The Lake tribes--The Mazitu--Quantities of elephants--Distressing journey--Detention on the Shire.
Never before in Africa have we seen anything like the dense population on the shores of Lake Nyassa.In the southern part there was an almost unbroken chain of villages.On the beach of wellnigh of every little sandy bay, dark crowds were standing, gazing at the novel sight of a boat under sail; and wherever we landed we were surrounded in a few seconds by hundreds of men, women, and children, who hastened to have a stare at the "chirombo" (wild animals).
During a portion of the year, the northern dwellers on the lake have a harvest which furnishes a singular sort of food.As we approached our limit in that direction, clouds, as of smoke rising from miles of burning grass, were observed bending in a south-easterly direction, and we thought that the unseen land on the opposite side was closing in, and that we were near the end of the lake.But next morning we sailed through one of the clouds on our own side, and discovered that it was neither smoke nor haze, but countless millions of minute midges called "kungo" (a cloud or fog).They filled the air to an immense height, and swarmed upon the water, too light to sink in it.
Eyes and mouth had to be kept closed while passing through this living cloud:they struck upon the face like fine drifting snow.
Thousands lay in the boat when she emerged from the cloud of midges.
The people gather these minute insects by night, and boil them into thick cakes, to be used as a relish--millions of midges in a cake.A
kungo cake, an inch thick, and as large as the blue bonnet of a Scotch ploughman, was offered to us; it was very dark in colour, and tasted not unlike caviare, or salted locusts.
Abundance of excellent fish is found in the lake, and nearly all were new to us.The mpasa, or sanjika, found by Dr. Kirk to be a kind of carp, was running up the rivers to spawn, like our salmon at home:
The largest we saw was over two feet in length; it is a splendid fish, and the best we have ever eaten in Africa.They were ascending the rivers in August and September, and furnished active and profitable employment to many fishermen, who did not mind their being out of season.Weirs were constructed full of sluices, in each of which was set a large basket-trap, through whose single tortuous opening the fish once in has but small chance of escape.A short distance below the weir, nets are stretched across from bank to bank, so that it seemed a marvel how the most sagacious sanjika could get up at all without being taken.Possibly a passage up the river is found at night; but this is not the country of Sundays or "close times" for either men or fish.The lake fish are caught chiefly in nets, although men, and even women with babies on their backs, are occasionally seen fishing from the rocks with hooks.
A net with small meshes is used for catching the young fry of a silvery kind like pickerel, when they are about two inches long;
Thousands are often taken in a single haul.We had a present of a large bucketful one day for dinner:they tasted as if they had been cooked with a little quinine, probably from their gall-bladders being left in.In deep water, some sorts are taken by lowering fish-
baskets attached by a long cord to a float, around which is often tied a mass of grass or weeds, as an alluring shade for the deep-sea fish.Fleets of fine canoes are engaged in the fisheries.The men have long paddles, and stand erect while using them.They sometimes venture out when a considerable sea is running.Our Makololo acknowledge that, in handling canoes, the Lake men beat them; they were unwilling to cross the Zambesi even, when the wind blew fresh.
Though there are many crocodiles in the lake, and some of an extraordinary size, the fishermen say that it is a rare thing for any one to be carried off by these reptiles.When crocodiles can easily obtain abundance of fish--their natural food--they seldom attack men;
But when unable to see to catch their prey, from the muddiness of the water in floods, they are very dangerous.
Many men and boys are employed in gathering the buaze, in preparing the fibre, and in making it into long nets.The knot of the net is different from ours, for they invariably use what sailors call the reef knot, but they net with a needle like that we use.From the amount of native cotton cloth worn in many of the southern villages, it is evident that a great number of hands and heads must be employed in the cultivation of cotton, and in the various slow processes through which it has to pass, before the web is finished in the native loom.In addition to this branch of industry, an extensive manufacture of cloth, from the inner bark of an undescribed tree, of the botanical group, Caesalpineae, is ever going on, from one end of the lake to the other; and both toil and time are required to procure the bark, and to prepare it by pounding and steeping it to render it soft and pliable.The prodigious amount of the bark clothing worn indicates the destruction of an immense number of trees every year;yet the adjacent heights seem still well covered with timber.
The Lake people are by no means handsome:the women are VERY plain;
And really make themselves hideous by the means they adopt to render themselves attractive.The pelele, or ornament for the upper lip, is universally worn by the ladies; the most valuable is of pure tin, hammered into the shape of a small dish; some are made of white quartz, and give the wearer the appearance of having an inch or more of one of Price's patent candles thrust through the lip, and projecting beyond the tip of the nose.
In character, the Lake tribes are very much like other people; there are decent men among them, while a good many are no better than they should be.They are open-handed enough:if one of us, as was often the case, went to see a net drawn, a fish was always offered.
