446 LIFE OF DA VID LIVINGSTONE, LL.D. 



of African locomotion. When the boat is hired, the crew must be collected, 

 and paid, rationed, and kept together. This is no easy task, as each man is 

 thinking solely of his own affairs, disdaining the slighest regard for the wishes, 

 the comfoi't, or the advantage of his employer. The cargo must then be 

 placed on board, and the canoe moved to its original place — to a point of 

 known departure, otherwise no man can be persuaded to embark. The expedi- 

 tion sets out in a kind of procession ; the captain, dressed in his best dress, 

 heads the sailors, who are followed by their loud-voiced wives, performing upon 

 the rudest musical instruments. Of these the most noisy is a kind of shawm, 

 (a short tube of wood, bound with palm-fibre, and opening like a clarionet) : a 

 distressing bray is kept up through a hole pierced in the side. The most 

 monotonous is a pair of foolscap-shaped cones of thin iron, joined at the 

 apices, and connected at the bases by a solid cross-bar. This rude tom-tom 

 is performed upon with painful perseverance by a stick muffled with cloth or 

 skin. After embarkation, the canoe must be paddled out for a mile, to ascer- 

 tain the proper quantum of cargo and crew, an exertion followed by fresh 

 delays for victualling, taking leave, settling disputes, hard drinking, and 

 driving deserters. The first stage is short enough to admit of the scene being 

 encored. Finally, when the weather is perfectly calm, and no pretext nor 

 desire for further detention remains, the crew scramble into the canoes, and, 

 with the usual hubbub and strife — order which no man obeys, and advice 

 which no man takes — they pole off and paddle along the shore. 



" The Wajiji, and, indeed, all these races, never work silently or regularly. 

 A long monotonous howl, broken occasionally by a scream of delight from the 

 boys, or by the bray and clang of the instruments, lasts throughout the trip, 

 except when extreme terror induces a general silence. They row in "spurts," 

 applying vigorously to their paddling, till the perspiration pours down their 

 sooty persons, and splashing the water in streams over the canoe : after a few 

 minutes, fatigued and breathless, they either stop to quarrel, or they progress 

 languidly till recruited for another effort. When two boats are together they 

 race continuously, till a bump, and the consequent difficulty of using the 

 paddles, afford an opportunity for a little chatter and abuse. At times they 

 halt to eat, drink, or smoke ; the bhang pipe is produced after every hour, 

 and the paddles are taken in whilst they indulge in the usual screaming whoop- 

 ing cough. They will not allow questions to be asked, or scraps of provisions 

 to be thrown overboard ; moreover, it is a mortal sin to chip or to break off 

 the smallest bit of even a worn-out boat drawn up on the sands. They will 

 lose half an hour, when time is most precious, to secure a dead fish, as, en- 

 tangled, in its net, it floats past the canoe. They never pass a village or a 

 settlement without a dispute — some wishing to land, and the others objecting 

 because that some wish it. The captain, seated either in the fore or in the 

 stem, has no authority ; and if the canoe is allowed to touch the shore, half 



