^1 mi ^H mm 11^^ ■ iB^^^^^^^^^^^^^^B^tu^^M. r ;: ^ BERKELEY LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF S^CAUFORNIA (Hreat Cratjellerg anti Cxjplorers! SOUTH AFRICA GRE^r TRAVELLERS AND EXPLORERS BY SIR HARRY JOHNSTON, G.C.M.G., K.C.B. CANADA Illustrated by E. Wallcousins WEST AFRICA Illustrated by the Author INDIA Illustrated by E, Wallcousins AUSTRALASIA Illustrated by Alec Ball TROPICAL AMERICA Illustrated by Charles M. Sheldon SOUTH AFRICA Illustrated by Wal Paget THE GRESHAM PUBLISHING COMPANY THE BOERS OF THE PARTY BOLDLY TACKLED A LION AND LIONESS" ^ttat Cratjellersi antr Cxplorersi PIONEERS IN SOUTH AFRICA BY SIR HARRY JOHNSTON G.C.M.G., K.C.B. WITH EIGHT PLATES IN COLOURS BY WAL PAGET Wi)t (grefifjam ^ubliafjins Companp 34 SOUTHAMPTON STREET, STRAND, LONDON DT75/ J69 PREFACE I HAVE been asked to write a series of works which should deal with ^'real adventures", in parts of the world either wild and uncontrolled by any civilized government, or at any rate regions full of dangers, of wonderful discoveries; in which the daring and heroism of white men (and sometimes of white women) stood out clearly against backgrounds of unfamiliar landscapes, peopled with strange nations, savage tribes, dangerous beasts, or wonderful birds. These books would again and again illustrate the first coming of the white race into regions inhabited by people of a different type, with brown, black, or yellow skins; how the European was received, and how he treated these races of the soil which gradu- ally came under his rule owing to his superior knowledge, weapons, wealth, or powers of per- suasion. The books were to tell the plain truth, even if here and there they showed the white man to have behaved badly, or if they revealed the fact that the American Indian, the Negro, the Malay, the black Australian was sometimes cruel and treacherous. A request thus framed was almost equivalent V 321 VI Preface to asking me to write stories of those pioneers who founded the British Empire; in any case, the first volumes of this series do relate the adventures of those who created the greater part of the British Dominions beyond the Seas, by their perilous ex- plorations of unknown lands and waters. In many instances the travellers were all unconscious of their destinies, of the results which would arise from their actions. In some cases they would have bitterly railed at Fate had they known that the result of their splendid efforts was to be the en- largement of an empire under the British flag. Perhaps if they could know by now that we are striving under that flag to be just and generous to all types of men, and not to use our empire solely for the benefit of English-speaking men and women, the French who founded the Canadian nation, the Germans and Dutch who helped to create British Africa, Malaysia, and Australia, the Spaniards who preceded us in the West Indies, and the Portuguese in West, Central, and East Africa, in Newfoundland and Ceylon, might — if they have any consciousness or care for things in this world — be not so sorry after all that we are reaping where they sowed. It is (as you will see) impossible to tell the tale of these early days in the British Dominions beyond the Seas, without describing here and there the adventures of men of enterprise and daring who were not of our own nationality. The majority, nevertheless, were of British stock; that is to say, they were English, Welsh, Scots, Irish, perhaps here and there a Channel Islander and a Manxman; Preface Vll or Nova Scotians, Canadians, and New Englanders. The bulk of them were good fellows, a few were saints, a few were ruffians with redeeming features. Sometimes they were common men who blundered into great discoveries which will for ever preserve their names from perishing; occasionally they were men of Fate, predestined, one might say, to change the history of the world by their revelations of new peoples, new lands, new rivers, new lakes, snow mountains, and gold mines. Here and there is a martyr like Marquette, or Livingstone, or Gordon, dying for the cause of a race not his own. And others again are mere boys, whose adventures come to them because they are adventurous, and whose feats of arms, escapes, perils, and successes are quite as wonderful as those attributed to the juvenile heroes of Marryat, Stevenson, and the author of The Swiss Family Robinson, I have tried, in describing these adventures, to give my readers some idea of the scenery, animals, and vegetation of the new lands through which these pioneers passed on their great and small purposes; as well as of the people, native to the soil, with whom they came in contact. And in treating of these subjects I have thought it best to give the scientific names of the plant or animal which was of importance in my story, so that any of my readers who were really interested in natural history could at once ascertain for themselves the exact type alluded to, and, if they wished, look it up in a museum, a garden, or a natural history book. I hope this attempt at scientific accuracy will not vni Preface frighten away readers young and old; and, if you can have patience with the author, you will, by reading this series of books on the great pioneers of British West Africa, Canada, Malaysia, West Indies, South Africa, and Australasia, get a clear idea of how the British Colonial Empire came to be founded. You will find that I have often tried to tell the story in the words of the pioneers, but in these quotations I have adopted the modern spelling, not only in my transcript of the English original or translation, but also in the place and tribal names, so as not to puzzle or delay the reader. Otherwise, if you were to look out some of the geographical names of the old writers, you might not be able to recognize them on the modern atlas. The pronunciation of this modern geographical spelling is very simple and clear: the vowels are pronounced a = ah, e = eh, 2: = ee, ^ = o, ^ = oh, ^=aw, ^ = u in * hurt ', and u — 00, as in Ger- man, Italian, or most other European languages; and the consonants as in English. H. H. JOHNSTON. CONTENTS Chap. Page I. South Africa as the White Man first saw it - - 15 II. Prehistoric South Africa 35 III. The Portuguese reveal Southern Africa - - . 53 IV. The Portuguese in South Central Africa - - 88 V. The Explorations of the Dutch 116 VI. Paterson's Journeys - -134 VII. Missionary Pioneers 160 VIII. Moffat and Bechuanaland 177 IX. MOSILIKATSI AND THE BOERS 204 X. Livingstone and Oswell 233 XI. Livingstone's Great Journeys 268 XII. The Explorers of South-west Africa - - - 297 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS COLOURED PLATES Page **The Boers of the party boldly tackled a Hon and lioness" Frontispiece 165 A South African Plain : Before the coming of the White Man - 32 The Portuguese and Hottentots -_.----6o Dutch Sailors pursuing Dodos - - - - - - - -118 Moffat and the Zulus 216 Mauch discovering the Ruins of Zimbabwe ----- 230 Livingstone and Oswell reach the Zambezi at Sesheke - - - 266 Livingstone and Stanley at Ujiji ------- 294 BLACK-AND-WHITE ILLUSTRATIONS Mountain Zebra and Quagga ---.----24 Cape Colony Bushman and Kalahari Bushmen - - - - 40 Ruins of the Great Mosque at Kilwa ------ 80 Hottentot and Zulu Kafirs - - - - - - - -152 The Orange River (Namakwaland), and the Dry Bed of a Once Powerful River in Namakwaland - - - - - -170 Basutoland and the Highest Mountain in South Africa - - - 224 A Water Hole in the Kalahari Desert: Selling Water Melons in the Kalahari Desert ---. 248 The Main Fall, Zambezi 286 Map of Central and South Africa - - - - - - -102 Maps of Africa, before Livingstone's Journeys, and by discovery or report after Livingstone's last researches were published, 1874 290 BIBLIOGRAPHY The works on South African history by G. McCall Theal, especiall)'- his Records of South-Eastern Africa, mainly the reproduction and translation of Portuguese documents; also The Beginnings of South African History. The Lands of the Cazembe: Lacerda's journey to Cazembe in 1798, translated and annotated by Captain R. F. Burton, F.R.G.S. (Deals also with the journey of the Pombeiros and of Monteiro and Gammito.) London. John Murray. 1873. Travels in Southern Africa in the years 1803, -4, -5, -6. By Henry Lichtenstein. 2 Vols. London. 1815. Narrative of a Voyage of Observation among the Colonies of Western Africa, KafFir-Land, &c., in 1835. By James Edward Alexander. 2 Vols. London. 1837. Missionary Labours and Scenes in Southern Africa. By Robert Moffat. London. 1842. A History of Christian Missions in South Africa. By J. Du Plessis, B.A., B.D. London. Longmans, Green, & Co. 1911. The works of David Livingstone (Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa, Narrative of an Expedition to the Zambezi and its Tributaries, and Last Journals). Travels in the Interior of South Africa. By James Chapman, F.R.G.S. 2 Vols. London. 1868. John Mackenzie, South African Missionary and Statesman. By W. Douglas Mackenzie. London. Hodder and Stoughton. 1902. William Cotton Oswell, Hunter and Explorer. By W. Edward Oswell. 2 Vols. London. William Heinemann. 1900. Explorations In South-West Africa. By Thomas Baines, F.R.G.S. London. 1864. 18 14 Bibliography The works of Charles John Andersson. (Lake Ngami, Notes of Travel In South Africa, and the Okavango River.) A History of Geographical Discovery in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. By Edward Heawood, M.A. Cambridge. 1912. A History and Description of the British Empire in Africa. By Sir Harry Johnston. London (National Society). 1910. Livingstone and the Exploration of Central Africa. By Sir H. H. Johnston. London. George Phillip. 1891. British Central Africa. By Sir H. H. Johnston. London. 1904. A History of the Colonization of Africa by Alien Races. By Sir H. H. Johnston. Cambridge. 1913. Historical Geography of the British Colonies. Vol. IV. (History of South and East Africa.) By Sir Charles Lucas. Oxford. 1897. The Garden Colony: The Story of Natal and its Neighbours. By Robert Russell. London. J. M. Dent. 1903. Besides other books mentioned specially in the text. PIONEERS IN SOUTH AFRICA CHAPTER I South Africa as the White Man first saw it What was South Africa like in appearance, if this vast country, from the tenth to the thirty-fifth degree of S. lati- tude, could have been seen by an intelligent white man at the close of the fifteenth century? Its surface features as regards mountain, river, plain, swamp, and desert were no doubt very much what they are to-day, except that there must have been a little less desert and far more forest, a little more swamp and somewhat fuller rivers than can be seen now; for apparently the rainfall in the more southern regions has been slightly diminishing. The interior of this great projection of the continent is for the most part a lofty plateau with an average eleva- tion of 4000 feet south of the Zambezi basin, and 300c feet in Zambezia, Nyasaland, and Southern Congoland. This elevated tableland has been carved into lake depres- sions, deep river courses, stony plains, table-top moun- tains, gaunt peaks and crags, by the action of earth- quakes, land-slides, wind and water through long ages. The mountain ranges of Cape Colony rise to consider- 16 i6 Pioneers in South Africa able elevations, as much, here and there, as 8000 feet. Those of Basutoland are the highest of all in South Africa, their culminating point in altitude being about 11,000 feet. There are high mountains between the Transvaal and Natal, and along the eastern borders of the Transvaal. But although South Africa is almost Alpine in aspect in the south, and between the basins of its two great rivers, the Limpopo and the Orange; and further rises to altitudes of 8000 feet in parts of Southern Rhodesia, it smooths down into flat or undulating plains in the southern basin of the Zambezi, plains which undoubtedly once were covered by vast sheets of shallow water, the last vestiges of which are little Lake Ngami and the salt lakes or pans of the Makarikari. In South-west Africa — Damara- land — the mountains once more rise to altitudes of 8000 feet in places, but the level sinks again in the vicinity of the Kunene and towards the Upper Zambezi, to rise once more into lofty tablelands of 5000 feet above sea level and mountains of over 8000 feet, in southern and central An- gola. All along the Zambezi-Congo water-parting the land is from 4000 to 6000 feet in altitude, as also on the Muchinga Mountains of north-east Rhodesia and the Nyasa-Tanganyika plateau; while to the north and south of the Nyasa trough the mountains exceed 10,000 feet or nearly attain to that elevation. ^ In the south-west of the Mozambique province, near the borders of southern Nyasa- land, there are ranges of precipitous, lofty, little-known mountains (such as the Namuli peaks) reaching to more than 8000 feet in height, and very majestic in appearance. The western half of southernmost Africa is a country of poor rainfall, and consequently much of it is a desert as 1 Mount Rungwe, to the north of Lake Nyasa, is about lo.ioo feet, and Mlanje, west of the lower Shire River (south-east Nyasaland), is 9680 feet. (0 587) As the White Man first saw it 17 hopeless as parts of the Sahara. The eastern half of this sub-continent, however, is provided with a more or less abundant rainfall, which imparts a tropical character to the vegetation, except where the land rises into high plateaus or lofty mountains. Natal, for example, is for the most part quite a tropical country in appearance, though it lies at a considerable distance beyond the Southern Tropic. The conditions of Cape Colony as regards rainfall and vegetation are by no means uniform. The northern parts of this region are either desert or at any rate very arid in appearance. The eastern and southernmost portions have a good rainfall, and are even well forested, or would have seemed so 400 years ago. The region just round about Cape Town itself is altogether peculiar. It has a heavy rainfall which is well distributed throughout the year, a perfect climate, somewhat like that of Madeira, and an exceedingly rich vegetation, which is quite unlike that of the rest of Africa, though a few ex- amples of the Cape flora may be seen on the tops of the highest mountains in Equatorial Africa. The true Cape-of-Good-Hope flora in its affinities is more related to that of Australia and temperate South America than to the flora of Tropical Africa. It is particu- larly rich in heaths, in geraniums and pelargoniums,^ oxalises, everlasting-flowers, sunflowers, daisies, ground orchids (scarlet, blue, orange, sulphur-yellow, and white in the colour of their flowers), white-spathed arums {Richardia)^ amaryllids and crinums and iris-like plants, ixias, gladioli (of great and varied beauty of colouring), ** red-hot pokers" {Kniphofia)^ blue Agapanthus lilies. iThe scarlet geranium of our greenhouses originally came from the Cape of Good Hope, where it grows wild in profusion on the hills near the sea. It is really a Pelargonium, a genus nearly allied to the geraniums. (0 587) 2 i8 Pioneers in South Africa aloes with waxy blossoms of orange or scarlet, and gor- geous Strelitzias — a distant relation of the banana — with spikes of flowers brilliant in orange-and-blue, like a macaw. Among the more remarkable-looking trees and shrubs are numerous species of the Protea family, like those which characterize so much of the Australian scenery. One of the most noteworthy among the Cape Proteas is Leucaden- dron argenteuniy the celebrated ** silver leaf", the beauty of which is bringing it perilously near extinction. A very tall Protea (P. grandiflora) is known as the Wagon tree, because its hard, tough, red wood is used for the construc- tion of the wheels and other parts of wagons which have to bear the most strain. The most noteworthy native timber trees of southern Cape Colony are the nearly extinct *^ Cedars" of the high mountains {Widdringtonia cupres- sotdes — really a species of juniper), the tall Podocarpus yews (known locally as yellow woods), the various kinds of wild olive (** Black Iron wood ", &c.), the Calodendrons with magnificent clusters of flowers like those of a horse- chestnut, the laurel-like Stinkwood {Oreodaphne\ the Sneezewood (Pteroxylon)^ the Kafir **plum" (Harpophyl- lum)y the Cape Willow (Saltx)y the Cape Ilex, the Red- wood {Ochna)y the White Iron wood {Toddalid)^ the Cape Teak (Strychnos atherstonei), the White Milkwood (Sider- oxylon — allied to the Argan tree of Morocco), the Red Milk- wood {Mimusops) and the Natal Mahogany {Kiggelaria). The undergrowth of the forests in south Cape Colony — there being no forests in the centre or north — includes handsome tree-ferns and bamboos. These gradually re- treat from the lowlands to the mountains as one travels east and north from the southern coastlands of Cape Colony, until in the equatorial regions tree-ferns and bamboos can only be found above 7000 feet altitude. As the White Man first saw it 19 Over a great deal of inner South Africa, even 400 years ago, a European traveller would not have observed much dense forest on the mountains or plateaus. Trees in masses would have been confined to the river courses, or to valleys and areas of moist land where water stagnated or was shut in by mountains. The principal type of tree, besides the cactus-like Euphorbias and an occasional wild fig, would have been the Kameeldorn or ** Giraffe-thorn " tree — a tall Acacia {A. giraffce). On the dry plains, where it was not actual stony or sandy desert, the bushes of the ugly, stunted Acacia horrida with its huge white thorns were only too abundant. For the greater part of the year these bushes and thickets would be bare of leaves and glistening with their two-inch-long thorns. But still more terrible for the traveller in a hurry, or the native pursuing or flying from a wild beast, would be the *^ wait-a-bit 'thorn bush " — Acacia detinens — as it was named by the explorer Burchell in the early nineteenth century. The spines of this bush are not straight daggers or needles, but craftily arranged hooks curved and sheathed like the ex- tended claws of a tiger cat. In the arid regions of western South Africa the plants most frequently seen would be mesembryanthemums of the order Ficoidea^ which is a group distantly related to the Cacti of America, and resembling them very markedly in their bright-coloured, many-petalled flowers, and their usually grotesque appearance, being either leafless — with squat swollen stems — or with the leaves developed into huge swollen knobs or strange spines. Some of these African Mesembryanthemums are like little groups of stone, clusters of pebbles of greyish green. Others are seemingly lichen-covered boulders, but consist really of a large colony of tiny plants growing very close together and 20 Pioneers in South Africa presenting a uniform roughened surface of flinty bracts or leaflets, the intervals between the stems and the roots being filled up by sand. Several species of geranium in south- west Africa resemble the Cacti and Mesembryanthema in developing leafless, bulging, thorny stems. These South African deserts also grow a variety of gourds and wild pumpkins — relations of the Cucumbers — with brightly painted fruit full of watery juice, which serves to quench the thirst of the Bushmen and of antelopes when water fails completely. To the north of the Orange River the sandy deserts near the coast are the home of one of the strangest plants that the world can show — the Welwitschia. This is a member of a small order of cone-bearing plants, distantly allied to the Conifers and Cycads. In the case of the Welwitschia, from out of a short and woody trunk, which expands into a saucer shape, there grow from the rim of the saucer the cone-like fruits and two huge leathery leaves which in course of time become split and frayed, parched and brown. A good many of the plants found in the South African deserts are allied to those of the Sahara. The hills of Natal and the Transvaal, and of south- east Africa generally, were in former times thickly covered with bamboos, and in many districts are so still. They also exhibit a variety of aloes, both low-growing plants and tall, tree-like forms. There were besides — or are still — the dracaenas or tree-lilies, and the immeasurably old-in- type Cycads^ (Encephalartos)^ like stunted tree-ferns with the cones of pine trees. In Bechuanaland, Rhodesia, and south-east Africa a commonly-seen tree is the huge, gouty Baobab, while the candelabra Euphorbia grows in isolated clumps, or forms thickets, and with other species 1 Relics of the earth's vegetation in the Primary and Secondary Epochs. As the White Man first saw it 21 of Euphorbia provides the natives with quickly-growing hedges, thorny and poisonous enough to keep out wild beasts or human trespassers. Na'vcd and desolate as much of South Africa appears during nine months of the year, in the three months of spring — October to January — many tracts present a lovely appearance with the ground vegetation in flower. In the ,moist parts there are vast numbers of white Arum ** lilies". Real lilies and amaryllids, ixias, and irises of great beauty, with flowers that are blue, red, yellow, pink, crimson, mauve, or white, bloom all over the veld and on the moun- tains. Open spaces of still water are studded with white and blue water-lilies. The Acacias blossom with honey- scented little puff-balls of white, yellow, or orange. The Kaffir-boom {Erythrina) is 2i(A2uL^ with clusters of scarlet- velvet bean flowers. There is an immense variety of ground orchid and gladiolus, of daisy and sunflower. Away to the north, beyond the fairly well -watered country of south-east Africa, or the bare plains of Bechu- analand and the sandy wastes of the Kalahari Desert, one enters the basin of the Zambezi, which really includes the lake and river system of Ngami, of the Makarikari salt pans and the great Okavango-Teoge River, though the two systems are only connected now by actual waterways in the floods of exceptional rainy seasons. But once the traveller has reached the basin of the Zambezi from the south, he has definitely quitted the desert country of sand or bare rock which prevails through so much of western Cape Colony and of German south-west Africa. Even in the days before Europeans saw this land, the southern Zambezi basin was more a grass country than a region of forests, though there were dense groves of tall trees at one time around Lake Ngami. For the most part the land 22 Pioneers in South Africa is covered with grass and park-like clumps of trees, pro- minent amongst which are the tall Borassus palms and the shorter, more bushy Hyphasne fan palms. There are many tall fig trees with multitudinous roots hanging from the branches, or parasitic fig trees that cling to the rocks or to the trunks of other trees. There is the Msuko or Mochuchoii (Uapaca)^ which bears quantities of a delicious fruit like a very sweet and honeyed medlar. There are Kigelias with huge, useless seed vessels hanging, like grey-green puddings or sausages, downwards from the branches. The wild Date Palm is also found in all moist localities, and extends its range down the east coast as far as Natal. That elephant among trees, the Baobab, is common ; Acacias of several kinds are numerous, and sometimes grow into tall trees, giving harbourage to the innumerable nests of weaver birds. A good deal of the upper Zambezi region is a vast swamp of white-plumed Phragmites reeds, Papyrus rush, and the characteristic marsh vegetation of Central Africa. The flora of Nyasa- land and of north-eastern Rhodesia is a very rich one, and the flower displays are of great beauty in the spring season of the year. The vegetation here is so varied that it would be impossible within the space at my disposal to give any adequate idea of it. But it is fully described by myself and others in a book on British Central Africa written some years ago.^ Along the east coast of Africa and the east side of Tanganyika the vegetation is very similar to that of Nyasaland. From the west side of Tan- ganyika one enters the forest region of West Africa, in which the Oil palm is abundant, and in which the forests are often of great density, and contain many species of rubber-producing trees and vines. Here, too, as in some 1 British Central Africa. Second edition. Methuen, As the White Man first saw it 23 parts of south-east Africa down to Natal, grow the mag- nificent Raphia palms, without a tall stem, but with superb fronds of immense length.^ The farther one proceeds north through the Congo basin the denser become the forests, until in some parts they are almost too crowded with vege- tation for the habitation of man, even for the specially- adapted Congo Pygmy. All this region of the vast cen- tral Congo basin between the watershed of Tanganyika on the east and the mountains and hills of Angola and the Crystal Mountains on the west was once a huge inland sea, which has only recently dried up into forest-covered land; and even now, at some seasons of the year, is as much under water as the similar basin of the Amazon, described in the volume of this series which treats of the Pioneers in Tropical America. But what would have struck almost any man with the European type of mind, who could have seen this land as it was some four hundred years — or even one hundred years — ago, before it was despoiled of its wonders, would have been its remarkable mammalian fauna. Then, nearly the whole of South Africa was ranged by herds of huge elephants, from the Congo forests and the Zambezi to the southernmost parts of Cape Colony and the bush round the Bay of Port Natal. Similarly, there were everywhere buffalo, both of the typical Cape species and of a variety less extreme in development of horns. ^ Long, long before 1 The Raphia does not rise from the ground with a tall, slender trunk, like the Date Palm or the Borassus, but sends up, from a relatively short stem near the ground, enormous fronds 20 to 30 feet in length, with huge, glossy red midribs and blue-green plume-like filaments. 2 The true Cape Buffalo was a big beast, black-haired, and with horns which in the bull developed enormous bosses over the forehead. These bosses grew together till they united in one wrinkled mass of solid horn. The more northern and north-eastern type of buffalo in South Africa has, however, the horns less abnormally developed, with a distinct cleft between the two bosses in front. The kind first described is now very nearly extinct owing to the attacks of sportsmen. 24 Pioneers in South Africa the white man came to South Africa, but yet when this part of the continent was already occupied by Man, there existed a buffalo similar to the species Bos antiquus^ also present at the same period in Algeria; which last has been depicted for us faithfully by prehistoric Man on the stone slabs of North Africa and the Sahara Desert. Bos anti- quus (or Bos baini^ as it is called in South Africa) had horns in the male which were occasionally 14 feet long, measured round the curve. There were also countless giraffes ranging over the more open, less mountainous parts of South Africa and Zambezia, though they were absent from southernmost Africa and Nyasaland. There were millions of ostriches, millions of sable antelopes, roan antelopes, blaubok,^ elands, kudus, bushbuck, white-tailed gnus, blue gnus, pallas, hartebeests, tsesebes, waterbuck, oryxes, spring- bok, and all the smaller types of African antelopes (except gazelles) ; zebras and quaggas,^ wart-hogs and bush pigs, ^The Blaubok {Hippotragus leucophceus) or "blue buck" became extinct in Cape Colony at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Its range was limited to the southern and western parts of Cape Colony. ' A few words should be said here as to the species of wild horse native to South and Central Africa, for the better understanding of the narratives which follow. These are distinguished as "zebras" and "quaggas", the quagga (extinct since 1873) being almost brown in general colour and only faintly striped on the neck and back ; and the zebra being striped boldly in black and cream-colour all, or nearly all, over the body. As a matter of fact, there is practically no structural difference between the zebra of the plains and the quagga of South Africa ; the quagga is merely a Burchell's zebra in which most of the striping has faded into a general ruddy or dun colour above and whitish below ; in fact the quagga is an intermediate stage between the extremely striped zebra and the plain-coloured wild ass. It was, indeed, called a "wild ass" by the earliest British explorers and colonists, though much more like a horse in shape. The quagga was the first of the African wild horses with which European colonists came in contact in South Africa : a large and heavy equine, inhabiting low hills and extensive plains in Cape Colony, south of the Orange River. The name was pro- nounced in Dutch, "kwakha" and was derived from either a Hottentot or Bushman word intended to imitate its neigh. Next, the colonists became aware of the existence of an extremely beautiful beast, the True or Mountain Zebra, found only in the high mountains of southernmost Africa, but reappearing also on those of Damaraland and south Angola; and allied in the large ears, pattern of striping, &c., to the magnificent Gravy's zebra of Somaliland MOUNTAIN ZEBRA QUAGGA As the White Man first saw it 25 black rhinoceroses with pointed upper lips, and ** white" rhinoceroses with square muzzles and very long front horns. Buffaloes, zebras, springbok, and several other kinds of antelopes grazed over northern and eastern Cape Colony and Bechuanaland, literally in millions— judging by what the white pioneers saw a hundred, and even fifty, years ago, and what some few white explorers (including the present writer) have had the privilege of seeing as lately as ten years ago in East Africa. There were like- wise in every part of the country troops of lions, which fed on the great herds of antelopes, zebras, and buffaloes. According to Sir James Alexander, an early ex- plorer of Namakwaland, who wrote in 1838, lions of four different varieties were to be seen in south-west Africa in the early nineteenth century; the ordinary pale-brown kind, black lions (like black leopards), white — albino — lions, and a fourth variety, the most interesting of all, in which the dark spots and stripes of the leopard-like ancestor still remained on the limbs and sides. Leopards abounded in all the more rocky or forested country; and on the open plains of South Africa there were spotted chitas or ** hunting leopards" (usually a red-spotted variety, but some of them also black-spotted, like those of India), which pursued their antelope prey with great bounds, like a dog, instead of approaching it by stealth and Galaland. Almost simultaneously, however, the pioneers who passed north of the Orange River reported the existence of a large zebra of the plains, in which the body but not the legs was striped. This form and all the allied varieties — Chapman's zebra, Boehm's zebra, and Grant's zebra — are all merely sub-species of the one distinct type of small-eared zebra — Equus burchelli, first described by the celebrated pioneer, William Burchell, who explored Cape Colony and southern Bechuanaland in 1811-12. The skins he brought home were of the typical kind found between the Orange River and Lake Ngami, with the legs unstriped. Chapman's zebra, of Damaraland and southern Zambezia, has the legs more striped, but like the true Burchell's zebra has ' • shadow " stripes of brown on the body, between the white and black. Boehm's zebra, like Grant's, has no shadow stripes, but is striped down to the hoofs. In Boehm's the stripes are narrow and in Grant's broad. 26 Pioneers in South Africa before making the spring. There were also packs of wild dogs (Lycaofi)^ which hunted down their prey with unavoid- able persistency; and myriads of pretty little black-silver- and-golden jackals, tiny little Kaama foxes, and large-eared foxes {Otocyon) of a very ancient type (speaking geologi- cally). The spotted hyena, with its wild laugh, was to be seen everywhere in the interior where game and lions existed to furnish it with bones and offal. Less common and more restricted to the south-eastern parts of Africa was the brown hyena — related to the striped hyena of more northern regions. There was also the Aard wolf,^ a dwarf, degenerate hyena, living on nothing but ants and insects. And a strange-looking beast, the Aardvark (perhaps very distantly related to the South American Armadilloes, as big as a pig, with a long pig-like snout, a heavy tail, and strong claws), would come out at dusk every night and make for the nearest termite hill, which he would tear open with his claws in order to devour the hosts of white ants issuing forth. Mention must also be made of the little hyraxes or dassies — a very ancient type of mammal — dwelling amidst the rocks of South Africa, or living in the trees of Congo- land. They are the ** coneys" of the English translation of the Hebrew Scriptures; but coney in English means *^ rabbit", and the hyrax only bears a superficial resem- ^ "White ants' nests are numerous. In shape they resemble a baker's oven, and are from two to four feet high. These industrious creatures have their enemies, especi- ally a beast about the size of a fox (the aardwolf), which after piercing a hole in the side of the nest, pushes in his tongue. When the unwary ants rush towards it in order to examine what has happened, the tongue is withdrawn covered with these insects, which are swallowed whole. This the beast repeats till he has devoured millions. Bees also sometimes covet and take possession of the house the white ants have reared with so much labour." — Campbell, 1813. The "white ant" so much referred to by all African pioneers is not really an ant, but a termite, a very different type of insect belonging to the more ancient and primitive group of insect orders which includes the crickets and cockroaches. As the White Man first saw it 27 blance to a rabbit in its size, shape, and prominent incisor teeth. Neither is the Dutch name * Massy" or **klipdaas" any more appropriate, for daas means *^ badger", and the hyrax (which last is a ** scientific" name — a Greek word meaning ** shrew-mouse"^) is utterly unlike a carnivore. (There are, by the by, no badgers in South Africa, only white and black weasels — Ictonyx and Pcecilogale — and the big grey-and-black, honey-eating ratel.) The hyrax is in reality the descendant of a primitive type of ungulate allied to the stock of indeterminate mammals which produced not only the elephants, tapirs, and pigs, but the rodents, siren- ians, and lemurs. The short fingers of its paws are ter- minated with tiny hoofs instead of claws; otherwise they are not unlike the hands and feet of a lemur. The order of the Rodentia is represented in South Africa by the common porcupine ; by mole-like burrowing forms — ** Strand moles" (Bathyergus)\ by the Ground- or Cane- rat (Thryonoviys) — which is particularly toothsome to eat; by dormice, striped mice, several kinds of rat; by the large, leaping Springhaas, ** Jumping Hare" {Pedetes)y like a clumsy jerboa; by squirrels, and by hares. Amongst the insectivores there are shrews, ele- phant shrews {Macroscelides)^ and the wonderful Golden Moles (Chrysochloris). These burrowing beasts are allied to the hedgehog-like tenrecs of Madagascar, and their silky fur is unique (except perhaps for that of one or two species of Marmoset in South America) in displaying tints as vivid as those of birds' feathers — golden yellow, amber, golden green, and purplish brown, almost reddish violet. There were no great apes at any time in South Africa, but the Chakma baboon grew to be as large as a chim- panzee, and much more aggressive and formidable. 1 The approved name for the existing genus is now Procavia. 28 Pioneers In South Africa Southern Africa was never in recent times a land popular with monkeys, no doubt owing to the absence of tropical forests. There are only three species of Cercopithecus (small, long-tailed monkeys)^ found to the south of the Zambezi, in addition to the Chakma baboon. North of that river there are many other kinds in south Central Africa — the prettily-coloured Moloney's monkey from North Nyasaland, Stairs's monkey from the Lower Zambezi, Francesca's monkey from North Nyasaland, the Southern Talapoin and Pluto monkeys from Angola and northern Rhodesia, the white-tailed Colobus from the same region, the Mangabeys from northern Rhodesia and Angola, and the Yellow and Grey Baboons from Nyasaland and Zam- bezia. Every river and lake contained herds of great hippo- potami; and numerous otters, valued for their fur. Some of the lakes and swamps of the north were peopled by the strange water tragelaph, or Nakong,^ a creature closely related to the kudu, but adapted for living in the watery swamps, with long splay hoofs and coarse, weed-like hair. If beasts were abundant — strangely abundant consider- ing how arid much of the land must have appeared, even in those days — so also were birds. I have already alluded to the ostriches which at one time inhabited all parts of South Africa except the high mountains. There were cranes of the beautiful Crowned species, and (in South Africa only) the Wattled crane and the tall grey Stanley crane. Flamingoes frequented the pools, the lakes, the watercourses, and the lagoons of seacoasts, as did myriads of pelicans, cormorants, darters, tufted umbres, saddle- billed storks, black storks and white storks, white herons, 1 Cercopithecus albogularis, C. labiatus, and C. pygerythrus, * Limnotragus selousi. As the White Man first saw it 29 grey herons, slaty-green herons, fawn and white heronlets, iridescent ibises, black and white ibises, many kinds of plover and stilt, and of duck and spur- winged geese. On the open plains were bustards, large and small. The clear air in daytime would seldom be free from soaring vultures of the Griffon, the White-headed {Lophogyps)^ the Eared {Otogyps) types, and smaller white and black *' Egyptian" vultures (entirely brown, north of the Lim- popo and Zambezi), as well as eagles, lammergeiers, hawks, and buzzards. The long-legged Secretary Bird, which indicates to us how the great group of hawks, eagles, and vultures arose from out of some crane-like ancestor, stalked through the brushwood and the herbage looking for snakes. Weaver- birds of brilliant colour built their nests over every stream, or in great colonies in some forest tree. Doves and pigeons were there in numbers, but in no great variety of species. There was no striking show of parrots; in fact, there are really only three species of parrot of the green-and-grey Poeocephalus genus indigenous to South Africa, and one or two species of love-bird {Agapornis), but there are the parrot-like green-and-red turacos^ and the grey Schizorhis, A very remarkable bird in southern Africa was the honey-guide (a distant ally of the cuckoos), whose habit it is to attract the attention of human beings by its cries and flutterings, and induce them to follow it in search of wild bees' nests. The men are rewarded by the honey, and the honey-guide gets the bee grubs. The pretty little crested, grey-grown mouse-birds {Coitus)^ creeping with all four toes in a line about the branches of the trees and bushes, are amongst the most common birds in South Africa ; as are the brilliantly coloured shrikes and 1 Called "lories" by the South African Dutch from their resemblance to parra- keets. 30 Pioneers in South Africa sun-birds and shrilly-singing buntings. Some of the weaver-birds develop in the male immense plumes to their tails during the breeding season. Guinea-fowl of the com- mon type are abundant everywhere, except in the actual desert (where may be seen the pretty little sand-grouse); and there are purple-black and grey crested guinea-fowl in Central Africa and Zambezia. Francolin — like large partridges in appearance — must have been extraordinarily abundant once, as in some parts they are still. They offer a great diversity of species. The rivers near the coast or the great streams of the far interior within the Tropics at one time swarmed with crocodiles of the common African species (C niloticus). These carnivorous leviathans, reaching perhaps in very old individuals to a length of 1 6 to i8 feet, were even found in small pools and ponds far away from a watercourse, no doubt travelling backwards and forwards during the floods of the rainy season. There are still poisonous snakes in abundance in South Africa — puff adders, vipers, cobras or '* spitting snakes", and the deadly tree cobras or ^* mambas ". Formerly, also, South Africa was remarkable for its giant pythons, perhaps as much as 30 feet long in extreme cases. Snakes of such a size, judging from the proportions of the men shown with them, were pictured by the Bushman painters and en- gravers on the rocks before white men invaded South Africa in force 100 years ago. There are also many forms of smaller snakes, quite harmless to man, and even liked or half-worshipped by the Negroes for their rat-killing propensities. The South African land tortoises are of the Testudo or Garden Tortoise type, and of the closely allied **areolated" Homopus genus, in which the scales on the carapace are As the White Man first saw it 31 carved into six-sided facets, each deeply separated from the other. The other land tortoises belong to the Cinyxis genus, which is remarkable for having the hinder part of the carapace hinged so that it shuts down tight over the tail. In the Zambezi, and perhaps also the Limpopo, are still found the side-necked water tortoises of the genus SternothceruSy akin to the freshwater turtles — Podocnemis — of the Amazons;^ and in the Zambezi and its affluents, the rivers of Mozambique and Angola and the great Central African lakes there are large water Chelonians of the soft- shelled sub-order and the Trionyx family. These carniv- orous, fierce, aquatic ** turtle" are quite uneatable, even to their eggs. The snout is prolonged into a short proboscis. Lizards, chiefly of the Agama and Gecko families, are common throughout this region and all else of Africa. Even to-day the traveller will not go far into the South African interior without hearing of or seeing the large moni- tor lizards — 6 feet in length, sometimes, with long necks and whip-like tails. They are falsely called ** iguanas", though there are no iguanas in continental Africa, only in Madagascar, Fiji, and Tropical America. But these monitor or Varanus lizards are, like the iguana, much eaten by the natives, though their diet is not vegetarian, but consists of fish and flesh. They are most destructive to the poultry yards of the Negro villages and white men's farms. Chameleons are very common throughout South Africa, where they develop several peculiar species, one of which is very small. In short, as regards its vertebrate fauna, the southern third of Africa was one of the richest regions of the world when first seen by white men 400 years ago, and, later still, down to the middle of the nineteenth century. Some dis- 1 See Pioneers in Tropical America. 32 Pioneers in South Africa tricts were uninhabited by man because the beasts were too numerous and too powerful. Lions, indeed, if there was any temporary shortage of food — antelope, zebra, or giraffe — might turn on some primitive human settlement and eat up all the men, women, and children, despite the attempts of the men to repel their attacks with arrows and javelins. Some of the plains and grassy valleys of South Africa must have resembled portions of North America when the bison slowly passed along in herds which num- bered a million or more individuals, only that the masses of big game in South Africa, as seen and described by white men in the early part of the nineteenth century, were not restricted to a single species of wild ox, pronghorn, or deer, but consisted of a vast assemblage of zebras, ante- lopes, ostriches, rhinoceroses, elephants, buffaloes, and pigs. One point, however, must be impressed on the atten- tion of the reader — the division of the land-area between the equator in the north and the Cape of Good Hope in the south into ** regions" with peculiar fauna as well as flora. Africa south of the Zambezi river and of the Kwanza (in Angola) was in many respects very different in its beasts and birds from Central and East Africa, outside the Congo forests; and the Congo and Cameroons forest region constituted a third region-^the West Equatorial, The fauna and flora of true South Africa (from which again must be divided off the very peculiar Cape-of-Good- Hope region of small extent) resembled those of Equatorial East Africa and of Somaliland, the Sahara and Senegal, far more than the adjacent fauna and flora of Central Africa: the Zambezi and Kwanza being the boundary between the two. Thus many beasts, birds, ref 'es, and insects of South Africa are not found north of the Zambezi As the White Man first saw it 33 till the traveller has reached the drier regions of equatorial East Africa or Somaliland or Senegal. Attendant on these herds of big game in Central and inner South Africa were swarms of flies, which occasion- ally would drive buffaloes and rhinoceroses so mad that they would resort to the mud of rivers and swamps as a refuge from their persecutors. Amongst these flies was the tse-tse, so inimical afterwards to the white man and his imported horses and cattle, conveying through its pro- boscis the germs of mortal diseases, derived from the blood of the wild animals, which in course of time had be- come immune to these maladies, as had also, to a much less extent, the indigenous Negroes. Not only did flies and mosquitoes transmit disease, often of a fatal kind — to the Arab, the foreign Negro, the earliest Europeans (as to the white men of the present day) — but several kinds of tick performed the same malign purpose. These ticks — a degenerate order of spiders to which our minute ** harvest bug" belongs — swarmed in parts of the Zambezi basin and carried about the germs of a terrible form of fever with which they inoculated white men and black men alike, as well as domestic cattle and horses. It must not be supposed that the Negro natives of southern Africa were always immune from these germ diseases, or even the wild beasts of the field. It can only be said that they became inured to some of the maladies produced by the multiplication of spores or animalcules. No doubt, as in the case of sleeping sickness, which is now about to spread right down into South Africa wherever there is a tse-tse fly to transport its germs, epidemics disastrous to man and beast have ever and again swept over the surface of South Africa, temporarily depopulating it till, from the actual dying out of the higher vertebrates, (0 587) 3 34 Pioneers in South Africa the disease and its carriers have ceased, and recolonization from the north has begun again. This is no doubt the explanation of why (when it seemed so well adapted by- climate to the support of large Negro populations) South Africa was in some parts very sparsely peopled when the white men or the Arabs first came there; for the immi- gration of the vigorous Bantu Negroes seems to be but an event of yesterday. There are indications that, with intermissions, South Africa has had human inhabitants over a great range of time — many thousand years. But — we may suppose — ever and again, as with the beasts, so with the races of South African peoples, an insect-con- veyed germ disease has come along and wiped out a numerous population in a few years, leaving the land open to a fresh colonization. Only the science of the white man can arrest this disastrous fickleness of Nature and make South Africa permanently a state of great, prosperous nations of men ; a home for innumerable domestic beasts and birds; and a region productive of immense supplies of vegetable food. CHAPTER II Prehistoric South Africa The ancient peoples of the eastern Mediterranean — the parents of our civilization — had no very clear idea of the great continental divisions of Europe, Asia, and Africa. They rather thought of these continents as more or less connected areas of land grouped round the middle sea of the earth, the Mediterranean. From about 1500 B.C. onwards, however, the civilized peoples of Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia, Greece, and Italy were aware of the ex- istence of North Africa, and that it was separated from Spain by a narrow strait. But Egypt was considered to be, as we should phrase it, part of Asia; that is to say, a region more nearly connected with Syria and Arabia than with the territories to the west and south. But when the Greek love of knowledge and desire to understand all about the world had penetrated to Egypt in the days when the dynasties of native Pharaohs were drawing to a close, some interest began to be felt, not only as to the ultimate source of the upper Nile, but as to the extent of land which lay between Egypt and north-west Africa. The latest of the Egyptian Pharaohs, when national independence was recovering from Assyrian overrule, were vaguely curious about the great ocean which lay to the west of the Medi- terranean, and how far dry land stretched in a southerly direction beyond the regions of the northern Sudan. The Egyptians were already acquainted with Somaliland S5 36 Pioneers in South Africa since the expeditions sent thither by Queen Hatshepsit about 1500 B.C.; and Nubian and Ethiopian traders may have brought to Egypt soon afterwards some account of the Nile lakes and the coasts of the Indian Ocean. The Somali and East African coasts from about 1000 B.C. were beginning (we may assume on some slight evidence) to be visited by sailing ships from western and southern Arabia. There is, indeed, reason to suppose that in the time of the Jewish King, Shelomoh (whom we miscall by the Greek rendering of his name, Solomon), that is to say, about 950 B.C., the Arabs had already made their way in rowing and sailing boats along the east coast of Africa, as well as past the Arabian and Persian coasts to India. But whether the land of Ophir,^ from which came gold, spices, monkeys, and a wonderful bird the name of which in Hebrew is translated ^* peacock", was situated on the shores of India or of East Africa is undecided. And as yet the historical and archaeological evidence on this question is so extremely slight that the matter is not worth much disputation. It is only mentioned here because there are indications that for several centuries before and after the birth of Christ the Arabs of southern Arabia had been in touch with the Zanzibar coast of East Africa, and even with the north end of Madagascar, and that they had formed certain ideas as to the extent of the great continent of Africa, which they communicated to the Phoenicians of the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. According to Herodotos, who no doubt was telling the truth, one of the last Egyptian Pharaohs, Niku II, about 600 B.C. commissioned some Phoenician sea captains to sail 1 " Ophir" itself was probably a seaport in southern Arabia, whither were brought gold, monkeys, ivory, peacocks, and scented woods from India and East Africa to be exchanged against the commercial products of the Mediterranean, over the land route from Midian to Phoenicia through Judsea, Prehistoric South Africa 37 down the Red Sea and out into the Indian Ocean in order to ascertain the extent of land which stretched southwards from Egypt across the Tropics. The legend recorded by Herodotos, about 150 years afterwards, related that these Phoenicians, after sailing southwards for some months, rounded the southern extremity of Africa, and then sailed north along the western coast of this region until, after many months of voyaging, they reached the shores of Morocco, already known to the Carthaginians, and so passed through the Straits of Gibraltar into the Mediter- ranean and back to Egypt. ^ This exploit took about three years to accomplish, and included intervals of several months, in which the Phoenicians landed somewhere on the south coast of Africa, sowed corn, and stayed to reap it. Except the phenomenon they observed of the sun standing in the north at midday when they had crossed the southern Tropic, very few details of their experiences were recorded by Herodotos, and we know nothing as to the character of the inhabitants seen by them as they coasted along the southern extremity of Africa. Not long afterwards Han no, the Carthaginian, made an attempt to sail westwards and southwards from Carthage, and thus to explore the western side of Africa, but he got no farther (if there is any truth in the slender story preserved for us) than the vicinity of Liberia. And attempts made by Persian notabilities of Egypt soon afterwards to circum- navigate Africa, sailing from the Mediterranean westward, resulted in failure. Yet although it was submerged occasionally by other theories, or overlooked, the general conception of Africa as ^Of course, in using such words as Africa, Morocco, Gibraltar, &c., I am only employing them so that the route followed by these early explorers may be clearly understood by the reader; such terms were not in use by Herodotos. 38 Pioneers in South Africa a huge island-continent, only connected with Asia by the narrow Isthmus of Suez, haunted the imaginations of Greek, Roman, and Arab geographers during the first nine centuries which followed the birth of Christ. A story was recorded by Arab historians of ships manned by Arabs having sailed southwards past Cape Correntes (which was generally the limit of classical Arab geography on the south-east coast of Africa) and rounded what we should call the Cape of Good Hope. Soon afterwards, being beaten back by storms, they returned in an easterly direc- tion, and did not circumnavigate the continent. The mysterious stone ruins of Zimbabwe and some other places in southern Rhodesia convey a very strong impression that south-east Africa must have been known at the commencement of the Christian era to some Asiatic people, most likely of south or south-west Arabia. The Arab traders voyaged along the Somali coast to the regions of Zanzibar, trading with the naked savages for incense and other valuable gums, for elephants' teeth, and, it may be, for alluvial gold, long since exhausted in most of the East African streams. The Phoenicians (only a kind of Arab, after all) may also have been associated with the earlier of these ventures. By a slow progress from one island-haven and trading station to another, the merchant-seamen from the Red Sea may have reached the vicinity of the Zambezi, and have proceeded still farther south to the mouth of the Sabi River. The basins of the lower Zambezi and of the Sabi are both distinctly auriferous, and both Negro and Bushman natives may have been seen with gold in their possession, perhaps wearing small nuggets on their neck- laces. Attracted by the gold, these people from Arabia perhaps found their way up-country to such a place as Zimbabwe, which they may have made one of the principal Prehistoric South Africa 39 centres of their gold-mining industry. The religion of such early Asiatic colonists of South Africa was probably something like that of the Phoenicians. They had a cer- tain skill in building with stone and making cement or concrete. They practised much the same agriculture as was then in vogue in Arabia, where the rainfall is scanty, water has to be jealously preserved, and most of the plantations are kept alive by irrigation. These un- known Asiatic intruders may have built other strong places besides Zimbabwe, but many of the stone ruins of Rhodesia owe their origin to Negro imitators of these Asiatic pioneers. We have at present little clue to the condition of South Africa at a period of — let us say — 2000 years ago, when the Arabs were beginning to frequent the east and south-east coasts of the continent. In all probability at that time there were no Zulu tribes, and even no Negroes speaking what are called ** Bantu" languages. Some writers on South Africa have assumed that as far back as 2000 years ago there were no black Negroes at all in the region south of the Zambezi and Kunene Rivers, but that the native inhabitants all belonged to the Bushman or Hottentot groups. Our means of determining this question, how- ever, are so scanty at the present time that it is not neces- sary to devote much space to this problem. From certain skulls which have been discovered in cave deposits in South Africa of considerable antiquity, it would almost seem as though the south and south-eastern coastlands of the continent had been reached many thousand years ago by a semi-Caucasian race, similar to the ancient inhabitants of Great Britain known as the ^' Galley Hill " type of man. This type offers some affinities with the Tasmanian abori- gines, who in their turn were a kind of link between the 40 Pioneers in South Africa Australoid or basic Caucasian race and the Negro sub- species. But these semi-Caucasian invaders — who may also have been allied to the Hamites of north-east Africa^ — were either preceded or followed by the Bushman. The Bushman is a very peculiar and specialized de- velopment of the Negro type. He is generally a short, almost dwarfish man, and his skin, unlike that of the true Negro, is a dirty yellow, never black. The shape of his skull differs from that of the true Negro, being, as a rule, more rounded, not long and narrow. The cheek bones are excessively broad and prominent, the eyes deep- set, narrow, and almost Mongolian in angle. In the ex- treme type of Bushman there is no prominence of the brows; and the jaws are not unduly prognathous. Yet there are other types of Bushman existing at the present day in south-west Africa, and seemingly more primitive, less specialized, in which there is considerable prominence of the brows, and some in which, so far from the type being less prognathous or muzzle-faced than the average Negro, the prognathism is more marked, more ape-like, than in any recorded type of black Negro. Thus in head form the Bushmen of to-day offer most variable aspects. On the other hand, all Bushmen are agreed in having the yellow skin, folded-over ears, rather tightly curled head- hair, hairless faces and bodies, and a great backward pro- tuberance of the upper part of the hips. This is carried to such an extreme in the Bushman women (and the Hottentot women likewise) that the children can literally ride on their mothers' backs. The Hottentots, it might be mentioned, are somewhat like the Bushmen in physique, but rather taller and with more mixed characteristics. They obviously represent an ^ Gala, Somali, Agau, and Bisharin. l»e^afe.lSKi4.M&,4»s. Prehistoric South Africa 41 early hybrid between the pure Bushman and some invading race of Negroes or Negroids. There is some reason to think this invading race may have come from the vicinity of the Victoria Nyanza (Equatorial East Africa) and have been partly of Hamitic or semi-Caucasian race; for the Hottentot language, though it possesses some of the Bush- man clicks and some slight resemblances in vocabulary, is nevertheless a speech of very superior type to that of the Bushman. Like most of the languages originated by the modern white man, it distinguishes carefully between the masculine and feminine sex in the form of its words, pronouns, and adjectives. It also has a neuter as well as a masculine and feminine gender, and in these points — or at any rate in the distinction between masculine and feminine, as well as in others — it recalls similar features in the Hamitic tongues of north-east Africa; while some of its numerals and a few word roots in its vocabularies suggest a distant relationship with another click-using tongue, the dialect of the Sandawi still spoken in German East Africa to the south of the Victoria Nyanza. The ancestors of the Hottentots in their migration southwards brought with them into South Africa the long-horned cattle of ancient Egypt and the type of fat-tailed sheep characteristic at the present day of Arabia, Somaliland, and East Africa. The route of their migration seems to have passed between Lakes Tanganyika and Nyasa in the direction of the Upper Zambezi, and thence to the south- west coast of Africa and the Kalahari Desert, where they conquered and subdued previous black Negro settlers, and also began to come into fierce conflict with the Bushman. Gradually in the course of many centuries the Hottentots journeyed southwards through the arid Damara and Na- makvva countries to the Orange River, and thence up the 42 Pioneers in South Africa Orange River to its junction with the Vaal, and south- wards into the westernmost parts of Cape Colony. Their further eastward migration along the South African coast was checked by the arrival of another factor in the racial problem of South Africa — the Bantu Negroes. At what period Negroes of the dark-skinned type invaded South Africa we do not know. Probably there were black Negroes there long before the Bantu peoples came, espe- cially in south-east Africa between the Lower Zambezi and the Limpopo,^ and in Damaraland, where their vestiges at the present day are called the ^'Mountain Damara" (Ova- lorotwa or Haukwoi), a people who at a later date were conquered or influenced by the Hottentots and adopted a Hottentot form of speech. In body and appearance, these Haukwoi are entirely unlike the Hottentots, and much more closely resemble the black Negroes of West and Central Africa, just as there is another element in the Bantu Ne- groes of south-east Africa which recalls in appearance the Nilotic and Hamitic Negroes or Negroids of eastern Africa. But about two thousand years ago, or a little earlier (as near as we can guess) Africa south of the Zambezi was invaded by Negro tribes speaking Bantu languages, tribes no doubt of powerful physique, and armed with iron and copper weapons, which enabled them to contend with great superiority of strength against the Bushman (despite his poisoned arrows) and the Hottentot, and to fight on equal terms with the Asiatic colonists of Zimbabwe, if such were really there at that period. In the classification of bodily appearance there is no great value in the use of the term Bantu^ which, strictly 1 Some of these pre- Bantu black-skinned Negro tribes of South Africa are perhaps represented by the pariah tribes (now nearly extinct), which were called Ba-lala (the " poor ones ") by the Bechuana, and Vaalpens ("ashy-bellies "—from their lying in the dust and ashes) by the Boers. Prehistoric South Africa 43 speaking, only applies to a certain class of language. Negroes using the various forms of Bantu speech may- be very different in appearance, tribe compared with tribe. Some of them may be tall, handsome men and women, with woolly hair, but with features almost recalling those of ancient Egyptians or Moors, though with a warm-brown, dark-chocolate skin. Others may be stunted like the Congo Pygmies, or resemble the Forest Negro type, with big, powerful bodies and short legs, or recall the Nilotic Negroes in being very tall, with disproportionately long legs and short bodies. The mass of the peoples speak- ing Bantu languages, however, belong to what may be styled the average Negro type, that is to say, they are people of good stature, with no developments in the shape of the body that are particularly unlike those of the average European, dark chocolate or slaty black in skin colour, possessing abundant head hair, not too tightly curled, and a certain amount of hair on the body. Their facial features, though distinctly those of Negroes, are not usually ugly; indeed their tribes frequently exhibit examples of both men and women who might be described as comely, even from the point of view of the European. But this average '* Bantu" Negro type is found in many parts of West and Central Africa, quite unconnected with the speaking of Bantu languages. However, in all probability it was some such mixed Negro race as this which first developed the remarkable form of Bantu speech, and acquired at the same time the use of iron weapons. Driven from their original homes in the very heart of Africa (somewhere on the borderland between the western basin of the Nile, the eastern basin of the Niger, and the northern basin of the Congo) the Bantu ancestors first of all invaded the region of the great lakes in east- Central 44 Pioneers in South Africa Africa, and then forced their way through the belt of Congo forests till they reached the Atlantic coast, while in an easterly direction they swept down the seaboard of Zanzibar, and so on across the Zambezi till they plunged into South Africa. Their first permanent settlements in the southern parts of the continent would seem to have been Karaiia-land (southern Rhodesia), Bechuanaland, and Portuguese South-east Africa. For a long while after the Zambezi had been crossed by their pioneers, the Limpopo, the Orange River, the Vaal, and the Tugela remained their frontiers; and Cape Colony, Basutoland, Natal, and the Transvaal continued in the keeping of the Bushmen. But little by little the Bantu absorbed the Bushmen into their midst by marrying their women, and killed out the men or starved them by taking away their hunting-grounds. At length they had driven the remnant of this little yellow people up into the inacces- sible mountains or cold plateaus, where they continued to exist more or less undisturbed till the colonization of the white man began about 150 years ago. Between then and now, owing to the combination against them of Dutch and British colonists, Bantu Negroes and Hottentots, the Bushmen have become extinct in most parts of South Africa, only lingering in small numbers in the north- west parts of Cape Colony, in Namakwaland and the Kalahari Desert, perhaps also in the south-east parts of Angola. When the real white man of Europe first came to South Africa, at the close of the fifteenth century, the black man may be said to have become supreme there. Black Bantu Negroes inhabited most of the fertile regions between the Zambezi and the southern shores of the Indian Ocean, besides a good deal of south-west Africa. The western Prehistoric South Africa 45 parts of Cape Colony were peopled by Hottentots and also the coast fringe of south-west Africa up to the Kunene River. The Kalahari Desert, so far as it could be in any way the home of man, was inhabited by dark-skinned Bantu in the eastern and northern oases, and by wander- ing families and tribes of Bushmen. Natal and a good deal of south-east Africa between the Sabi River on the north and the Great Fish River on the south became 500 or 600 years ago the domain of the powerful '^ Xosa " ^ (Kafir) and Zulu tribes; while the Bechuana group of Bantu Negroes occupied most of the lower-lying and more fertile districts north of the Orange River, and throughout the western and northern Transvaal. The district now known as Southern Rhodesia was peopled partly by Bechuana, but mainly by the Karaiia tribes, whose Bantu dialects relate them more nearly to the peoples of Nyasa and the Lower Zambezi. The rest of south-east Africa, which is now the territory of the Mozambique Company, had a very medley population, partly related to the Karafia and Nyasa groups, partly to the Bechuana and Zulu, but here and there offering indications of an older type of Negro or Negroid settler of different rela- tionships, and possibly in origin of an older stock than the Bantu. And since so much use is made of the word BantUy and because the Bantu languages are of such immense political importance in Africa at the present day, perhaps my readers will bear with me if I say a few words on the subject in a footnote.^ 1 This letter " X " is pronounced like a " k " or " h ", preceded by a sideways click of the tongue. To those who cannot manage this " Kosa" is the best pronunciation. 2 The Bantu languages belong to a type of African speech which has numerous other examples in West Africa, and which in some features resembles certain speech- families in the Caucasus region, Baluchistan, and southern India (the Dravidian). Nouns are not classed as being masculine, feminine, or neuter, but are grouped into 46 Pioneers in South Africa [Those who wish to go deeply into the matter of African languages and their affinities will find all the information they desire in the books whose titles are given in the biblio- graphy at the beginning of this volume.] Before entering on the description of the work of the great historical pioneers of South African discovery and colonization, I might summarize here what was the general condition of human settlement in Africa south of the equator at the commencement of the fifteenth century, when European enterprise was to initiate that tremen- dous movement of expansion all over the world which is still going on. On the west coast of Central Africa a certain amount of culture — religious beliefs, improved arms and implements, metalwork, and even a kind of hiero- glyphic writing — had spread southwards from the Niger delta and Benin, reaching perhaps as far as the mouth of the Congo. Inland of this was what might be called the Baya civilization of the northern hinterland of the Kame- divisions which have no direct relation with sex quahties. In one or more of these divisions, for example, may be included all objects that are big or strong, in another all that are weak or womanly, or those which have to do with a mother, or appertain to fatherhood ; other nouns, again, may be classed as long objects, as tree-like sub- stances, as little or trifling objects, or a great mass of things collected together (such as water, a herd of animals, or a tribe). It must be admitted that the meanings of most of these categories in the Bantu languages, or in the Fula tongue of West Africa, have been completely lost in the lapse of time, the divisions being now quite arbitrary, though they certainly had a meaning once. Each category or class has its own type of pronoun, suffix or prefix, and this usually follows the noun to which it refers all through the sentence. The Bantu family of Class languages is specially noteworthy for a great use of prefixes, rather than syllables tacked on to the end of words. Bantu itself is simply the plural of muntu, a man, the root being ntu, and simply meaning an object. Other adaptations of this root may be buntu =hnma.n\\.y , or kintu—z. thing, or luntu—Q. long object. Most of the tribal names of Bantu people begin with a prefix, which is different in the singular to what it is in the plural. Thus a Zulu man may be I-zulu (a contraction of Ili-zulu), while the plural, meaning the Zulu people, would be Ama-zulu. The commonest prefix applied to peoples and tribes is Aba or Ba-; thus Bechuana is really a European corruption of Ba-tswana. In the same way we have Ba-suto=Suto people. The Bantu languages are now the dominant type of speech throughout all the southern third of Africa from the Albert Nyanza on the north to Cape Colony on the south, from Zanzibar on the east to the Kamerun in the west. Prehistoric South Africa 47 run. Hither also had penetrated some ideas of the Medi- terranean white man from across the Sahara and the Sudan, and these reached to the Mubangi River and the northern basin of the Congo. In the centre of south Congoland there was the remarkable Bushongo kingdom, founded, so far as native traditions go, about 700 years after Christ, by bands of invaders who had come from the region of the Shari River, had crossed the Mubangi and the main Congo, and had established themselves in the forest region about the Sankuru River. At first these Bushongo people spoke a language, now almost extinct, which was related to the speech forms of the Central Sudan ; but soon after they had become established in the heart of Congoland they found themselves in contact with other great armies of Bantu invaders coming from the east, and in course of time the Bushongo (whose name really means **the People of the Iron Spear") adopted a corrupt form of Bantu speech. The impetus they gave to Negro culture extended far to the south, affecting the tribes which we now know as Lunda, Kongo, and Awemba. Some people have thought that Bushongo culture, pushing far to the south across the Zambezi, may have founded the kingdom or empire of Monomotapa, and have even created the Zimbabwe civi- lization of stone buildings, carved stone monuments, cylin- drical pillars, and terraced agriculture (see pp. 38, 39). Others, again, detect a resemblance between this early civilization of south-east Africa and the Baya and Benin culture of the Niger delta and the Kamerun hinterland. But it is difficult to account for there being no traces of these arts and monuments (more especially the use of stone for building and for religious purposes) over the enormous interval of about 2000 miles which separates south-east Africa from the Old Calabar region. 