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

after being

heralded by musketry-shots and horn-blowing, the usual signs of an

approaching caravan in this land. His sick men were considerably

improved, but they required one more day of rest at Kingaru. In

the afternoon he came to lay siege to my generosity, by giving

details of Soor Hadji Palloo’s heartless cheats upon him; but I

informed him, that since I had left Bagamoyo, I could no longer be

generous; we were now in a land where cloth was at a high premium;

that I had no more cloth than I should need to furnish food for

myself and men; that he and his caravan had cost me more money

and trouble than any three caravans I had, as indeed was the case.

With this counter-statement he was obliged to be content. But I

again solved his pecuniary doubts by promising that, if he hurried

his caravan on to Unyanyembe, be should have no cause of complaint.

 

The 5th of April saw the fourth caravan vanish for once in our

front, with a fair promise that, however fast we should follow,

we should not see them the hither side of Sinbamwenni.

 

The following morning, in order to rouse my people from the

sickened torpitude they had lapsed into, I beat an exhilarating

alarum on a tin pan with an iron ladle, intimating that a sofari

was about to be undertaken. This had a very good effect, judging

from the extraordinary alacrity with which it was responded to.

Before the sun rose we started. The Kingaru villagers were out

with the velocity of hawks for any rags or refuse left behind us.

 

The long march to Imbiki, fifteen miles, proved that our protracted

stay at Kingaru had completely demoralized my soldiers and

pagazis. Only a few of them had strength enough to reach Imbiki

before night. The others, attending the laden donkeys, put in an

appearance next morning, in a lamentable state of mind and body.

Khamisi—the pagazi with the weak loins—had deserted, taking with

him two goats, the property tent, and the whole of Uledi’s

personal wealth, consisting of his visiting dish-dasheh—a long

shirt of the Arabic pattern, 10 lbs. of beads, and a few fine

cloths, which Uledi, in a generous fit, had intrusted to him, while

he carried the pagazi’s load, 70 lbs. of Bubu beads. This

defalcation was not to be overlooked, nor should Khamisi be

permitted to return without an effort to apprehend him. Accordingly

Uledi and Ferajji were despatched in pursuit while we rested at

Imbiki, in order to give the dilapidated soldiers and animals time

to recruit.

 

On the 8th we continued our journey, and arrived at Msuwa. This

march will be remembered by our caravan as the most fatiguing of all,

though the distance was but ten miles. It was one continuous jungle,

except three interjacent glades of narrow limits, which gave us

three breathing pauses in the dire task of jungle travelling. The

odour emitted from its fell plants was so rank, so pungently acrid,

and the miasma from its decayed vegetation so dense, that I expected

every moment to see myself and men drop down in paroxysms of acute

fever. Happily this evil was not added to that of loading and

unloading the frequently falling packs. Seven soldiers to attend

seventeen laden donkeys were entirely too small a number while passing

through a jungle; for while the path is but a foot wide, with a

wall of thorny plants and creepers bristling on each side, and

projecting branches darting across it, with knots of spikey twigs

stiff as spike-nails, ready to catch and hold anything above four

feet in height, it is but reasonable to suppose that donkeys

standing four feet high, with loads measuring across from bale to

bale four feet, would come to grief. This grief was of frequent

recurrence here, causing us to pause every few minutes for

re-arrangements. So often had this task to be performed, that the

men got perfectly discouraged, and had to bespoken to sharply

before they set to work. By the time I reached Msuwa there was

nobody with me and the ten donkeys I drove but Mabruk the Little,

who, though generally stolid, stood to his work like a man.

Bombay and Uledi were far behind, with the most jaded donkeys.

Shaw was in charge of the cart, and his experiences were most

bitter, as he informed me he had expended a whole vocabulary of

stormy abuse known to sailors, and a new one which he had invented

ex tempore. He did not arrive until two o’clock next morning, and

was completely worn out.

 

Another halt was fixed at Msuwa, that we and our animals might

recuperate. The chief of the village, a white man in everything

but colour, sent me and mine the fattest broad-tailed sheep of his

flock, with five measures of matama grain. The mutton was

excellent, unapproachable. For his timely and needful present

I gave him two doti, and amused him with an exhibition of the

wonderful mechanism of the Winchester rifle, and my breechloading

revolvers.

 

He and his people were intelligent enough to comprehend the utility

of these weapons at an emergency, and illustrated in expressive

pantomime the powers they possessed against numbers of people

armed only with spears and bows, by extending their arms with an

imaginary gun and describing a clear circle. “Verily,” said

they, “the Wasungu are far wiser than the Washensi. What heads

they have! What wonderful things they make! Look at their

tents, their guns, their time-pieces, their clothes, and that

little rolling thing (the cart) which carries more than five

men,–que!”

 

On the 10th, recovered from the excessive strain of the last march,

the caravan marched out of Msuwa, accompanied by the hospitable

villagers as far as their stake defence, receiving their unanimous

“Kwaheris.” Outside the village the march promised to be less

arduous than between Imbiki and Msuwa. After crossing a beautiful

little plain intersected by a dry gully or mtoni, the route led by

a few cultivated fields, where the tillers greeted us with one grand

unwinking stare, as if fascinated.

