And the Bushmen of the Kalahari.
It consists of equal parts of the roots of the Calumba, Musheteko, Abutua,
Batatinya, Paregekanto, Itaka, or Kapande, put into a bottle and covered
with common castor-oil. As I have before observed, I believe
the oily ingredient is the effectual one, and ought to be tried by any one
who has the misfortune to get wounded by a Bushman's or Banyai arrow.
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The only other metal, besides gold, we have in abundance in this region,
is iron, and that is of excellent quality. In some places it is obtained
from what is called the specular iron ore, and also from black oxide.
The latter has been well roasted in the operations of nature,
and contains a large proportion of the metal. It occurs generally
in tears or rounded lumps, and is but slightly magnetic.
When found in the beds of rivers, the natives know of its existence
by the quantity of oxide on the surface, and they find no difficulty
in digging it with pointed sticks. They consider English iron as "rotten";
and I have seen, when a javelin of their own iron lighted on
the cranium of a hippopotamus, it curled up like the proboscis of a butterfly,
and the owner would prepare it for future use by straightening it COLD
with two stones. I brought home some of the hoes which Sekeletu gave me
to purchase a canoe, also some others obtained in Kilimane,
and they have been found of such good quality that a friend of mine
in Birmingham has made an Enfield rifle of them.*
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* The following remarks are by a practical blacksmith,
one of the most experienced men in the gun-trade. In this trade
various qualities of iron are used, and close attention is required
to secure for each purpose the quality of iron peculiarly adapted to it:
The iron in the two spades strongly resembles Swedish or Russian;
it is highly carbonized.
The same qualities are found in both spades.
When chilled in water it has all the properties of steel:
see the piece marked I, chilled at one end, and left soft at the other.
When worked hot, it is very malleable: but cold, it breaks
quite short and brittle.
The great irregularity found in the working of the iron affords evidence
that it has been prepared by inexperienced hands.
This is shown in the bending of the small spade; the thick portion
retains its crystallized nature, while the thin part has been changed
by the hammering it has undergone.
The large spade shows a very brittle fracture.
The iron is too brittle for gun-work; it would be liable to break.
This iron, if REPEATEDLY heated and hammered, would become decarbonized,
and would then possess the qualities found in the spear-head,
which, after being curled up by being struck against a hard substance,
was restored, by hammering, to its original form without injury.
The piece of iron marked II is a piece of gun-iron of fibrous quality,
such as will bend without breaking.
The piece marked III is of crystalline quality; it has been submitted
to a process which has changed it to IIII; III and IIII are cut
from the same bar. The spade-iron has been submitted to the same process,
but no corresponding effect can be produced.
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The iron ore exists in great abundance, but I did not find any limestone
in its immediate vicinity. So far as I could learn, there is neither
copper nor silver. Malachite is worked by the people of Cazembe,
but, as I did not see it, nor any other metal, I can say nothing about it.
A few precious stones are met with, and some parts are quite covered
with agates. The mineralogy of the district, however, has not been explored
by any one competent to the task.
When my friend the commandant was fairly recovered, and I myself
felt strong again, I prepared to descend the Zambesi. A number of my men
were out elephant-hunting, and others had established a brisk trade
in firewood, as their countrymen did at Loanda. I chose sixteen of those
who could manage canoes to convey me down the river. Many more
would have come, but we were informed that there had been
a failure of the crops at Kilimane from the rains not coming
at the proper time, and thousands had died of hunger.
I did not hear of a single effort having been made to relieve the famishing
by sending them food down the river. Those who perished were mostly slaves,
and others seemed to think that their masters ought to pay for their relief.
The sufferers were chiefly among those natives who inhabit the delta,
and who are subject to the Portuguese. They are in a state of slavery,
but are kept on farms and mildly treated. Many yield
a certain rental of grain only to their owners, and are otherwise free.
Eight thousand are said to have perished. Major Sicard lent me a boat
which had been built on the river, and sent also Lieutenant Miranda
to conduct me to the coast.
A Portuguese lady who had come with her brother from Lisbon,
having been suffering for some days from a severe attack of fever,
died about three o'clock in the morning of the 20th of April.
The heat of the body having continued unabated till six o'clock,
I was called in, and found her bosom quite as warm as I ever did
in a living case of fever. This continued for three hours more.
As I had never seen a case in which fever-heat continued so long after death,
I delayed the funeral until unmistakable symptoms of dissolution occurred.
She was a widow, only twenty-two years of age, and had been ten years
in Africa.
