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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While Crossing A Rapid Stream, Which, As I Said Before Flowed Close
To The Walls, The Inhabitants Of Simbamwenni Had
A fine chance of
gratifying their curiosity of seeing the "Great Musungu," whose
several caravans had preceded him, and who
Unpardonably, because
unlicensed, had spread a report of his great wealth and power.
I was thus the object of a universal stare. At one time on the
banks there were considerably over a thousand natives going
through the several tenses and moods of the verb "to stare,"
or exhibiting every phase of the substantive, viz. - the stare
peremptory, insolent, sly, cunning, modest, and casual. The
warriors of the Sultana, holding in one hand the spear, the bow,
and sheaf or musket, embraced with the other their respective
friends, like so many models of Nisus and Euryalus, Theseus
and Pirithous, Damon and Pythias, or Achilles and Patroclus,
to whom they confidentially related their divers opinions upon
my dress and colour. The words "Musungu kuba" had as much charm
for these people as the music of the Pied Piper had for the rats
of Hamelin, since they served to draw from within the walls across
their stream so large a portion of the population; and when I
continued the journey to the Ungerengeri, distant four miles,
I feared that the Hamelin catastrophe might have to be repeated
before I could rid myself of them. But fortunately for my peace
of mind, they finally proved vincible under the hot sun, and the
distance we had to go to camp.
As we were obliged to overhaul the luggage, and repair saddles, as
well as to doctor a few of the animals, whose backs had by this
time become very sore, I determined to halt here two days.
Provisions were very plentiful also at Simbamwenni, though
comparatively dear.
On the second day I was, for the first time, made aware that my
acclimatization in the ague-breeding swamps of Arkansas was
powerless against the mukunguru of East Africa. The premonitory
symptoms of the African type were felt in my system at 10 A.M.
First, general lassitude prevailed, with a disposition to
drowsiness; secondly, came the spinal ache which, commencing from
the loins, ascended the vertebrae, and extended around the ribs,
until it reached the shoulders, where it settled into a weary
pain; thirdly came a chilliness over the whole body, which was
quickly followed by a heavy head, swimming eyes, and throbbing
temples, with vague vision, which distorted and transformed all
objects of sight. This lasted until 10 P.M., and the mukunguru
left me, much prostrated in strength.
The remedy, applied for three mornings in succession after the
attack, was such as my experience in Arkansas had taught me was
the most powerful corrective, viz., a quantum of fifteen grains
of quinine, taken in three doses of five grains each, every other
hour from dawn to meridian - the first dose to be taken immediately
after the first effect of the purging medicine taken at bedtime the
night previous.
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