Our Progress Had Always Been Slow, And I Found That Our Rate Of Traveling
Could Only Be Five Hours A Day For Five Successive Days.
On the sixth,
both men and oxen showed symptoms of knocking up.
We never exceeded
two and a half or three miles an hour in a straight line,
though all were anxious to get home. The difference in the rate of traveling
between ourselves and the slave-traders was our having a rather quicker step,
a longer day's journey, and twenty traveling days a month
instead of their ten. When one of my men became ill, but still could walk,
others parted his luggage among them; yet we had often to stop one day a week,
besides Sundays, simply for the sake of rest. The latitude of Lake Dilolo
is 11d 32' 1" S., long. 22d 27' E.
JUNE 14TH. We reached the collection of straggling villages
over which Katema rules, and were thankful to see old familiar faces again.
Shakatwala performed the part of a chief by bringing forth
abundant supplies of food in his master's name. He informed us
that Katema, too, was out hunting skins for Matiamvo.
In different parts of this country, we remarked that when old friends
were inquired for, the reply was, "Ba hola" (They are getting better);
or if the people of a village were inquired for, the answer was,
"They are recovering," as if sickness was quite a common thing.
Indeed, many with whom we had made acquaintance in going north we now found
were in their graves. On the 15th Katema came home from his hunting,
having heard of our arrival. He desired me to rest myself and eat abundantly,
for, being a great man, I must feel tired; and he took good care
to give the means of doing so. All the people in these parts are
exceedingly kind and liberal with their food, and Katema was not behindhand.
When he visited our encampment, I presented him with a cloak of red baize,
ornamented with gold tinsel, which cost thirty shillings,
according to the promise I had made in going to Londa; also a cotton robe,
both large and small beads, an iron spoon, and a tin pannikin
containing a quarter of a pound of powder. He seemed greatly pleased
with the liberality shown, and assured me that the way was mine,
and that no one should molest me in it if he could help it.
We were informed by Shakatwala that the chief never used any part of a present
before making an offer of it to his mother, or the departed spirit
to whom he prayed. Katema asked if I could not make a dress for him
like the one I wore, so that he might appear as a white man
when any stranger visited him. One of the councilors, imagining that
he ought to second this by begging, Katema checked him by saying,
"Whatever strangers give, be it little or much, I always receive it
with thankfulness, and never trouble them for more." On departing,
he mounted on the shoulders of his spokesman, as the most dignified
mode of retiring.
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