But vengeance overtook him at last. On his way down the Zambesi he shot one of his men. The others, roused to irresistible fury, sprang upon him and strangled him.
Then, indeed, the Governor and Magistrates were roused to administer “justice!” They had allowed this fiend to murder slaves at his will, but no sooner had the slaves turned on and killed their master than ceaseless energy and resolution were displayed in punishing those who slew him. Soldiers were sent out in all directions; some of the canoe-men were shot down like wild beasts, the rest were recaptured and publicly whipped to death!
Reader, this is “domestic slavery.” This is what Portugal and Zanzibar claim the right to practise. This is what Great Britain has for many years declined to interfere with. This is the curse with which Africa is blighted at the present day in some of her fairest lands, and this is what Portugal has decreed shall not terminate in what she calls her African dominions for some years to come. In other words, it has been coolly decreed by that weakest of all the European nations, that slavery, murder, injustice, and every other conceivable and unmentionable vice and villainy shall still, for some considerable time, continue to be practised on the men, women, and children of Africa!
Higher up the Shire river, the travellers saw symptoms of recent distress among the people, which caused them much concern. Chimbolo, in particular, was rendered very anxious by the account given of the famine which prevailed still farther up the river, and the numerous deaths that had taken place in consequence.
The cause of the distress was a common one, and easily explained. Slave-dealers had induced the Ajawa, a warlike tribe, to declare war against the people of the Manganja highlands. The Ajawa had done this before, and were but too ready to do it again. They invaded the land, captured many of the young people, and slew the aged. Those who escaped to the jungle found on their return that their crops were destroyed. Little seed remained in their possession, and before that was planted and grown, famine began to reduce the ranks, already thinned by war.
Indications of this sad state of things became more numerous as the travellers advanced. Few natives appeared to greet them on the banks of the river as they went along, and these few resembled living skeletons. In many places they found dead bodies lying on the ground in various stages of decomposition, and everywhere they beheld an aspect of settled unutterable despair on the faces of the scattered remnant of the bereaved and starving people.
It was impossible, in the circumstances, for Harold Seadrift to give these wretched people more than very slight relief. He gave them as much of his stock of provisions as he could spare, and was glad when the necessity of continuing the journey on foot relieved him from such mournful scenes by taking him away from the river’s bank.
Hiring a party of the strongest men that he could find among them, he at length left his canoes, made up his goods, food, and camp-equipage into bundles of a shape and size suitable to being carried on the heads of men, and started on foot for the Manganja highlands.
“Seems to me, sir,” observed Disco, as they plodded along together on the first morning of the land journey—“seems to me, sir, that Chimbolo don’t stand much chance of findin’ his wife alive.”
“Poor fellow,” replied Harold, glancing back at the object of their remarks, “I fear not.”
Chimbolo had by that time recovered much of his natural vigour, and although not yet able to carry a man’s load, was nevertheless quite capable of following the party. He walked in silence, with his eyes on the ground, a few paces behind Antonio, who was a step or two in rear of his leader, and who, in virtue of his position as “bo’s’n” to the party, was privileged to walk hampered by no greater burden than his gun.
“We must keep up his sperrits, tho’, poor chap,” said Disco, in the hoarse whisper with which he was wont to convey secret remarks, and which was much more fitted to attract attention than his ordinary voice. “It ’ud never do to let his sperrits down; ’cause w’y? he’s weak, an’ if he know’d that his wife was dead, or took off as a slave, he’d never be able to go along with us, and we couldn’t leave him to starve here, you know.”
“Certainly not, Disco,” returned Harold. “Besides, his wife may be alive, for all we know to the contrary.—How far did he say the village was from where we landed, Antonio?”
“’Bout two, t’ree days,” answered the bo’s’n.
That night the party encamped beside the ruins of a small hamlet where charred sticks and fragments of an African household’s goods and chattels lay scattered on the ground.
Chimbolo sat down here on the ground, and, resting his chin on his knees, gazed in silence at the ruin around him.
“Come, cheer up, old fellow,” cried Disco, with rather an awkward effort at heartiness, as he slapped the negro gently on the shoulder; “tell him, Antonio, not to let his heart go down. Didn’t he say that what-dee-call-the-place—his village—was a strong place, and could be easily held by a few brave men?”
