NORTH-EASTERN RHODESIA 105 



not that majestic range be the SuHman Berg of 

 the African novehst's fantasy ? Might not Twala, 

 the one-eyed, the terrible, have held bloody sway 

 in the land of barbaric romance that lay beyond ? 

 And might not Gagool, the evil witch-hag, have 

 smelt out her luckless victims among the torture- 

 loving Awemba? Just ere the great dark sheet 

 of night dropped on the Muchingas silhouetted 

 against the quickening dusk, the skull of the old 

 Portuguese adventurer, Jose da Silvestre, seemed 

 to peer at me from a cavern high up on the 

 castellated crags, and Allan Quatermain, Sir 

 Henry Curtis and Good beckoned from the 

 serrated summits. 



And well might Rider Haggard have drawn 

 his most forceful scenes of cruelty and savage 

 abandon from those tall, lithe heathens who have 

 spread over much of British Central Africa from 

 the Congo, black as the darkest hour of midnight, 

 with hair shaved back from their foreheads and 

 great scars seared on cheeks and chests — their 

 tribal tattoo marks. The Awemba are true sons 

 of the Dark and Last Continent. They have 

 many customs and superstitions which are re- 

 markable, but it is their love of blood and the 

 infliction of pain and suffering that stamp them 

 most markedly. 



If the Dyaks of Borneo have earned the 

 sobriquet of the " head hunters," the Awemba 

 may well be named the seekers of limbs. Mutila- 

 tion is but the fortune of war, revolting torture 

 the penance for a liaison. They have revised 

 Scripture, and instead of "an eye for an eye 

 and a tooth for a tooth," it is a tongue for a lie 

 and an arm for a theft. It will be seen that their 

 penal code is a severe one. I may be pardoned if 



