The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death Volume I Part 6

_5th July, 1866._--We left for Mtende, who is the last chief before we enter on a good eight days' march to Mataka's; we might have gone to Kandulo's, who is near the Rovuma, and more to the north, but all are so well supplied with everything by slave-traders that we have difficulty in getting provisions at all. Mataka has plenty of all kinds of food. On the way we pa.s.sed the burnt bones of a person Avho was accused of having eaten human flesh; he had been poisoned, or, as they said, killed by poison (muave?), and then burned. His clothes were hung, up on trees by the wayside as a warning to others. The country was covered with scraggy forest, but so undulating that one could often see all around from the crest of the waves. Great mountain ma.s.ses appear in the south and south-west. It feels cold, and the sky is often overcast.

_6th July, 1866._--I took lunars yesterday, after which Mtende invited us to eat at his house where he had provided a large mess of rice porridge and bean-leaves as a relish. He says that many Arabs pa.s.s him and many of them die in their journeys. He knows no deaf or dumb person in the country. He says that he cuts the throats of all animals to be eaten, and does not touch lion or hyaena.

_7th July, 1866._--We got men from Mtende to carry loads and show the way. He asked a cloth to ensure his people going to the journey's end and behaving properly; this is the only case of anything like tribute being demanded in this journey: I gave him a cloth worth 5s. 6d.

Upland vegetation prevails; trees are dotted here and there among bushes five feet high, and fine blue and yellow flowers are common. We pa.s.s over a succession of ridges and valleys as in Londa; each valley has a running stream or trickling rill; garden willows are in full bloom, and also a species of sage with variegated leaves beneath the flowers.

When the sepoy Perim threw away the tea and the lead lining, I only reproved him and promised him punishment if he committed any other wilful offence, but now he and another skulked behind and gave their loads to a stranger to carry, with a promise to him that I would pay.

We waited two hours for them; and as the havildar said that they would not obey him, I gave Perim and the other some smart cuts with a cane, but I felt that I was degrading myself, and resolved not to do the punishment myself again.

_8th July, 1866._--Hard travelling through a depopulated country. The trees are about the size of hop-poles with abundance of tall gra.s.s; the soil is sometimes a little sandy, at other times that reddish, clayey sort which yields native grain so well. The rock seen uppermost is often a ferruginous conglomerate, lying on granite rocks. The gum-copal tree is here a mere bush, and no digging takes place for the gum: it is called Mchenga, and yields gum when wounded, as also bark, cloth, and cordage when stripped. Mountain ma.s.ses are all around us; we sleep at Linata mountain.

_9th July, 1866._--The Masuko fruit abounds: the name is the same here as in the Batoka country; there are also rhododendrons of two species, but the flowers white. We slept in a wild spot, near Mount Leziro, with many lions roaring about us; one hoa.r.s.e fellow serenaded us a long time, but did nothing more. Game is said to be abundant, but we saw none, save an occasional diver springing away from the path. Some streams ran to the north-west to the Lismyando, which flows N. for the Rovuma; others to the south-east for the Loendi.

_10th and 11th July, 1866._--Nothing to interest but the same weary trudge: our food so scarce that we can only give a handful or half a pound of grain to each person per day. The Masuko fruit is formed, but not ripe till rains begin; very few birds are seen or heard, though there is both food and water in the many grain-bearing gra.s.ses and running streams, which we cross at the junction of every two ridges.

A dead body lay in a hut by the wayside; the poor thing had begun to make a garden by the stream, probably in hopes of living long enough (two months or so) on wild fruits to reap a crop of maize.

_12th July, 1866._--A drizzling mist set in during the night and continued this morning, we set off in the dark, however, leaving our last food for the havildar and sepoys who had not yet come up. The streams are now of good size. An Arab brandy bottle was lying broken in one village called Msapa. We hurried on as fast as we could to the Luatize, our last stage before getting to Mataka's; this stream is rapid, about forty yards wide, waist deep, with many podostemons on the bottom. The country gets more and more undulating and is covered with ma.s.ses of green foliage, chiefly Masuko trees, which have large hard leaves. There are hippopotami further down the river on its way to the Loendi. A little rice which had been kept for me I divided, but some did not taste food.

