Our Men Were Delighted To Hear That
They Do As Well As Flints For Muskets; And This With The New Ideas Of
The Value Of Gold (Dalama) And Malachite, That They Had Acquired At
Tette, Made Them Conceive That We Were Not Altogether Silly In
Picking Up And Looking At Stones.
Marching up the river, we crossed the Lekone at its confluence, about
eight miles above the island Kalai, and went on to a village opposite
the Island Chundu.
Nambowe, the headman, is one of the Matebele or
Zulus, who have had to flee from the anger of Moselekatse, to take
refuge with the Makololo.
We spent Sunday, the 12th, at the village of Molele, a tall old
Batoka, who was proud of having formerly been a great favourite with
Sebituane. In coming hither we passed through patches of forest
abounding in all sorts of game. The elephants' tusks, placed over
graves, are now allowed to decay, and the skulls, which the former
Batoka stuck on poles to ornament their villages, not being renewed,
now crumble into dust. Here the famine, of which we had heard,
became apparent, Molele's people being employed in digging up the
tsitla root out of the marshes, and cutting out the soft core of the
young palm-trees, for food.
The village, situated on the side of a wooded ridge, commands an
extensive view of a great expanse of meadow and marsh lying along the
bank of the river. On these holmes herds of buffaloes and waterbucks
daily graze in security, as they have in the reedy marshes a refuge
into which they can run on the approach of danger.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 226 of 505
Words from 61041 to 61315
of 136856
