No Offence Had Been Committed Against Him, But
He Had Firearms, And, With The Express Object Of Showing His Power,
He Threatened To Attack The Strangers.
Mpende's counsellors having,
however, found out that Dr. Livingstone belonged to a tribe of whom
they had heard that
"They loved the black man and did not make
slaves," his conduct at once changed from enmity to kindness, and, as
the place was one well selected for defence, it was perhaps quite as
well for Mpende that he decided as he did. Three of his counsellors
now visited us, and we gave them a handsome present for their chief,
who came himself next morning and made us a present of a goat, a
basket of boiled maize, and another of vetches. A few miles above
this the headman, Chilondo of Nyamasusa, apologized for not formerly
lending us canoes. "He was absent, and his children were to blame
for not telling him when the Doctor passed; he did not refuse the
canoes." The sight of our men, now armed with muskets, had a great
effect. Without any bullying, firearms command respect, and lead men
to be reasonable who might otherwise feel disposed to be troublesome.
Nothing, however, our fracas with Mpende excepted, could be more
peaceful than our passage through this tract of country in 1856. We
then had nothing to excite the cupidity of the people, and the men
maintained themselves, either by selling elephant's meat, or by
exhibiting feats of foreign dancing. Most of the people were very
generous and friendly; but the Banyai, nearer to Tette than this,
stopped our march with a threatening war-dance. One of our party,
terrified at this, ran away, as we thought, insane, and could not,
after a painful search of three days, be found. The Banyai,
evidently touched by our distress, allowed us to proceed. Through a
man we left on an island a little below Mpende's, we subsequently
learned that poor Monaheng had fled thither, and had been murdered by
the headman for no reason except that he was defenceless. This
headman had since become odious to his countrymen, and had been put
to death by them.
On the 23rd of June we entered Pangola's principal village, which is
upwards of a mile from the river. The ruins of a mud wall showed
that a rude attempt had been made to imitate the Portuguese style of
building. We established ourselves under a stately wild fig-tree,
round whose trunk witchcraft medicine had been tied, to protect from
thieves the honey of the wild bees, which had their hive in one of
the limbs. This is a common device. The charm, or the medicine, is
purchased of the dice doctors, and consists of a strip of palm-leaf
smeared with something, and adorned with a few bits of grass, wood,
or roots. It is tied round the tree, and is believed to have the
power of inflicting disease and death on the thief who climbs over
it. Superstition is thus not without its uses in certain states of
society; it prevents many crimes and misdemeanours, which would occur
but for the salutary fear that it produces.
Pangola arrived, tipsy and talkative. - "We are friends, we are great
friends; I have brought you a basket of green maize - here it is!" We
thanked him, and handed him two fathoms of cotton cloth, four times
the market-value of his present. No, he would not take so small a
present; he wanted a double-barrelled rifle - one of Dixon's best.
"We are friends, you know; we are all friends together." But
although we were willing to admit that, we could not give him our
best rifle, so he went off in high dudgeon. Early next morning, as
we were commencing Divine service, Pangola returned, sober. We
explained to him that we wished to worship God, and invited him to
remain; he seemed frightened, and retired: but after service he
again importuned us for the rifle. It was of no use telling him that
we had a long journey before us, and needed it to kill game for
ourselves. - "He too must obtain meat for himself and people, for they
sometimes suffered from hunger." He then got sulky, and his people
refused to sell food except at extravagant prices. Knowing that we
had nothing to eat, they felt sure of starving us into compliance.
But two of our young men, having gone off at sunrise, shot a fine
water-buck, and down came the provision market to the lower figure;
they even became eager to sell, but our men were angry with them for
trying compulsion, and would not buy. Black greed had outwitted
itself, as happens often with white cupidity; and not only here did
the traits of Africans remind us of Anglo-Saxons elsewhere: the
notoriously ready world-wide disposition to take an unfair advantage
of a man's necessities shows that the same mean motives are pretty
widely diffused among all races. It may not be granted that the same
blood flows in all veins, or that all have descended from the same
stock; but the traveller has no doubt that, practically, the white
rogue and black are men and brothers.
Pangola is the child or vassal of Mpende. Sandia and Mpende are the
only independent chiefs from Kebrabasa to Zumbo, and belong to the
tribe Manganja. The country north of the mountains here in sight
from the Zambesi is called Senga, and its inhabitants Asenga, or
Basenga, but all appear to be of the same family as the rest of the
Manganja and Maravi. Formerly all the Manganja were united under the
government of their great chief, Undi, whose empire extended from
Lake Shirwa to the River Loangwa; but after Undi's death it fell to
pieces, and a large portion of it on the Zambesi was absorbed by
their powerful southern neighbours the Banyai. This has been the
inevitable fate of every African empire from time immemorial.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 45 of 134
Words from 44971 to 45972
of 136856
