A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries

A day’s march beyond Molamba brought us to the lakelet Chia, which lies parallel with the Lake.  It is three or four miles long, by from one to one and a half broad, and communicates with the Lake by an arm of good depth, but with some rocks in it.  As we passed up between the Lake and the eastern shore of this lakelet, we did not see any streams flowing into it.  It is quite remarkable for the abundance of fish; and we saw upwards of fifty large canoes engaged in the fishery, which is carried on by means of hand-nets with side-frame poles about seven feet long.  These nets are nearly identical with those now in use in Normandy—the difference being that the African net has a piece of stick lashed across the handle-ends of the side poles to keep them steady, which is a great improvement.  The fish must be very abundant to be scooped out of the water in such quantities as we saw, and by so many canoes.  There is quite a trade here in dried fish.

The country around is elevated, undulating, and very extensively planted with cassava.  The hoe in use has a handle of four feet in length, and the iron part is exactly of the same form as that in the country of the Bechuanas.  The baskets here, which are so closely woven together as to hold beer, are the same with those employed to hold milk in Kaffirland—a thousand miles distant.

Marching on foot is peculiarly conducive to meditation—one is glad of any subject to occupy the mind, and relieve the monotony of the weary treadmill-like trudge-trudging.  This Chia net brought to our mind that the smith’s bellows made here of a goatskin bag, with sticks along the open ends, are the same as those in use in the Bechuana country far to the south-west.  These, with the long-handled hoe, may only show that each successive horde from north to south took inventions with it from the same original source.  Where that source may have been is probably indicated by another pair of bellows, which we observed below the Victoria Falls, being found in Central India and among the Gipsies of Europe.

Men in remote times may have had more highly-developed instincts, which enabled them to avoid or use poisons; but the late Archbishop Whately has proved, that wholly untaught savages never could invent anything, or even subsist at all.  Abundant corroboration of his arguments is met with in this country, where the natives require but little in the way of clothing, and have remarkably hardy stomachs.  Although possessing a knowledge of all the edible roots and fruits in the country, having hoes to dig with, and spears, bows, and arrows to kill the game,—we have seen that, notwithstanding all these appliances and means to boot, they have perished of absolute starvation.

The art of making fire is the same in India as in Africa.  The smelting furnaces, for reducing iron and copper from the ores, are also similar.  Yellow hæmatite, which bears not the smallest resemblance either in colour or weight to the metal, is employed near Kolobeng for the production of iron.  Malachite, the precious green stone used in civilized life for vases, would never be suspected by the uninstructed to be a rich ore of copper, and yet it is extensively smelted for rings and other ornaments in the heart of Africa.  A copper bar of native manufacture four feet long was offered to us for sale at Chinsamba’s.  These arts are monuments attesting the fact, that some instruction from above must at some time or other have been supplied to mankind; and, as Archbishop Whately says, “the most probable conclusion is, that man when first created, or very shortly afterwards, was advanced, by the Creator Himself, to a state above that of a mere savage.”

The argument for an original revelation to man, though quite independent of the Bible history, tends to confirm that history.  It is of the same nature with this, that man could not have made himself, and therefore must have had a Divine Creator.  Mankind could not, in the first instance, have civilized themselves, and therefore must have had a superhuman Instructor.

In connection with this subject, it is remarkable that throughout successive generations no change has taken place in the form of the various inventions.  Hammers, tongs, hoes, axes, adzes, handles to them; needles, bows and arrows, with the mode of feathering the latter; spears, for killing game, with spear-heads having what is termed “dish” on both sides to give them, when thrown, the rotatory motion of rifle-balls; the arts of spinning and weaving, with that of pounding and steeping the inner bark of a tree till it serves as clothing; millstones for grinding corn into meal; the manufacture of the same kind of pots or chatties as in India; the art of cooking, of brewing beer and straining it as was done in ancient Egypt; fish-hooks, fishing and hunting nets, fish-baskets, and weirs, the same as in the Highlands of Scotland; traps for catching animals, etc., etc.,—have all been so very permanent from age to age, and some of them of identical patterns are so widely spread over the globe, as to render it probable that they were all, at least in some degree, derived from one Source.  The African traditions, which seem possessed of the same unchangeability as the arts to which they relate, like those of all other nations refer their origin to a superior Being.  And it is much more reasonable to receive the hints given in Genesis, concerning direct instruction from God to our first parents or their children in religious or moral duty, and probably in the knowledge of the arts of life, ⁶ than to give credence to the theory that untaught savage man subsisted in a state which would prove fatal to all his descendants, and that in such helpless state he made many inventions which most of his progeny retained, but never improved upon during some thirty centuries.

