They Were Manned By His Own Canoe-Men, Who Were
To Bring Them Back.
The river is about 250 yards wide, and flows
serenely between high banks towards the North-east.
Below Sinamane's
the banks are often worn down fifty feet, and composed of shingle and
gravel of igneous rocks, sometimes set in a ferruginous matrix. The
bottom is all gravel and shingle, how formed we cannot imagine,
unless in pot-holes in the deep fissure above. The bottom above the
Falls, save a few rocks close by them, is generally sandy or of soft
tufa. Every damp spot is covered with maize, pumpkins, water-melons,
tobacco, and hemp. There is a pretty numerous Batoka population on
both sides of the river. As we sailed slowly down, the people
saluted us from the banks, by clapping their hands. A headman even
hailed us, and brought a generous present of corn and pumpkins.
Moemba owns a rich island, called Mosanga, a mile in length, on which
his village stands. He has the reputation of being a brave warrior,
and is certainly a great talker; but he gave us strangers something
better than a stream of words. We received a handsome present of
corn, and the fattest goat we had ever seen; it resembled mutton.
His people were as liberal as their chief. They brought two large
baskets of corn, and a lot of tobacco, as a sort of general
contribution to the travellers. One of Sinamane's canoe-men, after
trying to get his pay, deserted here, and went back before the
stipulated time, with the story, that the Englishman had stolen the
canoes. Shortly after sunrise next morning, Sinamane came into the
village with fifty of his "long spears," evidently determined to
retake his property by force; he saw at a glance that his man had
deceived him. Moemba rallied him for coming on a wildgoose chase.
"Here are your canoes left with me, your men have all been paid, and
the Englishmen are now asking me to sell my canoes." Sinamane said
little to us; only observing that he had been deceived by his
follower. A single remark of his chief's caused the foolish fellow
to leave suddenly, evidently much frightened and crestfallen.
Sinamane had been very kind to us, and, as he was looking on when we
gave our present to Moemba, we made him also an additional offering
of some beads, and parted good friends. Moemba, having heard that we
had called the people of Sinamane together to tell them about our
Saviour's mission to man, and to pray with them, associated the idea
of Sunday with the meeting, and, before anything of the sort was
proposed, came and asked that he and his people might be "sundayed"
as well as his neighbours; and be given a little seed wheat, and
fruit-tree seeds; with which request of course we very willingly
complied. The idea of praying direct to the Supreme Being, though
not quite new to all, seems to strike their minds so forcibly that it
will not be forgotten. Sinamane said that he prayed to God, Morungo,
and made drink-offerings to him. Though he had heard of us, he had
never seen white men before.
Beautiful crowned cranes, named from their note "ma-wang," were seen
daily, and were beginning to pair. Large flocks of spur-winged
geese, or machikwe, were common. This goose is said to lay her eggs
in March. We saw also pairs of Egyptian geese, as well as a few of
the knob-nosed, or, as they are called in India, combed geese. When
the Egyptian geese, as at the present time, have young, the goslings
keep so steadily in the wake of their mother, that they look as if
they were a part of her tail; and both parents, when on land,
simulate lameness quite as well as our plovers, to draw off pursuers.
The ostrich also adopts the lapwing fashion, but no quadrupeds do:
they show fight to defend their young instead. In some places the
steep banks were dotted with the holes which lead into the nests of
bee-eaters. These birds came out in hundreds as we passed. When the
red-breasted species settle on the trees, they give them the
appearance of being covered with red foliage.
On the morning of the 12th October we passed through a wild, hilly
country, with fine wooded scenery on both sides, but thinly
inhabited. The largest trees were usually thorny acacias, of great
size and beautiful forms. As we sailed by several villages without
touching, the people became alarmed, and ran along the banks, spears
in hand. We employed one to go forward and tell Mpande of our
coming. This allayed their fears, and we went ashore, and took
breakfast near the large island with two villages on it, opposite the
mouth of the Zungwe, where we had left the Zambesi on our way up.
Mpande was sorry that he had no canoes of his own to sell, but he
would lend us two. He gave us cooked pumpkins and a water-melon.
His servant had lateral curvature of the spine. We have often seen
cases of humpback, but this was the only case of this kind of
curvature we had met with. Mpande accompanied us himself in his own
vessel, till we had an opportunity of purchasing a fine large canoe
elsewhere. We paid what was considered a large price for it: twelve
strings of blue cut glass neck beads, an equal number of large blue
ones of the size of marbles, and two yards of grey calico. Had the
beads been coarser, they would have been more valued, because such
were in fashion. Before concluding the bargain the owner said "his
bowels yearned for his canoe, and we must give a little more to stop
their yearning." This was irresistible. The trading party of
Sequasha, which we now met, had purchased ten large new canoes for
six strings of cheap coarse white beads each, or their equivalent,
four yards of calico, and had bought for the merest trifle ivory
enough to load them all.
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