Though ill with fever both times, he was able to conquer disease sufficiently to satisfy himself that this little lake, Dilolo, four thousand feet above the sea level, is located exactly on the watershed between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, and distributes its contents impartially between the two seas. A drop of rain blown by the wind to the one or the other end of the lake may re-enforce the tumbling floods that roar through the channels of the Congo and rush sixty miles out into the salt waters of the Atlantic, or may make with the Zambesi the dizzy leap through the great Victoria Falls and mingle with the Indian ocean. No similar phenomenon is known anywhere. Lake Kivo may form a corresponding band of union between the Congo and the Nile, but this we do not know. Apart from the eccentric double part it plays, the physical features of Dilolo are tame and ordinary enough. It has, of course, hippopotami and crocodiles as every water in Central Africa has, and its banks are fringed with marshes covered with profuse growth of rushes, cane, papyrus, and reeds. Around it stretch wide plains, limitless as the sea, on which for many months of the year the stagnant waters rest, balancing themselves, as it were, between the two sides of a continent, unable to make up their mind whether to favor the east coast or the west with their tribute.
No trees break the horizon. The lands in the fens bear only a low growth of shrub, and the landscape is dismal and monotonous in the extreme. “Dilolo means despair,” and the dwellers near it tell a story curiously resembling the tale of the “Cities of the plain,” and the tradition handed down regarding some of the lakes in Central Asia, of how a venerable wanderer came to this spot near evening and begged for the charity of shelter and food, how the churlish inhabitants mocked his petition, with the exception of one poor man who gave the stranger a nook by his fire and the best his hut afforded, and how after a terrible night of tempest and lightning the hospitable villager found his guest gone and the site of his neighbor’s dwellings occupied by a lake. When the rains have ceased and the hot sun has dried up the moisture the outlook is more cheerful. A bright golden band of flowers of every shade of yellow stretches across the path, then succeeds a stripe of blue, varying from the lightest tint to purple, and so band follows band with the regularity of the stripes on a zebra.
The explorer is glad, however, to escape these splendid watersheds and to pass down into the shadows of the forests of the Zambesi, where, at least, there will be a change of discomforts, and a variety of scenery. There are four methods of travel familiar in Southern Africa. One is the bullock-wagon, convenient and pleasant enough in the Southern Plains, but hardly practicable in the rude wilderness adjoining the Zambesi. Riding on bullock back is a mode of travel which Livingstone frequently adopted from sheer inability to walk from weakness. Marching on foot is, of course, the best of all plans when a thorough and minute acquaintance with the district traversed is desired. But for ease and rapid progress there is nothing like “paddling your own canoe,” or better still, having it paddled for you by skilled boatmen down the deep gorges and through the rushing shallows of the third of the great African rivers. Before the main stream of the Zambesi is reached, the forest shadows of the Lotembwa and the Leeba have to be threaded. These dark moss-covered rivers flow between dripping banks of overgrown forests and jungle with frequent clearings, where the
villagers raise their crops of manihoc, the plant that yields the tapioco of commerce, and which here furnishes the chief food of the natives.
Fetisch worship flourishes in these dark and gloomy woods. In their depths a fantastically carved demon face, staring from a tree, will often startle the intruder, or a grotesque representation of a lion or crocodile, or of the human face made of rushes, plastered over with clay and with shells or beads for eyes, will be found perched in a seat of honor with offerings of food and ornaments laid on the rude altar. Whether human sacrifices are offered at these shrines cannot positively be said, but the most simple and trifling acts are “tabooed,” and unless the traveller is exceedingly wary in all that he does or says, he is likely to be met with heavy fines or looked upon as a cursed man, who will bring misfortune on all who aid or approach him. The medicine man has a terrible power which he often exercises over the lives and property of his fellows, and a sentence of witchcraft is often followed by death. A great source of profit is weather-making but, unlike the prophets in the arid deserts on the south, the magicians of this moist, cool region devote their energies to keeping off rain and not to bringing it down from Heaven. Of course if they persevere long enough the rain ceases to fall, and the credulous natives believe that this has been produced by the medicine they have purchased so dearly, just as the Bechuana of the desert believe in the ability of their rain-makers, when handsomely paid, to bring showers down on the thirsty ground by virtue of drumming and dancing.
A BANYAN TREE.
The behavior of the inhabitants of these villages, on the appearance among them of a white man, is apt to shake the notion of the latter that the superior good looks of his own race are universally acknowledged. Their standard of beauty is quite different from ours. Sometimes a wife is measured by the number of pounds she weighs, sometimes by her color, often by the peculiarities of ornamentation, or by special style of head-dress or some disfigurement of the nose, lips or ears, on which the female population mainly rely for making themselves attractive. The wearing of clothes is regarded as a practice fairly provocative
of laughter, and as improper as the want of them would be in America. Nothing could be more hideous to them than the long hair, shaggy beard and whiskers, like the mane of a lion, which strangers wear. If the stranger have blue eyes and red whiskers he is regarded as a hob-goblin, before whom the village girls run away screaming with terror, and the children hide trembling behind their mothers. At the village of the Shinte, the principal tribe on the Leeba River, Livingstone was very kindly treated by the chief. He received him seated in state under the shade of a banyan tree, with his hundred wives seated behind him, and his band of drummers performing in front. Out
of gratitude, the Doctor treated the distinguished party to an entertainment with the magic-lantern. The subject was the death of Isaac, and the party looked on with awe as the gigantic figures with flowing Oriental robes, prominent noses, and ruddy complexions appeared upon the curtain. But when the Patriarch’s up-lifted arm, with the dagger in hand, was seen descending, the ladies, fancying that it was about to be sheathed in their bosoms instead of Isaac’s, sprang to their feet with shouts of “Mother! Mother!” and rushed helter-skelter, tumbling pell-mell after each other into corners or out into the open air, and it was impossible to bring them back to witness the Patriarch’s subsequent fortunes.