“True,” replied Chimbolo, through the interpreter, “but the Manganja men are not very brave.”
“Well, well, never mind,” rejoined the sympathetic tar, repeating his pat on the back, “there’s no sayin’. P’raps they got courage w’en it came to the scratch. P’raps it never came to the scratch at all up there. Mayhap you’ll find ’em all right after all. Come, never say die s’long as there’s a shot in the locker. That’s a good motto for ’ee, Chimbolo, and ought to keep up your heart even tho’ ye are a nigger, ’cause it wos inwented by the great Nelson, and shouted by him, or his bo’s’n, just before he got knocked over at the glorious battle of Trafalgar. Tell him that, Antonio.”
Whether Antonio told him all that, is extremely doubtful, although he complied at once with the order, for Antonio never by any chance declined at least to attempt the duties of his station, but the only effect of his speech was that Chimbolo shook his head and continued to stare at the ruins.
Next morning they started early, and towards evening drew near to Zomba.
The country through which, during the previous two days, they had travelled, was very beautiful, and as wild as even Disco could desire—and, by the way, it was no small degree of wildness that could slake the thirst for the marvellous which had been awakened in the breast of our tar, by his recent experiences in Africa. It was, he said—and said truly—a real out-and-out wilderness. There were villages everywhere, no doubt but these were so thickly concealed by trees and jungle that they were not easily seen, and most of them were at that time almost depopulated. The grass was higher than the heads of the travellers, and the vegetation everywhere was rankly luxuriant. Here and there open glades allowed the eye to penetrate into otherwise impenetrable bush. Elsewhere, large trees abounded in the midst of overwhelmingly affectionate parasites, whose gnarled lower limbs and twining tendrils and pendant foliage gave a softness to the landscape, which contrasted well with the wild passes and rugged rocks of the middle distance, and the towering mountains which rose, range beyond range, in the far distance.
But as the party approached the neighbourhood of Zomba mountains, few of them were disposed to give much heed to the beauties of nature. All being interested in Chimbolo, they became more or less anxious as to news that awaited him.
On turning a spur of one of the mountains which had hitherto barred their vision, they found themselves suddenly face to face with a small band of Manganja men, whose woe-begone countenances told too eloquently that the hand of the destroyer had been heavy upon them.
Of course they were questioned by Chimbolo, and the replies they gave him were such as to confirm the fears he had previously entertained.
The Ajawa, they said, had, just the day before, burnt their villages, stolen or destroyed their property, killed many of their kinsmen, and carried off their wives and children for slaves. They themselves had escaped, and were now on their way to visit their chief, who was at that time on the banks of the Zambesi, to beg of him to return, in order that he might bewitch the guns of the Ajawa, and so render them harmless!
“Has a woman of your tribe, named Marunga, been slain or captured?” asked Chimbolo eagerly.
To this the men replied that they could not tell. Marunga, they said, was known well to them by name and sight. They did not think she was among the captives, but could not tell what had become of her, as the village where she and her little boy lived had been burnt, and all who had not been killed or captured had taken to the bush. Marunga’s husband, they added, was a man named Chimbolo—not a Manganja man, but a friend of the tribe—who had been taken by the slavers, under command of a Portuguese half-caste named Marizano, about two years before that time.
Chimbolo winced as though he had been stung when Marizano’s name was mentioned, and a dark frown contracted his brows when he told the Manganja men that he was Chimbolo, and that he was even then in search of Marunga and her little boy.
When all this had been explained to Harold Seadrift he told the men that it was a pity to waste time in travelling such a long way to see their chief, who could not, even if he wished, bewitch the guns of the Ajawa, and advised them to turn back and guide him and his men to the place where the attack had been made on the Manganja, so that a search might be made in the bush for those of the people who had escaped.
This was agreed to, and the whole party proceeded on their way with increased speed, Chimbolo and Harold hoping they might yet find that Marunga had escaped, and Disco earnestly desiring that they might only fall in with the Ajawa and have a brush with them, in which case he assured the negroes he would show them a way of bewitching their guns that would beat their chief’s bewitchment all to sticks and stivers!
