We Received A Handsome Present Of
Corn, And The Fattest Goat We Had Ever Seen; It Resembled Mutton.
His People Were As Liberal As Their Chief.
They brought two large
baskets of corn, and a lot of tobacco, as a sort of general
contribution to the travellers.
One of Sinamane's canoe-men, after
trying to get his pay, deserted here, and went back before the
stipulated time, with the story, that the Englishman had stolen the
canoes. Shortly after sunrise next morning, Sinamane came into the
village with fifty of his "long spears," evidently determined to
retake his property by force; he saw at a glance that his man had
deceived him. Moemba rallied him for coming on a wildgoose chase.
"Here are your canoes left with me, your men have all been paid, and
the Englishmen are now asking me to sell my canoes." Sinamane said
little to us; only observing that he had been deceived by his
follower. A single remark of his chief's caused the foolish fellow
to leave suddenly, evidently much frightened and crestfallen.
Sinamane had been very kind to us, and, as he was looking on when we
gave our present to Moemba, we made him also an additional offering
of some beads, and parted good friends. Moemba, having heard that we
had called the people of Sinamane together to tell them about our
Saviour's mission to man, and to pray with them, associated the idea
of Sunday with the meeting, and, before anything of the sort was
proposed, came and asked that he and his people might be "sundayed"
as well as his neighbours; and be given a little seed wheat, and
fruit-tree seeds; with which request of course we very willingly
complied. The idea of praying direct to the Supreme Being, though
not quite new to all, seems to strike their minds so forcibly that it
will not be forgotten. Sinamane said that he prayed to God, Morungo,
and made drink-offerings to him. Though he had heard of us, he had
never seen white men before.
Beautiful crowned cranes, named from their note "ma-wang," were seen
daily, and were beginning to pair. Large flocks of spur-winged
geese, or machikwe, were common. This goose is said to lay her eggs
in March. We saw also pairs of Egyptian geese, as well as a few of
the knob-nosed, or, as they are called in India, combed geese. When
the Egyptian geese, as at the present time, have young, the goslings
keep so steadily in the wake of their mother, that they look as if
they were a part of her tail; and both parents, when on land,
simulate lameness quite as well as our plovers, to draw off pursuers.
The ostrich also adopts the lapwing fashion, but no quadrupeds do:
they show fight to defend their young instead. In some places the
steep banks were dotted with the holes which lead into the nests of
bee-eaters. These birds came out in hundreds as we passed.
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