108 ANNOYANCE FROM MUSQUITOES. CHAP. IV. "cataclysm" at any time. The cabin floor is always wet, and one is obliged to mop up the water many times a day, giving some countenance to the native idea that Englishmen live in or on the water, and have no houses but ships. The cabin is now a favorite breeding-place for musquitoes, and we have to support both the ship-bred and shore-bred bloodsuckers, of which several species show us their irritating attentions. A large brown sort, called by the Portuguese mansos (tame), flies straight to its victim, and goes to work at once, as though it were an invited guest. Some of the small kinds carry uncommonly sharp lancets and very potent poison. What would these insects eat if we did not pass this way?" becomes a natural question. The juices of plants, and decaying vegetable matter in the mud, probably form the natural food of musquitoes, and blood is not necessary for their existence. They appear so commonly at malarious spots that their presence may be taken as a hint to man to be off to more healthy localities. None appear on the high lands. On the low lands they swarm in myriads. The females alone are furnished with the biting apparatus, and their number appears to be out of all proportion in excess of the males. At anchor, on a still evening, they were excessively annoying, and the sooner we took refuge under our musquito curtains the better. The miserable and sleepless night that only one musquito inside the curtain can cause is so well known, and has been so often described, that it is needless to describe it here. One soon learns, from experience, that to beat out the curtains thoroughly before entering them, so that not one of these pests can possibly be harbored within, is the only safeguard against such severe trials to one's tranquillity and temper. A few miles above Mboma we came again to the village CHAP. IV. THE ELEPHANT MARSH. 109 (16° 44′ 30′′ S.) of the chief Tingane, the beat of whose wardrums can speedily muster some hundreds of armed men. The bows and poisoned arrows here are of superior workmanship to those below. Mariano's slave-hunting parties stood in great awe of these barbed arrows, and long kept aloof from Tingane's villages. His people were friendly enough with us now, and covered the banks with a variety of articles for sale. The majestic mountain Pirone, to which we have given the name of Mount Clarendon, now looms in sight, and farther to the N.W. the southern end of the grand Milanje range rises in the form of an unfinished sphinx, looking down on Lake Shirwa. The Ruo (16° 31′ 0′′ S.) is said to have its source in the Milanje Mountains, and flows to the S.W., to join the Shire some distance above Tingane's. A short way beyond the Ruo lies the Elephant Marsh, or Nyanja Mukulu, which is frequented by vast herds of these animals. We believe that we counted eight hundred elephants in sight at once. In the choice of such a strong-hold they have shown their usual sagacity, for no hunter can get near them through the swamps. They now keep far from the steamer; but when she first came up, we steamed into the midst of a herd, and some were shot from the ship's deck. A single lesson was sufficient to teach them that the puffing monster was a thing to be avoided; and at the first glimpse they are now off two or three miles to the midst of the marsh, which is furrowed in every direction by wandering branches of the Shire. A fine young elephant was here caught alive, as he was climbing up the bank to follow his retreating dam. When laid hold of, he screamed with so much energy that, to escape a visit from the enraged mother, we steamed off, and dragged him through the water by the proboscis. As the men were holding his trunk over the 110 YOUNG ELEPHANT CAPTURED. CHAP. IV. gunwale, Monga, a brave Makololo elephant-hunter, rushed aft, and drew his knife across it in a sort of frenzy peculiar to the chase. The wound was skillfully sewed up, and the young animal soon became quite tame, but, unfortunately, the breathing prevented the cut from healing, and he died in a few days after from loss of blood. Had he lived, and had we been able to bring him home, he would have been the first African elephant ever seen in England. The African male elephant is from ten to a little over eleven feet in height, and differs from the Asiatic species, more particularly in the convex shape of his forehead and the enormous size of his ears. In Asia many of the males, and all the females, are without tusks, but in Africa both sexes are provided with these weapons. The enamel in the molar teeth is arranged differently in the two species. By an admirable provision, new