A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries: And of the Discovery of Lakes Shirwa and Nyassa, 1858-1864Livingstone, David
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A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries: And of the Discovery of Lakes Shirwa and Nyassa, 1858-1864
Livingstone, David
Africa, Central -- Description and travel; Africa, Central -- Discovery and exploration
After a long day's march in the valley of the Lake, where the temperature
was very much higher than in that we had just left, we entered the
village of Katosa, which is situated on the bank of a stream among
gigantic timber trees, and found there a large party of Ajawa--Waiau,
they called themselves--all armed with muskets. We sat down among them,
and were soon called to the chiefs court, and presented with an ample
mess of porridge, buffalo meat, and beer. Katosa was more frank than any
Manganja chief we had met, and complimented us by saying that "we must be
his 'Bazimo' (good spirits of his ancestors); for when he lived at
Pamalombe, we lighted upon him from above--men the like of whom he had
never seen before, and coming he knew not whence." He gave us one of his
own large and clean huts to sleep in; and we may take this opportunity of
saying that the impression we received, from our first journey on the
hills among the villages of Chisunse, of the excessive dirtiness of the
Manganja, was erroneous. This trait was confined to the cool highlands.
Here crowds of men and women were observed to perform their ablutions
daily in the stream that ran past their villages; and this we have
observed elsewhere to be a common custom with both Manganja and Ajawa.
Before we started on the morning of the 1st September, Katosa sent an
enormous calabash of beer, containing at least three gallons, and then
came and wished us to "stop a day and eat with him." On explaining to
him the reasons for our haste, he said that he was in the way by which
travellers usually passed, he never stopped them in their journeys, but
would like to look at us for a day. On our promising to rest a little
with him on our return, he gave us about two pecks of rice, and three
guides to conduct us to a subordinate female chief, Nkwinda, living on
the borders of the Lake in front.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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