_13th July, 1866._--A good many stragglers behind, but we push on to get food and send it back to them. The soil all reddish clay, the roads baked hard by the sun, and the feet of many of us are weary and sore: a weary march and long, for it is perpetually up and down now. I counted fifteen running streams in one day: they are at the bottom of the valley which separates the ridges. We got to the brow of a ridge about an hour from Mataka's first gardens, and all were so tired that we remained to sleep; but we first invited volunteers to go on and buy food, and bring it back early next morning: they had to be pressed to do this duty.

_14th July, 1866._--As our volunteers did not come at 8 A.M., I set off to see the cause, and after an hour of perpetual up and down march, as I descended the steep slope which overlooks the first gardens, I saw my friends start up at the apparition--they were comfortably cooking porridge for themselves! I sent men of Mataka back with food to the stragglers behind and came on to his town.

An Arab, Sef Rupia or Rubea, head of a large body of slaves, on his way to the coast, most kindly came forward and presented an ox, bag of flour, and some cooked meat, all of which were extremely welcome to half-famished men, or indeed under any circ.u.mstances. He had heard of our want of food and of a band of sepoys, and what could the English think of doing but putting an end to the slave-trade? Had he seen our wretched escort, all fear of them would have vanished! He had a large safari or caravan under him. This body is usually divided into ten or twelve portions, and all are bound to obey the leader to a certain extent: in this case there were eleven parties, and the traders numbered about sixty or seventy, who were dark coast Arabs. Each underling had his men under him, and when I saw them they were busy making the pens of branches in which their slaves and they sleep. Sef came on with me to Mataka's, and introduced me in due form with discharges of gunpowder. I asked him to come back next morning, and presented three cloths with a request that he would a.s.sist the havildar and sepoys, if he met them, with food: this he generously did.

We found Mataka's town situated in an elevated valley surrounded by mountains; the houses numbered at least 1000, and there were many villages around. The mountains were pleasantly green, and had many trees which the people were incessantly cutting down. They had but recently come here: they were besieged by Mazitu at their former location west of this; after fighting four days they left unconquered, having beaten the enemy off.

Mataka kept us waiting some time in the verandah of his large square house, and then made his appearance, smiling with his good-natured face. He is about sixty years of age, dressed as an Arab, and if we may judge from the laughter with which his remarks were always greeted, somewhat humorous. He had never seen any but Arabs before. He gave me a square house to live in, indeed the most of the houses here are square, for the Arabs are imitated in everything: they have introduced the English pea, and we were pleased to see large patches of it in full bearing, and ripe in moist hollows which had been selected for it. The numerous springs which come out at various parts are all made use of. Those parts which are too wet are drained, whilst beds are regularly irrigated by water-courses and ridges: we had afterwards occasion to admire the very extensive draining which has been effected among the hills. Ca.s.sava is cultivated on ridges along all the streets in the town, which give it a somewhat regular and neat appearance. Peas and tobacco were the chief products raised by irrigation, but batatas and maize were often planted too: wheat would succeed if introduced. The alt.i.tude is about 2700 feet above the sea: the air at this time is cool, and many people have coughs.

Mataka soon sent a good mess of porridge and cooked meat (beef); he has plenty of cattle and sheep: and the next day he sent abundance of milk. We stand a good deal of staring unmoved, though it is often accompanied by remarks by no means complimentary; they think that they are not understood, and probably I do misunderstand sometimes. The Waiyau jumble their words as I think, and Mataka thought that I did not enunciate anything, but kept my tongue still when I spoke.

Town of Matak, Moembe. _15th July, 1866._--The safari under Sef set off this morning for Kilwa. Sef says that about 100 of the Kilwa people died this year, so slaving as well as philanthropy is accompanied with loss of life: we saw about seven of their graves; the rest died on the road up.

There are two roads from this to the Lake, one to Losewa, which is west of this, and opposite Kotakota; the other, to Makatu, is further south: the first is five days through deserted country chiefly; but the other, seven, among people and plenty of provisions all the way.

It struck me after Sef had numbered up the losses that the Kilwa people sustained by death in their endeavours to nslave people, similar losses on the part of those who go to "proclaim liberty to the captives, the opening of the prison to them that are bound,"--to save and elevate, need not be made so very much of as they sometimes are.

