The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death Volume Ii Part 6

"Private friends.h.i.+p guided me in the selection of other names where distinctive epithets were urgently needed. 'Paraffin' Young, one of my teachers in chemistry, raised himself to be a merchant prince by his science and art, and has shed pure white light in many lowly cottages, and in some rich palaces. Leaving him and chemistry, I went away to try and bless others. I, too, have shed light of another kind, and am fain to believe that I have performed a small part in the grand revolution which our Maker has been for ages carrying on, by mult.i.tudes of conscious, and many unconscious agents, all over the world. Young's friends.h.i.+p never faltered.

"Oswell and Webb were fellow-travellers, and mighty hunters. Too much engrossed myself with mission-work to hunt, except for the children's larder, when going to visit distant tribes, I relished the sight of fair stand-up fights by my friends with the large denizens of the forest, and admired the true Nimrod cla.s.s for their great courage, truthfulness, and honour. Being a warm lover of natural history, the entire butcher tribe, bent only on making 'a bag,' without regard to animal suffering, have not a single kindly word from me. An Ambonda man, named Mokantju, told Oswell and me in 1851 that the Liambai and Kafue rose as one fountain and then separated, but after a long course came together again in the Zambezi above Zumbo."

_8th October, 1870._--Mbarawa and party came yesterday from Katomba at Mamohela. He reports that Jangeonge (?) with Moeneokela's men had been killing people of the Metamba or forest, and four of his people were slain. He intended fighting, hence his desire to get rid of me when I went north: he got one and a half tusks, but little ivory, but Katomba's party got fifty tusks; Abdullah had got two tusks, and had also been fighting, and Katomba had sent a fighting party down to Lolinde; plunder and murder is Ujijian trading. Mbarawa got his ivory on the Lindi, or as he says, "Urindi," which has black water, and is very large: an arrow could not be shot across its stream, 400 or 500 yards wide, it had to be crossed by canoes, and goes into Lualaba. It is curious that all think it necessary to say to me, "The Manyuema are bad, very bad;" the Balegga will be let alone, because they can fight, and we shall hear nothing of their badness.

_10th October, 1870._--I came out of my hut to-day, after being confined to it since the 22nd July, or eighty days, by irritable ulcers on the feet. The last twenty days I suffered from fever, which reduced my strength, taking away my voice, and purging me. My appet.i.te was good, but the third mouthful of any food caused nausea and vomiting--purging took place and profuse sweating; it was choleraic, and how many Manyuema died of it we could not ascertain. While this epidemic raged here, we heard of cholera terribly severe on the way to the coast. I am thankful to feel myself well.

Only one ulcer is open, the size of a split pea: malachite was the remedy most useful, but the beginning of the rains may have helped the cure, as it does to others; copper rubbed down is used when malachite cannot be had. We expect Syde bin Habib soon: he will take to the river, and I hope so shall I. The native traders reached people who had horns of oxen, got from the left bank of the Lualaba. Katomba's people got most ivory, namely, fifty tusks; the others only four. The Metamba or forest is of immense extent, and there is room for much ivory to be picked up at five or seven bracelets of copper per tusk, if the slaves sent will only be merciful. The nine villages destroyed, and 100 men killed, by Katomba's slaves at Nasangwa's, were all about a string of beads fastened to a powder horn, which a Manyuema man tried in vain to steal!

Katomba gets twenty-five of the fifty tusks brought by his people. We expect letters, and perhaps men by Syde bin Habib. No news from the coast had come to Ujiji, save a rumour that some one was building a large house at Bagamoio, but whether French or English no one can say: possibly the erection of a huge establishment on the mainland may be a way of laboriously proving that it is more healthy than the island. It will take a long time to prove by stone and lime that the higher lands, 200 miles inland, are better still, both for longevity and work.[9] I am in agony for news from home; all I feel sure of now is that my friends will all wish me to complete my task. I join in the wish now, as better than doing it in vain afterwards.

