How I Found Livingstone, Henry M. Stanley [best fantasy books to read txt] 📗

any way connected with the

profession, I had a well-supplied medicine chest—without which no

traveller in Africa could live—for just such a contingency as was

now present. On visiting Maganga’s sick men, I found one suffering

from inflammation of the lungs, another from the mukunguru (African

intermittent). They all imagined themselves about to die, and

called loudly for “Mama!” “Mama!” though they were all grown men.

It was evident that the fourth caravan could not stir that day, so

leaving word with Magauga to hurry after me as soon as possible, I

issued orders for the march of my own.

 

Excepting in the neighbourhood of the villages which we have passed

there were no traces of cultivation. The country extending

between the several stations is as much a wilderness as the desert

of Sahara, though it possesses a far more pleasing aspect. Indeed,

had the first man at the time of the Creation gazed at his world

and perceived it of the beauty which belongs to this part of

Africa, he would have had no cause of complaint. In the deep

thickets, set like islets amid a sea of grassy verdure, he would

have found shelter from the noonday heat, and a safe retirement

for himself and spouse during the awesome darkness. In the morning

he could have walked forth on the sloping sward, enjoyed its

freshness, and performed his ablutions in one of the many small

streams flowing at its foot. His garden of fruit-trees is all that

is required; the noble forests, deep and cool, are round about

him, and in their shade walk as many animals as one can desire.

For days and days let a man walk in any direction, north, south,

east, and west, and he will behold the same scene.

 

Earnestly as I wished to hurry on to Unyanyembe, still a

heart-felt anxiety about the arrival of my goods carried by the

fourth caravan, served as a drag upon me and before my caravan

had marched nine miles my anxiety had risen to the highest pitch,

and caused me to order a camp there and then. The place selected

for it was near a long straggling sluice, having an abundance of

water during the rainy season, draining as it does two extensive

slopes. No sooner had we pitched our camp, built a boma of

thorny acacia, and other tree branches, by stacking them round

our camp, and driven our animals to grass; than we were made aware

of the formidable number and variety of the insect tribe, which

for a time was another source of anxiety, until a diligent

examination of the several species dispelled it.

 

As it was a most interesting hunt which I instituted for the

several specimens of the insects, I here append the record of it

for what it is worth. My object in obtaining these specimens was

to determine whether the genus Glossina morsitans of the

naturalist, or the tsetse (sometimes called setse) of Livingstone,

Vardon, and Gumming, said to be deadly to horses, was amongst

them. Up to this date I had been nearly two months in East

Africa, and had as yet seen no tsetse; and my horses, instead of

becoming emaciated—for such is one of the symptoms of a tsetse

bite—had considerably improved in condition. There were three

different species of flies which sought shelter in my tent, which,

unitedly, kept up a continual chorus of sounds—one performed the

basso profondo, another a tenor, and the third a weak contralto.

The first emanated from a voracious and fierce fly, an inch long,

having a ventral capacity for blood quite astonishing.

 

This larger fly was the one chosen for the first inspection,

which was of the intensest. I permitted one to alight on my

flannel pyjamas, which I wore while en deshabille in camp.

No sooner had he alighted than his posterior was raised, his

head lowered, and his weapons, consisting of four hair-like

styles, unsheathed from the proboscis-like bag which concealed

them, and immediately I felt pain like that caused by a dexterous

lancet-cut or the probe of a fine needle. I permitted him to

gorge himself, though my patience and naturalistic interest were

sorely tried. I saw his abdominal parts distend with the plenitude

of the repast until it had swollen to three times its former

shrunken girth, when he flew away of his own accord laden with blood.

On rolling up my flannel pyjamas to see the fountain whence the

fly had drawn the fluid, I discovered it to be a little above the

left knee, by a crimson bead resting over the incision. After

wiping the blood the wound was similar to that caused by a deep

thrust of a fine needle, but all pain had vanished with the

departure of the fly.

 

Having caught a specimen of this fly, I next proceeded to institute

a comparison between it and the tsetse, as described by Dr.

Livingstone on pp. 56-57, `Missionary Travels and Researches in

South Africa’ (Murray’s edition of 1868). The points of

disagreement are many, and such as to make it entirely improbable

that this fly is the true tsetse, though my men unanimously

stated that its bite was fatal to horses as well as to donkeys.

A descriptive abstract of the tsetse would read thus: “Not much

larger than a common housefly, nearly of the same brown colour as

the honey-bee. After-part of the body has yellow bars across it.

It has a peculiar buzz, and its bite is death to the horse, ox,

and dog. On man the bite has no effect, neither has it on wild

animals. When allowed to feed on the hand, it inserts the middle

prong of three portions into which the proboscis divides, it then

draws the prong out a little way, and it assumes a crimson colour

as the mandibles come into brisk operation; a slight itching

irritation follows the bite.”

