The Tusks Seem Weapons Of Both Offence And
Defence.
The hippopotamus trap consists of a beam five or six feet
long, armed with a spear-head or hard-
Wood spike, covered with
poison, and suspended to a forked pole by a cord, which, coming down
to the path, is held by a catch, to be set free when the beast treads
on it. Being wary brutes, they are still very numerous. One got
frightened by the ship, as she was steaming close to the bank. In
its eager hurry to escape it rushed on shore, and ran directly under
a trap, when down came the heavy beam on its back, driving the
poisoned spear-head a foot deep into its flesh. In its agony it
plunged back into the river, to die in a few hours, and afterwards
furnished a feast for the natives. The poison on the spear-head does
not affect the meat, except the part around the wound, and that is
thrown away. In some places the descending beam is weighted with
heavy stones, but here the hard heavy wood is sufficient.
"She is leaking worse than ever forward, sir, and there is a foot of
water in the hold," was our first salutation on the morning of the
20th. But we have become accustomed to these things now; the cabin-
floor is always wet, and one is obliged to mop up the water many
times a day, giving some countenance to the native idea that
Englishmen live in or on the water, and have no houses but ships.
The cabin is now a favourite breeding-place for mosquitoes, and we
have to support both the ship-bred and shore-bred bloodsuckers, of
which several species show us their irritating attentions. A large
brown sort, called by the Portuguese mansos (tame), flies straight to
its victim, and goes to work at once, as though it were an invited
guest. Some of the small kinds carry uncommonly sharp lancets, and
very potent poison. "What would these insects eat, if we did not
pass this way?" becomes a natural question.
The juices of plants, and decaying vegetable matter in the mud,
probably form the natural food of mosquitoes, and blood is not
necessary for their existence. They appear so commonly at malarious
spots, that their presence may be taken as a hint to man to be off to
more healthy localities. None appear on the high lands. On the low
lands they swarm in myriads. The females alone are furnished with
the biting apparatus, and their number appears to be out of all
proportion in excess of the males. At anchor, on a still evening,
they were excessively annoying; and the sooner we took refuge under
our mosquito curtains, the better. The miserable and sleepless night
that only one mosquito inside the curtain can cause, is so well
known, and has been so often described, that it is needless to
describe it here. One soon learns, from experience, that to beat out
the curtains thoroughly before entering them, so that not one of
these pests can possibly be harboured within, is the only safeguard
against such severe trials to one's tranquillity and temper.
A few miles above Mboma we came again to the village (16 degrees 44
minutes 30 seconds S.) of the chief Tingane, the beat of whose war-
drums can speedily muster some hundreds of armed men. The bows and
poisoned arrows here are of superior workmanship to those below.
Mariano's slave-hunting parties stood in great awe of these barbed
arrows, and long kept aloof from Tingane's villages. His people were
friendly enough with us now, and covered the banks with a variety of
articles for sale. The majestic mountain, Chipirone, to which we
have given the name of Mount Clarendon, now looms in sight, and
further to the N.W. the southern end of the grand Milanje range rises
in the form of an unfinished sphinx looking down on Lake Shirwa. The
Ruo (16 degrees 31 minutes 0 seconds S.) is said to have its source
in the Milanje mountains, and flows to the S.W., to join the Shire
some distance above Tingane's. A short way beyond the Ruo lies the
Elephant marsh, or Nyanja Mukulu, which is frequented by vast herds
of these animals. We believe that we counted eight hundred elephants
in sight at once. In the choice of such a strong hold, they have
shown their usual sagacity, for no hunter can get near them through
the swamps. They now keep far from the steamer; but, when she first
came up, we steamed into the midst of a herd, and some were shot from
the ship's deck. A single lesson was sufficient to teach them that
the steamer was a thing to be avoided; and at the first glimpse they
are now off two or three miles to the midst of the marsh, which is
furrowed in every direction by wandering branches of the Shire. A
fine young elephant was here caught alive, as he was climbing up the
bank to follow his retreating dam. When laid hold of, he screamed
with so much energy that, to escape a visit from the enraged mother,
we steamed off, and dragged him through the water by the proboscis.
As the men were holding his trunk over the gunwale, Monga, a brave
Makololo elephant-hunter, rushed aft, and drew his knife across it in
a sort of frenzy peculiar to the chase. The wound was skilfully sewn
up, and the young animal soon became quite tame, but, unfortunately
the breathing prevented the cut from healing, and he died in a few
days from loss of blood. Had he lived, and had we been able to bring
him home, he would have been the first AFRICAN elephant ever seen in
England. The African male elephant is from ten to a little over
eleven feet in height, and differs from the Asiatic species more
particularly in the convex shape of his forehead, and the enormous
size of his ears.
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