The Democrat. (Scotland Neck, Halifax Co., N.C.) 1884-1896, 1885-06-18
LIFE IN AFRICA.
llI
1 Queer Incidents Of Travel Among
wild Tribes.

4 Queer Incidents Of Travel Among
wild Tribes.
! When m African chief travels he
takes the whole or a part of his house
hold with him. The simple aborigines,
therefore, are apt to look upon the soil
tary white traveller who wanders through
their country without single wife in
his train as suspicious character. They
are quite sure he needs close watching to
prevent his running off with some of the
females of the tribe. DR.. Barth, the ex-
plorer, said, after living five years in
Africa, that it would be better for trav-
eler in those regions to take his wife
with him, if possible. He said the ma
tives would respect him more, and he
would get along better. ''They had
! nothing to object to me, he wrote, tex
cept my being bachelor"
| If the traveller has no wife the native
chiefs, as rule, are not backward about
offering to supply the deficiency. Nearly
all the explorers have had some annoy
ing experiences with kings who were
anxious to have them settle down, marry
into the royal family, and grow up with
. the country. Some travellers have felt
compelled to leave very abruptly in order
! to escape the attentions of women who
! were determined to detain them as their
husbands.
Dr. Buchner, the German traveller, who
lived for six months at the capital of
the Muata Yanvo about five years ago,
was much distressed by the deep inter
est with which ne had unwittingly in
spired the sister of that Central African
I, Il
i dle-aged and remarkably unprepossess
ing person of great avoirdupois. She
insisted that Buchncr take her for his
wife and settle down comfortably as the
joint, proprietor Of her extensive herds
and fields. She importuned him so fire.
queutly that he was glad to escape her
at last by quitting the country.
One Of the daughters of the king of
the Ambucllas, near the Zambesi river,
fell desperately in love with Scrpa Pin
to, the Portuguese explorer, who re-
turned to Africa a few months ago. Her
eld. .r sister, who ably abetted her matri-
monial designs, was very indignant when
Pinto refused to marry the young girl.
She wanted to know in the shrillest of
tones, if there were any prettier women
in the country he came from, and what
sort of man he was anyway. The
sharp witted wife of one of Pinto's por-
ters heard the row and entered the hut.
Assuming an air of great Indignation,
she told their royal highnesscsth that Pinto
was her husband, and they had better let
him alone. She bundled them out of
the hut, and Pinto and his party left
early next morning to avoid any further
complications. In the picture Pinto's
book contains of the infatuated young
woman she appears to be quite fine
specimen of an African beauty.
Explorers have learned by experience
that it is best to permit their porters to
take their women along with them, even
if their journey is to be thousands of
miles inIength. When a carrier has his
wife with him he is not likely to run
away. Beside the women carry bur
dens nearly as heavy as those of the men.
They wash and cook better than the
men, endure fatigue better, carry their
burdens more checrfully, and work for
less pay. African women have proved
valuable adjuncts of nearly every expedi-
ton that has penetrated the continent
in the past ten years.
Mr. Horc, a missionary on the great Lake
Tanganyika, found near the southern
coast three years ago a flourishing tribe,
whose ruler was a woman. She was a
good-.ooking negrcss, nearly forty years
old, and she was attended everywhere
she went by train of fifty ladies in
waiting. Mr.. Hore was the first white
man Queen Mwcma had seen, and she
thought she would like to have the pale
faced stranger permanently near her res
idence. She begged him to live in her
town, and when he insisted that he
could not, she did not let him go until he
had promised to send some of his breth-
rem to reside in her district The queen
said she would give them houses and
plenty of land. At last accounts a mis-
sion station was about to be established
In Queen Mwcna's town.
The late King Mtesa, whose subjects
inhabit the beautiful shores of Lake Vic
toria Nyanza, made a unique response
when missionary applied to him for
food supplies two or three years ago
He listened in silence to the good mans
petition, and then sent an attendant out
into the streets of Rubaga with instruc-
tions that the missionary did not hear
Presently the attendant returned with a
dozen damsels of Uganda in his wake.
Then his majesty informed the poor mis-
sionary that he was tired of supplying
him with food. He had concluded to
present him with these women as his
wives. They would plant his garden,
prepare his dinner, and support him very
handsomely, and he mustn't come bother
ing around the place any more. Mtesa
was very angry when the missionary de-
clined to accept this wholesale matrimo-
nial offer. He told him to shift for him
self, and the poor fellow and his COM
rades would doubtless have had to flee
from the country if Mtesa's ENJOYS to
England hadn't opportunely returned
with such wonderful stories of what they
had seen that the polite despot thought
it best to keep on good terms with the
whites, He restored the missionaries to
favor. Last year all his daughters were
permitted to receive religious instruction,
and one of them, who was converted,
now occupies as kings sister, position
of large Importance and influence among
the Waganda.
On the great interior plateaus of Afri
/ ca, whose inhabitants are generally much
superior in mental and moral develop
ment to the coast negroes, the men ex-
hibit good deal of affection for their
women. Livingstone, who usually speaks
j of African women as t'ladies, "makes many