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

a few feet from the roadside.

Having been the cause of our detention in the hungry wilderness of

Ugombo, I was not in a frame of mind to forgive him; so, to

prevent any future truant tricks on his part, I was under the

necessity of including him with the chained gangs of runaways.

 

Two more of our donkeys died, and to prevent any of the valuable

baggage being left behind, I was obliged to send Farquhar off on my

own riding-ass to the village of Mpwapwa, thirty miles off, under

charge of Mabruki Burton.

 

To save the Expedition from ruin, I was reluctantly compelled to

come to the conclusion that it were better for me, for him, and

concerned, that he be left with some kind chief of a village,

with a six months’ supply of cloth and beads, until he got well,

than that he make his own recovery impossible.

 

The 16th of May saw us journeying over the plain which lies

between Ugombo and Mpwapwa, skirting close, at intervals, a low

range of trap-rock, out of which had become displaced by some

violent agency several immense boulders. On its slopes grew the

kolquall to a size which I had not seen in Abyssinia. In the plain

grew baobab, and immense tamarind, and a variety of thorn.

 

Within five hours from Ugombo the mountain range deflected towards

the northeast, while we continued on a north-westerly course,

heading for the lofty mountain-line of the Mpwapwa. To our left

towered to the blue clouds the gigantic Rubeho. The adoption of

this new road to Unyanyembe by which we were travelling was now

explained—we were enabled to avoid the passes and stiff steeps of

Rubeho, and had nothing worse to encounter than a broad smooth

plain, which sloped gently to Ugogo.

 

After a march of fifteen miles we camped at a dry mtoni, called

Matamombo, celebrated for its pools of bitter. water of the colour

of ochre. Monkeys and rhinoceroses, besides kudus, steinboks, and

antelopes, were numerous in the vicinity. At this camp my little

dog “Omar” died of inflammation of the bowels, almost on the

threshold of the country—Ugogo—where his faithful watchfulness

would have been invaluable to me.

 

The next day’s march was also fifteen miles in length, through one

interminable jungle of thorn-bushes. Within two miles of the camp,

the road led up a small river bed, broad as an avenue, clear to the

khambi of Mpwapwa; which was situated close to a number of streams

of the purest water.

 

The following morning found us much fatigued after the long marches

from Ugombo, and generally disposed to take advantage of the

precious luxuries Mpwapwa offered to caravans fresh from the

fly-plagued lands of the Waseguhha and Wadoe. Sheikh Thani—clever

but innocently-speaking old Arab—was encamped under the grateful

umbrage of a huge Mtamba sycamore, and had been regaling himself

with fresh milk, luscious mutton, and rich bullock humps, ever

since his arrival here, two days before; and, as he informed me,

it did not suit his views to quit such a happy abundance so soon

for the saline nitrous water of Marenga Mkali, with its several

terekezas, and manifold disagreeables. “No!” said he to me,

emphatically, “better stop here two or three days, give your tired

animals some rest; collect all the pagazis you can, fill your inside

with fresh milk, sweet potatoes, beef, mutton, ghee, honey, beans,

matama, maweri, and nuts;—then, Inshallah! we shall go together

through Ugogo without stopping anywhere.” As the advice tallied

accurately with my own desired and keen appetite for the good

things he named, he had not long to wait for my assent to his

counsel. “Ugogo,” continued he, “is rich with milk and honey—

rich in flour, beans and almost every eatable thing; and,

Inshallah! before another week is gone we shall be in Ugogo!”

 

I had heard from passing caravans so many extremely favourable

reports respecting Ugogo and its productions that it appeared

to me a very Land of Promise, and I was most anxious to refresh

my jaded stomach with some of the precious esculents raised in

Ugogo; but when I heard that Mpwapwa also furnished some of

those delicate eatables, and good things, most of the morning

hours were spent in inducing the slow-witted people to part

with them; and when, finally, eggs, milk, honey, mutton, ghee,

ground matama and beans had been collected in sufficient

quantities to produce a respectable meal, my keenest attention

and best culinary talents were occupied for a couple of hours

in converting this crude supply into a breakfast which could be

accepted by and befit a stomach at once fastidious and famished,

such as mine was. The subsequent healthy digestion of it proved

my endeavours to have been eminently successful. At the

termination of this eventful day, the following remark was jotted

down in my diary: “Thank God! After fifty-seven days of living

upon matama porridge and tough goat, I have enjoyed with unctuous

satisfaction a real breakfast and dinner.”

 

It was in one of the many small villages which are situated upon

the slopes of the Mpwapwa that a refuge and a home for Farquhar

was found until he should be enabled by restored health to start

to join us at Unyanyembe.

 

Food was plentiful and of sufficient variety to suit the most

fastidious—cheap also, much cheaper than we had experienced for

many a day. Leucole, the chief of the village, with whom

arrangements for Farquhar’s protection and comfort were made, was

a little old man of mild eye and very pleasing face, and on being

informed that it was intended to leave the Musungu entirely under

his charge, suggested that some man should be left to wait on him,

and interpret his wishes to his people.

 

As Jako was the only one who could speak English, except Bombay

and Selim, Jako was appointed, and the chief Leucole was satisfied.