The Manyuema hoeing is little better than sc.r.a.ping the soil, and cutting through the roots of gra.s.s and weeds, by a horizontal motion of the hoe or knife; they leave the roots of maize, ground-nuts, sweet potatoes, and dura, to find their way into the rich soft soil, and well they succeed, so there is no need for deep ploughing: the ground-nuts and ca.s.sava hold their own against gra.s.s for years, and bananas, if cleared of weeds, yield abundantly. Mohamad sowed rice just outside the camp without any advantage being secured by the vicinity of a rivulet, and it yielded forone measure of seed one hundred and twenty measures of increase. This season he plants along the rivulet called "Bonde," and on the damp soil.

The rain-water does not percolate far, for the clay retains it about two feet beneath the surface: this is a cause of unhealthiness to man. Fowls and goats have been cut off this year in large numbers by an epidemic.

The visits of the Ujijian traders must be felt by the Manyuema to be a severe infliction, for the huts are appropriated, and no leave asked: firewood, pots, baskets, and food are used without scruple, and anything that pleases is taken away; usually the women flee into the forest, and return to find the whole place a litter of broken food. I tried to pay the owners of the huts in which I slept, but often in vain, for they hid in the forest, and feared to come near. It was common for old men to come forward to me with a present of bananas as I pa.s.sed, uttering with trembling accents, "Bolongo, Bolongo!" ("Friends.h.i.+p, Friends.h.i.+p!"), and if I stopped to make a little return present, others ran for plantains or palm-toddy. The Arabs' men ate up what they demanded, without one word of thanks, and turned round to me and said, "They are bad, don't give them anything." "Why, what badness is there in giving food?" I replied. "Oh! they like you, but hate us." One man gave me an iron ring, and all seemed inclined to be friendly, yet they are undoubtedly bloodthirsty to other Manyuema, and kill each other.

I am told that journeying inland the safe way to avoid tsetse in going to Merere's is to go to Mdonge, Makinde, Zungomero, Masapi, Irundu, Nyangore, then turn north to the Nyannugams, and thence to Nyembe, and so on south to Merere's. A woman chief lies in the straight way to Merere, but no cattle live in the land. Another insect lights on the animals, and when licked off bites the tongue, or breeds, and is fatal as well as tsetse: it is larger in size. Tipo Tipo and Syde bin Ali come to Nyembe, thence to Nsama's, cross Lualaba at Mpweto's, follow left bank of that river till they cross the next Lualaba, and so into Lunda of Matiamvo. Much ivory may be obtained by this course, and it shows enterprise. Syde bin Habib and Dugumbe will open up the Lualaba this year, and I am hoping to enter the West Lualaba, or Young's River, and if possible go up to Katanga. The Lord be my guide and helper. I feel the want of medicine strongly, almost as much as the want of men.

_16th October, 1870._--Moenemgoi, the chief, came to tell me that Monamyembo had sent five goats to Lohombo to get a charm to kill him.

"Would the English and Kolokolo (Mohamad) allow him to be killed while they were here?" I said that it was a false report, but he believes it firmly: Monamyembo sent his son to a.s.sure us that he was slandered, but thus quarrels and bloodshed feuds arise!

The great want of the Manyuema is national life, of this they have none: each headman is independent of every other. Of industry they have no lack, and the villagers are orderly towards each other, but they go no further. If a man of another district ventures among them, it is at his peril; he is not regarded with more favour as a Manyuema than one of a herd of buffaloes is by the rest: and he is almost sure to be killed.

Moenekuss had more wisdom than his countrymen: his eldest son went over to Monamyembo (one of his subjects) and was there murdered by five spear wounds. The old chief went and asked who had slain his son. All professed ignorance, whilst some suggested "perhaps the Bahombo did it,"

so he went off to them, but they also denied it and laid it at the door of Monamdenda, from whom he got the same reply when he arrived at his place--no one knew, and so the old man died. This, though he was heartbroken, was called witchcraft by Monamyembo. Eleven people were murdered, and after this cruel man was punished he sent a goat with the confession that he had killed Moenekuss' son. This son had some of the father's wisdom: the others he never could get to act like men of sense.

