How I Found Livingstone Travels, Adventures And Discoveries In Central Africa Including Four Months Residence With Dr. Livingstone By Sir Henry M. Stanley
- Page 289 of 310 - First - Home
With
Clear, Keen, Incisive Force, The Terrible Blasts Seemed To
Penetrate Through An Through Our Bodies, As Though We Were But
Filmy Gauze.
Manfully battling against this mighty "peppo " -
storm - we passed through Mukamwa's, and crossing a broad sandy
bed of a stream, we entered the territory of Mvumi, the last
tribute-levying chief of Ugogo.
The 4th of April, after sending Bombay and my friendly Mgogo
with eight doti, or thirty-two yards of cloth, as a farewell
tribute to the Sultan, we struck off through the jungle, and in
five hours we were on the borders of the wilderness of "Marenga
Mkali" - the "hard," bitter or brackish, water.
From our camp I despatched three men to Zanzibar with letters to
the American Consul, and telegraphic despatches for the `Herald,'
with a request to the Consul that he would send the men back with
a small case or two containing such luxuries as hungry, worn-out,
and mildewed men would appreciate. The three messengers were
charged not to halt for anything - rain or no rain, river or
inundation - as if they did not hurry up we should catch them
before they reached the coast. With a fervent "Inshallah, bana,"
they departed.
On the 5th, with a loud, vigorous, cheery "Hurrah!" we plunged
into the depths of the wilderness, which, with its eternal silence
and solitude, was far preferable to the jarring, inharmonious
discord of the villages of the Wagogo. For nine hours we held on
our way, starting with noisy shouts the fierce rhinoceros, the
timid quagga, and the herds of antelopes which crowd the jungles
of this broad salina. On the 7th, amid a pelting rain, we entered
Mpwapwa, where my Scotch assistant, Farquhar, died. We had
performed the extraordinary march of 338 English statute miles
from the 14th of March to the 7th of April, or within twenty-four
days, inclusive of halts, which was a little over fourteen miles
a day.
Leukole, the chief of Mpwapwa, with whom I left Farquhar, gave the
following account of the death of the latter: -
"The white man seemed to be improving after you left him, until
the, fifth day, when, while attempting to rise and walk out of his
tent, he fell back; from that minute he got worse and worse, and
in the afternoon he died, like one going to sleep. His legs and
abdomen had swollen considerably, and something, I think, broke
within him when he fell, for he cried out like a man who was very
much hurt, and his servant said, `The master says he is dying.'
"We had him carried out under a large tree, and after covering him
with leaves, there left him. His servant took possession of his
things, his rifle, clothes, and blanket, and moved off to the tembe
of a Mnyamwezi, near Kisokweh, where he lived for three months,
when he also died. Before he died he sold his master's rifle to an
Arab going to Unyanyembe for ten doti (forty yards of cloth).
That is all I know about it."
He subsequently showed me the hollow into which the dead body
of Farquhar was thrown, but I could not find a vestige of his
bones, though we looked sharply about that we might make a decent
grave for them.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 289 of 310
Words from 151475 to 152026
of 163520