48 Pioneers in South Africa In addition to the Negro civilization just mentioned, there had arisen at some such period as about the twelfth or thirteenth century the powerful kingdom of the Mono- motapa, just south of the River Zambezi. Whether this was due to some far-off impulse from South Congoland or, as is much more probable, to Arab influence coming from the east coast, is as yet a matter of conjecture, as is likewise the origin of the wonderful stone ruins of Zim- babwe and similar places in the basins of the Limpopo and Sabi Rivers. In any case a very powerful Negro kingdom or confederation of kingdoms had arisen about eight centuries ago, the leading tribe in which was the Karana people, whose descendants nowadays are known amongst themselves as the Ba-karana, and by the Zulus as the Ama-shuna (Mashona). This Karaiia empire had long since ousted any remains that may have lingered of an Asiatic-Arab control over the gold mines of south-east Africa, and itself worked the gold and traded with the Arabs on the coast. As to the condition of human culture in Africa, south of the Zambezi, some 400 years ago, the Bushmen were still leading the life of the primeval savage, the life that our remote ancestors led in England in Palaeolithic times, distant from the present day by twenty to one hundred thousand years. They wore little or no clothing, ex- cept it was a rudely dressed skin of some beast, as a protection against the cold. They armed their arrows with tips of bone or stone, and poisoned them with the juice of some euphorbia, aloe, or amaryllis. They also possessed knobkerries or clubs made from the stem of a tree, but no other weapons. They used as their homes — temporary or permanent — caves in the mountains or hollows in the ground, and made no houses. On the open plains Prehistoric South Africa 49 and in the deserts they were probably content with a shelter excavated in the ground and surrounded by a few bushes. Here they led a life that was perpetually migratory, fol- lowing the herds of big game, and passing from water place to water place, carrying with them occasionally supplies of water in the shells of ostrich eggs, or doing without water and living instead on the juicy gourds. In the mountain districts no doubt the Bushman settlement was of a more permanent character, and, unless disturbed by hostile neighbours, a single clan might inhabit a single cave for generations. They had no domestic animals, and no arts beyond a wonderful gift for drawing and painting, and for music derived from the twanging of a bowstring, singing, and rude dancing. The Hottentots of South Africa were more advanced. They were a shepherd people, with herds of cattle and flocks of sheep, who practised a little agriculture. The Bantu Negroes in the Trans-Zambezian regions were a stage higher than the Hottentots, but they too concen- trated their thoughts mainly on their cattle, living much on the milk and flesh of the herds, and in some cases elevating their cattle almost to a divinity. The Bantu Negroes, however — even the naked Kafir-Zulus — smelted and worked iron and copper. They manufactured pot- tery. They all knew basketmaking, and in some districts they had a knowledge of primitive weaving: in short, they were already possessed of much of the culture com- mon to the rest of Negro Africa before the influence of the Arab had brought in notions of clothing and better house construction. The Hottentots dwelt in miserable huts, and the huts or houses of the Bantu Negroes were not much superior, being generally of the beehive type, though no doubt in the more eastern part of the Zambezi ( 587 ) 4 50 Pioneers in South Africa basin and on the Sabi River better ideas of house con- struction — with clay — prevailed, even 400 years ago. In Southern Rhodesia undoubtedly the Negroes had learned at a much earlier period from the vanished Asiatic colonists the trick of building, more or less rudely, with pieces of undressed stone. Five hundred years ago, and perhaps earlier, all the east coast of Africa from Somaliland to the vicinity of Cape Correntes was dotted with Arab trading settlements, some of which, like Mombasa and Malindi on the north, and the Island of Zanzibar and Kilwa on the East African coast, north of the Ruvuma River, had grown into more or less powerful Arab States. Sofala, the farthest south of all the important Arab trading settlements (situated near to the modern Beira), was the principal port from which gold was exported, although the Arabs were also settled for gold-trading purposes at Sena, on the lower Zambezi, and at Quelimane on the Zambezi delta, besides holding the Island of Mozambique, the Island of I bo, and, in fact, most of the islands and islets off the east coast of Africa. The Arabs had also, from the beginning of the Christian era onwards, founded trading settlements and small chief- tainships on the north and east coasts of Madagascar and in the Komoro Islands, or 'islands of the Full Moon ".^ There were also Persian settlements — immigrants from the south of Persia — at Lamu, Mombasa, Zanzibar, and Kilwa. All these Asiatic trading posts had for the most part grown up since the eighth century, for there seems to have been a short period between the sixth and eighth centuries after Christ in which Arab trading and colonizing enterprise slackened. At any rate it increased 1 Komoro, the Portuguese name for these volcanic islands, is a corruption of the Arabic Kamr, full moon. Prehistoric South Africa 51 greatly after the establishment of the Muhammadan religion. Yet in South-east Africa it was not able to effect any occupation of the interior, partly on account of the fevers from which the Arabs suffered, and partly because of the fighting strength of the Bantu tribes. South-west of Cape Correntes (which lies some distance to the north of the Limpopo River mouth) the Arabs made very little attempt at maritime discovery. The seas were too stormy, the winds and currents too much in opposition. They had long since, however, informed the civilized world through their travellers and men of letters that much of the coast region of south-east Africa was inhabited by absolutely naked savages of incoherent speech and dwarfish stature, whom they called ^* Wak-wak"; but they also described the big black Negroes who lived to the west and the south of their earlier east-coast settlements, that is to say, along the littoral opposite Zanzibar. These, on account of their being heathen, they called ^* Kafir" (pi. Kufar= unbe- lievers). The Portuguese picked up this cant name from them, and were in turn copied by the Dutch and the English, which is why we call the tall Negro population of South Africa at the present day by the unmeaning and foolish name of Kafir. The Arabs had also sent to Europe, especially through the great Venetian explorer, Marco Polo, and by similar Italian travellers, stories of a gigantic bird — the Rukh — existing in Madagascar: obviously the last living survivors of the enormous ^pyornisy a huge flightless bird, bigger than an ostrich, whose head must have been ornamented by a tall crest, and whose eggs were the biggest ever known of any kind of bird. The Arabs also, no doubt, reported the wealth in gold and ivory of South-east Africa 52 Pioneers in South Africa at that day. And these stories, together with the distorted accounts of the great Christian King of Abyssinia, inspired the Portuguese monarch with the desire of reaching the South-east coast of Africa by his ships round the Atlantic coast of the continent, and thus led to the European coloni- zation of the southern third of Africa. CHAPTER III The Portuguese reveal Southern Africa King Joao II of Portugal had read the travels of the great Venetian explorer, Marco Polo, referred to in the last chapter, as well as the reports of Italian and French mis- sionaries to southern India who voyaged down the Red Sea and made references to the Arab settlements on the east coast of Africa. He was thus made aware of the trade in gold and ivory which for some centuries had been carried on in Arab ships between Sofala, Kilwa, Mombasa, and India. King John — as we should call him — had also been informed by widely travelled Portuguese Jews (who collected the information in Egypt) that during the last quarter of the fifteenth century this trade had increased and was flourishing. The monarch felt instinc- tively that Africa was insular; therefore '^fofala" must be attainable by a sea voyage from Portugal round the southern extremity of the mysterious continent. So as soon as he came to the throne (in 1481) he urged the further exploration of the South Atlantic coasts of Africa. In the year 1482 Portuguese navigators had discovered the mouth and lower course of the River Congo. In 1484 DiOGO Cam had sailed on, past the coast of Angola, until he came to the desolate region south of the Kunene River,^ ^The Kunene, the name of which means "the Great River", is a very important feature in African geography. It is the parallel south of the Equator of the Senegal on the north. Just as the Senegal marks the end of the Sahara Desert and the begin- ning of the fertile regions of Guinea, with their tropical vegetation and abundant Negro 53 54 Pioneers in South Africa reaching, in the early part of 1485, Cape Cross (Cabo da Cruz), on the coast of German South-west Africa. Here he set up a marble pillar, which remained standing till the beginning of the nineteenth century. In August, i486, there started from Lisbon the receiver of customs at that port, Bartolomeu Diaz, who had been charged by King John with the task of endeavouring to circumnavigate Africa. He sailed from the Tagus with two^ vessels of only about 60 tons each — ships in which, at the present day, one would not like to risk a voyage from Lisbon to London. Yet with these he proposed to sail for 6000 miles over the stormy seas of the Atlantic and the mountainous waves of the southern Indian Ocean. Without misadventure, however, his two small ships carried his expedition along the west coast of Africa till they reached Angra Pequena Bay, in 26"^ 30' of south latitude. Here Diaz cast anchor; and here for the first time, so far as we know, ** Christian men trod the soil of Africa south of the tropic".^ It was a desolate region, possibly with no human inhabitants at the time of the Portuguese visit. If there were any, they were straggling Hottentots or Bush- men, probably much too frightened of the god-like visitors in the great winged ships to show themselves. The many small islands off the bay, which gave it its old name of population, so in the same way the Kunene, as one journeys from the south north- wards, marks the northward end of the South African deserts, which extend otherwise from the mouth of the Kunene to beyond the Orange River in the south. The Kunene has a course (700 miles) nearly as long as that of the Senegal, and, like so many other important rivers of south-west Africa, rises in the knot of high mountains in central Angola, In ancient times it probably flowed into the Okavango, and thus joined the Zambezi basin, and even in the high floods of rainy seasons some of its waters still find their way to the Okavango. This river — very narrow and shallow in its lower course, where it crosses the desert — was scarcely noticed by the early Portuguese navigators. It was rediscovered at its mouth and named the Nourse about 1822 by Commodore Joseph Nourse of the British Navy. 1 A larger storeship followed, and was left at anchor on the Angola coast. 2 Dr. G. M'CallTheal. Portuguese reveal Southern Africa 55 "Angra dos Ilheos'^ were covered with nesting sea birds — gannets, penguins, terns, gulls, and petrels; and from these and their eggs, no doubt, the Portuguese seamen obtained some fresh food. But what, we may wonder, was the fate of the unfor- tunate negress whom they landed at Angra Pequena, to spread information about them amongst the natives, and if possible to give information to any Portuguese ships calling at a later date? For Bartolomeu Diaz had taken with him on board four negresses convicted of crimes in Portuguese Guinea, and destined to be landed at various places on the African coast, to get into touch with native tribes and to collect information for the subsequent visits of Portuguese vessels. One of these unhappy women was left at Angra Pequena, but whether she joined the Hot- tentots, or perished of starvation and thirst, there is no record to tell us. Apparently Diaz next stopped off the mouth of the Orange River, having been much troubled after leaving Angra Pequena by the conflicting winds and currents. Then he set sail once more for the south and south-east, and, after thirteen days' buffeting from the boisterous winds and heavy seas, he sought hard to find the land. But the more he sailed eastwards the more it withdrew from his sight; so that at last he began to realize he must have passed the southernmost extremity of Africa. Steering then to the north, he sighted the south coast of what is now Cape Colony, at a point probably near St. Sebastian Bay. The little inlet where he anchored his ships he named Angra dos Vaqueiros, or the ** Bay of the Cattle-keepers", because he saw numerous cattle grazing on the shore, and much-surprised, startled natives in charge of them. These natives (Hottentots), who had no seagoing canoes, were struck with amazement at the apparition of 56 Pioneers in South Africa a great vessel with wing-like sails. Hastily driving their cattle before them, they fled inland. Diaz remained some time at Angra dos Vaqueiros re- pairing his two ships, which had received considerable damage from the stormy seas. Then he sailed on to the east, calling at a place which he named Aguada de Sao Bras (Mossel Bay) for fresh water, and once more anchored for repose and the taking of counsel off an uninhabited islet in Algoa Bay (a name corrupted from the Portuguese title ^'Bahia da Lagoa" — the Bay of the Lagoon). On this islet he set up another stone cross, bearing the arms of Portugal. Savages were seen gathering shellfish on the adjacent shore of the mainland ; therefore Diaz landed on the coast another of the negresses, who probably met with a less miserable fate than her other companions in captivity, for no doubt after a time she got into com- munication with the Hottentots, and found a home amongst them. The coast farther eastwards was probably examined for a distance of 30 or 40 miles by the two ships or by boating expeditions. It was seen to trend steadily towards the north-east, and the current of blue, warm water coming from that direction was additional confirmation of the fact that the African continent had been rounded, and that it was only necessary to continue the journey north-eastwards to arrive at the rumoured coasts of ^^Sofala" and *'Zan- guebar". Meantime the Portuguese pioneers had been many months absent from their storeship of reserve sup- plies, which had been left at a point off the Angola coast of south-west Africa. The stock of provisions was run- ning short, and the object of the voyage had been achieved; they had found the southern extremity of Africa, or would do so, at any rate, by sailing westward and Portuguese reveal Southern Africa 57 searching for the turning-point. However, Diaz, before agreeing to return, obtained the consent of his officers and crews to a little further eastward exploration, in the course of which the ships reached the mouth of the Great Fish River. On the return journey the coast was followed as nearly as the weather permitted, and thus they obtained a fleeting sight of the terminal point of southern Africa, which, on account of the bad weather, was named by Diaz ^^Cabo Tormentoso " — the Stormy Cape. Somewhere to the north of this promontory Diaz erected another marble pillar, and dedicated it to St. Philip. He then rejoined his storeship off the Angola coast, and returned to Portugal after visiting the Gulf of Guinea and the Gold Coast. King John H of Portugal, who had dispatched Diaz on this errand, greeted his return with great satisfaction, and changed the name of Cabo Tormentoso into Cabo da Boa Esperan9a — the **Cape of the Good Hope". The next Portuguese expedition to deal with South Africa was that under Vasco da Gama. King John, as already mentioned, had heard through Portuguese Jews trading with the Levant of the Arab establishments on the east coast of Africa, as well as rumours of the powerful Christian kingdom of Abyssinia. He had therefore (as related in my Pioneers in India) sent on a mission of enquiry in these directions two Portuguese gentlemen, Affonso de Paiva and Joao Pero or Perez of Covilham. De Paiva was killed at Suakin on his way to Abyssinia, but Pero or Perez de Covilham voyaged safely to India, and from India obtained a passage in an Arab vessel to Sofala. After visiting this and other Arab establishments on the east coast of Africa, he returned to Aden and Cairo, where he gave his budget of news to the Portuguese Jews ; 58 Pioneers in South Africa but it is by no means certain that the report of his dis- coveries ever reached the King of Portugal, or at any rate that it got to the Portuguese Court in time to be of service to Vasco da Gama. King John II died, and was succeeded by his cousin Manoel, who resolved to carry out his predecessor's design of finding an ocean route to Sofala and India. Under the superintendence of Bartolomeu Diaz, two ships were built of timber that had been long in preparation; the larger, named the Sao Gabriel^ being of about 120 tons capacity, and the smaller, Sao Rafael^ 100 tons.-^ These ships were fitted with three masts, the foremast and the mainmast each carrying two square sails, while the mizenmast bore a lateen sail projecting far over the stern. The outermost end of the bowsprit was so tall that it was almost equiva- lent to a fourth mast, and beneath it was a square spritsail. The ships had bluff, rounded boWs and square sterns, with lofty poops and forecastles, low waists and great length of beam ; but, though clumsy, they were stanch seaboats, able to receive a surprising amount of buffeting from the waves without damage. Besides the Sao Gabriel and the Sao Rafael^ a little caravel or bark was added to the ex- pedition as a swift dispatch boat; also a storeship of considerable size (some 250 tons) which carried provisions and merchandise sufficient for three years. Vasco (or Velasco) da Gama, who was eventually appointed admiral of the expedition, was a native of Sines, in the southernmost province of Portugal (Algarve). He was then (in 1497) about thirty-seven years old, unmarried, a sparely-built, cold-looking man of medium height, with ^ M 'Call Theal points out that the Portuguese tons were a greater measure of capacity than the English, so that in estimating the size of Portuguese ships of this period one must add a certain proportion to the tonnage. Probably these two ships were respectively of 150 and 120 tons capacity. Portuguese reveal Southern Africa 59 the long beard characteristic of the Portuguese at that period. Though of indomitable will and great courage, he was not liked by his officers or crew, being at all times harsh and stern in manner and much to be dreaded when he was angered. After the religious ceremonies usual in that day, the expedition sailed from the mouth of the Tagus on July 8, 1497, taking with it as chief pilot a Portuguese who had been with Bartolomeu Diaz on his voyage to the Great Fish River beyond Algoa Bay. The total number of officers and men in the expedition was about 170, and as usual they took with them a party of condemned criminals to be set on shore *^ in remote and dangerous places", to gather information. The first spot at which they touched the south coast of Africa was St. Helena Bay, 120 miles north of the Cape of Good Hope. This was a desolate site without inhabitants or fresh water; but by pursuing their ex'plorations farther south they came to the mouth of a little river which they named Sant' lago or St. James. Here there were good fresh water, plenty of firewood, and (on the strand) a number of seals. These creatures lay about, basking in the sun, and were so little used to attacks from man that they were easily killed, and furnished excellent meat for the seamen. At this place the Portuguese managed to capture a Hottentot, or Bush- man, but his language was found to be perfectly unintel- ligible. However, he was treated kindly on the ships and landed with many small presents for himself and his friends, with the result that he induced a number of other natives to visit the Portuguese. These people are de- scribed as having been armed with assagays or long sticks, pointed with bone or horn. They were partially clothed in karosses of beasts* skins. In appearance they were stunted, ugly, and a darkish brown in skin colour. 6o Pioneers in South Africa They supplemented their speech by so many and such extravagant gestures that they appeared to be drunk when they were talking. Their only domestic animals appa- rently were dogs ; and they subsisted chiefly on wild roots and the flesh of seals and stranded whales. From the description given in da Gama's records, Dr. M*Call Theal considers that these people were Hottentots of the Strand- looper class, and not Bushmen, as the Bushmen are not known to have possessed assagays — they only used poisoned arrows — or to have used karosses of skin sewn altogether — they only wore single skins. Unfortunately, through misunderstanding and cowardice on the part of a braggart sailor, a scuffle occurred with these savages which put an end to their friendly relations with the Portuguese. Da Gama's ships next sailed cau- tiously round the Cape of Good Hope, without stopping to investigate the land; and then — the weather being very fine — followed the coastline eastwards as nearly as possible, being able to descry on shore the cattle and herdsmen mentioned in the reports of Diaz. On 26 November, 1497, the ships stood in to Mossel Bay to get fresh water. This was the place named by Diaz the ^'Aguada de Sao Bras". Here the natives — unquestion- ably Hottentots — proved to be very friendly. They came down in numbers, men and women, most of them riding on oxen. In return for the beads, trinkets, and scarlet caps given by da Gama, they presented him with their arm rings made of ivory or with some of their fat-tailed sheep, which provided the seamen with excellent mutton. They manifested very little dread of the Europeans at first, and would play to them on their reed flutes. But, un- fortunately, before many days the quarrelsome sailors and soldiers of the fleet had picked quarrels with the natives; THE PORTUGUESE AND HOTTENTOTS Portuguese reveal Southern Africa 6i scuffles and disputes spoilt the relations on both sides, and da Gama, fearing that he was going to be attacked and taken at a disadvantage, moved his ships to another anchorage and fired at the natives with his cannon and his crossbows till they fled into the interior. On Christmas Day, 1497, after a fortnight of stormy weather in which the ships were occasionally beaten back from their eastern course, da Gama saw from his ship that he was passing a beautiful land of wooded hills and flat, green pastures, on which cattle were grazing. He recorded the name of this country in his journal as Terra da Natal, or the Land of the Nativity of Christ—^* Christmas Land ". But he did not attempt to disembark anywhere, possibly because no suitable harbour or anchorage was in sight. On the contrary, he stood out to sea, and when he next approached the shore it was opposite the mouth of the great river (the Limpopo) which he called (on January 6, 1498) the River of the Kings ; because that day was the festival in the Church's calendar of the legendary Kings of the East, who visited the Babe in the Manger. But the Limpopo was also called — then or soon afterwards — the River of Copper (Rio do Cobre), because the natives coming down to the beach wore copper ornaments. These people differed much in appearance from the yellow- skinned, short -statured Hottentots. They were almost black complexioned, * but they were tall and comely. It occurred to one of the men, a certain Martim Affonso, who had been for some little time on shore on the Congo coast, that they were very like the natives of that region and perhaps spoke much the same language. He had picked up, it would seem, something of the Congo tongue, and he therefore offered to land with a companion and see if he could get into communication with these tall, black- 62 Pioneers in South Africa skinned Negroes. It turned out as he surmised. Strange to say, though separated by nearly two thousand miles from the lower Congo, they actually understood some of the words which Martim Affonso uttered, while he in his turn was able to grasp the meaning of some of their phrases. We have here the beginning of the white man's conception of that wonderful fact in Africa, the existence of the Bantu language family, which provides the whole of the southern third of Africa (with the small exception of the south-west corner occupied by Hottentots and Bush- men) with a single speech group, all members of which offer a most decided resemblance one to the other, more marked than is even the case with the Aryan languages of Europe and Asia. Here, fortunately, no quarrels arose between these Ronga^ or Thonga folk and the Portuguese, and consequently da Gama called this country the ** Land of the Good People ". He did not again visit the East African coast till he arrived at the mouth of the Quelimane River, the northern- most branch of the Zambezi delta, attracted no doubt to the vicinity by the obvious indications that he was off the mouth of some unusually big river. As he sailed up its Quelimane outlet (now by changes in land level only connected in the height of the flood season with the main Zambezi) he became aware that he had reached the con- fines of Oriental civilization, for the natives on its banks were not stark naked, as had been the Ba-ronga of the Limpopo, but wore cotton loincloths; moreover, their canoes had masts, and sails made of matting (like the Mitepe of Zanzibar). They were not particularly aston- 1 In all probability the population at that period belonged to much the same stock as exists there to-day — the tribes of the Ronga or Thonga (pronounced with an aspirated /), who in their language are somewhat akin to the Zulu-Kafir stock. Portuguese reveal Southern Africa 63 ished, and they were certainly not frightened at the sight of his big ships, for many of them came on board at once and some of them attempted to converse in Arabic — a language, of course, which was then fairly well known to the Portuguese, owing to their dealings with Morocco. In fact, amongst them were half-castes obviously Muhamma- dans and of Arab descent on one side, and some of these were chiefs or notables wearing turbans of silk and satin. One of these, a person of some prominence, when asked for his name, replied '^Kelimane" (or Kalimane), a word which meant ** interpreter ". But the Portuguese (who spelt it Quelimane — the qu to them being equivalent to a k before an e) thought that was his proper name, and consequently the chief settlement near the mouth of this river bears the name of Quelimane to this day.^ Except for the few words of Arabic they used, however, no one on board could understand the natives* dialect, which was a form of Makua speech, and although abso- lutely Bantu, a very peculiar, isolated language, much un- like the surrounding tongues. But the people seemed so friendly that da Gama stayed here for a considerable time to clean his ships and put them into better condition. A good deal of sickness had broken out on board, especially scurvy. Unfortunately, however, a number of his men con- tracted malarial fever through the mosquitoes of this region, and, alarmed at the mortality in his crew, da Gama made haste to put out to sea again. Before leaving he erected a pillar of stone as a memorial of his visit, and left behind two convicts, to collect information from the inhabitants. Because of the Arab dress worn by some of the people, and their obvious acquaintance with the affairs of the East and knowledge of the Arabic language, Vasco da ^ Not Quilimane, as it is incorrectly written in many geographical books. 64 Pioneers in South Africa Gama christened the river at the port of Quelimane the River of Good Omens. Some five days later his ships again neared the mainland, this time in the vicinity of a broad bay, with small coral islands to north and south. The water was shallow, therefore the Portuguese ships came to an anchor in order to find out more about the harbour for which they were making. There had come off to meet them a number of open sailing boats, manned by dark-coloured Swahili Arabs clad in striped cottons, with silken turbans on their heads, and daggers and swords thrust into their girdles. They arrived in un- suspicious friendliness, though with much curiosity; for they naturally took the Portuguese for fellow Muham- madans. If they were at all puzzled about the superior aspect of the ships or the dress of the seamen, they decided this must be part of an Egyptian fleet which had somehow arrived from the Red Sea. In their Arabic conversation, they related how their home was on a little island to the north-west of the anchorage, called *^ Mo9ambique",^ and that it was subject to the Sultanate of Kilwa, far to the north, and was a trading depot in the commerce which ranged between India on the one hand and Kilwa and Sofala on the other; mentioning *'Sofala" as **the place from which gold was obtained". A Portuguese captain started in the caravel to inspect the Island of Mo9ambique. The Arab sheikh or governor of the island came off to pay him a visit. He was a tall, slender man of middle age, whose clothes were very like those still worn by Swahili notabilities in East Africa — a long white cotton robe or kanzUy a sleeveless tunic of embroidered velvet (the ktsibao), a heavy turban of thick silk material embroidered with gold thread, and richly iMusambiki. Portuguese reveal Southern Africa 65 carved sandals trimmed with velvet. He also wore a curved scimetar, the scabbard of which was studded with large coloured stones, and a curved dagger in a hand- some silver sheath. The caravel was soon followed by the big ships of the fleet; but the fact that they were entertaining Christians now became apparent to these Swahili Arabs of Mo9am- bique. From the altered demeanour of the people, da Gama feared that some treacherous attack might be made on him, so he removed his squadron to the little island of St. George, farther south, where he set up another pillar, erected an altar, and held a religious service, which was attended by all of the crews of the Portuguese squad- ron. Meantime one of his Swahili pilots who came on board at Quelimane had deserted. Da Gama, therefore, with several officers and a number of men, went to Mo9am- bique in their boats to demand that the man should be surrendered to them. They were attacked, however, by parties of Swahili Arabs in sailing boats, and a sea fight ensued; after which, having gained no advantage, da Gama returned to his ships. But to his surprise, a day or two afterwards an Arab came to him off the Island of St. George, and offered to show him the way to the port of Malindi, from which ships sailed direct to India. Da Gama was obliged to get fresh water before starting, and his attempt to do so by force from the mainland opposite Mo9ambique led to a skirmish, in the course of which the Arab pilot deserted. Da Gama, now thoroughly angry, bombarded the Island of Mo9ambique and inflicted suffi- cient damage to bring the Muhammadans to terms; so that at last the sheikh or chief man of the place — Zakoeja — came to terms with him and provided a pilot for the northern voyage. (0 687) 6 66 Pioneers in South Africa After narrowly escaping shipwreck at one or two points, which may or may not have been due to treachery on the part of the pilot, da Gama sailed on northwards till he reached the port of Mombasa on 7 April, 1498; and here his reception was so dubious that he did not enter the inner anchorage, but, guided by the Arab volunteer who had come to him off Mo9ambique, he safely reached Malindi, a place not more than 80 miles to the north of Mombasa. Fortunately the Arab chief of Malindi was on very bad terms with the Sheikh of Mombasa, and there- fore received da Gama with great friendliness. An al- liance was quickly arranged between them, in token of which another marble pillar was erected. The stay at Malindi was of the greatest advantage to the Portuguese, for not only had they by this time lost nearly half their crews from sickness, but the remainder were most of them ill or weak, and certainly not any in a fit condition to accomplish the voyage to India and then return to Por- tugal. But their stay at Malindi, where provisions were good and abundant, and the climate not particularly un- healthy, completely restored them to vigour; and at Malindi da Gama secured a pilot, a native of Gujrat, who steered his vessels across the Indian Ocean to the port of Calicut, a voyage which is dealt with in my work on the Pioneers in India, On his return voyage to Portugal, da Gama made his way back to Malindi, where his treatment was as friendly and as helpful as before, but in the course of the return voyage the Sao Rafael struck on a shoal near the Island of Mafia, and there she was left to go to pieces, her crew being divided between the Sao Gabriel and the caravel. He called in again at the Island of St. George, near Mo9ambique, where once more divine service was held. Portuguese reveal Southern Africa 67 Apparently he touched nowhere after that until he reached Mossel Bay (Sao Bras). The Cape of Good Hope was rounded without difficulty on 20 March, 1499, and the two ships, the Sao Gabriel and the caravel Berrio (a vessel probably of no more than 50 tons capacity) sailed across the southern Atlantic, with a wide sweep to the westward, till they sighted the Cape Verde Islands. Here, at the Island of Sant' lago, the Sao Gabriel was left to be re- paired, as she was not in a condition to face the gales of the northern Atlantic. So Vasco da Gama transferred himself and his dying brother, Paulo (who had long been suffering from consumption), to a caravel, or small sailing vessel about the size of the Berrio, The winds blew him out to the westward, so that he found himself amongst the Azore Islands, and at this time his brother died. Da Gama landed at the Island of Terceira in order to bury his brother, and then sailed over the remaining thousand miles that separated him still from Lisbon, which town he reached at the end of August, 1499. The knowledge he brought back with him, especially that concerning the prevalent winds of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, now enabled the Portuguese to concert plans for the discovery and conquest of the Indian coasts. Accordingly, in March, 1500, less than seven months after da Gama's return, a fleet of thirteen ships, manned by more than 1200 soldiers, sailors, and officers, left Lisbon under the command of the great admiral, Pedro Alvares Cabral (with Bartolomeu Diaz in a subordinate post), to sail round the Cape of Good Hope and definitely establish the Portuguese power on the west coast of India. On his way thither Cabral sailed so far to the west, in order to pick up a good wind, that he accidentally discovered the north-east coast of Brazil, which had already been reached from the 68 Pioneers in South Africa west by the Spaniards (as related in my work on Pioneers in Tropical America), But Cabral realized the full impor- tance of his discovery, and consequently dispatched one of his ships back to Portugal with the tidings. He then steered approximately for the Cape of Good Hope, but in mid-Atlantic his fleet was struck by a most terrible storm and hurricane, in the course of which four of the vessels foundered and were never seen again. One of these con- tained the great discoverer of the Cape of Good Hope, Bartolomeu Diaz, who was to have been placed in com- mand of a fortified trading station at Sofala, to control the gold output of South-east Africa. Another of the ships parted company with her consorts, and, though she coasted round the Cape of Good Hope and bravely sailed as far north as Somaliland, she never succeeded in rejoining the rest of the squadron, so in despair turned back at Mag- dishu (Magadoxo), once more rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and ultimately reached Lisbon with only six of her crew surviving. The remaining vessels of Cabral's fleet finally arrived at the coast off Sofala on i6 July, 1500, in an almost des- perate condition, owing to the damage they had received from the storms encountered on the way. Nevertheless, the Portuguese commander, soon after coming to an anchor, captured a small Arab sailing vessel ; but ascertaining that the captain was the uncle of the Sheikh of Malindi, he restored this vessel to its owner, and gave him many pre- sents, on account of the alliance between the Portuguese and Malindi. He then, in spite of the bad condition of his ships (too weak to make any attempt on Sofala, a settlement which lay hidden away beyond dangerous shoals and mangrove thickets), sailed on to Mocambique, effected some repairs there, and made his way to Kilwa, then the Portuguese reveal Southern Africa 69 capital city of all the Arab trading posts on the east coast of Africa between Somaliland and Sofala. Here a bold demand was made on the amir or sultan of the place that he should become a Christian, acknowledge the suzerainty of the King of Portugal, and surrender to the Portuguese the gold trade of Sofala. These demands were refused, and, as the town was too strong to be taken by these damaged Portuguese ships with their weakened crews, Cabral sailed away to Malindi. The sheikh of that place, who grasped at any means of carrying his feud with Mombasa to a successful conclusion, received him rapturously, and was delighted with the splendid pre- sents which had been sent to him from Lisbon. For- tunately there returned with these presents a Swahili Arab who had been dispatched from Malindi with da Gama as an envoy. The Sheikh of Malindi, therefore, publicly declared himself to be a vassal of the King of Portugal. Cabral then proceeded to India, but on his return journey was unable to make any advance as regards the occupation of East African posts, owing to the reduction of his fleet by storms which separated the vessels. He dispatched, however, one of his smaller ships to get into touch with Sofala, and the captain of this vessel, Sancho de Toar, crossed the bar of the little river (an arm, per- haps, of the Gorongozi), and anchored before one of the two Arab settlements, afterwards landing and visiting the Sheikh Yusuf. He received a present of gold and a supply of provisions. Then, having collected all the information obtainable from the natives, he sailed on his way to Lis- bon, and, wonderful to relate, reached that place only a few hours after the remaining ships of Cabral's fleet had got there, though these vessels had been separated from 70 Pioneers in South Africa one another by months in time and had pursued devious routes on the return journey. Another fleet set sail for India from Lisbon in May, 1 501, and on its way out discovered the Island of Ascen- sion,^ and called at the watering place at Mossel Bay, where its admiral caused a chapel to be built and dedi- cated to Sao Bras (St. Blasius). This was the first Chris- tian church to be erected in South Africa. On the return journey of this fleet from India, round the Cape of Good Hope, the Island of St. Helena was discovered and named (in the summer of 1502). Another fleet, under a cousin of da Gama's, by dint of an imposing show of force, forced the Amir of Kilwa to agree to become a vassal of the King of Portugal. Further relations had been opened up with Sofala (which was even becoming friendly dis- posed towards Portuguese visits, owing to the trade which they brought about), but no attempt was made actually to take forcible possession of any post on the east coast of Africa till 1505. Meantime an interesting episode occurred in the history of South Africa. A great Portuguese sea captain, Antonio DE Saldanha, in command of a squadron intended for action against the Egyptian fleets at the mouth of the Red Sea, paused to reassemble his vessels off the southern ex- tremity of Africa, and chose as a safe anchoring place a harbour which we now know as Table Bay. To the north- east rose that most imposing of eminences. Table Moun- tain, perhaps for its altitude the most majestic mountain mass in the world, looking far higher than it really is,^ the predestined Acropolis of one of the world's great imperial 1 First called Conceppao, as its discovery was made on the Feast of the Conception. It was afterwards rediscovered by the Portuguese on Ascension Day, and given that name. 2 The highest ooint of Table Mountain is 3850 feet above sea level. Portuguese reveal Southern Africa 71 cities. In the middle of this majestic mass of granite — called, by Saldanha himself, Monte da Mesa, or Table Mountain — there was a deep ravine which indicated a means of ascent to the summit, in most other directions guarded by sheer precipices of 2000 to 3000 feet. Up this ravine, through the lovely vegetation of blooming heaths, geraniums, and ground orchids (though these are not mentioned in his accounts), Saldanha made his way till he reached the highest ridge of the mountain, his pur- pose being, not the investigation of one of the most re- markable floras in the world, but to gain a vantage point from which his gaze might stretch far and wide over the south Atlantic in search of his missing ships. He per- ceived them not, but he realized for the first time the actual outline of the Cape of Good Hope, and much of the geography of the coasts at the meeting-point of the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans. One of his sea captains, RuY L0UREN90 Ravasco, getting far ahead of Saldanha on his voyage, fetched up off Zanzibar, and there boldly attacked the Arabs on sea and on land, winning a victory and forcing the Arab Sheikh of Zanzibar to become henceforth a tributary of Portugal. Similarly he brought into vassalage the Swa- hili settlement of Brava (Barawa), on the south coast of Somaliland. In July, 1505, Kilwa, which had repudiated its treaty of vassalage, was attacked by a Portuguese squadron. The amir fled into the interior, and the place was occupied by the Portuguese with very little fighting. Here, first of all on the East coast of Africa,^ they established themselves as ^Or, it might be added, anywhere on the coast of that great southern third of Africa which extends from the Equator to the Cape of Good Hope ; for although the Portuguese by 1505 had visited most places along the south-west coast of Africa between the Niger delta and the Orange River, and had navigated the Congo as far 72 Pioneers in South Africa a ruling power, and built a fort to protect their authority. This fortress at Kilwa was dedicated to Sant' lago or St. James (a name which is often misspelled by the Portuguese themselves as San' Thiago). The Portuguese now resolved to attack Mombasa, the rival city to Malindi, and a very important centre of Arab power on the Equatorial East African coast. Although they were only a few hundred in number, they gained an easy victory, the chief forces sent against them by the Arabs being Negroes from the mainland armed with bows and arrows: ancestors, no doubt, of the Giriama and Nyika peoples of to-day. Mombasa was destroyed and plun- dered, but not occupied. Soon afterwards Barawa, on the Somali coast, which had repudiated its vassalage to Por- tugal, was attacked likewise. Here, however, the Portu- guese met with a much more determined resistance from the Arabs, Somalis, and Negroes, and in the attack more than a hundred Portuguese were either killed outright or wounded. However, Barawa was taken, numbers of Arab men and women were slain, and the town was destroyed by fire. Probably it never regained its original importance, and with the fall of Barawa, and later of Magdishu, the Arab civilization of southern Somaliland, which was be- ginning to produce a considerable effect on East Africa, was brought to a close. Although 150 years afterwards the Arabs turned out the Portuguese, and reoccupied these places, their settlements never attained to anything like the wealth and importance which characterized them (according to history and tradition) for something like 1000 years previously. Madagascar had been sighted in 1500, and more fully as the falls above Matadi, they had not as yet taken political possession of any place east of the Gold Coast. Portuguese reveal Southern Africa 73 explored in 1505 and subsequent years by Mascarenhas and other Portuguese navigators. Mascarenhas also dis- covered the islands of Mauritius, Reunion, and Rodriguez. But Portuguese occupation of the actual south coast of Africa was delayed — and, as events turned out, never effected — owing to one of those curious episodes in history which are utterly unforeseen and which spring from ap- parently trifling causes. In 15 10 a Portuguese fleet called at Table Bay to get fresh water and provisions. They purchased cattle from the Hottentots, who there and else- where along the coast had first showed themselves very friendly disposed to European visitors. But some of the Portuguese seamen (among whom there were a number so pleased with the aspect of the land that they would have liked to remain there permanently as settlers) got up a trumpery quarrel with the Hottentots of Table Bay, no doubt through offering indignities to their women. They were thrashed by the men and returned to the beach with bloody faces. The commander-in-chief of the expedition, Dom Francisco d'Almeida, was vehemently urged by his officers to avenge this insult to the European. In vain he protested, pointing out that probably his seamen had only been punished by the natives for misbehaviour. The views of his officers prevailed, and he very reluctantly, and as though with a presage of his fate, accompanied an expedition on shore which was to make short work of the Hottentot village. They captured this village, it is true, and drove off most of its cattle towards the sea beach. But the Hottentots rallied. The Portuguese arms, of course, consisted of clumsy arquebuses, matchlocks, and crossbows. The firearms were of a nature not to be used in a hurry, and were consequently useless in a sudden emergency. Apparently, also, the crossbows were in- 74 Pioneers in South Africa effective, or a kind of panic seized the Portuguese. At any rate they retreated in disorder to the sea beach, being much impeded in their flight by the Hottentot cattle, which, obeying the distant whistles of their owners, turned about and knocked over many of the Portuguese, trampling them underfoot. The Hottentots came on with their assagays, poisoned arrows, and clubs. The boats which should have been there on the beach, waiting to convey them back to the ships, had left owing to rough weather, and did not return in time to save the landing party from utter disaster. Some of the noblest and most honoured men of the day in Portugal were slain on the beach by the primitive weapons of the Hottentot savages. Such of the Portu- guese as escaped only did so by wading out through the sea water up to their necks, or keeping themselves afloat on the waves till the boats from their ships could come to their assistance.^ This episode created in the minds of the Portuguese such a disgust for Table Bay and such a wholesome fear of the Hottentots that they gave the southern extremity of Africa a wide berth in their voyages, sailing as a rule from St. Helena right round to Delagoa Bay or Sofala. Even their watering place and chapel at Mossel Bay were 1 Pieter Kolben two hundred years afterwards (see pp. 122-3) related the revenge that the Portuguese took for this disaster. Their fleet anchored in Table Bay three years after the disaster, and knowing the fondness of the Hottentots for brass, a large brass cannon was carried on shore, loaded with powder and crammed with heavy cannon balls. The Portuguese then tied two long ropes to the mouth of the cannon, and applied a slow match to the touchhole. Having done this, they announced to the crowd of assembled Hottentots that they made them a present of this piece of brass with the desire of renewing'friendship, and begged the Hottentots to drag it away by the ropes. Very soon two long files of lusty men were tugging at the ropes with all their might, dragging the cannon up the beach and full in range of the discharge, which presently occurred when the match reached the powder. As the result, many were killed and wounded, not only among those who pulled at the cannon, but in the crowd of spec- tators behind. Such as escaped fled to the mountain in the wildest consternation, and for at least a century afterwards the natives retained the utmost dread of firearms. Portuguese reveal Southern Africa 75 seldom visited after the disaster which occurred on the site of Cape Town. In the late autumn of 1505 a Portuguese squadron of six ships was assembled outside the bar of the Sofala River, with the determination of making an effective oc- cupation of that place, believed then to be the capital of an Arab principality, but as a matter of fact an outlying part of the dominions of the King or Emperor of *^ Mono- motapa", who was a Negro potentate living near the banks of the Zambezi, and ruling more or less loosely a confederation of tribes speaking Bantu languages.^ Here the Arabs were merely tolerated as merchants who pur- chased the gold dust brought down by the natives from the many workings and old mines in what is now known as Southern Rhodesia. The sheikh or elder of this colony of Arab merchants was a very old man, much respected by the Swahili Arabs. The admiral in command of the Portuguese squadron was Pedro d'Anhaya (the name is sometimes written Anaya). As soon as his ships, which had been scattered by various accidents and small disasters, were assembled, he left the two largest in the roadstead and crossed the bar of the river with the four smaller vessels, coming to an anchor in front of the Arab settlement which was nearest to the sea. From here, in boats and accompanied by a large number of Portuguese soldiers, he proceeded to the settlement higher up the river where the sheikh resided. He was received in a large hall in which were gathered an assemblage of Arab elders and merchants. These men were mostly naked from the neck to the waist, except for superb silk turbans on their heads, but the lower part of their bodies was swathed in handsome striped cotton cloths, 1 A further description of Monomotapa is given on pp. 83 and 88. 76 Pioneers in South Africa while the most of them wore girdles round the waist from which depended curved swords with curved ivory hilts. The sheikh himself, about seventy years old, blind and in poor health, but a tall man of imposing demeanour, re- clined at one end of the hall on silk cushions which were laid on a kitanda or angarib (an oblong bed made of a wooden frame strung with a tight lacework of strips of ox hide). The wall behind this couch was hung with silken fabrics ; and the old sheikh, Yusuf, was richly clad, no doubt much after the style of well-to-do Muhammadans of the present day at Zanzibar. D'Anhaya, leaving his soldiers on the outer court of the sheikh's residence, the boundary of which was a thorny hedge, possibly of euphorbias, entered the hall, and as he did so the as- sembled Arabs and Swahili Negroes rose from their three- legged stools and bowed to him gravely. In previous deliberations it had been decided by a majority of voices not to resist the Portuguese. The Arabs knew that Sofala was a very unhealthy place for the purer-blooded Arabs, and consequently would prove even more deadly for these white men from western Europe. They hoped, therefore, that in course of time the climate would tell in their favour and weaken or destroy the Portuguese gar- rison. So that the Sheikh Yusuf greeted d'Anhaya with much apparent friendliness, and as a proof of his desire for an alliance with the Portuguese produced twenty for- lorn Portuguese sailors who were the sole survivors of a shipwrecked party that had marched overland from near Delagoa Bay to Sofala, and had been saved from starva- tion by the sheikh's supplies of food. Accordingly, a number of Negroes of the country were engaged by the Portuguese, a fort was built in the course of three months, and a garrison was left in it under the Portuguese reveal Southern Africa 77 command of Pedro d'Anhaya. Soon, however, malarial fever began to work with dire effect on this company of Europeans, who of course then and for nearly 400 years afterwards took no proper measures to combat this disease. The water supply inside the fort was foul; and although mangrove mud has nothing more to do with malarial fever than by serving as a breeding ground for mosquitoes, nevertheless there is something in the exhalations from a mangrove swamp which is particularly unwholesome. After two months the garrison was apparently incapable of fighting, numbers of the men having died, others being greatly enfeebled by sickness. The Portuguese had, however, made a great friend at Sofala in the person of an Abyssinian named Akote, who had probably been brought there some years before as a slave and been forced to adopt Muhammadanism against his will, but had acquired considerable influence over the Arab merchants. Akote took up his residence with the Portuguese after they built the fort; and by means of his followers and spies he was able to warn the Portuguese that a plan was being prepared to attack them. The son-in-law of Yusuf, who had been hostile to the Portu- guese from the very beginning, had enlisted a tribe of Negroes as allies, and with them was advancing to attack the fortress, which, amongst other defences, was sur- rounded by a fairly deep moat — a moat, no doubt, breed- ing the mosquitoes which introduced the germs of fever into the blood of the Portuguese. There were at that time only thirty-five Portuguese well enough to bear arms or to work the clumsy but effective artillery. Akote, how- ever, collected a hundred of his followers and marched them into the fort just in time, for with little warning there suddenly arrived a vast concourse of warlike Negroes (who 78 Pioneers in South Africa were not, however, Zulus, as some writers have contended, but more akin to the Makarana and Mashuna tribes at the present day) led by a number of Arabs. The Negroes were armed with bows and arrows and assagays or throwing spears ; the Arabs had only their curved swords and daggers. But a portion of the Negroes carried boughs of wood cut from the adjoining bush, and these they hurled into the moat at places so as to make a rough bridge from which they might scale the walls of the fort; whilst at the same time they shot arrows to which blazing pieces of cotton wool were attached, so as to set fire to the roofs of the Portuguese buildings. However, Pedro d'Anhaya, with great foresight, had provided for such tricks by re- moving all the thatch from the most exposed houses and laying in a good supply of water. The walls of the Portuguese fort were defended with cannon, and the sol- diers each wielded most effectively a crossbow. With these they wrought such execution on the masses of Negroes (the Arabs probably remained prudently in the background) that the latter retired from the walls of the fort discomfited, and withdrew for further consideration to a grove of palms hard by. Pedro d'Anhaya, with fifteen of the most vigorous amongst the Portuguese and a number of the Swahili Negroes who followed Akote, dashed out in pursuit from the fort and attacked the flee- ing Negroes with their swords and lances, slaying many of them, and for a time securing a respite from attack. Yet after a while the Negroes reassembled at night-time in the palm grove, and during three days continued their attempts to scale the walls of the fort and take the Portu- guese by surprise. But the Portuguese had with them big dogs, probably of the bloodhound type; and these dogs rendered almost Portuguese reveal Southern Africa 79 as much service in foiling the Negroes' attacks as the Portuguese artillery. This, however, achieved notable results for the period. The palm grove, where the Negro forces rallied ever and again, was not beyond the range of the Portuguese cannon, and the projectiles of stone which were hurled from the mouths of these guns sent the palm stems flying into splinters which did nearly as much damage as the impact of the stone cannon balls, though these ploughed up the Negro ranks. Finally, the savage allies of the Arabs got sick of the business, believing that the Portuguese and the Arabs were in reality allied and had only wished to lure powerful tribes to their destruction in order to take complete possession of the country. They therefore turned about, abandoned the attack on the fort, and in revenge plundered the Arab settlement higher up the river, and thence fled to their homes in the interior. Immediately they had gone, Pedro d'Anhaya manned his largest boat with the more vigorous amongst the Portuguese, and no doubt with Akote and some of his men, and rowed up-river to the dismantled Arab settle- ment, where he met with little resistance. Forcing his way into the residence of the sheikh, he found the old Arab chieftain lying on his couch, but with a bundle of assagays by his side. One of these he hurled with all his force in the direction from which he could hear the advancing footsteps. The assagay struck d'Anhaya in the neck, but immediately afterwards Manoel Fernandez — a daring and capable Portuguese who then filled the position of factor or business man at the fort — dealt a tremendous blow at the old sheikh which severed Yusuf's head from his body with one stroke of the sword. Impaling this head with a lance the Portuguese returned in triumph to their 8o Pioneers in South Africa fortress, where they displayed it on the walls. The next morning the hostile Arabs, driven to desperation, attacked the fort with desperate bravery, but in vain. They could not climb over the wall in sufficient numbers to overpower the Portuguese, whose artillery and crossbow practice were deadly at such close quarters. The result was that the survivors sued for peace and obtained it. Akote, the friendly Abyssinian, was given a prominent place in the local administration, and the Portuguese hold over Sofala was never again contested by the Muhammadans. But the unhealthiness of Sofala and its badness as a port — the bar of its little river only admitting ships of small size — made it unsuitable as a place of call for Portu- guese ships voyaging to and from India. It was therefore determined to choose the island of Mozambique for this purpose; and in 1507, a powerful Portuguese squadron arriving at that place, the great fortress of Sao Miguel was commenced, the Muhammadans of the island offering no objection or resistance. Before long, Mozambique became the inevitable capital of the Portuguese dominions on the East coast of Africa, owing to the unhealthiness of Sofala and the disappointing results of the traffic in gold. It is evident that the supplies of alluvial gold were becoming nearly exhausted in South-east Africa, and the* Bantu Negroes who had long occupied the old workings and tunnels in the rock (commenced — one may be sure — by adventurers of Asiatic race), were not sufficiently in- dustrious to extract more gold than was nei:essary to satisfy their simple needs in trade. Kilwa, the once wealthy, prosperous and well-built capital of Arab East Africa, was ruined in a very few years by the rapacity of the Portuguese. First of all Portuguese reveal Southern Africa 8i they declared a monopoly of trade with India and even with parts of East Africa, a monopoly to be reserved for Portuguese vessels. Then, when they found the carrying of this order into execution was making the whole popu- lation of the East African coast bitterly hostile to them, they rescinded it. They set up various puppet chiefs one after the other at Kilwa, whilst the original sultan or amir — Ibrahim — held his Court in the interior, assisted and supported by the Negro chiefs. Sickened, after a few years, by the constant attacks on the town by Ibrahim, the Portuguese made peace with him and restored him to his position as chief of the place, at the same time aban- doning the fortress and leaving Kilwa to its fate. The place never recovered its former prosperity, and in the course of time passed away from the Portuguese dominions for ever. An interesting light is thrown on the Mo9ambique mainland at this period by a passage in the writings of the celebrated Italian traveller, Ludovico di Varthema, whose journeys in India occupy such a prominent place in my book on the pioneers of that region. Ludovico di Varthema on his way back from India to Europe visited Mo9ambique about the year 1508, just as the fortress, church, and hospital on that island were being commenced, in the frenzied zeal for dominion on the part of the Portu- guese — a zeal which caused them to make what for the period might be regarded as superhuman progress in these constructions. Di Varthema, accompanying a party of Portuguese bent on adventure, landed on the mainland opposite the little island and explored the country for a distance of between 20 and 30 miles back from the sea coast. Their progress was stayed for a time by a great troop of elephants, which showed themselves not only fear- (C587) 6 82 Pioneers in South Africa less, but very much inclined to attack and destroy these strange-looking human beings, whose clothes and odour probably excited the surprise and suspicion of the intelli- gent beasts, accustomed previously to naked Negroes. Varthema and his companions only warded off the attacks of the elephants by making torches of reeds and waving the fire in front of the animals. When this herd had passed by, Varthema and his companions walked inland for another lo miles or so through a hilly or mountainous country, where, as Varthema relates, they found caverns inhabited by a strange Negro tribe, who spoke in a manner which he could only compare to the clicking of a tongue. It was a sound (he wrote) like that used by muleteers in Sicily to urge on their lazy mules. Obviously, di Varthema was just in time to record the existence in the hinterland of Mo9ambique of a Bushman or Hottentot people which soon afterwards must have become extinct, through the action of either the Portu- guese, or, more likely, the Bantu Negroes whom the Portu- guese supplied with arms and encouraged to pursue a trade in slaves. Other legends and traditions collected by the author of this book in the adjoining regions of Nyasaland would seem to point to the existence down to a comparatively late period in the mountain regions of Mo9ambique of a Bushman -like people which were of short stature, yellow-skinned, and speaking a language full of clicks, and usually defending themselves against the aggressions of their big black neighbours by hurling stones on them from the almost inaccessible heights on which they lived. The Portuguese had not long been in occupation of Sofala when they became aware that there was a very powerful Negro monarch wielding far-stretching influence Portuguese reveal Southern Africa 83 over the interior, and known usually as Monomotapa.^ Unfortunately, for them, a terrible civil war was raging between the tribes and clans over which the Monomotapa ruled, and which occupied more especially the gold-yield- ing region south of the Zambezi. This was due to a disputed succession to the supreme chieftainship. Con- sequently the Portuguese commandants of Sofala strove to enter into relations with the natives of the far interior, and see to what extent they could appease this warfare, perhaps making themselves thereby masters of the land of the gold mines. They had already attempted several times to obtain a foothold on the banks of the lower Zambezi, but their efforts had been checked by the treachery of the Muhammadan Swahili traders, who, with the aid of their Negro allies, succeeded in massacring or driving away the Portuguese. However, at last, partly by conciliating the Muhammadans and employing them as trading agents, the Portuguese succeeded in establish- ing a trading station at Sena, on the north bank of the broad, swampy river a little distance above the confluence of the Shire and the Zambezi. Another trading station was founded soon afterwards at Tete, much higher up the river, where the banks were rocky, at a distance of about ^ There has been much dispute as to the etymology of this name. The present writer believes the following to be the most likely solution. The title is probably derived from one of the Nyanja dialects of the Lower Zambezi, and should have been written Mwene-mutapa, or Lord (Master) of the Mine. But there were other versions more like Muna or Muina Mutapa or Bena-Motapa. In fact, the Portuguese often referred to this potentate as the Beno Mutapa. I believe that this Muina, Mona, or Mong is an old Bantu word, meaning brother or comrade, of which the plural is Ba-ina, usually pronounced Bena. This prefix Bena is very common in south-central Africa and the Congo basin, and is generally translated "clan". Therefore Bena- mutapa would mean " the clan of the mining people". In all probability the Mutapa people were originally represented by the Karana tribes, who possibly crossed the Zambezi about 1600 or 1700 years ago, and took possession of the gold-mining estab- lishments like Zimbabwe, which had been created in south-east Africa by enterprising adventurers from southern Arabia. 84 Pioneers in South Africa 300 miles in a direct line from the seacoast. In 1544 a still more important trading station was opened at Queli- mane, on the River of Good Omens, where Vasco da Gama met with such a favourable reception. All these stations soon sent to the Portuguese headquarters at Sofala great consignments of ivory, and a certain amount of gold ob- tained from the workings north and south of the eastern Zambezi. Meantime the Portuguese were equally desirous of ascertaining the kind of country that lay to the south of Sofala, between that region more or less permeated by Muhammadan traders and the land of the Hottentots, far away to the south, where the Portuguese still maintained a place of call at or near Mossel Bay (Sao Bras). About 1544 they founded a trading station at the mouth of the Inyambane River (now known as the Inhambane), and in the same year a great expedition was sent out to explore the unknown country between the Sabi and the Limpopo, commanded by L0UREN90 Marquez and Antonio Cal- deira. Without any difficulty they reached the lower course of the Limpopo River, and ascertained that the country abounded in copper; this was worked by the natives, who were rich in that metal, wearing it as orna- ments, and making axes and other weapons from it. Crossing the Limpopo, the two Portuguese made their way to the seacoast, and discovered what had hitherto only been vaguely known — the splendid harbour of Dela- goa Bay, which they named Bahia da Lagoa, or the Bay of the Lagoon. But in spite of the lake-like character of this wide harbour, the name was not so much applied to it as to one of the rivers it received, which the Portuguese believed, from information given by the natives, came from a great inland lake. On this river, the Umbelozi, Portuguese reveal Southern Africa 85 the Portuguese saw a vast number of elephants, which browsed on the foh'age of the trees and bushes with little regard for the teasing human beings about them. Every now and again an elephant blundered into a pit cunningly dug for him by the natives, and was then done to death by assagays and arrows. Ivory, consequently, was plentiful amongst these naked, Zulu-like Negroes, who disposed of it to the Portuguese for ridiculously small amounts of trade goods. The chief of this region was known as the Inyaka, and he at once showed himself very friendly to the white men. He was an old man, but tall, erect, and of noble bearing, with a thick, white, curly beard. The Portuguese thought he resembled so closely one of their distant offi- cials in Malacca that they gave him the same name — Garcia de Sa. Louren9o Marquez, the senior official in charge of this expedition, decided to establish a trading station on this beautiful bay, to which he gave his own name, a name long afterwards revived as the title of the Portuguese city on Delagoa Bay — Louren90 Marquez. The founder of this station remained here for something like thirteen years, living on the most friendly terms with this Thonga or Ronga tribe, until, as a reward for his excellent services to Portuguese commerce, he was given a higher post in India.