The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death Volume Ii Part 10

The river is said to overflow all its banks annually, as the Nile does further down. I sounded across yesterday. Near the bank it is 9 feet, the rest 15 feet, and one cast in the middle was 20 feet: between the islands 12 feet, and 9 feet again in sh.o.r.e: it is a mighty river truly.

I took distances and alt.i.tudes alternately with a bullet for a weight on the key of the chronometer, taking successive alt.i.tudes of the sun and distances of the moon. Possibly the first and last alt.i.tudes may give the rate of going, and the frequent distances between may give approximate longitude.

_4th April, 1871._--Moon, the fourth of the Arabs, will appear in three or four days. This will be a guide in ascertaining the day of observing the lunars, with the weight.

The Arabs ask many questions about the Bible, and want to know how many prophets have appeared, and probably say that they believe in them all; while we believe all but reject Mohamad. It is easy to drive them into a corner by questioning, as they don't know whither the inquiries lead, and they are not offended when their knowledge is, as it were, admitted.

When asked how many false prophets are known, they appeal to my knowledge, and evidently never heard of Balaam, the son of Beor, or of the 250 false prophets of Jezebel and Ahab, or of the many lying prophets referred to in the Bible.

_6th April, 1871._--Ill from drinking two cups of very sweet malofu, or beer, made from bananas: I shall touch it no more.

_7th April, 1871._--Made this ink with the seeds of a plant, called by the Arabs Zugifare; it is known in India, and is used here by the Manyuema to dye virambos and ornament faces and heads.[14] I sent my people over to the other side to cut wood to build a house for me; the borrowed one has mud walls and floors, which are damp, foul, smelling, and unwholesome. I shall have gra.s.s walls, and gra.s.s and reeds on the floor of my own house; the free ventilation will keep it sweet. This is the season called Masika, the finis.h.i.+ng rains, which we have in large quant.i.ties almost every night, and I could scarcely travel even if I had a canoe; still it is trying to be kept back by suspicion, and by the wickedness of the wicked.

Some of the Arabs try to be kind, and send cooked food every day: Abed is the chief donor. I taught him to make a mosquito-curtain of thin printed calico, for he had endured the persecution of these insects helplessly, except by sleeping on a high stage, when they were unusually bad. The Manyuema often bring evil on themselves by being untrustworthy.

For instance, I paid one to bring a large canoe to cross the Lualaba, he brought a small one, capable of carrying three only, and after wasting some hours we had to put off crossing till next day.

_8th April, 1871._--Every headman of four or five huts is a mologhwe, or chief, and glories in being called so. There is no political cohesion.

The Ujijian slavery is an accursed system; but it must be admitted that the Manyuema, too, have faults, the result of ignorance of other people: their isolation has made them as unconscious of danger in dealing with the cruel stranger, as little dogs in the presence of lions. Their refusal to sell or lend canoes for fear of blame by each other will be ended by the party of Dugumbe, which has ten headmen, taking them by force; they are unreasonable and b.l.o.o.d.y-minded towards each other: every Manyuema would like every other headman slain; they are subjected to bitter lessons and sore experience. Abed went over to Mologhwe Kahembe and mixed blood with him; he was told that two large canoes were hollowed out, and nearly ready to be brought for sale; if this can be managed peaceably it is a great point gained, and I may get one at our Arabs' price, which may be three or four times the native price. There is no love lost among the three Arabs here.

_9th April, 1871._--Cut wood for my house. The Loeki is said by slaves who have come thence to be much larger than the Lualaba, but on the return of Abed's people from the west we shall obtain better information.

_10th April, 1871._--Chitoka, or market, to-day. I counted upwards of 700 pa.s.sing my door. With market women it seems to be a pleasure of life to haggle and joke, and laugh and cheat: many come eagerly, and retire with careworn faces; many are beautiful, and many old; all carry very heavy loads of dried ca.s.sava and earthen pots, which they dispose of very cheaply for palm-oil, fish, salt, pepper, and relishes for their food. The men appear in gaudy lambas, and carry little save their iron wares, fowls, gra.s.s cloth, and pigs.

