The Legacy of Lobengula

By Duncan Watt

Back home on their parents’ farm outside Bulawayo in Zimbabwe, the Wallace boys team up with Muyunda Munalula, of the Lozi tribe in Zambia. For nearly as long as he can remember, Muyunda has worn a pendant round his neck. When it gets tampered with, Muyunda relates how it came into his possession.

His great-grandfather was dying and had told him how as a little boy he had joined the retinue of Lobengula, the last of the Matabele kings, who was reputed to have amassed a fortune in diamonds and gold.

After being defeated by the forces of Cecil John Rhodes, the founder of the country that bore his name - Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), Lobengula is forced to flee his capital of Gu-bulawayo to the north where he dies. His faithful followers, including Muyunda’s great-grandfather, continue to the banks of the Zambezi River where, in a cave in the Batoka Gorges, they hide the treasure.

The Wallace Boys and Muyunda set off to find this treasure on horseback, making their starting point the magnificent Victoria Falls, visited and named by David Livingstone in 1855. The boys visit Scottie, a family friend, who proudly shows them the fantastic sights in his Fox Moth biplane. Muyunda for the first time encounters the Wallace Boys’ nemesis, the unholy pair of Isaacs and Lambert. Captured and tortured to reveal what he knows about Lobengula's treasure, Muyunda is left for dead when he falls over the gorge beside the Devil’s Cataract.

Eventually, the boys reach the long-lost cave tucked behind a small waterfall that tumbles into the Batoka Gorge many kilometres from the Victoria Falls. Their attempt to find the treasure is nearly thwarted by Isaacs but for the arrival of Scottie in his vintage Fox Moth.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Duncan Watt
• Release date: Jan 23, 2012
• ISBN: 9781466036758

Duncan Watt

I was born in Africa where I grew up; but I have lived in countries like England, America, Papua New Guinea and Japan. I have now lived in Singapore for 35 years.When I was teaching in Zambia I wrote a couple of books in simplified English for my students and these were published by Oxford University Press. Since living in Singapore, where I have, among other things, appeared on the TV News for nearly twenty years, I have written 20 books in my Wallace Boys Series - 11 of which were published here in Singapore.Please visit The Wallace Boys Web Site to find out more about the books, and there is more about me too.

Book preview

The Legacy of Lobengula

An Adventure of the Wallace Boys

Duncan Watt

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Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2012 Duncan Watt

License Notes: This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Cover and illustrations by Paul O’Shea

Maps and Diagrams by Duncan Watt

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To Erith Harris for the many journeys we made to the Matopos and the one we sadly never made to the Batoka Gorge!

Also to John Clark, a boyhood friend, with whom I spent many happy hours fossicking for flint knives and weapons of Stone Age Man round the Victoria Falls.

And most especially to my father, J Gordon Watt (Wattie), who gave me my love for adventure. It is he upon whom Scottie in these books is based, Fox Moth and all!

ISBN

First published in 1996 by Tynron Press, UK

Subsequently published by Graham Brash, Singapore

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Personality magazine has very kindly given permission for the article about Lobengula to be used. I am most grateful.

My sincere thanks to Don and Judy Watt for their help in providing maps and information.

Many thanks to Erith Harris for sending maps and pictures, and for introducing me to the enjoyment of camping in the Matopos.

Also many thanks must once again go to Christopher Side and Mark Rangel for their unstinting help with the production of the maps for this story.

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Table of Contents

1. The Pendant

2. The Old Man’s Story

3. Lobengula Flees North

4. Confirming the Facts

5. Muyunda Discovers His Roots

6. Getting round Father

7. Muyunda, Private Detective

8. Ready To Go!

9. Interlude

10. What Happened to Muyunda

11. Rescue by Moonlight

12. Into the Wild Blue Yonder

13. Flypast

14. Behind the Waterfall

15. Scottie Drops In

16. The Tree

17. The Changing Face of Nature

18. Flight to Danger

Glossary

Lobengula and the Ndebele

The Zambezi, the Victoria Falls and David Livingstone

The area where this story is set

End Notes

Maps

Map of South Central Africa

The area where this story takes place

The Area around the Victoria Falls

The Victoria Falls

The Vegetable Ivory Palm

(known as the Laa or Fan Palm)

The husky nuts are popular with elephants, and it is the

hard, white seed that gives it its name - vegetable ivory.

