The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death Volume Ii Part 1

The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death.

Volume II.

1869-1873.

by David Livingstone.

CHAPTER I.

Bad beginning of the new year. Dangerous illness. Kindness of Arabs. Complete helplessness. Arrive at Tanganyika. The Doctor is conveyed in canoes. Kasanga Islet. Cochin-China fowls.

Beaches Ujiji. Receives some stores. Plundering hands. Slow recovery. Writes despatches. Refusal of Arabs to take letters.

Thani bin Suellim. A den of slavers. Puzzling current in Lake Tanganyika. Letters sent off at last. Contemplates visiting the Manyuema. Arab depredations. Starts for new explorations in Manyuema, 12th July, 1869. Voyage on the Lake. Kabogo East.

Crosses Tanganyika. Evil effects of last illness. Elephant hunter's superst.i.tion. Dugumbe. The Lualaba reaches the Manyuema. Sons of Moenekuss. Sokos first heard of. Manyuema customs. Illness.

[The new year opened badly enough, and from letters he wrote subsequently concerning the illness which now attacked him, we gather that it left evils behind, from which he never quite recovered. The following entries were made after he regained sufficient strength, but we see how short they necessarily were, and what labour it was to make the jottings which relate to his progress towards the western sh.o.r.e of Lake Tanganyika. He was not able at any time during this seizure to continue the minute maps of the country in his pocket-books, which for the first time fail here.]

_1st January, 1869._--I have been wet times without number, but the wetting of yesterday was once too often: I felt very ill, but fearing that the Lof.u.ko might flood, I resolved to cross it. Cold up to the waist, which made me worse, but I went on for 2-1/2 hours E.

_3rd January, 1869._--I marched one hour, but found I was too ill to go further. Moving is always good in fever; now I had a pain in the chest, and rust of iron sputa: my lungs, my strongest part, were thus affected.

We crossed a rill and built sheds, but I lost count of the days of the week and month after this. Very ill all over.

_About 7th January, 1869._--Cannot walk: Pneumonia of right lung, and I cough all day and all night: sputa rust of iron and b.l.o.o.d.y: distressing weakness. Ideas flow through the mind with great rapidity and vividness, in groups of twos and threes: if I look at any piece of wood, the bark seems covered over with figures and faces of men, and they remain, though I look away and turn to the same spot again. I saw myself lying dead in the way to Ujiji, and all the letters I expected there useless.

When I think of my children and friends, the lines ring through my head perpetually:

"I shall look into your faces, And listen to what you say, And be often very near you When you think I'm far away."

Mohamad Bogharib came up, and I have got a cupper, who cupped my chest.

_8th and 9th January, 1869._--Mohamad Bogharib offered to carry me. I am so weak I can scarcely speak. We are in Marungu proper now--a pretty but steeply-undulating country. This is the first time in my life I have been carried in illness, but I cannot raise myself to the sitting posture. No food except a little gruel. Great distress in coughing all night long; feet swelled and sore. I am carried four hours each day on a kitanda or frame, like a cot; carried eight hours one day. Then sleep in a deep ravine. Next day six hours, over volcanic tufa; very rough. We seem near the brim of Tanganyika. Sixteen days of illness. May be 23rd of January; it is 5th of lunar month. Country very undulating; it is perpetually up and down. Soil red, and rich knolls of every size and form. Trees few. Erythrinas abound; so do elephants. Carried eight hours yesterday to a chief's village. Small sharp thorns hurt the men's feet, and so does the roughness of the ground. Though there is so much slope, water does not run quickly off Marungu. A compact mountain-range flanks the undulating country through which we pa.s.sed, and may stop the water flowing. Mohamad Bogharib is very kind to me in my extreme weakness; but carriage is painful; head down and feet up alternates with feet down and head up; jolted up and down and sideways--changing shoulders involves a toss from one side to the other of the kitanda. The sun is vertical, blistering any part of the skin exposed, and I try to shelter my face and head as well as I can with a bunch of leaves, but it is dreadfully fatiguing in my weakness.

I had a severe relapse after a very hot day. Mohamad gave me medicines; one was a sharp purgative, the others intended for the cure of the cough.

