Stanley's Adventures in the Wilds of Africa Part 14

It was now October, and he turned his attention directly to the next scene of his labors--the exploration of the Albert Nyanza. The great difficulty here was to get through the warlike tribes that lay between the lakes and around the latter, of which Abba Rega was one of the most hostile chiefs. This king, it will be remembered, was the great foe of Baker, whom the latter drove out of the country, after burning his capital, and put Rionga in his place. He said then, that this treacherous king had gone to the sh.o.r.es of the Albert Nyanza. By the way, Baker's statement and Stanley's journal, placed together, seem to make it certain that the Muta Nzienge, which the latter reached, and the Albert Nyanza are the same; for, in the first place, it will be remembered, Baker's last journey was to Unyoro, where he saw the Albert Nyanza. Now Stanley, it will be seen hereafter, traverses this same district to reach the lake he called Muta Nzienge. Again, Baker says that Abba Rega fled to the Albert Nyanza, and yet Stanley found him on Lake Muta Nzienge. If Stanley's attention had been called to this, we hardly think he would have made two lakes on his map, when, from these corroborating statements, there could have been but one. The fact that these separate statements, made two years apart, are purely incidental, makes the fact they go to prove the more certain to be true. It seems impossible that Baker and Stanley should reach through the same tribe two large and entirely separate lakes.

Knowing not only of the hostility, but also the power of some of the tribes between Uganda and Lake Albert, Stanley asked Mtesa for fifty or sixty thousand men--a mighty army. With such a force he thought he could not only overcome all opposition on the way, but hold the camp he wished to establish, while he spent two months in exploring the lake. But Mtesa told him two thousand would be ample, which he would cheerfully furnish.

He said that he need not fear Abba Rega, for he would not dare to lift a spear against his troops, for he had seated him on the throne of Kameazi. Though Stanley was not convinced of the truth of Mtesa's statements, he would not urge him further and accepted, with many expressions of thanks, the two thousand soldiers, commanded by General Lamboozi as an escort.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE EXPEDITION TO ALBERT NYANZA.

Stanley's expedition consisted of one hundred and eighty men, which, with the troops Mtesa gave him, made a total of two thousand two hundred and ninety men. To this little army were attached some five hundred women and children, making a sum total of two thousand eight hundred.

With this force, all ordinary opposition could be overcome, and as it moved off with the sound of drums and horns, and the waving of the English and American flags, conspicuous amid those of the negro army, it presented a very animated appearance. But Stanley was destined to find out what others have learned before him, that a small force under one's own immediate command is better than a large, undisciplined one, that is subject to the orders of another.

[Ill.u.s.tration: STANLEY'S DASH ACROSS UNYORO]

General Lamboozi had no heart in this expedition, and soon showed it.

But they moved off gayly over the swelling pasture-lands of Uganda, striking northwest toward the lake, which Stanley hoped to explore, as he had the Victoria Nyanza. The march through Uganda was a pleasant one and they at length reached the frontier of Unyoro and prepared for war.

On the 5th of January they entered Abba Rega's territory, whom, two years before, Baker had driven from his throne, and who naturally felt peculiarly hostile to all white men. But no resistance was offered--the people, as if remembering the past, fleeing before them, leaving their provisions and everything behind them, of which the army made free use.

Three days after they came to the base of a mighty mountain, called Kabrogo, rising five thousand five hundred feet into the air, presenting, in its naked, rugged outline, a sublime appearance. They encamped that night on a low ridge, in sight of the Katonga River, flowing east in its course to the Victoria Nyanza, bringing up many a.s.sociations to Stanley's mind--while to the west the Ruanga filled the night air with its thunderous sound, as it tumbled over cataracts toward the Albert Nyanza. From an eminence near by could be seen in the distance the colossal form of Gambaragara Mountain looming up from the wilderness--a second Mont Blanc, rising some three miles into the cloudless heavens. Though under the equator, snow is often seen on its summit. But what gives it peculiar interest is, that on its cold and lonely top dwell a people of an entirely distinct race, being white, like Europeans. The king of Uzigo once spoke to Stanley and Livingstone of this singular people, and now the latter saw half a dozen of them.