Map of South Central Africa

1

The Pendant

The tennis game had been hot, fast and furious, and the plunge into the swimming pool was just what was needed. Three bodies cavorted and splashed and chased each other until at length one of them shouted above the cries of the others: I’ve had enough. This naturally was a red rag to a bull, and the individual who had shouted was instantly seized by the legs from below and pounced upon from above. With a desperate gasp for breath, he succumbed and was dragged to the bottom, feigning complete submission.

The ploy worked and the two adversaries loosed their hold. Giving the bottom of the pool a Herculean shove with his bent legs, he shot to the surface where he powered his way to the side. With a flip of his body, he leapt from the water and rolled over onto the grass.

No more. Peace. I can’t do any more. He lay spreadeagled with his arms outstretched. If the others were going to throw him in again, he was going to make it as difficult as possible for them. He knew that a dead weight was nearly impossible to carry. However, the other two had decided that enough was enough and they too flopped laughing onto the grass.

Immediately, a large golden-coloured dog, with a curious ridge of hair down the centre of his back, sauntered over from where he had been lying in the cool damp earth of a flower bed. In turn, he gave each of the three boys a vigorous lick!

You tricked us. You won’t get away with it the next time. This was Nigel Wallace; a good-looking slender boy in his late teens. His skin was tanned, but his dark hair was in strong contrast to that of his slightly younger brother, Bruce, who was fair-haired and stockier. He too was well tanned. Both boys did have one feature in common, however, and that was the colour of their eyes; a vivid blue. It was Bruce who had been the target of attack in the pool.

That was unfair, Bruce complained. You two played a sneaky game of tennis against me. You made me use the tramlines as though I was playing doubles too. And if that wasn’t bad enough, you both ganged up on poor little me in the water!

"Little diddums! Whatever is our guest going to think of his first visit to the Wallace household?" Nigel’s bantering tone provoked an immediate mock charge from his brother which he parried and then together they collapsed in a laughing heap a few metres away.

Once again the dog crossed to the boys and tried to lick them. But they pushed him away.

Go away, you brute, said Nigel, and the dog whined and pawed the ground. Isilwane was a Rhodesian ridgeback[1], known by many as the Rhodesian lion dog. In fact, his name, Isilwane, meant ‘lion’ in the Ndebele language.

I’ve got a brother too, Bruce. And he’s also older than me. So I know what it’s like, said Muyunda Munalula, the third of the group. Like Nigel and Bruce Wallace, he also attended the university in Harare, the capital of the Central African country of Zimbabwe. Muyunda had been invited by the two Wallaces to spend the long Christmas vacation on their farm just south of Bulawayo, the second most important city in the country. Muyunda, who actually lived in the Western Province of Zambia, the country to the north of Zimbabwe, had been very pleased to accept their invitation as his parents had recently been sent overseas on a diplomatic posting.

The three boys lay sprawled on the grass, drying fast in the late afternoon sun.

I can’t thank you enough for inviting me, said Muyunda. I have a feeling that this is going to be my best holiday ever.

We’ve only just started it, warned Nigel. My younger brother can be a complete nuisance, but if you sit on his head, he’s usually all right.

From where he lay, Muyunda could see the old Dutch-style farmhouse with its magnificent curly gable at one side of the building. The cool, wire-gauzed verandah ran round two sides of the house, and his bedroom was actually the verandah at the side of the house, shaded by an immense baobab tree. He decided it was probably one of the most comfortable houses he had ever been in. The living room walls were lined with horns of every description, from the elegant scimitar-shape of the sable antelope to the lyre-shape of the delicate impala and the corkscrew kudu horns. Above the granite fireplace glowered the head of a leopard, shot years before by the Wallace brothers’ grandfather not two hundred metres away in one of the rocky kopjes[2] that surrounded the house.

