48 RETURN TO THE MAKOLOLO. CHAP. II. CHAPTER II. Meet Makololo at Tette.-Murder of Six of them by Bonga, the Son of Nyaude.-Ravages of Smallpox.-Makololo supported not according to public. Orders, but by the private Bounty of Major Sicard.—Convict Class called "Incorrigibles."-Superstitions about Mangoes, Coffee, and Rain-making.Securing Slaves by means of domestic Ties.-Case of voluntary Slavery.— Cruel Nature of Half-castes.-Native love of Trade.-Native Medical Profession.-Elephant and Crocodile Schools of Medicine.-Dice Doctors and their use as detective Police.-Senna and Indigo Plants.-Coal, Gold, and Iron.-Ascent to Kebrabasa Rapids.-Black Glaze on Rocks.-Tribe of Badèma.-A Traveler's Tale.-The River Luia.-Hippopotamus Flesh.-Difficult Traveling.-Curative Sleep.-Sunstroke.-Morumbwa Cataract.-Kebrabasa surveyed from End to End. THE ship anchored in the stream off Tette on the 8th of September, 1858, and Dr. Livingstone went ashore in the boat. No sooner did the Makololo* recognize him than they rushed to the water's edge, and manifested great joy at seeing him again. Some were hastening to embrace him, but others cried out, "Don't touch him; you will spoil his new clothes." The five head men came on board and listened in quiet sadness to the story of poor Sekwebu, who died at the Mauritius on his way to England. "Men die in any country," they observed, and then told us that thirty of their own number had died of smallpox, having been bewitched by the people of Tette, who envied them because, during the first year, none of their party had died. Six of their young * Makololo, Manganja, Ajawa, Batoka, Matebele, Babisa, Bawe, etc., etc., are all plural nouns; Ma, Ba, A, being plural prefixes, which the Arabs change into Wa, as Wanyassa, the people of Nyassa, or Manganja, Wabisa, who call themselves Babisa, and sometimes Avisa. It has not been deemed necessary to add s to words already plural. СНАР. ІІ. MURDER OF MAKOLOLO BY BONGA. 49 men, becoming tired of cutting firewood for a meagre pittance, proposed to go and dance for gain before some of the neighboring chiefs. "Don't go," said the others; "we don't know the people of this country;" but the young men set out and visited an independent half-caste chief a few miles to the north, named Chisaka, who some years ago burned all the Portuguese villas on the north bank of the river; afterward the young men went to Bonga, son of another halfcaste chief, who bade defiance to the Tette authorities, and had a stockade at the confluence of the Zambesi and Luenya, a few miles below that village.* Asking the Makololo whence they came, Bonga rejoined, "Why do you come from my enemy to me? You have brought witchcraft medicine to kill me." In vain they protested that they did not belong to the country; they were strangers, and had come from afar with an Englishman. The superstitious savage put them all to death. "We do not grieve," said their companions, "for the thirty victims of the smallpox, who were taken away by Morimo (God), but our hearts are sore for the six youths who were murdered by Bonga." Any hope of obtaining justice on the murderer was out of the question. Bonga once caught a captain of the Portuguese navy, and forced him to perform the menial labor of pounding maize in a wooden mortar. No punishment followed on this outrage. The government of Lisbon has since given Bonga the honorary title of Captain, by way of coaxing him to own their authority; but he still holds his stockade. *This is not that Bonga, brother of Mariano, who was carrying on war in another quarter: the word means a "tiger-cat;" and this was the son of Nyaude, who, when the whole force of Tette was mustered at the Luenya, was sent up the opposite bank by his father, and burned all the village save the church and fort. D 50 PORTUGUESE DUPLICITY. СНАР. ІІ. One of the head men remarked "that they had some pigs; they wished they had been oxen, but they were only pigs. Would the doctor eat pig?" "Why do you ask?" rejoined another; "if he won't, his parting they remarked, "We shall people will." When sleep to-night." The use of the Residencia, or Government House, was kindly given us by Major Tito A. d'A. Sicard: it is a stone house of one story, thatched with grass, its windows of cloth, and the floors of clay. The Makololo carried up our goods; the minstrel of the party, called Singeleka, followed, jingling his native bells, and chanting an energetic song extemporized for the occasion. Some readers may remember that when Dr. Livingstone was in England, it was commonly reported that the Portuguese government had sent out orders to have the Makololo supported at the public expense until he returned to take them