Their hair, he says, is "kinky," and inclined to brown in color; their features regular; lips thin, and noses well shaped. Altogether, they are a handsome race--the women, many of them possessing great beauty. Some of their descendants are scattered through the tribes living near the base of the mountain, but the main body occupy its lofty summit. The queen of one of the islands in the Victoria Nyanza is a descendent of them. The history of this singular people is wrapped in mystery.

There is a tradition that the first king of Unyoro gave them the land at its base, and the approach of a powerful enemy first drove them to the top for safety. They have become so acclimated that they can stand the cold, while the dwellers of the plain are compelled to flee before it.

Mtesa once dispatched his greatest general with an army of a hundred thousand men to capture them. They succeeded in making their way to a great height, but finally had to withdraw--the cold became so intense.

The retreat of this pale-faced tribe is said to be inaccessible. The top is supposed to be the crater of an extinct volcano; for on it there is a lake nearly a third of a mile long, from the centre of which rises a huge rock to a great height. Around the top of this runs a rim of rock, making a natural wall, in which are several villages, where the princ.i.p.al "medicine-man" and his mysterious people reside in their peculiar separateness.

This account, if true, does not touch the origin of this peculiar race of people, nor in any way explain the fact of their existence here in tropical Africa. Two men belonging to this tribe joined Stanley's expedition in this march to the Albert Lake, yet he seems to have obtained no information from them of the history of their tribe. Whether they had any traditions or not we are not informed--we only know that Stanley found them extremely uncommunicative. It is possible they had nothing to tell, for a vast majority of the negro tribes of Africa have no past; they care neither for the past or future, so far as external life is concerned, living only in the present. These two men occupied a high position, for some cause, in the army under Lamboozi, and were the only ones who were allowed more than two milch cows on the route.

Various stories about these people were told Stanley, and it is difficult to come at the truth. About the only thing that seems established is that this white race exists, of whose origin nothing definite has as yet been obtained. Stanley says that he heard they were of Arab origin, but there are plenty of Arabs in Africa--in fact, all the soldiers attached to the expedition were Arabs, and colonies of them had long existed in Central Africa; but they are not white men.

It seems impossible that Livingstone, years before, should have heard of this singular people, and Stanley seen specimens of them, if no such tribe really existed. It seems almost equally strange that they should be able for centuries to keep so isolated that their very home is a myth. The truth is, that Africa is a land of fables and traditions, that partake of the wonderful and often of the miraculous. Mr. Stanley was told of other tribes of white people living in a remote unknown region, possessing great ferocious dogs, and also of dwarfs of singular habits and customs. These traditions or reports, that are invariably vague in their character, usually have more or less foundation in truth. Mixed with the wonderful, that always holds an important place in savage literature, there will generally be found at least a grain of truth; and the traditions of white races among a people who had never seen white men, could hardly arise if no such tribes existed.

The diet of this strange race consists of milk and bananas. Stanley says the first specimen he saw of the tribe was a young man, whom he first took for a young Arab from Cairo, who for some reason had wandered off to Uganda, and taken up his residence with King Mtesa. The two attached to his expedition would easily have been mistaken for Greeks in white s.h.i.+rts. Stanley, after seeing these white Africans, the stories concerning whose existence he had regarded as one of the fables of the ignorant, superst.i.tious natives, says that he is ready to believe there is a modic.u.m of truth in all the strange stories that he has been accustomed to listen to as he would to a fairy tale. Four years previous, while exploring the Tanganika with Livingstone, they both smiled at the story told them of a white people living north of Uzigo, but now he had seen them, and if it were not that their hair resembles somewhat that of the negro, he should take them for Europeans. He heard afterwards that the first king of Kisbakka, a country to the southwest, was an Arab, whose scimiter is still preserved by the natives, and infers that these people may be his descendants. He also heard of a tribe that wore armor and used a breed of fierce and powerful dogs in battle.

