half a dozen able canoe-men, under Mobita, who bad previously
gone with Dr. Livingstone to Loanda, were sent to
help us in our river navigation. Some men on foot drove
six oxen which Sekeletu bad given us as provisions for the
journey. I t was, as before remarked, a time of scarcity;
and, considering the dearth of food, our treatment bad been
liberal.
By day the canoe-men are accustomed to keep close under
the river’s bank from fear of the hippopotami; by night,
however, they keep in the middle of the stream, as then
those animals are usually close to the bank on their way to
their grazing-grounds. Our progress was considerably impeded
by the high winds, which at this season of the year
begin about eight in the morning, and blow strongly up
the river all day. The canoes were poor leaky affairs, and
so low in parts of the gunwale, that the paddlers were afraid
to follow the channel when it crossed the river, lest the
waves might swamp us. A rough sea is dreaded by all
these inland canoe-men; but, though timid, they are by
no means unskilful at their work. The ocean rather astonished
them afterwards; and also the admirable way that
the Nyassa men managed their canoes on a rough lake, and
even amongst the breakers, where no small boat could possibly
live.
On the night of the 17th we slept on the left bank of the
Majeele, after having had all the men ferried across. An ox
was slaughtered, and not an ounce of it was left next morning.
Our two young Makololo companions, Moloka and Ramaku-
kane, having never travelled before, naturally clung to some
of the luxuries they had been accustomed to at home.
When they lay down to sleep, their servants were called to
spread their blankets over their august persons, not forgetting
their feet. This seems to be the duty of the Makololo wife
to her husband, and strangers sometimes receive the honour.
One of our party, having wandered, slept at the village of
Nambowe. When he laid down, to his surprise two of Nam-
bowe’s wives came at once, and carefully and kindly spread
his kaross over him.
A beautiful silvery fish with reddish fins, called Ngwesi, is
very abundant in the river; large ones weigh fifteen or twenty
pounds each. Its teeth are exposed, and so arranged that,
when they meet, the edges cut a hook like nippers. The
Ngwesi seems to be a very ravenous fish. I t often gulps down
the Konokono, a fish armed with serrated bones more than an
inch in length in the pectoral and dorsal fins, which, fitting
into a notch at the roots, can be put by the fish on full cock or
straight out,—they cannot be folded down, without its will,
and even break in resisting. The name “ Konokono,” elbow-
elbow, is given it from a resemblance its extended fins are
supposed to bear to a man’s elbows stuck out from his body.
I t often performs the little trick of cocking its fins in the
stomach of the Ngwesi, and, the elbows piercing its enemy’s
sides, he is frequently found floating dead. The fin bones
seem to have an acrid secretion on them, for the wound they
make is excessively painful. The Konokono barks distinctly
when landed with the hook. Our canoe-men invariably
picked up every dead fish they saw on the surface of the
water, however far gone. An unfragrant odour was no
objection; the fish was boiled and eaten, and the water
drunk as soup. I t is a curious fact that many of the
Africans keep fish as we do woodcocks, until they are
extremely offensive, before they consider them fit to eat.
Our paddlers informed us on our way down that iguanas
lay their eggs in July and August, and crocodiles in September.
The eggs remain a month or two under the sand where
they are laid, and the young come out when the rains have
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