Stanley's Adventures in the Wilds of Africa Part 2

After trying to figure this out from the books of other travelers, he decided to consult an Arab merchant who had fitted out several caravans for the interior. In a very short time he obtained more information than he had acquired from books in his long three months' voyage from India.

Money is of no use in the heart of Africa. Goods of various kinds are the only coin that can purchase what the traveler needs, or pay the tribute that is exacted by the various tribes. He found that forty yards of cloth per day would keep one hundred men supplied with food. Thus, three thousand six hundred and fifty yards of cloth would support one hundred men twelve months. Next to cloths, beads were the best currency of the interior. Of these he purchased twenty sacks of eleven varieties in color and shape. Next came the bra.s.s wire, of which he purchased three hundred and fifty pounds, of about the thickness of telegraph wire. Next came the provisions and outfit of implements that would be needed--medicines, arms, donkeys, and last of all, men.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ZANZIBAR.

The capital of the island of Zanzibar, off the east coast of Africa.]

A man by the name of Shaw, a native of England, who came to Zanzibar as third mate of an American s.h.i.+p, from which he was discharged, applied for work, and was engaged by Stanley in getting what he needed together and to accompany him on the expedition. He agreed to give him three hundred dollars per annum, and placed him next in rank to Farquhar. He then cast about for an escort of twenty men. Five who had accompanied Speke, and were called "Speke's Faithfuls," among whom, as a leader, was a man named Bombay, were first engaged. He soon got together eighteen more men as soldiers, who were to receive three dollars a month. Each was to have a flint-lock musket, and be provided with two hundred rounds of ammunition. Bombay was to receive eighty dollars a year, and the other "faithfuls" forty dollars.

Knowing that he was to enter a region of vast inland lakes, and that much delay and travel might be avoided by the possession of a large boat, he purchased one and stripped it of all its covering, to make the transportation easier. He also had a cart constructed to fit the goat-paths of the interior and to aid in transportation.

When all his purchases were completed and collected together, he found that the combined weight would be about six tons. His cart and twenty donkeys would not suffice for this, and so the last thing of all, was to procure carriers, or pagosi, as they were called. He himself was presented with a blooded bay horse by an American merchant at Zanzibar, named Gordhue, formerly of Salem.

On the 4th of February, 1871, twenty-eight days from his arrival at Zanzibar, Mr. Stanley's equipment was completed and he set sail for Bagomayo, twenty-five miles distant on the mainland, from which all caravans start for the interior, and where he was to hire his one hundred and forty or more pagosi or carriers. He was immediately surrounded with men who attempted in every way to fleece him, and he was hara.s.sed, and betrayed and hindered on every side. But, at length, all difficulties were overcome--the goods packed in bales weighing seventy-two pounds each--the force divided into five caravans, and in six weeks after he entered Bagomayo, Stanley himself was ready to start.

The first caravan had departed February 18th; the second, February 21st; the third, February 25th; the fourth, on March 11th, and the last on March 21st. All told, the number comprised in all the caravans of the "Herald Expedition," was one hundred and ninety.

It was just seventy-three days after Stanley landed at Zanzibar, that he pa.s.sed out of Bagomayo on his bay horse, with his last caravan, accompanied by twenty-eight carriers and twelve soldiers, under Bombay, while his Arab boy, Selim, the interpreter, had charge of the cart and its load.

Out through a narrow lane shaded by trees, they pa.s.sed, the American flag flying in front, and all in the highest spirits. Stanley had left behind him the quarreling, cheating Arabs, and all his troubles with them. The sun, speeding to the west, was beckoning him on; his heart beat high with hope and ambition; he had taken a new departure in life, and with success would come the renown he so ardently desired. He says, "loveliness glowed around me; I saw fertile fields, rich vegetation, strange trees; I heard the cry of cricket and pewit, and jubilant sounds of many insects, all of which seemed to tell me, 'you are started.' What could I do but lift up my face toward the pure, glowing sky, and cry, 'G.o.d be thanked?'"

