Stanley in Africa by James P. (James Penny) Boyd

Author:James P. (James Penny) Boyd [Boyd, James P.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781298850751
Google: uZilRZhXIF4C
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Publisher: Scholar Select
Published: 2015-08-13T00:00:00+00:00

STORM ON LAKE NYASSA.

Much more serious is the danger arising from the sudden and furious storms that sweep down upon the lake from the gullies of its encircling hills. Livingstone narrowly escaped shipwreck on its waters, and from his experiences of it proposed to have Nyassa named the “Lake of Storms.” An old seaman of his party, who had been over the world, and at home had spent many a squally night off the wild coasts of Connaught and Donegal, said he had never encountered such waves as were raised in a few minutes by the tornadoes on the Nyassa. Succeeding voyagers—Young, Elton, Cotterill, Drs. Laws and Stewart, of the Scottish missions—report similar experiences. Mr. Cotterill’s little craft, the Herya, a present from the Harrow boys, was driven ashore on the western coast, June 1877, and he lost his journals, goods, and medical stores, saving only one bottle of quinine, which, remembering the fate of Livingstone and Mackenzie, he threw ashore as he neared the breakers in the darkness. The most dreaded waves on the Nyassa come rolling on in threes, “with their crests,” says Livingstone, “streaming in spray behind them.” A short lull follows each charge; and then another white-maned trio come rushing on and threaten to ingulf the voyagers and their frail bark.

A curious natural phenomenon has been noticed by most observers on the Nyassa. A light blue cloud will be observed floating for many miles over the surface of the lake, like the trailing smoke of some distant fire. When it is reached, we discover that it consists of nothing else but myriads of insects, of a species peculiar to the region, and known as the “kungo fly.” So dense is the mass that immense quantities of them are caught by the natives and pounded into cakes, resembling in size and shape a “Tam o’Shanter” bonnet. They are not particular as to what they eat, these hunger-bitten natives of the Nyassa shores. Neither are they unreasonably extravagant in the matter of dress, some of the tribes absolutely dispensing with clothes. Their notion of making up for their scanty attire by liberally anointing their bodies with rancid fish oil and hippopotamus fat, and smearing themselves with fancy designs in red and white clay, does not recommend them to the European eye and nostril. From our point of view, too, their attempts at decoration by means of tattooing are in nowise improvements, the result being to give their faces and limbs the appearance of being thickly studded with pimples. The most hideous device of all, however, is the “pelele,” or lip ring, an ornament without which no Nyassa belle would dream of appearing in public. This consists of a broad ring of tin or stone, an inch or more in diameter, inserted by slow degrees into the upper lip, causing it to stand out at right angles to its natural direction, and revealing beneath the rows of teeth sharpened to fine points like those of a saw. The native

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