CHAPTER XVI.

CONCLUSION.

The day after our arrival I rested, as my limbs were aching after the long march. Next day I was able to return to school. The daily meeting for the natives had ceased, but I had no difficulty in resuming it. Kapeni’s children had all left, and on Saturday I went to visit them. I met Kapeni himself on the way to see me, and walked back with him. His boys promised to return to school, but I found afterwards that this was merely the promise of politeness. They asked whether I was to leave them now, and I replied that if I could get down before the rains, I would go, otherwise I should have to wait till the rains were over. ‘And then you would go?’ ‘Yes.’ Malunga was another man whose children I had long desired to have. Just as I was leaving, he regretted my departure, because he ‘was going to send them all’. Now I was come back, here was a test for his sincerity. Still he had his excuse, too. Ever since the Magomero people left them, the natives have been inclined to look upon the ‘English’ as mere birds of passage. Katunga’s boys came up, but although Maseo had promised in like manner, his were not sent.

Kumpama came and took his leave on the Saturday following—a day when I was free to escort him to the boundary of his own territory. As we passed Ndilande I noticed a great change. The people that were living on the plains about a month ago, had gone up the mountain from fear of Chikumbu. We missed the welcomes that used to greet us in this quarter. We passed village after village and found them all deserted. On our way back we climbed the mountain and saw the people in their new abodes. They said that if Chikumbu molested them farther they would all go to Blantyre.

About the beginning of August Chikumbu attacked the carriers of the Trading Company and captured some goods. We saw another instance of the difficulty of sending messengers in such cases. According to Kapeni, any neutral party would at once make himself the enemy of Chikumbu by carrying a message to him regarding the robbery, because Chikumbu would naturally wish to guard against the slightest appearance of treachery.

The slave question began to revive again. For nearly two years it had been practically laid aside, no slaves had been received and no master thought of claiming the persons that had formerly received protection. But many masters had recently come in and stated that when I went home, they would ask their slaves back. I turned the matter off with a joke, but I found that soon after my departure some Magololo had given much trouble about slaves. One lad that had been at school for three years, and was able to act as a teacher, was demanded by Makukani. This poor fellow had been for a long time saving a great part of his wages to give this greedy chief.

The slave trade is by no means defunct, as many poor Africans know to their cost. Human beings are still hunted as legitimate game, and great numbers of slave caravans still leave the interior. Powder is a great assistance in carrying on this terrible traffic. Fortunately the Portuguese restrict its importation at Quilimane, but they allow it to be imported at Chisanga, and many slaves are disposed of at the latter place, from which Mukukani quite recently brought up nine kegs of powder and fifteen new guns.

[Illustration: A DANGEROUS HIPPOPOTAMUS.]

Mr. Henderson set out towards the coast to see whether communication could be restored. Bismark went to guide him. The latter considered that he would be in danger, and wrote out his will—which was sent back to Mrs. Macdonald. However, he returned safe, although sad at heart, that his young girl refused to go to England with him. She had been quite frightened by the dangers of the way. The hippopotami and the threatened war proved too much for her nerves, and she was afraid to try the journey to England again. Besides we had been now so long delayed, that we should not arrive till winter, and the doctor judged that the cold would be dangerous for Bismark himself.

On the 23rd of August we were enabled to leave Blantyre the second time. Mr. Moir, of the Trading Company, had come up the river with a Mazaro crew, and there was no longer any doubt about getting men for the journey. The Mazaro men were anxious to get home again. Not only so, but Mr. Moir engaged a number of Yao men to go down to assist in work at Mazaro. We were soon on the river once more. The first day’s sail brought us beside the celebrated grove of palm trees. Next day (Thursday 25th), tempting herds of buck were seen, and we had several opportunities of firing upon them. When there is a crowd of hungry natives, it is a great boon to get hold of a buck. One should shoot at these animals with explosive bullets. In the ordinary method severe wounds are inflicted, but the creatures get away to suffer considerably. A large herd of Zebras was also seen—they are swift as the wind.

Soon after starting in the afternoon we had an adventure. The other boats had all passed on before us. The last one, with Mrs. Macdonald and the children, was just disappearing at a bend of the river. We were going nicely along, when I saw a hippopotamus coming towards us. I took up a rifle and had him ‘covered,’ but as he seemed peaceful I gave him the benefit of the doubt; and he disappeared again. After we had sailed down a little farther the boat got a blow that seemed to raise it out of the water. We were agreed that ‘Now that fellow must get a lesson,’ and we seized our rifles. But water soon rushed into the boat at such a rate as to direct our attention to another matter. I laid hold of a bucket and began to bale, but I found the task hopeless and urged the boatmen to pull hard. We were in the very middle of the stream, and the situation was most critical. It was really a question of life or death. We had always held a theory that if a hole were knocked in the boat we could stuff it, but theories are often difficult to practice. Before we could have reached the bottom of the boat, through all the bags and boxes, the necessity for stuffing the hole would have passed away. The natives rowed but feebly. They lose their heads in an emergency. It looked as if we were to sink on the spot. Mr. Moir at this crisis seized an oar and rowed with the strength of any four of them. I was told off to the helm; the baling being of no use. The boat rapidly filled with water—it was questionable whether we could reach the bank before it sank. The river here was very deep. One of the canoes saw our position and made towards us. However, we reached the bank just as the boat sunk. All the cargo was under the water and had to be fetched out. After the accident we held a short council. One was to stay with the boat and the other to go and obtain assistance from the rest of the party. Ultimately I went in a small canoe, but notwithstanding hard rowing I could not overtake the others. Sometimes the canoe found itself among herds of hippopotami, whose presence made me somewhat uncomfortable after the last encounter. Santos has the following account of these animals:—“The head of the hippopotamus is three times the size of our ordinary horse, and its body thick in proportion. What is extraordinary in this species of animal is their practice of destroying each other for food, whence it rarely happens that two are found together.” How much I could have wished on the present occasion to be able to confirm the last part of the Reverend Father’s remarks! But I found scores of them, all regarding my frail bark at the same time, so that they must have laid aside this inhuman practice of the 16th century!

[Illustration: HIPPOPOTAMI AT HOME.]

The above incident was my third experience of a hippopotamus attack, and I believe that such attacks are made partly through fright. On each occasion a boat or a small canoe had passed immediately before and while the hippopotamus was trying to get away from the first vessel, the second was upon it before it was aware. Driven to desperation, and confiding in its great strength, ‘leviathan’ then charged with all its might.

I found the first party at the Ruo (encamping beside the village where we had to turn back on our former journey) and told Mr. Moir’s carpenter of the necessity for his services. But it would have taken a whole day to row against the current up to the scene of the disaster. Some natives however were sent off. The rest of us stayed for the night. Chiputula the chief was here himself. A sickening smell pervaded the village. An elephant had been killed and long strips of flesh were hanging on the trees. Chiputula has a war canoe capable of containing 40 soldiers which he put at my disposal as I wanted to visit Bishop Mackenzie’s grave.

Next morning Mr. Moir appeared with the boat, which bore sad traces of the prowess of the hippopotamus. The chief gave him a basin of elephant fat which was of great use in effecting a temporary repair.

This afternoon we reached the territory of the dreaded Matekenya. His poor people had been driven far down by Chiputula, and villages that were flourishing when we came up were now deserted. The natives soon descried our approach, and some shouted at us to stop, but we saw no reason to listen to them. Soon there arose a great stir on the bank, and a rush was made as if to meet us farther down. About five o’clock we were warned that they would kill us, but threats of this kind were nothing new and we pressed on. To shew the least sign of alarm in such circumstances would have been a serious experiment. But the critical moment soon arrived. The natives stood in a mass with a considerable shew of guns and ordered us to come at once to the side. We were now within range of their muskets and some of our party as they afterwards confessed did not feel at all comfortable. Fortunately they did not understand all that was said else they would have been much worse. I stood up in the boat and asked ‘Why do you want us to stop? Have you anything to sell?’ The last remark was received with a grim smile but a smile all the same, and I felt that the danger was past. I then leapt out of the boat and began to talk to them. I explained that ‘I was not Anyasa at all, but Yao’. I was soon recognised as the ‘chief of Bulantaya’ (Blantyre) and they opened their hearts to me over the hardship they had suffered from Chiputula. They said that since we settled at Blantyre, Chiputula had let the Yao alone. ‘Why do the English not come down and stay to protect _us_ also? We would be your children[15]!’ Their great anxiety was to see Mr. Moir who, I told them, had been treating with their enemy. Mr. Moir had been detained by his boat, and was left in close conversation with Chiputula whom he was warning against interfering with Matekenya lest he should bring the Portuguese against himself. The incorrigible chieftain replied that while he was afraid of the English, he did not care for the Portuguese, as he had often fought with their forces near Senna.

When Mr. Moir arrived he made an appointment to meet Matekenya on Sunday at a village a day’s journey farther on. Matekenya rules his subjects with a rod of iron so that with Chiputula’s wars on the one hand, and a fearfully despotic government on the other, they are much to be pitied. We found them interesting people. They had never seen white children before, and the two babies were objects of much wonder. When we reached Morumbala marsh we found innumerable flocks of wild fowl. They fell as fast as we could fire and were very acceptable both to ourselves and to the natives.

[Illustration: HALTING FOR THE NIGHT ON THE RIVER BANK.]

By Monday forenoon we reached the confines of civilization once more and met a French trader who shewed us great kindness. We were now under the shadow of misty Morumbala. We passed the night at Shamo, the abode of Ferrao who sometimes kept Dr. Livingstone from starving amidst the various accidents and incidents of his wanderings. According to native custom the house of the deceased gentleman had been taken down (40.) But as we wandered through the village we met an old servant of Ferrao who volunteered to shew us the spirit (Mulungu) of his master for a present of calico. A Portuguese merchant now occupies the place and sells umbrellas, cups, cloth, and rum for the ground nuts of the natives.

On Tuesday morning we went off quite early wishing to reach Mazaro. For the last week Mrs. Macdonald with the nurse and two children had been confined in a corner of an open boat where they had scarcely room to turn. When one remembers the intense heat of these days and nights, he will understand why we wished to press on. Soon we were on the broad Zambeze and within a district where the natives have been in contact with Europeans for nearly 400 years. If the Portuguese had only established schools and taught the natives to read, a great change would have been effected. But since the recall of the Jesuits, the Portuguese have not tried to christianize the natives, many of them believing that the negroes are not susceptible of improvement. Here most of the native huts are two storeys because of the floods in the rainy season. We were anxious to visit Shupanga house, but the boatmen were too afraid of the Zulus. As we were talking with reverence of Mrs. Livingstone, one of our party pointed towards her grave and said “Ah! they know all about it—ask what they say”. I remarked that unless we knew what Livingstone had been called by the natives in this district there was little chance of finding an answer without a long explanation. However my companion shouted to one of them, “Livingstone! Livingstone!” and pointed towards the house. At first the boatman was puzzled, he thought it was an order. But when the word was repeated he was bound to believe that it conveyed some information and he said ‘Yes!’ The great Doctor himself warns against the danger of receiving an African’s statement with confidence. He points out that the native has no conception that the truth or falsehood of his answer can be of the least importance, and just tells a stranger what he thinks will best please him. But another danger is that persons are apt to mistake for information what was never so intended. A learned gentleman sees a lizard and asks its name: the native replies ‘Kaya’ which means ‘I don’t know’. Down goes Kaya in the note-book as ‘the name of a green lizard!’ If an English traveller may ask near the birth-place of the author of Paradise Lost ‘where Milton was born,’ and be told by a countryman that a woman of that name once lived in the district, we need not blame an African for not knowing the name of Livingstone which is unpronounceable by him, and which he likely never heard (46.)

We stuck repeatedly on sandbanks, and could not reach Mazaro this night. We slept on the opposite side of the river. On this bank our boatmen do not feel secure: they are not entirely out of the reach of a Zulu tribe which gives great trouble here, and levies blackmail on the Portuguese themselves. We thought of going over the bank and pretending to be Zulus, but when we observed that our natives had their flint locks lying in readiness we did not care to carry out the idea. There are hippopotami here, and one came very close, but they are few in number, as the natives harpoon them. On Wednesday morning we started a little after five, and reached Mazaro early. We had a few days to wait here before we could get ready for the Quilimane part of the journey. All my time since leaving Blantyre had been devoted to the revisal of my vocabularies, but after this point the Yao-speaking natives were left behind. Here we met Mwanasa, a girl who had lived for two years with Mrs. Macdonald. She would have willingly come to England to learn more, but we feared she would be lonely. When at Blantyre she had learned to read and write in her own language.

When we were at Mazaro a letter was read from the Zanzibar consul, which had been addressed to one of the Livingstonia employés. Certain chiefs on Lake Nyassa had been making themselves notorious in connection with the slave trade, and the consul asked the man whether he could not clear out one of these slavers. We believe it must often be felt by those on the coast that they could cope with the evils of slavery much better if they had an agency in the interior.