Bought the fish with the long snouts: very good eating.

_12th April, 1871._--New moon last night; fourth Arab month: I am at a loss for the day of the month. My new house is finished; a great comfort, for the other was foul and full of vermin: bugs (Tapazi, or ticks), that follow wherever Arabs go, made me miserable, but the Arabs are insensible to them; Abed alone had a mosquito-curtain, and he never could praise it enough. One of his remarks is, "If slaves think you fear them, they will climb over you." I clothed mine for nothing, and ever after they have tried to ride roughshod over me, and mutiny on every occasion!

_14th April, 1871._--Kahembe came over, and promises to bring a canoe; but he is not to be trusted; he presented Abed with two slaves, and is full of fair promises about the canoe, which he sees I am anxious to get. They all think that my buying a canoe means carrying war to the left bank; and now my Banian slaves encourage the idea: "He does not wish slaves nor ivory," say they, "but a canoe, in order to kill Manyuema." Need it be wondered at that people, who had never heard of strangers or white men before I popped down among them, believed the slander? The slaves were aided in propagating the false accusation by the half-caste Ujijian slaves at the camp. Ha.s.sani fed them every day; and, seeing that he was a bigoted Moslem, they equalled him in prayers in his sitting-place seven or eight times a day! They were adepts at lying, and the first Manyuema words they learned were used to propagate falsehood.

I have been writing part of a despatch, in case of meeting people from the French settlement on the Gaboon at Loeki, but the canoe affair is slow and tedious: the people think only of war: they are a b.l.o.o.d.y-minded race.

_15th April, 1871._--The Manyuema tribe, called Bagenya, occupy the left bank, opposite Nyangwe. A spring of brine rises in the bed of a river, named Lofubu, and this the Bayenga insp.i.s.sate by boiling, and sell the salt at market. The Lomame is about ten days west of Lualaba, and very large; the confluence of Lomame, or Loeki, is about six days down below Nyangwe by canoe; the river Nyanze is still less distant.

_16th April, 1871._--On the Nyanze stands the princ.i.p.al town and market of the chief, Zurampela. Ras.h.i.+d visited him, and got two slaves on promising to bring a war-party from Abed against Chipange, who by similar means obtained the help of Salem Mokadam to secure eighty-two captives: Ras.h.i.+d will leave this as soon as possible, sell the slaves, and leave Zurampela to find out the fraud! This deceit, which is an average specimen of the beginning of half-caste dealings, vitiates his evidence of a specimen of cannibalism which he witnessed; but it was after a fight that the victims were cut up, and this agrees with the fact that the Manyuema eat only those who are killed in war. Some have averred that captives, too, are eaten, and a slave is bought with a goat to be eaten; but this I very strongly doubt.

_17th April, 1871._--Rainy.

_18th April, 1871._--I found that the Lepidosiren is brought to market in pots with water in them, also white ants roasted, and the large snail, achetina, and a common snail: the Lepidosiren is called "_sembe_."

Abed went a long way to examine a canoe, but it was still further, and he turned back.

_19th April, 1871._--Dreary waiting, but Abed proposes to join and trade along with me: this will render our party stronger, and he will not shoot people in my company; we shall hear Katomba's people's story too.

_20th April, 1871._--Katomba a chief was to visit us yesterday, but failed, probably through fear.

The chief Mokandira says that Loeki is small where it joins Lualaba, but another, which they call Lomame, is very much larger, and joins Lualaba too: rapids are reported on it.

_21st April, 1871._--A common salutation reminds me of the Bechuana's "U le hatsi" (thou art on earth); "Ua tala" (thou lookest); "Ua boka," or byoka (thou awakest); "U ri ho" (thou art here); "U li koni" (thou art here)--about pure "Sichuana," and "Nya," No, is identical. The men here deny that cannibalism is common: they eat only those killed in war, and, it seems, in revenge, for, said Mokandira, "the meat is not nice; it makes one dream of the dead man." Some west of Lualaba eat even those bought for the purpose of a feast; but I am not quite positive on this point: all agree in saying that human flesh is saltish, and needs but little condiment. And yet they are a fine-looking race; I would back a company of Manyuema men to be far superior in shape of head and generally in physical form too against the whole Anthropological Society. Many of the women are very light-coloured and very pretty; they dress in a kilt of many folds of gaudy lambas.