From this point the expedition moved on toward the Albert Nyanza, along the southern bank of the Rusango River, a rapid, turbulent stream, winding in and out among the mountains, and rus.h.i.+ng onward in fierce, rapid and headlong cataracts to the peaceful bosom of the lake. For ten hours they marched swiftly through an uninhabited country, and then emerged into a thickly populated district. Their sudden appearance, with drums beating and colors flying, filled the people, who had no intimation of their coming, with such consternation, that they took to the woods, leaving everything behind them, even the porridge on the fire and the great pots of milk standing ready for the evening meal. Fields and houses were alike deserted in a twinkling, and the army marched in and took possession. Thus far they had met with no opposition whatever, and the warlike tribe Stanley had feared so much, and had taken such a large force to overcome, seemed to have no existence. In fact, the days had pa.s.sed by monotonously; for the most part the scenery was tame, and the march of the troops from day to day was without incident or interest, and now at this village they were within a few miles of the lake, to reach which was the sole object of all this display of force.

Instead of fighting their way, they found themselves in undisputed possession of a large and populous district, with not a soul to give them any information.

We confess there is something about this journey from the Victoria Nyanza to the Albert that we do not understand. By the route on the map it must have been nearly two hundred miles, and yet the expedition started on January 5th, and on the evening of the 9th was within three miles of the latter, which would make the marching about fifty miles a day--an impossibility.

Now, fifty miles a day for four days would be terrible marching for veteran troops. Hence, we say, the map or journal is wrong. If he took the route he has marked down and completed it in the time he says he did, one instead of two parallels of longitude should indicate the distance between the two lakes. In fact, this whole expedition was such a miserable failure, that anywhere but in Africa it would be looked upon as a farce. It shows how utterly futile it is to rely on the native Africans in any great enterprise. The Arabs are bad enough, but they are fidelity itself compared to these black savages.

Here was an expedition numbering nearly three thousand souls, organized to secure a safe march to a lake not five days distant. It met with no obstacles of any moment, reached the lake, and there, on the mere rumor that hostilities were intended, practically broke up and returned.

Stanley had, with about three hundred men, traversed an unknown country for months, fought battles, and at the end of a thousand miles reached the lake he was seeking, pitched his camp, and with a crew of eleven men explored the lake in its entire circuit, and returned in safety. Here, with a small army, after a four days' march, he reaches the Albert Nyanza, yet does nothing but turn round and march back again. It would seem, at first sight, strange that if he could march a thousand miles from the sea to the Victoria Nyanza and then explore it, he could not now with the same men explore this lake without the aid of Lamboozi and his two thousand or more soldiers. Doubtless he could but for this very army. Its disaffection and declaration that they were not strong enough to resist the force about to be brought against them, created a panic among Stanley's men. If two thousand fled, it would be madness for one hundred and eighty to stay. The simple truth is, the more such men one has with him, unless he is the supreme head and his will is law, even to life and death, the worse he is off. Stanley, planning, controlling and directing every movement, is a power; Stanley under the direction of a swaggering, braggart African negro general, is n.o.body.

Lamboozi did, next morning after their approach to the lake, send out two hundred scouts to capture some natives, by whom they could get a message to the king of the district, saying that they had no hostile intentions, and if permitted to encamp on the sh.o.r.es of the lake for two months, would pay in beads, cloth and wire for whatever provisions they consumed. Five were captured and sent to the king with this proposition, but he did not deign an answer. On the 11th, they moved the camp to within a mile of the lake, on a plateau that rose a thousand feet above its surface. A place was selected for a camp and men sent out to capture all the canoes they could find. In three hours they returned with only five, and those too small for their purpose. But they brought back word that the whole country was aroused, and that a large body of strange warriors had arrived on the coast to aid the king in making war on the newcomers.

