THE NATIVES OF
BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA

When you steam up the Shiré, you pass on the first, second, or some subsequent day (according to the state of the river and the capabilities of your craft), after turning out of the Zambezi at Chimwara, a tree on the western bank. This tree bears a notice-board which marks the beginning of the British Central Africa Protectorate.

But the globe-trotter who is anxious to record in his diary the precise hour and minute of all momentous events of a monotonous voyage may easily overlook the all-important tree. The most eager inquirer may find his experiences pall upon him when for hour after hour he sees nothing but level shore, and a foreground of green bango-reeds festooned with dull magenta convolvulus. In fact, the reason why the boundary had to be marked by a board affixed to a tree, is because this particular angle of alluvial land is so level and devoid of natural features that, in the rainy season, there is usually one navigable channel, if not more, cutting it off into an island, by connecting the Shiré and Zambezi. On the eastern bank we have left Mount Morambala behind—a massive ridge, extending over several miles and reaching a height of 4000 feet. Beyond the flats in the north-east you see the strangely shaped cone of Chinga-Chinga Mountain against the sky, and later on other ranges come into view; but just here the river valley is a marsh (some parts of it an actual lake) in the wet season, and a dusty plain at the end of the dry.

The Portuguese territory on the eastern bank extends a little farther north till it reaches a more tangible boundary in the river Ruo, which rushes down from Matapwiri’s Mountain in the north-east, throwing itself over a fall of 200 feet, and then, winding through the same sort of plain as that already described, enters the Shiré through a sort of miniature delta, by the reedy island of Malo and the ‘lip’ of land where now stands the British township of Chiromo.

I have spoken all along of the Shiré River; and it is not now to be expected that Europeans will ever call it anything else; but it is perhaps unnecessary to say that no native, unless thoroughly accustomed to Europeans and their ways, would ever know it by that name. To him it is the Nyanja, or, if he happens to be a Yao, the Nyasa—a word which means any large body of water, whether river or lake. To those living near Lake Nyasa, it is the lake which is Nyanja or Nyasa, as the case may be; it is only European usage which has stereotyped the Yao word on our maps. Chiri, in the Mang’anja language, means ‘a steep bank,’ and was misunderstood (by the Portuguese, probably, as it seems to have been in use before Livingstone penetrated the country) as the name of the river; since a native would say, ‘I am going to the bank,’ where we should say, ‘I am going to the river.’ As Sir H. H. Johnston has remarked, the Zambezi is the only one of the four great African rivers which bears a name given by, or even known to, the people dwelling on it.

Roughly speaking, the British Protectorate, to which we have been referring, comprises the basin of Lake Nyasa and its outlet, the Shiré. This general statement, of course, requires some qualification. The north end of the lake (the British boundary is the Songwe River, running out in about 10° of S. latitude) and nearly half the eastern side are German; south of that, i.e. from 11° 30´ S. to Fort Maguire, is Portuguese. From Fort Maguire, the border-line runs south-east to the small lake called Chiuta, then south, by the salt lake Chilwa and Mlanje Mountain to the Ruo.

The western frontier of the Protectorate is an irregular line, following more or less the watershed between the streams that flow into the lake and those that flow into the Luangwa (a tributary of the Zambezi which, unlike most tributaries, goes up-stream to join its river—in this case in a south-westerly direction), and meeting the Portuguese border about 14° S. Thence it keeps on to the south-east, as far as the point on the Shiré already mentioned, where the notice-board is affixed to the tree.

Measurements in square miles convey little or nothing to my mind, as a rule, and I shall abstain as far as possible from inflicting them on the reader; but it may as well be noted here that the area of the Protectorate is estimated at 40,980.

West of the territory thus defined, and between the Zambezi and the upper waters of the Congo, lies a vast region known officially as North-east Rhodesia, and reaching up to the south end of Lake Tanganika. We shall have something to say about the tribes living in this part of the country; some of them, indeed, are identical with those in the Protectorate proper; but it is with the latter that we shall chiefly have to do.