Saturday evening found us on the Kwagwa. Here our journey was, if possible, more uncomfortable than before. There was only one boat: and Mrs. Macdonald with the nurse and family had just room to stow themselves away under the little grass awning that had been thrown over it. My bed was placed in the steerage! Hitherto, throughout the whole journey on the Chiri and Zambeze, we had been obliged to sleep in the boats and under mosquito curtains. At Mazaro we had occupied a house; but this means that the plague of rats is added to the plague of heat and mosquitoes.

The lad that was our pilot here had been at Blantyre for a few months, and he showed us great attention. We always pressed on during night. One can go down the Kwagwa at a beautiful rate. As soon as the terrible sun was set I made a point of getting hold of a pole, when we had great amusement in endeavouring to race with the light canoes. I thus secured a few hours’ exercise, which is one of the best antidotes to fever in this pestilential district. On Monday the 5th we passed Mugurumbe, and reached a sleeping place about one o’clock next morning. The vegetation is so dense that one cannot land on the bank just where he chooses. There are but few places so clear that we could light a fire, and of these many are found already occupied by numbers of other travellers. But when one party arrives certain of the others will often make a fresh start. Night and day are much the same to the travellers on this river. Our sleeping station of Tuesday morning became a scene of confusion. When our boat reached it a score of natives began to appeal to me on civil matters. I was inclined to smile at the situation. Some people that ought to have known better had taken me for a civil magistrate before, and now I am to be pressed into that service again! All explanations were useless. “Master, here—a boy has been stabbed!” The knife with which the wound had been inflicted is thrust into my hands, while our men pointed out that it had been bent in the rencontre.

[Illustration: THE KWAGWA.]

I felt as sick of the matter as an English jury when shut in to give a decision. I said I was suffering from want of sleep, but what was want of sleep to them! Native patience is sometimes great, and native eloquence long. The “Governor of Quilimane” was an expression that I tried to conjure with, but without effect, and in the end I had to beseech them to defer the matter, and it was only after I promised to listen to them next day that I obtained this concession. Next morning as soon as I awoke the palaver began, and to my astonishment an old Portuguese came out of one of the sack-beds, and requested my interference. He was the “other party” in the transaction. He had landed here the previous night, and as he slept in a mat on the bank, some natives stole most of his clothing and some of his goods. A little after, he found another native (not the actual thief) prowling about, and put his knife into him. The old man was now determined not to go away until his property was restored. I told him that the thief was not one of my boatmen, neither was the other unfortunate lad, and that I was merely a traveller and could not interfere. It was a strange spectacle, the two white men unable to speak to each other except through the medium of two black interpreters! As I explained my position to my brother European he looked at his own interpreter, and they agreed that my interpreter was against them, and was not translating properly. He knew “that the governor of Quilimane was far away,” but if I could show these natives that I did not support them in stealing, it would help a poor traveller, and do no one any harm! Perhaps the poor fellow thought that I must be some Englishman that had a grudge against the Portuguese. I soon condemned the theft, and succeeded in getting the bent knife returned to him. I think that his antagonists hinted that I was going to carry it off to use as a witness against him in Quilimane! In a short time his goods were also restored. Now he was delivered from anxiety, and I soon saw that he could expound native law to them. “You must pay me for this theft and annoyance.” They replied, “You must pay us for the boy”. His answer was that the boy was of the same fraternity, and had to expect what he got. We left them before they had finished, but from the bold manner of the traveller it is likely that he got damages. Only the matter was hardly worth insisting on unless he had frequent occasion to pass that way.

After a short repose of three or four hours we made an easy start on Tuesday morning. Antani was my philosopher, and pointed out rivers that were said to be associated with the slave trade. He had expected me to be more in favour of the black man this morning, and therefore recounted the hardships of the poor slaves:—

“They are taken down here in slave sticks. If a woman have a child on her back she is put in the slave stick too. One piece of cloth (16 yds., say 4s.) is the price of a man: two pieces is the price of a woman. A woman costs more because she will be the mother of other people. If she have a child in her arms she fetches half a piece more. If the master cannot sell his slave he takes him back again, and cheats him by saying I did not want to sell you. I only took you down to frighten you that you might respect me more.”

He promised to tell me if he saw any with the Yao tatoo. He found none except those that had been bought by the Portuguese long ago: the new ones, he insisted, were kept in distant plantations.

Though told several times this morning to fill every bottle with water, Antani was very remiss in doing so, as he could not see the reason. In the forenoon he sat in the bow of the boat looking at the river, which was gradually becoming broader. We asked him to taste the water now. The other natives, although not in the secret, understood the joke at once, and one handed him a dish. They waited to see if this lad, fresh from the mountains of the interior, could be so green after all! He dipped over the side of the boat, and proceeded to drink the water with as great confidence as he had done throughout our journey. “Ah! salt, salt,” he cried, and began to spit, while his companions enjoyed a boisterous laugh at his expense.

This evening a great wind rose, and our tiny boat had to put back into a sheltered corner. We expected the breeze would allow us to sleep; but it was soon calm and hot. The mosquitoes did not give much trouble, but the sand flies came through our curtains and rendered our position wretched in the extreme. Seldom have we passed a more miserable night. Yet we could not fail to appreciate one beautiful episode. A canoe passed us playing a sansa (I. 272), while certain voices attempted to sing with the instrument. Every note was distinctly heard in the midnight stillness, and the canoe-men made the grand old woods resound with the melody. We listened with great fondness till the strains of their rude music died away in the distance. About twelve o’clock at night we asked the boys whether they could not push off the boat, but after a fruitless endeavour to move it along the sand, we had to make up our minds to endure the situation longer. It was about two A.M. before the tide reached us, and then they promptly released us from our sufferings. As soon as the tide turned the boys all went to sleep again, and we glided smoothly along. But before reaching Quilimane we had to face big waves. We arrived at mid-day. It was fifteen days since we had left Blantyre.

We enjoyed the welcome and cordial hospitality of Mr. and Mrs. Nunes. They had nearly been killed by the same journey, and could sympathise with us. Our oldest boy’s face was one large blister owing to mosquito bites, and he and Mrs. Macdonald suffered much from fever. We had to wait a few days for the steamer. Antani often walked with me, and made his own observations on men and manners. We would meet a Portuguese boy going to school with a negro behind him carrying his books and cigars! Antani said that the Portuguese “drove the native children out of school lest they should by and by know as much as white men”. One day a man passed wearing a tall silk hat. When at Blantyre, we had great difficulty in explaining the pictures in the _Graphic_ and _London News_ on account of the _dreadful head-dress_ of the European. Here we were fortunate in finding an actual specimen. Antani gazed with wonder, and promised to report, on his return to the interior that these strange hats were a reality after all!

Once I took a long solitary walk into the country to see whether I could meet with slaves that had been brought from our district. I saw several Anyasa and Walolo tatoos. After marching till I was tired I sat down at a village to rest. Here I found a lad that could speak Chinyasa. As we talked he stumbled on a characteristic Yao word, and this led to his finding for me two people that had come from the Blantyre district long ago. They were charmed with an opportunity of speaking their mother tongue, which they had not used for many years, but which they said they would never forget. As a group gathered round they took a pride in shewing their Quilimane companions that they could converse with a European in an unknown language. But they were far behind in the history of their country, and were taking for granted the existence of chiefs and headmen that had long been gathered to their fathers. I could not but think of the touching picture that Homer gives of Helen looking from the Trojan wall and trying to see Castor and Pollux, not knowing that the grave “already possessed them in their dear native land”. I could perceive that one especially looked back fondly to olden days, while his breast filled with thoughts of the friends of his youth. ‘Perhaps his mother was yet alive.’ ‘Had his brothers and sisters gone into slavery like himself, or would they still send a thought after him as they lingered about the scenes of bygone days?’ He could not tell. He had formed new ties now, and was quite happy, enjoying under the Portuguese a security that he could not have found beside his own mountains. Still, in spite of the treatment he had received in his native land, there was a poetry about the past that prompted a ‘lingering look behind’. He made an errand to Quilimane in order to accompany me back. His use of his native tongue was considerably ‘generalized’ by some twenty years’ disuse. He would often hesitate for a word and employ general terms where his countrymen would have given the special one. He complained of the sun “killing” the corn: the time was when he would have said “scorching”. We passed a Portuguese churchyard where each tombstone was ornamented with a large cross, but he said he had no idea what was the meaning of the symbol.

Many Portuguese think that the natives are worse off since the abolition of slavery. Formerly, masters were at great pains to give their slaves personal comforts and ornaments, which they do not think of giving now, because “the negro might make off with the gift next day”. Wages is but little motive to work in a land where there is no difficulty in getting the necessaries of life. But under the Portuguese the natives may store up property to an extent that would be dangerous in the interior. There the possession of wealth makes a man’s life worth taking.

Strangers severely criticise the native for want of foresight. A critic says:—“He ought to cultivate a few more feet of ground, as a time of scarcity might come.” But it is the very foresight of the native that prevents him from taking such a step. It is his critic that lacks discrimination and not he. His critic applies to him calculations that may be presumed upon, under a civilised government. The native, on the contrary, is familiar with the real situation. I once asked a schoolboy, “Will you keep a cow when you become a man?” His reply was “As if I had three lives!” Nothing could better express the secret. If a man had food in a time of famine, when all the others had not, his position would not be an enviable one. Unless in the immediate neighbourhood of the Mission, few had goods laid up except chiefs, but if security were guaranteed, native avarice and ambition would take this direction.

Natives see that they could make many improvements, but they count the cost. Bishop Steere says:—“There are no roads in this part of Africa, no carriages and no beasts of burden, only a narrow footpath, so overgrown sometimes that one wonders the men who pass along do not clear it, until one remembers that the very last thing an African wishes, is to have an easy road to his village. If he could persuade himself that the next comer was likely to turn back and think that there was no road, he would sleep much more securely.” We were once walking along a native path with a person just come into the country, and were amused to notice how his taste was offended by small branches that were lying on the path. He carefully laid them aside with his staff, under the belief that he was teaching the natives a lesson, and conferring on them a permanent benefit!

In Quilimane where natives enjoy European protection, they make advances in material improvement. But it is the lowest class of native that is found there. When masters in the interior sell slaves, they first dispose of the worst characters. Hence the settler on the coast forms a harsh view of the black man. In short he begins to despair of the native, and the native in his turn may despair of him! A Portuguese gentleman told me the following anecdote, which I mention in illustration. A chief from Mlanje frequently went to Quilimane, and a certain Portuguese lady used to treat this native king with much deference. But one day she had a young lad with her, and as they sat together, Matapwiri came up and squatted beside the young Portuguese gentleman. The latter resented this, and promptly gave Matapwiri a blow. The lady interposed, ‘But this is the great Matapwiri—there will be a quarrel if—’ ‘I don’t care who he is. A native shan’t come and sit down by me that way!’ Nothing could better shew the light in which the European settler often regards the negro. But some natives here show a desire for advancement. One chief left his son as a slave in Quilimane for several years. After the boy had been initiated into civilized life he disappeared at once, no one knew how or where: but he is said now to occupy an important position in his native land. His father had seen the importance of civilization and employed this stratagem to educate his son. There are traits of character to be met with, even among the lowest natives, that remind us of the words:—

“Deem our nation brutes no longer, Till some reason ye shall find, Worthier of regard and stronger, Than the colour of our kind. Slaves of gold, whose sordid dealings Tarnish all your boasted powers, Prove that you have human feelings, Ere you proudly question ours.”

Quilimane, like all other places which we might think beyond the reach of history has its incidents too. One day we found the whole population in a state of great consternation owing to a report that Tete had been attacked, and that its Portuguese inhabitants were in danger of being massacred. All these Portuguese stations on the Zambeze are usually well protected by soldiers, but the garrison had been temporarily absent and now news had come that the natives had risen against the townsmen. The keeping of standing armies here is a hard task. Some of the soldiers are half-castes and they as a rule are more troublesome than pure natives. We lodged near the barracks and the commander used to send to the English lady to apologise for having to flog his soldiers near her window.

At Quilimane there was a functionary appointed to dispense floggings, and when a slave or servant offended, the custom was to send him to this man with a slip of paper which stated how much punishment the culprit was to receive!

One point where the Portuguese differ very much from us, is in their estimate of Livingstone, whose life they criticise with the greatest severity, their remarks almost reminding one of the hard things that old Roman Catholic writers used to state regarding Luther. When at Blantyre, we used to get the Magololo headmen to talk about their late master, and they certainly recounted many exploits that were quite new to us, only before being influenced by their statements we had to remember that these men would speak what they thought would please us best, and when they discovered that we looked on Livingstone as a hero, they would mention a great many things that agreed better with their own ideal of a hero than with ours.

When the steamer at length arrived, Antani came on board with us and went over the whole of it, promising to tell his friends, on his return, of the wonders of the ‘large boat,’ and so we parted.

