Some Among Them
Had Always Liked It For No Reason In Particular:
Shame seemed to lie
dormant, and the sense could not be aroused by our laughing and
joking them on their appearance.
They evidently felt no less decent
than we did with our clothes on; but, whatever may be said in favour
of nude statues, it struck us that man, in a state of nature, is a
most ungainly animal. Could we see a number of the degraded of our
own lower classes in like guise, it is probable that, without the
black colour which acts somehow as a dress, they would look worse
still.
In domestic contentions the Bawe are careful not to kill each other;
but, when one village goes to war with another, they are not so
particular. The victorious party are said to quarter one of the
bodies of the enemies they may have killed, and to perform certain
ceremonies over the fragments. The vanquished call upon their
conquerors to give them a portion also; and, when this request is
complied with, they too perform the same ceremonies, and lament over
their dead comrade, after which the late combatants may visit each
other in peace. Sometimes the head of the slain is taken and buried
in an ant-hill, till all the flesh is gone; and the lower jaw is then
worn as a trophy by the slayer; but this we never saw, and the
foregoing information was obtained only through an interpreter.
We left the Zambesi at the mouth of the Zungwe or Mozama or Dela
rivulet, up which we proceeded, first in a westerly and then in a
north-westerly direction. The Zungwe at this time had no water in
its sandy channel for the first eight or ten miles. Willows,
however, grow on the banks, and water soon began to appear in the
hollows; and a few miles further up it was a fine flowing stream
deliciously cold. As in many other streams from Chicova to near
Sinamane shale and coal crop out in the bank; and here the large
roots of stigmaria or its allied plants were found. We followed the
course of the Zungwe to the foot of the Batoka highlands, up whose
steep and rugged sides of red and white quartz we climbed till we
attained an altitude of upwards of 3000 feet. Here, on the cool and
bracing heights, the exhilaration of mind and body was delightful, as
we looked back at the hollow beneath covered with a hot sultry glare,
not unpleasant now that we were in the mild radiance above. We had a
noble view of the great valley in which the Zambesi flows. The
cultivated portions are so small in comparison to the rest of the
landscape that the valley appears nearly all forest, with a few
grassy glades. We spent the night of the 28th July high above the
level of the sea, by the rivulet Tyotyo, near Tabacheu or
Chirebuechina, names both signifying white mountain; in the morning
hoar frost covered the ground, and thin ice was on the pools.
Skirting the southern flank of Tabacheu, we soon passed from the
hills on to the portion of the vast table-land called Mataba, and
looking back saw all the way across the Zambesi valley to the lofty
ridge some thirty miles off, which, coming from the Mashona, a
country in the S.E., runs to the N.W. to join the ridge at the angle
of which are the Victoria Falls, and then bends far to the N.E. from
the same point.
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