How I Found Livingstone Travels, Adventures And Discoveries In Central Africa Including Four Months Residence With Dr. Livingstone By Sir Henry M. Stanley
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The Accounts Which The Doctor Brings From That New Region Are Most
Deplorable.
He was an unwilling spectator of a horrible deed - a
massacre committed on the inhabitants of a populous district who
had assembled in the market-place on the banks of the Lualaba, as
they had been accustomed to do for ages.
It seems that the
Wamanyuema are very fond of marketing, believing it to be the
summum bonum of human enjoyment. They find endless pleasure in
chaffering with might and main for the least mite of their currency -
the last bead; and when they gain the point to which their peculiar
talents are devoted, they feel intensely happy. The women are
excessively fond of this marketing, and, as they are very beautiful,
the market place must possess considerable attractions for the male
sex. It was on such a day amidst such a scene, that Tagamoyo, a
half-caste Arab, with his armed slave escort, commenced an
indiscriminate massacre by firing volley after volley into the dense
mass of human beings. It is supposed that there were about 2,000
present, and at the first sound of the firing these poor people all
made a rush for their canoes. In the fearful hurry to avoid being
shot, the canoes were paddled away by the first fortunate few who
got possession of them; those that were not so fortunate sprang
into the deep waters of the Lualaba, and though many of them became
an easy prey to the voracious crocodiles which swarmed to the scene,
the majority received their deaths from the bullets of the
merciless Tagamoyo and his villanous band. The Doctor believes,
as do the Arabs themselves, that about 400 people, mostly women
and children, lost their lives, while many more were made slaves.
This outrage is only one of many such he has unwillingly
witnessed, and he is utterly unable to describe the feelings
of loathing he feels for the inhuman perpetrators.
Slaves from Manyuema command a higher price than those of any
other country, because of their fine forms and general docility.
The women, the Doctor said repeatedly, are remarkably pretty
creatures, and have nothing, except the hair, in common with
the negroes of the West Coast. They are of very light colour,
have fine noses, well-cut and not over-full lips, while the
prognathous jaw is uncommon. These women are eagerly sought
after as wives by the half-castes of the East Coast, and even
the pure Omani Arabs do not disdain to take them in marriage.
To the north of Manyuema, Livingstone came to the light-
complexioned race, of the colour of Portuguese, or our own
Louisiana quadroons, who are very fine people, and singularly
remarkable for commercial "'cuteness" and sagacity. The women
are expert divers for oysters, which are found in great abundance
in the Lualaba.
Rua, at a place called Katanga, is rich in copper. The copper-mines
of this place have been worked for ages. In the bed of a stream,
gold has been found, washed down in pencil-shaped pieces or in
particles as large as split peas.
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