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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"No!" Said He To Me,
Emphatically, "Better Stop Here Two Or Three Days, Give Your Tired
Animals Some Rest; Collect All The Pagazis You Can, Fill Your Inside
With Fresh Milk, Sweet Potatoes, Beef, Mutton, Ghee, Honey, Beans,
Matama, Maweri, And Nuts; - Then, Inshallah!
We shall go together
through Ugogo without stopping anywhere." As the advice tallied
accurately with my own desired and keen appetite for the good
things he named, he had not long to wait for my assent to his
counsel.
"Ugogo," continued he, "is rich with milk and honey -
rich in flour, beans and almost every eatable thing; and,
Inshallah! before another week is gone we shall be in Ugogo!"
I had heard from passing caravans so many extremely favourable
reports respecting Ugogo and its productions that it appeared
to me a very Land of Promise, and I was most anxious to refresh
my jaded stomach with some of the precious esculents raised in
Ugogo; but when I heard that Mpwapwa also furnished some of
those delicate eatables, and good things, most of the morning
hours were spent in inducing the slow-witted people to part
with them; and when, finally, eggs, milk, honey, mutton, ghee,
ground matama and beans had been collected in sufficient
quantities to produce a respectable meal, my keenest attention
and best culinary talents were occupied for a couple of hours
in converting this crude supply into a breakfast which could be
accepted by and befit a stomach at once fastidious and famished,
such as mine was. The subsequent healthy digestion of it proved
my endeavours to have been eminently successful. At the
termination of this eventful day, the following remark was jotted
down in my diary: "Thank God! After fifty-seven days of living
upon matama porridge and tough goat, I have enjoyed with unctuous
satisfaction a real breakfast and dinner."
It was in one of the many small villages which are situated upon
the slopes of the Mpwapwa that a refuge and a home for Farquhar
was found until he should be enabled by restored health to start
to join us at Unyanyembe.
Food was plentiful and of sufficient variety to suit the most
fastidious - cheap also, much cheaper than we had experienced for
many a day. Leucole, the chief of the village, with whom
arrangements for Farquhar's protection and comfort were made, was
a little old man of mild eye and very pleasing face, and on being
informed that it was intended to leave the Musungu entirely under
his charge, suggested that some man should be left to wait on him,
and interpret his wishes to his people.
As Jako was the only one who could speak English, except Bombay
and Selim, Jako was appointed, and the chief Leucole was satisfied.
Six months' provisions of white beads, Merikani and Kaniki cloth,
together with two doti of handsome cloth to serve as a present to
Leucole after his recovery, were taken to Farquhar by Bombay,
together with a Starr's carbine, 300 rounds of cartridge, a set of
cooking pots, and 3 lbs.
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