6942 - PART II
PART II - QUILIMANE to ZAMBEZI RIVER
[21st July - 6th August 1879]
CHAPTER 4
On going on deck the next morning about 8 o’clock we found the ship enveloped in a dense white fog, so thick that objects six feet off were invisible. Shivering with the chilly moisture we asked the Customs Officer if this kind of fog often occurred, and then we learnt that the cachimba, as it is called, rises every morning soon after the warmth of the sun is felt, from the mangrove swamps, and lasts about an hour and a half. It is most deadly, laden with the malaria from the rank soil and is prevalent on the Quilimane River, the Zambesi and the Shire River until the high ground is reached above the Murumbula Marsh. During the time that it lasts no one exposes him to it who has regard for health.
Looking at the town of Quilimane from the ship, the object which first attracts attention is a large church, built of rubble and clay, with a red roof. It is extremely close to the bank, at the foot of which the muddy tide sweeps, and year by year the water is eating into the mud-bank upon which the town stands. Underneath us, when our ship is anchored formerly stood a convent, and in days gone by the Jesuits missionaries, by the old plans of the place, had a garden on the ground submerged between the ship and the shore. The church is some 250 years old for the Portuguese have been settled on the east coast of Africa for many a long day, and close to the church is a large enclosure, with high walls, up to a very recent date the spot where slaves were “yarded” to use an Australian term. Looking down the river, several large square houses, built of the same material as the church, are seen through the palms, orange trees, and other tropical plants, each being at the present date the residences and warehouses of the mercantile firms here, and a few still owned by those who formerly traded in slaves.
At the rear of the main street are the barracks which are occupied by a detachment of troops from Mozambique, the officers alone having any traces of European blood in their veins, while the men are chiefly natives of Goa in India. Up the river the principal building that arrests the eye is the Customs House whither all our things are being removed for inspection from the ship and the Handel’s Compaigne House, the private houses of one or two individuals who get rich in a mysterious way, until we come to the Governor’s Residence which is built exactly similarly to the others and probably at the same time about one hundred and fifty to two hundred years previously. We go on shore in a boat belonging to the Custom House and as it is low tide are soon aground on the soft black mud. Getting on the shoulders of negroes we are carried through the shallow water and over the greasy foreshore for some two hundred yards and are then on hard ground.
The first place we went to was Senor Nunez, who accompanied us to call on the Governor as our first duty. We walked from the British Consul’s house to the residence of His Excellency Don A. M. Cardosa who received us very politely, and at once made friends when he knew that one of us had some connections with the Royal Navy, himself being a naval officer. He was apparently about thirty-five and had held his appointment about twelve months. Three years is the term and the Governors are generally glad to get away from the place if only to obtain the long arrears of pay invariably due to them, in common with all other Portuguese officials, by the Home authorities. Portugal has very little idea of what her east African settlements are worth, or she would pay them far more attention. From Don Cardosa we obtained a permit to take our private effects out of the Customs, and after getting our portmanteaux removed to a house belonging to Senor Nunez, who insisted upon our being his guests while we remained at Quilimane, we spent the remainder of the day at Customs where everything had to pay duty more or less from our guns down to the sugar we had for tea. At dinner we again met Captain Travers of the Union Steamship company, who was engaged surveying the entrance to the river and the Rev. Dr. Laws, both of whom gave us a great deal of assistance in preparing for our trip into the interior. Doctor Laws had left Natal a week after us in the Union Company’s boat, and arrived four days previous to us at Quilimane, so that we might as well have saved the money spent in chartering the Mary Evans. If the Union Company’s Agents had had any respect for the position they held that would never have deceived us so grossly. After dinner we went to the Club-house where the Governor and one or two of the notables of the place played billiards until it was time to retire for the night. We slept in a large room flagged with stone, and very cool from the immense thickness of the walls. Mosquito curtains defended us from those cheerful insects, and after the restless nights we had spent for the past fortnight the pleasant change was very grateful.
Early the next morning as soon as the cachimba had cleared off we took a walk around the place. The main street is overgrown with grass with a beaten path in the centre, and on both sides are the principal houses. At the back of the house where we stayed were some Indian traders, nominally subjects of Great Britain. They are generally Mussulmans, and their establishments are branches of houses at Mozambique, Zanzibar, Bombay and most of the chief centres of trade in the eastern seas. At Quilimane they exported ivory, India rubber, copal, semsem, and no doubt did a little in “black ivory”. At Quilimane we were on the threshold of what may be termed a Land of Sorrow – the cowed look of the natives, the deprecating air they assumed as they stand aside to allow you to pass, and the humble manner in which they salute by clapping their hands together with the palms hollowed, show the generations of slavery and degradation the race has undergone in Quilimane.
No native is allowed to move out of his or her habitation after tattoo is sounded, shortly after sundown, which was about seven o’clock when we were there, and any master sending a servant a message provides him with a lighted lantern, which he must carry or chance the risk of being “run in”. By their new law no slave is supposed to be owned by a Portuguese subject but the difference as far as we could ascertain was that a negro is now called a “servant" instead of a “slave”. The “servant” is fed by his master, receives a morsel of calico wherewith to hide his nakedness for wages, and has to submit to a blow or a flogging just the same. His children work if required by the master without pay, being fed, and it is perhaps difficult to see how things can be different at present. Standing in the principal street of Quilimane it seemed hard to believe that this town, with the rank weeds growing everywhere and the utter want of any sanitary arrangements has been settled by the Portuguese for over three hundred years. This town is the capital of the Quilimane country, the jurisdiction of the Governor extending to Tete and Senna which, if the reader will glance at the map, are situated some distance up the Zambesi. But nearly all the surrounding country which the Portuguese claim is only held by them on sufferance.
Right back from the town is the part where the negroes live. They are crowded in huts built of cane and rushes and every available piece of ground is cultivated, mealies, cotton, sugar cane and sweet potatoes being the chief things we noticed. The soil is so rich that very little labor is required. Some distance from the place a sugar planter does a big thing in the manufacture of rum which is taken by the Arab traders into the interior. Within a mile of the Governor’s house the country is in a state of nature. The mangrove swamps afford cover for wild game of all kinds. Here and there is a small clearing where a few cattle – miserable specimens too – manage to feed under the charge of one or two negroes, and every day a lion manages to take off either a man or a beast. But the Portuguese residents, many of whom born at this pestilent place have never been further away than the various villages up the river, take everything as a matter of course. Only some six weeks previous to our arrival a lioness with three cubs, on a Sunday morning, came sauntering into the town and was shot close to the house of Senor Nunez by the combined efforts of all hands including the garrison. At breakfast one morning Senor Nunez informed us he had just lost two beasts during the night by lions and the same week two natives on a message came to an untimely end through the same cause. Imagine the English in India having tigers sauntering into Madras in broad daylight and the Portuguese have had three hundred odd years to settle these parts.
