We have seen how suddenly Mr. Stanley was called from Spain, to take charge of an expedition in search of Livingstone, how he was sent to see Baker who was about to enter Africa from the north, and how he was first sent east. But the time came at last for him to enter upon his work in earnest, and he sailed from Bombay, on the 12th of October, for Zanzibar. On board the barque was a Scotchman, named Farquhar, acting as first mate. Taking a fancy to him, Stanley engaged him to accompany the expedition to find Livingstone.
Nearly three months later, on the 6th of January, he landed at Zanzibar, one of the most fruitful islands of the Indian Ocean, rejoicing in a sultan of its own. It is the great mart to which come the ivory, gum, copal, hides, etc., and the slaves of the interior. Stanley immediately set about preparing for his expedition. The first things to decide were: How much money is required? How many pigeons as carriers? How many soldiers? How much cloth? How many beads? How much wire? What kinds of cloth is required for the different tribes?
After trying to figure this out from the books of other travelers, he decided to consult an Arab merchant who had fitted out several caravans for the interior. In a very short time he obtained more information than he had acquired from books in his long three months' voyage from India.
Money is of no use in the heart of Africa. Goods of various kinds are the only coin that can purchase what the traveler needs, or pay the tribute that is exacted by the various tribes. He found that forty yards of cloth per day would keep one hundred men supplied with food. Thus, three thousand six hundred and fifty yards of cloth would support one hundred men twelve months. Next to cloths, beads were the best currency of the interior. Of these he purchased twenty sacks of eleven varieties in color and shape. Next came the brass wire, of which he purchased three hundred and fifty pounds, of about the thickness of telegraph wire. Next came the provisions and outfit of implements that would be needed—medicines, arms, donkeys, and last of all, men.
ZANZIBAR
ZANZIBAR.
The capital of the island of Zanzibar, off the east coast of Africa.
A man by the name of Shaw, a native of England, who came to Zanzibar as third mate of an American ship, from which he was discharged, applied for work, and was engaged by Stanley in getting what he needed together and to accompany him on the expedition. He agreed to give him three hundred dollars per annum, and placed him next in rank to Farquhar. He then cast aboutfor an escort of twenty men. Five who had accompanied Speke, and were called "Speke's Faithfuls," among whom, as a leader, was a man named Bombay, were first engaged. He soon got together eighteen more men as soldiers, who were to receive three dollars a month. Each was to have a flint-lock musket, and be provided with two hundred rounds of ammunition. Bombay was to receive eighty dollars a year, and the other "faithfuls" forty dollars.
Knowing that he was to enter a region of vast inland lakes, and that much delay and travel might be avoided by the possession of a large boat, he purchased one and stripped it of all its covering, to make the transportation easier. He also had a cart constructed to fit the goat-paths of the interior and to aid in transportation.
When all his purchases were completed and collected together, he found that the combined weight would be about six tons. His cart and twenty donkeys would not suffice for this, and so the last thing of all, was to procure carriers, or pagosi, as they were called. He himself was presented with a blooded bay horse by an American merchant at Zanzibar, named Gordhue, formerly of Salem.
On the 4th of February, 1871, twenty-eight days from his arrival at Zanzibar, Mr. Stanley's equipment was completed and he set sail for Bagomayo, twenty-five miles distant on the mainland,from which all caravans start for the interior, and where he was to hire his one hundred and forty or more pagosi or carriers. He was immediately surrounded with men who attempted in every way to fleece him, and he was harassed, and betrayed and hindered on every side. But, at length, all difficulties were overcome—the goods packed in bales weighing seventy-two pounds each—the force divided into five caravans, and in six weeks after he entered Bagomayo, Stanley himself was ready to start. The first caravan had departed February 18th; the second, February 21st; the third, February 25th; the fourth, on March 11th, and the last on March 21st. All told, the number comprised in all the caravans of the "Herald Expedition," was one hundred and ninety.
It was just seventy-three days after Stanley landed at Zanzibar, that he passed out of Bagomayo on his bay horse, with his last caravan, accompanied by twenty-eight carriers and twelve soldiers, under Bombay, while his Arab boy, Selim, the interpreter, had charge of the cart and its load.
Out through a narrow lane shaded by trees, they passed, the American flag flying in front, and all in the highest spirits. Stanley had left behind him the quarreling, cheating Arabs, and all his troubles with them. The sun, speeding to the west, was beckoning him on; his heart beat high with hope and ambition; he had taken a new departure in life, and with success would come the renown heso ardently desired. He says, "loveliness glowed around me; I saw fertile fields, rich vegetation, strange trees; I heard the cry of cricket and pewit, and jubilant sounds of many insects, all of which seemed to tell me, 'you are started.' What could I do but lift up my face toward the pure, glowing sky, and cry, 'God be thanked?'"
The first camp was three miles and a half distant. The next three days were employed in completing the preparations for the long land journey and for meeting the rainy season, now very near, and on April 4th, a start was made for Unyanyembe, the great half-way house, which he resolved to reach in three months.
The road was a mere foot-path, leading through fields in which naked women were at work, who looked up and laughed and giggled as they passed. Passing on, they entered an open forest, abounding in deer and antelope. Reaching the turbid Kingemi, a bridge of felled trees was soon made; Stanley, in the meantime amusing himself with shooting hippopotami, or rather shooting at them, for his small bullets made no more impression on their thick skulls than peas would have done. Crossing to the opposite shore, he found the traveling better. They arrived at Kikoka, a distance of but ten miles, at 5 o'clock in the afternoon, having been compelled to unload the animals during the day, to cross the river and mud pools. This was slow marching, and at this rate of speedit would take a long time to reach the heart of Africa. The settlement was a collection of rude huts. Though bound to the same point that Speke and Burton had reached, Ujiji, Stanley took a different route from them, and one never traveled by a white man before.
On the 27th, he left this place and moved westward over a rolling, monotonous country, until they came to Rosako, the province of Ukwee. Just before his departure the next morning, Magonga, the leader of the fourth caravan, came up and told him that three of his carriers were sick, and asked for some medicine. He found the three men in great terror, believing they were about to die, and crying out like children, "Mama, mama." Leaving them, with orders to hurry on as soon as possible, he departed. The country everywhere was in a state of nature except in the neighborhood of villages. Sheltered by the dense forests, he toiled on but was so anxious about the fourth caravan left behind that, after marching nine miles he ordered a halt and made a camp. It soon swarmed with insects, and he set to work to examine them and see if they were the tsetsé, said to be fatal to horses in Africa. Still waiting for the caravan, he went hunting, but soon found himself in such an impenetrable jungle and swamp, filled with alligators, that he resolved never to make the attempt again. The second and third days passing without the arrival of the caravan, he sent Shaw and Bombayback after it, who brought it up on the fourth day. Leaving it to rest in his own camp, he pushed on five miles to the village of Kingaru, set in a deep, damp, pestiferous-looking hollow, surrounded by pools of water. To add to the gloominess of the scene, a pouring rain set in, which soon filled their camping-place with lakelets and rivulets of water. Toward evening the rain ceased, and the villagers began to pour in with their vendibles. Foremost was the chief, bringing with him three measures of matama and a half a measure of rice, which he begged Stanley to accept. The latter saw through the trickery of this meagre present, in offering which the chief called him the "rich sultan." Stanley asked him why, if he was a rich sultan, the chief of Kingaru did not bring him a rich present, that he might give him a rich one in return. "Ah," replied the blear-eyed old fox, "Kingaru is poor, there is no matama in the village." "Well," said Stanley, "if there is no matama in the village, I can give but a yard of cloth," which would be equivalent to his present. Foiled in his sharp practice the chief had to be content with this.
