Читать книгу Great Zimbabwe, Mashonaland, Rhodesia. An account of two years' examination work in 1902-4 on behalf of the government of Rhodesia онлайн

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By 7 a.m. the camp is in full life, and all the boys are present with at least a dozen brothers and followers. The trap-owners have returned with rats, small birds, and possibly a rock-rabbit. A boy is given a note to take to Victoria, seventeen miles distant. He places the letter and his pass in a cleft stick, holds it out in front of him, and is off. He will be back in camp an hour after sundown, perhaps bringing a load of 35 lbs. on his head. A thirty-four miles’ journey is preferred to a day’s work in the temple, so that there are always willing runners into Victoria. There are eggs, poultry, milk, honey, melons, pumpkins, rice, and sweet potatoes for sale or barter for salt, and these can always be obtained for half the original price asked for them.

Then there are burns to be dressed, quinine to be administered, or a lung-sick boy to be dosed. The “Parade State of the Malingering Brigade” is carefully kept down to the lowest possible limit. One is amazed at the way the boys bear their injuries. A severe wound which would put an ordinary European on the sick list is to them a mere trifle, and without flinching they will take a burning stick from the fire and rub it up and down inside a gaping flesh wound till the bleeding has ceased. Should any one of them meet with serious injury, the rest will laugh immensely as if it were a huge joke. In this respect they are very callous. Toothache, a cold, or a slight touch of fever renders them most pitiable objects. The soles of their feet resemble hides, and one or two large thorns which would completely lame a European is a matter almost too insignificant for them to notice. They think nothing of standing on hot burning embers while lighting their pipes at a fire. On cold nights they sleep near a fire and will roll into it, but they are such remarkably sound sleepers that it is not until the next morning they discover they have been burnt. How they manage to save their skins from thorn scratches is a mystery, for all day they are walking with naked bodies through bushes and thorn creepers. Yet their skins are beautifully smooth and glossy, and are always without the slightest scratch.