We Wooded Up At This Place With African Ebony
Or Black Wood, And Lignum Vitae; The Latter Tree Attains An
Immense
size, sometimes as much as four feet in diameter; our engineer,
knowing what ebony and lignum vitae cost at
Home, said it made his
heart sore to burn wood so valuable. Though botanically different,
they are extremely alike; the black wood as grown in some districts
is superior, and the lignum vitae inferior in quality, to these
timbers brought from other countries. Caoutchouc, or India-rubber,
is found in abundance inland from Shupanga-house, and calumba-root is
plentiful in the district; indigo, in quantities, propagates itself
close to the banks of the Aver, and was probably at some time
cultivated, for manufactured indigo was once exported. The India-
rubber is made into balls for a game resembling "fives," and calumba-
root is said to be used as a mordant for certain colours, but not as
a dye itself.
We started for Tette on the 17th August, 1858; the navigation was
rather difficult, the Zambesi from Shupanga to Senna being wide and
full of islands; our black pilot, John Scisssors, a serf, sometimes
took the wrong channel and ran us aground. Nothing abashed, he would
exclaim in an aggrieved tone, "This is not the path, it is back
yonder." "Then why didn't you go yonder at first?" growled out our
Kroomen, who had the work of getting the vessel off. When they spoke
roughly to poor Scissors, the weak cringing slave-spirit came forth
in, "Those men scold me so, I am ready to run away." This mode of
finishing up an engagement is not at all uncommon on the Zambesi;
several cases occurred, when we were on the river, of hired crews
decamping with most of the goods in their charge.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 28 of 505
Words from 7443 to 7745
of 136856
