However Largely They
May Cultivate, And However Abundant The Harvest, It Must All Be
Consumed In A Year.
This may account for their making so much of it
into beer.
The beer these Batoka or Bawe brew is not the sour and
intoxicating boala or pombe found among some other tribes, but sweet,
and highly nutritive, with only a slight degree of acidity,
sufficient to render it a pleasant drink. The people were all plump,
and in good condition; and we never saw a single case of intoxication
among them, though all drank abundance of this liting, or sweet beer.
Both men and boys were eager to work for very small pay. Our men
could hire any number of them to carry their burdens for a few beads
a day. Our miserly and dirty ex-cook had an old pair of trousers
that some one had given to him; after he had long worn them himself,
with one of the sorely decayed legs he hired a man to carry his heavy
load a whole day; a second man carried it the next day for the other
leg, and what remained of the old garment, without the buttons,
procured the labour of another man for the third day.
Men of remarkable ability have risen up among the Africans from time
to time, as amongst other portions of the human family. Some have
attracted the attention, and excited the admiration of large
districts by their wisdom. Others, apparently by the powers of
ventriloquism, or by peculiar dexterity in throwing the spear, or
shooting with the bow, have been the wonder of their generation; but
the total absence of literature leads to the loss of all former
experience, and the wisdom of the wise has not been handed down.
They have had their minstrels too, but mere tradition preserves not
their effusions. One of these, and apparently a genuine poet,
attached himself to our party for several days, and whenever we
halted, sang our praises to the villagers, in smooth and harmonious
numbers. It was a sort of blank verse, and each line consisted of
five syllables. The song was short when it first began, but each day
he picked up more information about us, and added to the poem until
our praises became an ode of respectable length. When distance from
home compelled his return he expressed his regret at leaving us, and
was, of course, paid for his useful and pleasant flatteries.
Another, though a less gifted son of song, belonged to the Batoka of
our own party. Every evening, while the others were cooking,
talking, or sleeping, he rehearsed his songs, containing a history of
everything he had seen in the land of the white men, and on the way
back. In composing, extempore, any new piece, he was never at a
loss; for if the right word did not come he halted not, but eked out
the measure with a peculiar musical sound meaning nothing at all. He
accompanied his recitations on the sansa, an instrument figured in
the woodcut, the nine iron keys of which are played with the thumbs,
while the fingers pass behind to hold it.
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