But the unfortunate natives are not only eaten on land by the lions and leopards, but are harried in the water by a ferocious species of ground shark which invests the place. In landing anything from the shallowness of the water the negroes have to wade ashore with the merchandise and this shark is always on the lookout for black shins. When we expressed our surprise, we learnt it was only natives who get killed in this manner, and we were shown an unfortunate being in the Infirmary who belonged to the Customs and had been attacked the day before we arrived within a few feet of the shore. The poor fellow was seized by the ankles, and screaming for assistance, tried to free himself with his hands, the result being that he was hauled out nearly dead from loss of blood with both hands and one foot bitten clear off. It takes a lot to kill a native and he was recovering in spite of the mangling he received. Another formidable inhabitant of the river here is a monstrous species of ray-fish, which seems to be even more bloodthirsty than a shark. Don Cardosa told us he had seen them measuring upwards of fourteen feet from the tip of one arm to the tip of the other. It is very peculiarly shaped, being something in the form of a gigantic flounder, with immense arms or wings of some breadth on each side. These are furnished with powerful suckers and it has been frequently known to rise under a small canoe, and seizing the frail concern in its arms overturned it and sank again with one of the occupants. Once it obtains a hold of a man or beast in the water a horrible death is certain for the two arms envelope the victim in a hopeless embrace and silently it sinks again with its prey. Senor Nunez told us he could never forget the agonised cry of a powerful negro whom he saw taken under by this ghoul of the Quilimane River. It is dreaded by the blacks much more than the crocodiles and sharks, and although the former cannot be charged with being of a harmless nature by any means, and we were warned never to get into the water under any pretence, not even to wade on the shore.
Reptiles, though numerous, do not seem to be very venomous, but there is a species of beetle which is called by the Portuguese carrapatto. Its bite brings on a peculiar fever, which is very debilitating and often proves fatal, and is always difficult to get rid of. The native remedy is to bake the beetles themselves, crush them into a powder, and then mixing some water with it, swallow the compound. This sounds very like a yarn and we naturally were incredulous but both Senor Nuez, Don Cardosa and other residents assured us that not only was it a fact but they had seen it tried for the first time a month or two previous. Several of the soldiers were in hospital suffering from the fever brought on by the insect bite and the surgeon in charge could not with his various remedies make any impression upon the disease; the men were getting worse when the surgeon was induced to try this native cure, and he administered it to them in their food; the men being ignorant of the experiment and the result was a most marked improvement before the end of the week and continuing the native medicine the whole of the men recovered. Now none of the invalids were aware of the fact that they had been eating powdered carrapatto so that it was not their faith that made them whole, and Don Cardosa assured us that every word of the surgeon’s statement was correct. The experiment often repeated had, we learnt on our return, never failed to bring about a turn for the better with those admitted with this particular fever. The only thing which struck us as peculiar was the fact of the Portuguese having known for some time of this native remedy, and yet as far as the present Governor was aware it had not been used before.
The only mode of conveyance on land here is the machilla which is a stout pole from which is suspended either a cot or a wooden frame something like a sedan chair, only that your legs are extended at length instead of being close to the ground. The two ends are supported by negroes, sometimes two at each end, sometimes one, and followed by a dozen more if going any distance. The traveller is jolted along at a slinging trot of about six miles an hour. Whenever a bearer feels fagged another runs up and the ends of the pole are shifted from the shoulder of one to the shoulder of the other without stopping for a moment. This mode of travelling is very disagreeable after an hour of it, half of that time is sufficient to find out where all the tender parts of your body are, but the Portuguese seem so accustomed to it that they can sleep in a moving machilla while an Englishman is cursing at a rick in his neck or cramp in his legs. We found an Ashanti hammock slung on a pole better than any of the Portuguese machines although travelling through the thick undergrowth met with in the forest the meshes of the net of which the hammocks are composed get caught and the breakages are frequent, but on clear ground they are fairly comfortable, although the motion is rough. To a sick person, as we learnt by experience, travelling in a machilla is irritating. In the ones used by the Portuguese, an awning on a frame is also spread overhead on a centre line, and is steadied by a line on either side, and when a person wishes to get out on his right hand side he eases off the right hand line, and the awning is pulled down with the left hand line, and the frame of the awning is then clear of the head of the traveller as he steps out.
We were over a week in Quilimane before things were in readiness to start, but Senor Nunez had to exert himself to get our luggage through the Customs House, even in that time. Nothing could exceed his kindness and we fared sumptuously during the time we were his guests. Sometimes the Senor would produce some ancient wine that had been in the large cellar for upwards of seventy or eighty years, his grandfather having owned the house and the neighbouring property before him and one day we had the felicity of drinking a bottle of port that had been eighty years in the cellar beneath us.
The first bottle that Senor Nunez brought up bore in very faded figures the date of 1790. The cork was drawn with great interest and proved to be very rotten after the seal was penetrated and then the almost colorless liquor was poured into our wineglasses. Captain Travers delivered a short lecture upon port wine and eyeing it critically as he held it up between himself and the light remarked “ Port, always loses its color with age” just so “ concurred the Rev. Dr. Laws, and we all raised out glasses to our lips with the sage air of experienced connoisseurs. Captain Travers and the reverend gentleman took a gulp of half a wine glass, C. just sipped his while his fellow traveller happened to be replying to a question of the Senor. Both of the two who had tasted of the wine, which was not “red in the cup”, turned purple, and gasped out in evident agony, “Splendid port, magnificent!” Then Senor Nunez tasted it and exclaimed, “Why, it’s the old brandy I brought up”. The liquor was nearly pure alcohol and the Captain and Dr Laws had nearly burnt their insides out, but they both joined in the laugh very heartily. On going back to the cellar Senor Nunez brought up a bottle that was in the bin that had been eighty years in the cellar and the port was something like ninety years of age. It was of a pale ruby colour and tasted very mild and rich, although as to its merits as port we were not judges.
The Senor had only once been away from Quilimane or the Portuguese settlement but he speaks English perfectly and was a good friend to Dr. Livingstone. He was very much amused sometimes at the curiosity we sometimes evinced at some of the dishes at the dinner table. One favorite condiment we can never forget. It was delicious! We got the recipe for making it from Senor Nunez so list ye ladies who love sweet things! You must take the yolks of three or four eggs, grate very finely half a cupful of coconut, half a cup of fine white sugar, which latter you have to clarify in just enough water to make it not too thick. Then you turn the clarified sugar, the beaten yolks and the finely grated coconut into a small saucepan and hold it over the fire. It must not boil, but the heat thickens the egg part of the mixture until the whole thing is of the consistency of honey. You then turn it out on a plate, let it get cold, and dust a little cinnamon over the top. The flavor is very peculiar and so nice that one is always hankering after it, but practice is required before the knack of making it is gained. The name of this “bon bouche" is Babademocca, a Brazilian name which means, freely translated “the dew from the virgin’s lips”. The name alone shows the opinion of the Portuguese upon it. It is to be procured in one or two places in Portugal in jars similar to honey but few English people have tasted it. Numbers of other Brazilian and the old Portuguese dishes used to make dinner a novelty, but nothing in our opinion beat the Barbademocca.
