I Found My Clothes Cumbersome In The Water;
They Could Swim Quicker From Being Naked.
They swim like dogs,
not frog-fashion, as we do.
In the evening we crossed the small rivulet Lozeze,
and came to some villages of the Kasabi, from whom we got some manioc
in exchange for beads. They tried to frighten us by telling of
the deep rivers we should have to cross in our way. I was drying my clothes
by turning myself round and round before the fire. My men laughed
at the idea of being frightened by rivers. "We can all swim:
who carried the white man across the river but himself?"
I felt proud of their praise.
SATURDAY, 4TH MARCH. Came to the outskirts of the territory
of the Chiboque. We crossed the Konde and Kaluze rivulets.
The former is a deep, small stream with a bridge, the latter insignificant;
the valleys in which these rivulets run are beautifully fertile.
My companions are continually lamenting over the uncultivated vales
in such words as these: "What a fine country for cattle!
My heart is sore to see such fruitful valleys for corn lying waste."
At the time these words were put down I had come to the belief
that the reason why the inhabitants of this fine country
possess no herds of cattle was owing to the despotic sway of their chiefs,
and that the common people would not be allowed to keep any domestic animals,
even supposing they could acquire them; but on musing on the subject since,
I have been led to the conjecture that the rich, fertile country of Londa
must formerly have been infested by the tsetse, but that, as the people
killed off the game on which, in the absence of man, the tsetse must subsist,
the insect was starved out of the country. It is now found
only where wild animals abound, and the Balonda, by the possession of guns,
having cleared most of the country of all the large game,
we may have happened to come just when it was possible to admit of cattle.
Hence the success of Katema, Shinte, and Matiamvo with their herds.
It would not be surprising, though they know nothing of the circumstance;
a tribe on the Zambesi, which I encountered, whose country
was swarming with tsetse, believed that they could not keep any cattle,
because "no one loved them well enough to give them the medicine of oxen;"
and even the Portuguese at Loanda accounted for the death of the cattle
brought from the interior to the sea-coast by the prejudicial influence
of the sea air! One ox, which I took down to the sea from the interior,
died at Loanda, with all the symptoms of the poison injected by tsetse,
which I saw myself in a district a hundred miles from the coast.
While at the villages of the Kasabi we saw no evidences of want of food
among the people. Our beads were very valuable, but cotton cloth
would have been still more so; as we traveled along, men, women, and children
came running after us, with meal and fowls for sale, which we would gladly
have purchased had we possessed any English manufactures. When they heard
that we had no cloth, they turned back much disappointed.
The amount of population in the central parts of the country
may be called large only as compared with the Cape Colony
or the Bechuana country. The cultivated land is as nothing compared with
what might be brought under the plow. There are flowing streams in abundance,
which, were it necessary, could be turned to the purpose of irrigation
with but little labor. Miles of fruitful country are now lying
absolutely waste, for there is not even game to eat off the fine pasturage,
and to recline under the evergreen, shady groves which we are ever passing
in our progress. The people who inhabit the central region
are not all quite black in color. Many incline to that of bronze,
and others are as light in hue as the Bushmen, who, it may be remembered,
afford a proof that heat alone does not cause blackness,
but that heat and moisture combined do very materially deepen the color.
Wherever we find people who have continued for ages in a hot, humid district,
they are deep black, but to this apparent law there are exceptions,
caused by the migrations of both tribes and individuals;
the Makololo, for instance, among the tribes of the humid central basin,
appear of a sickly sallow hue when compared with the aboriginal inhabitants;
the Batoka also, who lived in an elevated region, are, when seen
in company with the Batoka of the rivers, so much lighter in color,
they might be taken for another tribe; but their language,
and the very marked custom of knocking out the upper front teeth,
leave no room for doubt that they are one people.
Apart from the influences of elevation, heat, humidity, and degradation,
I have imagined that the lighter and darker colors observed
in the native population run in five longitudinal bands
along the southern portion of the continent. Those on the seaboard
of both the east and west are very dark; then two bands of lighter color
lie about three hundred miles from each coast, of which the westerly one,
bending round, embraces the Kalahari Desert and Bechuana countries;
and then the central basin is very dark again. This opinion is not given
with any degree of positiveness. It is stated just as it struck my mind
in passing across the country, and if incorrect, it is singular that
the dialects spoken by the different tribes have arranged themselves
in a fashion which seems to indicate migration along the lines of color.
The dialects spoken in the extreme south, whether Hottentot or Caffre,
bear a close affinity to those of the tribes living immediately on
their northern borders; one glides into the other, and their affinities
are so easily detected that they are at once recognized
to be cognate.
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