Chapter Twenty Two.
The physical geography of that part of the Mashona and Matabeleland on the north of the watershed dividing the Zambese and Limpopo basins, under the rule of the Matabele king, with notes on my explorations in the Zambese basin.
This northern portion of Lo-Bengulu’s kingdom is separated from the southern by the watershed already described, dividing his territory into two equal parts. This division extends to the Zambese. The western boundary joins up to the chief Khama’s territory, and the eastern by the upper part of the Mazoe river, crossing the Lobolo mountain to the Zambese in 32 degrees East longitude. The northern face of the watershed is a rugged and mountainous country, broken up into many spurs with deep ravines thickly wooded. The country is drained by many tributaries of the Zambese, with their branches, the most important being the Gwaii. The altitude of the source of this river is 4800 feet. The rivers falling into it are the Inkokwasi, Umvungu, Chamgani, Kagane, Umkhosi, Kame, Mapui, Amatza, Amaboguana, and the Umfulamokokgumale, which supply the country with water.
Upon several are situated many of the most important military kraals, viz. Amaboguana, Inyatine, Umkano, Umganine, Umhalbatine, Umslaslantala, Gubuluwayo, Umzamala, Umbambo, Umshangiva, Manpangi, Inthlathlangela, and many others. The Gwaii enters the Zambese in 17 degrees 54 minutes South latitude, and 27 degrees 3 minutes East longitude, passing through the Abutua region, which is thickly wooded. The next important rivers are the Umnyaki, the Umvuli, and the Mazoe, and their several branches. The country is very hilly, clothed with dense bush towards the Zambese.
The scenery is grand in many parts; bold massive granite rocks standing out far above the surrounding country give a wildness to the landscape. The Lobolo mountain is the eastern termination of this watershed on the south of the Zambese river, in the Banyai region, a lofty range broken up into many spurs and detached hills, thickly populated, 4210 feet above the sea-level. The Leputa, which is a continuation of the Lobolo, takes a south-west course, through which the Umvuli flows, and several tributaries of the river Panyame, that flows into the Zambese a few miles below the old Jesuit mission station Zumbo, on the north bank of the river. The watershed from the Lobolo mountain takes a south course to 18 degrees 10 minutes South latitude, at an elevation of 4650 feet, continuing in the same course for sixty miles, where the altitude reaches 4780 feet; then turns south-west for 180 miles to Gubuluwayo, the king’s kraal, where it is 4800 feet above sea-level. This military station is in 20 degrees 19 minutes South latitude, 28 degrees 50 minutes East longitude. At this point the watershed is much broken up, taking a westerly course under the name of Matoppo range for 100 miles, at an elevation of 4500 feet, to Umsuaze kraal, where it considerably diminishes in height to 3700 feet. To the south of this station it rises to 3700 feet, where it takes a southern course, leaving the great brak pan Makarakara some twenty miles on the right, and passing east of it; then in a south-west direction to Kaikai in the Kalahara desert, where it joins the central watershed of South Central Africa. The country on the north for some considerable distance continues high table-land. At Sebenane kraal, near the source of the Natu river, it is 3600 feet, and on the Amatza river, thirty miles to the east, the elevation is 3800 feet. At Bobe, on the road to Inyatine, it is 4200 feet; at Sabaque kraal, on the river of the same name, the altitude is 3970 feet; at Maaschen kraal, on the Saturo river, it is 3850 feet; at the old gold-diggings on the Umvuli river, in 17 degrees 54 minutes South latitude, 30 degrees 15 minutes East longitude, the elevation is 3740 feet, and as the Zambese below the Victoria Falls, where the Zimboya river enters it, is 2210 feet, and continues to fall considerably down nearly to Tette, a Portuguese town on the south bank of the Zambese, above where the Mazoe enters, the fall in these rivers is not so great, and all the region between the watershed and that river is not lower in any part than 1300 feet above sea-level; so that the elevation of the watershed above the surrounding country on both sides of it is in no case more than 1700 feet, so that in travelling through the country the rise is almost imperceptible.
