David Livingstone

“ Mohamad Bogharib is now unwilling to take the onus of the war: he blames Mpamari, and Mpamari blames him; I told Mohamad that the war was undoubtedly his work, inasmuch as Bin Juma is his man, and he approved of his seizing the women.
He does not like this, but it is true; he would not have entered a village of Casembe or Moamba or Chikumbi as he did Chapi's man's village: the people here are simply men of more metal than he imagined, and his folly in beginning a war in which, if possible, his slaves will slip through his hands is apparent to all, even to himself. ”

“ It is a sacred tree all over Africa and India, and the tender roots which drop down towards the ground are used as medicine—a universal remedy. Can it be a tradition of its being like the tree of life, which Archbishop Whately conjectures may have been used in Paradise to render man immortal? One kind of fig-tree is often seen hacked all over to get the sap, which is used as bird-lime; bark-cloth is made of it too. I like to see the men weaving or spinning, or reclining under these glorious canopies, as much as I love to see our more civilized people lolling on their sofas or ottomans. ”

“ Even the chiefs inspire no fear, and those cruel old platitudes about governing savages by fear seem unknown, yet governed they certainly are, and upon the whole very well. The people were not very willing to go to punish Nsama's breach of public law, yet, on the decision of the chiefs, they went, and came back, one with a wooden stool, another with a mat, a third with a calabash of ground-nuts or some dried meat, a hoe, or a bow—poor, poor pay for a fortnight's hard work hunting fugitives and burning villages. ”

“ The stench arising from a mile and a half or two square miles of exposed sea beach, which is the general depository of the filth of the town, is quite horrible. At night it is so gross or crass one might cut out a slice and manure a garden with it: it might be called Stinkibar rather than Zanzibar. No one can long enjoy good health here.
On visiting the slave-market I found about 300 slaves exposed for sale, the greater part of whom came from Lake Nyassa and the Shiré River; I am so familiar with the peculiar faces and markings or tattooings, that I expect them to recognize me. ”

“ The chief said that no Arabs ever came his way, nor Portuguese native traders. When advising them to avoid the first attempts to begin the slave-trade, as it would inevitably lead to war and depopulation, Kauma replied that the chiefs had resolved to unite against the Waiyau of Mpondé should he come again on a foray up to the highlands; but they are like a rope of sand, there is no cohesion among them, and each village is nearly independent of every other: they mutually distrust each other. ”

“ We are on the northern brim (or north-western rather) of the great Loangwa Valley we lately crossed: the rain coming from the east strikes it, and is deposited both above and below, while much of the valley itself is not yet well wetted. Here all the grasses have run up to seed, and yet they are not more than two feet or so in the seed-stalks. The pasturage is very fine. The people employ these continuous or set-in rains for hunting the elephant, which gets bogged, and sinks in from fifteen to eighteen inches in soft mud, then even he, the strong one, feels it difficult to escape. ”

“ I got a Banyamwezi guide, and left on the 10th July, 1868, going over gently rising sandstone hills, covered with forest and seeing many deserted villages, the effects of the Mazitu foray: we saw also the Mazitu sleeping-places and paths. They neglect the common paths of the country as going from one village to another, and take straight courses in the direction they wish to go, treading down the grass so as to make a well-marked route, The Banyamwezi expelled them, cutting off so many of them with their guns and arrows that the marauders retired. ”

“ Indeed one woman said that she had heard of our passing up Lake Nyassa in a boat, but she did not see me: others came from Chipéta, S.W. of the Lake. All who have grown up seem ashamed at being hawked about for sale. The teeth are examined, the cloth lifted up to examine the lower limbs, and a stick is thrown for the slave to bring, and thus exhibit his paces. Some are dragged through the crowd by the hand, and the price called out incessantly: most of the purchasers were Northern Arabs and Persians. This is the period when the Sultan's people may not carry slaves coastwise ”

“ We soon ascended the plateau, which encloses with its edge the village and stream of Molemba. Wild pigs are abundant, and there are marks of former cultivation. A short march brought us to an ooze, surrounded by hedges, game-traps, and pitfalls, where, as we are stiff and weak, we spend the night. Rocks abound of the same dolomite kind as on the ridge further south, between the Loangwa and Chambezé, covered, like them, with lichens, orchids, euphorbias, and upland vegetation, hard-leaved acacias, rhododendrons, masukos. ”

“ The village of Moaba is on the east side of the marshy valley of the Movuhi, and very difficult to be approached, as the water is chin-deep in several spots. I decided to make sheds on the west side, and send over for food, which, thanks to the Providence which watches over us, we found at last in a good supply of maëre and some ground-nuts; but through, all this upland region the trees yielding bark-cloth, or nyanda, are so abundant, that the people are all well-clothed with it, and care but little for our cloth. Red and pink beads are in fashion, and fortunately we have red. ”

