When The Waters Retire, The Women Drop A Few Grains
In A Hole Made With A Hoe, Then Push Back
The soil with the foot.
One weeding alone is required before the grain comes to maturity.
This simple process represents
All our subsoil plowing, liming,
manuring, and harrowing, for in four months after planting a good crop
is ready for the sickle, and has been known to yield a hundred-fold.
It flourished still more at Zumbo. No irrigation is required,
because here there are gentle rains, almost like mist, in winter,
which go by the name of "wheat-showers", and are unknown
in the interior, where no winter rain ever falls. The rains at Tete
come from the east, though the prevailing winds come from the S.S.E.
The finest portion of the flour does not make bread nearly so white
as the seconds, and here the boyaloa (pombe), or native beer,
is employed to mix with the flour instead of yeast. It makes excellent bread.
At Kilimane, where the cocoanut palm abounds, the toddy from it,
called "sura", is used for the same purpose, and makes the bread
still lighter.
As it was necessary to leave most of my men at this place,
Major Sicard gave them a portion of land on which to cultivate their own food,
generously supplying them with corn in the mean time. He also said
that my young men might go and hunt elephants in company with his servants,
and purchase goods with both the ivory and dried meat, in order that
they might have something to take with them on their return to Sekeletu.
The men were delighted with his liberality, and soon sixty or seventy of them
set off to engage in this enterprise. There was no calico to be had
at this time in Tete, but the commandant handsomely furnished my men
with clothing. I was in a state of want myself, and, though I pressed him
to take payment in ivory for both myself and men, he refused all recompense.
I shall ever remember his kindness with deep gratitude. He has written me,
since my arrival in England, that my men had killed four elephants
in the course of two months after my departure.
On the day of my arrival I was visited by all the gentlemen of the village,
both white and colored, including the padre. Not one of them had any idea
as to where the source of the Zambesi lay. They sent for
the best traveled natives, but none of them knew the river
even as far as Kansala. The father of one of the rebels
who had been fighting against them had been a great traveler to the southwest,
and had even heard of our visit to Lake Ngami; but he was equally ignorant
with all the others that the Zambesi flowed in the centre of the country.
They had, however, more knowledge of the country to the north of Tete
than I had.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 513 of 572
Words from 274129 to 274628
of 306638
