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

that as soon as one

hears that this kind of man forms one of and the chief of a Mgogo

sultan’s council, one feels very much tempted to do damage to his

person. Most of the extortions practised upon the Arabs are

suggested by these crafty renegades. Sheikh Hamed found that

the Mnyamwezi was far more obdurate than the Sultan—nothing under

nine doti first-class cloths would redeem the donkeys. The

business that day remained unsettled, and the night following

was, as one may imagine, a very sleepless one to Hamed. As it

turned out, however, the loss of the donkeys, the after heavy fine,

and the sleepless night, proved to be blessings in disguise; for,

towards midnight, a robber Mgogo visited his camp, and while

attempting to steal a bale of cloth, was detected in the act

by the wide-awake and irritated Arab, and was made to vanish

instantly with a bullet whistling in close proximity to his ear.

 

From each of the principals of the caravans, the Mnyamwezi had

received as tribute for his drunken master fifteen doti, and from

the other six caravans six doti each, altogether fifty-one doti,

yet on the next morning when we took the road he was not a whit

disposed to deduct a single cloth from the fine imposed on Hamed,

and the unfortunate Sheikh was therefore obliged to liquidate the

claim, or leave his donkeys behind.

 

After travelling through the cornfields of Pembera Pereh we

emerged upon a broad flat plain, as level as the still surface of

a pond, whence the salt of the Wagogo is obtained. From Kanyenyi

on the southern road, to beyond the confines of Uhumba and Ubanarama,

this saline field extends, containing many large ponds of salt

bitter water whose low banks are covered with an effervescence

partaking of the nature of nitrate. Subsequently, two days

afterwards, having ascended the elevated ridge which separates

Ugogo from Uyanzi, I obtained a view of this immense saline plain,

embracing over a hundred square miles. I may have been deceived,

but I imagined I saw large expanses of greyish-blue water,

which causes me to believe that this salina is but a corner of a

great salt lake. The Wahumba, who are numerous, from Nyambwa to

the Uyanzi border, informed my soldiers that there was a “Maji

Kuba” away to the north.

 

Mizanza, our next camp after Nyambwa, is situated in a grove of

palms, about thirteen miles from the latter place. Soon after

arriving I had to bury myself under blankets, plagued with the

same intermittent fever which first attacked me during the transit

of Marenga Mkali. Feeling certain that one day’s halt, which would

enable me to take regular doses of the invaluable sulphate of

quinine, would cure me, I requested Sheikh Thani to tell Hamed to

halt on the morrow, as I should be utterly unable to continue thus

long, under repeated attacks of a virulent disease which was fast

reducing me into a mere frame of skin and bone. Hamed, in a hurry

to arrive at Unyanyembe in order to dispose of his cloth before

other caravans appeared in the market, replied at first that he

would not, that he could not, stop for the Musungu. Upon Thani’s

reporting his answer to me, I requested him to inform Hamed that,

as the Musungu did not wish to detain him, or any other caravan,

it was his express wish that Hamed would march and leave him,

as he was quite strong enough in guns to march through Ugogo

alone. Whatever cause modified the Sheikh’s resolution and his

anxiety to depart, Hamed’s horn signal for the march was not

heard that night, and on the morrow he had not gone.

 

Early in the morning I commenced on my quinine doses; at 6 A.M.

I took a second dose; before noon I had taken four more—

altogether, fifty measured grains-the effect of which was

manifest in the copious perspiration which drenched flannels,

linen, and blankets. After noon I arose, devoutly thankful

that the disease which had clung to me for the last fourteen

days had at last succumbed to quinine.

 

On this day the lofty tent, and the American flag which ever flew

from the centre pole, attracted the Sultan of Mizanza towards it,

and was the cause of a visit with which he honoured me. As he was

notorious among the Arabs for having assisted Manwa Sera in his war

against Sheikh Sny bin Amer, high eulogies upon whom have been

written by Burton, and subsequently by Speke, and as he was the

second most powerful chief in Ugogo, of course he was quite a

curiosity to me. As the tent-door was uplifted that he might

enter, the ancient gentleman was so struck with astonishment at

the lofty apex, and internal arrangements, that the greasy Barsati

cloth which formed his sole and only protection against the chills

of night and the heat of noon, in a fit of abstraction was

permitted to fall down to his feet, exposing to the Musungu’s

unhallowed gaze the sad and aged wreck of what must once have been

a towering form. His son, a youth of about fifteen, attentive to

the infirmities of his father, hastened with filial duty to remind

him of his condition, upon which, with an idiotic titter at the

incident, he resumed his scanty apparel and sat down to wonder and

gibber out his admiration at the tent and the strange things which

formed the Musungu’s personal baggage and furniture. After gazing

in stupid wonder at the table, on which was placed some crockery

and the few books I carried with me; at the slung hammock, which

he believed was suspended by some magical contrivance; at the

portmanteaus which contained my stock of clothes, he ejaculated,

“Hi-le! the Musungu is a great sultan, who has come from his

country to see Ugogo.” He then noticed me, and was again wonder-struck at my pale complexion and straight hair, and the question

now propounded was, “How on earth was I white when the sun had

burned his people’s skins into blackness?” Whereupon he was

shown my cork topee, which he tried on his woolly head, much

to his own and to our amusement. The guns were next shown to

him; the wonderful repeating rifle of the Winchester Company,

which was fired thirteen times in rapid succession to demonstrate

its remarkable murderous powers. If he was astonished before

he was a thousand times more so now, and expressed his belief

that the Wagogo could not stand before the Musungu in battle,

for wherever a Mgogo was seen such a gun would surely kill him.

