T is light brownish yellow in colour, about two feet long, gracefully curved, with a round, smooth, and beautifully polished handle, at the end of which is a knob to prevent its slipping out of the hand. The club end is diamond shape in section, its thickest part being gradually worked off into the handle; the diamond-shaped portion tapers symmetrically off to a point, and the club is so beautifully balanced that it could be turned in mid-stroke and the blow given with the flat instead of with the edge. A blow with the flat would be bad enough, but terrible would be the edge-stroke given from the hands of a strong man. The weight of the club and its impetus would carry it crashing clean through the human skull. What battles it may have seen I know not. What nigger's grandfather first took to smashing the skulls of other niggers with it, I can only imagine. But the tusk from which it was made must have been a large one to give a solid piece of ivory big enough to make my club, and it must have taken a long time to fashion it with the rude tools used by the Lomamis or Bahunga. Besides, it is beautifully polished, another operation requiring time, and the handle is worn smooth and burnished with the friction of many hands and constant use. So some time ago, probably even as far back as the days when Clive was founding the Indian Empire, there wandered an elephant in the forests and swamps of Katanga. Wandering ever on, over miles of vast wooded solitudes, in unmolested grandeur, he grew, and his tusks waxed big. Living his life and fulfilling his part of the great work of creation; breaking branches and pulling down VOL. CCLXXXII. NO. 1996. Ꮓ trees whose seeds would fall into the ground and grow up to be monarchs of the forest before ever Livingstone was born, and it dawned upon the mind of the civilised world that there was something more than sandy deserts and brackish lakes in the great unknown region far beyond the fountains of that river on whose waters the child of Amram once floated in an ark of bulrushes. So our elephant wandered on over stream and mountain till one evil day he came to a country inhabited by Watwa hunters. For several weeks he revelled in the abundance of the fresh forest, till one evening as he was going down to the river to drink he felt a sharp pain in his back and a heavy weight swaying over his shoulders. Maddened by pain, he rushed off through the forest, trumpeting loudly; but the huge log fastened to the shaft of the spear forced the blade deeper and deeper in, and catching in the overhanging branches of trees tore through the flesh till the poor brute stopped panic-stricken and trembling, only to sink down exhausted from loss of blood and internal injury. Hardly had the great leviathan sunk to earth when a shower of arrows and spears pierced his thick hide, and a yelling crowd of Watwa rushed breathless upon him, shooting arrow after arrow and spear after spear. One dying effort the elephant made-lumbering to his feet he charged his agile enemies, then sank to earth to rise no more. That night there was feasting and rejoicing among the Watwa tribe; and next day the elephant was cut up and divided, his tusks being hidden in the deep recesses of the forest, till one day they were exchanged with a chief of the Yaponga for agricultural produce and iron weapons. The hollow part of the tusks was cut up into bracelets, ear and lip ornaments, and ivory spoons; the thick part was made into manioc-mashers, and then Kambula, the great warrior of the tribe, bought the end and set to work in his leisure moments to hack out a war-club which should cause his enemies to tremble and his friends to shout in triumph when they saw the mighty deeds he would perform with it. Day after day he worked patiently on, sometimes for an hour, sometimes for two or three, chipping away the ivory bit by bit till the ground in front of his hut was covered with small white fragments. In two or three months he had brought it down to a wieldy shape, and then discarding his old hard-wood club, he took his new ivory one with him everywhere, spending all his spare time in trimming it, and afterwards polishing it up with lumps of schist or sandstone, finishing off with the leaves of the sandpaper tree. Many a fight did he come out of victorious, and many a skull did he crack with his faithful club before he had got it nicely finished, smooth and white. Then as time went on, exposure to the weather, and the palm oil from his hands stained it a bright yellow, and still Kambula went to war and came home victorious with his favourite weapon, till one sad and fateful day never to be forgotten by the stricken Yaponga. On the morning of that day news had arrived that the marauding Bahunga a pirate tribe who lived by plunder on the banks of Nzali, the father of all rivers-were ascending the Komami to avenge themselves for former defeats by the Yaponga. Getting into his war paint and feathers, Kambula seized his trusty club, and assembling his war canoes, prepared to give his enemies a reception which should be remembered and talked about for years to come. Standing on the overhanging platform at the bow of his 80-ft. canoe, with some dozen of his warriors by his side and as many more on the stern platform, he was borne up and down in front of his village by 100 stout slaves, wielding paddles whose beautifully carved blades, nearly four feet in length, were topped by another four feet of handle covered with coils of shining brass, copper and iron wire, and surmounted with balls of ivory nearly three inches in diameter. Below these ivory balls were lashed two or three small iron bells. Inside the gunwales of the canoe were ranged the shields and fighting weapons of the hundred slaves, and a crowd of warriors stood between the two rows of paddlers. In the bow, close behind the platform on which stood Kambula and his braves, was the band, consisting