The question of the disappearance of the elephant here and throughout Africa is, as every one knows, only one of a few years. It is hard to think why this kindly and sagacious creature should have to be exterminated; why this vast store of animal energy, which might be turned into so much useful work, should be lost to civilization. But the causes are not difficult to understand. The African elephant has never been successfully tamed, and is therefore a failure as a source of energy. As a source of ivory, on the other hand, he has been but too great a success. The cost of ivory at present is about half-a-sovereign per pound. An average tusk weighs from twenty to thirty pounds. Each animal has two, and in Africa both male and female carry tusks. The average elephant is therefore worth in pounds sterling the weight in pounds avoirdupois of one of his tusks. I have frequently seen single tusks turning the scale upon ninety pounds, the pair in this case being worth nearly £100 sterling,—so that a herd of elephants is about as valuable as a gold mine. The temptation to sacrifice the animal for his tusks is therefore great; and as he becomes scarcer he will be pursued by the hunter with ever-increasing eagerness. But the truth is, sad though the confession be, the sooner the last elephant falls before the hunters bullet the better for Africa. Ivory introduces into the country at present an abnormal state of things. Upon this one article is set so enormous a premium that none other among African products secures the slightest general attention; nor will almost anyone in the interior condescend to touch the normal wealth, or develop the legitimate industries of the country, so long as a tusk remains. In addition to this, of half the real woes which now exist in Africa ivory is at the bottom. It is not only that wherever there is an article to which a fictitious value is attached the effect upon the producer is apt to be injurious; nor that wherever there is money there is temptation, covetousness, and war; but that unprincipled men, and especially Arabs, are brought into contact with the natives in the worst relation, influence them only in one, and that the lowest, direction, and leave them always worse than they find them—worse in greed, in knavery, in their belief in mankind, and in their suspicion of civilization. Further, for every tusk an Arab trader purchases he must buy, borrow, or steal a slave to carry it to the coast. Domestic slavery is bad enough, but now begins the long slave-march with its untold horrors—horrors instigated and perpetuated almost solely by the traffic in ivory. The extermination of the elephant, therefore, will mark one stage at least in the closing up of the slave-trade. The elephant has done much for Africa. The best he can do now for his country is to disappear forever.
In books of travel great chiefs are usually called kings, their wives queens, while their mud-huts are always palaces. But after seeing my first African chief at home, I found I must either change my views of kings or of authors. The regal splendor of Chipitula's court—and Chipitula was a very great chief indeed, and owned all the Shiré district—may be judged of by the fact that when I paid my respects to his highness his court-dress consisted almost exclusively of a pair of suspenders. I made this king happy for life by the gift of a scarlet tennis-cap and a few buttons. But poor Chipitula had not long to enjoy his treasures,—and I mention the incident to show what is going on every day in Africa. When I came back that way, on my return journey, I called again to receive a leopard skin which this chief had promised to trap for me, and for which he was to get in exchange certain dilapidated remnants of my wardrobe. He gave me the skin; I duly covered his, and we parted. A few days after, another white man came that way; he was a trader—the only one who has yet plied this hazardous calling in East Central Africa. He quarrelled with Chipitula over some bargain, and in a moment of passion drew his revolver and shot the chief dead on the spot. Of course he himself was instantly speared by Chipitula's men; and all his black porters, according to native etiquette, were butchered with their master. There is absolutely no law in Africa, and you can kill anybody and anybody can kill you, and no one will ask any questions.
Our next stoppage was to pay another homage—truly this is a tragic region—at another white man's grave. A few years ago Bishop Mackenzie and some other missionaries were sent to Africa by the English Universities, with instructions to try to establish a Mission in the footsteps of Livingstone. They came here; the climate overpowered them; one by one they sickened and died. With the death of the Bishop himself the site was abandoned, and the few survivors returned home. Among the hippopotamus-trampled reeds on the banks of the Shiré under a rough iron cross, lies the first of three brave bishops who have already made their graves in Equatorial Africa.