_19th October, 1870._--Bambarre. The ringleading deserters sent Chuma to say that they were going with the people of Mohamad (who left to-day), to the Metamba, but I said that I had nought to say to them. They would go now to the Metamba, whom, on deserting, they said they so much feared, and they think nothing of having left me to go with only three attendants, and get my feet torn to pieces in mud and sand. They probably meant to go back to the women at Mamohela, who fed them in the absence of their husbands. They were told by Mohamad that they must not follow his people, and he gave orders to bind them, and send them back if they did. They think that no punishment will reach them whatever they do: they are freemen, and need not work or do anything but beg.

"English," they call themselves, and the Arabs fear them, though the eagerness with which they engaged in slave-hunting showed them to be genuine n.i.g.g.e.rs.

_20th October, 1870._--The first heavy rain of this season fell yesterday afternoon. It is observable that the permanent halt to which the Manyuema have come is not affected by the appearance of superior men among them: they are stationary, and improvement is unknown. Moenekuss paid smiths to teach his sons, and they learned to work in copper and iron, but he never could get them to imitate his own generous and obliging deportment to others; he had to reprove them perpetually for mean shortsightedness, and when he died he virtually left no successor, for his sons are both narrowminded, mean, shortsighted creatures, without dignity or honour. All they can say of their forefathers is that they came from Lualaba up Luamo, then to Luelo, and thence here. The name seems to mean "forest people"--_Manyuema_.

The party under Ha.s.sani crossed the Logumba at Kanyingere's, and went N. and N.N.E. They found the country becoming more and more mountainous, till at last, approaching Morere, it was perpetually up and down. They slept at a village on the top, and could send for water to the bottom only once, it took so much time to descend and ascend. The rivers all flowed into Kerere or Lower Tanganyika. There is a hot fountain whose water could not be touched nor stones stood upon. The Balegga were very unfriendly, and collected in thousands. "We come to buy ivory," said Ha.s.sani, "and if there is none we go away." "Nay," shouted they, "you come to die here!" and then they shot with arrows; when musket-b.a.l.l.s were returned they fled, and would not come to receive the captives.

_25th October, 1870._--Bambarre. In this journey I have endeavoured to follow with unswerving fidelity the line of duty. My course has been an even one, turning neither to the right hand nor to the left, though my route has been tortuous enough. All the hards.h.i.+p, hunger, and toil were met with the full conviction that I was right in persevering to make a complete work of the exploration of the sources of the Nile. Mine has been a calm, hopeful endeavour to do the work that has been given me to do, whether I succeed or whether I fail. The prospect of death in pursuing what I knew to be right did not make me veer to one side or the other. I had a strong presentiment during the first three years that I should never live through the enterprise, but it weakened as I came near to the end of the journey, and an eager desire to discover any evidence of the great Moses having visited these parts bound me, spell-bound me, I may say, for if I could bring to light anything to confirm the Sacred Oracles, I should not grudge one whit all the labour expended. I have to go down the Central Lualaba or Webb's Lake River, then up the Western or Young's Lake River to Katanga head waters and then retire. I pray that it may be to my native home.

Syde bin Habib, Dugumbe, Juma Merikano, Abdullah Masendi are coming in with 700 muskets, and an immense store of beads, copper, &c. They will cross Lualaba and trade west of it: I wait for them because they may have letters for me.

_28th October, 1870._--Moenemokata, who has travelled further than most Arabs, said to me, "If a man goes with a good-natured, civil tongue, he may pa.s.s through the worst people in Africa unharmed:" this is true, but time also is required: one must not run through a country, but give the people time to become acquainted with you, and let their first fears subside.

