Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa （Volume IV）

Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa （Volume IV） by David Livingstone 图书在版编目(CIP)数据 Missionary Travels and Researches in 飞天电子音像出版社 South Africa（Volume IV）/杨丹主编 2004 ISBN 7-900363-43-2 监王出版发行飞天电子音像出版社责任编辑杨丹经销全国各地新华书店印刷北京施园印刷厂版次 2004年6月第1版书号 ISBN 7-900363-43-2 CONTENTS Chapter 19...............................................................................................1 Chapter 20.............................................................................................77 Chapter 21........................................................................................... 116 Chapter 22...........................................................................................153 Chapter 23...........................................................................................198 ★ Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa ★ Chapter 19. Guides prepaid-Bark Canoes-Deserted by Guides-Mistakes respecting the Coanza-Feelings of freed Slaves-Gardens and Villages-Native Traders-A Grave-Valley of the Quango-Bamboo-White Larvae used as Food-Bashinje Insolence-A posing Question-The Chief Sansawe-His Hostility-Pass him safely-The River Quango-Chief’s mode of dressing his Hair-Opposition-Opportune Aid by Cypriano-His generous Hospitality-Ability of Half-castes to read and write-Books and Images-Marauding Party burned in the Grass-Arrive at Cassange-A good Supper-Kindness of Captain Neves-Portuguese Curiosity and Questions-Anniversary of the Resurrection-No Prejudice against Color-Country around Cassange-Sell Sekeletu’s Ivory-Makololo’s Surprise at the high Price obtained-Proposal to return Home, and Reasons-Soldier-guide-Hill Kasala-Tala Mungongo, Village Page 1 ★ Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa ★ of-Civility of Basongo-True Negroes-A Field of Wheat-Carriers-Sleeping-places-Fever-Enter District of Ambaca-Good Fruits of Jesuit Teaching-The ‘Tampan’; its Bite-Universal Hospitality of the Portuguese-A Tale of the Mambari-Exhilarating Effects of Highland Scenery-District of Golungo Alto-Want of good Roads-Fertility-Forests of gigantic Timber-Native Carpenters-Coffee Estate-Sterility of Country near the Coast-Mosquitoes-Fears of the Makololo-Welcome by Mr. Gabriel to Loanda. 24TH. Ionga Panza’s sons agreed to act as guides into the territory of the Portuguese if I would give them the shell given by Shinte. I was strongly averse to this, and especially to give it beforehand, but yielded to the entreaty of my people to appear as if showing confidence in these hopeful youths. They urged that they wished to leave the shell with their wives, as a sort of payment to them for enduring their husbands’ absence so long. Having delivered the precious shell, we went west-by-north to the River Chikapa, which here (lat. 10° 22’ S.) is forty or fifty yards wide, and at Page 2 ★ Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa ★ present was deep; it was seen flowing over a rocky, broken cataract with great noise about half a mile above our ford. We were ferried over in a canoe, made out of a single piece of bark sewed together at the ends, and having sticks placed in it at different parts to act as ribs. The word Chikapa means bark or skin; and as this is the only river in which we saw this kind of canoe used, and we heard that this stream is so low during most of the year as to be easily fordable, it probably derives its name from the use made of the bark canoes when it is in flood. We now felt the loss of our pontoon, for the people to whom the canoe belonged made us pay once when we began to cross, then a second time when half of us were over, and a third time when all were over but my principal man Pitsane and myself. Loyanke took off his cloth and paid my passage with it. The Makololo always ferried their visitors over rivers without pay, and now began to remark that they must in future fleece the Mambari as these Chiboque had done to us; they had all been loud in condemnation of the meanness, and when I asked if they Page 3 ★ Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa ★ could descend to be equally mean, I was answered that they would only do it in revenge. They like to have a plausible excuse for meanness. Next morning our guides went only about a mile, and then told us they would return home. I expected this when paying them beforehand, in accordance with the entreaties of the Makololo, who are rather ignorant of the world. Very energetic remonstrances were addressed to the guides, but they slipped off one by one in the thick forest through which we were passing, and I was glad to hear my companions coming to the conclusion that, as we were now in parts visited by traders, we did not require the guides, whose chief use had been to prevent misapprehension of our objects in the minds of the villagers. The country was somewhat more undulating now than it had been, and several fine small streams flowed in deep woody dells. The trees are very tall and straight, and the forests gloomy and damp; the ground in these solitudes is quite covered with yellow and brown mosses, and light-colored lichens clothe all the trees. The Page 4 ★ Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa ★ soil is extremely fertile, being generally a black loam covered with a thick crop of tall grasses. We passed several villages too. The head man of a large one scolded us well for passing, when he intended to give us food. Where slave-traders have been in the habit of coming, they present food, then demand three or four times its value as a custom. We were now rather glad to get past villages without intercourse with the inhabitants. We were traveling W.N.W., and all the rivulets we here crossed had a northerly course, and were reported to fall into the Kasai or Loke; most of them had the peculiar boggy banks of the country. As we were now in the alleged latitude of the Coanza, I was much astonished at the entire absence of any knowledge of that river among the natives of this quarter. But I was then ignorant of the fact that the Coanza rises considerably to the west of this, and has a comparatively short course from its source to the sea. The famous Dr. Lacerda seems to have labored under the same mistake as myself, for he recommended the Page 5 ★ Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa ★ government of Angola to establish a chain of forts along the banks of that river, with a view to communication with the opposite coast. As a chain of forts along its course would lead southward instead of eastward, we may infer that the geographical data within reach of that eminent man were no better than those according to which I had directed my course to the Coanza where it does not exist. 26TH. We spent Sunday on the banks of the Quilo or Kweelo, here a stream of about ten yards wide. It runs in a deep glen, the sides of which are almost five hundred yards of slope, and rocky, the rocks being hardened calcareous tufa lying on clay shale and sandstone below, with a capping of ferruginous conglomerate. The scenery would have been very pleasing, but fever took away much of the joy of life, and severe daily intermittents rendered me very weak and always glad to recline. As we were now in the slave-market, it struck me that the sense of insecurity felt by the natives might account for the circumstance that those who have been sold as slaves Page 6 ★ Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa ★ and freed again, when questioned, profess to like the new state better than their primitive one. They lived on rich, fertile plains, which seldom inspire that love of country which the mountains do. If they had been mountaineers, they would have pined for home. To one who has observed the hard toil of the poor in old civilized countries, the state in which the inhabitants here live is one of glorious ease. The country is full of little villages. Food abounds, and very little labor is required for its cultivation; the soil is so rich that no manure is required; when a garden becomes too poor for good crops of maize, millet, etc., the owner removes a little farther into the forest, applies fire round the roots of the larger trees to kill them, cuts down the smaller, and a new, rich garden is ready for the seed. The gardens usually present the appearance of a large number of tall, dead trees standing without bark, and maize growing between them. The old gardens continue to yield manioc for years after the owners have removed to other spots for the sake of millet and maize. But, while vegetable aliment is abundant, there is Page 7 ★ Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa ★ a want of salt and animal food, so that numberless traps are seen, set for mice, in all the forests of Londa. The vegetable diet leaves great craving for flesh, and I have no doubt but that, when an ordinary quantity of mixed food is supplied to freed slaves, they actually do feel more comfortable than they did at home. Their assertions, however, mean but little, for they always try to give an answer to please, and if one showed them a nugget of gold, they would generally say that these abounded in their country. One could detect, in passing, the variety of character found among the owners of gardens and villages. Some villages were the pictures of neatness. We entered others enveloped in a wilderness of weeds, so high that, when sitting on ox-back in the middle of the village, we could only see the tops of the huts.

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