Chapter 3
When Europeans first went to Uganda, a few went to trade, but most went to teach the Baganda about the Christians' God. Many boys went to their school near Mengo and were taught. But the witch-doctors grew frightened and persuaded the king to drive away all the Europeans, and to kill the Baganda who would not worship the Lake Spirit because they were Christians. Mutesa the king did this, killing the Christian Baganda boys very cruelly by burning them to death, and killing the European, Bishop Hannington, when he came. But in a few years there were more Christians than before, and now in Uganda the king and nearly all the chiefs and people are Christians, as well as many of the tribes living near them to whom the Baganda have sent teachers. All through the Christian African kingdom there are schools and hospitals. The Baganda were always strong, and now so many are Christians they have stopped fighting the other tribes and killing and making slaves, and instead they spend their time learning to make useful and beautiful things, which make their homes happier and more comfortable to live in. They quickly learn all they can from Europeans and Indians, and to-day, in Mengo and in the other large towns of Uganda, there are trains and motor-cars and stores, while steamers on the lake bring European and Indian things quickly from the coast towns. There are many Europeans and Indians living in Uganda, and this is a good thing, because when many people of different races meet, they learn from one another and so grow wiser.
4. Europeans help Africans
In this chapter we have read about one of the wisest tribes of the dark-skinned African people. The Arabs in the north came to Africa long ago from their own home in Asia, and the Europeans in the south came from their home in Europe. Both these races had learnt by themselves a great deal more than the African race has done. This is partly because their homes were not so hot, and so they had to think hard to get enough food and to keep warm. It is partly due, too, to the way in which for hundreds of years the people of Europe and Asia have been able to read and write, and have met and learnt from one another. The Africans never found out how to write, and so could only learn from each other by listening, never by reading. They were shut off from the rest of the world until one hundred years ago, and all they knew they had found out for themselves. But among the Africans some learnt more than others, and the Baganda are a tribe who used their minds as well as their bodies in becoming strong. So by thinking and learning they grew wise as well as powerful, and now Europeans and Indians have come to their country they are able to learn all these other races can teach them, which is far more than any one race could find out alone.
V ----------- THE PEOPLE OF THE CONGO
1. Towards the Sunset
In the last chapter we read about some of the people who lived in the Eastern lands south of the desert. They were among the wisest of the dark-skinned African tribes. In this chapter we shall read about some of the people who live in the Western part of Central Africa. If the Baganda walked day after day towards the sunset, they would reach the land of the great River Congo. This is not a narrow strip of land along one river, like Egypt, but a very large country with many great rivers, but all of these at last pour their waters into one very large one, which is called the Congo. Then the Congo takes all the water from the whole land to the great salt sea. Like Uganda this country is very hot, and so, because there is so much sun and so much water, there are great forests. In places where there are no trees the grass and maize grow much higher than a man's head. In the forests there are wild beasts--lions, leopards, elephants, and hippopotami--as well as deer which are good to eat. Many of the people spend most of their time hunting in the forests for food and skins.
2. The Different Tribes
The people of the Congo are all dark-skinned Africans of the same race as the Baganda, except two tribes which are quite different. These other people are called the Pigmies, which means they are very small. None of the Congo people have made a kingdom of their own like the Baganda. They belong to different tribes, each with its own customs and language. Most of them wear a piece of bark-cloth or the skin of an animal for clothing, but some wear very little, and paint or tattoo their bodies. Their houses are built of reeds, some tribes covering the reed-walls with a thick plaster of mud, others leaving them unplastered. The roofs of some are thatched with the long grass of the country, others are made of plaited palm-leaf mats. Each tribe has its own way of making a house, but no one builds very big houses or large villages. None of the houses last more than three or four years; but these people do not want their houses to stand for many years, because they are not like the Baganda who chose a country and stay there always. The Congo tribes move their villages after a few years and live somewhere else. So villages are always shifting, and nothing they make is wanted to last long. Some weave mats and baskets out of palm-leaves or reeds; others make pottery; others make iron-headed spears and hoes for their fields, but only a few things that can easily be carried are wanted to last. When the village moves, most of the things must be left behind. So, until a tribe decides to stay always in one place, it does not as a rule learn to make many useful and beautiful things.