We have seen that British Central Africa is a land of lakes and rivers; it is a land of mountains also. ‘Before the discovery of Lake Ng’ami and the well-watered country in which the Makololo dwell,’ said Livingstone, ‘the idea prevailed that a large part of the interior of Africa consisted of sandy deserts into which rivers ran and were lost.’ His great journey of 1852-56 dispelled this idea, and ‘the peculiar form of the continent was then ascertained to be an elevated plateau, somewhat depressed in the centre, and with fissures in the sides by which the rivers escaped to the sea.’ The great lakes all lie on this central plateau, and the rivers which drain them to the sea escape over its edge in the cataracts which for so many centuries, by interrupting navigation, have prevented the exploration of the interior. The Zambezi first throws itself into a huge crack in the earth in the Victoria Falls, and afterwards, between Zumbo and Tete, come the Kebrabasa Rapids.

Lake Nyasa is a narrow trough, 360 miles long, between mountain-ranges which hem it in closely on the west (sending down, during the rains, innumerable small torrents from their steep slopes), and retreat somewhat from it on the east, leaving room for a few larger, but still inconsiderable streams, such as the Songwe, the Rukuru, the Bua, and one or two more. The Shiré is the lake’s only outlet, flowing through a level alluvial valley (something like a delta reversed) till, a little below Matope, it comes to the edge of the plateau and plunges over in a series of falls known as the Murchison Cataracts. These extend over forty miles of river, and make a difference in its level of some 1200 feet, though none of them, individually, are of any great height.

The level of the lake, and consequently of the river which it feeds, is very different at different seasons of the year. During the rains, and for some time after, steamers can go to the foot of the Murchison Cataracts—the usual terminus is Katunga’s, about twelve miles below them. In the dry season they cannot always come within sight of Chiromo, and, during the great drought of 1903, the natives of that place were hoeing their maize-gardens far out in the channel of the river. The salt Lake Chilwa, east of the Shiré, disappeared almost, if not quite, at that time, but reappeared with subsequent rains. It is thought, however, that there is a continuous fall in the level of Nyasa, which is unaffected by the rise and fall of successive seasons. In some places a series of old beaches can be traced, ascending like terraces from the lake-shore to the foot-hills.

This fall is attributed to several causes—the wearing away of the outlet channel, allowing more water to escape; the disappearance of the forests and consequent diminution of the rainfall; and the raising of the ground by volcanic action. There are not now any active volcanoes in the country, but earthquakes are common in the neighbourhood of the lake, and there are hot springs near Kotakota, and also on Mount Morambala (Lower Shiré). Mlanje Mountain is of volcanic origin; in the German territory, north of Nyasa, there are numerous extinct volcanoes and crater-lakes.

The district called the Shiré Highlands proper is enclosed between the Shiré, the Ruo, and Lake Chilwa. It was so named by Livingstone, and others besides him have noticed the similarity to the Scottish mountains, in these rugged peaks and crags of quartzite and grey granite, especially in the dry season, when the brown grass is very nearly the colour of the dead heather and bracken. Sochi, near Blantyre, is, in general outline, not unlike Ben Cruachan. The highest of these mountains are Mlanje and Zomba—they are ranges rather than mountains; or, more precisely still, Mlanje is an isolated mass, a plateau with peaks rising from it like buttresses—the highest point 9680 feet. The plateau has a height of 6000 feet, and a temperate climate—cool enough for hoar-frost at night. From these mountains the land sinks in a series of irregular undulations, to the Shiré, covered sometimes with bush, sometimes with the thick, coarse grass so feelingly described by all travellers, which is really more like canes. After it is burned, as it is every year, it is a greater nuisance than ever, for the larger stalks (about as thick as one’s finger) never get quite consumed, and neither stand up nor lie flat, but lie across each other at every conceivable angle—too high to step on and too low to push one’s way under. Other mountains are Chiperone, Chiradzulo and Tyolo, Nyambadwe and Ndirande—the two latter close to Blantyre. It is difficult to make out their relation to each other. At a bird’s-eye view—as from the top of Nyambadwe, or some point on Ndirande—they look like a confused sea of peaks and ridges; but they are more or less continuous to Zomba, and are separated from Mlanje by the Chilwa plain and the valley of the Tuchila, which runs into the Ruo. West of the Shiré we have the Kirk Mountains, running north and south, with some striking peaks—Dzonze, a collection of rounded humps; Mvai, a rocky pyramid, with a three-cleft peak; Lipepete; and, far to the north, Chirobwe, with a sharp rock pointing from its summit like a finger.

