A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries

Having been delayed one morning by some negotiation about guides, who were used chiefly to introduce us to other villages, we two whites walked a little way ahead, taking the direction of the stream.  The men having been always able to find out our route by the prints of our shoes, we went on for a number of miles.  This time, however, they lost our track, and failed to follow us.  The path was well marked by elephants, hyenas, pallahs, and zebras, but for many a day no human foot had trod it.  When the sun went down a deserted hamlet was reached, where we made comfortable beds for ourselves of grass.  Firing muskets to attract the attention of those who have strayed is the usual resource in these cases.  On this occasion the sound of firearms tended to mislead us; for, hearing shots next morning, a long weary march led us only to some native hunters, who had been shooting buffaloes.  Returning to a small village, we met with some people who remembered our passing up to the Lake in the boat; they were as kind as they could be.  The only food they possessed was tamarinds, prepared with ashes, and a little cowitch meal.  The cowitch, as mentioned before, has a velvety brown covering of minute prickles, which, if touched, enter the pores of the skin and cause a painful tingling.  The women in times of scarcity collect the pods, kindle a fire of grass over them to destroy the prickles, then steep the beans till they begin to sprout, wash them in pure water, and either boil them or pound them into meal, which resembles our bean-meal.  This plant climbs up the long grass, and abounds in all reedy parts, and, though a plague to the traveller who touches its pods, it performs good service in times of famine by saving many a life from starvation.  Its name here is Kitedzi.

Having travelled at least twenty miles in search of our party that day, our rest on a mat in the best hut of the village was very sweet.  We had dined the evening before on a pigeon each, and had eaten only a handful of kitedzi porridge this afternoon.  The good wife of the village took a little corn which she had kept for seed, ground it after dark, and made it into porridge.  This, and a cup of wild vegetables of a sweetish taste for a relish, a little boy brought in and put down, with several vigorous claps of his hands, in the manner which is esteemed polite, and which is strictly enjoined on all children.

On the third day of separation, Akosanjéré, the headman of this village, conducted us forward to our party who had gone on to Nsézé, a district to the westward.  This incident is mentioned, not for any interest it possesses, apart from the idea of the people it conveys.  We were completely separated from our men for nearly three days, and had nothing wherewith to purchase food.  The people were sorely pressed by famine and war, and their hospitality, poor as it was, did them great credit, and was most grateful to us.  Our own men had become confused and wandered, but had done their utmost to find us; on our rejoining them, the ox was slain, and all, having been on short commons, rejoiced in this “day of slaughter.”  Akosanjéré was, of course, rewarded to his heart’s content.

As we pursued our way, we came close up to a range of mountains, the most prominent peak of which is called Mvai.  This is a great, bare, rounded block of granite shooting up from the rest of the chain.  It and several other masses of rock are of a light grey colour, with white patches, as if of lichens; the sides and summits are generally thinly covered with rather scraggy trees.  There are several other prominent peaks—one, for instance, still further north, called Chirobvé.  Each has a name, but we could never ascertain that there was an appellation which applied to the whole.  This fact, and our wish to commemorate the name of Dr. Kirk, induced us afterwards, when we could not discover a particular peak mentioned to us formerly as Molomo-ao-koku, or Cock’s-bill, to call the whole chain from the west of the Cataracts up to the north end of the Lake, “Kirk’s Range.”  The part we slept at opposite Mvai was named Paudio, and was evidently a continuation of the district of one of our stations on the Shiré, at which observations for latitude were formerly taken.

Leaving Paudio, we had Kirk’s Range close on our left and at least 3000 feet above us, and probably not less than 5000 feet above the sea.  Far to our right extended a long green wooded country rising gradually up to a ridge, ornamented with several detached mountains, which bounded the Shiré Valley.  In front, northwards, lay a valley as rich and lovely as we ever saw anywhere, terminating at the mountains, which, stretched away some thirty miles beyond our range of vision and ended at Cape Maclear.  The groups of trees had never been subjected to the landscape gardener’s art; but had been cut down mercilessly, just as suited the convenience of the cultivator; yet the various combinations of open forest, sloping woodland, grassy lawns, and massive clumps of dark green foliage along the running streams, formed as beautiful a landscape as could be seen on the Thames.  This valley is named Gõa or Gova, and as we moved through it we found that what was smooth to the eye was very much furrowed by running streams winding round innumerable knolls.  These little brooklets came down from the range on our left, and the water was deliciously cool.

