The Monkey Is A Sacred
Animal In This Region, And Is Never Molested Or Killed, Because The
People Believe Devoutly
That the souls of their ancestors now occupy
these degraded forms, and anticipate that they themselves must,
sooner or later,
Be transformed in like manner; a future as cheerless
for the black as the spirit-rapper's heaven is for the whites. The
gardens are separated from each other by a single row of small
stones, a few handfuls of grass, or a slight furrow made by the hoe.
Some are enclosed by a reed fence of the flimsiest construction, yet
sufficient to keep out the ever wary hippopotamus, who dreads a trap.
His extreme caution is taken advantage of by the women, who hang, as
a miniature trap-beam, a kigelia fruit with a bit of stick in the
end. This protects the maize, of which he is excessively fond.
The quantity of hippopotamus meat eaten by our men made some of them
ill, and our marches were necessarily short. After three hours'
travel on the 13th, we spent the remainder of the day at the village
of Chasiribera, on a rivulet flowing through a beautiful valley to
the north, which is bounded by magnificent mountain-ranges. Pinkwe,
or Mbingwe, otherwise Moeu, forms the south-eastern angle of the
range. On the 16th June we were at the flourishing village of Senga,
under the headman Manyame, which lies at the foot of the mount
Motemwa. Nearly all the mountains in this country are covered with
open forest and grass, in colour, according to the season, green or
yellow.
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