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

>away towards the north; while we filed off to the south, with

quicker and more elastic steps, as if we felt an incubus had

been taken from us.

 

We ascended a ridge bristling with syenite boulders of massive

size, appearing above a forest of dwarf trees. The view which we

saw was similar to that we had often seen elsewhere. An

illimitable forest stretching in grand waves far beyond the ken of

vision—ridges, forest-clad, rising gently one above another until

they receded in the dim purple-blue distance —with a warm haze

floating above them, which, though clear enough in our

neighbourhood, became impenetrably blue in the far distance.

Woods, woods, woods, leafy branches, foliage globes, or

parachutes, green, brown, or sere in colour, forests one above

another, rising, falling, and receding—a very leafy ocean. The

horizon, at all points, presents the same view, there may be an

indistinct outline of a hill far away, or here and there a tall

tree higher than the rest conspicuous in its outlines against the

translucent sky—with this exception it is the same—the same clear

sky dropping into the depths of the forest, the same outlines, the

same forest, the same horizon, day after day, week after week; we

hurry to the summit of a ridge, expectant of a change, but the

wearied eyes, after wandering over the vast expanse, return to the

immediate surroundings, satiated with the eversameness of such

scenes. Carlyle, somewhere in his writings, says, that though the

Vatican is great, it is but the chip of an eggshell compared to the

star-fretted dome where Arcturus and Orion glance for ever; and I

say that, though the grove of Central Park, New York, is grand

compared to the thin groves seen in other great cities, that though

the Windsor and the New Forests may be very fine and noble in

England, yet they are but fagots of sticks compared to these

eternal forests of Unyamwezi.

 

We marched three hours, and then halted for refreshments. I

perceived that the people were very tired, not yet inured to a

series of long marches, or rather, not in proper trim for earnest,

hard work after our long rest in Kwihara. When we resumed our

march again there were several manifestations of bad temper and

weariness. But a few good-natured remarks about their laziness

put them on their mettle, and we reached Ugunda at 2 P.M. after

another four hours’ spurt.

 

Ugunda is a very large village in the district of Ugunda, which

adjoins the southern frontier of Unyanyembe. The village probably

numbers four hundred families, or two thousand souls. It is well

protected by a tall and strong palisade of three-inch timber.

Stages have been erected at intervals above the palisades with

miniature embrasures in the timber, for the muskets of the

sharpshooters, who take refuge within these box-like stages to

pick out the chiefs of an attacking force. An inner ditch, with

the sand or soil thrown up three or four feet high against the

palings, serves as protection for the main body of the defenders,

who kneel in the ditch, and are thus enabled to withstand a very

large force. For a mile or two outside the village all obstructions

are cleared, and the besieged are thus warned by sharp-eyed watchers

to be prepared for the defence before the enemy approaches within

musket range. Mirambo withdrew his force of robbers from before

this strongly-defended village after two or three ineffectual attempts

to storm it, and the Wagunda have been congratulating themselves

ever since, upon having driven away the boldest marauder that

Unyamwezi has seen for generations.

 

The Wagunda have about three thousand acres under cultivation

around their principal village, and this area suffices to produce

sufficient grain not only for their own consumption, but also for

the many caravans which pass by this way for Ufipa and Marungu.

 

However brave the Wagunda may be within the strong enclosure with

which they have surrounded their principal village, they are not

exempt from the feeling of insecurity which fills the soul of a

Mnyamwezi during war-time. At this place the caravans are

accustomed to recruit their numbers from the swarms of pagazis who

volunteer to accompany them to the distant ivory regions south;

but I could not induce a soul to follow me, so great was their

fear of Mirambo and his Ruga-Raga. They were also full of rumors

of wars ahead. It was asserted that Mbogo was advancing towards

Ugunda with a thousand Wakonongo, that the Wazavira had attacked a

caravan four months previously, that Simba was scouring the country

with a band of ferocious mercenaries, and much more of the same

nature and to the same intent.

 

On the 28th we arrived at a small snug village embosomed within the

forest called Benta, three hours and a quarter from Ugunda. The

road led through the cornfields of the Wagunda, and then entered

the clearings around the villages of Kisari, within one of which we

found the proprietor of a caravan who was drumming up carriers for

Ufipa. He had been halted here two months, and he made strenuous

exertions to induce my men to join his caravan, a proceeding that

did not tend to promote harmony between us. A few days afterwards

I found, on my return, that he had given up the idea of proceeding

south. Leaving Kisari, we marched through a thin jungle of black

jack, over sun-cracked ground with here and there a dried-up pool,

the bottom of which was well tramped by elephant and rhinoceros.

Buffalo and zebra tracks were now frequent, and we were buoyed up

with the hope that before long we should meet game.

 

Benta was well supplied with Indian corn and a grain which the

natives called choroko, which I take to be vetches. I purchased

a large supply of choroko for my own personal use, as I found it

to be a most healthy food. The corn was stored on the flat roofs

of the tembes in huge boxes made out of the bark of the mtundu-tree.

