They Are Expert Hunters
Of The Hippopotami And Other Animals, And Very Proficient In The Manufacture
Of Articles Of Wood And Iron.
The whole of this part of the country
being infested with the tsetse, they are unable to rear domestic animals.
This may have led to their skill in handicraft works.
Some make
large wooden vessels with very neat lids, and wooden bowls of all sizes;
and since the idea of sitting on stools has entered the Makololo mind,
they have shown great taste in the different forms given
to the legs of these pieces of furniture.
Other Banyeti, or Manyeti, as they are called, make neat and strong baskets
of the split roots of a certain tree, while others excel in pottery and iron.
I can not find that they have ever been warlike. Indeed, the wars
in the centre of the country, where no slave-trade existed,
have seldom been about any thing else but cattle. So well known is this,
that several tribes refuse to keep cattle because they tempt their enemies
to come and steal. Nevertheless, they have no objection to eat them
when offered, and their country admits of being well stocked.
I have heard of but one war having occurred from another cause.
Three brothers, Barolongs, fought for the possession of a woman
who was considered worth a battle, and the tribe has remained
permanently divided ever since.
From the bend up to the north, called Katima-molelo (I quenched fire),
the bed of the river is rocky, and the stream runs fast,
forming a succession of rapids and cataracts, which prevent
continuous navigation when the water is low. The rapids are not visible
when the river is full, but the cataracts of Nambwe, Bombwe, and Kale must
always be dangerous. The fall at each of these is between four and six feet.
But the falls of Gonye present a much more serious obstacle.
There we were obliged to take the canoes out of the water,
and carry them more than a mile by land. The fall is about thirty feet.
The main body of water, which comes over the ledge of rock
when the river is low, is collected into a space seventy or eighty yards wide
before it takes the leap, and, a mass of rock being thrust forward
against the roaring torrent, a loud sound is produced. Tradition reports
the destruction in this place of two hippopotamus-hunters, who,
over-eager in the pursuit of a wounded animal, were, with their intended prey,
drawn down into the frightful gulf. There is also a tradition of a man,
evidently of a superior mind, who left his own countrymen, the Barotse,
and came down the river, took advantage of the falls, and led out
a portion of the water there for irrigation. Such minds must have arisen
from time to time in these regions, as well as in our own country,
but, ignorant of the use of letters, they have left no memorial behind them.
We dug out some of an inferior kind of potato (`Sisinyane') from his garden,
for when once planted it never dies out.
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