The Reason Why The People Have Imbibed The Idea So Strongly
That They Have A Right To Demand Payment For Leave To Pass Through The Country
Is Probably This.
They have seen no traders except those
either engaged in purchasing slaves, or who have slaves in their employment.
These slave-traders have always been very much at the mercy of the chiefs
through whose country they have passed; for if they afforded a ready asylum
for runaway slaves, the traders might be deserted at any moment,
and stripped of their property altogether. They are thus obliged
to curry favor with the chiefs, so as to get a safe conduct from them.
The same system is adopted to induce the chiefs to part with their people,
whom all feel to be the real source of their importance in the country.
On the return of the traders from the interior with chains of slaves,
it is so easy for a chief who may be so disposed to take away
a chain of eight or ten unresisting slaves, that the merchant is fain
to give any amount of presents in order to secure the good-will of the rulers.
The independent chiefs, not knowing why their favor is so eagerly sought,
become excessively proud and supercilious in their demands,
and look upon white men with the greatest contempt. To such lengths
did the Bangala, a tribe near to which we had now approached,
proceed a few years ago, that they compelled the Portuguese traders
to pay for water, wood, and even grass, and every possible pretext
was invented for levying fines; and these were patiently submitted to
so long as the slave-trade continued to flourish. We had unconsciously
come in contact with a system which was quite unknown in the country
from which my men had set out. An English trader may there hear a demand
for payment of guides, but never, so far as I am aware, is he asked to pay
for leave to traverse a country. The idea does not seem to have entered
the native mind, except through slave-traders, for the aborigines
all acknowledge that the untilled land, not needed for pasturage,
belongs to God alone, and that no harm is done by people passing through it.
I rather believe that, wherever the slave-trade has not penetrated,
the visits of strangers are esteemed a real privilege.
The village of old Ionga Panza (lat. 10d 25' S., long. 20d 15' E.) is small,
and embowered in lofty evergreen trees, which were hung around
with fine festoons of creepers. He sent us food immediately,
and soon afterward a goat, which was considered a handsome gift, there being
but few domestic animals, though the country is well adapted for them.
I suspect this, like the country of Shinte and Katema, must have been
a tsetse district, and only recently rendered capable of supporting
other domestic animals besides the goat, by the destruction of the game
through the extensive introduction of fire-arms.
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