Volume Ii Part 11 (2/2)

Here the Nzadi is bounded by low limestone hills already showing the alluvial basin of Central Africa; and the land is well populated, because calcareous districts are fertile in the tropics and provisions are plentiful. Prof. Smith (p. 336) was ”so much enraptured with the improved appearance of the country and the magnificence of the river, that it was with the greatest difficulty he was prevailed on to return.” Of course, the coaster middle-men report the people to be cannibals.

From the Vivi Rapids to Nsundi along the windings of the bed is a total of 115 miles, about the distance of Vivi to the sea; the direct land march was 75 miles. Captain Tuckey heard nothing of the Lumini River entering 43 leagues above the Yellala, and he gives no professional opinion touching the navigability of the total of six greater rapids which, to judge from what I saw, can hardly offer any serious obstruction to the development of the Nzadi.

At Nkulu an intelligent native traveller whom I examined through the interpreters, strongly advised the line of the southern bank: five stages would lead to Nsundi, and the ten ”kings” on the road are not such ”rapacious gentlemen” as our present hosts. A glance at Tuckey's map shows that this southern line cuts across a long westerly deflection of the bed.

I had been warned when setting out that a s.h.i.+pful of goods would not take me past Nkulu. This was soon confirmed. On the evening after arrival I had directed my interpreter to sound the ”bush- kings” touching the expense of a march to Nsundi. They modestly demanded 100 lbs. of beads, fifty kegs of powder, forty demijohns of rum, twelve uniforms, ten burnuses, a few swords, and 200 whole pieces of various expensive cloths, such as Costa Finas, Riscados, and satin stripes,--briefly, about 300 for three days'

march. It suggested the modest demand made by King Adooley of Badagry, from the brothers Lander.

The air of Nkulu was a cordial; the aspect of the land suggested that it is the threshold to a country singularly fertile and delicious, in fact, the paradise which Bishop Berkeley (Gaudentio di Lucca) placed in Central Africa. The heat of the lowlands had disappeared,--

”The scorching ray Here pierceth not, impregnate with disease.”

The thermometer, it is true, did not sink below 67 (F.), whilst the ”Expedition” (p. 118) had found it 60 in August, even at Boma during the dewy nights. The lowest temperature of the water was 75, and the highest 79, whereas at the mouth it is sometimes 83; Tuckey gives 76-77; 74 in the upper river above the Falls, and 73 where there are limestone springs. The oxydization of iron suddenly ceased; after a single day's drying, the plants were ready for a journey to England, and meat which wrill hardly keep one day in the lowlands is here eatable on the fifth.

Whilst the important subject of ”dash” was being discussed I set out in my hammock to visit a quitanda or market held hard by. As we started, the women sang,

”Lungwa u telemene ko Mwanza Ko Yellala o kwenda.”

”The boat that arrives at the Mwanza (the River) the same shall go up to the Yellala” (rapids). It is part of a chant which the mothers of men now old taught them in childhood, and the sole reminiscence of the Congo Expedition, whose double boats, the Ajojos of the Brazil, struck their rude minds half a century ago.

These quitandas are attended by people living a dozen miles off, and they give names to the days, which consequently everywhere vary. Thus at Boma Friday, Sat.u.r.day, Sunday, and Monday are respectively called ”Nkenge,” ”Sona,” ”Kandu,” and ”Konzo.” This style of dividing time, which is common throughout Pagan West Africa, is commonly styled a week: thus the Abbe Proyart tells us that the Loango week consists of four days, and that on the fourth the men ”rest” by hunting and going to market. Tuckey also recognizes the ”week of four days,” opposed to the seven days'

week of the Gold Coast.