Soon after our arrival we heard that a number of Mataka's Waiyau had, without his knowledge, gone to Nya.s.sa, and in a foray carried off cattle and people: when they came home with the spoil, Mataka ordered all to be sent back whence they came. The chief came up to visit me soon after, and I told him that his decision was the best piece of news I had heard in the country: he was evidently pleased with my approbation, and, turning to his people, asked if they heard what I said. He repeated my remark, and said, "You silly fellows think me wrong in returning the captives, but all wise men will approve of it,"

and he then scolded them roundly.

I was accidentally spectator of this party going back, for on going out of the town I saw a meat market opened, and people buying with maize and meal. On inquiring, I was told that the people and cattle there were the Nya.s.sas, and they had slaughtered an ox, in order to exchange meat for grain as provisions on the journey. The women and children numbered fifty-four, and about a dozen boys were engaged in milking the cows: the cattle were from twenty-five to thirty head.

The change from hard and scanty fare caused illness in several of our party. I had tasted no animal food except what turtle-doves and guinea-fowls could be shot since we pa.s.sed Matawatawa,--true, a fowl was given by Mtende. The last march was remarkable for the scarcity of birds, so eight days were spent on porridge and rice without relish.

I gave Mataka a trinket, to be kept in remembrance of his having sent back the Nya.s.sa people: he replied that he would always act in a similar manner. As it was a spontaneous act, it was all the more valuable.

The sepoys have become quite intolerable, and if I cannot get rid of them we shall all starve before we accomplish what we wish. They dawdle behind picking up wild fruits, and over our last march (which we accomplished on the morning of the eighth day) they took from fourteen to twenty-two days. Retaining their brutal feelings to the last they killed the donkey which I lent to the havildar to carry his things, by striking it on the head when in boggy places into which they had senselessly driven it loaded; then the havildar came on (his men pretending they could go no further from weakness), and killed the young buffalo and eat it when they thought they could hatch up a plausible story. They said it had died, and tigers came and devoured it--they saw them. "Did you see the stripes of the tiger?" said I. All declared that they saw the stripes distinctly. This gave us an idea of their truthfulness, as there is no striped tiger in all Africa. All who resolved on skulking or other bad behaviour invariably took up with the sepoys; their talk seemed to suit evil-doers, and they were such a disreputable-looking lot that I was quite ashamed of them. The havildar had no authority, and all bore the sulky dogged look of people going where they were forced but hated to go. This hang-dog expression of countenance was so conspicuous that I many a time have heard the country people remark, "These are the slaves of the party."

They have neither spirit nor pluck as compared with the Africans, and if one saw a village he turned out of the way to beg in the most abject manner, or lay down and slept, the only excuse afterwards being, "My legs were sore." Having allowed some of them to sleep at the fire in my house, they began a wholesale plunder of everything they could sell, as cartridges, cloths, and meat, so I had to eject them. One of them then threatened to shoot my interpreter Simon if he got him in a quiet place away from the English power. As this threat had been uttered three times, and I suspect that something of the kind had prevented the havildar exerting his authority, I resolved to get rid of them by sending them back to the coast by the first trader. It is likely that some sympathizers will take their part, but I strove to make them useful. They had but poor and scanty fare in a part of the way, but all of us suffered alike. They made themselves thoroughly disliked by their foul talk and abuse, and if anything tended more than another to show me that theirs was a moral unfitness for travel, it was the briskness a.s.sumed when they knew they were going back to the coast. I felt inclined to force them on, but it would have been acting from revenge, and to pay them out, so I forbore. I gave Mataka forty-eight yards of calico, and to the sepoys eighteen yards, and arranged that he should give them food till Suleiman, a respectable trader, should arrive. He was expected every day, and we pa.s.sed him near the town. If they chose to go and get their luggage, it was of course all safe for them behind. The havildar begged still to go on with me, and I consented, though he is a drag on the party, but he will count in any difficulty.

Abraham recognised his uncle among the crowds who came to see us. On making himself known he found that his mother and two sisters had been sold to the Arabs after he had been enslaved. The uncle pressed him to remain, and Mataka urged, and so did another uncle, but in vain. I added my voice, and could have given him goods to keep him afloat a good while, but he invariably replied, "How can I stop where I have no mother and no sister?" The affection seems to go to the maternal side.