_29th October, 1870._--The Manyuema buy their wives from each other; a pretty girl brings ten goats. I saw one brought home to-day; she came jauntily with but one attendant, and her husband walking behind. They stop five days, then go back and remain other five days at home: then the husband fetches her again. Many are pretty, and have perfect forms and limbs.

_31st October, 1870._--Monangoi, of Luamo, married to the sister of Moenekuss, came some time ago to beg that Kanyingere might be attacked by Mohamad's people: no fault has he, "but he is bad." Monangoi, the chief here, offered two tusks to effect the same thing; on refusal, he sends the tusks to Katomba, and may get his countryman spoiled by him.

"He is bad," is all they can allege as a reason. Meantime this chief here caught a slave who escaped, a prisoner from Moene-mokia's, and sold him or her to Moene-mokia for thirty spears and some knives; when asked about this captive, he said, "She died:" it was simply theft, but he does not consider himself bad.

_2nd November, 1870._--The plain without trees that flanks the Lualaba on the right bank, called Mbuga, is densely peopled, and the inhabitants are all civil and friendly. From fifty to sixty large canoes come over from the left bank daily to hold markets; these people too "are good," but the dwellers in the Metamba or dense forest are treacherous and murder a single person without scruple: the dead body is easily concealed, while on the plain all would become aware of it.

I long with intense desire to move on and finish my work, I have also an excessive wish to find anything that may exist proving the visit of the great Moses and the ancient kingdom of Tirhaka, but I pray give me just what pleases Thee my Lord, and make me submissive to Thy will in all things.

I received information about Mr. Young's search trip up the s.h.i.+re and Nya.s.sa only in February 1870, and now take the first opportunity of offering hearty thanks in a despatch to Her Majesty's Government, and all concerned in kindly inquiring after my fate.

Musa and his companions were fair average specimens for heartlessness and falsehood of the lower cla.s.ses of Mohamadans in East Africa. When we were on the s.h.i.+re we used to swing the s.h.i.+p into mid-stream every night, in order to let the air which was put in motion by the water, pa.s.s from end to end. Musa's brother-in-law stepped into the water one morning, in order to swim off for a boat, and was seized by a crocodile, the poor fellow held up his hand imploringly, but Musa and the rest allowed him to perish. On my denouncing his heartlessness, Musa-replied, "Well, no one tell him go in there." When at Senna a slave woman was seized by a crocodile: four Makololo rushed in unbidden, and rescued her, though they knew nothing about her: from long intercourse with both Johanna men and Makololo I take these incidents as typical of the two races. Those of mixed blood possess the vices of both races, and the virtues of neither.

A gentleman of superior abilities[10] has devoted life and fortune to elevate the Johanna men, but fears that they are "an unimprovable race."

The Sultan of Zanzibar, who knows his people better than any stranger, cannot entrust any branch of his revenue to even the better cla.s.s of his subjects, but places all his customs, income, and money affairs, in the hands of Banians from India, and his father did before him.

When the Mohamadan gentlemen of Zanzibar are asked "why their sovereign places all his pecuniary affairs and fortune in the hands of aliens?"

they frankly avow that if he allowed any Arab to farm his customs, he would receive nothing but a crop of lies.

Burton had to dismiss most of his people at Ujiji for dishonesty: Speke's followers deserted at the first approach of danger. Musa fled in terror on hearing a false report from a half-caste Arab about the Mazitu, 150 miles distant, though I promised to go due west, and not turn to the north till far past the beat of that tribe. The few liberated slaves with whom I went on had the misfortune to be Mohamadan slaves in boyhood, but did fairly till we came into close contact with Moslems again. A black Arab was released from a twelve years' bondage by Casembe, through my own influence and that of the Sultan's letter: we travelled together for a time, and he sold the favours of his female slaves to my people for goods which he perfectly well knew were stolen from me. He received my four deserters, and when I had gone off to Lake Bangweolo with only four attendants, the rest wished to follow, but he dissuaded them by saying that I had gone into a country where there was war: he was the direct cause of all my difficulties with these liberated slaves, but judged by the East African Moslem standard, as he ought to be, and not by ours, he isa very good man, and I did not think it prudent to come to a rupture with the old blackguard.