It was pleasant in the large stone dining room to smoke an after-dinner cigar while by the side of each diner stood a tiny dark-skinned child softly fanning and in the mellow light from the lamp suspended high in the ceiling of the room would gleam on the bright brass bangles they wore on arm and leg, their forms hardly concealed by the clinging blue wrap round the waist. These children looked very picturesque at all times and seemed to be in numbers about Senor Nunez house, their fathers and mothers also being his servants.
A fish caught just inside the bar, something like a rock cod, is very good, but the most noticeable thing in Quilimane is the bread. It is always made with palm wine instead of yeast, and made in this way bread is superior to any other kind for remaining fresh, besides being extremely good. We took away bread with us made with wine that a fortnight old was as fresh as ordinary bread a day old.
The number of cattle being vanquished owing to the tse-tse fly, and the goats being scarcely more numerous, fowls are in great demand and plentiful everywhere in every African village. Rice, sweet potatoes and pumpkin are always seen on the table in Quilimane, Mazarro and other Portuguese settlements, while outside Senor Nunez house grew the largest oranges of the “mandarin” kind we had ever seen. The soil, as already remarked, is very rich and of a dark chocolate color. The great moisture and intense heat makes things grow so rapidly that one can almost see a plant increasing in height. Another fruit which grows to perfection here is the mango, and also the mangostein, which is supposed to combine with its own flavor that of the grape and the strawberry. It is astonishing the number of mangoes, each the size of a large orange, a European will eat when they are so good as the Quilimane ones.
We generally took a stroll in the evening after dinner along the main street to the church, the plot of ground in which it stood had been laid out a few weeks previously and some Australian gum trees planted. The damp night air prevented us remaining out very long but sitting on a bench with the black cruel-looking waters of the Quilimane River surging past beneath us, the reflections that were conjured up were sometimes strange. The Portuguese priest with his big shovel hat who passed us returning our salute was in the dusk a shadowy reminder of the Jesuits who three hundred years ago, by scourge and fire, attempted the conversion of the natives whose descendants were around us. How many hideous scenes had that hoary church witnessed in its time, even up to a few years ago? Within a stone’s throw were the rotting remains of a wooden jetty from whence gangs of slaves, manacled together, were embarked on board the floating coffins known as slave ships to spend days, perhaps months, in such misery as men can scarcely now conceive.
Horses shipped from Australian shores for India are in Paradise compared to the place a negro found himself in when crowded below in perhaps that very vessel we saw anchored in front of us, a small barque flying the French flag which flag is the only one of all nations which protects slavery to this day. The tales we heard of the slave trade in Quilimane were very sad and the town itself is a lasting monument to those days for no man in his senses would have made a settlement at such a fever hot-bed among the mangrove swamps, unless for the purpose for which it was built, namely a depot for slaves. Not far from the spot where we sat and smoked, a terrible scene was enacted that most likely had never been heard of except by the few who have been at Quilimane. It only happened a few years ago and some of the residents witnessed it. A firm in Madagascar arranged with a Quilimane slaver for a supply of two thousand slaves to be delivered as soon as convenient. The first two shipments arrived safely, and there remained nearly twelve hundred in Quilimane, all of whom were brought from long distances in the interior, and the poor wretches were in close confinement, worn out by their long marches. The owner impatiently waited a favorable opportunity to ship them off, but the ships could not get to sea because the dreaded St. George’s ensign was outside the bar, and until the ship that bore it left the vicinity there was no chance of running the cargo across Mozambique Channel. Days passed and the slave-owner grew very wrath, his profits diminishing as he had to feed his victims, until at last news came that the firm in Madagascar had failed an could not pay for the shipments of slaves already received. There was no way of disposing of those on hand at Quilimane, so the owner and the authorities at this fiendish place mustered the poor blacks and shot them down en masse as the easiest way of settling the difficulty. This did not happen so very long ago, and similar tales were numerous. After this it can scarcely be surprising to learn that the Portuguese are looked upon as the incarnation of evil by the majority of the natives in the interior. Slavery is by no means a thing of the past as our readers will see in some future chapter and when we left Quilimane in 1880 a full bodied negro could be bought just outside the place for six fathoms of calico, that is eighteen yards of calico at four pence a yard or six shillings! The history of Quilimane if written would be a bloody one and the dark shadow of its deeds was always present while we were there.
When it is dark here the ground seems carpeted with glow-worms of a large size and fireflies in countless number flit through the air. Across the river the grunting of the hippopotami on the opposite shore, sounding exactly like the noise made by the gangboard between a ship and wharf when it moves, varied occasionally by a tremendous sigh on coming up from the bed of the river; the distant rumbling roar of a lion hunting for its victim; the uproar of the bull-frogs and the weird cry of some species of owl made night by no means “stilly” as the poet found it. On the contrary it was sometimes noisy. On the 26th July we were ready to start but it being Saturday, and Dr Laws objecting to travel on a Sunday, which we should have had to do on account of the tides, our departure was arranged for the following Monday.
CHAPTER 5
I shall have my hair cut this morning by this nigger,” said “the other one” to C. on Saturday morning when they met at the enormous brass vase that did duty as bath. “Hi! Pedro” and with a great deal of pantomimic action it was explained to the darkie “Barber to H. B. M. Consul” and who only spoke Portuguese, that he was to undertake his tonsorial work forthwith; and moreover, with the idea of making ones head cool, he was told to cut it very short like his master’s fashion of wearing the hair, Senor Nunez having his hair cropped very close. Seated in a chair half-asleep while Pedro plied his scissors with vigor, the heat and stillness after a while brought slumber on, and still the industrious Pedro clipped away. It struck the person who was being operated upon as strange that no comb was used, “but most likely the native barbers here never use it” was the reflection before closing his eyes. After some time C. came into the room and stood perfectly astounded at the bald-headed object that met his view. Pedro was so intent upon performing the operation well that he was almost rooting the stumps of hair out after having cut every vestige of the hair off. On waking up and looking into the glass the unfortunate subject of the darkie’s mistake could hardly recognize himself. In the language of Scripture “ the form of his countenance was changed and full of fury” which Pedro understood and without waiting belted off with a heavy boot after him. Of course a good deal of chaff had to be met, and no one was more amused after the annoyance had passed, than the sufferer himself.