General Lamboozi now became thoroughly alarmed, and stubbornly refused to grant Stanley's request to move to the edge of the lake and intrench.

It seemed probable that the natives meant to give battle, but with what numbers or prospect of success, Lamboozi took no measure to ascertain.

Next day he resolved to march back. Entreaties and threats were alike in vain, and there was nothing left for Stanley to do but march back with him. He was greatly disappointed and thoroughly disgusted, but there was no help for it. That Unyoro and Abba Rega would be hostile, Stanley knew before he started, and on that account took so large a force with him.

Yet he says, after this miserable failure, that it was a foolhardy attempt at the outset. Looking at it calmly, he p.r.o.nounces it a great folly, redeemed from absurdity only by "the success of having penetrated through Unyoro and reached the Albert." It is difficult to see wherein lies the greatness of this success; for, according to his own account, it was one of the most peaceful marches he ever performed, with hardly enough incident in it to make it interesting. It matters little, however; all that can be said is, they marched up to the lake and then marched back again.

On the morning of the 13th, they began their return in order of battle--five hundred spearmen in front, five hundred as a rear guard, and the expedition in the centre--but no enemy attacked them or attempted to do anything but pick up some stragglers. The next day the expedition formed the rear guard, and once some natives rushed out of the woods to attack them, but were quickly dispersed by a few shots.

This is all that happened to this army in terrible Unyoro, and presents a striking contrast to Baker's gallant march through it with his little band, fighting every day for nearly a week. Four days after, without any further molestation, they re-entered Uganda, where Lamboozi turned off to his home. Stanley had heard no news of Gordon or of the steamers he was to place on the lake according to the plan of Baker; and though at first he thought that he would seek some other way to reach it and make his explorations, he finally resolved to start for Tanganika, which he would reach in about four months, and explore it. Hence, while Lamboozi turned eastward toward Lake Victoria, he with his little band, turned southward. He sent a letter, however, to Mtesa, informing him of Lamboozi's cowardice and refusal to build a camp at Lake Albert, and telling him also that this redoubtable general had robbed him. He had intrusted to his care three porter's loads of goods to relieve his own carriers, and these he had appropriated as his own.

When the letter reached the emperor he was thrown into a towering pa.s.sion, and immediately dispatched a body of troops to seize the general, with orders to strip him of his wives, slaves, cattle and everything he possessed, and bring him bound to his presence. He also sent letter after letter to Stanley, begging him to return, and he would give him ninety thousand men, with brave generals to command them, who would take him to Lake Albert, and protect him there till he had finished his explorations. Stanley was very much moved by this generous offer and the anxiety of the king to make amends for Lamboozi's poltroonery and thieving conduct. The n.o.ble savage felt it keenly that he, who valued so highly the esteem of Stanley, should be disgraced in his sight, and it was hard for the latter to refuse his urgent request to be allowed to redeem his character and his pledge. But Stanley had had enough of Waganda troops, and felt that whatever was accomplished hereafter must be by his own well-trained, compact, brave little band.

He kept on his way, and never saw Mtesa again.

He had been able to add considerably to the geography of the country bordering on Lake Albert. Usongora, a promontory running thirty miles into the lake southward, he ascertained to be the great salt field, from whence all the surrounding countries obtain their salt. From all he could hear, it was truly a land of wonders, but he says the man who should attempt to explore it would need a thousand muskets, for the natives cannot be enticed into peace by cloth and beads. They care for nothing but milk and goat skins. "Among the wonders credited to it," he says, "are a mountain emitting fire and stones, a salt lake of considerable extent, several hills of rock-salt, a large plain encrusted thickly with salt and alkali, a breed of very large dogs of extraordinary ferocity, and a race of such long-legged natives, that ordinary mortals regard them with surprise and awe." They do not allow members of their tribe to intermarry with strangers, and their food, like that of the dwellers in the Himalaya Mountains, consists chiefly of milk. Mtesa once invaded their territory with one hundred thousand men, to capture cows, of which the natives have an immense number, and in watching which consists their sole occupation. The army returned with twenty thousand, but they were obtained at such a fearful sacrifice of life, that the raid will not be repeated.

