Stanley in Africa

Natal was so named, in honor of our Saviour, more than 300 years ago by Vasco de Gama. It was the centre of the Zulu tribes, whom King Charka formed into an all-conquering army, until the invasion of the country by the Boers. It became a British colony in 1843, and has been held with the greatest difficulty, for the Zulu warriors showed a bravery and method in their warfare which made them formidable enemies even against forces with superior arms and discipline. It was in the English wars with the Zulus that the Prince Imperial, of France, lost his life. A writer describes the Zulus “as a race of the most handsome and manly people found among savages; tall, muscular, and of remarkable symmetry, beauty and strength. Their carriage is upright, and among the chiefs, majestic.”

The Drackenberg Mountains, many of whose peaks are 10,000 feet high, shut off Natal from the Transvaal Republic. This Transvaal region was, as already seen, redeemed from the natives by the Boers, who are mostly devoted to farming, but many to a pastoral life like that of the old patriarchs, living in wagons or tents and leading, or rather following, about immense herds of cattle and sheep. They are a hardy, strong, brave people, and in subduing them and annexing their beautiful and fertile country, it is very doubtful whether Great Britain has done herself credit or humanity benefit. Boers may not be all that modern civilization could desire. In their contact with the natives they may have retrograded to a certain extent. But it is very probable they have made larger and more beneficial conquests over nature than any other more highly endowed and uncompromising people could have done in the same length of time. There is hardly a product of the soil that does not grow in the Transvaal – corn, tobacco, apricots, figs, oranges, peaches – two and sometimes three crops a year. It is finely watered with noble mountain streams, and is rich in iron, tin, copper, lead, coal and gold. The capital, Pretoria, is the centre of a rich trade in ostrich feathers.

Ostrich farming is a large industry in these South African States. Farmers buy and sell these animals like cattle. They fence them in, stable them, tend them, grow crops for them, study their habits, and cut their precious feathers, all as a matter of strict business. The animals begin to yield feathers at eight months old, and each year they grow more valuable. They are nipped or cut off, not plucked. The ostrich feather trade of South Africa is of the value of $1,000,000 a year. The birds are innocent and stupid looking, but can attack with great ferocity, and strike very powerfully with their feet. The only safe posture under attack by them is to lie down. They then can only trample on you.

The Transvaal region is a paradise for hunters. The elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, buffalo, giraffe, zebra, springbok, gnu, lion, and indeed every African animal, finds a home amid its deep woody recesses and sparkling waters. As he entered its borders from the desert, Pinto’s camp was attacked by two lions, who scented his desert pony and herd of cattle. The natives became demoralized, and Pinto himself could do little toward saving his property on account of the darkness. Fortunately he got his hand on a dark lantern, in which was a splendid calcium light. Placing this in the hand of a native, he ordered him to go as near to the growling intruders as was safe, Pinto following with a double-barreled rifle. The glare of the light was then turned full in the faces of the beasts. They were dazed by it, and cowered for a moment. That moment was fatal. Pinto gave both a mortal wound and saved his cattle. And it was here that Cummings lost one of his guides, who was pounced upon by a lion as he lay asleep before a camp fire. Here also Lieutenant Moodie and his party got the ill-will of a herd of elephants, which charged upon them and gave furious chase, knocking the Lieutenant down and tramping him nearly to death. One of his companions was killed outright by the charging beasts and his body tossed angrily into the jungle with their tusks.

But the finest sport is hunting the buffalo. He is stealthy, cunning and swift. It requires a long shot or a quick ingenious chase to bag him. He never knows when he is beaten and will continue to charge and fight though riddled with bullets or pierced with many lances. Gillmore was once intent on an elephant track when suddenly his party was charged by five buffaloes. His horse saved him by a tremendous leap to one side, but one of his attendants was tossed ten feet in the air, and another landed amid the branches of a tree, one of which he fortunately caught.

