British Central Africa, says Sir H. H. Johnston, ‘is a country singularly rich in bird life.’ On the Shiré we have a wonderful variety of water-birds—flamingoes, herons, cranes, ducks, geese, plovers—and, to mention no more (these two are among the first noticed by the new comer), the handsome black-and-white fishing-eagle, and the tiny kingfisher, ‘like a flash of blue light.’ Among the hills we have strange forms, like the hornbill, and gorgeous colouring, as in the plantain-eaters and rollers and some of the fly-catchers, and familiar home birds, and their near relations—swallows, thrushes, larks, woodpeckers (the native name for the latter, gogompanda, is very expressive). As to singing-birds, I may quote again from Sir Harry Johnston: ‘Both Mr. Whyte and myself have remarked with emphasis at different times on the beauty of the birds’ songs in the hilly regions of British Central Africa. The chorus of singing-birds is quite as beautiful as anything one hears in Europe, thus quite disposing of one of the numerous fictions circulated by early travellers about the tropics, to the effect that the birds, though beautiful, had no melodious songs, and the flowers, though gorgeous, no sweet and penetrating scents. The song of the Mlanje thrush is scarcely to be told from that of the English bird.’ This entirely accords with my own experience. A bird which often sang at night sounded just like a thrush.
As to reptiles, crocodiles abound in the Shiré and the lake, and are so dangerous that in many places the women draw water from the top of a high bank by means of a calabash attached to a long pole, instead of going down to the edge of the stream, as they would naturally do. Though accidents are so frequent, the crocodile can hardly be called a habitual eater of human flesh. His staple food is fish, and ‘it is only a rare incident for them to capture a mammal of any size; an incident which, given a number of crocodiles in any stream or lake, can only occur to each one at most once a year on an average.’[1] The natives (women sometimes do take the precaution I have mentioned) are strangely reckless in venturing into the water; they provide themselves with ‘crocodile medicine’ in whose efficacy they firmly believe; and if any bather comes to grief notwithstanding, it is presumed that his ‘medicine’ was not of the right kind, or had lost its power. But it seems that the crocodile will only seize a solitary person; consequently, if a whole party go into the water together, as usually happens, and make a great splashing, they are comparatively safe.
Of other reptiles, we shall have to notice the iguana and the tortoise (of which there are several kinds) in connection with folk-lore. There are also several kinds of chameleon and some small lizards, very beautifully coloured. Snakes, venomous and non-venomous, are of all sizes, from the python downward to the harmless little mitu iwiri or ‘two-heads,’ silver-grey, and not much thicker than a pencil. It is a kind of slow-worm, and gets its native name from the bluntness of its tail, which makes it difficult to see which end is which.
Fish are numerous, but as yet insufficiently studied.
As for the insects, volumes might be written on them; though the beetles and butterflies are, on the whole, less gorgeous in colouring, and the objectionable insects less execrable than in other tropical countries. It is curious that, while the native languages have a word for ‘butterfly’ (usually more or less expressive of the peculiar movements of its flight—chipuluputwa in Yao, peperu and gulugufe in Nyanja), they never seem to distinguish between different kinds. Every kind of beetle, on the other hand, has its own name, but I could never get hold of a designation for beetles as a class. Perhaps this is the outcome of a severely practical turn of mind—beetles can be utilised, and therefore compel a certain degree of individual attention—butterflies, so far as I know, are not. Some beetles are eaten, for instance a glossy dark-green one, about an inch and a half long, called nkumbutera, and another kind is manufactured into a snuff-box; and the useful ball-rolling beetles (all related to the sacred scarab of Egypt) have been observed and named accordingly.
Archdeacon Woodward assures me that the natives at Magila (Wa-Bondei and Wa-Shambala) absolutely refused to believe, till convinced by ocular demonstration (which must have taken time and trouble), that the butterfly came from the caterpillar. I did not ascertain whether this was the case at Blantyre; on the whole, the people seemed fairly good observers of insects and their ways. But, on consideration, it seems probable, for there are names for many different kinds of caterpillars; and the reason for this closer observation is similar to that in the case of the beetles—some destroy man’s food (as the mpeza which eats the young maize), and others are food for him—notably a green and yellow striped kind which is roasted on the equivalent for a hot shovel.
Ants, of course, abound—those that get into the food, those that eat you (or would if they got the chance), and those (only, properly speaking, they are not ants at all) that build mounds and destroy wood-work, besides others, which seem to do nothing in particular. The hill-building termites vary their erections according to locality—the huge, conical mounds are chiefly found on low land liable to floods. Sometimes they build curious erections like irregular chimneys. The chapter devoted to these in the late Professor Drummond’s Tropical Africa shows that they do an important work in the economy of Nature; but it is a mistake to suppose that there are no earth-worms in Africa, though they are not so common as with us. I do not know, however, if the Nyasaland ones are ever as large as one I measured in Natal, which was 22 inches long, and except for its size, just like those in our gardens. Bees make their nests in hollow trees, or in boxes hung up for them; mason-wasps build tiny clay nests the shape of the common native water-jar, about the length of one’s finger-nail. One must not conclude even the most imperfect review without a glance at the locusts (of which we shall have something to say later on), grasshoppers, and the extraordinary group of insects which look like leaves and sticks, and are comprehended under the name of Mantis.
Having now taken a hasty survey of the country in its main outlines, of the vegetation which clothes it, and the wild creatures which (in their various ways) enliven it, let us see, in the next chapter, who are the people that live there.