^ In 1558 it was resolved to construct a fortress of the first class at Mo9ambique, and thenceforward to make that little island the capital of all the Portuguese dominions in East Africa, and the principal calling place for ships on 1 Between 1550 and 1593 numerous great ships of the Portuguese, sailing to or from India, were wrecked on the South African coast at different points of Kaffraria and Zululand, and their passengers and crews (including frequently Portuguese ladies and children) were obliged to walk overland to Delagoa Bay or even Inyambane. A con- siderable knowledge was thus obtained and recorded about rivers and mountains of South Africa. 86 Pioneers in South Africa their way to India after leaving St. Helena or rounding the Cape of Good Hope. So in that year a Portuguese architect, who had been trained to his profession at Antwerp, came out and planned the great fortress dedicated to St. Sebastian, which remains as the most conspicuous object of Mo9ambique at the present day. It took about forty years to build, but it was extraordinarily complete in its arrangements for housing a large garrison of troops and supplying them with fresh water. This last purpose could only be achieved by excavating or constructing enormous stone and concrete cisterns in the coral rock of the locality, into which would be drained all the rainwater falling on the vast extent of roofs in the fortress city. There is no fresh water obtainable on Mo9ambique Islet, even that which is got from wells being brackish ; but as there is a somewhat heavy rainfall in the summer half of the year, between October and April, large quantities of rainwater are stored in cisterns, and are sufficient for a relatively small popu- lation. In planning and building this fortress of Sao Sebastiao the Portuguese were wiser than they knew. The work, it is interesting to note, was really inspired by a woman, the Queen Regent of Portugal, Donna Catarina. Had this achievement not been carried through in the main before Portugal fell into the paralysing grasp of Spain after the death of the young king (Dom Sebastiao), the Portuguese dominion over East Africa would have been completely ruined when it was attacked fiercely by the Dutch and the Arabs in the seventeenth century. Three times the Dutch besieged Mo9ambique — in 1604, 1607, ^"d 1662 — and each time failed to take it, though they occupied other parts of Portuguese East Africa for a while. The Arabs of Maskat similarly failed in 1670. At that time, or soon afterwards, the little island of Mo9am- Portuguese reveal Southern Africa 87 bique was all that was left of the Portuguese East African empire; but it was never taken, and always served as the nucleus from which the Portuguese power was once more able to extend southwards, northwards, and westwards in the eighteenth century, until it recovered a good deal of what had been previously lost. CHAPTER IV The Portuguese in South Central Africa In* 1 541 the first Jesuit missionaries left Portugal to evan- gelize India, and to their headquarters in Goa there was sent in 1558 the request of a chief of the Karaiia^ people, in the interior of the Inyambane district, for missionaries to come to that part of Africa to tell his people about Christianity. This section of the Karaiia people had in their tribal movements penetrated what might be called the **Thonga" territory south of the Sabi River, and partly to affirm their position there they desired to enter into closer relations with the Portuguese. A son of the chief had gone on a trading expedition with ivory to Mo9ambique, and there had been converted to Chris- tianity. Accordingly the Jesuits' College at Goa sent over to Mo9ambique two fathers and a lay brother, who were to proceed to the evangelization of ** Monomotapa". The senior member of this mission was DoM G0N9ALO da SiLVEiRA. The mission party suffered at first terribly from fever, but at last managed to reach the village of Otongwe, where there resided the Karana chief who had made an appeal for missionaries, and whose name was Gamba. The missionaries arrived (as Dr. M'Call Theal points out^) at a most opportune moment to realize one amongst the many miseries and inconveniences of heathen- 1 Pronounced ' ' Karang'a ". ^ The Beginnings of South African History. Portuguese in South Central Africa 89 dom. A son of the chief had just died, and the ceremony of witchfinding was in progress. A local medicine man had pointed out the supposed witch, and charged him with causing the young man's death **by treading in his foot- steps as he walked behind him ". The man, having been indicated, was at once done to death with terrible torture. The missionaries also noticed that in the kraal and else- where in the country all sick people were at once deserted by their friends and relations, lest they might die and any- one who had helped them be charged with their murder by witchcraft. The chief, his family, and his people, however, ex- pressed themselves at once as willing to embrace Chris- tianity, and were speedily — 400 to 500 persons — baptized and given Christian names. Then Dom Gon9alo da Silveira, leaving one of the members of the mission behind to con- tinue the work, proceeded to carry out his much greater plan of reaching the Court of the ^' Emperor of Monomo- tapa", travelling by way of Quelimane and the Zambezi to Sena. From this place da Silveira sent his message to the great Karaiia monarch, and receiving, after two months, a favourable reply, continued his penetration of the interior to Tete, higher up the Zambezi, and thence southwards to the capital of Monomotapa, probably a place on the Mazoe River,i near Fura. The Monomotapa — a mere youth, who had only recently succeeded to the title, and whose eastern dominions had been seized by a rebel half-brother — received Dom Gon9alo as an envoy of the great Viceroy of Portuguese India, anxious to enlist the help of that potentate in regaining complete control of the Karana empire. He therefore willingly consented to embrace Christianity, and, together with his mother, iThe old name of the Mazoe was Manzovu — " Elephants ". 90 Pioneers in South Africa was at once baptized. Three hundred of his counsellors and attendants went to the font with him, and likewise accepted the Christian rite. The Monomotapa hoped that when he had agreed to this ceremony (which he regarded as a kind of entry into blood-brotherhood), the envoy would go away and perhaps send him the arms and assistance he desired for the prosecution of his family war. But Silveira, of course, remained, and never lost an opportunity of preaching Christianity. At the Court of the Monomotapa there were numerous Swahili Arab merchants and adventurers, who had taken refuge there after the Portuguese had ousted them from the coast ports. They naturally maligned Dom Gon9alo to the African chief, saying that he was a great worker of magic, and was intriguing with the rebel half-brother. The Monomotapa took alarm, and, as Gon9alo refused to obey his order to leave the country, he had him strangled. But soon afterwards a terrible drought set in, which was followed by a great plague of locusts, and the superstitious chief now veered about to the belief that he had slain a saint and was being punished by God. He therefore arrested and slew the Muhammadans who had incited him to this deed. The other Jesuit father, who had been left behind at the village of Gamba, in the hinterland of Inyambane, was also affected by this drought. Here the natives ascribed the failure of the rains to their change of religion, so that the priest was expelled from their country and obliged to return to Mo9ambique. Meantime the reports which various wandering Portu- guese had transmitted to Mo9ambique and Lisbon as to the gold resources of Monomotapa had inspired the young king, Dom Sebastiao, with the idea of creating in South Africa a gold-producing empire as rich as that which the Portuguese in South Central Africa gj Spaniards had acquired in north-western South America. The king was further incited to do this as he considered it was incumbent on him to avenge the death of Dom Gon9alo. Accordingly he ordained that the Portuguese dominions in the Eastern world should be recast; that they should be divided into three captaincies, the first of which, an independent government from that of India, was to consist of the whole East African coast from Cape Guardafui in Somaliland, on the north, to Cape Correntes, on the south. ^ Francisco Barreto, who had previously been Gover- nor-General in India, was appointed to take command of this great East African empire, and especially to devote himself to the conquest of Monomotapa. After many delays and an extraordinary series of misfortunes, occasion- ing much loss of life amongst the men on board his ships, Barreto reached Mo9ambique in May, 1570. After some chopping and changing of plans, he then devoted himself to the Monomotapa expedition, and following the advice of the principal Jesuit priest in his company — Father Monclaros — he resolved to reach the native capital of that empire by way of the Zambezi. He ascended the Luabo mouth of the Zambezi, and sailed or towed his two vessels up to Sena, where he landed more than 700 soldiers armed with the rude fire- arm of the period — the arquebus — several cannon, which were to be drawn by horses, a large number of horses also, to mount his cavalry soldiers, and numerous asses 1 It was curious that this definition of claims should have left the Limpopo River, Delagoa Bay, and Mossel Bay, with its watering station of Sa.o Bras, completely out- side the Portuguese dominions, though the Portuguese still possessed the Islands of Ascension and St. Helena, and had met with little or no native opposition to their trade with the Bantu regions of South Africa. This delimitation was one of the argu- ments employed by the British in the last century to prove that they had a perfect right to instal themselves on the south coast of Delagoa Bay. 92 Pioneers in South Africa and camels for transport purposes. Cattle were obtained from the natives and soon trained to work under the yoke. They dragged stones to Sena from which a fort was built. But the horses, the camels, and even the donkeys began to die at an alarming rate from some mys- terious sickness; the Portuguese also were racked with fever. Barreto was puzzled as to the cause of this disease in man and beast, but Father Monclaros — the evil genius of the expedition — suggested it was due to the Muham- madan traders at Sena having poisoned the wells and the grass used as fodder. He found one of the Swahili half- caste Arabs ready to support him in this statement, for what purpose we do not know — for it was entirely false. The sickness amongst the beasts was caused by the punc- tures of the tse-tse fly, which terrible insect introduced into the veins of the horses, camels, and donkeys, and of the oxen brought down from the hill country, the fatal trypanosome germs which are the cause of so many diseases. At the same time the mosquitoes infected the Portuguese with malarial fever. The water of either river or wells had nothing to do with the sickness, though prob- ably amongst the grass there existed various poisonous lilies which may have added to the other causes of mor- tality amongst the transport animals. But Barreto readily listened to the suggestions of Monclaros, who was the typical ** unchristian -Christian " missionary of that period, a man as un-Christlike in mind as it is possible to conceive, athirst for slaughter and cruelty towards all who did not immediately embrace the dogmas of his Church. Accordingly, Barreto, without warning, turned his soldiers on to attacking peaceful Muhammadans at Sena and in the neighbourhood. These were men of more or less pure Arab race, descended from Portuguese in South Central Africa 93 the ancient Arab settlers on the east coast of Africa, or they were what we term Swahili Arabs — that is to say, people of mixed Arab and Negro blood. All adult Muham- madan males were killed by the Portuguese, except a few who were kept as prisoners and hostages. Their property was seized and divided amongst the soldiers, though all the gold to be found, amounting to nearly ;^7ooo in value, was reserved for the King of Portugal. As to the seventeen hostages, who no doubt had been kept for the purpose of revealing the hiding-places of wealth, they were tried and sentenced to death. After this sentence they were pressed to accept Christianity in order to save their souls, but with one exception all. had the fortitude to refuse to accept a religion which could have such wicked ex- ponents as Father Monclaros. They were then, without even excepting the one who did consent to be baptized, killed with circumstances of elaborate cruelty, by impale- ment or by being blown to pieces at the mouths of the great stone cannon. The only adult Muhammadan male who survived this slaughter was the one who had given the false information to Barreto in support of the theory of Father Monclaros. Meantime an envoy from Barreto had reached the Court of the Monomotapa, and had proposed an alliance with that chief against one of his enemies or rivals, Mongasi, who ruled the country along the south bank of the Zambezi below Tete. In return for this assistance the Monomotapa was to open the way for the Portuguese to the gold mines of Manika. The Monomotapa accepted both these proposals. Accordingly, Francisco Barreto, having completed his fort at Sena, set out, on the return of his envoy, to penetrate the Monomotapa empire. He left Sena at the end of July, 1572, in a flotilla of boats and 94 Pioneers in South Africa canoes which ascended the Zambezi as near as they could be got to the turbulent waters of the Lupata gorge. Most of the troops (about 650 in number, mainly Portuguese, but with a few Indians and half-castes) marched along the north bank of the Zambezi to opposite its confluence with the Mazoe River. Hereabouts they crossed the Zambezi and proceeded to attack Mongasi, whose capital was about ten days' march up the Mazoe valley. On the eleventh day of their march — the Portuguese army being then a force of about 600 men, of whom 23 were mounted on horses — they sighted the army which Mongasi had assembled to oppose them. It was so numerous and so bold that when spread out over the hillsides of the Mazoe valley it made a considerable stretch of country look black with men. The natives, however, allowed the Portuguese to rest unattacked for nearly twenty-four hours. Then they were lured on to storm Barreto's well-selected position on a hill by a feint made in their direction. The warriors of Mongasi led by an old sorceress who was reputed to be immortal, rushed up the hill in a dense mass, the wizened sorceress at their head scattering charms in the air from a calabash in the belief that she could thus blind and paralyse the white man. But a Portuguese arquebusier shot her dead, and with a great shout of invocation to St. James, the Portuguese sent against the compact mass of yelling Negroes a storm of balls from their cannon and their arquebuses.^ This hail of death soon arrested the 1 It may be as well to consider at this juncture what firearms the Portuguese, and later on the Arabs, possessed in their wars with the natives of South Africa. Prob- ably the first type of gun to be used to any extent was the arquebus, or hackbutt, originally a German invention. This was about 3 feet long, and differed from the older forms of gun by having the stock bent down, with a wide end which might be pressed against the right breast of the shooter. It was sometimes furnished with a long spiked rod as a rest, from which it could be fired with greater accuracy, but as a rule it was discharged from the shoulder. Instead of the gunpowder of the charge being ignited by a match of hemp or cotton (boiled in saltpetre or the lees of wine Portuguese in South Central Africa 95 progress of the Bantu. They hesitated, stopped, turned about, and fled in disorder, while Barreto completed the rout by charging with his few attendant horsemen. After a brief rest the Portuguese left their hill and proceeded to burn a large deserted village nearly sur- rounded by forest. This seemed to be the opportunity for Mongasi to retrieve the first disaster of his troops, and his reorganized army advanced on the little band of Europeans in the form of a vast crescent, much, in fact, in the formation so familiar to us three centuries after- wards in the Zulu wars. The Portuguese, who had hastily cut down trees as a slight fortification in their position, waited till the masses of Negroes were close to them, and then once more discharged their artillery and their guns. What impressed the natives on this occasion was not only the number of their dead, but the fact that their enemy, though so near to them, was completely hidden by the volumes of smoke poured out from the to make it very inflammable) the arquebus, which replaced the old matchlock gun, was furnished with a wheel lock which struck sparks, when it was released, by striking on iron pyrites. These sparks set fire to the powder in the pan, and so communicated with the charge in the gun and exploded it. But the hackbutt was a complicated and expensive construction, and it was soon superseded, in the middle of the sixteenth century, by the flint-lock gun. This lock when released by the trigger struck a piece of furrowed steel and emitted the necessary sparks for igniting the powder. A hundred years later this invention was developed into the more modern flint-lock gun. There was also a smaller form of arquebus about i8 inches long, which was the forerunner of the pistol, a weapon invented in Italy in the middle of the sixteenth century. The musket was a larger and heavier gun than the wheel-lock arquebus, which was invented in Spain in the middle of the sixteenth century. It was fired by a match, and dis- charged a ball weighing about i % ounces. Considering the slowness with which these firearms could be loaded and discharged, and the need for excessive deliberation if there was to be anything like carefulness of aim, it is surprising that they produced as much effect as they did on African savages of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It was probably due as much as anything to the smoke, flame, and loud report as to the occasional arrival of a bullet. Better service was usually rendered to the foreign invaders by their stone mortars or their brass, bronze, or iron cannon. During the sixteenth century these generally hurled stone cannon balls, which in the next hundred years were succeeded by iron projectiles. Imperfect as all these firearms were they nevertheless gave the white man dominion over Asia, Africa, and America. 96 Pioneers in South Africa mouths of cannon and arquebuses. Once more they were routed, and in the pursuit that followed the Portuguese claimed to have killed 6000 of them, at a loss to them- selves of only a few killed and sixty wounded. The Portuguese went no farther in their southward journey on this occasion, for they were obliged to estab- lish a hospital to deal with their wounded men, and give a chance to those who were sick to recover their vigour. Moreover, once again mortality was beginning to set in amongst the horses and cattle. After a respite of six days they were again attacked by Mongasi's warriors. In a long and obstinate defence of their fortified position they beat off the Negroes with such heavy losses that their chieftain at length sent a message to beg for peace. Barreto '' bluffed" the envoy in the characteristic Portuguese manner, and consented to make peace with Mongasi after receiving tribute from him to the extent of fifty oxen and fifty sheep, some gold and some ivory. But he had already made up his mind, as soon as he could make peace, to retreat once more to the Zambezi, for his stock of ammunition was nearly exhausted, his men were dis- heartened, and they could evidently not count much longer on keeping alive their transport animals. Accordingly, as soon as peace was made with Mongasi, the expedition turned back to the Zambezi, which it reached with the greatest difficulty and on the verge of starvation. Although Barreto afterwards came back from Mo9am- bique to Sena, and sent another embassy to the Mono- motapa, he was foiled in his purpose by the terrible mortality from fever which almost wiped out both the old garrison and the new army assembled at Sena. He was obliged, therefore, to renounce all idea of proceeding farther; whereupon he was so bitterly reproached by the Portuguese in South Central Africa 97 fanatic Monclaros that he took to his bed and died of little else than a broken heart. His successor as captain-general was his former lieu- tenant, Vasco Fernandez Homem, who attempted to get possession of the gold mines from the direction of Sofala. His expedition penetrated to the Manika, to the frontiers of what we should now call Southern Rhodesia. But the so-called gold mines were found to be most disappointing. They were shallow excavations in the rocks, from which Negroes carried baskets of earth up to the surface. After washing this earth in water they obtained, by much patient toil, a few grains of gold or an occasional very small nugget. Shortly after a search was made for the reported silver mines of Chikova, said to exist near the south bank of the Zambezi, beyond Tete. Nothing of the kind, how- ever, was found, and as usual the Portuguese garrisons, established here and there in forts, suffered such terrible mortality from fever that the few survivors were at last withdrawn. Portugal was nearing her great eclipse, which followed the death of Dom Sebastiao in Morocco, when the Portu- guese kingdom came under the paralysing control of Spain. The Monomotapa remained more or less friendly to them, however, and Jesuit missionaries were permitted to penetrate far into the interior of Zambezi, where they obtained evidence, such as a Portuguese blanket, that there was an overland trade with Angola and the west coast. But just as some slight progress was being made in trade, and even in the spread of Christianity, an awful disaster overtook all south-central and much of eastern Africa — one of those human cataclysms which have struck down civilization again and again in the past history of (C587) 7 98 Pioneers in South Africa Africa, and most of which are wholly mysterious as to their origin. This was the invasion of South-central Africa by a Negro tribe known mostly as the Ba-zimba.^ Except that the Ba-zimba were a people speaking a Bantu lan- guage, we can only utter vague guesses as to their origin ; but on the whole it seems most probable that they came from Katanga, or farther west in southern Congoland, where they had acquired — like so many of the Congo peoples — an intense love of human flesh as an article of food. The Ba-zimba first entered into the written history of Africa when they appeared on the north bank of the Zambezi, opposite Tete, in 1570. They were there in immense numbers, perhaps half a million of men, women, and children. As they had no canoes they found the Zambezi an almost impassable barrier, so that more than half their number turned away from it, swept across southern Nyasaland (the Shire River being far more easily traversable in the region of the rapids), and spread them- selves out over the hinterland of Mo9ambique, depopu- lating the country as they crossed it, and eating the bodies of all whom they killed.^ In this way, after fifteen years' ^ The root of the name, of course, is Zimba, and the prefix varies much, according to the fancy and the hearing of the writer, being Ba-, Va-, A-, or Ma-. One section of them was known to the Portuguese as the Mumbo (no doubt the Bambo in the plural). The Ba-zimba are described as being of fine physique, tall and robust, the men armed with bows and arrows, throwing spears, and battleaxes. They defended themselves with immense shields of ox or buffalo hide. The Portuguese chroniclers describe them as coming from the region where rose the Zambezi and the Zaire (i.e. the Kasai), which suggests that they were the Ba-jok or Va-kiokwe. ^ Whenever in the history of Negro Africa one reads of any region being ' ' depopu- lated" by these tremendous tribal movements, the statement must be taken with qualifications. It would generally mean that the pre-existing population, which was overwhelmed by a sudden invasion, fled wherever possible to inaccessible mountains or forests ; and, although the open country may have been swept bare of people and strewn with corpses, after the invaders had settled down into more peaceful ways, or had disappeared from the country, the former inhabitants gradually emerged from their shelters, and once more took up their former life with some modifications. But Portuguese in South Central Africa 99 wandering, they arrived on the coast opposite the Island of Mo9ambique, whither, no doubt, fled before them such Portuguese and Swahili Arabs as may have been trading in the interior. The Ba-zimba could not cross the strait of sea that lay between them and the island, and so con- soled themselves by attacking the Portuguese plantations on the mainland. An attempt was made by about forty Portuguese, with their armed Makua slaves, to defend these plantations and to drive the Ba-zimba away; but although the latter were very much scared at first by the firearms, their numbers overwhelmed the Portuguese, of whom only three or four escaped. Those who managed to reach the island were soon aware that the savages on the mainland were roasting and eating the bodies of their companions and the slain amongst their Negro allies and slaves. This episode occurred in 1585, and in a very short space of time afterwards the northern horde of the Ba- zimba had crossed the Ruvuma River, captured the old Arab-Portuguese town of Kilwa, destroyed all its citizens, and had swept on in a devastating flood up the coast oppo- site Zanzibar till they reached the vicinity of Mombasa, which town, being on an island, surrounded by a branch of the sea, and protected by many defences, was able to resist their attacks. Their further ravages were only finally checked — with terrific slaughter — by an alliance between the Portuguese of Malindi and Mombasa, the Swahili Arabs, and the warlike tribe of the Segejo, or Esengeju, a branch of the Gala race which has penetrated far south of the Gala domain. This coalition finally beat them back. for this reserve it would be impossible to understand how there has undoubtedly been great continuity of language, culture, and physical type in so much of South-central Africa, at any rate for a period of 400 or 500 years. loo Pioneers in South Africa The other portion of the great horde which had stopped on the north bank of the Zambezi, gazing across at the town of Tete, managed to obtain a few canoes and sent some of its warriors across the river. But they were so terrified at the firearms used by the Portuguese that they were easily driven away. Yet soon afterwards a much larger band of Ba-zimba crossed the Zambezi and attacked the Batonga people, the allies of the Portuguese, killing and eating large numbers of them. But the Portuguese, joining themselves with their native allies, made a deter- mined attack, slew 5000 or 6000 of the cannibals, and drove the remainder across the Zambezi, where in their panic they fled northwards till they reached the other sections of their tribe, who were harrying the Mo9am- bique hinterland. There still remained behind, however, two clans of the Ba-zimba on the north bank of the Zambezi between Tete and Sena. One section of these ^ was attacked by Pedro de Chaves, the Portuguese commandant of Tete, together with his^ native soldiery and allies. The enemy had con- structed a fortification of clay and tree stems around the chief's village, but the Portuguese and their Negro army were so determined to put an end to these ruthless canni- bals that they stormed the defences of the village and plunged into the enclosure, killing the cannibal chief and his 600 or 700 warriors. They found the courtyard sur- rounding the chief's hut completely paved with the skulls of men and women whom he had killed and eaten. But soon afterwards, in the same year (1592), a great disaster followed the attempt of the Portuguese commandant of ^ Known as the Mumbos by the Portuguese chronicler. Mumbo was the name for one man of the tribe in the singular : the proper plural was Bambo, which in course of time became softened into Wambo and Ambo ; and under this name the descendants of the di'eaded Ba-zimba still inhabit Zambezia, on the east bank of the lower Shir6. Portuguese in South Central Africa loi Sena to deal with the other section of the Ba-zimba, under a chief named Tondo, south-east of the band wiped out by de Chaves. Andre de Santiago marched out from Sena, but found himself too weak in numbers of men to attack the very strong, fortified village which Tondo had con- structed. He therefore sent to Tete for support. Pedro de Chaves, just returned from his successful capture of the other fortress, crossed the Zambezi and marched down its northern bank to meet his colleague, but on the way his force was suddenly attacked by the Ba-zimba and taken unprepared. The Portuguese officers were being carried in hammocks by their slaves, and could not immediately get at and fire their arquebuses. Every one of them was killed, except a Dominican friar who accompanied the force as chaplain. He was taken to the fortified village of the Ba-zimba and gradually shot to death by arrows. After that the Ba-zimba appeared before the camp of the commandant of Sena carrying the head of de Chaves on the point of a spear. They spread out before the gaze of the Portuguese all the spoil they had taken from the expedition, and the severed limbs of black men and white men alike, which were being got ready for cooking in a great cannibal feast. The horrified expedition under Andre de Santiago attempted to quit its camp at night and retreat down the Zambezi, but they were followed up by the Ba- zimba and overwhelmed, losing more than 130 white men and mulattoes, besides several hundred Negro soldiers and slaves. For about a year Portuguese power on the Zam- bezi was completely extinguished. Then (in 1593) there arrived the Captain-General of Mo9ambique, who reoccu- pied Sena, and marched with a force of about 200 Portu- guese soldiers armed with guns, and 1500 Negroes with assagays, spears, bows, and arrows. With this force he 102 Pioneers in South Africa attacked the stronghold of the Ba-zimba chieftain, Tondo, but the Ba-zimba defended themselves fiercely with arrows, barbed darts, boiling water, and boiling fat. During the long siege the native allies of the Portuguese grew tired and disheartened, and finally deserted; so that the captain- general was obliged to effect a retreat to Sena. The Ba-zimba followed him up and captured his artillery and nearly all his baggage, and it was with very great diffi- culty that he regained Sena with his white Portuguese. From this place he made his way back as quickly as pos- sible to Mo9ambique, and left Zambezia to its fate. But some of the Portuguese traders remained behind at Sena, and to these — to their great surprise — the victorious Zimba chieftain made proposals for a peace. Tondo said the Ba-zimba had no desire to quarrel with the white man, pro- vided they were allowed to do as they liked with the blacks. If the Portuguese did not interfere in their dealings with the natives of the country they would not attack the Por- tuguese. Accordingly a kind of truce supervened, and four years afterwards the forts of Sena and Tete were re- occupied, strengthened, and armed with cannon. By the end of the sixteenth century the Portuguese had almost entirely regained their hold over Zambezia, while the Ba-zimba were becoming rapidly absorbed into the pre- existing native tribes and losing their ferocity. In the seventeenth century they are heard of no more, though they still linger in the traditions and folklore of the land, and undoubtedly furnish an element in its population. Whilst these events were taking place at the close of the sixteenth century in what is now Portuguese East Africa, great activity was being shown by the Portuguese in penetrating Central Africa from the south-west coast. The estuary of the Congo had been discovered in 1482 by ^.-.^..emmMmmmmummmmmmmmm y-g H, amimmm»tmmmim0ifmwm\if wmfi i .iimiiiriMU imiai m mmltmitiimmmmmmKitmtlm ■ j|Baew'!Mi^" ' iinw p w«i » .j>i- '. ii '..',4.)i i »wi i wj> ■' Portuguese in South Central Africa 103 DiOGO Cam, and a second expedition under that great commander had ascended the Congo River in 1485, and at the highest point they could reach, nearest to the im- passable Yelala Falls, had inscribed on the rocks the record of their achievement. Diogo Cam took away with him to Portugal a few Congo natives, who were baptized and really became convinced Christians. In 1491 these people returned to the Congo with Roderiga de Souza, who brought with him a large number of Portuguese missionaries to convert the kingdom of Kongo to Chris- tianity. This Portuguese expedition proceeded inland about 200 miles, till it reached the capital of the kingdom of Kongo, Mbanza Kongo, which was forthwith named Sao Salvador. Here the king and his principal wife were baptized with the names of the then King and Queen of Portugal, Joao and Leonora, while their eldest son was christened Affonso. Early in the sixteenth century a native of Kongo was actually consecrated as Bishop of the Kongo. He was a connection of the king's family, had been educated in Lisbon, and was probably the first Negro bishop known to history. However, after this brilliant opening, the fate both of Christianity and of Portuguese influence in the kingdom of Kongo was chequered. A reaction in favour of heathen- ism and fetish worship took place, headed by a chieftain who bore the nickname of Bula Matadi, the ** breaker of stones", a name which, more than 300 years afterwards, was conferred by the natives of Kongo on the great ex- plorer, Stanley, and which has now become the native title of the Government of Belgian Congo. But just as the pioneering work of the Portuguese in east and south-east Africa was overwhelmed and effaced for a time by the terrible raids of the Ba-zimba, so in the middle of the six- I04 Pioneers in South Africa teenth century — a little earlier — their civilizing work in Congoland was brought to naught by the invasion of the Jaga. The Jaga, indeed, may have been of the same stock as the Ba-zimba, and both alike were no doubt akin to the existing Ba-jok or Va-kioko tribes of south-west Congo- land. The Jaga that overwhelmed south-west Africa for a time, carrying their devastating raids as far north as the vicinity of the Kamerun, and as far south as the hinter- land of Mossamedes, were powerful men and ferocious cannibals. They suddenly invaded without warning the southern part of the Kongo kingdom, and the Christian king and his Court fled before them till they reached their last refuge, an island on the broad Congo not far from the modern town of Boma. From this perilous retreat the king sent an appeal to the Portuguese for help. His message reached Lisbon, and the king (Dom Sebastiao) sent out Francisco de Gova with 600 soldiers. With the aid of this contingent, and above all the terror spread by their guns and artillery, the cannibal Jaga were driven out of the Kongo kingdom. Soon after this result was achieved Dom Sebastiao himself was killed on the field of Kasr al Kabir, in northern Morocco. However, when Philip II of Spain assumed the crown of Portugal, he sent out a Portuguese explorer, Duarte Lopez, to report on the kingdom of Kongo. Lopez visited most parts of that country and of northern Angola as well, and after many adventures at sea he returned to Spain with his report; but King Philip was too much occupied just then with preparing the Armada against England to listen to him. Consequently Duarte went to Rome, and here an account of his adventures was taken down and published by the Pope's secretary, Filippo Pigafetta. The same work gives us a great deal of information as to what Portuguese in South Central Africa 105 the Portuguese had been accomplishing in Abyssinia and East Africa. In course of time the Court of Rome became interested in Congoland, and many Portuguese Jesuits proceeded thither, to be succeeded, when the Portuguese became unpopular with the Kongo people, by Italians, Belgians, and Frenchmen. But the Jesuits who were at work in the kingdom of Kongo at the beginning of the seventeenth century travelled far and wide, and no doubt occasionally perished at the hands of the extremely savage cannibal tribes of the far interior. Very likely they suc- ceeded in discovering some of the secrets of Congo geo- graphy which were afterwards revealed to us by the explorations of Stanley, Grenfell, and Wissmann ; but they did not live to tell their story or to do more than drop a few hints as to the great northward bend of the Congo River. Portuguese traders in slaves and ivory, however, seem to have penetrated as far inland as Stanley Pool. But the Portuguese made themselves much disliked in Congoland by the native ruler and his people, and many of them migrated southwards into Angola, which had been colonized by their fellow countrymen from 1574 onwards. The coast of Angola had been visited by the Portuguese as early as i486, when Bartolomeu Diaz was commencing to feel his way to the Cape of Good Hope. But no attempt was made to settle in that country, south of the Kongo kingdom, until 1574. In that year King Sebastiao sent out the grandson of Bartolomeu Diaz — Paulo — in charge of a great expedition which was to bring Christianity to Angola. Angola, or Ngola, was the name of a vassal chieftain- ship more or less connected with the kingdom of Kongo which ruled the country immediately north of the Kwanza io6 Pioneers in South Africa River. The chief of Angola used to be independent of the more northern monarch, and consequently summoned the Portuguese to his aid, and welcomed them at his Court, where already there were signs that Christian missionaries had been at work. Paulo Diaz had previously explored Angola before he was commissioned by Dom Sebastiao to become the ''conqueror, colonizer, and governor" of that country. He left Lisbon in 1574 with seven ships and 700 soldiers, and, at the end of a three-and-a-half months' voyage, had landed in the bay which is now known as the harbour of Sao Paulo de Loanda. Here he was joined by forty Portuguese refugees from Kongo, and here he founded the fort of Sao Miguel and the city of Sao Paulo, which ever since has been the capital of the Portuguese dominion of Angola. For six years perfect peace subsisted between the Por- tuguese and the natives. Then, afraid that the country was going to become a Portuguese possession, the suc- cessor of the chief who had invited the Portuguese to come there conceived a scheme by which he would get rid of the white man. He appealed to the Portuguese to send a large army into the interior to assist him in a war against his enemies. Five hundred Portuguese went to his assis- tance. They were ambushed, and eventually all were massacred. This terrible misfortune, however, only served to show the great qualities of the Portuguese leaders in those days. Paulo Diaz left Loanda with all the soldiers that remained under his command — 150 in number — and marched against the army of the King of Angola near the Kwanza River. He took with him all the muskets and the cannon that he could manage to convey, and with the aid of these firearms he won a great victory over the Negro rabble, who were still greatly impressed by the noise of Portuguese in South Central Africa 107 gunpowder and the terrible effect of the cannon-balls from the stone mortars. Nevertheless, Diaz had to fight several additional engagements, for ever and anon the natives would return and attack his troops. But at last, by 1597, he had made himself master of both banks of the River Kwanza, and here he built towns with forts, houses, and churches. The Flemish colonists who were sent out by the King of Spain to assist him to colonize Angola all died of fever, but in spite of this and other checks the Portuguese soon spread their rule southwards from the River Kwanza to Benguela, and in 1606 they actually conceived the idea of opening up communications between Angola and Zambezia, and sent an exploring expedition to find the way. But the leader somehow drifted north- wards till he reached Sao Salvador, and here he was stopped by the King of Kongo, and found it impossible to proceed farther into the interior. In 1625, however, the Portuguese had to meet a serious revolt against them in Angola proper, headed by a chieftainess named Jinga Bandi, who was the sister and successor of the King of Angola. Though she had been baptized as a Christian some years before, she headed a great revolt against the Portuguese, and carried on a war with them for thirty years. Although she could not drive them away from their stronghold on the coast and on the Kwanza River, she paralysed any further attempts on their part to send expeditions across the continent. On both sides of Africa also at this time the Portuguese had to contend against the Dutch, for besides attacking Mo9ambique, as already related, the Dutch captured Sao Paulo de Loanda in 1641, and ousted the Portuguese from all their coast establish- ments between Loanda and the Gaboon. But after a terrific struggle, and bringing reinforcements from Brazil, io8 Pioneers in South Africa the Portuguese succeeded in expelling the Dutch from Angola and recovering Loanda. Their influence in Congo- land, however, was at an end for nearly two centuries. The remaining Portuguese missionaries in the kingdom of Kongo left that country to settle in Angola, and the Portuguese turned their energies southward towards Ben- guela, and inland to the Kwango River. In this direction their explorers (whose achievements were very often not recorded definitely) penetrated the great Negro empire of Lunda, the kingdom of the Mwata Yanvo, which had grown into a very powerful state after the raids of the Jaga and Ba-zimba had subsided. Although the Portuguese through their seventeenth-cen- tury explorations came to hear of the Central African lakes, they mixed up their renderings of native information with great exaggerations of Abyssinian geography, and with distorted repetitions of Ptolemy's stories;^ with the result that such maps as they contributed to the world's know- ledge (usually through the Catholic missionaries and the geographers of the Papal Court at Rome) did not bear much resemblance to the actual conditions of south-central Africa, which they represented as a perfect network of rivers communicating one with the other, and flowing into and out of great lakes. The names on these maps are mostly a corruption of Abyssinian or Gala terms, and where they have any real locality at all require to be removed north-eastwards from Central Africa for a dis- tance of 1400 to 1500 miles. Here and there is a word, however, which suggests Zambere or Zambezi, and there is little doubt that the Portuguese of the seventeenth 1 This was the Roman geographer, Claudius Ptolemaeus of Alexandria, who com- piled his work on geography in the second century after Christ, and who repeated stories with more precision than his predecessors concerning the sources of the Nile and the Mountains of the Moon. Portuguese in South Central Africa 109 and eighteenth centuries more or less guessed at the existence of this great river, rising in the highlands of South Angola and flowing thence to the Indian Ocean.^ They also began, through the labours of Portuguese and Italian missionaries, to realize that there was but one family of tongues (the Bantu) stretching right across from the kingdom of Kongo to Mo9ambique and Sofala. Some revival of Portuguese exploration took place in Zambezia in the seventeenth century when the effects of the Ba-zimba and Jaga raids had died away. Silver had apparently been discovered near Tete — at Chikova, or per- haps in the direction of the Misale country — and specimens of the ore had been obtained by one or other of the independent Portuguese adventurers, such as Diogo Ma- deira, who were penetrating the dominions of Monomotapa at this period. Not wishing to share their profits with the jealous captain-general at Mo9ambique, they wished to convey their samples of silver ore by some other route to Portugal. It was decided, therefore, to attempt an overland march to the far north, to Mombasa or Malindi. Caspar BocARRO, a trader long resident in Zambezia, volunteered to conduct this expedition, and carried it out successfully. He narrowly missed being the first European to see Lake Nyasa. In all probability, however, he crossed the River Shire south of Lake Malombe without sighting the far greater expanse of Nyasa. He then entered the Lujenda valley, and after traversing a vast stretch of desolate * In their references to the Ba-zimba the Portuguese chroniclers of the early seven- teenth century expressly state that they came from the region where the great rivers Cuama (Zambezi) and Zaire (Congo) took their origin. Evidently the Musamba range of mountains is meant, in the vicinity of which the western branches of the Zambezi rise on the south, and of the great Kasai (which the Portuguese believed to be the Congo or Zaire) on the north. The name "Zambeze", or Zambezi, was applied to this river by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century, but they also called it the Cuama. Cuama was used more specially sometimes for the delta of the Zambezi. no Pioneers in South Africa country, uninhabited since the Ba-zimba raids, ^ he reached the great Ruvuma River and the port of Mikindani on the Indian Ocean, whence he took an Arab dau to Mombasa. But here he learnt that any idea of returning to Europe through the Red Sea and Egypt was out of the question, owing to the feeling of hostility prevailing in these regions against Europeans ; so most reluctantly he had to return to the Zambezi by way of Mo9ambique, and his plucky over- land journey proved to be quite useless. But nevertheless a strengthening of Portuguese hold over Zambezia took place in the first half of the seventeenth century, greatly through the energy of the Jesuit and Dominican missionaries. The Monomotapa Manuza (re- christened Felippe) was converted to Christianity and induced to acknowledge himself as vassal of the King of Portugal. This led to revolts among his more powerful rivals or sub-chiefs. Terrific battles ensued, in which large armies of Negroes were led by a few Portuguese cap- tains, traders, or missionaries. In one battle alone, in which the forces of the Christian Monomotapa were vic- torious, 35,000 Negroes on the other side are said to have been slain (no doubt a gross exaggeration). On the other hand, occasionally the Portuguese and their allies were ambushed, and the white men — usually in such cases priests — were done to death with fiendish tortures. At last some degree of peace and settlement was brought about 1 This part of East Africa has positively lain under a curse for centuries : few regions have been so harried by man warring against man. There are traces of pre- historic raids prior to the ravages of the Ba-zimba. When the Yao, Nyanja, and Makua tribes had once more spread over this naturally fertile land and recommenced to cultivate it in the eighteenth century, there began a hundred years ago the slave raids of the Arabs and Swahili Negroes of Zanzibar, followed some time afterwards by the incursions of the Angoni Zulus, who slew with such ferocity and causelessness that they were styled "wild beasts" by the Nyanja population. Only since the establish- ment of peace by the Germans and Portuguese is the Ruvuma basin ceasing to be a depopulated desert. Portuguese in South Central Africa m by the recognition on the part of the Portuguese of three Negro potentates in place of the single Monomotapa or emperor. This last remained at the head of the Maka- raiia tribes; a former satrap, the ChikangUy ruled over the people of the mountainous Manika country; and the coast regions between Manika, the lower Zambezi, and the Sofala seacoast were the domain of the Ktteve, In these three kingdoms churches and mission stations were built. Westwards the missionaries and traders penetrated up the Zambezi River as far as Zumbo, where a market and a missionary establishment were founded. Beyond Zumbo the Jesuits travelled into the country of the Batonga, where they introduced fruit trees and a few notions of civilization; but their work was soon uprooted, and they were either killed or driven back to Zumbo by the restless, suspicious savages. The expulsion of the Jesuits from Portuguese East Africa in the middle of the eighteenth century (1760), and the recall of the Dominicans to India in 1775, assisted, together with the general decay of Portuguese trading energy — or rather its concentration on the coast slave trade — to weaken the Portuguese hold over Zambezia, reduced at the end of the eighteenth century to a few forts on the coast and garrisons at Tete and Sena on the Zambezi. The Portuguese traders and officials of European birth were gradually replaced by half-caste Portuguese or pure- blood Indians from Goa (western India). These Asiatics intermarried with Negro women of the country, and pro- duced offspring of fine physique, but of entirely African habits and morals and very cruel, men who devoted them- selves to the slave trade as the most lucrative pursuit with- in their reach. In 1795, as will afterwards be narrated, a British army landed at Cape Town and occupied the Dutch East India 112 Pioneers in South Africa Company's possession of Cape Colony. This event at once arrested the attention of a university professor in Portugal as very ominous of future developments in Africa. The professor was a Brazilian by birth, Dr. Francisco DE Lacerda e Almeida. He had already explored central Angola, and he taught mathematics, and perhaps geography also, at Coimbra, the Oxford of Portugal. De Lacerda addressed to the Regent of Portugal a letter setting forth that the British landing at Cape Town would, unless something was done by the Portuguese Govern- ment, be followed by a gradual advance of British influence from the south to the north of Africa, from the Cape to Cairo, separating thus the Portuguese dominion of Angola from that of Mo9ambique.^ Convinced by his appeal, the Regent entrusted Dr. Lacerda, in the name of the Queen of Portugal, with the mission of crossing Africa from the ''Rios da Sena" (as the lower Zambezi district was then called) to the source of the Kwanza River and thence to the Angola coast. To give him the requisite authority he was made governor of Sena (namely, Zambezia). On his arrival at Tete he met two Portuguese-Indian half- castes, the Pereiras, father and son, who had travelled far to the north of Tete in search of gold. They had reached the vicinity of Lake Mweru, and the Court of a great Negro potentate, the Kazembe, who was a kind of lieutenant or viceroy over the eastern part of Katanga, ruling in the name of the Mwata Yanvo, the Emperor of Lunda.^ 1 Given the date of this letter — 1796 — and the limited geographical knowledge then possessed by a Portuguese university, this is one of the most remarkable instances of political foresight which can be quoted. 2 The Lunda nation in south-west Congoland had, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, after the raids of the Ba-zimba and Ba-joko had subsided, created a great confederation of semi-civilized states between the Kwango River and the Luapula. They were no doubt assisted in their conquests by the guns and gunpowder introduced by the Portuguese slave traders of Angola. Portuguese in South Central Africa 113 Acting on the advice of the Pereiras, Lacerda resolved to make his way to the Kazembe, and, after winning him over to the Portuguese cause, continue his journey west- ward to Angola. Lacerda was the first scientific geo- grapher who had entered Central Africa. He was able to take latitudes and longitudes, but he does not seem to have had much imagination or much interest in African geographical problems. He reached a point which was within a few miles of Lake Mweru, yet never saw the lake, nor thought its existence worth a distinct mention in his journal. He heard vague rumours of Lakes Tanganyika and Nyasa, but did not care to direct his steps towards either of them. Strangest of all, though he actually saw the Luapula River (the head stream of the Congo) and recorded its name in a corrupt form, it never occurred to him that it was flowing north into the mysterious unknown of Central Africa. He had with him no less than seventy- five white and half-caste Portuguese and several hundred black slave porters, besides numerous Goanese hunters, traders, and guides, amongst whom were the Pereiras. But the Kazembe seemed unwilling to allow him to pass westward through the Lunda territories, and whilst arguing and pleading with this bloodthirsty chieftain Dr. de La- cerda fell ill and died. After his death his disorganized expedition made its way back to Tete. Three years afterwards, in 1802, the commandant of a Portuguese trading post at Kasanji, on the Kwango River (eastern Angola), sent two of his educated Negro trading agents — the Pombeiros, as they were called — Pedro Baptista and Amaro Jose — to find a way across Africa to Tete on the Zambezi. They accomplished the journey successfully, after visiting the Kazembe in his capital. Then followed a long interval in which the (0 687) 8 114 Pioneers in South Africa Portuguese did nothing, but rather lost hold over what they had formerly governed. In south-east Africa the rise of the Zulus as a warlike people nearly demolished all the Portuguese stations, not only in the interior but on the coast. However, the continued activity of the British in the south and south-west led amongst other things to another mission to the Kazembe from Tete, undertaken by Major Monteiro and Captain Gamitto; but like Lacerda, these explorers missed seeing the lakes of south-central Africa, though they recorded for the first time geographical names now famous. A Portuguese official of Tete — Candido de Costa Cardoso— in 1846 made a journey through south-west Nyasaland, and apparently reached the coast of Lake Nyasa at its south-western, shallow gulf. This he crossed in canoes in thirty-six hours, the canoes being poled across the shallow water. From that time onwards *^ Lake Maravi" began to be hazily sketched on African maps; and in the same year (1846) a Portuguese of mixed blood — Joaquim Rodriguez Gra9a — penetrated across the Mwata Yanvo's empire of Lunda to the region of Katanga. Silva Porto, a white Portuguese trader who had settled in the mountain country of Bihe, and Ladislaus Magyar, a Hungarian traveller journeying under Portuguese auspices, also began in the middle of the nineteenth century their travels across the southern basin of the Congo. Those of Silva Porto were quite unscientific, and resulted in no gain to European knowledge; but like the unrecorded travels of many a black or half-caste Portuguese slave-and-ivory trader of the last century they prepared the way for more scientific British and German explorers, who from 1855 onwards were to reveal completely all the great facts in the geo- graphy of Central Africa. Portuguese in South Central Africa 115 Portuguese pioneers in South Africa achieved some very wonderful feats of arms and of endurance, besides opening to us the ocean route to the east and west coasts. They discovered a good many secrets in geography, zoology, and the hidden wealth of minerals. But their intense jealousy of sharing any of the African trade with other nations caused them to keep concealed the results of their pioneer explorations. These in some cases were not published to the world till the journeys of Livingstone had made it necessary for Portugal to claim her share in the revelation of South Africa. The Portuguese inflicted much harm on south-west and south-east Africa by their encouragement of the slave trade; but they also conferred immense benefits on the Negroes by introducing numerous domestic beasts and birds, and, above all, valuable vegetable foodstuffs and useful drugs. Thanks to them, the harmless tobacco was spread every- where in place of the poisonous hemp previously smoked ; and even at the present day we are reminded that the Zulu- Kafirs owe that invaluable food, maize, to the Portuguese, because they call it by its Portuguese name milho. CHAPTER V The Explorations of the Dutch The Dutch and their southern brothers, the Flemings, were initiated into the colonization of Asia, America, and Africa by the Spaniards. All the Netherlands region from East Friesland to Calais belonged after 1516 to the King of Spain. The northern parts, however, had become Pro- testant after the middle of the sixteenth century, while the southern part — Belgium — remained Roman Catholic. The religious intolerance and the excessive cruelties and oppression of the Spanish governors of the Netherlands roused a furious revolt in the more Germanic stock of Holland, Zeeland, and Friesland, with the result that, after one of the longest and most terrible wars in history, the Dutch (as we call them somewhat absurdly^) won their freedom from the Spanish monarchy. But even before this achievement was recognized by treaties of peace, the Dutch ships, already accustomed to visiting America, the west coast of Africa, and the East Indies in the pay of Spain or Portugal, now sailed to these regions to attack Spanish and Portuguese commerce. In 1595 their ships appeared for the first time as in- dependent pirate-traders on the west coast of Africa, and in the following year a Dutch vessel had rounded the Cape of Good Hope and visited the coasts of Sumatra and Java. In 1598 a portion of the Dutch fleet, commanded by 1 Dutch is simply the English rendering of Deutsch, Duitsch, i.e. " Teutonic ". 116 The Explorations of the Dutch 117 Captain W. van Wanvijck, took possession of the island of Mauritius, south-east of Madagascar. This island — which the Dutch named after Prince Maurice of Nassau — had never received more than an occasional visit from the Portuguese, who found and left it uninhabited. Ap- parently no Malay sea rovers ever reached its shores. Like the not-far-distant Reunion and Rodriguez, Mauritius was once inhabited by gigantic land tortoises, and, further, was the domain of a wonderful type of bird when first examined by intelligent Europeans. Here, during the later ages of the Tertiary Epoch, some ancient type of fruit-eating pigeon had taken to a ground life, lost the use of its wings for flying, grown to the size of a turkey (and in Rodriguez had acquired the long legs of a bustard), and, in short, become a Dodo.^ It was in Mauritius that the most extreme type of Dodo ground-pigeon had been developed. The beak had become enormous, nearly as big pro- portionately as that of the whale-headed stork or the pelican, blackish in colour, with a strong hook. The cheeks were bare with a whitish skin, the plumage all over the body was a dark ash grey, except on the breast, which was a dirty white, and the useless, drooping, short quills of the wings, which were yellowish white, as was also the short tuft of curly feathers at the tail. The short, stout legs were a bright sulphur yellow. To the Dutch sailors, greedy for fresh food after a long diet on salt meat and fish during the weary voyage from India or Europe, these helpless Dodos, so easily pursued and killed, were at first irresistible. Although Mauritius is about the size of Surrey, and has the mountains of the *"Dodo" or Doiido— meaning stupid— was the name given to it by the Portu- guese. ii8 Pioneers in South Africa English Lake district, and was also, at the time the Dutch settled on it, covered with luxuriant forests, it only took about eighty-three years to exterminate this huge flight- less pigeon, even though, except when very hungry for fresh meat, the Dutch soon decided the flesh of the Dodo was nasty — in fact they called it the walgvogel^ or ''nasty bird ". But a great many specimens were killed out of wantonness, because the absurd-looking creatures could not escape, could only waddle on their short legs, snap with their beaks, and hiss squeakily like goslings. But the chief agencies in the work of thoughtless destruction were the pigs and dogs introduced by the Portuguese (after 1507) and the Dutch. The Dodo was in the habit of swallowing large pebbles the size of a walnut for purposes of aiding digestion in its muscular stomach or gizzard. These, when extracted by the sailors, were prized as whetstones for sharpening knives ; so that a Dodo was often killed merely to provide a means for putting a good edge on the knives and razors of a ship's crew. When the Dodos were all dead, and the forest near the harbours had been cut down, the Dutch neglected and abandoned this beautiful island — it is difficult to under- stand why — and in 17 14 it was occupied by the French East India Company, and became soon afterwards a flourishing French colony (L'lle-de-France). Nearly one hundred years afterwards it was captured by the British, and has been a British possession ever since. On the Atlantic side of the great southern prolongation of Africa was the little island of St. Helena, ^ discovered 1 St. Helena is the crater or craters of an extinct volcano which once crowned a considerable area of land in the southern Atlantic, now submerged beneath the sea. It is possible that at the distant time when West Africa was connected with Brazil, St. Helena and Ascension were connected with West Africa. DUICH SAILORS PURSUING DODOS The Explorations of the Dutch 119 about 1502 by the Portuguese, but only used by them intermittently; though they sometimes put on shore here turbulent men, and left them for years to play Robinson Crusoe. At the same time they also landed pigs and goats, which played the usual havoc with the native fauna of birds and the interesting flora of trees and shrubs. The ships of the Dutch East India Company took to calling here for fresh water and vegetables on their way to and from India, and in 1645 definitely occupied the island. But St. Helena was also coveted by the rival English East India Company, whose captains uncere- moniously seized it in 1655, whilst the Dutch were busy over the foundation of their halfway house at the Cape of Good Hope. At first, like the Portuguese, the Dutch used St. Helena as their Atlantic basis, and attempted in the season of the southern summer to sail right round South Africa without stopping, their next calling place being the island of Mauritius, whence they could continue on a straight course to Ceylon and Java.^ But the atten- tion of western Europe was slowly converging on the Cape of Good Hope as a point of vantage. Already, in 1620, two British commanders, Shillinge and Fitzherbert, had landed there and had taken possession of Table Mountain and Table Bay on behalf of King James I of Great Britain and Ireland. The passage of so many Dutch and English ships on their way to India round this promontory was bound to lead from time to time to their being wrecked, and their crews having to live on shore until they could be ^ After peace had been made with Spain and Portugal, in 1648, the Dutch developed with great energy their trading empire in Malaysia, and to get to these regions their ships sailed ordinarily round the southern extremity of Africa, though the route past Cape Horn (South America) and through the Pacific was also tried, as is related in the volumes dealing with Pioneers in Australasia and Tropical America. I20 Pioneers in South Africa picked up by other vessels. In this way, about 1649, the 1 attention of the Dutch was specially directed to Table Bay and the Cape of Good Hope, because a shipwrecked party had lived there in 1648 for five months, and had been very kindly treated by the Hottentots, who seemed to have quite forgotten their former hostility to Europeans, provoked by the aggressive acts of the Portuguese. The report given by these shipwrecked men decided the Dutch East India Company to form a settlement near the Cape of Good Hope which would act as an important halting place for ships travelling to and from the East Indies, a port where they could stop for repairs, and whence they could obtain large quantities of fresh provisions. Accordingly, at the end of 1 65 1, an important expedition was sent to South Africa under a ship's surgeon, Jan van Riebeek, who, with three ships and about no soldiers and artisans, arrived at Table Bay on 6 April, 1652, and laid the foundations of Cape Town (which, it may be mentioned, is at the northern end of the little peninsula, about 27 miles north of the actual Cape of Good Hope). Soon afterwards other settlers were added, Dutch women were sent out, and in 1687-9 nearly 200 (eventually 300) Huguenots, expelled from France and Piedmont, were assisted by the Dutch Government and the Dutch East India Company 'to settle in what had become Cape Colony. Not a few of these Huguenots were men of learning, and evinced great curiosity as to the wonders of Nature. The Dutch settlers who had preceded them were mostly of the farming class, and, though excellent material for colonization, were stupid, illiterate, and unenquiring. But the arrival of the Huguenots was a great stimulus to the exploration of southernmost Africa. A few other Huguenots decided to go on to the recently The Explorations of the Dutch 121 discovered island of Rodriguez^, in the Indian Ocean; or rather, they had proposed colonizing the much larger island of Bourbon (now Reunion), which had been occu- pied and annexed by the French in the first half of the seventeenth century, but more than once abandoned. Finding that Bourbon was once more under French con- trol, the Huguenots proceeded to Rodriguez; and with them, to the Cape of Good Hope and this volcanic and coral island in the middle of the Indian Ocean, travelled also a French naturalist, Francois Leguat, who after- wards wrote an excellent description of the Dutch settle- ment in the Cape peninsula, and of the island of Rodriguez, with its large, long-legged Solitaire birds — Dodos 2 feet 9 inches tall, with long necks, and laying a single egg on a mound of grass. These Huguenot ex- plorers of Rodriguez, however, abandoned the island (owing to its hurricanes) after twenty months' stay, and tried to settle on Mauritius; but the Dutch governor of that island treated them with such brutality that those who survived his ill usage returned to the Cape of Good Hope. In 1660 Van Riebeek sent out an expedition to traverse South Africa from Cape Town to the Portuguese posts on the Zambezi, but the exploring party got scarcely farther than the Olifants' River (so named from the large herds of elephants on its banks); two years afterwards another ex- ploring party got a little farther north, and encountered the wandering Bushmen for the first time. But in 1685 an enterprising governor of the Cape settlement, Simon van DER Stel, crossed the western Olifants' River and pushed 1 Rodriguez, nowadays a British possession, is about 340 miles north-east of Mauritius, and was generally overlooked by navigators till it was definitely located by the Portuguese in 1645. 122 Pioneers in South Africa on through little Namakwaland till he discovered the copper -producing mountains nowadays known as the Kamiesberg (about 5100 feet high). During the next twenty years bold prospectors travelled north till they reached the copper-mining district now worked by the Port Nolloth railway. In this region they learnt from the Hottentots that a great river flowed (presumably) into the sea at no great distance to the northward. This was the Gariep or Orange River, which was not, however, seen by the white man (so far as is known) till a Boer ele- phant hunter (Jacobus Coetzee) reached its banks in 1760. By the end of the seventeenth century the Dutch had aroused a good deal of attention in civilized Europe as to their discoveries in South Africa, and commenced to attract thither that contingent of great botanists and zoologists whose work is for ever commemorated in the scientific names given to South African animals and to the beautiful specimens of the South African flora which are now so prominent in horticulture. One of the first of these was the Prussian master of arts, Pieter Kolben, who had been private secretary to the Baron von Krosick, a Minister of the first King of Prussia. This Prussian statesman, apparently at his own cost, resolved to ^end a competent person to write a report on the Dutch colony at the Cape;^ and he could scarcely have made a better selection at that period than Pieter Kolben, whose little book in two volumes^ is one of the most interesting, and in some ways accurate, books written about South Africa; though he 1 Either the Baron von Krosick died subsequently or lost his interest in these explorations, for at the end of his book Kolben complains that the promises in regard to salary and support were not maintained. '■^ The Present State of the Cape of Good Hope, or a particular account of the several nations of the Hottentots, 6fc. Written originally in High German by Mr. Pieter Kolben, A.M. Done into English from the original by Mr. Medley, London, 1731. The Explorations of the Dutch 123 borrowed — with full acknowledgment — a portion of his materials from the previous writings of Father Tachart, a French missionary priest who made a long stay at the Cape at the end of the seventeenth century. Kolben's own journeys probably did not extend beyond Saldanha Bay on the one hand and Mossel Bay on the other. But in his eight years of residence in South Africa, between 1705 and 17 13, he recorded a remarkable amount of accurate information regarding the Hottentots and the plants and animals of Cape Colony. The first Dutch colonists that ranged afield, ahead of what might be called official explorations, were often termed '^freebooters", from the lawless way in which they plun- dered the Hottentots whenever they felt strong enough to do so. But from the first the Dutch authorities endeavoured to impose some degree of justice on the dealings of Europeans with this people. It was some time, however, before the latter became reassured, and Kolben relates that one of the first parties of Dutch that went out to trade honestly for cattle amongst the Namakwa, north of Saldanha Bay, met with a very discouraging reception. The Hottentots forced them to fight in self-defence, and then lured them into a defile between precipitous ranges of rocks, up which the active Namakwa sprang with the agility of baboons, and from the top of which they showered down on the Dutchmen arrows, assagays, and stones. But by the time of Kolben's arrival the two races were undoubtedly on good terms, and single Dutchmen or Germans were able to adventure themselves far afield in exploration without danger to their lives, except from wild beasts. In this way they had already, by the beginning of the eighteenth cen- tury, begun to learn something of tribes that were not Hottentots, living far away to the north ; of the Bushmen, 124 Pioneers in South Africa whom they first of all described as Boschesmans, Bosjes- mans, or *' Forest men", **so abhorred (for their cattle stealing) by all the Hottentot nations, that when any one of them is taken, though he be the first-born of the prin- cipal man in the territory, he is instantly put to death, not a soul daring to say one word for him " (Kolben) ; and of the *'Damakwa" or Bantu-speaking Ova-herero Negroes far away to the north of the Namakwa, whose territory produced abundance of water melons and wild hemp, was rich in cattle, and swarmed with game, the only incommodity being the scarcity of wood. To the east of the Damakwa were the ^'Gauro" or ''Gaurikwa" (some Bechuana tribe), and beyond them the Karana people of Monomotapa. The Dutch during the first hundred years of their colonization did not make slaves of the Hottentots to any extent, partly because of the friendly terms on which they lived with them as a rule. It was only when the colony expanded greatly and there grew up the class of Boers, or country farmers, whose settlements lay more and more beyond the bounds of the Company's authority, that the Hottentots from willing retainers became serfs. By this time they were beginning to perish of smallpox and other diseases introduced by the European, and of alcoholic excess.