The first camp was three miles and a half distant. The next three days were employed in completing the preparations for the long land journey and for meeting the rainy season, now very near, and on April 4th, a start was made for Unyanyembe, the great half-way house, which he resolved to reach in three months.

The road was a mere foot-path, leading through fields in which naked women were at work, who looked up and laughed and giggled as they pa.s.sed. Pa.s.sing on, they entered an open forest, abounding in deer and antelope. Reaching the turbid Kingemi, a bridge of felled trees was soon made; Stanley, in the meantime amusing himself with shooting hippopotami, or rather shooting at them, for his small bullets made no more impression on their thick skulls than peas would have done.

Crossing to the opposite sh.o.r.e, he found the traveling better. They arrived at Kikoka, a distance of but ten miles, at 5 o'clock in the afternoon, having been compelled to unload the animals during the day, to cross the river and mud pools. This was slow marching, and at this rate of speed it would take a long time to reach the heart of Africa.

The settlement was a collection of rude huts. Though bound to the same point that Speke and Burton had reached, Ujiji, Stanley took a different route from them, and one never traveled by a white man before.

On the 27th, he left this place and moved westward over a rolling, monotonous country, until they came to Rosako, the province of Ukwee.

Just before his departure the next morning, Magonga, the leader of the fourth caravan, came up and told him that three of his carriers were sick, and asked for some medicine. He found the three men in great terror, believing they were about to die, and crying out like children, "Mama, mama." Leaving them, with orders to hurry on as soon as possible, he departed. The country everywhere was in a state of nature except in the neighborhood of villages. Sheltered by the dense forests, he toiled on but was so anxious about the fourth caravan left behind that, after marching nine miles he ordered a halt and made a camp. It soon swarmed with insects, and he set to work to examine them and see if they were the tsetse, said to be fatal to horses in Africa. Still waiting for the caravan, he went hunting, but soon found himself in such an impenetrable jungle and swamp, filled with alligators, that he resolved never to make the attempt again. The second and third days pa.s.sing without the arrival of the caravan, he sent Shaw and Bombay back after it, who brought it up on the fourth day. Leaving it to rest in his own camp, he pushed on five miles to the village of Kingaru, set in a deep, damp, pestiferous-looking hollow, surrounded by pools of water. To add to the gloominess of the scene, a pouring rain set in, which soon filled their camping-place with lakelets and rivulets of water. Toward evening the rain ceased, and the villagers began to pour in with their vendibles.

Foremost was the chief, bringing with him three measures of matama and a half a measure of rice, which he begged Stanley to accept. The latter saw through the trickery of this meagre present, in offering which the chief called him the "rich sultan." Stanley asked him why, if he was a rich sultan, the chief of Kingaru did not bring him a rich present, that he might give him a rich one in return. "Ah," replied the blear-eyed old fox, "Kingaru is poor, there is no matama in the village." "Well," said Stanley, "if there is no matama in the village, I can give but a yard of cloth," which would be equivalent to his present. Foiled in his sharp practice the chief had to be content with this.

At this place he lost one of his horses. The burial of the carca.s.s not far from the encampment, raised a terrible commotion in the village, and the inhabitants a.s.sembled in consultation as to how much they must charge him for burying a horse in their village without permission, and soon the wrinkled old chief was also at the camp, and the following dialogue took place, which is given as an ill.u.s.tration of the character of the people with whom he was to have a year's trading intercourse:

White Man--"Are you the great chief of Kingaru?"

Kingaru--"Huh-uh--yes."

W. M.--"The great, great chief?"

Kingaru--"Huh-uh--yes."

W. M.--"How many soldiers have you?"

Kingaru--"Why?"

W. M.--"How many fighting men have you?"

Kingaru--"None."

W. M.--"Oh! I thought you might have a thousand men with you, by your going to fine a strong white man who has plenty of guns and soldiers two doti for burying a dead horse."

Kingaru (rather perplexed)--"No; I have no soldiers. I have only a few young men."

