88 MURCHISON CATARACTS. CHAP. III. In the first ascent of the Shire our attention was chiefly directed to the river itself. The delight of threading out the meanderings of upward of 200 miles of a hitherto unexplored river must be felt to be appreciated. All the lower part of the river was found to be at least two fathoms in depth. It became shallower higher up, where many departing and re-entering branches diminished the volume of water, but the absence of sand-banks made it easy of navigation. We had to exercise the greatest care lest any thing we did should be misconstrued by the crowds who watched us. After having made, in a straight line, one hundred miles, although the windings of the river had fully doubled the distance, we found farther progress with the steamer arrested, in 15° 55' south, by magnificent cataracts, which we called "The Murchison," after one whose name has already a world-wide fame, and whose generous kindness we can never repay. The native name of that figured in the woodcut is Mamvira. It is that at which the progress of the steamer was first stopped. The angle of descent is much smaller than that of the five cataracts above it; indeed, so small as compared with them, that after they were discovered this was not included in the number. A few days were spent here in the hope that there might be an opportunity of taking observations for longitude, but it rained most of the time, or the sky was overcast. It was deemed imprudent to risk a land journey while the natives were so very suspicious as to have a strong guard on the banks of the river night and day; the weather also was unfavorable. After sending presents and messages to two of the chiefs, we returned to Tette. In going down stream our progress was rapid, as we were aided by the current. The hippopotami never made a mistake, but got out of our way. CHAP. III. CHARACTER OF CHIBISA. 91 The crocodiles, not so wise, sometimes rushed with great velocity at us, thinking that we were some huge animal swimming. They kept about a foot from the surface, but made three well-defined ripples from the feet and body, which marked their rapid progress; raising the head out of the water when only a few yards from the expected feast, down they went to the bottom like a stone, without touching the boat. In the middle of March of the same year (1859) we started again for a second trip on the Shire. The natives were now friendly, and readily sold us rice, fowls, and corn. We entered into amicable relations with the chief Chibisa, whose village was about ten miles below the cataract. He had sent two men on our first visit to invite us to drink beer; but the steamer was such a terrible apparition to them, that, after shouting the invitation, they jumped ashore, and left their canoe to drift down the stream. Chibisa was a remarkably shrewd man, the very image, save his dark hue, of one of our most celebrated London actors, and the most intelligent chief, by far, in this quarter. A great deal of fighting had fallen to his lot, he said, but it was always others who began; he was invariably in the right, and they alone were to blame. He was, moreover, a firm believer in the divine right of kings. He was an ordinary man, he said, when his father died, and left him the chieftainship; but directly he succeeded to the high office, he was conscious of power passing into his head, and down his back; he felt it enter, and knew that he was a chief, clothed with authority, and possessed of wisdom, and people then began to fear and reverence him. He mentioned this as one would a fact of natural history, any doubt being quite out of the question. His people, too, believed in him, for they bathed in the riv 92 TREACHEROUS GUIDES. СНАР. ІІІ er without the slightest fear of crocodiles, the chief having placed a powerful medicine there, which protected them from the bite of these terrible reptiles. Leaving the vessel opposite Chibisa's village, Drs. Livingstone and Kirk and a number of the Makololo started on foot for Lake Shirwa. They traveled in a northerly direc tion over a mountainous country. The people were far from being well-disposed to them, and some of their guides tried to mislead them, and could not be trusted. Masakasa, a Makololo head man, overheard some remarks, which satisfied him that the guide was leading them into trouble. He was quiet till they reached a lonely spot, when he came up to Dr. Livingstone and said, "That fellow is bad; he is taking us into mischief; my spear is sharp, and there is no one here; shall I cast him into the long grass?" Had the doctor given the slightest token of assent, or even kept silence, never more would any one have been led by that guide, for in a twinkling he would have been where "the wicked cease from troubling." It was afterward found that in this case there was no treachery at all, but a want of knowledge on their part of the language and of the country. They asked to be led to "Nyanja Mukulu," or Great Lake, meaning, by this, Lake Shirwa; and the guide took them round a terribly rough piece of mountainous country, gradually edging away toward a long marsh, which, from the numbers of those animals we had seen there, we had called the Elephant Marsh, but which was really the place known to him by the name "Nyanja Mukulu," or Great Lake. Nyanja or Nyanza means, generally, a marsh, lake, river, or even a mere rivulet. The party pushed on at last without guides, or only with crazy ones; for, oddly enough, they were often under great. |