^ But there had been a good deal of intermarriage going on between them and the Dutch settlers, from which actual nations of half-castes or ^* bastards " arose, who, under the names of Grikwa and Oerlam, subsequently 1 There was some recovery, however, in their general condition, and the first British military officers and missionaries who came to South Africa thought very highly of the Hottentots. " I have seen families in London living in more dirty hovels than ever I saw Hottentots" (wrote the Rev. John Campbell in 1813), "and many in London committed more dreadful crimes than ever I heard Hottentots charged with, I think the Hottentot mind is better cultivated than many of the lowest ranks in London ; I should expect to be more safe in travelling with twenty Hottentots than with twenty Europeans." The Explorations of the Dutch 125 played a very considerable part in the history of South Africa. A shrewd observer of the Dutch colonists of South Africa at the beginning of the nineteenth century (Lichtenstein) wrote as follows: — ** The Boers are never satisfied unless they have twenty or thirty Hottentots running about after them. Many of the Boers have four or five stout sons who, in consequence of the crowd of Hottentots about the house, have no occa- sion to put their hands to any work; wherefore they sit with their legs crossed the greater part of the day, or go to sleep. They sometimes bestir themselves to shoot game for an hour or so. In this way their days and years pass on in miserable idleness. They feel life a burden because they have nothing to do or to talk of. Being miserable themselves, they endeavour to derive pleasure from making others miserable also." But inasmuch as in the early days of Dutch coloniza- tion the Hottentots were not much inclined to work steadily at various industries, and public opinion was strongly opposed to their being forced to do so, the Dutch imported numbers of slaves from Mo9ambique, from the Malay Archi- pelago, and from Madagascar. These slaves they treated with the same cruelty that was characteristic of the Dutch in Guiana and the West Indies. Kolben describes the slaves of Madagascar, who were not pure Negroes, but a proud people at least half Malay in origin, as **the most untract- able, revengeful, and cruel wretches that he ever heard of", simply because they bitterly resented their condition of servitude, and were always striving to escape from it. If they could not run away into the interior, they would either kill those who impeded them or commit suicide. Any attempt at murder, arson, or escape was met with the most fiendish punishments. 126 Pioneers in South Africa Kolben relates how a party of Madagascar slaves got together in Cape Town, elected a king and queen, and made regulations for the preserving of order amongst themselves; then effected their escape at night, carrying off with them a quantity of guns, gunpowder and balls, and swords. They made their way towards Saldanha Bay on the north, with a design to settle in some part beyond the reach of Europeans, *^and so raise a new people". They snatched sheep with violence to satisfy their hunger on the way, and having encountered a European who was the overseer of a plantation and who had issued from his house in the early morning to set his slaves to work, they wrenched his gun from him and announced that he must die. He begged they would give him a minute or two in which to say his prayers. His request was granted, and he fell on his knees; but he prayed for such a long time that they lost patience, ripped him up, tore out his entrails and hung them upon the bushes. But at Saldanha Bay they were overpowered, secured, and conveyed back to the Cape; tried, convicted, and sentenced to be broken alive (the woman in the party, however, was hanged). Before being broken on the wheel they were severely flogged with split canes and branded with red-hot irons. Another slave, having attempted to burn down his master's house, was fastened by a chain to a stout post in such a way that he could run round the post. Then there was kindled a great fire all about him, stretching to the utmost limit of the chain. The flames rose high ; the heat was vehement; the wretched slave ran to and fro for some time round the post, but gave not one cry. At last, being half-roasted, he sank down, and, exclaiming in Portu- guese: **Oh, God, my Father!" expired. Even as early as the end of the seventeenth century The Explorations of the Dutch 127 shipwrecked Englishmen were found wandering here and there in the land of the Kafirs, especially in what is now the colony of Natal, and Kolben (hearing of it from a Dutch skipper) relates the following story. An English sailor had deserted his ship off Natal and settled amongst the Kafirs. He had been given two wives, and had a small family of children by them. He went about unclothed like the Kafirs, and lived exactly their life, having acquired the use of their language. When a Dutch ship crossed the bar of Port Natal, and the captain came on shore, the Englishman showed him piles of elephant tusks, and huts packed full of pieces of silk which had been obtained by a distant trade up the south-east coast with the Arabs or with Madagascar. He proposed to the Dutch captain that he should take on board all this wealth of ivory and silk and give him (the Englishman) a passage to the Cape, where he would be able to dispose of these goods and then return to England. But the native king or chief of the district, hearing of his intention, sent for him and upbraided him for his ingratitude and treachery towards a people who had received him and cherished him after so generous a manner. The king asked him what would happen to his family of half-caste children if he abandoned them? They would become outcasts and be a constant reminder of their father's ingratitude. He further admon- ished him so warmly on the affection and tenderness he owed to his wives and children, and on the cruelty of desert- ing them, <*that the fellow's heart melted"; he fell at the king's feet, begged for pardon, and gave up his design. He must, however, have been of a sneaking disposition, for not content with breaking faith with the captain of the ship, he persuaded one of his Dutch seamen to desert and settle with him amongst the Kafirs. All through the 128 Pioneers in South Africa records of South Africa in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries there are stories of sailors — shipwrecked or deserters, English, Dutch, or Portuguese — settling amongst the Kafirs in Natal and Zululand and becoming the fathers of large families of children. These facts must to a certain extent explain the good looks and more Euro- pean cast of features to be met with amongst the coast tribes in this direction. Of course the Dutch were aware, from their coasting voyages as far east as Natal (where they had tried to found a colony in 1705) and Delagoa Bay (at which they built a fort in 1720), that South Africa was not inhabited exclusively by Hottentots and Bushmen. But they were a long time before they actually encountered tall, dark-skinned Bantu Negroes in their inland explorations. At Delagoa Bay they heard rumours of the existence of gold in the region we now know as the Lebombo Mountains, and an expedi- tion started in that direction in 1725 from the shores of Delagoa Bay. But the Thonga natives were very hostile and drove them back. Another attempt to reach the heart of Kafirland from the Cape was made in 1736 under Her- mann Hubner (probably a German). He had become an elephant hunter, and gathering round himself a band of other bold pioneers, used to the grave risks in those days of such big-game shooting, he penetrated as far east as Pondoland, the borders of Natal. But on the return journey his party was treacherously attacked by the Xosa Kafirs and destroyed to a man. They had travelled with wagons, as was the custom of the Dutch settlers from the first, and these were carefully burnt by the Aosa, who seem to have been animated by some prophetic apprehen- sion of what was likely to ensue from this penetration of their country by the white man. The Explorations of the Dutch 129 Ryk van Tulbagh is one of the great names in South African history. He was the best governor of Cape Colony ever sent out by the Dutch East India Company. He ruled this land for twenty years, from 1751 to 1771, and although he was no great explorer himself he was the cause of much scientific exploration taking place, both towards Kafirland and along the west coast regions of the Namakwa country. Before he had been a year in office he resolved to know more about the lands lying to the east of the Hottentot country; so in 1752 he sent a very well- equipped and really scientific expedition under an officer named Beutler, an expedition which, amongst other things, was to study the botany of the lands it passed through. Beutler reached as far east as the Kafir-Hottentot boun- dary, the Kei River. Inland, on the return journey, they ascended the Great Fish River to near its source, and passed beyond the more settled Hottentot country to the open lands of the Bushmen at the foot of the lofty Sneeuw- bergen, and saw vast herds of wild beasts wandering over the grassy plains. In the year 1761 the Orange River was located, and crossed about 100 miles from its mouth by Captain Hen- DRiK Hop, who commanded a scientific expedition dis- patched by the great governor, Tulbagh. Hendrik Hop's expedition, when it got to the north of the Orange River, encountered and killed giraffes. The complete skin of one of these strange beasts (only so far known to Europe by vague descriptions in Roman literature and the stories of travellers who had seen them in Egypt or Persia), brought thither from the Sudan, was sent to Leiden in 1762 by Governor Tulbagh, and I believe exists in that wonderful Dutch natural history collection down to the present day, carefully shielded from the bleaching daylight. (0687) 9 130 Pioneers in South Africa Hendrik Hop, when he got to a distance of some 140 miles beyond the Orange River, heard of a black- skinned, goat-keeping people in the farther interior who were named Biri-kwa (Goat people) by the yellow-skinned Hottentots (themselves keepers of oxen and sheep). These first- mentioned Birikwa were probably either the Ova- herero or Damara already reported by Coetzee in 1760; or the savage Haukwoi (Hill-Damara); or they may even have been the Bechuana, for the country of the black- skinned, Bantu Bechuana begins at no very great distance beyond the middle course of the Orange River. By 1775 the Dutch, after 123 years of settlement in the south-west extremity of Africa, knew something about the coast country between the Orange River and the Cape of Good Hope, and between the Cape of Good Hope and Natal, and they had explored inland as far north as the innermost of the parallel mountain ranges which form a series of steps or ridges between the vast tablelands of the Orange State, Bechuanaland, and the Transvaal and the seacoast: in fact they had on the north-east reached to the imposing Sneeuwbergen (Snow-mountain-range) with its altitudes of 7800 feet, and on the north-west to the Kamiesberg and Copper Mountains of Namakwaland. The vagrant ** Boers " (as the country farmers had come to be called, in distinction from the officials and tradesmen of the few towns) continued to explore, whether they were encouraged or forbidden to do so by the Company's administrators; and without recording their wonderful journeys, Avhich probably took them far inland. But the information they gleaned and transmitted verbally (for as a rule they were quite uneducated) was often of great use to the scientific explorers, who now began to find their way to South Africa from Scotland, England, Sweden, and France. The Explorations of the Dutch 131 Before dealing with the adventures of these notable discoverers, it might be as well to finish in a few words the record of native Dutch work in South African exploration before the British occupation of Cape Colony in 1795. WiLLEM VAN Renan (or Reenen) penetrated north of the Orange River mouth in 1791 till he reached the neigh- bourhood of Walvisch Bay; and his companion, Pieter Brand, in spite of the opposition of the Namakwa Hotten- tots (always very much disposed to quarrel with the white man), rode on northwards for another fortnight until he reached the mountainous country inhabited by the Bantu- speaking Ova-herero (whom the Hottentots called Damara), and the Hottentot-speaking Haukwoi or Ghau Damap. [This last-named tribe, called by the missionaries the Hill- Damara, has long been a puzzle to ethnologists. Its language is a dialect of Bushman or Hottentot, with clicks, but the appearance of the tribesmen is that of a race of black — mostly tall — Negroes, resembling those of the Forest region.^] Sebastiaan and Dirk van Reenen (see p. 144), brothers or cousins of Willem, made a coast- ing trip along the shore of Great Namakwaland in 1792-3, in the course of which they reached — perhaps discovered — Walvisch Bay, the only good harbour on a thousand miles of desert coast. They named this bay ** Walvisch " because the shore was strewn with the bones of innumer- able great whales which had been cast up by the sea for thousands of years, and the flesh of which was the prin- cipal food of the miserable Hottentot tribes living on this desolate coast of endless sandhills. Colonel R. J. Gordon (as will be related in the next chapter) had reached the Orange River near its junction with 1 Their origin and appearance are well described by Francis Galton in his Tropical South Africa, 132 Pioneers in South Africa the Vaal in 1777. With him there were, amongst other followers, Dutch-speaking Hottentot half-castes — the cele- brated **Bastaards" of South African history. Indeed he found these ''Christians" (as they were often called to dis- tinguish them from the heathen Negroes) established in considerable numbers to the north of the Orange River, in the Kimberley district, defending themselves against the furious attacks of the dispossessed Bushmen. The Bas- taards or ''Grikwa" spread the news of this route towards a great hunting country among the roving, lawless ''free- booters", Dutch and German, who, in spite of prohibi- tions issued by the Company at Cape Town, were yearly ranging farther and farther afield into Inner South Africa in search of ivory and cattle. Amongst these mighty hunters was a German named Johann Blum or Bloem, an escaped soldier who became a bold robber chief, and attracted to his camp numbers of hungry natives willing to serve him for the meat of the wild beasts he killed. Bloem made his way across the upper Orange River much more to the east, and eventually fixed his camp at a pretty little spring of fresh water which thenceforth be- came known as " Bloemfontein ", and is now the site of the capital of the Orange State. A wandering half-caste hunter named Cornelius Kok, and after him several Boers, among them the Vischers, father and son, had by about 1796 penetrated due north of the middle Orange River till they reached the fertile country round Kuruman, and made the acquaintance of the southernmost of the " Birikwa " or Bechuana clans, and that of the Matlapin or "Fish" people. They effected this important discovery — the beginning of a great march of Europeans to the Zambezi, and to the heart of Central Africa— just after the British had taken possession of Cape The Explorations of the Dutch 133 Colony: for in 1795 a fleet under Admiral Elphinstone arrived at the Cape Peninsula, captured Simonstown, and landed several thousand British troops under the com- mand of Sir James Craig. This action was taken nomi- nally on behalf of the Prince of Orange, who was the Stadhouder or President of the Confederation of Dutch States. But in reality the occupation of Cape Colony had long been planned by the British, and was carried out in the summer of 1795, after the French had invaded Holland. The fleet under Elphinstone sailed very shortly after the French troops entered Holland in the winter of 1794, with the intention of preventing France from stealing a march on England and making South Africa a French possession. The French, between 1780 and 1785, had garrisoned Cape Town to ward off an earlier British attack; and during this period the French naturalist, FRAN901S LE Vaillant, had made two journeys in South Africa between Cape Town, the Orange River, and the borders of Kafirland. His books, published about 1795, had in- creased French interest in these regions, which France realized, all too late, should have been her objective, rather than Madagascar or India. CHAPTER VI Paterson's Journeys Dr. Andreas Sparrman, a learned Swede, and a worthy pupil of the great Linnaeus, visited Cape Colony in 1772, and again in 1775-6, having in the meantime (as related in my Pioneers in Australasia) been a member of Cook's second expedition to the Pacific Ocean. Sparrman's journeys in South Africa cannot be classed as explora- tions, as he only travelled with a Dutchman to the borders of Kaffraria and the Sneeuwbergen, besides visiting the country round the Cape peninsula. But his book, which was published in Swedish in 1780, and in an English translation in 1785, is a work of the greatest interest and accuracy of observation in its description of the Hottentots and Bushmen, and of the zoology of Cape Colony. It will be a good deal quoted from in the course of the present chapter. In the spring of 1777 Lieutenant William Paterson, an Englishman who tells us very little about himself or his origin, but whose journey to South Africa seems to have been prompted by a love of scientific research, arrived at Cape Town, to find himself let in for an unusually severe South African winter, the hills and mountains round Cape Town being covered with snow for days at a time, while excessively heavy rain prevented any explora- tion of the lower-lying country. Soon after his arrival Paterson was fortunate in meeting Captain Robert Jacob 184 Paterson's Journeys 135 Gordon, a Scottish officer, who, like so many of his nation in the eighteenth century, entered the Colonial service of Holland, and was sent out by the Dutch East India Company as second in command at Cape Town (the commander-in-chief being a French officer). Colonel Gordon, as he afterwards became, had taken a great interest in South African exploration from 1774 onwards, and had acquired the Hottentot language, besides being very fluent in Dutch. He had apparently made extensive journeys in the interior of South Africa, though no records of these have been left for our perusal. On one of these explorations he is stated to have reached a distance of 1500 miles from the Cape of Good Hope.^ On 6 October, 1777, Gordon and Paterson left Cape Town for the north. Paterson, amongst other talents, possessed those of painter and botanist. Consequently the region round Table Mountain was a source of delight and interest to him, with its numerous species of heaths, geraniums, ground orchids, ixias, proteas, gladioli, silver- leaf trees, and, among shrubs, the Myrica cerifera^ the berries of which produced a waxy substance that made excellent candles, similar to the wax produced by certain types of laurel in South America. Their journey took an easterly course through the flat district called Hottentots' Holland, to the Breede River, and the country round the Swellendam. In entering Hottentot Holland — at no great distance from Cape Town — they already encountered the great black buffaloes of South Africa. These are de- scribed as being excessively fierce and dangerous to travellers. They would lie quietly concealed in the shade 1 It is said that Gordon was so loyal to the Dutch, whom he had served for twenty- one years in South Africa, that when the British force under Sir James Craig effected landing at Cape Town in 1795, he committed suicide. 136 Pioneers in South Africa of the woods and rush suddenly on passing caravans, knocking over pedestrians, horsemen, and even the draught oxen of wagons, and attempting to trample them under their feet. Even after having killed or wounded their victims they would sometimes return and lick the bleeding bodies, no doubt attracted by the salt taste of the blood. Lions sometimes attacked these buffaloes, but found much more difficulty in killing them than the domestic oxen. It was said that the lions could only overcome these Cape buffaloes by leaping on their backs and suffocating them by fixing their great paws with all the claws extended round the noses and mouths of the beasts. Even then the lion was sometimes killed by the buffalo rolling over and crushing it. Paterson also observed herds of eland. On the upper waters of the Zwart River, under the Zwarteberge or Black Mountain, there was — and is still — a natural warm bath. Here the Dutch Company had erected a house for Europeans who came to bathe in these hot springs impregnated with iron. The fountains of hot water gushed from the base of a granite hill at a temperature as high as 133° F. But there was also a stream of cold water which could be let into the hot bath to reduce the temperature if necessary. The country round these hot springs was very agreeable — grassy meadows swarming with antelopes and francolin. The commonest antelope was the Bontebok.^ Farther on they encountered ostriches and kudus, and then lions began to make their presence known, so that Gordon and Paterson 1 Damaliscus pygargus, one of the most beautiful of antelopes, a member of the group of lesser hartebeests, with heads that are not disproportionately long, white faces, rumps, bellies, and limbs, and the rest of the hide warm brown, deepening into black, the horns gazelle-like. The closely allied Blesbok {D. albifrons) is only white on the face and abdomen. The Bontebok is now nearly e.xtinct. Paterson's Journeys 137 were obliged to ride in front of the wagon with their guns loaded lest the lions should attack the draught oxen. All this part of the country was inhabited by Hotten- tots. The men were as tall as average Europeans, but in general more slender in build, with very small hands and feet. The eyes were set very wide apart, the root of the nose was low down, and the tip was flattened. Their skins were yellowish brown, but the lips were not so thick as amongst the true Negroes. The head hair was more tightly curled than that of the ordinary Negro, and grew in little separate tufts. Their skins were smeared with mutton fat mixed with soot, and with strong-smelling leaves of certain herbs reduced to a powder, giving to them, in conjunction with the mutton fat, a rank and yet aromatic smell. The herb in question was called by them bukku or bukhuy and was considered so valuable for its medicinal properties that a thimbleful of powder made from the best kind was sold for a lamb. This mixture of grease, soot, and bukku powder, well rubbed into the pores of the skin, enabled the Hottentots to go about naked, or almost naked, without feeling too much the changes of temperature from hot to cold. The men wore in front a small bag or kilt made of jackal fur, and two flaps of leather behind, which were used to sit on. These flaps of leather, when the Hottentot ran, were thought to produce an agreeable coolness by their flapping motion. The women wore aprons of leather, generally two or three at a time, the outermost and largest being carefully decorated with glass beads. In cold weather both sexes fastened round their necks a big cloak or pelisse of sheep- skin, called ''kaross", with the woolly side turned inwards. This was worn over the back and tied round the chest. The married women had theirs fitted with a peak or hood, 138 Pioneers in South Atrica which usually hung down over the back, and served to carry the infant child. Both men and women generally went bareheaded, but the men occasionally donned caps of greased skin, and the women sometimes used a cone- shaped cap without a seam, made of a piece of ox or antelope stomach, and coloured a deep black with soot and fat. Over this cap they sometimes placed another orna- ment, consisting of a wreath or crown of buffalo's hide, with the hair standing outwards. These wreaths were sometimes decorated with small sea shells or kauris. They wore no ornaments in the ears nor in the nose, but the nose was sometimes marked with a streak of black soot, or occasionally with a large spot of red lead, of which also they put some on their cheeks. The men's necks were bare, but the women wore as necklaces thongs of leather upon which shells were strung. Their arms and legs were decorated with rings made of leather. These were also worn by the men on the arm only. Both sexes carried a jackal's tail as a fly flapper and a handkerchief with which they wiped the sweat from their faces. When loaded with grease and dirt the jackal tail was easily washed in a stream and whirled round and round till it was dry. The huts of the Hottentots, made of withes and sticks, and roofed with mats of woven reeds, were mostly circular, but occasionally there was a larger dwelling of an oval or rounded oblong shape. The doorway was barely 3 feet high, and the house was always entered by stooping and crawling through. The fireplace was in the middle of the hut, and there was no way of egress for the smoke but through the door, so that no one but a Hottentot, inured to this atmosphere from his infancy, could endure the smarting caused to the eyes. The Hottentots fought with clubs, throwing spears Paterson's Journeys 139 (assagays or javelins), and bows and arrows, the arrows being very often poisoned.^ The Hottentot manner of drinking water from a pool was curious. They threw up water with the right hand into their mouths, seldom bringing the hand nearer than the distance of a foot from the lips, yet doing this so quickly that, however thirsty they were, they were soon satisfied. When first visited by Europeans they were found to possess cattle and fat-tailed sheep similar to those of north- east Africa. They also had dogs, but no other domestic animals, no goats and no fowls. The Hottentot dogs were of the greatest service to them in managing the cattle and sheep, especially the cattle. When the herds were on their way to pasture, the dogs were incessantly running to and fro along their flanks and at the rear, barking to keep them on the line along which their masters intended them to proceed. Without orders from these masters they would run out and fetch in stragglers, and scour the fields where the herds were grazing to give warning of the approach of lions or leopards. At night, when the Hottentots had retired to their huts, the dogs mounted guard round the cattle kraals. Should any lion or leopard venture to attack the kraal, the dogs so harassed him that he rarely succeeded in getting off with any booty. These Hottentot dogs are described (by Pieter Kolben) as being very like foxes in ^The Hottentots made an arrow poison by mixing the virulent juice of the Euphorbia candelabrum with the compounded bodies of caterpillars frequenting Rhus bushes. They mixed this compound and then set it out to dry, after which their arrow tips were rubbed with it in the form of a paste. They also used branches of euphorbia to poison water frequented by wild beasts. After drinking this water the animals seldom got farther away than a thousand yards before they fell down and expired. Their flesh apparently was none the worse for eating purposes. But this habit of poisoning water in the pans and vleis was very dangerous to European travellers, who might be unaware that the water was poisoned until too late. I40 Pioneers in South Africa appearance, with pointed snouts, erect ears, long, narrow, and rather drooping tails. The hair, which was thin, stood out in a fuzzy fashion, being nowhere sleek. The resemblance to the fox was, of course, only accidental, these dogs being descended from the same pariah type as the ancient domestic dogs of Egypt, East Africa, and India. From Swellendam the travellers (Paterson and Gordon) journeyed north-eastwards till they left the delightful and fertile territory south of the great mountain ranges and the Tauw and Olifants' Rivers, and entered the Karroo district, which extends for hundreds of miles northwards till it emerges into the Kalahari Desert. The border region of this sterile land was then known as the **Channa" country, Khanna being the name of a species of Mesem- bryanthemum^ greatly prized by the Hottentots, who either chewed its leaves or dried and smoked them, mixing the dried leaves with a proportion of hemp, this giving the mixture a very intoxicating effect. Reaching to the crest of a lofty mountain range — the Black Mountains (Zwartebergen) — they could see far to the south the sea of the Indian Ocean and the beautiful fertile country they had left, while on the north there lay before them the rugged barren Karroo. Yet when they examined this country closely they found it abounding with plants of a thick and fleshy character — many species of geraniums with gouty stems, sharp spines, small leaves 1 The many plants of the genus Mesembryanthemum are distant relations of the Cactus family, and are very characteristic of the sterile or desert regions of Africa, where they often assume the appearance of stones, boulders, and pebbles, either by their thick and stunted leaves looking like segments of a split pebble, or by the plant grovi^ing in an immense colony of tiny stems and abortive leaves, between which sand accumulates so that the whole mass in time is as hard as a stone, and with a flinty, prickly outer surface, which is pale gre3rish green, like the lichen which covp»-s so many boulders. See p. 19. Paterson's Journeys 141 and bright pink flowers, euphorbias like cacti in growth, mesembryanthemums, and plants of the house-leek family. On the banks of the great Olifants' River^ grew tall acacias. In the vicinity of this river Gordon parted com- pany with his companion, who was ill and wished to rest. Consequently Paterson travelled up and down the valley of the Olifants' River alone or in company with Dutch surveyors (Boer farmers), or a German who had settled amongst the Hottentots, and like them clothed himself in sheepskins. In this region of the eastern Olifants' River Paterson first saw the Bushmen, who at that time were regarded as wild beasts by both the Hottentots and Boers, and treated mercilessly because they attempted to steal the cattle or sheep of the settled populations. The Bushmen had been already described by Sparrman as ** sworn enemies to the pastoral life". Their maxims were (according to him) to live on hunting and plunder, and never to keep any animal alive for the space of one night. Their weapons were poisoned arrows shot from a small bow, the poison being of such a virulent kind that a beast pierced with the arrow would begin to languish and die a few minutes afterwards. The arrow poison, according to Lichtenstein, who wrote in 1808, was derived from the venom glands of snakes, mixed with the acrid poisonous juice of a Euphorbia^ but also from a variety of fleshy plants. Perhaps the most deadly and the commonest of these poisons was extracted from the Hcemanthus toxicarius bulb, an Amaryllid frequently mis- called a '* lily ". The juice of this Hasmanthus is strongly alkaline, and disintegrates the blood. The Bushman arrows were i J feet long, made of reeds and armed with polished- 1 Not to be confused with the other Olifants' River on the west coast of Cape Colony. 142 Pioneers in South Africa bone tips 5 or 6 inches long, and barbed by means of a piece of quill bound on to the tip with sinews, so that the arrow could not be easily drawn out of the flesh, but must stay there long enough for the thickly smeared poison to spread from the wound. The Bushmen also carried a quiver of about 2 feet long, made of bark or sometimes of the scooped-out trunk of the A/oe dtckotoma, or branch- ing aloe — which the Dutch therefore called the ^'Quiver- tree ". The quiver had a leather bottom and top, and was smeared outside with a thick resinous substance which grew perfectly hard when dry. Each quiver contained, besides a dozen arrows, a slender hone of sandstone for sharpening the iron head, which — no doubt after contact with Europeans and Kafirs — was adopted by the more southern Bushmen as an additional point to the arrow. There also were the poison paste wrapped up in leaves, a brush for laying on the poison, and the necessary sticks for making fire by friction.^ The Bushmen in preference dwelt in caves or clefts of the rocks; but when far away from any such shelter they would build rude structures of sticks, grass, and leaves. They mostly went — at that day — entirely naked, but when- ever they could obtain the skin of a beast, great or small, they turned it into a cloak for the back. Their food con- sisted of wild roots, berries and plants, the grain of wild grasses — all of which they ate raw — of beetle grubs, cater- pillars, white ants, locusts, snakes, and some kinds of spiders; and, of course, of all the meat they could obtain ^ Very similar are the quivers, and indeed the life, habits, and disposition, of the dwarf Andorobo, or nomad hunters of eastern Equatorial Africa, with whom also the bowstring is not of vegetable fibre but of twisted gut. In rainy weather, it might be mentioned, neither the Bushmen nor their distant relatives, the Andorobo, could defend themselves against man or beast, for their bowstrings, being made of the entrails of animals, stretched and broke with the moisture of the air. Paterson's Journeys 143 from the chase, besides what they could steal from the Hottentots or Boers. They never tilled the ground, and kept no domestic animals except a dog with prick ears, very like a jackal in appearance. Their existence usually was a half-starved one, and from want of food their skins were strangely wrinkled. But it required only a few weeks of good fare to bring starving Bush men or women into a thriving state and make them quite fat, their stomachs being strong enough to digest the great quantities of food with which they crammed themselves when the opportunity was favourable; and as they fattened, most of the wrinkles in their skin disappeared. They usually went about in companies of from ten to fifty, or even a hundred. It was not, however, always sought to kill them; but raids were sometimes made by Boers as well as the Hotten- tots to keep them as slaves, as they often became the most faithful and useful servants. The Boers would occasionally get up a great hunt for this purpose, surround the wild Bushmen at night when they were asleep either in their caves or under their rude shelters of sticks and leaves, and then give the alarm by firing several guns. The noise of firearms created such consternation amongst the Bushmen that they were usually too frightened even to flee. Thus they were easily captured, carried off, and distributed amongst the Dutch farmers, where they soon became reconciled to captivity by being given abundant food and tobacco. In course of time, however, they would grow so corpulent from good living that they became lazy. Then they would be beaten and abused, and after much ill treatment would usually make their escape. But it is recorded that whenever they ran away they never stole anything that was the property of their master. We now know that this unfortunate race has 144 Pioneers in South Africa been much sinned against by the black Bantu Negroes, the yellow Hottentots (who were more than half Bush- man in blood), and by the Dutch Boers. All these forces combined have during the last hundred years almost brought the Bush race to extinction. Returning to Cape Town, Paterson in the spring of 1778 started once more for the interior, on this occasion either travelling alone or with a Dutch companion, Sebastiaan Van Renan (the name is thus spelt in his book, but the more modern version is Renen or Reenen — see p. 131). He again entered the Karroo to the north of East Olifants* River, crossed the Roggeveld Mountains, and entered Little Namakwaland. Travelling was dangerous in parts owing to the numbers of lions and leopards. In the Roggeveld district (where the snow lay thickly on the mountain peaks) there were wandering caravans of Boers, who had come down at this winter season to the Karroo from the hills on account of the scarcity of firewood^ and the great cold. Those of them who remained in the mountains employed their Hottentot and Negro slaves to collect firewood from the plains during the summertime and store it round their houses, but such as had not made this provision were obliged to resort to the Karroo and lead a camp life. Some of them dwelt in huts similar in shape to those of the Hot- tentots, while others slept in the wagon. **Even under ^ There seems to have been a sufficient rainfall in the Roggeveld Mountains to nourish timber, and the Boers raised great crops of corn ; but the corn was ruined frequently by hailstorms, while locusts arrived in such swarms that they not only finished up the corn, but were probably the reason of there being no trees, since they devoured every form of vegetation except the toughest Mesembryanthemums. Another disadvantage in this hilly country was the presence in abundance of a very poisonous plant, the Amaryllis disHcha, a lily-like bulb with a short, thick, green stem, and at the top a cluster or crown of small red flowers. The fleshy leaves of this Amaryllis as well as its bulb were intensely poisonous. The cattle were attracted by the green leaves, but died after eating them. From the bulb the Bushmen obtained some of their arrow poison. Paterson's Journeys 145 these conditions, the Boers appeared to be the happiest of all human beings." When a stranger visited them he was treated with the greatest hospitality, and every- thing they had was at his command. Paterson crossed the Rhenoster River in a region where rhinoceroses were then very abundant, and entered Little Namakwaland — a low-level country covered with small succulent plants, chiefly a spiny geranium. On this vegetation were browsing the handsome oryxes of South Africa, called, by the Boers, gemsbok, both sexes with long, straight, slender horns some 3 feet in length, and only separated at the points by a space of about 14 inches. The coloration of these antelopes is very handsome, chiefly a reddish grey, with bold black markings and white under parts. They have long tails with plumes of black hair at the end. Paterson thought their flesh excellent, though it is generally considered to be rather dry. When attacked by dogs (he wrote) the gemsbok — like the sable antelope — would squat on its hams and defend itself by sweeping movements of its long, sharp horns. Along the northern route the water was often brackish, except when it was derived from freshly fallen rain. The country was generally hilly, rising here and there into lofty mountains which provided water even in the dry season. The hills were covered with tall, branching aloes, and in the valleys, where the plants were mostly succulents, there were brilliant ixias with spikes of crimson flowers. As the route descended towards the Orange River the hills gave way to a sandy plain, in which the cattle some- times sank to their knees^. On the banks of this great ^The aspect of the country, especially the mountains in the vicinity of the Orange River, was "so naked that scarcely a plant was to be seen". Some of the mountains (C587) 10 146 Pioneers in South Africa stream they found a hut which had been built by a Euro- pean (possibly Jacob Coetzee) who had lived for some time in this neighbourhood. The Orange River had been dis- covered in its middle course by Captain R. J. Gordon in 1777, who had named it after the Prince of Orange. Sparr- man had reported in the previous year that it flowed at no great distance from the Sneeuwbergen, to the north, and Gordon had followed his indications. When Paterson reached its lower course in 1778 it was swarming with hippopotami, and he and his companion, Van Renan, could get no rest at night for the cries of these beasts, ** which were really frightful". Large numbers of Hot- tentots frequented the banks of the stream to hunt the hippopotami. Paterson was delighted with the many beautiful birds which he found along this lower course of the Orange River. The country had not been shot out then as it has been to a great extent now, and no doubt the bird life was singularly abundant and varied. For in Africa birds are not usually so numerous or so visible in the densely forested regions of luxuriant vegetation as they are in the more open, and even somewhat barren, country. The swarms of locusts and grasshoppers which then infested southern Africa provided food for many types of bird; and this open country gave much less concealment to snakes and lizards, which were therefore not so well able to escape their flying pursuers. Along the banks of the Orange River after it had left the moun- tains and cold plateaus of the interior, and was flowing through the desert region of south-west Africa (so similar consisted of a species ot quartz, others of ironstone with visible strata of copper ore. Along the banks of the river Paterson found many pebbles of hard agate ; yet the river banks evidently nourished sufficient bushes, willows, and other trees, and succulent plants for the sustenance of such vast herds of game as abounded here. Paterson's Journeys 147 in many respects to Egypt), there were flocks of the tall, blush-pink flamingoes,^ much larger, though less vividly coloured, than the dwarf flamingoes of Central Africa; similar, in fact, to the flamingoes of the Mediterranean. There were saddle-billed storks, black storks and white storks, pelicans, crowned cranes, wattled cranes, and para- dise cranes, secretary birds with their long legs, short, powerful toes, eagle-like beaks, and crests like quill pens. There were bustards and francolin, guinea fowl and quails, sand grouse and pigeons, vivid blue-green, red-brown, peach-coloured roller birds, grey turacos and green tura- cos, and small hornbills flapping from one withered bush to another, mouse birds or colies running up and down the green branches of the acacia trees by the river bank; innumerable ducks and spur-winged geese, clumsy green- and-grey parrots feeding on the fruits of the annaboom and msuku trees, bee-eaters of crimson and sea blue, black- and-white kingfishers, sunbirds more beautiful and more vividly coloured even than the humming birds of America, griffon vultures, eagles of several kinds, kites and hawks. Ostriches were numerous in the open country away from the river banks. It was indeed at that time one of the many bird paradises of Africa, of which all too few remain at the present day. Elephants were numerous in spite of the scanty vegetation. Tall giraffes moved about almost fearless of man, in the region to the north of the Orange 1 It is a curious fact in the geographical distribution of birds that the large Mediter- ranean flamingo of Europe, North Africa, and Western Asia should be absent from the interior of all really tropical Africa, at any rate south of Lake Chad, but should reappear again in the extreme south-west of Africa. Paterson shot some, on his return journey from the Orange River to Cape Colony, which measured 5 feet from the tip of the bill to the end of the tail. The dwarf flamingo {Phaniconaias) nevertheless extends its range as far to the south as the vicinity of the Orange River, where its presence was duly noted by Paterson, who observed it frequenting the same water pools south of the Orange River as the big flamingo. This last was abundant on the seashore close to Cape Town at this period. 148 Pioneers in South Africa River. There were herds of zebras and elands. The kudu, generally alone or in couples, was frequently observed, as was the rhinoceros. The rocks swarmed with big chakma baboons. And all this wonderful fauna was hunted in the daytime (rather than at night) by lions, leopards, caracal lynxes, servals, chitas, hyenas, and black-backed jackals. The river itself swarmed with hippopotami, which were very bold and aggressive, and made any attempt to cross the Orange River by swimming or resting on floats some- what dangerous. Paterson and Van Renan did not push their exploration far beyond the Orange River, but returned again south- wards, making excursions in various directions to the Kamiesberg and into the Bushman country due west of the Kamiesberg. Here they found Dutchmen already settled, but liable to constant attacks from the Bushmen, who frequently killed their Hottentot slaves and carried off their cattle. At the close of 1778 Paterson started on his third journey of exploration. This time he intended to reach the land of the Kafirs, of the tall dark-skinned Negroes speaking Bantu languages, who dwelt to the east of the Hottentot country and of the Great Fish River. He be- lieved himself to be the first European to explore much of this country, but, as we know, he had really been preceded by several Dutch travellers, though some of these had lost their lives at the hands of the Kafirs, who from the first had shown themselves very jealous about white men entering their land, no doubt with an anxious foresight that some day the regions their ancestors had con- quered from the Bushmen might be taken from themselves by the European. Once more Paterson crossed Khanna- land, the southernmost Karroo beyond the Zwartebergen. Paterson's Journeys 149 **This country had a very barren appearance, scarcely any vegetation being visible, except a few dwarfish shrubs without verdure. In the course of the evening I was much surprised by the appearance of cultivated land. This belonged to one Okker Hynns, an industrious farmer, who in this dreary situation had erected a good house, and planted gardens and vineyards, which produced tolerable wine and excellent fruit, such as almonds, figs, peaches, apricots, &c., which he dries and sends to the Cape for sale. About three weeks before our arrival there had been a very heavy storm of hail and wind ; the hailstones, which were of an enormous size, and the impetuous wind, had destroyed everything about his house. His corn, vine- yard, and fruit trees were totally spoiled; one of his children, who was at the time keeping a flock of sheep at some distance from any shelter, was very much hurt, and many of the sheep were killed." This extract gives a just idea both of the results achieved by the patient agriculture of the Boer settlers and of the frightful revenges inflicted on them from time to time by recalcitrant Nature. Long and hard has been the struggle on the part of the white man to subdue Nature sufficiently to make South Africa a fruitful, happy, well-populated country. But our own ancestors had no doubt much the same experiences in the Neolithic Age, before Europe was brought under reasonable control by man. Paterson next travelled through what would now be called the Knysna Forest, till he reached the Gamtoos River. Along the banks of this stream were forests of very large trees, especially acacia and albizzia. The woodland glades were frequented by fierce buffaloes, which rendered travelling very dangerous, though the 150 Pioneers in South Africa buffaloes would occasionally come out and stand alongside the oxen as if they would like to be friends. The river- side forest was also full of the beautiful green turacos, which the Dutch called lories, mistaking them for the lory parrots of the East Indies. On the plains near the mouth of the Gamtoos was an immense variety of wild game — herds of eland, quagga,^ zebra, and hartebeest. There were also many rhinoceroses, probably of the white or square-lipped kind. At the Zwart-kop River, Paterson met the first Kafirs he had seen. The frontier of the Kafirs at this time lay to the east of the Great Fish River, and it was rare to find them wandering so far afield. In this region there were flocks of wild dogs,^ which were very destructive to the sheep of the few Boer and German settlers. Between Sunday River and the Great Fish River the country swarmed with game — lions, leopards, elephants, rhinoceroses, buffalo, springbok and other antelopes. The only human inhabitants — and they were not abundant — belonged to a tribe of Hottentots (since extinct) which bore the name of Khonakwa. They had arisen from border intermixture between Kafirs and Hottentots, were much darker in complexion than the ordinary yellow- skinned Hottentot, and better shaped. Nevertheless they spoke a dialect of the Hottentot language and consequently ^ The Quagga is now extinct. It was really only a southern form of Burchell's Zebra, in which the black and white stripes on the body and legs had faded or deepened in tone to brown; so that the animal looked like a hog-maned horse with narrow, whitish stripes on the neck and fore quarters, and with brown dappled hind quarters, and whitish legs and belly. It was often known as the "wild ass" by early English and German writers on South Africa. The black and white zebra was only found in the eastern and northern part of Cape Colony, and the Quagga was not found north of the Limpopo River. It became extinct in 1876. 2 The Lycaon pictus of Zoology. This curious beast is found all over Tropical Africa outside the forest region. It is the size of a small wolf, with large erect ears, a dog-like muzzle and face, longish legs, and a bushy tail. The body is most curiously marked with irregular blotches of dark colour on a light dun or fawn colour. This dog hunts in packs. It existed in England in the days of PalaeoUthic man. Paterson's Journeys 151 fought with their Kafir relations. Although much less numerous, they held their own in these encounters, be- cause they employed a subtle poison for their arrow tips (see p. 139), whereas the Bantu Kafirs used no poison on their weapons, relying only on their bodily strength and on the sharpness of their steel assagays and spears. In the middle of this constant turmoil between Hotten- tots and Kafirs, alternately raiding each other's cattle, there contrived to exist plucky Germans and Boers. In- deed, from the tenor of the narratives of Paterson and other travellers of the eighteenth century, one arrives at the conclusion that there were almost as many German colonists at that period in South Africa as Dutch. It was no doubt very difficult then to draw the line between a Dutchman and a German. Many of the so-called Germans came from Friesland or the Lower Rhine, and spoke either a Low Dutch or a Friesisch dialect. Along the lower course of the Great Fish River Paterson noted what he thought was a kind of palm, growing upwards of 20 feet in height, in reality a species of Encephalartos, a Cycad, from the pith of which the Hottentots made bread, ^ after allowing the pith to lie for a time and ferment. The country on both sides of the Great Fish River was a most agreeable land. The grass in some places was so high that it reached to the horses* bellies, but it was diversified in a park-like fashion with pleasant woods on the slopes of the low hills. The open meadows were gay with lovely flowers, especially various kinds of crinum, with deep pink, white, or white and pink flowers. There were also real lilies of vivid crimson, besides irises, ^ The Cycadacece are a very remarkable order of plants, related distantly and anciently to ferns, palms, conifers, and flowering plants. 152 Pioneers in South Africa gladioli, and ground orchids. Some of the trees were gardenias with beautiful white, richly scented flowers; others were Erythrina or ^* Kafirboom " trees, with clusters of large, velvety, crimson-scarlet blossoms. On the hills there grew bamboos. Everywhere the land seemed to be permeated by streams, producing excellent pasture for cattle; for hereabouts began the well-watered regions of south-east Africa, with a flora more truly African, less peculiar and specialized, than that of the south-western portion of Cape Colony. On the east side of the Great Fish River, moreover, it was ** Kafir-land", and inhabited somewhat densely by tall black Negroes very different in appearance to the Hottentots. Some of these Kafirs had then never seen a white man or heard a gun fired. They received Paterson and Van Renan very hospit- ably, and were even offended if they refused whole herds of cattle offered to them, and merely contented themselves by killing one or two oxen for food. The soil was a blackish loam in which could be grown anything. The climate was genial and water everywhere abundant, as in addition to the copious summer rains the high mountains in the north sent innumerable rivers and rivulets to percolate this beautiful land on their way to the Indian Ocean. Once more, in the summer of 1779, Paterson set out to travel northwards from Cape Town, again accompanied by the Dutchman, Van Renan. On their way they en- countered Colonel R. J. Gordon, and arranged a meeting in Little Namakwaland, thenceforward to pursue their explorations in company. Once again Paterson visited the Kamiesberg Mountains, which were then the most northern district of Cape Colony in which any European settlers existed, and from here he journeyed in zigzags HOTTENTOT ZULU KAFIRS Paterson's Journeys 153 north-westward to the Atlantic coast. Along the shore of the ocean he noted the strata ^'of the most beautiful rocks I ever beheld, some of them white as snow, others veined with red and other colours". Here also he ob- served that there were ancient huts or shelters constructed from the ribs of stranded whales and elephants' bones. Such are supposed by tradition to have been inhabited by the Strandloopers, a vanished race, whose remains are occasionally found in caverns along the seacoast, and who seem to have belonged to two quite different human types — one something lower and more Negro-like than the Bushman, and the other more resembling a generalized Caucasian, perhaps the Hamitic (Somali, Gala) races of north-east Africa. Near these weird-looking bone habita- tions were often to be seen immense shell heaps, con- structed by the gradual accumulation of the empty shells of mussels, oysters, whelks, &c., the contents of which had been eaten by the Strandloopers, who threw the shells aside till at last these accumulations of refuse rose to a considerable height. Numbers of seals frequented this coast, which, however, was apparently quite uninhabited by man at that time, and along the shore were the bones of seals which had died of old age. Farther north, however, they came across traces of the recent presence of human beings, probably Hottentots. They often suffered from lack of water. Every now and again they would spend nine or ten days in crossing an absolutely arid stretch of country, in which they were hard put to it to feed and water their cattle. But whenever they were getting near despair they would reach the banks of a river coming down from the mountains of the interior, in which there was sure to be water to be had by digging, or lying in isolated pools. Along the banks of these rivers 154 Pioneers in South Africa there were willows, acacias, and various kinds of Rhus, also ebony trees {DalbergiaT) \ and in the vicinity of these streams a somewhat moister atmosphere nourished a great variety of succulent plants — geraniums, asclepiads, and mesembryanthemums. They found occasionally an ostrich nest containing a large number of fresh ^ggs — a most wel- come food, as the present writer can testify with gratitude. They also occasionally saw quaggas, zebras, and elands. At last they reached the Orange River near its mouth. Colonel Gordon had brought with him a boat in one of his wagons. This was launched on the Orange River, and the Dutch colours were hoisted. Colonel Gordon then drank to the health of the States -General of the United Provinces (Holland, Zeeland, and Friesland), then proposed a toast to the Prince of Orange, the Stathouder, and finally gave to the Great River the name of Orange River, in honour of the chief magistrate of the Dutch State. The next day they crossed the river in a boat, and journeyed northwards towards the seacoast. The land was low and extremely barren, sandy in the direction of the sea and rocky towards the interior. There was a small settlement of Hottentots near the seacoast, who were so shy of Europeans that they fled at their approach, only leaving behind a little dog, extremely scared at the sight of white men. The huts of this village were superior in structure to those of the Hottentots farther south ; they were loftier and thatched with grass, and were furnished with stools made of the vertebrae of whales. Fish were suspended to dry from poles stuck into the ground. Skins of seals were lying about, as well as a quantity of dried aromatic plants, which no doubt were to be rubbed up into the substance Paterson's journeys 155 with which the Hottentots' bodies were powdered. After much persuasion, through Hottentot interpreters, some of the natives were induced to return to their village. It was found that they were clothed with the skins of seals and jackals. Whenever a whale was cast up ashore they re- moved their huts to the vicinity of the dead body, and subsisted on it as long as any part of it remained. They might in this way be nourished for nearly six months, quite indifferent to the fact that their meat had become horribly putrid. They smeared their skins with train oil, the odour of which in course of time became so horrible and powerful that their approach could be smelt almost before they became visible. Their water was carried about in the shells of ostrich eggs and in the bladders of seals. Many of them had lost the first joint of their little finger, a curious custom prevailing among Hottentots and Bush- men, and many of the savage Amerindian and Australian tribes. The fingers are mutilated either as a record of great sorrows — the death of much-loved relations — or in the hopes of curing sickness. Like most Hottentots and Bushmen, they seemed to be always short of food and always ravenously hungry, so much so that when they paid a return visit to the camp of Gordon and Paterson they actually ate old shoes which were given to them, and which, of course, were made of leather from the hides of antelope or oxen. Gordon and Paterson seem to have been easily dis- suaded from pushing their explorations any farther to the north, simply because out of these eleven scared natives they could not get anyone to act as a guide. Therefore, after spending a few days in the vicinity of the Orange River, trying to get hippopotami in order to store up the flesh as food for their men, they set out for the southward. 156 Pioneers in South Africa The two explorers travelled together till they had crossed the desert regions and once more reached the outlying Boer settlements on the verge of Little Nama- kwaland. Here — in a land which, after their journey of six weeks through dry and sultry deserts, seemed a paradise, adorned as it was with flowers of the most beautiful colours (ixias, gladioli, geraniums, and ground orchids) — Gordon and Paterson parted company, Gordon going off on an undescribed journey to the north-east in search of the ^'Birikwa", or Bechuana people,^ while Paterson decided to journey once again to the Orange River, and penetrate into Great Namakwaland. He reached the Orange River for the last time at a place farther to the east than where he had seen it on his first visit, and in the neighbourhood heard once more of Colonel Gordon, whose journey had been deflected westwards [or it may be that the *'Birikwa" whom he was trying to find were not the Bechuana, but outlying members of the Berg-Damara race, who, though black-skinned, tall, and very like the Bechuana in appear- ance, nevertheless had long been Hottentotized and spoke a Hottentot dialect (see p. 42)]. Paterson crossed the Orange River where the stream was rapid but shallow, and encamped under a huge ebony tree about 8 miles to the north. Farther on he reached a tributary called the Lions' River, from the great numbers of lions frequenting its banks. The country here, extremely barren, was covered with small sharp stones, which were very injurious to his horse's hoofs. He met natives in search of wild honey, ^Biri, in some Hottentot dialects, means "goat". It is a corruption of the old Bantu Buri or Buzi. Kwa is the plural suffix, therefore Birikvva meant "the goat people ", and this designation covered, in the language of the Hottentots, the wide- spread congeries of Bechuana tribes who have long inhabited central South Africa. The Hottentots themselves had only cattle, sheep, and dogs as domestic animals ; the Bechuana and most of the Bantu-speaking Negroes of South Africa were well provided with goats. Paterson's Journeys 157 and here he saw one of the most remarkable of the South African succulent plants. It grew 6 feet high, with a very thick stem set with innumerable long, sharp spines. At the top there was a crown of dark-green, dentelated leaves, and inside this spreading fringe of foliage was a cluster of singularly handsome flowers — long, tubular, and yellow green, but with deep-red petals. The acacia trees in this neighbourhood (which Paterson, like most writers on South Africa, wrongly terms ** mimosa" — the mimosas being mainly confined to Tropical America) produced quantities of gum, which was not only eaten by the human inhabi- tants of the district, but greedily devoured by birds and baboons. Paterson noted that the branches of the tall acacia trees were sometimes chosen by the weaver birds^ for building one of their immensely large colonies of nests. These nest colonies are thatched with a thick roof, the ridge of which forms an angle so acute and so smooth that it is impossible for any reptile to pass along it. The roof also projects considerably over the entrance to the nests or holes in the body of the house, of which there may be as many as 500 in one colony. The Hottentots of this region clothed themselves in karosses made of the skins of jackals and hyraxes (see pp. 26, 27). Paterson, who was a keen and accurate observer, noticed that the sheep possessed by the Hottentots of Great Namakwaland were different from those of the Hottentots of Cape Colony in that they had much longer and pre- sumably less fat tails. They were, in fact, derived from a more West African type of domestic sheep than those of the southern Hottentots, which came to them originally 1 PhiletcBrus socius, a dull-brown bird with a very thick horn-coloured beak, the size of a hawfinch. 158 Pioneers in South Africa from north-east Africa and are remarkably similar to the domestic sheep of Somaliland. In this region to the north of the Orange River (and from various indications I should think that Paterson travelled much farther north and east than he represents on his own map) Paterson's faithful Boer friend, Van Renan, succeeded in killing a giraffe. From the measure- ments given, this specimen must have been rather larger than the biggest giraffe as yet exhibited in the Zoological Gardens in London. It belonged probably to the variety known as the Cape Giraffe. It is interesting to observe from notes in Paterson's book that he presented the skin, and possibly parts of the skeleton, of this giraffe to the celebrated John Hunter, who assisted to found the Royal College of Surgeons; and in all probability there remains to this day in the Hunterian Collection, in that remarkable Museum, portions, at any rate, of the first giraffe ever sent to England from Africa. The British occupation of Cape Colony between 1795 and 1803 provoked much further researches into the geo- graphy and natural history of South Africa. John Barrow, Secretary to the Administration of Lord Macartney and General Dundas, travelled within the limits of the Dutch colony; and in 1801 two British Commissioners, Triiter and Sommerville, were sent out to penetrate the interior and reach the country of the ** Beetjuaan"^ people reported by the Boer freebooter, Cornelius Kok. The three years' renewal of Dutch control over Cape Colony — 1803 to 1806 — was marked by the important investigations of the Prus- sian traveller. Dr. Heinrich Lichtenstein. Lichtenstein travelled into Bechuanaland as far as Kuruman, and 1 Beetjuaan, pronounced B^chuan, was the first form of the name used by the Dutch and German explorers of South Africa. It is supposed to be a corruption of a native tribal name, Batyuana or Batsuana. Paterson's Journeys 159 examined nearly all Cape Colony. He wrote a most interesting and valuable book on South Africa, and was the first person to illustrate the **Bechuana" language and to exhibit its near affinity with the Zulu-Kafir. But 1806 saw the return of the British forces and the departure of the Dutch governor, General Janssens, with Lichtenstein and a few Dutch officials. The red-white- and-blue flag of the Netherlands was never again to be hoisted over South Africa, though the effects of the Dutch colonization of Cape Colony have been as considerable and as lasting as those of the French settlement of eastern Canada. CHAPTER VII Missionary Pioneers The first missionaries of Christianity who landed in South Africa were those of the Roman Church, belonging principally to the Order of St. Benedict and the Society of Jesus. Their work in Angola and south-east Africa in association with the Portuguese has already been described. The first Protestant missionaries belonged to the Moravian Church of eastern Saxony, an organization first founded in 1722 and especially devoted to teaching the backward peoples of America and Asia. The Mora- vians sent out Georg Schmidt in 1736 to settle among the Hottentot tribes of Cape Colony. Schmidt founded his first station in a deep valley near Swellendam, called at that time the Glen of Baboons, a name changed by Schmidt to Genadendal, the ** Vale of Grace". His work made such progress among the Hottentots, and he became so much their champion in defending them against oppres- sion by the Dutch settlers, that the Netherlands' East India Company obliged him to leave Africa in 1743 and return to Europe. After that there was a complete gap in missionary settlement until 1792, when three German Moravian missionaries sailed for the Cape of Good Hope and re-established the Moravian mission in Genadendal, where it persists to this day. The London Missionary Society, which has played such an important part in the opening up of South and Central 160 Missionary Pioneers i6i Africa, was founded in London by a body of non-denomi- national Christians in 1795. Encouraged by the British occupation of Cape Colony, they decided in 1798 to send missionaries to South Africa, more especially with the idea of placing them among the teeming populations of Kafir- land, and the tribes of the unknown centre of Africa. They chose, in 1798, as their principal agent a Dutch physician, Van der Kemp, who had been ordained as a clergyman at Oxford, and appointed to go out with him a number of Englishmen, Dutchmen, and Germans; among whom, for the importance of their exploring work, may be mentioned Anderson, Kead, Kicherer, and Ul- bricht. Stations on the Tak River, Rietfontein, &c., and at Klaar Water near the Orange River, were founded in that no-man's-land, the Bushman's former domain, to the north and south of the middle Orange River, which was becoming known as *' Grikwaland". Some of the Dutch and Afrikander^ missionary colleagues of Kicherer and Anderson, associating themselves with the adventures of Boer elephant hunters and traders, had penetrated into Bechuanaland before the expedition of Triiter and Sommer- ville reached that region. They stayed for some time at Kuruman, but owing to troubles aroused by the suspicion of the Bechuana they withdrew once more to Grikwaland. Dr. Van der Kemp made his way far into Kafirland, but being rather an impracticable fanatic he was driven out by the Xosa Kafirs and settled instead at Bethelsdorp, on Algoa Bay. Here, after twelve years of strenuous and thankless work among idle Hottentots, he died. The Rev. John Campbell, minister of Kingsland chapel in the north of London, was sent out, with Read, to inspect and ^ Afrikander or Afrikaner means, in Cape Dutch, African-bom, and is applied to all white men born in South Africa and not in Europe. (0 587) 11 i62 Pioneers in South Africa extend the work started by Van der Kemp.