 

Soon after we met one of those sights common in part of the world,

to wit a chain slave-gang, bound east. The slaves did not appear to

be in any way down-hearted on the contrary, they seemed imbued with

the philosophic jollity of the jolly servant of Martin Chuzzlewit.

Were it not for their chains, it would have been difficult to discover

master from slave; the physiognomic traits were alike—the mild

benignity with which we were regarded was equally visible on all faces.

The chains were ponderous—they might have held elephants captive;

but as the slaves carried nothing but themselves, their weight could

not have been insupportable.

 

The jungle was scant on this march, and though in some places the

packs met with accidents, they were not such as seriously to

retard progress. By 10 A.M. we were in camp in the midst of an

imposing view of green sward and forest domed by a cloudless sky.

We had again pitched our camp in the wilderness, and, as is the

custom of caravans, fired two shots to warn any Washensi having

grain to sell, that we were willing to trade.

 

Our next halting-place was Kisemo, distant but eleven miles from

Msuwa, a village situated in a populous district, having in its

vicinity no less than five other villages, each fortified by

stakes and thorny abattis, with as much fierce independence as if

their petty lords were so many Percys and Douglasses. Each

topped a ridge, or a low hummock, with an assumption of defiance of

the cock-on-its-own-dunghill type. Between these humble eminences

and low ridges of land wind narrow vales which are favored with the

cultivation of matama and Indian corn. Behind the village flows

the Ungerengeri River, an impetuous stream during the Masika

season, capable of overflowing its steep banks, but in the dry

season it subsides into its proper status, which is that of a small

stream of very clear sweet water. Its course from Kisemo is

southwest, then easterly ; it is the main feeder of the Kingani

River.

 

The belles of Kisemo are noted for their vanity in brass wire,

which is wound in spiral rings round their wrists and ankles, and

the varieties of style which their hispid heads exhibit; while

their poor lords, obliged to be contented with dingy torn clouts

and split ears, show what wide sway Asmodeus holds over this

terrestrial sphere—for it must have been an unhappy time when the

hard-besieged husbands finally gave way before their spouses.

Besides these brassy ornaments on their extremities, and the

various hair-dressing styles, the women of Kisemo frequently wear

lengthy necklaces, which run in rivers of colours down their

bodies.

 

A more comical picture is seldom presented than that of one of

these highly-dressed females engaged in the homely and necessary

task of grinding corn for herself and family. The grinding

apparatus consists of two portions: one, a thick pole of hard wood

about six feet long, answering for a pestle; the other, a

capacious wooden mortar, three feet in height.

 

While engaged in setting his tent, Shaw was obliged to move a small

flat stone, to drive a peg into the ground. The village chief, who

saw him do it, rushed up in a breathless fashion, and replaced the

stone instantly, then stood on it in an impressive manner,

indicative of the great importance attached to that stone and

location. Bombay, seeing Shaw standing in silent wonder at the

act, volunteered to ask the chief what was the matter. The Sheikh

solemnly answered, with a finger pointing downward, “Uganga!”

Whereupon I implored him to let me see what was under the stone.

With a graciousness quite affecting he complied. My curiosity was

gratified with the sight of a small whittled stick, which pinned

fast to the ground an insect, the cause of a miscarriage to a young

female of the village.

 

During the afternoon, Uledi and Ferajji, who had been despatched

after the truant Khamisi, returned with him and all the missing

articles. Khamisi, soon after leaving the road and plunging into

the jungle, where he was mentally triumphing in his booty, was met

by some of the plundering Washensi, who are always on the qui vive

for stragglers, and unceremoniously taken to their village in the

woods, and bound to a tree preparatory, to being killed. Khamisi

said that he asked them why they tied him up, to which they answered,

that they were about to kill him, because he was a Mgwana, whom they

were accustomed to kill as soon as they were caught. But Uledi and

Ferajji shortly after coming upon the scene, both well armed, put

an end to the debates upon Khamisi’s fate, by claiming him as

an absconding pagazi from the Musungu’s camp, as well as all the

articles he possessed at the time of capture. The robbers did not

dispute the claim for the pagazi, goats, tent, or any other

valuable found with him, but intimated that they deserved a reward

for apprehending him. The demand being considered just, a reward

to the extent of two doti and a fundo, or ten necklaces of beads,

was given.

 

Khamisi, for his desertion and attempted robbery, could not be

pardoned without first suffering punishment. He had asked at

Bagamoyo, before enlisting in my service, an advance of $5 in

money, and had received it, and a load of Bubu beads, no heavier

than a pagazis load, had been given him to carry; he had,

therefore, no excuse for desertion. Lest I should overstep

prudence, however, in punishing him, I convened a court of eight

pagazis and four soldiers to sit in judgment, and asked them to

give me their decision as to what should be done. Their unanimous

verdict was