Volume I Part 8 (1/2)
The Manganja, or Wa-nya.s.sa, are an aboriginal race; they have great ma.s.ses of hair, and but little, if any, of the prognathous in the profile. Their bodies and limbs are very well made, and the countenance of the men is often very pleasant. The women are very plain and lumpy, but exceedingly industrious in their gardens from early morning till about 11 A.M., then from 3 P.M. till dark, or pounding corn and grinding it: the men make twine or nets by day, and are at their fisheries in the evenings and nights. They build the huts, the women plaster them.
A black fish, the Nsaka, makes a hole, with raised edges, which, with the depth from which they are taken, is from fifteen to eighteen inches, and from two to three feet broad. It is called by the natives their house. The pair live in it for some time, or until the female becomes large for sp.a.w.ning; this operation over, the house is left.
I gave Mokalaose some pumpkin seed and peas. He took me into his house, and presented a quant.i.ty of beer. I drank a little, and seeing me desist from taking more, he asked if I wished a servant-girl to ”_pata mimba_.” Not knowing what was meant, I offered the girl the calabash of beer, and told her to drink, but this was not the intention. He asked if I did not wish more; and then took the vessel, and as he drank the girl performed the operation on himself. Placing herself in front, she put both hands round his waist below the short ribs, and pressing gradually drew them round to his belly in front.
He took several prolonged draughts, and at each she repeated the operation, as if to make the liquor go equally over the stomach. Our topers don't seem to have discovered the need for this.
_5th September, 1866._--Our march is along the sh.o.r.e to Ngombo promontory, which approaches so near to Senga or Tsenga opposite, as to narrow the Lake to some sixteen or eighteen miles. It is a low sandy point, the edge fringed on the north-west and part of the south with a belt of papyrus and reeds; the central parts wooded. Part of the south side has high sandy dunes, blown up by the south wind, which strikes it at right angles there. One was blowing as we marched along the southern side eastwards, and was very tiresome. We reached Panthunda's village by a brook called Lilole. Another we crossed before coming to it is named Libesa: these brooks form the favourite sp.a.w.ning grounds of the sanjika and mpasa, two of the best fishes of the Lake. The sanjika is very like our herring in shape and taste and size; the mpasa larger every way: both live on green herbage formed at the bottom of the Lake and rivers.
_7th September, 1866._--Chirumba's village being on the south side of a long lagoon, we preferred sleeping on the mainland, though they offered their cranky canoes to ferry us over. This lagoon is called Pansangwa.
_8th September, 1866._--In coming along the southern side of Ngombo promontory we look eastwards, but when we leave it we turn southwards, having a double range of lofty mountains on our left. These are granitic in form, the nearer range being generally the lowest, and covered with scraggy trees; the second, or more easterly, is some 6000 feet above the sea, bare and rugged, with jagged peaks shooting high into the air. This is probably the newest range. The oldest people have felt no earthquake, but some say that they have heard of such things from their elders.
We pa.s.sed very many sites of old villages, which are easily known by the tree euphorbia planted round an umbelliferous one, and the sacred fig. One species here throws out strong b.u.t.tresses in the manner of some mangroves instead of sending down twiners which take root, as is usually the ease with the tropical fig. These, with millstones--stones for holding the pots in cooking--and upraised clay benches, which have been turned into brick by fire in the destruction of the huts, show what were once the ”pleasant haunts of men.” No stone implements ever appear. If they existed they could not escape notice, since the eyes in walking are almost always directed to the ground to avoid stumbling on stones or stumps. In some parts of the world stone implements are so common they seem to have been often made and discarded as soon as formed, possibly by getting better tools; if, indeed, the manufacture is not as modern as that found by Mr. Waller. Pa.s.sing some navvies in the City who were digging for the foundation of a house, he observed a very antique-looking vase, wet from the clay, standing on the bank. He gave ten s.h.i.+llings for it, and subsequently, by the aid of a scrubbing brush and some water, detected the hieroglyphics ”Copeland late Spode”
on the bottom of it!
Here the destruction is quite recent, and has been brought about by some who entertained us very hospitably on the Misinje, before we came to the confluence. The woman chief, Ulenjelenje, or Njelenje, bore a part in it for the supply of Arab caravans. It was the work of the Masininga, a Waiyau tribe, of which her people form a part. They almost depopulated the broad fertile tract, of some three or four miles, between the mountain range and the Lake, along which our course lay. It was wearisome to see the skulls and bones scattered about everywhere; one would fain not notice them, but they are so striking as one trudges along the sultry path, that it cannot be avoided.
_9th September, 1866._--We spent Sunday at Kandango's village. The men killed a hippopotamus when it was sleeping on the sh.o.r.e; a full-grown female, 10 feet 9 inches from the snout to the insertion of the tail, and 4 feet 4 inches high at the withers. The bottom here and all along southwards now is muddy. Many of the _Siluris Glanis_ are caught equal in length to an eleven or a twelve-pound salmon, but a great portion is head; slowly roasted on a stick stuck in the ground before the fire they seemed to me much more savoury than I ever tasted them before.
