Asking The Makololo Whence
They Came, Bonga Rejoined, "Why Do You Come From My Enemy To Me?
You
have brought witchcraft medicine to kill me." In vain they protested
that they did not belong to the country; they were strangers, and had
come from afar with an Englishman.
The superstitious savage put them
all to death. "We do not grieve," said their companions, "for the
thirty victims of the smallpox, who were taken away by Morimo (God);
but our hearts are sore for the six youths who were murdered by
Bonga." Any hope of obtaining justice on the murderer was out of the
question. Bonga once caught a captain of the Portuguese army, and
forced him to perform the menial labour of pounding maize in a wooden
mortar. No punishment followed on this outrage. The Government of
Lisbon has since given Bonga the honorary title of Captain, by way of
coaxing him to own their authority; but he still holds his stockade.
Tette stands on a succession of low sandstone ridges on the right
bank of the Zambesi, which is here nearly a thousand yards wide (960
yards). Shallow ravines, running parallel with the river, form the
streets, the houses being built on the ridges. The whole surface of
the streets, except narrow footpaths, were overrun with self-sown
indigo, and tons of it might have been collected. In fact indigo,
senna, and stramonium, with a species of cassia, form the weeds of
the place, which are annually hoed off and burned.
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