rich, and exalted to the poor and lowly. When private
persons attempted it, we declined.
Beyond Pita lies the little island
Nyamotobsi, where we met a small
fugitive tribe of hippopotamus hunters,
who had been driven by war
from their own island in front. All
were busy at work; some were making
gigantic baskets for grain, the
men plaiting from the inside. With
the civility so common among them
the chief ordered a mat to be spread
for us under a shed, and then showed
us the weapon with which they kill
the hippopotamus; it is a short iron
harpoon inserted in the end of a
long pole, but being intended to
unship, it is made fast to a strong
cord of milola, or hibiscus, bark,
which is wound closely round the
entire length of the shaft, and secured
at its opposite end. Two men
in a swift canoe steal quietly down
on the sleeping animal. The bowman
dashes the harpoon into the
unconscious victim, while the quick
steersman sweeps the light craft
back with his broad paddle; the-
force of the blow separates the harpoon
from its corded handle, which,
appearing on the surface, sometimes
with an inflated bladder attached, guides the hunters
to where the wounded beast hides below until they despatch
it.
These hippopotamus hunters form a separate people, called
Akombwi, or Mapodzo, and rarely—the women it is said never
—intermarry with any other tribe. The reason for their keeping
aloof from certain of the natives D on the Zambesi is obvious
enough, some having as great an abhorrence of hippopotamus
meat as Mahomedans have of swine’s flesh. Our pilot, Scissors,
was one of this class; he would not even cook his food in a pot
which had contained hippopotamus meat, preferring to go
hungry till he could find another; and yet he traded eagerly
in the animal’s tusks, and ate with great relish the flesh of
the foul-feeding marabout. These hunters go out frequently
on long expeditions, taking in their canoes their wives and
children, cooking-pots, and sleeping-mats. When they, reach
a good game district, they erect -temporary huts on the bank,
and there dry the meat they have killed. They are rather a
comely-looking race, with very black smooth skins, and never
disfigure themselves with the frightful ornaments of some of
the other tribes. The chief declined to sell a harpoon, because
they could not now get the milola bark from the coast on
account of Mariano’s war. He expressed some doubts about
our being children of the same Almighty Father, remarking
that “ they could not become white, let them wash ever so
much.” We made him a present of a bit of cloth, and he
very generously gave us in return some fine fresh fish and
Indian com.
The heat of the weather steadily increases during this month
(August), and foggy mornings are now rare. A strong breeze
ending in a gale blows up stream every night. I t came in the
afternoon a few weeks ago, then later, and at present its arrival
is near midnight; it makes our frail cabin-doors fly open