This northern region of Lo-Bengulu’s territory, known as Matabeleland, is thickly studded with large military kraals and villages occupied by the Mashona Kaffirs. Some of them are very powerful, so much so, that when they cause the king to be jealous of them, he sends an impi (army) composed of some of his bravest warriors, who make an attack on the station at night when all are fast asleep, and kill every soul except the very young, whom they bring back with them, together with the captured cattle and other booty to the king, which disposes of any anxiety he may have on the score of a rival to his authority.
Ancient gold-diggings and old forts are found in every locality, more particularly in the north and north-east direction towards the Zambese, some of them very extensive, and appear to have been worked for years. Most of the rivers contain gold-dust in their sandy beds, and many of the natives of the present time collect it for their head Indunas, and sell it to the Portuguese at Tette on the Zambese river, a considerable village with beautiful gardens and fruit of every description in perfection. It is now nearly twenty years since the well known elephant-hunter, Mr Hartly, when out hunting in the Mashona country, on the Umvuli river, discovered those ancient gold-diggings now so well known to most travellers who have penetrated so far in as the Northern Gold-Fields, and a hill near is known as Hartly Hill.
More recently they have been visited by Sir John Swinbourne in 1869, but at present nothing can be done to develop the country, from the insecurity of the present state of affairs in the territory. My impression is that gold is spread over the whole country, both in alluvial and in quartz. Reefs of this rock are seen in every direction, bordered by rich deposits of clay, shale, and other rocks, indicative of gold being close at hand. There are several small hills of igneous rocks to be met with, also metamorphic schists and other deposits that have no uniformity in their distribution over the country, which gives better hopes of rich gold deposits being discovered. At the present time no one is allowed in, even to prospect. No traveller enters the country without special permission from the king, and he must be accompanied by several Matabele warriors, professedly as guides and for protection, but absolutely as spies, to see what the white man is up to, and if found looking about on the ground or picking up any stones, he is quickly ordered out of the country, as in the case of St. Vincent Erskine, who was sent for by the king, because he was staying for a day or two at the site of an ancient mine.
It is a region full of interest in every sense of the word. To the mineralogist, geologist, botanist, naturalist, hunter, and others in search of the beauties of nature, this region offers as fine a field as any portion of the world. It is also of great interest to antiquaries, as being the supposed kingdom of the Queen of Sheba, and not without substantial foundation; for do we not find, in every turn we take, ruins of strongholds and extensive remains of gold-workings, the labour of former people who once occupied this land? Scenery more picturesque, grand, and wild cannot be found. Animals, the largest in the world, abound, and of every variety. To the horticulturist a new field is open for discovery.
Flowers and many beautiful trees rarely to be met with elsewhere, grow in great profusion; amongst them the grand old baobab, that has defied winds and storms. Palms grace the country with their presence; mapani, euphorbias, aloes, cacti of every variety and beauty, with crimson flowers, mahogany, ebony, mimosas, acacias, and the beautiful matchabela, the tints of which are of a lovely crimson when springing into leaf, and when they are fully blown turn to a rich green; then again, the leghondi, with its golden yellow leaves, and others equally beautiful but unknown, make up a landscape lovely to look upon. When they fringe the river-banks, beneath which the crocodile and hippopotamus are amusing themselves, and the water-fowl and cranes are busy seeking food, with the birds of rich plumage passing from tree to tree, as pretty a landscape is made up as can be desired, backed, as all the foreground is, by gigantic castellated granite hills and quaint rocks standing out as if representing some animals, so lifelike are their outlines. When first I looked upon one representing a wolf, I could scarcely believe it was so formed by nature. As a field for agriculture none can surpass it. Corn of every kind grows to perfection. Coffee, tea, cotton, indigo, all kinds of spices, india-rubber trees, oranges, and lemons, are found wild; vegetables of all sorts, sweet potato, and many other kinds of plants.