At Zanzibar as I looked down from the side of the steamer on the native boats, I was hailed in the Yao language. I replied in the same, and a spirited conversation began. The young man that accosted me was not a Yao but a Makua, only he had been in the Yao district. He soon collected his friends, and they were in great glee over an Msungu who could speak in the languages of the interior. Natives are here much freer in conversing with the European than in Quilimane, where the Portuguese make them keep a respectful distance. They told their friends in the town about us, and as we passed along the streets we met some that could say ‘achimwene’ and who gave us a cordial greeting. At Zanzibar we saw Dr. Steere’s Mission, which was a very cheering sight. At Blantyre we were often sustained, and much more than sustained, by the thought of what we looked forward to as the infallible result of some ten years’ honest work. Here we saw the result of twenty years’ work and it could not fail to be gratifying to one that considered the subject. Dr. Steere says to those that would estimate Missionary difficulties, ‘You must pause for a while and find yourselves, as we did, standing opposite five boys with scarce any clothing, in dreadful fear of something far worse than slavery or death, and we unable to make them understand one word’. Such is the commencement. By and by he can write, “We have no longer to begin with an English reading card because we have nothing else. We have reduced the Swahili to writing and found out its grammatical rules.”

When I passed Zanzibar the Swahili Bible was fast approaching its completion! We ask any one to reflect what great labour this implies. If we lived in times when Church censures took a tangible form, and if any man were ordered to write out the whole of the Bible in his own language before he could be restored to the Church, the sentence would be equivalent to excommunication for life. Most men would be too discouraged to attempt the task amidst other work, and the various interruptions that they might count on. But the Missionary has to write the Bible in a FOREIGN language amidst much pressure of other work, and many interruptions that no man is subjected to amidst European civilization, and if a single or even a _twofold_ copying of his material be sufficient, the circumstance would say a great deal more for his present peace of mind than for the permanent value of his work. All the time he is translating he is obliged to keep up the closest intercourse with the natives, ever learning from them, and ever teaching them, introducing reading books, founding schools, forming friendships and consecrating these friendships by imparting views of life that go beyond the seen and temporary. Besides having stations on Zanzibar, Bishop Steere[16] has been carrying his work far into the interior of the Dark Continent.

The interior is in some respects the more promising field. There are many highland sites where the European can work with all his might. He can study hard, and personally engage in teaching without suffering in health, whereas the climate is so enervating in stations on the coast and fever is so prevalent that few constitutions can do more than keep this enemy at bay. Again in large places where an artificial civilization shews itself, the Missionary takes his position not merely as a man, but as a civilized man, and this makes a breach between him and his dark friend, which the latter feels very much. I have sometimes been sitting in conversation with an old headman when another European would join us. Then the English language was spoken, and our native friend would say with sadness that he “did not know English,” and he would sit in silence evidently regretting that his white friend was not so near him after all. This is only an illustration of peculiar disadvantages which are greatly done away with in the wilds of the Interior. All this, it may be said, is counterbalanced by the fact that in the interior there are constant wars. Such difficulties however will gradually pass away as the evangelistic work is quietly carried on, and most of them may be met by the simple plan of carefully placing a Mission station in the disturbed district. The one great obstacle in the interior is the difficulty of communication, and the want of all appliances from books downwards.

Beyond Zanzibar, the next place where we see anything of the African is at Aden, where we meet specimens of the Samali in a few active boys with dyed hair, who crowd round the steamer to dive for coins. There happened to be a Samali boy on board our steamer, as also a Makua. Owing to quarantine laws their masters could not land, and a number of pilgrims for Mecca had to be brought on to London. The mention of London had a dispiriting effect upon the Asiatics. They were certain the cold would kill them, and went about weeping—not weeping like a European—the poor fellows actually “lifted up their voice and wept”. Withal their misfortune made them more demonstrative in their devotions. Some of the passengers evinced a strong disposition to laugh at this, others maintained that few Christians would be so exemplary in calling upon their God. We should be able to get some good out of everything, and we have often admired the regularity with which as the moment arrived, they turned their faces towards Mecca and knelt down to pray. One feature in the Christian is that when on a journey, although he meet other Christians, he wishes to worship by himself. Thus he avoids the dreaded charge of hypocrisy, but there is something that should be dreaded on the other side. He may begin to forget that his religion is something that ought not to be selfishly shut up in his own bosom. The forms of Mahommedanism seem to draw its worshippers together. But alas! they appeared to derive but little comfort from their earnest supplications. They always had a sadness about them. After a long residence among natives that kept sorrow no longer than sorrow kept them, this struck me as the manifestation of a new temperament. The only man that could be cheerful was the Makua servant, who was known as the “big grinning nigger”. The grief of the others threatened to make them unmanageable. But the hopefulness of this representative of the Lake Region, might well make us hopeful for his race, and we have no doubt that the time is fast approaching when these African tribes will be “made glad according to the days in which they have seen evil”!

We gazed wistfully as the great continent was within sight for the last time. On one side we had Gibraltar brightly lighted up, and suggesting so much historical interest. But on the other side there was a solitary lighthouse that touched a deeper chord in our hearts as it flashed a farewell from the Dark Continent. There rose before our minds all the hopeful days we had spent in that land of promise, while to our lips came the line which we ventured thus to misquote:—

“Moritur, et moriens dulces reminiscitur Afros.”

END OF VOL. II.

APPENDIX.

AFRICAN FOLK LORE.

APPENDIX TO VOL. II.

NATIVE TALES.

“Children’s Tales now, but not the invention of a child’s intellect.”—BISHOP CALLAWAY.

The time has now come when Folk Lore is considered valuable for its own sake. It is hoped, too, that these simple African Tales will throw some light on the native mind. But it must be remembered that when rendered by a native reciter they have a character which no translation can reproduce; moreover, tales that appear quite pointless to a European, will make an old native laugh till tears run down his cheeks.

Originally, some of these Tales may have been an account of actions that really happened, and which floated down the stream of time long after the agents had sunk in oblivion. Then as now, the name of each native was significant, and as these actions kept afloat they drew to themselves appropriate names. If the action was clever, it was attributed to a Mr. Rabbit (who corresponds to the Fox of European tales): while every hero remarkable for gluttony—a trait of character likely to be noted in those primitive days—is a Mr. Hyæna (who corresponds to the Wolf of our Western tales).

As might be expected there is a great difference between African Folk Lore and European. After seeing African habitations, we scarcely expect to be told of a damsel “shut up in a tower” or “peering into a forbidden room,” and after meeting natives in their ordinary costume, we should be surprised to find Tales of “beautiful dresses and slippers of gold”. Again, in African Legends we seldom encounter statements like the following which meet us almost everywhere in Grimm’s Fairy Tales:—“A poor peasant was so destitute that he did not possess a foot of land”. “It was with difficulty they could maintain themselves, at length matters became worse, they had no longer even bread to eat.” “A poor man had twelve children, and was obliged to work day and night to obtain even bread for them.” “What will become of us? How can we feed these poor children when we have nothing for ourselves?” Except in days of famine sad pictures like these would have no meaning for the African. But at the same time there are pleasant pictures in the European Tales that the African cannot appreciate. Rarely does the Bard of Central Africa go into raptures over a “handsome virgin” or a “maiden of rare beauty”. He knows nothing of such a personage. But this is not the fault of the negro woman. The enormous ring in the upper lip and the deep tatoos that mark her face, chest, and arms shew how desirous she is to please and to attract attention. Yet, although she carries small stones in her mouth to improve her speech (which has no defect like that of Demosthenes), she does not induce any poet to sing that “her voice is low and sweet”. She certainly does not merit all this neglect, and it is chiefly on account of African marriage customs that it falls upon her.

It will be perceived that the style of these stories is very primitive compared with English. The sentence, “He proposed to go back, and on arriving at his home he gave meat to the nurse, and asked after his children,” would in the mouth of the African become:—He said, “Let us go back” (and they replied, “Very well, let us go”). Then they set out to go back. When they arrived at the village he (stood on the path and) called and said, “Nurse”. The latter said, “Yes, I am here”. Then he said, “Take this meat”. He said also, “Now, are the children all well,” and the nurse said, “Yes, all are well”. So when our pupils wrote on Scripture subjects they did not hesitate to attribute to speakers a conversation which was not recorded. For instance, if the third verse of Genesis had really been, “And God created light,” they would have rendered it, “And God said, Let there be light, and there was light”. We often felt that their peculiarity might illustrate questions about the Verbal Inspiration of the Scriptures.

These tales have been selected and literally translated from my Manuscript Collection of Tales, Songs, Enigmas and Itagu. Number 54 was communicated by Mr. John Buchanan, F.L.S.

31. THE DEAD CHIEF AND HIS YOUNGER BROTHER.

There was a chief that built his village large, and he had many women, and he had a younger brother who did not come to his chief. The chief became ill and died, his brother was left, and went to inherit the title (97). Then arose a great war in order to capture those women. The (new) village chief had tied up bundles of beans. And the people that wanted war came and sat in the forum, and he hid himself and peered at them as they sat there. Then he said, “These people are many, I will consult the chief at the grave” (14). So he went and clapped[17] his hands and told the chief who was dead. The latter said, “It is long since you visited me when I was alive, what is the matter now?” He replied, “Alas! O chief, I have seen enemies, yea, many are at the village (here), and I said, ‘I will go to ask of the chief’”. The latter said, “Go and salute these people”. Then he went to salute them, and the people that wanted war, said, “In this land many plants have yielded fruit which are tied in bundles”. So they said to themselves, “He (the chief) is a very wise[18] man, and knows about a relish stored in bundles”.

They returned, and went home and met the king of their own home, who was called Manjelele, and said, “O king, you are very stupid. That man is exceedingly wise”. He said, “Nonsense—go away again, capture in war all the women and bring them”. Then the army went back and caught all the women. The chief himself also ran away, and again he went to the grave and said (to his dead brother), “Chief, I have come on account of my women, they are all carried off by war”. Then his brother gave him four small bags, and said, “Well, follow the army to their village”: and he added, “Should you find a large tree unloose one little bag”. So he took them, and he found the large tree put in his way, and he opened, and a wood-moth came forth and entered the tree and gnawed, and a passage was made, and the chief passed through with his attendant. Again he followed on in the track of the army, and he found that a stone had been put in his way farther on, and he opened another bag and there came out a manis (mbawe) and dug under the stone; and he passed through with his attendant. Again he followed the tracks of the army, and beyond that he found the river, which the army had passed in a boat. Then he opened (the third bag), and there came forth a spider and went to the other side, and he crossed with his attendant and arrived at the village whence the war had come, and he sat down at the road to the village to wait till darkness came on. As soon as it was dark, he opened the other bag also, and a rat set off for that village and went to a basket, and it slept there. By and by the king that had begun the war came to sleep, and on going to sleep he took away his eyes[19] and put in the basket, and the rat took the king’s eyes. At dawn he called his men, and said, “Let all assemble with their captives that I may see them”. The men assembled, and said, “Now, tell the king to come and see his prisoners”.

The king came and took a chair to sit on, and called for his eyes, saying, “Fetch my eyes from the basket,” and they looked in the basket and found that his eyes were not there. The king cried, saying, “What shall I see my prisoners with?” The other chief stood across the stream and said, “Let me go back with my people. I also have captured in war, I followed you. The eyes of the king I have carried off.”

And the king cried, saying, “My men, give up his people”. Then his men said to him, “We told you, O king, that we must not go yonder to capture in war. Lo! the people will return without being seen with your eyes,” and they restored all the people. Then the chief at the grave said, “I told you to follow the army. Lo! all the people have returned.”

32. THE CHIEF THAT HOED AT THE GRAVES.

There was a woman that had a little child, and she hoed a garden at the graves, and there came a little man from the graves—little Amlele. The woman wished to hoe, and she loosed the child, and made the stump of a tree bear him (tied him to a tree). Then rose Amlele and said “To make the stump bear him rather than a person’s side!” and he took care of the child and carried him to the graves. Then she hoed till she was tired. And she said, “Now I will call for my child,” and she called for him, saying, “Amlele, give me my child”. And he gave him to the mother herself. Then she went to the village, but did not tell that she hoed at the graves and that there was a spirit nursing her child.

When she went on the morrow to hoe, she saw that little Amlele was come again; again he began to call for the child. Again he went with him to the graves, and cut open his skin and put him in the sand (beside the water). And the woman hoed and was tired again, and she called Amlele without success—he did not bring back the child again.

And she went to call those at the village, saying, “My son was carried away to the graves by one that did not come back with him”. Then the people ran and went to the graves there, and they found him put down in the sand, and they cleaned off the sand, and returned from the graves to the village, mourning. And they went away to the oracle of the Humble-bee,[20] and he spoke with a low voice, and said, “But the chief is the man that wants to destroy us out of the country”.

All the people ran away because of witchcraft. The oracle has caught the chief of the village, because he hoed at the graves and bewitched his child in order that Amlele should eat it (106).

The chief said, “Now I am left alone. I will make friendship with the guinea-fowl,” and he did so. And he said, “Go away, pick up many _masukus_ and their stones, and sleep in a plain without trees”. It picked for him ten baskets, and he said, “Sow everywhere,” and it sowed in the whole plain. He himself slept in the middle of the plain. Next day he awoke and found many houses, the _masukus_ had become men.

