There are in Monomotapa some three or four hundred public halls in which is conducted the national sport, which consists in competitions between well-known talkers as to who can talk the longest without exhaustion, and it rapidly becomes known, through well-developed agencies of information as well as by public repute, which individuals have attained to the greatest proficiency in this regard. Sometimes in the remotest province will arise a particular star, but more often it is in the Metropolis or its neighbourhood that your really great talkers can be found; a man in the tradition of that great King of the last century who upon one occasion talked the clock round and was in reward for that feat permitted to hold the Kingship for three terms in succession.
When by a process of elimination the two strongest talkers have been discovered, they are brought to the capital, set up upon a stage before a vast audience of Assessors (of which my friend, as I have told you, was one), and begin talking one against the other with great rapidity, starting at a signal made by an official who is paid for this duty a very high salary indeed. It may well be imagined that the interest in the struggle grows keen after the first few hours have passed. The panting breath, the discoloured cheeks, the drooping attitude of either competitor, call forth cheers of encouragement from his supporters and even murmurs of sympathy from his numerous judges. At last, it may be in the sixth or the seventh hour, one of the two goes groggy—if I may so express myself—he falters in his words, perhaps repeats himself, passes his hand to his forehead or takes a drink of gin (which, from its resemblance to water, is greatly favoured in these contests). Such signals of distress are the beginning of the end. His successful rival, straining himself to one last effort, will pour out a great string of sentences of an approved pattern, dealing as a rule with the glories and virtues of those who have listened to him, of their ancestry, and their hold upon the Monomotapian State, and as the defeated competitor falls lifeless to the floor this successful fellow is crowned amid the applause of the vast assembly. I was at the pains to ask whether it was necessary that these long harangues should make sense, for it seemed to me that this added labour would very materially handicap many men who might otherwise possess all the physical requirements of victory, and I was free to add that it would seem to me, at least, as a foreigner, very foolish to weigh down some fine athlete worthy of the Crown by demanding of him the rare characteristics of the pedant. I was relieved to hear that there was no obligation as to the choice of words used or the order in which they were to be pronounced, saving that they must be words in the vulgar tongue. But it seems, oddly enough, that the trainers in this sport after generations of experience have discovered that the competitors actually suffer less fatigue if they will repeat certain set and ritual phrases than if they take refuge in mere gibberish, just as men marching in step are said to suffer less fatigue than men marching at ease. So at least I was assured, but my insufficient acquaintance with the Monomotapian tongue forbade me to make certain upon the matter.
The Statesman
“Hôtel de Ferras, Paris, August 1, 1846.
“MY dear Father,—I got in here last night, after a very painful and tiresome journey, at eleven o’clock. At least it was eleven o’clock by Calais time, but they are so careless in this country about their clocks that it would be very difficult to say what the right time really was were I not able to consult the excellent chronometer which you and Mamma were so kind as to give me after my success in the Schools at Oxford this summer. I confess to the childishness of having rung the chimes in it five or six times during the night to while away the tedium of the journey in the Diligence from Beauvais. Beauvais contains a really remarkable cathedral, but it is unfinished. I notice, indeed, that many of the buildings undertaken by the French remain in an incomplete condition. The Louvre, for instance (which is so near this hotel, and the roofs of which I can see from my window), would be a really fine building if it were completed, but this has never been done, and the total effect is very distressing. I fancy it is the numerous wars, in which the unhappy people have been engaged at the caprice of their rulers, which have led to such deplorable inconsequence. You have often warned me not to judge rashly upon a first impression, but I confess the people seem to me terribly poverty-stricken, especially in the country districts, where the children may often be seen hobbling about in rough wooden shoes, without stockings to their feet. I say no more. I hope, dear Papa, that when Parliament meets I shall be returned from Italy, and that I shall be able to follow your action in the House of Commons. You know how ardently I attend to the great struggle for Free Trade, to the attainment of which, as of every form of Righteousness, you have ever trained my early endeavours.
“I am, your affectionate son,
“Jo. Bilsted.”
“Hôtel de Ferras, January 15, 1853.