Emil Holub

“ Our experience at night proved that the Mabundas had not exaggerated much in what they told us about the lions. After sunset we heard their chorus begin, and it did not cease till dawn. I should not think the animals were more than 150 yards away from us. Up in the little village the people had to be on the watch to keep them at bay, and kept on shouting and beating a drum, while nearly every enclosure was illumined by a fire. My own boatmen sat up, spear in hand, nearly all night, and weird enough their shadows were as they fell upon the fence. No lions, however, ventured to attack us. ”

“ But as I have already intimated, these people are not altogether of the low grade of humanity that at first sight they appear to be, and a traveller may penetrate far into Central Africa before finding another tribe so skilful in its manipulation of stone, and in the manufacture of vessels out of wood, bone, or ostriches’ eggs; but most remarkable of all is the way in which, by the aid of the rudest tools, they have adorned their primitive homes with carvings that will long survive any productions of their contemporaries, the Bantus and Hottentots. ”

“ Leaving Sesheke in good time, I crossed the western part of Blockley’s kraal and made my way to the Kashteja, where I had to go a long way up the stream before I could find a fording-place. The lower part of this affluent of the Zambesi is flat and meadow-like and bordered with underwood. On my way thither I noticed zebras, striped-gnus, letshwe and puku antelopes, and rietbock and steinbock gazelles. In the river-valley itself the orbekis and rietbocks had congregated in herds, a mode of living which I had never seen before, nor do I think that any other hunter had. ”

“ The rock on which we stand is rich with varied vegetation; gigantic sycamores and mimosas on the verge of the declivity, taller than the loftiest poplars, afford a welcome shade, their wondrous crowns of foliage springing from the topmost section of the stem and spreading wide their grateful canopy. Creepers as thick as one’s arm, sometimes straight, sometimes spiral, clamber up to the elevated tree-tops, and make a playground where the apes can sport and exhibit their antics to the spectators concealed from them below. ”

“ In one of my next rambles through the woods, I came upon a little Mankoë settlement. The people were perhaps the finest men in the Marutse empire. They had long, woolly hair, which they combed up high, giving their heads the effect of being larger than they really were. Their purpose in coming to Sesheke was to assist the king in his projected great hunting-excursion. I noticed that their travelling-utensils of horn and wood were ornamented with carvings scarcely inferior in execution to those of the Mabundas. ”

“ There are certain tribes of South Africa who in their intellectual development and adult powers of comprehension seem to me to be about equal to children of our own of six years of age; and there are tribes that, according to their varying degrees of culture, possess separate tribal characteristics just in the same way as may be noticed amongst the individual members of a civilized family. One tribe, for instance, will be remarkable for its good-nature, one for its industry, and another for its thievish propensities. ”

“ They enjoyed a kind of hereditary reputation, as in spite of the atrocities which they were known to have encouraged, they were regarded by the various tribes with awe rather than with hatred. That there had not been a revolt long ago against Sepopo’s tyranny was mainly to be attributed to the belief that he had those in his secret council who could divine any plot beforehand and frustrate any stratagem that could be devised, and even when his despotism grew so great that the life of the highest in the kingdom was not secure for a day, not a man could be found to lift an assegai against him. ”

“ I was taking an afternoon stroll along the river-side, when I saw a crowd of natives manifestly in great excitement; it appeared that the body of a girl, who had been killed by a crocodile a few days before, had just been washed ashore. Crocodiles have the habit of drowning human beings, or any animals that they are unable to swallow, by holding them down at the bottom of the water until the cessation of all struggling seems to make them aware that no resistance is to be expected, [235] when they open their jaws and let free their prey. ”

“ Wherever a man of rank goes it is part of his dignity to be followed by an attendant carrying his stool.
My list of the Marutse handicraft would hardly be complete if I omitted to mention the fly-flappers. These are made in two parts, the handle and the whisk; the handles are either wood, reed, hippopotamus, rhinoceros, or buffalo hide; or occasionally they are formed of the horns of a gazelle or a rhinoceros; the whisks are composed of the long hair of the withers or tails of animals, of manes or feathers, no material being more common than the tails of bullocks, gnus, and jackals. ”

“ Except where deep chines break in, too precipitous to be crossed, it is not difficult to walk along the edge and to see how perpetually the rugged walls of rock present some fresh diversity of form; at one time they are absolutely perpendicular as though they had been hewn by a mason’s hand, at the next turn they slope like the glacis of a gloomy rampart, and then suddenly they assume the aspect of a huge garden-wall dotted over with clusters of green and crimson in striking contrast with the dull brown ground. ”