The climate is healthy away from the coast region, and water is plentiful; and, if in our hands, the land would support millions where it now keeps alive thousands of natives; and as a region for the cultivation of the cotton-plant it is the finest I may say in the world, for the cotton, which is indigenous without any cultivation, is superior to the cultivated cotton grown in America. Twenty-five thousand square miles of ground could with little trouble and expense produce as much as the British merchants require, and of superior quality. I forwarded samples to the Right Hon. the Earl of Carnarvon, then Secretary of State for the Colonies, in 1875, and I also left with Sir Bartle Frere, then Governor of South Africa, similar samples in 1877. As a rice-producing country, I know of no better. The Mashonas cultivate it on a small scale, and bring it to Gubuluwayo for sale to the traders and hunters on the station. The grain is larger than that which is brought to England, and less quantity is required for cooking. I have used it for years when opportunity allowed for getting it from the natives.
The missionary stations in this country are at Inyatine, where the Rev. Mr Sykes has for many years been doing duty. The late Rev. Mr Thomas formerly lived there, but he afterwards removed down to Shiloh. The former is sixty miles north of Gubuluwayo, the latter about thirty miles in a north-west direction. Hopefountain is four miles to the north of this military station, where the Rev. Mr Thompson formerly lived; afterwards the Rev. Messrs Elms and Elliott, all of whom are under the London Missionary Society.
Inyati, afterwards altered to Inyatine, was the first royal residence of the dreaded Umselekatze, who ruled his people with a rod of iron, and kept an army of over 8000 warriors, and could bring more into the field if required. He was a king who knew how to rule his people; a splendid warrior himself, he took care that his troops should be so likewise. He died in 1869, and at his death there was a dispute as to who should be his successor. Kuruman, his son by a royal wife, was supposed to be living in Natal, instead of being killed by order of his father; but on inquiry it was stated he had been killed.
Lo-Bengulu, on the 25th January, 1870, was proclaimed king with groat rejoicings. Warriors to the number of 10,000 assembled at the king’s kraal, dressed in full war costume, a helmet of black ostrich feathers, capes and epaulets of the same, strips of cat-skins for their kilts, and other ornamentations on their legs. Armed with short stabbing assagais and shields of oxhide, they formed a circle some twenty deep, paying homage to their new king, singing his praises, keeping time with their feet, and going through various performances, after which a great slaughter of oxen took place, with feasting and Kaffir beer, terminating the day’s proceedings. He has reigned up to the present time without any disturbance amongst his people.
The Mashonas are a separate race from the Matabele, who originally were pure Zulus when they came into this country with their chief Umselekatze, or as he was better known under the name of Moselikatze. Since then many of them have taken to wife the young girls of the Mashona tribe. The great men and high-caste Zulus take pride in keeping themselves pure from any mixture with other races, and in walking amongst them in their kraals a marked difference is seen. The pure Matabele is a fine specimen of the human race; tall, well-made, with regular features and an upright bearing. Lo-Bengulu allows these marriages, as it tends to unite the nation closer together. Generally they look upon the Mashonas as dogs.
The Mashonas are very clever workmen in wood and iron, and make very handsome bowls, snuff-boxes, spoons, daggers, assagais, and spears, which they ornament with carvings. Many of their figures so much resemble ancient Egyptians that it is difficult to distinguish any difference. Quaint musical instruments show great skill, having keys similar to a piano, bass and treble producing very sweet sounds. They make all their iron picks for preparing the ground for the seed. Blankets they make from the wild cotton, which they dye brown; also bags for holding milk or water of the bark of the baobab and other trees. Their bows and arrows are beautifully made. They are very clever in cutting out from a block of wood little stools, which are used for pillows by the young dandies, to preserve their hair from touching the ground when sleeping. The fashion with the young men is to allow their woolly hair to grow quite long, which they increase in length by tying it up with red bark from the trees (mimosa is preferred), and anoint it with fat.
