And if my disclosures regarding the terrible Ujijian slavery
should lead to the suppression of the East Coast slave trade, I
shall regard that as a greater matter by far than the discovery
of all the Nile sources together. Now that you have done with
domestic slavery for ever, lend us your powerful aid toward this
great object. This fine country is blighted, as with a curse from
above, in order that the slavery privileges of the petty Sultan
of Zanzibar may not be infringed, and the rights of the Crown of
Portugal, which are mythical, should be kept in abeyance till some
future time when Africa will become another India to Portuguese
slave-traders.
I conclude by again thanking you most cordially for your great
generosity, and am,
Gratefully yours,
David Livingstone.
To the above letter I have nothing to add - it speaks for itself;
but I then thought it was the best evidence of my success. For
my own part, I cared not one jot or tittle about his discoveries,
except so far as it concerned the newspaper which commissioned me
for the "search." It is true I felt curious as to the result of his
travels; but, since he confessed that he had not completed what he
had begun, I felt considerable delicacy to ask for more than he
could afford to give. His discoveries were the fruits of of
his own labours - to him they belonged - by their publication he
hoped to obtain his reward, which he desired to settle on his
children. Yet Livingstone had a higher and nobler ambition than
the mere pecuniary sum he would receive: he followed the
dictates of duty. Never was such a willing slave to that abstract
virtue. His inclinations impelled him home, the fascinations of
which it required the sternest resolves to resist. With every
foot of new ground he travelled over he forged a chain of sympathy
which should hereafter bind the Christian nations in bonds of love
and charity to the Heathen of the African tropics. If he were
able to complete this chain of love - by actual discovery and
description of them to embody such peoples and nations as still
live in darkness, so as to attract the good and charitable of his
own land to bestir themselves for their redemption and salvation -
this, Livingstone would consider an ample reward.
"A delirious and fatuous enterprise, a Quixotic scheme!" some will
say. Not it, my friends; for as sure as the sun shines on both
Christian and Infidel, civilised and Pagan, the day of enlightenment
will come; and, though Livingstone, the Apostle of Africa, may not
behold it himself, nor we younger men, not yet our children, the
Hereafter will see it, and posterity will recognise the daring
pioneer of its civilization.
The following items are extracted in their entirety from my Diary:
March 12th. - The Arabs have sent me as many as forty-five letters
to carry to the coast. I am turned courier in my latter days;
but the reason is that no regularly organized caravans are permitted
to leave Unyanyembe now, because of the war with Mirambo. What if
I had stayed all this time at Unyanyembe waiting for the war to end!
It is my opinion that, the Arabs will not be able to conquer Mirambo
under nine months yet.
To-night the natives have gathered themselves together to give me
a farewell dance in front of my house. I find them to be the
pagazis of Singiri, chief of Mtesa's caravan. My men joined in,
and, captivated by the music despite myself, I also struck in, and
performed the "light fantastic," to the intense admiration of my
braves, who were delighted to see their master unbend a little from
his usual stiffness.
It is a wild dance altogether. The music is lively, and evoked
from the sonorous sound of four drums, which are arranged before
the bodies of four men, who stand in the centre of the weird
circle. Bombay, as ever comical, never so much at home as when in
the dance of the Mrima, has my water-bucket on his head; Chowpereh -
the sturdy, the nimble, sure-footed Chowpereh - has an axe in his
hand, and wears a goatskin on his head; Baraka has my bearskin,
and handles a spear; Mabruki, the "Bull-headed," has entered into
the spirit of the thing, and steps up and down like a solemn
elephant; Ulimengo has a gun, and is a fierce Drawcansir, and you
would imagine he was about to do battle to a hundred thousand,
so ferocious is he in appearance; Khamisi and Kamna are before
the drummers, back to back, kicking up ambitiously at the stars;
Asmani, - the embodiment of giant strength, - a towering Titan, -
has also a gun, with which he is dealing blows in the air, as if
he were Thor, slaying myriads with his hammer. The scruples and
passions of us all are in abeyance; we are contending demons under
the heavenly light of the stars, enacting only the part of a weird
drama, quickened into action and movement by the appalling energy
and thunder of the drums.
The warlike music is ended, and another is started. The choragus
has fallen on his knees, and dips his head two or three times in an
excavation in the ground, and a choir, also on their knees, repeat
in dolorous tones the last words of a slow and solemn refrain. The
words are literally translated: -
Choragus. Oh-oh-oh! the white man is going home!
Choir. Oh-oh-oh! going home!
Going home, oh-oh-oh!
Choragus. To the happy island on the sea,
Where the beads are plenty, oh-oh-oh!