These mountains are mostly granite and quartzite. West of the lake and the Shiré, there are outcrops of sandstone, and this part of the country also contains coal. Iron ore is abundant almost everywhere, especially the form called hæmatite—a soft, red stone, known to the natives as ng’ama or kundwe, and used by them as paint, and as medicine; lumps of this can be picked up in the beds of all the mountain streams. Graphite, or black lead, is found in the same way, and is used by the women for colouring their pottery, to which it gives an effect exactly like stove-polish. I think these are the only minerals of which they themselves take much account. Gold exists in the quartz in some places, and Sir Harry Johnston says: ‘In the valleys of the rivers flowing south to the Zambezi (in Mpezeni’s country), gold really does exist, and was worked at Misale by the half-caste Portuguese,’ in the eighteenth century, and even later. But the Mang’anja and Yaos only know it through their dealings with Portuguese and Arabs, and have no word for it in their languages. Ndalama, which, with the addition of ‘red,’ means gold, and of ‘white,’ silver, and by itself = ‘money,’ is, I fancy, a borrowed word—the Arabic dirhem. I once bought (in the West Shiré district) a bangle of pure copper, which was vaguely said to have been obtained from a place to the north-west, but where it had been worked, I could not ascertain. The brass which is fashioned by native craftsmen is always bought from traders.

There are no deserts in this part, neither are there any dense forests of huge trees, such as we usually think of when Central Africa is mentioned, and such as are really to be found in the Upper Congo basin, on the Gold Coast, and elsewhere. Two Yao boys, who had served in Ashanti with the King’s African Rifles, spoke of the West African forest with the same sort of surprise and wonder as any English rustic might have done. Both, independently, answered the question, ‘What is that country like?’ with the same expression—‘Palibe kuona, one cannot see!’ adding that the trees were high—very high (with an upward gesture of hands and eyes)—away up above one’s head. Large trees, growing close together, are just what one does not find, as a rule, in the country we are thinking of. The Bush (tengo, or chire) usually consists of small trees, thinly scattered, with tufts of grass, small bushes, and various herbaceous plants growing between them, and here and there a large tree standing by itself—perhaps a baobab, or a wild fig, or a silver-thorn acacia, covered with bright golden blossom. Or we have the kind of scenery described by travellers as park-like—open glades, covered with short grass (which, however, never makes turf; you can see the soil between the separate tufts), and dotted with clumps of scrub and small trees, singly or in groups. This is the kind of place where the zebras come to graze—not that I ever had the luck to see any. The small boys who had held out hopes of this treat, said, when we passed the place early in the afternoon, that it was still too hot—the mbidzi were all hidden in the bush, resting in the shade; they would come out to feed on the dambo when it grew cooler. When we returned along the same path the sun was declining, but there were still no mbidzi—a party of natives on their way to the village we had left had scared them.

Where there are no trees or bushes, the grass is usually of the tall, coarse-growing kind already referred to, which is used in hut-building, and has to be burned off at the end of every dry season—otherwise it would become an impenetrable jungle. The grass-fires serve a double purpose—that of clearing the ground and manuring it—but they nearly always spread to the bush, even if it is not fired purposely, to clear a space for new gardens, or accidentally, by some travellers’ camp-fire. These fires cause the scarcity of large trees, which, as a rule, are only found either in deep ravines along watercourses, which have always escaped the flames, or in the burying-grounds (the sacred groves called nkalango), where the people carefully beat out the fire before it reaches them.

These fires have from the earliest ages formed one of the characteristic features of African travel. One of the oldest records of exploration—the Periplus of Hanno—describes them, with other phenomena, in a weird and mysterious passage which fascinated my youth, and has not lost its charm even when the marvels are resolved into tolerably commonplace occurrences:—

‘Having taken in water, we sailed thence straight-forwards, until we came to a great gulf, which the interpreters said was called the Horn of the West.’ (This must have been somewhere near Sierra Leone, since the farthest point reached by the expedition seems to have been Sherbro Island.) ‘In it was a large island, and in the island a lake like a sea, and in this another island, on which we landed; and by day we saw nothing but woods, but by night we saw many fires burning, and heard the sound of flutes and cymbals, and the beating of drums, and an immense shouting. Fear came upon us, and the soothsayers bade us quit the island.’

