Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo, Volume 2Burton, Richard Francis, Sir
History
Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo, Volume 2
Burton, Richard Francis, Sir
Africa, West -- Description and travel; Congo River -- Description and travel; Ethnology -- Africa, West
The master awakes about 3 P.M. and smokes, visits, plays with his
children, and dawdles away his time till the cool sunset, when a
second edition of the first meal is served up. If there be
neither dance nor festival, all then retire to their bens, light
the fire, and sit smoking tobacco or bhang, with frequent
interruptions of palm wine or rum, till joined by their partners.
Douville (ii. 113), says that the Pangué or chanvre, "croît
naturellement dans lepays" I believe the questions to be still
sub judice, whether the intoxicating cannabis be or be not
indigenous to Africa as well as to Asia; and whether smoking was
not known in the Old World, as it certainly was in the New,
before tobacco was introduced. The cannabis Indica was the
original anæsthetic known to the Arabs and to civilized Orientals
many centuries before the West invented ether and chloroform.
Our landlord has two wives, but one is a mother and will not
rejoin him till her child can carry a calabash of water unaided.
To avoid exciting jealousy he lives in a hut apart, surrounded by
seven or eight slaves, almost all of them young girls. This
regular life is varied by a little extra exertion at seed-time
and harvest, by attending the various quitandas or markets of the
country side, and by an occasional trip to "town" (Boma). When
the bush is burning, all sally out with guns, clubs, and dogs, to
bring home "beef." And thus they dwell in the presence of their
brethren, thinking little of to-day, and literally following the
precept, "Take no thought for the morrow." As the old missioners
testify, they have happy memories, their tempers are mild, and
quarrels rarely lead to blows; they are covetous, but not
miserly; they share what they have, and they apply the term
"close-fist" to the European who gives "nuffin for nuffin."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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