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