NYASSALAND

Threats of war between England and Portugal bring into prominence that portion of Central Africa which is embraced in the title “Nyassaland.” While ordinarily it might be embraced in the Zambesi system, it is a land quite by itself, especially as to its topography and the position it occupies in the commercial and political world, and is in many respects the most interesting part of East Central Africa. It is a back-ground to Portugal’s Mozambique possessions, but at the same time the very heart of the British effort to cut a magnificent water way inland from the mouths of the Zambesi to the mouths of the Nile. Hence the conflict of interest there, a conflict which must go on by arbitration or by war, till Great Britain secures what she wants – control of the Shiré river and Lake Nyassa. The navigation of the Lower Zambesi is already open to all nations.

The river Shiré, which we are now about to ascend, falls into the Zambesi from the left, only some ninety miles from its mouth. Twenty years ago its course was unknown, and its banks were wildernesses untrodden by the foot of a white man. Now the stream is one of the best-known and most frequented of the highways to the Lake Regions. The Shiré is much narrower than the Zambesi, but of deeper channel, and in the upper and lower portions more easily ascended by steamers. Midway in its course, however, we meet a great impediment to the navigation of the river, and consequently to the civilization and commercial development of the regions beyond. In thirty-five miles the stream descends twelve hundred feet in a series of rapids and cataracts over a rock-encumbered bed and between sheer walls of cliff.

Beauty and use are badly adjusted on the Shiré. The scenery of the unnavigable portion of the river is full of singular and romantic beauty. In the picturesque diversity of its charms of crag and forest and rushing water it is scarcely equalled by any other part of Africa. Monotony, on the other hand, has set its stamp on the banks of the useful, slow-flowing river beneath and above. Yet the ascent of one hundred and fifty miles from the Zambesi to the cataracts is not without its attractions. The landscape is intensely and characteristically African. If the river is fringed on either shore by tall and sombre reeds, the majestic mountains that bound the Shiré valley are always in sight. A dense tropical vegetation covers these hills to the very tops, except that patches of lighter tint show where the hands of the natives have cleared the ground for the cultivation of crops of cotton, sorghum, or maize; for these healthy uplands, above the reach of the mosquito and the deadly marsh fog, and safe also, in some degree, from the ravages of the kidnapper, are inhabited by an industrious race, the Manganjas, who have made no small progress in agriculture and native iron and metal manufactures.

This whole country is favorable for the raising of cotton, which here grows a larger and finer staple, it is said, even than in Egypt. Every Manganja village has its cotton patch, where sufficient is grown for the use riot only of the community but of neighboring tribes. The demand certainly is not large, the requirements of Africans in the matter of clothing being modest – or immodest, if you will. There is a tribe, for instance, on the Lower Zambesi, whose name, being interpreted, means the “Go-Nakeds.” The full costume of a “Go-Naked” is a coat – of red ochre. Livingstone met one of their men of rank once, and found his court suit represented by a few beads and a pipe two feet long. Unfortunately the Manganja, along with their ingenuity and industry as weavers, blacksmiths, and farmers, are inordinately fond of beer and smoking, and are great in the arts of brewing and tobacco-manufacturing. With all these disadvantages, however, it is pleasant to find, in one corner at least of Africa, a race with both the skill and the inclination to work, and a native industry ready to spring up into large proportions so soon as it receives a little encouragement.

After the Zambesi has been left behind, a great mountain called Morumbala, four thousand feet in height, bounds for many miles the view on the right as we ascend the Shiré. Beyond it we reach one of the marshes or old lake-beds which form one of the features of this valley. The bounding lines of hills make each a semicircular curve, and inclose a vast morass, through the centre of which the river drains slowly between dripping walls of sedge and mud. No human inhabitant can dwell in these impenetrable swamps; but they are far from empty of life. Great flights of wild geese, ducks, waders, and other water-fowl abound here in prodigious numbers, and rise from the brake at the noise of the passing boat or steamer – for already steamers now ply on the waters of the river below and the great lake above.

The discovery of the lake was due to Livingstone who had heard of the “Great Water” somewhere to the north of the Zambesi and far amid the mountains of the Shiré. His first attempt to reach it was a failure, through reticence of the people respecting it and the natural difficulties he encountered. But his worst enemy was his guide who misled him until all were completely lost. The party were in a desperate strait. Suspicion of treachery filled every bosom except Livingstone’s. One of his faithful Makololos came up to him, and remarked, in a matter-of-fact way, “That fellow is taking us into mischief. My spear is sharp. There is no one here. Shall I cast him into the long grass?” A gesture of assent, or even silence, and the unlucky guide would have been run through the body; but Livingstone was not the man to permit blood to be spilt, even on an apparently well-grounded suspicion of treachery. After all, it turned out to be merely a blunder, and no treachery. The party were led safely to the margin of the “great lake” of the district – the elephant marsh that they had passed some time before while ascending the river!