When we came abreast of the peak Chirobvé, the people would no longer give us guides.  They were afraid of their enemies, whose dwellings we now had on our east; and, proceeding without any one to lead us, or to introduce us to the inhabitants, we were perplexed by all the paths running zigzag across instead of along the valley.  They had been made by the villagers going from the hamlets on the slopes to their gardens in the meadows below.  To add to our difficulties, the rivulets and mountain-torrents had worn gullies some thirty or forty feet deep, with steep sides that could not be climbed except at certain points.  The remaining inhabitants on the flank of the range when they saw strangers winding from side to side, and often attempting to cross these torrent beds at impossible places, screamed out their shrill war-alarm, and made the valley ring with their wild outcries.  It was war, and war alone, and we were too deep down in the valley to make our voices heard in explanation.  Fortunately, they had burned off the long grass to a great extent.  It only here and there hid them from us.  Selecting an open spot, we spent a night regarded by all around us as slave-hunters, but were undisturbed, though the usual way of treating an enemy in this part of the country is by night attack.

The nights at the altitude of the valley were cool, the lowest temperature shown being 37 degrees; at 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. it was 58 degrees, about the average temperature of the day; at mid-day 82 degrees, and sunset 70 degrees.  Our march was very much hindered by the imperfectly burned corn and grass stalks having fallen across the paths.  To a reader in England this will seem a very small obstacle.  But he must fancy the grass stems as thick as his little finger, and the corn-stalks like so many walkingsticks lying in one direction, and so supporting each other that one has to lift his feet up as when wading through deep high heather.  The stems of grass showed the causes of certain explosions as loud as pistols, which are heard when the annual fires come roaring over the land.  The heated air inside expanding bursts the stalk with a loud report, and strews the fragments on the ground.

A very great deal of native corn had been cultivated here, and we saw buffaloes feeding in the deserted gardens, and some women, who ran away very much faster than the beasts did.

On the 29th, seeing some people standing under a tree by a village, we sat down, and sent Masego, one of our party, to communicate.  The headman, Matunda, came back with him, bearing a calabash with water for us.  He said that all the people had fled from the Ajawa, who had only just desisted from their career of pillage on being paid five persons as a fine for some offence for which they had commenced the invasion.  Matunda had plenty of grain to sell, and all the women were soon at work grinding it into meal.  We secured an abundant supply, and four milk goats.  The Manganja goat is of a very superior breed to the general African animal, being short in the legs and having a finely-shaped broad body.  By promising the Makololo that, when we no longer needed the milk, they should have the goats to improve the breed of their own at home, they were induced to take the greatest possible care of both goats and kids in driving and pasturing.

After leaving Matunda, we came to the end of the highland valley; and, before descending a steep declivity of a thousand feet towards the part which may be called the heel of the Lake, we had the bold mountains of Cape Maclear on our right, with the blue water at their base, the hills of Tsenga in the distance in front, and Kirk’s Range on our left, stretching away northwards, and apparently becoming lower.  As we came down into a fine rich undulating valley, many perennial streams running to the east from the hills on our left were crossed, while all those behind us on the higher ground seemed to unite in one named Leküé, which flowed into the Lake.

After a long day’s march in the valley of the Lake, where the temperature was very much higher than in that we had just left, we entered the village of Katosa, which is situated on the bank of a stream among gigantic timber trees, and found there a large party of Ajawa—Waiau, they called themselves—all armed with muskets.  We sat down among them, and were soon called to the chiefs court, and presented with an ample mess of porridge, buffalo meat, and beer.  Katosa was more frank than any Manganja chief we had met, and complimented us by saying that “we must be his ‘Bazimo’ (good spirits of his ancestors); for when he lived at Pamalombé, we lighted upon him from above—men the like of whom he had never seen before, and coming he knew not whence.”  He gave us one of his own large and clean huts to sleep in; and we may take this opportunity of saying that the impression we received, from our first journey on the hills among the villages of Chisunsé, of the excessive dirtiness of the Manganja, was erroneous.  This trait was confined to the cool highlands.  Here crowds of men and women were observed to perform their ablutions daily in the stream that ran past their villages; and this we have observed elsewhere to be a common custom with both Manganja and Ajawa.