^ He reached Cape Town in October, 1812. On his arrival Campbell found Cape Town a thoroughly slave-holding city; in fact, the movement which had begun under the Dutch for the emancipation of slaves and the employment of free labour was being actually checked by the British authorities, most of them military men who held rather retrograde views. An important element in the town also were the Malays introduced by the Dutch from Java. Many of these people were free men and were earnest Muhammadans. They had already founded mosques and were Muhammadanizing a number of the Negro slaves by treating them with kindness and sympathy. Campbell, however, notes that the Dutch and British in the more settled parts of Cape Colony treated their slaves kindly. The negro children were even put to school, and were allowed to play with the white children of their master's family. But as soon as they grew up they were made to feel the rigour of their position. They were not allowed to marry, and were often very much overworked. Many of the slaves, however, had become Christians and undoubtedly were of great service to the missionaries, who either redeemed them or otherwise obtained their freedom ; they then served as interpreters with the natives of the interior, whose languages they either knew already or acquired with the linguistic facility of all types of Negro. 1 Dr. Van der Kemp made many interesting researches into the botany of Cape Colony, and was constantly trying experiments, one of which had a very curious result. He was at that time suffering very badly from his eyes, one eye seeming to be so diseased that it must shortly lose the power of sight. Whilst investigating a species of euphorbia with an acrid, milky juice, a spurt of this white sap darted into the diseased eye, causing the most excruciating pain. But in a short time the pain sub- sided and the eye was healed, the sight being perfectly restored. It would be interest- ing if this fact recorded by Mr. Campbell could be followed up, for there may be a still undiscovered drug to be derived from some South African euphorbia which would be a valuable eye medicine. Missionary Pioneers 163 Campbell set out on his journey to Van der Kemp's station of Bethelsdorp, on Algoa Bay, with two wagons, and of course travelled after the fashion of the Boers. There were twenty-four oxen to each wagon. They usually halted from nine in the morning till the late afternoon, because the heat in the midsummer season of South Africa was almost insupportable. Campbell was often able to sleep in the wagon, and therefore much appreciated the night travel until the road became hilly, rocky, or sandy, when he and his companions were obliged to walk for fear lest the wagons be overturned. But he thoroughly en- joyed this mode of travel — the pitching of the camp at ten in the morning, the Hottentot servants soon afterwards bringing to the white men grateful cups of coffee and milk, the ramble round the precincts of the camp when the sun became less fierce, and when they were able to see many interesting beasts, birds, trees, and plants ; then the hearty meal of the early evening, and once more the journey through the cool night. He noted in some places the quantities of shells of tortoises, apparently the remains (from all the information he could gather) of the feasts of certain birds of prey, who, carrying up the tortoises to a great height in their claws, let them fall on the hard rocks, where they were smashed, after which their soft parts could be more easily eaten. He observed the parasitic fig trees arising from a minute seed dropped into a crack in the bark of some big tree, which, germinating with the moisture of the rainy season, soon became a clinging parasite, and finally ended by choking its great host with its innumerable roots and branches, and reigning in his stead. **At six in the evening the oxen are yoked to the wagons ready to render us all the service in their power. i64 Pioneers in South Africa They serve silently without ostentation, boasting, or desire of reward ; allow them to eat grass and they ask no more. During the night, after they have browsed awhile, they draw round our wagons for safety and sleep." The Boer farmers they met on the way he describes as without mental resources, with no taste for reading, and mostly without any books to read. ''They have few subjects, therefore, on which to converse, and consequently are under the necessity of murdering time by smoking pipe after pipe. I know not how many of them would be able to consume their time were it not for the aid of tobacco." The Hottentot leader or head man of his party bore the inappropriate name of Cupido. He was a very earnest Christian and zealous convert, and fortunately on this account absolutely refused to touch Cape brandy or any other spirit such as had already begun to wreck the constitutions of the Hottentot people. Campbell and his fellow missionaries, however, were far from being fanatical teetotallers. They had usually wine with them as a medi- cine, and did not hesitate to prescribe it for sick natives. From Bethelsdorp, in April, 1813, Campbell and his party set out on a journey to the north. The appearance of the country inland was beautiful, as it abounded with hills, trees, and very verdant grass. They were travelling through the borderland which was partly settled by Kafirs and partly by the Gonakwa (Hottentot hybrids with the Kafirs). On the plains the missionaries saw for the first time springboks, which afforded great entertainment. These graceful gazelles would leap six feet in height from the ground at every spring, and in these jumps cover several yards in length. However near a person might be to them, so rapidly did they rise again and again that their Missionary Pioneers 165 feet did not appear to touch the ground and their motion resembled flying. They also saw droves of quaggas and of eland. The road in places was strewn with the dung of elephants. Farther on, nearer the seacoast, there were ostriches and buffaloes. Now and again the caravan stopped so that the meat from the slain animals might be made into biltong. This was done by cutting the flesh of the animals killed into thin slices, which were then hung upon thorn trees so that they might be dried in the sun; after which the meat would keep for months, if it were not allowed to get wet. At Graaff Reynet, the farthest to the north-east of all the towns or settlements founded under the Dutch rule at the Cape, they met a remarkable personality, William BuRCHELL, who must be regarded as one of the noteworthy pioneers in South African natural history research. He had already returned from important journeys to the in- terior of South Africa for the collection of fauna and flora, though he had been preceded in Bechuanaland by Triiter and Sommerville and by the unfortunate Dr. Cowan and Lieutenant Donovan.' Campbell and his companions crossed the range of the Sneeuwberg or Snow Mountains, where the cold was sometimes severe. As they advanced more towards the interior they began to come into contact with lions, and on one occasion the wagons were stopped, the wheels were chained, and the oxen secured, whilst the Boers of the party boldly tackled a lion and lioness con- cealed in the reeds. They killed the lioness, but only 1 In 1806 Lord Caledon, then Governor of the Cape, sent a party consisting of Dr. Cohen, Lieutenant Donovan, twenty Hottentot soldiers of the Cape Regiment, a Dutch Boer, and some other persons as interpreters, to start from the north-eastern boundaries of Cape Colony, and make their way across Africa to Mofambique. This expedition reached the large Bechuana settlement of Litaku, but the whole party was subsequently murdered by the Bawanketsi clan farther to the north-east, near the modern town of Kolobefi. i66 Pioneers in South Africa wounded her mate, who, though he fled from his pur- suers, afterwards haunted the camp, with the desire, the Boers said, of eating the body of his dead companion. The Boers also told Campbell that the Bushmen when pursued by lions would throw their children to these ravenous beasts to save their own lives, and that this had so fixed the lion*s fancy on Bushman flesh that if in a camp a white man and a Bushman lay sleeping side by side, the lion would carry off the Bushman and leave the white man alone. They also told Campbell that in this particular district the lions killed more Bushmen than they did sheep. In fact, from this and other stories, and the present writer's own experience, one can well realize that before the coming of the white man or the Arab with fire- arms, the lions must have done much to keep down the human population of many parts of Negro Africa. To Campbell it seemed that the Bushmen whom he now encountered in increasing numbers, as they passed out of the Hottentot country into the regions within the basin of the Orange River, possessed more lively and interesting countenances than the Hottentots. They were keenly intelligent and deeply interested in all the white man could show them. **When preparing to shave, I held my looking-glass before each of them. All expressed astonishment at be- holding their faces, which they knew to be their own, by opening their mouths wide and by holding out their tongues. This they perceived to be done at the same time by the figure in the glass. They turned away their heads and held up their hands before their heads when they first saw themselves, as if disgusted with the sight. The woman, in order to be quite certain it was herself she saw in the glass, turned round her babe, that was Missionary Pioneers 167 tied to her back, and on seeing it also, she seemed satisfied." ** When our wagon set off, one of the young Bushmen, who had expressed a desire to accompany us to see other lands, on condition that we should afterwards send him back to his own country, rose up from the fire around which his friends were sitting, without taking the smallest notice of them, or bidding them farewell; indeed, one would have thought by the manner of his departure, that he intended to return in five minutes. I did not think he was gone till one of our people told me he was in the first wagon that had moved. Before parting, I took their child in my arms for some time, stroked it and restored it to the rightful owner. Not one of them had a name except the father, whom they called Old Boy in their language. I advised the woman to wash her face, which was extremely dirty; but by a significant shake of her head, she expressed aversion to ^uch an operation: upon which our Hottentots, by way of apology for her, said, that Bushmen thought dirt upon their skin kept them warm. Each of them had a jackal's tail fixed on a stick to wipe the sweat from their faces in hot weather. They had also a quiver of poisoned arrows. They had left the old woman, the mother, in the cave where they had slept during the night." Campbell goes on to relate that this young Bushman's volunteering to accompany them was providential. Had he not been with the party they would frequently never have found grass, water, or firewood, at night, for the way as they approached the Orange River now led them over exceedingly sterile country, and the whole party looked on the Bushman as Elijah may be supposed to have looked on the ravens who fed him in the wilderness. i68 Pioneers in South Africa Nevertheless this red rocky country, so lacking in water and seemingly so barren, was not without vegetation. Heather grew in nooks and crannies, and where the ground was less rocky the sandy soil contained quan- tities of a crocus-like bulb, which when roasted tasted like a chestnut and was excellent eating. This was called the Bushman's plant, and by the Bushmen was known as Ok. The smell arising from the aromatic bushes crushed down by the wagon wheels resembled that of an apothe- cary's shop, yet it was hard indeed to find grass for the oxen, who from time to time went for two and three days without any proper food. After one such trial they came to a group of thirteen peaked hills, and to their intense relief observed smoke rising at the bottom of them. This was a signal from their Hottentot horsemen that, aided by the cunning little Bushman, they had found water, and not only water, but plenty of grass, a most gratifying sight to the travellers, who remembered their half-starved oxen. The caravan passed a small lake or pool, which they called Burder's Lake, along the shores of which was an immense variety of game, antelopes of numerous kinds, quaggas, and ostriches. A quagga, having been only wounded, ran away lame, but the Bushman, who was very partial to quaggas' flesh, leaped from the wagon, threw off his sheepskin, and ran after it. With great exertion he threw a stone with such force that it sunk into the beast's forehead. It staggered and fell. The Bushman flung himself on it with his knife and stabbed it to death. This shows what use primitive man could make of stones as weapons. But the expedition was now entering the country of the Missionary Pioneers 169 Wild Bushmen, who were supposed to be absolutely inimical to all persons, ^ white or black, and equally cruel to strange Bushmen of other clans. Consequently their Bushman guide without warning slithered away from them here, and no doubt returned to his own country. In this land the wagons had several narrow escapes from falling into pits made by the Bushmen for catching beasts. These were 5 or 6 feet deep, and at the bottom of them was a poisoned stake, the mouth being concealed by a slight covering of branches so cleverly strewn over with grass that the unsuspecting man or beast walking over would suddenly fall into the chasm below. ^ Approaching the Orange River, Campbell remarks that the wagons passed over sand mixed with stones of various kinds, ^^many of which would probably have been prized by European lapidaries. A few of these I picked up." Very probably he may all unconsciously have found some of the diamonds which were afterwards to make this part of South Africa world-famous, and to bring an abundant population to a most desolate region, at that time only scantily inhabited by Bushmen. ** Arriving at the summit of a long ascent, about two o*clock, we had a view of the long-wished-for river. The eyes of all were directed towards it, admiring its 1 Two brothers of the name of Bergover, half-caste Grikwa Hottentots, with their families, were journeying north of the Orange River, about 1800, when they were attacked by a party of Wild Bushmen, and one of the two brothers was killed. The other defended the wagon with his gun, whilst the wives and children yoked the oxen. Then he drove it, and defended it for a long time by firing off his musket with powder, merely to frighten the Bushmen, not having time to load it with ball. But when he reached a water-place, some of the Bushmen, who had got there before him, lay con- cealed behind a bush and shot the man dead with their poisoned arrows. The con- sternation of the two helpless widows and their children was paralysing when they saw the only remaining man of the party breathe his last. At this crisis a landdrost, who was travelling in the interior, came in sight with his caravan, and the wild Bushmen made off without obtaining the plunder they had so eagerly desired. 2 See pp. 259-60. I70 Pioneers in South Africa grand and majestic appearance, and expressing a strong desire to drink of its pure waters. . . . Everyone drank eagerly till satisfied. Being accustomed to thick and brackish water for weeks past, the party extolled the purity and sweetness of the great river. Neither the steepness of its banks nor the abundance of trees with which they were covered, seemed any impediment to the oxen approaching. They pushed eagerly forward till their mouths reached it, when the rapid motion of every tail indicated satisfaction and enjoyment. . . . The cattle had thousands of acres of high grass at hand, to which they constantly ran after quenching their thirst. The river here was as broad as the Thames at London Bridge and deep and rapid, so that the crossing with wagons appeared a formidable operation." Along the Orange River the Bushmen seem to have been more amenable and friendly than in the wilder district to the south, and the chief man of a Bushman village came to offer his services to conduct the missionary party to a ford across the river. He had no doubt already made the acquaintance of Europeans, for he possessed cattle and was accompanied by nine of his people riding on oxen. He himself wore a hat, a short blue coat, and skin trousers, and could speak something of the Dutch language. He had, in fact, once been at a missionary settlement, but had left it because polygamy was not permitted. On the other side of the Orange River, Campbell first made the acquaintance of the celebrated Wait-a-bit thorn. This is a low-growing species of acacia {Acacia detinens^ as it had just been named by William Burchell), very seldom in leaf, with its gnarled twigs and branches thickly set with thorns exactly the shape of a fishing hook. ** If they catch hold of your clothes as you pass, you must stop THE ORANGE RIVER (NAMAKWALAND) THE DRY BED OF A ONCE POWERFUL RIVER IN NAMAKWALAND Missionary Pioneers 171 awhile, sometimes a long while, before you can get clear of them. . . . And clearing one arm from a thorn the other is caught, and without the cautious assistance of a second person there is no escaping the hold of these thorns except by main force and losing part of your dress." In this country on the north side of the Orange River were Grikwa — Hottentot hybrids with Dutch settlers — mostly possessing horses and riding them. Escorted by these Christian Grikwa, Campbell and his party reached the mission station, which was at a Grikwa village, where a certain amount of civilization was evi- dent, especially in agriculture. The people had small gardens producing pumpkins, cabbages, beans, peas, tobacco, Indian corn, and excellent potatoes. Plum and peach trees were also tall and thriving, and a vineyard had already begun to yield grapes. All this was due to the work of the first missionaries, who had originally been sent out in 1798 and had found their way in this direction. From Grikwaland, Campbell had resolved to make a journey to a place called Litaku, at a considerable distance, and in what we should now call Bechuanaland. This was the region of the Birikwa, or goat-keeping Negroes, of whom the white men had first heard from the Hotten- tots: Negroes speaking a widespread group of Bantu languages which are known by the general term of Bechuana. One hill that they passed on their way was called by the Dutch-speaking half-castes Shining Mountain, for it had great outcrops of a brilliant-red ferruginous clay and a mineral substance, probably of a kind of manganese of iron, which gleamed in the sun a bluish-grey, somewhat the colour of lead in lead pencils. Campbell and his 172 Pioneers in South Africa principal companion, Mr. Read, with the aid of the Hottentots, explored a cave in this mountain which was regarded as a mine by natives, especially Bechuana, who came great distances to collect the bluish-black powder, using it to rub into their hair and to decorate their bodies. After having descended with some difficulty, the party entered the bowels of the mountain with candles, and soon lost sight of the world, sometimes wading halfway up their legs in black lead dust. The arched roof was full of projecting pieces of the gleaming metal, and large caverns appeared on each side as they advanced. In some places the roof of these caverns appeared to be carved into pendentives, as in Moorish architecture; but on touching this carved work it was found to be nothing but rows and rows of sleeping bats, hanging one above the other from the projections of the roof. It did not even awake them to move them backwards and forwards, nor did they lose their hold of the rocks to which they clung with the claws of one hind leg. At the bottom of their descent the travellers entered a vast cavern, the floor of which was strewn with the bones of animals, and in parts with the traces of fires having once been made in it. [It would be interesting to know whether this mountain could be identified, as ex- ploration of the caverns might reveal very interesting semi- fossil remains of vanished beasts or of human types.] The country they were traversing in this neighbourhood was that of the Korana Hottentots, though it also contained wandering Bushmen. Kuruman was the place where at the very beginning of the nineteenth century there had settled a Boer missionary named John Mathias Kok, amongst the Matlapiii people. Kok, in shooting, but above all in trading with the natives, had collected a great supply of ivory, with which he jour- Missionary Pioneers 173 neyed to the Cape, where he obtained for it ;^2000 or ;^3000. This he spent foolishly on horses, clothes, and worse ex- travagances, before he returned to Kuruman, where he was murdered in some obscure scuffle by the natives. His wife (apparently a Hottentot half-caste) ran away to Cape Colony, but subsequently returned on the entreaty of the Matlapin chief, who had captured her husband's murderers. Pointing them out to her, he said: *' There they are at your mercy. Take this assagay and stab them to death." But the woman refused to avenge herself. Therefore the chieftain himself seized the assagay and slew the murderers in her presence. But apparently Kok left several half-caste descendants behind him who figured in the history of this region during the nineteenth century. The celebrated Adam Kok^ who was now accompanying Campbell was, however, the son of Cornelius Kok, one of the earliest pioneers in Bechuana- land (see p. 132). The Matlapifi people of Bechuana stock received Campbell's caravan with friendliness and escorted it to the headquarters of their principal chief at Litaku (about 60 miles north-east ©f Kuruman). They were all well shaped, their bodies were painted red with the red clay obtained from the ^'Blinklip" or ** Shiny" Mountain, and their hair was powdered with the blue sparkling mineral powder from the caves already mentioned. The approach to the important settlement of Litaku showed the missionary travellers that they were entering Bantu, agricultural Africa, for there were enclosed fields of Indian corn or sorghum. They crossed the small Litaku stream of excellent water, ascending rising ground where many footpaths became visible, all converging in 1 There is a portrait of this man in my History and Description oj the British Empire in Africa. National Society, 191 1. 174 Pioneers in South Africa one direction, and, reaching the summit of a hill, saw all at once Litaku in a valley stretching about 3 or 4 miles east to west. On descending the hill towards this African city they were surprised at meeting no inhabitants except two or three boys. But when they got to the entrance to the principal street or lane a man appeared who made signs for them to follow him. ** Proceeding amidst the houses, everything remained as still as if the town had been forsaken of its inhabitants : this was the case till we came opposite to the king's house, when we were con- ducted into a square, formed by bushes and branches of trees laid one above another, in which were several hun- dreds of people assembled together, drawn up in military order on the north side of the square. In a few minutes the square was filled with men, women, and children, who poured in from all quarters, to the number of a thousand or more. The noise from so many tongues, bawling with all their might, was rather confounding after being so long accustomed to the stillness of the wilderness. We were soon separated, and lost sight of each other in the crowd. At first the women and children fled if we only looked at them, but they gradually became bolder. I observed some of the children, whose heads I had stroked, throwing themselves in my way, that I might do it again; when they looked at their more timid companions, as if they had said: ^Are not we courageous?' The crowd so increased, that we could hardly find out each other, and wondered when we should be permitted to take some refreshment. We adopted a scheme, which after a while answered our purpose; we drew up the wagons in the form of a square, and placed our tent in the centre. We were introduced to Munanetsi, the uncle, and to Salakutu,^ * The modern spelling for all these names is given. Missionary Pioneers 175 the brother of the late King Malayaban, who stood in the middle of the spearmen. A house in the square, used by them for some public purpose, was assigned to us for a kitchen. **On getting into our tent a crowd of the chief men followed us and filled the tent to the outside, and the square formed by our wagons was like a beehive, in which the confused noise rendered conversation almost impos- sible. On something being put down on our table, we were agreeably surprised to find the crowd immediately retire. Whether this proceeded from a sense of decorum, or in consequence of orders from Munanetsi, the uncle and deputy of the king, I could not learn. ** We were now completely at their mercy, and our oxen had left the town for pasture ; but we considered ourselves safe. At the same time we judged it prudent to establish a regular watch for the protection of our property." Campbell, a short, ugly, dark-eyed Londoner, despite his Scottish name, was a shrewd, quiet, plucky little man, never flustered by boisterous savages, by a charging white rhinoceros, or by prowling lions. He made excellent sketches in black-and-white and water-colour, jotted down specimens of languages and many notes on native customs and history. On this journey of one and a half years (1812 to 18 14) he travelled east from Kuruman and discovered the Malalarin River — afterwards named the Vaal by the Boers — and then journeyed through the Korana country, down the Orange River to near the Atlantic coast, and thence through Little Namakwaland to Cape Town. He revisited Bechuanaland a second time in 1818-20, and ex- plored as far north as the Nwaketsi and Hurutse countries. His impressions a hundred years ago of the region north of the Orange River and near the Vaal (then called 176 Pioneers in South Africa the Yellow or the Malalarin River), which was to become the centre of the diamond-mining industry and dotted with important towns, such as Kimberley, are worth recording. *'We kept close by the Yellow River. The first part of the ride was uncommonly pleasant. The day was fine; small parties of cattle, sheep, and goats were now and then visiting the river to drink of its crystal water; the wide stream glided silently along, as if afraid to interrupt our discourse; the banks were ornamented with trees decked in green and yellow. The whole scene appeared charm- ing and enchanting, surpassing the heaven described by Mahomet. In an hour we came unexpectedly on a Korana kraal of sixty or seventy persons, dwelling in a beautiful hollow, close by the river. . . . The Koranas are not con- fined to any particular spot, but move up and down the river as provision for their cattle is plentiful or scarce. These people never heard of Europe or any of its distrac- tions, but like hermits live without care . . . contented with their ignorance of God . . . and of the rest of man- kind. About a dozen women were busy in digging a certain kind of root which emits a pleasant smell. This they pound down and mix with their red paint and grease. . . . **In this part of Africa there are everywhere to be found inexhaustible magazines of materials for rearing great cities, especially stone, lime, and slate ; there is also a great river, adapted to navigation by small craft, which seems providentially to prognosticate great things to Africa; for the all-wise Creator makes nothing in vain. If what He has made in one quarter does not suit the purpose and pursuits of one generation, it may suit those of another. At present all is lying as useless as the ruins of Palmyra or Persepolis." CHAPTER VIII MofFat and Bechuanaland In 1817 there came out to South Africa a very notable personality amongst missionaries, the Rev. Robert Moffat, born at Ormiston, Haddingtonshire, Scotland, who, in January, 18 18, arrived at the head village of the Hotten- tot chief. Christian Afrikaner,^ in Great Namakwaland, across the Orange River. But the constant drought afflicting this region, the fickleness of the Hottentots, and other unfavourable conditions made Moffat resolve to journey to the north-east in search of a better populated, more fertile region in which his work might progress on a greater scale. He travelled over a very sterile country, sandy from the abundance of disintegrated granite, with outcrops of ironstone, quartz, and slate. The hills in some places presented a mass of confusion, the strata bending and dipping from the perpendicular to the horizontal, and in others extending in a straight line from one hill to the * The origin of the Afrikaners, who were in later days noteworthy Hottentot chiefs in Great Namakwaland, is recounted by the Rev. J. Campbell and by Moffat. The original Jager Afrikaner (here called Christian by the later name he received when baptized) was the chief of a small clan of Hottentots who dwelt with his brothers and people under the control of a Boer squatter named Pienaar, in the north-west of Cape Colony. After enduring abominable ill treatment at the hands of Pienaar and his friends, Afrikaner and his brothers rose in revolt, shot several Boers, and then fled to the north of the Orange River, to Warmbad. They pursued the career of successful bandits until tamed by the shrewd, kind, and manly young Moffat, who, though he began life as a gardener, could turn his hand to many useful trades, could play the violin, and was a very tolerable surgeon, (0 587) 177 12 178 Pioneers in South Africa other. Native iron in a pure state was found in these formations, and, what is very interesting to note, Moffat also discovered embedded in the rocks large pieces of trees in a fossil state, showing that this region must once have been a well-watered forest country. The plains were in- variably deep in sand, and there were even low hills con- sisting of nothing but blown sand held together by sparse vegetation. Nevertheless, though the country seemed so desolate and devoid of vegetation, it swarmed with herds of wild beasts. Zebras in thousands and quaggas in hundreds were to be seen; giraffes were frequently met with, thirty to forty together in a troop; besides elands, kudus, and many species of smaller antelope. The rhino- ceros was present, but scarce, and buffaloes had been nearly destroyed since the natives had got guns. Water was in general very scarce, sometimes stagnant in small pools, and often covered with green froth. More than once they had to dispute with lions the possession of a pool. At one place they found the honey of wild bees in the fissures of the rocks, which they ate with no little relish. Soon afterwards, however, one of the Hottentots of the party complained that his throat was becoming very hot, then a second and a third, till all who had eaten felt as if their throats were on fire. A wild Namakwa native coming up and seeing the hands and faces of the mission- ary and his Hottentot followers besmeared with honey, remarked: *'You had better not eat the honey of this valley. Do you not see the poison bushes [euphorbia], from the flowers of which the bees get honey, but also poison too?" Alarmed at this, all members of the party had recourse to the little water which remained in their vessels to allay the terrible heat of their throats and stomachs. But the immediate effect of the water was Moffat and Bechuanaland 179 only to make them worse, and the pain became almost unbearable, till by degrees it lessened, and at the end of several days no one was any the worse, though for a time they suffered with dizziness and sore throat. Lions were as abundant proportionately as the herds of big game, and seemed more inclined to attack the giraffes than other beasts. Moffat was able to testify to the truth of the following native story. Near a small spring of water stood a low-growing acacia thorn tree, about 12 feet high, with a flat, bushy top, and the thick hedge of branches and twigs beset with the most terrible long white thorns. The native who told him the story was once, many years previously, coming to the fountain for a drink, when he saw a giraffe browsing on the leafy shoots of the acacia, whilst a lion was slowly creeping up to him preparing to spring on to his neck. After eyeing the giraffe for a few moments, the lion's body gave a quiver and he bounded into the air, expecting to descend on the neck of the giraffe; but at that moment the giraffe turned aside abruptly, and the lion, missing his aim, performed a curious somersault, and fell on his back in the centre of the mass of thorns, like spikes, on which he was literally impaled, whilst the giraffe bounded away unharmed. There the lion lay for days, till he died of starvation, and the vultures consumed all that was eatable, his bones and some of his hair remaining still on the top of the tree, to be seen by Moffat and noted in confirmation of the story. Moffat remarks that the lion, having successfully bounded on to the back of a giraffe, fixes his claws into each shoulder and bites away at the vertebrae of the neck until he has severed them, and the giraffe falls in a heap to the ground, often laming the lion as he does so. Several giraffes shot by Moffat showed the healed wounds of a lion's claws in their i8o Pioneers in South Africa shoulders and the marks of his teeth in the back of the neck, proving that they were sometimes able to rid them- selves of their enemy. The party was often exposed to danger from lions. One night they were quietly camping at a small pool on the Oup River. They had just closed their evening worship and were finishing the final psalm, when a terrific roar was heard, and the trek oxen, which before had been quietly chewing the cud, rushed through the camp, knocking everyone down, putting out the fires, scattering hats, hymnbooks, bibles, and guns in wild confusion. But through the bravery of the chief, Afri- kaner, who had armed himself with a firebrand, the lion was driven away, and the oxen were finally brought back. But interesting as this region may have been to the explorer and the naturalist, it offered no safe or easy access to a dense population, therefore Moffat eventually returned to Cape Town, accompanied by Christian Afrikaner. In Cape Town he married Mary Smith, the daughter of a former employer of Moffat in Lancashire; and after various delays proceeded to Bechuanaland through the Grikwa country, settling at the Kuruman River in 182 1 with his wife and children, the eldest of whom was afterwards to become the wife of Livingstone. The native customs, especially the ceremonies carried out when young girls were growing into women, and boys into manhood, and, above all, the condition of the women and polygamy, were all great obstacles at first in the way of the teaching work of the mission, the Bechuana men being very jealous lest the mission influence should rouse the women to assert themselves. Going to war, hunting, watching the cattle, milking the cows, and the making of karosses or mantles were the men's occupations. The women had the heavy tasks of all the agricultural work and Moffat and Bechuanaland i8i the raising of food crops, building the houses, planting the fences, searching for and bringing in firewood, and all this time, of course, having to care for their children, seldom being without a babe fastened to their backs whilst cultivat- ing the ground, sowing and weeding their gardens, and tying up great bundles of firewood. The women at first were perfectly amazed at being told that they might be happier in a single state or in widowhood, instead of as mere concubines or drudges of a haughty husband, who spent the latter part of his life in lounging in the shade, while his wives were compelled to labour under the rays of an almost vertical sun in a tropical climate. Their houses, which required considerable ingenuity as well as hard labour to build, were entirely the work of the women, who were thankful to carry home even the heavier timbers if their husbands would only take their axes and fell them in the thicket, which might be many miles distant. The centre of the conical roof was, in many houses^ i8 feet high, and it required no little scrambling, in the absence of ladders, for females to climb such a height ; but the men passed and repassed and looked on with the utmost in- difference. It never entered their heads that their wife, their daughter, or their mother might fall and break a leg or neck. These houses did not last long, required great labour to keep them constantly in repair, and were not very well adapted to the climate of hot summers and cold winters. They admitted little light — which was not desir- able in hot weather, as it attracted millions of house flies — and during the winter season they proved to be uncom- fortably airy and cold. Yet they were far superior in structure to the Hottentot or Kafir dwellings. *' While standing near, the wife of one of the grandees", wrote Moffat, ''was, with some female companions, building i82 Pioneers in South Africa a house, and making preparations to scramble by means of a branch on to the roof. I remarked to the women that they ought to get their husbands to do that part of the work. This set them all into a roar of laughter; Mahuto, the queen, and several of the men drawing near to ascertain the cause of the merriment. The wives re- peated my strange and, to them, ludicrous proposal, when another peal of mirth ensued. Mahuto, who was a sensible and shrewd woman, stated that the plan, though hopeless, was a good one, as she often thought our custom was much better than theirs. It was reasonable that Woman should attend to household affairs and the lighter parts of labour, while Man, wont to boast of his superior strength, should employ his energy in more laborious occupations ; adding, she wished I would give their husbands medicine to make them do the work." Before Moffat had been long a resident in southern Bechuanaland he discovered that the weather was as engrossing a topic as it is in England, only there it was not a lament over the lack of sunshine, but a constant demand for more rain. Increasing drought was making the country uninhabitable. Frequent thunderstorms oc- curred in the springtime of the year, but they were dry whirlwinds of dust accompanied by much electric dis- turbance. ** During tremendous thunderstorms, I have known the natives of Namakwaland shoot their poisoned arrows at the lightning in order to arrest the destructive fluid. I knew a man who, though warned of the danger of this practice, persisted, and was struck dead by the lightning. I have also heard of Bushmen throwing old shoes at the lightning, or anything they may happen to lay hold of." Another trouble arose from the ** rainmakers", and the appeals to the missionaries to vie with them in Moffat and Bechuanaland 183 producing rain in a land wherein crops were withered, live stock were starving, and starvation was menacing. The rainmaker or magician — who was also the sorcerer- medicine-man of the tribe, and sometimes the chief crafts- man — was, until something aroused the people to a sense of his want of power, the most important person amongst the Bechuana nations. When specially lucky in foretell- ing or ** producing" rain, he was more powerful than any king or chief. The rainmaker was not only a priest and a doctor, but also the sexton of the district, and without his orders no dead person might be buried. Corpses often lay outside the villages, to be devoured by hyenas and jackals, because these functionaries insisted on elaborate ceremonies accompanying the burial of a dead person. Yet although in this and other parts of South Africa the graves were frequently furnished with supplies of food and little shelters (apparently with the idea that the spirit still survived and might need nourishment and a refuge), the rainmakers and medicine-men did not believe in a life after death. '' What is the difference ", they would ask Moffat, pointing to their dogs, ** between me and that animal? You say I am immortal. Then why not my dog or my ox? They die. Do you see their souls? What is the difference between man and the beasts? None; except that man is the greater rogue of the two." At the time of Moffat's first settlement at Kuruman seven years of comparative drought had succeeded one another, and the natives, '* tenacious of their faith in the potency of man, held a council, and passed resolutions to send for a rainmaker of renown from the Bahurutsi tribe, 200 miles north-east of the Kuruman station. Rainmakers have always most honour among a strange people, and therefore they are generally foreigners." The one in i84 Pioneers in South Africa question had been very successful among the Bahurutsian mountains, which, lying near the sources of those rivers emptying themselves into the Indian Ocean, were visited not only with great thunderstorms, but steady rains coming from the under strata of clouds (which the natives call female ones) that rested on the summits of the hills. The ambassadors received their commission with the strictest injunction not to return without the man; they were to offer lucrative pay and to make lavish promises. The rain- maker soon succumbed to these allurements, a result which was not surprising; for the envoys assured him that, *Mf he would only come to the land of the Batlapin, and open the teats of the heavens — which had become as hard as stone — cause the rains to fall and quench the flaming ground, he should be made the greatest man that ever lived; his riches should be beyond all calculation; his flocks covering the hills and plains; he should wash his hands in milk, while all would exalt him in the song, and mothers and children would call him blessed ". When a period had elapsed sufficient to allow the messengers time to return, it was rumoured through the town that they had been murdered, a common event in those days. ^'The gloom which this cast over the native mind formed a striking contrast to the dazzling rays pouring forth from an almost vertical sun blazing in a cloudless sky. The heavens had been as brass, scarcely a cloud had been seen for months, even on the distant horizon. Suddenly a shout was raised, and the whole town was in motion. The rainmaker was approaching. Every voice was raised to the highest pitch with acclama- tions of enthusiastic joy. He had sent a harbinger to announce his approach, with peremptory orders for all the inhabitants of the town to wash their feet. Everyone Moffat and Bechuanaland 185 seemed to fly in swiftest obedience to the adjoining river. Noble and ignoble, even the girl who attended to our kitchen fire, ran. Old and young ran. All the world could not have stopped them. By this time the clouds began to gather, and a crowd went out to welcome the mighty man who, as they imagined, was now collecting in the heavens his stores of rain. Just as he was descend- ing the height into the town, the immense concourse danced and shouted so that the very earth rang, and at the same time the lightnings darted, and the thunders roared in awful grandeur. A few heavy drops fell, which produced the most thrilling ecstasy on the deluded multi- tude, whose shoutings baffled all description. Faith hung upon the lips of the impostor, while he proclaimed aloud that this year the women must cultivate gardens on the hills, and not in the valleys, for these would be deluged. ** After the din had somewhat subsided, a few indivi- duals came to our dwellings to treat us and our doctrines with derision. * Where is your God?' one asked with a sneer. We were silent. He continued, * Have you not seen our Morimo?^ Have you not beheld him cast from his arm his fiery spears, and rend the heavens? Have you not heard with your ears his voice in the clouds?' adding, with an interjection of supreme disgust : * You talk of Jehovah, and Jesus, what can they do?'" How- ever, the rainmaker himself visited the mission and proved to be an affable person, with a certain dignity and politeness of manner. He avoided quarrelling with the missionaries as much as possible, and accepted small presents of tobacco from them. But for a long time his efforts to induce the clouds to form and distil the longed- for moisture were unsuccessful. The Kuruman people * God, great spirit i86 Pioneers in South Africa began to lose faith in him. He then angrily declared that as they had only given him goats and sheep for presents he could only make ** goat-rain ", but that if they would provide him with a fat ox he would let them see ** ox-rain". One day, when he was taking a sound sleep, a shower did fall, upon which one of the principal men of the town went to his hut to congratulate him, but found him fast asleep and insensible to what was hap-^ pening. ** Halloo, by my father, I thought you were making rain," said the intruder. The medicine-man awoke, and taking in the situation, and seeing his wife shaking a milk-sack in order to obtain a little butter to anoint her hair, he replied, pointing to the operation of churning: '^ Do you not see my wife churning rain as fast as she can?" This reply gave entire satisfaction. However, the mois- ture caused by the little shower was soon dried up, and many long weeks followed without a single cloud. The rainmaker, getting anxious as to his personal safety, tried to put off the angry people with one pretext and another. Once he said that he could not make the proper sacrifice for rain unless he possessed a baboon ** without any blemish", knowing, as he proposed this, that baboons were wary and extremely difficult to catch; nevertheless a large party of young men set out for the neighbouring hills, and with great difficulty actually did capture and bring in alive a young baboon. But the rainmaker, pointing to one of its ears, which had a deep scratch, declared it was no good, as it did not answer to his description. There was, however, one infallible method, &c., &c., and that was the roasting and eating of a lion^s heart. This seemed at such a moment even more difficult to procure than a living baboon without a blemish. Moffat and Bechuanaland 187 Nevertheless, by a coincidence, a lion was seen in the neighbourhood. A large party of men started out to pursue it, and succeeded in killing it with a gun. They returned, *^ singing a great chorus of victory, which wells up from their deep chests on such an occasion ". The heart was roasted and eaten, but no rain fell. The rain- maker did not hesitate next to implicate the missionaries, Moffat and Hamilton, saying it was their white faces or their long beards that scared away the clouds. But for the fact that so many women had grown to like the missionaries for their kindness and their medical care, and that in some way they possessed the respect of the chief Mothibi, the vengeance of the drought-stricken people might have fallen on them instead of on the fraudu- lent rainmaker. As it was, however, all the women's influence set in the direction of killing and eating the rainmaker, who had disappointed all their hopes and consumed so much of their property. They would have carried out their purpose but for the intervention of Moffat, who went straight to the king, Mothibi, and his council, charged them with the contemplation of this deed, and begged for the rainmaker's life. It was actually granted to him, the king himself escorting the rainmaker a con- siderable distance on his homeward journey. Still the rain did not fall, and now the people in their anguish turned on the missionaries. The drought must be due to their coming into the country and upsetting all the former religious beliefs, and thus offending the God of the Sky. At last they were told that it was the determination of the chiefs of the tribe that they should leave the country. The head man who gave the message raised a quivering spear in his right hand, which, it seemed, little restrained him from hurling at Mrs. Moffat, who stood at the door i88 Pioneers in South Africa of her cottage with a baby in her arms. The missionaries refused to go: the natives might kill them or burn down their houses if they liked; they believed that they would not injure their women or their children. The Bechuana chiefs said: ^^ These men must have ten lives, when they are so fearless of death; there must be something in immortality ". Then the people talked of the happy days of the far past, traditions of which had been handed down by their an- cestors, of the floods of ancient times, the incessant showers which clothed the very rocks with verdure, and the giant trees and forests which once studded the brows of the hills and neighbouring plains. They boasted of the Kuruman and other rivers, with their impassable torrents, in which the hippopotami played, while the lowing herds walked to their necks in grass, filling their milk-sacks with milk, making every heart to sing for joy. Moffat was a shrewd philosopher. He pointed out that these long periods of drought had devastated the country for a century or more before the arrival of the missionaries, and that the whole of the land between the Orange River and the Kalahari Desert presented to the eye of a European something like an old neglected garden or field. The innumerable immense stumps and roots of what had once been tall acacia trees testified to the exis- tence of former forests. He pointed to the few milk- woods^ and a variety of shrubs, all of which were held sacred by the natives in the fear that if they were cut down rain would desert the country. He told them that they had adopted this superstition too late, that they and their ancestors had been a nation of levellers, cutting down every species of tree without regard to scenery or 1 Sideroxylon. Moffat and Bechuanaland 189 economy, in order to build their houses and fences, and to procure for themselves firewood, and to burn them in clearing the ground for cultivation; also, to deprive the birds (who might otherwise feed on their grain) of any shelter. Their bush fires which destroyed the grass in the dry season equally destroyed the saplings which might some day have grown into tall trees. In short, he de- livered to them an excellent lecture on the influence which the destruction of forest has on climate.^ Although no rain seems to have fallen at this time, the crisis of the natives' hostility had passed, owing to the missionary's bold attitude. Soon afterwards Moffat determined to make a journey to the north, to try to get into touch with Makaba, the chief of the Banwaketsi, a powerful Bechuana tribe on the borders of the Zambezi watershed. He therefore de- cided, against the wish of Mothibi, to start on this journey to the north. By so doing he came into touch with the outlying stragglers of an extraordinary horde of maddened Negroes, the Mantati or Mantatisi — really a section of the Batlokoa tribe. The Mantatisi were the followers of a Negro chieftainess of the Basuto country far to the south-east.^ According to the fashion of all the Bechuana clans, she was called, after the name of her eldest child, Ma-ntatisi, or the *' mother of Ntatisi ", just as Mrs. Moffat at that period 1 Moffat, in fact, shows conclusively that much of the disforesting of South Africa, and the consequent creation of deserts, has been the work of man rather than of any natural agency. 2 Basutoland — once an extensive region between the Vaal River and the northern slopes of the Kwathlamba or Drakensberg Mountains — was perhaps 200 to 300 years ago peopled only by Bushmen. Then there drifted into it from the Transvaal numbers of Bechuana emigrants, mostly refugees from tribal disturbances. These emigrants belonged to all the principal Bechuana clans, and gradually they consoli- dated into one nation, known as the Basuto, or "Brown", people from their hghter skin colour. I90 Pioneers in South Africa was called Ma-mary, or **the mother of Mary" (the future wife of David Livingstone), who herself, many years later, was known as Ma-robert, **the mother of Robert". The Basuto country, some years before, had been invaded by a clan of Kafirs known as the Amahluti, who were followed up by their enemies the Amangwane, who in turn were pur- sued by a horde of Zulus under Umsilikazi. Maddened with terror, this section of the Basuto, the followers of Mantatisi (who, it was said, in their famine had become cannibals), fled wildly to the north-west, beyond the Lim- popo. From being pursuers they gradually settled down to becoming ravagers and conquerors on their own ac- count; and, partly through the despair of famine, they had devastated a good deal of the Bechuana country to the east of the Kuruman district, and were now turning back from the north and carrying their ravages westwards. The extraordinary course they had pursued had led some people to imagine they were a cannibal tribe of Central Africa coming down from the north, but their real history was as related.^ After consultation with the chief men at Kuruman, Moffat proceeded to the limits of Cape Colony, and 1 Moffat describes the Mantatisi as a tall, robust people, in features resembling the other Bechuana tribes. Their dress consisted of prepared ox hides, hanging double over the shoulders. The men during a battle were nearly naked, having on their heads a round cockade of black ostrich feathers. Their ornaments were large copper rings, sometimes eight in number, worn round their necks, with numerous arm-, leg-, and ear-rings of the same material. Their weapons were war axes of various shapes, spears, and clubs ; into many of their knob-sticks were inserted pieces of iron resem- bling a sickle, but more curved, sometimes to a circle, and sharp on the outside. Their language was only one of the several Sechuana dialects. Moffat understood them nearly as well as the people among whom he lived. They appeared more rude and barbarous than the tribes farther west, but they were formerly part of the Batlokoa clan of the northern Transvaal. Although their ferocious cannibalism was the out- come of the disorganized state of Basutoland, they and most of the Bechuana clans had the instinct for eating human flesh in their nature. Even the more civilized Batlapifi of Kuruman and Litaku ate portions of the bodies of men slain in battle. A section of these Batlokoa became known as the Makololo, and under Mantatisi's son, Sebituane, conquered the upper Zambezi regions. Moffat and Bechuanaland 191 returned with a force of looo Grikwa (Hottentot half- castes), who had received a certain amount of discipline and training in the use of arms from the English and the Boers. With this force and the Bechuana of Kuruman the Mantatisi were attacked with firearms. Though at first resisting the attack with the bravery of despair, the Mantatisi horde left their encampment and attempted to retreat. ** At this moment an awful scene was presented to the view. The undulating country around was covered with warriors, all in motion, so that it was difficult to say who were enemies or who were friends. Clouds of dust were rising from the immense masses, who appeared flying with terror, or pursuing with fear. To the alarming con- fusion was added the bellowing of oxen, the vociferations of the yet unvanquished warriors, mingled with the groans of the dying, the widows' piercing wail, and the cries from infant voices." Moffat estimated there must have been 40,000 of these Mantatisi divided into two great armies. **As soon as they had retired from the spot where they had been encamped, the Bechuana (Batlapiii), like voracious wolves, began to plunder and dispatch the wounded men, and to butcher the women and children with their spears and war axes. As fighting was not my province, of course I avoided discharging a single shot, though, at the request of Mr. Melvill and the chiefs, I re- mained with the commandOy as the only means of safety. Seeing the savage ferocity of the Bechuana, in killing the inoffensive women and children, for the sake of a few paltry rings, or of being able to boast that they had killed some of the Mantatisi, I turned my attention to the objects of pity, who were flying in consternation in all directions. By my galloping in among them, many of the Bechuana were deterred from their barbarous purposes. It was 192 Pioneers in South Africa distressing to see mothers and infants rolled in blood, and the living babe in the arms of a dead mother. All ages and both sexes lay prostrate on the ground. ** Shortly after they began to retreat, the women, seeing that mercy was shown them, instead of flying, generally sat down, and, baring their bosoms, exclaimed: 'I am a woman, I am a woman!' It seemed impossible for the men to yield. There were several instances of wounded men being surrounded by fifty Bechuana, but it was not till life was almost extinct that a single one would allow himself to be conquered. I saw more than one instance of a man fighting boldly, with ten or twelve spears and arrows fixed in his body. The cries of infants which had fallen from the breasts of their mothers, who had fled or were slain, were distinctly heard, while many of the women ap- peared thoughtless as to their dreadful situation. Several times I narrowly escaped the spears and war axes of the wounded, while busy in rescuing the women and children. The men, struggling with death, would raise themselves from the ground, and discharge their weapons at anyone of our number within their reach: their hostile and re- vengeful spirit only ceased when life was extinct. Con- templating this deadly conflict, we could not but admire the mercy of God that not one of our number was killed, and only one slightly wounded. One of the Batlapifi lost his life while too eagerly seeking for plunder. The slain of the enemy was between 400 and 500." The years of drought which had afflicted southern Bechuanaland at the commencement of Moffat's mission work had been at length followed, in 1826, by plentiful rains, which once more restored some semblance of verdure and a tolerable abundance of vegetation to these bleak plains. But this relief was soon followed by another plague Moffat and Bechuanaland 193 — swarms of locusts. They had not been known in the country for more than twenty years, but now came from the north, passing over the land like an immense cloud extending upwards to a considerable height into the atmos- phere, and making an ominous rustling noise with their wings. They always proceeded in the direction of the wind, those in advance descending to eat anything they alighted upon, and rising in the rear as the cloud ad- vanced beyond them. ** They have no king," wrote Moffat, ^* but they go forth, all of them, by bands, and are gathered together in one place every evening, where they rest, and from their immense numbers they weigh down the shrubs, and lie at times one on the other, to the depth of several inches. In the morning when the sun begins to diffuse warmth, they take wing, leaving a large extent without one vestige of verdure; even the plants and shrubs are barked. . . . When a swarm alights on gardens, or even fields, the crop for one season is destroyed. . . . They eat not only tobacco, but everything vegetable, also flannel and linen." But these swarms at any rate provided some nourish- ment for the other animal inhabitants of this desolated land. The great flights of locusts were followed up in their passage over the country by serpents, lizards, frogs, kites, vultures, crows, and numerous large insect-eating birds. Whenever a cloud of locusts alighted at a place not far distant from a native town or village, the natives turned out with sacks and even with pack oxen, and returned to their homes with millions of locusts, which were soon afterwards prepared for eating by being boiled, or rather steamed, in a large pot with a little water, closely covered up. After boiling for a short time they were taken out and spread on mats in the sun to dry. Then, by winnowing, (0 587) 13 194 Pioneers in South Africa they were rid of their legs and wings, and were after- wards packed into sacks or thrown in heaps on the clean floors of huts. The natives either ate them whole with a little salt, or pounded them in a wooden mortar into a kind of meal, which they afterwards mixed with water and made into a cold porridge of locusts. On food like this the natives would become fat, and even the missionaries did not refuse to eat the locusts ; for, when well fed on new vegetation, they were ** as good as shrimps ".^ But there was one species, with reddish wings, which was an unmitigated plague, because it was not eatable. This type of locusts, larger than the others, was much more destructive, especially in the immature stage before it could fly. The eggs of the mature individuals would be laid in the sand, where they would remain in a dormant condition, not hatching until rain had fallen, which at the same time produced the vegetation for the minute larvae to feed on. In the course of a few weeks they grew rapidly in size, and were a dark-reddish colour, quite unable to fly. They progressed by hopping, and when they set out on their migrations in search of food the dust of the semi- desert for miles around would appear to be alive with these ugly, hopping creatures. Nothing but a very broad and rapid river could arrest their progress. They were able to swim any small stretch of water. Even a line of fire was no barrier, as they leapt into it until it was extinguished, after which the survivors in the rear walked over the dead vanguard. Walls and houses formed no impediment; these insects could climb perpendicularly or obliquely. '*It is enough to make the inhabitants of a village turn pale to hear that they are coming in a straight line to their gardens." 1 Livingstone does not quite endorse this praise. He intimates that boiled locusts were repulsive and the fried ones just bearable. Moffat and Bechuanaland 195 At the end of 1826 Moffat set out on a long journey to the north, to visit the country of the Baroloii, on the Molopo River. His route lay over a wild and dreary country in- habited scantily by the Balala nomad tribe, referred to on p. 42.^ On the night of the third day's journey, having halted at a pool on the lonely plain, his men let loose the weary oxen to drink and graze. But as there was no sign of native habitation, it occurred to them that the pool might be frequented by lions, and on inspecting it by the light of firebrands they discovered abundant traces to show that these beasts resorted thither in large numbers, no doubt to attack wild game as well as to drink. Moffat immediately saw to the driving in of the oxen and their being fastened to the wagon with the strongest thongs, lest they should stampede at the sight or smell of a lion. Their Baroloii guides had with them a young cow, which Moffat advised them to tie up in a similar manner, but they would not take the trouble to do so. The consequence was that, soon after Moffat had retired to the wagon to undress and sleep, a lion seized this un- attached cow and dragged it to a distance of 30 or 40 yards, where it at once set to work eating the animal alive, breaking its bones whilst it still bellowed with fright and agony. Moffat aimed at the spot where the devouring jaws of the lion could be heard munching and cracking, and fired again and again with his gun, an attack to which the lion replied with tremendous roars and rushes at the wagon. The two Barolon men with great courage took firebrands, advanced a few yards, 1 The Balala (the ' ' poor ones "), like the Ba-kalahari, were classes of outcast nomadic Bechuana who wandered as hunters and herdsmen on the outskirts of the Kalahari and Namakwa deserts. They were by tradition the descendants of the first Bantu invaders of central South Africa, and had mingled their blood with the preceding Bushmen and adopted their habits. 