_14th February, 1869._--Arrived at Tanganyika. Parra is the name of the land at the confluence of the River Lof.u.ko: Syde bin Habib had two or three large canoes at this place, our beads were nearly done, so I sent to Syde to say that all the Arabs had served me except himself. Thani bin Suellim by his letter was anxious to send a canoe as soon as I reached the Lake, and the only service I wanted of Syde was to inform Thani, by one of his canoes, that I was here very ill, and if I did not get to Ujiji to get proper food and medicine I should die. Thani would send a canoe as soon as he knew of my arrival I was sure: he replied that he too would serve me: and sent some flour and two fowls: he would come in two days and see what he could do as to canoes.

_15th February, 1869._--The cough and chest pain diminished, and I feel thankful; my body is greatly emaciated. Syde came to-day, and is favourable to sending me up to Ujiji. Thanks to the Great Father in Heaven.

_24th February, 1869._--We had remarkably little rain these two months.

_25th February, 1869._--I extracted twenty _Funyes_, an insect like a maggot, whose eggs had been inserted on my having been put into an old house infested by them; as they enlarge they stir about and impart a stinging sensation; if disturbed, the head is drawn in a little. When a poultice is put on they seem obliged to come out possibly from want of air: they can be pressed out, but the large pimple in which they live is painful; they were chiefly in my limbs.

_26th February, 1869._--Embark, and sleep at Katonga after seven hours'

paddling.

_27th February, 1869._--Went 1-3/4 hour to Bondo or Thembwe to buy food.

Sh.o.r.e very rough, like sh.o.r.es near Caprera, but here all is covered with vegetation. We were to cross to Kabogo, a large ma.s.s of mountains on the eastern side, but the wind was too high.

_28th February, 1869._--Syde sent food back to his slaves.

_2nd March, 1869._--Waves still high, so we got off only on _3rd_ at 1h.

30m. A.M. 6-1/2 hours, and came to M. Bogharib, who cooked bountifully.

_6th March, 1869._--5 P.M. Off to Toloka Bay--three hours; left at 6 A.M., and came, in four hours, to Uguha, which is on the west side of Tanganyika.

_7th March, 1869._--Left at 6 P.M., and went on till two canoes ran on rocks in the way to Kasanga islet. Rounded a point of land, and made for Kasanga with a storm in our teeth; fourteen hours in all. We were received by a young Arab Muscat, who dined us sumptuously at noon: there are seventeen islets in the Kasanga group.

_8th March, 1869._--On Kasanga islet. Cochin-China fowls[1] and Muscovy ducks appear, and plenty of a small milkless breed of goats. Tanganyika has many deep bays running in four or five miles; they are choked up with aquatic vegetation, through which canoes can scarcely be propelled.

When the bay has a small rivulet at its head, the water in the bay is decidedly brackish, though the rivulet be fresh, it made the Zanzibar people remark on the Lake water, "It is like that we get near the sea-sh.o.r.e--a little salt;" but as soon as we get out of the shut-in bay or lagoon into the Lake proper the water is quite sweet, and shows that a current flows through the middle of the Lake lengthways.

Patience was never more needed than now: I am near Ujiji, but the slaves who paddle are tired, and no wonder; they keep up a roaring song all through their work, night and day. I expect to get medicine, food, and milk at Ujiji, but dawdle and do nothing. I have a good appet.i.te, and sleep well; these are the favourable symptoms; but am dreadfully thin, bowels irregular, and I have no medicine. Sputa increases; hope to hold out to Ujiji. Cough worse. Hope to go to-morrow.

_9th March, 1869._--The Whydah birds have at present light b.r.e.a.s.t.s and dark necks. Zahor is the name of our young Arab host.

_11th March, 1869._--Go over to Kibize islet, 1-1/2 hour from Kasanga.

Great care is taken not to encounter foul weather; we go a little way, then wait for fair wind in crossing to east side of Lake.

_12th March, 1869._--People of Kibize dress like those in Rua, with cloth made of the Muabe or wild-date leaves; the same is used in Madagascar for the "lamba."[2] Their hair is collected up to the top of the head.

