All The Africans We Have Met
With Are As Firmly Persuaded Of Their Future Existence As Of Their
Present Life.
And we have found none in whom the belief in the
Supreme Being was not rooted.
He is so invariably referred to as the
Author of everything supernatural, that, unless one is ignorant of
their language, he cannot fail to notice this prominent feature of
their faith. When they pass into the unseen world, they do not seem
to be possessed with the fear of punishment. The utensils placed
upon the grave are all broken as if to indicate that they will never
be used by the departed again. The body is put into the grave in a
sitting posture, and the hands are folded in front. In some parts of
the country there are tales which we could translate into faint
glimmerings of a resurrection; but whether these fables, handed down
from age to age, convey that meaning to the natives themselves we
cannot tell. The true tradition of faith is asserted to be "though a
man die he will live again;" the false that when he dies he is dead
for ever.
CHAPTER XIV.
Important geographical discoveries in the Wabisa countries - Cruelty
of the slave-trade - The Mazitu - Serious illness of Dr. Livingstone -
Return to the ship.
In our course westwards, we at first passed over a gently undulating
country, with a reddish clayey soil, which, from the heavy crops,
appeared to be very fertile. Many rivulets were crossed, some
running southwards into the Bua, and others northwards into the
Loangwa, a river which we formerly saw flowing into the Lake.
Further on, the water was chiefly found in pools and wells. Then
still further, in the same direction, some watercourses were said to
flow into that same "Loangwa of the Lake," and others into the
Loangwa, which flows to the south-west, and enters the Zambesi at
Zumbo, and is here called the "Loangwa of the Maravi." The trees
were in general scraggy, and covered, exactly as they are in the damp
climate of the Coast, with lichens, resembling orchilla-weed. The
maize, which loves rather a damp soil, had been planted on ridges to
allow the superfluous moisture to run off. Everything indicated a
very humid climate, and the people warned us that, as the rains were
near, we were likely to be prevented from returning by the country
becoming flooded and impassable.
Villages, as usual encircled by euphorbia hedges, were numerous, and
a great deal of grain had been cultivated around them. Domestic
fowls, in plenty, and pigeons with dovecots like those in Egypt were
seen. The people call themselves Matumboka, but the only difference
between them and the rest of the Manganja is in the mode of tattooing
the face. Their language is the same. Their distinctive mark
consists of four tattooed lines diverging from the point between the
eyebrows, which, in frowning, the muscles form into a furrow. The
other lines of tattooing, as in all Manganja, run in long seams,
which crossing each other at certain angles form a great number of
triangular spaces on the breast, back, arms, and thighs.
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