I have spoken of the Shiré as the great waterway into the interior of Eastern Africa. It has one defect. After sailing for five or six days we came to rapids which no boat can pass. These rapids were named by Livingstone the Murchison Cataracts, and they extend for seventy miles. This distance, accordingly, must be traversed overland. Half-way up this seventy miles, and a considerable distance inland from the river, stands the first white settlement in East Central Africa—the Blantyre Mission. Bribing about a hundred natives with a promise of a fathom of calico each, to carry our luggage, we set off on foot for Blantyre. The traditional characteristics of African caravaning were displayed in full perfection during this first experience, and darkness fell when we were but half-way to our destination. It was our first night in the bush, and a somewhat unusual introduction to African travelling marked it. At midnight we were roused by startling cries from our men, who lay sleeping on the ground around us. The watch-fires must have burned down, for a lion had suddenly sprung into the camp. Seizing the man who lay nearest the forest, the animal buried its claws in his breast, and was making off into the darkness, when the shouting frightened it and made it drop its prey. Twice during the night the lion came back, and we whites had to keep watch by turns till morning with loaded rifles. This is altogether an exceptional case, for with a good fire one can generally spread his mat anywhere in the tropics without fear of midnight attack. This is a famous place, however, for lions, and one can as certainly depend on their gruesome concert in the early morning as on the sparrows' chirp in England.
Towards sunset the following evening our caravan filed into Blantyre. On the beauty and interest of this ideal mission I shall not dwell. But if anyone wishes to find out what can be done with the virgin African, what can be done by broad and practical missionary methods, let him visit the Rev. D. Clement Scott and his friends at Blantyre. And if he wishes to observe the possibilities of civilization and colonization among an average African tribe living on an average African soil, let him examine the mission plantations, and those of Mr. John and Mr. Frederick Moir at Mandala, and of the Brothers Buchanan at Zomba. And, further, if he desires to know what the milk of human kindness is, let him time his attack of fever so that haply it may coincide with his visit to either of these centres of self-denying goodness and hospitality.
II.
THE EAST AFRICAN LAKE COUNTRY.
LAKES SHIRWA AND NYASSA.
Somewhere in the Shiré Highlands, in 1859, Livingstone saw a large lake—Lake Shirwa—which is still almost unknown. It lies away to the East, and is bounded by a range of mountains whose lofty summits are visible from the hills round Blantyre. Thinking it might be a useful initiation to African travel if I devoted a short time to its exploration, I set off one morning accompanied by two members of the Blantyre staff and a small retinue of natives. Steering across country in the direction in which it lay, we found, two days before seeing the actual water, that we were already on the ancient bed of the lake. Though now clothed with forest, the whole district has obviously been under water at a comparatively recent period, and the shores of Lake Shirwa probably reached at one time to within a few miles of Blantyre itself. On reaching the lake a very aged female chief came to see us, and told us how, long, long ago, a white man came to her village and gave her a present of cloth. Of the white man, who must have been Livingstone, she spoke very kindly; and, indeed, wherever David Livingstone's footsteps are crossed in Africa the fragrance of his memory seems to remain.
The waters of Shirwa are brackish to the taste, and undrinkable; but the saltness must have a peculiar charm for game, for nowhere else in Africa did I see such splendid herds of the larger animals as here. The zebra was especially abundant; and so unaccustomed to be disturbed are these creatures, that with a little care one could watch their movements safely within a very few yards. It may seem unorthodox to say so, but I do not know if among the larger animals there is any thing handsomer in creation than the zebra. At close quarters his striped coat is all but as fine as the tiger's, while the form and movement of his body are in every way nobler. The gait certainly, is not to be compared for gracefulness with that of the many species of antelope and deer who nibble the grass beside him, and one can never quite forget that scientifically he is an ass; but taking him all in all, this fleet and beautiful animal ought to have a higher place in the regard of man than he has yet received.