This, And The Want Of Literature, Have Prevented
The Establishment Of Any Great Empire In The Interior Of Africa.
Pingola Effected His Conquests By Carrying Numbers Of Smith's Bellows
With Him.
The arrow-heads were heated before shooting into a town,
and when a wound was inflicted on either man
Or beast, great confusion ensued.
After Pingola came Sebituane, and after him the Matebele of Mosilikatse;
and these successive inroads have reduced the Batoka to a state in which
they naturally rejoice at the prospect of deliverance and peace.
We spent Sunday, the 10th, at Monze's village, who is considered
the chief of all the Batoka we have seen. He lives near the hill Kisekise,
whence we have a view of at least thirty miles of open undulating country,
covered with short grass, and having but few trees. These open lawns
would in any other land, as well as this, be termed pastoral,
but the people have now no cattle, and only a few goats and fowls.
They are located all over the country in small villages,
and cultivate large gardens. They are said to have adopted this wide-spread
mode of habitation in order to give alarm should any enemy appear.
In former times they lived in large towns. In the distance (southeast)
we see ranges of dark mountains along the banks of the Zambesi,
and are told of the existence there of the rapid named Kansala,
which is said to impede the navigation. The river is reported
to be placid above that as far as the territory of Sinamane, a Batoka chief,
who is said to command it after it emerges smooth again below the falls.
Kansala is the only rapid reported in the river until we come to Kebrabasa,
twenty or thirty miles above Tete. On the north we have mountains appearing
above the horizon, which are said to be on the banks of the Kafue.
The chief Monze came to us on Sunday morning, wrapped in a large cloth,
and rolled himself about in the dust, screaming "Kina bomba," as they all do.
The sight of great naked men wallowing on the ground, though intended
to do me honor, was always very painful; it made me feel thankful
that my lot had been cast in such different circumstances
from that of so many of my fellow-men. One of his wives accompanied him;
she would have been comely if her teeth had been spared;
she had a little battle-axe in her hand, and helped her husband to scream.
She was much excited, for she had never seen a white man before.
We rather liked Monze, for he soon felt at home among us,
and kept up conversation during much of the day. One head man of a village
after another arrived, and each of them supplied us liberally
with maize, ground-nuts, and corn. Monze gave us a goat and a fowl,
and appeared highly satisfied with a present of some handkerchiefs
I had got in my supplies left at the island. Being of printed cotton,
they excited great admiration; and when I put a gaudy-colored one
as a shawl about his child, he said that he would send for all his people
to make a dance about it. In telling them that my object
was to open up a path whereby they might, by getting merchandise for ivory,
avoid the guilt of selling their children, I asked Monze,
with about 150 of his men, if they would like a white man
to live among them and teach them. All expressed high satisfaction
at the prospect of the white man and his path: they would protect
both him and his property. I asked the question, because it would be
of great importance to have stations in this healthy region, whither agents
oppressed by sickness might retire, and which would serve, moreover,
as part of a chain of communication between the interior and the coast.
The answer does not mean much more than what I know, by other means,
to be the case - that a white man OF GOOD SENSE would be welcome and safe
in all these parts. By uprightness, and laying himself out
for the good of the people, he would be known all over the country
as a BENEFACTOR of the race. None desire Christian instruction,
for of it they have no idea. But the people are now humbled
by the scourgings they have received, and seem to be in a favorable state
for the reception of the Gospel. The gradual restoration of their former
prosperity in cattle, simultaneously with instruction,
would operate beneficially upon their minds. The language is
a dialect of the other negro languages in the great valley;
and as many of the Batoka living under the Makololo understand
both it and the Sichuana, missionaries could soon acquire it
through that medium.
Monze had never been visited by any white man, but had seen
black native traders, who, he said, came for ivory, not for slaves.
He had heard of white men passing far to the east of him to Cazembe,
referring, no doubt, to Pereira, Lacerda, and others,
who have visited that chief.
The streams in this part are not perennial; I did not observe one
suitable for the purpose of irrigation. There is but little wood;
here and there you see large single trees, or small clumps of evergreens,
but the abundance of maize and ground-nuts we met with shows
that more rain falls than in the Bechuana country, for there
they never attempt to raise maize except in damp hollows
on the banks of rivers. The pasturage is very fine for both cattle and sheep.
My own men, who know the land thoroughly, declare that
it is all garden-ground together, and that the more tender grains,
which require richer soil than the native corn, need no care here.
It is seldom stony.
The men of a village came to our encampment, and, as they followed
the Bashukulompo mode of dressing their hair, we had an opportunity
of examining it for the first time.
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