Six months’ provisions of white beads, Merikani and Kaniki cloth,

together with two doti of handsome cloth to serve as a present to

Leucole after his recovery, were taken to Farquhar by Bombay,

together with a Starr’s carbine, 300 rounds of cartridge, a set of

cooking pots, and 3 lbs. of tea.

 

Abdullah bin Nasib, who was found encamped here with five hundred

pagazis, and a train of Arab and Wasawahili satellites, who

revolved around his importance, treated me in somewhat the same

manner that Hamed bin Sulayman treated Speke at Kasenge. Followed

by his satellites, he came (a tall nervous-looking man, of fifty

or thereabouts) to see me in my camp, and asked me if I wished to

purchase donkeys. As all my animals were either sick or moribund,

I replied very readily in the affirmative, upon which he

graciously said he would sell me as many as I wanted, and for

payment I could give him a draft on Zanzibar. I thought him a very

considerate and kind person, fully justifying the encomiums

lavished on him in Burton’s `Lake Regions of Central Africa,’ and

accordingly I treated him with the consideration due to so great

and good a man. The morrow came, and with it went Abdullah bin

Nasib, or “Kisesa,” as he is called by the Wanyamwezi, with all his

pagazis, his train of followers, and each and every one of his

donkeys, towards Bagamoyo, without so much as giving a “Kwaheri,”

or good-bye.

 

At this place there are generally to be found from ten to thirty

pagazis awaiting up-caravans. I was fortunate enough to secure

twelve good people, who, upon my arrival at Unyanyembe, without

an exception, voluntarily engaged themselves as carriers to Ujiji.

With the formidable marches of Marenga Mkali in front, I felt

thankful for this happy windfall,, which resolved the difficulties

I had been anticipating; for I had but ten donkeys left, and four

of these were so enfeebled that they were worthless as baggage

animals.

 

Mpwapwa—so called by the Arabs, who have managed to corrupt almost

every native word—is called “Mbambwa” by the Wasagara. It is a

mountain range rising over 6,000 feet above the sea, bounding on

the north the extensive plain which commences at Ugombo lake, and

on the east that part of the plain which is called Marenga Mkali,

which stretches away beyond the borders of Uhumba. Opposite

Mpwapwa, at the distance of thirty miles or so, rises the Anak

peak of Rubeho, with several other ambitious and tall brethren

cresting long lines of rectilinear scarps, which ascend from the

plain of Ugombo and Marenga Mkali as regularly as if they had

been chiselled out by the hands of generations of masons and

stonecutters.

 

Upon looking at Mpwapwa’s greenly-tinted slopes, dark with many

a densely-foliaged tree; its many rills flowing sweet and clear,

nourishing besides thick patches of gum and thorn bush, giant

sycamore and parachute-topped mimosa, and permitting my

imagination to picture sweet views behind the tall cones above,

I was tempted to brave the fatigue of an ascent to the summit.

Nor was my love for the picturesque disappointed. One sweep of the

eyes embraced hundreds of square miles of plain and mountain, from

Ugombo Peak away to distant Ugogo, and from Rubeho and Ugogo to

the dim and purple pasture lands of the wild, untamable Wahumba.

The plain of Ugombo and its neighbour of Marenga Mkali, apparently

level as a sea, was dotted here and there with “hillocks dropt in

Nature’s careless haste,” which appeared like islands amid the dun

and green expanse. Where the jungle was dense the colour was green,

alternating with dark brown; where the plain appeared denuded of

bush and brake it had a whity-brown appearance, on which the

passing clouds now and again cast their deep shadows. Altogether

this side of the picture was not inviting; it exhibited too

plainly the true wilderness in its sternest aspect; but perhaps

the knowledge that in the bosom of the vast plain before me there

was not one drop of water but was bitter as nitre, and undrinkable

as urine, prejudiced me against it, The hunter might consider it

a paradise, for in its depths were all kinds of game to attract his

keenest instincts; but to the mere traveller it had a stern outlook.

Nearer, however, to the base of the Mpwapwa the aspect of the plain

altered. At first the jungle thinned, openings in the wood

appeared, then wide and naked clearings, then extensive fields of

the hardy holcus, Indian corn, and maweri or bajri, with here and

there a square tembe or village. Still nearer ran thin lines of

fresh young grass, great trees surrounded a patch of alluvial

meadow. A broad river-bed, containing several rivulets of water,

ran through the thirsty fields, conveying the vivifying element

which in this part of Usagara was so scarce and precious. Down

to the river-bed sloped the Mpwapwa, roughened in some places by

great boulders of basalt, or by rock masses, which had parted from

a precipitous scarp, where clung the kolquall with a sure hold,

drawing nourishment where every other green thing failed; clad in

others by the hardy mimosa, which rose like a sloping bank of

green verdure almost to the summit. And, happy sight to me so

long a stranger to it, there were hundreds of cattle grazing,

imparting a pleasing animation to the solitude of the deep folds

of the mountain range.

 

But the fairest view was obtained by looking northward towards the

dense group of mountains which buttressed the front range, facing

towards Rubeho. It was the home of the winds, which starting here

and sweeping down the precipitous slopes and solitary peaks on the

western side, and gathering strength as they rushed through the

prairie-like Marenga Mkali, howled through Ugogo and Unyamwezi with

the force of a storm, It was also the home of the dews, where

sprang the clear springs which cheered by their