_22nd April, 1871._--In Manyuema, here Kusi, Kunzi, is north; Mhuru, south; Nkanda, west, or other side Lualaba; Mazimba, east. The people are sometimes confused in name by the directions; thus Bankanda is only "the other side folk." The Bagenya Chimburu came to visit me, but I did not see him, nor did I know Moene Nyangwe till too late to do him honour; in fact, every effort was made to keep me in the dark while the slavers of Ujiji made all smooth for themselves to get canoes. All chiefs claim the privilege of shaking hands, that is, they touch the hand held out with their palm, then clap two hands together, then touch again, and clap again, and the ceremony concludes: this frequency of shaking hands misled me when the great man came.

_24th April, 1871._--Old feuds lead the Manyuema to entrap the traders to fight: they invite them to go to trade, and tell them that at such a village plenty of ivory lies; then when the trader goes with his people, word is sent that he is coming to fight, and he is met by enemies, who compel him to defend himself by their onslaught. We were nearly entrapped in this way by a chief pretending to guide us through the country near Basilange; he would have landed us in a fight, but we detected his drift, changed our course so as to mislead any messengers he might have sent, and dismissed him with some sharp words.

Lake Kamolondo is about twenty-five miles broad. The Lufira at Katanga is a full bow-shot wide; it goes into Kamolondo. Chakomo is east of Lufira Junction. Kikonze Kalanza is on the west of it, and Mkana, or the underground dwellings, still further west: some are only two days from Katanga. The Chorwe people are friendly. Kamolondo is about ten days distant from Katanga.

_25th April, 1871._--News came that four men sent by Abed to buy ivory had been entrapped, and two killed. The rest sent for aid to punish the murderers, and Abed wished me to send my people to bring the remaining two men back. I declined; because, no matter what charges I gave, my Banian slaves would be sure to shed human blood. We can go nowhere but the people of the country ask us to kill their fellow-men, nor can they be induced to go to villages three miles off, because there, in all probability, live the murderers of fathers, uncles, or grandfathers--a dreadful state truly. The traders are as bloodthirsty every whit as the Manyuema, where no danger exists, but in most cases where the people can fight they are as civil as possible. At Moere Mpanda's, the son of Casembe, Mohamad Bogharib left a debt of twenty-eight slaves and eight bars of copper, each seventy pounds, and did not dare to fire a shot because they saw they had met their match: here his headmen are said to have bound the headmen of villages till a ransom was paid in tusks! Had they only gone three days further to the Babisa, to whom Moene-mokaia's men went, they would have got fine ivory at two rings a tusk, while they had paid from ten to eighteen. Here it is as sad a tale to tell as was that of the Manganja scattered and peeled by the Waiyau agents of the Portuguese of Tette. The good Lord look on it.

_26th April, 1871._--Chitovu called nine slaves bought by Abed's people from the Kuss country, west of the Lualaba, and asked them about their tribes and country for me. One, with his upper front teeth extracted, was of the tribe Maloba, on the other side of the Loeki, another comes from the River Lombadzo, or Lombazo, which is west of Loeki (this may be another name for the Lomame), the country is called Nanga, and the tribe Nongo, chief Mpunzo. The Malobo tribe is under the chiefs Yunga and Lomadyo. Another toothless boy said that he came from the Lomame: the upper teeth extracted seem to say that the tribe have cattle; the knocking out the teeth is in imitation of the animals they almost wors.h.i.+p. No traders had ever visited them; this promises ivory to the present visitors: all that is now done with the ivory there is to make rude blowing horns and bracelets.

_27th April, 1871._--Waiting wearily and anxiously; we cannot move people who are far off and make them come near with news. Even the owners of canoes say, "Yes, yes; we shall bring them," but do not stir; they doubt us, and my slaves increase the distrust by their lies to the Manyuema.