Then he brewed beer, saying, “Now, I have found another village”. And he called the guinea-fowl, saying, “Friend, come now, there are many people”. And they went together (the guinea-fowl and Simwe[21]) to drink beer. And it said, “But do you, my friend, leave off speaking evil, lest the people be startled at you”.

Then they drank beer, and Simwe became drunk, and said, “I am the chief, these are my own people, I picked up ten baskets of _masukus_, I sowed in the plain, and the _masukus_ became men”. Then his friend ran away from him, saying, “His words are bad, he cannot stay with people”. So he slept again, and he awoke—his people were not, because (said they) he takes us for _masukus_[22]: so he was alone. Then he clothed himself with the skin of a civet (?) (ngwime) (a creature which sleeps on an ant-hill), and whenever he saw a person he called him, saying, “You there! come near,” and the person ran away. When the person ran away, he said, “I am bad. I cannot stay with my fellow men.” Then he went away journeying in the great bush. He asked for a village, and the _tolo_ (a small mole) responded and said, “Come to my home and dwell there. I have built a stone house.” So he accompanied (the _tolo_); let the man look at its house! it is not good! its door is the heads of cockroaches! And he said, “Ay! you deceiver of me: I enter a small hole!” And Simwe said, “I will bring the _nyingalwe_ against you”. And he brought against him his friend (the nyingalwe), who said, “You are a great liar—a rascal—a deceiver of the chief, saying to him, ‘Come let us enter a stone house,’ which was just a little hole, but may you never thrive”.

But the _tolo_ cursed the nyingalwe, saying, “But may you never cross the road except you die,” and the nyingalwe crossed the road and died. [As the natives believe strongly in charms we need not wonder that they invoke a sorcerer to curse their enemies, in the same way as did Balak the son of Zippor.]

33. THE FOX AND THE HYENA.

The hyena made friendship; two days after, he set out, and he said, “But let an attendant go with me”. They said, “Let him go with the mbendu,” (a creature with little spots like the njusi[23]).

They were going along the road and the hyena said, “If we meet with women washing grains of millet, you will ask for water, and I shall ask for millet!” As they went on they met the women washing the millet and the mbendu said, “Give me water,” while the hyena said, “Give me millet”. The women took millet in a plate to give the hyena, and they give the mbendu water in a cup.

The latter said, “Come let us wash it that it may become soft,” but the hyena refused and said, “Why did you not beg your own for yourself?” and he chewed it alone[24] without giving to his attendant.

Farther on he began to tell him again saying, “If we meet with the women cutting sugar cane, you will beg the leaves, I shall beg the canes, we shall tie them up”. They went forward and met with the women cutting sugar cane. The hyena said, “Give me the canes,” the mbendu said, “Give me the leaves”. They cut four canes and gave the hyena, and they took leaves and gave the mbendu. The mbendu said, “Let us tie them”. The hyena was fierce and said, “Ah! for whom?” and did not give him.

And they went beyond that and came to another place and found a lake, and he said, “The village we go to is there. If we have porridge cooked for us and tie it up in a leaf,[25] then if you hear at the lake lino-lino-lino-lino-lino you ought to run away and throw down the leaf of porridge.”

Farther on the hyena said, “This is medicine, if we get porridge, you will come to dig it”.

He went on and arrived at the village of his friend, and the latter said, “My friend has come,” and he killed fowls, and cooked, and made porridge, and said, “Let us give the strangers,” and porridge was put down: when the hyena began, “Bring that medicine that we may eat it to the porridge”. The mbendu went off running. After that the hyena cut leaves to set down everywhere and he ate up all the porridge. When the mbendu returned, he said, “There came a great party, look at the leaves (which were used as plates) here sat some, here sat others, here sat others”.

The hyena said, “Let us go home to-morrow”. The mbendu said, “Yes, let us go;” the mbendu was starving. Next day there was porridge cooked for them, and he said, “Tie it all up, tie it in leaves”. The mbendu tied up the porridge and carried it. On the way the hyena said, “I will pass this way, let us meet farther on”. The mbendu kept going just on the path, the hyena went to the pool and dived, and put out his mouth, and said, “Lino-lino-lino-lino-lino!” The mbendu was afraid, and threw the leaf with the porridge into the lake. The hyena took it out and went to devour it.

When he came farther on he met with the mbendu who had nothing to carry. He asked him saying, “You have thrown away that leaf? Quite right! you were wise, the wild beast would have bitten you.” When they reached their home the villagers said, “You are thin, mbendu, you are thin!” He said, “Umph! hunger”.

They staid five days at home. The hyena said, “I will go to my friend’s again. Who shall I go with to-day?” Then the Mbendu refused, and he said, “Come, fox,[26] let us go together”. The fox said, “Yes, chief, come”. So they went together.

When arrived at the road, the hyena gave instructions, “You, fox, if we meet with women—you will beg water, I shall beg grain”. They came to the women. The hyena said, “Give me grain”. The fox said, “Give me grain and the water also”. The hyena took grain, and it was given him on a plate, the fox also took grain, and it was given him in his hands, and water also in a cup. The hyena said, “Give the hyena that water”. The fox said, “Why did you not beg your own?” Then the fox refused to give him.

Further on the hyena said, “Now this pool is dreadful”. The fox asked, “Why is it dreadful?” The hyæna said, “If one carry porridge, a wild beast is dreadful”. The fox said, “How does it say when roaring?” The hyæna said, “It says Lino-lino-lino-lino”. The fox said, “Ay!” The hyena said, “If you carry a leaf with porridge you should throw it down”. He said, “Yes”. They advanced and came farther on, and he said, “This is medicine, if porridge is cooked at the village you will come to dig it”. But the fox left his arrow, he went farther on, and said, “Master, I have forgotten that arrow”. He said, “Where?” He said, “Where you showed me the medicine there”. He said, “Fetch it”. The Fox went running and came to the medicine, where he had left his arrow, and he dug and put the medicine in his bag, and returned. And he said, “Have you picked it (your arrow) up?” He said, “Yes, I have”. And he said, “Well, let us go on”.

They went on and arrived. The hyena’s friend said, “My friend has come. Kill a fowl for him.” They killed a fowl for him, and cooked porridge too, and came with it and set it down. The hyena then began saying, “Go and seek that medicine”. But the fox took the medicine out of his bag and said, “Master, this is that medicine”. Then was the hyena very fierce, and said, “You, fox, are clever at evil!” The hyena refused his porridge, saying, “You go on eating”. So the fox ate.

The hyena said, “Let us go away to-morrow”. In the evening a fowl was killed, that they might eat it with their porridge. Next day porridge was cooked and the fowl also and was given. He said, “Fox, tie it up”. The fox then tied it, and went along the road. The hyæna said, “Go on before me, I will go this way, and we shall meet in front”. Then the hyena went stealthily, and arrived in front, and let himself down into the pool, and dived and put out his mouth wide open, and said, “Lino-lino-lino-lino”. The fox said, “Ah! there’s the wild beast”. The fox sat down and took his knife and commenced to cut the bark-cords (which tied the leaves), and he took a stone, then he unloosed the porridge, and ate and finished it, entirely eating it up, reserving only a mouthful, which he plastered on the stone, and threw it into the mouth at the pool, and the hyena died. The fox then ran and cut off his head, and made a little drum and covered it with the hyena’s skin: then he went along the road, and met women digging beans (njama). The fox beat his drum, saying, “Ti, ti, war”. The women fled,[27] the fox picked up the baskets and went home.

At the village they said, “Where did you leave the hyena?” And he said, “We left them brewing beer for him”. They found that it was indeed a stay, the hyena never returned.

35. TAMING MONKEYS AND BUCK.

There was a man that tamed monkeys, while another tamed buck, and they became friends. The owner of the monkeys said, “Come to my home, you will see monkeys”. Then he went to his home and found they had gone out. He said “Friend, where have they gone?” He said, “They have gone to feed”. He said, “Call them”. He went to call them and they came: and he said, “These are my monkeys,” and he said, “If I had seen them, I should have taken them for food”.[28] (The monkeys heard this.) He said, “Friend, don’t say so, you will make my monkeys run away”. Thereupon the monkeys did run away. He (the stranger) said, “Come you to my home, you will see buck that I have tamed”. He went and found the buck, and said, “These are meat to give me to eat?” The buck ran away to go to the jungle. His friend said, “You have made my buck run away”. He said, “You come and answer my accusation, let us go to the forum”. Then the judges came and asked, “Who began it,” then they decided, “You must just pay each other”. So they paid each other in beer. They brewed, and invited each other, and drank, and said, “That case is finished”. Then both were contented. [This exemplifies a popular method of settling small quarrels.]

36. TAMING DOGS.

There was a land with a man.[29] This man used to go to the moors of marsh pigs (?). When this man with his dogs was going near a lake, they started a marsh pig, and it fell into the lake. In the lake was a crocodile, and the man also went down there, and the crocodile caught him, without biting him. The dogs kept searching much for their master: their master was placed in a cavern. Now the dogs in their search sometimes went to smell the earth, and they scented him. The dogs then set to dig in the earth there, and they dug three days. On the fourth they penetrated down, and their master was afraid again when he saw (light). But soon he said, “These are my dogs”. Let him look out, it is all light! “Now my dogs have penetrated!” And he came out and went to the village.

The villagers were mourning, and one child on going round the house met him and returned again, and said, “Mother, be quiet, don’t cry, I saw my father”. Its mother said, “You lie, your father was lost long ago”. It said, “Mother, no, come, let us go to see”.

When she went along with the child she saw him, and said, “Child, you don’t lie,” and she caught her husband by the arm, saying, “Come to my house”.

And she said, “Explain where you went”. He said, “I went to the moors, I was hunting a marsh pig, and it sank in a pond, I also sank there, and my dogs sought me, I came out, so that you see me here. Had it not been my dogs, the crocodiles would have eaten me. Dogs are good. People should keep dogs.” Then many people said, “Yes, yes, yes, let us get dogs. That man’s dogs saved his life.”

And each one there was buying dogs, each one there was buying dogs. Then people got many dogs because dogs had dug their master from the cavern.

37. ON OUR HOME (A YAO’S HISTORY OF HIS TRIBE).

Here is not our home. We lived long ago at Mangochi, a large hill like Zomba. The Walolo lived on the other side of the (river) Lujenda, on the road to Chisanga. The Walolo were capturing the Machinga to carry them to Chisanga and exchange them for cloth. The Walolo were brave, and had many guns. The Machinga dwelt at Mandimbi, and the Walolo made them flee. So the Machinga came to the country of the Wayao, and the Wayao fled. We removed from that place, and went along the road, and the Wanyasa interfered with us, and pierced us with arrows, and we began war, and took their food from them.

The English lived with the Wanyasa. The Wanyasa said, “Help us,” and there began war with the English. They all came to Ulumba (Vol. II. 12). The English read the book and prayed to God. On that day the Wayao fled in all directions, and they returned and found the Machinga following behind them. They said, “Why do you turn back?” They said, “Why! we have encountered white men!” Then the Machinga staid there, without advancing farther. After this all the Wanyasa fled across the river, and the Wayao settled in this land.

The Wayao had many fierce chiefs. The Machinga killed one by treachery, some began to sell their own people and were left alone, their people ran away from them; another was killed by the Mangoni.

War is an evil, it destroys people, there came famine: after that people said, “Now let us go and hoe”. They hoed much food.

The Magololo accompanied the English. When the English reached their boat they left them and said, “Now, be friends, war is bad, so leave it off, agree with the Wayao”. The Book of God was brought forth and all assented. The English said, “Now let us go home”. [Livingstone made the natives swear on the Bible that they would live in peace.]

After this the Mangoni came, they crossed by boat, they came in war. The Wayao ran to Ndilande. The Wanyasa ran to the islands. They have many islands. The Machinga ran to Zomba. The Walolo did not run away.

Before those that fled had come down from the mountains, the English came and settled in this land, and the Mangoni went away. The people came down from the mountains and farmed again (Vol. II. 25).

38. KALIKALANJE.[30]

There was a woman who had a husband, and they went to hoe in the garden and the man sneezed, and the woman said, Gwigwigwi.[31] The man asked her saying, “What do you want?” The woman said, “I want the eggs of an ostrich”. The man said, “I want water where frogs do not croak”. They both assented to the bargain. The man went to seek the eggs of an ostrich, and brought five, and gave them to his wife. The woman went to seek water where frogs did not croak. She went far, far away and found water. At that water she met with Namzimu, the owner, who asked, “What do you want?” The woman replied, “I want water, where frogs croak not”. Namzimu said, “What do you give in exchange for it”? The woman bargained with Namzimu saying, “I am with child: when I bear the child I will give it to you”. Then Namzimu said, “Draw water”. So she drew water, and went to the village and gave her husband. The husband said, “That is right, my wife”. After this, Namzimu went to the woman’s, and said, “Give me the child to eat”. The woman said, “No, the child is not born”. Then Namzimu went away. There passed three days, and the child was born, and the woman was roasting[32] castor-oil beans, and the child leapt on the pot-sherd, and said, “I am Kalikalanje”.