Again, often men of different tribes build their villages near one another, but the people of the two villages keep quite separate. Each has its own chief and follows its own customs. Several villages of one tribe may all obey a great chief, but no tribe has a chief so powerful as the king of Uganda. The Congo tribes have not learnt nearly so much as some other African peoples. The customs of each tribe depend partly on which district of this large country they live in. Those who live near the salt sea eat sea-fish, and get salt by boiling the sea-water in their cooking-pots until the pot is quite dry, and then the salt is left behind after the water has gone. It was clever of those people to find out they could get salt that way. Others, who live near the great rivers, make canoes out of the tree-trunks with the inside hollowed out. In these they go out and catch river-fish to eat. Others live in a country good for goats, and these keep large herds of goats. Some make good earthenware cups and pots, others carve wooden ones. Some wear ornaments made of shells, some of beads, some of berries, some of teeth; everyone uses the things he can get most easily. But each tribe follows its own customs, and despises those of its neighbours. They are afraid and jealous of each other, and there is constant fighting between the various groups of villages.
Some tribes want to be peaceful, and these plant their food, which is maize or millet, or some other grain which can be ground into flour, then made into porridge. Others are hunters or fishermen, and chiefly eat meat or fish. Some live by fighting other tribes, and capturing their food and slaves. Some of these are called cannibals, which means they eat the flesh of human beings. People who do this are despised by all other races in the world, as they are so ignorant that they do not know that it is wrong to eat other men. Many of the people of the Congo are not cannibals, but there is always war and fighting between the different tribes, and it is dangerous to travel because so many are always watching to rob and kill strangers. The lions and other wild beasts are dangerous, but the bands of fighting men are still more to be feared. Everything is wild and unsafe, and there is no law outside the village, so each one has to protect himself. Among the dark-skinned Central African people each village has a chief who keeps order within it, and often a group of villages of one tribe has a great chief. There are old laws and customs of each tribe, and if anyone breaks one of these and injures someone else, the chief calls him and asks all about it, and punishes the man who did the wrong.
3. The Pigmies
Now we will think about the other two tribes who live in this country, but who are of quite a different race from the others. These little red and black Pigmy peoples do not have villages at all. They are all hunters, and each man wanders with his wife and children wherever he chooses. Then, near the village of some chief of another tribe, he collects grass and sticks, and builds a little house which is too small for an ordinary man to stand upright inside. The Pigmy people are not so dark-skinned as the other races of Central Africa, and they are very small, not so high as an ordinary man's shoulder. They live by hunting with a bow and arrow. The Pigmy man respects the chief whose village he settles in, but he does not fight for him or serve him as the other people do in his village. When he chooses, he leaves that village and goes somewhere else. If the Pigmies want fruit or anything the villagers have, they shoot an arrow into it. Then, later, when they come to fetch it, they leave a packet of meat in payment, for these little people never steal. Although they live peaceably with the other races, they speak their own language, and never have anything to do with other villagers, and they only marry among their own people. The Pigmy men wear a small strip of cloth, and the women wear a bunch of leaves for their clothes. Most people of Central Africa like to be clean, and when there is enough water they always wash and bathe, but the Pigmies hate water and are always very dirty. They have no cooking-pots, but roast the meat they have got from hunting on a stick over a fire. These Pigmy people have learnt less than any other tribe in Africa, for they do not even know that it is better to live in villages with others of their own race, which is the beginning of learning most other things.
4. Many still Ignorant
So in this chapter we have read about some other people who live in the very hottest part of Africa. The Baganda are among the cleverest Central Africans, and these Pigmies and the cannibal tribes are among the most ignorant. But the Congo lands are very large, and there are many different peoples; they often move their villages, and because they hate one another they fight whenever they get the chance. So these people are still very ignorant and miserable. When they find out that it is better to be peaceful and work to help each other, then they will be able to grow wise and strong like the other Central African people in Uganda, and like the dark-skinned people of South Africa whom we shall read about in the next chapter.
