They believed that they might settle in life, being now
of sufficient standing to warrant their entering the married state;
and a wife and a hut were among their first investments.
Sixteen
yards were paid to the wife's parents, and a hut cost four yards. We
should have liked to have kept them in the ship, for they were well-
behaved and had learned a great deal of the work required. Though
they would not themselves go again, they engaged others for us; and
brought twice as many as we could take, of their brothers and
cousins, who were eager to join the ship and go with us up the Shire,
or anywhere else. They all agreed to take half-pay until they too
had learned to work; and we found no scarcity of labour, though all
that could be exported is now out of the country.
There had been a drought of unusual severity during the past season
in the country between Lupata and Kebrabasa, and it had extended
north-east to the Manganja highlands. All the Tette slaves, except a
very few household ones, had been driven away by hunger, and were now
far off in the woods, and wherever wild fruit, or the prospect of
obtaining anything whatever to keep the breath of life in them, was
to be found. Their masters were said never to expect to see them
again. There have been two years of great hunger at Tette since we
have been in the country, and a famine like the present prevailed in
1854, when thousands died of starvation. If men like the Cape
farmers owned this country, their energy and enterprise would soon
render the crops independent of rain. There being plenty of slope or
fall, the land could be easily irrigated from the Zambesi and its
tributary streams. A Portuguese colony can never prosper: it is
used as a penal settlement, and everything must be done military
fashion. "What do I care for this country?" said the most
enterprising of the Tette merchants, "all I want is to make money as
soon possible, and then go to Bombay and enjoy it." All business at
Tette was now suspended. Carriers could not be found to take the
goods into the interior, and the merchants could barely obtain food
for their own families. At Mazaro more rain had fallen, and a
tolerable crop followed. The people of Shupanga were collecting and
drying different wild fruits, nearly all of which are far from
palatable to a European taste. The root of a small creeper called
"bise" is dug up and eaten. In appearance it is not unlike the small
white sweet potato, and has a little of the flavour of our potato.
It would be very good, if it were only a little larger. From another
tuber, called "ulanga," very good starch can be made. A few miles
from Shupanga there is an abundance of large game, but the people
here, though fond enough of meat, are not a hunting race, and seldom
kill any.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 200 of 263
Words from 103817 to 104334
of 136856