I suggested that he might come after he had married a wife, but I fear very much that unless some European would settle, none of these Na.s.sick boys will come to this country. It would be decidedly better if they were taught agriculture in the simplest form, as the Indian.

Mataka would have liked to put his oxen to use, but Abraham could not help him with that. He is a smith, or rather a nothing, for unless he could smelt iron he would be entirely without materials to work with.

_14th-28th July, 1866._--One day, calling at Mataka's, I found as usual a large crowd of idlers, who always respond with a laugh to everything he utters as wit. He asked, if he went to Bombay what ought he to take to secure some gold? I replied, "Ivory," he rejoined, "Would slaves not be a good speculation?" I replied that, "if he took slaves there for sale, they would put him in prison." The idea of the great Mataka in "chokee" made him wince, and the laugh turned for once against him. He said that as all the people from the coast crowd to him, they ought to give him something handsome for being here to supply their wants. I replied, if he would fill the fine well-watered country we had pa.s.sed over with people instead of sending them off to Kilwa, he would confer a benefit on visitors, but we had been starved on the way to him; and I then told him what the English would do in road-making in a fine country like this. This led us to talk of railways, ships, ploughing with oxen--the last idea struck him most. I told him that I should have liked some of the Na.s.sick boys to remain and teach this and other things, but they might be afraid to venture lest they should be sold again. The men who listened never heard such decided protests against selling each other into slavery before!

The idea of guilt probably floated but vaguely in their minds, but the loss of life we have witnessed (in the guilt of which the sellers as well as the buyers partic.i.p.ate) comes home very forcibly to their minds.

Mataka has been an active hand in slave wars himself, though now he wishes to settle down in quiet. The Waiyau generally are still the most active agents the slave-traders have. The caravan leaders from Kilwa arrive at a Waiyau village, show the goods they have brought, are treated liberally by the elders, and told to wait and enjoy themselves, slaves enough to purchase all will be procured: then a foray is made against the Manganja, who have few or no guns. The Waiyau who come against them are abundantly supplied with both by their coast guests. Several of the low coast Arabs, who differ in nothing from the Waiyau, usually accompany the foray, and do business on their own account: this is the usual way in which a safari is furnished with slaves.

Makanjela, a Waiyau chief about a third of the way from Mtende's to Mataka, has lost the friendship of all his neighbours by kidnapping and selling their people; if any of Mataka's people are found in the district between Makanjela and Moembe, they are considered fair game and sold. Makanjela's people cannot p.i.s.s Mataka to go to the Manganja, so they do what they can by kidnapping and plundering all who fall into their hands.

When I employed two of Mataka's people to go back on the 14th with food to the havildar and sepoys, they went a little way and relieved some, but would not venture as far as the Luatize, for fear of losing their liberty by Makanjela's people. I could not get the people of the country to go back; nor could I ask the Na.s.sick boys, who had been threatened by the sepoys with a.s.sa.s.sination,--and it was the same with the Johanna men, because, though Mahometans, the sepoys had called them Caffirs, &c., and they all declared, "We are ready to do anything for you, but we will do nothing for these Hindis." I sent back a sepoy, giving him provisions; he sat down in the first village, ate all the food, and returned.

An immense tract of country lies uninhabited. To the north-east of Moembe we have at least fifty miles of as fine land as can be seen anywhere, still bearing all the marks of having once supported a prodigious iron-smelting and grain-growing population. The clay pipes which are put on the nozzles of their bellows and inserted into the furnace are met with everywhere--often vitrified. Then the ridges on which they planted maize, beans, ca.s.sava, and sorghum, and which they find necessary to drain off the too abundant moisture of the rains, still remain unlevelled to attest the industry of the former inhabitants; the soil being clayey, resists for a long time the influence of the weather. These ridges are very regular, for in crossing the old fields, as the path often compels us to do, one foot treads regularly on the ridge, and the other in the hollow, for a considerable distance. Pieces of broken pots, with their rims ornamented with very good imitations of basket-work, attest that the lady potters of old followed the example given them by their still more ancient mothers,--their designs are rude, but better than we can make them without referring to the original.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Imitation of basket-work in Pottery.]

No want of water has here acted to drive the people away, as has been the case further south. It is a perpetual succession of ridge and valley, with a running stream or oozing bog, where ridge is separated from ridge: the ridges become steeper and narrower as we approach Mataka's.