Before we started on the morning of the 1st September, Katosa sent an enormous calabash of beer, containing at least three gallons, and then came and wished us to “stop a day and eat with him.”  On explaining to him the reasons for our haste, he said that he was in the way by which travellers usually passed, he never stopped them in their journeys, but would like to look at us for a day.  On our promising to rest a little with him on our return, he gave us about two pecks of rice, and three guides to conduct us to a subordinate female chief, Nkwinda, living on the borders of the Lake in front.

The Ajawa, from having taken slaves down to Quillimane and Mosambique, knew more of us than Katosa did.  Their muskets were carefully polished, and never out of these slaver’s hands for a moment, though in the chiefs presence.  We naturally felt apprehensive that we should never see Katosa again.  A migratory afflatus seems to have come over the Ajawa tribes.  Wars among themselves, for the supply of the Coast slave-trade, are said to have first set them in motion.  The usual way in which they have advanced among the Manganja has been by slave-trading in a friendly way.  Then, professing to wish to live as subjects, they have been welcomed as guests, and the Manganja, being great agriculturists, have been able to support considerable bodies of these visitors for a time.  When the provisions became scarce, the guests began to steal from the fields; quarrels arose in consequence, and, the Ajawa having firearms, their hosts got the worst of it, and were expelled from village after village, and out of their own country.  The Manganja were quite as bad in regard to slave-trading as the Ajawa, but had less enterprise, and were much more fond of the home pursuits of spinning, weaving, smelting iron, and cultivating the soil, than of foreign travel.  The Ajawa had little of a mechanical turn, and not much love for agriculture, but were very keen traders and travellers.  This party seemed to us to be in the first or friendly stage of intercourse with Katosa; and, as we afterwards found, he was fully alive to the danger.

Our course was shaped towards the N.W., and we traversed a large fertile tract of rich soil extensively cultivated, but dotted with many gigantic thorny acacias which had proved too large for the little axes of the cultivators.  After leaving Nkwinda, the first village we spent a night at in the district Ngabi was that of Chembi, and it had a stockade around it.  The Azitu or Mazitu were said to be ravaging the country to the west of us, and no one was safe except in a stockade.  We have so often, in travelling, heard of war in front, that we paid little attention to the assertion of Chembi, that the whole country to the N.W. was in flight before these Mazitu, under a chief with the rather formidable name of Mowhiriwhiri; we therefore resolved to go on to Chinsamba’s, still further in the same direction, and hear what he said about it.

The only instrument of husbandry here is the short-handled hoe; and about Tette the labour of tilling the soil, as represented in the woodcut, is performed entirely by female slaves.  On the West Coast a double-handled hoe is employed.  Here the small hoe is seen in the hands of both men and women.  In other parts of Africa a hoe with a handle four feet long is used, but the plough is quite unknown.

In illustration of the manner in which the native knowledge of agriculture strikes an honest intelligent observer, it may be mentioned that the first time good Bishop Mackenzie beheld how well the fields of the Manganja were cultivated on the hills, he remarked to Dr. Livingstone, then his fellow-traveller—“When telling the people in England what were my objects in going out to Africa, I stated that, among other things, I meant to teach these people agriculture; but I now see that they know far more about it than I do.”  This, we take it, was an honest straightforward testimony, and we believe that every unprejudiced witness, who has an opportunity of forming an opinion of Africans who have never been debased by slavery, will rank them very much higher in the scale of intelligence, industry, and manhood, than others who know them only in a state of degradation.