teeth constantly come up at the part where, in man, the wisdom teeth appear, and these push the others along, and out at the front end of the jaws, thus keeping the molars sound by renewal, till the animal attains a very great age. The tusks of animals from dry rocky countries are very much more dense and heavier than those from wet and marshy districts, but the latter attain much the larger size. The Shire marshes support prodigious numbers of many kinds of water-fowl. An hour at the mast-head unfolds novel views of life in an African marsh. Near the edge, and on the branches of some favorite tree, rest scores of plotuses and cormorants, which stretch their snake-like necks, and in mute amazement turn one eye and then another toward the approaching monster. By-and-by the timid ones begin to fly off, or take "headers" into the stream; but a few of the bolder, or more composed, remain, only taking the precaution to spread their wings ready for instant flight. CHAP. IV. PRODIGIOUS NUMBER OF WATER-FOWL. 111 The pretty ardetta (Herodias bubulcus), of a light yellow color when at rest, but seemingly of a pure white when flying, takes wing, and sweeps across the green grass in large numbers, often showing us where buffaloes and elephants are by perching on their backs. Flocks of ducks, of which the kind called "Soriri" (Dendrocygna personata) is most abundant, being night feeders, meditate quietly by the small lagoons until startled by the noise of the steam machinery. Pelicans glide over the water, catching fish, while the scopus (Scopus umbretta) and large herons peer intently into pools. The large black and white spur-winged goose (a constant marauder of native gardens) springs up, and circles round to find out what the disturbance can be, and then settles down again with a splash. Hundreds of linongolos (Anastomus lamelligerus) rise on the wing from the clumps of reeds or low trees (the Eschinomena, from which pith hats are made), on which they build in colonies, and are speedily high in mid-air. Charming little red and yellow weavers (Ploceida) remind one of butterflies as they fly in and out of the tall grass, or hang to the mouths of their pendent nests, chattering briskly to their mates within. These weavers seem to have "cock nests," built with only a roof, and a perch beneath, with a doorway on each side. The natives say they are made to protect the bird from the rain. Though her husband is very attentive, we have seen the hen-bird tearing her mate's nest Kites and vultures are to pieces, but why we can not tell. busy overhead, beating the ground for their repast of carrion; and the solemn-looking, stately-stepping marabout, with a taste for dead fish or men, stalks slowly along the almost stagnant channels. Groups of men and boys are searching diligently in various places for lotus and other roots. Some are standing in canoes, on the weed-covered 112 PALM-TREE FOREST. CHAP. IV. ponds, spearing fish, while others are punting over the small intersecting streams to examine their sunken fish-baskets. Fish-basket. Toward evening, hundreds of pretty little hawks (Erythropus vespertinus) are seen flying in a southerly direction, and feeding on dragon-flies and locusts. They come, apparently, from resting on the palm-trees during the heat of the day. Flocks of scissor-bills (Rhyncops) are then also on the wing, and in search of food, plowing the water with their lower mandibles, which are nearly half an inch longer than the upper ones. At the northeastern end of the marsh, and about three miles from the river, commences a great forest of palm-trees (Borassus Ethiopium). It extends many miles, and at one point comes close to the river. The gray trunks and green tops of this immense mass of trees give a pleasing tone of color to the view. The mountain range, which rises close behind the palms, is generally of a cheerful green, and has many trees, with patches of a lighter tint among them, as if spots of land had once been cultivated. The sharp angular rocks and dells on its sides have the appearance of a huge. crystal broken; and this is so often the case in Africa, that one can guess pretty nearly at sight whether a range is of the old crystalline rocks or not. The Borassus, though not an oil-bearing palm, is a useful tree. the large nuts is of a sweet, fruity taste, and is eaten by men and elephants. The natives bury the nuts until the kernels begin to sprout; when dug up and broken, the inside resembles coarse potatoes, and is prized in times of scarcity as nutritious food. During several months of the year, palm wine, or sura, is obtained in large quantities; when fresh, it is a The fibrous pulp round |