A Big Effort
Geographers, mechanicians, sanitary reformers, soldiers and sailors fighting for right against oppression, as well as missionaries—all are fighting in very much the same cause.’* (Livingstone when he heard of the Charge of the Light Brigade.)
M PEPE’S father had been one of the
late King Sebituane’s headmen. He was still alive, and lived in a village not far off. Without telling Livingstone anything of his plan, Sekeletu made up his mind that the old rebel must be dealt with in the same manner as Mpepe. They passed through the village while on their way to the Zambesi, and Livingstone was the unwilling witness of a native king’s justice. Before he realised what was afoot, Livingstone saw the King’s servants seize Mpepe’s father and another rebel, hack them in pieces with their axes, and cast them into the river to be devoured by the crocodiles. It was not the slightest use trying to preach more merciful measures; Livingstone often tried, but Sekeletu only thought it an amiable eccentricity on the part of this great white man.
After the revolt had been subdued they continued their march towards the great river, the long line of armed men twisting and turning Z22
A BIG EFFORT 123 along the narrow African pathway, here an ox-tail head-dress waving above the grasses, there a bunch of black ostrich feathers. Some of the men wore red tunics, the nobles carried small rhinoceros-horn clubs, while each had his servant bearing his shield. Before them marched “ machaka,” or battle-axe men, all picked runners. The King was followed by his mopato, or guard, courtiers of his own age who fed out of the royal dish.
When they arrived at any village the women all turned out with loud “ lulliloo ” to greet the King, who received their cries of “ Great lion! Great Chief! Sleep, my lord! ” with becoming indifference. Then followed a feast, with native beer in numbers of large pots and calabashes, and a native dance. Sekeletu himself was especially partial to sweet coffee and biscuits, which Livingstone’s porters carried with them. At night the two great chiefs, black and white, had each a little gipsy tent to sleep in, and their attendants prepared for them rush beds sewn together with twine.
Livingstone’s gun kept them well supplied with game. There were vast numbers of buffalo, zebras and eland. It was here that he discovered a new species of eland, a good specimen of which may be seen to-day in Edinburgh museum. The “ Livingstone ” eland is a beautiful creature, and when one of the Makololo nobles saw it, he turned to his 124 A BIG EFFORT white friend and said thoughtfully: “ Jesus ought to have given us these instead of cattle.” No doubt it pleased Livingstone to think that after all his preaching had given that savage young soldier a new thought about God. It was something that he should look to Him as Father, and expect His gifts to be beautiful.
When Livingstone set out on his great journeys of discovery he had a perfectly clear idea before him. He knew quite well that some people at home misunderstood his explorations and actually spoke of them as “ wanderings.” Some good people in Scotland thought it was not true missionary work at all, and told him so. They did not, of course, understand that a regular mission planted in such unhealthy districts would be no manner of good; and they did not grasp the splendid scheme that this great pioneer of missions in Africa had always before him. To use a modern expression, he “ saw big.” “ I shall open up a path into the interior, or perish,” said Livingstone. It is because he opened up that path that missions have been able to do the wonderful work they are doing in Africa to-day. Livingstone’s explorations, as any real African authority to-day would tell us, was one of the finest bits of missionary statesmanship in our history.
To return to our story, Livingstone and King Sekeletu made their way up the Zambesi for
A BIG EFFORT 125 some distance, and then the Doctor went off for a journey across Barotseland on his own. The whole district he found was quite unsuitable for a settlement, so he came back again to Linyanti, and held a big conference, or “ pitso,” with Sekeletu’s headmen. What he proposed to them was an expedition westward, up the Liba River, then onward to the River Kwanza, and down that stream to the Portuguese province of Angola. If one looks at a map one sees at once that his plan was to open up a route to the west coast of Africa. It was a big undertaking; but the King and his headmen were quite won over by Livingstone’s arguments, and Sekel^tu gave him a company of twenty-seven picked men to go with him on his travels. The only “ croaker ” at the “ pitso,” or conference, had been an old diviner. He did not at all like to see this white man’s influence with the King, and he warned the assembly against the proposed journey. “ Where is he taking you to? This white man is throwing you away,” said he. “ Your garments already smell of blood! ” But the King only laughed at him. He was determined to help Livingstone open up a trade route to the west, for he knew it would benefit his country. The King of Barotseland to-day has good reason to be glad that his predecessor trusted Livingstone and took his advice.
Some years ago King Lewanika came over
126 A BIG EFFORT to this country and visited Edinburgh. He belongs to a different dynasty than Sekeletu, but he has inherited his love of the white missionary. When one looked at Lewanika’s quiet, capable face, and heard how his whole kingdom has changed and prospered, one realised what missionary work has done already in places once so full of cruelty and terror. Lewanika is a most civilised being. The present writer has this king’s autograph in his collection, which Lewanika obligingly wrote for his father with a good deal of care with his fountain pen on a menu-card.