At this place he lost one of his horses. The burial of the carcass not far from the encampment, raised a terrible commotion in the village, and the inhabitants assembled in consultation as to how much they must charge him for burying a horse in their village without permission, and soon the wrinkled old chief was also at the camp, and thefollowing dialogue took place, which is given as an illustration of the character of the people with whom he was to have a year's trading intercourse:
White Man—"Are you the great chief of Kingaru?"
Kingaru—"Huh-uh—yes."
W. M.—"The great, great chief?"
Kingaru—"Huh-uh—yes."
W. M.—"How many soldiers have you?"
Kingaru—"Why?"
W. M.—"How many fighting men have you?"
Kingaru—"None."
W. M.—"Oh! I thought you might have a thousand men with you, by your going to fine a strong white man who has plenty of guns and soldiers two doti for burying a dead horse."
Kingaru (rather perplexed)—"No; I have no soldiers. I have only a few young men."
W. M.—"Why do you come and make trouble, then?"
Kingaru—"It was not I; it was my brothers who said to me, 'Come here, come here, Kingaru, see what the white man has done! Has he not taken possession of your soil, in that he has put his horse into your ground without your permission? Come, go to him and see by what right!' Therefore have I come to ask you who gave you permission to use my soil for a burying-ground?"
W. M.—"I want no man's permission to dowhat is right. My horse died; had I left him to fester and stink in your valley, sickness would visit your village, your water would become unwholesome, and caravans would not stop here for trade; for they would say, 'This is an unlucky spot, let us go away.' But enough said; I understand you to say you do not want him buried in your ground; the error I have fallen into is easily put right. This minute my soldiers shall dig him out again and cover up the soil as it was before, and the horse shall be left where he died." (Then shouting to Bombay). "Ho, Bombay, take soldiers with jeinbes to dig my horse out of the ground; drag him to where he died and make everything ready for a march to-morrow morning."
Kingaru, his voice considerably higher and his head moving to and fro with emotion, cries out, "Akuna, akuna, Bana"—no, no, master. "Let not the white man get angry. The horse is dead and now lies buried; let him remain so, since he is already there, and let us be friends again."
The matter had hardly been settled, when Stanley heard deep groans issuing from one of the animals. On inquiry, he found that they came from the bay horse. He took a lantern and visited him, staying all night and working to save his life. It was in vain—in the morning he died, leaving him now without any horse, which reduced him to donkey riding. Three days passed, andthe lagging caravan had not come up. In the meantime, one of his carriers deserted, while sickness attacked the camp, and out of his twenty-five men, ten were soon on the sick list. On the 4th, the caravan came up, and on the following morning was dispatched forward, the leader being spurred on with the promise of a liberal reward if he hurried to Unyanyembe. The next morning, to rouse his people, he beat an alarm on a tin pan, and before sunrise they were on the march, the villagers rushing like wolves into the deserted camp to pick up any rags or refuse left behind. The march of fifteen miles to Imbike showed a great demoralization in his men, many of them not coming up till nightfall. One of the carriers had deserted on the way, taking with him a quantity of cloth and beads. The next morning, before starting, men were sent in pursuit of him. They made that day, the 8th, but ten miles to Msuwa. Though the journey was short, it was the most fatiguing one of all. As it gives a vivid description of the difficulties experienced in traveling through this country, we quote Stanley's own language:
"It was one continuous jungle, except three interjacent glades of narrow limits, which gave us three breathing pauses in the dire task of jungle-traveling. The odor emitted from its fell plants was so rank, so pungently acrid, and the miasma from its decayed vegetation so dense, that Iexpected every moment to see myself and men fall down in paroxysms of acute fever. Happily this evil was not added to that of loading and unloading the frequently falling packs. Seven soldiers to attend seventeen laden donkeys, were entirely too small a number while passing through a jungle; for while the path is but a foot wide, with a wall of thorny plants and creepers bristling on each side, and projecting branches darting across it, with knots of spiky twigs, stiff as spike-nails, ready to catch and hold anything above four feet in height, it is but reasonable to suppose that donkeys, standing four feet high, with loads measuring across, from bale to bale, four feet, would come to grief.
"This grief was of frequent recurrence here, causing us to pause every few minutes for re-arrangements. So often had this task to be performed, that the men got perfectly discouraged, and had to be spoken to sharply before they would set to work. By the time I reached Msuwa, there was nobody with me and the ten donkeys I drove but Mabruk, who perseveringly, though generally stolid, stood to his work like a man. Bombay and Uledi were far behind with the most jaded donkeys. Shaw was in charge of the cart, and his experiences were most bitter, as he informed me he had expended the whole vocabulary of stormy abuse known to sailors, and a new one which he had inventedex tempore. He did notarrive until two o'clock next morning, and was completely worn out. Truly, I doubt if the most pious divine, in traveling through that long jungle, under those circumstances, with such oft-recurring annoyances, Sisyphean labor, could have avoided cursing his folly for coming hither."
A halt was made here, that men and animals might recuperate. The chief of this village was "a white man in everything but color," and brought him the choicest mutton. He and his subjects were intelligent enough to comprehend the utility of his breech-loading guns, and by their gestures illustrated their comprehension of the deadly effects of those weapons in battle.
On the 10th, somewhat recuperated, the caravan left this hospitable village and crossed a beautiful little plain, with a few cultivated fields, from which the tillers stared in wonder at the unwonted spectacle it presented. But here Stanley met one of those sights common in that part of the world, but which, it is to be hoped, will soon be seen no more. It was a chained slave-gang, bound east. He says the slaves did not appear to be in the least down-hearted, on the contrary, they were jolly and gay. But for the chains, there was no difference between master and slave. The chains were heavy, but as men and women had nothing else to carry, being entirely naked, their weight, he says, could not have been insupportable.
He camped at 10A. M., and fired two guns, toshow they were ready to trade with any of the natives in the region. The halting-place was Kisemo, only twelve miles from Msuwa which was the centre of a populous district, there being no less than five villages in the vicinity fortified by stakes and thorny abattis, as formidable, in their way, as the old fosse and draw-bridge of feudal times. "The belles of Kisemo," he says, "are of gigantic posterioral proportions," and are "noted for their variety in brass wire, which is wound in spiral rings round their wrists and ankles, and for the varieties of style which their wisped heads exhibit; while their poor lords, obliged to be contented with dingy, torn clouts and split ears, show what wide sway Asmodeus holds over this terrestrial sphere—for it must have been an unhappy time when the hard besieged husbands gave way before their hotly-pressing spouses. Besides these brassy ornaments on their extremities, the women of Kisemo frequently wear lengthy necklaces, which run in rivers of colors down their black bodies." But a more comical picture is seldom presented than that of one of those highly-dressed females, "with their huge posterior development, while grinding out corn. This is done in a machine very much like an old-fashioned churn, except the dasher becomes a pestle and the churn a mortar. Swaying with the pestle, as it rises and falls, the breast and posteriors correspond to the strokes of the dasher in a droll sort of sing-song,which gave to the whole exhibition the drollest effect imaginable."
