In Character, The Lake Tribes Are Very Much Like Other People; There
Are Decent Men Among Them, While A Good Many Are No Better Than They
Should Be.
They are open-handed enough:
If one of us, as was often
the case, went to see a net drawn, a fish was always offered.
Sailing one day past a number of men, who had just dragged their nets
ashore, at one of the fine fisheries at Pamalombe, we were hailed and
asked to stop, and received a liberal donation of beautiful fish.
Arriving late one afternoon at a small village on the lake, a number
of the inhabitants manned two canoes, took out their seine, dragged
it, and made us a present of the entire haul. The northern chief,
Marenga, a tall handsome man, with a fine aquiline nose, whom we
found living in his stockade in a forest about twenty miles north of
the mountain Kowirwe, behaved like a gentleman to us. His land
extended from Dambo to the north of Makuza hill. He was specially
generous, and gave us bountiful presents of food and beer. "Do they
wear such things in your country?" he asked, pointing to his iron
bracelet, which was studded with copper, and highly prized. The
Doctor said he had never seen such in his country, whereupon Marenga
instantly took it off, and presented it to him, and his wife also did
the same with hers. On our return south from the mountains near the
north end of the lake, we reached Marenga's on the 7th October. When
he could not prevail upon us to forego the advantage of a fair wind
for his invitation to "spend the whole day drinking his beer, which
was," he said, "quite ready," he loaded us with provisions, all of
which he sent for before we gave him any present. In allusion to the
boat's sail, his people said that they had no Bazimo, or none worth
having, seeing they had never invented the like for them. The chief,
Mankambira, likewise treated us with kindness; but wherever the
slave-trade is carried on, the people are dishonest and uncivil; that
invariably leaves a blight and a curse in its path. The first
question put to us at the lake crossing-places, was, "Have you come
to buy slaves?" On hearing that we were English, and never purchased
slaves, the questioners put on a supercilious air, and sometimes
refused to sell us food. This want of respect to us may have been
owing to the impressions conveyed to them by the Arabs, whose dhows
have sometimes been taken by English cruisers when engaged in lawful
trade. Much foreign cloth, beads, and brass-wire were worn by these
ferrymen - and some had muskets.
By Chitanda, near one of the slave crossing-places, we were robbed
for the first time in Africa, and learned by experience that these
people, like more civilized nations, have expert thieves among them.
It might be only a coincidence; but we never suffered from impudence,
loss of property, or were endangered, unless among people familiar
with slaving.
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