The hair is so arranged that it forms ridges from the front to the back of the head. When sufficiently long, that is about a foot, it is dressed with fat mixed with charcoal, and then divided in the centre, that the curls may fall down on each side, with a band round the head to keep the curls in their place, and to preserve them from dirt or dust. Each dandy carries with him one of these wooden neck-pillows, which are in most cases elaborately carved, and are much prized. Many of their customs are similar to those we see in Egyptian paintings of those people, and when they are sitting down, their figures, face, and features, and mode of dress are in every way Egyptian. Their villages are almost always built on the most inaccessible parts of the mountain ridges, to be safe from any sudden attack of the Matabele warriors. Some of them are perched on the top of masses of granite rocks, so that the people themselves have difficulty to reach them. A pole or ox-reim is used to climb up. Other rocks are used to stow away their corn and food.
The tsetse-fly is common nearly all over the country, but there are certain districts clear of them. I have been told by the natives that cattle born in the country are free from any ill-effect of the bite.
The Mashona huts are very well-made, most of them with circular roofs. The Matabele build their huts very similar to the Bechuanas, but the Zulus of Natal have round roofs fenced in with a high stick fence, and kept very neat and clean.
The Mashonas are a well-made people, and some of the women very good-looking when young, but after twenty they begin to show age. A man may have as many wives as he can buy, but few men have large families.
Gubuluwayro up to recently has been the principal military kraal of Lo-Bengulu; latterly he has removed to another locality. It was on my last visit very extensive, containing several thousand people. His own residence was built similar to any English house, with a verandah, supported by posts. There were several rooms, but most of them were in dreadful disorder; boxes, elephants’ tusks, empty champagne and English beer bottles, karosses, old clothes, guns, shields, and assagais, all covered with dust and dirt. Elephants’ tusks strewed the verandah; there was no room to walk about or seats to sit upon. There were three other buildings, several waggons, an old cart, and rubbish everywhere. Close to the house was his principal cattle kraal, and another smaller one on the left.
The passage leading to the interior of the enclosure passed between; it is only wide enough for one to pass along at a time, and in wet weather is several inches deep in mud. This enclosure exceeded two acres in extent, enclosed by a high strong fence of poles placed double. Each cattle kraal was surrounded in the same way. Several thorn trees grow within the enclosure, under which the waggon stood. His sister Nina occupied one of the houses. She was unmarried, very stout like her brother, and a good friend to all the English visiting the country.
She had great influence with the king, but was a great beggar at the same time. I had not been outspanned half an hour before she sent down a Matabele for some linen; I sent up six yards. She then sent for some beads, and I sent up a pound of them. She sent again for some sugar; I sent about a pound. The next day she wanted more linen to cover over some Kaffir beer she had been making for her brother; I sent her only three yards. It is the same with all who go there.
There were many traders at the station who kept stores, some in brick houses, others in Kaffir huts, situated outside of the military station that surrounded the king’s kraal, leaving an open space of about 300 yards all round between the town and the king’s enclosure, where he reviews his troops on grand occasions. Several trees are growing upon it. The station commands a view in all directions.
The stream from which the town is supplied with water is at the foot of the hill, about a third of a mile from the nearest huts. The country round is very bare of trees. Kaffir gardens are situated on the rising ground beyond the hill, upon which the town is built.
Kaffir corn is the principal food of the people. The women cultivate the land and bring water to their houses, so that there is a constant stream of them with their Kaffir pots going up and down the hill on all sides, conveying it to their houses. Most of the women have little black babies on their backs, supported by well-worn skins of the wild animals killed by the men; with little naked urchins running by their mother’s side, hanging on to the skin worn similar to a kilt, happy as they can be, talking to their neighbours as they meet, singing with all the lightness of a happy heart. They continue to suck until five or six years old.
