24TH. We Expected To Have Started To-Day, But Sambanza, Who Had Been
Sent Off Early In The Morning For Guides, Returned At Midday Without Them,
And Drunk.
This was the first case of real babbling intoxication
we had seen in this region.
The boyaloa, or beer of the country,
has more of a stupefying than exciting nature; hence the beer-bibbers
are great sleepers; they may frequently be seen lying on their faces
sound asleep. This peculiarity of posture was ascribed,
by no less an authority than Aristotle, to wine, while those
who were sent asleep by beer were believed "to lie upon their backs."
Sambanza had got into a state of inebriation from indulging in mead,
similar to that which Shinte presented to us, which is much more powerful
than boyaloa. As far as we could collect from his incoherent sentences,
Shinte had said the rain was too heavy for our departure,
and the guides still required time for preparation. Shinte himself was busy
getting some meal ready for my use in the journey. As it rained
nearly all day, it was no sacrifice to submit to his advice and remain.
Sambanza staggered to Manenko's hut; she, however, who had never promised
"to love, honor, and obey him," had not been "nursing her wrath
to keep it warm," so she coolly bundled him into the hut, and put him to bed.
As the last proof of friendship, Shinte came into my tent,
though it could scarcely contain more than one person,
looked at all the curiosities, the quicksilver, the looking-glass,
books, hair-brushes, comb, watch, etc., etc., with the greatest interest;
then closing the tent, so that none of his own people might see
the extravagance of which he was about to be guilty, he drew out
from his clothing a string of beads, and the end of a conical shell,
which is considered, in regions far from the sea, of as great value
as the Lord Mayor's badge is in London. He hung it round my neck, and said,
"There, now you HAVE a proof of my friendship."
My men informed me that these shells are so highly valued in this quarter,
as evidences of distinction, that for two of them a slave might be bought,
and five would be considered a handsome price for an elephant's tusk
worth ten pounds. At our last interview old Shinte pointed out
our principal guide, Intemese, a man about fifty, who was,
he said, ordered to remain by us till we should reach the sea;
that I had now left Sekeletu far behind, and must henceforth look
to Shinte alone for aid, and that it would always be most cheerfully rendered.
This was only a polite way of expressing his wishes for my success.
It was the good words only of the guides which were to aid me
from the next chief, Katema, on to the sea; they were to turn back
on reaching him; but he gave a good supply of food for the journey before us,
and, after mentioning as a reason for letting us go even now
that no one could say we had been driven away from the town,
since we had been several days with him, he gave a most hearty salutation,
and we parted with the wish that God might bless him.
Chapter 17.
Leave Shinte - Manioc Gardens - Mode of preparing the poisonous kind -
Its general Use - Presents of Food - Punctiliousness of the Balonda -
Their Idols and Superstition - Dress of the Balonda -
Villages beyond Lonaje - Cazembe - Our Guides and the Makololo -
Night Rains - Inquiries for English cotton Goods - Intemese's Fiction -
Visit from an old Man - Theft - Industry of our Guide -
Loss of Pontoon - Plains covered with Water - Affection of the Balonda
for their Mothers - A Night on an Island - The Grass on the Plains -
Source of the Rivers - Loan of the Roofs of Huts - A Halt -
Fertility of the Country through which the Lokalueje flows -
Omnivorous Fish - Natives' Mode of catching them -
The Village of a Half-brother of Katema, his Speech and Present -
Our Guide's Perversity - Mozenkwa's pleasant Home and Family -
Clear Water of the flooded Rivers - A Messenger from Katema -
Quendende's Village: his Kindness - Crop of Wool -
Meet People from the Town of Matiamvo - Fireside Talk -
Matiamvo's Character and Conduct - Presentation at Katema's Court:
his Present, good Sense, and Appearance - Interview on the following Day -
Cattle - A Feast and a Makololo Dance - Arrest of a Fugitive -
Dignified old Courtier - Katema's lax Government -
Cold Wind from the North - Canaries and other singing Birds -
Spiders, their Nests and Webs - Lake Dilolo - Tradition -
Sagacity of Ants.
26TH. Leaving Shinte, with eight of his men to aid in carrying our luggage,
we passed, in a northerly direction, down the lovely valley
on which the town stands, then went a little to the west
through pretty open forest, and slept at a village of Balonda.
In the morning we had a fine range of green hills, called Saloisho,
on our right, and were informed that they were rather thickly inhabited
by the people of Shinte, who worked in iron, the ore of which abounds
in these hills.
The country through which we passed possessed the same general character
of flatness and forest that we noticed before. The soil is dark,
with a tinge of red - in some places it might be called red - and appeared
very fertile. Every valley contained villages of twenty or thirty huts,
with gardens of manioc, which here is looked upon as the staff of life.
Very little labor is required for its cultivation. The earth is drawn up
into oblong beds, about three feet broad and one in height,
and in these are planted pieces of the manioc stalk, at four feet apart.
A crop of beans or ground-nuts is sown between them,
and when these are reaped the land around the manioc is cleared of weeds.
In from ten to eighteen months after planting, according to
the quality of the soil, the roots are fit for food.
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