Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa, David Livingstone [novels for teenagers .TXT] 📗

These are very beautiful, resembling closely many parts of the River Clyde above Glasgow. The formation is soft calcareous tufa, such as forms the bottom of all this basin. The banks are perpendicular on the side to which the water swings, and sloping and grassy on the other.

The slopes are selected for the pitfalls designed by the Bayeiye to entrap the animals as they come to drink. These are about seven or eight feet deep, three or four feet wide at the mouth, and gradually decrease till they are only about a foot wide at the bottom.

The mouth is an oblong square (the only square thing made by the Bechuanas, for every thing else is round), and the long diameter at the surface is about equal to the depth. The decreasing width toward the bottom is intended to make the animal wedge himself more firmly in by his weight and struggles. The pitfalls are usually in pairs, with a wall a foot thick left uncut between the ends of each, so that if the beast, when it feels its fore legs descending, should try to save itself from going in altogether by striding the hind legs, he would spring forward and leap into the second with a force which insures the fall of his whole body into the trap.

They are covered with great care. All the excavated earth is removed to a distance, so as not to excite suspicion in the minds of the animals.

Reeds and grass are laid across the top; above this the sand is thrown, and watered so as to appear exactly like the rest of the spot.

Some of our party plumped into these pitfalls more than once, even when in search of them, in order to open them to prevent the loss of our cattle. If an ox sees a hole, he carefully avoids it; and old elephants have been known to precede the herd and whisk off the coverings of the pitfalls on each side all the way down to the water.

We have known instances in which the old among these sagacious animals have actually lifted the young out of the trap.

The trees which adorn the banks are magnificent. Two enormous baobabs (`Adansonia digitata'), or mowanas, grow near its confluence with the lake where we took the observations for the latitude (20d 20' S.).

We were unable to ascertain the longitude of the lake, as our watches were useless; it may be between 22 Deg. and 23 Deg. E.

The largest of the two baobabs was 76 feet in girth.

The palmyra appears here and there among trees not met with in the south.

The mokuchong, or moshoma, bears an edible fruit of indifferent quality, but the tree itself would be a fine specimen of arboreal beauty in any part of the world. The trunk is often converted into canoes.

The motsouri, which bears a pink plum containing a pleasant acid juice, resembles an orange-tree in its dark evergreen foliage, and a cypress in its form. It was now winter-time, and we saw nothing of the flora.

The plants and bushes were dry; but wild indigo abounded, as indeed it does over large tracts of Africa. It is called mohetolo, or the "changer", by the boys, who dye their ornaments of straw with the juice.

There are two kinds of cotton in the country, and the Mashona, who convert it into cloth, dye it blue with this plant.

We found the elephants in prodigious numbers on the southern bank.

They come to drink by night, and after having slaked their thirst --

in doing which they throw large quantities of water over themselves, and are heard, while enjoying the refreshment, screaming with delight --

they evince their horror of pitfalls by setting off in a straight line to the desert, and never diverge till they are eight or ten miles off.

They are smaller here than in the countries farther south.

At the Limpopo, for instance, they are upward of twelve feet high; here, only eleven: farther north we shall find them nine feet only.

The koodoo, or tolo, seemed smaller, too, than those we had been accustomed to see. We saw specimens of the kuabaoba, or straight-horned rhinoceros (R. Oswellii'), which is a variety of the white (R. simus'); and we found that, from the horn being projected downward, it did not obstruct the line of vision, so that this species is able to be much more wary than its neighbors.

We discovered an entirely new species of antelope, called leche or lechwi.

It is a beautiful water-antelope of a light brownish-yellow color.

Its horns -- exactly like those of the `Aigoceros ellipsiprimnus', the waterbuck, or tumogo, of the Bechuanas -- rise from the head with a slight bend backward, then curve forward at the points. The chest, belly, and orbits are nearly white, the front of the legs and ankles deep brown.

From the horns, along the nape to the withers, the male has a small mane of the same yellowish color with the rest of the skin, and the tail has a tuft of black hair. It is never found a mile from water; islets in marshes and rivers are its favorite haunts, and it is quite unknown except in the central humid basin of Africa. Having a good deal of curiosity, it presents a noble appearance as it stands gazing, with head erect, at the approaching stranger. When it resolves to decamp, it lowers its head, and lays its horns down to a level with the withers; it then begins with a waddling trot, which ends in its galloping and springing over bushes like the pallahs. It invariably runs to the water, and crosses it by a succession of bounds, each of which appears to be from the bottom.

We thought the flesh good at first, but soon got tired of it.

Great shoals of excellent fish come down annually with the access of waters.

The mullet (`Mugil Africanus') is the most abundant. They are caught in nets.