VI ----------- THE MINE-WORKERS OF SOUTH AFRICA
1. The Cooler Land of the South
The Congo rivers and another great river called the Zambezi stretch right across Africa from east to west. North of this the country is called Central Africa, about some of whose people we have been reading. South of it across the Zambezi lies South Africa. East and west of this land is the salt sea, on the east called the Indian Ocean, on the west the Atlantic Ocean. As we travel south the country gets narrower and narrower, until the two great oceans meet at the Cape of Good Hope. Near the Congo and the Zambezi towards Central Africa the sun is very hot, but as we journey southwards it gets cooler. When we reach the colder lands of the south we find that the grass and maize do not grow so tall, and that there are no great forests. For long distances the land stretches as far as we can see, covered with short grass, but there are no trees. This kind of country is called "veld" in South Africa. There are some waterless deserts here, too, but none so large as the Sahara in North Africa. In other parts there are rivers, though some of them dry up in the summer and only have water in the rainy season. In South Africa, as in Central Africa, it rains some months of the year and is dry the others.
2. Black and White
In South Africa there are two races of people living side by side. First, there are dark-skinned Africans like those of Uganda and the Congo. These belong to many tribes, each speaking its own language. Secondly, there are many Europeans who, about three hundred years ago, began to come across the great salt sea to live in South Africa. Their own countries in Europe were too small for all the people in them, but South Africa is so large that there was plenty of room. These Europeans live in houses of brick or stone, and wear the same kind of clothes which are worn by the people in Europe. Their skins are lighter-coloured than even those of the Egyptians and Arabs of North Africa, and their hair is straight and often very fair. There are two chief European peoples in South Africa, the English and the Dutch. These speak different languages, but many of them can speak both. Europeans, as perhaps you know, are very clever at making machines of iron to work for them. They have made motor-cars to carry them quickly along ordinary roads, and another machine called an "engine" which draws many cars on its own road, which is made of two iron rails.
Among the African people of South Africa there are many different customs, but most people live in their own villages very much like those of Central Africa. Some tribes keep great herds of cattle, which find plenty of food on the grassy plains of the "veldt." Many have learned to copy European customs, especially those living near the great European towns. Some go long distances to work in these towns, especially in places where gold or other valuable things are found under the ground in the "mines." It is about these men who work on the mines that we will read now.
3. Work in the Mines
When men first found gold in the ground it was near the surface, and was not very difficult to get. But when this had all been taken, they had to dig deeper and deeper, until at last they found it easier to cut out roads and rooms far down underneath the ground, and to look for the gold among the earth and stones they found there. Perhaps you wonder how the miners get so deep down in the earth every day. There are no steps, but they get into a kind of cage called a "lift," which slips down on a rope skip into a deep hole called a "shaft," to where they want to work. It is a wonderful machine, something like a motor-car, only it goes down into the earth instead of along the top. When the men get out of the skip down in the mine, there are many different roads in it, and each man has to go to his own part to work. When he reaches his place he has to drill holes in the rock for the dynamite which breaks up the rock, and the loose stones are taken away along the roads to the lift and then up to the top. There it is stamped with great hammers into dust, and washed, until the gold-dust is separated from the rest. There are thousands of men, both underground and at the top, always at work at the mines.
Down in the mines it is always dark because the sunlight cannot get down there, and so the people have to use lanterns. In the larger openings there are lamps fixed to the walls and ceilings lighted by "electricity." Although it is dark below the ground, we must not think it is cold. On the contrary, it is very hot and difficult to breathe, because there is no wind, so that the bad air does not get cleared away. It is hot and stuffy, like a house where people have been sleeping all night with no windows open. When people first made mines, a great many died because of the bad air and because of fires, but now they have machines which blow good air down into the ground, and electric and other lamps which do not set fire to things easily, and so there are not many people killed in the mines now. Nevertheless, it is very hard and tiring work, and men are often ill because of the dust which fills the air they breathe. So the Europeans to whom the mines belong pay for doctors and hospitals where the sick can be cared for until they are well.
