Seven Years in South Africa/Volume 2/Chapter 6
CHAPTER VI.
IN THE VALLEYS OF THE CHOBE AND THE ZAMBESI.
BOATING ON THE ZAMBESI.
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| VOL. II. | IMPALERA. | Page 111. |
Nearly opposite Impalera was a little creek overhung bya fine moshungulu. Understanding that this was the usual landing-place for natives coming across the river, I gave orders for a little grass-hut to be put up there for my use. The Chobe was here between 200 and 300 yards across, and so deep that its water was of quite a dark bluecolour. As I strolled along beside it I saw considerable numbers of a small water-lily floating on its surface; the species seemed to produce a very limited quantity of petals. The masses of reeds were beyond a question the lurking-places of many crocodiles.
Blockley’s people had been at the place several times before, and at their suggestion I fired off several shots to give the residents of Impalera notice of my arrival. Before long two men put off in a canoe and landed on our shore. The canoe was only the stem of a tree hollowed out with an axe; it was about ten feet long, fourteen inches wide, and ten inches deep. The men were tall and strongly built, and wore the primitive vesture of the Bantu family in the most graceful way I had ever seen, their dark brown skins being set off by their leather waistbands, to which one of them had attached three small and handsome skins, and the other some yards of calico, skilfully arranged before and behind, with the ends gathered round his loins.
On their undertaking to report my arrival to their chief, Makumba, I gave them each a knife. At the same time one of our party made them understand that Georosiana Maniniani (i.e. little George), the name given to Blockley to distinguish him from Westbeech (who, on account of his size, was known as Georosiana Umutunya, or great George), was waiting in the Leshumo valley, expecting a number of bearers to convey the king’s goods to Impalera; also that they were to take down some corn with them, for which Georosiana Maniniani would give them sipaga, talama, and sisipa (small beads, large beads, and strips of calico). All the time we were talking the two men were squatting down on the ground; but as soon as the Manansa servant had made them comprehend his instructions they rose, and saying “Autile intate” (we understand you, friend), proceeded to take leave of me, with the further remark “Camaya koshi” (we go, sir).
Next morning, in an early walk up the valley, I found a surprising variety of traces of animals; there were tracks of buffaloes, koodoos, waterbocks, duykerbocks, orbeki gazelles, jackals, leopards, and lions. I likewise observed a good many hyæna-tracks, and kept continually hearing baboons barking on the hills, being induced several times to send a stray shot among the bushes. Amongst the birds I noticed two kinds of francolins, the guinea-fowl, the scopus, three kinds of plovers, saddle-storks (Mycteria Senegalensis, Shaw), several varieties of ducks, a kind of plectropterus, some spurred geese, a darter, and a kind of cormorant (Phalacrocorax).
To me the scenery that was most attractive was just above the rapids, three miles from our encampment, and about six miles from the mouth of the river. Here it was quite possible to trace the connexion of the Chobe with the Zambesi. Natural channels, full of calm flowing water, opened into the vast expanse of reeds, and the stream spread itself out over the wide marshy region. The rapids themselves rushed through a multitude of rocks, of which some were bare, some covered with sand, some overgrown with sedge, some clothed with trees and brushwood. In one place where the water had worn itself a way between two of the rocky islands, I noticed some well-constructed fish-weels very similar to those we use in Europe. Birds, especially swamp-birds, were very numerous, having taken up their quarters both on the rocks and on the shore. I was confirmed in my conviction that the river was very full of crocodiles; and at the rapids (which, by the way, I named the Blockley rapids) I noticed some water-lizards.
Our camp in the evening of the same day was visited by a party of seventeen Masupias. They were fine-looking men, with their hair tied up at the top of their heads in little tufts, and adorned with ornaments of great variety, bunches of the hair of gazelles or other small animals, pieces of coral, and strings of beads. They also wore bracelets, mostly of leather, occasionally of ivory. I bought everything that they had brought with them in the way of assegais, knives, kaffir-corn and beans, paying them in beads and calico. One of the men to whom I had given a knife on the previous day brought me a clay pitcher made by their women and full of butshuala (kaffir-corn beer); it was an offering on his part, I was given to understand, that established between us the relationship of “mulekow,” that is to say, I had henceforth the right to claim anything I liked in his house; it is a custom of the nation that sometimes results in much that is evil, as even the women of the household are included in the licence; and when a few days later I was in Impalera it seemed to excite a good deal of astonishment that I made no further use of my mulekow privilege than to ask for fish, beer, corn, and a few insignificant curiosities.
