By diving into the forests and climbing hills we came across groups of natives who interested us. It was the season just then in which they frequent the forests—the ‘barking season,’ when they go forth to collect large quantities of the bark of certain trees, out of which they produce so much that is useful for their primitive lives. They weave textiles out of bark; they make bags and string out of bark; they make quivers for their arrows, beehives for their bees, and sometimes granaries, out of bark. The bark industry is second only to the iron-smelting amongst the Makalangas.
At the correct season of the year they go off in groups into the forests to collect bark, taking with them their wives and their children, carrying with them their assegais, and fine barbed arrows with which they shoot mice, a delicacy greatly beloved by them; they take with them also bags of mealies for food, and collect bags of caterpillars—brown hairy caterpillars three inches long, which at this season [[54]]of the year swarm on the trees. These they disembowel and eat in enormous quantities, and what they cannot eat on the expedition they dry in the sun and take home for future consumption. Their only method of making a fire is by rubbing two sticks dexterously together until a spark appears, with which they ignite some tinder carried in a little wooden box attached to their girdles. At night time they cut down branches from the trees, and make a shelter for themselves from the wind. It is curious to see a set of natives asleep, like sardines in a box, one black naked lump of humanity; if one turns or disturbs the harmony of the pie they all get up and swear at him and settle down again. One man is always told off to watch the fire to keep off wild beasts, and then when morning comes they pack their belongings, their treasures of bark, mice, and caterpillars, and start off along the narrow path in single file at a tremendous pace, silent for a while, and then bursting forth into song, looking for all the world like a procession of black caterpillars themselves.
These forests around Zimbabwe are lovely to wander in, with feathery festoons of lichen, like a fairy scene at a pantomime; outside the forests are long stretches of coarse grass, towering above our heads in many cases, and horrible to have to push through, especially after a fall of rain. They were then in seed, and looked just like our harvest fields at home, giving a golden tinge to the whole country. [[55]]
Fine trees perched on the summit of colossal ant-hills cast a pleasant shade around, and if by chance we were near a stream we had to be careful not to fall into game pits, deep narrow holes hidden by the long grass, which the natives dig in the ground and towards which they drive deer and antelope, so that they get their forelegs fixed in them and cannot get out.
All around Zimbabwe is far too well watered to be pleasant; long stretches of unhealthy swamps fill up the valleys; rivers and streams are plentiful, and the vegetation consequently rich. Owing to the surrounding swamps we had much fever in our camp during our two months’ stay; as we had our waggons with us we could not camp on very high ground, and suffered accordingly. This fever of the high veldt with plenty of food and plenty of quinine is by no means dangerous, only oft-recurring and very weakening. Of the fourteen cases we had under treatment none were really dangerously ill, and none seemed to suffer from bad effects afterwards when the fever had worn itself out. The real cause of so much mortality and misery amongst the pioneer force during their first wet season in the country was the want of nourishing food to give the fever patients and the want of proper medicine.
As for the natives themselves, I cannot help saying a few words in their favour, as it has been customary to abuse them and set their capabilities down as nought. During the time we were at Zimbabwe we [[56]]were constantly surrounded by them, and employed from fifty to sixty of them for our work, and the only thing we lost was half a bottle of whisky, which we did not set down to the natives, who as yet are happily ignorant of the potency of fire-water. Doubtless on the traversed roads and large centres, where they are brought into contact with traders and would-be civilisers of the race, these people become thieves and vagabonds; but in their primitive state the Makalangas are naturally honest, exceedingly courteous in manner, and cowardice appears to be their only vice, arising doubtless from the fact that for generations they have had to flee to their fastnesses before the raids of more powerful races. The Makalanga is above the ordinary Kaffir in intelligence. Contrary to the prognostications of our advisers, we found that some of them rapidly learnt their work, and were very careful excavators, never passing over a thing of value, which is more than can be said of all the white men in our employ. Some of them are decidedly handsome, and not at all like negroes except in skin; many of them have a distinctly Arab cast of countenance, and with their peculiar rows of tufts on the top of their heads looked en profil like the figures one sees on Egyptian tombs. There is certainly a Semite drop of blood in their veins; whence it comes will probably never be known, but it is marked both on their countenances and in their customs. In religion they are monotheists—that is to say, they believe in a supreme being called Muali, between [[57]]whom and them their ancestors, or mozimos, to whom they sacrifice, act as intercessors. They lay out food for their dead; they have a day of rest during the ploughing season, which they call Muali’s Day; they have dynastic names for their chiefs, like the Pharaohs of old; they sacrifice a goat to ward off pestilence and famine; circumcision is practised amongst some of them. We have also the pillows or head rests, the strigil, the iron sceptres of the chiefs, the iron industry, all with parallels from the north. Then, again, their musical instruments, their games, and their totems point distinctly to an Arabian influence, which has been handed down from generation to generation long after the Arabians have ceased to have any definite intercourse with the country. During the course of these pages numerous minor illustrations will from time to time appear which point in the same direction. It is a curious ethnological problem which it will be hard to unravel. All over the country sour milk is much drunk and called mast, as it is in the East, and in parts of this country beer is called dowra or doro, a term which has come from Abyssinia and Arabia, and the method of making it is the same. The corn is soaked in water and left till it sprouts a little; then it is spread in the sun to dry and mixed with unsprouted grain; then the women pound it in wooden mortars, and the malt obtained from this is boiled and left to stand in a pot for two days, and over night a little malt that has been kept for the purpose is thrown over the [[58]]liquid to excite fermentation. It will not keep at all, and is sometimes strong and intoxicating. Women are the great brewers in Mashonaland, and a good wife is valued according to her skill in this department.
This Kaffir beer is certainly an old-world drink. There are several classical allusions for what is termed ‘barley beer.’ Xenophon and the Ten Thousand one evening, on reaching an Armenian village in the mountains of Asia Minor, refreshed themselves with what he describes as ‘bowls of barley wine in which the grains are floating.’
The Egyptians too made beer after the same fashion, and used it also in sacrifices. Much that was known in the old world has travelled southwards through Nubia and Abyssinia, and is to be found still amongst the Kaffir races of to-day. Some of the words in common use amongst the Kaffirs in Mashonaland are very curious. Anything small, whether it be a child or to indicate that the price paid for anything is insufficient, they term piccanini; the word is universal, and points to intercourse with other continents. The term Morunko, or Molungo, universally applied to white men, is probably of Zulu origin, and has been connected—with what reason I know not—with Unkulunkulu, a term to denote the Supreme Being. At any rate it is distinctly a term of respect, and certainly has nothing to do with the Mashona language, in which Muali or Mali is used to denote God. [[59]]
Finally, at long last, after exactly three months to a day of ‘trekking’ in our ox waggons, the mighty ruins of Zimbabwe were reached on June 6, 1891, and we sat down in the wilderness to commence our operations, with the supreme delight of knowing that for two months our beds would not begin to shake and tumble us about before half our nights were over. [[60]]