A curious superstition of the natives was brought to light here by Shaw removing a stone while putting up his tent. As he did so, the chief rushed forward, and putting it back in its place, solemnly stood upon it. On being asked what was the matter, he carefully lifted it, pointed to an insect pinned by a stick to the ground, which he said had been the cause of a miscarriage of a female of the village.
In the afternoon the messengers came back with the deserter and all the stolen goods. Some of the natives had captured him and were about to kill him and take the goods, when the messengers came up and claimed both. He was given up, his captors being content with receiving a little cloth and a few beads in return. Stanley, with great sagacity, caused the thief to be tried by the other carriers, who condemned him to be flogged. They were ordered to carry out their own sentence, which they did amid the yells of the culprit.
Before night a caravan arrived, bringing, among other things, a copy of theHerald, containing an account of a Presidential levee in Washington, in which the toilette of the various ladies were given. While engrossed in reading in his tent, Stanley suddenly became aware that his tent-door was darkened, and looking up, he saw the chief's daughters gazing with wondering eyes on thegreat sheets of paper he was scanning so closely. The sight of these naked beauties, glittering in brass wire and beads, presented a ludicrous contrast to the elaborately-dressed belles of whom he had been reading in the paper, and made him feel, by contrast, in what a different world he was living.
On the 12th, the caravan reached Munondi, on the Ungerangeri River. The country was open and beautiful, presenting a natural park, while the roads were good, making the day's journey delightful. Flowers decked the ground, and the perfume of sweet-smelling shrubs filled the air. As they approached the river, they came upon fields of Indian corn and gardens filled with vegetables, while stately trees lined the bank. On the 14th, they crossed the river and entered the Wakami territory. This day and the next the road lay through a charming country. The day following, they marched through a forest between two mountains rising on either side of them, and on the 16th reached the territory of Wosigahha. As he approached the village of Muhalleh he was greeted with the discharge of musketry. It came from the fourth caravan, which had halted here. Here also good news awaited him. An Arab chief, with a caravan bound east, was in the place, and told him that he had met Livingstone at Ujiji, and had lived in the next hut to him for two weeks. He described him as looking old, with long, graymustache and beard, just recovered from illness, and looking very wan. He said, moreover, that he was fully recovered, and was going to visit a country called Monyima. This was cheering news, indeed, and filled Stanley's heart with joy and hope. The valley here, with its rich crops of Indian corn, was more like some parts of the fertile west than a desert country. But the character of the natives began to change. They became more insolent and brutal, and accompanied their requests with threats.
Continuing their journey along the valley of the river, they suddenly, to their astonishment, came upon a walled town containing a thousand houses. It rose before them like an apparition with its gates and towers of stone and double row of loop-holes for musketry. The fame of Stanley had preceded him, being carried by the caravans he had dispatched ahead, and a thousand or more of the inhabitants came out to see him. This fortified town was established by an adventurer famous for his kidnapping propensities. A barbaric orator, a man of powerful strength and of cunning address, he naturally acquired an ascendency over the rude tribes of the region, and built him a capital, and fortified it and became a self-appointed sultan. Growing old, he changed his name, which had been a terror to the surrounding tribes, and also the name of his capital, and just before death, bequeathed his power to his eldest daughter, and inher honor named the townSultana, which name it still bears. The women and children hung on the rear of Stanley's caravan, filled with strange curiosity at sight of this first white man they had ever seen, but the scorching sun drove them back one by one, and when Stanley pitched his camp, four miles farther on, he was unattended. He determined to halt here for two days to overhaul his baggage and give the donkeys, whose backs had become sore, time to recuperate. On the second day, he was attacked with the African fever, similar to the chills and fever of the west and southwest. He at once applied the remedies used in the Western States, using powerful doses of quinine, and in three days he pronounced himself well again.
Stanley had now traveled one hundred and nineteen miles in fourteen marches, occupying one entire month lacking one day, and making, on an average, four miles a day. This was slow work. The rainy season now set in, and day after day it was a regular down-pour. Stanley was compelled to halt, while disgusting insects, beetles, bugs, wasps, centipedes, worms and almost every form of the lower animal life, took possession of his tent, and gave him the first real taste of African life.
On the morning of the 23d of April, he says the rain held up for a short time and he prepared to cross the river, now swollen and turbid. The bridge over which he carried his baggage was of the most primitive kind, while the donkeys had to swim. The passage occupied five hours, yet it was happily accomplished without any casualties. Reloading his baggage and wringing out his clothes, he set out again, leaving the river and following a path that led off in a northerly direction.
With his heart light and cheerful by being once more on the march and out of the damp and hateful valley, which was made still more hateful bythe disgusting insect life that filled his tent, he ascended to higher ground, and passed with his caravan through successive glades, which opened one after another between forest clumps of trees hemmed in distantly by isolated peaks and scattered mountains. "Now and then," he says, "as we crested low eminences, we caught sight of the blue Usagara Mountains, bounding the horizon westerly and northerly, and looked down on a vast expanse of plain which lay between. At the foot of the lengthy slope, well watered by bubbling springs and mountain rills, we found a comfortable Khembi with well-made huts, which the natives call Simbo. It lies just two hours, or five miles, northwest from the Ungerengeri crossing."
We here get incidentally the rapidity with which he traveled, where the face of the country and the roads gave him the greatest facilities for quick marching, two "hours or five miles," he says, which makes his best time two and a half miles an hour. In this open, beautiful country no villages or settlements could be seen, though he was told there were many in the mountain inclosures, the inhabitants of which were false, dishonest and murderous.
On the morning of the 24th, as they were about to leave, Simbo, his Arab cook, was caught for the fifth time pilfering, and it being proved against him, Stanley ordered a dozen lashes to be inflicted on him as a punishment, and Shaw was orderedto administer them. The blows being given through his clothes, did not hurt him much, but the stern decree that he, with his donkey and baggage, should be expelled from camp and turned adrift in the forests of Africa, drove him wild, and leaving donkey and everything else, he rushed out of camp and started for the mountains. Stanley, wishing only to frighten him, and having no idea of leaving the poor fellow to perish at the hands of the natives, sent a couple of his men to recall him. But it was of no use; the poor, frightened wretch kept on for the mountains, and was soon out of sight altogether. Believing he would think better of it and return, his donkey was tied to a tree near the camping-ground, and the caravan started forward and having passed through the Makata Valley, which afterward became of sorrowful memory, it halted at Rehenneko at the base of the Usagara Mountains.