The `Glanis siluris', a large, broad-headed fish, without scales, and barbed -- called by the natives "mosala" -- attains an enormous size and fatness.

They are caught so large that when a man carries one over his shoulder the tail reaches the ground. It is a vegetable feeder, and in many of its habits resembles the eel. Like most lophoid fishes, it has the power of retaining a large quantity of water in a part of its great head, so that it can leave the river, and even be buried in the mud of dried-up pools, without being destroyed.

Another fish closely resembling this, and named `Clarias capensis'

by Dr. Smith, is widely diffused throughout the interior, and often leaves the rivers for the sake of feeding in pools.

As these dry up, large numbers of them are entrapped by the people.

A water-snake, yellow-spotted and dark brown, is often seen swimming along with its head above the water: it is quite harmless, and is relished as food by the Bayeiye.

They mention ten kinds of fish in their river; and, in their songs of praise to the Zouga, say, "The messenger sent in haste is always forced to spend the night on the way by the abundance of food you place before him."

The Bayeiye live much on fish, which is quite an abomination to the Bechuanas of the south; and they catch them in large numbers by means of nets made of the fine, strong fibres of the hibiscus, which grows abundantly in all moist places. Their float-ropes are made of the ife, or, as it is now called, the `Sanseviere Angolensis', a flag-looking plant, having a very strong fibre, that abounds from Kolobeng to Angola; and the floats themselves are pieces of a water-plant containing valves at each joint, which retain the air in cells about an inch long. The mode of knotting the nets is identical with our own.

They also spear the fish with javelins having a light handle, which readily floats on the surface. They show great dexterity in harpooning the hippopotamus; and, the barbed blade of the spear being attached to a rope made of the young leaves of the palmyra, the animal can not rid himself of the canoe, attached to him in whale fashion, except by smashing it, which he not unfrequently does by his teeth or by a stroke of his hind foot.

On returning to the Bakurutse, we found that their canoes for fishing were simply large bundles of reeds tied together. Such a canoe would be a ready extemporaneous pontoon for crossing any river that had reedy banks.

Chapter 4.

Leave Kolobeng again for the Country of Sebituane -- Reach the Zouga --

The Tsetse -- A Party of Englishmen -- Death of Mr. Rider --

Obtain Guides -- Children fall sick with Fever -- Relinquish the Attempt to reach Sebituane -- Mr. Oswell's Elephant-hunting --

Return to Kolobeng -- Make a third Start thence --

Reach Nchokotsa -- Salt-pans -- "Links", or Springs -- Bushmen --

Our Guide Shobo -- The Banajoa -- An ugly Chief -- The Tsetse --

Bite fatal to domestic Animals, but harmless to wild Animals and Man --

Operation of the Poison -- Losses caused by it -- The Makololo --

Our Meeting with Sebituane -- Sketch of his Career --

His Courage and Conquests -- Manoeuvres of the Batoka -- He outwits them -- His Wars with the Matebele -- Predictions of a native Prophet --

Successes of the Makololo -- Renewed Attacks of the Matebele --

The Island of Loyelo -- Defeat of the Matebele -- Sebituane's Policy --

His Kindness to Strangers and to the Poor -- His sudden Illness and Death --

Succeeded by his Daughter -- Her Friendliness to us -- Discovery, in June, 1851, of the Zambesi flowing in the Centre of the Continent --

Its Size -- The Mambari -- The Slave-trade -- Determine to send Family to England -- Return to the Cape in April, 1852 -- Safe Transit through the Caffre Country during Hostilities -- Need of a "Special Correspondent"

-- Kindness of the London Missionary Society -- Assistance afforded by the Astronomer Royal at the Cape.

Having returned to Kolobeng, I remained there till April, 1850, and then left in company with Mrs. Livingstone, our three children, and the chief Sechele -- who had now bought a wagon of his own --

in order to go across the Zouga at its lower end, with the intention of proceeding up the northern bank till we gained the Tamunak'le, and of then ascending that river to visit Sebituane in the north.

Sekomi had given orders to fill up the wells which we had dug with so much labor at Serotli, so we took the more eastern route through the Bamangwato town and by Letloche. That chief asked why I had avoided him in our former journeys. I replied that my reason was that I knew he did not wish me to go to the lake, and I did not want to quarrel with him. "Well," he said, "you beat me then, and I am content."

Parting with Sechele at the ford, as he was eager to visit Lechulatebe, we went along the northern woody bank of the Zouga with great labor, having to cut down very many trees to allow the wagons to pass.

Our losses by oxen falling into pitfalls were very heavy.

The Bayeiye kindly opened the pits when they knew of our approach; but when that was not the case, we could blame no one on finding an established custom of the country inimical