This state of matters afforded us but a poor prospect of finding more provisions in that direction than we could with great difficulty and at enormous prices obtain here.But neither want of food, dysentery, nor slave wars would have prevented our working our way round the Lake in some other direction, had we had time; but we had received orders from the Foreign Office to take the "Pioneer" down to the sea in the previous April.The salaries of all the men in her were positively "in any case to cease by the 31st of December."
We were said to be only ten days' distant from Lake Bemba.We might speculate on a late rise of the river.A month or six weeks would secure a geographical feat, but the rains were near.We had been warned by different people that the rains were close at hand, and that we should then be bogged and unable to travel.The flood in the river might be an early one, or so small in volume as to give but one chance of the "Pioneer" descending to the ocean.The Makololo too were becoming dispirited by sickness and want of food, and were naturally anxious to be back to their fields in time for sowing.But in addition to all this and more, it was felt that it would not be dealing honestly with the Government, were we, for the sake of a little eclat, to risk the detention of the "Pioneer" up the river during another year; so we decided to return; and though we had afterwards the mortification to find that we were detained two full months at the ship waiting for the flood which we expected immediately after our arrival there, the chagrin was lessened by a consciousness of having acted in a fair, honest, above-board manner throughout.
On the night of the 29th of September a thief came to the sleeping-place of our men and stole a leg of a goat.On complaining to the deputy headman, he said that the thief had fled, but would be caught.
He suggested a fine, and offered a fowl and her eggs; but wishing that the thief alone should be punished, it was advised that HE
Should be found and fined.The Makololo thought it best to take the fowl as a means of making the punishment certain.After settling this matter on the last day of September, we commenced our return journey.We had just the same time to go back to the ship, that we had spent in coming to this point, and there is not much to interest one in marching over the same ground a second time.
While on our journey north-west, a cheery old woman, who had once been beautiful, but whose white hair now contrasted strongly with her dark complexion, was working briskly in her garden as we passed.She seemed to enjoy a hale, hearty old age.She saluted us with what elsewhere would be called a good address; and, evidently conscious that she deserved the epithet, "dark but comely," answered each of us with a frank "Yes, my child."Another motherly-looking woman, sitting by a well, began the conversation by "You are going to visit Muazi, and you have come from afar, have you not?"But in general women never speak to strangers unless spoken to, so anything said by them attracts attention.Muazi once presented us with a basket of corn.On hinting that we had no wife to grind our corn, his buxom spouse struck in with roguish glee, and said, "I will grind it for you; and leave Muazi, to accompany and cook for you in the land of the setting sun."As a rule the women are modest and retiring in their demeanour, and, without being oppressed with toil, show a great deal of industry.The crops need about eight months' attention.
Then when the harvest is home, much labour is required to convert it into food as porridge, or beer.The corn is pounded in a large wooden mortar, like the ancient Egyptian one, with a pestle six feet long and about four inches thick.The pounding is performed by two or even three women at one mortar.Each, before delivering a blow with her pestle, gives an upward jerk of the body, so as to put strength into the stroke, and they keep exact time, so that two pestles are never in the mortar at the same moment.The measured thud, thud, thud, and the women standing at their vigorous work, are associations inseparable from a prosperous African village.By the operation of pounding, with the aid of a little water, the hard outside scale or husk of the grain is removed, and the corn is made fit for the millstone.The meal irritates the stomach unless cleared from the husk; without considerable energy in the operator, the husk sticks fast to the corn.Solomon thought that still more vigour than is required to separate the hard husk or bran from wheat would fail to separate "a fool from his folly.""Though thou shouldst bray a fool in a mortar among wheat with a pestle, YET will not his foolishness depart from him."The rainbow, in some parts, is called the "pestle of the Barimo," or gods.Boys and girls, by constant practice with the pestle, are able to plant stakes in the ground by a somewhat similar action, in erecting a hut, so deftly that they never miss the first hole made.
Let any one try by repeatedly jobbing a pole with all his force to make a deep hole in the ground, and he will understand how difficult it is always to strike it into the same spot.
As we were sleeping one night outside a hut, but near enough to hear what was going on within, an anxious mother began to grind her corn about two o'clock in the morning."Ma," inquired a little girl, "why grind in the dark?"Mamma advised sleep, and administered material for a sweet dream to her darling, by saying, "I grind meal to buy a cloth from the strangers, which will make you look a little lady."
An observer of these primitive races is struck continually with such little trivial touches of genuine human nature.