This valley is a wilderness covered with bamboo, and palm, and other trees, with but one village on its broad expanse, through which the hartbeest, the antelope and the zebra roam. In the lower portions, the mud was so deep that it took ten hours to go ten miles, and the company was compelled to encamp in the woods when but half-way across. Bombay with the cart did not get in till near midnight, and he brought the dolorous tale that he had lost the property-tent, an axe, besides coats, shirts, beads, cloth, pistol and hatchetand powder. He said he had left them a little while that he might help lift the cart out of a mud-hole and during his absence they disappeared. This told to Stanley at midnight roused all his wrath, and he poured a perfect storm of abuse on the cringing Arab, and he took occasion to overhaul his conduct from the start. The cloth if ever found, he said, would be spoiled, the axe, which would be needed at Ujiji to construct a boat, was an irreparable loss, to say nothing of the pistol, powder and hatchet, and worse than all, he had not brought back the cook, whom he knew there was no intention to abandon, and Stanley then and there told him he would degrade him from office and put another man in his place, and then dismissed him, with orders to return at daylight and find the missing property. Four more were now dispatched after the missing cook, and Stanley halted three days to wait the return of his men. In the meantime, provisions ran low, and though there was plenty of game, it was so wild that but little could be obtained, he being able to secure but two potfuls in two days' shooting, but these were quail, grouse and pigeons. On the fourth day, becoming exceedingly anxious, he dispatched Shaw and two more soldiers after the missing men. Toward night he returned, sick with ague, bringing the soldiers with him, but not the missing cook. The soldiers reported that they had marched immediately back to Simboand having searched in vain in the vicinity for the missing man, they went to the bridge over the river to inquire there. They were told, so they said, that a white donkey had crossed the river in another place driven by some Washensi. Believing the cook had been murdered by those men who were making off with his property, they hastened to the walled town and told the warriors of the western gate that two Washensi, who had murdered a man belonging to the white man, must have passed the place, with a white donkey. They were immediately conducted to the sultana, who had much of the spirit of her father, to whom they told their story. Of the results, Stanley says:
"The sultana demanded of the watchmen of the towers if they had seen the two Washensi with the white donkey. The watchmen answered in the affirmative, upon which she at once dispatched twenty of her musketeers in pursuit to Muhalleh. These returned before night, bringing with them the two Washensi and the donkey, with the cook's entire kit. The sultana, who is evidently possessed of her father's energy, with all his lust for wealth, had my messengers, the two Washensi, the cook's donkey and property at once brought before her. The two Washensi were questioned as to how they became possessed of the donkey and such a store of Kisunga clothes, cloth and beads; to which they answered that they hadfound the donkey tied to a tree with the property on the ground close to it; that seeing no owner or claimant anywhere in the neighborhood, they thought they had a right to it, and accordingly had taken it with them. My soldiers were then asked if they recognized the donkey and property, to which questions they unhesitatingly made answer that they did. They further informed Her Highness that they were not only sent after the donkey, but also after the owner, who had deserted their master's service; that they would like to know from the Washensi what they had done with him. Her Highness was also anxious to know what the Washensi had done with the Hindi, and accordingly, in order to elicit the fact, she charged them with murdering him, and informed them she but wished to know what they had done with the body.
"The Washensi declared most earnestly that they had spoken the truth, that they had never seen any such man as described; and if the sultana desired, they would swear to such a statement. Her Highness did not wish them to swear to what in her heart she believed to be a lie, but she would chain them and send them in charge of a caravan to Zanzibar to Lyed Burghosh, who would know what to do with them. Then turning to my soldiers, she demanded to know why the Musungu had not paid the tribute for which she had sent her chiefs. The soldiers could notanswer, knowing nothing of such concerns of their master's. The heiress of Kisabengo, true to the character of her robber sire, then informed my trembling men that, as the Musungu had not paid the tribute, she would now take it; their guns should be taken from them, together with that of the cook; the cloth and beads found on the donkey she would also take, the Hindi's personal clothes her chiefs should retain, while they themselves should be chained until the Musungu himself should return and take them by force.
"And as she threatened, so was it done. For sixteen hours my soldiers were in chains in the market-place, exposed to the taunts of the servile populace. It chanced the next day, however, that Sheikh Thani, whom I met at Kingaru, and had since passed by five days, had arrived at Limbamwanni, and proceeding to the town to purchase provisions for the crossing of the Makata wilderness, saw my men in chains and at once recognized them as being in my employ. After hearing their story, the good-hearted sheikh sought the presence of the sultana, and informed her that she was doing very wrong—a wrong that could only terminate in blood. 'The Musungu is strong,' he said, 'very strong. He has got ten guns which shoot forty times without stopping, carrying bullets half an hour's distance; he has got several guns which carry bullets that burst and tear a man in pieces. He could go to the top of thatmountain and kill every man, woman and child in the town before one of your soldiers could reach the top. The road will then be stopped, Lyed Burghosh will march against your country, the Wadoe and Wakami will come and take revenge on what is left; and the place that your father made so strong will know the Waseguhha no more. Set free the Musungu's soldiers; give them their food and grain for the Musungu; return the guns to the men and let them go, for the white man may even now be on his way here.'
"The exaggerated report of my power, and the dread picture sketched by the Arab sheikh, produced good effect, inasmuch as Kingaru and the Mabrukis were at once released from durance, furnished with food sufficient to last our caravan four days, and one gun with its accoutrements and stock of bullets and powder, was returned, as well as the cook's donkey, with a pair of spectacles, a book in Malabar print and an old hat which belonged to one whom we all now believed to be dead. The sheikh took charge of the soldiers as far as Simbo; and it was in his camp, partaking largely of rice and ghee, that Shaw found them, and the same bountiful hospitality was extended to him and his companions."
Stanley was now filled with keen regrets for the manner in which he had punished the cook, and mentally he resolved that no matter what a member of his caravan should do in the future hewould never drive him out of camp to perish by assassins. Still he would not yet believe that the man was murdered. But he was furious at the treatment of his soldiers by the black Amazon of Limbamwanni, and the tribute she exacted, especially at the seizure of the guns, and if he had been near the place would have made reprisals. But he had already lost four days, and so, next morning, although the rain was coming down in torrents, he broke camp and set forth. Shaw was still sick, and so the whole duty of driving the floundering caravan devolved upon himself. As fast as one was flogged out of the mire in which he had stuck, another would fall in. It took two hours to cross the miry plain, though it was but a mile and a half wide. He was congratulating himself on having at last got over it, when he was confronted by a ditch which the heavy rains had converted into a stream breast deep. The donkeys had all to be unloaded, and led through the torrent, and loaded again on the farther side. They had hardly got under way when they came upon another stream, so deep that it could not be forded, over which they had to swim, and float across their baggage. They then floundered on until they came to a bend of the river, where they pitched their camp, having made but six miles the whole day. This River Makata is only about forty feet in width in the dry season, but at this time it was a wide, turbid stream. Its shores, withits matted grass, decayed vegetable matter and reeking mists, seemed the very home of the ague and fever. It took five hours to cross it the next morning. The rain then came down in such torrents that traveling became impossible, and the camp was pitched. Luckily this proved the last day of the rainy season.