When we compare their habits with civilised life, there is very little difference. They have the same routine of duty to go through daily in their household affairs, so far as cooking, keeping their huts in order, attending to their gardens and such things. The men make the karosses and attend to their cattle. The Matabele race live precisely in the same way, and have the same habits as their neighbours, the Bechuanas. The king has several country kraals, which he visits at different times for a change.
The country cannot boast of many good roads; there is only one direct from the south. Others from Mongwato go round to the west by the great salt-pan Makarakara. There are also two from the Tati district, and two from Gubuluwayo, and other hunting roads from Inyatine to the Zambese, Victoria Falls, and military kraals in various parts of the territory, many of them very good, others stony and with bad drifts.
Inyatine during the lifetime of Moselikatze was an extensive military station. After his death it was destroyed, and the king removed south, and eventually settled at Gubuluwayo; but it appears that lately he has abandoned that station, and fixed his residence in another locality.
The road from the king’s kraal to Sebenane station, where several roads branch off, one going to Panda-ma-Tenka, Mr G. Westbeech’s large store, passes through a sandy country with numerous pans and vleis, dry in winter, but containing water in summer. In the Lechuma valley beyond, Wankies, a chief, a few years ago, had possession of the country until Lo-Bengulu took it from him, and Wankies and his people crossed the Zambese and settled on its northern bank.
The Victoria Falls are considered to be included in the Matabele kingdom. Although this part of the country is 3000 feet above sea-level, it is very unhealthy during the summer months. Mr G. Westbeech, who has lived and hunted in the country for the last thirteen years, told me in 1878 he had had the fever over thirty times, and when he took quinine the dose would be a small teaspoonful. The country generally through this part is very pretty, in many portions park-like, with clumps of trees in groups; but the roads are fearfully sandy, and the want of water for some six and seven months of the year is a great drawback to the country improving.
But when the time comes, and the people of the Cape Colony are more alive to their own interests, instead of living in their present dormant state, devoting their attention to subjects of no real importance to their prosperity, they will see how vital it is to their interests to have a central railway up through Africa to the Congo basin, and to draw a vast trade south, that would otherwise flow to the west coast, and all the country that is situated on the north side of the Zambese river, up to what is included in the Congo state, a region of untold wealth, teeming with elephants, ostriches, and every kind of large game; thickly populated by intelligent races, who are alive to the advantage of those comforts that civilisation brings into the country. From a want of forethought the colonists have lost the west coast, and as far inland as the 20 degrees East longitude, and they will find the Germans no mean competitors in the interior trade of that vast region.
The Barotse tribe, in particular, which is very numerous, has already received great benefit from the English trade introduced first into the country by Mr Westbeech at the chief’s kraal on the north side of the Zambese, and afterwards by other traders, when the chief Secheke was alive.
The extent of this region north of the river, within a reasonable distance of a railway at the Victoria Falls, is 150,000 square miles. The distance of railway carriage from the Zambese river to Kimberley is 770 miles, to where a railway is already being constructed. A single line could be made at a trifling cost, as the country through which it would pass is comparatively a dead level; and beyond the Vaal river at Barkly, where a bridge is now being erected, only a few small streams would have to be crossed.
The distance is less by several hundred miles from the above region to Kimberley over an easy route, than it is to the Congo river through a difficult and mountainous country, where large rivers would have to be bridged, making a line almost impracticable. Such a line would also open up the country on the south side of the Zambese river. Towns would spring up, and the advantages to the Cape Colony would be incalculable. If fifty miles at a time were laid down and completed, or more, if funds could be obtained, it would not take many years to accomplish this grand object. It would be far more to the advantage of the Colony and English trade in time than extending the railway from Kimberley to the Transvaal, although the commerce may be largely increased under the present Boer rule, with whom we should have trouble in the duties they would levy on every article entering or leaving the state.