196 Pioneers in South Africa and hurled them at the lion; but the flames went out, and the enraged beast rushed at them with such swift- ness that Moffat had barely time to fire again without shooting the men. The lion then returned to continue his meal, everyone in the camp having decided to let him alone. As there was no firewood, however, and the maintenance of the fire was absolutely necessary for the safety of the camp, Moffat himself stole out to the edge of the pool to collect dry sticks, hoping that the lion would be too busy eating to take any notice of him. But looking up towards the skyline of the pool's rim he saw four large, round, hairy-headed lions, ''appearing, as they always do in the dark, twice the usual size ", look- ing at him. He was obliged to retreat on hands and knees to his wagon, going somewhat out of his way to warn one of his men who was also out searching for firewood. This man he found paralysed with terror, pointing to the glow- ing eyes of two lions and a lion cub eyeing them from another direction. However, they managed to get back to the wagon and sat down to keep their scanty fire alive, whilst the first lion could still be heard tearing and devouring his prey. If any of the other seven lions dared approach, he would pursue them for some paces with a horrible howl, which made the unfortunate oxen tremble. Before the day had dawned the lion had consumed the whole of the meat off this cow's carcass, and in addition dragged away with him the head, backbone, leg bones, and entrails of the cow, as well as the two firebrands which had been thrown at him! He left nothing behind but a few fragments of bone. The portions which he dragged and carried away he deposited in a thicket of thorn bushes, into which he retired to sleep. *' I had often heard how much a large, hungry lion MofFat and Bechuanaland 197 could eat, but nothing less than a demonstration would have convinced me that it was possible for him to have eaten all the flesh of a good heifer, and many of the bones, for scarcely a rib was left, and even some of the marrow bones were broken as if with a hammer." The next day was a Sunday, and Moffat broke his rule of not travelling on the day of rest because of the absolute necessity of leaving such a dangerous place. After some hours' slow progress he arrived at a miserable encampment of the hungry Balala. They only regretted that the lion should have had such a feast while they were so hungry. **I talked long to them, to convince them that there was something else beyond eating and drinking, which ought to command our attention." *^This was to them inexpli- cable, while the description I gave of the character of God, and our sinful and helpless condition, amused them only, and extorted some expressions of sympathy, that a Khosi (king), as they called me, should talk such foolishness." *^The people were kind, and my blundering in the lan- guage gave rise to many bursts of laughter. Never in one instance would an individual correct a word or sentence till he or she had mimicked the original so effectually as to give great merriment to others. They appeared delighted with my company, especially as I could, when meat was scarce, take my gun and shoot a rhinoceros or some other animal, when a night of feasting and talking . . . would follow. . . . Bogachu, whom I might call my host, daily allowed me a litde milk for tea. He was an interesting character, and though not tall had great dignity about his person, as well as much politeness of manner." But the people gave very little attention to Moffat's preaching and teaching, and would gravely ask him if 1 98 Pioneers in South Africa he was in earnest and really believed what he was saying. **One day while describing the day of judgment, several of my hearers expressed great concern at the idea of all their cattle being destroyed, together with their ornaments. They never for one moment allow their thoughts to dwell on death, which is according to their views nothing less than an annihilation. Their supreme happiness consists in having abundance of meat. Asking a man who was more grave and thoughtful than his companions what was the finest sight he could desire, he instantly replied: *A great fire covered with pots full of meat;' adding, *how ugly the fire looks without a pot!' ** Having once shot a rhinoceros, the men surrounded it with roaring congratulation. In vain I shouted that it was not dead ; a dozen spears were thrust into it, when up started the animal in a fury, and tearing up the ground with his horn, made everyone fly in terror. These animals were very numerous in this part of the country ; they are not gregarious, more than four or five being seldom seen together, though I once observed nine following each other to the water. They fear no enemy but man, and are fear- less of him when wounded and pursued. The lion flies before them like a cat; the mohohu, the largest species, has been known even to kill the elephant, by thrusting the horn into his ribs. The genus is called by the Bechuana, Chukuru\ and the three distinct species have more than once been pointed out to me when they have all been within sight, the mohohu^ kheitlua^ and the horila or kenengyane. ^ The last, though the smallest with 1 There are really only two species of rhinoceros in Africa at the present day : the White or Square-lipped {Rhinocerus simus) and the Black or Pointed-lipped. The so- called " White" rhinoceros is bigger than the Black and has a longer front horn. The Black rhinoceros (Keitloa) has a smaller local variety called the Borele or Kenengyane. See pp. 245-6 and 311. Moffat and Bechuanaland 199 the shortest horns, is the most fierce, and consequently they are the last that retire from populous regions, while the other species, owing to their more timid habits, seek the recesses of the interior wilds." The following is a picturesquely described episode in big-game hunting. Being in want of food to supply his caravan as well as his friends in the village, Moffat went one night, accompanied by two of the Balala, to a pool near the native village where the cattle were generally watered in the daytime. It was half-moonlight and rathei cold. They remained lying in a hollow spot near the spring for two hours without anything happening, then a loud lapping at the water announced the arrival of thirsty lions, who, having satisfied their thirst, fortunately withdrew. **Our next visitors were two buffaloes, one immensely large. My wagon driver, Mosi, who also had a gun, seeing them coming directly towards us, begged me to fire. I refused, having more dread of a wounded buffalo than of almost any other animal. He fired; and though the animal was severely wounded, he stood like a statue with his companion, within loo yards of us, for more than an hour, waiting to see us move, in order to attack us. We lay in an awkward position for that time, scarcely daring to whisper; and when he at last retired we were so stiff with cold, that flight would have been impossible had an attack been made. We then moved about till our blood began to circulate. Our next visitors were two giraffes; one of these we wounded. A troop of zebras next came; but the successful instinct of the principal stallion — who surveyed the precincts of the water, galloping round in all directions to catch any strange scent, and returning to the troop with a whistling noise to announce danger — 200 Pioneers in South Africa set them off at full speed. The next was a huge rhino- ceros, which, receiving a mortal wound, departed. Hear- ing the approach of more lions, we judged it best to leave; and after a lonely walk of 4 miles through bushes, beset with hyenas and jackals, we reached the village, when I felt thankful, resolving never to hunt by night at a water- pool, till I could find nothing to eat elsewhere. Next day the rhinoceros and buffalo were found, and afforded us a plentiful supply." Having reached the Baroloii country, Moffat, amongst other new acquaintances, met with the refugees of the Bahurutsi clan from the north-western parts of the vast range of the Bechuana tribes. The Bahurutsi are said (though some deny it) to have given their name to the Barotse country along the Upper Zambezi, by having occupied that region in a successful raid at the beginning of the nineteenth century. More in touch with northern Bechuanaland and the Zambezi region, and consequently with the older civilization of metal working which existed there, some of the Bahurutsi refugees were superior in intelligence and crafts to the hunting and herding Baroloii and Batlapin. One of these men of the Bahurutsi, inter- viewed by Moffat, proved to be a native smith or metal worker of great ingenuity. The whole of his implements consisted of two small goatskins for bellows, some small broken pots for crucibles, a few round greenstone boulders for his anvil, a hammer made of a small piece of iron about f inch thick and rather more than 2 inches by 3 inches square, a cold chisel, two or three other shapeless tools, and a heap of charcoal. ** I am not an ironsmith," he said, ** I work in copper;" showing Moffat some of his copper and brass ornaments, consisting of ear-rings, arm-rings, &c. Moffat wished to do a piece Moffat and Bechuanaland 201 of blacksmith's work and asked for the use of his forge. ** I told him I only wanted wind and fire. He sat down between his two goatskins, and puffed away. Instead of using his tongs, made of the bark of a tree, I went for my own. When he saw them, he gazed in silent admiration ; he turned them over and over; he had never seen such ingenuity, and pressed them to his chest, giving me a most expressive look, which was as intelligible as * Will you give them to me?' My work was soon done, when he entered his hut, from which he brought a piece of flat iron, begging me to pierce it with a number of different- sized holes, for the purpose of drawing copper and brass wire. Requesting to see the old one, it was produced, accompanied by the feeling declaration : * It is from Kurrechane' (his old home). Having examined his man- ner of using it, and formed a tolerable idea of the thing he wanted, I set to work; and finding his iron too soft for piercing holes through nearly a J-inch iron plate, I took the oldest of my two handsaw files to make a punch, which I had to repair many times. After much labour, and a long time spent, I succeeded in piercing about twenty holes, from the eighth of an inch to the thickness of a thread. The moment the work was completed, he grasped it, and breaking out into exclamations of surprise, bounded over the fence like an antelope, and danced about the village like a merry-andrew, exhibiting his treasure to everyone, and asking if they ever saw anything like it." Next day Moffat told him, that, as they were brothers of one trade, the Bahurutsi smith must show the mis- sionary the whole process of melting copper, making brass, and drawing wire. The broken pot or crucible, containing a quantity of copper and a little tin, was pre- sently fixed in the centre of a charcoal fire. The smith 202 Pioneers in South Africa then applied his bellows till the contents were fused. He had previously prepared a heap of sand, slightly adhesive, and by thrusting a stick about f inch in diameter, like the ramrod of a musket, obliquely into this heap, he made holes, into which he poured the contents of his crucible. He then fixed a round, smooth stick, about 3 feet high, having a split in the top, upright in the ground. Then, taking out his rods of brass, he beat them out on a stone with his little hammer, till they were about J inch square, occasionally softening them in a small flame, made by burning grass. Having reduced them all to this thick- ness, he laid the end of one on a stone, and rubbed it to a point with another stone, in order to introduce it through the largest hole of his iron plate; he then opened the split in the upright stick to hold fast the end of the wire, when he forced the plate and wire round the stick with a lever power, frequently rubbing the wire with oil or fat. The same operation was performed each time, making the point of the wire smaller for a less hole, till it was reduced to the degree of thickness wanted, which was about that of thick sewing cotton. The wire was, of course, far inferior in colour and quality to that made by Europeans. These native smiths, however, evinced great dexterity in working ornaments from copper, brass, and iron. ** When I had thus assisted the old man, and become sociable, I talked to him about the power of knowledge; explaining the bellows and other mechanical improve- ments, which insure accuracy as well as save time and labour. To this he listened with great attention, but when I introduced Divine subjects, man*s misery, and man's redemption, he looked at me with mouth dilated, and asked, *A ga u morihi pula?' Art thou a rain- maker?" Moffat and Bechuanaland 203 Nevertheless, if Moffat were alive now he and the other missionary pioneers would have seen that their labours had not been altogether wasted. For nearly all the Bechuana tribes are now Christians and are prosperous and happy, no longer tortured by famine or killing each other in constant quarrels. It must not be forgotten — and that is the reason why I have related this incident lengthily — that the missionaries first got a hearing by showing that they were men of their hands, that they could be, if need arose, blacksmiths and carpenters, brick- makers and bricklayers, good shots with the rifle, horse- men, and cattle keepers. Not many years elapsed after these episodes before they had become throughout South Africa, from Cape Colony to the Zambezi, the trusted advisers and allies of the native tribes. CHAPTER IX Mosilikatsi and the Boers In the year 1829 two traders had journeyed through southern Bechuanaland towards what we should now call the northern part of the Transvaal, for the purpose of shooting elephants and trading with the natives. Passing through the Bahurutsi tribe near the upper waters of the Limpopo, they had heard of a Zulu people farther to the east possessing much cattle, and on travelling thither had found themselves in the presence of the great raiding chief Mosilikatsi, or, as he was called in the Zulu version of his name, Umsilikazi. Through these traders and also through the Bechuana clans, Mosilikatsi heard of the establishment of white missionaries at Kuruman. Accord- ingly, when the traders were returning to civilization, he sent back with them two of his head men for the purpose of obtaining a more particular knowledge of the white people. On the arrival of these two Zulus at Kuruman they were astonished beyond measure with everything they saw, while on their part they created some astonish- ment and dismay amongst the more civilized Bechuana by appearing in a state of primitive nudity. At the suggestion of the missionaries, however, they willingly adopted the requisite amount of clothing, and in other ways showed a politeness **to which we had been entirely unaccustomed amongst the Bechuana", showing that the 2M Mosilikatsi and the Boers 205 wearing of clothes did not always produce the higher qualities of mind and manner. Everything calculated to interest was exhibited to them. The missionaries' houses, the walls of their folds and gardens, the leat or canal of water conveying a large stream out of the bed of the river to the mission station, and above all the smith's forge, filled them with admiration and astonishment. These feelings they expressed not in the wild gestures generally made by the more plebeian natives, but by the utmost gravity and profound venera- tion, as well as the most respectful demeanour. **You are men, we are but children," said one; while the other observed: ** Mosilikatsi must be taught all these things." When standing in the hall of one house, looking at the strange furniture of a civilized abode, the eye of one caught a small looking-glass, on which he gazed with admiration. Mrs. Moffat handed him one which was considerably larger: he looked intensely at his reflected countenance, and, never having seen it before, supposed it was that of one of his attendants on the other side; he very abruptly put his hand behind it, telling him to be gone; but looking again at the same face, he cautiously turned it, and seeing nothing, he returned the glass with great gravity to the missionary's wife, saying that he could not trust it. As it was feared if these Matebele indunas returned to Mosilikatsi by themselves they would be killed on the way in revenge for the many raids committed by that Zulu chief,^ Moffat decided to escort them himself through 1 Mosilikatsi had been in command of a Zulu army under the bloodthirsty King Chaka. Hearing that he was suspected of having made a false return of loot to his king, and was consequently in danger of being arrested and slaughtered, he resolved to save himself by starting off for the north with all the followers and warriors he could gather together. He devastated much of the western Transvaal and Basutoland, 2o6 Pioneers in South Africa the eastern parts of Bechuanaland. After leaving Litaku, they travelled in empty wagons with more than usual speed, over the Barolon plains, in many parts of which the traveller, like the mariner on the ocean, sees the expanse around him bounded only by the horizon. Clumps of acacias occasionally met the eye, while the grass, like fields of tall wheat, waved in the breeze; amidst which various kinds of game were found, and lions roamed at large. Some of the nomad Balala, who subsisted en- tirely on roots and the chase, occasionally intercepted the course of the missionary party, and begged a little tobacco, or for safety would occasionally pass the night at the white man's encampment. These Balala were, indeed, the com- panions of the lion, and seemed perfectly versed in all his tactics. **As we were retiring to rest one night", wrote Moffat, *'a lion passed near us, occasionally giving a roar, which softly died away on the extended plain, as it was responded to by another at a distance. Directing the attention of the Balala to this sound, and asking if they thought there was danger, they turned their ears as to a voice with which they were familiar, and, after listening for a moment or two, replied: 'There is no danger; he has eaten, and is going to sleep'. They were right, and we slept also. Asking them in the morning how they knew the lions were going to sleep, they replied : * We live with them; they are our companions'." Entering the western limits of what is now the Trans- but his principal army having been severely defeated and driven off by the Boers in 1837, he passed far to the north and settled down in what is now the Pietersburg dis- trict of the Transvaal. A few months later he was driven away from here by another Boer attack, and finally he colonized the outskirts of the Mashuna or Karafia country within the watershed of the Zambezi. The name ultimately given to his warriors, the Abaka-Zulu, who became in time a powerful Zulu tribe, was Amandebele, which the Bechuana people rendered as Matebele, The son of Mosilikatsi was Lobengula, who lost his life fighting against the British South Africa Company in 1893. Mosilikatsi and the Boers 207 vaal, the country became of a very different character to the bleak, treeless plateaus of Bechuanaland. It was mountainous, and the mountains were wooded to their summits. Evergreen vegetation adorned the valleys, through which numerous streams of excellent water flowed towards the Limpopo River. As it was the rainy season, everything was fresh, the clumps of trees that studded the plains being covered with rich and flowery verdure. But this lovely land was almost deserted by man, and ** vocal with the lion's roar*'. The country had once been in- habited by a dense population, only recently extirpated by the invasions of the Mantatisi, and next the Matebele. The lions, who had revelled in human flesh after these fearful massacres, had become daring in the extreme, roam- ing at large during the daytime, a terror to the travellers, and making the hills at night re-echo with their roaring. Buffaloes and rhinoceroses rushed at the caravan from the thickets. Having travelled loo miles in five days, after visiting the Bahurutsi settlement of Mosega — a village or station still existing — they came to the first cattle outposts of the Matebele, and halted by a fine rivulet at a beautiful spot where the attention was arrested by a thickly foliaged, gigantic tree. This stood in a defile which terminated in an extensive and woody ravine between high ranges of mountains. A few natives were squatting on the ground under its shade, and the conical points of what looked like houses in miniature protruded through its evergreen foliage. The tree itself proved to be inhabited by several families of Bakona, the aborigines of the country. Moffat ascended by the notched trunk, and found, to his amazement, no less than seventeen of these aerial abodes, and three other huts unfinished. On reach- 2o8 Pioneers in South Africa ing the topmost dwelling, about 30 feet from the ground, he entered and sat down. Its only furniture was the hay which covered the floor, a spear, a spoon, and a bowl full of locusts. Not having eaten anything that day, and eager to try the locusts from the novelty of his situa- tion, he asked permission from a woman who sat at the door with a babe at her breast, and, this being granted pleasantly, he dipped his hand in the bowl and ate some locusts. The woman also brought him more in a powdered state. Several more females came from the neighbouring roosts, stepping from branch to branch, to see the stranger, who was to them as great a curiosity as the tree was to him. The structure of these tree houses was very simple. An oblong scaffold, about 7 feet wide, was built of straight sticks. On one end of this platform a small cone-shaped hut was formed, also of straight sticks, its roof thatched with grass. A person could nearly stand upright in it, and the diameter of its floor was about 6 feet. The hut stood on the back end of the oblong platform, so as to leave a little square space before the door. On the pre- vious day the missionary caravan had passed several vil- lages, some containing forty houses, all built on poles, about 7 or 8 feet from the ground, in the form of a circle, the ascent and descent being by a knotty branch of a tree placed in front of the house. In the centre of the circle there was always a heap of bones of the game the in- habitants had killed. Such were the domiciles of the impoverished thousands of Bechuana aborigines of the western Transvaal, who, having been scattered and plun- dered by Mosilikatsi, had neither herds nor plantations, but subsisted on locusts, roots, and the chase. Yet this mode of architecture had been adopted before the Matebele came, to escape the lions which abounded in the country. Mosilikatsi and the Boers 209 During the day the families descended to the shade beneath the tree-huts to dress their daily food. Arrived at the first of the Matebele outposts, Moffat was again implored by the two ^4ndunas" to accompany them a little farther and enter the presence of their king; they de- clared that if he did not do so they themselves would prob- ably be killed for being the cause of his refusal. His own attendants watched the discussion as if the destinies of an empire were involved, and heard with strong emotion the missionary's consent to visit Mosilikatsi. The further journey eastward was made along a range of mountains running in that direction. The country to the north and east became more level, but was studded with ranges of little hills, many isolated, of a conical form, along the bases of which lay the ruins of innumerable towns, some of which were of amazing extent. The soil of the valleys and extended plains was of the richest description. The torrents from the adjacent heights had, from year to year, carried away immense masses of rock and soil, in some places laying bare the substratum of granite or heaping up a mass of rich humus from lo to 20 feet deep, where it was evident native grain had formerly waved, and water melons, pumpkins, kidney beans, and sweet reed had once flourished. The ruins of the towns showed signs of im- mense labour and perseverance; stone fences, averaging from 4 to 7 feet high, had been raised apparently without mortar, hammer, or line. Everything was circular, from the inner walls which surrounded each dwelling or family residence to those which encircled a town. In traversing these ruins, Moffat found the remains of some houses which had escaped the flames of the marauders. These were large, and displayed a far superior style to anything he had witnessed among the other aboriginal tribes of (0 587) 14 210 Pioneers in South Africa southern Africa. The circular walls were generally com- posed of hard clay, with a small mixture of cow dung, not only well plastered and polished on the inside, but there mixed with a kind of ore, so that the interior walls of the house had the appearance of being varnished. The walls and doorways were also neatly ornamented with a kind of architrave and cornice. The pillars supporting the roof were in the form of pilasters, projecting from the walls, and adorned with flutings and other designs, showing much taste in the architectresses (for all the building was done by women). This taste, however, was exercised on fragile materials, for there was nothing of stone in the building except the foundations. The houses were round in shape, with conical roofs extending beyond the walls so as to afford considerable shade, or what might be called a veranda.^ The raising of the stone fences must have been a work of immense labour, for the materials had all to be brought on the shoulders of men, and the quarries where these materials were probably obtained were at a considerable distance. **The neighbouring hills", wrote Moffat, **also gave ample demonstration of human perseverance with instruments of the most paltry description." In some places were found indigenous fig trees, growing between squares of stone left by the quarriers. ^* On some of these we found ripe figs, but, from the stony basis and unculti- vated state, they were much inferior to those grown in the gardens of the colony. Many an hour have I walked, pensively, among these scenes of desolation, casting my ^This superiority of architecture and design, coupled with the use of stone as a building material, suggests a Karana element in the population of this part of the Transvaal, which is mostly populated elsewhere by Bechuana clans. The Ba-karafla (Makalaka, Makarana, Mashuna) acquired some ideas as to the employment of stone for building purposes from the mysterious race which constructed Zimbabwe, Mosilikatsi and the Boers 211 thoughts back to the period when these now-ruined habi- tations teemed with life and revelry, and when the hills and dales resounded to the bursts of human joy. Nothing now remained but dilapidated walls, heaps of stones, and rubbish, mingled with human skulls, which, to a con- templative mind, told their ghastly tale. These are now the abodes of reptiles and beasts of prey. Occa- sionally a large stone fold might be seen occupied by the cattle of the Matebele, who had caused the land thus to mourn.'* Having Matebele with him, Moffat found it extremely difficult to elicit local information from the dejected and scattered aborigines who occasionally came in his way. ** These trembled before the nobles, who ruled them with a rod of iron. It was soon evident that the usurpers were anxious to keep me in the dark about the devastations which everywhere met our eyes, and they always endea- voured to be present when I came in contact with the aborigines of the country, but as I could speak the lan- guage some opportunities were afforded." One of the three servants who accompanied the two Tebele ambassadors to the Kuruman station had been a captive among the Mantatisi when they were defeated at Old Litaku. He felt a pleasure in conversing with Moffat in Sechuana, his native tongue ; and, being a native of the regions through which the caravan was now pass- ing, would sometimes whisper information explaining the desolation of his fatherland. The nations he described as being once numerous as the locusts, rich in cattle, and traffickers, to a great extent, with the distant tribes of the north. Then came the invasion of the Zulu armies under the great destroyer Chaka, the destruction of the Bakona towns, the sweeping away of cattle and valuables, and 212 Pioneers in South Africa the butchering or enslavement of the inhabitants. The *^ Commandos"^ of Chaka in the beginning of the nine- teenth century had made frightful havoc; but all they had done was as nothing to the final overthrow of the Bakona tribes by the soldiers of Mosilikatsi. With the terror of the monster Chaka behind them, the Amande- bele — as Mosilikatsi's Zulu regiments were called — like an overwhelming torrent rushed onward to the north, mark- ing their course with blood and carnage. ^'On a Sabbath morning I ascended a hill", wrote Moffat, ^*to spend the day. I had scarcely reached the summit, and sat down, when I found that my intelligent Bakona companion had stolen away from the party to answer some questions I had asked the day before, and to which he could not reply, because of the presence of his superiors. Happening to turn to the right, and seeing before me a large extent of level ground covered with ruins, I enquired what had become of the inhabitants. He had just sat down, but rose, evidently with some feeling, and, stretching forth his arm in the direction of the ruins, said: * I, even I, beheld it!' and paused, as if in deep thought. * There lived the great chief of multitudes. He reigned among them like a king. He was the chief of the blue-coloured cattle. They were numerous as the dense mist on the mountain brow; his flocks covered the plain. Our king thought the number of his warriors would awe his enemies. His people boasted of their spears, and laughed at the cowardice of such as had fled from the towns (farther south). **We shall slay the Matebele and hang up their shields on our hill. Our race is a race of warriors. Who ever subdued our fathers? They were 1" Commando" is a Dutch word borrowed from the Spanish, and meaning a detachment of soldiers. Mosilikatsi and the Boers 213 mighty in combat. We still possess the spoils of ancient times. Have not our dogs eaten the shields of the Zulu nobles? The vultures shall devour the slain of our ene- mies." Thus sang our warriors while they danced; till they beheld on yonder heights the approaching foe. The noise of their song was hushed in night, and their hearts were filled with dismay. They saw the clouds ascend from the plains. It was the smoke of burning towns. The confusion of a whirlwind was in the heart of our great chief of the blue-coloured cattle. Some at first shouted: *' They come as friends"; but others shouted later: **No, they are foes", till their near approach proclaimed them to be naked Matebele. *^ ^Our men seized their arms, and rushed out, as if to chase away antelopes. The onset was as the voice of light- ning, and the clash of spears as the shaking of a forest in the autumn storm. The Matebele lions raised the shout of death, and flew upon their victims. It was the shout of victory. Their hissing and hollow groans told their pro- gress among the dead. A few moments laid hundreds on the ground. The clash of shields was the signal of triumph. Our people fled with their cattle to the top of yonder mount. The Matebele entered the town with the roar of the lion ; they pillaged and fired the houses, speared the mothers, and cast their infants to the flames. The sun went down. The victors emerged from the smoking plain, and pursued their course, surrounding the base of yonder hill. They slaughtered cattle; they danced and sang till the dawn of day; they ascended, and killed till their hands were weary of the spear.* ** Stooping to the ground on which we stood, he took up a little dust in his hand; blowing it off, and holding out his naked palm, he added: *That is all that remains 214 Pioneers in South Africa of the great chief of the blue-coloured cattle!' It is im- possible for me to describe my feelings while listening to this descriptive effusion of native eloquence; and I after- wards embraced opportunities of writing it down, of which the above is only an abridgment.^ I found also from other aborigines that his was no fabled song, but merely a com- pendious sketch of the catastrophe. ** The Matebele were not satisfied with simply capturing cattle, nothing less than the entire subjugation, or destruc- tion of the vanquished, could quench their insatiable thirst for power. Thus when they conquered a town, the terrified inhabitants were driven in a mass to the outskirts, when the parents and all the married women were slaughtered on the spot. Such as have dared to be brave in the defence of their town, their wives, and their children, are reserved for a still more terrible death; dry grass, saturated with fat, is tied round their naked bodies and then set on fire. The youths and girls are loaded as beasts of burden with the spoils of the town, to be marched to the homes of their victors. If the town be in an isolated position, the help- less infants are left to perish either with hunger or to be devoured by beasts of prey. On such an event, the lions scent the slain and leave their lair. The hyenas and jackals emerge from their lurking places in broad day and revel in the carnage, while a cloud of vultures may be seen descending on the living and the dead, and holding a carnival on human flesh. Should a suspicion arise in the savage bosom that these helpless innocents may fall into the hands of friends, they will prevent this by collecting them into a fold, and, after raising over them a pile of brushwood, apply the flaming torch to it, when the 1 1 have further slightly condensed this vivid and truthful example of South African Negro narrative. Mosilikatsi and the Boers 215 town, but lately the scene of mirth, becomes a heap of ashes." As the caravan neared the district in which Mosilikatsi was encamped, it had frequent visitors bringing abundant supplies of milk and grain, borne on the heads of women belonging to the subjugated Bechuana tribes ; but though there was plenty in the camp, the dark cloudy weather awoke gloomy forebodings in the minds of Moffat's Bat- lapiii followers, some of whom would gladly have escaped from the power of the dreaded Matebele, but the distance from home was too great. Proceeding slowly on account of the rain and clayey soil through a fertile country to the banks of the Limpopo (here called the Uri), they saw the scaly crocodiles (absent, apparently, from the Orange River) protruding their ugly snouts on the sedgy bank of the river. In this neighbourhood they were not a little surprised to find a large hunting party of Berend Berends (a half- caste Grikwa) and his people, with a number of wagons. With Berend was the Rev. Mr. Archbell, a Wesleyan missionary, who had travelled thus far to look out for a suitable spot at which to found a station. Mr. Archbell (with whom travelled his brave wife) had wished to visit Mosilikatsi, but the Matebele king had refused to receive him till the arrival of Moffat, whose approach had already been announced by one of the two indunas. The Arch- bells and Moffat therefore joined company and proceeded eastwards by a circuitous route over a hilly, trackless, and woody country, receiving every demonstration of the pleasure Mosilikatsi anticipated in welcoming them at his capital. In the early part of the day they came within sight of the vast encampment or army town of the Mate- bele under a range of hills, and not far from a precipitous 2i6 Pioneers in South Africa gorge of the Limpopo River. One of the indunas had left the caravan several days previously to appear in person before the king, and, as he expressed it, "to make the white man's path straight to the abode of his sovereign ". ** There," said this man, Umbate, pointing to the town, ** there dwells the great king Pezulu,^ the Elephant, the Lion's paw," following up these titles with ascriptions of extravagant praise. As the wagons had to make a circuit to arrive at a ford through the river, Entsabotluku — the other induna — Moffat, Archbell, and two of their atten- dants mounted their horses to go a more direct road. When they reached the river they found people bathing, who, seeing horsemen, scampered off in the greatest terror; but the white man's party rode straight for the centre of the military kraal or town encampment. This was a very large enclosed area, capable of holding 10,000 head of cattle. Moffat and Archbell were rather taken by surprise to find it lined by about 800 warriors, besides 200 which were concealed on each side of the entrance as if in am- bush. They were beckoned to dismount, and then advanced, holding their horses by the bridle. The warriors at the gate instantly rushed on them with hideous and disconcert- ing yells, and this, combined with their leaping from the earth with their kilts of cats' tails waving and the raising of their huge shields, frightened the horses of the little party and made it very difficult for the two missionaries to preserve an unruffled demeanour. But this demonstra- tion was only a rough salute, and as soon as it was over the young warriors fell into rank with as much order as if they had been accustomed to European tactics. Many of them had kilts of baboon skins, and their legs and arms were adorned with the hair and tails of oxen ; their shields 1 Pezulu means ' ' up above ", " the heavenly one ". MOFFAT AND THE ZULUS Mosilikatsi and the Boers 217 reached to their chins, and their heads were surmounted with ostrich and marabu feathers. But in the centre of the town all was silent, and the soldiers stood motionless as statues. Eyes only were seen to move, and there was a rich display of fine white teeth. After some minutes of profound stillness, which was only interrupted by the breathing of the horses, the war song burst forth. ** There was harmony, it is true, and they beat time with their feet, producing a sound like hollow thunder; but some parts of it were music befitting the nether regions, especially when they imi- tated the groanings of the dying on the field of battle, and the yells and hissings of the conquerors. Another simultaneous pause ensued, and still we wondered what was intended, till out marched the monarch from behind the lines, followed by a number of men bearing baskets and bowls of food." Mosilikatsi came up to the missionaries, and having been instructed as to the white man's mode of salutation, gave each a clumsy but hearty shake of the hand. He then politely turned to the food, which was placed at the feet of his guests, who were invited to partake of it. By this time the wagons were seen in the distance, and the visitors having intimated their wish to be directed to a place where they might encamp on the outskirts of the military town, Mosilikatsi himself went with them as a guide, keeping fast hold of Moffat's right arm. **The land is before you," he said; **you are come to your son. You must sleep where you please." When the ** moving houses", as the wagons were called, drew near, he took a firmer grasp of Moffat's arm, and looked on them with unutterable surprise; **and this man, the terror of thousands, drew back with fear, as one in doubt as 2i8 Pioneers in South Africa to whether the wagons were not living creatures ". When the oxen were unyoked, he approached the wagon with the utmost caution, still holding his guest by one hand, whilst he placed the other on his own mouth, indicating his surprise after the native fashion. He looked at every- thing very intently, particularly the wheels, and when told of how many pieces of wood each wheel was composed, his wonder was increased. After examining all very closely, one mystery yet remained, how the large band of iron surrounding the fellows of the wheel came to be in one piece without either end or joint. Umbate, one of the induna guides, whose visit to the mission station had made him much wiser than his master, took hold of Moffat's hand, and related what he had seen. ^*My eyes," he said, **saw that very hand", pointing to that of the missionary, **cut these bars of iron, take a piece off one end, and then join them as you now see them." A minute inspection ensued, to discover the welded part. **Does he give medicine to the iron?" was the monarch's enquiry. ^*No," said Umbate, *' nothing is used but fire, a hammer, and a chisel." Mosilikatsi then returned to the town, where the warriors were still standing as he left them, who received him with immense bursts of applause. ** During one of my first interviews with Mosilikatsi, the following incident took place, which shows that, how- ever degraded and cruel man may become, he is capable of being subdued by kindness. He drew near to the spot where I stood, with some attendants bearing dishes of food; the two chiefs who had been at the Kuruman were with me, but on the approach of their sovereign, they bowed and withdrew, but were instantly desired to return. Mosili- katsi, placing his left hand on my shoulder, and his Mosilikatsi and the Boers 219 right on his breast, addressed me in the following lan- guage: * Machobane/ I call you such because you have been my father. You have made my heart as white as milk; milk is not white to-day, my heart is white. I cease not to wonder at the love of a stranger. You never saw me before, but you love me more than my own people. You fed me when I was hungry; you clothed me when I was naked; you carried me in your bosom;' and, raising my right arm with his, added, 'that arm shielded me from my enemies.' On my replying, I was unconscious of having done him any such services, he instantly pointed to the two ambassa- dors who were sitting at my feet, saying: * These are great men; Umbate is my right hand. When I sent them from my presence to see the land of the white men, I sent my ears, my eyes, my mouth; what they heard I heard, what they saw I saw, and what they said, it was Mosilikatsi who said it. You fed them and clothed them, and when they were to be slain, you were their shield. You did it unto me. You did it unto Mosilikatsi, the son of Machobane.'" Moffat took advantage of this outburst of gratitude and fine language to deliver a short address on the love of God, **to which Mosilikatsi at first listened with ap- parent attention, but his countenance soon betrayed a truant mind, while his eyes looked with delight on the droves of sleek cattle approaching the town, and which possessed charms infinitely more captivating than the topics of our conversation." Presently, with a polite bow, he intimated that he had heard enough for the present, and withdrew from the society of the mission- aries amidst the shouts of his attendants. The next 1 His real father's name. 220 Pioneers in South Africa morning, however, it was evident that some effect had been produced by Moffat's words, for he behaved with great moderation and restraint at the trial of an induna for a very grave offence. The following is Moffat's description of Mosilikatsi: **In his person he was below the middle stature, rather corpulent, with a short neck, and in his manner could be exceedingly affable and cheerful. His voice, soft and effeminate, did not indicate that his disposition was passionate." The Zulus of Mosilikatsi were literally bloodthirsty. After every success in war, days of feasting were held, when they glutted themselves with flesh and drank bowls of blood from the slain oxen. A bowl of blood was the portion of such as could count ten men whom they had slain in the day of battle. As a great honour Mosilikatsi sent to Moffat one evening an enormous basket of the tightly woven kind which holds liquids. Its contents were blood and suet, the former smoking hot from the veins of a just-killed ox. Moffat begged to be excused, as he never ate blood. The refusal was taken graciously, and the whole breast of an ox well stewed was immediately sent in place of **the bloody bowl". Not that this was returned to the king. To do so would have given offence. But the Zulus who brought it, and others who were stand- ing by, had scarcely heard that they might do what they liked with it, when they rushed upon it, scooping it up with their hands, making a noise equal to a dozen hungry hogs around a well-filled trough. Moffat completely won the heart of this bloodthirsty monarch, as much by his prompt and witty replies in the Sechuana language as by his straight speaking and dignity of attitude. *^As he was rather profuse in his Mosilikatsi and the Boers 221 honorary titles, especially in calling me a king, I re- quested him rather to call me teacher. . . . Then he said: * Shall I call you my father?' *Yes,' I rejoined, *but only on condition that you are an obedient son.* This drew from him and his nobles a hearty laugh." On the return journey Mosilikatsi himself escorted Moffat over a portion of the route, soon becoming accus- tomed to the jolting of an African wagon, and finding it convenient to lay his well-lubricated body on the missionary's bed, and take a nap. For the rest of the journey back to the limits of the Bechuana country Moffat was treated with the utmost care and attention by the Matebele. Having to pass through the lion-infested country already described, a number of warriors constantly attended the wagons to see that they came nowhere near enough to cause any alarm or annoy- ance. Moffat wrote enthusiastically of the northern part of the Transvaal, declaring that minerals abounded there. Iron ore lay scattered over the surface of the hills, some of which were entirely composed of iron, while little hillocks consisted entirely of loadstone, every fragment of which possessed a north and a south pole. Copper mines also abounded, and the country yielded tin, which the natives called moruru. These observations were made on the occasion of his second visit to Mosilikatsi, at which time also, through the Zulu warriors having got into touch with the Bamangwato country far to the north and within the basin of the Zambezi, Moffat heard of *^the great lake'* beyond the Kalahari Desert, which may have meant Lake Ngami, but more likely bore a general reference to the numerous rivers, swamps, and lakelets of the Upper Zambezi. 222 Pioneers in South Africa Moffat's journey in 1829-30 to visit Mosilikatsi may be regarded as the first step in the opening up of eastern South Africa by the white man. He had been preceded by the half-caste, Christianized Grikwa, and no doubt by a few uneducated, harum-scarum Boer, English, or Ger- man hunters and traders — some of them ex-soldiers. But these left little impression on the natives, though they brought back stimulating news. Moffat was soon followed by other missionaries — American, English Wesleyan and Anglican, French Evangelical, and Norwegian Lutheran — and by hundreds of Boer emigrants, hunters, and warriors, who in turn were succeeded by British big game hunters, mining prospectors, and Government agents. As to Robert Moffat himself— one of the most remark- able missionary pioneers in the history of the British Empire — when he had returned from a second visit to the Matebele king, he settled down again for a time in southern Bechuanaland, then journeyed to Cape Colony to print his translations of the Scriptures. In 1839 he and his wife and children went to England, where he took a much-needed rest for three years. He afterwards laboured in central South Africa, journeying several times into the Matebele country, towards the eastern Zambezi, and renewing his acquaintance with Mosili- katsi under happier circumstances, when that great con- queror had settled down as the monarch of the west Karana country. In 1870 he and his wife came back to England to *'rest" for the remainder of their lives, though Moffat up to his eighty-seventh year travelled con- tinually about England and Scotland, and even visited France and addressed large audiences in Paris. He had left behind him a consolidated and Christianized Bechuana- land, whose subsequent history has been an ample reward, Mosilikatsi and the Boers 223 a striking justification, of the faith, hope, and works of his wife and himself. It is pleasant to record that this achieve- ment was recognized on the return to England of Dr. and Mrs. Moffat, and that the former (his wife died in 1871) was presented with a testimonial of ;£'5000, on which he was able eventually to retire to the delightful Kentish village of Leigh, near Tunbridge Wells, where he lived for the last four years of a serene old age, till his death in 1883 at the age of eighty-eight. Native movements in the first half of the nineteenth century, in the countries which are now known as Natal and Zululand, actively promoted the laying bare of eastern South Africa to the white man's gaze. At the very end of the eighteenth century there dwelt in Zululand a clan or tribe known as the Abatetwa. To this tribe there re- turned after a long period of exile (possibly in the neigh- bourhood of Delagoa Bay) the descendant of one of their chiefs, whose name in his youth was Ngodongwana. In the legendary accounts of him, he is said to have returned to the neighbourhood of his birthplace riding on a horse; in any case he had come back to Zululand full of new and strange ideas, derived probably from the Portuguese. He assumed the chieftainship and called himself Dingiswayo, a name which is supposed to mean in Zulu ** He who is puzzled" (how to act). Dingiswayo attracted to his side the younger son of another Zulu chief, a youth named Chaka or Shaka; and Chaka developed Dingiswayo's ideas about army organization to a wonderful extent, besides bringing under his sway, after Dingiswayo's death in 1818, nearly all the clans of Zululand. His invasions of Natal sent some of the Natal Kafir tribes over the Drakensberg Mountains into Basutoland and the Trans- vaal. 224 Pioneers in South Africa These invasions caused one convulsion after another. They started the extraordinary movement of the Mantatisi already described, and they led to the rise in power of another South African chief of great subsequent fame — Mosheshe — who united numbers of Bechuana refugees and fragments of tribes under his control with the new name of the Basuto people. Mosheshe and his Basuto following were enabled to exist amidst all this turmoil, all these terrible devastating wars, by their having taken possession of an impregnable mountain — the Mountain of Night — Thaha Bosigo, But Chaka followed the Kafir refugees into Basutoland and the Orange State (as it afterwards became), and raided a good deal of the southern Transvaal, besides nearly de- populating Natal with his passion for wholesale slaughter. As already related, one of the greatest of his captains, Mosilikatsi, had fled from his rule, and in his turn had become a great conqueror in the north. Chaka, though he was so ruthless in his cruelty towards his fellow Negroes, had a high opinion of white men, and was anxious to enter into an alliance with them. Some notion of this got abroad, and in 1823-4 there arrived at Port Natal (the modern Durban) the English pioneers who founded the country of Natal. The principal persons in this venture were Lieutenant Francis George Fare- well,^ James S. King, and Henry Francis Fynn. They obtained a grant of land from Chaka, and although their enterprise was frowned on by the British Government it did not cease to make some progress in the ensuing years, ^ Farewell had been in the Royal Marines, and King had served as a midshipman — both in the Royal Navy. King died at Durban eventually, of disappointment that the British Government would not hoist their flag over Natal. Farewell, in 1831, was murdered by a Kafir chief in Pondoland, but Fynn lived long to assist in the moulding of Natal as a colony. Mosilikatsi and the Boers 225 although once or twice it was nearly destroyed by the arrogance of the Zulus. Chaka was murdered in a conspiracy got up by his brothers in 1828, and was succeeded by his brother, Din- gana. Chaka — if we may take as true the sum and sub- stance of native tradition and the written accounts of Dutch and English pioneers and missionaries — was a monster of cruelty, an African Nero; but his brother and successor, Dingana, is described by a great Norwegian missionary as having been even worse — **a beast on two legs". Whilst the Negro population of Natal was being re- duced from an approximate 100,000 to 10,000 in number through the slaughters ordered by Chaka, Mosheshe, across the Drakensberg Mountains, was gradually and craftily building up that Basuto power which at the present day is one of the most ominous things in South Africa. He, too, wished to have the advice and education which white men alone could give, without at the same time handing over his country to them. So he decided to invite mis- sionaries to settle at his principal kraal. At this period, about 1830, there had arrived in South Africa the fore- runners of the Paris Evangelical Missionary Society, sup- ported by the Protestant Church of France. Amongst these pioneers were the Revs. E. Casalis, T. Arbousset, and GossELLiN, who, after consultation with the British and American missionaries already in the field, decided in 1833 to plant themselves in what is now called Basuto- land, and to teach the southern clans of the Bechuana people.^ ^ Members of a French-Swiss mission afterwards settled in the Tonga country in the vicinity of Delagoa Bay, and did much to increase our knowledge of south-east Africa. The Paris Evangelical mission to the Basuto led to an interest being taken in the allied Makololo people on the Upper Zambezi, and eventually to the foundation of the Barotse mission under such men as Francois Coillard, who was certainly one (C587) ' 16 226 Pioneers in South Africa In 1834 there came out to Natal a band of American missionaries, noteworthy among whom as pioneers were Grout, Lindley, and Dr. Adams. They journeyed to the royal kraal of Umgungudhlovu, near Ulundi, and obtained permission from Dingana to establish schools in Natal and western Zululand. In 1837 a clergyman of the Church of England, the Rev. Mr. Owen, representing the Church Missionary Society, visited Zululand, and remained there unscathed amid massacres of both white men and black men. The most noteworthy of these massacres was the murder of the Boer emigrants under the leadership of Pieter Retief. The action of the British Government in Cape Colony caused a great deal of discontent amongst the Boer settlers in the eastern districts of that region. They had been encouraged to settle in certain devastated and depopulated frontier districts on the borderland between Hottentot and Kafir. Yet when they were attacked, plundered, and mur- dered by Kafir raids, the British Government abandoned them to their fate or ordered them to withdraw nearer the more settled regions of the colony, besides coming into conflict with them in other ways nearer Cape Town. The result was the great ** treks" to the north-east undertaken by the discontented Boers, with the intention of getting far beyond the limits of British power and founding new states of their own. One such movement, under Rens- burg and Triechard, which started with the vague idea of getting at the back of the Portuguese possessions to the gold-producing regions of Monomotapa, ended in a mas- of the great nineteenth-century pioneers in Africa. To Coillard and his colleagues we owe the pacification and civilization of the Barotse kingdom, and the fact — which would have filled Livingstone with amazement and rejoicing — that the king of the Barotse nation— Lewanika— was present at the Coronation of King Edward VII in Westminster Abbey. Mosilikatsi and the Boers 227 sacre of the white adventurers by the Magwamba people in the eastern Transvaal. But a much better led party of Boers under Pieter Retief, Carl Celliers, and others first of all defeated, with desperate valour, an un- provoked attack by Mosilikatsi's warriors south of the Vaal River, and then crossed that stream and rode far north into the western ** Transvaal" (as it was coming to be called) and delivered a crushing blow at Mosilikatsi's power near his camp of Mosega. This was in 1837; by the end of that year the emigrant Boers had reached Natal, and a party of them, under Retief, had decided to treat with Dingana for land in devastated Natal. On their second visit to his Court, in January, 1838, they were induced to lay aside their arms upon entering the king's enclosure, where they were at once set upon and done to death, only one or two of the entire number of men escaping. Less than a year afterwards this deed of blood was avenged most splendidly by Andries Pretorsus (after whom one of the great capitals of South Africa, Pretoria, is named). At the Blood River, 460 Boers, mounted on horseback and with their wagons as fortified places to fire from, inflicted a tremendous loss of life on a great Zulu army. Their victory resulted in the assassination of Dingana and the Boer conquest of Natal, a conquest they were not allowed to enjoy by the British, who claimed the country on behalf of the concessions granted to the first British pioneers. Some of the Boer conquerors of Natal settled down under the British flag, but the dis- contented majority crossed the Drakensberg Mountains and founded the Transvaal State, so called because this territory lay beyond the Vaal or Yellow River. Another party of Boers, under the leadership of A. H. 228 Pioneers in South Africa PoTGiETER, had entered Basutoland (and what is now the Orange Free State) in 1836, just after one of the periodical Zulu devastations. They encountered a runaway chief, and bought from him for a small sum his sovereign rights. This they made good by inflicting (as already mentioned) their tremendous defeat on Mosilikatsi's armies, which came down from the north to drive them back into Cape Colony. They followed up their bold challenge to the Matebele by other actions which ended in Mosilikatsi's crossing the Limpopo with all his army and settling down in what is now called Southern Rhodesia. The ultimate consequence of the courage and boldness of these Boer pioneers was the creation of the Transvaal and Orange Free State Republics. The progress of knowledge, however, though it owed much to the explorations of the Boers (often themselves illiterate and quite indifferent to the honours accorded to great explorers), was still more deeply indebted to the journeys of great Englishmen and Frenchmen — mission- aries, hunters, and more scientific explorers. Among these should be mentioned Dr. John Philip, of the London Missionary Society; the Frenchman E. Delegorgue, who travelled through Zululand, Swaziland, and Basutoland in 1848; and George Angas, an artist as well as a sports- man and naturalist, who explored northern Zululand and the eastern Transvaal in 1847-8, and discovered one of the most beautiful antelopes in all Africa, the Inyala or Angas's Bushbuck. [This is something like a kudu in appearance, only the horns have not so many turns, and the sides of the body in the male are hung with a tremen- dous mane or growth of hair, like a fringe all round the body.] Great pioneers of the 'fifties were James Chapman, who crossed the Transvaal in several directions, and who Mosilikatsi and the Boers 229 is best remembered by his journeys along the Zambezi, round Lake Ngami, and into Damaraland; and William Baldwin, who, like Sir William Harris, ten years or more earlier, greatly increased our knowledge of the antelopes of South Africa. In the 'sixties and early 'seventies Mr. St. Vincent Erskine and Captain Fred- erick Elton ^ explored and mapped the lower course of the Limpopo and the regions round Delagoa Bay. And at the same period two very remarkable men, Adam Renders and Henry Hartley, were examining the Transvaal and southern Matebeleland. Renders was a German American — a fine big man, who made himself so liked by the Makaraiia natives north of the Limpopo that they called him '*Sa-adamu" or ** Father Adam". They led him to the marvellous ruins of Zimbabwe, and in a cave near to the ruins he took up his abode for two or three years. Hartley often crossed the Limpopo in his hunting excur- sions, and as early as 1863 he noticed the gold-bearing rocks of Tati and southern Mashonaland. But the two most noteworthy of the great pioneers in this region of eastern South Africa were Karl Mauch and Thomas Baines, though both of these owed much to Hartley. Mauch was a native of Stetten, near Stuttgart, in southern Germany, who had come out in 1858 as a geolo- gist, surveyor, and engineer to the Transvaal. He dis- covered indications of gold and coal in the Transvaal, and in 1865 accompanied Hartley to the district of Tati, on the borderland between the Matebele and Bechuana territories. Mauch's reports induced Sir John Swinburne (an English baronet) to come out in 1866-8 and start a company to 1 For further accounts of Captain Elton's journeys see his own works and the present writer's book on British Central Africa. 230 Pioneers in South Africa work the Tati gold. In 1868 Mauch walked from Pretoria to Lydenburg, in the eastern Transvaal, where he laid the foundations of the gold-mining industry of Barberton. But the most sensational of Mauch's discoveries was that made in 187 1 of the ruins of Zimbabwe. This wonderful dead city — a vast fortress in stone and cement, some 2 miles by I J miles in area, half-hidden by the forest which has sprung up in and around it, and situated not far from the head- waters of the Sabi River — had been first reached (amongst modern white men) by Adam Renders, the American elephant hunter, who told Mauch of his discovery. Mauch, however, was the first European to give a clear and definite description of this wonderful place and to fix its position on the map. [Zimbabwe, of course, had not only been known to and mentioned by the early Portu- guese, but its existence had been heard of by the natives, and recorded by Dr. Livingstone twenty years before Mauch's discovery.] Mauch, accompanied by an Englishman (Phillips), travelled from Zimbabwe to Sena on the Zambezi, whence he returned to his native land (Wiirttemberg) ; but he died there in 1875 as the result of his hardships. Thomas Baines, who was born at King's Lynn in Norfolk and had been a sailor, had a considerable gift for drawing and painting, but never having had any proper training, his work was sometimes a little hard and grotesque, wanting in perspective and in proportion. He first came out to South Africa in 1842. His attempt to do survey work in the Transvaal led to his being declared an outlaw by the Boers. He accompanied a surveying expedition to North Australia, and in 1857 was selected to serve with Livingstone on his second Zambezi expedition. But he quarrelled with Charles Livingstone (secretary to MAUCH DISCOVERING THE RUINS OF ZIMBABWE Mosilikatsi and the Boers ' 231 his much greater brother) and was dismissed most un- fairly. He afterwards journeyed throughout Damaraland and along the Zambezi with the expeditions of James Chapman and other travellers. In the 'sixties of last century he set himself to work to follow up the truth of the many native stories regarding the existence of gold in south-east Africa, and in these researches he derived much information from Karl Mauch. Baines in 1873 obtained a concession for gold mining from Lobengula, the son and successor of Mosilikatsi, and the company which he founded continued in various forms to work the gold supply of Tati, and to keep alive the idea of the supposed wealth in gold in Matebeleland until the great Rhodesian movement in the following decade, the 'eighties ; but Baines himself died of dysentery at Durban in 1875. He was a pioneer of right good quality, and has never yet received his due recognition. What is remarkable to remember in connection with both Baines and Hartley, his inspirer, is that Hartley, the first modern person to prove the existence of gold in the rocks of south-east Africa, actually lived in a farm on the Witwatersrand, unconscious of the millions in wealth around his house; and that Baines several times camped on this richest gold-bearing region of the Transvaal with- out realizing that here was a region far more worth ex- ploration and settlement than the Matebele country, from the point of view of gold production, though it is true that he did detect the existence of gold in the Witwaters- rand reefs. The work of Karl Mauch was continued, and gold in paying quantities was soon afterwards discovered in the eastern part of the Transvaal, near the Portuguese frontier, by Edward Button, the principal pioneer in this direction. 232 Pioneers in South Africa The discovery of diamonds in the valley of the Orange River in 1869 and subsequent years had led to a great extension of British rule to the north over Grikwaland and Bechuanaland. And the wealth of gold in the Trans- vaal first suggested by Henry Hartley and made evident by Karl Mauch, Thomas Baines, and Edward Button, brought about in its after-train of events the South African War of 1 899- 1 902, and that Union of all British South Africa under one flag which followed the war. We will next trace the career and adventures of that most remarkable explorer, David Livingstone, who was to carry the lamp of knowledge and the zeal for law and order not only to the Zambezi, but beyond, to the regions of Equatorial Africa. CHAPTER X Livingstone and Oswell The greatest of South African pioneers is undoubtedly David Livingstone; and if only a moderate amount of space is given up to a description of his journeys and adventures, it is because they have been treated of fully in his own easily accessible books and in many other works dealing with the history of South and Central Africa.i David Livingstone was born at Blantyre, in the valley of the Clyde, in south-west Scotland, in the year 1813. As he grew up to manhood he showed himself to be of that bodily type not uncommon in western Scotland, which belongs rather to the Iberian stock than to that of the Caledonian, Scandinavian, or Teutonic components of the Scottish population. He was not a tall man — perhaps 5 feet 7 inches in height at most — and is often referred to by his taller contemporaries as **the plucky little mission- ary", '*the determined little fellow". With his black hair, brown eyes, dark moustache, and somewhat sallow complexion he might easily have passed for a Spaniard; and this Spanish look reappeared in the faces of one or two of his children. His grandfather was a Highlander from an islet off the west coast of Mull. 1 A general resume of Livingstone's work as an explorer was written by the author of this book some years ago, entitled Livingstone and the Exploration of Central Africa. It has recently been republished in a shilling edition. 234 Pioneers in South Africa In his boyhood he had thirsted for knowledge and adventure, and even then took the deepest interest in geology and botany. First he thought of going out as a medical missionary to China, but, a war with that country having arisen, he turned his thoughts towards South Africa. His services were accepted by the London Missionary Society, and having qualified as a doctor of medicine (wishing from the first to be a medical mis- sionary) he left for South Africa in December, 1840, and by the year 1842 was established as a missionary at Mole- polole, in central Bechuanaland. At this period the French Protestant missionaries referred to in the last chapter had been doing a great work amongst the Basuto section of the Bechuana people, and had been gradually carrying their stations farther north into Bechuanaland proper. Here, like Moffat, they had heard of the well- watered region of lakes and rivers beyond the Kalahari Desert;^ and Livingstone in 1841 and 1842 listened eagerly to similar rumours, and burned with a very natural desire (as it was necessary to carry on the work of missionary exploration) to reach the rumoured lake before the French missionaries lighted on it. He therefore set himself to work to gain a thorough insight into the habits and customs, the laws, and above all the language, of the Bakwena section of the Bechuana people. Thus equipped, he made a northward dash in 1842 which brought him to within a short distance of Lake Ngami. But after this he was dispatched to found a station at Mabotsa, in what is now the western Transvaal. He had already made the acquaintance of the Moffats, and in 1844 he married their eldest daughter Mary, and with her led a somewhat 1 Probably from men who were in touch with Sebituane, the son of Mantatisi, who had become a great conqueror at the head of the Makololo tribe. See p. 236. Livingstone and Oswell 235 wandering life in the north and middle of the Transvaal, being thus brought into close contact with the Boers, who by this time had driven Mosilikatsi across the Limpopo, and were colonizing the Transvaal in increasing numbers. Livingstone, however, found the proceedings of the Boers towards the Bechuana people almost as objection- able as those of Mosilikatsi, and he resented most strongly their assumptions that the regions north of the Vaal and Orange Rivers were their exclusive domain, and that Englishmen were not to enter them. Livingstone, in fact, began the **Cape to Cairo" ideal, and proposed, in 1 84 1, to march overland to Abyssinia as soon as he had acquired the Sechuana language. After his marriage Livingstone built with his own hands a large strong house at Mabotsa, but could not get on well with a missionary colleague named Edwards, who had been appointed to reside with him, but who proved to have a jealous and disagreeable disposition.^ The Livingstones therefore moved northwards to a place called Chonuane, the headquarters at that time of a well-known Bechuana chief, Sechele, of the Bakwena or ** Crocodile" tribe.2 From Chonuane, Livingstone travelled to the Kashane or **Magalies" Mountains of the central Trans- vaal, but the country here was too disturbed at that time for the establishment of a mission station. He therefore returned to his residence at Sechele's country, amongst the Bakwena, but established himself still farther to the north on the River Kolobeii, in order to get into a region with a better supply of rain, where the Bechuana could be taught agriculture more effectively. Sechele was under 1 Yet Edwards and his wife proved afterwards noteworthy pioneers, and were written of in high terms by James Chapman and other explorers. ' i.e. with the crocodile as their totem or fetish. 236 Pioneers in South Africa obligations to another Bechuana chief, Sebituane — the son of Mantatisi, at the head of the Makololo tribe. This fact may be said to have opened to Livingstone the explora- tion of south-central Africa, for Sebituane was destined to be a great conqueror and to establish the Makololo Basuto in control of the Upper Zambezi. [Sebituane was a young Suto chief belonging to the wild tribes of the Ba-tloka who followed the chieftainess Mantatisi. When the Mantatisi horde met with its great defeats by the Grikwa and the Baiiwaketsi, it split into two portions. Sebituane led one lot to the north, past the Ngami region to Barotseland, and Mantatisi herself returned south once more to Basutoland.] Sechele of the Bakwena made a fast friendship with Livingstone. He was so anxious to learn to read that he acquired a knowledge of the alphabet in one day, and com- pletely abandoned his favourite pastime of hunting to learn all that he could from Livingstone, Mrs. Livingstone, and the English visitors to the station. Amongst these was the celebrated traveller, William Cotton Oswell (see page 242), who during his first stay at Kolobeii taught Sechele the elementary rules of arithmetic. In consequence of his rather sedentary life Sechele became too corpulent, but his subsequent journeys with Livingstone, either to Cape Town or far north to Ngami, once more restored him to good condition. Before he conceived this passion for learning and this enthusiasm for Christianity he had been an equally en- thusiastic hunter of big game. Livingstone had the good luck to see this part of Bechuanaland whilst it still swarmed to an almost incredible degree with wild beasts, and he has left for us a vivid description of the way in which Sechele's people drove the zebras and antelopes of the district into Livingstone and Oswell 237 the hopo trap for the purpose of obtaining meat at the time when their cattle and crops were dying from one of the frequently recurring droughts. **The hopo consisted of two hedges in the form of the letter V, which were very high and thick near the angle. They did not, however, actually join at this point, but were extended parallel along a narrow lane, at the ex- tremity of which a pit was formed 6 or 7 feet deep and about 12 or 15 feet in breadth and length. The trunks of trees were laid across the margins of the excavation, and more especially over the brink nearest to the end of the lane where the animals were expected to leap in. Tree trunks formed an overlapping border, and rendered escape impossible. The fragile surface was carefully strewn with short green rushes and grass and twigs, so as completely to conceal the pitfall. As the hedges were about i mile long, and nearly that distance apart at their extremities, a tribe making a circuit 3 or 4 miles round the country adjacent to the opening, and gradually closing up, were almost sure to encircle a large body of game. Driving the animals with shouts to the narrow part of the hopOy the men who were secreted there would throw their assegais into the affrighted herds, while the poor beasts rushed on and into the opening presented at the con- verging hedges, and, unable to stop their impetus, would smash through the frail covering of boughs and grass and collapse into the pit, until that excavation was full to the brim with a fighting, struggling, suffocating mass of antelopes, buffaloes, and zebras. Then the natives would close in and spear the animals at their leisure. In this way between sixty and seventy head of large game were often killed at the different hopos in a single week." 238 Pioneers in South Africa About this time the writings of George Thompson,^ Sir James Alexander, Sir Andrew Smith, Robert Moffat, and other missionaries had revealed to the world the mar- vellous zoological gardens of inner South Africa. In those days, and until long afterwards, the Cape of Good Hope was the halfway house between England and India. The climate of the Cape was exceedingly healthy, and parti- cularly well suited to restoring strength and vigour to those who had suffered from one or other of the numerous germ diseases of India. It was frequently the custom of Indian officers and officials to stop for a month or so at the Cape of Good Hope on their way back to England. Most of them confined their journeys to the settled parts of Cape Colony, where they could still get quite sufficient shooting to please the ordinary man. But such as were enthusi- astic sportsmen began to find their way up-country past Grikwaland and the more settled regions into Bechuana- land and the Transvaal. In this last-named region English hunters were not always welcomed by the jealous Boers, who were already suspicious of English intentions, and desirous of retaining all the country they could ride over for themselves and their descendants. They were already beginning to view with great disfavour missionaries like Livingstone and Moffat, who put ideas into the natives* heads of independence, civilization, and fair treatment. After 1855, however, this hostile attitude of the independent Dutch colonists died away. Perhaps the first in the list — as regards priority of 1 George Thompson travelled between Cape Town and Kuruman to the borders of Kafirland (as did also Dr. — afterwards Sir Andrew— Smith). Thompson came out to the Cape about 181 8, and in 1823 was with Moffat in southern Bechuanaland assist- ing him to repel the Mantatisi invasion. Thompson's book, in two volumes — Travels and Adventures in Southern Africa — contains many thrilling lion stories, and gives the first truthful pictures of the quagga, kudu, gnu, hunting-dog, hippopotamus, and aardvark that were published. Livingstone and Oswell 239 appearance — among the great English sportsmen pioneers was Captain (afterwards Sir) William Cornwallis Harris, an officer of the Indian army, who, fired by the accounts given to him by missionaries and officials whom he met at Cape Town, undertook, with a companion of the Indian Civil Service, a journey into central South Africa in quest of big game. They started from Port Elizabeth in the summer of 1836, and made their way to Moffat's station at Kuruman, passing, before they crossed the Orange River, large troops of white-tailed gnus and un- countable myriads of springboks. This beautiful creature, the only representative of the gazelle group in Africa, south of the eastern Equatorial regions, was sometimes driven beyond the Orange and the Vaal Rivers by droughts and scarcity of vegetation in the interior, and its ravages then were almost like those of locusts. Harris saw the plains south of the Orange River ** literally white" with springboks (white being a very prominent feature in the colours of this antelope, especially on the hind quarters). North of Kuruman, Harris found the troops of springbok varied with many ostriches and giraffes, with elands, bush- buck, the real quagga, the gemsbok oryx, the white-faced blesbok (**in vast herds"), the handsome Cape harte- beest (strikingly coloured in black, white, orange red, and cream), and the blue or brindled gnu, the warthog, and the bush pig. Farther north, and nearing the Transvaal border, the quaggas gave place to the southern Burchell's zebra, and in addition to the hartebeests were seen their beautiful satiny-skinned, mauve-tinted ally, the tsesebe or sassaby, near relation of the blesboks and bonteboks of Cape Colony and southern Bechuanaland. As they entered the more forested regions of the Transvaal (at that time Mosilikatsi's country) the zebras and antelopes 240 Pioneers in South Africa moved in such swarms over the plains that Harris and his companion on horseback were almost carried away with the mass; and their rifle bullets — for they shot and shot with that lust of slaughtering beautiful or wonderful crea- tures which is so characteristic of Englishmen, the most pitiless hunters the world has ever known — left the plains strewn with the dead or dying bodies of gnus, zebras, tsesebes, roan antelopes, waterbuck, hartebeests, mpala, reedbuck, springboks, warthog, lions (these carnivores were inextricably mixed up with the moving herds), jackals, wild dogs, leopards, chitas, and hyenas. Harris noted the tree habitations of the Bakona which had so impressed Moffat, and further observed the enor- mous ** colony nests", containing 300 or 400 birds, of the Sociable Weaver-bird {Philceterus socius)^ which were built in the tall *^ giraffe" acacias, amid the delicate pinnate foliage, the white thorns, and the brilliant yellow tufts of small sweet-scented blossoms. Farther to the east the giraffe became plentiful, and enormous herds of quagga were seen — mostly progressing, like wild duck, in single file. The ** black" rhinoceros exhibited himself daily in ** numbers almost exceeding belief", and the ** white" rhinoceros was then quite common (twenty or more together, it might be), and sometimes, in its irritability, attacked their caravan. The rivers, and even quite small streams, were full of enormous crocodiles, to cover which there seemed in places scarcely enough water. These rep- tiles — said to have been as much as 16 to 17 feet long — evidently lived mainly on the mammals of the district, capturing them when they approached a watering place to drink. The crocodiles, however, would not hesitate to leave the rivers at night and wander in search of prey over the flats. They actually found their way into Harris's Livingstone and Oswell 241 camp and ate all the leather of the wagons and all the boots they could reach, and would certainly have devoured the men could they have got at them. At this period the Limpopo so swarmed with crocodiles that it was known as the ^* Crocodile River" on the maps. The Limpopo, Vaal, and Orange River contained numbers of exceptionally large hippopotami (we can judge of their size by the skulls sent home). Deep pits for catch- ing the rhinoceroses as well as large numbers of smaller beasts had been dug by the natives everywhere near the Limpopo, each pit being excavated at the end of a narrow path between fences of thorn bushes. Harris thought that the natives' idea in making these **hopos" was to rid the country of the extraordinary superfluity of wild beasts, quite as much as to procure food for themselves. He found some of the great pits half-full of whitened skeletons of fifty or more beasts of different kinds, which had evi- dently been left there to rot and be feasted on by the vultures and hyenas. The valley of the Limpopo swarmed with buffalo, as will afterwards be described in connection with Oswell's adventures. In the centre of the Transvaal, about the region where Pretoria and other big towns exist, elephants were met with in such numbers, sometimes, that the ^* whole face of the landscape was literally covered with them ". Or they were seen — a hundred or so at a time — moving slowly and majestically through the forests, each elephant carrying in its trunk a fly whisk — a leafy branch broken off from the trees or shrubs. In the Magalies Mountains the elephants were observed climbing with the agility of goats to the topmost summits, where from time to time they stood out like great statues of basalt against the blue sky. It was in the centre of the Transvaal that Harris made (0587) 1« 242 Pioneers in South Africa that discovery of the most beautiful of all the antelopes which has made his pioneering journey specially famous. This was the Sable or Harrisbuck {Hippotragus niger). The male sable is the size of a red-deer stag, and is coloured black and white — jet black above and snowy white below, with vivid white markings on the face. Its superb horns rise from just above the eyes, and sweep backwards in a bold curve.