On coming near Chinsamba’s two stockades, on the banks of the Lintipe, we were told that the Mazitu had been repulsed there the day before, and we had evidence of the truth of the report of the attack in the sad sight of the bodies of the slain.  The Zulus had taken off large numbers of women laden with corn; and, when driven back, had cut off the ears of a male prisoner, as a sort of credential that he had been with the Mazitu, and with grim humour sent him to tell Chinsamba “to take good care of the corn in the stockades, for they meant to return for it in a month or two.”

Chinsamba’s people were drumming with might and main on our arrival, to express their joy at their deliverance from the Mazitu.  The drum is the chief instrument of music among the Manganja, and with it they express both their joy and grief.  They excel in beating time.  Chinsamba called us into a very large hut, and presented us with a huge basket of beer.  The glare of sunlight from which we had come enabled him, in diplomatic fashion, to have a good view of us before our eyes became enough accustomed to the dark inside to see him.  He has a Jewish cast of countenance, or rather the ancient Assyrian face, as seen in the monuments brought to the British Museum by Mr. Layard.  This form of face is very common in this country, and leads to the belief that the true type of the negro is not that met on the West Coast, from which most people have derived their ideas of the African.

Chinsamba had many Abisa or Babisa in his stockade, and it was chiefly by the help of their muskets that he had repulsed the Mazitu: these Babisa are great travellers and traders.

We liked Chinsamba very well, and found that he was decidedly opposed to our risking our lives by going further to the N.W.  The Mazitu were believed to occupy all the hills in that direction, so we spent the 4th of September with him.

It is rather a minute thing to mention, and it will only be understood by those who have children of their own, but the cries of the little ones, in their infant sorrows, are the same in tone, at different ages, here as all over the world.  We have been perpetually reminded of home and family by the wailings which were once familiar to parental ears and heart, and felt thankful that to the sorrows of childhood our children would never have superadded the heartrending woes of the slave-trade.

Taking Chinsamba’s advice to avoid the Mazitu in their marauding, we started on the 5th September away to the N.E., and passed mile after mile of native cornfields, with an occasional cotton-patch.

After a long march, we passed over a waterless plain about N.N.W. of the hills of Tsenga to a village on the Lake, and thence up its shores to Chitanda.  The banks of the Lake were now crowded with fugitives, who had collected there for the poor protection which the reeds afforded.  For miles along the water’s edge was one continuous village of temporary huts.  The people had brought a little corn with them; but they said, “What shall we eat when that is done?  When we plant corn, the wild beasts (Zinyama, as they call the Mazitu) come and take it.  When we plant cassava, they do the same.  How are we to live?”  A poor blind woman, thinking we were Mazitu, rushed off in front of us with outspread arms, lifting the feet high, in the manner peculiar to those who have lost their sight, and jumped into the reeds of a stream for safety.

In our way along the shores we crossed several running rivulets of clear cold water, which, from having reeds at their confluences, had not been noticed in our previous exploration in the boat.  One of these was called Mokola, and another had a strong odour of sulphuretted hydrogen.  We reached Molamba on the 8th September, and found our old acquaintance, Nkomo, there still.  One of the advantages of travelling along the shores of the Lake was, that we could bathe anywhere in its clear fresh water.  To us, who had been obliged so often to restrain our inclination in the Zambesi and Shiré for fear of crocodiles, this was pleasant beyond measure.  The water now was of the same temperature as it was on our former visit, or 72 degrees Fahr.  The immense depth of the Lake prevents the rays of the sun from raising the temperature as high as that of the Shiré and Zambesi; and the crocodiles, having always clear water in the Lake, and abundance of fish, rarely attack man; many of these reptiles could be seen basking on the rocks.

A day’s march beyond Molamba brought us to the lakelet Chia, which lies parallel with the Lake.  It is three or four miles long, by from one to one and a half broad, and communicates with the Lake by an arm of good depth, but with some rocks in it.  As we passed up between the Lake and the eastern shore of this lakelet, we did not see any streams flowing into it.  It is quite remarkable for the abundance of fish; and we saw upwards of fifty large canoes engaged in the fishery, which is carried on by means of hand-nets with side-frame poles about seven feet long.  These nets are nearly identical with those now in use in Normandy—the difference being that the African net has a piece of stick lashed across the handle-ends of the side poles to keep them steady, which is a great improvement.  The fish must be very abundant to be scooped out of the water in such quantities as we saw, and by so many canoes.  There is quite a trade here in dried fish.

