How I Found Livingstone Travels, Adventures And Discoveries In Central Africa Including Four Months Residence With Dr. Livingstone By Sir Henry M. Stanley







 -   I have been twice
guilty of this in Africa once when we were famishing in Southern
Uvinza I inscribed the - Page 267
How I Found Livingstone Travels, Adventures And Discoveries In Central Africa Including Four Months Residence With Dr. Livingstone By Sir Henry M. Stanley - Page 267 of 310 - First - Home

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I Have Been Twice Guilty Of This In Africa Once When We Were Famishing In Southern Uvinza I Inscribed The Date, My Initials, And The Word "Starving," In Large Letters On The Trunk Of A Sycamore.

In passing through the forest of Ukamba, we saw the bleached skull of an unfortunate victim to the privations of travel.

Referring to it, the Doctor remarked that he could never pass through an African forest, with its solemn stillness and serenity, without wishing to be buried quietly under the dead leaves, where he would be sure to rest undisturbed. In England there was no elbow-room, the graves were often desecrated; and ever since he had buried his wife in the woods of Shupanga he had sighed for just such a spot, where his weary bones would receive the eternal rest they coveted.

The same evening, when the tent door was down, and the interior was made cheerful by the light of a paraffin candle, the Doctor related to me some incidents respecting the career and the death of his eldest son, Robert. Readers of Livingstone's first book, `South Africa,' without which no boy should be, will probably recollect the dying Sebituane's regard for the little boy "Robert." Mrs. Livingstone and family were taken to the Cape of Good Hope, and thence sent to England, where Robert was put in the charge of a tutor; but wearied of inactivity, when he was about eighteen, he left Scotland and came to Natal, whence he endeavoured to reach his father. Unsuccessful in his attempt, he took ship and sailed for New York, and enlisted in the Northern Army, in a New Hampshire regiment of Volunteers, discarding his own name of Robert Moffatt Livingstone, and taking that of Rupert Vincent that his tutor, who seems to have been ignorant of his duties to the youth, might not find him. From one of the battles before Richmond, he was conveyed to a North Carolina hospital, where he died from his wounds.

On the 7th of February we arrived at the Gombe, and camped near one of its largest lakes. This lake is probably several miles in length, and swarms with hippopotami and crocodiles.

From this camp I despatched Ferajji, the cook, and Chowpereh to Unyanyembe, to bring the letters and medicines that were sent to me from Zanzibar, and meet us at Ugunda, while the next day we moved to our old quarters on the Gombe, where we were first introduced to the real hunter's paradise in Central Africa. The rain had scattered the greater number of the herds, but there was plenty of game in the vicinity. Soon after breakfast I took Khamisi and Kalulu with me for a hunt. After a long walk we arrived near a thin jungle, where I discovered the tracks of several animals - boar, antelope, elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, and an unusual number of imprints of the lion's paw. Suddenly I heard Khamisi say, "Master, master! here is a `simba!' (lion);" and he came up to me trembling with excitement and fear - for the young fellow was an arrant coward - to point out the head of a beast, which could be seen just above the tall grass, looking steadily towards us. It immediately afterwards bounded from side to side, but the grass was so high that it was impossible to tell exactly what it was. Taking advantage of a tree in my front, I crept quietly onwards, intending to rest the heavy rifle against it, as I was so weak from the effects of several fevers that I felt myself utterly incapable of supporting my rifle for a steady aim.

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