This Is Our Brother Who Is Coming; We Shall All Leave You
And Go With Him." We Had Still, However, Some Difficulties In Store For Us
Before Reaching That Point.
The man who wished to accompany us came and told us before our departure
that his wife would not allow him to go, and she herself came
to confirm the decision.
Here the women have only a small puncture
in the upper lip, in which they insert a little button of tin.
The perforation is made by degrees, a ring with an opening in it
being attached to the lip, and the ends squeezed gradually together.
The pressure on the flesh between the ends of the ring causes its absorption,
and a hole is the result. Children may be seen with the ring on the lip,
but not yet punctured. The tin they purchase from the Portuguese,
and, although silver is reported to have been found in former times
in this district, no one could distinguish it from tin.
But they had a knowledge of gold, and for the first time
I heard the word "dalama" (gold) in the native language.
The word is quite unknown in the interior, and so is the metal itself.
In conversing with the different people, we found the idea prevalent
that those who had purchased slaves from them had done them an injury.
"All the slaves of Nyungwe," said one, "are our children;
the Bazunga have made a town at our expense." When I asked
if they had not taken the prices offered them, they at once admitted it,
but still thought that they had been injured by being so far tempted.
From the way in which the lands of Zumbo were spoken of as still belonging
to the Portuguese (and they are said to have been obtained by purchase),
I was inclined to conclude that the purchase of land is not looked upon
by the inhabitants in the same light as the purchase of slaves.
FEBRUARY 1ST. We met some native traders, and, as many of my men
were now in a state of nudity, I bought some American calico
marked "Lawrence Mills, Lowell", with two small tusks, and distributed it
among the most needy. After leaving Mozinkwa's we came to the Zingesi,
a sand-rivulet in flood (lat. 15d 38' 34" S., long. 31d 1' E.). It was
sixty or seventy yards wide, and waist-deep. Like all these sand-rivers,
it is for the most part dry; but by digging down a few feet,
water is to be found, which is percolating along the bed
on a stratum of clay. This is the phenomenon which is dignified
by the name of "a river flowing under ground." In trying to ford this
I felt thousands of particles of coarse sand striking my legs,
and the slight disturbance of our footsteps caused deep holes to be made
in the bed. The water, which is almost always very rapid in them,
dug out the sand beneath our feet in a second or two,
and we were all sinking by that means so deep that we were glad
to relinquish the attempt to ford it before we got half way over;
the oxen were carried away down into the Zambesi. These sand-rivers remove
vast masses of disintegrated rock before it is fine enough to form soil.
The man who preceded me was only thigh-deep, but the disturbance caused
by his feet made it breast-deep for me. The shower of particles and gravel
which struck against my legs gave me the idea that the amount of matter
removed by every freshet must be very great. In most rivers
where much wearing is going on, a person diving to the bottom
may hear literally thousands of stones knocking against each other.
This attrition, being carried on for hundreds of miles in different rivers,
must have an effect greater than if all the pestles and mortars
and mills of the world were grinding and wearing away the rocks.
The pounding to which I refer may be heard most distinctly in the Vaal River,
when that is slightly in flood. It was there I first heard it.
In the Leeambye, in the middle of the country, where there is
no discoloration, and little carried along but sand, it is not to be heard.
While opposite the village of a head man called Mosusa, a number of elephants
took refuge on an island in the river. There were two males,
and a third not full grown; indeed, scarcely the size of a female.
This was the first instance I had ever seen of a comparatively young one
with the males, for they usually remain with the female herd
till as large as their dams. The inhabitants were very anxious
that my men should attack them, as they go into the gardens on the islands,
and do much damage. The men went, but the elephants ran about half a mile
to the opposite end of the island, and swam to the main land
with their probosces above the water, and, no canoe being near, they escaped.
They swim strongly, with the proboscis erect in the air.
I was not very desirous to have one of these animals killed,
for we understood that when we passed Mpende we came into a country
where the game-laws are strictly enforced. The lands of each chief
are very well defined, the boundaries being usually marked by rivulets,
great numbers of which flow into the Zambesi from both banks,
and, if an elephant is wounded on one man's land and dies on that of another,
the under half of the carcass is claimed by the lord of the soil;
and so stringent is the law, that the hunter can not begin at once
to cut up his own elephant, but must send notice to the lord of the soil
on which it lies, and wait until that personage sends one authorized
to see a fair partition made.
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