^ Harris left South Africa in 1838, after penetrating to the northern verge of Zululand — he enjoyed to a great extent the protection of Mosilikatsi. In 1841 he set out to explore the south of Abyssinia, for which service he was knighted. Another great traveller sportsman was William Cotton OswELL, the son of a merchant residing in Essex, who had made a small fortune in the Russian trade. Oswell, when a youth, had obtained an appointment in the Indian Civil Service, becoming, like so many other Englishmen in India, an enthusiastic hunter of big game. Having con- tracted a very severe illness in India, he was sent to the Cape of Good Hope to recover his health. He reached Kuruman in June, 1845, in company with an Indian friend, MuNGO Murray, and stayed for a time at Kuruman as the guest of **that grand old patriarch of missionaries, Mr. Moffat". **He and Mrs. Moffat are verily the two best friends travellers ever came across. I shall never forget their affectionate courtesy, their beautifully ordered household, and their earnest desire to help us on in every way. Moffat urged us to go straight on to Mabotsa — 220 miles or so to the northward." iThe Sable Antelope is only found in the eastern half of southern Africa, except in the Zambezi regions, wherein it extends as far west as the vicinity of the Kunene River. In East Africa its range reaches northward to Unyaniwezi and opposite Zanzibar, and, in a different sub-species, north of that again to the Mombasa hinter- land. Livingstone and Oswell 243 The third day after leaving Kuruman they stayed at Motito, a station of the French evangelical missionaries. *'You here first begin to meet with the mimosa tree (acacia, he should have written) in abundance, and the most uninteresting of all scenery — the open plain — is in places converted by its verdure into most picturesque and park- like country." Livingstone he described as "the best, the most intelli- gent, and the most modest of the missionaries ". Just after they reached his station of Koloben they saw in the vicinity an episode which Oswell justly described as creditable to Negro womanhood. The women, as was their custom, were working in the fields, and a young man standing at the edge of the bush was chatting with them. A lioness sprang on him, and was carrying him off, when one of the women seized her from behind, and was dragged for some little distance. Hampered by the man in her mouth and the woman behind her, the lioness slackened her pace, whereupon the Mokatla^ woman jumped on to her back, and, straddling across it, hit her over the nose and head with a heavy short-handled hoe, till the lioness dropped her prey and slunk into cover. The man was the woman's husbaad! On this journey, amongst the negroes engaged at the coast was one who was a "cool, tall, handsome lad", born of slave parents, of the Cape of Good Hope (possibly from Mo9ambique). When out after a lion in the Banwa- ketsi country Oswell took note of this negro youth as one of his gunbearers, and realized from his manner that here was the stuff to make a henchman of. * * From that day forth he was my right-hand man in the field, and never failed me — a grand specimen of manhood, good- ^The Ba-katla were another Bechuana tribe of the " Baboon " clan. Katla = baboon. 244 Pioneers in South Africa natured, faithful, and cheerful in endurance. I never met his equal, black or white. Plucky to a fault, he was the least quarrelsome of men." This man, who was named John Thomas, lived long afterwards in Oswell's service, and finally became a butler in an English family. It is not out of place mentioning his name in this record, be- cause such faithful servants as these of the Negro race have played a far greater part in the success of African explorations and pioneering work than is often understood by writers who describe the history of the opening up of Africa. On this journey Oswell and his companion Murray reached as far as the Limpopo River. In the following year (1846) Oswell joined forces with another Indian officer, Captain Frank Vardon, and the two made their way together to the Marikwa affluent of the Limpopo. Vardon is described in Oswell's letters as the boldest and bravest-hearted of men, the most trustworthy of mates, a perfect sportsman, and a crack shot. After him Living- stone subsequently named the pretty Puku antelope the Cohus vardoni, a small waterbuck of central Zambezia. When the two sportsmen reached the Marikwa the buffaloes were in immense herds. One bright moonlight night they beheld the forest by the river bank one mass of struggling buffaloes jammed together as in the pictures of American bison which Oswell had seen in books de- scribing the Far West. They were there in thousands, and the two travellers in the moonlight rode alongside this jostling herd for a considerable distance, **horn and hoof rattling one against the other", the outside ones startled by the shots from the rifles, but the great mass of these beasts too much concerned with their own struggle for place to notice the existence of man. Elephants, too, were in such Livingstone and Oswell 245 large numbers that the sportsmen halted for ten days, and shot every day, whilst the ivory was gradually piled up under the wagons. At this juncture they were visited by some of the Boer pioneers, who were travelling north from the headquarters of their great leader, Pretorius, then settled on the Magaliesberg. The Boers were astounded at the good luck and the skill of Oswell, and not a little jealous. They dreaded lest he or any brother sportsman should furnish the natives with guns and ammunition, which might be used to resist the Boer advance. Oswell and Vardon, however, at this juncture first made the acquaintance of the terrible tsetse fly and the effects of its bite on cattle and horses. *' The poison intro- duced by the proboscis", he writes, **is zymotic" — not altogether a bad guess for those days of the distant 'forties ; but, as we learned sixty years afterwards, what the tsetse fly really introduces is not a ferment but the germ of a minute organism, a trypanosome, which afterwards multi- plies in the veins of the beast punctured by the tsetse, and sets up a disease which causes its death. This disease is usually called nagana in South Africa. It is not com- municable to man, but the tsetse of one or another species can introduce a similar disease — sleeping sickness — equally deadly, into the human veins. Maladies closely akin to nagana devastate humanity in many lands. On the banks of the Mokolwe tributary of the Limpopo Oswell met with what he believed to be a special variety of the white rhinoceros, known as the Kebaba, because its front horn, instead of being curved backwards from the line of the nose, was bent forward in exactly the opposite direction, so that, if the animal's head was held low, the point would touch the ground before the muzzle did. But this downward-curved front horn was met with in many types 246 Pioneers in South Africa of white rhinoceros in South Africa, in Zambezia (where the creature is now extinct), and in Equatorial Africa. The white rhinoceros was at first considered to be a timid animal, not given to the fits of fury that are so characteristic of its smaller relation, the black two-horned rhinoceros. But Oswell afterwards had a very disagreeable experience which caused him to take a different view, though more likely than not it really referred after all to the darker-coloured, smaller form. He was returning to camp one evening on a much beloved horse named Stael, the fastest, the most sweet-tempered and fearless that he had ever ridden in Africa — a horse that would without whip or spur carry him right up to a lion and stand perfectly motionless within a few feet whilst his master fired at the ferocious charging beast — when he saw a large rhinoceros and fired both barrels of his gun at it. Instead of falling to this discharge, or turning round and bolting away into the bushes, it began to walk towards the horse and rider. Oswell turned his horse round and attempted to ride away, but found himself confronted by a thick bush, and before he could make off in some other direction the rhinoceros drove its long front horn^ right through the horse's body, so that the tip actually pierced through the saddle. Both horse and rider were flung into the air, and as Oswell fell he was partially scalped by the stirrup iron. As he scrambled to his knees he actually saw the rhinoceros insert its horn within the bend of his leg. With great agility he leapt away, then tripped and fell to the ground, while the rhinoceros passed in a rush close by, but without hurting him. At this moment there came up his negro after-rider with another gun. Oswell pulled * Some of those obtained or measured by Oswell were nearly 5 feet long. Livingstone and Oswell 247 in his horse, mounted it, and though the blood was stream- ing down his face and a piece of his scalp hanging over his eyes, he dashed the latter back into position with his hand, held the gun to his shoulder, and shot the rhinoceros dead. Then, after a brief pause to collect his senses, he rode back to his dying horse, with whom (as he wrote in his letters) he had talked affectionately only that morning, promising him when the hunting was over that he should have a happy time and grow fat on good pasture. *' I had played with him and he with me. It was with a very sore heart that I put a bullet through his head, then took the saddle from his back, and started wagonwards, walking half the distance, lo miles, and making my after-rider do likewise." Scarcely had he recovered from this accident when on his return journey towards Cape Colony he was chased on foot by a female rhinoceros. As its snout was lowered to toss him into the air, he rested his gun on the broad nose and fired both barrels into the brain. Nevertheless he was tossed high into the air and fell to the ground un- conscious, to find three hours afterwards that his thigh was ripped up to the bone. He actually had to lie, near where he fell in the bush, for four weeks whilst the gash slowly healed, his servants covering it incessantly with wet rags. Another year's service in India followed, but the call of Africa was too strong, especially the letters he received from South Africa making mention of Bechuana stories of big lakes and running waters in the far interior. He gave up all idea of further work in India and returned once more to the Cape of Good Hope at the end of 1848. Accompanied by another Anglo-Indian, his friend Mungo Murray, he rejoined the Livingstones at Kolobeii in the spring of 1849. 248 Pioneers in South Africa The exact position of Lake Ngami had during the first half of the nineteenth century been correctly pointed out by the natives who had visited it when rains were copious in the Kalahari Desert. Livingstone communicated his great desire to find this lake, by going round the Kalahari rather than across it, to Colonel (Sir) Thomas Steele, formerly an African sportsman - traveller, who had gone out to Madras, and Colonel Steele imparted this in- formation to William Cotton Oswell amongst others. In the meantime Livingstone had arranged with Sechele, the Bakwena chief, that if he would furnish and pay for guides to show the way to Lake Ngami, the missionary wagon should be used on the return journey to bring back to Sechele the ivory which would be bought from the Ngami people, who had that commodity in abundance. The Kalahari — perhaps more correctly called in native speech the **Karikari" or ** fierce, sharp" — region was a vast wilderness without tall trees or hills, which stretched between the western parts of Bechuanaland and the moun- tains of Namakwa and Damaraland. But though quite without flowing rivers it had stagnant rainwater in holes and under the surface, and at certain times of the year it was covered with several kinds of juicy wild melons. The best of these was a small scarlet-coloured gourd about 4 inches long and ij inches in diameter. Some specimens were bitter, others quite sweet. There was also another plant named Leroshua, which was a blessing to the semi- nomad Bechuana clans known as the Ba-kalahari. This had linear leaves and a stalk no thicker than a quill, but on digging down a foot or more beneath the surface its stem was found to broaden out into a great turnip-like tuber as large as the head of a young child, and filled with a cool and refreshing liquid. Another plant, named A WATER HOLE IN THE KALAHARI DESERT SELLING WATER MELONS IN THE KALAHARI DESERT Livingstone and Oswell 249 Mokuri^ a herbaceous creeper, developed, over a circular space of ground, tubers as large as a man's head, which grew out horizontally from the underground stem. The natives would strike the ground on the circumference of the plant with stones, and by hearing a difference of sound they know the water-bearing tuber to be present. They then dug down a foot or so and found it. But the chief water-supplying plant of the desert was the Kenwe or water-melon {Cucumis coffer). This for its juicy pulp was devoured not only by man but by elephants, rhino- ceroses, antelopes, lions, hyenas, jackals, and mice. Yet not each one of these fruits was edible; some were very bitter, though they might grow from the same plant that produced other gourds of delicious taste. The mammals most commonly frequenting the Kala- hari Desert were relatively independent of water and could ordinarily be content with such moisture as they obtained from the vegetation. Of such were the gemsbok or South African oryx, the eland, kudu, the little steinbok and duiker, the springbok, and the porcupine. The ostrich was also abundant, but ostriches, kudus, elands, and springbok were obliged at intervals to travel great dis- tances for a drink. Livingstone noted, however, that whenever the spoor of a rhinoceros, buffalo, zebra, mpala, or gnu was encountered, the traveller could be pretty sure by following it up that he would reach water before he had travelled any very great distance, as these creatures were of a thirstier nature than the others mentioned. The Kalahari Desert swarmed with mice and other small rodents, and consequently nourished large numbers of buzzards, hawks, eagles, and snakes, which fed on the mice. The human inhabitants of this desolate region, besides 250 Pioneers In South Africa families of Bushmen, consisted of the outcast, semi-nomad Ba-kalahari, who spoke a dialect of the Bechuana tongue, and consequently belonged to the Bantu group. They sometimes presented physical resemblances to the Bush- man due to early intermixture, but in the main they were the descendants of the first Bechuana immigrants into central South Africa. They had originally brought with them from the north enormous herds of large, long-horned cattle, similar to the oxen originally possessed by the Damara and to those which are found at the north end of Tanganyika, in Madagascar, Uganda, Galaland, and eastern Nigeria. But the other Bechuana clans who followed in their footsteps robbed them of all this cattle, some of which, however, remained down to Livingstone's day in the vicinity of Lake Ngami. Apparently this breed in course of time died out amongst the southern Bechuana, who found it more convenient to keep goats, and thus acquired in the vocabulary of the Hottentots the name of **Birikwa" or the ^^goat-keeping people". The Ba- kalahari derived their chief sustenance from hunting, though they still retained a love of agriculture and domestic animals, and maintained gardens of melons and pumpkins. In the way of trade and industry they devoted themselves chiefly to the killing of cats, foxes, jackals, lions, leopards, panthers, hyenas, and small antelopes, and making up their well-dressed skins into karosses. When the Ba-kalahari wished to draw water up from the wet sand below the surface of the soil, they acted as follows. Their water vessels consisted of empty ostrich egg shells, each with a small hole at the top as large as a finger tip. The women would tie a bunch of grass to one end of a reed about 2 feet long, and insert it in a Livingstone and Oswell 251 hole dug also to a depth of about 2 feet, ramming the wet sand tightly round it; then, applying the mouth to the top of the hollow reed, they would suck out the air and form a vacuum in the grass beneath, which, like a sponge, had already been soaked with water. The water in this way would rise up the hollow reed into the mouth of the woman sucker, into which again would be inserted a straw which hung down and entered the egg shell placed just below the woman's chin. As she sucked, the water ran out of the corner of her mouth down the straw into the egg shell. The egg shells full of water were then stoppered and carefully buried for future use. *'We should have liked to have quenched our thirst (at a Bushman water-hole), but the water was dyed red with the blood of their gums, so strenuous had been their efforts at sucking it up." Before starting with his family and a trader acquain- tance from Cape Town (J. H. Wilson) in search of Lake Ngami, Livingstone fastened to the wheel of each wagon an instrument which recorded the number of revolutions made. Multiplying the number recorded by the measure- ment of the circumference of the wheel, the actual distance traversed was at once ascertained. By this species of dead reckoning he became remarkably accurate in his computa- tion of distances, before the time when he possessed the necessary instruments for taking latitudes and longitudes. The missionary party left Koloben in May, 1849, and joined Oswell and Murray at Shokuane. Whilst journey- ing through northern Bechuanaland they suffered much from scarcity of meat. This was felt more especially by the Livingstone children, and the natives, to show their sympathy, often gave them a large kind of caterpillar which the children ate with relish, and which the Bechuana 252 Pioneers in South Africa themselves devoured in large quantities. Then there were locusts, ** quite a blessing to the country; so much so that the rain doctors sometimes promised to bring them with their incantations". Livingstone and Oswell tried the locusts and found them to be strongly vegetable in taste, the flavour varying with the plants on which they fed. Roasted and pounded into a meal and eaten with honey they were excellent, but if boiled, distinctly nasty. Another item in the native dietary which was very palatable to the Livingstone children was a very large frog, called matlametlo,^ This frog was 5 J inches long and 4J inches broad. The width of the head on the top was as much as 3 inches, and the hind legs, apart from the body, were 6 inches long. When cooked its flesh looked like that of a chicken. After a heavy thunder- shower the pools of water suddenly formed became in- stantly alive with these loud-croaking frogs, and that in a place where to an ordinary observer the dry desert was without a sign of life. The matlametlo would make a hole at the root of certain bushes and hide himself there as long as the drought lasted. Across the opening to his burrow a big spider would make its web, which was a great protection to the frog from the penetrating search of the hungry Bushmen. Directly the rain fell and the hollows filled, the large frogs would rush from their burrows and plunge into the water so quickly that the natives believed that they fell from the clouds. The north-eastern part of the Kalahari Desert was a country of heavy sand, with scattered thorn bushes and clumps of tall acacia trees (^'Sand distressingly heavy and sun fiery hot." — Oswell), At times the party were made anxious about the poor thirsty cattle which tugged the * Pyxicephalus adspersus. Livingstone and Oswell 253 heavy wagons across this loose soil. Every now and then two days would pass before they could get water, even by digging holes in the sand, and then these exca- vations only produced a pint in an hour by slow filtration, so that, though there might be just enough for the needs of the humans, there was no water to give to the cattle. But at last it was evident that they were gradually de- scending to a lower level from the Kalahari plateau. * ' We proceeded down the dry bed of a river called Mokoko. We had now the assurance from our guide that we should suffer no more from thirst. Twice we found rainwater in the Mokoko before we reached Mokoko Nyani, where the water generally below ground elsewhere, comes to the surface, in a bed of tufa. Three miles farther down we met with the first Palmyra trees (Borassus)^ which we have seen in South Africa, twenty-six in number." They were here, as Livingstone guessed, in the bed of a vast lake of ancient times, of which Ngami is only a small remaining pool. But at this point their guide was at a loss as to which direction to take. Oswell, whilst riding in front of the wagon, happened to spy a Bush- woman running away in a bent position in order to escape observation. Thinking it was a lion, he galloped up to her, when the poor thing surrendered and began hurriedly to give up her poor little property, which con- sisted of traps made of cords for catching small beasts. She was brought back to the camp, and Livingstone 1 The Borassus palms, at any rate in south Central Africa, bear orange-sized nuts containing a milky fluid like that of the coconut. Explorers (writes Chapman) fre- quently drank this. The brown, fibrous rind tasted like sweetish gingerbread, and was much liked by elephants. The Borassus has a tall, white, smooth trunk; the Hyphaene Fan palm, on the other hand, is not so tall, and the trunk is often hidden by the black, radiating stalks of the crushed, withered fronds. Chapman also alludes to the Hyphaene palms "with their black trunks, radiating crowns, and curved leaves high up in the sky". 254 Pioneers in South Africa explained that all they wanted was water. The Bush- woman then consented to conduct them to a spring, walking briskly before their horses for 8 miles. As a reward they gave her a large piece of meat and a big bunch of beads, so that she burst into a merry laugh and remained with them for a little while longer. She led them past a thick belt of mopane trees to a great salt pan, Lake Kumadau or Chapo, one of a number of similar vestiges of the dried-up freshwater sea of central South Africa. When the pan first burst upon their view, the setting sun was casting a beautiful blue haze over the white incrustations, making the whole look exactly like a lake. Oswell threw his hat up in the air at the sight, and shouted a hurrah which made the poor Bushwoman and the Bechuana men think he was mad. Livingstone was just behind him and quite as much taken in by the wonderful mirage, which presented them with an unreal picture of dancing waves, and trees reflected in the water, while a distant herd of zebras were magni- fied to the size of elephants. Even the horses, dogs, oxen, and Hottentot followers of the party believed they gazed on a vast lake and ran towards the deceitful mirage, which suddenly broke up (no doubt under the influence of a rising breeze) and revealed the flat surface of the dry pan. Yet westwards there rose columns of black smoke to the very clouds, and these, the guide said, were due to the burning of the reeds by the natives along ^*the great water". A few days afterwards, on 4 July, 1849, the party came to the veritable running water of the Zouga or Botletle River, which flowed north-eastwards and bore the same name in the speech of the natives as Lake Ngami, out of which it flowed, to lose itselt eventually in the salt Livingstone and Oswell 255 pans and swamps of the Ntwetsi and Makarikari country. To reach Ngami they had only to follow this river up- stream in a westerly direction for about 280 miles, meet- ing- with no difficulties except the hidden pitfalls for catching game. "The scenery generally along the River Zouga (the outlet of Ngami) was magnificent. Trees of great size, rich in foliage, fringed it on either side; now it is shut in between high steep banks, and runs black and deep; now it opens up into a broader and shallower bed dotted with banks and islands. Its vegetation is distinct from that of the country from which we came; palms, flower- ing trees something like lilacs, and a species of the Ftcus indica (Banyan tree) were abundant; in places that giant the mowana or baobab was found. Of this tree I have spoken to you before, but those seen this year exceeded our old friends in size; the largest measured was upwards of 75 feet in circumference at 4 feet from the ground !"i (Oswell.) As they approached Ngami they noticed tribes new to them in speech, which lived under the rule of the Bechuana clans of the Bahurutsi and the Batowana.^ These were the Batletle, whose language had a click borrowed from the Bushmen, and the Bayeye or Bakoba, whose speech iThe Baobab [Adansonia) so often referred to in these pages is found nearly throughout Tropical Africa, except in the densely forested regions, or the absolute desert. It is really a member of the Mallow order, which includes the cotton plant and the splendid Bombax trees of America and West Africa. The large, white, many- stamened flowers of the Baobab hang from long pendulous stalks, and the fruits are like huge gourds. The tree is illustrated in colour in my work on the Pioneers in West Africa. ^The Batowana may be the clan whose misheard name gave rise among the Boer pioneers at the end of the eighteenth century to the general term for all this section of the South African Bantu — the "Bechuana" (derived from the Dutch, Beetjuaan). " Bechuana" is not a recognized native term, but is supposed to be a corrupt form of Ba-taowana, which means the "Little Lion people". The Batowana were sometimes called by their neighbours the " Baroa" or Bushmen. 256 Pioneers in South Africa seems to have been more related to that of the Subia people of the Upper Zambezi. These last were mostly water people living in their rude dug-out canoes, on the prow of which, in a receptacle of clay, a fire was always burning. They preferred sleeping in the canoes to spending a night on shore, where they were exposed to risks from lions, hyenas, snakes, and human enemies. Whilst ascending the Zouga with its beautiful wooded banks, the travellers came to its confluence with the large stream flowing into it from the north. This was the River Tamunakle or Tamalukane. Livingstone enquired whence it came, the reply being: '^ From a country full of rivers — so many that no one can tell their number; and a country full of large trees ". This was the first confirmation he had of the native stories that had been already transmitted to England, to the effect that the interior of south-central Africa was not the large sandy plateau suggested by English armchair geographers, but a well-watered region of abundant vegetation. The members of this memorable expedition — William Cotton Oswell, Mungo Murray, David Livingstone, his wife and three of their children, and a trader, J. H. Wilson, reached the north-east end of Lake Ngami^ on I August, 1849. *'None", wrote Oswell, *'save those who have suffered from the want, know the beauty of water. A magnificent sheet (Lake Ngami) without bounds that we could see, gladdened our eyes." Animal life — which had in the desert been confined to one or two of the ante- lope tribe that do not require water, and to Bushmen, who, inserting a reed 3 or 4 feet below the surface, suck it up — ^ The name is really pronounced Nami, and is said to be derived from a Makoba or a Bushman word, Nabe, meaning "giraffe" — "because the waters when the iake was full and stormy rocked to and fro like a giraffe" (James Chapman). It is also called Noga. Livingstone and Oswell 257 was greatly increased here and there along the river. A new nation, the Makoba or Bakuba,^ speaking a language totally distinct from that of the Bechuana, inhabited the islands, moving across the water in their canoes, and living principally on fish, and beasts taken in the pitfalls which lined the banks of the stream. Among the great game the elephant and buffalo were the most numerous, the latter roaming in immense herds, and every accessible drinking- place in the river being trampled with the spoor of the former. Lake Ngami (since more than half dried up and much shrunk in its dimensions) was found to be a shallow piece of open water about 75 miles in circumference. Living- stone, however, promptly realized that the extent of the lake as he then saw it, was more an accident of the rainy season. He also appreciated the fact from his barometric observations that they had descended 2000 feet in coming from Kolobeii on the high Bechuana plateau. Lake Ngami, in fact, was nothing but the remains of a huge shallow expanse of fresh or brackish water, which was originally formed by the junction of the Okavango, the ^ These Bakuba or Bayeye seem to have been related to the tribe of Baviko (who are also known as the Bakuba), whose country, with Libebe as its capital, lay in about 18° S. lat., some distance west of the Upper Zambezi. According to native tradi- tions, the ' ' Makoba ", Bakuba, or Bayeye people emigrated a hundred years ago or more from the Okavango and Kwito Rivers, 200 miles farther south, to the shores and islands of Lake Ngami. They numbered in the middle of the nineteenth century about 200,000 souls, and dwelt along the banks of the Botletle, the Tamalukane, the Teoge, and the other network of streams and lakes between Ngami and the Chobe. They had many peculiar customs. Their manner of greeting appeared highly ridiculous to Europeans. For instance, a man meeting his father-in-law after an absence, took a mouthful of water, and running up to him, spat it all in his face; then, grasping his hands, kissed them most rapturously. At other times, when friends had long been absent, on meeting they would rush at each other and wrestle, to see which of the two was superior in strength since they last met. After the trial the stronger expected respect from the weaker. In the many trials and troubles of this changing region — drought, famine, and Hottentot, Bechuana, and Matebele raids — the Bayeye have almost died out. (C587) 17 258 Pioneers in South Africa Upper Zambezi, and even the Upper Kunene, before the Zambezi had forced a way through the hills of the Butonga country and had effected a junction with the Kafue, which carried its waters no longer into a central depression in the heart of South Africa, but into the Indian Ocean. Ngami, the Zouga or Botletle, the Tamu- nakle or Mashale, the Teoge or Moremi, and the Ntwetsi and Makari-kari salt pans at the present day are only a vast backwater receiving the overflow of waters in the rainy season which is too great to be carried off at once by the Chobe into the Zambezi system. Livingstone's principal object in reaching this lake was to make his way by one of the northern watercourses to the residence of the great chief of the Makololo tribe of the Bechuana, Sebituane. But it was realized that without a boat of some description further progress was impossible. So the party resolved to return to Kolobeii, whilst Oswell would proceed to Cape Town and bring back with him a boat, which would serve to carry them across the broader rivers or lakes. The travellers noticed on the return journey that the banks of the Zouga were very beautiful, perpendicular, and in high cliffs on the side to which the water swung, and sloping and grassy on the other, where the current was less strong. The trees on the banks were magnificent to the eyes of men long accustomed to the dreary low scrub of the Bechuana plateau. There were enormous baobabs, borassus palms, the mokuchoii {Napaca), with its pleasant fruit and its handsome foliage, parinariums of dark ever- green foliage — cypress-like in shape and bearing pink plums with an acid juice — and tall acacias with light-green trunks and branches. Wild indigo abounded amongst the bushes, and was used by the natives to dye their Livingstone and Oswell 259 straw ornaments. But the caravan had to proceed with great caution owing to the numerous pitfalls for catching big game which were dug in the more open country away from the trees on the river bank. Elephants were in prodigious numbers, coming down at nighttime to slake their thirst and pour water over their heated bodies, ** screaming with delight whilst enjoying the refreshment".^ Great shoals of fish entered the lake and the Zouga annually with the floods of the rainy season. There were said to be no less than ten different kinds, nearly all good to eat, at any rate in the opinion of the natives, though the huge fat Mosala or siluroid cat-fish would probably be distasteful to Europeans. A species of harmless snake, feeding on fish, frequented the waters of the lake, which also contained many otters of two species, large and small. These were respectively yellow-spotted and dark brown. They pursued the fish, but were them- selves pursued by the natives, who ate them with zest. The shores of the lake where it was not swampy and the banks of the adjacent rivers were very dangerous in those days on account of the native pitfalls for catching big game. ** The pitfalls of the Bay eye are about 7 or 8 feet deep, 3 or 4 feet wide at the mouth, and gradually decrease till they are only about i foot wide at the bottom. The mouth is an oblong square, and the long diameter at the surface is about equal to the depth. The decreasing width is intended to make the animal wedge himself more 1 Livingstone notes, in reference to the game of the Ngami basin, that the average height of elephants in the region about the Upper Limpopo River was 12 feet at the shoulder, in the Ngami district 11, but farther north in Central Africa only 9. The party also discovered on the Ngami banks an entirely new species of antelope, the beautiful Lechwe, a relation of the waterbuck, and the strange water-dwelling tra- gelaph, the Nakoft [Limnotragus selousi). 26o Pioneers in South Africa firmly in by his weight and struggles. The pitfalls are usually in pairs, with a wall i foot thick left uncut between the ends of each. So that if the beast, when it feels its fore legs descending, should try to save itself from going in altogether by striding the hind legs, he would spring forward and leap into the second with a force which ensures the fall of his whole body into the trap. They are covered with great care; all the excavated earth is removed to a distance, so as not to excite suspicion in the minds of the animals. Reeds and grass are laid across the top; above this the sand is thrown, and watered so as to appear exactly like the rest of the spot. Some of our party plumped into these pitfalls more than once, even when in search of them, in order to open them to prevent the loss of our cattle. If an ox sees a hole he carefully avoids it. And old elephants have been known to precede the herd and whisk off the coverings of the pitfalls on each side all the way down to the water. We have known instances in which the old among these sagacious animals have actually lifted the young out of the trap." Livingstone and his wife, without waiting for Oswell's return from the Cape, travelled once more from Koloben to the Zouga River with the idea of crossing it with the wagons where it was narrow, and proceeding straight away to the residence of Sebituane, 200 miles northwards. But this project was defeated by two unforeseen obstacles : the country along the north bank of the Zouga was incessantly beset with pitfalls dug by the Bayeye for catching the big game, and very obstructive to the oxen and wagons; and, worst of all, in the neighbourhood of the Tamunakle or Tamalukane River they came into contact with the tsetse fly. Hastily retreating south, they revisited Lake Ngami Livingstone and Oswell 261 because a party of English sportsmen^ had arrived there for elephant shooting, and Livingstone heard they were all down with fever. Amongst them was a young English artist, Alfred Ryder, who had come out to make drawings of the newly discovered lake, but who was dead before Livingstone could reach him. The others, nursed by Mrs. Livingstone and attended to by her doctor husband, recovered and went their way. The fever then began to attack Livingstone's children, and so, abandoning his plans of reaching Sebituane, he and his family returned southwards, where they encountered Oswell, hunting ele- phants on the Zouga.2 The next spring Oswell and the Livingstones made another journey together northwards, Sebituane in the meantime having bribed the Bamangwato chiefs in the intervening country to assist the white men by every means in their power, a recommendation only very slightly carried out because of the intense jealousy these chiefs felt of the white men reaching the Zambezi region and trading direct for its wealth in ivory — an obstacle often placed in the way of the European's exploration of Africa. How- ever, partly through Livingstone's skill in gun mending — there was scarcely anything, apparently, to which he could not turn his hands or his talents — they obtained a guide (afterwards most liberally rewarded by Oswell) who iThis party included noteworthy South African pioneers: William Webb of Newstead Abbey and Captains Codrington and Shelley. Webb became after- wards one of Livingstone's dearest friends. Shelley, on returning from the Ngami basin, lost his wagons and his way, and had to walk 400 miles alone and with only such food as he could get from the natives till he reached Kuruman ! 2 As early as 1850 the Governor of Cape Colony, Sir Harry Smith, was anxious that the Boers should not extend their authority or influence through the Transvaal west- ward to Lake Ngami, lest it should "seriously impede the progress of commerce and geographical research in Central Africa", and invoked Oswell's influence to persuade the native chiefs in that direction to enter into no treaties which would bring them under Boer control. This was one reason why Oswell returned to attempt once more the journey from Bechuanaland to the Zambezi. 262 Pioneers in South Africa would take them more or less direct to Sebituane; and they travelled in their wagons and with their horses over the watercourse-intersected plain of the ancient lake (led chiefly by a Bushman) till they reached the banks of the Chobe, doing all they could to cross the belts of tsetse- infested country at nighttime. The plains along both banks of the Chobe were dotted with little mounds on which grew borassus palms, wild date palms, bushes of wild cotton, and indigo. On the Chobe River they met the Makololo people of Sebituane, who led them to their chief. They found him on an island on the broad Chobe, engaged in a singing party when they arrived. He had travelled something like 200 miles to meet them. Oswell gives the following account of the meeting with Sebituane. ** Presently", he writes, **this really great chief and man came to meet us, shy and ill at ease. We held out our hands in the accustomed way of true Britons, and I was surprised to see that his mother wit gave him im- mediate insight into what was expected of him, and the friendly meaning of our salutation. Though he could never have witnessed it before, he at once followed suit, and placed his hand in ours as if to the manner born. I felt troubled at the evident nervousness of the famous warrior (for he had been, and still was, a mighty fighter with very remarkable force of character). Surrounded by his tribesmen he stood irresolute and quite overcome in the presence of two ordinary-looking Europeans. ** Sebituane was about forty-five years of age; of a tall and wiry form, an olive or coffee-and-milk colour, and slightly bald; in manner cool and collected, and more frank in his answers than any other chief I ever met. He was the greatest warrior ever heard of beyond the Livingstone and Oswell 263 colony, for, unlike Mosilikatsi, Dingana, and others, he always led his men into battle himself. When he saw the enemy he felt the edge of his battleaxe and said: *Aha! it is sharp, and whoever turns his back on the enemy will feel its edge'. So fleet of foot was he, that all his people knew there was no escape for the coward, as any such would be cut down without mercy. In some instances of skulking, he allowed the individual to return home; then calling him, he would say: *Ah, you prefer dying at home to dying in the field, do you? You shall have your desire.' This was the signal for his immediate execution." Livingstone entered at once into conversation with Sebituane; but throughout that day and the next a sad, half-scared look never faded from the chiefs face. He had wished the white men to visit him, but the reality of their coming, with all its possibilities and advantages, seemed to flit through his mind as a vision. He killed an ox for his guests and treated them royally. ^' He was far and away the finest Kafir I ever saw," wrote Oswell. ** The beloved of the Makololo, he was the fastest runner and the best fighter among them; just, though stern, with a wonderful power of attaching men to himself, he was a gentleman in thought and manner. He had allotted to us a bright clean kotla for eating and sleeping, and after supper we lay down on the grass which had been cut for our beds by the thoughtful attention of the Chief." In the dead of the night he paid the white men a visit alone, and sat down very quietly and mournfully at their fire. Livingstone and Oswell woke up and greeted him, and then he dreamily recounted the history of his life, his wars, escapes, successes, conquests, and far-distant wan- derings. By the fire's glow and flicker among the reeds 264 Pioneers in South Africa that tall, dark, earnest speaker in subdued manner and low voice discoursed through the livelong night till near the dawn, occasionally interrupted by an enquiry from Livingstone. He described how when he had left the Ngami region, and had arrived at the Zambezi River near the Victoria Falls, the whole Butonga country was then densely peopled. The Batonga had a curious taste for ornamenting their villages with the skulls of strangers, and when Sebituane appeared near the great falls an immense army collected to make trophies of the Makololo skulls. But instead of succeeding in this, they gave him a good excuse for conquering them. He captured so many cattle that his people were quite incapable of taking any note of the sheep and goats. He overran all the high lands towards the Kafue, and settled in a pastoral country of gently undulating plains, covered with short grass, and with but little forest. The Makololo never lost their love for this fine healthy region. But the Matebele Zulus, under Mosilikatsi, crossed the Zambezi; and, attacking Sebituane in this choice spot, captured his cattle and women. Rallying his men, he followed and recaptured the whole. A fresh attack was also repulsed, and Sebituane thought of going farther down the Zambezi to the country of the white men. He had an idea that if he could only get cannon he might live in peace. This was why he had been so eager to open up communications with white men in the south, and why he had sent so many invitations to Livingstone. But his desire to see white men and make a firm friend- ship with them was scarcely gratified when he was seized with inflammation of the lungs, originating from an old wound. Not long after this talk all through the night in the hut with Livingstone and Oswell he fell ill, and in a Livingstone and Oswell 265 few days was dead. His last spoken words were an order to a servant to take Livingstone's little boy Robert to one of his wives that he might be given milk to drink. His death occurring at this juncture was a great blow to the hopes of Oswell and Livingstone. Sebituane's immediate successor was his daughter, who lived at a distance of twelve days to the northward. But this woman sent them permission as quickly as possible to pursue their explorations. Mrs. Livingstone and her children were left behind at the camp on the south side of the River Chobe, out of reach of the tsetse fly. Livingstone and Oswell on horseback rode in a north-east direction over a flat country dotted with clumps of borassus palms and euphorbias, with evi- dence in all directions of the extensive inundations. As they got near their destination (the main Zambezi) they had to pass through 15 miles of marsh, covered with rank tall grass reaching to their shoulders, even as they travelled on horseback. On the afternoon of 4 August, 1851, they stood by the banks of the beautiful '' Sesheke ".^ '' We thanked God", wrote Livingstone in his journal, **for permitting us to be the first to see this glorious river. All we could say to each other was . . . how glorious, how magnificent, how beautiful! And grand beyond description it really was — such a body of water — at least 400 yards broad and deep and 300 to 500 yards wide. There were numerous banks of white sand with crocodiles on them, and the hippopo- tamus appeared in the middle of the river. The town of Sesheke was on the opposite bank. The waves were so high that people were afraid to venture across, but by and 1 It was some time before they realized that the Sesheke was no other than the Zam- bezi, flowing through the middle of south Central Africa. 266 Pioneers in South Africa by a canoe made its way to where we stood, and in cross- ing the waves lifted it up and made it roll beautifully." Livingstone goes on to write that the emotion was so keen that he felt himself not far from tears ; but he restrained his emotion for fear lest the old negro who had come to ferry them across might think that he was in terror of the numerous crocodiles. On landing at the town of Sesheke they received a most cordial welcome from the people, though many of these were tipsy with native beer or palm wine. Their coming was greeted as a sign that at last the country ** would have sleep"; that is to say, that intercourse with Europeans would bring guns and commerce and enable the recently founded kingdom of the Makololo to defend itself against the attacks of Mosilikatsi's Zulus. Three guns of English manufacture were shown to Livingstone, which had reached Sesheke by the overland trade with An- gola and had been brought to the Makololo by ^^Bajoko" traders. (See p. 270.) With the first enthusiasm of this discovery Livingstone proposed that he should take up his residence then and there (sending for his wife to join him) amongst the Mako- lolo on the Zambezi, whilst Oswell traced the great river down to the Portuguese settlements and the sea. But they soon reconsidered this idea. The region all round about Sesheke was far too swampy and malarial for a missionary station, and the fear of the tsetse made Oswell hesitate as to a journey down the Zambezi valley to the east. They therefore rejoined Mrs. Livingstone at the Chobe camp, and arrived just in time to greet two English traders, Edwards and Wilson, who had come very near forestalling Oswell and Livingstone in their discovery of the Zambezi. Mrs. Livingstone gave birth to a son on Livingstone and Oswell 267 the return journey down the Zouga River, who was christened William Oswell after their generous companion, and who was destined years afterwards (1872) to return to Africa on a futile attempt to search for his father.^ Oswell now decided to return to England, and after consulting with Livingstone proposed this generous plan: that he should convoy the whole Livingstone family down to Cape Town, Mrs. Livingstone and her children should pro- ceed to England, whilst Livingstone, after studying at the Cape observatory to perfect himself as a geographical surveyor (namely, in regard to the taking of latitudes and longitudes by astronomical observations), should return to the Zambezi to pursue his explorations further. But for the disinterested kindness of Oswell, Livingstone could not have come down to the Cape. Oswell had already furnished him with supplies for previous journeys, and with a wagon; but he now presented Livingstone with oxen worth ;£'6o, without which his family could not have made their journey. At Cape Town he insisted on giving Livingstone ;^i7o, as a contribution towards the outfit and the passage money of his wife and children, alleging that he regarded the money — which was derived from the sale of his ivory — **as a royalty due to Mrs. Livingstone for shooting elephants in her preserves". 1 Livingstone had five children : Robert, who went out as a volunteer to fight in the American Civil War and died in 1865; Tom or Thomas, who died at Alex- andria in 1878; Oswell, who died in 1889; Agnes (Mrs. Bruce), who died in 1911; and Anna Mary (Mrs. Wilson), who is still living. CHAPTER XI Livingstone's Great Journeys Even with due acknowledgment of Oswell's help, it is difficult to understand from what quarter Livingstone obtained sufficient funds in 1852 to purchase outfit for his great journey to the Zambezi, his tent, his trade goods, guns, and gunpowder. He had drawn all his meagre salary as a missionary (about ;^ioo a year) due to him up to date; but he was helped a little by selling the handsome presents of ivory made to him by Sebituane and other chiefs. He sold these tusks to merchants in Cape Town, but invested the proceeds partly in return presents for the chiefs, usually in the form of useful domestic animals. The balance he applied to the ex- penses of the journey which could not be defrayed out of his year's salary. Possibly he may have received a small sum of money from the Cape Government, but there is no mention of this. At any rate, after a month or so of study under Sir Thomas Maclear at the Cape observatory, he left Cape Town at the beginning of June, 1852, in a heavy lumbering wagon drawn by ten oxen, and accompanied by two Christian Bechuana from Kuru- man, **than whom I never saw better servants anywhere", and by two Bakwena Bechuana from Kolobeii. '^ Wagon travelling . , . is a prolonged system of picnicking, ex- cellent for the health, and agreeable to those who are not 268 Livingstone's Great Journeys 269 over-fastidious about trifles and who delight in being in the open air." Joined in Bechuanaland by a merchant of Cape Town, H. E. Rutherford, Livingstone left Kolobeii on 20 No- vember, 1852, and reached the marshes of the Chobe in the middle of May, 1853. By means of his pontoon^ he crossed the Chobe and arrived suddenly amongst the Makololo at Linyanti, at that time their capital town. The people looked upon him as almost a supernatural being, saying: **He has dropped among us from the clouds, yet came riding on the back of a hippopotamus (the pontoon had slithered over one of these submerged animals). We Makololo thought no one could cross the Chobe without our know- ledge. But here he drops among us like a bird." The young son of Sebituane — Sekeletu — was found to have been installed by his sister as chief over the Makololo. He received the two white men in royal style, setting before them a great number of pots of country beer. The court herald stood up, and, after leaping and performing other antics, shouted at the top of his voice: ** Don't I see the white man? Don't I see the comrade of Sebituane? Don't I see the father of Sekeletu? We want sleep: let your sons sleep, my lord."^ Sekeletu was about 5 feet 7 inches in height, with a pale-brown skin, but not so good-looking or so able as his father Sebituane, though equally friendly to the English. He survived to welcome Livingstone again to the Zambezi 1 Livingstone had been given a pontoon by Captains Codrington and Webb, which was of great service to him on this journey. 2 A passionate plea constantly uttered at this juncture by several harassed African tribes, both victors and vanquished. What they wanted, craved for, was a cessation of war, the establishment of the Pax Britqnnica which was eventually to follow Livingstone's journey. 270 Pioneers in South Africa in i860, but after his death in 1864 the rest of the Mako- lolo disappeared in an uprising of the indigenous Ba-lui tribes. The Makololo dynasty was replaced by the pre- sent line of Ba-lui or Barotse kings,^ though the Sekololo dialect of Bechuana still remains more or less as a Court language. Just before Livingstone's arrival the Mambari slave traders (Portuguese-speaking Negroes from the district of Bihe in south Central Angola), who had come to the Makololo country to trade in slaves, took a precipitate departure. Livingstone, however, refers to another type of *' Portuguese " Negroes as the ^* Bajoko " ; these were prob- ably the Ba-kioko or Ba-chibokwe and the Ba-jok, so vividly described in recent years by the Hungarian ex- plorer Emil Torday. The Ba-jok were the Jaga who in the sixteenth century overran Angola and the western Congo, devouring all the people they did not sell as slaves to the Portuguese, and (as already stated on p. 98) the Ba-zimba who carried their cannibal raids to the Zam- bezi, Kilwa, and Mombasa. Already they had done great damage in these regions of the upper Zambezi by inciting the Makololo, who were previously quite guiltless of any- thing like a slave trade, to raid far and wide in order to procure slaves for sale to the Portuguese, receiving in return guns and gunpowder and the trade goods of Europe. So extended were these raids that they actually brought 1 There is a great deal of dispute about the name Barotse. On the whole the following seems to be the correct version. Before the Makololo clan of the Bechuana people proceeded to invade Zambezia, a northward raid had been undertaken by another of the Bechuana clans, the Bahurutsi (see p. 200). These in course of time had fused with the natives of Upper Zambezia, and their name had been shortened to Barotse. So that when the Makololo ruled the country the Barotse were reckoned amongst the native tribes, others of which were the Ba-lui, the Ba-tonga, Ba-subia, and the Ba-nyeti. The Makololo differed from all these by their much lighter brown skin. The Barotse are very black. The ruling family at the present day is more Ba-lni than Barotse in race. Livingstone's Great Journeys 271 the Makololo into touch with the Zanzibar Arabs of Katanga. Thus at this juncture the Makololo actually served as a link between East and West Africa, and un- consciously, acting for evil purposes, promoted the epoch- making journeys of Livingstone by the information they had collected and the relations they had entered into with the Arabs and Portuguese. Livingstone in a very short time had taught the Mako- lolo to ride oxen as he did, and when Sekeletu had agreed to accompany him to the Zambezi, and up the Zambezi, they proceeded in that direction riding on oxen. *' Through having neither saddle nor bridle they were perpetually fall- ing off." After some delays Livingstone, accompanied by Seke- letu and 160 native attendants, ascended the Zambezi in canoes to the Barotse capital of Naliele or Nalolo (not far from Lialui), situated on the west bank of the Zambezi, on a mound which had been constructed artificially by a former Barotse chief. Finding, in all his exploration of the Liambiye or upper Zambezi, no suitable and healthy site for the establishment of a mission station, and having with him an old Portuguese map which gave interesting suggestions as to the sources of the Kwanza River, it occurred to Livingstone, who had reached the junction of the Kabompo and the Liba, to follow the latter river as far as he was able north-westwards and thence make a journey across the upper Kwanza, and so down to the Portuguese coast at Loanda. He returned, however, first of all to Linyanti on the Chobe, where he proposed at a public meeting that a number of Makololo should go with him on this venturesome expedition. The general voice was in his favour, so a band of twenty-seven were appointed. **The men were not hired, but sent to 272 Pioneers in South Africa enable me to accomplish an object as much desired by the chief and most of his people as by me." At this time his frame was shaken by the terrible fevers of the upper Zambezi valley, one of the most deadly parts of Africa; though no doubt much of the appalling ill health which afflicts Europeans may eventually be avoided when we understand better how to destroy or avoid the insects that convey the diseases to the human system. Living- stone had with him three muskets or flint-lock guns, a rifle, and a double-barrelled smooth-bore. With the first he proposed to arm three men of his party, and with the two others to shoot game on the way for the sustenance of the expedition. He took a few biscuits, a few pounds of tea and sugar, 20 pounds of coffee, and a small tin canister which contained spare shirts, a pair of trousers, and shoes, to use when he reached civilized life, while other clothing was carried in a bag. Another bag contained medicines, and a third books, chiefly those necessary for his astronomical observations. In a box he took a magic lantern, which he found of much use; then he had a sextant, a chronometer, and other instru- ments for taking observations, and about 20 pounds of beads in case he could not maintain life on what he shot and would be obliged to purchase food from the natives. He had one small tent, sufficient to sleep in, a sheepskin mantle as a blanket, and a horse rug as a bed. He left Linyanti on 11 November, 1853, and reached the confluence between the Liba and the Kabompo on 27 December; but instead of continuing his journey up the Liba by water he was persuaded instead by a woman-chief, Manenko, of the Balunda race, to visit her brother, Shinte. Manenko treated him in a motherly fashion, calling him **my little man" and advising him **to do exactly as she Livingstone's Great Journeys 273 told him ". The country through which they passed (Livingstone on oxback) was a succession of forest and open lawn, with occasional small hamlets surrounded by gardens of maize and manioc, each village having a hideous crocodile fetish made of clay plastered over a framework of grass, with two kauri shells as eyes, a number of bracelets, and the tail of an elephant stuck in about the neck. **It is called a lion, though if one were not told so one would conclude it to be an alligator." This village idol was sheltered under a shed, and the Balunda prayed and beat drums before it all night in cases of sickness. Manenko's escort of Lunda or Londa people carried shields made of reeds, neatly woven into a square shape, about 5 feet long and 3 feet broad, and were armed with short broadswords, bows, and sheaves of iron-headed arrows. The country as they proceeded north became more elevated — about 4000 feet — and the forests loftier and more dense. No passage existed on either side of the narrow path made by the axe, and large climbing plants entwined themselves around the branches of gigantic trees like ser- pents. Some of the trees ran up to a height of 50 feet before the trunks branched. Great numbers of edible mushrooms were met with and eagerly devoured by the hungry Makololo, some of them attaining a diameter of 6 inches. They were quite white and were very good to eat, even when raw. Others, not edible, were brilliant red or light blue. Every now and then the party emerged from the deep gloom of the forest into a pretty little valley. The chief, Shinte, they found in his capital town sitting at the place of audience on a sort of throne covered with a leopard skin. He had a cotton jacket of check pattern and a kilt of scarlet baize edged with green; many strings of large beads hung from his neck, and his limbs were (0 587) 18 274 Pioneers in South Africa covered with iron and copper armlets and bracelets. On his head he wore a helmet of beads sewn neatly together and crowned with a bunch of feathers. Behind him sat about a hundred wives clothed in their best — a profusion of red baize. His chief wife was a Matebele or Zulu woman, come all the long way from south-eastern Zam- bezia. There was a party of musicians consisting of drummers and performers on the marimba^ a musical instrument sounding like a rather faint piano, made of slabs of resonant wood fixed over hollow gourds. ^^We were particularly struck, in passing through the village, with the punctiliousness of manners shown by the Balonda. The inferiors, on meeting their superiors in the street, at once drop on their knees and rub dust on their arms and chest; they continue the salutation of clapping the hands until the great ones have passed. Sambanza knelt down in this manner, till the son of Shinte had passed him." The magic lantern^ was afterwards shown with much effect at the Court of Shinte, this important Lunda chief ruling over the region between the Kabompo and the Liba. The first picture exhibited was Abraham about to slaughter his son Isaac; the figures appeared as large as life, and the uplifted knife was in the act of striking the lad. The Balonda men remarked that the picture was much more like a god than the things of wood or clay they worshipped. *' I explained that this man was the first of a race to whom God had given the Bible we now held, and that among his children our Saviour appeared. The ladies listened with silent awe; but, when I moved the slide, the uplifted dagger moving towards them, they thought 1 Given to Livingstone by Mungo Murray, and now, after many adventures, ex- hibited among the Livingstone relics in the Royal Scottish Museum at Edinburgh. Livingstone's Great Journeys 275 it was to be sheathed in their bodies instead of Isaac's. * Mother! mother!' all shouted at once, and off they rushed helter-skelter, tumbling pell-mell over each other and over the little idol huts and tobacco bushes : we could not get one of them back again. Shinte, however, sat bravely through the whole, and afterwards examined the instrument with interest." Westward of the Liba River was the swampy Lubale country, covered with grass mainly, but with little islands surmounted by scraggy trees, and almost uninhabited be- cause covered with stagnant rainwater for nearly half the year. Yet in the dry season this was a land of thirst, a vast heath wherein it was only possible to obtain water by digging down to about 12 feet. This region is a morass of vast extent, a sponge from which leaked away on the south and west many affluents of the Kwando-Chobe, and on the north the head streams of the Kasai and other Congo tributaries. Great numbers of hungry fish of the barbel type spread themselves over the plains in the floods of the rainy season, and as the waters retired would strive to flap back over the herbage till they once more reached a river course, but they would usually be intercepted by innumerable native traps or weirs. Thus the Balunda secured large quantities of fish, which when smoke-dried made a good relish for their otherwise insipid food. On the spongy plains there were many buffaloes, elands, kudus, roan antelopes, gnus, and other game, but from being hunted by the gun-possessing natives they were very difficult to approach, and probably by now are nearly or quite extinct. The traveller now began to hear stories of a great Central African potentate, the Mwata Yanvo, or Mati- amvu; amongst others that this emperor over the Lunda 276 Pioneers in South Africa peoples — fortunately he had died just before Livingstone entered into northern Zambezia — was insane with blood lust. He was reported to have a passion every now and then for running amok through his capital town, behead- ing whomsoever he met, until he had bordered the roads with hedges of dead bodies (the Negro always likes to exaggerate these horrors)! He excused these attacks to his counsellors by complaining that his people were too numerous, and that he wished to diminish them. He had absolute power of life and death, and whenever certain charms for his magic rites were required by him, he would have a man slaughtered for the sake of obtaining some small part of his body to be used in various nasty practices. Whenever he took a fancy to some curiosity brought by the Portuguese or Arab slave traders, he would order a whole village of people to be captured and brought in as slaves to pay for the object he desired. Yet slave traders were not easy in his presence, for it was his custom, as soon as they arrived, to take possession of all their trade goods. He would then fix the price of them himself in slaves, and send out a party of his soldiers to collect them. This was done by taking forcible possession of one or more villages, killing the head men, and driving all the inhabitants into the capital to be sold as slaves. It was probably fortunate for Livingstone that his journey was made just after the death of this monster, as he might otherwise have been forcibly haled to his Court and obstructed in his object of reaching Angola. From the Lubale country he reached Lake Dilolo, a small swampy area of water and marsh, which was found to feed, by the overflow of its waters, both the upper Liba (or western branch of the Zambezi) and the Kasai, one of the great tributaries of the Congo. Near the shores of Livingstone's Great Journeys 277 Lake Dilolo was a powerful chief over the northern Balu- bale — one of the many satraps of the Mwata Yanvo — Katema, whom Livingstone fortunately found to be a jolly person, brimming over with good humour and friendliness. But *^it was a misery to speak through an interpreter, as I was now obliged to do ", for he was far beyond the limits which the Sekololo dialect had reached. The people of Katema experienced a delight, compara- tively rare amongst Negro tribes, in the sweet singing of birds. They were especially fond of the yellow and grey- green serin finches, near relations of the wild canary, and kept these in neatly-made cages, feeding them on grain. In this region, in fact, as in Nyasaland, the singing of the birds in the bush was so beautiful as to attract the special comment of Livingstone, as it has done that of the writer of this book in his work on British Central Africa, It is a great mistake to suppose that song birds are confined to the temperate regions. They are a very noteworthy feature in most parts of Tropical Africa between the northern and southern tropics, though less remarkable in the equatorial parts ; and the sweetest singers are warblers, thrushes, and finches, not very distantly related to the European types. Here is a word picture by Livingstone of the landscapes between Dilolo and the Kasai, just as he was entering the Congo basin : — *' The valley, named Kandehai, is as picturesque a spot as can be seen in this part of Africa. The open glade, surrounded by forest trees of various hues, had a little stream meandering in the centre. A herd of reddish- coloured antelopes (mpala) stood on one side, near a large baobab, looking at us, and ready to run up the hill; while gnus, tsessebes,^ and zebras gazed in astonishment at the I Bastard hartebeests {Damaliscus). 