W. M.--"Why do you come and make trouble, then?"

Kingaru--"It was not I; it was my brothers who said to me, 'Come here, come here, Kingaru, see what the white man has done! Has he not taken possession of your soil, in that he has put his horse into your ground without your permission? Come, go to him and see by what right!'

Therefore have I come to ask you who gave you permission to use my soil for a burying-ground?"

W. M.--"I want no man's permission to do what is right. My horse died; had I left him to fester and stink in your valley, sickness would visit your village, your water would become unwholesome, and caravans would not stop here for trade; for they would say, 'This is an unlucky spot, let us go away.' But enough said; I understand you to say you do not want him buried in your ground; the error I have fallen into is easily put right. This minute my soldiers shall dig him out again and cover up the soil as it was before, and the horse shall be left where he died."

(Then shouting to Bombay). "Ho, Bombay, take soldiers with jeinbes to dig my horse out of the ground; drag him to where he died and make everything ready for a march to-morrow morning."

Kingaru, his voice considerably higher and his head moving to and fro with emotion, cries out, "Akuna, akuna, Bana"--no, no, master. "Let not the white man get angry. The horse is dead and now lies buried; let him remain so, since he is already there, and let us be friends again."

The matter had hardly been settled, when Stanley heard deep groans issuing from one of the animals. On inquiry, he found that they came from the bay horse. He took a lantern and visited him, staying all night and working to save his life. It was in vain--in the morning he died, leaving him now without any horse, which reduced him to donkey riding.

Three days pa.s.sed, and the lagging caravan had not come up. In the meantime, one of his carriers deserted, while sickness attacked the camp, and out of his twenty-five men, ten were soon on the sick list. On the 4th, the caravan came up, and on the following morning was dispatched forward, the leader being spurred on with the promise of a liberal reward if he hurried to Unyanyembe. The next morning, to rouse his people, he beat an alarm on a tin pan, and before sunrise they were on the march, the villagers rus.h.i.+ng like wolves into the deserted camp to pick up any rags or refuse left behind. The march of fifteen miles to Imbike showed a great demoralization in his men, many of them not coming up till nightfall. One of the carriers had deserted on the way, taking with him a quant.i.ty of cloth and beads. The next morning, before starting, men were sent in pursuit of him. They made that day, the 8th, but ten miles to Msuwa. Though the journey was short, it was the most fatiguing one of all. As it gives a vivid description of the difficulties experienced in traveling through this country, we quote Stanley's own language:

"It was one continuous jungle, except three interjacent glades of narrow limits, which gave us three breathing pauses in the dire task of jungle-traveling. The odor emitted from its fell plants was so rank, so pungently acrid, and the miasma from its decayed vegetation so dense, that I expected every moment to see myself and men fall down in paroxysms of acute fever. Happily this evil was not added to that of loading and unloading the frequently falling packs. Seven soldiers to attend seventeen laden donkeys, were entirely too small a number while pa.s.sing through a jungle; for while the path is but a foot wide, with a wall of th.o.r.n.y plants and creepers bristling on each side, and projecting branches darting across it, with knots of spiky twigs, stiff as spike-nails, ready to catch and hold anything above four feet in height, it is but reasonable to suppose that donkeys, standing four feet high, with loads measuring across, from bale to bale, four feet, would come to grief.

"This grief was of frequent recurrence here, causing us to pause every few minutes for re-arrangements. So often had this task to be performed, that the men got perfectly discouraged, and had to be spoken to sharply before they would set to work. By the time I reached Msuwa, there was n.o.body with me and the ten donkeys I drove but Mabruk, who perseveringly, though generally stolid, stood to his work like a man.

Bombay and Uledi were far behind with the most jaded donkeys. Shaw was in charge of the cart, and his experiences were most bitter, as he informed me he had expended the whole vocabulary of stormy abuse known to sailors, and a new one which he had invented _ex tempore_. He did not arrive until two o'clock next morning, and was completely worn out.

