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Updated: May 5, 2025
Too ill to march. 7th December, 1866. Went on, and passed Mesumbé's village, also protected by bamboos, and came to the hill Mparawé, with a village perched on its northern base and well up its sides. The Babisa have begun to imitate the Mazitu by attacking and plundering Manganja villages. Muasi's brother was so attacked, and now is here and eager to attack in return.
Together, they proceeded to the Babisa chief, who, when he had heard the Arab's story, unhesitatingly denounced the Arab as a liar, and his story without the least foundation in fact; giving as a reason that, if the Mazitu had been lately in that vicinity, he should have heard of it soon enough. But Musa broke out with "No, no, Doctor; no, no, no; I no want to go to Mazitu.
We spent a night at a baobab, which was hollow, and would hold twenty men inside. It had been used as a lodging-house by the Babisa. As we approached nearer the Zambesi, the country became covered with broad-leaved bushes, pretty thickly planted, and we had several times to shout to elephants to get out of our way.
We had taken pains to ascertain from the travelled Babisa and Arabs as much as possible about the country in front, which, from the lessening time we had at our disposal, we feared we could scarcely reach, and had heard a good deal of a small lake called Bemba.
The Manganja usually intrust their ivory to the Babisa to be sold at the Coast, and complain that the returns made never come up to the high prices which they hear so much about before it is sent. In fact, by the time the Babisa return, the expenses of the journey, in which they often spend a month or two at a place where food abounds, usually eat up all the profits.
The saliva runs from the mouth in these dreams, and the pillow is wet with it in the mornings. These Babisa are full of suspicion; everything has to be paid for accordingly in advance, and we found that giving a present to a chief is only putting it in his power to cheat us out of a supper.
The Mobisa man sent for came, but was so ignorant of his own country, not knowing the names of the chief Babisa town or any of the rivers, that I declined his guidance. He would only have been a clog on us; and anything about the places in front of us we could ascertain at the villages where we touch by inquiry as well as he could.
I went outside the hut, but there they swarmed everywhere; they covered the legs, biting furiously; it is only when they are tired that they leave off. One good trait of the Balungu up here is, they retire when they see food brought to anyone, neither Babisa nor Makoa had this sense of delicacy: the Babemba are equally polite.
On inquiring next evening he said "the man had told lies," he had cooked nothing more: he was prone to lie himself, and was a rather bad specimen of a chief. The Babisa have round bullet heads, snub noses, often high cheek-bones, an upward slant of the eyes, and look as if they had a lot of Bushman blood in them, and a good many would pass for Bushmen or Hottentots.
He took a fancy to one of the boys' blankets; offering a native cloth, much larger, in exchange, and even a sheep to boot; but the owner being unwilling to part with his covering, Kauma told me that he had not sent for his Babisa travellers on account of my boy refusing to deal with him.
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