VISIT OF THE QUEENS.
Sepopo had hardly taken his departure, and I had seated myself to finish some sketches that I had begun, when twelve of his queens pushed into my hut. They had heard that I had taken the likenesses of the king and his executioner, and were not only very curious to see them, but anxious to learn how they were done. In their eagerness to handle everything, I almost thought they would squeeze the breath out of my body; one of them took hold of my pencil, several of them felt the surface of my paper, whilst those behind, who could not see, pushed those in front, till their breasts pressed against my shoulders. Certainly they were more obtrusive in their behaviour than any of the Bechuana or Zulu women that I had elsewhere seen. When the royal ladies entered, one of our black servants, who was in the hut, prepared to leave, but knowing the jealous disposition of the king, I thought it advisable to make him remain where he was.
My guests remained with me for about half an hour, when they betook themselves to the small warehouse next door, and began to pester Westbeech very much as they had pestered me. As soon as they had gone, I hung a mat over my doorway, leaving only aperture enough to admit a little light, but the expedient was an utter failure; I had taken much too moderate an estimate of woman’s curiosity. Almost immediately afterwards one voice was heard, “Sikurumela mo’ ndu” (a curtain is hung up), followed by another, “Nyaka chajo” (doctor gone out), and two of the queens were inside, much disconcerted, no doubt, at finding the doctor at home.
Altogether, I consider the Marutse to be the cleanest of all the South African tribes that I came across. Although there are but few shallow sandy spots in the river near the larger settlements, and even these are dangerous on account of the crocodiles, the people will not allow themselves to be deprived of their bath; if the stream is deep or the bank precipitous, they pour the water over their heads. Washing is to them an absolute necessity, and they rinse their mouths and clean their hands after every meal.
I made an excursion on the 23rd to the plain known as Blockley’s kraal, and there saw some puku, letshwe, and water-antelopes. The plain lies under water during the floods; but at its edge, close to the woods, I noticed a number of fields under cultivation; women and children were digging, and men were felling trees, the clearance they made being an enlargement of their master’s estate. On my way back I saw several homesteads already finished, and close beside them some rude, conical huts of grass and reeds, so slightly put together that they could have taken only a few hours to construct. They were intended for the female slaves, and were not allowed to have any enclosure, so that the ingress and egress of their occupants might be under supervision.
Going into a hut next day I found a Mambari doing blacksmiths’ work with some tools that Masangu had lent him; he was sharpening mattocks, and kept his fire alive by means of a pair of the bellows that are in ordinary use among the Marutse. These bellows were somewhat peculiar, and may claim a detailed description. They had two compartments, formed of circular boards covered with leather, and with an aperture in the sides; these were alternately raised and lowered by handles, the air being forced into two wooden tubes that ran parallel to each other into the two compartments; fixed into the ends of the wooden tubes were two shorter tubes made of antelopes’ horns, but these, instead of running parallel, converged in front, and met in a clay nozzle, which was applied to the fire.
I was taking an afternoon stroll along the river-side, when I saw a crowd of natives manifestly in great excitement; it appeared that the body of a girl, who had been killed by a crocodile a few days before, had just been washed ashore. Crocodiles have the habit of drowning human beings, or any animals that they are unable to swallow, by holding them down at the bottom of the water until the cessation of all struggling seems to make them aware that no resistance is to be expected, when they open their jaws and let free their prey. Unless one crocodile is assisted by another, it cannot by itself tear a fresh corpse in pieces; but it has to wait until the process of decomposition sets in, when the gaseous exhalations raise it to the surface in a condition that permits it to be torn asunder and devoured piecemeal. If a crocodile’s attention should be attracted by a fish, or anything else that seems fit for food, it will forsake its larger prey in the day-time, but only to return to it in the evening. I was told by Sepopo and by many of his people, that these reptiles are more dangerous near Sesheke than in most other parts of the kingdom. Shortly before my arrival a man had been dragged by one of them from his boat, and a boy of six years of age had been snapped up while bathing; and during my stay I heard of no less than thirty deaths that were attributed to the rapacity of these creatures.
Small crocodiles are occasionally caught by accident in the fishing-nets; the larger ones have to be captured by an arrangement of great hooks. The crocodile-tackle is very ingenious, and probably may be more easily understood from an illustration than from any verbal description. The bait which conceals the hook is covered by a net, which is attached to a strong bast rope more than twelve feet long by a number of twisted bast threads, the other end of the rope being wound round a bundle of reeds that serves as a float. It is only now and then when the casualties have been unusually numerous that the king gives orders for the tackle to be brought into use, and then the bundle of reeds is laid upon the bank; the hook is generally baited with a piece of putrified dog’s flesh, of which the Marutse believe the crocodile to be especially fond, and is supported on a tripod of reeds, three or four feet above the water, and almost close to its edge. After a crocodile has scented the bait, it usually hovers round it for a long time, sometimes until late in the evening, before it makes a snap at it; but when it attempts to swallow it, the projecting points of the hook prevent the closing of the jaws, and the water rushing into the throat and windpipe makes the brute sink to the bottom, where it soon becomes exhausted; its carcase floats down the stream, either towards the shore or against a sandbank, its position being indicated by the float which it drags after it. Two or three crocodiles have been repeatedly known to be taken in this way during a single night from the setting of five hooks. Except they are found alive on the hook, or are accidentally wounded by fishermen or hunters, they are never speared. Crocodile-snares, like fishing-nets, are all royal property.
On one occasion, when the hooks had been baited overnight, I went down to the river to ascertain the result, and met three large canoes with two men apiece, each of them conveying the carcase of a crocodile big enough to contain a human body. As soon as the carcases were brought to shore, some of Sepopo’s people proceeded to cut off their heads; the eyelids, the coverings of the nostrils, and a few of the scales from the ridge of the back were reserved for the king, to be used as charms.
I did what I could to induce the crowd that had found the body of the poor girl to have it buried, but my pleading was to no purpose; her relatives declared that it was Nyambe’s will that the crocodile should seize her, and therefore the crocodile must be allowed to have her. The body was accordingly left to be devoured at sunset.