The second trip resulted in a discovery of an inland sea, though not the one they were in search of. Climbing over the shoulder of the high mountains east of the Shiré, the party came in sight of Lake Shirwa, lying in an isolated, pear-shaped basin, nearly two thousand feet above sea-level. Magnificent mountain scenery surrounds the lake, the waters of which, contrary to the rule in Central Africa, are salt, or rather brackish. Although the area of Shirwa is large, it is but a mill-pond compared with Nyassa and some of the other African lakes. Yet, girt in though it is with hills, it shows to one standing near its southern end a boundless sea-horizon towards the north. Opposite on the eastern shore a lofty range rises to a height of eight thousand feet above sea-level, while behind, the table-topped Mount Zomba, only one thousand feet lower, dominates the Shiré valley.

All this mountainous mass seems habitable, and, in fact, is inhabited to its very summits; and its temperate climate, healthful breezes, and freedom from malaria and mosquitoes, have led to its being chosen as the site of the Church of Scotland mission to the Nyassa country – their station, Blantyre, being named after the Scottish village where Livingstone first saw the light.

In ascending to the Nyassa, the opposite or western side of the Shiré is generally chosen, and travellers prefer to make a wide détour into the healthy Manganja uplands to struggling through the rocky, broken, and wooded country through which the river tears its impetuous way. It is delightful to breathe the bracing air of these high plains after escaping from the humid, stifling atmosphere of the valley. The change of scenery and climate puts a new life into the veins of the traveller. Many novel views of African life come under his notice among the Manganja highlands. The path up the long ascent is toilsome, but the eye is cheered by the glorious views of the deep valley lying below and the blue domes and peaks that rise ahead. The country is open and park-like, full of grand forest trees and flowing streams.

In the evening we halt at a Manganja village and receive a hearty – perhaps an uproarious – welcome. The villages are surrounded by thick-set hedges of the poisonous euphorbia; and however busy at work or at feasting the inhabitants are inside, a guard is always kept on vigilant watch at the entrance, to give warning if a foraging band of Mazitu heave in sight in the mountains, or the white robes of a party of Arab slave-hunters are seen ascending the valley. When it is known that it is friends who are approaching, the villagers are not long in making amends for the shyness of their first greetings. Mats of reeds and bamboo are spread for the wayfarers under the shade of the banian tree at the “boalo,” an open space for the public entertainment of strangers at one end of the village, the favorite spot for lounging and smoking, and where on moonlight nights the young people indulge in singing and dancing and their elders in hard drinking bouts. The whole community troop out to see the white visitors, who are regarded with just such a mixture of curiosity and fear as a company of Red Indians would be looked upon by English rustics. Presents are exchanged with the chief, and then a brisk trade sets in, the villagers bartering food and articles of native manufacture for beads, looking-glasses, cloth, and other surprising products of Europe. Generally there follow dancing, pombe-drinking, and serenading in honor of the visitor, a homage which the latter is often glad to escape from by strolling out for a night-hunt for elephant or other game, or to note down by the clear light of the moon his observations for the day.

Soon it is time to descend into the valley, where the Shiré is found again flowing deep and slow, as below the falls, and opening up into a marshy lakelet, Pamalombe, with a strong family resemblance to the swamps of the lower river. It ought to be recorded, in justice to African honesty, that when the Ilala, the first steamer that floated on the Nyassa, was conveyed in pieces from the Lower to the Upper Shiré by a band of some hundreds of porters, under Captain Young’s leadership, it was found, on putting the little craft together, that not a single bolt or screw had been mislaid or stolen, though the temptation to fling away or decamp with their burdens must have sorely tried the carriers.

Even when almost within sight of the Nyassa. Livingstone could hear nothing of the goal of which he was in search. The chief of the “Great Lake” village on the Shiré told him that the river stretched on for “two months’ journey,” and then emerged from two rocks that towered perpendicularly to the skies. “We shall go and see these wonderful rocks,” said the doctor. “And when you see them,” objected his Makololo companions, “you will just want to see something else.” Next day they continued their march, and before noon came in sight of the lake.

