The Lake tribes - The Mazitu - Quantities of elephants - Distressing
journey - Detention on the Shire.
Never before in Africa have we seen anything like the dense
population on the shores of Lake Nyassa. In the southern part there
was an almost unbroken chain of villages. On the beach of wellnigh
of every little sandy bay, dark crowds were standing, gazing at the
novel sight of a boat under sail; and wherever we landed we were
surrounded in a few seconds by hundreds of men, women, and children,
who hastened to have a stare at the "chirombo" (wild animals).
During a portion of the year, the northern dwellers on the lake have
a harvest which furnishes a singular sort of food. As we approached
our limit in that direction, clouds, as of smoke rising from miles of
burning grass, were observed bending in a south-easterly direction,
and we thought that the unseen land on the opposite side was closing
in, and that we were near the end of the lake. But next morning we
sailed through one of the clouds on our own side, and discovered that
it was neither smoke nor haze, but countless millions of minute
midges called "kungo" (a cloud or fog). They filled the air to an
immense height, and swarmed upon the water, too light to sink in it.
Eyes and mouth had to be kept closed while passing through this
living cloud: they struck upon the face like fine drifting snow.
Thousands lay in the boat when she emerged from the cloud of midges.
The people gather these minute insects by night, and boil them into
thick cakes, to be used as a relish - millions of midges in a cake. A
kungo cake, an inch thick, and as large as the blue bonnet of a
Scotch ploughman, was offered to us; it was very dark in colour, and
tasted not unlike caviare, or salted locusts.
Abundance of excellent fish is found in the lake, and nearly all were
new to us. The mpasa, or sanjika, found by Dr. Kirk to be a kind of
carp, was running up the rivers to spawn, like our salmon at home:
the largest we saw was over two feet in length; it is a splendid
fish, and the best we have ever eaten in Africa. They were ascending
the rivers in August and September, and furnished active and
profitable employment to many fishermen, who did not mind their being
out of season. Weirs were constructed full of sluices, in each of
which was set a large basket-trap, through whose single tortuous
opening the fish once in has but small chance of escape. A short
distance below the weir, nets are stretched across from bank to bank,
so that it seemed a marvel how the most sagacious sanjika could get
up at all without being taken. Possibly a passage up the river is
found at night; but this is not the country of Sundays or "close
times" for either men or fish.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 165 of 263
Words from 85691 to 86195
of 136856