Evidently the people were ‘playing,’ as the Anyanja say—and their dances last sometimes from dark to daylight, even now—or there was a lyke-wake on. Or else, maybe, they were well aware of the presence of the strangers, and kept out of sight by day, and the effect of the drums and flutes on the Carthaginian soothsayers was that desired by the performers.

‘Having speedily set sail, we passed by a burning country full of incense, and from it huge streams of fire flowed into the sea; and the land could not be walked upon because of the heat. Being alarmed, we speedily sailed away thence also, and going along four days, we saw by night the land full of flame, and in the midst was a lofty fire, greater than the rest, and seeming to touch the stars. This by day appeared as a vast mountain, called the Chariot of the Gods. On the third day from this, sailing by fiery streams, we came to a gulf called the Horn of the South.’

This, though the uninitiated would think it referred to a volcanic eruption, is really a very good description of a bush-fire on a large scale. On a moonless night in September, perhaps, you will see the black hills seamed with curved and zigzag lines of fire, as the blaze advances. Here and there a clump of dry scrub, or a dead tree, will burst into a sheet of flame, lighting up the dense white clouds of smoke. The heated air within the hollow stalks of grass and reeds expands till they burst with a sound like the firing of guns, which rises above a roar loud as that of the traffic of a great city. The smoke, rising from several points at once, hangs in the air and collects into a dense canopy of cloud, making the heat still more stifling, till, at last, sheet-lightnings begin to play about it, followed by low growls of thunder, and, perhaps, by the blessed relief of a shower. I have seen this happen more than once, though some writers appear to doubt it.

While these fires are going on, the air is full of black particles, which come floating down like an unnatural kind of snow, and the ground is covered with charred, crunching vegetation and grey ashes. The native name for this burning, or rather burnt stuff, is lupsya, and the early rains, which wash it away, are called kokalupsya, ‘that which sweeps away the lupsya.’ These rains are usually expected in October, and are a kind of prelude to the real rains, which should begin in November, but are sometimes delayed another month or even longer. While they last there may be continuous, soaking rains for three days together; but, more commonly, after a fine morning, the clouds begin to gather about 2 P.M., then a more or less heavy thunderstorm comes up, and the rain which follows continues into the night. By morning it is fine again, and then follows a half-day of the most exquisite weather, when you can almost feel things growing—till the thunderstorm comes up again as before. This will go on, day after day, till you get one without rain, as a change, or maybe a spell of steady rain, as aforesaid. There is usually a break of a few weeks about the end of the year—then the rains begin again, and last till March or April. Then begins the ‘hungry time,’ when the old food is done and the new crops are not yet ripe; it is sometimes a time of real scarcity, as the supplies barely last out the year, and leave no margin for emergencies. This is not so much from improvidence as from the difficulty of preserving the stores from mice and weevils. But some relief comes before long when the pumpkins, gourds, and cucumbers—many of which may be gathered wild—are ready, and they help to bridge over the time before the first ears of green maize can be plucked, though there is always a good deal of more or less serious illness at this season. About May the crops are ripe, and the dry season has fairly set in. There are occasional cold showers in June and July, and sometimes in the hills a week’s rain in August. At this time a chilly wind blows from the Indian Ocean, bringing with it heavy clouds, which, on some days, hang low, drifting along the slopes of the hills, and hurrying away to the west. Now and then, too, there is a thick white mist, like a sea-fog. But the sunny days, in the cold season, are bright and exhilarating. On such a day the difference between the temperature at noon and at night may be as much as 30°; and the dews are very heavy; a walk through long grass in the early morning drenches one like heavy rain. After this the air gets hotter and drier every day, and when the fires begin, it becomes still more oppressive. The most trying time of the year is the three or four weeks when the earth and all that is on it are ‘waiting for the rains.’ Curiously enough, the trees burst into leaf—with a greater variety of colour than our own in autumn—just before the rain comes, when the ground is so baked and hard that any growth seems impossible.