It was now the 1st of May, and the expedition was in a pitiable plight. Shaw was still sick, and one man was down with the small-pox. Bombay, too, was sick, and others complaining. Doctoring the sick as well as he knew how, and laying the whip lustily on the backs of those who were shamming, Stanley at length got his caravan in motion and began to cross the Makata plain, now a swamp thirty-five miles broad. It was plash, plash, through the water in some places three or four feet deep, for two days, until they came in sight of the Rudewa River. Crossing a branch of this stream, a sheet of water five miles broad stretched out before the tired caravan. The men declared it could not be crossed, but Stanley determined to try, and after five hours of the most prostrating effort they reached dry ground. The animals, however, began to sicken from this day on, while Stanley himself was seized with dysentery caused by his exposure, and was brought to the verge of the grave. The expedition seemed about to end there on the borders of the Makata swamp.
On the 4th, they came to the important villageof Rehenneko, the first near which they had encamped since entering the district of Usagara. It was a square, compact village, of about one thousand inhabitants, surrounded by a mud wall and composed of cane-topped huts, which the natives moved from place to place at pleasure. The peculiar ceremonies of the queen's court were very interesting to witness. They rested here four days to recruit. On the 8th, they started forward and began to ascend the mountain. Having reached the summit of the first range of hills, Stanley paused to survey the enchanting prospect. The broad valley of Makata stretched out before him, laced with streams sparkling in the sun, while over it waved countless palm-trees, and far away, blue in the distance, stretched a mighty range of mountains. "Turning our faces west," he says, "we found ourselves in a mountain world, fold rising above fold, peak behind peak, cone jostling cone; away to the north, to the west, to the south, the mountain tops rolled away like so many vitrified waves, not one adust or arid spot was visible in all this scene."
CEREMONIES OF THE QUEEN'S COURT
CEREMONIES OF THE QUEEN'S COURT.
As witnessed in the village of Rehenneko, in the district of Usagara.
The change from the pestilential swamps, through which they had been so long floundering, was most grateful, but the animals suffered greatly, and before they reached their first camping-ground, two had given out. The 9th, they descended into the valley of Mukondokno, and there struck the road traversed by Speke and Burton in 1817.Reaching the dirty village, Kiora, Stanley found there his third caravan, led by Farquhar. By his debaucheries on the way he had made himself sick and brought his caravan into a sad condition. As he heard Stanley's voice, he came staggering out of his tent, a bloated mass of human flesh that never would have been recognized as the trim mate of the vessel that brought Stanley from India. After he examined him as to the cause of his illness, he questioned him about the condition of the property intrusted to his care. Not able to get an intelligent answer out of him, he resolved to overhaul the baggage. On examination, he found that he had spent enough for provisions on which to gormandize to have lasted eight months, and yet he had been on the route but two and a half months. If Stanley had not overtaken him, everything would have been squandered, and of all the bales of cloth he was to take to Unyanyembe not one bale would have been left. Stanley was sorely puzzled what to do with the miserable man. He would die if left at Kiora; he could not walk or ride far, and to carry him seemed well-nigh impossible.
On the 11th, however, the two caravans started forward, leaving Shaw to follow with one of the men. But he lagged behind, and had not reached the camp when it was roused next morning. Stanley at once dispatched two donkeys, one for the load that was on the cart and the other for Shaw,and with the messenger the following note: "You will, upon the receipt of this order, pitch the cart into the nearest ravine, gully or river, as well as all the extra pack saddles; and come at once, for God's sake, for we must not starve here." After waiting four hours, he went back himself and met them, the carrier with the cart on his head, and Shaw on the donkey, apparently ready, at the least jolt, to tumble off. They, however, pushed on, and arrived at Madete at four o'clock. Crossing the river about three, and keeping on, they, on the 14th, from the top of a hill caught sight of Lake Ugenlo. The outline of it, he says, resembles England without Wales. It is some three miles long by two wide, and is the abode of great numbers of hippopotami, while the buffalo, zebra, boar and antelope come here by night to quench their thirst. Its bosom is covered with wild fowl of every description. Being obliged to halt here two days on account of the desertion of the cooper, with one of the carbines, Stanley explored the lake, and tried several shots at the lumbering hippopotami without effect.
SHOOTING HIPPOPOTAMI NEAR LAKE UGENLO
SHOOTING HIPPOPOTAMI NEAR LAKE UGENLO.
The deserter having returned of his own free will, the caravan started forward, cursed by the slow progress of the peevish, profane and violent Shaw. The next day at breakfast, a scene occurred that threatened serious consequences. When Shaw and Farquhar took their places, Stanley saw by their looks that something was wrong.The breakfast was a roast quarter of goat, stewed liver, some sweet potatoes, pancakes and coffee. "Shaw," said Stanley, "please carve and serve Farquhar." Instead of doing so, he exclaimed, in an insulting tone, "What dog's meat is this?" "What do you mean?" demanded Stanley. "I mean," replied the fellow, "that it is a downright shame the way you treat us," and then he complained of being compelled to walk and help himself, instead of having servants to wait upon him as he was promised. All this was said in a loud, defiant tone, interlarded with frequent oaths and curses of the "damned expedition," etc. When he had got through, Stanley, fixing his black, resolute eye on him, said: "Listen to me, Shaw, and you, Farquhar, ever since you left the coast have had donkeys to ride. You have had servants to wait upon you; your tents have been set up for you; your meals have been cooked for you; you have eaten with me of the same food I have eaten; you have received the same treatment I have received. But now all Farquhar's donkeys are dead; seven of my own have died, and I have had to throw away a few things, in order to procure carriage for the most important goods. Farquhar is too sick to walk, he must have a donkey to ride; in a few days all our animals will be dead, after which I must have over twenty more pagosi to take up the goods or wait weeks and weeks for carriage. Yet, in the face of these things,you can grumble, and curse, and swear at me at my own table. Have you considered well your position? Do you realize where you are? Do you know that you are my servant, sir, not my companion?"
"Servant, be ——" said he.
Just before Mr. Shaw could finish his sentence he had measured his length on the ground.
"Is it necessary for me to proceed further to teach you?" said Stanley.
"I tell you what it is, sir," he said, raising himself up, "I think I had better go back. I have had enough, and I do not mean to go any farther with you. I ask my discharge from you."
"Oh, certainly. What—who is there? Bombay, come here."
After Bombay's appearance at the tent-door, Stanley said to him: "Strike this man's tent," pointing to Shaw; "he wants to go back. Bring his gun and pistol here to my tent, and take this man and his baggage two hundred yards outside of the camp, and there leave him."
In a few minutes his tent was down, his gun and pistol in Stanley's tent, and Bombay returned to make his report, with four men under arms.
"Now go, sir. You are at perfect liberty to go. These men will escort you outside of camp, and there leave you and your baggage."
He walked out, the men escorting him and carrying his baggage for him.
