"We Live Only A Few
Days Here," Said Old Chinsunse, "But We Live Again After Death:
We
do not know where, or in what condition, or with what companions, for
the dead never return to tell us.
Sometimes the dead do come back,
and appear to us in dreams; but they never speak nor tell us where
they have gone, nor how they fare."
CHAPTER IV.
The Upper Shire - Discovery of Lake Nyassa - Distressing exploration -
Return to Zambesi - Unpleasant visitors - Start for Sekeletu's Country
in the interior.
Our path followed the Shire above the cataracts, which is now a broad
deep river, with but little current. It expands in one place into a
lakelet, called Pamalombe, full of fine fish, and ten or twelve miles
long by five or six in breadth. Its banks are low, and a dense wall
of papyrus encircles it. On its western shore rises a range of hills
running north. On reaching the village of the chief Muana-Moesi, and
about a day's march distant from Nyassa, we were told that no lake
had ever been heard of there; that the River Shire stretched on as we
saw it now to a distance of "two months," and then came out from
between perpendicular rocks, which towered almost to the skies. Our
men looked blank at this piece of news, and said, "Let us go back to
the ship, it is of no use trying to find the lake." "We shall go and
see those wonderful rocks at any rate," said the Doctor. "And when
you see them," replied Masakasa, "you will just want to see something
else. But there IS a lake," rejoined Masakasa, "for all their
denying it, for it is down in a book." Masakasa, having unbounded
faith in whatever was in a book, went and scolded the natives for
telling him an untruth. "There is a lake," said he, "for how could
the white men know about it in a book if it did not exist?" They
then admitted that there was a lake a few miles off. Subsequent
inquiries make it probable that the story of the "perpendicular
rocks" may have had reference to a fissure, known to both natives and
Arabs, in the north-eastern portion of the lake. The walls rise so
high that the path along the bottom is said to be underground. It is
probably a crack similar to that which made the Victoria Falls, and
formed the Shire Valley.
The chief brought a small present of meal in the evening, and sat
with us for a few minutes. On leaving us he said that he wished we
might sleep well. Scarce had he gone, when a wild sad cry arose from
the river, followed by the shrieking of women. A crocodile had
carried off his principal wife, as she was bathing. The Makololo
snatched up their arms, and rushed to the bank, but it was too late,
she was gone. The wailing of the women continued all night, and next
morning we met others coming to the village to join in the general
mourning. Their grief was evidently heartfelt, as we saw the tears
coursing down their cheeks. In reporting this misfortune to his
neighbours, Muana-Moesi said, "that white men came to his village;
washed themselves at the place where his wife drew water and bathed;
rubbed themselves with a white medicine (soap); and his wife, having
gone to bathe afterwards, was taken by a crocodile; he did not know
whether in consequence of the medicine used or not." This we could
not find fault with. On our return we were viewed with awe, and all
the men fled at our approach; the women remained; and this elicited
the remark from our men, "The women have the advantage of men, in not
needing to dread the spear." The practice of bathing, which our
first contact with Chinsunse's people led us to believe was unknown
to the natives, we afterwards found to be common in other parts of
the Manganja country.
We discovered Lake Nyassa a little before noon of the 16th September,
1859. Its southern end is in 14 degrees 25 minutes S. Lat., and 35
degrees 30 minutes E. Long. At this point the valley is about twelve
miles wide. There are hills on both sides of the lake, but the haze
from burning grass prevented us at the time from seeing far. A long
time after our return from Nyassa, we received a letter from Captain
R. B. Oldfield, R.N., then commanding H.M.S. "Lyra," with the
information that Dr. Roscher, an enterprising German who
unfortunately lost his life in his zeal for exploration, had also
reached the Lake, but on the 19th November following our discovery;
and on his arrival had been informed by the natives that a party of
white men were at the southern extremity. On comparing dates (16th
September and 19th November) we were about two months before Dr.
Roscher.
It is not known where Dr. Roscher first saw its waters; as the exact
position of Nusseewa on the borders of the Lake, where he lived some
time, is unknown. He was three days north-east of Nusseewa, and on
the Arab road back to the usual crossing-place of the Rovuma, when he
was murdered. The murderers were seized by one of the chiefs, sent
to Zanzibar, and executed. He is said to have kept his discoveries
to himself, with the intention of publishing in Europe the whole at
once, in a splendid book of travels.
The chief of the village near the confluence of the Lake and River
Shire, an old man, called Mosauka, hearing that we were sitting under
a tree, came and kindly invited us to his village. He took us to a
magnificent banyan-tree, of which he seemed proud. The roots had
been trained down to the ground into the form of a gigantic arm-
chair, without the seat. Four of us slept in the space betwixt its
arms.
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