The variety of trees and plants growing in this country is very great, though it is somewhat difficult to give any clear idea of them, for most have no names except native ones, which are pretty, but convey nothing to the reader, and botanical ones, which are ugly, and in most cases convey not much more. Such a general term as ‘palms,’ for instance, is of little use; still, every one knows, to a certain extent, what the different kinds of palms are like. We have several, all growing on the lower levels; none are to be found so high as Blantyre, unless cultivated, except the wild date, which grows beside the streams. The tall, graceful fan-palms (Borassus and Hyphæne) are very abundant in the plains. I remember quite a forest of them near Maparera, on the Shiré. When you descend from the hills either towards the river or towards Lake Chilwa, baobabs and fan-palms make their appearance and remind you that you are leaving the temperate heights behind and entering the hotter zone of the low country.

Ferns are numerous—from the tree-fern, growing in the gorges of Mlanje, to the smallest and most delicate species of maiden-hair, to be found in the damp crevices of rocks, and beside the streams. The asparagus and parsley ferns, and a beautiful kind of large hart’s-tongue, with the tip of the frond cleft in two, are among the more noticeable forms.

Though, as we have seen, there are no forests on a large scale, a fair number of fine timber-trees are to be found. There is the mbawa, a kind of mahogany, and the mpingo, or ebony, both of large size and handsome growth, and the Mlanje cedar (really a Widdringtonia), the only indigenous conifer, and growing nowhere but on that mountain. Its wood is pale red, smooth, and deliciously scented. Most of the native wood which can be used at all is hard and heavy, and somewhat difficult to work; but the result, especially in the case of the cedar, is worth the trouble. Another useful timber-tree, whose wood is never attacked by the destructive borer-beetle, is the msuku (Napaca Kirkii), only found at a height of over two thousand feet, and very common on the hills about Blantyre. It bears the favourite wild fruit of the natives, consisting of a skin and a quantity of large seeds, with a little sweet pulp, and a moderate allowance of juice; what there is of it is so good that it would be well worth cultivation. Other wild fruits are not so attractive to the European palate. There is one about the size of an orange, with a hard shell, and seeds embedded in a juicy pulp, slightly bitter, slightly acid, and slightly sweet, and at the same time not unpleasant in flavour. I believe the tree is a kind of Strychnos, consequently one would expect the fruit to be poisonous, yet native children eat any quantity, and seem none the worse.

The myombo, with leaves like our ash, is a very common tree, and the one from which bark-cloth is usually obtained. The bark of the wild fig is used for the same purpose.

The thorn-trees—acacias and mimosas—are among the most characteristic plants of the country, and some of them have very handsome flowers. The mlungusi, which has particularly vicious, hooked thorns, is sometimes planted in hedges. Another tree which makes a very effectual hedge is the cactus euphorbia. Of the same family (Spurges) are the weird candelabrum euphorbia, growing in the hills, and a leafless, fleshy, pale-green kind, often found in the villages, whose acrid, milky juice is used for stupefying fish.

There is no season of the year quite without flowers, and no place in which some kind or other is not to be found; but, of course, the best time is the first few weeks of the rains. It would be hopeless to attempt a description, or even a mere enumeration, of the lovely and wonderful forms to be found side by side with familiar home growths, such as buttercups, penny-royal, and self-heal. Some slight idea of what is to be seen in the Shiré Highlands, and especially on Mlanje, where you pass from tropical to temperate, and even to Alpine, vegetation, may be gathered from the botanical chapter in Sir H. H. Johnston’s British Central Africa.

We must say a few words about the fauna of British Central Africa, not only because it is interesting in itself, but because it plays an important part in the life and thought of the people. Elephants are less numerous than they were forty years ago, when herds of them haunted the marsh to which they have given their name; but they are still frequently seen between Chikala and Mangoche, north-east of Lake Chilwa, and since they have been protected by Government, have even been returning to the banks of the Shiré. In 1877 the late Consul Elton saw a herd of over three hundred near the north end of Lake Nyasa.

The hippopotamus is found in the Shiré and Lake Nyasa, and indeed almost in any stream or lake where the water is deep enough to cover him. The rhinoceros is known, but not very common. There are many Cape buffaloes in the plains and marshes of the Shiré, and the solitary bulls, driven out of the herd on account of bad temper or other defects, are sometimes extremely savage. Such an animal, in 1894, charged out of the long grass on a party of carriers, near Chiromo, and knocked down, gored and trampled on, one man, who was rescued from him with difficulty. This man, a Tonga named Kajawa, when treated at Blantyre, was found to have seventeen wounds about him, but ultimately recovered.