Like the Tanganyika and Albert Lakes, Nyassa is a long and comparatively narrow body of water lying in a deep depression of the plateau of Central Africa. From the outlet of the Shiré one can sail on its waters for more than three hundred miles towards the equator; but it is nowhere more than sixty miles in width, and in some places less than half that distance across. It resembles the more northerly lakes, the Albert Nyanza and the Tanganyika, but especially the latter, in its general shape and direction; and it was for many years a favorite theory with “closet geographers” that the three lakes formed one continuous sheet of water. Such an attenuated “river-sea,” fifteen hundred miles in length and with no breadth to speak of, would have been a new thing in nature, and would, besides, have been an extremely useful factor in opening up Africa. Unfortunately, like other pretty theories, it did not stand the test of actual examination; and we have seen that the three lakes form parts of three different though not disconnected systems.

The shores of Nyassa seem to be overhung on all sides by tall mountains, although near the southern end there is generally a margin of more level country between the bases of the hills and the lake. As we proceed northwards, the distinctive features of the lake shores become more pronounced and majestic. The strip of plain narrows until it disappears. The range increases in altitude and approaches nearer, the rocky buttresses spring directly from the water, and the torrents that rush down their sides plunge in cascades into the lake; and the extreme northern end is encircled by dark mountains, whose frowning tops are ten thousand feet or more above sea-level. But when we ascend from the sweltering western margin of the lake to the cool and breezy heights that look down on it, we find that instead of being on the summit of a range of mountains we are only on the edge of a wide table-land. There is no steep slope corresponding to that which we have ascended so toilsomely, only a gentle incline towards the Zambesi.

On his last great expedition to Africa, Dr. Livingstone passed round the southern end of the lake, and, ascending the table-land, traced the water-shed between the lake and the streams flowing to the westward, until he descended into the valley of the Chambesi, and began that investigation of the Congo which is hereafter more fully described. The contour of the country reminded him strongly of that of Southern India. There was the flat country covered with thick jungle and tiger-grass, succeeded by dense forest, gradually thinning away to clumps of evergreens as the higher levels are reached, the scattered masses of boulders, the deeply-trenched “nullahs” or water-courses, and all the other familiar features of the fine scenery of the Ghauts, while the tableland above resembled closely the high plains of the Deccan. But what a contrast in the social and industrial condition of the two countries! Instead of seeing at every step, as in India, the traces of a long-founded civilization and a race of industrious tillers of the soil dwelling in peace and security under the strong arm of the law, we meet only with anarchy, misery, and barbarism.

The whole of this region is a hunting-ground of the Mazitu or Mavitu Zulus, whose only business is war and pillage. The wretched inhabitants of these hills dwell in constant apprehension of their raids. On no night can they sleep even within the shelter of their well-guarded stockades with the assurance that the Mavitu will not be upon them ere morning. Originally weak in numbers, this tribe has gathered strength by amalgamating with themselves the clans they have conquered. The terror which their deeds have inspired has been heightened by their wild and fantastic dress and gestures as they advance to battle, and by their formidable weapons. They carry the long Zulu shield and both the flinging and the stabbing assegai. Their hair is plumed with feathers, and their bodies painted in fiendish devices with red and white clay. So abject is the fear entertained for these redoubtable champions among the surrounding tribes, that the mere mention of their name is enough to make a travelling party take to their heels. Livingstone found this a constant source of annoyance and delay. Twice it was the cause of reports of his death being brought home. On the last occasion, the Johanna men – natives of the Comoro Isles – who formed his escort, were seized with the infectious panic, and, abandoning him in a body, brought down to the coast the story of the explorer having been murdered in the interior. The falsity of their report was only ascertained after Mr. Edward Young had made a special expedition to the Nyassa, and learned on the spot that the intrepid missionary, in spite of the cowardly desertion of his followers, was safe and well, and still pushing forward towards his goal.

