Nothing, however, our fracas with Mpende excepted, could be more peaceful than our passage through this tract of country in 1856.We then had nothing to excite the cupidity of the people, and the men maintained themselves, either by selling elephant's meat, or by exhibiting feats of foreign dancing.Most of the people were very generous and friendly; but the Banyai, nearer to Tette than this, stopped our march with a threatening war-dance.One of our party, terrified at this, ran away, as we thought, insane, and could not, after a painful search of three days, be found.The Banyai, evidently touched by our distress, allowed us to proceed.Through a man we left on an island a little below Mpende's, we subsequently learned that poor Monaheng had fled thither, and had been murdered by the headman for no reason except that he was defenceless.This headman had since become odious to his countrymen, and had been put to death by them.
On the 23rd of June we entered Pangola's principal village, which is upwards of a mile from the river.The ruins of a mud wall showed that a rude attempt had been made to imitate the Portuguese style of building.We established ourselves under a stately wild fig-tree, round whose trunk witchcraft medicine had been tied, to protect from thieves the honey of the wild bees, which had their hive in one of the limbs.This is a common device.The charm, or the medicine, is purchased of the dice doctors, and consists of a strip of palm-leaf smeared with something, and adorned with a few bits of grass, wood, or roots.It is tied round the tree, and is believed to have the power of inflicting disease and death on the thief who climbs over it.Superstition is thus not without its uses in certain states of society; it prevents many crimes and misdemeanours, which would occur but for the salutary fear that it produces.
Pangola arrived, tipsy and talkative.--"We are friends, we are great friends; I have brought you a basket of green maize--here it is!"We thanked him, and handed him two fathoms of cotton cloth, four times the market-value of his present.No, he would not take so small a present; he wanted a double-barrelled rifle--one of Dixon's best.
"We are friends, you know; we are all friends together."But although we were willing to admit that, we could not give him our best rifle, so he went off in high dudgeon.Early next morning, as we were commencing Divine service, Pangola returned, sober.We explained to him that we wished to worship God, and invited him to remain; he seemed frightened, and retired:but after service he again importuned us for the rifle.It was of no use telling him that we had a long journey before us, and needed it to kill game for ourselves.--"He too must obtain meat for himself and people, for they sometimes suffered from hunger."He then got sulky, and his people refused to sell food except at extravagant prices.Knowing that we had nothing to eat, they felt sure of starving us into compliance.
But two of our young men, having gone off at sunrise, shot a fine water-buck, and down came the provision market to the lower figure;
They even became eager to sell, but our men were angry with them for trying compulsion, and would not buy.Black greed had outwitted itself, as happens often with white cupidity; and not only here did the traits of Africans remind us of Anglo-Saxons elsewhere:the notoriously ready world-wide disposition to take an unfair advantage of a man's necessities shows that the same mean motives are pretty widely diffused among all races.It may not be granted that the same blood flows in all veins, or that all have descended from the same stock; but the traveller has no doubt that, practically, the white rogue and black are men and brothers.
Pangola is the child or vassal of Mpende.Sandia and Mpende are the only independent chiefs from Kebrabasa to Zumbo, and belong to the tribe Manganja.The country north of the mountains here in sight from the Zambesi is called Senga, and its inhabitants Asenga, or Basenga, but all appear to be of the same family as the rest of the Manganja and Maravi.Formerly all the Manganja were united under the government of their great chief, Undi, whose empire extended from Lake Shirwa to the River Loangwa; but after Undi's death it fell to pieces, and a large portion of it on the Zambesi was absorbed by their powerful southern neighbours the Banyai.This has been the inevitable fate of every African empire from time immemorial.Achief of more than ordinary ability arises and, subduing all his less powerful neighbours, founds a kingdom, which he governs more or less wisely till he dies.His successor not having the talents of the conqueror cannot retain the dominion, and some of the abler under.