After half an hour's run to the north-west my bearers, raising loud shouts of ”Alii! vai sempre!” dashed into the market-place where about a hundred souls were a.s.sembled. The women rose in terror from their baskets and piles of vendibles; some began hastily to pack up, others threw themselves into the bush. Order was soon restored by the interpreter; both s.e.xes and all ages crowded round me with hootings of wonder, and, when they had stared their fill, allowed me to sit down under a kind of ficus, not unlike the banyan-tree (Ficus Indica). Tuckey (p. 181) says that this fig is planted in all market-places and is considered sacred; his people got into trouble by piling their muskets against one of them: I heard of nothing of the kind. The scanty supplies--a few fowls, sun-dried fish, kola-nuts, beans, and red peppers--were spread upon skins, or stored in well-worked baskets, an art carried to perfection in Africa; even the Somali Bedawin weave pots that will hold water. The small change was represented by a medium which even Montesquieu would not set down as a certain mark of civilization. The horse-shoe of Loggun (Denham and Clapperton), the Fan fleam, the ”small piece of iron like an ace of spades on the upper Nile” (Baker), and the iron money of the brachycephalic Nyam-nyams described and drawn by Schwein furth (i. 279), here becomes a triangle or demi-square of bast-cloth, about 5 inches of max. length, fringed, coloured like a torchon after a month of kitchen use, and worth one-twentieth of the dollar or fathom of cloth. These money-mats or coin-clouts are known to old travellers as Macuitas and Libonges (in Angolan Libangos). Carli and Merolla make them equivalent to bra.s.s money; the former were gra.s.s-cloth a yard long, and ten = 100 reis; in 1694 they were changed at Angola for a small copper coin worth 2 1/2 d., and the change caused a disturbance for which five soldiers were shot. Silver was represented by ”Intagas,” thick cottons the size of two large kerchiefs (=. Is. 6d.) and ”Folingas,” finer sorts used for waist-cloths (=. 3s. 6d.); and gold by Beirames (alii Biramis): Carli says the latter are coa.r.s.e Indian cottons 5 ells long and each = 200 reis; others describe them as fine linen each piece worth 7s. 6d. to 8s. The bank-note was the ”Indian piece or Mulech, a young black about twenty years of age, worth 20 Mil Keys (dollars) each.” (Carli.) In the Barbots' day each ”coin-clout”) was equivalent to 2d.; some were unmarked, whilst others bore the Portuguese arms single or double. The wilder Kru-men still keep up their ”buyapart” (= 25 cents), a cloth 4 inches square and thickly sewn over with cowries.

The only liquor was palm wine in huge calabashes. The smoking of Lyamba (Bhang or Cannabis sativa) seems to become more common as we advance. I did not find the plant growing, as did Dr.

Livingstone at Linyanti and amongst the Batoka (”First Expedition,” 198, 541). The pipe is the gourd of a baobab, which here sometimes grows a foot and a half long; it is cleared, filled with water and provided with a wooden tube fixed in the upper part away from the mouth, and supporting a small ”chillam”

or bowl of badly baked clay. The people when smoking affect the bunched shoulders, the deep inhalation, and the loud and body- shaking bark, which seems inseparable from the enjoyment of this stimulant. I have used it for months together, and my conclusion is, that mostly the cough is an affectation. Tobacco is smoked in the usual heavy clay pipes, with long mouthpieces of soft wood, quite as civilized as the best European. ”Progress” seems unknown to the pipe; the most advanced nations are somewhat behind the barbarians, and in the matter of snuff the Tupi or Brazilian savage has never been rivalled.

The greater part of the vendors seemed to be women, of the buyers men; there was more difference of appearance than in any European fair, and the population about Nkulu seemed to be a very mixed race. Some were ultra-negro, of the dead dull-black type, prognathous and long-headed like apes; others were of the red variety, with hair and eyes of a brownish tinge, and a few had features which if whitewashed could hardly be distinguished from Europeans. The tattoo was remarkable as amongst the tribes of the lower Zambeze.[FN#33] There were waistcoats, epaulettes, braces and cross-belts of huge welts, and raised polished lumps which must have cost not a little suffering; the skin is pinched up between the fingers and sawn across with a bluntish knife, the deeper the better; various plants are used as styptics, and the proper size of the cicatrice is maintained by constant pressure, which makes the flesh protrude from the wound. The teeth were as barbarously mutilated as the skin; these had all the incisors sharp-tipped; those chipped a chevron-shaped hole in the two upper or lower frontals, and not a few seemed to attempt converting the whole denture into molars. The legs were undeniably fine; even Hieland Mary's would hardly be admired here. Whilst the brown mothers smoked and carried their babies, the men bore guns adorned with bra.s.s tacks, or leaned upon their short, straight, conical ”spuds” and hoes, long-handled bits of iron whose points, after African fas.h.i.+on, pa.s.sed through the wood. I nowhere saw the handsome carved spoons, the hafts and knife-sheaths figured by the Congo Expedition.

We left the quitanda with the same shouting and rus.h.i.+ng which accompanied my appearance.

Chapter XV.

Return to the Congo Mouth.

In the evening there was a palaver.

I need hardly say that my guide, after being paid to show me Nsundi, never had the slightest intention to go beyond the Yellala. Irritated by sleeping in the open air, and by the total want of hospitality amongst the bushmen, he and his moleques had sat apart all day, the picture of stubborn discontent, and

”Not a man in the place But had discontent written large in his face.”

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