back to their own country. This generous sympathy on the part of the ministers in Lisbon gratified many English philanthropists, and, relieving the doctor's mind from anxiety, gave him time to prepare his jour nal for the press before setting out again to his work. When our own government promises to perform any thing, no one in his senses ever doubts their word of honor; and for this reason the English people and the English government naturally err by giving too ready credit to the assurances of governments whose moral tone is pitched much lower than their own. The Makololo never heard of the order from Portugal, and the Portuguese authorities at Tette were in profound ignorance of its existence. The pay of the officials, in fact, was several years in arrear, and for his most faithful majesty's government to pretend to order them to feed a hundred men out of their own private means looked a little like the not unusual kind of benevolence of being СНАР. ІІ. DESCRIPTION OF TETTE. 51 generous with other people's property. The poor fellows had to go far to cut wood, and then hawk it round the village to buy a little food. They received no aid from the Mozambique government; but Major Sicard did assist them most generously at his own cost, and also gave them land and hoes to raise some food for themselves. Tette stands on a succession of low sandstone ridges on the right bank of the Zambesi, which is here nearly a thousand yards wide (960 yards). Shallow ravines, running parallel with the river, form the streets, the houses being built on the ridges. The whole surface of the streets, except narrow footpaths, were overrun with self-sown indigo, and tons of it might have been collected. In fact, indigo, senna, and stramonium, with a species of cassia, form the weeds of the place, which are annually hoed off and burned. A wall of stone and mud surrounds the village, and the native population live in huts outside. The fort and the church, near the river, are the strong-holds; the natives having a salutary dread of the guns of the one, and a superstitious fear of the unknown power of the other. The number of white inhabitants is small, and rather select, many of them having been considerately sent out of Portugal "for their country's good." The military element preponderates in society; the convict and "incorrigible" class of soldiers, receiving very little pay, depend in great measure on the produce of the gardens of their black wives; the moral condition of the resulting population may be imagined. Even the officers seldom receive their pay from government; but, being of an enterprising spirit, they contrive to support themselves by marrying the daughters or widows of wealthy merchants, and trade in ivory by means of the slaves of whom they thus become the masters. 52 SUPERSTITIONS OF AFRICANS. CHAP. II. Droughts are of frequent occurrence at Tette, and the crops suffer severely. This may arise partly from the position of the town between the ranges of hills north and south, which appear to have a strong attraction for the rain-clouds. It is often seen to rain on these hills when not a drop falls at Tette. Our first season was one of drought. Thrice had the women planted their gardens in vain; the seed, after just vegetating, was killed by the intense dry heat. A fourth planting shared the same hard fate, and then some of the knowing ones discovered the cause of the clouds being frightened away-our unlucky rain-gauge in the garden. We got a bad name through that same rain-gauge, and were regarded by many as a species of evil omen. The Makololo, in turn, blamed the people of Tette for drought: "A number of witches live here, who won't let it rain." Africans in general are sufficiently superstitious, but those of Tette are in this particular pre-eminent above their fellows. Coming from many different tribes, all the rays of the separate superstitions converge into a focus at Tette, and burn out common sense from the minds of the mixed breed. They believe that many evil spirits live in the air, the earth, and the water. These invisible malicious beings are thought to inflict much suffering on the human race; but, as they have a weakness for beer and a craving for food, they may be propitiated from time to time by offerings of meat and drink. The serpent is an object of worship, and hideous little images are hung in the huts of the sick and dying. The uncontaminated Africans believe that Morungo, the Great Spirit who formed all things, lives above the stars; but they never pray to him, and know nothing of their relation to him, or of his interest in them. The spirits of their departed ancestors are all good, according to their ideas, and |