Through “August,” the Manansa servant who acted as interpreter, the visitors informed me that Makumba, the chief, was now on the farther side of the Zambesi elephant hunting; and, moreover, that he was not at liberty to receive me until an answer had been received from Sepopo authorizing my admission. They even declined on this account to take any present from myself to Makumba, and when I afterwards saw the chief, he entered fully into the particulars of the relations of his people with the monarch of the Marutse.
It was soon very evident that our guests had very little regard for the law of “meum and tuum,” and we had to keep a very sharp look-out upon their proceedings throughout their visit.
Next day I received more visits from the Masupias. They were continually asking the servants, who understood their Makololo dialect, whether Georosiani Maniniani had any Matabele people with him in the Leshumo valley, as they were forbidden to permit them to enter the kingdom, even although they might declare that they had the king’s pass, and had I myself insisted upon taking any Matabele attendants, it is quite certain that, like Stanley, I should have had to make my way by force.
By the Marutse and Mashonas the Matabele are held in just as much detestation as are the Mohammedan slave-dealers from the east coast by the natives of Central Africa. Although it is quite possible that with a party of Matabele servants I might have traversed the whole continent from south to north, any white man coming after me would have had to suffer for my exploit. Twice during the reign of Sekeletu on the central Zambesi the Matabele attempted to carry their incursions north of the river, but each time they failed. On the first occasion they crossed the rapids above the Victoria Falls, and got on to an island planted with manza by the Batokas, a people subject to Sekeletu, but the water rose and cut off their retreat, leaving them no means of subsistence except the roots of the manza; the result was that the whole of them died, for the roots, although wholesome enough when dried, are poisonous if they are eaten fresh. The second of the failures occurred to a party of Matahele that was conveyed down the river by a Masupia, who, having conducted them to an island, declared he was so weary that he must go away and fetch some of his people to help him. The Matabele, with a credulity quite unusual to them, allowed the man to depart, and soon found themselves in a trap. The man did not turn up any more. They had a hard time of it; they were quite unskilled in the art of spearing fish; they were afraid on account of the crocodiles to attempt to swim across the river; they could find nothing whatever to eat except the fruit of a few fan-palms, and in a short time their hunger became intense; they were reduced to the emergency of trying to sustain life by eating their leather sandals, which they cut up into pieces with their spears, and soaked; but most of them died, and the rest were easily overpowered by Sekeletu, who sent a few well-manned canoes from Linyanti and carried them off to the Barotse valley, the mother-country of the Marutse, who at that time were his subjects. During my second visit to the Marutse royal quarters I had the opportunity of seeing some of these Matabele, who had come to Sesheke to pay tribute. They still wore the well-known headdress of feathers, but seemed to have lost all the warlike spirit of the Zulus, and Sepopo told me that they had become first-rate husbandmen.
Amongst other visitors on the 12th was a Masupia, a grey-headed little man, who prided himself upon having served under the late king Sekeletu, during whose reign the Makololo empire had been annihilated.
Various commodities were brought over to me from Impalera with the hope that I might purchase them, and I bought a goat for about four yards of calico; the creature was wretchedly thin, having suffered from the stings of the tsetse-fly. It was no sooner slaughtered than I found my mulekow acquaintance sidling up to me; he evidently expected a portion of it as a present, and considered that he had an unquestionable right to visit me as often as he chose at meal-times.
During this day and the following about forty of the Masupias started off in detachments to the Leshumo valley to fetch Blockley’s goods, and to take him the corn he had ordered. The corn was packed in gourd-vessels containing about half a peck each, slung upon poles, the gourd-shells being covered with bast, and tied on with the same material.