Although the two Wallaces and their parents decried the unnecessary slaughter of wildlife, they had agreed to leave these magnificent heads where the Wallace boys’ grandfather had first put them. They argued that when he had been alive, shooting - and he did it mainly for the pot - had been a way of life, and to consign all the trophies of the hunt to the fire would be wrong.

In the other direction away from the house, Muyunda could see the country dip down into a wide shallow valley dotted with umbrella-shaped acacias and dark green mopane[3] trees where a small river meandered. In the distance lay the Matopos - a nature reserve where the animals wander unmolested amongst the weird rock formations called kopjes; great lichen-covered granite boulders piled haphazardly and precariously, looking as though they are about to tumble down at any moment.

Already the sun was nearly sinking below one of the kopjes, and the three boys were beginning to think of dinner.

Suddenly, Muyunda sat up with a gasp. He put his hand to his chest and looked around him.

What’s the matter? asked Nigel.

My pendant. I had it after we played tennis and now it’s gone.

Hastily casting about on the grass, the three boys found nothing.

It must be in the pool. Without another word, Bruce knifed into the water and made for the bottom. The other two watched his progress as he quartered the pool.

Gasping for breath and half leaping from the water, Bruce shot up and in his hand he held the folded leather pendant. He tossed it to Muyunda who deftly caught it. Bruce flopped onto the poolside, shaking the water out of his hair.

Thanks, said Muyunda, relieved. Look. The thong has split. It must have happened when we were horsing around.

"When you two were horsing around. Include me out, as the Americans say. I was intending to swim a few laps when you two bullies picked on me."

Don’t let’s start on that again, Bruce. Nigel turned to Muyunda. Do you need some new leather for it? I’m sure we’ve got some in the workshop behind the house. Anyway what is it? You’re always wearing it. I’ve never seen you without it.

Do you know, I don’t know what it is! My great-grandfather gave it to me about thirteen or fourteen years ago. A flicker crossed the boy’s features. It was the night he died. I’d almost forgotten but it all came back to me when you were talking. What a story he told! Muyunda suddenly shivered. What a story! Unbelievable. He shook his head, and the two Wallaces looked at each other.

Can you tell it to us? asked Nigel.

No. The word came out quickly, almost rudely. Gee, I’m sorry; I can’t think what came over me. That sounded so rude.

That’s all right. Don’t worry. Bruce immediately realized that Muyunda was under some unexplained influence.

It was unforgivable. Please accept my apologies, Muyunda said formally. I don’t know why I said ‘No’ like that. It just came out, and yet my great-grandfather never said I mustn’t tell anyone. But all this time I have told no one at all, not even my parents. As I said, I had all but forgotten about it. Give me a little time to think and then I’ll tell you.

Only if you want to. Come, let’s go inside. It’s starting to get chilly now that the sun has gone down. It’ll be dark soon. Nigel led the others to where they had left their clothes and towels, and they went up to the house past the luxuriant flower beds.

After dinner, the three boys excused themselves and left Mr and Mrs Wallace to their coffee undisturbed in the lounge. Both Nigel and Bruce felt that Muyunda, who had been strangely quiet during the meal, was going to tell his story. When he led the two brothers outside into the brilliant moonlight night across the lawns to a thatched, low-walled summerhouse at the bottom of the garden by the swimming pool, they were certain. Isilwane padded behind them.

A cricket chirped in the cannas that surrounded the small building, and the moon silvered the tops of the rocky hills. The sides of the kopjes were black and sinister where there were dark shadows. In the distance, there was a sharp, rasping cough; the occasional leopard still prowled the district.

The three boys ranged themselves in the comfortable long cane chairs. By chance, Muyunda chose a chair that lay full in the moon and the Wallace brothers could watch his features as he told his story.

I hope, he started, that it won’t be an anti-climax after the build-up I’ve given it. He laughed self-consciously and fingered his pendant. Nigel and Bruce said nothing.

