He Is Peevish, Prone To Find Fault And To
Contradict, And Think Himself Insulted, And Is Exactly What An Irish
Naval Surgeon Before A Court-Martial Defined A Drunken Man To Be:
"A
man unfit for society."
Finding that it was impossible to take our steamer of only ten-horse
power through Kebrabasa, and convinced that, in order to force a
passage when the river was in flood, much greater power was required,
due information was forwarded to Her Majesty's Government, and
application made for a more suitable vessel. Our attention was in
the mean time turned to the exploration of the river Shire, a
northern tributary of the Zambesi, which joins it about a hundred
miles from the sea. We could learn nothing satisfactory from the
Portuguese regarding this affluent; no one, they said, had ever been
up it, nor could they tell whence it came. Years ago a Portuguese
expedition is said, however, to have attempted the ascent, but to
have abandoned it on account of the impenetrable duckweed (Pistia
stratiotes.) We could not learn from any record that the Shire had
ever been ascended by Europeans. As far, therefore, as we were
concerned, the exploration was absolutely new. All the Portuguese
believed the Manganja to be brave but bloodthirsty savages; and on
our return we found that soon after our departure a report was widely
spread that our temerity had been followed by fatal results, Dr.
Livingstone having been shot, and Dr. Kirk mortally wounded by
poisoned arrows.
Our first trip to the Shire was in January, 1859. A considerable
quantity of weed floated down the river for the first twenty-five
miles, but not sufficient to interrupt navigation with canoes or with
any other craft. Nearly the whole of this aquatic plant proceeds
from a marsh on the west, and comes into the river a little beyond a
lofty hill called Mount Morambala. Above that there is hardly any.
As we approached the villages, the natives collected in large
numbers, armed with bows and poisoned arrows; and some, dodging
behind trees, were observed taking aim as if on the point of
shooting. All the women had been sent out of the way, and the men
were evidently prepared to resist aggression. At the village of a
chief named Tingane, at least five hundred natives collected and
ordered us to stop. Dr. Livingstone went ashore; and on his
explaining that we were English and had come neither to take slaves
nor to fight, but only to open a path by which our countrymen might
follow to purchase cotton, or whatever else they might have to sell,
except slaves, Tingane became at once quite friendly. The presence
of the steamer, which showed that they had an entirely new people to
deal with, probably contributed to this result; for Tingane was
notorious for being the barrier to all intercourse between the
Portuguese black traders and the natives further inland; none were
allowed to pass him either way. He was an elderly, well-made man,
grey-headed, and over six feet high. Though somewhat excited by our
presence, he readily complied with the request to call his people
together, in order that all might know what our objects were.
In commencing intercourse with any people we almost always referred
to the English detestation of slavery. Most of them already possess
some information respecting the efforts made by the English at sea to
suppress the slave-trade; and our work being to induce them to raise
and sell cotton, instead of capturing and selling their fellow-men,
our errand appears quite natural; and as they all have clear ideas of
their own self-interest, and are keen traders, the reasonableness of
the proposal is at once admitted; and as a belief in a Supreme Being,
the Maker and Ruler of all things, and in the continued existence of
departed spirits, is universal, it becomes quite appropriate to
explain that we possess a Book containing a Revelation of the will of
Him to whom in their natural state they recognise no relationship.
The fact that His Son appeared among men, and left His words in His
Book, always awakens attention; but the great difficulty is to make
them feel that they have any relationship to Him, and that He feels
any interest in them. The numbness of moral perception exhibited, is
often discouraging; but the mode of communication, either by
interpreters, or by the imperfect knowledge of the language, which
not even missionaries of talent can overcome save by the labour of
many years, may, in part, account for the phenomenon. However, the
idea of the Father of all being displeased with His children, for
selling or killing each other, at once gains their ready assent: it
harmonizes so exactly with their own ideas of right and wrong. But,
as in our own case at home, nothing less than the instruction and
example of many years will secure their moral elevation.
The dialect spoken here closely resembles that used at Senna and
Tette. We understood it at first only enough to know whether our
interpreter was saying what we bade him, or was indulging in his own
version. After stating pretty nearly what he was told, he had an
inveterate tendency to wind up with "The Book says you are to grow
cotton, and the English are to come and buy it," or with some joke of
his own, which might have been ludicrous, had it not been seriously
distressing.
In the first ascent of the Shire our attention was chiefly directed
to the river itself. The delight of threading out the meanderings of
upwards of 200 miles of a hitherto unexplored river must be felt to
be appreciated. All the lower part of the river was found to be at
least two fathoms in depth. It became shallower higher up, where
many departing and re-entering branches diminished the volume of
water, but the absence of sandbanks made it easy of navigation.
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