big baobab tree, whose creaking boughs intensified the
shrill chorus of the storm.
From an excessive heat and brassy skies this change was
delightful, and I fairly revelled in its wild enjoyment.
These moments of content were interrupted by the arrival
of some young men, who beckoned to me to come to the
house. An interpreter was indispensable, and consequently
Mara had to be ferreted from his earthly paradise. I fully
expected that some important news had come from somé
unseen and unknown quarter. Such luck, however, was not,
for me. The messengers were the sons of a chief, who said
that their father was dying, and he had sent them to ask
the white man for some medicine.
This was a strange mark of confidence; a black man
asking a white man for medicine! No thoroughly wild
man would ever do such a thing, and so I came to the con?
elusion that this applicant riiust at some time have been
treated by missionaries.
Judging from the description which his sons gave, I
inferred that the old man was suffering from the same complaint
as myself. Therefore I went forth equipped with a
bottle of chlorodyne, and was guided to the village, which,
much to my delight, was close at hand.
I was ushered into a good-sized rectangular hut. At one
end a small apartment was partitioned off. Not even the
usual fire was burning, and I felt my way as far as the door
of the exceedingly dark room, or, to speak more accurately,
comer. Fearing that I might plant my foot into the mouth
of the suffering chief, I did not proceed any farther. I
could not see, but out of the pitchy darkness the dismal
groans of the sick one fell upon the ear. How like the
Kaffir! Courageous in many things, yet pluck soon deserts
him in sickness ; it is the only enemy he will not fight.
I took a few handfuls of grass from the roof and put a
light to it. Then I administered sixty drops of chlorodyne,
and left in order to take the same dose myself.
While walking back 1 thought—human like that this
doctoring might prove a stroke of good fortune; for if I
succeeded in curing the man, the least he could do was to
get me boys to take me on.
Little did I imagine at the time that I was doing a service to
a man with a history; to one who had faithfully followed the
intrepid Livingstone, and had been among his “ faithfuls,”
when his wondering eyes first viewed the new found waters
of Nyanja, stretching a hundred leagues away to the north.*
Yes! my patient was no other than Chimlolo, the Makololo
chief, who, among other Makololo, was brought to this
region by Livingstone in the early days, and placed as chief
over the Ajawa and Manganja on the Shire river. This is
the reason.that on some maps we find Makololo marked as
the names of tribes on the Shire river.
My remedies worked wonders on the old chief. In a
few days he appeared tottering, and in a very weak
condition, at the door of my abode, and expressed himself
as being very thankful to me for my promptness in supplying
him with medicine. He said he had been at the
point of death, but I had saved him, and continued to
repeat, “ You must stay with us.”
But I had an eye to business, and lost no time in putting
the question of transportation before him, and succeeded
in making him promise to find me boys, I only wanted
eight, and the payments were to be made on arriving at
the station of Blantyre.
* Lake bfyassa is 1,525 feet above the sea-level; is &10 miles in length,
and 60 miles in width. At the deepest part a deep-sea lead-line does not
touch bottom.