"Knocking around" is a term much in use in Rhodesia. "Have you seen John Smith knocking around?" "Is there a boat knocking around?" "Are there lions knocking around here?" are common instances in which the term is used.
Tigers are so numerous about Victoria Falls that they rob hen roosts, and even climb through pantry windows and take away what eatables are handy.
Vegetation in these parts is interesting to visitors, as all the bushes and trees are strange to those coming from foreign places. Nearly every tree or shrub produces its seed in the form of a pod, like beans. Thorn prongs, as sharp as needles and two and three inches in length, grow on some trees. The cream-of-tartar tree, however, will interest a visitor more. This one grows very large, and the bark is the color of a hippopotamus' skin. In fact, the bark of all trees has a dark color. The pod of the cream-of-tartar is the shape of a cucumber and 10 to 12 inches long. The shell is very hard, but, when broken open, if ripe, the substance in the pod is white, and separates from the fibers in the form of sugar cubes. The natives eat it. One cream-of-tartar tree seen close to the falls measured 22 feet in diameter.
A very good tribe of natives is found in that part of Rhodesia—the Barotse. At a kraal visited, several of the sightseers asked a native for a drink of native beer. The liquid was brought in a large calabash, and the drinking cup was the bowled-out end of a small calabash. Before the native served the beer he poured out some of the brew in the hollow of his hand and drank it. Then he tilted the vegetable demijohn, when the beer was poured into the cup for the Europeans. The reason of the Barotse sampling the beer first was to allay any suspicion his white visitors might entertain concerning its genuineness.
Natives' musical instruments are a one-string fiddle, a skin drum, and a little wooden frame containing three and four pieces of steel a quarter of an inch in width and four inches in length. This last is called a "piano." The small strips of steel are fastened at one end of the frame. By touching these with the fingers a faint musical sound is produced. For hours at a time a husky native keeps playing the "piano," happy in the thought that he is an accomplished pianist. Lewanika is the head chief of the Barotse tribe.
Native wives are much cheaper in Barotseland than in Zululand, prices ranging from two sheep to ten cows. Should the wife leave her husband—elope, for instance—the girl's father must return the sheep or cows to the deserted husband.
North of the Zambezi River the territory is known as Northwestern Rhodesia, and also Barotseland. Seven miles from Victoria Falls is located Livingstone, the capital of Northwestern Rhodesia. Here, right in the heart of one of the fever regions of Africa, one finds small but substantial provincial buildings, a good, roomy hotel, an up-to-date printing office, and a small but interesting botanical garden.
Malarial, or African, fever is very bad at Livingstone. Horses and cattle cannot live in this part of Rhodesia unless they are well "salted." Everything must be "salted," both man and beast. Transport riders, when taking a load of provisions to traders or to mining camps located far from the railway, are provided with extra oxen. Lions are so numerous it frequently occurs that an ox is found in the morning dead and partly eaten, the work of Leo during the night while the cattle were resting or grazing. It is said the vital part of the cattle where the lion makes his attack is the nose. In a second the beast is thrown, and it is but a matter of a few minutes when the lion will have his prey dead and badly torn.
The tsetse fly is in his own bailiwick in these parts. This fly is one of the worst plagues of Central Africa. In size, this insect is as large as a bumblebee, and when he bites he draws blood, whether it be man or beast. It is said the deadly virus he injects is extracted from the bodies of big wild game. Nagana is the name of the disease caused by the tsetse-fly bite. The scientific name for this fly is rather prosy—Glossina morsitans; also for a first cousin, whose bite likewise caused nagana disease, Glossina allidipes. Mail must be carried to the interior by immune native runners, as a bite from these flies means a very short life for a horse. Deaths from sleeping sickness have occurred in this section of Africa.
Machillas are the means of transportation by which people are carried from place to place. The machilla is a long pole, with the ends of a piece of canvas made fast, over which a cover is stretched. The ends of the pole rest on the shoulders of four natives—eight in all—who run along at a good gait, with their passengers in the hammock-like device, until they reach a relay station—at intervals of about five miles—when a fresh "team" of natives take up the machilla and are off again at a good trot.