CHAP. III.

NATIVE MUSICIANS.

73

CHAPTER III.

Return from Kebrabasa.-Native Musicians and their Instruments.-Ignorance at Tette.-Changes produced by Rain after the hot Season.-Christmas in tropical Dress.-Opinions modified by early Associations in Northern Climes.-The Seasons at Tette.-Cotton-seed not needed.-African Fever.-Quinine not a Preventive of.-The best Precaution and Remedy."Warburgh's Drops."-Expedition turns from Kebrabasa toward the River Shire in January, 1859.-Reported Barrier to Navigation.-First Intercourse with unknown People.-Navigation of Shire.-Progress prevented by Murchison's Cataracts.-Return to Tette.-Second Trip up the Shire in March, 1859.-Chibisa.-Nyanja Mukulu.-Maniac Guides.-Discover Lake Shirwa on the 18th of April, 1859.-Mountains.-Return to the Vessel.Severe case of Fever.-Return to Tette on the 23d of June.-Vessel found to be built of unstable Materials.-At Kongone in August.

A BAND of native musicians came to our camp one evening on our way down, and treated us with their wild and not unpleasant music on the marimba, an instrument formed of bars of hard wood of varying breadth and thickness, laid on different-sized hollow calabashes, and tuned to give the notes: a few pieces of cloth pleased them, and they passed

on.

As our companion had told us, the people were perfectly willing to sell us provisions on our way back. When we arrived at Tette the commandant informed us that, shortly after we had left, the river rose a foot and became turbid; and on seeing this, a native Portuguese came to him with a grave countenance, and said, "That Englishman is doing something to the river." This, we regret to say, is a fair sample of the ignorance and superstition common to the native-born, and, unfortunately, sometimes shared in even by

74

DELIGHTFUL EFFECTS OF RAIN.

CHAP. III.

men reared in Portugal. While we were at Tette, a captain of infantry was sent prisoner to Mozamhique for administering the muave, or ordeal, and for putting the suspected person to death on that evidence alone.

At the end of the hot season every thing is dry and dusty; the atmosphere is loaded with blue haze, and very sultry. After the rains begin, the face of the country changes with surprising rapidity for the better. Though we have not the moist hot-house-like atmosphere of the West Coast, fresh green herbage quickly springs up over the hills and dales so lately parched and brown. The air becomes ́cleared of the smoky-looking haze, and one sees to great distances with ease; the landscape is bathed in a perfect flood of light, and a delightful sense of freshness is given from every thing in the morning before the glare of noon overpowers the eye. On asking one of the Bechuanas once what he understood by the word used for "holiness" (boitsépho), he answered, "When copious showers have descended during the night, and all the earth, and leaves, and cattle are washed clean, and the sun, rising, shows a drop of dew on every blade of grass, and the air breathes fresh, that is holiness." The young foliage of several trees, more especially on the highlands, comes out brown, pale red, or pink, like the hues of autumnal leaves in England, and as the leaves increase in size they change to a pleasant fresh light green; bright white, scarlet, pink, and yellow flowers are every where; and some few of dark crimson, like those of the kigelia, give warmth of coloring to Nature's garden. Many trees, such as the scarlet erythrina, attract the eye by the beauty of their blossoms. The white, full bloom of the baobab, coming at times before the rains, and the small and delicate flowers of other trees, grouped into rich clusters,

СНАР. ІІІ.

VARIETIES OF BIRDS AND INSECTS.