The village in which Marunga had dwelt was soon reached. It was, as they had been told by their new friends, a heap of still smouldering ashes; but it was not altogether destitute of signs of life. A dog was observed to slink away into the bush as they approached.
The moment Chimbolo observed it he darted into the bush after it.
“Hallo!” exclaimed Disco in surprise; “that nigger seems to have took a sudden fancy to the cur?—Eh, Antonio, wot’s the reason of that, think ’ee?”
“Dunno; s’pose where dog be mans be?”
“Ah! or womans,” suggested Disco.
“Or womans,” assented Antonio.
Just then they heard Chimbolo’s shout, which was instantly followed by a succession of female shrieks. These latter were repeated several times, and sounded as though the fugitives were scattering.
“Hims find a nest of womins!” exclaimed Jumbo, throwing down his load and dashing away into the bush.
Every individual of the party followed his example, not excepting Harold and Disco, the latter of whom was caught by the leg, the moment he left the track, by a wait-a-bit thorn—most appropriately so-called, because its powerful spikes are always ready to seize and detain the unwary passer-by. In the present instance it checked the seaman’s career for a few seconds, and rent his nether garments sadly; while Harold, profiting by his friend’s misfortune, leaped over the bush, and passed on. Disco quickly extricated himself, and followed.
They were not left far behind, and overtook their comrades just as they emerged on an open space, or glade, at the extremity of which a sight met their eyes that filled them with astonishment, for there a troop of women and one or two boys were seen walking towards them, with Chimbolo in front, having a child on his left shoulder, and performing a sort of insane war-dance round one of the women.
“He’s catched her!” exclaimed Disco, with excited looks, just as if Chimbolo had been angling unsuccessfully for a considerable time, and had hooked a stupendous fish at last.
And Disco was right. A few of the poor creatures who were so recently burnt out of their homes, and had lost most of those dearest to them, had ventured, as if drawn by an irresistible spell, to return with timid steps to the scene of their former happiness, but only to have their worst fears confirmed. Their homes, their protectors, their children, their hopes, all were gone at one fell swoop. Only one among them—one who, having managed to save her only child, had none to mourn over, and no one to hope to meet with—only one returned to a joyful meeting. We need scarcely say that this was Marunga.
The fact was instantly made plain to the travellers by the wild manner in which Chimbolo shouted her name, pointed to her, and danced round her, while he showed all his glistening teeth and as much of the whites of his eyes as was consistent with these members remaining in their orbits.
Really it was quite touching, in spite of its being ludicrous, the way in which the poor fellow poured forth his joy like a very child,—which he was in everything except years; and Harold could not help remembering, and recalling to Disco’s memory, Yoosoof’s observations touching the hardness of negroes’ hearts, and their want of natural affection, on the morning when his dhow was captured by the boat of the “Firefly.”
The way in which, ever and anon, Chimbolo kissed his poor but now happy wife, was wondrously similar to the mode in which white men perform that little operation, except that there was more of an unrefined smack in it. The tears which would hop over his sable cheeks now and then sparkled to the full as brightly as European tears, and were perhaps somewhat bigger; and the pride with which he regarded his little son, holding him in both hands out at arms’-length, was only excelled by the joy and the tremendous laugh with which he received a kick on the nose from that undutiful son’s black little toes.
But Yoosoof never chanced to be present when such exhibitions of negro feeling and susceptibility took place. How could he, seeing that men and women and children—if black—fled from him, and such as he, in abject terror? Neither did Yoosoof ever chance to be present when women sat down beside their blackened hearths, as they did that night, and quietly wept as though their hearts would burst at the memory of little voices and manly tones—not silent in death, but worse than that—gone, gone for ever! Doubtless they felt though they never heard of, and could not in words express, the sentiment—
“Oh for the touch of a vanished hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still.”
Yoosoof knew not of, and cared nothing for, such feelings as these. We ask again, how could he? His only experience of the negro was when cowering before him as a slave, or when yelling in agony under his terrible lash, or when brutalised and rendered utterly apathetic by inhuman cruelty.
