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

River Lotembwa we traveled about eight miles, and came to Katema's straggling town (lat. 11d 35' 49" S., long. 22d 27' E.).

It is more a collection of villages than a town. We were led out about half a mile from the houses, that we might make for ourselves the best lodging we could of the trees and grass, while Intemese was taken to Katema to undergo the usual process of pumping as to our past conduct and professions. Katema soon afterward sent a handsome present of food.

Next morning we had a formal presentation, and found Katema seated on a sort of throne, with about three hundred men on the ground around, and thirty women, who were said to be his wives, close behind him.

The main body of the people were seated in a semicircle, at a distance of fifty yards. Each party had its own head man stationed at a little distance in front, and, when beckoned by the chief, came near him as councilors. Intemese gave our history, and Katema placed sixteen large baskets of meal before us, half a dozen fowls, and a dozen eggs, and expressed regret that we had slept hungry: he did not like any stranger to suffer want in his town; and added, "Go home, and cook and eat, and you will then be in a fit state to speak to me at an audience I will give you to-morrow." He was busily engaged in hearing the statements of a large body of fine young men who had fled from Kangenke, chief of Lobale, on account of his selling their relatives to the native Portuguese who frequent his country. Katema is a tall man, about forty years of age, and his head was ornamented with a helmet of beads and feathers. He had on a snuff-brown coat, with a broad band of tinsel down the arms, and carried in his hand a large tail made of the caudal extremities of a number of gnus.

This has charms attached to it, and he continued waving it in front of himself all the time we were there. He seemed in good spirits, laughing heartily several times. This is a good sign, for a man who shakes his sides with mirth is seldom difficult to deal with. When we rose to take leave, all rose with us, as at Shinte's.

Returning next morning, Katema addressed me thus: "I am the great Moene (lord) Katema, the fellow of Matiamvo. There is no one in the country equal to Matiamvo and me. I have always lived here, and my forefathers too.

There is the house in which my father lived. You found no human skulls near the place where you are encamped. I never killed any of the traders; they all come to me. I am the great Moene Katema, of whom you have heard."

He looked as if he had fallen asleep tipsy, and dreamed of his greatness.

On explaining my objects to him, he promptly pointed out three men who would be our guides, and explained that the northwest path was the most direct, and that by which all traders came, but that the water at present standing on the plains would reach up to the loins; he would therefore send us by a more northerly route, which no trader had yet traversed. This was more suited to our wishes, for we never found a path safe that had been trodden by slave-traders.

We presented a few articles, which pleased him highly: a small shawl, a razor, three bunches of beads, some buttons, and a powder-horn.

Apologizing for the insignificance of the gift, I wished to know what I could bring him from Loanda, saying, not a large thing, but something small. He laughed heartily at the limitation, and replied, "Every thing of the white people would be acceptable, and he would receive any thing thankfully; but the coat he then had on was old, and he would like another." I introduced the subject of the Bible, but one of the old councilors broke in, told all he had picked up from the Mambari, and glided off into several other subjects.

It is a misery to speak through an interpreter, as I was now forced to do.

With a body of men like mine, composed as they were of six different tribes, and all speaking the language of the Bechuanas, there was no difficulty in communicating on common subjects with any tribe we came to; but doling out a story in which they felt no interest, and which I understood only sufficiently well to perceive that a mere abridgment was given, was uncommonly slow work. Neither could Katema's attention be arrested, except by compliments, of which they have always plenty to bestow as well as receive. We were strangers, and knew that, as Makololo, we had not the best of characters, yet his treatment of us was wonderfully good and liberal.

I complimented him on the possession of cattle, and pleased him by telling him how he might milk the cows. He has a herd of about thirty, really splendid animals, all reared from two which he bought from the Balobale when he was young. They are generally of a white color, and are quite wild, running off with graceful ease like a herd of elands on the approach of a stranger. They excited the unbounded admiration of the Makololo, and clearly proved that the country was well adapted for them.

When Katema wishes to slaughter one, he is obliged to shoot it as if it were a buffalo. Matiamvo is said to possess a herd of cattle in a similar state. I never could feel certain as to the reason why they do not all possess cattle in a country containing such splendid pasturage.