Of other large animals, we have already mentioned the zebra; and the eland, though not very common, is also met with. There are several kinds of smaller antelopes, and, in the mountains, the beautiful little creature called the klipspringer, or, by the natives, the gwapi, which is something like a chamois.

Of monkeys, there are baboons, which go about in troops and plunder the growing crops, when they get a chance, and several smaller kinds.

The curious ant-eater called Manis or ‘Pangolin,’ and by the natives nkaka, is three or four feet long, shaped like a lizard and covered with lozenge-shaped brown scales, more like those on a fir-cone (the long, thin-scaled cones of the Norway spruce) than anything else I can think of. With his powerful claws he digs his way into the hills of the white ants on which he feeds, catching them on his sticky tongue, as he has no teeth wherewith to eat them. He is a slow-moving, nocturnal creature, and seldom seen, unless dug out of his burrow.

Another underground creature who ventures out by night is the porcupine, whose black and white quills are sometimes picked up in the bush and brought for sale by natives. It is fond of pumpkins and other vegetables, and often comes to feed on the crops at night.

Of beasts of prey we have the lion, the leopard, several smaller kinds of cats, the spotted hyena (disgusting in habits and contemptible in character, but interesting from his place in native folk-lore), jackals, and wild dogs (mimbulu), which hunt in packs like wolves.

Lions are common enough to be a plague. Thirteen years ago they were looked on as a thing of the past at Blantyre, though even then they were met with a few miles out on the Matope road, and I have heard, though not seen, them in the Upper Shiré district. (The roaring we heard two or three times, on stormy nights, came, we were assured, from the banks of the Kapeni, six miles away.) But the mysterious disease among the wild buffaloes, antelopes, and other game, which in 1894 spread westward to the lakes and then southward, and when it attacked the cattle in South Africa was known as rinderpest, deprived them of their food, and drove them to invade the more settled districts. Twelve were shot within a few weeks on one plantation, and a planter in the neighbourhood of Zomba, who was riding a bicycle, was chased for some miles by a lion, but ultimately escaped. In some parts, as, for instance, on the low ground near the Shiré, below the Murchison Cataracts, the natives build their huts on raised platforms so as to be safe from lions at night. Leopards also are apt to be dangerous; they prowl about habitations by night, usually in the hope of getting into the goat-kraal, or picking up some stray dog unlucky enough to have been left outside, and are by no means above carrying off the miserable fowls to be found in native villages, one of which can scarcely be a mouthful. But they frequently attack human beings; and at one village a leopard had made a habit of waiting in the grass beside a certain path along which the women went to fetch water from the river, and had killed several before he was shot. Wizards are supposed to take this shape, among others.

Domestic animals are not numerous, but we shall come back to them in a later chapter.

British Central Africa, says Sir H. H. Johnston, ‘is a country singularly rich in bird life.’ On the Shiré we have a wonderful variety of water-birds—flamingoes, herons, cranes, ducks, geese, plovers—and, to mention no more (these two are among the first noticed by the new comer), the handsome black-and-white fishing-eagle, and the tiny kingfisher, ‘like a flash of blue light.’ Among the hills we have strange forms, like the hornbill, and gorgeous colouring, as in the plantain-eaters and rollers and some of the fly-catchers, and familiar home birds, and their near relations—swallows, thrushes, larks, woodpeckers (the native name for the latter, gogompanda, is very expressive). As to singing-birds, I may quote again from Sir Harry Johnston: ‘Both Mr. Whyte and myself have remarked with emphasis at different times on the beauty of the birds’ songs in the hilly regions of British Central Africa. The chorus of singing-birds is quite as beautiful as anything one hears in Europe, thus quite disposing of one of the numerous fictions circulated by early travellers about the tropics, to the effect that the birds, though beautiful, had no melodious songs, and the flowers, though gorgeous, no sweet and penetrating scents. The song of the Mlanje thrush is scarcely to be told from that of the English bird.’ This entirely accords with my own experience. A bird which often sang at night sounded just like a thrush.