The largest box I have ever seen in Africa was seen here. It might

be taken for a Titan’s hat-box; it was seven feet in diameter, and

ten feet in height.

 

On the 29th, after travelling in a S.W. by S. direction, we

reached Kikuru. The march lasted for five hours over sun-cracked

plains, growing the black jack, and ebony, and dwarf shrubs, above

which numerous anthills of light chalky-coloured earth appeared

like sand dunes.

 

The mukunguru, a Kisawahili term for fever, is frequent in this

region of extensive forests and flat plains, owing to the imperfect

drainage provided by nature for them. In the dry season there

is nothing very offensive in the view of the country. The burnt

grass gives rather a sombre aspect to the country, covered with

the hard-baked tracks of animals which haunt these plains during

the latter part of the rainy season. In the forest numbers of

trees lie about in the last stages of decay, and working

away with might and main on the prostrate trunks may be seen

numberless insects of various species. Impalpably, however, the

poison of the dead and decaying vegetation is inhaled into the

system with a result sometimes as fatal as that which is said to

arise from the vicinity of the Upas-tree.

 

The first evil results experienced from the presence of malaria are

confined bowels and an oppressive languor, excessive drowsiness,

and a constant disposition to yawn. The tongue assumes a

yellowish, sickly hue, coloured almost to blackness; even the

teeth become yellow, and are coated with an offensive matter.

The eyes of the patient sparkle lustrously, and become suffused

with water. These are sure symptoms of the incipient fever which

shortly will rage through the system.

 

Sometimes this fever is preceded by a violent shaking fit, during

which period blankets may be heaped on the patient’s form, with

but little amelioration of the deadly chill he feels. It is then

succeeded by an unusuall/y/ severe headache, with excessive pains

about the loins and spinal column, which presently will spread

over the shoulder-blades, and, running up the neck, find a final

lodgment in the back and front of the head. Usually, however, the

fever is not preceded by a chill, but after languor and torpitude

have seized him, with excessive heat and throbbing temples, the

loin and spinal column ache, and raging thirst soon possesses him.

The brain becomes crowded with strange fancies, which sometimes

assume most hideous shapes. Before the darkened vision of the

suffering man, float in a seething atmosphere, figures of created

and uncreated reptiles, which are metamorphosed every instant into

stranger shapes and designs, growing every moment more confused,

more complicated, more hideous and terrible. Unable to bear longer

the distracting scene, he makes an effort and opens, his eyes,

and dissolves the delirious dream, only, however, to glide again

unconsciously into another dream-land where another unreal inferno

is dioramically revealed, and new agonies suffered. Oh! the many

many hours, that I have groaned under the terrible incubi which

the fits of real delirium evoke. Oh! the racking anguish of body

that a traveller in Africa must undergo! Oh! the spite, the

fretfulness, the vexation which the horrible phantasmagoria of

diabolisms induce! The utmost patience fails to appease, the most

industrious attendance fails to gratify, the deepest humility

displeases. During these terrible transitions, which induce

fierce distraction, Job himself would become irritable, insanely

furious, and choleric. A man in such a state regards himself as

the focus of all miseries. When recovered, he feels chastened,

becomes urbane and ludicrously amiable, he conjures up fictitious

delights from all things which, but yesterday, possessed for him

such awful portentous aspects. His men he regards with love and

friendship; whatever is trite he views with ecstasy. Nature appears

charming; in the dead woods and monotonous forest his mind becomes

overwhelmed with delight. I speak for myself, as a careful

analysation of the attack, in all its severe, plaintive, and silly

phases, appeared to me. I used to amuse myself with taking notes

of the humorous and the terrible, the fantastic and exaggerated

pictures that were presented to me—even while suffering the

paroxysms induced by fever.

 

We arrived at a large pool, known as the Ziwani, after a four

hours’ march in a S.S.W. direction, the 1st of October. We

discovered an old half-burnt khambi, sheltered by a magnificent

mkuyu (sycamore), the giant of the forests of Unyamwezi, which

after an hour we transformed into a splendid camp.

 

If I recollect rightly, the stem of the tree measured thirty-eight

feet in circumference. It is the finest tree of its kind I have

seen in Africa. A regiment might with perfect ease have reposed

under this enormous dome of foliage during a noon halt. The

diameter of the shadow it cast on the ground was one hundred and

twenty feet. The healthful vigor that I was enjoying about this

time enabled me to regard my surroundings admiringly. A feeling

of comfort and perfect contentment took possession of me, such as

I knew not while fretting at Unyanyembe, wearing my life away in

inactivity. I talked with my people as to my friends and equals.

We argued with each other about our prospects in quite a

companionable, sociable vein.

 

When daylight was dying, and the sun was sinking down rapidly over

the western horizon, vividly painting the sky with the colours of

gold and silver, saffron, and opal, when its rays and gorgeous

tints were reflected upon the tops of the everlasting forest, with

the quiet and holy calm of heaven resting upon all around, and

infusing even into the untutored minds of those about me the

exquisite enjoyments of such a life as we were now leading in the

depths of a great expanse of forest, the only and sole