Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu/294

 280 SOUTH AND EAST AFRICA. bushmen. Being unable to till the land for want of water and through fear of the neighbouring Zulus, they are obliged to live almost exclusively on the produce of the chase. They pursue the game by the trail, like hounds, and when they have wounded an animal they follow it up unflaggingly for days together, sleeping at night near the drops of blood so as not to lose the track. They study the starry skies and consult the flight of the vulture in order to take part with it in the carrion feast. They also show great skill in constructing pitfalls, and despite the edicts forbidding all the Tongas from hunting the elephant, they. contrive to plant u sharp stake concealed by the foliage across the path of the huge pachyderm. The wounded animal, overcome by the acute pain, is unable to advance farther and falls an easy prey to his enemies. North of the Sabi the Tonga tribes, being under the more direct control of the Zulus, are reduced to the condition of abject slaves. Such are the Ma-Ndandas and ^la-Ndowas, who appear to have been formerly a very powerful people, but who are now fain to conceal themselves in the bush, clothed in long robes made from the bark of the baobab. Still farther north, and not far from the Manica uplands, dwell the Ki-Tevi (Gwa-Tevi or Aba-Tevi), probably descendants of the (luiteve people mentioned by the Dominican friar, De Santos, as a large nation forming the central nucleus of the Monomotapa empire. The traditional ceremo- nious formalities observed at the court of the Umgoni king appear to have been in great part inherited from the Quiteve sovereign. Amongst these natives are 8cattor('d some groups of Ba-Lempas, who practise circumcision, and who are said by Mauch to resemble the Jews in their features and social customs. Most of them are distinguished by red eyes and fiery eyebrows, like the Polish Jews. They dwell in separate villages, living by usury and a retail barter trade. They also manufacture the iron wire required for the elaborate headdresses of some of the surrounding tribes. The Banyans, Perhaps the most important section of the population, not only here, but in all the Portuguese East African possessions, are the Hindu traders collectively known as Banyans, or Banians, who have almost monopolised the export traffic of this seaboard for many generations. " Attracted from India more than half a century before Clive laid the foundations of the Eastern British Empire, by an edict of the Portuguese Viceroy, Conde de Alvor, which gave to a Banyan Company in 1686 an exclusive monopoly of the trade between Diu and Mozambique, the Banyans, strengthened afterwards by the Battias and other Hindu sects, gradually increased in number and in influence, until at this day, despite the loss of all monopolies, they are in sole possession of the trade of the coast. Others there are, wholesale European merchants, at the chief centres of trade ; but they alone are to be found in every accessible port and river of the coast, bartering European manufactures for native produce, and thus, by searching out new markets and creating trade, stimulating the industry of the natives. " Beyond the trade monopoly, they were formerly granted extensive and pecu-