Utilized by all the South African tribes, gourd-shells are nowhere put to more various uses than in the Marutse district. By the Mabunda tribe they are branded with ornamental devices of men and animals, and nearly everywhere they are employed for carrying water, being frequently covered with a network of leather; but the vassal tribes of the Bechuanas, the Makalaharis, Barwas, Masarwas, and Madenassanas, not practising agriculture, use ostrich eggs instead. Most of the Bantu tribes preserve fatty substances in the medium-sized gourd-shells, and south of the Zambesi the very small shells are made into snuff-boxes, and some of a flattened cylindrical form are converted into musical instruments.
On the 13th I was joined by a Basuto named April, who had been travelling with Blockley, and was now on his way to get permission from Sepopo to hunt elephants on his territory. He had come in company with eighteen of the Masupias who were returning with Blockley’s merchandise, each man carrying a load of about 60 lbs. They brought word that probably Blockley himself would arrive in the evening, but he did not appear.
That night, for the first time, I heard the deep grunt of the hippopotamus.
In the course of a walk down the riverside next morning I came to some deserted farms of the Masupias, who had fled to the opposite shore after the destruction of the Manansa kingdom, and in several places along the valley I saw the graves of some Masupia chiefs. These graves were mere oval mounds, covered with antelope-skulls and elephant-tusks, so arranged that the points protruded and bent downwards; some were bleached and cracked by exposure, but the smaller ones, weighing about 20 lbs., near the centre of the graves, were generally in a better state of preservation; those which had been deposited most recently were only milk-teeth, and consequently worthless; in all probability they had been placed there since the Marutse had become better acquainted with the value of ivory, so that the deeds of reverence for the departed had not defrauded the rulers of any portion of their revenue. As I returned I passed several sycamores growing on the bank, their stems as well as their branches thickly covered with figs, none of which, however, were yet ripe.
Blockley arrived in the afternoon. He gave each of his bearers a quarter of a pound of beads as payment for their services, but the Masupias rejected all the red beads, refusing to take any but the dark blue. They wanted them, they said, to purchase assegais, and the tribe from which they bought them insisted on having blue beads and no other.
The embarkation of the bearers on their return was an interesting scene. Their canoes, about twenty in number, had been waiting for them in the creek, and late in the afternoon they all pushed off to the opposite shore. They were very slim, varying in length from seven to sixteen feet, and manned by one, two, three, or four men, according to their size. A few of them had to carry back the empty shells that had contained the corn, several were full of firewood, and some conveyed various pieces of the carcase of a great buffalo-cow that had just been killed. The last to leave were my mulekow friend and four others. They were in a large canoe, while he, anxious to display his skill in paddling, had his canoe to himself. He made a great effort to outstrip the others, who did not feel inclined to be left in the rear. He had succeeded in getting a good start, but just as he reached the middle of the stream, the wind caught the folds of his kubu (mantle), and getting entangled by it his movements were obstructed, and he was easily beaten. It was his vanity that had brought about his defeat. He had sold me a couple of hatchets for seven yards of calico, and had made Pit cut him out a garment, which he insisted should use up the whole of it.
Without loss of time Blockley crossed on the 15th, but I was obliged to remain where I was until I heard from the king. I roved about in all directions, and discovered some warm salt springs, and I likewise added to my collection some fish that the Masupias had speared in the creek. Just as I had done on the Limpopo, I stood and watched the crocodiles raise their heads above the water, and snap at the kingfishers and water-birds on the bushes and reeds.
In order to watch the nocturnal movements of the animals I spent the whole of the next night by the river. I chose a sandy spot, shut off on the side towards the water by a thicket of reeds, and waited for the moonlight to enable me to see all that went on in the lagoon. About eleven o’clock a herd of pallahs made their appearance, the leader growling with a low note by way of assuring the rest that all was safe. But nothing interested me so such as the manœuvres of a pair of large otters that emerged from the reeds opposite, and began hunting all round the margin of the creek, their success in catching their prey being far greater than that of the crocodiles. They stood for a few seconds about two feet from the edge of the water, then darted into the nearest clump of reeds, where they foraged with their snouts, and kept returning to devour their prey, which, as far as I could see, consisted entirely of small fish.
