How I Found Livingstone Travels, Adventures And Discoveries In Central Africa Including Four Months Residence With Dr. Livingstone By Sir Henry M. Stanley
- Page 67 of 310 - First - Home
It Was Impossible; It Was
Also Impossible That Such Varied Accounts Could All Be Correct.
Without Hesitation, Therefore, I Ordered The Wangwana To Proceed
With The Animals.
After three hours of splashing through four
feet of water we reached dry land, and had traversed the swamp
of Makata.
But not without the swamp with its horrors having
left a durable impression upon our minds; no one was disposed
to forget its fatigues, nor the nausea of travel which it almost
engendered. Subsequently, we had to remember its passage still
more vividly, and to regret that we had undertaken the journey
during the Masika season, when the animals died from this date
by twos and threes, almost every day, until but five sickly
worn-out beasts remained; when the Wangwana, soldiers, and
pagazis sickened of diseases innumerable; when I myself was
finally compelled to lie a-bed with an attack of acute dysentery
which brought me to the verge of the grave. I suffered more,
perhaps, than I might have done had I taken the proper medicine,
but my over-confidence in that compound, called "Collis Brown's
Chlorodyne," delayed the cure which ultimately resulted from
a judicious use of Dover's powder. In no one single case of
diarrhoea or acute dysentery had this "Chlorodyne," about which
so much has been said, and written, any effect of lessening the
attack whatever, though I used three bottles. To the dysentery
contracted during, the transit of the Makata swamp, only two
fell victims, and those were a pagazi and my poor little dog
"Omar," my companion from India.
The only tree of any prominence in the Makata valley was the
Palmyra palm (Borassus flabelliformis), and this grew in some
places in numbers sufficient to be called a grove; the fruit was
not ripe while we passed, otherwise we might have enjoyed it as a
novelty. The other vegetation consisted of the several species of
thorn bush, and the graceful parachute-topped and ever-green
mimosa.
The 4th of May we were ascending a gentle slope towards the
important village of Rehenneko, the first village near to which we
encamped in Usagara. It lay at the foot of the mountain, and its
plenitude and mountain air promised us comfort and health. It was
a square, compact village, surrounded by a thick wall of mud,
enclosing cone-topped huts, roofed with bamboo and holcus-stalks;
and contained a population of about a thousand souls. It has
several wealthy and populous neighbours, whose inhabitants are
independent enough in their manner, but not unpleasantly so.
The streams are of the purest water, fresh, and pellucid as crystal,
bubbling over round pebbles and clean gravel, with a music
delightful to hear to the traveller in search of such a sweetly
potable element.
The bamboo grows to serviceable size in the neighbourhood of
Rehenneko, strong enough for tent and banghy poles; and in
numbers sufficient to supply an army. The mountain slopes are
densely wooded with trees that might supply very good timber for
building purposes.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 67 of 310
Words from 34798 to 35303
of 163520