From Kibize islet to Kabogo River on east side of Lake ten hours; sleep there. Syde slipped past us at night, but we made up to him in four hours next morning.

_13th March, 1869._--At Rombole; we sleep, then on.

[At last he reached the great Arab settlement at Ujiji, on the eastern sh.o.r.e of Tanganyika. It was his first visit, but he had arranged that supplies should be forwarded thither by caravans bound inland from Zanzibar. Most unfortunately his goods were made away with in all directions--not only on this, but on several other occasions. The disappointment to a man shattered in health, and craving for letters and stores, must have been severe indeed.]

_14th March, 1869._--Go past Malagarasi River, and reach Ujiji in 3-1/2 hours. Found Haji Thani's agent in charge of my remaining goods.

Medicines, wine, and cheese had been left at Unyanyembe, thirteen days east of this. Milk not to be had, as the cows had not calved, but a present of a.s.sam tea from Mr. Black, the Inspector of the Peninsular and Oriental Company's affairs, had come from Calcutta, besides my own coffee and a little sugar. I bought b.u.t.ter; two large pots are sold for two fathoms of blue calico, and four-year-old flour, with which we made bread. I found great benefit from the tea and coffee, and still more from flannel to the skin.

_15th March, 1869._--Took account of all the goods left by the plunderer; sixty-two out of eighty pieces of cloth (each of twenty-four yards) were stolen, and most of my best beads. The road to Unyembe[3] is blocked up by a Mazitu or Watuta war, so I must wait till the Governor there gets an opportunity to send them. The Musa sent with the buffaloes is a genuine specimen of the ill-conditioned, English-hating Arab. I was accosted on arriving by, "You must give me five dollars a month for all my time;" this though he had brought nothing--the buffaloes all died--and did nothing but receive stolen goods. I tried to make use of him to go a mile every second day for milk, but he shammed sickness so often on that day I had to get another to go; then he made a regular practice of coming into my house, watching what my two attendants were doing, and going about the village with distorted statements against them.

I clothed him, but he tried to make bad blood between the respectable Arab who supplied me with milk and myself, telling him that I abused him, and then he would come back, saying that he abused me! I can account for his conduct only by attributing it to that which we call ill-conditioned: I had to expel him from the house.

I repaired a house to keep out the rain, and on the _23rd_ moved into it. I gave our Kasanga host a cloth and blanket; he is ill of pneumonia of both lungs.

_28th March, 1869._--Flannel to the skin and tea very beneficial in the cure of my disease; my cough has ceased, and I walk half a mile. I am writing letters for home.

_8th April, 1869._--Visited Moene Mokaia, who sent me two fowls and rice; gave him two cloths. He added a sheep.

_13th April, 1869._--Employed Suleyman to write notes to Governor of Unyembe, Syde bin Salem Burashid, to make inquiries about the theft of my goods, as I meant to apply to Syed Majid, and wished to speak truly about his man Musa bin Salum, the chief depredator.

Wrote also to Thani for boat and crew to go down Tanganyika.

Syde bin Habib refused to allow his men to carry my letters to the coast; as he suspected that I would write about his doings in Rua.

_27th April, 1869._--Syde had three canoes smashed in coming up past Thembwe; the wind and waves drove them on the rocks, and two were totally destroyed: they are heavy unmanageable craft, and at the mercy of any storm if they cannot get into a shut bay, behind the reeds and aquatic vegetation. One of the wrecks is said to have been worth 200 dollars (40_l._).

The season called Masika commenced this month with the usual rolling thunder, and more rain than in the month preceding.

I have been busy writing letters home, and finished forty-two, which in some measure will make up for my long silence. The Ujijians are unwilling to carry my letters, because, they say, Seyed Majid will order the bearer to return with others: he may say, "You know where he is, go back to him," but I suspect they fear my exposure of their ways more than anything else.[4]

_16th May, 1869._--Thani bin Suellim sent me a note yesterday to say that he would be here in two days, or say three; he seems the most active of the Ujijians, and I trust will help me to get a canoe and men.