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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And
My Hope Was, That It Might Be Possible, After The Defeat Of Mirambo,
And His Forest Banditti - The Ruga-Ruga - To Take My Expedition Direct
To Ujiji By The Road Now Closed.
The Arabs were sanguine of
victory, and I partook of their enthusiasm.
The council of war broke up. A great dishful of rice and curry,
in which almonds, citron, raisins, and currants were plentifully
mixed, was brought in, and it was wonderful how soon we forgot our
warlike fervor after our attention had been drawn to this royal
dish. I, of course, not being a Mohammedan, had a dish of my own,
of a similar composition, strengthened by platters containing
roast chicken, and kabobs, crullers, cakes, sweetbread, fruit,
glasses of sherbet and lemonade, dishes of gum-drops and Muscat
sweetmeats, dry raisins, prunes, and nuts. Certainly Khamis bin
Abdullah proved to me that if he had a warlike soul in him, he
could also attend to the cultivated tastes acquired under the shade
of the mangoes on his father's estates in Zanzibar - the island.
After gorging ourselves on these uncommon dainties some of the
chief Arabs escorted me to other tembes of Tabora. When we went
to visit Mussoud bin Abdullah, he showed me the very ground where
Burton and Speke's house stood - now pulled down and replaced
by his office - Sny bin Amer's house was also torn down, and the
fashionable tembe of Unyanyembe, now in vogue, built over
it, - finely-carved rafters - huge carved doors, brass knockers,
and lofty airy rooms - a house built for defence and comfort.
The finest house in Unyanyembe belongs to Amram bin Mussoud,
who paid sixty frasilah of ivory - over $3,000 - for it. Very fair
houses can be purchased for from twenty to thirty frasilah of
ivory. Amram's house is called the "Two Seas" - "Baherein." It is
one hundred feet in length, and twenty feet high, with walls four
feet thick, neatly plastered over with mud mortar. The great door
is a marvel of carving-work for Unyanyembe artisans. Each rafter
within is also carved with fine designs. Before the front of the
house is a young plantation of pomegranate trees, which flourish
here as if they were indigenous to the soil. A shadoof, such as
may be seen on the Nile, serves to draw water to irrigate the
gardens.
Towards evening we walked back to our own finely situated tembe in
Kwihara, well satisfied with what we had seen at Tabora. My men
drove a couple of oxen, and carried three sacks of native rice - a
most superior kind - the day's presents of hospitality from Khamis
bin Abdullah.
In Unyanyembe I found the Livingstone caravan, which started off in
a fright from Bagamoyo upon the rumour that the English Consul was
coming. As all the caravans were now halted at Unyanyembe because
of the now approaching war, I suggested to Sayd bin Salim, that it
were better that the men of the Livingstone caravan should live
with mine in my tembe, that I might watch over the white man's
goods. Sayd bin Salim agreed with me, and the men and goods were
at once brought to my tembe.
One day Asmani, who was now chief of Livingstone's caravan, the
other having died of small-pox, two or three days before, brought
out a tent to the veranda where, I was sitting writing, and shewed
me a packet of letters, which to my surprise was marked:
"To Dr. Livingstone,
" Ujiji,
"November 1st, 1870.
" Registered letters."
From November 1st, 1870, to February 10, 1871, just one hundred
days, at Bagamoyo! A miserable small caravan of thirty-three men
halting one hundred days at Bagamoyo, only twenty-five miles by
water from Zanzibar! Poor Livingstone! Who knows but he maybe
suffering for want of these very supplies that were detained so
long near the sea. The caravan arrived in Unyanyembe some time
about the middle of May. About the latter part of May the first
disturbances took place. Had this caravan arrived here in the
middle of March, or even the middle of April, they might have
travelled on to Ujiji without trouble.
On the 7th of July, about 2 P.M., I was sitting on the burzani as
usual; I felt listless and languid, and a drowsiness came over me;
I did not fall asleep, but the power of my limbs seemed to fail
me. Yet the brain was busy; all my life seemed passing in review
before me; when these retrospective scenes became serious, I
looked serious; when they were sorrowful, I wept hysterically;
when they were joyous, I laughed loudly. Reminiscences of
yet a young life's battles and hard struggles came surging into
the mind in quick succession: events of boyhood, of youth, and
manhood; perils, travels, scenes, joys, and sorrows; loves and
hates; friendships and indifferences. My mind followed the
various and rapid transition of my life's passages; it drew the
lengthy, erratic, sinuous lines of travel my footsteps had passed
over. If I had drawn them on the sandy floor, what enigmatical
problems they had been to those around me, and what plain,
readable, intelligent histories they had been to me!
The loveliest feature of all to me was the form of a noble, and
true man, who called me son. Of my life in the great pine forests
of Arkansas, and in Missouri, I retained the most vivid impressions.
The dreaming days I passed under the sighing pines on the Ouachita's
shores; the new clearing, the block-house, our faithful black
servant, the forest deer, and the exuberant life I led, were
all well remembered. And I remembered how one day, after we had
come to live near the Mississipi, I floated down, down, hundreds of
miles, with a wild fraternity of knurly giants, the boatmen of
the Mississipi, and how a dear old man welcomed me back, as if
from the grave. I remembered also my travels on foot through
sunny Spain, and France, with numberless adventures in Asia Minor,
among Kurdish nomads.
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