David Livingstone

“ We dare not pronounce positively on any event in life, but this looks like prompt retribution on the perpetrators of the horrible and senseless massacre of Nyañgwé. It was not vengeance by the relations of the murdered ones we saw shot and sunk in the Lualaba, for there is no communication between the people of Nyañgwé and the Bakuss or people of Nombé of Lomamé—that massacre turned my heart completely against Dugumbé's people. To go with them to Lomamé as my slaves were willing to do, was so repugnant I preferred to return that weary 400 or 600 miles to Ujiji. ”

“ Eight villages are in flames, set fire to by a slave of Syde bin Habib, called Manilla, who thus shows his blood friends of the Bagenya how well he can fight against the Mohombo, whose country the Bagenya want! The stragglers of this camp are over on the other side helping Manilla, and catching fugitives and goats. The Bagenya are fishermen by taste and profession, and sell the produce of their nets and weirs to those who cultivate the soil, at the different markets. Manilla's foray is for an alleged debt of three slaves, and ten villages are burned. ”

“ The various shaped leaves of the forest all around their village and near their nestlings are bespangled with myriads of dewdrops. The cocks crow vigorously, and strut and ogle; the kids gambol and leap on the backs of their dams quietly chewing the cud; other goats make believe fighting. Thrifty wives often bake their new clay pots in a fire, made by lighting a heap of grass roots: the next morning they extract salt from the ashes, and so two birds are killed with one stone. ”

“ I never heard of any fraud in dealing, or that they had been guilty of an outrage on the poorest: their chief characteristic is their courage. Their hunting is the bravest thing I ever saw. Each canoe is manned by two men; they are long light craft, scarcely half an inch in thickness, about eighteen inches beam, and from eighteen to twenty feet long. They are formed for speed, and shaped somewhat like our racing boats. Each man uses a broad short paddle, and as they guide the canoe slowly down stream to a sleeping hippopotamus not a single ripple is raised on the smooth water ”

“ I declined; because, no matter what charges I gave, my Banian slaves would be sure to shed human blood. We can go nowhere but the people of the country ask us to kill their fellow-men, nor can they be induced to go to villages three miles off, because there, in all probability, live the murderers of fathers, uncles, or grandfathers—a dreadful state truly. The traders are as bloodthirsty every whit as the Manyuema, where no danger exists, but in most cases where the people can fight they are as civil as possible. ”

“ Others went on, and bent down the grass, to insure some footing on the side of the elephants' path. Every ten or twelve paces brought us to a clear stream, flowing fast in its own channel, while over all a strong current came bodily through all the rushes and aquatic plants. Susi had the first spell, then Farijala, then a tall, stout, Arab-looking man, then Amoda, then Chanda, then Wadé Salé, and each time I was lifted off bodily, and put on another pair of stout willing shoulders, and fifty yards put them out of breath: no wonder! ”

“ My course has been an even one, turning neither to the right hand nor to the left, though my route has been tortuous enough. All the hardship, hunger, and toil were met with the full conviction that I was right in persevering to make a complete work of the exploration of the sources of the Nile. Mine has been a calm, hopeful endeavour to do the work that has been given me to do, whether I succeed or whether I fail. The prospect of death in pursuing what I knew to be right did not make me veer to one side or the other. ”

“ For we repeat that nothing but such leadership and staunchness as that which organized the march home from Ilala, and distinguished it throughout, could have brought Livingstone's bones to our land or his last notes and maps to the outer world. To none does the feat seem so marvellous as to those who know Africa and the difficulties which must have beset both the first and the last in the enterprise. ”

“ We got off from our miserably small islet of ten yards at 7 A.M., a grassy sea on all sides, with a few islets in the far distance. Four varieties of rushes around us, triangular and fluted, rise from eighteen inches to two feet above the water. The caterpillars seem to eat each other, and a web is made round others; the numerous spiders may have been the workmen of the nest. The wind on the rushes makes a sound like the waves of the sea. The flood extends out in slightly depressed arms of the Lake for twenty or thirty miles, and far too broad to be seen across ”

