The favorite wife, who was also present, was equally anxious for butter. She had a profusion of iron rings on her ankles, to which were attached little pieces of sheet iron, to enable her to make a tinkling as she walked in her mincing African style; the same thing is thought pretty by our own dragoons in walking jauntingly.
We had so much rain and cloud that I could not get a single observation for either longitude or latitude for a fortnight. Yet the Leeba does not show any great rise, nor is the water in the least discolored. It is slightly black, from the number of mossy rills which fall into it. It has remarkably few birds and fish, while the Leeambye swarms with both. It is noticeable that alligators here possess more of the fear of man than in the Leeambye. The Balonda have taught them, by their poisoned arrows, to keep out of sight. We did not see one basking in the sun. The Balonda set so many little traps for birds that few appear. I observed, however, many (to me) new small birds of song on its banks. More rain has been falling in the east than here, for the Leeambye was rising fast and working against the sandy banks so vigorously that a slight yellow tinge was perceptible in it.
One of our men was bitten by a non-venomous serpent, and of course felt no harm. The Barotse concluded that this was owing to many of them being present and seeing it, as if the sight of human eyes could dissolve the poison and act as a charm.
On the 6th of January we reached the village of another female chief, named Nyamoana, who is said to be the mother of Manenko, and sister of Shinte or Kabompo, the greatest Balonda chief in this part of the country. Her people had but recently come to the present locality, and had erected only twenty huts. Her husband, Samoana, was clothed in a kilt of green and red baize, and was armed with a spear and a broadsword of antique form, about eighteen inches long and three broad. The chief and her husband were sitting on skins placed in the middle of a circle thirty paces in diameter, a little raised above the ordinary level of the ground, and having a trench round it. Outside the trench sat about a hundred persons of all ages and both sexes. The men were well armed with bows, arrows, spears, and broadswords. Beside the husband sat a rather aged woman, having a bad outward squint in the left eye. We put down our arms about forty yards off, and I walked up to the centre of the circular bench, and saluted him in the usual way by clapping the hands together in their fashion. He pointed to his wife, as much as to say, the honor belongs to her. I saluted her in the same way, and a mat having been brought, I squatted down in front of them.
The talker was then called, and I was asked who was my spokesman. Having pointed to Kolimbota, who knew their dialect best, the palaver began in due form. I explained the real objects I had in view, without any attempt to mystify or appear in any other character than my own, for I have always been satisfied that, even though there were no other considerations, the truthful way of dealing with the uncivilized is unquestionably the best. Kolimbota repeated to Nyamoana's talker what I had said to him. He delivered it all verbatim to her husband, who repeated it again to her. It was thus all rehearsed four times over, in a tone loud enough to be heard by the whole party of auditors. The response came back by the same roundabout route, beginning at the lady to her husband, etc.
After explanations and re-explanations, I perceived that our new friends were mixing up my message of peace and friendship with Makololo affairs, and stated that it was not delivered on the authority of any one less than that of their Creator, and that if the Makololo did again break His laws and attack the Balonda, the guilt would rest with the Makololo and not with me. The palaver then came to a close.
By way of gaining their confidence, I showed them my hair, which is considered a curiosity in all this region. They said, "Is that hair? It is the mane of a lion, and not hair at all." Some thought that I had made a wig of lion's mane, as they sometimes do with fibres of the "ife", and dye it black, and twist it so as to resemble a mass of their own wool. I could not return the joke by telling them that theirs was not hair, but the wool of sheep, for they have none of these in the country; and even though they had, as Herodotus remarked, "the African sheep are clothed with hair, and men's heads with wool." So I had to be content with asserting that mine was the real original hair, such as theirs would have been had it not been scorched and frizzled by the sun. In proof of what the sun could do, I compared my own bronzed face and hands, then about the same in complexion as the lighter-colored Makololo, with the white skin of my chest. They readily believed that, as they go nearly naked and fully exposed to that influence, we might be of common origin after all. Here, as every where, when heat and moisture are combined, the people are very dark, but not quite black. There is always a shade of brown in the most deeply colored. I showed my watch and pocket compass, which are considered great curiosities; but, though the lady was called on by her husband to look, she would not be persuaded to approach near enough.
These people are more superstitious than any we had yet encountered; though still only building their village, they had found time to erect two little sheds at the chief dwelling in it, in which were placed two pots having charms in them. When asked what medicine they contained, they replied, "Medicine for the Barimo;" but when I rose and looked into them, they said they were medicine for the game. Here we saw the first evidence of the existence of idolatry in the remains of an old idol at a deserted village. It was simply a human head carved on a block of wood. Certain charms mixed with red ochre and white pipe-clay are dotted over them when they are in use; and a crooked stick is used in the same way for an idol when they have no professional carver.
As the Leeba seemed still to come from the direction in which we wished to go, I was desirous of proceeding farther up with the canoes; but Nyamoana was anxious that we should allow her people to conduct us to her brother Shinte; and when I explained the advantage of water-carriage, she represented that her brother did not live near the river, and, moreover, there was a cataract in front, over which it would be difficult to convey the canoes. She was afraid, too, that the Balobale, whose country lies to the west of the river, not knowing the objects for which we had come, would kill us. To my reply that I had been so often threatened with death if I visited a new tribe that I was now more afraid of killing any one than of being killed, she rejoined that the Balobale would not kill me, but the Makololo would all be sacrificed as their enemies. This produced considerable effect on my companions, and inclined them to the plan of Nyamoana, of going to the town of her brother rather than ascending the Leeba. The arrival of Manenko herself on the scene threw so much weight into the scale on their side that I was forced to yield the point.
Manenko was a tall, strapping woman about twenty, distinguished by a profusion of ornaments and medicines hung round her person; the latter are supposed to act as charms. Her body was smeared all over with a mixture of fat and red ochre, as a protection against the weather; a necessary precaution, for, like most of the Balonda ladies, she was otherwise in a state of frightful nudity. This was not from want of clothing, for, being a chief, she might have been as well clad as any of her subjects, but from her peculiar ideas of elegance in dress. When she arrived with her husband, Sambanza, they listened for some time to the statements I was making to the people of Nyamoana, after which the husband, acting as spokesman, commenced an oration, stating the reasons for their coming, and, during every two or three seconds of the delivery, he picked up a little sand, and rubbed it on the upper part of his arms and chest. This is a common mode of salutation in Londa; and when they wish to be excessively polite, they bring a quantity of ashes or pipe-clay in a piece of skin, and, taking up handfuls, rub it on the chest and upper front part of each arm; others, in saluting, drum their ribs with their elbows; while others still touch the ground with one cheek after the other, and clap their hands. The chiefs go through the manoeuvre of rubbing the sand on the arms, but only make a feint at picking up some. When Sambanza had finished his oration, he rose up, and showed his ankles ornamented with a bundle of copper rings; had they been very heavy, they would have made him adopt a straggling walk. Some chiefs have really so many as to be forced, by the weight and size, to keep one foot apart from the other, the weight being a serious inconvenience in walking. The gentlemen like Sambanza, who wish to imitate their betters, do so in their walk; so you see men, with only a few ounces of ornament on their legs, strutting along as if they had double the number of pounds. When I smiled at Sambanza's walk, the people remarked, "That is the way in which they show off their lordship in these parts."