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
We laid the ship alongside of the island Kanyimbe, opposite Tette; and,
before starting for the country of the Makololo, obtained a small plot of
land, to form a garden for the two English sailors who were to remain in
charge during our absence. We furnished them with a supply of seeds, and
they set to work with such zeal, that they certainly merited success.
Their first attempt at African horticulture met with failure from a most
unexpected source; every seed was dug up and the inside of it eaten by
mice. "Yes," said an old native, next morning, on seeing the husks,
"that is what happens this month; for it is the mouse month, and the seed
should have been sown last mouth, when I sowed mine." The sailors,
however, sowed more next day; and, being determined to outwit the mice,
they this time covered the beds over with grass. The onions, with other
seeds of plants cultivated by the Portuguese, are usually planted in the
beginning of April, in order to have the advantage of the cold season;
the wheat a little later, for the same reason. If sown at the beginning
of the rainy season in November, it runs, as before remarked, entirely to
straw; but as the rains are nearly over in May, advantage is taken of low-
lying patches, which have been flooded by the river. A hole is made in
the mud with a hoe, a few seeds dropped in, and the earth shoved back
with the foot. If not favoured with certain misty showers, which, lower
down the river, are simply fogs, water is borne from the river to the
roots of the wheat in earthern pots; and in about four months the crop is
ready for the sickle. The wheat of Tette is exported, as the best grown
in the country; but a hollow spot at Maruru, close by Mazaro, yielded
very good crops, though just at the level of the sea, as a few inches
rise of tide shows.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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