“ There is no political cohesion. The Ujijian slavery is an accursed system; but it must be admitted that the Manyuema, too, have faults, the result of ignorance of other people: their isolation has made them as unconscious of danger in dealing with the cruel stranger, as little dogs in the presence of lions. Their refusal to sell or lend canoes for fear of blame by each other will be ended by the party of Dugumbé, which has ten headmen, taking them by force; they are unreasonable and bloody-minded towards each other: every Manyuema would like every other headman slain ”

“ The fish feel their element becoming insufficient for comfort, and retire from one bouga to another towards the Lake; the narrower parts are duly prepared by weirs to take advantage of their necessities; the sun heat seems to oppress them and force them to flee. With the south-east aerial current comes heat and sultriness. A blanket is scarcely needed till the early hours of the morning, and here, after the turtle doves and cocks give out their warning calls to the watchful, the fish-eagle lifts up his remarkable voice. ”

“ Infancy gilds the fairy picture with its own lines, and it is probably never forgotten, for the young, taken up from slavers, and treated with all philanthropic missionary care and kindness, still revert to the period of infancy as the finest and fairest they have known. They would go back to freedom and enjoyment as fast as would our own sons of the soil, and be heedless to the charms of hard work and no play which we think so much better for them if not for us. ”

“ The Chungu made new quarters for themselves. When the white ants cast off their colony of winged emigrants a canopy is erected like an umbrella over the ant-hill. As soon as the ants fly against the roof they tumble down in a shower and their wings instantly become detached from their bodies. They are then helpless, and are swept up in baskets to be fried, when they make a very palatable food. ”

“ I count seventeen villages in flames, and the smoke goes straight up and forms clouds at the top of the pillar, showing great heat evolved, for the houses are full of carefully-prepared firewood. Dugumbé denies having sent Tagamoio on this foray, and Tagamoio repeats that he went to punish the friends made by Manilla, who, being a slave, had no right to make war and burn villages, that could only be done by free men. Manilla confesses to me privately that he did wrong in that, and loses all his beads and many friends in consequence. ”

“ The heathen philosophers were content with mere guesses at the future of the soul. The elder prophets were content with the Divine support in life and in death. The later prophets advance further, as Isaiah: "Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake, and sing, ye that dwell in the dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs. The earth also shall cast out her dead." ”

“ The sons of Moenékuss have but little of their father's power, but they try to behave to strangers as he did. All our people are in terror of the Manyéma, or Manyuema, man-eating fame: a woman's child had crept into a quiet corner of the hut to eat a banana—she could not find him, and at once concluded that the Manyuema had kidnapped him to eat him, and with a yell she ran through the camp and screamed at the top of her shrill voice, "Oh, the Manyuema have stolen my child to make meat of him! ”

“ The worst our enemies did, after trying to get up a war in vain, was to collect as we went by in force fully armed with their large spears and huge wooden shields, and show us out of their districts. All are kind except those who have been abused by the Arab slaves. While waiting at Luamo a man, whom we sent over to buy food, got into a panic and fled he knew not whither; all concluded that he had been murdered, but some Manyuema whom we had never seen found him, fed him, and brought him home unscathed: I was very glad that no collision had taken place. ”

“ When surrounded by 300 or 400, some who have not been accustomed to the ways of wild men think that a fight is imminent; but, poor things, no attack is thought of, if it does not begin on our side. Many of Mohamad's people were dreadfully afraid of being killed and eaten; one man out in search of ivory seemed to have lost sight of his companions, for they saw him running with all his might to a forest with no path in it; he was searched for for several days, and was given up as a murdered man, a victim of the cannibal Manyuema! ”

“ An acquaintance with these dark flowing rivers, and scores of rills of water tinged as dark as strong tea, was all my reward for plunging through the terrible Manyuema mud or "glaur."
26th December, 1872.—Along among the usual low tree-covered hills of red and yellow and green schists—paths wet and slippery. Came to the Lofubu, fifteen yards broad and very deep, water clear, flowing north-west to join Luéna or Kisaka, as the Lopopussi goes west too into Lofubu it becomes large as we saw. We crossed by a bridge, and the donkey swam with men on each side of him. ”

