This Great River
Is An Object Of Wonder To The Natives.
They have a song which runs,
"The Leeambye!
Nobody knows
Whence it comes, and whither it goes."
Livingstone had pursued it far up toward its source, and knew whence it came;
and now he resolved to follow it down to the sea, trusting that
it would furnish a water communication into the very heart of the continent.
It was now October - the close of the hot season. The thermometer stood
at 100 Deg. in the shade; in the sun it sometimes rose to 130 Deg.
During the day the people kept close in their huts, guzzling a kind of beer
called `boyola', and seeming to enjoy the copious perspiration
which it induces. As evening set in the dance began,
which was kept up in the moonlight till long after midnight.
Sekeletu, proud of his new uniform, and pleased with the prospect of trade
which had been opened, entertained Livingstone hospitably, and promised
to fit him out for his eastern journey as soon as the rains had commenced,
and somewhat cooled the burning soil.
He set out early in November, the chief with a large body of retainers
accompanying him as far as the Falls of Mosioatunye, the most remarkable
piece of natural scenery in all Africa, which no European
had ever seen or heard of. The Zambesi, here a thousand yards broad,
seems all at once to lose itself in the earth. It tumbles into
a fissure in the hard basaltic rock, running at a right-angle
with the course of the stream, and prolonged for thirty miles
through the hills. This fissure, hardly eighty feet broad,
with sides perfectly perpendicular, is fully a hundred feet in depth
down to the surface of the water, which shows like a white thread
at its bottom. The noise made by the descent of such a mass of water
into this seething abyss is heard for miles, and five distinct
columns of vapor rise like pillars of smoke to an enormous height.
Hence the Makololo name for the cataract, `Mosi oa tunye' -
"Smoke sounds there!" - for which Livingstone, with questionable taste,
proposes to substitute the name of "Victoria Falls" - a change which we trust
the world will not sanction.
From these falls the country gradually ascends toward the east,
the river finding its way by this deep fissure through the hills.
Every thing shows that this whole region, for hundreds of miles, was once
the bed of an immense fresh-water lake. By some convulsion of nature,
occurring at a period geologically recent, this fissure was formed,
and through it the lake was drained, with the exception of its deepest part,
which constitutes the present Lake Ngami. Similar indications exist
of the former existence of other immense bodies of water, which have
in like manner been drained by fissures through the surrounding elevations,
leaving shallow lakes at the lowest points. Such are, undoubtedly,
Tsad at the north, Ngami at the south, Dilolo at the west,
and Taganyika and Nyanja, of which we have only vague reports, at the east.
This great lake region of former days seems to have extended 2500 miles
from north to south, with an average breadth, from east to west,
of 600 or 700 miles.
The true theory of the African continent is, that it consists
of a well-watered trough, surrounded on all sides by an elevated rim,
composed in part of mountain ranges, and in part of high sandy deserts.
Livingstone, who had wrought out this theory from his own
personal observations, was almost disappointed when, on returning to England,
he found that the same theory had been announced on purely geological grounds
by Sir Roderick Murchison, the same philosopher who had averred
that gold must exist in Australia, long before the first diggings
had been discovered there.
Sekeletu had commissioned Livingstone, when he reached his own country,
to purchase for him a sugar-mill, a good rifle, different kinds of clothing,
brass wire, beads, and, in a word, "any other beautiful thing he might see,"
furnishing him with a considerable quantity of ivory to pay for them.
Their way lay through the country of the Batoka, a fierce tribe
who had a few years before attempted "to eat up" Sebituane, with ill success,
for he dispersed them and took away their cattle. Their country,
once populous, is now almost desolate. At one of their ruined villages
Livingstone saw five-and-forty human skulls bleaching upon stakes
stuck in the ground. In the old times the chiefs used to vie with each other
as to whose village should be ornamented with the greatest number
of these ghastly trophies; and a skull was the most acceptable present
from any one who wished to curry favor with a chief. The Batoka have
an odd custom of knocking out the front teeth from the upper jaw.
The lower ones, relieved from the attrition and pressure of the upper,
grow long and protruding, forcing the lower lip out in a hideous manner.
They say that they wish their mouths to be like those of oxen,
and not like those of zebras. No young Batoka female can lay any claim
to being a belle until she has thus acquired an "ox-mouth".
"Look at the great teeth!" is the disparaging criticism made upon those
who neglect to remove their incisors. The women wear a little clothing,
but the men disdain even the paradisiacal fig-leaf, and go about
in a state of absolute nudity. Livingstone told them that he should
come back some day with his family, when none of them must come near
without at least putting on a bunch of grass. They thought it a capital joke.
Their mode of salutation is to fling themselves flat on their backs,
and roll from side to side, slapping the outside of their naked thighs.
The country abounds with game. Buffaloes and zebras by the hundred
grazed on the open spaces. At one time their procession was interrupted
by three buffaloes who came dashing through their ranks.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 292 of 295
Words from 301631 to 302645
of 306638