We met Captain Evans after breakfast in a state of indignation that nearly caused him to burst a blood vessel. Briefly the unfortunate captain found that the letters of introduction from the Union Steamship Company’s Agents which were to get him “a good cargo back to Natal” had resulted in his being offered half a dozen bags of mealies, “if he intended sailing to Durban once more”. The varied expenses in addition had made his trip profitless, for the unfortunate man had made the discovery that reis in the Brazils were very different to the reis on the east coast of Africa. The South American coin, being equal to about a third or fourth less of what it is here. Instead of having been towed up the river by the Auxiliar for about six pounds – “so cheap” we all thought – the bill which had to be paid was, when turned into English, about £28 for towage, harbor dues, etc. The Customs House authorities had also put and kept one of their officials on board and charged at the rate of five shillings a day, although it was pointed out again and again to them that the ship was in ballast and had nothing on board after our things were removed on the second day of arrival; but the Portuguese insisted on keeping a gold-braided individual on board all day and all night, who certainly could have found no occupation unless it was to watch our friends the rats. Putting all these expenses together there was nothing left out of the £50 the captain had been paid for bringing us here and in addition it was impossible for him to get down the river again without the help of the steamer thus entailing extra expenses still. The unfortunate Welshman had been badly treated; there is never any cargo here for Natal and what little there may be for any of the adjacent places is carried on small craft belonging to the firm at Quilimane. Captain Evans declared he should sail for Peru at once and he’d never go near such a place as South Africa again. “I am a religious man”, he concluded after denouncing Messrs. B- and M- of Durban who had let him in so, “but I say d--- them! D--- them! If I had those fellows here for five minutes I’d let them know I’m a Welshman!” We did what we could to help the worthy sailor and were successful in some things for which he was grateful. The Mary Evans left this day and we saw the last of the old barque’s English ensign looking rusty and as defiant as ever across the swamps in a turn of the river until it disappeared in the distance.
We went across the river during the day with our guns to see whether there was anything to be shot, but after wandering about for some two hours amongst the mangroves we came back empty. We came across traces of lions or “spoor” as the tracks of wild animals are called by as all hunters in South Africa from the Dutch term, and we saw that hippopotami were frequent visitors but night time is the only part of the twenty-four hours that the latter ever come forth from their hiding places when so near a settlement. Away up the rivers a hippopotamus cares not a jot for a boat or its occupants, as we found by our own experience, but down here they are more acquainted with civilization, and shun it accordingly.
A good many years ago Dr. Livingstone had a small steamer on the Zambesi, and it was intended to open up trade, but being a few years before the time the project failed. Since those days a number of religious gentlemen in Scotland, after founding the two mission stations which we visited namely Livingstonia and Blantyre conceived the idea of promoting a company in connection with the two missions and by carrying goods up for the missionaries and calico and beads for the natives bringing down in exchange ivory, cotton, india-rubber and other articles which would yield a handsome profit. The scale of prices charged for carriage of passengers and cargo by the Messrs. Moir, two brothers who were out here as managers of this semi-religious speculation always depended upon circumstances. A missionary was carried for a nominal sum for all the calico used at the Mission is bought from the Moirs and somehow it was impossible to define the line where the missionary part of this concern commenced and where it ended, but between the mission stations and the Livingstonia Trading Company an arrangement existed which is afterwards described as “monstrous” by a Commission sent out by the Church of Scotland to make some very necessary inquiries.
We found that for some reason the Blantyre missionaries had no desire for us to visit them. We had written some months previously asking them to kindly forward us information about the best way of getting up the river and for any hints they may feel disposed to give as to our requirements in the way of calico, beads etc. and we never received any reply whatever. They wrote to Senor Nunez however and told him of our letter, remarked that they knew nothing about us, and furthermore did not wish to see us. Difficulties were put in our way and it was only when it was seen that we were determined to go up the river in spite of all the missionaries in Christendom if necessary, that we received an intimation from the Moirs that we might travel from Mazaro on the Zambesi to Livingstonia on Lake Nyassa under their charge for the modest sum of £50 each and £45 per ton measurement for our things. The price demanded was exorbitant and if it were not that we should have occupied three times as long travelling up the swift running rivers in our own boat we should have declined to go in the steamer. But time was everything to us and the sooner we got up to the hunting ground the more sport we would have. We therefore yielded and in an evil moment agreed to the terms offered.
From Quilimane we had to travel up the Quakwa River until reaching a native village called Marrendenny which is on the banks of the Quakwa and from when it is only six miles across the neck of land to Mazaro, a Portuguese settlement facing the Zambesi. All these things being arranged our boat and the two others which were to convey Dr. Laws and ourselves to Marrendenny were loaded up and everything was in readiness for a start on Monday. On Sunday 27th July Dr. Laws held Divine Service and with Captain Travers and ourselves sang the 100th psalm to the best of our ability in Senor Nunez large drawing room. We afterwards went for a walk and passed through the native part of town. As we were returning we met a tall negro carrying a basket and with his face and breast veiled, one eye only being visible, On seeing us approaching he put his basket down and stood on one side to let us pass, and as we did so he threw up his hands high above his head and uttered the most blood-curdling cry of lamentation, and revealing the most horrible sight w had ever seen. He was in the last stages of some syphilitic disease – which the natives here have to thank the Portuguese for – and was appealing to our charity. The awful cry this man gave utterance to and the sight that met us when we turned to him made us feel so sick that we were glad to get away from him. We spent the remained of the day writing letters home to England and Australia and turned in early ready for a busy week of travelling. The next morning Don Cardosa came to breakfast and then left with Captain Travers to go on with the work of surveying the entrance to the river, after which we settled all our accounts including the Customs House one for duty on our guns which came to something under £20. The heaviest duty we paid was on the flintlock guns, which originally only cost us eight shillings each, and we were taxed at seven shillings apiece. We also paid heavy duty on our tobacco and sugar, but got off lightly on the whole thanks to Senor Nunez and Dr. Laws who together made all the accounts out.
Dr. Laws was to travel in a pinnace belonging to the Moirs while we were to go in another one hired for the trip, the Bella being loaded to the gunwales with cargo. The intention was to start with the flood tide after dinner but the boys allowed the large boat we were to go in to settle on her anchor and knock a hole in her bottom. To repair this caused a delay of nearly three hours, and it was almost nine o’clock at night before we started, Dr. laws leading the way. We said “Good-bye” to Senor Nunez thanking him for his kindness and with his best wishes pushed off in the dark after Dr. Law’s boat. which carried a lantern to guide us. Close behind us followed the Bella and we settled down on the piles of coconuts, bags of gunpowder, calico, preserved meats, jams, etc. etc. going up to the mission station. The men had built what is called a masassa over the stern of our boat, a framework of bamboo and thatched with grass, which at night is necessary to keep the dew off and in the day is required for shade and from underneath if we peered out into the dark, watched the lantern way ahead and listened to the wild songs of the native boat men. We had twelve in our boat, six on each side besides the man who was steering and all sat facing the bow, each with a short paddle in his hand and with one movement all dipped their paddles in and sent the boat travelling along. Sometimes they take a long stroke and then two short ones which they call kawiri kawiri – two by two – and the way they send their spoon-shaped paddles into the water with the downward thrust is quite vicious.
Occasionally they break into song; one leading and the others join in the chorus. Generally a monotonous chant went on until the chorus came and then one favorite was Kwahee, kwahee, kwaee, hee,hee. These songs had a melody of their own and often we used to order our men to kwahee which they generally did with pleasure. All the time the tide was helping us we pushed on, but about 2 a.m. the ebb was getting strong and we made fast for the night alongside the river bank. We tried to sleep but could not. The incessant noise of the bullfrogs and the activity of the mosquitoes was unbearable. We tried all kinds of remedies; camphorated oil, the praises of which we had heard sung, proved useless however thickly we might smear it on our hands and faces, as nothing but covering one’s head up closely with a blanket kept them off, and then one had to exercise the same ingenuity to leave a space to breathethrough.