_28th April, 1871._--Abed sent over Manyuema to buy slaves for him and got a pretty woman for 300 cowries and a hundred strings of beads; she can be sold again to an Arab for much more in ivory. Abed himself gave $130 for a woman-cook, and she fled to me when put in chains for some crime: I interceded, and she was loosed: I advised her not to offend again, because I could not beg for her twice.

Ha.s.sani with ten slaves dug at the malachite mines of Katanga for three months, and gained a hundred frasilahs of copper, or 3500 lbs. We hear of a half-caste reaching the other side of Lomame, probably from Congo or Ambriz, but the messengers had not seen him.

_1st May, 1871._--Katomba's people arrived from the Babisa, where they sold all their copper at two rings for a tusk, and then found that abundance of ivory still remained: door-posts and house-pillars had been made of ivory which now was rotten. The people of Babisa kill elephants now and bring tusks by the dozen, till the traders get so many that in this case they carried them by three relays. They dress their hair like the Bashukulompo, plaited into upright basket helmets: no quarrel occurred, and great kindness was shown to the strangers. A river having very black water, the Nyengere, flows into Lualaba from the west, and it becomes itself very large: another river or water, Shamikwa, falls into it from the south-west, and it becomes still larger: this is probably the Lomame. A short-horned antelope is common.

_3rd May, 1871._--Abed informs me that a canoe will come in five days.

Word was sent after me by the traders south of us not to aid me, as I was sure to die where I was going: the wish is father to the thought!

Abed was naturally very anxious to get first into the Babisa ivory market, yet he tried to secure a canoe for me before he went, but he was too eager, and a Manyuema man took advantage of his desire, and came over the river and said that he had one hollowed out, and he wanted goats and beads to hire people to drag it down to the water. Abed on my account advanced five goats, a thousand cowries, and many beads, and said that he would tell me what he wished in return: this was debt, but I was so anxious to get away I was content to take the canoe on any terms. However, it turned out that the matter on the part of the headman whom Abed trusted was all deception: he had no canoe at all, but knew of one belonging to another man, and wished to get Abed and me to send men to see it--in fact, to go with their guns, and he would manage to embroil them with the real owner, so that some old feud should be settled to his satisfaction. On finding that I declined to be led into his trap, he took a female slave to the owner, and on his refusal to sell the canoe for her, it came out that he had adopted a system of fraud to Abed. He had victimized Abed, who was naturally inclined to believe his false statements, and get off to the ivory market. His people came from the Kuss country in the west with sixteen tusks, and a great many slaves bought and not murdered for. The river is rising fast, and bringing down large quant.i.ties of aquatic gra.s.s, duckweed, &c. The water is a little darker in colour than at Cairo. People remove and build their huts on the higher forest lands adjacent. Many white birds (the paddy bird) appear, and one Ibis religiosa; they pa.s.s north.

The Bakuss live near Lomame; they were very civil and kind to the strangers, but refused pa.s.sage into the country. At my suggestion, the effect of a musket-shot was shown on a goat: they thought it supernatural, looked up to the clouds, and offered to bring ivory to buy the charm that could draw lightning down. When it was afterwards attempted to force a path, they darted aside on seeing the Banyamwezi's followers putting the arrows into the bowstrings, but stood in mute amazement looking at the guns, which mowed them down in large numbers.

They thought that muskets were the insignia of chieftains.h.i.+p. Their chiefs all go with a long straight staff of rattan, having a quant.i.ty of black medicine smeared on each end, and no weapons in their hands: they imagined that the guns were carried as insignia of the same kind; some, jeering in the south, called them big tobacco-pipes; they have no fear on seeing a gun levelled at them.

They use large and very long spears very expertly in the long gra.s.s and forest of their country, and are terrible fellows among themselves, and when they become acquainted with firearms will be terrible to the strangers who now murder them. The Manyuema say truly, "If it were not for your guns, not one of you would ever return to your country." The Bakuss cultivate more than the southern Manyuema, especially Pennisetum and dura, or _Holeus sorghum;_ common coffee is abundant, and they use it, highly scented with vanilla, which must be fertilized by insects; they hand round cups of it after meals. Pineapples too are abundant.

