Missionary Travels and Researches in South AfricaLivingstone, David
Religion
Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa
Livingstone, David
Missions -- South Africa; South Africa -- Description and travel
Returning to the north poorer than he started, he ascended the Teoughe
to the hill Sorila, and crossed over a swampy country to the eastward.
Pursuing his course onward to the low-lying basin of the Leeambye, he
saw that it presented no attraction to a pastoral tribe like his, so
he moved down that river among the Bashubia and Batoka, who were
then living in all their glory. His narrative resembled closely the
"Commentaries of Caesar", and the history of the British in India. He
was always forced to attack the different tribes, and to this day his
men justify every step he took as perfectly just and right. The
Batoka lived on large islands in the Leeambye or Zambesi, and, feeling
perfectly secure in their fastnesses, often allured fugitive or
wandering tribes on to uninhabited islets on pretense of ferrying them
across, and there left them to perish for the sake of their goods.
Sekomi, the chief of the Bamangwato, was, when a child, in danger of
meeting this fate; but a man still living had compassion on him, and
enabled his mother to escape with him by night. The river is so large
that the sharpest eye can not tell the difference between an island and
the bend of the opposite bank; but Sebituane, with his usual foresight,
requested the island chief who ferried him across to take his seat in
the canoe with him, and detained him by his side till all his people
and cattle were safely landed. The whole Batoka country was then densely
peopled, and they had a curious taste for ornamenting their villages
with the skulls of strangers. When Sebituane appeared near the great
falls, an immense army collected to make trophies of the Makololo
skulls; but, instead of succeeding in this, they gave him a good excuse
for conquering them, and capturing so many cattle that his people were
quite incapable of taking any note of the sheep and goats. He overran
all the high lands toward the Kafue, and settled in what is called a
pastoral country, of gently undulating plains, covered with short grass
and but little forest. The Makololo have never lost their love for this
fine, healthy region.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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