After breakfast, Stanley explained to Farquhar how necessary it was to be able to proceed; that he had had plenty of trouble, without having to think of men who were employed to think of him and their duties; that, as he (Farquhar) was sick, and would be probably unable to march for a time, it would be better to leave him in some quiet place, under the care of a good chief, who would, for a consideration, look after him until he got well. To all of which Farquhar agreed.
Stanley had barely finished speaking before Bombay came to the tent-door, saying: "Shaw would like to speak to you."
Stanley went out to the door of the camp, and there met Shaw, looking extremely penitent and ashamed. He commenced to ask pardon, and began imploring to be taken back, and promising that occasion to find fault with him again should never arise.
Stanley held out his hand, saying: "Don't mention it, my dear fellow. Quarrels occur in the best of families. Since you apologize, there is an end of it."
That night, as Stanley was about falling asleep, he heard a shot, and a bullet tore through the tent a few inches above his body. He snatched his revolver and rushed out from the tent, and asked the men around the watch-fires, "Who shot?" They had all jumped up, rather startled by the sudden report.
"Who fired that gun?"
One said the "Bana Mdogo"—little master.
Stanley lit a candle and walked with it to Shaw's tent.
"Shaw, did you fire?"
There was no answer. He seemed to be asleep, he was breathing so hard.
"Shaw! Shaw! did you fire that shot?"
"Eh—eh?" said he, suddenly awakening; "me?—me fire? I have been asleep."
Stanley's eye caught sight of his gun lying near him. He seized it—felt it—put his little finger down the barrel. The gun was warm; his finger was black from the burnt gunpowder.
"What is this?" he asked, holding his finger up; "the gun is warm; the men tell me you fired."
"Ah—yes," he replied, "I remember it. I dreamed I saw a thief pass my door, and I fired. Ah—yes—I forgot, I did fire. Why, what's the matter?"
"Oh, nothing," said Stanley. "But I would advise you, in future, in order to avoid all suspicion, not to fire into my tent; or, at least, so near me. I might get hurt, you know, in which case ugly reports would get about, and that, perhaps, would be disagreeable, as you are probably aware. Good-night."
All had their thoughts about this matter, but Stanley never uttered a word about it to any oneuntil he met Livingstone. The doctor embodied his suspicions in the words: "He intended murder!"
Mr. Livingstone was evidently right in his conjecture, and Mr. Stanley wrong about the intent of Shaw. In the first place, the coincidence in time between the punishment inflicted on Shaw and this extraordinary shot, in which the ball took the still more extraordinary direction of going through Stanley's tent, that is, to say the least, very difficult to explain. In the second place, his drowsy condition when questioned, and finally remembering so much as that he dreamed a thief was passing his door,is morethan suspicious. The fact that, as Mr. Stanley says, he could have had much better opportunities of killing him than this, we regard of very little weight. Opportunities that are absolutelycertainof success without suspicion or detection, are not so common as many suppose. Besides, an opportunity so good that the would-be murderer could desire nothing better might occur, and yet the shot or stab not prove fatal. In this case it doubtless never occurred to this man that any one would run his finger down his gun-barrel to see if it was hot from a recent discharge, while no man could tell, in the middle of the night, who fired the shot. It is true, that the wretch knew that the chances were against such a random fire proving fatal, but he knew it was better to take them than the almostcertain discovery if he adopted any other method. If, for instance, he had in a lonely place fired at Stanley and the shot had not proved mortal, or if mortal, not immediately so, he well knew what would have been his fate, in the heart of Africa, where justice is administered without the form of law.
On the 16th of May the little caravan started off again, and after a march of fifteen miles, camped at Matamombo, in a region where monkeys, rhinoceros, steinboks and antelopes abounded. The next day's march extended fifteen miles, and was through an almost impenetrable jungle. Here he came upon the old Arab sheikh, Thani, who gave him the following good advice: "Stop here two or three days, give your tired animals some rest, and collect all the carriers you can; fill your insides with fresh milk, sweet potatoes, beef, mutton, ghee, honey, beans, matama, madeira nuts, and then, Inshalla! we shall go through Ugogo without stopping anywhere." Stanley was sensible enough to take this advice. He at once commenced on this certainly very prodigal bill of fare for Central Africa. How it agreed with him after the short trial of a single day, may be inferred from the following entry in his diary:
"Thank God! after fifty-seven days of living upon matama porridge and tough goat, I have enjoyed with unctuous satisfaction a real breakfast and a good dinner."
Here upon the Mpwapwa, he found a place to leave the Scotchman, Farquhar, until he should be strong enough to join him at Unyanyembe. But when he proposed this to the friendly chief, he would consent only on the condition that he would leave one of his own men behind to take care of him. This complicated matters, not only because he could not well spare a man, but because it would be difficult to find one who would consent to undertake this difficult task. This man, whom Stanley had thought would be a reliable friend and a good companion in his long, desolate marches, had turned out a burden and a nuisance. His wants were almost endless, and instead of using the few words in the language of the natives to make them known, he would use nothing but the strongest Anglo-Saxon, and when he found he was not understood, would fall to cursing in equally good round English oaths, and if the astonished natives did not understand this, relapse into regular John Bull sullenness. When, therefore, Stanley opened up the subject to Bombay, the latter was horrified. He said the men had made a contract to go through, not to stop by the way; and when Stanley, in despair, turned to the men, they one and all refused absolutely to remain behind with the cursing, unreasonable white man, one of them mimicking his absurd conduct so completely, that Stanley himself could not help laughing. But the man must be left behind, andsomebody must take care of him; and so Stanley had to use his authority, and notwithstanding all his protestations and entreaties, Sako, the only one who could speak English, was ordered to stay.
Having engaged twelve new carriers, and from the nearest mountain summit obtained an entrancing view of the surrounding region for a hundred miles, he prepared to start, but not before, notwithstanding the good milk it furnished, giving Mpwapwa a thorough malediction for its earwigs. "In my tent," he says, "they might be counted by thousands; in my slung cot by hundreds; on my clothes they were by fifties; on my neck and head they were by scores. The several plagues of locusts, fleas and lice sink into utter insignificance compared with this damnable one of earwigs." Their presence drove him almost insane. Next to these come the white ants, that threatened in a short time to eat up every article of baggage.
He now pushed on toward the Ugogo district, famous for the tribute it exacted from all caravans.
On the 22d of May the two other caravans of Stanley joined him, only three hours' march from Mpwapwa, so that the one caravan numbered some four hundred souls, but it was none too large to insure a safe transit through dreaded Ugogo. A waterless desert thirty miles across, and which it would take seventeen hours to traverse, now lay before them. On the way, Stanley was struck down with fever and, borne along in a hammock, was indifferent to the herds of giraffes, and zebras, and antelopes that scoured the desert plain around him. The next morning the fever had left him and mounting, he rode at the head of his caravan, and at 8A. M.had passed the sterile wilderness and entered the Ugogo district. He had now come into a land of plenty, but one also of extortion. The tribute that all passing caravans had to pay to the chiefs or sultans of this district was enormous. At the first village the appearance of this white man caused an indescribable uproar. The people came pouring out, men and women, naked, yelling, shouting, quarreling and fighting, making it a perfect babel around Stanley, who became irritated at this unseemlydemonstration. But it was of no use. One of his men asked them to stop, but the only reply was "shut up," in good native language. Stanley, however, was soon oblivious of their curiosity or noise, as heavy doses of quinine to check a chill sent him off into a half doze.