“ Sepopo’s fishermen came to us every day with fish for sale. The Marutse fisher-craft may be divided into the two sections of reptile-hunting and fishing proper. It is only a few tribes that devote themselves systematically to the pursuit of the great reptiles, the crocodile and the water-lizard; but fishing proper is carried on by every one of the Zambesi tribes, from the Kabombo to far beyond the Victoria Falls, their skill in their art being superior to that of the residents on the coast, or even of the natives at Lake N’gami, who are said to be by no means wanting in expertness. ”

“ Vanity is common, no doubt, to all savage races, but the Marutse-Mabunda tribes indulge in it with greater tact than the people farther south. Their moral standard is very low, but this, as I have before had occasion to remark, is the result of ignorance rather than of corruption; and I believe that instruction and good example, combined with a little gentle pressure put upon the rulers by white men, would in a very few years work a marvellous amendment; but to bring about a reformation, it must be confessed that the kings should be very different men from Sepopo. ”

“ No luckier shot was ever aimed. The bullet hit the brute in the back, and shattered the vertebral column; it rolled over in the grass behind its prey. The dog, which was famous among the Tati people for its courage, and which [411] already had been disturbing the lioness at its meal, now darted forward, and seizing it by the ear drew back the head, while the negroes pummelled away at its sides. The ill-fated cow was not quite dead, although the lioness had begun to gnaw at its entrails; we put the poor thing at once out of its misery. ”

“ When travelling alone the natives take very few provisions. The small two-oared boats that convey the corn-tribute to Sesheke are nearly always so heavily laden that the boatmen take nothing with them but a little fish, satisfied to get what food they can upon their way by gathering wild fruits from the banks, and by knocking over with their thoboni-sticks, which they use with an aim that seldom errs, some of the birds in the rushes, which their noiseless advance allows them to approach without disturbing. ”

“ In districts where they are much hunted, and where they have consequently become familiar with the sound of fire-arms, as well as in parts where there is hardly any game of the kind for which they care, lions are much more dangerous than in places where their food is plentiful, and where human footsteps rarely penetrate. Most notorious for their audacity are those which haunt the banks of the Maressana and Setlagole rivers, and those that are found in the Matabele country. Except perhaps the fox, no animal surpasses them in the craftiness with which they set themselves to secure their prey. ”

“ The system, too, by which the sovereign takes for wives any women he will, must also be broken down before any great moral improvement can be expected. They nearly always have to marry him in defiance of their own wishes, and are only free to refuse under the penalty of death; consequently they are seldom otherwise than unfaithful. Sepopo took care to expose every breach of fidelity that came to his knowledge; but the general example of the queens was so utterly bad, that even women who had been free to marry at their own choice, never held themselves bound to keep the marriage vow inviolate. ”

“ For the last ten years [319] justice has been set at defiance more and more. Long established customs, having the sanction of law, are fondly clung to by the natives, who naturally resent any interference with their privileges, and it was Sepopo’s attempt to suppress the ancient usages that first estranged him from his subjects. The laws of property, the social relations between the tribes, the law of succession to the throne, the recognized rule of treaties, and the criminal code, were all completely subverted by him, being either abrogated altogether, or remodelled to suit his own fancy. ”

“ Close beside them was a group of brown geese wading towards us, and screeching as they came was a double file of grey cranes, whilst a gathering of herons was keeping watch upon some rocks that projected from the water. High above the lake could be heard the melodious long-drawn note of the mahem, and amidst the numbers of the larger birds that thronged the surface of the water was what seemed a countless abundance of moorhens and ducks. ”

“ Among the Marutse the king has a despotic power extending to the land as well as to the population; until the time however of the present ruler, whose rule is that of a tyrant, it has very rarely happened that any king has stretched his right to interfere with private property. During their own lifetime the reigning sovereigns appoint their successors; these may be of either sex, provided they are born of a Marutse mother—and women are especially welcome as sovereigns among the northern tribes, on the presumption that they are less cruel than men. ”

“ Nothing can exceed the cunning that a buffalo will exhibit when it is wounded or infuriated. Having better powers of discrimination, it is more wary than a hippopotamus, and consequently is not so dangerous to an unarmed man, but once provoked it will fight to the bitter end. It generally makes a little retreat, and conceals itself behind a bush, where it waits for the hunter, and when he comes up makes a dash at him. Attacks of this kind are by no means unfrequent, and huntsmen of considerable experience have been known to be outwitted and seriously injured by these South African buffaloes. ”