As Katema did not offer an ox, as would have been done by a Makololo or Caffre chief, we slaughtered one of our own, and all of us were delighted to get a meal of meat, after subsisting so long on the light porridge and green maize of Londa. On occasions of slaughtering an animal, some pieces of it are in the fire before the skin is all removed from the body. A frying-pan full of these pieces having been got quickly ready, my men crowded about their father, and I handed some all round. It was a strange sight to the Balonda, who were looking on, wondering. I offered portions to them too, but these were declined, though they are excessively fond of a little animal food to eat with their vegetable diet. They would not eat with us, but they would take the meat and cook it in their own way, and then use it.

I thought at one time that they had imported something from the Mohammedans, and the more especially as an exclamation of surprise, "Allah", sounds like the Illah of the Arabs; but we found, a little farther on, another form of salutation, of Christian (?) origin, "Ave-rie" (Ave Marie).

The salutations probably travel farther than the faith. My people, when satisfied with a meal like that which they enjoy so often at home, amused themselves by an uproarious dance. Katema sent to ask what I had given them to produce so much excitement.

Intemese replied it was their custom, and they meant no harm.

The companion of the ox we slaughtered refused food for two days, and went lowing about for him continually. He seemed inconsolable for his loss, and tried again and again to escape back to the Makololo country.

My men remarked, "He thinks they will kill me as well as my friend."

Katema thought it the result of art, and had fears of my skill in medicine, and of course witchcraft. He refused to see the magic lantern.

One of the affairs which had been intrusted by Shinte to Intemese was the rescue of a wife who had eloped with a young man belonging to Katema.

As this was the only case I have met with in the interior in which a fugitive was sent back to a chief against his own will, I am anxious to mention it. On Intemese claiming her as his master's wife, she protested loudly against it, saying "she knew she was not going back to be a wife again; she was going back to be sold to the Mambari."

My men formed many friendships with the people of Katema, and some of the poorer classes said in confidence, "We wish our children could go back with you to the Makololo country; here we are all in danger of being sold." My men were of opinion that it was only the want of knowledge of the southern country which prevented an exodus of all the lower portions of Londa population thither.

It is remarkable how little people living in a flat forest country like this know of distant tribes. An old man, who said he had been born about the same time as the late Matiamvo, and had been his constant companion through life, visited us; and as I was sitting on some grass in front of the little gipsy tent mending my camp stool, I invited him to take a seat on the grass beside me. This was peremptorily refused: "he had never sat on the ground during the late chief's reign, and he was not going to degrade himself now." One of my men handed him a log of wood taken from the fire, and helped him out of the difficulty.

When I offered him some cooked meat on a plate, he would not touch that either, but would take it home. So I humored him by sending a servant to bear a few ounces of meat to the town behind him.

He mentioned the Lolo (Lulua) as the branch of the Leeambye which flows southward or S.S.E.; but the people of Matiamvo had never gone far down it, as their chief had always been afraid of encountering a tribe whom, from the description given, I could recognize as the Makololo.

He described five rivers as falling into the Lolo, viz., the Lishish, Liss or Lise, Kalileme, Ishidish, and Molong.

None of these are large, but when they are united in the Lolo they form a considerable stream. The country through which the Lolo flows is said to be flat, fertile, well peopled, and there are large patches of forest. In this report he agreed perfectly with the people of Matiamvo, whom we had met at Quendende's village.

But we never could get him, or any one in this quarter, to draw a map on the ground, as people may readily be got to do in the south.

Katema promised us the aid of some of his people as carriers, but his rule is not very stringent or efficient, for they refused to turn out for the work. They were Balobale; and he remarked on their disobedience that, though he received them as fugitives, they did not feel grateful enough to obey, and if they continued rebellious he must drive them back whence they came; but there is little fear of that, as all the chiefs are excessively anxious to collect men in great numbers around them.

These Balobale would not go, though our guide Shakatwala ran after some of them with a drawn sword. This degree of liberty to rebel was very striking to us, as it occurred in a country where people may be sold, and often are so disposed of when guilty of any crime; and we well knew that open disobedience like this among the Makololo would be punished with death without much