We were now, when we crossed the boundary rivulet Nyamatarara, out of Chicova and amongst sandstone rocks, similar to those which prevail between Lupata and Kebrabasa.In the latter gorge, as already mentioned, igneous and syenitic masses have been acted on by some great fiery convulsion of nature; the strata are thrown into a huddled heap of confusion.The coal has of course disappeared in Kebrabasa, but is found again in Chicova.Tette grey sandstone is common about Sinjere, and wherever it is seen with fossil wood upon it, coal lies beneath; and here, as at Chicova, some seams crop out on the banks of the Zambesi.Looking southwards, the country is open plain and woodland, with detached hills and mountains in the distance; but the latter are too far off, the natives say, for them to know their names.The principal hills on our right, as we look up stream, are from six to twelve miles away, and occasionally they send down spurs to the river, with brooks flowing through their narrow valleys.The banks of the Zambesi show two well-defined terraces;
The first, or lowest, being usually narrow, and of great fertility, while the upper one is a dry grassy plain, a thorny jungle, or a mopane (Bauhinia) forest.One of these plains, near the Kafue, is covered with the large stumps and trunks of a petrified forest.We halted a couple of days by the fine stream Sinjere, which comes from the Chiroby-roby hills, about eight miles to the north.Many lumps of coal, brought down by the rapid current, lie in its channel.The natives never seem to have discovered that coal would burn, and, when informed of the fact, shook their heads, smiled incredulously, and said "Kodi" (really), evidently regarding it as a mere traveller's tale.They were astounded to see it burning freely on our fire of wood.They told us that plenty of it was seen among the hills; but, being long ago aware that we were now in an immense coalfield, we did not care to examine it further.
A dyke of black basaltic rock, called Kakolole, crosses the river near the mouth of the Sinjere; but it has two open gateways in it of from sixty to eighty yards in breadth, and the channel is very deep.
On a shallow sandbank, under the dyke, lay a herd of hippopotami in fancied security.The young ones were playing with each other like young puppies, climbing on the backs of their dams, trying to take hold of one another by the jaws and tumbling over into the water.
Mbia, one of the Makololo, waded across to within a dozen yards of the drowsy beasts, and shot the father of the herd; who, being very fat, soon floated, and was secured at the village below.The headman of the village visited us while we were at breakfast.He wore a black "ife" wig and a printed shirt.After a short silence he said to Masakasa, "You are with the white people, so why do you not tell them to give me a cloth?""We are strangers," answered Masakasa, "why do you not bring us some food?"He took the plain hint, and brought us two fowls, in order that we should not report that in passing him we got nothing to eat; and, as usual, we gave a cloth in return.In reference to the hippopotamus he would make no demand, but said he would take what we chose to give him.The men gorged themselves with meat for two days, and cut large quantities into long narrow strips, which they half-dried and half-roasted on wooden frames over the fire.Much game is taken in this neighbourhood in pitfalls.Sharp-pointed stakes are set in the bottom, on which the game tumbles and gets impaled.The natives are careful to warn strangers of these traps, and also of the poisoned beams suspended on the tall trees for the purpose of killing elephants and hippopotami.
It is not difficult to detect the pitfalls after one's attention has been called to them; but in places where they are careful to carry the earth off to a distance, and a person is not thinking of such things, a sudden descent of nine feet is an experience not easily forgotten by the traveller.The sensations of one thus instantaneously swallowed up by the earth are peculiar.A momentary suspension of consciousness is followed by the rustling sound of a shower of sand and dry grass, and the half-bewildered thought of where he is, and how he came into darkness.Reason awakes to assure him that he must have come down through that small opening of daylight overhead, and that he is now where a hippopotamus ought to have been.The descent of a hippopotamus pitfall is easy, but to get out again into the upper air is a work of labour.The sides are smooth and treacherous, and the cross reeds, which support the covering, break in the attempt to get out by clutching them.A cry from the depths is unheard by those around, and it is only by repeated and most desperate efforts that the buried alive can regain the upper world.At Tette we are told of a white hunter, of unusually small stature, who plumped into a pit while stalking a guinea-fowl on a tree.It was the labour of an entire forenoon to get out; and he was congratulating himself on his escape, and brushing off the clay from his clothes, when down he went into a second pit, which happened, as is often the case, to be close beside the first, and it was evening before he could work himself out of THAT.
Elephants and buffaloes seldom return to the river by the same path on two successive nights, they become so apprehensive of danger from this human art.An old elephant will walk in advance of the herd, and uncover the pits with his trunk, that the others may see the openings and tread on firm ground.Female elephants are generally the victims:more timid by nature than the males, and very motherly in their anxiety for their calves, they carry their trunks up, trying every breeze for fancied danger, which often in reality lies at their feet.The tusker, fearing less, keeps his trunk down, and, warned in time by that exquisitely sensitive organ, takes heed to his ways.
Our camp on the Sinjere stood under a wide-spreading wild fig-tree.
