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 Doctor's Complaints Were Many Because Slaves Were Sent To Him,
In Charge Of Goods, After He Had So Often Implored The People At
Zanzibar To Send Him Freemen.
A very little effort on the part of
those entrusted with the despatch of supplies to him might have
Enabled them to procure good and faithful freemen; but if they
contented themselves, upon the receipt of a letter from Dr.
Livingstone, with sending to Ludha Damji for men, it is no longer
a matter of wonder that dishonest and incapable slaves were sent
forward. It is no new fact that the Doctor has discovered when
he states that a negro freeman is a hundred times more capable
and trustworthy than a slave. Centuries ago Eumaeus, the herdsman,
said to Ulysses:
Jove fixed it certain, that whatever day
Makes man a slave, takes half his worth away.
We passed several happy days at Ujiji, and it was time we were now
preparing for our cruise on the Tanganika. Livingstone was
improving every day under the different diet which my cook furnished
him. I could give him no such suppers as that which Jupiter and
Mercury received at the cottage of Baucis and Philemon. We had no
berries of chaste Minerva, pickled cherries, endive, radishes,
dried figs, dates, fragrant apples, and grapes; but we had cheese,
and butter which I made myself, new-laid eggs, chickens, roast
mutton, fish from the lake, rich curds and cream, wine from the
Guinea-palm, egg-plants, cucumbers, sweet potatoes, pea-nuts,
and beans, white honey from Ukaranga, luscious singwe - a plum-like
fruit - from the forests of Ujiji, and corn scones and dampers,
in place of wheaten bread.
During the noontide heats we sat under our veranda discussing our
various projects, and in the early morning and evening we sought
the shores of the lake - promenading up and down the beach to breathe
the cool breezes which ruffled the surface of the water, and rolled
the unquiet surf far up on the smooth and whitened shore.
It was the dry season, and we had most lovely weather; the
temperature never was over 80 degrees in the shade.
The market-place overlooking the broad silver water afforded us
amusement and instruction. Representatives of most of the tribes
dwelling near the lake were daily found there. There were the
agricultural and pastoral Wajiji, with their flocks and herds;
there were the fishermen from Ukaranga and Kaole, from beyond
Bangwe, and even from Urundi, with their whitebait, which they
called dogara, the silurus, the perch, and other fish; there were
the palm-oil merchants, principally from Ujiji and Urundi, with
great five-gallon pots full of reddish oil, of the consistency of
butter; there were the salt merchants from the salt-plains of
Uvinza and Uhha; there were the ivory merchants from Uvira and
Usowa; there were the canoe-makers from Ugoma and Urundi; there
were the cheap-Jack pedlers from Zanzibar, selling flimsy prints,
and brokers exchanging blue mutunda beads for sami-sami, and
sungomazzi, and sofi.
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