As soon as we had finished breakfast in Dr. Law’s boat, boiling water for the tea on the bank, we made another start and pushed on steadily all day. The river swarms with duck, cranes, ibis and fifty different kinds of water fowl, and number of crocodiles were basking on the sun-warmed mud, slipping off into the water noiselessly as our boats approached them. Large trees grow around here and in the branches numerous brightly-plumaged birds are seen, and now and again swarms of monkeys swinging from tree to tree. When we stopped for the night for our evening meal a large lion was making a row not very far, which led to a long discussion upon whether lions roar when they are in search of food or not. Some assert that the lion roars to paralyze any animal with terror that may be close at hand but it is observed on the contrary by the Portuguese settlers here that a lion never roars before carrying off one of the natives or any of the cattle and they believe it is because the lion is well aware of the fact that the sound of his roar would warn the intended victim. Invariably natives are surprised by the lion and the leopard no previous sounds being heard, and there are many hunters who are convinced that a roaring lion is never in search of food. This one was not very far away but there was a glorious moon which perhaps was causing him vexation of spirit if his roar did betoken other than a pleasant frame of mind, perhaps he was merely informing his wife of his whereabouts, and he might have been waiting for her and the young ones with a good fat buck for tea.
The banks of the river looked very pretty tonight the gigantic glow-worms and the fireflies skimming about them assisting to make, with the moonbeams, the whole place look like fairyland. On the shore a little way back burnt the fires around which were the sleeping negroes, each wrapped in his “fumba”, a particular kind of double matting made of plaited straw, and with one of the double ends woven together. Into this the owner creeps and turning round wraps himself up safe from mosquito or eachimbat. We sat smoking far into the night during part of which Dr. Laws gave us a great deal of information about the natives and at midnight we started off once again and kept on until we reached a native village called Interra at 10 a.m. The chief was killed a few months previously in one of the never-ceasing disputes signified by the name of native wars with the Portuguese. The village only now consisted of a dozen houses but we got fowls and a number of oranges from them for calico. It commenced raining shortly after we arrived and it was rather hot and oppressive for the rest of the day.
The difference in the river during the rainy season and during the dry one is marked here very distinctively by the double banks to the river, one bank being ten to twelve feet higher than the lower and receding about thirty feet. The rush of water during the rainy season sweeps away all the vegetation on the lower banks and the fertility of the soil is such that the shrubs were now standing shoulder high after the dry season is only two months old.
Our men seemed to feed very frugally at their breakfast at Interra. A large earthen pot half full of water was placed on the ground and a fire of small wood built around it and as soon as the water commenced to boil the cook put in handfuls of ava, the native flour or meal made from the manioc root, stirring all the while with one of the paddles. As the stuff thickened it got nearly as transparent as starch and when finished it tasted, or rather it had no more taste, than starch. Then the cook lifts the pot off the fire, the hungry company gather around sitting on their hams and putting their hands into the pot take out lumps of the cooked ava and pinching it with their fingers into small portions eat it apparently without any particular pleasure and with the air of performing a duty. They required meat to show any gusto at their meals but it is rarely tasted by the natives, and ava is as much the “staff of life” with these negroes as bread is with Europeans. It is very cheap, enough to fill a flour-bag being bought for a few fingers’ width of calico. Rice is also largely used by the natives, the red-husked kind being grown everywhere, and in sweet potatoes they find some variation from the eternal ava.
With the large number of men with us, upwards of 60, there were groups of 10 or 12 around each cooking pot. For ourselves, we had tea, Quilimane bread, biscuits, jam, preserved meats, tinned salmon, bananas, oranges, coconuts and figs so that we were living well for the present. One of the luxuries we always tried to have with us was Worcestershire sauce; there is something very civilized in this sauce. It makes the toughest piece of meat more eatable even when the steak is off an old bull elephant’s cheek, and it was a godsend to us at times when we had nothing but rice to eat. All the negroes up and down the rivers have magnificent teeth, so white, square and even that it is impossible not to envy them and they seem to take some pains to preserve their teeth from the manner in which they vigorously clean them after each meal with a toothbrush made of a short stick of soft wood, one end of which is hammered between two stones until it is frayed, and it is amusing to see them all on the banks of the river after they have finished eating dipping their sticks in the water and scrubbing away with great ardor. They smoke chiefly the native tobacco, which is of a very inferior kind from their inability to cure it properly. A pipe made of clay is very common and a present of a wooden pipe is greatly prized; traders now send cheap wooden pipes into the interior, so they are often seen in the possession of blacks who have never met a white man, but wooden pipes do not last them very long from the habit they have of putting a live coal from the fire on top of the bowl which soon chars it away. Their chief idea in owning a wooden pipe seemed to be more because it was like a white man to use it. Some few smoke hemp, and those who have neither a clay pipe nor one of wood fashion one out of a gourd, or rubbing their dry tobacco up put it inside a green leaf and smoke a rudely contrived cigarette. Pipes, cigarettes and gourds are passed from hand to hand, each man taking a whiff or two so that one pipe often serves a dozen smokers.
We left Interra before noon and paddled for hours through a series of long lagoons between which the water was sometimes very shallow, though flowing very fast. The boat we travelled had an immense millstone on board amongst other weighty things and we frequently grounded, when all the boys would jump out and, thus lightened, push her along until deeper water was reached. This went on all afternoon and the work got laborious, for sometimes all hands were pulling and pushing for some moments before the boat would move. About five o’clock she was immovably stuck and our own boat, being behind us, we got into her, the men in the larger boat requesting us to tell Dr. Laws they would be up with him as soon as they had lightened her sufficiently to follow. It was dark soon after we started after the Doctor and our three men travelled a long way up a side lagoon by mistake in the dusk which ended in a cul-de-sac and we had to travel some miles back again to the river which caused considerable delay. Dr. Laws had gone on for a long way before camping and what with the constant grounding and being pullover sandbanks it was past ten o’clock before we got up to camp, close by a broken-down hut which the Messrs. Moir had built as a halting place on the river.
A fowl cooked over the camp fire and pannikins of tea soon made us feel comfortable but we waited far into the night for the boat containing our bedding and as she did not arrive we spent an unpleasant night of it trying to sleep on the ground by the camp fire. The hut swarmed with ants and no one who has not been covered from head to foot with biting ants can conceive how utterly sleep is out of the question when these customers are about. As we had no protection except our overcoats we soon got damp with the heavy night dew, and it was really surprising we were not struck down with fever the following day.
