While At Chihune, The Men Of A Village
Brought Wax For Sale, And, On Finding That We Wished Honey,
Went Off And Soon Brought A Hive.
All the bees in the country
are in possession of the natives, for they place hives
sufficient for them all.
After having ascertained this,
we never attended the call of the honey-guide, for we were sure
it would only lead us to a hive which we had no right to touch.
The bird continues its habit of inviting attention to the honey,
though its services in this district are never actually needed.
My Makololo lamented that they never knew before that wax could be sold
for any thing of value.
As we traverse a succession of open lawns and deep forests,
it is interesting to observe something like instinct developed even in trees.
One which, when cut, emits a milky juice, if met with on the open lawns,
grows as an ordinary umbrageous tree, and shows no disposition
to be a climber; when planted in a forest it still takes the same form,
then sends out a climbing branch, which twines round another tree
until it rises thirty or forty feet, or to the level of the other trees,
and there spreads out a second crown where it can enjoy
a fair share of the sun's rays. In parts of the forest
still more dense than this, it assumes the form of a climber only,
and at once avails itself of the assistance of a tall neighbor
by winding vigorously round it, without attempting to form a lower head.
It does not succeed so well as parasites proper, but where forced
to contend for space it may be mistaken for one which is invariably a climber.
The paths here were very narrow and very much encumbered
with gigantic creepers, often as thick as a man's leg. There must be
some reason why they prefer, in some districts, to go up trees
in the common form of the thread of a screw rather than in any other.
On the one bank of the Chihune they appeared to a person
standing opposite them to wind up from left to right, on the other bank
from right to left. I imagined this was owing to the sun being
at one season of the year on their north and at another on their south.
But on the Leeambye I observed creepers winding up on opposite sides
of the same reed, and making a figure like the lacings of a sandal.
In passing through these narrow paths I had an opportunity of observing
the peculiarities of my ox "Sinbad". He had a softer back than the others,
but a much more intractable temper. His horns were bent downward
and hung loosely, so he could do no harm with them; but as we wended our way
slowly along the narrow path, he would suddenly dart aside.
A string tied to a stick put through the cartilage of the nose serves
instead of a bridle: if you jerk this back, it makes him run faster on;
if you pull it to one side, he allows the nose and head to go,
but keeps the opposite eye directed to the forbidden spot,
and goes in spite of you. The only way he can be brought to a stand
is by a stroke with a wand across the nose. When Sinbad ran in below
a climber stretched over the path so low that I could not stoop under it,
I was dragged off and came down on the crown of my head; and he never allowed
an opportunity of the kind to pass without trying to inflict a kick,
as if I neither had nor deserved his love.
A remarkable peculiarity in the forests of this country
is the absence of thorns: there are but two exceptions;
one a tree bearing a species of `nux vomica', and a small shrub very like
the plant of the sarsaparilla, bearing, in addition to its hooked thorns,
bunches of yellow berries. The thornlessness of the vegetation
is especially noticeable to those who have been in the south,
where there is so great a variety of thorn-bearing plants and trees.
We have thorns of every size and shape; thorns straight, thin and long,
short and thick, or hooked, and so strong as to be able to cut even leather
like a knife. Seed-vessels are scattered every where by these appendages.
One lies flat as a shilling with two thorns in its centre,
ready to run into the foot of any animal that treads upon it, and stick there
for days together. Another (the `Uncaria procumbens', or Grapple-plant)
has so many hooked thorns as to cling most tenaciously to any animal to which
it may become attached; when it happens to lay hold of the mouth of an ox,
the animal stands and roars with pain and a sense of helplessness.
Whenever a part of the forest has been cleared for a garden,
and afterward abandoned, a species of plant, with leaves like those of ginger,
springs up, and contends for the possession of the soil
with a great crop of ferns. This is the case all the way down to Angola,
and shows the great difference of climate between this
and the Bechuana country, where a fern, except one or two hardy species,
is never seen. The plants above mentioned bear a pretty pink flower
close to the ground, which is succeeded by a scarlet fruit full of seeds,
yielding, as so many fruits in this country do, a pleasant acid juice,
which, like the rest, is probably intended as a corrective
to the fluids of the system in the hot climate.
On leaving the Chihune we crossed the Longe, and, as the day was cloudy,
our guides wandered in a forest away to the west till we came
to the River Chihombo, flowing to the E.N.E. My men depended so much
on the sun for guidance that, having seen nothing of the luminary all day,
they thought we had wandered back to the Chiboque, and, as often happens
when bewildered, they disputed as to the point where the sun should rise
next morning.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 145 of 295
Words from 149480 to 150522
of 306638