They bathe regularly twice a day: their houses are of two storeys. The women have rather compressed heads, but very pleasant countenances; and ancient Egyptian, round, wide-awake eyes. Their numbers are prodigious; the country literally swarms with people, and a chief's town extends upwards of a mile. But little of the primeval forest remains. Many large pools of standing water have to be crossed, but markets are held every eight or ten miles from each other, and to these the people come from far, for the market is as great an inst.i.tution as shopping is with the civilized. Illicit intercourse is punished by the whole of the offender's family being enslaved.

The Bakuss smelt copper from the ore and sell it very cheaply to the traders for beads. The project of going in canoes now appeared to the half-castes so plausible, that they all tried to get the Bagenya on the west bank to lend them, and all went over to mix blood and make friends with the owners, then all slandered me as not to be trusted, as they their blood-relations were; and my slaves mutinied and would go no further. They mutinied three times here, and Ha.s.sani harboured them till I told him that, if an English officer harboured an Arab slave he would be compelled by the Consul to refund the price, and I certainly would not let him escape; this frightened him; but I was at the mercy of slaves who had no honour, and no interest in going into danger.

_16th May, 1871._--Abed gave me a frasilah of Matunda beads, and I returned fourteen fathoms of fine American sheeting, but it was an obligation to get beads from one whose wealth depended on exchanging beads for ivory.

_16th May, 1871._--At least 3000 people at market to-day, and my going among them has taken away the fear engendered by the slanders of slaves and traders, for all are pleased to tell me the names of the fishes and other things. Lepidosirens are caught by the neck and lifted out of the pot to show their fatness. Camwood ground and made into flat cakes for sale and earthen b.a.l.l.s, such as are eaten in the disease safura or earth-eating, are offered and there is quite a roar of voices in the mult.i.tude, haggling. It was pleasant to be among them compared to being with the slaves, who were all eager to go back to Zanzibar: some told me that they were slaves, and required a free man to thrash them, and proposed to go back to Ujiji for one. I saw no hope of getting on with them, and anxiously longed for the arrival of Dugumbe; and at last Abed overheard them plotting my destruction. "If forced to go on, they would watch till the first difficulty arose with the Manyuema, then fire off their guns, run away, and as I could not run as fast as they, leave me to perish." Abed overheard them speaking loudly, and advised me strongly not to trust myself to them any more, as they would be sure to cause my death. He was all along a sincere friend, and I could not but take his words as well-meant and true.

_18th May, 1871._--Abed gave me 200 cowries and some green beads. I was at the point of disarming my slaves and driving them away, when they relented, and professed to be willing to go anywhere; so, being eager to finish my geographical work, I said I would run the risk of their desertion, and gave beads to buy provisions for a start north. I cannot state how much I was worried by these wretched slaves, who did much to annoy me, with the sympathy of all the slaving crew. When baffled by untoward circ.u.mstances the bowels plague me too, and discharges of blood relieve the headache, and are as safety-valves to the system. I was nearly persuaded to allow Mr. Syme to operate on me when last in England, but an old friend told me that his own father had been operated on by the famous John Hunter, and died in consequence at the early age of forty. His advice saved me, for this complaint has been my safety-valve.

The Zingifure, or red pigment, is said to be a cure for itch common among both natives and Arab slaves and Arab children.

_20th May, 1871._--Abed called Kalonga the headman, who beguiled him as I soon found, and delivered the canoe he had bought formally to me, and went off down the Lualaba on foot to buy the Babisa ivory. I was to follow in the canoe and wait for him in the River Luera, but soon I ascertained that the canoe was still in the forest, and did not belong to Kalonga. On demanding back the price he said, "Let Abed come and I will give it to him;" then when I sent to force him to give up the goods, all his village fled into the forest: I now tried to buy one myself from the Bagenya, but there was no chance; so long as the half-caste traders needed any they got all--nine large canoes, and I could not secure one.