He went from the pot-sherd with his bow and his spear and his four dogs. Then Namzimu quickly came and said, “Now, give me the child to eat”. The woman said, “Yes, I will give you him”. So she took Namzimu and hid him in the grain basket, and took bananas and put above him, and at night the woman called her son, Kalikalanje, and said, “O please my son, Kalikalanje, climb up here, and fetch bananas”. Kalikalanje said, “No, I will climb upon the roof where nothing dances (shakes)”. Then the woman told Namzimu saying, “Dance on the roof there”; (because the woman wished to cheat her son). When Namzimu danced, Kalikalanje however stood at the door and said, “Ho! what’s that dancing there? I don’t want to climb now on the roof where there is dancing”. Then Kalikalanje ran away, and Namzimu did not catch him that night.

Next day the woman took Namzimu and went with him to the garden,[33] and hid him in the grass and said, “Stay you here, this night I send Kalikalanje to come and burn grass, and you will see (a lad) whose head is shaved on one side[34] and who wears a black loin cloth. That is Kalikalanje.” That night the woman shaved Kalikalanje on one side of the head, and put on him black cloth and sent him to the garden and said, “Go, burn the grass in the garden”.[35] So Kalikalanje took his shaving knife and black cloth, and his dogs, and his spear, and called his companions and said, “Come, to the garden of my mother, to play”. When they came to the parting of the roads, Kalikalanje told his friends saying, “Come, let me shave your hair on one side, that we may play properly”. When he had shaved his companions’ heads, he put on them pieces of black cloth, and said, “You all—your names are Kalikalanje, and we shall go to the garden, when we burn grass, everyone is Kalikalanje, Kalikalanje”. His comrades assented saying, “Very Good!”

They came to the garden and burned the grass, and all of them said, “Kalikalanje, Kalikalanje, Kalikalanje”. When they came to the large grass Kalikalanje said, “Let us all come, and burn this grass with fire, round and round, and let us hold our bows in our hands”.

Quickly Namzimu came out of the grass and Kalikalanje told his comrades saying, “Come, let us kill him”. So they killed Namzimu with their bows. Then Kalikalanje returned to the village and met with his mother, and spoke to her, saying, “Mother, you wanted a wild beast to eat me, now I kill you”. So Kalikalanje killed his mother.

39. THE MAN AND THE LION.

There was a man that had four dogs for catching meat, and one day the man was very hungry and he said to his wife, “I go to the bush to kill meat”. His wife said, “Yes, go and kill meat, my husband”.

The man took his dogs and his spear and went to the bush. As he hunted he killed five buck.

Suddenly there came a lion and spoke with the man and said,

“Take these buck, give your dogs to eat. When they have eaten you must eat your dogs, then let me eat you.” The man said “No. I do not want to give my meat to the dogs”. Whereupon there arose a great quarrel between the man and the lion. Suddenly there came a rabbit (fox) with his bag, and found them quarrelling. The rabbit asked them saying, “What are you quarrelling over?” The man explained to the rabbit the reason of the quarrelling saying, “We quarrel about meat that I have caught with my dogs”.

Then the rabbit spoke with the lion saying, “Why do you want to eat your fellow-creature without a reason against him.” The lion said, “The reason of it is that this bush is mine, and he has come to kill meat here. Now I want him to give this meat to his dogs, then his dogs will eat the meat, then he must eat his dogs, and I shall eat him.” The rabbit said, “Lion you must not eat your fellow-creature because of his buck. Come here I shall give you good meat, which is in a pit-fall.” The rabbit had seen a great pit-fall where a serpent dwelt, and he said to the lion, “Enter this pit-fall.” When the lion entered, the rabbit called the man and said, “Come with fire, now he who wanted to eat you has gone into a pit, now come and let us kill him”. The rabbit and the man lighted a fire at the pit and killed the lion. After the lion died, the man and the rabbit entered into a compact of eternal friendship.

40. THE ROASTED SEEDS.

There was an elephant and a rabbit that contracted friendship. They agreed saying, “Let us go and hoe our gardens;” so they hoed. Then the rabbit said, “But let us plant roasted seeds”. The rabbit cheated the elephant, and the elephant assented saying, “Yes, we shall roast them,” so he roasted. But the rabbit hid some of his seeds, then he roasted a few and said, “Come let us plant,” and the elephant planted roasted seeds, but the rabbit planted seeds that were not roasted, and ate his roasted seeds.

The rain came; the seeds of the rabbit grew, but those of the elephant did not grow, and he asked the rabbit, “Well, when will my seed grow?” And the rabbit said, “Wait, they will grow”. In the garden of the rabbit many pumpkins bare fruit, and the elephant said, “My friend has deceived me”. Then the elephant went to the garden of the rabbit at night to steal the rabbit’s pumpkins.

In the morning the rabbit said, “I wonder who has stolen my pumpkins”. The elephant said, “I do not know”. The rabbit made a drum and went secretly to his garden, and entered a large pumpkin[36] with his drum. At night the elephant went and ate pumpkins. Next day the rabbit was in the stomach of the elephant, and he beat his drum; he beat and said, “You were finishing my pumpkins, I have caught you myself”. Then the elephant was very ill and died.

People came and said, “Meat has died for us here,” and they opened the body and said, “Look at this pumpkin!” Others said, “Split it,” and they split it,—it broke—they found the rabbit. The rabbit on seeing people, ran away. And the people said, “Yes! this is what killed the elephant. No wonder the elephant died!”

41. ROMBAO.

There was a man who had a wife and he took his fish trap and went to the water to catch fish, and he caught a large one. The fish said to the man, “Go inside me, and you will find a knife and a bundle of millet, fetch them and come here with them”. So the man went inside the fish and found a knife and a bundle of millet, and he fetched them and came out with them. The fish said, “Cut off my upper lip,” and the man cut it off.

Then the fish said, “Take that meat, give it to your wife that she may eat it alone, while you eat the millet”.

So he went to the village. He found his wife and gave her the meat saying, “My wife eat this meat alone. When you have eaten throw the bones of it out there.” The man went to put the millet in the lake, when it became soft he went and ate it alone, for five days, and his wife ate the fish five days!

After this the woman bare two children with their two dogs, and two spears, and two guns, and their names were the one Rombao, and the other Antonyo.[37] Then they went to the bush and found many birds and many buck, and they began to fire their guns, and the buck ran to one place and the children followed them. On their following there they met the owner, and he asked them saying, “What do you want?” They said, “We want meat”. The owner said, “What do you give me, and I shall give you my meat?” They replied, “We will not give you anything, but come let us fight, and whoever dies, the meat belongs to him that killed him”. They began to fight and the owner of the meat died, and they took the land and built houses and settled there.

One day Rombao talked with his brother, and said, “You stay here, I go yonder to kill meat”. Then he met with a whale. He wanted to drink, and the whale said, “Why should you drink my water?” Rombao said, “I am thirsty”. The whale said, “Pay me a price for my water”. He refused, and said, “Come, let us fight”. Then they began to fight, and the whale died, and Rombao cut off his tongue and put salt on it.

Now at that land there was a celebrated chief, the owner of the country, and he gave up his own daughter to buy water from the whale. The whale was dead, and three days passed without the wind coming as a token (that the girl had been eaten). So the chief sent his captain and his soldiers, and said, “Go and see whether the whale has come to eat my child”. The captain went with his soldiers to see the whale, and came to where it was and found it dead.

Then the captain said to the soldiers, “Come let us fire guns for two days, and go to the village and tell that it was I that killed the whale. Then the chief will give me his daughter to wed, and I will pay you with much goods.” They said, “Yes, what he says is good”. So they fired guns for two days, and went back to the village with the girl and found the chief, and said, “The captain has killed the whale”. The chief said to him, “Very well, I will give you my daughter to wed”.

When the marriage day came Rombao sent his younger brother, saying, “Go and see the wedding”. He returned, and said, “The marriage feast is ready”. Then Rombao went to the village of the chief and found the people all assembled. The girl was speechless, and her mother asked her, “Do you wish that captain to marry you”. The girl did not answer, but continued weeping. Her father said, “But you will marry that captain”. Rombao asked, “Why is the captain going to marry her?” They said, “Because he has killed the whale”. Rombao said, “But where’s the tongue of the whale?” All the people said, “Yes, we want to see its tongue”. So the captain sent his soldiers to bring its tongue, and they went to look for the tongue and found that the tongue was wanting. So they returned, and said, “The whale has not a tongue—it is rotten”. Rombao said, “That’s false, that captain did not kill the whale—it was I. Wait now, I will go and fetch its tongue.” He returned with the tongue to the chief. Then the chief said, “Very well, do you take my daughter to be your wife”. Then the chief took much goods and gave Rombao. Then he killed that captain and his men likewise.

42. THE HYENA AND THE BEES.

A hyena and a fox went a journey; they found honey (lit. bees) on a tree, but at the foot of the tree were the cubs (lit. children) of the fox. The hyena said, “Give me my bag,” and he got it; and the fox climbed the tree to fetch the honey. Then the hyena took the children of the fox, saying, “he would shew them to his brethren,” and he put them in his bag. But the fox quickly observed that the hyena took her children, and the fox took much honey (lit. bees) and came down with it. Then the hyena ate the honey, but the fox said, “Give me the bag to carry for you”. The hyena said, “Take it”. So the fox took the hyena’s bag. Then the fox said, “I have forgotten my knife”. The hyena said, “Go and fetch it”. The fox went back to the foot of the tree, and took out her cubs. Then she took many living bees,[38] and put in the hyena’s bag, and went back to the hyena himself. Then the hyena said, “Have you found your knife?” The fox said, “Yes, I have found it”. But the hyena did not know that she had taken her children out of his bag. Then they came to the village, and he said, “Give me my bag. Good-bye. Now we have reached my village.” The fox gave it him.

The hyena then went to his brethren, and said, “Have you ever seen the children of a fox?” His brethren said, “No”. The hyena said, “There are in my bag here!” His brethren said, “Give it us that we may see them”. The hyena said, “No, we must be in the house”. So they went into the house and shut the door, and then undid the bag. Then his brethren said, “So these are the children of a fox? Are they not bees?” They were stung. The hyena’s brethren roared terribly, and the fox heard their roaring, and came to the door, and said, “What’s the matter?” The hyena’s brethren said, “The hyena has deceived us, saying ‘Come and see a fox’s children’. We said, ‘No’”. The fox said, “Oh, hyena, you took my children, did you? I put living bees in your bag. You knew it not. Now they sting (lit. bite) you!” So the hyena and his brethren died.[39]

43. THE CROCODILE.

There was a man that lived by setting traps, and he set his trap on a meadow by a stream and caught meat. Then came a crocodile and took out (untied) his meat and ate it, and went home. Next morning the owner of the trap found that his meat had been eaten. Then was he sad at heart, and said, “Who is this that has eaten my meat?” He set his trap again and went back to the village. And meat[40] came and was caught (tied) again, and again the crocodile ate it. Next morning the owner was sad at heart.

Then he set the trap at another place, and the crocodile came again to eat the meat, but did not find anything, and he began to search, and was caught in the trap himself. Next morning the owner of the trap came and found the crocodile caught in the trap. So he took a spear and wanted to kill the crocodile, but the crocodile said, “Please don’t kill me, but let me go out, I will go home and pay you because I have been a thief”. Then the crocodile said, “Carry me, we shall go to my home,” and it leapt on the man’s back, its claws (ikalawesa) entering his body.

Then a hare saw them moving in the water and said, “You, man—where are you going?” The man answered, “I set my trap, and caught my buck, and this gentleman (chief) used to come and steal, but to-day he was caught in my trap himself and said, ‘Let me out, I will go home and pay you for your goods’”.

The hare said, “I don’t hear you, what do you say?” Then the man said the same words. Then the hare said, “Are you abusing me? I don’t hear what you say. Come near, come near.”[41] Then the man said to the crocodile, “Chief, listen, the hare says we must go back a little”. Then the man repeated the same words to the hare. The hare said to the crocodile, “Yes, that is right. But first come off his back there.” Then the hare asked the man, “How did you set your trap? Let me see it.” Then the man set it. The hare then asked the crocodile, “And chief, pray, how did you get in? Let me see.” The crocodile said, “I passed here, and I passed here, and I went Gwede!” there the crocodile was caught.[42] The hare said, “Now, do you, O man, kill that vermin. It wanted to eat you.” The man killed the crocodile, but to this day remains a feud between the crocodile and man.

44. THE HARE AND THE BANGLES.

A hyena and a hare went to a village[43] to marry. They found women and said, “We want to marry”. The women assented, but their mother said, “We don’t wear calico,[44] but the skins of lions, leopards and pythons”. The hyena and the hare said, “Very well, give us salt and bangles,” and she gave them.

