We Reached, On The 4th Of August, Moachemba, The First Of
The Batoka Villages Which Now Owe Allegiance To Sekeletu, And Could
See Distinctly With The Naked Eye, In The Great Valley Spread Out
Before Us, The Columns Of Vapour Rising From The Victoria Falls,
Though Upwards Of 20 Miles Distant.
We were informed that, the rains
having failed this year, the corn crops had been lost, and great
scarcity and much hunger prevailed from Sesheke to Linyanti.
Some of
the reports which the men had heard from the Batoka of the hills
concerning their families, were here confirmed. Takelang's wife had
been killed by Mashotlane, the headman at the Falls, on a charge, as
usual, of witchcraft. Inchikola's two wives, believing him to be
dead, had married again; and Masakasa was intensely disgusted to hear
that two years ago his friends, upon a report of his death, threw his
shield over the Falls, slaughtered all his oxen, and held a species
of wild Irish wake, in honour of his memory: he said he meant to
disown them, and to say, when they come to salute him, "I am dead. I
am not here. I belong to another world, and should stink if I came
among you."
All the sad news we had previously heard, of the disastrous results
which followed the attempt of a party of missionaries, under the Rev.
H. Helmore, to plant the gospel at Linyanti, were here fully
confirmed. Several of the missionaries and their native attendants,
from Kuruman, had succumbed to the fever, and the survivors had
retired some weeks before our arrival. We remained the whole of the
7th beside the village of the old Batoka chief, Moshobotwane, the
stoutest man we have seen in Africa. The cause of our delay here was
a severe attack of fever in Charles Livingstone. He took a dose of
our fever pills; was better on the 8th, and marched three hours; then
on the 9th marched eight miles to the Great Falls, and spent the rest
of the day in the fatiguing exercise of sight-seeing. We were in the
very same valley as Linyanti, and this was the same fever which
treated, or rather maltreated, with only a little Dover's powder,
proved so fatal to poor Helmore; the symptoms, too, were identical
with those afterwards described by non-medical persons as those of
poison.
We gave Moshobotwane a present, and a pretty plain exposition of what
we thought of his bloody forays among his Batoka brethren. A
scolding does most good to the recipient, when put alongside some
obliging act. He certainly did not take it ill, as was evident from
what he gave us in return; which consisted of a liberal supply of
meal, milk, and an ox. He has a large herd of cattle, and a tract of
fine pasture-land on the beautiful stream Lekone. A home-feeling
comes over one, even in the interior of Africa, at seeing once more
cattle grazing peacefully in the meadows.
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