William Garden Blaikie

“ The slave-traders of Urungu and Itawa, where he had been, were gentlemen compared with those of Ujiji, who resembled the Kilwa and Portuguese, and with whom trading was simply a system of murder. Here lay the cause of Livingstone's unexampled difficulties at this period of his life; he was dependent on men who were not only knaves of the first magnitude, but who had a special animosity against him, and a special motive to deceive, rob, and obstruct him in every possible way. ”

“ Four good meals a day, instead of the spare and tasteless food of the country, made a wonderful change on the outer man; and in a few days Livingstone was himself again--hearty and happy and hopeful as before. ”

“ I would have waited there for men from Zanzibar, but the authority at Ujiji behaved so oddly about my letters, I fear they never went to the coast. The worthless slaves I have saw that I was at their mercy, for no Manyuema will go into the next district, and they behaved as low savages who have been made free alone can. Their eagerness to enslave and kill their own countrymen is distressing.... ”

“ Women never partook of human flesh. Eating sokos or gorillas must have been a step in the process of teaching them to eat men. The sight of a soko nauseates me. He is so hideously ugly, I can conceive no other use for him than sitting for a portrait of Satan. I have lost many months by rains, refusal of my attendants to go into a canoe, and irritable eating ulcers on my feet from wading in mud instead of sailing. They are frightfully common, and often kill slaves. I am recovering, and hope to go down Lualaba, which I would call Webb River or Lake ”

“ On the 21st September he arrived at Bambarré, in Manyuema, the village of the Chief Moenékuss. He found the people in a state of great isolation from the rest of the world, with nothing to trust to but charms and idols,--both being bits of wood. He made the acquaintance of the soko or gorilla, not a very social animal, for it always tries to bite off the ends of its captor's fingers and toes. ”

“ The vast volume of water draining away to the north made me conjecture that I had been working at the sources of the Congo too. My present trip to Manyuema proves that all goes to the river of Egypt. In fact, the head-waters of the Nile are gathered into two or three arms, very much as was depicted by Ptolemy in the second century of our era. What we moderns can claim is rediscovery of what had fallen into oblivion, like the circumnavigation of Africa by the Phoenican admiral of one of the Pharaohs, B.C. 600. ”

“ The world never saw such fiendishness as that with which the Southern slaveocracy clung to slavery. No power in this world or the next would ever make them relax their iron grasp. The lie had entered into their soul. ”

“ Climbers of cable size in great numbers are hung among the gigantic trees; many unknown wild fruits abound, some the size of a child's head, and strange birds and monkeys are everywhere. The soil is excessively rich, and the people, though isolated by old feuds that are never settled, cultivate largely."
The country was very populous, and Livingstone so excited the curiosity of the people that he could hardly get quit of the crowds. ”

“ He is by no means unaware that death may be in the cup. But, fortified as he was by an unalterable conviction that he was in the line of duty, the thought of death had no influence to turn him either to the right hand or to the left. ”

“ The curiosity of the people was very great, and sometimes it took an interesting direction. "Do people die with you?" asked two intelligent young men. "Have you no charm against death? Where do people go after death?" Livingstone spoke to them of the great Father, and of their prayers to Him who hears the cry of his children; and they thought this to be natural.
He rested at Bambarré till the 1st of November, and then went westward till he reached the Luamo River, and was within ten miles of its confluence with the Lualaba. ”

“ On the 29th March Livingstone arrived at Nyangwe, on the banks of the Lualaba. This was the farthest point westward that he reached in his last Expedition.
The slave-trade here he finds to be as horrible as in any other part of Africa. He is heart-sore for human blood He is threatened, bullied, and almost attacked. In some places, however, the rumor spreads that he makes no slaves, and he is called "the good one." His men are a ceaseless trouble, and for ever mutinying, or otherwise harassing him. ”

“ It was not so uninteresting to be stared at by the women, but he was wearied with the ugliness of the men. Palm-toddy did not inspire them with any social qualities, but made them low and disagreeable. They had no friendly feeling for him, and could not be inspired with any. They thought that he and his people were like the Arab traders, and they would not do anything for them. It was impossible to procure a canoe for navigating the Lualaba, so that there was nothing for it but to return to Bambarré, which was reached on the 19th December, 1869. ”

“ At last, on the 23d October, reduced to a living skeleton, he reached Ujiji. What was his misery, instead of finding the abundance of goods he had expected, to learn that the wretch Shereef, to whom they had been consigned, had sold off the whole, not leaving one yard of calico out of 3000, or one string of beads out of 700 pounds! The scoundrel had divined on the Koran, found that Livingstone was dead, and would need the goods no more. Livingstone had intended, if he could not get men at Ujiji to go with him to the Lualaba, to wait there till suitable men should be sent up from the coast ”

“ It is to have something in readiness when the hurry usual in preparing a mail does arrive. I am in the Manyuema Country, about 150 miles west of Ujiji, and at the town of Moenekoos or Moenékuss, a principal chief among the reputed cannibals. His name means 'Lord of the light-gray parrot with a red tail,' which abounds here, and he points away still further west to the country of the real cannibals. His people laugh, and say, 'Yes, we eat the flesh of men,' and should they see the inquirer to be credulous, enter into particulars. ”

“ It was apparent that they had been instructed by their Banian masters to baffle him in every way, so that their slave-trading should not be injured by his disclosures. Their two head-men, Shereef and Awathe, had refused to come farther than Ujiji, and were reveling in his goods there. Dr. Livingstone never ceased to lament and deplore that the men who had been sent to him were so utterly unsuitable. One of them actually formed a plot for his destruction, which was only frustrated through his being overheard by one whom Livingstone could trust. ”