"Laba" means in the Manyuema dialect "medicine;" a charm, "boganga:"

this would make Lualaba mean the River of Medicine or charms. Ha.s.sani thought that it meant "great," because it seemed to mean flowing greatly or grandly.

Casembe caught all the slaves that escaped from Mohamad, and placed them in charge of Fungafunga; so there is little hope for fugitive slaves so long as Casembe lives: this act is to the Arabs very good: he is very sensible, and upright besides.

_3rd November, 1870._--Got a Kondohondo, the large double-billed Hornbill (the _Buceros cristata_), Kakomira, of the s.h.i.+re, and the Sa.s.sa.s.sa of Bambarre. It is good eating, and has fat of an orange tinge, like that of the zebra; I keep the bill to make a spoon of it.

An amba.s.sador at Stamboul or Constantinople was shown a hornbill spoon, and asked if it were really the bill of the Phoenix. He replied that he did not know, but he had a friend in London who knew all these sort of things, so the Turkish amba.s.sador in London brought the spoon to Professor Owen. He observed something in the divergences of the fibres of the horn which he knew before, and went off into the Museum of the College of Surgeons, and brought a preserved specimen of this very bird.

"G.o.d is great--G.o.d is great," said the Turk, "this is the Phoenix of which we have heard so often." I heard the Professor tell this at a dinner of the London Hunterian Society in 1857.

There is no great chief in Manyuema or Balegga; all are petty headmen, each of whom considers himself a chief: it is the ethnic state, with no cohesion between the different portions of the tribe. Murder cannot be punished except by a war, in which many fall, and the feud is made worse, and transmitted to their descendants.

The heathen philosophers were content with mere guesses at the future of the soul. The elder prophets were content with the Divine support in life and in death. The later prophets advance further, as Isaiah: "Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake, and sing, ye that dwell in the dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs.

The earth also shall cast out her dead." This, taken with the sublime spectacle of Hades in the fourteenth chapter, seems a forecast of the future, but Jesus instructed Mary and her sister and Lazarus; and Martha without hesitation spoke of the resurrection at the last day as a familiar doctrine, far in advance of the Mosaic law in which she had been reared.

The Arabs tell me that Monyungo, a chief, was sent for five years among the Watuta to learn their language and ways, and he sent his two sons and a daughter to Zanzibar to school. He kills many of his people, and says they are so bad that if not killed they would murder strangers.

Once they were unruly, when he ordered some of them to give their huts to Mohamad; on refusing, he put fire to them, and they soon called out, "Let them alone; we will retire." He dresses like an Arab, and has ten loaded guns at his sitting-place, four pistols, two swords, several spears, and two bundles of the Batuta spears: he laments that his father filed his teeth when he was young. The name of his very numerous people is Bawungu, country Urungu: his other names are Ironga, Mohamu.

The Basango, on the other hand, consider their chief as a deity, and fear to say aught wrong, lest he should hear them: they fear both before him and when out of sight.

The father of Merere never drank pombe or beer, and a.s.signed as a reason that a great man who had charge of people's lives should never become intoxicated so as to do evil. Bange he never smoked, but in council smelled at a bunch of it, in order to make his people believe that it had a great effect on him. Merere drinks pombe freely, but never uses bange: he alone kills sheep; he is a lover of mutton and beef, but neither goats nor fowls are touched by him.