I counted fifteen running burns of from one to ten yards wide in one day's march of about six hours; being in a hilly or rather mountainous region, they flow rapidly and have plenty of water-power. In July any mere torrent ceases to flow, but these were brawling burns with water too cold (61) for us to bathe in whose pores were all open by the relaxing regions nearer the coast. The sound, so un-African, of gushing water dashing over rocks was quite familiar to our ears.

This district, which rises up west of Mataka's to 3400 feet above the sea, catches a great deal of the moisture brought up by the easterly winds. Many of the trees are covered with lichens. While here we had cold southerly breezes, and a sky so overcast every day after 10 A.M., that we could take no astronomical observations: even the lat.i.tude was too poor to be much depended on. 12 53' S. may have been a few miles from this.

The cattle, rather a small breed, black and white in patches, and brown, with humps, give milk which is duly prized by these Waiyau. The sheep are the large-tailed variety, and generally of a black colour.

Fowls and pigeons are the only other domestic animals we see, if we except the wretched village dogs which our-poodle had immense delight in chasing.

The Waiyau are far from a handsome race, but they are not the prognathous beings one sees on the West Coast either. Their heads are of a round shape; compact foreheads, but not particularly receding; the alae nasi are flattened out; lips full, and with the women a small lip-ring just turns them up to give additional thickness. Their style of beauty is exactly that which was in fashion when the stone deities were made in the caves of Elephanta and Kenora near Bombay. a favourite mode of dressing the hair into little k.n.o.bs, which was in fashion there, is more common in some tribes than in this. The mouths of the women would not be so hideous with a small lip-ring if they did not file their teeth to points, but they seem strong and able for the work which falls to their lot. The men are large, strong-boned fellows, and capable of enduring great fatigue, they undergo a rite which once distinguished the Jews about the age of p.u.b.erty, and take a new name on the occasion; this was not introduced by the Arabs, whose advent is a recent event, and they speak of the time before they were inundated with European manufactures in exchange for slaves, as quite within their memory.

Young Mataka gave me a dish of peas, and usually brought something every time he made a visit, he seems a nice boy, and his father, in speaking of learning to read, said he and his companions could learn, but he himself was too old. The soil seems very fertile, for the sweet potatoes become very large, and we bought two loads of them for three cubits and two needles; they quite exceeded 1 cwt. The maize becomes very large too; one cob had 1600 seeds. The abundance of water, the richness of soil, the available labour for building square houses, the coolness of the climate, make this nearly as desirable a residence as Magomero; but, alas! instead of three weeks' easy sail up the Zambesi and Shire, we have spent four weary months in getting here: I shall never cease bitterly to lament the abandonment of the Magomero mission.

Moaning seems a favourite way of spending the time with some sick folk. For the sake of the warmth, I allowed a Na.s.sick boy to sleep in my house; he and I had the same complaint, dysentery, and I was certainly worse than he, but did not moan, while he played at it as often as he was awake. I told him that people moaned only when too ill to be sensible of what they were doing; the groaning ceased, though he became worse.

Three sepoys played at groaning very vigorously outside my door; they had nothing the matter with them, except perhaps fatigue, which we all felt alike; as these fellows prevented my sleeping, I told them quite civilly that, if so ill that they required to groan, they had better move off a little way, as I could not sleep; they preferred the verandah, and at once forbore.

The abundance of grain and other food is accompanied by great numbers of rats or large mice, which play all manner of pranks by night; white ants have always to be guarded against likewise. Anyone who would find an antidote to drive them away would confer a blessing; the natural check is the driver ant, which when it visits a house is a great pest for a time, but it clears the others out.

FOOTNOTES:

[12] There is a double purpose in these murders; the terror inspired in the minds of the survivors spurs them on to endure the hardships of the march: the Portuese drivers are quite alive to the merits of this stimulus.--ED.

[13] A tribal distinction turns on the customs prevailing with respect to animal food, _e.g._ one tribe will eat the elephant, the next looks on such flesh as unclean, and so with other meat. The neighbouring Manganja gladly eat the leopard and hyaena.--ED.

[14] A coloured cloth manufactured expressly for barter in East Africa.

[15] This is p.r.o.nounced "Y-yow."--ED.