Harold learned, that night on further conversation with the Manganja men, that a raid had recently been made into those regions by more than one band of slavers, sent out to capture men and women by the Portuguese half-castes of the towns of Senna and Tette, on the Zambesi, and that they had been carrying the inhabitants out of the country at the rate of about two hundred a week.
This however was but a small speck, so to speak, of the mighty work of kidnapping human beings that was going on—that is still going on in those regions. Yoosoof would have smiled—he never laughed—if you had mentioned such a number as being large.
But in truth he cared nothing about such facts, except in so far as they represented a large amount of profit accrueing to himself.
The result of Harold Seadrift’s cogitations on these matters was that he resolved to pass through as much of the land as he could within a reasonable time, and agreed to accompany Chimbolo on a visit to his tribe, which dwelt at some distance to the north of the Manganja highlands.
Chapter Nine.
In Which a Savage Chief Astonishes a Savage Animal
There is something exceedingly pleasant in the act of watching—ourselves unseen—the proceedings of some one whose aims and ends appear to be very mysterious. There is such a wide field of speculation opened up in which to expatiate, such a vast amount of curious, we had almost said romantic, expectation created; all the more if the individual whom we observe be a savage, clothed in an unfamiliar and very scanty garb, and surrounded by scenery and circumstances which, albeit strange to us, are evidently by no means new to him.
Let us—you and me, reader,—quitting for a time the sad subject of slavery, and leaping, as we are privileged to do, far ahead of our explorers Harold Seadrift and his company, into the region of Central Africa; let you and me take up a position in a clump of trees by the banks of yonder stream, and watch the proceedings of that negro—negro chief let me say, for he looks like one,—who is engaged in some mysterious enterprise under the shade of a huge baobab tree.
The chief is a fine, stately, well-developed specimen of African manhood. He is clothed in black tights manufactured in nature’s loom, in addition to which he wears round his loins a small scrap of artificial cotton cloth. If an enthusiastic member of the Royal Academy were in search of a model which should combine the strength of Hercules with the grace of Apollo, he could not find a better than the man before us, for, you will observe, the more objectionable points about our ideal of the negro are not very prominent in him. His lips are not thicker than the lips of many a roast-beef-loving John Bull. His nose is not flat, and his heels do not protrude unnecessarily. True, his hair is woolly, but that is scarcely a blemish. It might almost be regarded as the crisp and curly hair that surrounds a manly skull. His skin is black—no doubt about that, but then it is intensely black and glossy, suggestive of black satin, and having no savour of that dirtiness which is inseparably connected with whitey-brown. Tribes in Africa differ materially in many respects, physically and mentally, just as do the various tribes of Europe.
This chief, as we have hinted, is a “savage;” that is to say, he differs in many habits and points from “civilised” people. Among other peculiarities, he clothes himself and his family in the fashion that is best suited to the warm climate in which he dwells. This display of wisdom is, as you know, somewhat rare among civilised people, as any one may perceive who observes how these over-clothe the upper parts of their children, and leave their tender little lower limbs exposed to the rigours of northern latitudes, while, as if to make up for this inconsistency by an inconsistent counterpoise, they swathe their own tough and mature limbs in thick flannel from head to foot.
It is however simple justice to civilised people to add here that a few of them, such as a portion of the Scottish Highlanders, are consistent inasmuch as the men clothe themselves similarly to the children.
Moreover, our chief, being a savage, takes daily a sufficient amount of fresh air and exercise, which nine-tenths of civilised men refrain from doing, on the economic and wise principle, apparently, that engrossing and unnatural devotion to the acquisition of wealth, fame, or knowledge, will enable them at last to spend a few paralytic years in the enjoyment of their gains. No doubt civilised people have the trifling little drawback of innumerable ills, to which they say (erroneously, we think) that flesh is heir, and for the cure of which much of their wealth is spent in supporting an army of doctors. Savages know nothing of indigestion, and in Central Africa they have no medical men.
