I Gave Them Some Little Presents For Themselves,
A Handkerchief And A Few Beads, And They Were Highly Pleased
With A Cloth Of Red Baize For Mburuma, Which Sekeletu Had Given Me
To Purchase A Canoe.
We were thankful to part good friends.
Next morning we passed along the bottom of the range, called Mazanzwe,
and found the ruins of eight or ten stone houses. They all faced the river,
and were high enough up the flanks of the hill Mazanzwe to command
a pleasant view of the broad Zambesi. These establishments had all been built
on one plan - a house on one side of a large court, surrounded by a wall;
both houses and walls had been built of soft gray sandstone cemented together
with mud. The work had been performed by slaves ignorant of building,
for the stones were not often placed so as to cover the seams below.
Hence you frequently find the joinings forming one seam from the top
to the bottom. Much mortar or clay had been used to cover defects,
and now trees of the fig family grow upon the walls, and clasp them
with their roots. When the clay is moistened, masses of the walls
come down by wholesale. Some of the rafters and beams had fallen in,
but were entire, and there were some trees in the middle of the houses
as large as a man's body. On the opposite or south bank of the Zambesi
we saw the remains of a wall on a height which was probably a fort,
and the church stood at a central point, formed by the right bank
of the Loangwa and the left of the Zambesi.
The situation of Zumbo was admirably well chosen as a site for commerce.
Looking backward we see a mass of high, dark mountains, covered with trees;
behind us rises the fine high hill Mazanzwe, which stretches away northward
along the left bank of the Loangwa; to the S.E. lies an open country,
with a small round hill in the distance called Tofulo. The merchants,
as they sat beneath the verandahs in front of their houses,
had a magnificent view of the two rivers at their confluence;
of their church at the angle; and of all the gardens which they had
on both sides of the rivers. In these they cultivated wheat
without irrigation, and, as the Portuguese assert, of a grain
twice the size of that at Tete. From the guides we learned
that the inhabitants had not imbibed much idea of Christianity,
for they used the same term for the church bell which they did
for a diviner's drum. From this point the merchants had water communication
in three directions beyond, namely, from the Loangwa to the N.N.W.,
by the Kafue to the W., and by the Zambesi to the S.W.
Their attention, however, was chiefly attracted to the N. or Londa;
and the principal articles of trade were ivory and slaves.
Private enterprise was always restrained, for the colonies of the Portuguese
being strictly military, and the pay of the commandants being very small,
the officers have always been obliged to engage in trade;
and had they not employed their power to draw the trade to themselves
by preventing private traders from making bargains beyond the villages,
and only at regulated prices, they would have had no trade, as they themselves
were obliged to remain always at their posts.
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