Stanley rested a few days after Lamboozi left him, before proceeding northward. He then continued his march leisurely through the country, inquiring on the way the character of the tribes westward toward that part of Lake Albert which extended south from where he struck it, but one and all were reported hostile to the pa.s.sage of any strangers through their territory.

Arriving on the Kagera River, in Karagwe, he found the King Rumanika, a mild, pleasant-spoken man and very friendly, but he told him that none of the neighboring tribes would let him enter their lands. Stanley being a little suspicious of the motives that prompted this bad report of the surrounding tribes, to test him, asked him if he had any objections to his exploring his country. He said no, and cheerfully promised to furnish him guides and an escort, and his party should be supplied with food free of charge. Stanley, surprised at this generosity, at once got ready to start. He first went south to Lake Windermere, a small body of water so named by Captain Speke, because of its fancied resemblance to the lake of that name in England. The Lady Alice was taken there, screwed together, and launched on the peaceful waters. Accompanied by six native canoes, he sailed round it and then entered Kagera River, called by Speke the Kitangule. Suddenly it flashed on Stanley's mind that he had discovered the true parent of the Victoria Nile. It fed and drained this little lake some nine miles long. Moreover, he found that there was a depth of fifty-two feet of water and a breadth of one hundred and fifty feet. He therefore pushed up it some three days, and came to another lake nine miles long and six miles wide. Working up through the papyrus that covered the stream, he came to another lake or pond a mile and a half long. Ascending an eminence, he discovered that this whole portion of the river was a lake, large tracts of which were covered with papyrus, or that vegetation which we have seen Baker had to contend with in ascending the Nile. It seemed solid ground, while in fact it was a large body of water covered over, with here and there an opening, making a separate lake, of which Windermere was the largest.

This apparently underground lake was some eighty miles in length and fourteen in width.

Following the river as it flowed eastward into the Victoria Nyanza, he found he entered another lake, thirteen miles long and some eight miles broad. This was, of course, the continuation of the lake, covered at intervals with this tropical vegetation, which gave to it the appearance of land. There were in all, seventeen of these lakes. This river now broadening as the formation of the land causes it to expand, now narrowing till its channel is forty feet deep, it at last tumbles over cataracts and rushes through rapids into the Victoria Nyanza. All this seems of little account, except, as Stanley says, he has found in it the true source of the Victoria Nile.

The great and persistent efforts to find out the source of the Nile have led explorers to push their theories to an absurd extent. Because Herodotus made the Nile to rise in some large springs, they seem to think they must find something back and beyond a great lake as its source. Now, when a river flows right on through one lake after another, making lakes as the formation of the ground allows, it of course maintains its integrity and oneness.

In this case there is but one main stream and as long as the lakes are the mere spreading out of that stream on low, flat lands, it must remain the same. But when you come to great reservoirs like the Albert and Victoria Nyanza and the Tanganika--into which a hundred streams, and perhaps twice that number of springs, flow--to go beyond such reservoirs to find the head of the stream is bringing geography down to a fine point. The outlet is plain--you have traced the river up till you see it roaring from its great feeder. This is very satisfactory, and should end all research after the source of the stream. But to insist on taking measurements of a dozen different rivers that flow into a lake a thousand miles in circ.u.mference, to find which is a mile longest or ten feet deepest, and thus determine the source of the outlet, is preposterous. A lake covering twenty-two thousand square miles, fed by a hundred rivers, is a reservoir of itself, and not an expansion of any one river. One might as well try to prove which is the greatest source or feeder of the Atlantic Ocean--the Amazon, Mississippi or Congo.