I have explored the whole line of country from the Zambese river to Kimberley, and have no hesitation in stating that a better country could not be selected for a railway, or where the cost would be less. The country north of the Zambese river, already spoken of, is one of the most valuable portions of South Central Africa, intersected by large rivers, tributaries of the Zambese, the elevation being nearly 3000 feet above sea-level, with splendid open and extensive grass plains, most valuable for grazing all kinds of stock. It is also a fine corn-growing country. With a railway to the Zambese river, it would be easy for settlers to reach it, and a road for an outlet for their produce. The plan is feasible: it only requires a little more energy on the part of the colonists, whose interests in the trade of the Colony are important, to seriously consider this matter, and develop a plan for carrying it into effect. This would counteract in a great measure the loss the colonists must suffer in their trade with the interior, by the Delagoa Bay railway.
I have referred before to the wild cotton of that part of Africa the quality of which, as I have before stated, is superior to the cultivated American cotton. If the Manchester cotton princes had a little more vitality in their composition, and turned their attention to growing their own cotton, and had their own cotton-fields in the finest part of the world for cotton culture, instead of being dependent on foreign markets for their supply, when at any time that supply may be stopped, they would find that they could produce a better quality of cotton and at a cheaper rate than that now imported to England from the United States of America.
I have explored this extensive cotton-growing region, and have for years devoted much attention to the subject, and from my knowledge of the extent of the country in which the cotton-plant is indigenous, this region would, with proper attention, become the largest cotton-growing country in the world. It is useless to suppose that with the growing competition with other nations, that trade will be the same in the future as it has been in the past. If this idea prevails, the sooner we are disabused of it the better for those who are embarked, in it; and we must devise means whereby they may retain and improve the trade of this country, which must be increased if we are to find employment and food for the growing population, which is enormously increasing. Therefore it is the duty of those who have capital at command and are engaged in mercantile pursuit, to develop the British trade, not only for their own benefit, but for the general good of the nation; and here is a wide field in which their capital can be advantageously employed, and be of immense benefit to the Cape Colony and England.
There are three kinds of cotton indigenous to the regions above-named. The first and most important is that from which some of the natives make blankets. The yellow flower is cup-like in shape, eight inches in diameter, and the pod when ripe is six inches in length. The plant grows to the height of seven and eight feet, with light-green leaves. In the second specimen the flower was, when full blown, four inches in diameter, the pod two inches in length, the height of the tree three feet, with light-green leaves. The third kind is the obendly already described, viz. the flower is green, pod five inches in length, has three sides with a rib between, each side one and a quarter inches wide, and green; the leaf is light-green above and white under.
The Mashonas manufacture a coarse cloth made from the bark of the baobab tree, the size of blankets, and dye them brown; they are very strong and are used as mantles by the natives; they are made by hand without any machinery. This bark could, with machinery, be turned to valuable uses. They also make beautiful bags to hold milk or water, and sacks for general use, very strong and durable. Paper also could be made from this bark, and there are also millions of immense bulbous roots found everywhere, suitable for paper-making, besides other plants valuable for many purposes.
The importance of this railway for opening up the rich gold-fields known to exist in the Mashona country, must not be overlooked in calculating its advantages, for they far surpass in extent those in the Transvaal. Copper, lead, and silver are known to exist also, close to where the railway would go, which cannot now be profitably worked from the expensive carriage and the slowness of the transit to the Colony. Immense quantities of skins of all kinds of animals are now lost in consequence of the expense of bringing them down to the coast for shipment, as well as ivory, horns, feathers, and gums, without taking into consideration the valuable woods, such as mahogany, ebony, lignum-vitae, and others; and what is of the greatest importance in considering a railway, coal is known to exist in the country in any quantity required.
When I visited the Matabele country the last time, I came on a mission from Sir Bartle Frere, to report on the cotton-bearing country, and other matters that information was required on by the Government. On my arrival I reported myself to the king, where I found him on the 30th of December, at his country village, Umkano, or, as some term it, Umganine, a pretty situation with only a few huts beside the king’s, that numbered eight or ten, as before stated in a former part of this chapter.