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
The air which was so exhilarating to Europeans had an opposite effect on
five men who had been born and reared in the malaria of the Delta of the
Zambesi. No sooner did they reach the edge of the plateau at Ndonda,
than they lay down prostrate, and complained of pains all over them. The
temperature was not much lower than that on the shores of the Lake below,
76 degrees being the mean temperature of the day, 52 degrees the lowest,
and 82 degrees the highest during the twenty-four hours; at the Lake it
was about l0 degrees higher. Of the symptoms they complained of--pains
everywhere--nothing could be made. And yet it was evident that they had
good reason for saying that they were ill. They scarified almost every
part of their bodies as a remedial measure; medicines, administered on
the supposition that their malady was the effect of a sudden chill, had
no effect, and in two days one of them actually died in consequence of,
as far as we could judge, a change from a malarious to a purer and more
rarefied atmosphere.
As we were on the slave route, we found the people more churlish than
usual. On being expostulated with about it, they replied, "We have been
made wary by those who come to buy slaves." The calamity of death having
befallen our party, seemed, however, to awaken their sympathies. They
pointed out their usual burying-place, lent us hoes, and helped to make
the grave. When we offered to pay all expenses, they showed that they
had not done these friendly offices without fully appreciating their
value; for they enumerated the use of the hut, the mat on which the
deceased had lain, the hoes, the labour, and the medicine which they had
scattered over the place to make him rest in peace.
The primitive African faith seems to be that there is one Almighty Maker
of heaven and earth; that he has given the various plants of earth to man
to be employed as mediators between him and the spirit world, where all
who have ever been born and died continue to live; that sin consists in
offences against their fellow-men, either here or among the departed, and
that death is often a punishment of guilt, such as witchcraft. Their
idea of moral evil differs in no respect from ours, but they consider
themselves amenable only to inferior beings, not to the Supreme. Evil-
speaking--lying--hatred--disobedience to parents--neglect of them--are
said by the intelligent to have been all known to be sin, as well as
theft, murder, or adultery, before they knew aught of Europeans or their
teaching. The only new addition to their moral code is, that it is wrong
to have more wives than one. This, until the arrival of Europeans, never
entered into their minds even as a doubt.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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