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 Flags Of The Two
Great Anglo-Saxon Nations Rippled And Played In The Soft Breeze,
Sometimes Drawing Near Caressingly Together, Again Bending Away,
Like Two Lovers Coy To Unite.
The tight little boat of the Doctor
would keep ahead, and the crimson and crossed flag of England would
Wave before me, and it seemed to say to the beautiful laggard
astern, "Come on, come on; England leads the way." But was it not
England's place to be in the front here? She won the right to it
by discovering the Tanganika; America came but second.
Urimba, though a large district of Kawendi, has a village of
the same name peopled by refugees from Yombeh, who found the
delta of the Loajeri, though the unhealthiest of spots - equal
to that of the Rusizi - far preferable to the neighbourhood of
Sultan Pumburu, of Southern Kawendi. A good chase by the victors
seems to have given a shock to their systems, for they are very
timid and distrustful of strangers, and would by no means permit
us to enter their village, of which, to say the truth, I was very
glad, after a glance at the reeking corruption on which they were
encamped. In the immediate neighbourhood - nay, for a couple of
miles on either side - I should suppose that to a white man it were
death to sleep a single night. Leading the way south of the
village, I found a fit camping-place at the extreme south-east
corner of Tongwe Bay, about a mile and a half due west of the
lofty peak of Kivanga, or Kakungu. By an observation taken by
the Doctor, we found ourselves to be in latitude 5 degrees 54
minutes south.
None of the natives had heard of our shore party, and, as the
delta of the Loajeri and Mogambazi extended for about fifteen miles,
and withal was the most impassable of places, being perfectly flat,
overgrown with the tallest of matete, eschinomenae, and thorny
bush, and flooded with water, it was useless to fatigue our men
searching for the shore party in such an inhospitable country.
No provisions were procurable, for the villages were in a state of
semi-starvation, the inhabitants living from hand to mouth on what
reluctant Fortune threw into their nets.
The second day of our arrival at Urimba I struck off into the
interior with my gun-bearer, Kalulu, carrying the Doctor's
splendid double-barreled rifle (a Reilly, No. 12), on the search
for venison. After walking about a mile I came to a herd of
zebras. By creeping on all-fours I managed to come within one
hundred yards of them; but I was in a bad spot - low prickly shrubs;
and tsetse flies alighting on the rifle-sight, biting my nose,
and dashing into my eyes, completely disconcerted me; and, to add
to my discontent, my efforts to disengage myself from the thorns,
alarmed the zebras, which all stood facing the suspicious object in
the bush.
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