 

The fly which I had under inspection is called mabunga by the

natives. It is much larger than the common housefly, fully a

third larger than the common honey-bee, and its colour more

distinctly marked; its head is black, with a greenish gloss to

it; the after-part of the body is marked by a white line running

lengthwise from its junction with the trunk, and on each side of

this white line are two other lines, one of a crimson colour, the

other of a light brown. As for its buzz, there is no peculiarity

in it, it might be mistaken for that of a honey-bee. When caught

it made desperate efforts to get away, but never attempted to bite.

This fly, along with a score of others, attacked my grey horse,

and bit it so sorely in the legs that they appeared as if bathed

in blood. Hence, I might have been a little vengeful if, with more

than the zeal of an entomologist, I caused it to disclose whatever

peculiarities its biting parts possessed.

 

In order to bring this fly as life-like as possible before my

readers, I may compare its head to most tiny miniature of an

elephant’s, because it has a black proboscis and a pair of horny

antennae, which in colour and curve resemble tusks. The black

proboscis, however, the simply a hollow sheath, which encloses,

when not in the act of biting, four reddish and sharp lancets.

Under the microscope these four lancets differ in thickness, two

are very thick, the third is slender, but the fourth, of an opal

colour and almost transparent, is exceedingly fine. This last must

be the sucker. When the fly is about to wound, the two horny

antennae are made to embrace the part, the lancets are unsheathed,

and on the instant the incision is performed. This I consider

to be the African “horse-fly.’

 

The second fly, which sang the tenor notes more nearly resembled

in size and description the tsetse. It was exceedingly nimble,

and it occupied three soldiers nearly an hour to capture a specimen;

and, when it was finally caught, it stung most ravenously the hand,

and never ceased its efforts to attack until it was pinned through.

It had three or four white marks across the after-part of its body;

but the biting parts of this fly consisted of two black antennae

and an opal coloured style, which folded away under the neck. When

about to bite, this style was shot out straight, and the antennae

embraced it closely. After death the fly lost its distinctive white

marks. Only one of this species did we see at this camp. The third

fly, called “chufwa,” pitched a weak alto-crescendo note, was a

third larger than the house fly, and had long wings. If this insect

sang the feeblest note, it certainly did the most work, and

inflicted the most injury. Horses and donkeys streamed with blood,

and reared and kicked through the pain. So determined was it not

to be driven before it obtained its fill, that it was easily

despatched; but this dreadful enemy to cattle constantly

increased in numbers. The three species above named are, according

to natives, fatal to cattle; and this may perhaps be the reason

why such a vast expanse of first-class pasture is without domestic

cattle of any kind, a few goats only being kept by the villagers.

This fly I subsequently found to be the “tsetse.”

 

On the second morning, instead of proceeding, I deemed it more

prudent to await the fourth caravan. Burton experimented

sufficiently for me on the promised word of the Banyans of Kaole

and Zanzibar, and waited eleven months before he received the

promised articles. As I did not expect to be much over that time

on my errand altogether, it would be ruin, absolute and irremediable,

should I be detained at Unyanyembe so long a time by my caravan.

Pending its arrival, I sought the pleasures of the chase. I was

but a tyro in hunting, I confess, though I had shot a little on the

plains of America and Persia; yet I considered myself a fair shot,

and on game ground, and within a reasonable proximity to game, I

doubted not but I could bring some to camp.

 

After a march of a mile through the tall grass of the open, we

gained the glades between the jungles. Unsuccessful here, after

ever so much prying into fine hiding-places and lurking corners,

I struck a trail well traversed by small antelope and hartebeest,

which we followed. It led me into a jungle, and down a watercourse

bisecting it; but, after following it for an hour, I lost it,

and, in endeavouring to retrace it, lost my way. However, my

pocket-compass stood me in good stead; and by it I steered for

the open plain, in the centre of which stood the camp. But it was

terribly hard work—this of plunging through an African jungle,

ruinous to clothes, and trying to the cuticle. In order to travel

quickly, I had donned a pair of flannel pyjamas, and my feet were

encased in canvas shoes. As might be expected, before I had gone

a few paces a branch of the acacia horrida—only one of a

hundred such annoyances—caught the right leg of my pyjamas at the

knee, and ripped it almost clean off; succeeding which a stumpy

kolquall caught me by the shoulder, and another rip was the

inevitable consequence. A few yards farther on, a prickly aloetic

plant disfigured by a wide tear the other leg of my pyjamas, and

almost immediately I tripped against a convolvulus strong as

ratline, and was made to measure my length on a bed of thorns.

It was on all fours, like a hound on a scent, that I was compelled

to travel; my solar topee getting the worse for wear every minute;

my skin getting more and more wounded; my clothes at each step

becoming more and more