278 . Pioneers in South Africa intruders. Some fed carelessly, and others put on the peculiar air of displeasure which these animals sometiines assume before they resolve on flight. A large white rhino- ceros came along the bottom of the valley with his slow, sauntering gait, without noticing us; he looked as if he meant to indulge in a mud bath. Several buffaloes, with their dark visages, stood under the trees on the side oppo- site to the pallahs. It being Sunday, all was peace, and, from the circumstances in which our party was placed, we could not but reflect on that second stage of our existence which we hope will lead us into scenes of perfect beauty." On arriving at the banks of the Kasai, about 220 miles to the north-east of its source, Livingstone found that this most important affluent of the great Congo had a width of over 100 yards. It was winding slowly in loops through a beautiful green glen, flowing towards the north-east. The slopes of its valley were finely wooded, and in some places they receded to a distance from the banks, and the river flowed through rich grassy meadows. The natives on the banks told Livingstone that one might sail down this stream for months and yet turn back without seeing the end of it — a truthful piece of information if one con- siders the course of the giant Kasai — lake-like in places, as we find it represented on the latest maps. This river, as regards volume of water, with all its giant affluents, such as the Sankuru, Lulua, Kwilu, and Kwango, is more important to the Congo system than the lengthy Mubangi River on the north. After crossing the Kasai, Livingstone's party had to make their way due west across the extensive country of Kioko, or Chibokwe. This is the land of the Ba-jok (as they are called by the tribes farther north), or the Va-kioko referred to on pp. 98 and 104. They were, as their ancestors Livingstone's Great Journeys 279 and descendants have proved to be, a turbulent, ill-con- ditioned people. It needed on Livingstone's part infinite patience and a quiet determination to pass through their country without a disastrous quarrel. During this part of the journey he suffered incessantly from attacks of fever. Almost daily he had to cross streams or rivers — sometimes twice or thrice a day — and on these occasions was wetted up to the thighs, if not up to the neck. Occasionally he had to swim rivers in his clothes, or pass them by holding on to the tail of an ox. On emerging from the water he usually attempted to dry himself by walking on through the blazing sunshine. Very often, however, he had to stop still in his wet clothes to watch the progress of his men behind, in case they needed any assistance. It is scarcely surprising, therefore, that he was frequently at- tacked with dysentery and fever, and it is wonderful indeed that he lived through these and similar experiences to reach Angola. In fact, from illness, semi-starvation, and worry connected with the grumbles and quarrels of his men and the hostility of the natives, he was almost in a state of de- spair when he reached the east bank of the Kwango River. Here he found a river 150 yards broad and very deep, flowing northwards with a strong current. It was im- possible to cross it without a canoe, and the natives refused to render this service unless he gave one of his Makololo followers as a slave. At this juncture, however, his expedition was saved from disaster by the appearance of a young half-caste Portuguese sergeant of militia named Cypriano de Abreu. Livingstone was advised to move with his following of Makololo down to the actual bank of the river, so as to get away from the hostile precincts of the village. He had no sooner done so than the natives fired at them, 28o Pioneers in South Africa hoping by this display of force to cause a panic and thus easily obtain plunder. But Livingstone and his men walked on quietly without quickening their pace, and through the persuasion of Cypriano the natives in charge of the ferry were induced to transport the whole party across to the Portuguese bank of the Kwango, which was reached without further difficulty. Here they ' ' found a little garrison of Portuguese militia" (mulattoes), who received Livingstone with kind- ness and respect. As to their commander, Cypriano, he seems to have been a friend in need, and to have exhibited that extraordinarily kind-hearted hospitality which is a marked characteristic of the Portuguese. For the first time after leaving Kolobeii, Livingstone experienced something like civilization at this little Portu- guese settlement on the left bank of the River Kwango. The good food, comfort, and well-ordered, decent behaviour of the settlement did much to restore him to health. He found that all the members of this little garrison could read and write with ease, and that they possessed in their library encyclopaedias, medical works, dictionaries, and religious books. This is not a bad certificate for the state of Portuguese rule in west Central Africa in the year 1854. Four or five days' journey beyond the Kwango brought Livingstone to the important trading settlement at Kasanji, which was then a regular Portuguese town, but which has since had many fluctuations of prosperity. At Kasanji the kindness and hospitality he received from the Portuguese were such as to move him to expressions of the deepest gratitude.^ **May God remember them," he writes, *'in their day of need!" 1 In another part of this Journal he says : "The universal hospitality of the Portu- guese was most gratifying, as it was most unexpected. And even now, as I copy my Journal, I remember it all with a glow of gratitude." Livingstone's Great Journeys 281 Under the guidance of a black Portuguese soldier, but with much general assistance rendered by the Portuguese authorities at the different posts, Livingstone reached the River Kwanza, and thence passed on through Ambaka and Golungo Alto, traversing some of the most beautiful scenery in Africa in a thickly populated, well-cultivated country of green hills, cultivated up to their tops with manioc, coffee, cotton, ground nuts, bananas, pineapples, guavas, papaws, custard apples, and numerous other fruits brought from South America by the Jesuit missionaries. Oil palms crowned many of the hills, and the fertility of this district made it quite wonderful to behold. At length they reached the edge of the elevated plateau behind Loanda, and the Makololo looked upon the boundless ocean to the west with awe. Describing their feelings afterwards, they said: '*We marched along with our Father, believing that what the ancients had always told us was true, that the world has no end; but all at once the world said to us, * I am finished; there is no more of me'". Livingstone, however, was depressed rather than joyful when he first saw the great city of Loanda in the plain below him, being filled with apprehension that his welcome back to civilization would be a cold one. He had heard there was only one Englishman in the place, the British Consul. Would he or would he not receive this destitute fellow countryman with kindness? Otherwise, weakened as he was by prolonged attacks of fever and dysentery, Livingstone might have collapsed and possibly died from sheer nervous exhaustion. His doubts were soon set at rest. **When I entered his porch", he writes, ** I was delighted to see a number of flowers cultivated carefully, and inferred from this circumstance that he was — what I soon discovered him to be — a real, whole-hearted English- 282 Pioneers in South Africa man. Seeing me ill, he benevolently offered me his bed. Never again shall I forget the luxuriant pleasure I enjoyed in feeling myself again on a good English couch, after six months sleeping on the ground. I was soon asleep; and Mr. Gabriel, coming in almost immediately, rejoiced at the soundness of my repose." Whilst in Loanda, Livingstone was the recipient of marked courtesies and hospitalities from the Portuguese, especially from the Bishop of Angola, who was at that time Acting-Governor of the country. In spite of his ill- ness from frequent attacks of dysentery, he set to work with steady industry to finish his maps and write out his dis- patches to the Royal Geographical and London Missionary Societies. At this juncture, as though it had been decreed by Fate, there arrived at Loanda the Forerunner^ the first steamer to visit the coast of Angola, which was, moreover, the first vessel sent out for the West African trade by the African Steamship Company, an association subsequently fused with another company, and now, under the name of Elder Dempster, a great shipping federation for the West African service. But by extraordinary ill luck for all concerned the Forerunner was wrecked off Madeira on her way home, and all Livingstone's carefully prepared maps, dispatches, and notes went to the bottom of the sea. This piece of real bad news reached him, however, whilst he was still within touch of the Atlantic coast. He had halted on his return journey to the Zambezi at Pungo Andongo, amidst the grand rock scenery of Central Angola; and there he applied himself with diligence to making his maps all over again and writing out, chiefly from memory, all his former dispatches, once more sending the packet to Loanda to be transmitted to England, where it arrived in safety. Livingstone's Great Journeys 283 Very sensibly he did not allow his Makololo followers to remain idle during his three months' stay at Loanda, but in addition to having them shown the sights (for he was too ill with dysentery himself to go out much), he set them to work unloading ships and cutting firewood for payment, so that they earned quite respectable sums of money, which they laid out in the purchase of trade goods. When the party left Loanda to return to the Zambezi they were not only furnished with all possible facilities by the Portuguese for reaching the Kwango River, but were given letters of special recommendation to the Portuguese authorities at Tete on the Lower Zambezi in case Living- stone should succeed in reaching East Africa. The sailors of the British man-of-war in the harbour had made and presented him with an excellent tent. To each of his men was given a new musket and ammunition, and the British Commissioner and Consul, Edmund Gabriel, accornpanied him as far as the River Kwanza. He halted at Pungo Andongo, as above described, partly to regain strength after his prolonged illness, but no doubt extended his stay there in pleasant quarters for the reasons already given, the news of the loss of his dis- patches in the steamship Forerunner, He then proceeded eastwards in company with a Portuguese expedition which was on its way to visit the new Mwata Yanvo in southern Congoland. Livingstone would fain have accompanied it, and had he done so he might have anticipated in several ways the subsequent discoveries made by Cameron and the great German explorers; but his Makololo pro- tested. They wished for no further adventures, but desired to get home by as quick a route as possible. With a sigh of resignation, therefore, he left Kasanji, where he got his last packet of letters from Europe, and travelled through 284 Pioneers in South Africa southern Lunda in company with a half-caste Portuguese trader, Antonio Narcisso Pascoal,^ but for whose kind care and assiduous attention he would probably have succumbed to an appalling attack of rheumatic fever. All this part of the journey, from Naliele on the upper Zambezi to St. Paul de Loanda and back again to the Barotse kingdom, Livingstone had ridden a faithful riding- ox whom he had named Sindbad. But this excellent beast was attacked by the tsetse flies somewhere near the Upper Zambezi and died, leaving him to perform the rest of the journey down to Sesheke on foot or by canoe. Yet his progress with his Makololo followers was one continual triumph. Every village gave them an ox, and sometimes two, and though their canoe was once upset by an ill- tempered hippopotamus, they reached Sesheke safe and well. And here — showing how rapidly Africa was open- ing up (for five years previously Sesheke was absolutely unknown even by name to Europeans) — Livingstone found a number of letters and parcels which his father-in-law and colleague, Moffat, had sent to that place by means of the enterprising Matebele Zulu carriers, so that he was once more in touch with the outer world. He even travelled south as far as Linyanti, on the Chobe, where he found intact and safe the wagon and all the stores he had left there nearly two years previously. Here he wisely rested for a time to recover health and strength, and here, remarkable to relate, he met probably the first of the Arab traders from Zanzibar who ever ^This ingenious man, seeing that Livingstone was racked with excruciating pain and other symptoms which might be relieved by judicious blood-letting, suddenly bethought himself that the neighbouring rivulet swarmed with leeches. He caught a number of these and applied them to Livingstone's neck and loins ; the fever and pain abated, and with assiduous nursing Livingstone recovered and was able to resume his journey. Livingstone's Great Journeys 285 penetrated so far into the interior of South Africa, a man who gave him accurate geographical information of all the rivers and countries to be passed from the Zanzibar coast over the Nyasa-Tanganyika plateau to the upper Zambezi. He offered to convoy Livingstone to Zanzibar by this route, but the missionary felt it was a more useful feat to travel along the Zambezi from the heart of south Central Africa down to its outlet in the Indian Ocean. He recruited, therefore, a fresh set of Makololo porters and companions (those who had gone with him to Lo- anda being naturally desirous of stopping at home for a period), and set out from Linyanti on 3 November, 1855, with 1 14 men (part of them an escort to see him through the dangerous Butonga country), twelve oxen, a good sup- ply of trade goods, and an abundance of fresh butter and honey. In fact, just as he was indebted to the Portuguese for the means to reach Angola from the Kwango and to return again from Angola to the upper Zambezi, so (as he states) it was the Makololo king (Sekeletu) who fur- nished him with the means of finishing his journey to the east coast. Both he and Oswell had already heard through the Makololo of the wonderful Victoria Falls, a great rift in the bed of the Zambezi down which its mile-wide surface of water plunged with a deafening noise and with a force that sent out immense clouds of spray, the phenomenon, in fact, being called in the Sekololo tongue '^(the place where) smoke sounds" — most oa tunya, Livingstone him- self reached these wonderful cataracts on 18 November, 1855, and at once named them the Victoria Falls.^ Here ^ A r6sum6 oi James Chapman's admirable description of the Victoria Falls (which he very nearly discovered a year before Dr. Livingstone, and visited some years after- wards) might be given here in place of the oft-quoted passages from Livingstone's 286 Pioneers in South Africa he planted on one of the islands, ever watered by the finely diffused spray of the cataract, a hundred peach and apricot stones which he had received from Moffat, and a quantity of coffee seeds. He also for the first and only time in his travels yielded to the pardonable vanity of carving his name on the trunk of a tree, one which overlooked what is probably the finest cataract of water in the world. The seeds of these trees duly germinated, but the saplings — so the natives afterwards told Livingstone — were devoured by hippopotami. travels : The star-like aloes with scarlet blossoms on the precipitous brown cliffs ; the white mist ; the pretty, snowy rills of water visible through it, falling ghost-like through sylvan vegetation ; the awful depths of the dark chasms, then where the mist of spray is blown aside, vast stretches of white and fleecy waters flowing like snowy avalanches or thundering down into deep ponds of sea-green water, and being whirled away in large green and crested waves, writhing, waltzing, eddying in their agony to escape through the narrow outlet; evergreen, close, compact forest, extending to the very brink of the falls in some places, and as neat as if clipped with garden shears, its glistening front constantly bathed in the spray; the upper and lower rainbows, brighter and more vivid than any ever seen in the skies, almost too vivid, too blinding in splendour to be looked at. [The colours of the upper rainbows were reversed from the ordinary order, beginning with blue on the top and declining through yellow to red. In the lower rainbows, however, the colours ranged from red uppermost to blue.] As the sun declines the rainbows ascend until they reach the clouds of spray above the horizon. At last they span the whole river for fully a mile, imparting the most lovely colours to the spray-clouds, which steal aloft like tongues of sulphur flame, until lost to view by the downward course of the sun. The date palms grow in graceful clusters, and the forests are full of trees with huge trunks supported by fantastically gnarled and serpentined roots, from under which the earth had long since been washed by rain and spray. In and out of the rich forest created by this perpetual moisture, elephants, rhinoceroses, buffaloes, and even hippopotami wandered about to the very brink of the awful precipices. Buffalo, utterly unused to attack by human beings in this splendid home, scarcely moved as travellers approached them. " The temptation to shoot was irresistible. In the course of a few minutes nearly a dozen shots were fired ; and now the buffaloes, never having been so roughly handled before, fled, but, horror of horrors, can the reader imagine it? I never expected to look upon such a sight. The leading males shot out of the only cover they had, and the whole herd followed head- long, at frightful speed, to the very brink of the precipice overlooking the ' Falls'. It was a dreadful sight, and, buffaloes as they were, I forgot the fact in my horror, and drew back in breathless anxiety at their impending fate, feeling for them as if they were human. Here they stood upon the slippery verge, the front rank looking downwards into the hideous gulf, the hinder ones butting each other, still pushing on as if about to plunge to the bottom. . . . The result of our short attack afterwards proved six buffa- loes slain and several wounded; yet not a particle of flesh was wasted." (James Chapman in Travels in the Interior of South Africa, 1868.) THE MAIN FALL, ZAMBESI Livingstone's Great Journeys 287 Passing through the Butonga country and the southern borders of the land inhabited by the Ba-ila or Ba-shuku- lombwe people — a splendid race of naked savages, with their hair woven into a long erect chignon carried up- wards by elastic fibres till it rose a couple of feet above the head — and managing with his usual tact to appease the suspicions of these people (who had never seen a white man before and only associated the idea of white men with slave raiding), Livingstone crossed the Kafue and the Luangwa — great northern affluents of the Zambezi — and arrived at Zumbo. Here he first came into touch with Portuguese influence on the Zambezi, and saw the ruins of the old Jesuit establishment, which the Portuguese had abandoned for something like fifty years. *'The situation of Zumbo", he wrote, ^*was admirably well chosen as a site for commerce. Looking backwards we see a mass of high, dark mountains, covered with trees; behind us rises the fine high hill Mazanzwe, which stretches away northwards along the left bank of the Loangwa; to the south-east lies an open country with a small, round hill in the distance called Tofulo. The merchants as they sat beneath the verandas in front of their houses, had a magnificent view of the two rivers at their confluence, of their church at an angle, and of all the gardens which they had on both sides of the rivers. In these they cul- tivated wheat without irrigation, and, as the Portuguese assert, of a grain twice the size of that at Tete." Between Zumbo and Tete the little expedition was again and again menaced with disaster by the opposition of chiefs, deeply suspicious of the white man's doings, fearful of strange magic, and greedy for presents and tribute. But Livingstone solved each difficulty in turn by patience, politeness, firmness, and, where it was necessary, 288 Pioneers in South Africa such tribute as he could afford, and so without any re- course to violence reached the Portuguese town of Tete, on the south bank of the Zambezi, where his troubles were over. For, after six weeks' rest, he journeyed without diffi- culty down the river from Tete to Quelimane, where he was picked up by a British gunboat, H.M.S. Frolic^ which brought him abundant supplies for all his needs, his letters awaiting him at Cape Town, and a supply of money from the London Missionary Society. The Frolic had also been directed by the British Admiralty to offer Livingstone a passage to the Island of Mauritius, whence he obtained a steamer which conveyed him to Aden and Suez. He reached London (after a shipwreck off the coast of Tunis) by way of Marseilles and Paris, arriving there on December 12, 1856. The results of his great journey might really be de- scribed by that much-abused term, epoch-making. In Feb- ruary, 1858, he was formally appointed British Consul for Quelimane and the east coast of Africa south of the Ru- vuma River, and commander of a Government expedition to explore the Zambezi basin. Dr. John Kirk, a young Edinburgh physician who had served in the Crimean War, and who was already remarkable as a naturalist, was appointed to be Livingstone's lieutenant, to deal with the natural history of the expedition. In addition the expedition consisted of a mining geologist and surveyor, Richard Thornton; Thomas Baines, as artist and store- keeper; Charles Livingstone, the brother of the explorer, as secretary and general assistant; and Edward Rae, a ship's engineer; besides the persons detached from the Royal Navy for temporary service with Livingstone.^ This expedition, by means of small steamers, steam 1 Noteworthy were the services rendered by the able seamen Rowe and Hutching who did excellent work in the Zambezi-Shir^ with Livingstone's expedition. Livingstone's Great Journeys 289 launches, and boats, explored the Zambezi delta, dis- covered a better way into the main river from the open sea than Quelimane by the Kongone mouth, ascended the Shire River to its first cataracts, walked overland across what have since been known as the Shire High- lands, and, following the Shire, reached at last the waters of Lake Nyasa, which had certainly been seen and possibly crossed by one European — Candido de Costa Cardoso — some thirteen years previously, but had never been visited before by any scientific geographers able to place their position accurately on the map. Livingstone and Kirk, after examining the south end of the lake in its eastern gulf, returned to the Zambezi, and after a variety of disagreeable experiences, owing to the manifest ill will of the Portuguese, who objected to their more-or-less taking possession of this region, they decided to make a journey to the Makololo country and the Victoria Falls. This was accomplished in i860; but Sekeletu, who was suffering with leprosy, had turned very savage towards his people, and received them with indifference. The Makololo power was, in fact, visibly passing away, and soon after Sekeletu's death, in 1864, the Ba-lui people of Barotse eventually recovered their independence and re- stored the dynasty of Barotse kings which reigns to this day. Dr. Kirk having done something to alleviate Seke- letu's illness, he became much more gracious, and offered a large tract for the establishment of a British colony on the Butonga highlands. The party then returned to Tete, making use of canoes for the greater part of the journey; but Livingstone's determination to descend the dangerous Quebra-ba90^ rapids, below Tete, nearly ended in utter ^Quebra-ba^o means in Portuguese " break the spleen" owing to the violence with which the canoe men have to paddle. The name has now been corrupted in spelling to Kebrabassa. (C587) 19 290 Pioneers in South Africa disaster. Dr. Kirk's canoe was capsized against a ledge of rock, its entire contents, including all his notes and botanical collections of the upper Zambezi, were lost, and he only managed to save himself from drowning by clutching the ledge of rock against which the canoe had capsized, whilst his boatmen managed to empty the canoe of water. The little river steamer with which Livingstone had been furnished — the Ma-Rohert — had been an absolute failure, and accounted for much of the disheartenment and squabbles of the expedition. Almost to their relief she finally foundered in the Zambezi delta in December, i860, and Livingstone's expedition might have died of fever on a mangrove island of the delta but for the kindness of the Portuguese, who rescued them by a fleet of canoes from Sena and transported them to that place, where they were restored to health. But in January, 1861, a new steamer arrived from England, the Pioneer, There also came at the same time Bishop Mackenzie and six missionaries sent out by the Universities' Mission of Oxford and Cambridge, which had been founded in answer to the appeals of Living- stone. This missionary party desired to make their way as quickly as possible to the Shire Highlands or perhaps to Lake Nyasa. Livingstone, realizing that the Portuguese, in spite of their kindness, were most unwilling that the Zambezi should become a British highway, resolved to proceed north in the Pioneer^ to examine the Ruvuma River, hoping that that great stream, which enters the Indian Ocean at Cape Delgado on the south of the Zanzibar coast, would prove a waterway by which Euro- peans should travel to within a short distance of Lake Nyasa. But he found he could only pass 30 miles up- stream from the seacoast. Accordingly he himself (most AFRICA Before Livingstone's Journeys from The London Atlas of Modern Geography published by John Arrowsmith 18^0. Eiitriish Miles o 100 200 3(X) 400 goo 6co 700 Soo Longitude East 20 of Greenwich L Livingstone's Great Journeys 291 of the officers being ill with fever) steered the steamer back to the Zambezi, across the Kongoni mouth, and up the Shire River. Leaving the missionaries in the Shire Highlands, Livingstone and Kirk carried overland a small sailing boat to the waters of Lake Nyasa, and explored its western coast as far north as the Atonga country. At the beginning of 1862 Mrs. Livingstone, together with two ladies for the Universities' Mission, arrived at the mouth of the Zambezi. But this year was one of terrible disappointments and grief to the whole of the expedition. Government and missionary. The Muham- madan Yao slave traders had commenced their raids over the Shire Highlands, which effectually broke up the mission work. Bishop Mackenzie died of fever on the lower Shire; Mrs. Livingstone died of the same com- plaint on the Zambezi. The missionaries left the country. But the indomitable Livingstone made another attempt on the Ruvuma River, and this time ascended it for a distance of 160 miles, but still realized that it was not a practical route to Lake Nyasa. Kirk, prostrated with dysentery, was obliged at last to leave the Zambezi in the middle of 1863. Livingstone, who had been making a road past the Shire cataracts, proceeded with Edward Rae once more to the upper Shire, to make a further attempt at the circumnavigation of Lake Nyasa. The boat which he had attempted to get past the cataracts was wrecked by the carelessness of his men and dashed to pieces, everything in her being lost. The indomit- able man nevertheless walked round the south-west coast of Lake Nyasa till he reached the Arab settlement of Kotakota, where he was kindly received. After a short stay here, he, accompanied by Edward Rae, made a 292 Pioneers in South Africa journey due west, which brought them to the vicinity of the Luangwa River. He here received the information that it was only a few days' journey farther on to Lake Bemba or Bangweulu. But here, on the verge of other great discoveries which he subsequently made, he was obliged to return, having been informed by the British Government that the expedi- tion must be brought absolutely and quickly to a close. Attended by disasters and difficulties to the last, amongst others a terrible sea passage from the mouth of* the Zambezi to Mo9ambique, Livingstone proceeded in a tiny little river steamer, the Lady Nyasa (his own property), to Zanzibar, with the intention of selling that vessel there. As no one would buy her, he actually steamed right across the Indian Ocean in this steam launch to Bombay, where he left her to await a purchaser, whilst he returned to England by way of Egypt, reaching London in July, 1864. Though his work and that of Kirk and several other members of the expedition was the work of heroes, and the obstacles which they had to overcome were wellnigh insuperable at that period (for political as well as natural conditions) Livingstone was received coldly on his return, especially by the Foreign Office. But by degrees popular interest in his work revived, and he was enabled to return to the exploration of Central Africa in 1866, still holding the rank of Consul — for Central Africa — but without any pay. The Royal Geographical Society raised the sum of ;f 1000, and with this and his own resources — for in spite of his gigantic achievements and his two great books he had only put by a total sum of about ;£'i4,ooo, most of which he had to set aside for the support and education of his children — Livingstone left London in the summer Livingstone's Great Journeys 293 of 1865 for Bombay, whence he made his way to Zanzibar and the mouth of the Ruvuma. Then followed the long overland journey to the south end of Lake Nyasa, in which his losses in men (he had no European with him) and goods were considerable. From the south-west coast of Nyasa he disappeared into the unknown, and deserters from his expedition set abroad the story that he had been killed by the Angoni Zulus. An expedition ^ from Eng- land, sent out in 1867 under Lieutenant Edward Young, penetrated to Lake Nyasa and showed this story to be false. Livingstone had, as a matter of fact, made his way westwards from Lake Nyasa to the south end of Tan- ganyika. Thence he passed west again to Lake Mweru and the Lunda country of Kazembe. Here he saw the Luapula and first became aware of this wonderful river in the heart of Africa, which was to turn out to be the upper Congo, but which he believed to be the source of the Nile. Then, after proceeding south and discovering Lake Bangweulu, he travelled to the west coast of Tanganyika and crossed over to Ujiji. Returning again westward, he made his way along the paths cleared by the Arabs into the heart of the Manyuema country, where he witnessed the appalling slave raids and their results. Once more he reached the upper Congo, under the name of Lualaba, at Nyangwe. He had by now ex- hausted all his stores and supplies and was enfeebled in health. Goods which had been sent out to him by way of Zanzibar had been squandered on the way, and only a small portion of his purchases had reached Ujiji. Living- stone painfully made his way once more to that place, on the east coast of Tanganyika, and there, to his intense 1 • ' One of the most brilliant feats ever recorded in African travel." See the present writer's Livingstone and the Exploration of Central Africa, 294 Pioneers in South Africa surprise, on 20 November, 1871, was greeted by the ex- plorer Henry Morton Stanley, who had been sent on a Livingstone relief expedition by the proprietor of the New York Herald, Stanley's support, encouragement, medicines, and supplies infused a little new life into the prematurely aged man of grey hair and parchment skin. Together with Stanley, Livingstone made a boat voyage to the north end of Tanganyika, and then, refusing to accompany his friend to Europe, obstinately determined to solve the secret of the Nile sources alone. He walked and rode southwards through the Fipa country and across the Nyasa-Tanganyika plateau till he reached the south end of Lake Bangweulu, where he died in Chitambo's village on i May, 1873. But the work of Livingstone, especially his earnest pleading for a suppression of the slave trade in the heart of Africa, produced results which have scarcely slackened or tarried in their effect down to the present day. A belated Livingstone Relief Expedition of the Royal Geo- graphical Society, led by Commander Verney Lovett Cameron, crossed Africa from Zanzibar to Benguela. Four years afterwards came the journey of Joseph Thomson across the Nyasa-Tanganyika plateau and round the south-west coast of Tanganyika. But more notable than any was the second journey of H. M. Stanley, undertaken to finish Livingstone's work. After circumnavigating the Victoria Nyanza, and proving that it was the big lake that Speke had imagined, Stanley reached the upper Congo at Nyangwe, where Livingstone had left it, and from Nyangwe followed that mighty stream down to its outlet in the Atlantic Ocean. Within two years of Livingstone's death Scottish missionaries were at work in Nyasaland, where they laid !^ LIVINGSTONE AND STANLEY AT UJIJI Livingstone's Great Journeys 295 the foundations of the present Nyasaland protectorate. In the next decade (the 'eighties of the nineteenth century) the British protectorate or sphere of influence was carried (by the present writer, amongst others) northwards from Bechuanaland to Tanganyika. The Congo Independent State was founded by Sir Henry Stanley (as he afterwards became) and a British protectorate was declared over eastern Equatorial Africa, which soon afterwards led to the inclusion of Uganda. Between 1885 and 1892 the Ger- mans founded their colony of East Africa, and their great leader, Hermann von Wissmann, penetrated in his attacks on the slave-trading tribes into the country of the dreaded Awemba, between the Chambezi and Tanganyika. By the close of the nineteenth century, in less than thirty years from the death of Livingstone, the far-spread, devastating slave trade had been absolutely abolished, except where it lingered under other names in the western part of the Congo Basin. The Arab strongholds on Tanganyika, on the Lualaba, and in the Manyuema country were captured by black troops led by Belgian, Swedish, and British officers in the service of Leopold II, who had become sovereign of the Congo State. German explorers had finished the work which Livingstone had begun on the Kasai and Kwango, the Lualaba and Lomami. George Grenfell — another Livingstone — had filled up the other great blanks in the river system of the wonderful Congo basin. South of the Zambezi a continual succession of British hunter explorers (prominent among them F. C. Selous) penetrated Matebeleland and the regions of central Zam- bezia. The designs of Thomas Baines and the sugges- tions of Livingstone and Moffat were carried out by the wealth and energy of Cecil John Rhodes. Much of the 296 Pioneers in South Africa vast expanse of territory over which Livingstone travelled, first among white men, now lies under the British flag, ruled and administered by the company which Cecil Rhodes founded, a company whose capital city near the Victoria Falls is styled Livingstone. CHAPTER XII The Explorers of South-west Africa It will be remembered that Moffat among other mission- aries had drawn attention to the condition of affairs in Great Namakwaland to the north of the lower Orange River. He had described the audacious raids of the Hottentot chieftain, Jager Afrikaner, whose power was rapidly extending northwards into the country inhabited by dark-skinned Negroes, either the Hill Damaras or the Bantu Ova-herero. But the lack of settled population and the discouraging prospects of mission work in this direction, when so much more advance could be made among Kafirs and Bechuana, decided the London Mis- sionary Society to give up their stations in Little and Great Namakwaland to the Lutheran Missionary Societies of Berlin and of the Lower Rhine. Several German missionaries (such as the celebrated Schmelen) had come out to South Africa in the service of the London Society in the opening years of the nineteenth century, and had taken a great interest in the Hottentots. On their return to Germany they were instrumental in founding the Ger- man societies at Berlin and at Barmen, near Diisseldorf, about 1828, and eventually (1835-40) these bodies sent out agents to found stations in Great Namakwaland, to the north of the Orange River. Meantime much fresh light was thrown on this region, dominated by the warlike family of Afrikaner, by the 297 298 Pioneers in South Africa journeys of Captain — afterwards Sir — James Alexander, the cost of which was partly defrayed by the newly founded Royal Geographical Society. Sir James Alex- ander, who for some time was secretary to the Governor of Cape Colony, left Cape Town in 1836 and travelled much farther north across the Orange River than any previous explorer. He made his way to the coast at Walvisch Bay, and then in a long detour to the east visited the country of the Hill Damaras. His book, which he published in 1838, is full of accurate and interesting descriptions of the wild beasts which then swarmed in south-west Africa as much as in the Transvaal and Bechuanaland. Alexander's expedition undoubtedly opened the way to the German missionary pioneers — Schmelen,^ C. H. Hahn, F. W. Kolbe, J. Rath, and others, who between 1835 and 1850 founded stations as far north as the Swakop River and the country of the cattle-keeping Ova-herero, the *^ pastoral Damara of the plains " of those days. These German missionary stations, nowadays developed into considerable towns, were most valuable as secure resorts for the explorers who came afterwards, places where they were certain of food, rest, pasture, water, and tolerable safety from the arrogant and uncertain Hottentots. They became important markets for the sale of native produce, and were the resort of the pioneer traders, and elephant and ostrich hunters from Cape Colony, or the whalers which called at Walvisch Bay. But in the middle of the nineteenth century the glamour of Lake Ngami and the stories of great rivers coursing through south Central 1 "This worthy old German missionary, the Rev. Mr. Schmelen . . . laboured for upwards of forty years in south-west Africa . . . and had travelled farther to the north in Great Namakwaland than any other white man".— J. E. Alexander. Explorers of South-west Africa 299 Africa drew into Damaraland travellers of a more scientific type than these rough-and-ready ex-sailors,^ soldiers, or even convicts. Such men as these were not of much use in filling up the blanks in the maps between the Atlantic coast and the Zambezi basin, but they sometimes served as guides and drivers to travellers of better educa- tion. The next decided unveiling of the geographical mystery was to be effected by an expedition which en- gaged the good-natured Danish Hercules, Hans Larsen, as its transport agent and camp master. Francis Galton, who was at the head of this new enterprise, aspired to reach '*the new Lake" (Ngami) from the west, because any journey inland from Delagoa Bay or through Kafirland was rendered difficult by native unrest and Boer sulkiness. Galton was a cousin of Charles Darwin, and he became in course of time a great and genial man of science. In his youth he had been at- tracted towards the exploration of Africa and had journeyed a considerable distance up the River Nile. He arrived at the Cape of Good Hope in 1850, in company with Charles John Andersson, a Swedish naturalist (half Scottish in descent), together with a retinue of English servants (mostly sailors) and an invaluable Portuguese cook (John Mortar). The explorers landed at Walvisch Bay and made a journey — the description of which is full of interest — through the middle of (what is now) German South-west Africa, reaching as far inland as the Omuramba River, which flows — when it has any running water — eastwards into the Ngami system. In another direction Galton penetrated as far north as the fertile Ondonga country, 1 Hans Larsen, a Danish sailor from a whaling ship which had called at Walvisch Bay, became a notable personage in Damaraland between 1845 and 1855. Larsen was a splendid specimen of a man, and " one of Africa's mightiest hunters ". {Galton.) 300 Pioneers in South Africa inhabited by the Ovampo. He considered the Ovampo to be much finer in physique and culture than the Ova-herero (Damara), but he was wrong in supposing them to be nearer the original stock of this group of tribes, because the speech of the Ova-herero is much more archaic in type. Whilst in Ovampoland he heard stories of a great river flowing to the eastward at all times of the year in a mighty stream towards the region of Ngami. He was just wanting in that degree of enthusiasm and grit which would have sent another man of the type of Thomas Baines or H. M. Stanley plunging eastwards across desert, forest,^ and thorny scrub, and through pos- sibly hostile tribes, in order to effect a mighty geographical discovery. Having exhausted his supply of trade goods, Francis Galton returned to Europe. His companion, Andersson, made another journey in this direction in 1854 and reached Lake Ngami. But the work which rendered Andersson's name really famous was that commenced at the end of 1857, partly in asso- ciation with Frederick Green. Green had already explored the Ngami region, and in an attempt to reach the River Kunene^ from the south, in company with the German missionaries C. H. Hahn and J. Rath, had nearly fallen a victim to the treachery of the Ovampo people. This great agricultural tribe long simmered with distrust and dislike of the incoming white man. Under the name 1 Andersson, who did reach the Okavango, had to cut down about 200,000 trees or bushes for the passage of his wagons. 2 The mouth of the Kunene, the great river of Southern Angola, had probably been discovered by the early Portuguese voyagers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries ; but owing to the absolutely arid desert and shelterless coast, where it entered the sea, it had been overlooked until it was rediscovered in 1824 by Captain Chapman in the Espiigle, who gave it the name of Nourse, after a captain of one of the vessels in Admiral W. Fitzwilliam Owen's great surveying cruise round Africa. Its upper course long remained a mystery until revealed in the 'sixties and 'seventies by Andersson, Serpapinto, and Axel Eriksson. Explorers of South-west Africa 301 of Ova-kwanyama they are still fighting the Portuguese. They had opposed Galton's further explorations, and had attempted to overcome the little party (Green, Hahn, and Rath) by a sudden attack of 600 fighting men. The three white men and their ten native followers actually suc- ceeded in beating off the attack of the 600 Ovampo by means of their firearms, and the Ovampo king, Nangoro, though not wounded, died of terror at the noise of the volleys. However, no further hopes of reaching the Kunene or searching for the still more mysterious great river of the east were entertained by Green and the two German missionaries.* They discovered a freshwater lake (Onondova) which is of interest because it receives at times contributions from the upper Kunene during the flood seasons, and sends its own waste waters to the Okavango, and thus to the Zambezi system, a fact which tends to show that the Kunene River was probably at one time the most western affluent of the Zambezi basin, and not a stream flowing directly into the Atlantic Ocean. Indeed this discovery, supplemented by recent observations, shows that once and again in recurring cycles of very heavy rain- fall along the mountain ranges of eastern Angola and southern Congoland, South Africa becomes an island; for there might be continuous water from the mouth of the Kunene to the Chobe and Zambezi. Andersson first of all attempted to reach the upper Kunene River. The appearance of northern Damaraland was much more attractive than the deserts farther south. The traveller found himself passing through a forest of tall handsome trees without thorns. **I do not think I was ever more agreeably surprised in my life," wrote Andersson, *'not even on my first entrance on the plains of Ondonga. The change was so unexpected : woods of 302 Pioneers in South Africa beautiful foliage are so rare in this wretched country.*' One of the most remarkable trees was the Omomborom- bonga, which sometimes attained to gigantic proportions. It was of immense girth and slow of growth, like a gnarled oak in appearance. The caravan passed along the base of a magnificent limestone range of mountains, which for upwards of 50 miles formed a perpendicular tableland with cliff edges many hundred feet high. At its western extremity this range was broken into detached shapes as beauteous and as various in aspect as possibly can be conceived. There were extensive fortifications, gigantic buttresses exquisitely worked in their details, ** crumbling pieces of Gothic architecture with all the delicate outlines, touches, characteristics, and finish of that beautiful art"; splendid Italian valleys with terrace-like slopes besprinkled with the semblance of decaying sculptures, variegated marbles, huge sepulchral caverns, stuccoed grottoes, and many other singular and fantastic forms: all carved by wind and water in course of time out of this tableland of limestone, which through uncountable ages in the Second- ary Epoch had been formed under the sea. At the foot of this interesting range of table mountains wound a broad periodical watercourse, its banks clothed with rich verdure of every hue, with stately groups of acacias, pleasant shrubs and sweet-smelling plants, and with the most luxuriant grass, which in places reached to the oxen's bellies. In other directions than the tableland there were exten- sive and lofty mountain ranges, rising in some cases into isolated cones of imposing grandeur. Occasionally the river bed — the Omuramba — passed through narrow gorges 1000 feet deep, and the broken scenery led to the usual dis- asters with wagons, which at first seemed beyond remedy, Explorers of South-west Africa 303 and yet, by dint of heroic repairs, were forgotten in a few days' time. Then they passed over the great Kaoko veld, once inhabited by the pastoral Damara or Ova-herero, but then nearly deserted owing to the constant wars between the Herero tribes and the Namakwa Hottentots. As the dry season was coming on, Andersson occa- sionally witnessed the amazing natural illuminations of the country caused by the grass fires. These were splendid in their effects, especially when they took place on the slopes or summits of these great limestone ranges, when the flames would seem to chase one another like furies across the sky, occasionally rising high into the air above the bush and trees that were actually on fire, as though the flames were nourished by invisible gases. But some days later the bush fires threatened the very existence of the expedition. **The whole country before us was one huge lake of flames. Turning to John Mortar, I exclaimed : * Good God, our return is cut off!' I had seen many wood and grass fires, but nothing to equal this. Immediately in front of us lay stretched out like a sea a vast pasture prairie, dotted with occasional trees, bounded in the distance by groves of huge giraffe acacias — all in a blaze! Through the very midst of this lay our path. By delaying a few hours the danger would have been considerably diminished, if not altogether over, but delay in our case seemed almost more dangerous than going forward; and so on we pushed, trusting to some favourable accident to bring us through the perils we had to face. As we advanced we heard dis- tinctly the sputtering and hissing of the inflamed grasses and brushwood, the cracking of the trees as they reluctantly yielded their massive forms to the unrelenting and all- devouring element, the screams of startled birds, and other commingling sounds of terror and devastation. There was 304 Pioneers in South Africa a great angle in our road, running parallel, as it were, to the raging fire, but afterwards turning abruptly into a burning savanna. By the time we had reached this point the conflagration, still in its glory on our right, was fast receding on our left, thus opening a passage, into which we darted without hesitation, although the ground was still smouldering and reeking, and in some places quite alive with flickering sparks from the recent besom of hot flames that had swept over it. Tired as our cattle were, this heated state of the ground made the poor brutes step out pretty smartly. At times we ran great risks of being crushed by the falling timbers. Once a huge trunk, in flames from top to bottom, fell athwart our path, send- ing up millions of sparks, and scattering innumerable splinters of lighted wood all around us, whilst the numer- ous nests of the social weaver birds (the Philetcerus socius) in the ignited trees looked like so many lamps suspended in designs at once natural, pleasing, and splendid. It was altogether a glorious illumination, worthy of Nature's palace with its innumerable windows and stately vaulted canopy. But the danger associated with the grand spec- tacle was too great and too imminent for us thoroughly to appreciate its magnificence. Indeed, we were really thankful when once our backs were turned on the awful scene." Then followed great sufferings from lack of water and interminable difficulties as to guides, but at length they reached the Omaruru watercourse. The next trouble arose from the attacks of lions, and splendid adventures with elephants, which frequented the waterholes in the river beds in enormous numbers. In March, 1858, Andersson suddenly reached the banks of the great Okavango. He was search- ing for the Kunene, but had taken a wide detour to the east Explorers of South-west Africa 305 to avoid the drought of the plateaus nearer the coast (the Kaoko) and the hostility of the Ovampo tribe. As soon as he saw this magnificent river rolling eastward, over 200 yards wide, he realized that it could not be the Kunene, but must be some tributary of the Ngami system or of the Chobe. As a matter of fact the Okavango (or Kubango, as it is called) is the Teoge or Taokhe which feeds Lake Ngami, and splits up into a labyrinth of marshy streams whose sluggish waters find their way at last into the Chobe near where it joins the Zambezi. Andersson might not have returned alive from this discovery had not Frederick Green, with great gallantry, come hundreds of miles to meet him and escort him back to the mission station of Ochimbingwe; for the Ovampo, hearing he had reached the Okavango, were preparing to send an army southward to cut him off. On the journey back through the wilderness of eastern Damaraland the party was often menaced with death by the boldness of the man-eating lions that night after night attacked the camp. Sometimes in the course of about five minutes a lion would tear some unfortunate Negro or Bushman to pieces, leaving only an arm, a head, or some of the in- testines in the place of a vigorous living man, whose screams seemed still to be ringing in the ears of his companions. Andersson, three years afterwards, married an English- woman, and settled down in Damaraland as a trader, cattle owner, and hunter; but he became involved in war with the detestable Namakwa Hottentots through his attempts to save the Ova-herero from attack. In this warfare he lost all his property, and received a most severe wound in the leg, which made him a cripple for the rest of his life. He was, in fact, reduced to absolute poverty, and it would (0 587) 20a 3o6 Pioneers in South Africa have been despair, likewise, had it not been for the goodness of his wife's relations and of various Cape Town citizens. But friends clustered round him. He was joined by a youth from Sweden, Axel Eriksson, and once more returned to the Herero country, to attempt to build up another competence by shooting elephants and ostriches. But his longing to make geographical discoveries sent him north again in search of the Kunene River. He found it in 1867, but the effort proved too much for his weakened frame, tortured as he had long been by agonies of gastric trouble. He died of some malady of the stomach in July, 1867, aged only forty-two years. He did much to increase our knowledge of the birds of south-west Africa, and Eriksson continued this work after his master's death, becoming in his turn a mighty pioneer and hunter in the basin of the Kunene River. In the opinion of some critics the best pioneer book ever written about South Africa — and there have been many good ones — was the work of James Chapman, published in 1868. James Chapman was one of the wonders of South African pioneering history. We know all too little about him, his birthplace and origin; but from his published works we glean that he was an Englishman, or of English descent. If not born in South Africa of English parents, he must have emigrated thither very young, since he was living at Durban from his tenth to his fourteenth year. He was born on 27 December, 1831 (we gather from his book), and when only seventeen returned from Cape Town to Natal, and was offered by the Lieutenant-Governor a post as chief clerk in the Government Department for Native Affairs. He only held this a few months, being too anxious to become a hunter and explorer. In 1849, Explorers of South-west Africa 307 still barely eighteen, he rode across the Drakensberg into the territories of the emigrant Boers, and tried to establish himself as a trader. But although he received what was denied to most Englishmen, a license to remain, he found the Boers so vexatious in their suspicion and ignorance, and so ruthless in their treatment of the natives (he espe- cially criticizes their unblushing slave trade), that he deter- mined to strike away to the regions beyond their rule in the far interior, to explore, hunt, and trade with the natives. Accompanied part of the way by two Boer hunters and a young German traveller, Chapman travelled across the upper Limpopo into northern Bechuanaland, the country of the Bamangwato, where he conciliated the angry people — angry because of the British surrender to the Boers over the Transvaal question — by making great friends with their chief Sekhomi's eldest son, the afterwards celebrated Khama, then a lad of sixteen. Early in 1853 Chapman had reached the Chobe River, and had travelled down it to the Zambezi in a canoe, till he came within sight of the clouds of spray rising from the Victoria Falls. He just missed anticipating Livingstone in this discovery because the canoemen were so afraid of the raiding Matebele that they would transport him no nearer. In 1854 he and his partner, Edwards, accompanied by the missionary Moffat, left Kuruman on a journey to see Mosilikatsi, but Chapman left the party at Shoshong and journeyed westward till he reached Lake Ngami. Thence he zigzagged backwards and forwards towards the central Zambezi, and discovered the great salt pans of the Makari- kari,^ after which he traced the main stream of the Teoge 1 James Chapman was the first person to discover or describe the great salt lake of Makarikari, in 1854. Its immediate margin was strewn with large agate pebbles, white and coloured quartz, broken pieces of basalt and felspar, as well as iron ore and pieces of bluish slate richly spangled with mica ; but at some distance back from its shores the (0 587) 206 3o8 Pioneers in South Africa (lower Okavango) for a considerable distance to the north- west, then drove his wagons boldly across the intervening deserts into Damaraland and on to the Atlantic seaboard at Walvisch Bay. From this great journey he returned by sea to Cape Town in 1856. After that he married, and then interested himself in the Damaraland trade in cattle. In i860 he conceived the idea of crossing Africa from Walvisch Bay to the mouth of the Zambezi, inspired, no doubt, by Thomas Baines, who had joined him in Cape Town. James Chapman and his younger brother Henry, together with Baines, left Walvisch Bay for the east in the beginning of 1861. They made their way once more to Lake Ngami, the irresistible goal at that period of all South African hunter travellers because of its herds of game, abundance of food, and natives with ivory to sell. Then they passed on to the Zambezi, and visited the Victoria Falls (see p. 285), finally reaching a point named Sinamani, some distance east of the Gwai junction. Here Chapman turned back from pursuing his eastward route, owing to the severe illness which had attacked the Europeans of his party and the danger of losing all his cattle and horses from tsetse fly. Once more he set his face towards Walvisch Bay, and from that place eventually returned to Cape Town in the autumn of 1864. Nothing more is recorded of his journeys after that, but he seems to have become interested in the search for diamonds, which was already beginning to make fortunes in Grikwaland. Chapman, however, died when he was only forty, at Dutoitspan (Kimberley), in February, 1872. land was covered with a thick forest of low trees ("golden-leaved Bauhinias"), with much luxuriant vegetation and dense undergrowth. The magnificent Sable antelope was found in its neighbourhood. Explorers of South-west Africa 309 He seems (from his writings) to have had a singularly sweet disposition. Not an ill-natured word is written of anyone among his contemporaries and rivals. He was thoroughly liked by the missionaries, and wrote most warmly of them and their work. He was equally popular with native chiefs, and with the Bushmen, Hottentot, Bechuana, Damara, and Zambezi people. He took a great interest in the botany, zoology, and geology of the countries he explored, which is why his book will always have a permanent value because of its vivid portrayal of Tropical South Africa as first seen by the white man in the middle of last century. Having given this rough outline of his principal jour- neys, I will now summarize a few of the episodes and descriptions of life to be met with in his writings. Here is a receipt for dining off an elephant, written when he was twenty-one: — *^The elephant's trunk if baked in a pit during the night becomes as soft as a jelly and resembles very much the flavour of ox tongue. The foot, a joint from which twenty men can dine, is also exceedingly fine in taste, being a white, crisp, and gristly kind of substance, strongly ingrained with fat but as rich as marrow. One may eat any quantity without ever feeling surfeited. But a certain portion of the head and cheek of a fat elephant cow is by far the most delicious morsel." On the eastern borders of Bechuanaland he sees this superb spectacle, never to be reproduced now: — **A troop of between two and three hundred giraffes evidently migrating came in view. A Bush boy with bow and arrow stalking amongst them — one of the most mag- nificent sights that it ever fell to the lot of a traveller to behold, even in these regions. The dense mass, half a 3IO Pioneers in South Africa mile in length, formed a complete and impervious wall, and all the Bushmen and Bechuana declared they had never seen the like, though they were born in the country. They attributed the migration of this herd to want of pasture in the desert." . . . **We found ourselves to our great delight huddled together round a blazing fire on the opposite shore of the salt lake, enjoying our warm coffee and some delicious giraffe steaks." Among his many notes on elephants are the follow- ing:— ** Elephants always know by the appearance of the track left behind by their own species, whether it has been made in flight, even though the track was several days old ; and if they should encounter such traces showing that preceding elephants had left the district in a state of dismay, they would at once set off after them at full speed." He remarks on the attitude of helpfulness which ele- phants exhibit one towards the other, and their heroic defence of their young. Reflections like this sometimes inspired him with remorse; nevertheless he pursued resolutely, and killed one after the other, a troop of ten elephant cows, without being able to make much use of their flesh or derive any profit from their small tusks. ** We rode to the field of blood on which lay the scat- tered carcasses of the eleven elephants we had killed. We found most of the natives in a perfectly helpless condition, having gorged themselves to surfeit on the flesh. They had extracted the tusks, and, cutting all the flesh into long strips, had hung it up to dry on racks, rudely constructed of branches of trees. Thus there were acres of raw flesh Explorers of South-west Africa 311 under the shade of which lay many of the Makalaka, full to repletion. Others were still employed in disgusting operations, and still more foul proceedings on the re- mains of the animals, the details of which would be revolting." Chapman sometimes saw as many as eleven ** white'* rhinoceroses in a troop in the Ngami region. Some of the males were so large that he occasionally mistook them for elephants. He wrote that those whose front horn, instead of curving backwards, curves forwards, are merely very old individuals. The much disputed colour of this rhino- ceros he describes as a neutral grey, like the canvas tent of a wagon. Male specimens which he measured were 6 feet 8 inches at the withers, and carried their heads so low that the chin nearly swept the ground. The edges or insides of the ears were very hairy. The white or square-lipped rhinoceros lived chiefly on grass, and went about in families rather than as solitary individuals. Its cry was more of a lowing sound, not a startling, whistling snort like that of the black rhinoceros. The black rhinoceros was known as Borele or Kheitloa. They were 6 feet high at the withers, nearly as large as the white rhinoceros, but much more solitary in their habits. The horns were slightly curved backwards and grew to nearly equal lengths, becoming flat and chopper-edged on the inner side. The colour of the skin was a dark neutral grey, almost a black. This species lived on twigs and leaves, rather than on grass. [Of course the great difference between the two forms lies in the fact that the white rhinoceros has a broad, square-shaped upper lip and muzzle, whereas the black rhinoceros has the upper lip developed into a prehensile point] Chapman, like other South African travellers, persisted in saying that 312 Pioneers, in South Africa just as there are two varieties of white rhinoceros, so there were two varieties of the black. The smaller of the two was the Keningani or Borelengani, which had larger ears than the Borele, but was considerably smaller in general size, a dumpy, plump-looking animal, lively in its actions, nervous, wary, fidgety, and flying readily into a fury. Its front horn was long, neat, thin, shiny, black, and pointed, and the posterior horn always short. Chap- man even added that in the Lake Ngami region there was a fifth variety, which ate grass as well as leaves. Here is a characteristic hunting episode. Chapman had seen a sable antelope near the Zambezi banks, and, most eager to obtain a magnificent specimen of this antelope, he rode after it full gallop over very broken country. **My horse came down with great violence, throwing me on my head with his hind quarters across my arms, sparks flying from my eyes and my neck cracking. This was the work of one or two seconds only. The next moment I raised myself up half-stunned and stupified, and my arms, which I had stretched out to check the violence of the fall, were for the moment useless. But looking up from where I stood I saw the sable antelope standing bewildered before me at a distance of 150 feet. Pain and weakness were at once dispelled; my rifle was at my shoulder, and the next instant the sable antelope had disappeared from my vision as he dropped suddenly in the long grass struggling with the last agonies of departing life. ** While waiting for Baines, who is ever indefatigable and sanguine ... a beautiful herd of kudu, male and female, paraded themselves before me on the opposite bank of the Zambezi, as if conscious of their security in the absence ot a boat. I regretted much my inability to photograph so interesting a picture; beautiful animals, Explorers of South-west Africa 313 noble trees — comprising dwarf palms, baobabs, anna-boom, masuku, figs, &c., &c.; and the river flowing fast before us, between wild black rocks. The distant hills were covered with sterculia trees." He gives this interesting information about the Bush- man. The Bushmen often assumed an attitude of friendli- -ness towards the packs of wild dogs, so abundant in earlier days in South Africa. These dogs, which were in the habit of barking, and which sometimes made terrible havoc amongst the herds of antelopes, were either indifferent to the presence of man and quite unafraid of him, or if they interfered with them, ready to turn on them with ferocity. Yet the Bushmen would often rescue wild dogs which had fallen into game pits, and would remark that they did this because these dogs, as well as jackals, lions, leopards, and vultures, were their allies. The circling flight of the vultures showed them where some dead animal was lying, and they were often able to secure a portion of the lion's kill for their food, when that beast was satiated, while the wild dogs and jackals helped to bring to bay the big game. A favourite article of diet with these people was the large monitor lizard and its eggs — a food which was very fattening. Chapman comments frequently on the beauty of colour of South African lizards, though the colour never lasted after death. He mentions a golden lizard ^}4 inches long, with small, neat head, very small legs, and the colour *^as near a representation of shining gold as one can find in any living creature ". Lastly, here is a picture of southern Damaraland from his pen: — The Kan valley had an edge of round, broken, and cliffy hills, dotted with verdant acacias. The bases of the heights were clothed with blooming, sweet-scented acacias, from 314 Pioneers in South Africa whose black stems the silvery gum trickled, while their blossoms perfumed the morning air. Blue rollers hovered overhead, vociferating in concert with the gaily-painted, screaming parrots {Poeocephalus)^ and discordant Guinea fowls whose noises were further augmented by the whirl of francolin and sand-grouse rising on every side, while insects of green and gold buzzed and boomed amongst the foliage. The least interesting part of this valley was clothed with tamarisk, a few pretty ebony trees, aged and widespread mokalas and anna-booms. Here graceful kudus were found browsing, and the klipspringer antelope perched on the highest pinnacles; while the equally agile mountain zebra, wary as a cat, barely showed his head over the mountains, then, tossing his head and rearing back, he would suddenly fling out his heels and plunge forward in a mad gallop. The steinboks kept on the lower plains, and baboons were to be found in large gangs grubbing for bulbs and roots. ** Through such a landscape it is an interesting sight to watch the red wheels of the white-tilted wagons dragging heavily after the sturdy team of parti- coloured oxen, often stumbling and kneeling over the sharp flints; now rolling with the roar of distant thunder down the rocky steps of the mountains, with difficulty main- taining its equilibrium; now grating down the quartzy slope with the drag on, the oxen dragging sometimes on their haunches; anon grinding over the pebbly bed of the stream, on emerging from which the sore-footed cattle firmly tread the soft, sandy road, cut through a carpet of emerald, until they bury themselves out of sight in the blooming groves, while the mountains re-echo with the driver's harsh voice and the crack of his huge whip." In 1864 Dr. W. Coaxes Palgrave had made a remark- Explorers of South-west Africa 315 able journey through Ovampoland to the Okavango River, reaching that great stream about lOO miles farther north- west than Andersson had done six years previously. In 1873 this same explorer, who had become an official of the Cape Colonial Government, was dispatched as Commis- sioner to report on the state of affairs north of the Orange River, more especially the continual and unceasing warfare which was going on between the rapacious, ugly, semi- civilized. Christian Hottentots of the *^ Afrikaner" clans, and the cattle-keeping Ova-herero. Dr. Palgrave brought back with him a most interesting report, accompanied by a valuable collection of photographs picturing for us the more renowned of these Afrikaner leaders, and the types of Bushmen, Hottentot, Ova-herero, Hill-Damara, and Ovampo natives. He recommended, at the request of all the leading chiefs, the extension of British rule over all south-west Africa up to the Portuguese boundary. But the responsible government of the day in Cape Colony was a ministry of mean personalities quite incapable of far-sighted action. It refused its assent to the annexation of Great Namakwaland and the Damara countries (with the exception of Walvisch Bay, which became British in 1878). For four more years the Hottentots continued to raid the Herero and incidentally to destroy the property of the German missionaries. Then at last an appeal was made by these for German protection. The German Government asked that of Great Britain whether its sovereignty extended across the Orange River. Receiving no answer or no ex- plicit reply in the affirmative, a German war vessel was sent to various points on this desolate coast and there hoisted the German flag, and took under the protection of the German Empire those vast territories between the 3i6 Pioneers in South Africa Orange River and the Kunene, the Atlantic coast and the Chobe, which had been made known to the world by the great pioneers — most of them Englishmen — whose adven- tures I have recorded. PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN At the Villafield Press ^ Glasgow y Scotland 14 DAY USE RFTURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. RENEWALS ONLY - " "el. No. 642-3405 iOV 6»k¥lf RECPfVFH fi^i 1 ♦, »pn i ny ^J"" i ^ bo ■4 rlVI LOAN DEPT. RECEIVED MAR 2 8 1995 CIRCULATION DEP T. LD 2lA-45m-9,'67 (H5067sl0)476B General Library University of California Berkeley