After breakfast which we welcomed gladly after this disagreeable night Dr. Laws and K. -H. went down the river again to try and bring up the big boat while C. remained in charge of the camp. It was found impossible for the launch to travel up any further and the only thing Dr. Laws could do was to hire a number of canoes to take her load up to Marrendenny. Some half dozen canoes were hired, each having six men, and into them and the Bella everything was shifted, the launch being sent back to Quilimane. Some of the canoes we had engaged were large and capable of carrying some hundredweights of stuff. They are made larger on the Zambesi, big trees being more frequently met with than down here and we have seen one set to carry five tons. The estimation in which white men are held on this river, wherever the Portuguese are known was shown by the refusal of the natives to engage themselves until they had first been paid and no start was made until the wages and payment for hire of canoes had been duly handed over in calico. It speaks well for the English that the natives in the interior will always work in return for a verbal promise from them, and at times when calico is short they are content to wait being confident that the debt will be paid if a promise has been made. About here however the native knows nothing but evil of the white man and accordingly when in a position to refuse he invariably declines to work unless previously paid, and we had to satisfy their demands before they would budge.
CHAPTER 6
At the head of our flotilla we led the way in the Bella , Dr Laws in his boat whipping in . It is necessary to keep a lookout on everything, thieving being regarded as rather a smart thing than otherwise. We had six hundred coconuts in the boats and canoes which were being sent up to Livingstonia for planting and the way they diminished in number day by day was surprising. Only six or seven reached the lake, yet we only once caught a man. Turning a bend in the river we were met by a canoe with a masassa built over it and it stopped as it drew near, and a stranger in European clothes appeared, it was Mr. Frederick Moir on this way down to Quilimane to get calico, powder and a number of things consigned to his Company which, however, were aboard Dr. Laws’ boat and canoe. We remembered months after remarking to each other “Good Heavens, how yellow Moir looks; surely we won’t look so frightful in six months.” Mr. Moir had been some time on the east coast and looked as ill as a man could possibly look and yet be alive. Jaundiced was no name for the color of his complexion and the fever had so reduced him so that he was like a skeleton. Finding his things on the way up Mr. Moir determined to return to Blantyre instead of going down to the coast, and to travel thither with Dr. Laws and ourselves. It was fortunate for him he did so as it turned out a day or two after. On meeting Mr. Moir we found the river was much more shallow further up and we therefore lightened the boats by loading up some more canoes and when we camped that night we had a very large number of men with us.
After a long day of travelling, rest was welcomed by all of us. C. after his experience of the ants and mosquitoes of the previous night elected to sleep in the Bella. Dr. Laws slept in his boat while Mr. Moir, who was in the habit of travelling with a four-post bed, mattress, mosquito curtains and all, had a sort of tent rigged up over it and made himself very comfortable under it. K.-H. slept on the ground on his “Wolsely valise” with the mosquito curtain over him and waterproof sheet spread on four upright sticks. The mosquito curtains we used were very easily made and are useful whether over a bed or stretched on small sticks in a tent. The way we made ours was very simple: -a piece of calico six feet long and two feet in width was the roof and from it hung the whole length on each side three feet of muslin and at the head and foot muslin was also sewn, the edges where the muslin met being together. Around the base all around was a trimming of calico six inches in depth, the weight of which keeps the muslin down, and then four “beckets” or eyeholes are made at the four corners of the calico roof; two short sticks stretch the head and foot and with two sticks placed perpendicularly in the ground, a tiny muslin calico roofed tent is made.
Underneath it all the bed is spread and when ready to turn in you crawl in quickly and then tuck the bottom under your bed thereby baffling the mosquitoes who will get in if there is the slightest opportunity. A hole the size of a threepenny piece in the muslin is sufficient for as soon as they find it good-bye to sleep for that night. We frequently counted more than a hundred mosquitoes in the morning dead in the meshes of the muslin losing their lives in the vain effort to reach their perspiring destined victims. But in spite of every precaution one or two mosquitoes will often get in and make the unfortunate sleeper wake up and spend the remainder of the night cursing the day in which he was born. A man feels very riled when feeling the wings of a mosquito fanning his face. He waits for it to land on his cheek, chin or ear and then his hand, having been poised in the air all the time comes down with a sound smack only to miss the lively tormentor who continues to hum and dance over the spot it wishes to operate on. Often if one or two mosquitoes got in through an opening, and a moment was sufficient, we would cover our heads with the blanket to escape and even then the sharp sting would be felt through the blanket and trousers of the thigh or calf. Language failed anyone who knows mosquitoes when they are in numbers like the sand of the seashore, and double the size of a respectable mosquito. The Portuguese and the natives are firm that the more unhealthy a spot is to camp at the more numerous you find the mosquitoes and this is true evidently for at Blantyre mosquito curtains can be dispensed with and five miles on man would be nearly eaten alive without them. On the shores of the lake we often found places very close to each other, one swarming with them, the other entirely free and nearly always a night or two at the mosquito frequented places would be followed by an attack of fever.
Early on the morning of 1st August, the voice of a solitary hyena roused us all up and swallowing a hasty cup of coffee we started off as soon as the cachimba permitted us to see our way, for we hoped to reach Marrendenny the following night. While we were having breakfast on a sand-spit about 11 o’clock we were joined by a canoe also on its way up containing three Portuguese soldiers and a corporal. They were dressed in the brown uniform of their country and looked as unclean and villainous as it was possible for any of Portugal’s braves to look. It need hardly be stated that any European private out here has been sent out, not only to serve his country in distant climes, but because his presence at home is decidedly disliked. They had three wretched natives with them whose backs showed traces of recent blows, and eyeing us askance as they stepped ashore, these Portuguese worthies threw themselves on the sand and commenced to smoke cigarettes, having first ordered their natives in a loud voice to provide shade for them by canting fambas up on end. We took no notice of them when they calmly appropriated some of our firewood and we left them before they had commenced the breakfast being prepared for them.
All the afternoon our men had very hard work, being in and out of the water every moment hauling the boat and canoes over the sandbanks, and the intense heat made it very wearisome. Just before camping we emerged through a narrow channel into a lagoon nearly ten miles in length and very wide and we paddled through it with a setting sun tingeing sky and water with beautifully varying shades of purple and red. The banks on both sides were high and solitary palms raised their heads here and there, and on the left three or four very small canoes, containing a single native each, were fishing. In the background among some palms the roofs of a few native huts were visible and we could see their owners on the shore gazing with surprise at so many canoes going past with the white men. A “white man”, bye the bye, is always an Englishman in the eyes of a native the Portuguese being “yellow” and many stories have been told of bronzed sons of Albion being compelled to open their shirts and allow some native chief to inspect their chests, a yellow skin in such places being a matter of perhaps death to the unfortunate owner. Up to a few years since a white man was looked upon as perfection by the simple native yet although some ill-advised missionaries have given cause for reproach, they will even now do anything for “their friends the English”.
