Petticoat Government

We great he-donkeys say: ¹ Exploration is not becoming her sex.! Well... she came much further up than the two centurions sent by Nero Caesar! !!

(Livingstone to his daughter.)

N yamoAna was the Queen of that

country, and she and her husband Samoana received the white man in due state. They were seated on skins in the midst of a big circle of men well armed with arrows, spears and swords. Samoana wore a kilt of green and red baize, and pointed deferentially to his royal wife, as if to say: “ She is the Queen.” After a long palaver, the Queen and her consort much admired Livingstone’s hair, which was pretty long at this time, and was unlike any hair they had ever seen. “ Is that hair? ” they said. “It is the mane of a lion and not hair at all! ” He did not like to tell them that their woolly curls were “ not hair, but the wool of a sheep,” so instead he showed the Queen his watch and pocket-compass, and quite won her regard.

Half - a - century afterwards Livingstone’s youngest daughter made a pilgrimage to Africa,

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and passed through many of the villages her father had known. It is an amusing fact that in one of these villages Mrs Livingstone- Wilson’s hair excited the same extraordinary interest that her father’s had done. The native women begged her to let it down, and then fled shrieking away, fearing it was “ serpents growing on her head.”

The Queen Nyamoana told Livingstone that he must certainly go on to her brother King Shinte’s country, and warned him against the cataracts on the river.

Presently the Queen’s daughter, Manenko, arrived on the scene. She was a great chieftainess also, and was certainly a very remarkable woman. Manenko, like her mother, had a weak and very obedient husband, who stood much in awe of his strapping young wife. She showed what was the Balonda idea of the highest elegance in dress, wearing only a profusion of ornaments and medicines hung about her brown person, and plenty of fat and red ochre smeared upon her skin. She at once took everyone under her wing, and proposed to accompany Livingstone herself on his journey to Shinte’s court. Politics were at the bottom of her friendliness, for she wished to be an ally of the Makololo tribes.

Next morning Manenko, her women, her husband, and a state drummer set out with Livingstone and his retinue on their journey.

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The Doctor rode an ox, and the Amazon princess strode by his side. It was pouring with rain and Livingstone was concerned to see Manenko with no covering whatever but her beads. But she sturdily explained that it was not “ the thing ” for a chief like herself to appear effeminate. In a short time they came to the foresttract of that part of Africa, and the men had to clear the path with axes as the forest became denser towards the north.

There is nothing quite like one of these great African forests—the deep gloom, the giant climbing creepers everywhere, the drip, drip of the rain-soaked trees, the narrow path just broad enough to walk on, with impenetrable tangle of undergrowth on either side. Livingstone would have enjoyed his journey if it had not been for his wretched state of health. Sometimes he was so giddy with fever that he could not see his path. The nights were often torture to him. Manenko’s constant whims were rather a worry to him, and his men dreaded her tongue. Her favourite reason for everything she did was, “I do it only,” which might be translated into schoolgirl English as “ Because.” No reason was necessary, surely, except that she wanted it. Her ladies who travelled with her were also rather a handful.

That district of Africa, up to the present day, has always been a grand place for “Women’s Rights.” In many of the tribes husbands are

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kept very much in order, and a bridegroom has to take his orders from his wife’s mother. It is quite a proverb among the Wa-Wemba that there is nothing fiercer than a wife. The writer remembers hearing a story of one husband who fled to a British magistrate in the dead of night, begging to be put in gaol till morning, as the only safe place from his angry wife, who had already bitten him severely!

In time Livingstone and his party came to a very lovely valley, and Manenko called a halt till the sun should be at exactly the right position to make it lucky for them to enter Shinte’s town. It was a typical town of West Africa, embowered in banana and other tropical trees, with square-walled houses and round roofs, and scattered plantations of tobacco. A great host of armed negroes rushed upon them at sight, as if they would eat up the strangers. Outside the town was a half-caste Portuguese encampment, and some women slaves in a long chain were hoeing a field. It was the first time Livingstone’s natives had seen slaves in chains. “ They are not men,” they exclaimed, “ who treat their children so! ”

At eleven o’clock King Shinte received his guests. He was dressed in a checked jacket and a scarlet kilt of baize edged with green. His helmet of beads was surmounted by a bunch of goose feathers. Much ceremonial

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shouting and drumming followed, and then came the “ pitso.” The King was quite fascinated by Livingstone, and addressed him as “ the man come from the gods.” He also was much struck by Livingstone’s hair. In this part of Africa the Doctor’s hair became quite a byword, and its straightness was accounted for by the story, more than half believed in, that he came up from the sea, like a merman, to visit them.

