The Male Plasters Up The Entrance,
Leaving Only A Narrow Slit By Which To Feed His Mate, And Which Exactly Suits
The Form Of His Beak.
The female makes a nest of her own feathers,
lays her eggs, hatches them, and remains with the young
till they are fully fledged.
During all this time, which is stated to be
two or three months, the male continues to feed her and the young family.
The prisoner generally becomes quite fat, and is esteemed a very dainty morsel
by the natives, while the poor slave of a husband gets so lean that,
on the sudden lowering of the temperature which sometimes happens
after a fall of rain, he is benumbed, falls down, and dies. I never had
an opportunity of ascertaining the actual length of the confinement,
but on passing the same tree at Kolobeng about eight days afterward
the hole was plastered up again, as if, in the short time that had elapsed,
the disconsolate husband had secured another wife. We did not disturb her,
and my duties prevented me from returning to the spot. This is the month
in which the female enters the nest. We had seen one of these,
as before mentioned, with the plastering not quite finished;
we saw many completed; and we received the very same account here
that we did at Kolobeng, that the bird comes forth when the young
are fully fledged, at the period when the corn is ripe;
indeed, her appearance abroad with her young is one of the signs they have
for knowing when it ought to be so. As that is about the end of April,
the time is between two and three months. She is said sometimes
to hatch two eggs, and, when the young of these are full-fledged,
other two are just out of the egg-shells: she then leaves the nest with
the two elder, the orifice is again plastered up, and both male and female
attend to the wants of the young which are left. On several occasions
I observed a branch bearing the marks of the male having often sat upon it
when feeding his mate, and the excreta had been expelled a full yard
from the orifice, and often proved a means of discovering the retreat.
The honey-guides were very assiduous in their friendly offices,
and enabled my men to get a large quantity of honey. But, though bees abound,
the wax of these parts forms no article of trade. In Londa it may be said
to be fully cared for, as you find hives placed upon trees
in the most lonesome forests. We often met strings of carriers
laden with large blocks of this substance, each 80 or 100 lbs. in weight,
and pieces were offered to us for sale at every village;
but here we never saw a single artificial hive. The bees were always found
in the natural cavities of mopane-trees. It is probable that
the good market for wax afforded to Angola by the churches of Brazil
led to the gradual development of that branch of commerce there.
I saw even on the banks of the Quango as much as sixpence paid for a pound.
In many parts of the Batoka country bees exist in vast numbers,
and the tribute due to Sekeletu is often paid in large jars of honey;
but, having no market nor use for the wax, it is thrown away.
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