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

from Zanzibar and Oman, he asked me if I

had much cloth with me. This was a question often asked by owners

of down caravans, and the reason of it is that the Arabs, in their

anxiety to make as much as possible of their cloth at the ivory

ports on the Tanganika and elsewhere, are liable to forget that

they should retain a portion for the down marches. As, indeed,

I had but a bale left of the quantity of cloth retained for

provisioning my party on the road, when outfitting my caravans

on the coast, I could unblushingly reply in the negative.

 

I halted a day at Kusuri to give my caravan a rest, after its

long series of marches, before venturing on the two days’ march

through the uninhabited wilderness that separates the district of

Jiweh la Singa Uyanzi from the district of Tura in Unyanyembe.

Hamed preceded, promising to give Sayd bin Salim notice of my

coming, and to request him to provide a tembe for me.

 

On the 15th, having ascertained that Sheikh Thani would be detained

several days at Kusuri, owing to the excessive number of his people

who were laid up with that dreadful plague of East Africa, the

small-pox, I bade him farewell, and my caravan struck out of

Kusuri once more for the wilderness and the jungle. A little

before noon we halted at the Khambi of Mgongo Tembo, or the

Elephant’s Back—so called from a wave of rock whose back, stained

into dark brownness by atmospheric influences, is supposed by the

natives to resemble the blue-brown back of this monster of the

forest. My caravan had quite an argument with me here, as to

whether we should make the terekeza on this day or on the next.

The majority was of the opinion that the next day would be the

best for a terekeza; but I, being the “bana,” consulting my

own interests, insisted, not without a flourish or two of my

whip, that the terekeza should be made on this day.

 

Mgongo Tembo, when Burton and Speke passed by, was a promising

settlement, cultivating many a fair acre of ground. But two years

ago war broke out, for some bold act of its people upon caravans,

and the Arabs came from Unyanyembe with their Wangwana servants,

attacked them, burnt the villages, and laid waste the work of

years. Since that time Mgongo Tembo has been but blackened wrecks

of houses, and the fields a sprouting jungle.

 

A cluster of date palm-trees, overtopping a dense grove close to

the mtoni of Mgongo Tembo, revived my recollections of Egypt.

The banks of the stream, with their verdant foliage, presented

a strange contrast to the brown and dry appearance of the jungle

which lay on either side.

 

At 1 P.M. we resumed our loads and walking staffs, and in a short

time were en route for the Ngwhalah Mtoni, distant eight and

three-quarter miles from the khambi. The sun was hot; like a

globe of living, seething flame, it flared its heat full on our

heads; then as it descended towards the west, scorched the air

before it was inhaled by the lungs which craved it. Gourds of

water were emptied speedily to quench the fierce heat that

burned the throat and lungs. One pagazi, stricken heavily with the

small-pox, succumbed, and threw himself down on the roadside to die.

We never saw him afterwards, for the progress of a caravan on a

terekeza, is something like that of a ship in a hurricane. The

caravan must proceed—woe befall him who lags behind, for hunger

and thirst will overtake him—so must a ship drive before the

fierce gale to escape foundering—woe befall him who falls

overboard!

 

An abundance of water, good, sweet, and cool, was found in the bed

of the mtoni in deep stony reservoirs. Here also the traces of

furious torrents were clearly visible as at Mabunguru.

 

The Nghwhalah commences in Ubanarama to the north—a country

famous for its fine breed of donkeys—and after running south,

south-south-west, crosses the Unyanyembe road, from which point

it has more of a westerly turn.

 

On the 16th we arrived at Madedita, so called from a village which

was, but is now no more. Madedita is twelve and a half miles from

the Nghwhalah Mtoni. A pool of good water a few hundred yards from

the roadside is the only supply caravans can obtain, nearer than

Tura in Unyamwezi. The tsetse or chufwa-fly, as called by the

Wasawahili, stung us dreadfully, which is a sign that large game

visit the pool sometimes, but must not be mistaken for an indication

that there is any in the immediate neighbourhood of the water.

A single pool so often frequented by passing caravans, which must

of necessity halt here, could not be often visited by the animals

of the forest, who are shy in this part of Africa of the haunts

of man.

 

At dawn the neat day we were on the road striding at a quicker

pace than on most days, since we were about to quit Magunda Mali

for the more populated and better land of Unyamwezi. The forest

held its own for a wearisomely long time, but at the end of two

hours it thinned, then dwarfed into low jungle, and finally

vanished altogether, and we had arrived on the soil of Unyamwezi,

with a broad plain, swelling, subsiding, and receding in lengthy

and grand undulations in our front to one indefinite horizontal

line which purpled in the far distance. The view consisted of

fields of grain ripening, which followed the contour of the plain,

and which rustled merrily before the morning breeze that came

laden with the chills of Usagara.

 

At 8 A.M. we had arrived at the frontier village of Unyamwezi,

Eastern Tura, which we invaded without any regard to the

disposition of the few inhabitants who lived there. Here we

found Nondo, a runaway of Speke’s, one of those who had sided

with Baraka against Bombay, who, desiring to engage himself with

me, was engaging enough to furnish honey and sherbet to his

former companions, and lastly to the pagazis. It was only a short

breathing pause we made here, having another hour’s march to reach

Central Tura.

