No Wonder The Barotse Always Look Back
To This Fruitful Valley As The Israelites Did To The Flesh-Pots Of
Egypt.
The poorest persons are so well supplied with food from their gardens,
fruits from the forest trees, and fish
From the river, that their children,
when taken into the service of the Makololo, where they have only
one large meal a day, become quite emaciated, and pine for a return
to their parents.
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* `Anser leucagaster' and `melanogaster'.
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Part of our company marched along the banks with the oxen, and part went
in the canoes, but our pace was regulated by the speed of the men on shore.
Their course was rather difficult, on account of the numbers of
departing and re-entering branches of the Leeambye, which they had
to avoid or wait at till we ferried them over. The number of alligators
is prodigious, and in this river they are more savage than in some others.
Many children are carried off annually at Sesheke and other towns;
for, notwithstanding the danger, when they go down for water
they almost always must play a while. This reptile is said by the natives
to strike the victim with its tail, then drag him in and drown him.
When lying in the water watching for prey, the body never appears.
Many calves are lost also, and it is seldom that a number of cows
can swim over at Sesheke without some loss. I never could avoid shuddering
on seeing my men swimming across these branches, after one of them
had been caught by the thigh and taken below. He, however,
retained, as nearly all of them in the most trying circumstances do,
his full presence of mind, and, having a small, square, ragged-edged javelin
with him, when dragged to the bottom gave the alligator a stab
behind the shoulder. The alligator, writhing in pain, left him,
and he came out with the deep marks of the reptile's teeth on his thigh.
Here the people have no antipathy to persons who have met
with such an adventure, but, in the Bamangwato and Bakwain tribes,
if a man is either bitten or even has had water splashed over him
by the reptile's tail, he is expelled his tribe. When on the Zouga
we saw one of the Bamangwato living among the Bayeiye, who had the misfortune
to have been bitten and driven out of his tribe in consequence.
Fearing that I would regard him with the same disgust which his countrymen
profess to feel, he would not tell me the cause of his exile,
but the Bayeiye informed me of it, and the scars of the teeth were visible
on his thigh. If the Bakwains happened to go near an alligator
they would spit on the ground, and indicate its presence
by saying "Boleo ki bo" - "There is sin". They imagine the mere sight of it
would give inflammation of the eyes; and though they eat the zebra
without hesitation, yet if one bites a man he is expelled the tribe,
and obliged to take his wife and family away to the Kalahari.
These curious relics of the animal-worship of former times
scarcely exist among the Makololo. Sebituane acted on the principle,
"Whatever is food for men is food for me;" so no man is here
considered unclean. The Barotse appear inclined to pray to alligators
and eat them too, for when I wounded a water-antelope, called mochose,
it took to the water; when near the other side of the river
an alligator appeared at its tail, and then both sank together.
Mashauana, who was nearer to it than I, told me that,
"though he had called to it to let his meat alone, it refused to listen."
One day we passed some Barotse lads who had speared an alligator,
and were waiting in expectation of its floating soon after.
The meat has a strong musky odor, not at all inviting for any one
except the very hungry.
When we had gone thirty or forty miles above Libonta we sent
eleven of our captives to the west, to the chief called Makoma,
with an explanatory message. This caused some delay; but as we were loaded
with presents of food from the Makololo, and the wild animals
were in enormous herds, we fared sumptuously. It was grievous, however,
to shoot the lovely creatures, they were so tame. With but little skill
in stalking, one could easily get within fifty or sixty yards of them.
There I lay, looking at the graceful forms and motions of beautiful pokus,*
leches, and other antelopes, often till my men, wondering what was the matter,
came up to see, and frightened them away. If we had been starving,
I could have slaughtered them with as little hesitation as I should cut off
a patient's leg; but I felt a doubt, and the antelopes got the benefit of it.
Have they a guardian spirit over them? I have repeatedly observed,
when I approached a herd lying beyond an ant-hill with a tree on it,
and viewed them with the greatest caution, they very soon showed
symptoms of uneasiness. They did not sniff danger in the wind,
for I was to leeward of them; but the almost invariable apprehension of danger
which arose, while unconscious of the direction in which it lay,
made me wonder whether each had what the ancient physicians thought
we all possessed, an archon, or presiding spirit.
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* I propose to name this new species `Antilope Vardonii',
after the African traveler, Major Vardon.
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If we could ascertain the most fatal spot in an animal, we could dispatch it
with the least possible amount of suffering; but as that is probably
the part to which the greatest amount of nervous influence is directed
at the moment of receiving the shot, if we can not be sure
of the heart or brain, we are never certain of speedy death.
Antelopes, formed for a partially amphibious existence,
and other animals of that class, are much more tenacious of life
than those which are purely terrestrial.
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