There is yet another difference which we may point out: savages have no literature. They cannot read or write therefore, and have no permanent records of the deeds of their forefathers. Neither have they any religion worthy of the name. This is indeed a serious evil, one which civilised people of course deplore, yet, strange to say, one which consistency prevents some civilised people from remedying in the case of African savages, for it would be absurdly inconsistent in Arab Mohammedans to teach the negroes letters and the doctrines of their faith with one hand, while with the other they lashed them to death or dragged them into perpetual slavery; and it would be equally inconsistent in Portuguese Christians to teach the negroes to read “Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them,” while “domestic slavery” is, in their so-called African territories, claimed as a right and the traffic connected with it sanctioned.
Yes, there are many points of difference between civilised people and savages, and we think it right to point this out very clearly, good reader, because the man at whom you and I are looking just now is a savage.
Of course, being capable of reading this book, you are too old to require to be told that there is nothing of our nursery savage about him. That peculiar abortion was born and bred in the nursery, and dwells only there, and was never heard of beyond civilised lands—although something not unlike him, alas! may be seen here and there among the lanes and purlieus where our drunkards and profligates resort. No; our savage chief does not roar, or glare, or chatter, or devour his food in its blood like the giant of the famous Jack. He carries himself like a man, and a remarkably handsome man too, with his body firm and upright, and his head bent a little forward, with his eyes fixed on the ground, as if in meditation, while he walks along.
But a truce to digressive explanation. Let us follow him.
Reaching the banks of the river, he stops, and, standing in an attitude worthy of Apollo, though he is not aware that we are looking at him, gazes first up the stream and then down. This done, he looks across, after which he tries to penetrate the depths of the water with his eye.
As no visible result follows, he wisely gives up staring and wishing, and apparently resolves to attain his ends by action. Felling a small tree, about as thick as his thigh, with an iron hatchet he cuts off it a length of about six feet. Into one end of this he drives a sharp-pointed hard-wood spike, several inches long, and to the other end attaches a stout rope made of the fibrous husk of the cocoa-nut. The point of the spike he appears to anoint—probably a charm of some kind,—and then suspends the curious instrument over a forked stick at a considerable height from the ground, to which he fastens the other end of the rope. This done, he walks quietly away with an air of as much self-satisfaction as if he had just performed a generous deed.
Well, is that all? Nay, if that were all we should owe you a humble apology. Our chief, “savage” though he be, is not insane. He has an object in view—which is more than can be said of everybody.
He has not been long gone, an hour or two, when the smooth surface of the river is broken in several places, and out burst two or three heads of hippopotami. Although, according to Disco Lillihammer, the personification of ugliness, these creatures do not the less enjoy their existence. They roll about in the stream like puncheons, dive under one another playfully, sending huge waves to the banks on either side. They gape hideously with their tremendous jaws, which look as though they had been split much too far back in the head by a rude hatchet—the tops of all the teeth having apparently been lopped off by the same clumsy blow. They laugh too, with a demoniacal “Ha! ha! ha!” as if they rejoiced in their excessive plainness, and knew that we—you and I, reader—are regarding them with disgust, not unmingled with awe.
Presently one of the herd betakes himself to the land. He is tired of play, and means to feed. Grass appears to be his only food, and to procure this he must needs go back from the river a short way, his enormous lips, like an animated mowing-machine, cutting a track of short cropped grass as he waddles along.
The form of that part of the bank is such that he is at least inclined, if not constrained, to pass directly under the suspended beam. Ha! we understand the matter now. Most people do understand, when a thing becomes obviously plain. The hippopotamus wants grass for supper; the “savage” chief wants hippopotamus. Both set about arranging their plans for their respective ends. The hippopotamus passes close to the forked stick, and touches the cord which sustains it in air like the sword of Damocles. Down comes the beam, driving the spike deep into his back. A cry follows, something between a grunt, a squeak, and a yell, and the wounded animal falls, rolls over, jumps up, with unexpected agility for such a sluggish, unwieldy creature, and rumbles, rushes, rolls, and stumbles back into the river, where his relatives take to flight in mortal terror. The unfortunate beast might perhaps recover from the wound, were it not that the spike has been tipped with poison. The result is that he dies in about an hour. Not long afterwards the chief returns with a band of his followers, who, being experts in the use of the knife and hatchet, soon make mince-meat of their game—laden with which they return in triumph to their homes.
Let us follow them thither.