The hyena and the hare then went away, and on the road they found a dead elephant. The hyena said, “I will stay here,” but the hare said, “No, chief, but let us wait one day (without touching the meat)”. The hyena said, “You are bad, such is your nature. Then you may look for the skins of lions, leopards, and pythons. But the lion is terrible.” The hare said, “I will try to kill a lion that my wife may rejoice and say the hare is strong.”

Then the hare took his bag of salt, and arrived at the lion’s village wearing bangles on his legs.[45] When the chief lion saw the hare disguised like a woman he said, “You are my wife”. The hare consented and said, “Yes, but your chief wife abuses me”. Then the lion killed his chief wife and all her children. The hare said, “Take off their skins”. The lion then took off the skins of his own kindred—and the hare and he were left alone. Then the hare said,[46] “My husband, your eyes terrify me”. The lion said, “Take them out”. The Hare then put out the eyes of the lion, and killed him and took off his skin, and took it and hid it by the road, and then went to the village of the leopard.

When the leopard saw him, he said, “You are my wife”. The hare said, “Very well—but your chief wife abuses me”. The leopard then killed his chief wife and all her children. The hare said “Take off their skins”. So the leopard took off the skins of his relatives. Then the hare said, “My husband, I want pythons’ skins”. The leopard went and killed pythons. The hare said, “That is right, only your eyes terrify me”. The leopard then said, “Put them out,” then the hare put out his eyes, and killed the leopard and took his skin. The hare was then very glad, and said, “I have been clever”. Then he took the skins of the lions, leopards and pythons, and went away and met the hyena. The hyena was astonished, and said, “Ugwi! How have you, O hare, slain ——. The skins of lions, leopards and pythons!” The hare answered, “I have slain them with my bag of salt”.

The hyena said, “I will go to kill my skins”. The hare said, “I am going for my wife”. He said, “Yes, I will meet you there”. The hare went to his wife. She was very glad, and said, “My husband is clever,”[47] and she put on the lions’ skins. The hyena attacked a lion, the lions were angry, and said, “O hyena, is it war that you want?” and they killed the hyena. The hyena’s wife asked the hare, “Where is my husband”? The hare said, “He is dead”.

Then the hare staid at that village and was a great chief.

45. THE HUNTER.

There was a man that used to kill game, and he went to the bush to kill game, and shot a buffalo in the evening. He cut it through the middle and took the two hind legs, and left the other two and its horns, and said, “I will take them to-morrow”. So he went back where his companions were, and found them, and said, “Well, I have killed a buffalo and taken these two legs, I left the other legs and the horns, but we shall go and fetch them to-morrow”. His friends said, “Yes, that is best (good)”. At night there came a hyena and found the buffalo, and went round about it and put his head into the breast (ribs) of the buffalo, and took it and went with it to his village.

Next morning the owner of the meat called his friends, and said, “Come now, let us go and cut up our meat”. They went to the bush and found the meat carried off by a hyena. Then the owner followed after in the track in which the hyena had gone, and at noon he met with the hyena going with his meat. When it heard his tread it sang, “Go in the path where it is pleasant,” and began to try to get out its head, but the meat had dried on its hair. And it sang again the same strain, trying to get out its head but not succeeding.

The owner laid hold of the horns of the buffalo. When the hyena felt that the meat was stuck, it asked, “Who is it that is catching me?” The owner said, “I, the hunter,” and he scolded the hyena, and said, “Where did you take this meat from?” Then the hyena began to speak with him, and said, “Please, hunter, do not kill me, but release me, and I will pay you when I go home”.[48] So the hunter took his knife and cut the ribs of the buffalo, and said, “Now come to your home,” and they went to the cave, and the hyena said, “My wife is with children. Go now to your home, but when this moon has finished, return, come here and I will give you three children[49] because of your meat.” The hunter said, “I understand, I go home”. So he took his meat and went home with it.

After this the hyena went and met with a lion, and said, “Well, chief, if I give you an animal (meat) without hair, what will you pay me?” The lion said, “I will pay you whatever you want”. Then the hyena took the lion and conducted him to his cave, and said, “Do you, lion, go into this cave, and at the end of the moon (month) there shall come an animal without hair”. The lion asked, and said, “Where lives an animal without hair? In the bush here all the animals have hair. But where will the animal without hair come from? Do you mean a man?” The hyena said, “I mean a man”. So the lion entered the cave and waited for his meat.

At the end of the month there came the man to receive payment for his meat, and he found at the cave the footprints of a lion, and he began to be astonished, and said, “Has that hyena changed to a lion?” He was strong in heart and went into the cave: but when he met the lion and his wife in the cave he wanted to go back. The lion began to be fierce, and said, “Why do you go back, my meat?” The man said, “I am not your meat, but you ate my meat, and said, ‘Come at the end of the month and I will pay you with three children’”. The lion said, “No, I did not eat your meat. It was a hyena, and he told me to dwell in this cave, and promised to give me meat without hair.”

The man objected, and there arose a great quarrel, and the hare came and found them quarrelling, and said, “Pray, chiefs, leave off this dispute of yours. O lion, your elder brother[50] sent me to go and tell his younger brother not to eat the man.” The lion was angry with the hare, and said, “Get away”. The hare said, “You are angry, but I was sent by your elder brother to ask you not to eat the man”. The lion said, “Well! but what am I to do with the man?” The hare said, “Give him to me, I will conduct him to the path”. Then the hare took out a vessel of honey and snuff (lit. tobacco for the nostrils), and took, and the lion said, “Give me[51] that I may taste your snuff”. The hare gave him, and the lion took (ate) it, and said, “It is good”. The hare then took the honey into his hands and began to eat, and asked the lion, “Do you want these sweets that I am eating”. The lion said, “Yes,” and he gave him a little and told him to lick it. Then the lion licked it, and said, “It is good, give me more”.[52] The hare said, “Well, I am willing to give you, but you must first give me your tails, and I will tie them together”. Then the lion assented, and asked his wife, saying, “Listen, my wife, do you want to eat sweets?” His wife said “Yes”. The hare said, “Come, I will tie your tails together,” and the wife came and gave her tail. Then the hare tied them together. Next he took the man and went out with him. The lion said, “Are you going away without giving me my sweets?” The hare laughed at him, saying, “Ah! I will never give you”. Then he took a stone and threw into the cave and closed it, and the lions died.

46. THE ELEPHANT AND THE HARE.

The elephant and the hare formed a friendship. The elephant said, “Friend let us go and hoe a field”. The hare said, “Come let us cut handles (for our hoes)”. When they had cut the handles they said, “Come let us put on our hoes”.[53] When they had put on the hoes, they said, “Come let us hoe”. As they were hoeing the hoe of the hare came out, and it said, “I am here, my chief, I have come to you to put in my hoe”. The elephant said, “How will you put it in!” The hare said, “I will put it in on your head, I will use it (your head) for a stone. When your hoe comes out, you will come to me”. The elephant said, “Fix it in”. So the hare knocked his hoe in, on the elephant’s head. Soon the hare’s hoe fell out again and the hare came once more to the elephant and said, “O chief, I have come to put in my hoe on your head,” and it put it in on the elephant’s head and then went away.

As they hoed, the hoe of the elephant fell out. The elephant said. “Hare, O chief, my hoe has fallen out! I will fasten it in on your head.”[54] The hare said, “Wait for me a little:” and it ran off. When the elephant went to look he saw no one.

47. THE FISH EAGLE AND THE MNG’OMBA.

A fish eagle and a mng’omba (a large bird that feeds on shells) contracted friendship, and the fish eagle said, “Friend, let us go and marry wives”. They went to a village and found a woman that had two girls. The fish eagle said, “We have come to marry”. The man said, “Very well. You have found girls here.” So the fish eagle married his wife and his comrade married also his wife.

Then the fish eagle said one day to his companion, “Come and let us kill fish”. So they went to a lake to kill fish. The fish eagle killed many fish and the mng’omba killed many shells. At night they said, “Let us go home”. So the fish eagle tied up his fish and the mng’omba his shells, and set out to return to their village.[55] When they were half-way, the mng’omba persuaded the fish eagle saying, “Give me your fish, I will carry them for you”. So the fish eagle gave him his fish while he took his comrade’s shells.

Then the mng’omba went on before[56] and ran fast and arrived at the village and took the fish eagle’s fishes and gave to his mother-in-law. Afterwards the fish eagle came and found that the mng’omba had divided his fishes. But the fish eagle did not speak a word, he preserved silence.[57] His mother-in-law said, “You told us you were going out to catch fish, but where are they?” But the fish eagle did not answer his mother-in-law. Then she kept abusing him and said, “You are not a good husband. I will take my daughter from you and give her to the other man.” The fish eagle went to his house to sleep without speaking a word.

Next morning the fish eagle said to his comrade, “Come again to the lake to catch fish”. They went. The fish eagle killed many fishes, the mng’omba many shells. On their way back[58] when they were half way to the village the mng’omba wished to persuade the fish eagle again. But the fish eagle refused and said, “No. You cheated me yesterday and said, ‘Give me your fish and I will carry them for you,’ and I gave them and you ran away with them and went to the village and gave your mother-in-law saying, ‘I have killed these fishes,’ and my mother-in-law laughed at me yesterday, but to-day I don’t want to give you my fishes, I will carry them myself”. The mng’omba was very angry and said, “You are not good,” and the fish eagle asked, “How?”

Then they came to the village and the fish eagle gave his fishes to his mother-in-law, and she was glad and said, “Now! you are indeed a good son-in-law”. But with the mng’omba she was angry and said, “Yesterday you came with fishes, but to-day where are they?” The mng’omba told a lie and said, “The fish eagle took my fish from me”. The fish eagle heard the words that the mng’omba spake.

Next morning the fish eagle called his father-in-law.[59] “To-day I want five men to go with me to the lake to fetch fish”. His father-in-law said, “Very well,” and gave him five men. The mng’omba said also, “Give me five men to carry fish”. His father-in-law said, “Very well,” and gave him five men. Then they both went to the lake and the fish eagle said to his men, “Put up tents (of grass), let us dry our fishes (in the sun),” and they put up (tied)[60] three tents. The mng’omba told his people saying, “Put up three tents, let us dry our fishes”.

The fish eagle went into the lake and began to kill fishes and killed many. His men opened them up and dried them. The mng’omba went into the lake and began to kill many shell fish, and he called his men and said, “Bring baskets and put in the shellfish”. His men said, “We don’t want to carry shells (or shellfish.[61]) At the village you spoke saying, ‘I go to kill fish,’ but where are your fish?”

Then the mng’omba began to be angry and abused the fish eagle. The fish eagle became angry too, and they began to fight.[62] The fish eagle scratched the mng’omba on the face (eyes) and on the neck, and the mng’omba was ill and cried, saying, “Mh’m mh’m mh’m!”

Then they all went back to the village. The fish eagle gave many fishes to his mother-in-law,[59] but the mng’omba gave nothing. Then his father-in-law[59] drove him away, saying, “Go from our home. I don’t want you.[63] I want the fish eagle.” Then the mng’omba went away and the fish eagle remained.

48. THE LAD THAT FED ON AIR.

There was a lad that went to a large village to seek (a girl) in marriage, and he found a woman that had a female child. He asked the woman and said, “Please give me your daughter, that I may marry her”. The woman said, “Yes, I will give her to you”. Then the lad was happy, and built his house and married his wife.

Then his mother-in-law cooked porridge, and gave him, but he refused, saying, “I don’t eat porridge, but air (mp’epo)”. The mother-in-law was surprised, and said, “My son-in-law does not eat porridge, but air!”

One day his mother-in-law sent him to the garden to hoe, and he was seized with hunger, but his mother-in-law did not give him porridge because he never ate porridge.

At midnight he arose and went to the mortar and put in his head and licked all the flour (food) where the women had been pounding. But his head stuck fast in the mortar, and remained there. His (little) wife went outside to seek him, and found him in the mortar, and told her mother, saying, “Mother, come here and see what my husband has done”. Her mother came and found her son-in-law in the mortar, and said, “Son-in-law, why did you refuse to eat porridge, lo! your head has stuck in the mortar, and what am I to do?” The son-in-law was much ashamed and did not speak. The mother-in-law took an axe and split the mortar: the son-in-law came out, and went into the house and did not go out again.

[A similar tale is told of a woman whose husband did not make her a proper mortar. At night she went to lick any flour that might be left in the mortars of the other wives. Her head stuck, but by her efforts to disengage herself she turned the mortar over, when it rolled down the hill, woman and all, greatly to the alarm of the villagers, who all got up to see what could be the matter.]

49. THE GIRL OF CLAY.[64]

There was a woman that took clay and made a child, and clothed her with fine calico, and said, “My child, I have made you of clay, if you see rain, run to the village”. The girl assented to her mother. One day there came other girls, and said to their companion, “Companion, come and play”. They went to play. They came to a lake, and took off their clothing, and began to bathe. They spoke to their companion, and said, “Come and bathe,” she refused. They said, “You are not good. Why do you refuse to bathe? Are you ill?” She said, “I am not ill”.