“ The Arabs have told the chief that our object in capturing slavers is to get them into our own possession, and make them of our own religion. The evils which we have seen—the skulls, the ruined villages, the numbers who perish on the way to the coast and on the sea, the wholesale murders committed by the Waiyau to build up Arab villages elsewhere—these things Mukaté often tried to turn off with a laugh, but our remarks are safely lodged in many hearts. Next day, as we went along, our guide spontaneously delivered their substance to the different villages along our route. ”

“ The Loangwa Arabs give an awful account of Jumbé's murders and selling the people, but one cannot take it all in; at the mildest it must have been bad. This is all they ever do; they cannot form a state or independent kingdom: slavery and the slave-trade are insuperable obstacles to any permanence inland; slaves can escape so easily, all therefore that the Arabs do is to collect as much money as they can by hook and by crook, and then leave the country.
We notice a bird called namtambwé, which sings very nicely with a strong voice after dark here at the Misinjé confluence. ”

“ It had not been nearly so severe on the opposite or south side, and thither too the Mazitu had not penetrated. Rushes, which plagued us nearer the coast, are not observed now; the grass is all crisp and yellow; many of the plants are dead, and leaves are fallen off the trees as if winter had begun. The ground is covered with open forest, with here and there thick jungle on the banks of the streams. All the rivulets we have passed are mere mountain torrents filled with sand, in which the people dig for water. ”

“ My observations deepened the impression first obtained from the remarks of Winwood Reade, that the typical Negro is seen in the ancient Egyptian, and not in the ungainly forms; which grow up in the unhealthy swamps of the West Coast. Indeed it is probable that this upland forest region is the true home of the Negro. The women excited the admiration of the Arabs. They have fine, small, well-formed features: their great defect is one of fashion, which does not extend to the next tribe; they file their teeth to points, the hussies, and that makes their smile like that of the crocodile. ”

“ Near the point where the river first makes a little bend to the north, we landed and found three formidable gullies, and jungle so thick with bush, date-palms, twining bamboo, and hooked thorns, that one could scarcely get along. Further inland it was sticky mud, thickly planted over with mangrove roots and gullies in whose soft banks one sank over the ankles. No camels could have moved, and men with extreme difficulty might struggle through ”

“ I sent back a sepoy, giving him provisions; he sat down in the first village, ate all the food, and returned.
An immense tract of country lies uninhabited. To the north-east of Moembé we have at least fifty miles of as fine land as can be seen anywhere, still bearing all the marks of having once supported a prodigious iron-smelting and grain-growing population. The clay pipes which are put on the nozzles of their bellows and inserted into the furnace are met with everywhere—often vitrified. ”

“ We passed village after village, and gardens all deserted! We were now between two contending parties. We slept at one garden; and as we were told by Chenjewala's people to take what we liked, and my men had no food, we gleaned what congo beans, bean leaves, and sorghum stalks we could,—poor fare enough, but all we could get.
29th June, 1866.—We came onto Machemba's brother, Chimseia, who gave us food at once. The country is now covered with deeper soil, and many large acacia-trees grow in the rich loam: the holms too are large, and many islands afford convenient maize grounds. ”

“ They assume a chirping, piping tone of voice in speaking to him, and do not say what at last has to be said, because in their cringing souls they believe they know what should be said better than I do. It does not strike them in the least that I have grown grey amongst these people; and it is immense conceit in mere boys to equal themselves to me. ”

“ Another climber is like the leaf of an aloe, but convoluted as strangely as shavings from the plane of a carpenter. It is dark green in colour, and when its bark is taken off it is beautifully striated beneath, lighter and darker green, like the rings of growth on wood; still another is a thin string with a succession of large knobs, and another has its bark pinched up all round at intervals so as to present a great many cutting edges. ”

“ We crossed a good-sized rivulet, the Mapampa (probably ten yards wide) , dashing along to the east; all the rest of the way was in dark forest. I sent off the boys to the village of Muasi to buy food, if successful, to-morrow we march for the Chambezé, on the other side of which all the reports agree in the statement that there plenty of food is to be had. We all feel weak and easily tired, and an incessant hunger teases us, so it is no wonder if so large a space of this paper is occupied by stomach affairs. ”

“ Elephants wandering in its mud flats when covered are annually killed in numbers: if it were connected with the Lake Moero the flood would run off.
Many of Casembe's people appear with the ears cropped and hands lopped off: the present chief has been often guilty of this barbarity. One man has just come to us without ears or hands: he tries to excite our pity making a chirruping noise, by striking his cheeks with the stumps of his hands. ”