When Livingstone set out with his native escort he was really not fit for such a journey. Fever had reduced him terribly, and strange fits of giddiness sometimes came on him in a way that rather alarmed him. He thought it more than probable this journey might be his last; but, as he says, “ the Boers, by taking possession of all my goods, saved me the trouble of making a will.” “The prospect of passing away from this fair and beautiful world came before me in a pretty plain, matter-of-fact form; and it did seem a serious thing to leave wife and children.... But I had always believed that if we serve God at all it ought to be done in a manly way.” He carefully packed his few belongings, left Linyanti in November, 1853, and made for the River Chobe.
The river was full of crusty old bachelor
A BIG EFFORT
hippos. These solitary male hippopotami are often dangerous, and one of them lost no time in attacking the party. They escaped, however, the fate of another native canoe, which they saw floating in smashed fragments by the river bank. Livingstone was amused at watching a mother hippo carrying her baby on her broad back as she swam. There is a rude carving of a hippopotamus in the cloisters of Magdalen College, Oxford, which is represented by its mediaeval sculptor as carrying its young upon its back, and was meant to stand for a college tutor with one of his pupils in his charge. It was thought to be rather a legendary scene, till Livingstone saw it on the River Chobe, and no doubt described it to Oxford undergraduates long afterwards.
As he passed through native villages he found opportunities of playing the tutor himself. His magic-lantern was exceedingly useful to him. When it was dark, and a great circle had been formed about the white man, he would first speak to them as simply as he could about God, and about the future life; and then he would light up his lantern and show them such scenes as Abraham offering up Isaac and other Bible pictures. On one occasion a relative of Sebituane, named Moriantsane, sat and listened with the rest; and when he saw some young fellows working with a skin instead of attending, he got up and hurled his staff at them.
128 A BIG EFFORT Livingstone said in his Travels that these people were very anxious to learn; and were not, he adds, like certain villagers in the south who stuck obstinately to their old ways, and put all their cocks to death, because to their uneasy consciences those aggravating birds kept crowing “ Tlang lo rapeleng! ” (“ Come along to prayers! ”).
Livingstone’s congregation were full of awe at such pictures as Abraham and Isaac, and evidently thought the figures in the brilliant light were spirits conjured up by the white doctor. Unfortunately as he pulled out this slide the figure of the patriarch with upraised knife seemed to the natives to be coming at them, and with a cry of “Mother! Mother!” they scattered and fled.
As they sailed along under the high river banks they would pass birds of every shape and hue: the ibis, with her harsh scream of wa-wa-wa; the fish-hawk, with its piping note; the African plover armed with its sharp-spur, chasing the white-necked raven with shrill cry. Once, as they passed, a turtle, climbing the bank to lay her eggs, fell over on her back; and this the boatmen hailed as a most lucky omen. There were great numbers of crocodiles in the river, and Livingstone saw one of his men dragged under by a horrible, scaly form. The man managed to stab the reptile and escaped with a dreadful wound. There is
A BIG EFFORT 129 nothing quite so wicked-looking and repulsive as one of these loathsome creatures. When a native sees one he spits on the ground and, pointing at the satanic face, says: “ Boleo ki bo” (“There is sin”).
There is a delightful description in one of William Cotton Oswell’s letters of how he and Livingstone watched the native dogs outwit the crocodiles in the River Zuga.' There were native huts on both banks of the stream, and the dogs of one village would often take it into their heads to cross over and visit their friends across the water. But between them lay quite a big stretch of river, and sundry loglike floating forms, with eager, greedy eyes, waiting to dine off any dog rash enough to dare the passage. The dogs were quite equal to the occasion, and thoroughly enjoyed matching their wits against their enemies’. They would all bunch together on the bank, barking furiously at the crocodiles, and, having worked up their scaly foes to a perfect fury of hunger, off they would race up the bank as hard as they could go. Off, too, would dash the crocodiles in pursuit, and so the race would continue for perhaps a quarter of a mile. Then suddenly the dogs would stop barking, double upon their tracks like lightning, and dash back again to their former meeting-place, keeping themselves well concealed behind the grasses as they ran. As it took the crocodiles some 130 A BIG EFFORT moments to realise that their hoped-for dinner had departed, the dogs had just time to swim across the river, and would greet their dupes with loud, derisive barking when they returned to the spot once more.
When the party landed for the night, Livingstone’s men would set up his little tent, and in front of it place wood for the fire. Each man had his special duty, and in about an hour the encampment was complete, the men sleeping in small huts made of sticks and branches cleverly built in a great horse-shoe round the fire.
Travelling on from day to day, they left the Chobe (or Tshobe) River and went up the Zambesi in canoes. At the last of the Makololo outposts, Libonta, they halted, and the men collected fat and butter as presents for the chiefs of the new country they were about to pass through. Then they entered a wonderful land teeming with game, and finally reached a point on the River Liba where the canoes could go no farther up the rapid stream. Here Livingstone met an interesting personage named Nyamoana.