Jealousy Of Strangers Belongs More To The Arab Than To The
African Character; And If The Women Are Let Alone By The Traveller,
No Danger Need Be Apprehended From Any Save The Slave-Trading Tribes,
And Not Often Even From Them.
We passed through a fertile country, covered with open forest,
accompanied by the friendly Bawe.
They are very hospitable; many of
them were named, among themselves, "the Baenda pezi," or "Go-nakeds,"
their only clothing being a coat of red ochre. Occasionally stopping
at their villages we were duly lullilooed, and regaled with sweet
new-made beer, which, being yet unfermented, was not intoxicating.
It is in this state called Liting or Makonde. Some of the men carry
large shields of buffalo-hide, and all are well supplied with heavy
spears. The vicinity of the villages is usually cleared and
cultivated in large patches; but nowhere can the country be said to
be stocked with people. At every village stands were erected, and
piles of the native corn, still unthrashed, placed upon them; some
had been beaten out, put into oblong parcels made of grass, and
stacked in wooden frames.
We crossed several rivulets in our course, as the Mandora, the Lofia,
the Manzaia (with brackish water), the Rimbe, the Chibue, the Chezia,
the Chilola (containing fragments of coal), which did little more
than mark our progress. The island and rapid of Nakansalo, of which
we had formerly heard, were of no importance, the rapid being but
half a mile long, and only on one side of the island.
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