We crossed in canoes the arm of the Lake, which joins Chia to Nyassa, and spent the night on its northern bank.  The whole country adjacent to the Lake, from this point up to Kota-kota Bay, is densely peopled by thousands who have fled from the forays of the Mazitu in hopes of protection from the Arabs who live there.  In three running rivulets we saw the Shuaré palm, and an oil palm which is much inferior to that on the West Coast.  Though somewhat similar in appearance, the fruit is not much larger than hazel-nuts, and the people do not use them, on account of the small quantity of oil which they afford.

The idea of using oil for light never seems to have entered the African mind.  Here a bundle of split and dried bamboo, tied together with creeping plants, as thick as a man’s body, and about twenty feet in length, is employed in the canoes as a torch to attract the fish at night.  It would be considered a piece of the most wasteful extravagance to burn the oil they obtain from the castor-oil bean and other seeds, and also from certain fish, or in fact to do anything with it but anoint their heads and bodies.

We arrived at Kota-kota Bay in the afternoon of the 10th September, 1863; and sat down under a magnificent wild fig-tree with leaves ten inches long, by five broad, about a quarter of a mile from the village of Juma ben Saidi, and Yakobe ben Arame, whom we had met on the River Kaombé, a little north of this, in our first exploration of the Lake.  We had rested but a short time when Juma, who is evidently the chief person here, followed by about fifty people, came to salute us and to invite us to take up our quarters in his village.  The hut which, by mistake, was offered, was so small and dirty, that we preferred sleeping in an open space a few hundred yards off.

Juma afterwards apologized for the mistake, and presented us with rice, meal, sugar-cane, and a piece of malachite.  We returned his visit on the following day, and found him engaged in building a dhow or Arab vessel, to replace one which he said had been wrecked.  This new one was fifty feet long, twelve feet broad, and five feet deep.  The planks were of a wood like teak, here called Timbati, and the timbers of a closer grained wood called Msoro.  The sight of this dhow gave us a hint which, had we previously received it, would have prevented our attempting to carry a vessel of iron past the Cataracts.  The trees around Katosa’s village were Timbati, and they would have yielded planks fifty feet long and thirty inches broad.  With a few native carpenters a good vessel could be built on the Lake nearly as quickly as one could be carried past the Cataracts, and at a vastly less cost.  Juma said that no money would induce him to part with this dhow.  He was very busy in transporting slaves across the Lake by means of two boats, which we saw returning from a trip in the afternoon.  As he did not know of our intention to visit him, we came upon several gangs of stout young men slaves, each secured by the neck to one common chain, waiting for exportation, and several more in slave-sticks.  These were all civilly removed before our interview was over, because Juma knew that we did not relish the sight.

When we met the same Arabs in 1861, they had but few attendants: according to their own account, they had now, in the village and adjacent country, 1500 souls.  It is certain that tens of thousands had flocked to them for protection, and all their power and influence must be attributed to the possession of guns and gunpowder.  This crowding of refugees to any point where there is a hope for security for life and property is very common in this region, and the knowledge of it made our hopes beat high for the success of a peaceful Mission on the shores of the Lake.  The rate, however, in which the people here will perish by the next famine, or be exported by Juma and others, will, we fear, depopulate those parts which we have just described as crowded with people.  Hunger will ere long compel them to sell each other.  An intelligent man complained to us of the Arabs often seizing slaves, to whom they took a fancy, without the formality of purchase; but the price is so low—from two to four yards of calico—that one can scarcely think this seizure and exportation without payment worth their while.  The boats were in constant employment, and, curiously enough, Ben Habib, whom we met at Linyanti in 1855, had been taken across the Lake, the day before our arrival at this Bay, on his way from Sesheké to Kilwa, and we became acquainted with a native servant of the Arabs, called Selelé Saidallah, who could speak the Makololo language pretty fairly from having once spent some months in the Barotsé Valley.

From boyhood upwards we have been accustomed, from time to time, to read in books of travels about the great advances annually made by Mohammedanism in Africa.  The rate at which this religion spreads was said to be so rapid, that in after days, in our own pretty extensive travels, we have constantly been on the look out for the advancing wave from North to South, which, it was prophesied, would soon reduce the entire continent to the faith of the false prophet.  The only foundation that we can discover for the assertions referred to, and for others of more recent date, is the fact that in a remote corner of North-Western Africa the Fulahs, and Mandingoes, and some others in Northern Africa, as mentioned by Dr. Barth, have made conquests of territory; but even they care so very little for the extension of their faith, that after the conquest no pains whatever are taken to indoctrinate the adults of the tribe.  This is in exact accordance with the impression we have received from our intercourse with Mohammedans and Christians.  The followers of Christ alone are anxious to propagate their faith.  A quasi philanthropist would certainly never need to recommend the followers of Islam, whom we have met, to restrain their benevolence by preaching that “Charity should begin at home.”

