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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Altogether The Expedition Numbers On The Day Of Departure Three
White Men, Twenty-Three Soldiers, Four Supernumeraries, Four
Chiefs, And
One hundred and fifty-three pagazis, twenty-seven
donkeys, and one cart, conveying cloth, beads, and wire,
boat-fixings, tents,
Cooking utensils and dishes, medicine, powder,
small shot, musket-balls, and metallic cartridges; instruments and
small necessaries, such as soap, sugar, tea, coffee, Liebig's
extract of meat, pemmican, candles, &c., which make a total of 153
loads. The weapons of defence which the Expedition possesses
consist of one double-barrel breech-loading gun, smooth bore; one
American Winchester rifle, or "sixteen-shooter;" one Henry rifle,
or "sixteen-shooter;" two Starr's breech-loaders, one Jocelyn
breech-loader, one elephant rifle, carrying balls eight to the
pound; two breech-loading revolvers, twenty-four muskets (flint
locks), six single-barrelled pistols, one battle-axe, two swords,
two daggers (Persian kummers, purchased at Shiraz by myself),
one boar-spear, two American axes 4 lbs. each, twenty-four hatchets,
and twenty-four butcher-knives.
The Expedition has been fitted with care; whatever it needed was not
stinted; everything was provided. Nothing was done too hurriedly,
yet everything was purchased, manufactured, collected, and compounded
with the utmost despatch consistent with efficiency and means.
Should it fail of success in its errand of rapid transit to Ujiji
and back, it must simply happen from an accident which could not
be controlled. So much for the _personnel_ of the Expedition and
its purpose, until its _point de mire_ be reached.
We left Bagamoyo the attraction of all the curious, with much eclat,
and defiled up a narrow lane shaded almost to twilight by the dense
umbrage of two parallel hedges of mimosas. We were all in the
highest spirits. The soldiers sang, the kirangozi lifted his voice
into a loud bellowing note, and fluttered the American flag, which
told all on-lookers, "Lo, a Musungu's caravan!" and my heart, I
thought, palpitated much too quickly for the sober face of a leader.
But I could not check it; the enthusiasm of youth still clung to
me - despite my travels; my pulses bounded with the full glow of
staple health; behind me were the troubles which had harassed me
for over two months. With that dishonest son of a Hindi, Soor
Hadji Palloo, I had said my last word; of the blatant rabble,
of Arabs, Banyans, and Baluches I had taken my last look; with
the Jesuits of the French Mission I had exchanged farewells,
and before me beamed the sun of promise as he sped towards the
Occident. Loveliness glowed around me. I saw fertile fields,
riant vegetation, strange trees - I heard the cry of cricket
and pee-wit, and sibilant sound of many insects, all of which
seemed to tell me, "At last you are started." What could I
do but lift my face toward the pure-glowing sky, and cry,
"God be thanked!"
The first camp, Shamba Gonera, we arrived at in 1 hour 30 minutes,
equal to 3 1/4 miles.
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