For Weeks The Natives Who Have Charge Of The Mangoes Live
Entirely On The Fruit, And, As Some Trees Bear
In November and some
in March, while the main crop comes between, fruit in abundance may
easily be obtained during
Four months of the year; but no native can
be induced to plant a mango. A wide-spread superstition has become
riveted in the native mind, that if any one plants this tree he will
soon die. The Makololo, like other natives, were very fond of the
fruit; but when told to take up some mango-stones, on their return,
and plant them in their own country - they too having become deeply
imbued with the belief that it was a suicidal act to do so - replied
"they did not wish to die too soon." There is also a superstition
even among the native Portuguese of Tette, that if a man plants
coffee he will never afterwards be happy: they drink it, however,
and seem the happier for it.
The Portuguese of Tette have many slaves, with all the usual vices of
their class, as theft, lying, and impurity. As a general rule the
real Portuguese are tolerably humane masters and rarely treat a slave
cruelly; this may be due as much to natural kindness of heart as to a
fear of losing the slaves by their running away. When they purchase
an adult slave they buy at the same time, if possible, all his
relations along with him. They thus contrive to secure him to his
new home by domestic ties. Running away then would be to forsake all
who hold a place in his heart, for the mere chance of acquiring a
freedom, which would probably be forfeited on his entrance into the
first native village, for the chief might, without compunction, again
sell him into slavery.
A rather singular case of voluntary slavery came to our knowledge: a
free black, an intelligent active young fellow, called Chibanti, who
had been our pilot on the river, told us that he had sold himself
into slavery. On asking why he had done this, he replied that he was
all alone in the world, had neither father nor mother, nor any one
else to give him water when sick, or food when hungry; so he sold
himself to Major Sicard, a notoriously kind master, whose slaves had
little to do, and plenty to eat. "And how much did you get for
yourself?" we asked. "Three thirty-yard pieces of cotton cloth," he
replied; "and I forthwith bought a man, a woman, and child, who cost
me two of the pieces, and I had one piece left." This, at all
events, showed a cool and calculating spirit; he afterwards bought
more slaves, and in two years owned a sufficient number to man one of
the large canoes. His master subsequently employed him in carrying
ivory to Quillimane, and gave him cloth to hire mariners for the
voyage; he took his own slaves, of course, and thus drove a thriving
business; and was fully convinced that he had made a good speculation
by the sale of himself, for had he been sick his master must have
supported him.
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