"As I said, I must have been about five or even six when I learnt that my great-grandfather was dying and was asking to see me. I was surprised as I had only visited him once or twice. Anyway, my parents made me go. The journey to see him itself was quite an adventure. We were living in Mongu at the time - my father was in the Education Department. Mongu; that’s the capital of the Western Province; a number of years ago the whole area used to be called Barotseland. The land of the Lozi people.

"It must have been about March because already the Zambezi had flooded the plain. They said my great-grandfather was too weak to be moved to the winter village on the hills where it was dry. The Paramount Chief had gone to Limalunga, his winter capital[4], and very few people remained on the little bits of land that daily were getting smaller and smaller as the waters rose. Houses were being washed away and the little spits of land were fast becoming a haven for all sorts of creatures; snakes, insects.

"You might ask why we even bother to live on the flood plain, if every year we need to move and abandon our houses. Ask that of a Lozi and you ask him why he lives. The flood plain on either side of the Zambezi is where life comes from; food from the rich soil, excellent grazing for our herds and fish from the river. The winter villages in the forest land mean nothing to us; just an inconvenience to be borne until we can return to the plain. We are known as the ‘River People’; that’s the meaning of the word Lozi.

"Well, as I said, my great-grandfather was too weak to be moved and so I had to go way out on the flooded plain to see him. My parents put me into a dugout canoe - we call them makoros - with a paddler. We set out early in the morning and the plain just looked like a vast level paddock of the brightest green grass. This year, the waters had risen slowly and the grasses had grown faster than the water. But there were places where the water had swamped the grass and wide shallow ‘lakes’ opened up in front of us as we paddled along; I did my fair share of the work. Every Lozi knows the river.

"The bird-life on the Barotse Plain must be seen to be believed, Bruce. You would love it; for example, the lily-trotters, the soft brown jacana, with their long, ungainly toes delicately turning the lily-pads looking for insects.

A male Jacana holding his babies under his wing

"I remember laughing to myself when one distraught mother[5] rounded up her babies and placed them protectively under her wings as we passed. All you could see were their long toes sticking out from the feathers! The bird-life is fantastic; flashing jewels of tiny malachite kingfishers, beautifully coloured bee-eaters and the occasional fish eagle screaming high above.

A Fish Eagle

"It took us the whole day to reach the nearly-deserted village where my great-grandfather lived. All afternoon, the distinctive pattern of tall blue gums[6] on the horizon beckoned us on and told us we were headed in the right direction. It was with relief that we pushed the makoro up the sandy beach just below the village. Many of the houses, dilapidated and collapsing, were already deep in water. Only one house was occupied and we went over to it.

"My paddler immediately squatted down next to the fire where a young woman was cooking food in a smoke-blackened, three-legged pot. She was stirring the thick porridge of sudsa. A few small fishes were in the embers where she had thrown them. She acknowledged my greeting and nodded towards the house behind her, possibly the only house still left standing.

"I was nervous. I knew my great-grandfather was dying and I wondered why it had to be me; why did I have to be with him as he lay dying? Gone are many of the old customs of the Lozi, but as I had been taught I dropped to my knees and clapped my cupped hands softly. I moved forward in a half crouch, clapped again, until I reached his bedside. He watched my approach with unwinking eyes. The setting sun’s rays were shining directly into the house. He was lying on a rough wooden bed made with riempies, leather thongs, that sagged even under his emaciated body.

"I squatted on the dirt floor next to him and his paper dry hand covered mine. He seemed reassured. He patted my head and then ran his thin bony fingers over my face, and for the first time I realized that he was now blind. As I said, I hardly knew him but some sort of affinity must have grown up between us on those few occasions I had been to see him.

"His own children were dead - he had survived them by many years - and all he had left were my parents, my brother and me.

"He lay so still that I was sure he had fallen asleep. I made a movement and instantly his hand tightened its grip on mine. He didn’t want me to go.

"‘I shan’t leave you,’ I said. At that moment the young woman brought in some food. Sulkily, she started to spoon some into my great-grandfather’s mouth. ‘Let me,’ I said. She immediately backed out of the house.

"For the first time he spoke. I didn’t