Many valuable minerals, besides gold, are found in South Africa, but the chief mines are for gold, diamonds, and coal. Diamonds are beautiful stones, clear like water, which flash red, blue, and green when they are turned about. They are very hard, and are sometimes used to cut glass. But they are valuable because European and Indian ladies will pay large prices for them, as they like to wear them as ornaments. Coal is a hard, black, shiny mineral used for burning. It makes better fires than wood, and burns much longer. These three--gold, diamonds, and coal--are the chief things found in mines in South Africa. But in other countries men find iron and silver and copper (of which pennies are made), and tin and salt, and many other useful things, in mines dug deep under the ground.
4. How the Miners Live
People often come from very long distances to work in the diamond mines at Kimberley and in the gold mines at Johannesburg. Sometimes they walk, but in South Africa there are railways and trains to take people to all the large towns, and a person can travel in one day by train as far as he could walk in three or four days.
Very few people spend all their lives at the mines. Most of the workers come for six months or a year, because they want money for clothes or food, as well as to buy cattle to pay the dowry for the girls they wish to marry. When they arrive at the mines, after their long journey, their names are written in a book as miners, and they are given places where they can live. If the men are single they live together in a large compound, which is a place enclosed by walls and gates. In these compounds there are houses where the men sleep, and places where they can do their washing, and the European mine masters provide people to clean these houses and to do the cooking.
If the workman has a wife he is given a house in a mine village, called a "location." A location or a compound is like a village with a great number of houses placed close together along straight roads. The houses are sometimes built of stones or bricks, but more often of corrugated iron.
In each location there are hundreds of people who have come to work at the mines for a few months from different parts of South Africa. They are all strangers to each other and speak many different languages. Most of them try to copy the dress of Europeans; but as European clothes are very expensive to buy and soon wear out, the natives often look ragged and dirty in them.
These native workers in the mines are supplied with food, such as maize, corn, and meal; but there are shops in the locations and compounds where they can buy other food, such as tea, coffee, sugar, and bread, and where they can also get clothes and other European things.
There are hospitals with doctors and nurses at all the mines to attend to the sick and the injured. There are also schools for the children in the location. It is difficult to teach in these schools because the children speak different languages, and their parents only stay for a short time. But a great many do learn to read, write, to do sums, and to sew.
The country near the mines is very often dry and dusty. There are no fields nor trees, unless planted by Europeans.
There are many laws regulating the life and work of the native miner; for example, he must go to work every day unless the doctor says he is too ill to do so. At night every one must be in the location, unless he be given a letter, which is called a "pass," from his master giving the reason why he is not in the location.
5. Strict Laws for Miners
The reason for these laws is that all these people are far away from their homes, and often no one can speak their language. Their relations and chiefs are far away and cannot help them, and so the Government has to make laws to prevent bad people robbing and perhaps killing them. Wherever there is a great deal of money, there are always thieves and bad people. So the Europeans who own the mines and pay the workmen make these laws to protect their workmen, until their time on the mines is finished, and they can go home to their own chiefs again. There are police ready to see that everyone obeys the laws, and if they find bad people or thieves they take them to a police-court and lock them up.
In all the other chapters we have read about people living in their own homes with their own relations. But in this chapter we read about Africans who leave their homes to work on the mines. They work hard and live a very different life from that lived in their village. They see many different people of other countries, hear many languages, and find out many new things. But no one wants to make his home there. High wages are paid for hard work, but everything is strange and different, and each one longs for his home. So everyone is glad when at last his work is done and his wages paid, and he is free to go back to his own village and the people he loves. We must remember that South Africa is a very large country with a great many Africans in it. Large numbers do go to work on the mines for a time, as we have been reading, but we must not forget that all these men have their homes in villages scattered all over that great country. In these villages there are chiefs and customs very much like those of Central Africa. But the great difference between South Africa and Central Africa is that in cool South Africa Europeans can make their homes, and so the Africans there see many European customs which they copy. Trains make it easy to go from one part of the country to another, and no tribe is allowed to fight. Where there is no fighting, people have tried to learn and to grow wise. The dark-skinned races of South Africa are learning to be good workmen, and some to be wise enough to be teachers and even doctors to serve and help their own people to lead happier and more useful lives.
VII ----------- THE GREAT FARMS OF SOUTH AFRICA
1. The Two White Races