This Was Marked
By A Huge Cone Of Sticks Placed In The Form Of The Roof Of A Hut,
With A Palisade Around It.
At an opening on the western side
an ugly idol was placed:
Several strings of beads and bits of cloth
were hung around. We learned that he had been a half-caste,
who had died on his way back from Matiamvo.
As we were now alone, and sure of being on the way to the abodes
of civilization, we went on briskly.
On the 30th we came to a sudden descent from the high land,
indented by deep, narrow valleys, over which we had lately been traveling.
It is generally so steep that it can only be descended at particular points,
and even there I was obliged to dismount, though so weak
that I had to be led by my companions to prevent my toppling over
in walking down. It was annoying to feel myself so helpless,
for I never liked to see a man, either sick or well, giving in effeminately.
Below us lay the valley of the Quango. If you sit on the spot
where Mary Queen of Scots viewed the battle of Langside,
and look down on the vale of Clyde, you may see in miniature
the glorious sight which a much greater and richer valley
presented to our view. It is about a hundred miles broad,
clothed with dark forest, except where the light green grass
covers meadow-lands on the Quango, which here and there glances out in the sun
as it wends its way to the north. The opposite side of this great valley
appears like a range of lofty mountains, and the descent into it
about a mile, which, measured perpendicularly, may be from a thousand
to twelve hundred feet. Emerging from the gloomy forests of Londa,
this magnificent prospect made us all feel as if a weight had been lifted
off our eyelids. A cloud was passing across the middle of the valley,
from which rolling thunder pealed, while above all was glorious sunlight;
and when we went down to the part where we saw it passing, we found
that a very heavy thunder-shower had fallen under the path of the cloud;
and the bottom of the valley, which from above seemed quite smooth,
we discovered to be intersected and furrowed by great numbers
of deep-cut streams. Looking back from below, the descent appears
as the edge of a table-land, with numerous indented dells and spurs
jutting out all along, giving it a serrated appearance.
Both the top and sides of the sierra are covered with trees,
but large patches of the more perpendicular parts are bare,
and exhibit the red soil, which is general over the region
we have now entered.
The hollow affords a section of this part of the country; and we find
that the uppermost stratum is the ferruginous conglomerate already mentioned.
The matrix is rust of iron (or hydrous peroxide of iron and hematite),
and in it are imbedded water-worn pebbles of sandstone and quartz.
As this is the rock underlying the soil of a large part of Londa,
its formation must have preceded the work of denudation by an arm of the sea,
which washed away the enormous mass of matter required
before the valley of Cassange could assume its present form.
The strata under the conglomerate are all of red clay shale
of different degrees of hardness, the most indurated being at the bottom.
This red clay shale is named "keele" in Scotland, and has always been
considered as an indication of gold; but the only thing we discovered
was that it had given rise to a very slippery clay soil, so different
from that which we had just left that Mashauana, who always prided himself
on being an adept at balancing himself in the canoe on water,
and so sure of foot on land that he could afford to express contempt
for any one less gifted, came down in a very sudden and undignified manner,
to the delight of all whom he had previously scolded for falling.
Here we met with the bamboo as thick as a man's arm, and many new trees.
Others, which we had lost sight of since leaving Shinte, now reappeared;
but nothing struck us more than the comparative scragginess of the trees
in this hollow. Those on the high lands we had left were tall and straight;
here they were stunted, and not by any means so closely planted together.
The only way I could account for this was by supposing,
as the trees were of different species, that the greater altitude
suited the nature of those above better than the lower altitude did
the other species below.
SUNDAY, APRIL 2D. We rested beside a small stream, and our hunger
being now very severe, from having lived on manioc alone
since leaving Ionza Panza's, we slaughtered one of our four remaining oxen.
The people of this district seem to feel the craving for animal food
as much as we did, for they spend much energy in digging large white larvae
out of the damp soil adjacent to their streams, and use them as a relish
to their vegetable diet. The Bashinje refused to sell any food
for the poor old ornaments my men had now to offer. We could get
neither meal nor manioc, but should have been comfortable
had not the Bashinje chief Sansawe pestered us for the customary present.
The native traders informed us that a display of force was often necessary
before they could pass this man.
Sansawe, the chief of a portion of the Bashinje, having sent
the usual formal demand for a man, an ox, or a tusk,
spoke very contemptuously of the poor things we offered him instead.
We told his messengers that the tusks were Sekeletu's: every thing was gone
except my instruments, which could be of no use to them whatever.
One of them begged some meat, and, when it was refused,
said to my men, "You may as well give it, for we shall take all
after we have killed you to-morrow." The more humbly we spoke,
the more insolent the Bashinje became, till at last we were all feeling
savage and sulky, but continued to speak as civilly as we could.
They are fond of argument, and when I denied their right to demand tribute
from a white man, who did not trade in slaves, an old white-headed negro
put rather a posing question:
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