_24th May, 1871._--The market is a busy scene--everyone is in dead earnest--little time is lost in friendly greetings; vendors of fish run about with potsherds full of snails or small fishes or young _Clarias capensis_ smoke-dried and spitted on twigs, or other relishes to exchange for ca.s.sava roots dried after being steeped about three days in water--potatoes, vegetables, or grain, bananas, flour, palm-oil, fowls, salt, pepper; each is intensely eager to barter food for relishes, and makes strong a.s.sertions as to the goodness or badness of everything: the sweat stands in beads on their faces--c.o.c.ks crow briskly, even when slung over the shoulder with their heads hanging down, and pigs squeal.

Iron k.n.o.bs, drawn out at each end to show the goodness of the metal, are exchanged for cloth of the Muabe palm. They have a large funnel of basket-work below the vessel holding the wares, and slip the goods down if they are not to be seen. They deal fairly, and when differences arise they are easily settled by the men interfering or pointing to me: they appeal to each other, and have a strong sense of natural justice. With so much food changing hands amongst the three thousand attendants much benefit is derived; some come from twenty to twenty-five miles. The men flaunt about in gaudy-coloured lambas of many folded kilts--the women work hardest--the potters slap and ring their earthenware all round, to show that there is not a single flaw in them. I bought two finely shaped earthen bottles of porous earthenware, to hold a gallon each, for one string of beads, the women carry huge loads of them in their funnels above the baskets, strapped to the shoulders and forehead, and their hands are full besides; the roundness of the vessels is wonderful, seeing no machine is used: no slaves could be induced to carry half as much as they do willingly. It is a scene of the finest natural acting imaginable. The eagerness with which all sorts of a.s.sertions are made--the eager earnestness with which apparently all creation, above, around, and beneath, is called on to attest the truth of what they allege--and then the intense surprise and withering scorn cast on those who despise their goods: but they show no concern when the buyers turn up their noses at them. Little girls run about selling cups of water for a few small fishes to the half-exhausted wordy combatants. To me it was an amusing scene. I could not understand the words that flowed off their glib tongues, but the gestures were too expressive to need interpretation.

_27th May, 1871._--Ha.s.sani told me that since he had come, no Manyuema had ever presented him with a single mouthful of food, not even a potato or banana, and he had made many presents. Going from him into the market I noticed that one man presented a few small fishes, another a sweet potato and a piece of ca.s.sava, and a third two small fishes, but the Manyuema are not a liberal people. Old men and women who remained in the half-deserted villages we pa.s.sed through in coming north, often ran forth to present me with bananas, but it seemed through fear; when I sat down and ate the bananas they brought beer of bananas, and I paid for all. A stranger in the market had ten human under jaw-bones hung by a string over his shoulder: on inquiry he professed to have killed and eaten the owners, and showed with his knife how he cut up his victim.

When I expressed disgust he and others laughed. I see new faces every market-day. Two nice girls were trying to sell their venture, which was roasted white ants, called "Gumbe."

_30th May, 1871._--The river fell four inches during the last four days; the colour is very dark brown, and large quant.i.ties of aquatic plants and trees float down. Mologhwe, or chief Ndambo, came and mixed blood with the intensely bigoted Moslem, Ha.s.sani: this is to secure the nine canoes. He next went over to have more palaver about them, and they do not hesitate to play me false by detraction. The Manyuema, too, are untruthful, but very honest; we never lose an article by them: fowls and goats are untouched, and if a fowl is lost, we know that it has been stolen by an Arab slave. When with Mohamad Bogharib, we had all to keep our fowls at the Manyuema villages to prevent them being stolen by our own slaves, and it is so here. Ha.s.sani denies complicity with them, but it is quite apparent that he and others encourage them in mutiny.

_5th June, 1871._--The river rose again six inches and fell three. Rain nearly ceased, and large ma.s.ses of fleecy clouds float down here from the north-west, with accompanying cold.

_7th June, 1871._--I fear that I must march on foot, but the mud is forbidding.