_9th November, 1870._--I sent to Lohombo for dura, and planted some Nyumbo. I long excessively to be away and finish my work by the two Lacustrine rivers, Lualaba of Webb and Young, but wait only for Syde and Dugumbe, who may have letters, and as I do not intend to return hither, but go through Karagwe homewards, I should miss them altogether. I groan and am in bitterness at the delay, but thus it is: I pray for help to do what is right, but sorely am I perplexed, and grieved and mourn: I cannot give up making a complete work of the exploration.

_10th November, 1870._--A party of Katomba's men arrived on their way to Ujiji for carriers, they report that a foray was made S.W. of Mamohela to recover four guns, which were captured from Katomba; three were recovered, and ten of the Arab party slain. The people of Manyuema fought very fiercely with arrows, and not till many were killed and others mutilated would they give up the guns; they probably expected this foray, and intended to fight till the last. They had not gone in search of ivory while this was enacting, consequently Mohamad's men have got the start of them completely, by going along Lualaba to Kasongo's, and then along the western verge of the Metamba or forest to Loinde or Rindi River. The last men sent took to fighting instead of trading, and returned empty; the experience gained thus, and at the south-west, will probably lead them to conclude that the Manyuema are not to be shot down without reasonable cause. They have sown rice and maize at Mamohela, but cannot trade now where they got so much ivory before. Five men were killed at Rindi or Loinde, and one escaped: the reason of this outbreak by men who have been so peaceable is not divulged, but anyone seeing the wholesale plunder to which the houses and gardens were subject can easily guess the rest. Mamohela's camp had several times been set on fire at night by the tribes which suffered a.s.sault, but did not effect all that was intended. The Arabs say that the Manyuema now understand that every gunshot does not kill; the next thing they will learn will be to grapple in close quarters in the forest, where their spears will outmatch the guns in the hands of slaves, it will follow, too, that no one will be able to pa.s.s through this country; this is the usual course of Suaheli trading; it is murder and plunder, and each slave as he rises in his owner's favour is eager to show himself a mighty man of valour, by cold-blooded killing of his countrymen: if they can kill a fellow-n.i.g.g.e.r, their pride boils up. The conscience is not enlightened enough to cause uneasiness, and Islam gives less than the light of nature.

I am grievously tired of living here. Mohamad is as kind as he can be, but to sit idle or give up before I finish my work are both intolerable; I cannot bear either, yet I am forced to remain by want of people.

_11th November, 1870._--I wrote to Mohamad bin Saleh at Ujiji for letters and medicines to be sent in a box of China tea, which is half empty: if he cannot get carriers for the long box itself, then he is to send these, the articles of which I stand in greatest need.

The relatives of a boy captured at Monanyembe brought three goats to redeem him: he is sick and emaciated; one goat was rejected. The boy shed tears when he saw his grandmother, and the father too, when his goat was rejected. "So I returned, and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter."--Eccles. iv. 1.

The relations were told either to bring the goat, or let the boy die; this was hard-hearted. At Mamohela ten goats are demanded for a captive, and given too; here three are demanded. "He that is higher than the highest regardeth, and there be higher than they. Marvel not at the matter."

I did not write to the coast, for I suspect that the Lewale Syde bin Salem Buraschid destroys my letters in order to quash the affair of robbery by his man Saloom, he kept the other thief, Kamaels, by him for the same purpose. Mohamad writes to Bin Saleh to say that I am here and well; that I sent a large packet of letters in June 1869, with money, and received neither an answer, nor my box from Unyanyembe, and this is to be communicated to the Consul by a friend at Zanzibar. If I wrote, it would only be to be burned; this is as far as I can see at present: the friend who will communicate with the Consul is Mohamad bin Abdullah the Wuzeer, Seyd Suleiman is the Lewale of the Governor of Zanzibar, Suleiman bin Ali or _Sheikh_ Suleiman the Secretary.

The Mamohela horde is becoming terrified, for every party going to trade has lost three or four men, and in the last foray they saw that the Manyuema can fight, for they killed ten men: they will soon refuse to go among those whom they have forced to become enemies.