Thus we find Stanley, when he struck the s.h.i.+meeyu in Speke Gulf, declaring he had found the extreme southern source of the Nile; and now, when exploring another river of a larger volume on another side of the lake, he changes his mind and thinks he has made a great discovery in ascertaining at last the true source of the river. He found it over fifty feet deep, which showed what a volume of water it poured into the Victoria Nyanza. Descending it again, he entered another lake some thirteen miles long by eight wide. Exploring this, he was driven back by the natives when he attempted to land, who hailed him with shrill shouts and wild war-cries. The Kagera, through its entire length, maintains almost the same depth and volume.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HOT SPRINGS OF MTAGATA.]

Returning to his generous host, he asked for guides to take him to the hot springs of Mtagata, the healing properties of which he had heard of far and wide from the natives. These were cheerfully given, and after a march of two days he reached them. Here he was met by an astonis.h.i.+ng growth of vegetation. Plants of an almost infinite variety, covered the ground, growing so thick and crowding each other so closely, that they became a matted ma.s.s--the smaller ones stifled by the larger--and out of which trees shot up an arrow's-flight into the air, with "globes of radiant green foliage upon their stem-like crowns." He found a crowd of diseased persons here, trying the effect of the water. Naked men and women were lying promiscuously around in the steaming water, half-asleep and half-cooked, for the water showed a temperature of one hundred and twenty-nine degrees. The springs were, however, of different temperature. The hottest one issued from the base of a rocky hill, while four others, twenty degrees cooler, came bubbling up out of black mud, and were the favorites of the invalids. Stanley camped here three days, and bathed in the water and drank it, but could perceive no effect whatever on his system. Returning to his friend Rumaniki, he prepared to start on his journey south to Lake Tanganika, and finish its explorations.

Having discovered that the Kagera River formed a lake eighty miles long, and was a powerful stream a long distance from its mouth, he resolved, as it flowed from the south, to follow it up and try to find its source.

A broad wilderness lay before him, the extent of which he did not accurately know, and he packed ten days' provisions on the shoulders of each man of the expedition, and bidding the soft-voiced pagan king, by whom he had been treated so kindly, a warm good-bye, he entered the forest and kept along the right bank of the stream. This was the 27th of March, and for six days he marched through an uninhabited wilderness, with nothing to break the monotony of the journey. At the end of that time he came to the borders of Karagwe and to the point where the Akanyaru River entered the Kagera. He dared not explore this river, for the natives that inhabit both banks are wild and fierce, having a deadly hatred of all strangers. They are like the long-legged race of b.u.mbireh, and he did not care to come in collision with them. They possess many cattle, and if one sickens or dies, they do not attribute it to accident, but believe it has been bewitched, and search the country through to find the stranger who has done it, and if he is found, _he dies_.

All the natives of the region are pa.s.sionately fond of their cows, and will part with anything sooner than with milk. Stanley says that his friend Rumaniki, with all his generosity, never offered him a teaspoonful of milk, and if he had given him a can of it, he believes his people would have torn him limb from limb. He thinks that half of their hostility arises from the fear of the evil effect that the presence of strangers will have on their cattle. Hence they keep a strict quarantine on their frontiers. It is not strange that they should cherish this stock carefully, for it is their sole means of subsistence.

This long journey through various tribes is singularly barren of incident. On the route he lost his last dog, Bull, who had bravely held out in all their long wanderings, but at last he gave up and laid down and died, with his eyes fixed on the retiring expedition. He also met the redoubtable Mirambo, and found him not the blood-thirsty monster he had been represented to be, but a polite, pleasant-mannered gentleman, and generous to a fault. They made blood brotherhood together, and became fast friends. At length, in the latter part of May, he reached Ujiji, where he formerly found Livingstone. The following extract from a private letter of Stanley's, written to a friend while at Lake Victoria, gives a domestic picture that is quite charming, he says that "Kagehyi is a straggling village of cane huts, twenty or thirty in number, which are built somewhat in the form of a circle, hedged around by a fence of thorns twisted between upright stakes. Sketch such a village in your imagination, and let the centre of it be dotted here and there with the forms of kidlings who prank it with the vivacity of kidlings under a hot, glowing sun. Let a couple of warriors and a few round-bellied children be seen among them and near a tall hut which is a chief's, plant a taller tree, under whose shade sit a few elders in council with their chief; so much for the village.