The next day, a march of eight miles brought him to the sultan of the district. Report did not exaggerate the abundance of provisions to be found here. Now came the pay of tribute to the exorbitant chief. After a great deal of parley, which was irritating and often childish, Stanley satisfied the sultan's greed, and on the 27th of May he shook the dust of the place from his feet and pushed westward. As he passed the thickly-scattered villages and plenteous fields, filled with tillers, he did not wonder at the haughty bearing of the sultan, for he could command force enough to rob and destroy every caravan that passed that way. Twenty-seven villages lined the road to the next sultan's district, Matomhiru. This sultan was a modern Hercules, with head and shoulders that belonged to a giant. He proved, however, to be a much more reasonable man than the last sultan, and, after a little speechifying, the tribute was paid and the caravan moved off toward Bihawena. The day was hot, the land sterile, crossed with many jungles, which made the march slow and difficult. In the midst of this desolate plain were the villages of the tribe, their huts no higherthan the dry, bleached grass that stood glimmering in the heat of the noonday sun. Here he was visited by three natives, who endeavored to play a sharp game on him, which so enraged Stanley that he would have flogged them out of camp with his whip, but one of his men told him to beware, for every blow would cost three or four yards of cloth. Not willing to pay so dearly to gratify his temper he forbore. The sultan was moderate in his demands, and from him he received news from his fourth caravan, which was in advance, and had had a fight with some robbers, killing two of them.
The water here was so vile that two donkeys died from drinking of it, while the men could hardly swallow it. Stanley, nervous and weak from fever, paid the extravagant tributes demanded of him, without altercation. From here to the next sultan was a long stretch of forest, filled with elephants, rhinoceros, zebras, deer, etc. But they had no time to stop and hunt. At noon they had left the last water they should find until noon of the next day, even with sharp marching, and hence, no delay could be permitted. The men without tents bivouacked under the trees, while Stanley tossed and groaned all night in a paroxysm of fever, but his courage in no way weakened. At dawn the caravan started off through the dark forest, in which one of the carriers fell sick and died.
At 7A. M.they drew near Nyambwa, where excellent water was found. The villagers here crowded around them with shouts and yells, and finally became so insolent that Stanley grabbed one of them by the neck and gave him a sound thrashing with his donkey-whip. This enraged them, and they walked backward and forward like angry tom-cats, shouting, "Are the Wagogo to be beaten like slaves?" and they seemed by their ferocious manner determined to avenge their comrade, but the moment Stanley raised his whip and advanced they scattered. Finding that the long lash, which cracked like a pistol, had a wholesome effect, whenever they crowded upon him so as to impede his progress, he laid it about him without mercy, which soon cleared a path.
The Sultan Kimberah was a small, queer and dirty old man, a great drunkard, and yet the most powerful of all the Ugogo chiefs. Here they had considerable trouble in arranging the amount of tribute, but at length everything was settled and the caravan passed on and entered on a vast salt plain containing a hundred or more square miles, from the salt springs of which the Wagogo obtained their salt. At Mizarza, the next camping-place, Stanley was compelled to halt and doctor himself for the fever which was wearing him to skin and bones. Early in the morning he began to take his quinine, and kept repeating the doses at short intervals until a copious perspiration toldhim he had broken the fever which had been consuming him for fourteen days. During this time, the sultan of the district, attracted by Stanley's lofty tent, with the American flag floating above it, visited him. He was so astonished at the loftiness and furnishing of the tent, that in his surprise he let fall the loose cloth that hung from his shoulders and stood stark naked in front of Stanley, gaping in mute wonder. Admonished by his son—a lad fifteen years old—he resumed his garb and sat down to talk. Stanley showed him his rifles and other fire-arms, which astonished him beyond measure.
On the 4th of June, the caravan was started forward again, and after three hours' march it came upon another district, containing only two villages occupied by pastoral Wahumba and Wahehe. These live in cow-dung cone huts, shaped like Tartar tents. Stanley says:
"The Wahumba, so far as I have seen them, are a fine and well-formed race. The men are positively handsome, tall, with small heads, the posterior parts of which project considerably. One will look in vain for a thick lip or flat nose amongst them; on the contrary, the mouth is exceedingly well cut, delicately small; the nose is that of the Greeks, and so universal was the peculiar feature, that I at once named them the Greeks of Africa. Their lower limbs have not the heaviness of the Wagogo and other tribes, but are long andshapely, clean as those of an antelope. Their necks are long and slender, on which their small heads are poised most gracefully. Athletes from their youth, shepherd bred, and intermarrying among themselves, thus keeping the race pure, any of them would form a fit subject for a sculptor who would wish to immortalize in marble an Antrinus, a Hylas, a Daphnis, or an Apollo. The women are as beautiful as the men are handsome. They have clear ebon skins, not coal black, but of an inky hue. Their ornaments consist of spiral rings of brass pendent from the ears, brass ring collars about the neck, and a spiral cincture of brass wire about their loins, for the purpose of retaining their calf and goat skins, which are folded about their bodies, and depending from the shoulder, shade one-half of the bosom, and fall to the knees.
"The Wahehe may be styled the Romans of Africa.
"Resuming our march, after a halt of an hour, in four hours more we arrived at Mukondoku proper.
"This extremity of Ugogo is most populous. The villages which surround the central tembe, where the Sultan Swaruru lives, amount to thirty-six. The people who flocked from these to see the wonderful men whose faces were white who wore the most wonderful things on their persons, and possessed the most wonderful weapons: gunswhich 'bum-bummed' as fast as you could count on your fingers, formed such a mob of howling savages, that I, for an instant, thought there was something besides mere curiosity which caused such a commotion, and attracted such numbers to the roadside. Halting, I asked what was the matter, and what they wanted, and why they made such a noise? One burly rascal, taking my words for a declaration of hostilities, promptly drew his bow, but as prompt as he had fixed his arrow my faithful Winchester with thirteen shots in the magazine was ready and at my shoulder, and but waited to see the arrow fly to pour the leaden messengers of death into the crowd. But the crowd vanished as quickly as they had come, leaving the burly Thersites, and two or three irresolute fellows of his tribe, standing within pistol range of my leveled rifle. Such a sudden dispersion of the mob which, but a moment before, was overwhelming, caused me to lower my rifle and indulge in a hearty laugh at the disgraceful flight of the men-destroyers. The Arabs, who were as much alarmed at their boisterous obtrusiveness, now came up to patch a truce, in which they succeeded to everybody's satisfaction.
"A few words of explanation, and the mob came back in greater numbers than before; and the Thersites who had been the cause of the momentary disturbance were obliged to retire abashed before the pressure of public opinion. A chiefnow came up, whom I afterwards learned was the second man to Swaruru, and lectured the people upon their treatment of the 'white strangers.'"
