My Hearers Sometimes Put Very Sensible Questions
On The Subjects Brought Before Them; At Other Times They Introduced
The Most
Frivolous nonsense immediately after hearing the most solemn truths.
Some begin to pray to Jesus in secret as soon as
They hear
of the white man's God, with but little idea of what they are about;
and no doubt are heard by Him who, like a father, pitieth his children.
Others, waking by night, recollect what has been said about the future world
so clearly that they tell next day what a fright they got by it,
and resolve not to listen to the teaching again; and not a few
keep to the determination not to believe, as certain villagers in the south,
who put all their cocks to death because they crowed the words,
"Tlang lo rapeleng" - "Come along to prayers".
On recovering partially from a severe attack of fever which remained upon me
ever since our passing the village of Moremi on the Chobe, we made ready
for our departure up the river by sending messages before us to the villages
to prepare food. We took four elephants' tusks, belonging to Sekeletu,
with us, as a means of testing the difference of prices
between the Portuguese, whom we expected to reach, and the white traders
from the south. Moriantsane supplied us well with honey, milk, and meal.
The rains were just commencing in this district; but, though showers
sufficient to lay the dust had fallen, they had no influence whatever
on the amount of water in the river, yet never was there less in any part
than three hundred yards of a deep flowing stream.
Our progress up the river was rather slow; this was caused
by waiting opposite different villages for supplies of food.
We might have done with much less than we got; but my Makololo man, Pitsane,
knew of the generous orders of Sekeletu, and was not at all disposed
to allow them to remain a dead letter. The villages of the Banyeti
contributed large quantities of mosibe, a bright red bean
yielded by a large tree. The pulp inclosing the seed is not much thicker
than a red wafer, and is the portion used. It requires the addition of honey
to render it at all palatable.
To these were added great numbers of the fruit which yields
a variety of the nux vomica, from which we derive that
virulent poison strychnia. The pulp between the nuts is the part eaten,
and it is of a pleasant juicy nature, having a sweet acidulous taste.
The fruit itself resembles a large yellow orange, but the rind is hard,
and, with the pips and bark, contains much of the deadly poison.
They evince their noxious qualities by an intensely bitter taste.
The nuts, swallowed inadvertently, cause considerable pain, but not death;
and to avoid this inconvenience, the people dry the pulp before the fire,
in order to be able the more easily to get rid of the noxious seeds.
A much better fruit, called mobola, was also presented to us. This bears,
around a pretty large stone, as much of the fleshy part as the common date,
and it is stripped off the seeds and preserved in bags in a similar manner
to that fruit. Besides sweetness, the mobola has the flavor of strawberries,
with a touch of nauseousness. We carried some of them, dried as provisions,
more than a hundred miles from this spot.
The next fruit, named mamosho (mother of morning), is the most delicious
of all. It is about the size of a walnut, and, unlike most of the other
uncultivated fruits, has a seed no larger than that of a date.
The fleshy part is juicy, and somewhat like the cashew-apple,
with a pleasant acidity added. Fruits similar to those which
are here found on trees are found on the plains of the Kalahari,
growing on mere herbaceous plants. There are several other examples
of a similar nature. Shrubs, well known as such in the south,
assume the rank of trees as we go to the north; and the change
is quite gradual as our latitude decreases, the gradations being
herbaceous plants, shrubs, bushes, small, then large trees.
But it is questionable if, in the cases of mamosho, mobola, and mawa,
the tree and shrub are identical, though the fruits so closely
resemble each other; for I found both the dwarf and tree in the same latitude.
There is also a difference in the leaves, and they bear at different seasons.
The banks of the river were at this time appearing to greater advantage
than before. Many trees were putting on their fresh green leaves,
though they had got no rain, their lighter green contrasting beautifully
with the dark motsouri, or moyela, now covered with pink plums
as large as cherries. The rapids, having comparatively little water in them,
rendered our passage difficult. The canoes must never be allowed
to come broadside on to the stream, for, being flat-bottomed, they would,
in that case, be at once capsized, and every thing in them be lost.
The men work admirably, and are always in good humor; they leap into the water
without the least hesitation, to save the canoe from being caught by eddies
or dashed against the rocks. Many parts were now quite shallow,
and it required great address and power in balancing themselves
to keep the vessel free from rocks, which lay just beneath the surface.
We might have got deeper water in the middle, but the boatmen always keep
near the banks, on account of danger from the hippopotami.
But, though we might have had deeper water farther out,
I believe that no part of the rapids is very deep. The river is spread out
more than a mile, and the water flows rapidly over the rocky bottom.
The portions only three hundred yards wide are very deep,
and contain large volumes of flowing water in narrow compass, which,
when spread over the much larger surface at the rapids, must be shallow.
Still, remembering that this was the end of the dry season, when such rivers
as the Orange do not even contain a fifth part of the water of the Chobe,
the difference between the rivers of the north and south
must be sufficiently obvious.
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