One Morning When Sailing Past A Pretty Thickly-Inhabited Part, We
Were Surprised At Seeing Nine Large Bull-Elephants Standing Near The
Beach Quietly Flapping Their Gigantic Ears.
Glad of an opportunity
of getting some fresh meat, we landed and fired into one.
They all
retreated into a marshy piece of ground between two villages. Our
men gave chase, and fired into the herd. Standing on a sand hummock,
we could see the bleeding animals throwing showers of water with
their trunks over their backs. The herd was soon driven back upon
us, and a wounded one turned to bay. Yet neither this one, nor any
of the others, ever attempted to charge. Having broken his legs with
a rifle-ball, we fired into him at forty yards as rapidly as we could
load and discharge the rifles. He simply shook his head at each
shot, and received at least sixty Enfield balls before he fell. Our
excellent sailor from the north of Ireland happened to fire the last,
and, as soon as he saw the animal fall, he turned with an air of
triumph to the Doctor and exclaimed, "It was MY shot that done it,
sir!"
In a few minutes upwards of a thousand natives were round the
prostrate king of beasts; and, after our men had taken all they
wanted, an invitation was given to the villagers to take the
remainder. They rushed at it like hungry hyenas, and in an
incredibly short time every inch of it was carried off. It was only
by knowing that the meat would all be used that we felt justified in
the slaughter of this noble creature. The tusks weighed 62 lbs.
each. A large amount of ivory might be obtained from the people of
Nyassa, and we were frequently told of their having it in their huts.
While detained by a storm on the 17th October at the mouth of the
Kaombe, we were visited by several men belonging to an Arab who had
been for fourteen years in the interior at Katanga's, south of
Cazembe's. They had just brought down ivory, malachite, copper
rings, and slaves to exchange for cloth at the lake. The malachite
was said to be dug out of a large vein on the side of a hill near
Katanga's. They knew Lake Tanganyika well, but had not heard of the
Zambesi. They spoke quite positively, saying that the water of Lake
Tanganyika flowed out by the opposite end to that of Nyassa. As they
had seen neither of the overflows, we took it simply as a piece of
Arab geography. We passed their establishment of long sheds next
day, and were satisfied that the Arabs must be driving a good trade.
The Lake slave-trade was going on at a terrible rate. Two
enterprising Arabs had built a dhow, and were running her, crowded
with slaves, regularly across the Lake. We were told she sailed the
day before we reached their head-quarters. This establishment is in
the latitude of the Portuguese slave-exporting town of Iboe, and
partly supplies that vile market; but the greater number of the
slaves go to Kilwa.
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