Having Met With An Accident To One Of My Eyes By A Blow From A Branch
In Passing Through A Forest, I Remained Some Days Here,
Endeavoring, Though With Much Pain, To Draw A Sketch Of The Country Thus Far,
To Be Sent Back To Mr. Gabriel At Loanda.
I was always anxious
to transmit an account of my discoveries on every possible occasion,
lest, any thing happening in the country to which I was going,
they should be entirely lost.
I also fondly expected
a packet of letters and papers which my good angel at Loanda
would be sure to send if they came to hand, but I afterward found that,
though he had offered a large sum to any one who would return
with an assurance of having delivered the last packet he sent,
no one followed me with it to Cabango. The unwearied attentions
of this good Englishman, from his first welcome to me when,
a weary, dejected, and worn-down stranger, I arrived at his residence,
and his whole subsequent conduct, will be held in lively remembrance by me
to my dying day.
Several of the native traders here having visited the country of Luba,
lying far to the north of this, and there being some visitors also
from the town of Mai, which is situated far down the Kasai, I picked up
some information respecting those distant parts. In going to the town of Mai
the traders crossed only two large rivers, the Loajima and Chihombo.
The Kasai flows a little to the east of the town of Mai,
and near it there is a large waterfall. They describe the Kasai
as being there of very great size, and that it thence bends round to the west.
On asking an old man, who was about to return to his chief Mai,
to imagine himself standing at his home, and point to the confluence
of the Quango and Kasai, he immediately turned, and, pointing to the westward,
said, "When we travel five days (thirty-five or forty miles)
in that direction, we come to it." He stated also that the Kasai received
another river, named the Lubilash. There is but one opinion among the Balonda
respecting the Kasai and Quango. They invariably describe the Kasai
as receiving the Quango, and, beyond the confluence, assuming the name
of Zaire or Zerezere. And the Kasai, even previous to the junction,
is much larger than the Quango, from the numerous branches it receives.
Besides those we have already crossed, there is the Chihombo at Cabango;
and forty-two miles beyond this, eastward, runs the Kasai itself;
fourteen miles beyond that, the Kaunguesi; then, forty-two miles farther east,
flows the Lolua; besides numbers of little streams, all of which contribute
to swell the Kasai.
About thirty-four miles east of the Lolua, or a hundred and thirty-two miles
E.N.E. of Cabango, stands the town of Matiamvo, the paramount chief of all
the Balonda. The town of Mai is pointed out as to the N.N.W. of Cabango,
and thirty-two days or two hundred and twenty-four miles distant,
or about lat. S. 5d 45'. The chief town of Luba, another independent chief,
is eight days farther in the same direction, or lat. S. 4d 50'. Judging from
the appearance of the people who had come for the purposes of trade from Mai,
those in the north are in quite as uncivilized a condition as the Balonda.
They are clad in a kind of cloth made of the inner bark of a tree.
Neither guns nor native traders are admitted into the country,
the chief of Luba entertaining a dread of innovation. If a native trader
goes thither, he must dress like the common people in Angola,
in a loose robe resembling a kilt. The chief trades in shells and beads only.
His people kill the elephants by means of spears, poisoned arrows, and traps.
All assert that elephants' tusks from that country are heavier
and of greater length than any others.
It is evident, from all the information I could collect
both here and elsewhere, that the drainage of Londa falls to the north
and then runs westward. The countries of Luba and Mai are evidently
lower than this, and yet this is of no great altitude -
probably not much more than 3500 feet above the level of the sea.
Having here received pretty certain information on a point
in which I felt much interest, namely, that the Kasai is not navigable
from the coast, owing to the large waterfall near the town of Mai,
and that no great kingdom exists in the region beyond,
between this and the equator, I would fain have visited Matiamvo.
This seemed a very desirable step, as it is good policy as well as right
to acknowledge the sovereign of a country; and I was assured,
both by Balonda and native traders, that a considerable branch of the Zambesi
rises in the country east of his town, and flows away to the south.
The whole of this branch, extending down even to where it turns westward
to Masiko, is probably placed too far eastward on the map.
It was put down when I believed Matiamvo and Cazembe to be farther east
than I have since seen reason to believe them. All, being derived
from native testimony, is offered to the reader with diffidence,
as needing verification by actual explorers. The people of that part,
named Kanyika and Kanyoka, living on its banks, are represented
as both numerous and friendly, but Matiamvo will on no account permit
any white person to visit them, as his principal supplies of ivory are drawn
from them. Thinking that we might descend this branch of the Zambesi
to Masiko, and thence to the Barotse, I felt a strong inclination to make
the attempt. The goods, however, we had brought with us to pay our way,
had, by the long detention from fever and weakness in both myself and men,
dwindled to a mere fragment; and, being but slightly acquainted with
the Balonda dialect, I felt that I could neither use persuasion nor presents
to effect my object.
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