Next day they went to a distant lake, and took off their clothes, and they said to her, “Come and play in the lake”. Her mother had forbidden her. But she went into the lake, and began to melt with the water, and cried, “O mother, come and take me”. Her mother refused, saying, “I told you long ago not to go into the water, but you have disobeyed”. Then she died.

50. THE PYTHON.

There was a python, and it caught the child of a buck (Ndogolo). It happened that the bush was burning, and a flock of buck passed. The python said, “Hoe to save me at the side here”. The buck said, “What have you fed on? (What are you stuffed with?)” The python said, “I have not fed on anything”. The buck replied, “But we should be burned”. Then the flock of buck passed on.

Then came a man with an axe in his hand. The Python said, “O chief, hoe to save me”.[65] The man said, “Why, if I hoed to save you, you would devour me”. The python said, “No, I would not devour you”. The man came and hoed beside the python. The python then said to the man, “Stay (sleep) four days, on the fifth come back”. He said, “Yes, I understand, I will come back”. So he went home and staid four days; on the fifth he went back, and found that the python had vomited—vomited everything—and had become a young lad. It said, “Draw near, chief, that we may converse over our business”. The man drew near, and the lad said, “Put me on your shoulders”. He put him on his shoulders, then they both entered a hole; in that hole they went on for three days. On the fourth day they came to the home of the python, and he put down the python. The latter said, “I should have died but for this man, he hoed by my side. Those fellows of buck all refused to hoe for me. He came and hoed to save me, else I should have died.” The python then brewed beer, and they set to drinking, and drinking, and drinking. The man then said, “I go home now”. The python said, “Wait,” and he gave him four bales of calico, and also a bottle, saying, “Should you encounter war, turn this bottle upon your enemies, and you will find that they are dead”. The man said, “Stay, friend,” the latter said, “Go”.[66]

When the man arrived at his home, he found that it was deserted—that war had been made against it.[67] On reaching his village he encountered enemies. Then he brought out his bottle, and pointed towards his enemies. They were all pupulu (!)—dead and gone (!) (Wosepe ’wo pupulu! kumala kuwa!)

Then the man went to his fields. While hoeing went on an army had gathered against his village[67]. The enemy pursued him to the fields where he was. When the man saw the army—let him try ever so much to shew his bottle—it happened that he had left it at the village, and the enemy had taken it. Now the enemy caught the man and tied him with ropes (of bark), and took him to their home. The capturers said, “Don’t kill him now, we shall kill to-morrow when the people assemble”. Then they went to put him in the slave-stick. As he lay there, a Rat came, and the man said, “Who is it that is gnawing at my feet?”[68] The Rat answered and said, “I am a Rat”. The man said, “If you are a Rat, go into the house of the chief, and if you find his basket, make a hole in it, when you have made a hole, if you find a bottle bring it and come here”. So the Rat set off and went into the house of the chief and found the basket. It was lying so. Then came the Rat and made a hole in the basket and took the bottle and went with it to the bondman. The bondman said, “I will pay you in the morning”.

In the morning as soon as it was dawn, the king assembled all his people, and went to bring forth the man from his prison. He had his bottle with him. He was set down in the forum. Some said, “Fetch the spear to kill him”. He produced his bottle. The people who sat there when he held it up were dead and gone! The man took all the property and called his friend the Rat and divided it with him.

51. HIDE AND SEEK.

The honey bird and the bat formed a friendship. The honey bird said, “Let us play at hiding”. So the bat went under the trees near the river (or lake) (nyasa). Then came the likuse and swallowed the bat, a crocodile swallowed the likuse, and a hippopotamus swallowed the crocodile.[69] The honey bird was going about in search of his friend, but without finding him. As he was returning from his search he met a hippopotamus and shot it. The hippopotamus died. The honey bird went away to the village to call the people to cut up the meat. Many people collected and went to that meat. As they were cutting it up, they found the crocodile in the inside (chitumbo) of the hippopotamus. On opening the crocodile they found the likuse, on opening the likuse they found the bat. The bat came forth and said, “You have gained”.

Next the honey bird went away. It went into a hole (in a tree) of bees. The bat then went about in search of its friend. In returning from this, it found bees. The bat then said, “I will go away to the village”. Then it took fire and said, “I will fetch my bees (honey) I found there”. It carried the fire to the tree and began to fell the tree, which came down. As it looked at the bees, it found the honey bird there. It said, “Take care, take care, we are going to burn”. So the honey bird came out of the tree. The bat and the honey bird then sang. Both went home to the village laughing. When they arrived porridge[70] was cooked and they feasted.

The honey bird and the bat said, “Let us hide again”. The honey bird had a gun, the bat had a bow. The honey bird went to the bush, and killed a buffalo, and then went inside his gun, and the meat just lay there. The bat came and found the meat lying, but did not see where its owner had gone. Though he called, all was silent—the owner came not. The bat went to the village to call the people, saying, “I have found meat yonder, which the honey bird has slain, but I have not found where he has gone himself, only the gun is lying there”. An offering was then pounded by his wives and put on the top of the buffalo he had slain. The honey bird then came out of the gun, and cut up the buffalo, and it was carried to the village. The honey bird said, “Cook the hearts[71] that we may eat,” and they were cooked. All the people that carried ate the hearts (mitima).

Next the bat went away with his bow to the bush, and shot a buck (ndogolo) and it died. The bat itself then went into the reed of the arrow. The honey bird found the meat of the bat. Though he tried to see where it had gone itself, he failed, and he said, “I must just go back to the village to tell that the bat has slain meat”. Then the honey bird went away to the village to tell many people. The bat’s wives prepared an offering, and put on the head of the buck. The bat then came out of the reed. The buck was cut open and carried to the village, and the bat said, “Cook its heart” (hearts), and the heart was cooked and all eaten.

Then they were happy together saying, “We have played at hiding every day”.

52. THE MAN WITH DOGS.

There was a man that had ten dogs. Early in the morning he had porridge cooked for them, and went away to the bush, and killed ten marsh-pigs. When they were running after another it began to rain, and the man ran to a cave with his dogs.

Before he was well seated he saw an aged one coming, and the aged one began to ask, “Who is sitting in the cave?” The man then came out of the cave and climbed a tree. The aged one said, “Now you are eaten,” and began to fell the tree.[72] When the tree was about to fall they heard a bird (Mlamba) saying, “The tree of God shall never fall”. The old man again began to fell it; they heard the same little bird saying, “The tree for the Offering will never fall”.

They heard a mpuli[73] crying, “Puli!” when one dog died—“Puli!” another dog died, and so all the dogs were finished. The man then began to call the dog at the village which wore the beads. Let the mpuli try to sing again—they heard the dog call “Puli!” and the aged one died.

[At the end of this tale the narrator gave the advice to keep dogs found in tale 36. The native dogs look so unpromising that recommendations of this kind are not uncalled for.]

53. THE GIRL THAT REFUSED A HUSBAND.

There was a girl that refused men,[74] and there came a hyena and married her. The hyena said, “I will conduct her to my home that she may pay a visit”. His mother-in-law said, “She does not pound. She only pounds castor-oil beans.”[75] The son-in-law said, “Yes,” and she accompanied him on the journey and arrived at the village. At the village they staid (slept) four days: then the husband said, “I will go and cut bark (to make cloth)”. He told his chief wife saying, “That girl does not pound”. When the husband went away, his wife went for the husked grain and said, “Girl, pound this”. The girl said, “I do not pound, I can only pound castor-oil beans”. She said, “Who will pound for you? Take the mortar, put in your grain, and pound”. As she pounded water appeared up to her loins, she pounded again, and it was at her neck, as she tried again, she was covered over.

A little bird followed after her master, saying, “Your wife is dead”. When he returned from his bark cloth he found the water everywhere. The man then took his small sticks, and said, “Piti, piti, ukosolya mbinji”. As for the water it was not seen where it had gone. The people then came out, and the man said, “What did I tell you then? I said that the girl could not pound. What you won’t hear, you hear when your head is boiling in a pot.”[76]

54. THE GUINEA FOWL.[77]

As the guinea-fowl flew, it found bamboos springing up, and it called the partridge and the dove, and all the birds and said, “This is springing up, come together and look at it, it will destroy people. Come let us peck it while it grows.” The partridge refused and said, “I will look out for myself”. The guinea fowl said, “I have warned you now”. So they left the bamboos growing. When they were grown then came men and found the foot-prints of guinea fowl and said, “Come let us set traps,” and they said, “Go and cut bamboos,” so they cut bamboos and set traps.

As the guinea fowl passed, it found the partridge caught, and said, “Ah! I warned you saying, ‘Come let us peck that which was springing up’. When you objected it sprung up, and now people have taken it and made a trap, and you are caught.” The partridge said, “It was for you they set it, and you have escaped”. The partridge continued, “Release me, peck the cord, peck it with your beak, when it is broken let us flee and escape.” As the guinea fowl pecked, the partridge was pecked in the eye and died.

Then came a man. The guinea fowl flew away. He said, “A guinea fowl was here and has fled”. He took off his belt and set for the guinea-fowls. Then he went off to return to the village, and he took the partridge. He found the river swollen.[78] As he crossed, the water took away his clothes. When he came to the village they said, “Where did you put your calico”. He said, “It was taken away by the water”. They said, “You did not make it firm with your belt”. He replied, “I left my belt to snare guinea fowl.”

They plucked the partridge and cooked it. While his wife was cooking it, she went out to the stream for water. The man took a plate and took off a leg and went to a chamber saying, “I will eat it in the chamber”. But the woman came and washed the ladle and took a plate, and took off one leg, and went to the chamber. The man then went away before he had eaten, and said, “She will see me, I must hide my plate”. The woman said (aside), “I must hide my plate, lest he see it”. She said to him, “Let me pass, let me pass to the door”. The man said, “Where are you going?” She said, “Let me pass,” and the plates met—thwack! and were broken. She said, “What did you carry?” He said, “What did you carry?”[79] She said, “Eating a relish alone! I was tasting it.” He said, “And I was tasting it too!”

The man took goods and gave the woman, and said, “Do not bring disgrace on me”. The woman brewed beer, and gave the man, and the matter ended.

[The native husband is highly susceptible to ridicule. The next story has a similar conclusion].

55. THE MAN WITH THE BRAN PORRIDGE.

There was a man that did not eat bran-porridge, and he married at a village, and built a house with rooms. Then he killed an elephant, and carried its tusks to the coast. “Good-bye, my wife; I go a journey to buy goods”. “Take bran, eat it on the way.” “I don’t eat bran, but flour”; and he set off to the coast, and sold his ivory; and he got a _fez_—he got it to the bargain.

“Now, good-bye, my friend,” the other said—“Good-bye; you will meet us next year; bring more ivory again. We shall sell you more goods. We shall tell you the price of goods; come to say farewell.” He went to the house to say farewell, and went off for his home in the Yao country. He arrived at the village there, and they rejoiced that the caravan had come and brought goods.

The woman pounded corn[80] and put the bran in a plate, and went to the stream to wash the husked grain. The man took the bran and put it in his hat (the new _fez_), and took water, and put it in, and stirred, and ate. The woman then came to the door, and he took the hat and covered his head to hide the bran-porridge; lest his wife should see him. “There, I said I did not eat bran-porridge; my wife will laugh at me.” His wife said, “What is that on your head, that you are hiding?” He said, “Medicine that I prepared—for the journey”.

As the bran-porridge trickled down, he said, “Oh, my wife, hunger, hunger. Some hunger eats weeds of the field, some hunger eats what is bad. After hoeing for food, we shall eat what is nice at a feast. My wife, do not tell people that I was seen with bran-porridge on my head. I will pay you with goods.” So he paid her with goods. The woman brewed beer, and people collected, and danced and feasted.

56. DISOBEDIENCE.

A man and his wife went to the garden to hoe. The wife saw a nang’kabai (a bird), and told her husband. He shot it and gave the children to cook. As they were cooking the bird sang a song, “Roast me well, roast me well!” They took it to their father, and it sang again, “Roast me well, te, le; te, le, roast me well!” He said, “It is nothing, I will eat it”. Then he called his wife and said, “Now, that food is cooked, divide it for me. I will eat it.” So his wife divided it for him and he ate it to his porridge.[81]

Next morning they went to the field and said to their children, “You must wait to cook the porridge for breakfast to which the party will return at mid-day. See that you don’t eat of that bird.” They said, “We understand, we will not eat it”.

After that the daughter cooked porridge, and brought some[82] and gave her brother fowl for a relish. Then her brother refused the fowl and said, “I will eat of the bird to my porridge”. As he ate he began to grow the horns of a rhinoceros, and a tail. His sister heard[82] a breaking of plates and cried, “Tembo, what are you doing?” Then he came out of the house and began to chase his sister. His sister began to sing, “Mother you are in the field, Tembo has become a rhinoceros. But your daughter is not a rhinoceros.” The woman said, “My husband, a person is coming and singing a song: perhaps it is our children”. But her husband struck her[83] and said, “You are lazy, you do not want to hoe”. The wife said, “No, I am not lazy,” and soon they heard it again. And they saw their daughter coming running from a rhinoceros. The father took his gun and killed the rhinoceros.[84] Such was the fate of the disobedient boy.[85]

FOOTNOTES

[1] After the subject of Civil Jurisdiction was re-adjusted by Commissioners sent out for the purpose, criminal cases were specially considered by a lay superintendent in the Mission, and the offenders were kept in slave-sticks by the headman of some of the Blantyre villages. Any headman performed this task with great zest when the offender was an alien, but when obliged to confine one of his own people (his ‘brothers’), he grumbled very much.

