On the summit of the gentle eminence stands the fort,
with whitewashed walls, over which the colours of the
nation float. Farther to the south-west the Caroeira mountain
tops cut into the sky, forming a pleasing background to
the picturesque scene.
Let us saunter through the streets of this African settlement,
which has existed for close upon a century and a-
half. In the days when Livingstone described the place,
as he saw it on his westward journey of exploration over
twenty years ago, Tette was a tolerably lively city. Many
Europeans, mostly Portuguese, helped to swell the commercial
population, which lined the streets, and bartered
with the black man for his treasures. Ivory, gold, as well as
* God’s image done in ebony,” were the saleable commodities
drawn from the heart of the land.
With the times, the scene has changed, and the men too !
Forgetting for a moment that much of the old prosperity
of the place was built by inhuman slavery, one cannot help
having a feeling of melancholy in wandering through the
streets of the now desolate town. Had it been the abode of
devils in times past, there would be a difficulty in triumphing
over its decaying walls; for men can never look with
pleasure upon the evidences of Nature’s destructive powers.
Solitude reigns supreme. On every side you see the
wasting work of Time’s relentless hand. You see it in the
crumbling ruins of houses, at one time inhabited by
prosperous merchants. Indigo and other weeds now rise
rank amid the falling walls, and upon spots where houses
once stood. You see it in the church, which has now
crumbled to the ground. Departed, glory is knelled to you
by the bells which toll from the slight structure—a sorry
substitute for a church—where the Jesuit Fathers and their
small flock now perform the holy rites of their creed.
< Earnest though these fathers be, they must view with
sadness the failure of the work of their predecessors, who,
centuries before (for they were evidently among the first
to set forth in these wilds), wandered amid the savage
aborigines and courted martyrdom. Have both the.labour
of love and the sacrifice of life been fruitless ? To-day, if
you make inquiries of a native grown to manhood within
the sound of the mission bells, and familiar with the inside
of its church, he will tell you an extraordinary story regarding
his ideas of the meanings of religious ceremonies.
Were you to , build an immense church, with a spire as
high as that of Canterbury Cathedral, the only effect would
be that the people would worship the spire. They would have
little or nothing to do with the words of sacred teaching.
Crucifixes, pictures, and all such aids to the fervour of
devotional life, are only looked upon as fetich. The superstition
of the people seems to be ineradicable; and at Tette
this is especially noticeable, owing to the mixed character
of its population; the distributing influence of the slave
trade having given great variety to the races. With no
knowledge of a Supreme Being, they had no religion, no
thoughts of immortality.
A volume might be written upon the fetichism of Tette
alone, taking into account the various grades of the superstition
common to the inhabitants, who are called Teteiros,
and chiefly belong to the Maravi and Wanhungwe. To
heartless bewitchment by human beings are ascribed the
adverse freaks of the weather, the failure of the crops, and
other disasters. For every premeditated action there is a
medicine. Not to .speak of bodily sickness, there are
medicines for success in hunting, for fair weather, for rain,
for peace, and for triumph in war. They dance, sing, feast,
and beat their drums in war, or peace, in grief or joy.