Doti. Yards.
First-class American sheeting . . . 285 = 1140
" Kaniki (blue stuff) . . . 16 = 64
Medium " (blue stuff) . . . 60 = 240
" Dabwani cloth . . . . 41 = 64
Barsati cloths . . . . 28 = 112
Printed handkerchiefs . . 70 = 280
Medium Rehani cloth . . . . . 127 = 508
" Ismahili " . . . . 20 = 80
" Sohari " . . . . . 20 = 80
4 pieces fine Kungura (red check) 22 = 88
4 gorah Rehani . . . . . . . 8 = 32
Total number of cloths . 697 = 2788
Besides:
Cloth, 2788 yards.
Assorted beads, 16 sacks, weight = 992 lbs.
Brass wire, Nos. 5 and 6; 10 fraslilah = 350 lbs.
1 canvas tent, waterproof.
1 air-bed.
1 boat (canvas}
1 bag of tools, carpenter's.
1 rip saw.
2 barrels of tar.
12 sheets of ship's copper = 60 lbs.
Clothes.
1 Jocelyn breech-loader (metallic cartridge).
1 Starr's " " "
1 Henry (16-shooter) " "
1 revolver.
200 rounds revolver ammunition.
2000 " Jocelyn and Starrs ammunition.
1500 " Henry rifle ammunition.
Cooking utensils, medicine chest, books, sextant, canvas bags, &c.,
&c., &c.
The above made a total of about forty loads. Many things in the
list would have brought fancy prices in Unyanyembe, especially
the carbines and ammunition, the saw, carpenter's tools the beads,
and wire. Out of the thirty-three loads which were stored for him
in my tembe - the stock sent to Livingstone, Nov. 1,1870 - but few
of them would be available for his return trip to Rua and Manyuema.
The 696 doti of cloth which were left to him formed the only
marketable articles of value he possessed; and in Manyuema, where
the natives manufactured their own cloth, such an article would be
considered a drug; while my beads and wire, with economy, would
suffice to keep him and his men over two years in those regions.
His own cloth, and what I gave him, made in the aggregate 1,393
doti, which, at 2 doti per day for food, were sufficient to keep
him and sixty men 696 days. He had thus four years' supplies.
The only articles he lacked to make a new and completely fitted-up
expedition were the following, a list of which he and I drew up; -
A few tins of American wheat-flour.
" " soda crackers.
" " preserved fruits
A few tins of salmon,
10 lbs. Hyson tea.
Some sewing thread and needles.
1 dozen official envelopes.
`Nautical Almanac' for 1872 and 1873.
1 blank journal.
1 chronometer, stopped.
1 chain for refractory people.
With the articles just named he would have a total of seventy
loads, but without carriers they were an incumbrance to him; for,
with only the nine men which he now had, he could go nowhere with
such a splendid assortment of goods. I was therefore commissioned
to enlist, - as soon as I reached Zanzibar, - fifty freemen, arm them
with a gun and hatchet each man, besides accoutrements, and to
purchase two thousand bullets, one thousand flints, and ten kegs of
gunpowder. The men were to act as carriers, to follow wherever
Livingstone might desire to go. For, without men, he was simply
tantalized with the aspirations roused in him by the knowledge
that he had abundance of means, which were irrealizable without
carriers. All the wealth of London and New York piled before him
were totally unavailable to him without the means of locomotion.
No Mnyamwezi engages himself as carrier during war-time. You who
have read the diary of my 'Life in Unyanyembe' know what stubborn
Conservatives the Wanyamwezi are. A duty lay yet before me which
I owed to my illustrious companion, and that was to hurry to the
coast as if on a matter of life and death - act for him in the matter
of enlisting men as if he were there himself - to work for him with
the same zeal as I would for myself - not to halt or rest until his
desires should be gratified, And this I vowed to do; but it was
a death-blow to my project of going down the Nile, and getting
news of Sir S. Baker.
The Doctor's task of writing his letters was ended. He delivered
into my hand twenty letters for Great Britain, six for Bombay,
two for New York, and one for Zanzibar. The two letters for New
York were for James Gordon Bennett, junior, as he alone, not his
father, was responsible for the Expedition sent under my command.
I beg the reader's pardon for republishing one of these letters
here, as its spirit and style indicate the man, the mere knowledge
of whose life or death was worth a costly Expedition.
Ujiji, on Tanganika, East Africa, November, 1871.
James Gordon Bennett, Jr., Esq.
My Dear Sir, - It is in general somewhat difficult to write to one
we have never seen - it feels so much like addressing an abstract
idea - but the presence of your representative, Mr. H. M. Stanley,
in this distant region takes away the strangeness I should otherwise
have felt, and in writing to thank you for the extreme kindness
that prompted you to send him, I feel quite at home.
If I explain the forlorn condition in which he found me you will
easily perceive that I have good reason to use very strong
expressions of gratitude. I came to Ujiji off a tramp of between
four hundred and five hundred miles, beneath a blazing vertical
sun, having been baffled, worried, defeated and forced to return,
when almost in sight of the end of the geographical part of my
mission, by a number of half-caste Moslem slaves sent to me from
Zanzibar, instead of men. The sore heart made still sorer by the
woeful sights I had seen of man's inhumanity to man racked and
told on the bodily frame, and depressed it beyond measure. I
thought that I was dying on my feet.