"Now outside the village, yet, touching the fence, begin to draw the form of a square camp, about fifty yards square, each side flanked with low, square huts, under the eaves of which, plant as many figures of men as you please, for we have many, and you have the camp of the exploring expedition, commanded by your friend and humble servant. From the centre of the camp you may see Lake Victoria, or that portion of it I have called Speke Gulf, and twenty-five miles distant you may see table-topped Magita, the large island of Ukerewe, and toward the northwest a clear horizon, with nothing between water and sky to mar its level. The surface of the lake which approaches to within a few yards of the camp is much ruffled just at present with a northwest breeze, and though the sun is growing hot, under the shade it is agreeable enough, so that n.o.body perspires or is troubled with the heat.

You must understand there is a vast difference between New York and Central African heat. Yours is a sweltering heat, begetting languor and thirst--ours is a dry heat, permitting activity and action without thirst or perspiration. If we exposed ourselves to the sun, we should feel quite as though we were being baked. Come with me to my lodgings, now. I lodge in a hut little inferior in size to the chief's. In it is stored the luggage of the expedition, which fills one-half. It is about six tons in weight, and consists of cloth, beads, wire, sh.e.l.ls, ammunition, powder, barrels, portmanteaus, iron trunks, photographic apparatus, scientific instruments, pontoons, sections of boat, etc., etc. The other half of the hut is my sleeping, dining and hall-room. It is dark as pitch within, for light cannot penetrate the mud with which the wood-work is liberally daubed. The floor is of dried mud, thickly covered with dust, which breeds fleas and other vermin to be a plague to me and my poor dogs.

"I have four youthful Mercuries, of ebon color, attending me, who, on the march, carry my personal weapons of defense. I do not need so many persons to wait on me, but such is their pleasure. They find their reward in the liberal leavings of the table. If I have a goat killed for European men, half of it suffices for two days for us. When it becomes slightly tainted, my Mercuries will beg for it, and devour it at a single sitting. Just outside of the door of my hut are about two dozen of my men sitting, squatted in a circle and stringing beads. A necklace of beads is each man's daily sum wherewith to buy food. I have now a little over one hundred and sixty men. Imagine one hundred and sixty necklaces given each day for the last three months--in the aggregate the sum amounts to fourteen thousand necklaces--in a year to fifty-eight thousand four hundred. A necklace of ordinary beads is cheap enough in the States, but the expense of carriage makes a necklace here equal to about twenty-five cents in value. For a necklace I can buy a chicken, or a peck of sweet potatoes, or half a peck of grain.

"I left the coast with about forty thousand yards of cloth, which, in the States, would be worth about twelve and a half cents a yard, or altogether about five thousand dollars--the expense of portage, as far as this lake, makes each yard worth about fifty cents. Two yards of cloth will purchase a goat or sheep; thirty will purchase an ox; fifteen yards are enough to purchase rations for the entire caravan."

Why these naked savages put such a high value on cloth, none of these African explorers informs us. We can understand why they should like beads, bra.s.s wire, sh.e.l.ls and trinkets of all sorts. They certainly use very little cloth on their persons.

He adds: "These are a few of the particulars of our domestic affairs.

The expedition is divided into eight squads of twenty men each, with an experienced man over each squad. They are all armed with Snider's percussion-lock muskets. A dozen or so of the most faithful have a brace of revolvers in addition to other arms."

He then goes on to speak of the battles he has fought, and it is but just to him to give his feelings as he describes them in confidential private correspondence, on being compelled to kill the savages. He says: "As G.o.d is my judge, I would prefer paying tribute, and making these savages friends rather than enemies. But some of these people are cursed with such delirious ferocity that we are compelled to defend ourselves.