As to reptiles, crocodiles abound in the Shiré and the lake, and are so dangerous that in many places the women draw water from the top of a high bank by means of a calabash attached to a long pole, instead of going down to the edge of the stream, as they would naturally do. Though accidents are so frequent, the crocodile can hardly be called a habitual eater of human flesh. His staple food is fish, and ‘it is only a rare incident for them to capture a mammal of any size; an incident which, given a number of crocodiles in any stream or lake, can only occur to each one at most once a year on an average.’[1] The natives (women sometimes do take the precaution I have mentioned) are strangely reckless in venturing into the water; they provide themselves with ‘crocodile medicine’ in whose efficacy they firmly believe; and if any bather comes to grief notwithstanding, it is presumed that his ‘medicine’ was not of the right kind, or had lost its power. But it seems that the crocodile will only seize a solitary person; consequently, if a whole party go into the water together, as usually happens, and make a great splashing, they are comparatively safe.

Of other reptiles, we shall have to notice the iguana and the tortoise (of which there are several kinds) in connection with folk-lore. There are also several kinds of chameleon and some small lizards, very beautifully coloured. Snakes, venomous and non-venomous, are of all sizes, from the python downward to the harmless little mitu iwiri or ‘two-heads,’ silver-grey, and not much thicker than a pencil. It is a kind of slow-worm, and gets its native name from the bluntness of its tail, which makes it difficult to see which end is which.

Fish are numerous, but as yet insufficiently studied.

As for the insects, volumes might be written on them; though the beetles and butterflies are, on the whole, less gorgeous in colouring, and the objectionable insects less execrable than in other tropical countries. It is curious that, while the native languages have a word for ‘butterfly’ (usually more or less expressive of the peculiar movements of its flight—chipuluputwa in Yao, peperu and gulugufe in Nyanja), they never seem to distinguish between different kinds. Every kind of beetle, on the other hand, has its own name, but I could never get hold of a designation for beetles as a class. Perhaps this is the outcome of a severely practical turn of mind—beetles can be utilised, and therefore compel a certain degree of individual attention—butterflies, so far as I know, are not. Some beetles are eaten, for instance a glossy dark-green one, about an inch and a half long, called nkumbutera, and another kind is manufactured into a snuff-box; and the useful ball-rolling beetles (all related to the sacred scarab of Egypt) have been observed and named accordingly.

Archdeacon Woodward assures me that the natives at Magila (Wa-Bondei and Wa-Shambala) absolutely refused to believe, till convinced by ocular demonstration (which must have taken time and trouble), that the butterfly came from the caterpillar. I did not ascertain whether this was the case at Blantyre; on the whole, the people seemed fairly good observers of insects and their ways. But, on consideration, it seems probable, for there are names for many different kinds of caterpillars; and the reason for this closer observation is similar to that in the case of the beetles—some destroy man’s food (as the mpeza which eats the young maize), and others are food for him—notably a green and yellow striped kind which is roasted on the equivalent for a hot shovel.

Ants, of course, abound—those that get into the food, those that eat you (or would if they got the chance), and those (only, properly speaking, they are not ants at all) that build mounds and destroy wood-work, besides others, which seem to do nothing in particular. The hill-building termites vary their erections according to locality—the huge, conical mounds are chiefly found on low land liable to floods. Sometimes they build curious erections like irregular chimneys. The chapter devoted to these in the late Professor Drummond’s Tropical Africa shows that they do an important work in the economy of Nature; but it is a mistake to suppose that there are no earth-worms in Africa, though they are not so common as with us. I do not know, however, if the Nyasaland ones are ever as large as one I measured in Natal, which was 22 inches long, and except for its size, just like those in our gardens. Bees make their nests in hollow trees, or in boxes hung up for them; mason-wasps build tiny clay nests the shape of the common native water-jar, about the length of one’s finger-nail. One must not conclude even the most imperfect review without a glance at the locusts (of which we shall have something to say later on), grasshoppers, and the extraordinary group of insects which look like leaves and sticks, and are comprehended under the name of Mantis.

Having now taken a hasty survey of the country in its main outlines, of the vegetation which clothes it, and the wild creatures which (in their various ways) enliven it, let us see, in the next chapter, who are the people that live there.