United States or Greece ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
He listened awhile, then broke off into a tirade on the greatness of his country, his power and dominion, which Mohamad bin Saleh, who has been here for ten years, turned into ridicule, and made the audience laugh by telling how other Lunda chiefs had given me oxen and sheep, while Casembe had only a poor little goat and some fish to bestow.
Being doubtful as to whether we were in the right path, I sent to a village to inquire. The headman, evidently one of a former Casembe school, came to us full of wrath. "What right had we to come that way, seeing the usual path was to our left?"
12th April, 1868. I think of starting to-morrow for Bangweolo, even if Casembe refuses a passage beyond him: we shall be better there than we are here, for everything at Kabwabwata is scarce and dear. There we can get a fowl for one string of beads, here it costs six: there fish may be bought, here none.
Zomha is in a range of hills to our west, called Zala nyama. The Portuguese, in going to Casembe, went still further west than this. Passing on we came to a smithy, and watched the founder at work drawing off slag from the bottom of his furnace.
Hamees reports that though the strangers had lost a great many people by small-pox, they had brought good news of certain Arabs still further west: one, Seide ben Umale, or Salem, lived at a village near Casembe, ten days distant, and another, Juma Merikano, or Katata Katanga, at another village further north, and Seide ben Habib was at Phueto, which is nearer Tanganyika.
This is the common mode by which tyranny is cured in parts like these, where fugitives are never returned. The present Casembe is very poor. When he had people who killed elephants he was too stingy to share the profits of the sale of the ivory with his subordinates.
A deaf and dumb man appears among the people here, making signs exactly as I have seen such do in England, and occasionally emitting a low unmodulated guttural drawl like them. 3rd May, 1868. Abraham, my messenger, came back, while we were at afternoon prayers, with good news for us, but what made Cropped-ears quite chopfallen was that Casembe was quite gracious!
The two Arab traders now in the country felt that they must unite their forces, and thereby effect a safe retreat. Chikumbi had kept twenty-eight tusks for Syde bin Omar safely; but the coming of Casembe might have put it out of his power to deliver up his trust in safety, for an army here is often quite lawless: each man takes to himself what he can.
After delay had grown vexatious, we march three hours on the 9th, and reach the Katofia River, covered with aquatic trees and running into the Mbérézé: five yards wide and knee deep. 10th June, 1868. Detained again, for business is not finished with the people of Casembe.
They do not lose much by remaining away, for a little ivory and slaves are all that Casembe ever can have to sell. Gold is also found at Katanga, and specimens were lately sent to the Sultan of Zanzibar. As we come down from the watershed towards Tanganyika we enter an area of the earth's surface still disturbed by internal igneous action.
Word Of The Day