At the head of this beautiful lake we had to force our way through a small passage nearly blocked up with reeds and alive with stinging insects which made our men remarkably lively, their naked bodies affording a fine field for operations. Through this place we poled, hauled, cursed and swore for twenty minutes until we thought we had got into some out of the way place, when we suddenly emerged and then came on top of Dr. Laws and Mr. Moir who had selected this dreadful place for the camp instead of camping on the higher ground a mile further back in the big lagoon. The Portuguese soldiers arrived soon after us and their men wished to camp also but they refused to stop. On one of their natives, half dead with exhaustion, making a show of refusing to work any more that night, the corporal jumped up in either a real or assumed rage and drawing his bayonet made a terrific thrust at the refractory one missing him probably on purpose. With his Portuguese oaths hurled at them and the flourished bayonet the poor devils hastened to start again and the enraged corporal permitted his comrade to tender him their sympathies. As we were standing looking on it struck us that the whole thing was meant for our edification, not that of the three natives who were toiling at the paddles, who looked by no means as if they were petted by their temporary masters. Most likely they knew that after all their hard work was completed they would not even obtain the pittance of calico due to them.
The 2nd August was a repetition of the previous day, one part lagoons and waterholes and another miles of sandbanks. In spite of all our exertions we were unable to reach Marrendenny before dark and camped some miles below it, starting again the following morning, Sunday, at 6 a.m. which enabled us to get to our destination some five hours later. As soon as breakfast was finished Dr. Laws told us that no unloading would take place but Divine Service would be held which we attended and this time we sang “The Lord is My Shepherd” while the men stood by looking on with awe and admiration. We then left Dr. Laws and Mr. Moir and went for a walk by ourselves, the village was very small – not twenty-five huts -- and its few inhabitants live principally by carrying things across to Mazaro and back for the mission stations and by fishing in the river. The ground close by is cultivated but off the track between Mazaro and Marrendenny the place is as wild as it can be, and the track itself has been a path of death of many a poor wretch, the jungle on both sides of it being full of lions and leopards, and a few weeks previously two natives were killed together on this path by a solitary lion who they unfortunately met on their way.
After wandering aimlessly about we returned and overhauled the locker of our boat where a native rat was imagined to have taken up a residence. Our surmises proved correct, but the rat was too quick for us, jumping out of the locker onto a thwart and from thence to the shore before we could intercept him. We found he had eaten one of the Ashanti hammocks into a useless condition and he had commenced on some of our biscuits. Finishing our tea we noticed that something was going on in the village, and on inquiry we found that the young daughter of the chief – a potentate who owned this village and two or three more – had died during the day of “a heat” so they expressed it, meaning some fever. A small canoe was cut up to make the coffin, and into it the corpse of the girl was placed, tremulous lamentations going on as the lid was put on. Just as the moon was rising some of the men of the tribe shouldered the coffin, slowly wended their way into the gloom and winding paths of the jungle. A large fire was immediately lighted on the path directly the last of the men who followed in single file had passed and one of our natives who spoke a little English told us it was to prevent the spirit coming back again to the village. Suddenly a weird cry was heard, and at first faint it increased in volume to a prolonged wail which sounded unpleasant in the dim moonlight. After a few moments it was repeated from another quarter sounding more ghostly than before, and on inquiring, as usual, what these sounds might portend we found that the mourning was commencing. A short time after a ring of some thirty or forty native women were standing beating time with the palms of their hands and wailing a sing-song monotonous manner which went on until the men who had been burying the girl had returned. Attracted by curiosity we drew near the mourners and unobserved in the shadows of one of their huts watched with interest the strange sight. As soon as the burial party joined the throng the groaning that commenced was unearthly, and the shrieking of the women and the hoarse cries of the men, for they varied the noise at certain intervals, went on all through the night. The whole time a moving circle was kept and a man would dash into the centre and dance cis-a-ris to some woman who followed him, a few shuffling peculiar steps with the elbows bent and the shoulders shrugged up in time to the clapping when the two would retire to permit another couple to perform the strange dance. The contorted expressions on every countenance intended to express extreme grief and the fantastic dance of death made a scene that an artist would have longed to transfer to canvas.
The moon was getting higher and the moving shadows of the ever-circling ring of mourners looked very strange. Now and again a man or a woman would go down on his or her knees, grasp a handful of dust, and toss it back over the shoulder and then resume the labor of groaning. At another time a girl passed round with a trencher full of native flour, a pinch of which she sprinkled on the backs of the mourners, who every now and then crammed their bodies in towards the middle of the circle with a subdued grief-stricken cry. Whether they yelled, shrieked, groaned or wailed in a subdued manner they all seemed to take the cue from one person, and when the frenzied cries were at their height we could see the half-terrified niggers so worked up did they get, glancing round in the direction of the path along which the corpse had passed, as if they expected to see the spirit returning. It was no wonder they felt scared, for, philosophically as we were inclined; the low “grief” cry sent a creeping sensation through us as it came to us long after midnight. This mourning went on without intermission for the three days we were at Marrendenny; during the day it was a nuisance and at night it was decidedly unpleasant, one could not help hoping, in a friendly spirit, that deaths were not of frequent occurrence for the sake of the lungs and throats of the sable mourners. Fancy having to howl oneself hoarse if Brown, Jones or Robinson died, for three or four days without stopping. Life has many burdens but loud cries over the deaths of one’s friends is not one of them although if it were in these days we should easily know who had “ cut up” well and who had died offending all his friends. The lamentations at the funeral for the former would be heard many miles off, and it would be easy to judge whether he had died rich or poor. The negroes who danced in a circle seemed to us to be impressed with the belief that something in the centre of the circle had to be propitiated, for it was always at one point they gazed. Probably their cries were meant to frighten the spirit in some manner, and prevent it troubling them in the future. The hut in which she died would be pulled down, so we were told, it being the custom to demolish any dwelling place in which a death occurred. If a chief died or one of his wives the whole village is pulled down and re-build on another spot, perhaps a quarter of a mile off.
Mr. Moir complained very much, just before we all turned in, of shivering fits which came on during the evening, and the following morning he was down with a bad attack of the fever which had been coming on for days and over which attack he narrowly escaped with his life. The whole of Monday we were busy unloading the boats and canoes and we had to watch closely as the slightest chance that offered was taken advantage of to steal something. On counting the coconuts that Dr. Laws had bought in Quilimane we found that eighty-five had been stolen out of one boat and we caught a lad trying to steal one by standing with his face turned towards the Doctor and whenever an opportunity occurred he gave a slight push with his heel to a coconut behind him so as to move it towards the long grass. On being detected he became very frightened and for punishment was made to sit down in front of us for some six hours, until Dr. Laws let him know what his fate was to be, his terror at the idea of going back to Quilimane to prison and the “stick” was great, but eventually he was admonished and released about dusk. As we were still in Portuguese territory the natives were supposed to be subject to Portuguese law, and Dr. Laws was careful, being a “foreigner” himself, not to give any cause for complaint by flogging the lad, as many men would have done.