Having time on my hands, I next made a longer excursion; but though I much enjoyed my ramble, I was disappointed in not being able to secure either a pallah or a baboon. However I saw some very fine kingfishers (Ceryle maxima}, as well as bee-catchers and cuckoos.
In due time the “rumela,” or salute, was fired from the opposite shore by Makumba, as a signal that the messengers had arrived from Sesheke, bringing a favourable answer from the king. It was my duty to acknowledge the salute by returning it, and I took the opportunity of having a few shots at the fruit of the moshungulu-tree; and by knocking down some, and splitting others, I received great applause from the Masupias who were present. A short time afterwards two little canoes were sent over to carry me across.
I estimated both the lower Chobe and the Zambesi as having a depth of between thirty and forty feet, and consequently being quite large enough for ships of considerable burden, but the different reaches are separated so frequently by ridges of rock, that the rapids make all navigation impracticable.
On landing I was again greeted by Makumba with a salute, which I had again to return in due form. I was much struck as I entered the village by the construction of the huts and their enclosures. They were made of reeds, and built in the double 
REMOVAL TO NEW SESHEKE.
style that I had noticed in the ruins of Mosilili’s town. Their diameter was about nine feet, that of the enclosure in which they stood being twenty-five. The ordinary height of every fence was nearly twelve feet. Never else-where had I seen any so tall. The entire length of the reeds was used partly as a protection from the floods of the summer months, but principally as a shelter from the wind. Some of the huts were made of grass as well as reeds. They were shaped like an oven, and consisted of two rooms and a verandah.
On a grass-plot near the middle of the settlement stood the council-hut, a conical roof of straw supported on a few not very substantial piles. Under it I noticed one of the morupas, or drums, that, as I afterwards learnt, are to be found in most Marutse and Masupia villages. The skin of the drum is pierced, and a short stick inserted into the opening, with another stick fixed transversely at its end, the whole instrument being a cylinder of about a foot to a foot and a half long. Their sound, which cannot be compared to anything much better than the creaking of new boots, is made by rubbing the stick with a piece of wet baobab-bast twisted round the hand of the performer. They are rarely brought into use except on occasions when the inhabitants are celebrating the return from a successful lion or leopard hunt with music and dancing.
Makumba himself, a dark skinned Masupia about forty years of age, received me very kindly. He was entertaining three other visitors, two English officers, Captain McLeod and Captain Fairly, and a Mr. Cowley, who had all come from Natal for the sake of some hunting. They had already obtained permission from Sepopo to enter his territory. They had sent him their presents, and were now on the point of returning to their waggon at Panda ma Tenka to complete all their preparations for their expedition. It subsequently transpired that they were greatly disappointed, and received anything but honourable treatment at the hands of the Marutse king. Captain McLeod informed me that he had killed an elephant with tusks weighing 100 lbs., and that Sepopo had taken them, under a promise to give him two others instead on his return to Sesheke.
We were entertained at one of Makumba’s residences with butshuala (kaffir-corn beer), which was brought in wooden bowls, and served out in gourd-shell cups. He was a staunch supporter of the king, and ultimately lost his life in his service. While I was with him, he took the opportunity of enlightening me as to some of Sepopo’s peculiarities, that I might regulate my proceedings accordingly.
Before leaving Impalera I took several walks about the village, and found that it was divided into three groups of homesteads; that nearest the river contained 1385 huts; another, where the natives took refuge during floods, contained twenty-five huts; the third, made up of thirty-two huts, lay farther to the west. The women did not wear aprons like the Bechuanas, but had little petticoats reaching to the knee. On the whole, the people were decidedly superior in looks to the Bechuana tribes.
Makumba left the village on the same day that we arrived. His proper home was on the left bank of the Zambesi, the residence at Impalera being occupied by one of his wives and some maids who attended to the fields, and kept the place prepared for him whenever he might choose to pay it a visit. The only reason for his being here now was that he might welcome mein the king’s name; I thanked him for his courtesy, and offered him a present, which he declined, saying that it was as much as his head was worth to accept a gift from either a black man or a white before the king had received one.