The country around is elevated, undulating, and very extensively planted with cassava.  The hoe in use has a handle of four feet in length, and the iron part is exactly of the same form as that in the country of the Bechuanas.  The baskets here, which are so closely woven together as to hold beer, are the same with those employed to hold milk in Kaffirland—a thousand miles distant.

Marching on foot is peculiarly conducive to meditation—one is glad of any subject to occupy the mind, and relieve the monotony of the weary treadmill-like trudge-trudging.  This Chia net brought to our mind that the smith’s bellows made here of a goatskin bag, with sticks along the open ends, are the same as those in use in the Bechuana country far to the south-west.  These, with the long-handled hoe, may only show that each successive horde from north to south took inventions with it from the same original source.  Where that source may have been is probably indicated by another pair of bellows, which we observed below the Victoria Falls, being found in Central India and among the Gipsies of Europe.

Men in remote times may have had more highly-developed instincts, which enabled them to avoid or use poisons; but the late Archbishop Whately has proved, that wholly untaught savages never could invent anything, or even subsist at all.  Abundant corroboration of his arguments is met with in this country, where the natives require but little in the way of clothing, and have remarkably hardy stomachs.  Although possessing a knowledge of all the edible roots and fruits in the country, having hoes to dig with, and spears, bows, and arrows to kill the game,—we have seen that, notwithstanding all these appliances and means to boot, they have perished of absolute starvation.

The art of making fire is the same in India as in Africa.  The smelting furnaces, for reducing iron and copper from the ores, are also similar.  Yellow hæmatite, which bears not the smallest resemblance either in colour or weight to the metal, is employed near Kolobeng for the production of iron.  Malachite, the precious green stone used in civilized life for vases, would never be suspected by the uninstructed to be a rich ore of copper, and yet it is extensively smelted for rings and other ornaments in the heart of Africa.  A copper bar of native manufacture four feet long was offered to us for sale at Chinsamba’s.  These arts are monuments attesting the fact, that some instruction from above must at some time or other have been supplied to mankind; and, as Archbishop Whately says, “the most probable conclusion is, that man when first created, or very shortly afterwards, was advanced, by the Creator Himself, to a state above that of a mere savage.”

The argument for an original revelation to man, though quite independent of the Bible history, tends to confirm that history.  It is of the same nature with this, that man could not have made himself, and therefore must have had a Divine Creator.  Mankind could not, in the first instance, have civilized themselves, and therefore must have had a superhuman Instructor.

In connection with this subject, it is remarkable that throughout successive generations no change has taken place in the form of the various inventions.  Hammers, tongs, hoes, axes, adzes, handles to them; needles, bows and arrows, with the mode of feathering the latter; spears, for killing game, with spear-heads having what is termed “dish” on both sides to give them, when thrown, the rotatory motion of rifle-balls; the arts of spinning and weaving, with that of pounding and steeping the inner bark of a tree till it serves as clothing; millstones for grinding corn into meal; the manufacture of the same kind of pots or chatties as in India; the art of cooking, of brewing beer and straining it as was done in ancient Egypt; fish-hooks, fishing and hunting nets, fish-baskets, and weirs, the same as in the Highlands of Scotland; traps for catching animals, etc., etc.,—have all been so very permanent from age to age, and some of them of identical patterns are so widely spread over the globe, as to render it probable that they were all, at least in some degree, derived from one Source.  The African traditions, which seem possessed of the same unchangeability as the arts to which they relate, like those of all other nations refer their origin to a superior Being.  And it is much more reasonable to receive the hints given in Genesis, concerning direct instruction from God to our first parents or their children in religious or moral duty, and probably in the knowledge of the arts of life, 6 than to give credence to the theory that untaught savage man subsisted in a state which would prove fatal to all his descendants, and that in such helpless state he made many inventions which most of his progeny retained, but never improved upon during some thirty centuries.