This day we engaged two natives who remained with us the whole time we were in the country. The first rejoiced in the name of Kwa-wa, which in the language of the Makololo signified “the slow one” and the short, fat little man with a never-ceasing grin, was very slow indeed at times, but a more honest, trustworthy old nigger never breathed. He had been with the missionaries and lastly, in charge of the boat belonging to the Livingstonia Trading Company which played on the Quakwa River, and about the only service the Moirs did us was letting us have Kwa-wa. On asking him whether he could speak English he replied, “Small English I ‘stand’, “understand” corrected Dr. Laws who tried invariably, and very properly, to make the natives where they did speak English pronounce the words correctly. Nothing annoyed the doctor so much as persons talking “pigeon English” to Kwa-wa or any of the mission boys. The unfortunate habit people get into of speaking such gibberish becomes so inveterate that we found it very difficult to break it off. A friend of ours, to digress a little, astonished the natives in Paris one day by using “pigeon English” at a restaurant. Mr. – had sat down with some fellow Australians at the table d’hôte after a weary journey from Brindisi, Marseilles and Lyon. Not understanding a word of French he sulkily watched his companions ordering what they wanted, until noticing some entrée on his neighbor’s plate he suddenly electrified the company by calling out “Waiter, same ‘long this man!” Being met with a stupid stare from the nearest waiter he repeated his order still louder and was just losing his temper when a friend remarked “Heavens, man! They’re not Chinamen” and then the waiter in very good English said “ I really don’t know what you mean sir” Why British people should think it necessary to murder the Queen’s English in talking to Chinamen, black fellows, etc. is incomprehensible, but the habit once gained grows upon one greatly. Kwa-wa spoke very indifferent English and if he managed to get a good pull at pombë or native beer, he completely forgot the language. One of Kwa-wa’s peculiarities was pretending to understand you when he had not the remotest idea of what was being said to him. He would laugh and look like a child who was being praised much beyond its merits, repeating now and again ” I ‘stand” until after finishing telling him something you found breath had been wasted for the previous five minutes in talking to the good-humored old fool. “Me no know” another favorite expression of Kwa-wa’s but we found that by speaking very slowly, and permitting his limited allowance of brain to grasp the subject he managed to “know” most of the things we talked to him about.
Our other man who was christened by his godfather with a name which we could neither remember nor pronounce when we did hear it, was a very different specimen of the black race to old Kwa-wa. He was tall, and beautifully proportioned, being without exception one of the handsomest negroes that ever stepped. His large dark eyes and arched eyebrows gave a soft and sad expression to his face and his slightly pouting lips had none of the coarse thickness of the full-blooded African; the tiny ringlets in which he dressed his hair with black beads added to his picturesque appearance, and when he tossed his well-shaped head back with a laugh he showed a splendid set of small feminine teeth. With the exception of his lower limbs which were too slight for a model, many a sculptor would give much for such a form to copy from. Working with the paddles had developed his muscles and carrying things on his head had given him an erect carriage, so that altogether he was a piece of workmanship that nature might be proud of. He was always putting himself unconsciously into graceful attitudes that attracted attention from even the most inartistic eye and the handsome lad in our service was taken notice of by everyone. He did not know a word of English but C. commenced teaching him the names of things the first day, and by the evening Tommy could say tea, sugar, bread and point each article out such as spoons, forks, plates, etc. correctly on it being named at tea-time. Kwa-wa’s sole garment was a shirt but Tommy did not possess one so the first thing we did was give him a dark flannel one of which he was immensely proud, though it spoilt him from an aesthetic point of view.
The day was taken up with unloading and sending everything to Mazaro where the whites belonging to the Lady Nyassa received them, and we slept a second night at Marrendenny, Mr. Moir being very bad during the night. The native hut in which his bed was put was an old one and had an evil odour and one of us sleeping in it also found the rats a great nuisance. The huts are built generally round in shape, the frame being stout canes and long grass being worked into the walls and thatching put on the roof; better ones have mud plastered on the walls inside and out, which, when carefully smoothed when soft hardens like mortar, but after a time gives shelter to ants and other insects. The floor of the hut is often beaten smooth, and with the exception of being so dark from the low door and absence of any window these huts are comfortable enough while they remain tolerably new, but an old cue is not a pleasant place to live in. It was necessary to carry Mr. Moir to Mazaro in a machilla on Tuesday his own bed slung on the Bella’s mast making a very good temporary affair, as he was accompanied by Dr. Laws who was getting very anxious about him. We followed in the course of the day after the Dr. had returned to Marrendenny, and on arriving at out destination found that the house of Senor Assevedo was the rendez-vous of any whites who passed the place. Senor Assevedo (who has died since we left from fever) was a connection of Senor Nunez and had inherited his property from his father and grandfather. The Moirs used his storehouses for the stowing of things in connection their trading company, and it was understood by Senor Assevedo that certain payments would be made him in return, but never ceased grumbling to us about the way the missionaries and Moirs treated him. At dinner we met two more Europeans, Messrs. Henderson and Dent, the former the engineer of the Lady Nyassa and the latter the seaman in charge of the crew. Dent was however only visible for a short time as he had been ill for the past three days with fever, and although recovering was unable to stand up. Mr. Moir was slightly delirious during this (Tuesday night) and was so exhausted after every fit of the shivering that his companions began to look ominous. About eight o’clock we all retired, the rain falling heavily which made it rather unpleasant for Dr. Laws over at Marrendenny with the remaining cargo but there were few men we met so ready to rough it or so willing to suffer hardship as this plucky Scotchman. He was so entirely different in thought, word and action from any of the other missionaries we met, that it is impossible not to regret that similar men are not more frequently sent to Africa instead of missionaries of the Blantyre type. The only objection we had to Dr. Laws was that he was a little too strict a Sabbatarian to suit our taste but of course if we chose to travel with him it was but right that we should expect him not to alter his usual habit of perfect rest on the Sunday for us. “Quite right, too” some reader may think but please to remember circumstances alter cases. If you are travelling through pestilent swamps and fever-breeding country to mountains, surely there is no necessity to waste the precious twenty-four hours, or rather more because it is Sunday, in getting away from the low-lying land on which you may lose your life. It was on this point we used to differ from Dr. Laws, but in every other respect as far as the Doctor was concerned we had a most pleasant journey together a far as Blantyre and we found him him ready at all times to assist us.
The room we slept in was the large front one which was also the dining room, and was shared by some pigeons. In a little room on the right, poor Dent was tossing wearily all through the night; on the left Senor Assevedo slept with a faint light in his room made by a wick floating in oil which enabled us through the open door to just discern the face of the Portuguese whose hollow eyes and sunken cheeks spoke plainly but unheeded of fast-approaching death. However Henderson lived through his successive attacks of fever was a marvel and to our minds a man required either a belief in the conversion of negroes amounting to fanaticism or a most reckless disregard of future years to live month after month in a never ceasing round of fever attacks, each one rendering the sufferer more weak and helpless besides shortening his life. In Henderson’s case, young and full of the deep religious zeal found in many of the artisans of busy Glasgow, he longed to work in spreading the gospel to negroes and went out thinking to serve God. But a three year’s agreement had to be signed, and before six months of it elapsed, Henderson’s eyes were rudely opened and all his belief in mission labor was swept away. Dent was a sort of religious maniac who spent nearly the whole of his time hovering between life and death and left at last prematurely aged and completely wrecked in health for the remainder of his life. Both these men received anything but fair treatment from the managers of the Livingstonia Trading Company whose parsimony was something extraordinary.
Part III continues at PAGE6943