“ Happening to say something about the cowardice imputed to his race, I saw him shake his head and smile. “No,” he replied, “we are not timid pallahs, nor ever have been; but we [211] love our village life and our hunting; we catch our game in pits and not by arms; we give up our elephants’ tusks to the remorseless Matabele; we show them where to hunt the elephants; let them hunt as they will; we want not the blood of the beasts, much less do we thirst for the blood of men!” ”

“ Although in some cases it may happen that an unprotected man may elude the attacks of a lion, a buffalo, or a leopard except they have been provoked, he cannot indulge the hope of escaping the violence of a hippopotamus that has once got him within reach of its power.
When out of several hippopotamuses in a river one has been wounded, the rest are far more wary in coming to the surface; and should the wound have been fatal, the carcase does not rise for an hour, but drifts down the stream. The Marutse have a very simple but effectual way of landing their dead bodies ”

“ The mode of living throughout the empire is certainly less rude than that of the tribes south of the Zambesi. Agriculture is so remunerative, and cattle-breeding in two-thirds of the country is [303] so successful, the other third, in spite of its being infested by the tsetse-fly, is so abundant in game, the rivers and lagoons produce such quantities of fish, and the forests yield so many varieties of fruits and edible roots and seeds, that, unlike many of the Bechuana tribes, the natives never suffer from want during the summer rains. ”

“ The cases of Mankuruane, the Batlapin ruler, of Sechele, the Bakuena king, and still more recently that of the Damara people, and that of Khame, the sovereign of the Bamangwatos, have proved much of what I stated in my pamphlet; and I am now more than ever satisfied that the portrayal I made of the Zulu character was in every respect accurate. Whatever opinion I may once have held, I have long ceased to think that after once quelling the Zulu power it is desirable for Great Britain to extend her colonial possessions in South Africa. ”

“ Bergfontein, at which we arrived early on the 17th, is a spring situated on a woody slope; it is regarded by the natives as the source of the Nokane stream, which flows northwards, but only in the rainy season. The slope, which is very rugged and clothed with luxuriant vegetation, is the declivity of the Maque plain down to the great salt-lakes. At a short distance from the bank of the Nokane spruit the traveller from the south is greeted by the sight of a cluster of fan-palms, a foretaste of the wonders of tropical vegetation ”

“ In many of their customs the Manansas differ from other South African tribes. Like the Marutse, they treat their women in a way that offers a very favourable contrast to either the Bechuanas or the Matabele. They have a somewhat peculiar mode of wooing; when a young man has been captivated by a maiden of his tribe and has ascertained that he has secured her affection in return—an assurance for which neither Bechuana nor Zulu thinks it necessary to wait—he sends an aged woman to carry the proposal that she should become his wife ”

“ The difference between the vegetation of the Zambesi valley with its adjacent plateau, and that of the more southern districts, is manifest from the single circumstance, that throughout the entire course of the river the natives can subsist all the year round on the produce of their own trees, as each month brings fruits or its edible seeds to maturity. Animal life is everywhere abundant; birds, fishes, snakes, insects, and especially butterflies, being too numerous to be reckoned. The human race itself may be said to be in a higher state of development. ”

“ If the girl is a daughter or near relation of the king or a koshi, she is carried off by her people to some out-of-the-way place in a neighbouring wood or reed-thicket, where she has to reside in seclusion for eight days, attended only by her own maid, except that in the evening she is visited by her friends, who perfume her head, and instruct her in her conjugal duties, so that at the end of her probation she may be ready to go to her husband. I have already described the marriage-dance, in which only men take part. As a rule, even in the case of vassals, it lasts for three days and nights. ”

“ Whenever a Bamangwato makes his expedition to the pool plateau, his first proceeding is to look up some Madenassanas whom he may compel to go hunting with him and assist him in procuring ivory, whether for himself or for the king; but their residences are generally in such secluded and remote places, that it is often very difficult to find them, unless conducted by some of the Madenassanas themselves. The eldest inhabitant in each little settlement is regarded as a sort of inferior chief, so that it is best for any white man, in want of Madenassana help, to make direct application to him. ”

“ The river-system of the Marutse district is just of the character, on account of its extensive marsh-lands, to provide the inhabitants with most admirable and productive sites for their settlements; all around is an abundance of reeds for building purposes, wood for framework and for laths, besides bast, palm-leaves for making ropes and twine, metal for nails and bolts, and sand and clay for cement. ”