Kinguri did tell me, as we sat in their camp on the moist black earth beneath the great spreading arms of an ollicondi tree, of the many wonders that he had seen through his marchings across these lands. He spoke of a beast called the empalanga, which is in bigness and shape like oxen, save that they hold their neck and head aloft, and have their horns broad and crooked, three hand-breadths long, divided into knots, and sharp at the end, whereof they might make very fair cornets to sound withal. I saw none of these creatures, but I think they are harder to find than the Devil, since he is everywhere around and they are shy and rare.
Then also he told me of the great water-adder called the naumri, a serpent that goes forth of the water and gets itself up upon the boughs and branches of trees, and there watches the cattle that feed thereabouts. Which when they are come near unto it, presently it falls upon them, and winds itself in many twines about them, and claps his tail on their hinder parts: and so it straineth them, and bites so many holes in them, that at last it killeth them. And then it draws them into some solitary place where it devours them at pleasure, skin, horns, hoofs, and all.
Upon hearing this tale I did tell Kinguri of the coccodrillo at Loango that had eaten the whole alibamba of eight slaves, at which he laughed and said, “Nay, it is impossible for one coccodrillo to hold so many!” When I swore I had seen the monster cut open myself, he at first grew angry, and gave me the lie, and I thought would strike at me with the flat of his sword. But then he relented, and later I heard him telling the tale to Imbe Calandola, except that when it was told this time it was eleven slaves that the coccodrillo had devoured, not a mere eight.
From Kinguri I learned of the great bird called the estridge, taller than a man, and with feet that can kill a man with a single kick. It does not fly, because of its immense size. And he told me of certain other strange creatures, which being as big as rams, have wings like dragons, with long tails, and divers rows of teeth, and feed upon raw flesh. Their color is blue and green, their skins bepainted like scales; and two legs they have, but no more. I had heard of these dragons in Mofarigosat’s town, that some were worshipped by the blacks and kept for a wonder in special cages. No dragons did I ever see, neither. But Kinguri promised he would show them to me when we were near some, a promise that he did not keep.
I could tell you many more tales I had from Kinguri, and very likely I shall. For he was a man much traveled and very shrewd; and as we talked often, he came to master the Portugal tongue, and I the Jaqqa tongue, and also we both spoke the Bakongo language, so that we had rich store of words between us and could communicate most easily and well.
Kinguri asked me much about life in Europe, that was of keen interest to him: our kings and our churches, and our way of dress, and our beliefs about the size and shape of the world, and much much else. In this I was often hard pressed to make reply to him, for though I am an educated man in my way, I had not held a book in my hand since leaving England, and much that I had been taught was forgotten to me now over so many years. Nor were his questions easy ones, since that he probed right to the heart of our mysteries, asking such as, Why did we use gold for our money and not iron, when iron was the more sturdy and useful metal? And, Why did we build great stone houses in which to worship our god, when God is everywhere? And, Why had our god created the first man and the first woman pure and innocent, and then let the Devil tempt them with sin, and then punish Eve and Adam with shame and death, when it would have been easier and more just to create them resistant to such temptation, while He was taking the trouble to bring them into existence? All this did I answer, more or less, but inasmuch as these were problems with which I found some difficulty myself, I think I did not give the Imbe-Jaqqa’s brother great satisfaction by the firmness of my reasoning.
I had one question for Kinguri of a similarly deep sort, that was, To what purpose did the Jaqqas travel up and down this land of Africa, consuming all that lay in their path? What fury drove them, what hunger for destruction? To this, Kinguri made no reply for a great long while, so that I feared I had angered him by impertinence; his eyes seemed to turn inward, and he brooded in a chill and far distant way. Then at last he did reply, “I will not answer this. You must ask it of the Imbe-Jaqqa, who is our guide and master in these matters.”
In those days I did not readily approach Calandola for such conversation. He held himself apart from the camp except at feasting-time, and his presence in it was like that of some smouldering volcano, a huge terrible Vesuvio that might erupt at any instant, hurling fiery rivers of lava over those nearby. So I let that question go by, thinking that perhaps it was a fool’s question, inasmuch that the Jaqqas might merely do their killing and destruction out of the sheer joyous love for harm, and nothing underlying. Yet I suspected otherwise. In my study of the world it has seemed to me that there are very few nations that practice mere harm for harm’s sake, but rather always do have some reason for their deeds, that to themselves seems to be the purest light of righteousness sublime.
And so it was with the Jaqqas. But I did not learn that until some while afterward.
We were done now with the spoiling of Cashindcabar, and moved onward toward the north and the east. The Imbe-Jaqqa’s plan now took him across a river called Longa, and toward the town of Kalungu, that lies on the edge of the province of Tondo. Here we stood as it were between two worlds. For Kalungu is a place most fertile, and always tilled and full of grain, and is all a fine plain very level and rich, with great store of honey. But beyond it is that evil desert in which the Portugals underwent their massacre at the hands of Kafuche Kambara, who was also a great enemy of the Jaqqas. We did camp outside Kalungu for some time, while Calandola strived to decide whether to go inward upon that pleasant city, or to strike upward upon Kafuche Kambara. In this time of indecision he did hold many ceremonies in honor of the Devil, and feast greatly, and seek the Devil’s counsel.
Then one time in the night we were all summoned from our sleep. I looked to the north and saw in the air many strange fires and flames rising in manner as high as the moon. And in the element were heard the sound of pipes, trumpets, and drums, most spectral.
I had been told long ago by older mariners of such strange noises, which may perhaps be caused by the vehement and sundry motions of such fiery exhalations in the sky as are wrought by wind and heat: for those fiery exhalations, ascending into the powerful cold of the middle region of the air, are suddenly stricken back with great force, and make a noise not unlike the noise that fire makes in the air, such as the whizzing of a burning torch. But to Calandola it was a great omen. He stood looking out over the plain and said to me, “See, Andubatil, there is heat coming from the beams of the moon! That means we must march and destroy Kalungu.”
In faith the moon’s beams felt as cool as ever, to me. But I would not gainsay Calandola.
He rested his heavy hand on my shoulder and waved the other toward the sleeping town that lay before us. “See, see, Andubatil, the farms, the ploughed earth! Those people have enslaved our mother, and we must set her free.”
“Indeed, enslaved?”
“Yea. All across the land, there are men who would make themselves the mother’s masters. And they scourge her dark warm skin with their ploughs, and they cover her with their houses and their roads. It is not right. Those men spread like a plague of insects across the land.”
I would have said, rather, that it was the Jaqqas that were the plague. But that I held to myself.