第59章

Owing to the ravages of the weevil, the native corn can hardly be preserved until the following crop comes in.However largely they may cultivate, and however abundant the harvest, it must all be consumed in a year.This may account for their making so much of it into beer.The beer these Batoka or Bawe brew is not the sour and intoxicating boala or pombe found among some other tribes, but sweet, and highly nutritive, with only a slight degree of acidity, sufficient to render it a pleasant drink.The people were all plump, and in good condition; and we never saw a single case of intoxication among them, though all drank abundance of this liting, or sweet beer.

Both men and boys were eager to work for very small pay.Our men could hire any number of them to carry their burdens for a few beads a day.Our miserly and dirty ex-cook had an old pair of trousers that some one had given to him; after he had long worn them himself, with one of the sorely decayed legs he hired a man to carry his heavy load a whole day; a second man carried it the next day for the other leg, and what remained of the old garment, without the buttons, procured the labour of another man for the third day.

Men of remarkable ability have risen up among the Africans from time to time, as amongst other portions of the human family.Some have attracted the attention, and excited the admiration of large districts by their wisdom.Others, apparently by the powers of ventriloquism, or by peculiar dexterity in throwing the spear, or shooting with the bow, have been the wonder of their generation; but the total absence of literature leads to the loss of all former experience, and the wisdom of the wise has not been handed down.

They have had their minstrels too, but mere tradition preserves not their effusions.One of these, and apparently a genuine poet, attached himself to our party for several days, and whenever we halted, sang our praises to the villagers, in smooth and harmonious numbers.It was a sort of blank verse, and each line consisted of five syllables.The song was short when it first began, but each day he picked up more information about us, and added to the poem until our praises became an ode of respectable length.When distance from home compelled his return he expressed his regret at leaving us, and was, of course, paid for his useful and pleasant flatteries.

Another, though a less gifted son of song, belonged to the Batoka of our own party.Every evening, while the others were cooking, talking, or sleeping, he rehearsed his songs, containing a history of everything he had seen in the land of the white men, and on the way back.In composing, extempore, any new piece, he was never at a loss; for if the right word did not come he halted not, but eked out the measure with a peculiar musical sound meaning nothing at all.He accompanied his recitations on the sansa, an instrument figured in the woodcut, the nine iron keys of which are played with the thumbs, while the fingers pass behind to hold it.The hollow end and ornaments face the breast of the player.Persons of a musical turn, if too poor to buy a sansa, may be seen playing vigorously on an instrument made with a number of thick corn-stalks sewn together, as a sansa frame, and keys of split bamboo, which, though making but little sound, seems to soothe the player himself.When the instrument is played with a calabash as a sounding board, it emits a greater volume of sound.Pieces of shells and tin are added to make a jingling accompaniment, and the calabash is also ornamented.

After we had passed up, a party of slaves, belonging to the two native Portuguese who assassinated the chief, Mpangwe, and took possession of his lands at Zumbo, followed on our footsteps, and representing themselves to be our "children," bought great quantities of ivory from the Bawe, for a few coarse beads a tusk.They also purchased ten large new canoes to carry it, at the rate of six strings of red or white beads, or two fathoms of grey calico, for each canoe, and, at the same cheap rate, a number of good-looking girls.