75

deck the forest. Myriads of wild bees are busy from morning till night. Some of the acacias possess a peculiar attraction for one species of beetle, while the palm allures others to congregate on its ample leaves. Insects of all sorts are now in full force; brilliant butterflies flit from flower to flower, and with the charming little sunbirds, which represent the humming-birds of America and the West Indies, never seem to tire. Multitudes of ants are hard at work hunting for food, or bearing it home in triumph. The winter birds of passage, such as the yellow wagtail and blue drongo shrikes, have all gone, and other kinds have come: the brown kite, with his piping like a boatswain's whistle; the spotted cuckoo, with a call like "pula;" and the roller and hornbill, with their loud high notes, are occasionally distinctly heard, though generally their harsher music is half drowned in the volume of sweet sounds poured forth from many a throbbing throat, which makes an African Christmas seem like an English May. Some birds of the weaver kind have laid aside their winter garments of a sober brown, and appear in a gay summer dress of scarlet and jet black; others have passed from green to bright yellow, with patches like black velvet. The brisk little cock whydah-bird, with a pink bill, after assuming his summer garb of black and white, has graceful plumes attached to his new coat; his finery, as some believe, is to please at least seven henbirds with which he is said to live. Birds of song are not entirely confined to villages; but they have in Africa so often been observed to congregate around villages as to produce the impression that song and beauty may have been intended to please the ear and eye of man, for it is only when we approach the haunts of men that we know that the time of the singing of birds is come. We once thought

76

CHRISTMAS IN TROPICAL DRESS.

CHAP. III.

that the little creatures were attracted to man only by grain and water, till we saw deserted villages, the people all swept off by slavery, with grain standing by running streams, but no birds. A red-throated black weaver-bird comes in flocks a little later, wearing a long train of magnificent plumes, which seem to be greatly in his way when working for his dinner among the long grass. A goatsucker or night-jar (Cometornis vexillarius), only ten inches long from head to tail, also attracts the eye in November by a couple of feathers twenty-six inches long in the middle of each wing, the ninth and tenth from the outside. They give a slow, wavy motion to the wings, and evidently retard his flight, for at other times he flies so quick that no boy could hit him with a stone. The natives can kill a hare by throwing a club, and make good running shots, but no one ever struck a night-jar in common dress, though in the evening twilight they settle close to one's feet. What may be the object of the flight of the male bird being retarded we can not tell. The males alone possess these feathers, and only for a time. It appears strange to have Christmas come in such a cheerful bright season as this; one can hardly recognize it in summer dress, with singing birds, springing corn, and flowery plains, instead of in the winter robes of by-gone days, when the keen bracing air, and ground clad in a mantle of snow, made the cozy fireside meeting-place of families doubly comfortable. The associations of early days spent in a Northern clime dispose us to view other lands with rather contracted notions, and, like the Esquimaux who were brought to Europe, to look cheerlessly at this sunny portion of our fair world, which is unhealthy only because the exuberant fertility with which the Maker has endowed it to yield abundant food for man and beast is allowed to run to

СНАР. ІІІ.

ERRONEOUS EUROPEAN NOTIONS.

77

waste. In reference to it and its inhabitants, it was long ago remarked that in Africa every thing was contrary; "wool grows on the heads of men, and hair on the backs of sheep." In feeble imitation of this dogma, let us add, that the men often wear their hair long, the women scarcely ever. Where there are cattle, the women till the land, plant the corn, and build the huts. The men stay at home to sew, spin, weave, and talk, and milk the cows. The men seem to pay a dowry for their wives instead of getting one with them. The mountaineers of Europe are reckoned hospitable, generous, and brave. Those of this part of Africa are feeble, spiritless, and cowardly, even when contrasted with their own countrymen on the plains. Some Europeans aver that Africans and themselves are descended from monkeys. Some Africans believe that souls at death pass into the bodies of apes. Most writers believe the blacks to be savages; nearly all blacks believe the whites to be cannibals. The nursery hobgoblin of the one is black, of the other white. Without going farther on with these unwise comparisons, we must smile at the heaps of nonsense which have been written about the negro intellect. When, for greater effect, we employ broken English, and use silly phrases as if translations of remarks, which, ten to one, were never made, we have unconsciously caricatured ourselves and not the negroes; for it is a curious fact that Europeans almost invariably begin to speak with natives by adding the letters e and o to their words, "Givee me corno, me givee you biscuito," or "Looko, looko, me wante beero muche." Our sailors began thus, though they had never seen blacks before. It seemed an innate idea that they could thus suit English to a people who all speak a beautiful language, and have no vulgar patois. Owing to the difference of idiom, very few Eu