Though Selelé and his companions were bound to their masters by domestic ties, the only new idea they had imbibed from Mohammedanism was, that it would be wrong to eat meat killed by other people.  They thought it would be “unlucky.”  Just as the inhabitants of Kolobeng, before being taught the requirements of Christianity, refrained from hoeing their gardens on Sundays, lest they should reap an unlucky crop.  So far as we could learn, no efforts had been made to convert the natives, though these two Arabs, and about a dozen half-castes, had been in the country for many years; and judging from our experience with a dozen Mohammedans in our employ at high wages for sixteen months, the Africans would be the better men in proportion as they retained their native faith.  This may appear only a harsh judgment from a mind imbued with Christian prejudices; but without any pretention to that impartiality, which leaves it doubtful to which side the affections lean, the truth may be fairly stated by one who viewed all Mohammedans and Africans with the sincerest good will.

Our twelve Mohammedans from Johanna were the least open of any of our party to impression from kindness.  A marked difference in general conduct was apparent.  The Makololo, and other natives of the country, whom we had with us, invariably shared with each other the food they had cooked, but the Johanna men partook of their meals at a distance.  This, at first, we attributed to their Moslem prejudices; but when they saw the cooking process of the others nearly complete, they came, sat beside them, and ate the portion offered without ever remembering to return the compliment when their own turn came to be generous.  The Makololo and the others grumbled at their greediness, yet always followed the common custom of Africans of sharing their food with all who sit around them.  What vexed us most in the Johanna men was their indifference to the welfare of each other.  Once, when they were all coming to the ship after sleeping ashore, one of them walked into the water with the intention of swimming off to the boat, and while yet hardly up to his knees was seized by a horrid crocodile and dragged under; the poor fellow gave a shriek, and held up his hand for aid, but none of his countrymen stirred to his assistance, and he was never seen again.  On asking his brother-in-law why he did not help him, he replied, “Well, no one told him to go into the water.  It was his own fault that he was killed.”  The Makololo on the other hand rescued a woman at Senna by entering the water, and taking her out of the crocodile’s mouth.

It is not assumed that their religion had much to do in the matter.  Many Mohammedans might contrast favourably with indifferent Christians; but, so far as our experience in East Africa goes, the moral tone of the follower of Mahomed is pitched at a lower key than that of the untutored African.  The ancient zeal for propagating the tenets of the Koran has evaporated, and been replaced by the most intense selfishness and grossest sensuality.  The only known efforts made by Mohammedans, namely, those in the North-West and North of the continent, are so linked with the acquisition of power and plunder, as not to deserve the name of religious propagandism; and the only religion that now makes proselytes is that of Jesus Christ.  To those who are capable of taking a comprehensive view of this subject, nothing can be adduced of more telling significance than the well-attested fact, that while the Mohammedans, Fulahs, and others towards Central Africa, make a few proselytes by a process which gratifies their own covetousness, three small sections of the Christian converts, the Africans in the South, in the West Indies, and on the West Coast of Africa actually contribute for the support and spread of their religion upwards of £15,000 annually. ⁷  That religion which so far overcomes the selfishness of the human heart must be Divine.

Leaving Kota-kota Bay, we turned away due West on the great slave route to Katanga’s and Cazembé’s country in Londa.  Juma lent us his servant, Selelé, to lead us the first day’s march.  He said that the traders from Kilwa and Iboe cross the Lake either at this bay, or at Tsenga, or at the southern end of the Lake; and that wherever they may cross they all go by this path to the interior.  They have slaves with them to carry their goods, and when they reach a spot where they can easily buy others, they settle down and begin the traffic, and at once cultivate grain.  So much of the land lies waste, that no objection is ever made to any one taking possession of as much as he needs; they can purchase a field of cassava for their present wants for very little, and they continue trading in the country for two or three years, and giving what weight their muskets possess to the chief who is most liberal to them.

The first day’s march led us over a rich, well-cultivated plain.  This was succeeded by highlands, undulating, stony, and covered with scraggy trees.  Many banks of well rounded shingle appear.  The disintegration of the rocks, now going on, does not round off the angles; they are split up by the heat and cold into angular fragments.  On these high downs we crossed the River Kaombé.  Beyond it we came among the upland vegetation—rhododendrons, proteas, the masuko, and molompi.  At the foot of the hill, Kasuko-suko, we found the River Bua running north to join the Kaombé.  We had to go a mile out of our way for a ford; the stream is deep enough in parts for hippopotami.  The various streams not previously noticed, crossed in this journey, had before this led us to the conclusion, independently of the testimony of the natives, that no large river ran into the north end of the Lake.  No such affluent was needed to account for the Shiré’s perennial flow.