“ How true its testimony against man, who will not retain God in his knowledge, but, leaving Him, becomes vain in his imaginations and hard in his heart, till the bloom of Eden is gone, and a waste, howling wilderness spreads around! ”

“ Another letter to Agnes from Manyuema gives a curious account of the young soko or gorilla a chief had lately presented to him:
"She sits crouching eighteen inches high, and is the most intelligent and least mischievous of all the monkeys I have seen. She holds out her hand to be lifted and carried, and if refused makes her face as in a bitter human weeping, and wrings her hands quite humanly, sometimes adding a foot or third hand to make the appeal more touching.... ”

“ Instead of being made a nation, they made a nation of the North. War has elevated and purified the Yankees, and now they have the gigantic task laid at their doors to elevate and purify 4,000,000 of slaves. ”

“ So the lonely man in his dull hut is riveted to the well-worn book; ever finding it a greater treasure as he goes along; and fain, when he has reached its last page, to turn back to the beginning, and gather up more of the riches which he has left upon the road. ”

“ Owen appears to have been convinced by Livingstone's reasoning and observations, that the Nile sources were in the Bangweolo watershed--a supposition now ascertained to have been erroneous. But what chiefly attracted and delighted the great naturalist was the many interesting notices of plants and animals scattered over the _Last Journals_. These Journals contain important contributions both to economic and physiological botany. In the former department, Livingstone makes valuable observations on plants useful in the arts, such as gum-copal, papyrus, cotton, india-rubber, and the palm-oil tree ”

“ I may here add that the Manyuema stole the bodies of slaves which were buried, till a threat was used. They said the hyenas had exhumed the dead, but a slave was cast out by Banyamwezi, and neither hyenas nor men touched it for seven days. The threat was effectual. I think that they are cannibals, but not ostentatiously so. The disgust expressed by native traders has made them ashamed. ”

“ As ivory-trading is here like gold-digging, I felt constrained to offer a handsome sum of money and goods to my friend Mohamad Bogharib for men. It was better to do this than go back to Ujiji, and then come over the whole 260 miles. ”

“ But our golden age is not in the past. It is in the future--in the good time coming yet for Africa and for the world. "The task I undertook was to examine the watershed of South Central Africa. This was the way Sir Roderick put it, and though he mentioned it as the wish of the Geographical Council, I suspect it was his own idea; for two members of the Society wrote out 'instructions' for me, and the watershed was not mentioned. ”

“ I earnestly hope that the Northerners may not be found wanting in their portion of the superhuman work. The day for Africa is yet to come. Possibly the freed men may be an agency in elevating their fatherland. ”

“ The country abounds in food,--goats, sheep, fowls, buffaloes, and elephants: maize, holcuserghum, cassaba, sweet potatoes, and other farinaceous eatables, and with ground-nuts, palm-oil, palms, and other fat-yielding nuts, bananas, plantains, sugar-cane in great plenty. ”

“ He found fish that made long excursions on land, thanks to the wet grass through which they would wander for miles, thus proving that "a fish out of water" is not always the best symbol for a man out of his element. ”

“ The tusks were left in the terrible forests, where the animals were killed; the people, if treated civilly, readily go and bring the precious teeth, some half rotten, or gnawed by the teeth of a rodent called dezi. ”

“ Most of his people failed him; but nothing daunted, he set off then with only three attendants, Susi, Chuma, and Gardner, to the northwest for the Lualaba. Whenever he comes among Arab traders he finds himself suspected and hated because he is known to condemn their evil deeds.
The difficulties by the way were terrible. Fallen trees and flooded rivers made marching a perpetual struggle. For the first time, Livingstone's feet failed him. ”

“ Heathen Africans are much superior to the Mohammedans, who are the most worthless one can have." Toward the end of 1870, before the date of this letter, he had so far recovered that, though feeling the want of medicine as much as of men, he thought of setting out, in order to reach and explore the Lualaba, having made a bargain with Mohamad, for £270, to bring him to his destination. But now he heard that Syde bin Habib, Dugumbé, and others were on the way from Ujiji, perhaps bringing letters and medicines for him. He cannot move till they arrive ”

“ To avoid darkness or being half-smothered, I often eat in public, draw a line on the ground, then 'toe the line,' and keep them out of the circle. To see me eating with knife, fork, and spoon is wonderful. ”

“ He gives his theory of the rivers, enlarges on the fertility of the country, bewails his difficulty in getting men, as the Manyuema never go beyond their own country, and the traders, who have only begun to come there, are too busy collecting ivory to be able to spare men. ”

“ We great he-beasts say, 'Exploration was not becoming her sex.' Well, considering that at least 1600 years have elapsed since Ptolemy's informants reached this region, and kings, emperors, and all the great men of antiquity longed in vain to know the fountains, exploration does not seem to have become the other sex either. ”

“ It was the skull of a gorilla, here called 'soko,' and this they do eat. They put a bunch of bananas in his way, and hide till he comes to take them, and spear him. Many of the Arabs believe firmly in the cannibal propensity of the Manyuema. Others who have lived long among them, and are themselves three-fourths African blood, deny it. ”

“ The Bagenya women are expert in the water, as they are accustomed to dive for oysters, and those who went down stream may have escaped, but the Arabs themselves estimated the loss of life at between 330 and 400 souls. ”

“ He went on through the forest, expecting every minute to be attacked, having no fear, but perfectly indifferent whether he should be killed or not. He lost all his remaining calico that day, a telescope, umbrella, and five spears. By and Thy he was prostrated with grievous illness. ”

“ They could raise wheat, pumpkins, maize, at very small expense, and their gardens yielded besides apples, pears, apricots, peaches, quinces, oranges, grapes, almonds, walnuts, and all vegetables, for little more than the trouble of watering. ”