There Are, However, A Few Mud Villages On The
Table-Lands, Each Built In A Large Irregular Square Of Chambers
With A Hollow Yard In The Centre, Known As Tembe.
As to the people of these uplands, poor, meagre-looking wretches,
they contrast unfavourably with the lowlanders on both sides of
them.
Dingy in colour, spiritless, shy, and timid, they invite
attack in a country where every human being has a market value,
and are little seen by the passing caravan. In habits they are
semi-pastoral agriculturalists, and would be useful members of
society were they left alone to cultivate their own possessions,
rich and beautiful by nature, but poor and desolate by force of
circumstance. Some of the men can afford a cloth, but the
greater part wear an article which I can only describe as a grass
kilt. In one or two places throughout the passage of these hills
a caravan may be taxed, but if so, only to a small amount; the
villagers more frequently fly to the hill-tops as soon as the
noise of the advancing caravan is heard, and no persuasions will
bring them down again, so much ground have they, from previous
experience, to fear treachery. It is such sad sights, and the
obvious want of peace and prosperity, that weary the traveller,
and make him every think of pushing on to his journey's end from
the instant he enters Africa until he quits the country.
Knowing by old experience that the beautiful green park in the
fork of these rivers abounded in game of great variety and in
vast herds, where no men are ever seen except some savage hunters
sitting in the trees with poisoned arrows, or watching their
snares and pitfalls, I had all along determined on a hunt myself,
to feed and cheer the men, and also to collect some specimens for
the home museums.
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