Late in the afternoon of the 17th we made our way to a great baobab close to the landing-place on the Zambesi known as “Makumba’s haven.” The boatmen put up a temporary shelter for Blockley and myself, and there I spent my first night on the bank of that great river that for years it had been my chief ambition to behold.
The landing-place was close to the rapids of which I have spoken, and about four miles above the mouth of the Chobe. Before us in the stream were numbers of small islands, some wooded and others overgrown with weeds. Darters were perching on the overhanging branches, and cormorants had taken up their quarters on the ledges of the dark brown rocks. Carefully avoiding the deeper places frequented by crocodiles, the birds kept on diving for fish and returning to their old positions, where they spread out their wings to dry. We shot several of them, but only managed to secure two, as the rest, like a bald buzzard (Haliaëtus vocifer) that I also killed, were carried down the stream and devoured by crocodiles. Hippopotamuses could be heard every ten minutes throughout the night, but the large fire that we made deterred them from coming close to us.
Soon after sunrise I took my first boat-journey on the Zambesi. I found myself in a fragile canoe made of a hollowed tree-stem scarcely eighteen inches wide, its sides being scarcely three inches above the surface of the deep blue stream, that made a dark belt around the diversified verdure of the islets. On the right, like a strong wall six feet in height, rose masses of reeds, extending very often miles away, and occasionally broken into regular arcades by the passage of the hippopotamuses between the river and their pasturage. Rose-coloured convolvuluses, countless in number, twined themselves up the reedstalks, and gave brightness and colour to the rustling forest. On the other hand was a reedy island, encircled with a hedge of the bristly papyrus, the feathery heads of the outer clumps trembling with the motion of the current; in well-nigh every gap of the fantastic fohage glimpses were caught of gaily-feathered birds, crimson, or grey, or white; ever and again a silver or a purple heron would dart out for a moment, whilst aquatic birds, in strange variety, were watching for fish behind the sedge.
Whenever the boatmen turned into one of the less frequented side-channels, there were always to be seen flocks of wild geese and ducks, with spoonbills, sandpipers, and three kinds of mews swarming on the sand-banks; nor could my attention fail to be attracted by the long-drawn cry of the bald buzzards, sitting in pairs upon the trees and hillocks. Every instant seemed to bring to light some fresh specimen of animal life, contributing new interest to the mighty stream.
The very mode of travelling gave an additional charm to the scene, as nothing can be imagined much more picturesque than the canoes, always fleet, however heavily laden, and manned with their dark-skinned crews, deftly plying their paddles, while their leather aprons, bound with coloured calico, fluttered in the wind. The steersman was always at the bow, next to him would sit the passenger, behind whom the oarsmen, varying in number from three to ten or eleven, would row in perfect time, often regulating their movements to a song. Some canoes that I saw were not less than twenty-two feet in length.
MASUPIA GRAVE.
Taking into account the dimensions of the islands, I should estimate that the stream, in some parts only 300 yards across, occasionally attained a width of 1000 yards. In many places the shores had been washed away, so that there were no shelving banks. In sedgy spots, about eight feet from the shore, the water was six feet deep, and where the reeds were thick, it got no deeper for twenty feet away from land.
After paddling along for close upon three hours, I found that the reeds and bushes on the right gave way to a wide grass-plain, to which the Marutse and Masupias had given the name of Blockley’s kraal.
It seemed to be full of game, and we left our canoes for a time and went ashore. Herds of buffaloes were visible on the outskirts; here, too, for the first time I saw some letshwe and puku antelopes; they were cropping the pasturage by hundreds; the letshwes were larger and the pukus smaller than blessbocks, and both, like all waterbocks, had shaggy, light-brown hair, and horns bent forward. I likewise saw some groups of rietbocks in the long grass, and in the direction of the woods were herds of zebras, as well as striped gnus, sometimes as many as twenty together.