of two huge wooden drums and several large ivory warhorns. Every warrior was decked with paint and feathers, and had a string of bells round each wrist and ankle; while the slaves at the paddles were similarly adorned with shells or rattling ornaments of large beads, and each had on his head a tuft of feathers. Truly Kambula's war-canoe was a spectacle worth seeing, and exceeded in grandeur all the other canoes of his fleet. On the extreme end of the bow platform stood Kambula, a very Hercules in form, towering up in all the pride and beauty of successful manly strength. Round his ankles were castanets of small iron bells, and on his head the tall black and white cap of long-haired monkey skin, adorned with feathers and cowries. Over his shoulders flowed the royal leopard robe-the beautiful tail reaching nearly to the ground-forming a splendid contrast to the deep black and dazzling white of the monkey-skin cap, the long tail of which was allowed to hang gracefully down across the yellow and black spots of the lordly leopard. In his left hand he held his basketwork shield and a spear, on the lower end of which was an iron bell. On the under side of the shield were stuck several trombatches, or throwing-knives, and in his right hand he held aloft his beautiful ivory club, with which he beat time to the rise and fall of his hundred paddles. The other warriors were attired more or less in the same style, with the exception of the royal leopard-skin worn by Kambula alone. Amidst the plaudits and shouts of the whole population, the fleet of canoes moved up stream to the head of the village, and there turned and paused in deep silence-Kambula's canoe, with crocodile-heads carved on either bow, being a little in advance of the rest. Thus they paused in brave array, the paddles holding back against the strong current, while the parrots screamed overhead, and the palmfronds, stirred by a gentle breeze, rustled and waved under the fierce noonday sun, while the dark-brown river-flood scintillated and sparkled with the reflections from hundreds of spear-blades, bright as burnished steel. Suddenly waving his war-club above his head, Kambula stamped his foot on the platform of his canoe and gave forth a wild war-cry which instantly found an echo in a thousand dusky throats. Moved as by one impulse, every paddler in that fleet plunged his blade deep into the turbid flood; and with drums beating, horns blowing, bells and castanets ringing, they shot past the village at a speed which would rival the great white canoe of the "Tooca-tooca,"1 which is moved by chained devils goaded on by fire. An impressive sight, indeed, and worthy of the prolonged shout that greeted it as it shot past. A brave figure was the chief, as leading the fleet by half a length, he stood, foremost of all, on the very front of his bow platform, over the snouts of the carved crocodiles, his leopard skin flying out behind. Aloft he waved his club and shield while stamping time for his men with his castanetted foot and shaking the bell at the end of his heavy spear. Crash go the stocks of the warriors' spears on the bottom of the canoe, drowning for an instant the deep boom of the war-drums and the loud bray of the ivory horns. Then Kambula, still stamping time, strikes up a fierce, wild, inspiriting ballad, which is sustained by hundreds of voices. The slaves, keeping splendid time, stoop lower to their work, plunging their paddles harder and deeper as the martial music sweeps over the fleet. The long rows of dusky forms sway alternately down and up on either side of the huge dug-out as the white foam rustles past, churned by hundreds 1 Native name for white men. of long paddle blades rising and falling in steady cadence to the deep diapason of Kambula's war-song Camētē ionso Kambula iar, Kambula, Kambula, dokélé; Thus did the chief of Yaponga go forth to war! Gaily down stream, with drum and horn and song, went that dusky army. Away round bend and down reach, and woe betide the Bahunga when they meet. After a time the song and music cease, and nothing is heard but the grunt of the slaves straining at their paddles and the swish of the water as it flows from the blades. Some miles below Yaponga they enter a long reach, at the end of which is a forested bend. Round this bend is the village of the chief Makuta,a friend and ally of Kambula. On entering this reach Kambula again struck up his war song, and the fleet dashed gaily on, expecting to find the canoes of Makuta ready and waiting to go forth in Kambula's train to fight the Bahunga. Faster and faster went the paddles as they neared the lower end of the reach, faster did. Kambula stamp, and faster flew the dug-out fleet, as louder swelled the music, till, with a shout or greeting they swung grandly round. the bend and came in sight of Makuta's village. A-a-ah-h-the slaves dug their paddles deep and held firm as the huge dug-outs crashed into a disordered mass, the churned waters surging nearly to their gunwales. There, where Makuta's village had been was an open blackened plain, across which men dressed in white clothes were running and shouting. Ah-they were neither Makuta nor Bahunga! As Kambula paused and gazed, the whiteshirted men gathered on the river bank with long shiny sticks in their hands. They lifted these sticks, which spit fire and noise, and Kambula saw several of his warriors fall dead, or shrieking with agony. What could it be? Shouting to his panic-stricken slaves, Kambula attempted to turn his fleet and paddle up stream, but again those cruel tubes vomited forth fire and death. As Kambula raised his arm to wave his war-club once more on high, he felt as it were a line of liquid fire pass through him, and fell to the bottom of his canoe with his life-blood spouting across his royal leopard robe. As warrior and slave continued to drop in quick succession, a dire panic 1 Kambula's warriors all go forth. |