[2] One of the last cases where a flogging was proposed, took place in the following manner:—A drunk man threatened to make a martyr of one Englishman whom he attacked with an axe. After a struggle, however, he was caught and laid past for a flogging. When told of the matter I was very anxious that the poor fellow should be spared this. He was a native doctor—a man of some standing among his tribe. Fortunately the white man that had been assaulted was one who could make allowance for a native. Next night I got hold of an interpreter and went to reason with the prisoner, pointing out that he had forgotten himself, and was most likely to feel the consequences. I explained that I was sorry for him, but that I could do nothing to help him, and that the only way of escaping was to tell the injured party that he was sorry for what had happened. I don’t know how he worded his apology, but next morning he was described as having been let off because he was so very penitent!

[3] Often spelt Zambesi. Where my spelling of African names differs from what is sometimes seen in English books, I had a reason. My attention was directed to the subject in the following manner:—One day I spent a long time in setting down the derivations of several African names. To my great annoyance, I felt that in many cases I was busying myself about words which no African native _had ever heard_! Hence, although sometimes complying with use and wont, I have often given what I think the more correct spelling. The Portuguese are more fortunate in spelling native names than English writers are. Only when a man like Luther could spell his own name in four different ways (Luther, Ludher, Lutter, Lother), people that are not etymologists or phonographers, may excuse some laxity in writing African words.

[4] (I-am) the-driver-away-of-the-pigs: but owing to the abridged notation the gentleman would go down on the roll-book as Mr. Pigs.

[5] The translation “Deliver as from the Evil One,” adopted in the Revised Version, is not so easily understood by persons that hear the prayer for the first time. But (as will be seen from the 3rd and 4th chapters of Vol. I., as well as from the Native Tales in the Appendix) the supernatural world of the African is by no means tenantless. Moreover, the negro is very eager to hear all that the European has to say on this subject. When a Missionary rendered the well-known words addressed to Nathanael, “Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God _crawling up_ and _crawling down_ upon the Son of Man,” he was soon asked to explain what he meant by “angels”! The moment the native understood they were spirits, he was able to improve the translation which had led him to place them in a different category.

[6] Our stockades were formed of growing trees.

[7] This sentence of mine was published in the Church Missionary Record, but the words, _and truly_, were inadvertently omitted. They were, however, in the original letter.

[8] Since my return to England, I was told in a letter from a native that this man still figures as a kidnapper, and that he recently lighted a great fire and threw some children into it, who were reduced to ashes.

[9] Although many native females saw the disturbance, they did not come to speak (§ 68).

[10] Page 218.

[11] Even one of the Deputation publicly declared that blame was due not “on account of wrong doing, but of want of action”. Now the one object that I had aimed at, was to act towards the Committee’s colony at Blantyre exactly as clergymen act towards colonies in all parts of the world, while I understood that the Lay Missionaries were to go on with the colonial work in the same way as they had been doing before my arrival. According to the minute of appointment, I had been sent out as “Clerical Head of the Mission,” and I had always given the Committee credit for knowing the laws of the Church too well to make me anything else. But now it appeared that we had been playing at cross purposes: for the Directors began to insist that “Clerical Head of the _Mission_” really meant “Civil Governor of the _Colony_”.

[12] On one occasion there was a great conflagration at Zomba, in which a house was burned down. Although the danger was great a certain native was not afraid to mount on the roof. He then called for water, but the only method available was to hand up some in an old tea-kettle, which his companions did. He might as well have hoped to extinguish the flames by throwing on a pinch of snuff. Still he persevered, but, which was more ridiculous, when the fire came nearer, the man became very thirsty, and had to drink a large percentage of the water with which he expected to extinguish the flames!

[13] The Anyasa name for a hippopotamus is _mvu_, the Yao name is _ndomondo_. The first word is undoubtedly taken from the snorting of the animal, while the second word may be taken from the splash with which the animal returns to the river after feeding on the bank.

[14] On such a journey as ours the traveller may make every day so much of a Sabbath or so little of a Sabbath (as the case may be) that he loses his reckoning. It is exceedingly easy for a person to do this, and having nothing to refer to he becomes quite helpless. We were told that on one occasion, on Lake Nyassa, a party of Missionaries mistook their days, and while “one day in seven” was diligently observed by them, “the first day of the week” was profaned!

[15] The longer one labours in Africa the more does he feel what a call there is in that land for Missionary effort. Christian agency could effect a great deal more if better directed. Here we have a land teeming with population. Each Missionary has a field for himself alone, perhaps as extensive as Great Britain which has its thousands of Clergy. In a quiet rural parish of Scotland we may have the United Presbyterian, the Free Church, and the Church of Scotland (all three Presbyterian.) This gives us three clergymen doing a work which one clergyman could easily accomplish. In the interests of Christ’s Kingdom this is surely a pernicious arrangement which is all the worse if the various Christian bodies instead of fighting with Home Heathenism fight with each other. What a great deal might be done “to make disciples of all nations” by employing existing agents! But it is said “Clergymen are unwilling to go to heathen lands”. This raises the question, ‘What encouragement have they to become Missionaries?’ The Church of England, for instance, has no difficulty in finding Clergymen who will become Bishops. A great deal depends upon the inducements that are held out, and we may say so without implying that the English Bishop is more mercenary or less self-denying than a city Missionary.

[16] Since the above was written we have received the sad news that this devoted servant of God has been called away. His death will be a great loss not only to his own Mission, but to the whole cause of African Missions. While at Blantyre we occasionally corresponded with him, and it was with interest and sympathy that he looked upon our work in the region once occupied by one of his predecessors. Indeed he had himself laboured for a short time as far inland as Morumbala. His contributions to the study of African languages are of the greatest value.

[17] Clapping the hands is a form of salutation. His elder brother whom he succeeded is now his god.

[18] Besides regarding the strength of armies, the natives look greatly to the cleverness of those that possess tempting property, believing, as they do, that a clever man is sure to have a powerful war-medicine.

[19] Here we may trace some hazy idea about the use of spectacles.

[20] We translate the sorcerer’s name.

[21] Simwe was the name of the chief.

[22] The fruit of a native tree. The creation of these men reminds us of the story of Cadmus, while a disappearance of this kind is common in other native tales; sometimes the people go away because “called by their birth names” (§ 52).

[23] Parenthetical remark made by the narrator.

[24] This character is always given to the hyena (litunu), which corresponds to the wolf in European tales.

[25] Nothing is commoner than to see natives carrying porridge in leaves.

[26] The original is Rabbit or Hare.

[27] This would be the certain result of shouting “war”.

[28] Monkeys are an article of food.

[29] A native version of “Once upon a time there lived a man”.

[30] A similar story is found in Bishop Callaway’s Zulu collection. The name of the hero there is Uthlakanyana.

[31] I translated this from Chinyasa, I had also several Yao versions of the tale, one of which says that the occasion of the bargain was that they had knocked their hoes together.

[32] The word for “roast” in Chiyao is Kalanga, hence the name Kalikalanje.

[33] Or field.

[34] It is quite common to see this mode of wearing the hair. As the natives wear so little clothing, it is difficult to describe a person so as to make identification easy.

[35] Perhaps preparatory to hoeing.

[36] In some of the largest native pumpkins a rabbit might be concealed.

[37] This story comes from a native of Quilimane, and resembles a European tale found in Grimm’s Collection.

[38] The Anyasa have the same word for bees as for honey. If we were to translate the above so as to make this evident, we should have “much honey of life,” or, “much living honey”. The Yao have two different words.

[39] Many tales speak of fatal results from bees. The unclothed native we might think, would be peculiarly helpless among them. Still, by using fire, he soon secures the honey.

[40] Nyama applies to the animal when alive, as well as to the flesh.

[41] In this way it is usual for villagers on the river banks to challenge canoes. It would be very unusual for the crews to pass on without heeding the call, for then the villagers might fire on them. It is no excuse to speak of “being in a hurry” in this land. The same rule applies in the case of strangers passing a village. Europeans, however, are understood to be always in great haste, and are seldom interrupted.

[42] The Hottentots have tales whose main feature is an incident like this.

[43] A man stays at his wife’s village.

[44] A present of calico is usual at betrothals.

[45] The ordinary dress does not distinguish a male from a female, bangles would.

[46] All these arrangements are concessions that the hare obtains _before_ the “marriage.”

[47] A cleverness like this is much prized and practised by the natives.

[48] The man is allowed his meat and the compensation besides. But for the promise made by the thief, his life would not have been spared. All these fables are in exact accordance with native customs.

[49] This is one way in which the natives may “over-draw their bills”. The promise does not seem in the least strange to those acquainted with the slave system.

[50] The elder brother is the head of the family or small clan (97).

[51] A general that led an army against the Scotch Highlanders was said to have committed a great mistake in putting his baggage behind his army, and not in front. If the goods had been in front, they would have absorbed all his enemy’s attention! The appearance of eatables will divert the mind of a native king amidst the most pressing civil cases.

[52] Anything sweet is greatly liked. We often used to give the natives sweetmeats. At first they were afraid to taste them. After a time, however, their desire for these things became insatiable.

[53] We should rather speak of putting on the handle (see H).

[54] Simple humour like this is greatly enjoyed by the natives. I suppose their hares (sungula) like English ones, are most easily killed by a stroke on the head.

[55] The village according to native law (97), would belong to their father-in-law, and neither they nor their wives could succeed him. The father-in-law even if he had no younger brothers, would be succeeded by the children of his eldest sister.

[56] People always march in Indian or rather in African file. The paths do not admit of two going abreast. Even after a wide road is made, the natives still march behind each other (one by one), in a long line.

[57] Natives often act thus, knowing perhaps that the value of their word is very little.

[58] Abridged. In the native tales we always have repetitions like what are found in Homer’s Iliad and such ancient books.

[59] In these genderless languages, we have for father-in-law and mother-in-law the same word in the original. But for native glosses, I should have been inclined to translate ‘father-in-law’ all through.

[60] “Tie” is always used for “build”. Their houses are “tied” together. Even in the houses built for the mission there was not a single iron nail.

[61] Same word.

[62] Private parties often settle differences thus. Two women will roll in the mud biting and scratching each other like furies. They don’t tear each other’s hair, their hair being so short; but their comparative nudity makes biting convenient.

[63] A good specimen of native divorce.

[64] This tale is exceedingly common—in various versions.

[65] Hoeing is one method of self-preservation, when one is caught by a bush fire. These fires are exceedingly dangerous. The smoke accompanying them is quite blinding. On one occasion I was rescued by natives from considerable danger.

[66] The usual good-bye.

[67] A common experience in these unsettled lands.

[68] The natives sleep through this treatment. The European awakes with a scream!

[69] Natives are fond of working out a long series of this kind.

[70] A great element in native rejoicings. It is the negro’s bread.

[71] The word here includes heart, lungs, liver, stomach, entrails—all the inner part of the animal. The natives eat these first, and may preserve the rest of the meat.

[72] Many Zulu stories have incidents like the above. In another version I was told that the instrument used by the old man was his teeth.

[73] The great number of birds have their names formed from their notes, the root being often doubled as ngwale-gwale.

[74] A tale which is very common under various form. Such tales are meant to impress the mind of the young African girl with the danger of not taking the husband that she has been bound to. They are used in connection with the mysteries, and have built up a public opinion which is too strong for any poor girl to resist. Many young girls applied at the mission to be freed from this kind of bondage.

[75] Used for anointing (ornamenting) the person.

[76] This is a native proverb which applies to people that are not moved by the _prospect_ of danger.

[77] Communicated by Mr. Buchanan.

[78] In the rainy season, streams that one can easily leap over, become in a few hours quite impassible.

[79] There being no windows it is very dark inside native huts.

[80] Natives do not keep food or even flour in readiness, and the slow cooking is a great trial to a hungry man.

[81] Their porridge like our bread is seldom eaten alone—but milk is not used to it.

[82] The brother and sister, though sharing their food with each other, eat apart.

[83] When a man goes to hoe, one of his reasons is that he may be on the spot to keep his wives from trifling!

[84] The natives have two names for a rhinoceros according to the number of its horns. Similarly they have one word for a black cat and quite a different word for a red cat. If we try to derive the names of all animals, &c., from sounds produced by them or associated with them we meet a difficulty here. The natives have about twenty different names for _beads_ according as they are _black_, _blue_, &c., &c. The scarcity of adjectives makes this necessary to some extent.

[85] Such stories, stupid as they seem, are valued by the guardians of children and impress the infant mind with lessons of obedience.