I Wished That I Had Been Able
To Take A Photograph Of A Scene So Seldom Beheld, And Which Is Destined,
As Guns Increase, To Pass Away From Earth.
When we descended we found
all the animals remarkably tame.
The elephants stood beneath the trees,
fanning themselves with their large ears, as if they did not see us
at 200 or 300 yards distance. The number of animals was quite astonishing,
and made me think that here I could realize an image of that time
when Megatheria fed undisturbed in the primeval forests.
We saw great numbers of red-colored pigs (`Potamochoerus')
standing gazing at us in wonder. The people live on the hills,
and, having no guns, seldom disturb the game. They have never been visited,
even by half-castes; but Babisa traders have come occasionally.
Continuous rains kept us for some time on the banks of the Chiponga,
and here we were unfortunate enough to come among the tsetse.
Mr. J. N. Gray, of the British Museum, has kindly obliged me with
a drawing of the insect, with the ravages of which I have unfortunately been
too familiar. (For description, see p. 94-96 [Chapter 4 Paragraphs 16-20].)
No. 1 is the insect somewhat smaller than life, from the specimen having
contracted in drying; they are a little larger than the common house-fly.
No. 2 is the insect magnified; and No. 3 shows the magnified proboscis
and poison-bulb at the root.*
-
* Unfortunately, these illustrations can not be presented in this ASCII text.
Fortunately, information on the Tsetse is no longer difficult to find.
The "somewhat smaller than life" drawing is about 1 cm from head to tail,
not including wings or proboscis. - A. L., 1997.
-
We tried to leave one morning, but the rain coming on afresh
brought us to a stand, and after waiting an hour, wet to the skin,
we were fain to retrace our steps to our sheds. These rains
were from the east, and the clouds might be seen on the hills exactly as
the "Table-cloth" on Table Mountain. This was the first wetting we had got
since we left Sesheke, for I had gained some experience in traveling.
In Londa we braved the rain, and, as I despised being carried in our
frequent passage through running water, I was pretty constantly drenched;
but now, when we saw a storm coming, we invariably halted.
The men soon pulled grass sufficient to make a little shelter for themselves
by placing it on a bush, and, having got my camp-stool and umbrella,
with a little grass under my feet, I kept myself perfectly dry.
We also lighted large fires, and the men were not chilled
by streams of water running down their persons, and abstracting the heat,
as they would have been had they been exposed to the rain.
When it was over they warmed themselves by the fires,
and we traveled on comfortably. The effect of this care was,
that we had much less sickness than with a smaller party
in journeying to Loanda. Another improvement made from my experience
was avoiding an entire change of diet. In going to Loanda
I took little or no European food, in order not to burden my men
and make them lose spirit, but trusted entirely to what might be got
by the gun and the liberality of the Balonda; but on this journey I took
some flour which had been left in the wagon, with some got on the island,
and baked my own bread all the way in an extemporaneous oven
made by an inverted pot. With these precautions, aided, no doubt,
by the greater healthiness of the district over which we passed,
I enjoyed perfect health.
When we left the Chipongo on the 30th we passed among the range of hills
on our left, which are composed of mica and clay slate.
At the bottom we found a forest of large silicified trees,
all lying as if the elevation of the range had made them fall away from it,
and toward the river. An ordinary-sized tree standing on end,
measured 22 inches in diameter: there were 12 laminae to the inch.
These are easily counted, because there is usually a scale of pure silica
between each, which has not been so much affected by the weather
as the rest of the ring itself: the edges of the rings
thus stand out plainly. Mr. Quekett, having kindly examined some specimens,
finds that it is "silicified CONIFEROUS WOOD of the ARAUCARIAN type;
and the nearest allied wood that he knows of is that found,
also in a fossil state, in New South Wales." The numbers of large game
were quite astonishing. I never saw elephants so tame as those near
the Chiponga: they stood close to our path without being the least afraid.
This is different from their conduct where they have been accustomed to guns,
for there they take alarm at the distance of a mile, and begin to run
if a shot is fired even at a longer distance. My men killed another here,
and rewarded the villagers of the Chiponga for their liberality in meal
by loading them with flesh. We spent a night at a baobab, which was hollow,
and would hold twenty men inside. It had been used as a lodging-house
by the Babisa.
As we approached nearer the Zambesi, the country became covered
with broad-leaved bushes, pretty thickly planted, and we had several times
to shout to elephants to get out of our way. At an open space,
a herd of buffaloes came trotting up to look at our oxen,
and it was only by shooting one that I made them retreat.
The meat is very much like that of an ox, and this one was very fine.
The only danger we actually encountered was from a female elephant,
with three young ones of different sizes. Charging through
the centre of our extended line, and causing the men to throw down
their burdens in a great hurry, she received a spear for her temerity.
I never saw an elephant with more than one calf before.
We knew that we were near our Zambesi again, even before the great river
burst upon our sight, by the numbers of water-fowl we met.
I killed four geese with two shots, and, had I followed the wishes of my men,
could have secured a meal of water-fowl for the whole party.
I never saw a river with so much animal life around and in it,
and, as the Barotse say, "Its fish and fowl are always fat."
When our eyes were gladdened by a view of its goodly broad waters,
we found it very much larger than it is even above the falls.
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