Shinte offered Livingstone a slave girl as a gift, and could not at all understand his refusal, but brought him another a head taller. When this one, too, was politely refused, the King gave Livingstone his highest decoration—a round seashell at the end of a bead necklace. He sent him away with heartiest wishes on his journey towards the coast. The last he saw of his late manly companion, Princess Manenko, was a vision of that Amazon putting her husband to bed. The usually meek man had found Shinte’s beer too much for him.

The country they now passed through was given up to idols. Every tree had its sacred mark, or its hanging offering. On the bark of some of the trees were cut strange-shaped human faces. The people of this district of Londa did their best to propitiate the spirits that haunted these dark woodlands. Shinte’s mandate had gone before them, and they had therefore no difficulties about food in that

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region. After crossing a flat, marshy country in pouring rain they reached Lake Dilolo, and put up at the kraal of the chief, Katema. The Dilolo folk told Livingstone an old story about their lake which reminded him rather of the story of the Flood in Genesis, and said that the lake’s name was really the native word for “ despair.” Livingstone’s journey from the lake onward was certainly despairing enough, for they had to wade through miles of flooded country, and in all the villages of that region he found the note of despair. Fear ruled everywhere—fear of the slavers, fear of departed spirits; it seemed to hang over the land like a dark shadow. At nearly every village or ford the natives demanded some payment, and were exceedingly unfriendly and inhospitable. Flooded valleys followed one another in weary succession, and Livingstone had to swim his ox, “ Sinbad,” over some dangerous fords, at one of which he was as nearly as possible drowned.

In one village of the Chiboque people Livingstone and his men were surrounded by a throng of armed and hostile men. It was only by great coolness and presence of mind that Livingstone kept them at bay. The perpetual anxieties of this sort of travel and the scarcity of food began to make his own men restive, and one day Livingstone had to show them he was not to be trifled with. Seizing a doublebarrelled pistol, he ran out of his tent towards

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the mutinous ones, looking so savage that he put them to flight. After that his men gave him no further trouble.

Ox-riding was really no joke. “ Sinbad ” was guided by a single string passed through his nose. The only way to stop him was to hit him in the right place with a wand. Sometimes the wretched animal ran in below a stout climbing creeper, and Livingstone was dragged off and landed on the crown of his head. Whenever that happened “ Sinbad ” did not lose his opportunity, but kicked out shrewdly behind.

When once the River Kwango was crossed they left the forest country and entered the parklike scenery of Portuguese West Africa. But crossing the river was one of the most awkward experiences Livingstone had to face. It looked as if they would have to cut their way through a host of armed Ba-shinje. To get over the deep river without pontoons seemed impossible, and Livingstone, worn out with fever and fatigue, was almost in despair. In the nick of time a friend appeared in the person of a young Portuguese half-caste sergeant of militia. He had come in search of bee’s-wax, and knew the country. At his advice Livingstone moved his men farther down the shore, and they managed to embark in a native ferry-boat. All the way across the Ba-shinje potted at them with their guns; but, being pretty bad

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shots, no one was hit, and Livingstone’s little party escaped in safety.

Soon they came to a small garrison of Portuguese soldiers, and the sergeant made them thoroughly welcome. They were in a pitiable condition. Nearly all their possessions had been given to the greedy tribes they had encountered, and Livingstone had little but the ragged clothes he stood in. But they were quite safe now, and the kind-hearted Portuguese made them all at home. Livingstone puzzled the Portuguese a good deal. Who was he? They could not believe he was a missionary, for he had scientific instruments with him. Was he a British officer, then? Or an agent of Britain to suppress the slave trade? Anyhow, they were most courteous and kind, and saw him on his way to the headquarters of the Commandant at Kasanji. There Livingstone came in for a Roman Catholic festival, and after the fete was over, and he had attended a banquet at the Commandant’s house, he had a good night’s rest, and was given an escort to Golungo Alto. It was a great change to travel through such beautiful and civilised country once more, and that part of Africa would be hard to beat for beauty. Everywhere the Portuguese treated him with hospitality, and at Loanda he came at last to the end of his long journey.

What a journey it had been! If all its exciting experiences were set down they would

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fill a good-sized book of adventure. It had taken Livingstone six months of the hardest possible kind of travelling, and he was completely worn out.

It was an anxious moment, too, when he approached the house of the British Commissioner at Loanda. What would this Englishman be like? Would he be a crusty personage? He had not seen a fellowcountryman for nearly a year. When the Doctor entered the porch, and saw a number of beautifully cultivated flowers, he inferred at once “that he was a real, whole-hearted Englishman.” Nor was Livingstone wrong, for that night he lay between sheets once more, in a real bed, and slept as he had not dared to sleep for six months past.