With the mud we have many sh.e.l.ls: north of Ngombo scarcely one can be seen, and there it is sandy or rocky.
_10th September, 1866._--In marching southwards we came close to the range (the Lake lies immediately on the other side of it), but we could not note the bays which it forms; we crossed two mountain torrents from sixty to eighty yards broad, and now only ankle deep. In flood these bring down enormous trees, which are much battered and bruised among the rocks in their course; they spread over the plain, too, and would render travelling here in the rains impracticable.
After spending the night at a very civil headman's chefu, we crossed the Lotende, another of these torrents: each very lofty ma.s.s in the range seemed to give rise to one. Nothing of interest occurred as we trudged along. A very poor headman, Pamawawa, presented a roll of salt instead of food: this was grateful to us, as we have been without that luxury some time.
_12th September, 1866._--We crossed the rivulet Nguena, and then went on to another with a large village by it, it is called Pantoza Pangone. The headman had been suffering from sore eyes for four months, and pressed me to stop and give him medicine, which I did.
_13th September, 1866._--We crossed a strong brook called Nkore. My object in mentioning the brooks which were flowing at this time, and near the end of the dry season, is to give an idea of the sources of supply of evaporation. The men enumerate the following, north of the Misinje. Those which are greater are marked thus +, and the lesser ones -.
1. Misinje + has canoes.
2. Loangwa - 3. Lesefa - 4. Lelula - 5. Nchamanje - 6. Musumba + 7. Fubwe + 8. Chia - 9. Kisanga + 10. Bweka - 11. Chifumero + has canoes.
12. Loangwa - 13. Mkoho - 14. Mangwelo - at N. end of Lake.
Including the above there are twenty or twenty-four perennial brooks and torrents which give a good supply of water in the dry season; in the wet season they are supplemented by a number of burns, which, though flowing now, have their mouths blocked up with bars of sand, and yield nothing except by percolation; the Lake rises at least four feet perpendicularly in the wet season, and has enough during the year from these perennial brooks to supply the s.h.i.+re's continual flow.
[It will be remembered that the beautiful river s.h.i.+re carries off the waters of Lake Nya.s.sa and joins the Zambesi near Mount Morambala, about ninety miles from the sea. It is by this water-way that Livingstone always hoped to find an easy access to Central Africa.
The only obstacles that exist are, first, the foolish policy of the Portuguese with regard to Customs' duties at the mouth of the Zambesi; and secondly, a succession of cataracts on the s.h.i.+re, which impede navigation for seventy miles. The first hindrance may give way under more liberal views than those which prevail at present at the Court of Lisbon, and then the remaining difficulty--accepted as a fact--will be solved by the establishment of a boat service both above and below the cataracts. Had Livingstone survived he would have been cheered by hearing that already several schemes are afoot to plant Missions in the vicinity of Lake Nya.s.sa, and we may with confidence look to the revival of the very enterprise which he presently so bitterly deplores as a thing of the past, for Bishop Steere has fully determined to re-occupy the district in which fell his predecessor, Bishop Mackenzie, and others attached to the Universities Mission.]
In the course of this day's march we were pushed close to the Lake by Mount Gome, and, being now within three miles of the end of the Lake, we could see the whole plainly. There we first saw the s.h.i.+re emerge, and there also we first gazed on the broad waters of Nya.s.sa.
Many hopes have been disappointed here. Far down on the right bank of the Zambesi lies the dust of her whose death changed all my future prospects; and now, instead of a check being given to the slave-trade by lawful commerce on the Lake, slave-dhows prosper!
An Arab slave-party fled on hearing of us yesterday. It is impossible not to regret the loss of good Bishop Mackenzie, who sleeps far down the s.h.i.+re, and with him all hope of the Gospel being introduced into Central Africa. The silly abandonment of all the advantages of the s.h.i.+re route by the Bishop's successor I shall ever bitterly deplore, but all will come right some day, though I may not live to partic.i.p.ate in the joy, or even see the commencement of better times.
In the evening we reached the village of Cherekalongwa on the brook Pamchololo, and were very jovially received by the headman with beer.
He says that Mukate,[19] Kabinga, and Mponda alone supply the slave-traders now by raids on the Manganja, but they go S.W. to the Maravi, who, impoverished by a Mazitu raid, sell each other as well.
_14th, September, 1866._--At Cherekalongwa's (who has a skin disease, believed by him to have been derived from eating fresh-water turtles), we were requested to remain one day in order that he might see us. He had heard much about us; had been down the s.h.i.+re, and as far as Mosambique, but never had an Englishman in his town before. As the heat is great we were glad of the rest and beer, with which he very freely supplied us.
I saw the skin of a Phenembe, a species of lizard which devours chickens; here it is named Salka. It had been flayed by a cut up the back--body, 12 inches; across belly, 10 inches.
After nearly giving up the search for Dr. Roscher's point of reaching the Lake--because no one, either Arab or native, had the least idea of either Nusseewa or Makawa, the name given to the place--I discovered it in Lessefa, the accentuated _e_ being sounded as our _e_ in _set_.