“ We must leave each heart to know its own bitterness, as the old explorer retraces his steps to the Tembé at Kwihara, there to hope and pray that good fortune may attend his companion of the last few months on his journey to the coast; whilst Stanley, duly impressed with the importance of that which he can reveal to the outer world, and laden with a responsibility which by this time can be fully comprehended, thrusts on through every difficulty. ”

“ Our path now lay through a river covered with tikatika, a living vegetable bridge made by a species of glossy leafed grass which felts itself into a mat capable of bearing a man's weight, but it bends in a foot or fifteen inches every step; a stick six feet long could not reach the bottom in certain holes we passed. The lotus, or sacred lily, which grows in nearly all the shallow waters of this country, sometimes spreads its broad leaves over the bridge so as to lead careless observers to think that it is the bridge builder, but the grass mentioned is the real agent. ”

“ The men here deny that cannibalism is common: they eat only those killed in war, and, it seems, in revenge, for, said Mokandira, "the meat is not nice; it makes one dream of the dead man." Some west of Lualaba eat even those bought for the purpose of a feast; but I am not quite positive on this point: all agree in saying that human flesh is saltish, and needs but little condiment. And yet they are a fine-looking race; I would back a company of Manyuema men to be far superior in shape of head and generally in physical form too against the whole Anthropological Society. ”

“ The men are very timid—no wonder, the Arab slaves do as they choose with them. The women burst out through, the stockade in terror when my men broke into a chorus as they were pitching my tent. Cold, cloudy, and drizzling. Much cultivation far from the stockades.
The sponges here are now full and overflowing, from the continuous and heavy rains. Crops of mileza, maize, cassava, dura, tobacco, beans, ground-nuts, are growing finely. A border is made round each patch, manured by burning the hedge, and castor-oil plants, pumpkins, calabashes, are planted in it to spread out over the grass. ”

“ Mologhwé, or chief Ndambo, came and mixed blood with the intensely bigoted Moslem, Hassani: this is to secure the nine canoes. He next went over to have more palaver about them, and they do not hesitate to play me false by detraction. The Manyuema, too, are untruthful, but very honest; we never lose an article by them: fowls and goats are untouched, and if a fowl is lost, we know that it has been stolen by an Arab slave. When with Mohamad Bogharib, we had all to keep our fowls at the Manyuema villages to prevent them being stolen by our own slaves, and it is so here. ”

“ Swifts in flocks were found on the Lake when we came to it, and there are small migrations of swallows ever since. Though this is the very hottest time of year, and all the plants are burnt off or quite dried, the flowers persist in bursting out of the hot dry surface, generally without leaves. A purple ginger, with two yellow patches inside, is very lovely to behold, and it is alternated with one of a bright canary yellow; many trees, too, put on their blossoms. The sun makes the soil so hot that the radiation is as if it came from a furnace. ”

“ The soko kills the leopard occasionally, by seizing both paws, and biting them so as to disable them, he then goes up a tree, groans over his wounds, and sometimes recovers, while the leopard dies: at other times, both soko and leopard die. The lion kills him at once, and sometimes tears his limbs off, but does not eat him. The soko eats no flesh—small bananas are his dainties, but not maize. His food consists of wild fruits, which abound: one, Staféné, or Manyuema Mamwa, is like large sweet sop but indifferent in taste and flesh. The soko brings forth at times twins. ”

“ Dillon now came on to Kasekéra suffering much from dysentery—a few hours more, and he shot himself in his tent by means of a loaded rifle.
Those who knew the brave and generous spirit in which this hard-working volunteer set out with Lieut. Cameron, fully hoping to relieve Dr. Livingstone, will feel that he ended his life by an act alien indeed to his whole nature. The malaria imbibed during their stay at Unyanyembé laid upon him the severest form of fever, accompanied by delirium, under which he at length succumbed in one of its violent paroxysms. His remains are interred at Kasekéra. ”