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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The Wahumba, Who Are Numerous, From Nyambwa To
The Uyanzi Border, Informed My Soldiers That There Was A "Maji
Kuba" Away To The North.
Mizanza, our next camp after Nyambwa, is situated in a grove of
palms, about thirteen miles from the latter place.
Soon after
arriving I had to bury myself under blankets, plagued with the
same intermittent fever which first attacked me during the transit
of Marenga Mkali. Feeling certain that one day's halt, which would
enable me to take regular doses of the invaluable sulphate of
quinine, would cure me, I requested Sheikh Thani to tell Hamed to
halt on the morrow, as I should be utterly unable to continue thus
long, under repeated attacks of a virulent disease which was fast
reducing me into a mere frame of skin and bone. Hamed, in a hurry
to arrive at Unyanyembe in order to dispose of his cloth before
other caravans appeared in the market, replied at first that he
would not, that he could not, stop for the Musungu. Upon Thani's
reporting his answer to me, I requested him to inform Hamed that,
as the Musungu did not wish to detain him, or any other caravan,
it was his express wish that Hamed would march and leave him,
as he was quite strong enough in guns to march through Ugogo
alone. Whatever cause modified the Sheikh's resolution and his
anxiety to depart, Hamed's horn signal for the march was not
heard that night, and on the morrow he had not gone.
Early in the morning I commenced on my quinine doses; at 6 A.M.
I took a second dose; before noon I had taken four more -
altogether, fifty measured grains-the effect of which was
manifest in the copious perspiration which drenched flannels,
linen, and blankets. After noon I arose, devoutly thankful
that the disease which had clung to me for the last fourteen
days had at last succumbed to quinine.
On this day the lofty tent, and the American flag which ever flew
from the centre pole, attracted the Sultan of Mizanza towards it,
and was the cause of a visit with which he honoured me. As he was
notorious among the Arabs for having assisted Manwa Sera in his war
against Sheikh Sny bin Amer, high eulogies upon whom have been
written by Burton, and subsequently by Speke, and as he was the
second most powerful chief in Ugogo, of course he was quite a
curiosity to me. As the tent-door was uplifted that he might
enter, the ancient gentleman was so struck with astonishment at
the lofty apex, and internal arrangements, that the greasy Barsati
cloth which formed his sole and only protection against the chills
of night and the heat of noon, in a fit of abstraction was
permitted to fall down to his feet, exposing to the Musungu's
unhallowed gaze the sad and aged wreck of what must once have been
a towering form. His son, a youth of about fifteen, attentive to
the infirmities of his father, hastened with filial duty to remind
him of his condition, upon which, with an idiotic titter at the
incident, he resumed his scanty apparel and sat down to wonder and
gibber out his admiration at the tent and the strange things which
formed the Musungu's personal baggage and furniture.
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