After re-embarking, we kept close to the shore, with the object of avoiding the hippopotamuses that in the day-time frequent the middle of the stream, only rising from time to time to breathe. Whenever the current made it necessary for us to change to the opposite side of the river, I could see that the boatmen were all on the qui-vive to get across as rapidly as possible, and I soon afterwards learnt by experience what good reason they had to be cautious. We had occasion to steer outwards so as to clear a papyrus island, when all at once the men began to back water, and the one nearest me whispered the word “kubu.” He was pointing to a spot hardly 200 yards ahead, and on looking I saw first one hippopotamus’s head, and then a second, raised above the surface of the stream, both puffing out little fountains from the nostrils. They quickly disappeared, and the men paddled on gently, till they were tolerably close to the place where the brutes had been seen. Both Blockley and I cocked our guns, and had not long to wait before the heads of two young hippopotamuses emerged from beneath the water, followed first by the head of a male and then by that of a female. We fired eight shots, of which there was no doubt that two struck the old male behind the ear. The men all maintained that it was mortally wounded, and probably such was the case; but although we waited about for nearly
ON THE BANKS OF THE CHOBE.
an hour, we never saw more than the heads of the three others again. It was only with reluctance that the men were induced to be stationary so long; except they are in very small boats and properly armed with assegais they are always anxious to give the hippopotamus as wide a berth as they can.
Of all the larger mammalia of South Africa I am disposed to believe that to an unarmed man the hippopotamus is the most dangerous. In its normal state it can never endure the sight of anything to which it is unaccustomed or which takes it by surprise. Let it come upon a horse, an ox, a porcupine, a log of wood, or even a fluttering garment suddenly crossing its path, and it will fly upon any of them with relentless fury; but let such object be withdrawn betimes from view, and the brute in an instant will forget all about it and go on its way entirely undisturbed.[1] Although in some cases it may happen that an unprotected man may elude the attacks of a lion, a buffalo, or a leopard except they have been provoked, he cannot indulge the hope of escaping the violence of a hippopotamus that has once got him within reach of its power.
When out of several hippopotamuses in a river one has been wounded, the rest are far more wary in coming to the surface; and should the wound have been fatal, the carcase does not rise for an hour, but drifts down the stream. The Marutse have a very simple but effectual way of landing their dead bodies; a grass rope with a stone attached is thrown across it, and by this means it is easily guided to the shore. The whole river-side population is most enthusiastic in its love of hippopotamus-hunting, and it is owing to the skill of the Marutse natives in this pursuit that they have been brought from their homes in the Upper Zambesi, and established in villages down here, where they may help to keep the court well supplied not only with fresh and dried fish, but particularly with hippopotamus-flesh.
The boats that are used as “mokoro tshi kubu” (hippopotamus-canoes) are of the smallest size, only just large enough for one; they are difficult to manage, but are very swift; the weapons employed are long barbed assegais, of which the shafts are so light that they are not heavier than the ordinary short javelins for military use.
While I was in Sesheke I heard of a sad casualty that had occurred near the town in the previous year. A Masupia on his way down the river saw a hippopotamus asleep on a sandy bank, and believing that he might make it an easy prey, approached it very gently and thrust his spear right under the shoulder. The barb, however, glinted off its side, inflicting only a trifling wound. In a second, before the man had time to get away, the infuriated brute was up, and after him. In vain he rolled himself over to conceal himself in the grass; the beast seemed resolved to trample him to pieces; he held up his right hand as a protection, and it was crushed by the monster’s fangs; he stretched out his left, and it was amputated by a single bite. He was alterwards found by some fishermen in a most mutilated state, barely able to recount his misfortune before he died.
Although I have often tasted hippopotamus-meat, I cannot say that I like it. The gelatinous skin when roasted is considered a delicacy; in its raw state it makes excellent handles for knives and workmen’s tools, as it shrinks as it dries, and takes firm hold upon the metal.
If a hippopotamus is killed within fifty miles of Sesheke half of it is always sent to the king, and the breast reserved for the royal table. It is at night-time that the hippopotamus generally goes to its pasturage, in the choice of which it is very particular, sometimes making its way eight or nine miles along the river-bank, and returning at daybreak to its resort in the river or lagoons, where its presence is revealed by its splashes and snorts. Occasionally it is found asleep in the forests ten miles or more away from the water. In eastern and southern Matabele-land, and in the Mashona country, where they are found in the affluents of the Limpopo and the Zarmbesi it is a much less difficult matter to capture them, and Matabele traders have told me that they have seen Mashonas attack them in the water with broad-bladed daggers, and soon overpower them.
