Such Minds Must Have Arisen
From Time To Time In These Regions, As Well As In Our Own Country,
But,
Ignorant of the use of letters, they have left no memorial behind them.
We dug out some of an inferior
Kind of potato (`Sisinyane') from his garden,
for when once planted it never dies out. This root is bitter and waxy,
though it is cultivated. It was not in flower, so I can not say
whether it is a solanaceous plant or not. One never expects to find a grave
nor a stone of remembrance set up in Africa; the very rocks are illiterate,
they contain so few fossils. Those here are of reddish variegated,
hardened sandstone, with madrepore holes in it. This, and broad
horizontal strata of trap, sometimes a hundred miles in extent,
and each layer having an inch or so of black silicious matter on it,
as if it had floated there while in a state of fusion,
form a great part of the bottom of the central valley. These rocks,
in the southern part of the country especially, are often covered
with twelve or fifteen feet of soft calcareous tufa. At Bombwe we have
the same trap, with radiated zeolite, probably mesotype, and it again appears
at the confluence of the Chobe, farther down.
As we passed up the river, the different villages of Banyeti turned out
to present Sekeletu with food and skins, as their tribute.
One large village is placed at Gonye, the inhabitants of which
are required to assist the Makololo to carry their canoes past the falls.
The tsetse here lighted on us even in the middle of the stream.
This we crossed repeatedly, in order to make short cuts at bends of the river.
The course is, however, remarkably straight among the rocks;
and here the river is shallow, on account of the great breadth of surface
which it covers. When we came to about 16d 16' S. latitude,
the high wooded banks seemed to leave the river, and no more tsetse appeared.
Viewed from the flat, reedy basin in which the river then flowed,
the banks seemed prolonged into ridges, of the same wooded character,
two or three hundred feet high, and stretched away to the N.N.E. and N.N.W.
until they were twenty or thirty miles apart. The intervening space,
nearly one hundred miles in length, with the Leeambye winding gently
near the middle, is the true Barotse valley. It bears a close resemblance
to the valley of the Nile, and is inundated annually, not by rains,
but by the Leeambye, exactly as Lower Egypt is flooded by the Nile.
The villages of the Barotse are built on mounds, some of which are said
to have been raised artificially by Santuru, a former chief of the Barotse,
and during the inundation the whole valley assumes the appearance
of a large lake, with the villages on the mounds like islands,
just as occurs in Egypt with the villages of the Egyptians.
Some portion of the waters of inundation comes from the northwest,
where great floodings also occur, but more comes from the north and northeast,
descending the bed of the Leeambye itself. There are but few trees
in this valley: those which stand on the mounds were nearly all
transplanted by Santuru for shade. The soil is extremely fertile,
and the people are never in want of grain, for, by taking advantage
of the moisture of the inundation, they can take two crops a year.
The Barotse are strongly attached to this fertile valley; they say,
"Here hunger is not known." There are so many things besides corn
which a man can find in it for food, that it is no wonder
they desert from Linyanti to return to this place.
The great valley is not put to a tithe of the use it might be.
It is covered with coarse succulent grasses, which afford ample pasturage
for large herds of cattle; these thrive wonderfully, and give milk copiously
to their owners. When the valley is flooded, the cattle are compelled
to leave it and go to the higher lands, where they fall off in condition;
their return is a time of joy.
It is impossible to say whether this valley, which contains so much moisture,
would raise wheat as the valley of the Nile does. It is probably too rich,
and would make corn run entirely to straw, for one species of grass
was observed twelve feet high, with a stem as thick as a man's thumb.
At present the pasturage is never eaten off, though the Makololo possess
immense herds of cattle.
There are no large towns, the mounds on which the towns and villages are built
being all small, and the people require to live apart
on account of their cattle.
This visit was the first Sekeletu had made to these parts since he attained
the chieftainship. Those who had taken part with Mpepe were consequently
in great terror. When we came to the town of Mpepe's father,
as he and another man had counseled Mamochisane to put Sekeletu to death
and marry Mpepe, the two were led forth and tossed into the river.
Nokuane was again one of the executioners. When I remonstrated against
human blood being shed in the offhand way in which they were proceeding,
the counselors justified their acts by the evidence given by Mamochisane,
and calmly added, "You see we are still Boers; we are not yet taught."
Mpepe had given full permission to the Mambari slave-dealers to trade
in all the Batoka and Bashukulompo villages to the east of this.
He had given them cattle, ivory, and children, and had received in return
a large blunderbuss to be mounted as a cannon. When the slight circumstance
of my having covered the body of the chief with my own
deranged the whole conspiracy, the Mambari, in their stockade, were placed
in very awkward circumstances. It was proposed to attack them and drive them
out of the country at once; but, dreading a commencement of hostilities,
I urged the difficulties of that course, and showed that a stockade
defended by perhaps forty muskets would be a very serious affair.
"Hunger is strong enough for that," said an under-chief;
"a very great fellow is he." They thought of attacking them by starvation.
As the chief sufferers in case of such an attack would have been
the poor slaves chained in gangs, I interceded for them,
and the result of an intercession of which they were ignorant
was that they were allowed to depart in peace.
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