In one respect, if in no other, the Zulu “Rob Roys” of these hills have a feeling in common with the travellers and missionaries who have found their way to the Nyassa countries – they are the inveterate enemies of the slave-hunters, and will not permit these gentry to practice the arts of kidnapping and murder within reach of their spears. The eastern side of the Nyassa basin, on the other hand, is one of the principal scenes of the slave-traders’ operations. In conjunction with predatory negro tribes, such as the Ajawa on the left bank of the Shiré, they have made a wilderness of all the country between the Nyassa and the Indian Ocean. Nothing can exceed the waste and havoc they have wrought in this beautiful and fruitful land. The books of the explorers are full of details of almost incredible atrocities committed under their eyes, and which they were powerless to prevent. Whole populations have been swept into the slave-gangs and hurried down to the coast, leaving the country behind them a desert, and their path marked by the skeletons of those who have succumbed to exhaustion or the cruelty of their brutal drivers. The miserable remnant of the population roost in trees, or seek shelter in the deepest recesses of the forest: while the jungle overruns the fields of maize, cotton, manioc, and sorghum and the charred ruins of their villages.

In Livingstone’s Journals we come upon such entries as: “Passed a slave woman shot or stabbed through the body; a group, looking on, said an Arab had done it that morning in anger at losing the price he had given for her, because she was unable to walk.” “Found a number of slaves with slave sticks (logs six feet long with a cleft at one end in which the head of the unfortunate is fastened) abandoned by their master from want of food; they were too weak to speak or say where they had come from.” “It was wearisome to see the skulls and bones scattered about everywhere; one would fain not notice them, but they are so striking as one trudges along the sultry path that it cannot be avoided.” This evidence is abundantly supported by the statements of other observers. Consul Elton describes passing a caravan of three hundred slaves from the Nyassa, while travelling through the clove and gum-copal forests on the Mozambique coast. “All,” he says, “were in wretched condition. One gang of lads and women, chained together with iron neck-rings, was in a horrible state, their lower extremities coated with dry mud and torn with thorns, their bodies mere frameworks, and their skeleton limbs slightly stretched-over with parchment-like skin. One wretched woman had been flung against a tree for slipping her rope, and came screaming to us for protection, with one eye half out, and her face and bosom streaming with blood. We washed her wounds, and that was the only piece of interference on our part with the caravan, although the temptation was strong to cast all adrift, and give them at any rate a chance of starving to death peaceably in the woods.” Can it be wondered at that the pioneers of civilization and Christianity in these regions have sometimes been carried away by their feelings, and at the risk of ruining their whole plans have forcibly interfered between these Arab miscreants and their victims?

During the period to which Consul Elton’s accounts apply, it was computed that the Lake Nyassa region supplied some fifteen thousand slaves annually to the markets of Kilwa and other coast towns. Dr. Livingstone is convinced from his own observations, that, so far as regards the Shiré country, not a tenth of those who are captured survive the horrors of the land journey. It may be wondered how this waste of human life can go on and the country not to be completely depopulated. In spite, however, of their terrible losses, there is still a large population settled on the Nyassa. They have been chased down from the hills by the Mavitu and the slaver, and are huddled together on the lake margin, where their enemies can swoop down and make them an easy prey.

This dense population is, however, only found towards the southern end of Nyassa. Further north, the Mavitu have taken possession of the shore as well as the hills, and practice with equal success the vocation of pirates on the water and of robbers on land. An expedition in this direction was, till lately, certain to be attended with no small excitement and clanger. If the journey were made by land, the travellers were liable to be surprised at some point where the road was more rocky and difficult than usual, by the apparition of a wild-looking crew starting up from behind boulder or tree, and advancing with brandished spears and unearthly yells. White explorers are not accustomed to turn and flee at the first alarm. They stand, quietly awaiting the attack; and the Mavitu disconcerted at conduct so utterly unlike what they had calculated upon, run away themselves instead. If the excursion is made by water, a crowd of boats, pulled by swift rowers, will perhaps be seen putting out from a secluded bight, or from behind a wooded promontory, and giving chase to the strangers, with loud outcries to stop. The navigators of this inland sea, however, are missionaries, merchants and men of peace. They have no desire to do harm to their savage pursuers, and, secure in the speed of their little steamer and the superior range of their guns, they can afford to laugh at the attempts to capture them.