In time past hippopotamuses were common throughout South Africa, and the carvings of the bushmen would go to prove that they not only frequented the rivers, but found their way to the salt rain-pans; they are still to be found in the rivers of Natal, and I was told in Cape Colony that they are in existence in Kaffraria; but in Central South Africa they are not seen south of the Limpopo.
The Zambesi abounds with crocodiles, but we did not see one that day.
The shores of the river here consisted of alternate strata of clay and earth, varying from two to eighteen inches in thickness, the mould made up of alluvial soil and decayed vegetable matter. In some places where the outflow from some hollow in the plain had made itself a channel to the river, the natives had dammed it up by an embankment of rushes ten feet high. We travelled at the rate of  | ||
| VOL. II. | HIPPOPOTAMUS HUNTING. | Page 132. |
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| VOL. II. | GAME COUNTRY NEAR BLOCKLEY’S KRAAL. | Page 133. |
Several of the men set to work immediately with their knives and assegais to cut down a number of reeds, which they tied together into bundles; others with the same implements dug a series of holes into which the reeds were put upright as props; meanwhile three canoes had been sent across the stream to fetch dry grass which was spread over the top of the supports, and thus in marvellously quick time some huts were erected from four to six feet in height.
Next morning on the left-hand shore we passed the mouth of the Kasha or Kashteja, the river called by Livingstone the Majeela, the name by which it is known amongst the Makololos. A few hundred yards above its mouth the stream was in some places hardly more than fifteen yards wide, but although it was only three feet deep, it was quite unsafe to try to wade across it, on account of the crocodiles with which its seething waters abounded. We met several canoes full of people from Makumba’s town, who had been to Sesheke with ivory for Sepopo, and were now returning, having received a present of some ammunition and two woollen shirts apiece.
We paused on our way to refresh ourselves with a bath in a shallow place which we ascertained was safe, and then hurried on with all speed, that we might reach the royal quarters before evening. Some small herds of cattle grazing along the riverside, under the close surveillance of their keepers, apprised us of our approach to the new settlement, which enjoys the advantage of being free from the tsetse fly.
Old Sesheke lay on a lagoon about a mile and a half west of the place where the river makes a sudden bend to the east, and the original Marutse royal residence was in the fertile mother-country of the Barotse, which was eminently fitted for cattle-breeding. Sepopo, however, the present king, had made himself unpopular amongst the Barotse, and had moved away into the Masupia country, although it was a district which, except in a few detached places, was much infested with the tsetse. He had, however, another reason for the change he made; he was dissatisfied with the dealings of the Portuguese traders, whose goods he found to be of very inferior quality as compared with those brought by Westbeech, and accordingly he was anxious to make a move that would bring him into nearer connexion with the traders from the south.
As we approached the royal residence, Blockley proposed that we should announce our arrival by a rumela. The echoes of our shots had hardly died away before some groups of men gathered under the trees, and our salute was answered by another; manifestly the king was amongst the people, superintending the organization of the new settlement. Our boatmen joined in the shouting that was commenced upon the beach, where the clamour lasted for a quarter of an hour, until we reached the landing-place, where several canoes were drawn up under the trees.
In order to have audience of the ruler of the Central Zambesi, I felt that it was becoming on my part to dress myself in my very best, but it was rather aggravating at the last moment to find that my hat had been mislaid. Blockley would scarcely allow me time to overhaul my baggage to get at the missing article, but dragged me off, telling me that the sound of the myrimba was already begun.
I have already mentioned that Sepopo had been expecting me for some months; he had often inquired of Westbeech and Blockley when the nyaka was coming, to travel through the country like Monari (Livingstone); and although since the visit of the great explorer he had had interviews with at least fifteen white men, he was desirous to give me a more imposing reception than any of them.
- ↑ This peculiarity may perhaps be physiologically accounted for by the small weight of the brain as contrasted with the ponderous size of the body.