« Yes."
" Why it was reported that you were dead - that you fought with
the Wazavira."
"Ah, my friend, these are the words of Njara, the son of Khamis.
See" (pointing to Livingstone), "this is the white man, my
father *, whom I saw at Ujiji. He is going with me to Unyanyembe
to get his cloth, after which he will return to the great waters."
__________________
** It is a courteous custom in Africa to address elderly people as
" Baba," (Father.)
__________________
"Wonderful! - thou sayest truly."
"What has thou to tell me of the white man at Unyanyembe?"
"Which white man?"
"The white man I left in the house of Sayd, the son of Salim - my
house - at Kwihara."
" He is dead."
" Dead!"
"True."
"You do not mean to say the white man is dead?"
"True - he is dead."
"How long ago?"
"Many months now."
"What did he die of?"
"Homa (fever)."
"Any more of my people dead?"
"I know not."
" Enough." I looked sympathetically at the Doctor, and he replied,
"I told you so. When you described him to me as a drunken man,
I knew he could not live. Men who have been habitual drunkards
cannot live in this country, any more than men who have become
slaves to other vices. I attribute the deaths that occurred in
my expedition on the Zambezi to much the same cause."
"Ah, Doctor, there are two of us gone. I shall be the third,
if this fever lasts much longer."
"Oh no, not at all. If you would have died from fever, you would
have died at Ujiji when you had that severe attack of remittent.
Don't think of it. Your fever now is only the result of exposure
to wet. I never travel during the wet season. This time I have
travelled because I was anxious, and I did not wish to detain you
at Ujiji."
"Well, there is nothing like a good friend at one's back in this
country to encourage him, and keep his spirits up. Poor Shaw!
I am sorry - very sorry for him. How many times have I not
endeavoured to cheer him up! But there was no life in him.
And among the last words I said to him, before parting, were,
`Remember, if you return to Unyanyembe, you die!'"
We also obtained news from the chief of Sayd bin Habib's caravan
that several packets of letters and newspapers, and boxes, had
arrived for me from Zanzibar by my messengers and Arabs; that
Selim, the son of Sheikh Hashid of Zanzibar, was amongst the
latest arrivals in Unyanyembe. The Doctor also reminded me with
the utmost good-nature that, according to his accounts, he had
a stock of jellies and crackers, soups, fish, and potted ham,
besides cheese, awaiting him in Unyanyembe, and that he would
be delighted to share his good things; whereupon I was greatly
cheered, and, during the repeated attacks of fever I suffered
about this time, my imagination loved to dwell upon the luxuries
at Unyanyembe.
