On Complaining To The
Deputy Headman, He Said That The Thief Had Fled, But Would Be Caught.
He Suggested A Fine, And Offered A Fowl And Her Eggs; But Wishing
That The Thief Alone Should Be Punished, It Was Advised That HE
Should Be Found And Fined.
The Makololo thought it best to take the
fowl as a means of making the punishment certain.
After settling
this matter on the last day of September, we commenced our return
journey. We had just the same time to go back to the ship, that we
had spent in coming to this point, and there is not much to interest
one in marching over the same ground a second time.
While on our journey north-west, a cheery old woman, who had once
been beautiful, but whose white hair now contrasted strongly with her
dark complexion, was working briskly in her garden as we passed. She
seemed to enjoy a hale, hearty old age. She saluted us with what
elsewhere would be called a good address; and, evidently conscious
that she deserved the epithet, "dark but comely," answered each of us
with a frank "Yes, my child." Another motherly-looking woman,
sitting by a well, began the conversation by "You are going to visit
Muazi, and you have come from afar, have you not?" But in general
women never speak to strangers unless spoken to, so anything said by
them attracts attention. Muazi once presented us with a basket of
corn. On hinting that we had no wife to grind our corn, his buxom
spouse struck in with roguish glee, and said, "I will grind it for
you; and leave Muazi, to accompany and cook for you in the land of
the setting sun." As a rule the women are modest and retiring in
their demeanour, and, without being oppressed with toil, show a great
deal of industry. The crops need about eight months' attention.
Then when the harvest is home, much labour is required to convert it
into food as porridge, or beer. The corn is pounded in a large
wooden mortar, like the ancient Egyptian one, with a pestle six feet
long and about four inches thick. The pounding is performed by two
or even three women at one mortar. Each, before delivering a blow
with her pestle, gives an upward jerk of the body, so as to put
strength into the stroke, and they keep exact time, so that two
pestles are never in the mortar at the same moment. The measured
thud, thud, thud, and the women standing at their vigorous work, are
associations inseparable from a prosperous African village. By the
operation of pounding, with the aid of a little water, the hard
outside scale or husk of the grain is removed, and the corn is made
fit for the millstone. The meal irritates the stomach unless cleared
from the husk; without considerable energy in the operator, the husk
sticks fast to the corn. Solomon thought that still more vigour than
is required to separate the hard husk or bran from wheat would fail
to separate "a fool from his folly." "Though thou shouldst bray a
fool in a mortar among wheat with a pestle, YET will not his
foolishness depart from him." The rainbow, in some parts, is called
the "pestle of the Barimo," or gods. Boys and girls, by constant
practice with the pestle, are able to plant stakes in the ground by a
somewhat similar action, in erecting a hut, so deftly that they never
miss the first hole made.
Let any one try by repeatedly jobbing a pole with all his force to
make a deep hole in the ground, and he will understand how difficult
it is always to strike it into the same spot.
As we were sleeping one night outside a hut, but near enough to hear
what was going on within, an anxious mother began to grind her corn
about two o'clock in the morning. "Ma," inquired a little girl, "why
grind in the dark?" Mamma advised sleep, and administered material
for a sweet dream to her darling, by saying, "I grind meal to buy a
cloth from the strangers, which will make you look a little lady."
An observer of these primitive races is struck continually with such
little trivial touches of genuine human nature.
The mill consists of a block of granite, syenite, or even mica
schist, fifteen or eighteen inches square and five or six thick, with
a piece of quartz or other hard rock about the size of a half brick,
one side of which has a convex surface, and fits into a concave
hollow in the larger and stationary stone. The workwoman kneeling,
grasps this upper millstone with both hands, and works it backwards
and forwards in the hollow of the lower millstone, in the same way
that a baker works his dough, when pressing it and pushing from him.
The weight of the person is brought to bear on the movable stone, and
while it is pressed and pushed forwards and backwards, one hand
supplies every now and then a little grain to be thus at first
bruised and then ground on the lower stone, which is placed on the
slope so that the meal when ground falls on to a skin or mat spread
for the purpose. This is perhaps the most primitive form of mill,
and anterior to that in oriental countries, where two women grind at
one mill, and may have been that used by Sarah of old when she
entertained the Angels.
On 2nd October we applied to Muazi for guides to take us straight
down to Chinsamba's at Mosapo, and thus cut off an angle, which we
should otherwise make, by going back to Kota-kota Bay. He replied
that his people knew the short way to Chinsamba's that we desired to
go, but that they all were afraid to venture there, on account of the
Zulus, or Mazitu.
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