laid" by its own weight, one is obliged to lift the feet so high, to avoid being tripped up by it, as to make walking excessively fatiguing. Young leches are hidden beneath it by their dams; and the Makololo youth complain of being unable to run in the Barotse land on this account. There was evidently no healthy spot in this quarter; and the current of the river being about four and a half miles per hour (one hundred yards in sixty seconds), I imagined we might find what we needed in the higher lands, from which the river seemed to come. I resolved, therefore, to go to the utmost limits of the Barotse country before coming to a final conclusion. Katongo was the best place we had seen; but, in order to accomplish a complete examination, I left Sekeletu at Naliele, and ascended the river. He furnished me with men, besides my rowers, and among the rest a herald, that I might enter his villages in what is considered a dignified manner. This, it was supposed, would be effected by the herald shouting out at the top of his voice, "Here comes the lord; the great lion;" the latter phrase being "tau e tona", which, in his imperfect way of pronunciation, became "Sau e tona", and so like "the great sow" that I could not receive the honor with becoming gravity, and had to entreat him, much to the annoyance of my party, to be silent.

In our ascent we visited a number of Makololo villages, and were always received with a hearty welcome, as messengers to them of peace, which they term "sleep". They behave well in public meetings, even on the first occasion of attendance, probably from the habit of commanding the Makalaka, crowds of whom swarm in every village, and whom the Makololo women seem to consider as especially under their charge.

The river presents the same appearance of low banks without trees as we have remarked it had after we came to 16d 16', until we arrive at Libonta (14d 59' S. lat.). Twenty miles beyond that, we find forest down to the water's edge, and tsetse.

Here I might have turned back, as no locality can be inhabited by Europeans where that scourge exists; but hearing that we were not far from the confluence of the River of Londa or Lunda, named Leeba or Loiba, and the chiefs of that country being reported to be friendly to strangers, and therefore likely to be of use to me on my return from the west coast, I still pushed on to latitude 14d 11' 3" S. There the Leeambye assumes the name Kabompo, and seems to be coming from the east.

It is a fine large river, about three hundred yards wide, and the Leeba two hundred and fifty. The Loeti, a branch of which is called Langebongo, comes from W.N.W., through a level grassy plain named Mango; it is about one hundred yards wide, and enters the Leeambye from the west; the waters of the Loeti are of a light color, and those of the Leeba of a dark mossy hue. After the Loeti joins the Leeambye the different colored waters flow side by side for some distance unmixed.

Before reaching the Loeti we came to a number of people from the Lobale region, hunting hippopotami. They fled precipitately as soon as they saw the Makololo, leaving their canoes and all their utensils and clothing. My own Makalaka, who were accustomed to plunder wherever they went, rushed after them like furies, totally regardless of my shouting. As this proceeding would have destroyed my character entirely at Lobale, I took my stand on a commanding position as they returned, and forced them to lay down all the plunder on a sand-bank, and leave it there for its lawful owners.

It was now quite evident that no healthy location could be obtained in which the Makololo would be allowed to live in peace. I had thus a fair excuse, if I had chosen to avail myself of it, of coming home and saying that the "door was shut", because the Lord's time had not yet come.

But believing that it was my duty to devote some portion of my life to these (to me at least) very confiding and affectionate Makololo, I resolved to follow out the second part of my plan, though I had failed in accomplishing the first. The Leeba seemed to come from the N. and by W., or N.N.W.; so, having an old Portuguese map, which pointed out the Coanza as rising from the middle of the continent in 9 Deg. S. lat., I thought it probable that, when we had ascended the Leeba (from 14d 11') two or three degrees, we should then be within one hundred and twenty miles of the Coanza, and find no difficulty in following it down to the coast near Loanda. This was the logical deduction; but, as is the case with many a plausible theory, one of the premises was decidedly defective.

The Coanza, as we afterward found, does not come from any where near the centre of the country.

The numbers of large game above Libonta are prodigious, and they proved remarkably tame. Eighty-one buffaloes defiled in slow procession before our fire one evening, within gunshot; and herds of splendid elands stood by day, without fear, at two hundred yards distance.

They were all of the striped variety, and with their forearm markings, large dewlaps, and sleek skins, were