We Have, For The First Time In My Experience
In Africa, Had A Cold Wind From The North.
All the winds from that quarter
are hot, and those from the south are cold, but they seldom blow
from either direction.
20TH. We were glad to get away, though not on account of
any scarcity of food; for my men, by giving small presents of meat
as an earnest of their sincerity, formed many friendships
with the people of Katema. We went about four or five miles
in a N.N.W. direction, then two in a westerly one, and came round
the small end of Lake Dilolo. It seemed, as far as we could
at this time discern, to be like a river a quarter of a mile wide.
It is abundantly supplied with fish and hippopotami; the broad part,
which we did not this time see, is about three miles wide,
and the lake is almost seven or eight long. If it be thought strange
that I did not go a few miles to see the broad part, which,
according to Katema, had never been visited by any of the traders,
it must be remembered that in consequence of fever I had eaten nothing
for two entire days, and, instead of sleep, the whole of the nights
were employed in incessant drinking of water, and I was now so glad to get on
in the journey and see some of my fellow fever-patients crawling along,
that I could not brook the delay, which astronomical observations for
accurately determining the geographical position of this most interesting spot
would have occasioned.
We observed among the people of Katema a love for singing-birds.
One pretty little songster, named "cabazo", a species of canary,
is kept in very neatly made cages, having traps on the top to entice
its still free companions. On asking why they kept them in confinement,
"Because they sing sweetly," was the answer. They feed them
on the lotsa (`Pennisetum typhoideum'), of which great quantities
are cultivated as food for man, and these canaries plague the gardeners here,
very much in the same way as our sparrows do at home.
I was pleased to hear the long-forgotten cry of alarm of the canaries
in the woods, and observed one warbling forth its song, and keeping in motion
from side to side, as these birds do in the cage. We saw also tame pigeons;
and the Barotse, who always take care to exalt Santuru, reminded us
that this chief had many doves, and kept canaries which had reddish heads
when the birds attained maturity. Those we now see have the real canary color
on the breast, with a tinge of green; the back, yellowish green,
with darker longitudinal bands meeting in the centre; a narrow dark band
passes from the bill over the eye and back to the bill again.
The birds of song here set up quite a merry chorus in the mornings,
and abound most near the villages.
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