Then the other firearms were brought forth, each with its

peculiar mechanism explained, until, in, a burst of enthusiasm

at my riches and power, he said he would send me a sheep or goat,

and that he would be my brother. I thanked him for the honour,

and promised to accept whatever he was pleased to send me. At

the instigation of Sheikh Thani, who acted as interpreter, who

said that Wagogo chiefs must not depart with empty hands, I cut

off a shukka of Kaniki and presented it to him, which, after

being examined and measured, was refused upon the ground that,

the Musungu being a great sultan should not demean himself so much

as to give him only a shukka. This, after the twelve doti

received as muhongo from the caravans, I thought, was rather

sore; but as he was about to present me with a sheep or goat

another shukka would not matter much.

 

Shortly after he departed, and true to his promise, I received

a large, fine sheep, with a broad tail, heavy with fat; but with

the words, :“That being now his brother, I must send him three

doti of good cloth.” As the price of a sheep is but a doti and

a half, I refused the sheep and the fraternal honour, upon the

ground that the gifts were all on one side; and that, as I had

paid muhongo, and given him a doti of Kaniki as a present, I

could not, afford to part with any more cloth without an

adequate return.

 

During the afternoon one more of my donkeys died, and at night the

hyaenas came in great numbers to feast upon the carcase. Ulimengo,

the chasseur, and best shot of my Wangwana, stole out and succeeded

in shooting two, which turned out to be some of the largest of

their kind.. One of them measured six feet from the tip of the

nose to the extremity of the tail, and three feet around the

girth.

 

On the 4th. June we struck camp, and after travelling westward for

about three miles, passing several ponds of salt water, we headed

north by west, skirting the range of low hills which separates

Ugogo from Uyanzi.

 

After a three hours’ march, we halted for a short time at Little

Mukondoku, to settle tribute with the brother of him who rules at

Mukondoku Proper. Three doti satisfied the Sultan, whose

district contains but two villages, mostly occupied by pastoral

Wahumba and renegade Wahehe. The Wahumba live in plastered

(cow-dung) cone huts, shaped like the tartar tents of Turkestan.

 

The Wahumba, so far as I have seen them, are a fine and well-formed

race. The men are positively handsome, tall, with small heads,

the posterior parts of which project considerably. One will look

in vain for a thick lip or a flat nose amongst them; on the

contrary, the mouth is exceedingly well cut, delicately small;

the nose is that of the Greeks, and so universal was the peculiar

feature, that I at once named them the Greeks of Africa. Their

lower limbs have not the heaviness of the Wagogo and other tribes,

but are long and shapely, clean as those of an antelope. Their

necks are long and slender, on which their small heads are poised

most gracefully. Athletes from their youth, shepherd bred, and

intermarrying among themselves, thus keeping the race pure, any

of them would form a fit subject for the sculptor who would wish

to immortalize in marble an Antinous, a Hylas, a Daphnis, or an

Apollo. The women are as beautiful as the men are handsome.

They have clear ebon skins, not coal-black, but of an inky hue.

Their ornaments consist of spiral rings of brass pendent from the

ears, brass ring collars about the necks, and a spiral cincture

of brass wire about their loins for the purpose of retaining

their calf and goat skins, which are folded about their bodies,

and, depending from the shoulder, shade one half of the bosom,

and fall to the knees.

 

The Wahehe may be styled the Romans of Africa. Resuming our

march, after a halt of an hour, in foul hours more we arrived at

Mukondoku Proper. This extremity of Ugogo is most populous, The

villages which surround the central tembe, where the Sultan Swaruru

lives, amount to thirty-six. The people who flocked from these to

see the wonderful men whose faces were white, who wore the most

wonderful things on their persons, and possessed the most wonderful

weapons; guns which “bum-bummed” as fast as you could count on

your fingers, formed such a mob of howling savages, that I for an

instant thought there was something besides mere curiosity which

caused such commotion, and attracted such numbers to the roadside.

Halting, I asked what was the matter, and what they wanted, and

why they made such noise? One burly rascal, taking my words for

a declaration of hostilities, promptly drew his bow, but as

prompt as he had fixed his arrow my faithful Winchester with

thirteen shots in the magazine was ready and at the shoulder,

and but waited to see the arrow fly to pour the leaden messengers

of death into the crowd. But the crowd vanished as