The stress here as elsewhere laid on the reverence to be shown to father and mother must strike all right-thinking Europeans as a very pleasing trait. Respect for parents and for grown-up people in general is, as I have been told over and over again, the principal and fundamental feature in native education, and Knudsen testifies that the young people in general observe it in a marked degree in their intercourse with their elders. We Europeans might well learn from the natives in this respect, thinks Nils, who is no doubt, well qualified to form an opinion.
But, in spite of all pleasant impressions as to native educational maxims, I have lost the end of the unyago address—a misfortune for which the good Daudi’s big pombe-jar is to blame. If the mountain will not come to Muhammad, Muhammad will have to go to the mountain. In other words, Akundonde having declared that he must go home to put fresh dawa on his leg and cannot possibly come again, we shall have to look up the old gentleman at his own residence.
HERD OF ELEPHANTS. FROM A DRAWING BY BARNABAS, AN EDUCATED MWERA AT LINDI
CHAPTER X
FURTHER RESULTS
Chingulungulu, August 31, 1906.
I am still at Chingulungulu, cursing the infernal heat, horrible dust and dirty natives with more fervour than ever, but unable to get away from them. The reason for this is the fact that while at first my stay here seemed utterly barren of scientific results, this state of things gradually reversed itself, so that the difficulty now lay in dealing with the mass of new impressions and observations. It is impossible to relate in full detail the exact way in which I obtained an insight into native customs and ideas—this would fill several volumes, and my time is limited. I shall therefore content myself with a few personal touches and a small selection from the various departments of the material and mental life of the tribes inhabiting this vast plain.
The most important incident affecting my expedition was the engagement of Nils Knudsen as a permanent member of its staff, subject, of course, to the consent of the Agricultural Committee. I fancy the arrangement is satisfactory to both parties. As I have already remarked, Knudsen is in the service of the Lindi Municipality, as master of the Industrial School. At the request of the District Commissioner, he had been granted leave of absence to make a tour through the plain west of the Makonde Plateau and exercise a sort of supervision over the village headmen. For reasons of which I am not called on to judge, the plan of appointing such European inspectors has been given up again, and, as the Lindi municipality naturally saw no occasion to let their industrial teacher travel about the country for his own amusement, he was recalled. I must honestly confess that I had long found Knudsen quite indispensable, and therefore took the opportunity of applying to the District Commissioner for permission to engage him, when the latter, a few days ago, visited us on one of his official tours. He has seemed ever since to enjoy an increased sense of his own importance and, in fact, the task of initiating a German scholar into the deepest secrets of alien life is no doubt a far pleasanter one than that of teaching lazy native boys to plane, saw, forge and solder.
The second incident is a severe attack of fever, with which I have been laid up during the last few days. I was just about to photograph the old Sudanese sergeant who had come up with Ewerbeck, and who was chiefly remarkable for a cough which kept everyone awake at night. When I saw him going to muster his men for roll-call in the middle of the afternoon, I went to take down my 9 x 12 cm. camera which hung from a nail on one of the pillars of the baraza; but let it fall in lifting it down, and found, on picking it up, that the sliding front had got bent and the instantaneous shutter injured by the fall. The first accident was remedied by energetic pressure, for the second nothing could be done. I do not to this day understand why the loss of this instrument should have thrown me into such a state of excitement; but there are moments in life when we do, or omit to do, things for which we afterwards vainly try to account. I suppose I never even remembered at the time that I still possessed a 13 × 18 cm. apparatus of excellent quality. That I did not recall the fact later on, is easier to understand, as by sunset I found that my temperature was rapidly rising. I tried a remedy previously found effectual for bringing on perspiration—huge quantities of tea with citric acid in it, but in vain. After a terrible night with an average temperature of over 104°, the fever had so far abated that I could exert myself to make the working drawings for additional slides to my 13 × 18 cm. camera, which I wished to send to the Indian fundi at Lindi. Up to this moment I had thought my photographic equipment perfect, but the possibility of such an accident as befell my smaller camera and of remedying it by the use of simple wooden frames had not occurred either to me or the firm who supplied me. By exerting all my energies, I was just able to finish the drawings and send them off by a runner to Lindi, when my temperature again rose above 100° and I was forced to go back to bed. The attack then ran its course and came to an end, as fever always does. To-day I should almost feel inclined to smoke, if we had any tobacco worthy of the name. However, I have now had quite enough of Chingulungulu, and as the Rovuma with its green banks and clear, cool water, its sand-banks and islands is only a day’s march distant, we intend to go thither shortly for a rest and change after all the discomforts, great and small, of our stay here.
Before leaving, I feel that I ought to set down at least a few of the observations made at this place.