 

The road from Eastern Tura led through vast fields of millet,

Indian corn, holcus sorghum, maweri, or panicum, or bajri, as

called by the Arabs; gardens of sweet potatoes, large tracts of

cucumbers, water-melons, mush-melons, and peanuts which grew in

the deep furrows between the ridges of the holcus.

 

Some broad-leafed plantain plants were also seen in the

neighbourhood of the villages, which as we advanced became very

numerous. The villages of the Wakimbu are like those of the

Wagogo, square, flat-roofed, enclosing an open area, which is

sometimes divided into three or four parts by fences or matama

stalks.

 

At central Tura, where we encamped, we had evidence enough of

the rascality of the Wakimbu of Tura. Hamed, who, despite his

efforts to reach Unyanyembe in time to sell his cloths before other

Arabs came with cloth supplies, was unable to compel his pagazis

to the double march every day, was also encamped at Central Tura,

together with the Arab servants who preferred Hamed’s imbecile

haste to Thani’s cautious advance. Our first night in Unyamwezi

was very exciting indeed. The Musungu’s camp was visited by two

crawling thieves, but they were soon made aware by the portentous

click of a trigger that the white man’s camp was well guarded.

 

Hamed’s camp was next visited; but here also the restlessness of

the owner frustrated their attempts, for he was pacing backwards

and forwards through his camp, with a loaded gun in his hand; and

the thieves were obliged to relinquish the chance of stealing any

of his bales. From Hamed’s they proceeded to Hassan’s camp (one

of the Arab servants), where they were successful enough to reach

and lay hold of a couple of bales; but, unfortunately, they made

a noise, which awoke the vigilant and quick-eared slave, who

snatched his loaded musket, and in a moment had shot one of them

through the heart. Such were our experiences of the Wakimbu of

Tura.

 

On the 18th the three caravans, Hamed’s, Hassan’s, and my own,

left Tura by a road which zig-zagged towards all points through

the tall matama fields. In an hour’s time we had passed Tura

Perro, or Western Tura, and had entered the forest again, whence

the Wakimbu of Tura obtain their honey, and where they excavate

deep traps for the elephants with which the forest is said to

abound. An hour’s march from Western Tura brought us to a ziwa,

or pond. There were two, situated in the midst of a small open

mbuga, or plain, which, even at this late season, was yet soft

from the water which overflows it during the rainy season.

After resting three hours, we started on the terekeza,

or afternoon march.

 

It was one and the same forest that we had entered soon after

leaving Western Tura, that we travelled through until we reached

the Kwala Mtoni, or, as Burton has misnamed it on his map, “Kwale.”

The water of this mtoni is contained in large ponds, or deep

depressions in the wide and crooked gully of Kwala. In these

ponds a species of mud-fish, was found, off one of which I made

a meal, by no means to be despised by one who had not tasted fish

since leaving Bagamoyo. Probably, if I had my choice, being, when

occasion demands it, rather fastidious in my tastes, I would not

select the mud-fish.

 

From Tura to the Kwala Mtoni is seventeen and a half miles,

a distance which, however easy it may be traversed once a

fortnight, assumes a prodigious length when one has to travel

it almost every other day, at least, so my pagazis, soldiers,

and followers found it, and their murmurs were very loud when

I ordered the signal to be sounded on the march. Abdul Kader,

the tailor who had attached himself to me, as a man ready-handed

at all things, from mending a pair of pants, making a delicate

entremets, or shooting an elephant, but whom the interior proved

to be the weakliest of the weakly, unfit for anything except

eating and drinking–almost succumbed on this march.

 

Long ago the little stock of goods which Abdul had brought from

Zanzibar folded in a pocket-handkerchief, and with which he was

about to buy ivory and slaves, and make his fortune in the famed

land of Unyamwezi, had disappeared with the great eminent hopes he

had built on them, like those of Alnaschar the unfortunate owner

of crockery in the Arabian tale. He came to me as we prepared for

the march, with a most dolorous tale about his approaching death,

which he felt in his bones, and weary back: his legs would barely

hold him up; in short, he had utterly collapsed—would I take

mercy on him, and let him depart? The cause of this extraordinary

request, so unlike the spirit with which he had left Zanzibar,

eager to possess the ivory and slaves of Unyamwezi, was that on

the last long march, two of my donkeys being dead, I had ordered

that the two saddles which they had carried should be Abdul Kader’s

load to Unyanyembe. The weight of the saddles was 16 lbs., as

the spring balance-scale indicated, yet Abdul Kader became

weary of life, as, he counted the long marches that intervened

between the mtoni and Unyanyembe. On the ground he fell prone,

to kiss my feet, begging me in the name of God to permit him to

depart.

 

As I had had some experience of Hindoos, Malabarese, and coolies

in Abyssinia, I knew exactly how to deal with a case like this.

Unhesitatingly I granted the