The tribute-money was easily settled here. On the 7th of June, the route was resumed. There were three roads leading to Uyanzi, and which of the three to take caused long discussion and much quarreling, and when Stanley settled the matter and the caravan started off on the road to Kiti, an attempt was made to direct it to another road, which Stanley soon discovered and prevented only by his prompt resort to physical arguments.
At last they reached the borders of Uyanzi, glad to be clear of the land of Ugogo, said to be flowing with milk and honey but which had proved to Stanley a land of gall and bitterness. The forest they entered was a welcome change from the villages of the Ugogo, and two hours after leaving them they came, with the merry sound of horns, to a river in a new district. Continuing on, they made the forest ring with cheers, and shouts, and native songs. The country was beautiful, and the scenery more like cultivated England in former times than barbaric Africa.
Passing thus merrily on, they had made twenty miles by five o'clock. At one o'clock next morning the camp was roused, and by the light of the moon the march was resumed, and at three o'clock they arrived at a village to rest till dawn. They had reached a land of plenty and fared well. Kitiwas entered on the 10th of June. Here cattle and grain could be procured in abundance.
A valley fifteen miles distant was the next camp, and a march of three hours and a half brought them to another village, where provisions were very cheap. They were now approaching Unyanyembe, their first great stopping-place, and where the term of service of many of Stanley's men expired. They marched rapidly now,—to-day through grain-fields, to-morrow past burnt villages, the wreck of bloody wars.
At last, with banners flying and trumpets and horns blowing, and amid volleys of small arms, the caravan entered Unyanyembe.
Of the three routes from the coast to this place, Stanley discarded the two that had before been traveled by Speke and Burton and Grant and chose the third, with the originality of an American, and thus saved nearly two hundred miles' travel.
Mr. Stanley, after reaching this first great objective point, goes back and gives a general description of the regions he has traversed. To the geographer, it may be of interest, but not to the general reader. But the following, taken from his long account, will give the reader a clear idea of the country traversed and of its inhabitants. Beginning with Wiami River, emptying into the Indian Ocean near Zanzibar, he says:
"First it appears to me that the Wiami River isavailable for commerce and, by a little improvement, could be navigated by light-draft steamers near to the Usagara Mountains, the healthy region of this part of Africa, and which could be reached by steamers in four days from the coast, and then it takes one into a country where ivory, sugar, cotton, indigo and other productions can be obtained."
Besides, he says:
"Four days by steamer bring the missionary to the healthy uplands of Africa, where he can live amongst the gentle Wasagara without fear or alarm; where he can enjoy the luxuries of civilized life without fear of being deprived of them, amid the most beautiful and picturesque scenes a poetic fancy could imagine. Here is the greenest verdure, purest water; here are valleys teeming with grain-stalks, forests of tamarind, mimosa, gum-copal tree; here is the gigantic moule, the stately mparamnsi, the beautiful palm; a scene such as only a tropic sky covers. Health and abundance of food are assured to the missionary; gentle people are at his feet, ready to welcome him. Except civilized society, nothing that the soul of man can desire is lacking here.
"From the village of Kadetamare a score of admirable mission sites are available, with fine health-giving breezes blowing over them, water in abundance at their feet, fertility unsurpassed around them, with docile, good-tempered peopledwelling everywhere at peace with each other, and with all travelers and neighbors.
"As the passes of the Olympus unlocked the gates of the Eastern empires to the hordes of Othman; as the passes of Kumaylé and Sura admitted the British into Abyssinia; so the passes of the Mukondokwa may admit the Gospel and its beneficent influences into the heart of savage Africa.
"I can fancy old Kadetamare rubbing his hands with glee at the sight of the white man coming to teach his people the words of the 'Mulungu'—the Sky Spirit; how to sow, and reap, and build houses; how to cure their sick, how to make themselves comfortable—in short, how to be civilized. But the missionary, to be successful, must know his duties as well as a thorough sailor must know how to reef, hand and steer. He must be no kid-glove, effeminate man, no journal writer, no disputatious polemic, no silken stole and chasuble-loving priest, but a thorough, earnest laborer in the garden of the Lord,—a man of the David Livingstone, or of the Robert Moffatt stamp.
"The other river, the Rufiji, or Ruhwha, is a still more important stream than Wiami. It is a much longer river, and discharges twice as much water into the Indian Ocean. It rises near some mountains about one hundred miles southwest of Nbena. Kisigo River, the most northern and most important affluent of the Ruhwha, issupposed to flow into it near east longitude thirty-five degrees; from the confluence to the sea, the Ruhwha has a length of four degrees of direct longitude. This fact, of itself, must prove its importance and rank among the rivers of East Africa.
"After Zanzibar, ourdébutinto Africa is madeviaBagomayo. At this place we may see Wangindo, Wasawahili, Warori, Wagogo, Wanyamwezi, Waseguhha and Wasagara; yet it would be a difficult task for any person, at mere sight of their dresses or features, to note the differences. Only by certain customs or distinctive marks, such as tattooing, puncturing of the lobes of the ears, ornaments, wearing the hair, etc., which would appear, at first, too trivial to note, could one discriminate between the various tribal representatives. There are certainly differences, but not so varied or marked as they are reported.
"The Wasawahili, of course, through their intercourse with semi-civilization, present us with a race, or tribe, influenced by a state of semi-civilized society, and are, consequently, better dressed and appear to better advantage than their more savage brethren farther west. As it is said that underneath the Russian skin lies the Tartar, so it may be said that underneath the snowy dish-dasheh, or shirt of the Wasawahili, one will find the true barbarian. In the street or bazaar he appears semi-Arabized; his suavity of manner,his prostrations and genuflexions, the patois he speaks, all prove his contact and affinity with the dominant race, whose subject he is. Once out of the coast towns, in the Washensi villages, he sheds the shirt that had half civilized him, and appears in all his deep blackness of skin, prognathous jaws, thick lips—the pure negro and barbarian. Not keenest eye could detect the difference between him and the Washensi, unless his attention had been drawn to the fact that the two men were of different tribes.
"The next tribe to which we are introduced are the Wakwere, who occupy a limited extent of country between the Wazaramo and the Wadoe. They are the first representatives of the pure barbarian the traveler meets, when but two days' journey from the sea-coast. They are a timid tribe and a very unlikely people to commence an attack upon any body of men for mere plunder's sake. They have not a very good reputation among the Arab and Wasawahili traders. They are said to be exceedingly dishonest, of which I have not the least doubt. They furnished me with good grounds for believing these reports while encamped at Kingaru, Hera and Imbiki. The chiefs of the more eastern part of Ukwere profess nominal allegiance to the Dwians of the Mrima. They have selected the densest jungles wherein to establish their villages. Every entrance into one of their valleys is jealously guardedby strong wooden gates, seldom over four and a half feet high, and so narrow, sometimes, that one must enter sideways.
"These jungle islets which in particular dot the extent of Ukwere, present formidable obstacles to a naked enemy. The plants, bushes and young trees which form their natural defense, are generally of the aloetic and thorny species, growing so dense, interlaced one with the other, that the hardest and most desperate robber would not brave the formidable array of sharp thorns which bristle everywhere.