On September 15th we reached the top of the ascent which, from its many ups and downs, had often made us puff and blow as if broken-winded.  The water of the streams we crossed was deliciously cold, and now that we had gained the summit at Ndonda, where the boiling-point of water showed an altitude of 3440 feet above the sea, the air was delightful.  Looking back we had a magnificent view of the Lake, but the haze prevented our seeing beyond the sea horizon.  The scene was beautiful, but it was impossible to dissociate the lovely landscape whose hills and dales had so sorely tried our legs and lungs, from the sad fact that this was part of the great slave route now actually in use.  By this road many “Ten thousands” have here seen “the Sea,” “the Sea,” but with sinking hearts; for the universal idea among the captive gangs is, that they are going to be fattened and eaten by the whites.  They cannot of course be so much shocked as we should be—their sensibilities are far from fine, their feelings are more obtuse than ours—in fact, “the live eels are used to being skinned,” perhaps they rather like it.  We who are not philosophic, blessed the Providence which at Thermopylæ in ancient days rolled back the tide of Eastern conquest from the West, and so guided the course of events that light and liberty and gospel truth spread to our distant isle, and emancipating our race freed them from the fear of ever again having to climb fatiguing heights and descend wearisome hollows in a slave-gang, as we suppose they did when the fair English youths were exposed for sale at Rome.

Looking westwards we perceived that, what from below had the appearance of mountains, was only the edge of a table-land which, though at first undulating, soon became smooth, and sloped towards the centre of the country.  To the south a prominent mountain called Chipata, and to the south-west another named Ngalla, by which the Bua is said to rise, gave character to the landscape.  In the north, masses of hills prevented our seeing more than eight or ten miles.

The air which was so exhilarating to Europeans had an opposite effect on five men who had been born and reared in the malaria of the Delta of the Zambesi.  No sooner did they reach the edge of the plateau at Ndonda, than they lay down prostrate, and complained of pains all over them.  The temperature was not much lower than that on the shores of the Lake below, 76 degrees being the mean temperature of the day, 52 degrees the lowest, and 82 degrees the highest during the twenty-four hours; at the Lake it was about l0 degrees higher.  Of the symptoms they complained of—pains everywhere—nothing could be made.  And yet it was evident that they had good reason for saying that they were ill.  They scarified almost every part of their bodies as a remedial measure; medicines, administered on the supposition that their malady was the effect of a sudden chill, had no effect, and in two days one of them actually died in consequence of, as far as we could judge, a change from a malarious to a purer and more rarefied atmosphere.

As we were on the slave route, we found the people more churlish than usual.  On being expostulated with about it, they replied, “We have been made wary by those who come to buy slaves.”  The calamity of death having befallen our party, seemed, however, to awaken their sympathies.  They pointed out their usual burying-place, lent us hoes, and helped to make the grave.  When we offered to pay all expenses, they showed that they had not done these friendly offices without fully appreciating their value; for they enumerated the use of the hut, the mat on which the deceased had lain, the hoes, the labour, and the medicine which they had scattered over the place to make him rest in peace.

The primitive African faith seems to be that there is one Almighty Maker of heaven and earth; that he has given the various plants of earth to man to be employed as mediators between him and the spirit world, where all who have ever been born and died continue to live; that sin consists in offences against their fellow-men, either here or among the departed, and that death is often a punishment of guilt, such as witchcraft.  Their idea of moral evil differs in no respect from ours, but they consider themselves amenable only to inferior beings, not to the Supreme.  Evil-speaking—lying—hatred—disobedience to parents—neglect of them—are said by the intelligent to have been all known to be sin, as well as theft, murder, or adultery, before they knew aught of Europeans or their teaching.  The only new addition to their moral code is, that it is wrong to have more wives than one.  This, until the arrival of Europeans, never entered into their minds even as a doubt.

Everything not to be accounted for by common causes, whether of good or evil, is ascribed to the Deity.  Men are inseparably connected with the spirits of the departed, and when one dies he is believed to have joined the hosts of his ancestors.  All the Africans we have met with are as firmly persuaded of their future existence as of their present life.  And we have found none in whom the belief in the Supreme Being was not rooted.  He is so invariably referred to as the Author of everything supernatural, that, unless one is ignorant of their language, he cannot fail to notice this prominent feature of their faith.  When they pass into the unseen world, they do not seem to be possessed with the fear of punishment.  The utensils placed upon the grave are all broken as if to indicate that they will never be used by the departed again.  The body is put into the grave in a sitting posture, and the hands are folded in front.  In some parts of the country there are tales which we could translate into faint glimmerings of a resurrection; but whether these fables, handed down from age to age, convey that meaning to the natives themselves we cannot tell.  The true tradition of faith is asserted to be “though a man die he will live again;” the false that when he dies he is dead for ever.