Truly, I doubt if the most pious divine, in traveling through that long jungle, under those circ.u.mstances, with such oft-recurring annoyances, Sisyphean labor, could have avoided cursing his folly for coming hither."

A halt was made here, that men and animals might recuperate. The chief of this village was "a white man in everything but color," and brought him the choicest mutton. He and his subjects were intelligent enough to comprehend the utility of his breech-loading guns, and by their gestures ill.u.s.trated their comprehension of the deadly effects of those weapons in battle.

On the 10th, somewhat recuperated, the caravan left this hospitable village and crossed a beautiful little plain, with a few cultivated fields, from which the tillers stared in wonder at the unwonted spectacle it presented. But here Stanley met one of those sights common in that part of the world, but which, it is to be hoped, will soon be seen no more. It was a chained slave-gang, bound east. He says the slaves did not appear to be in the least down-hearted, on the contrary, they were jolly and gay. But for the chains, there was no difference between master and slave. The chains were heavy, but as men and women had nothing else to carry, being entirely naked, their weight, he says, could not have been insupportable.

He camped at 10 A. M., and fired two guns, to show they were ready to trade with any of the natives in the region. The halting-place was Kisemo, only twelve miles from Msuwa which was the centre of a populous district, there being no less than five villages in the vicinity fortified by stakes and th.o.r.n.y abattis, as formidable, in their way, as the old fosse and draw-bridge of feudal times. "The belles of Kisemo,"

he says, "are of gigantic posterioral proportions," and are "noted for their variety in bra.s.s wire, which is wound in spiral rings round their wrists and ankles, and for the varieties of style which their wisped heads exhibit; while their poor lords, obliged to be contented with dingy, torn clouts and split ears, show what wide sway Asmodeus holds over this terrestrial sphere--for it must have been an unhappy time when the hard besieged husbands gave way before their hotly-pressing spouses.

Besides these bra.s.sy ornaments on their extremities, the women of Kisemo frequently wear lengthy necklaces, which run in rivers of colors down their black bodies." But a more comical picture is seldom presented than that of one of those highly-dressed females, "with their huge posterior development, while grinding out corn. This is done in a machine very much like an old-fas.h.i.+oned churn, except the dasher becomes a pestle and the churn a mortar. Swaying with the pestle, as it rises and falls, the breast and posteriors correspond to the strokes of the dasher in a droll sort of sing-song, which gave to the whole exhibition the drollest effect imaginable."

A curious superst.i.tion of the natives was brought to light here by Shaw removing a stone while putting up his tent. As he did so, the chief rushed forward, and putting it back in its place, solemnly stood upon it. On being asked what was the matter, he carefully lifted it, pointed to an insect pinned by a stick to the ground, which he said had been the cause of a miscarriage of a female of the village.

In the afternoon the messengers came back with the deserter and all the stolen goods. Some of the natives had captured him and were about to kill him and take the goods, when the messengers came up and claimed both. He was given up, his captors being content with receiving a little cloth and a few beads in return. Stanley, with great sagacity, caused the thief to be tried by the other carriers, who condemned him to be flogged. They were ordered to carry out their own sentence, which they did amid the yells of the culprit.

Before night a caravan arrived, bringing, among other things, a copy of the _Herald_, containing an account of a Presidential levee in Was.h.i.+ngton, in which the toilette of the various ladies were given.

While engrossed in reading in his tent, Stanley suddenly became aware that his tent-door was darkened, and looking up, he saw the chief's daughters gazing with wondering eyes on the great sheets of paper he was scanning so closely. The sight of these naked beauties, glittering in bra.s.s wire and beads, presented a ludicrous contrast to the elaborately-dressed belles of whom he had been reading in the paper, and made him feel, by contrast, in what a different world he was living.

On the 12th, the caravan reached Munondi, on the Ungerangeri River. The country was open and beautiful, presenting a natural park, while the roads were good, making the day's journey delightful. Flowers decked the ground, and the perfume of sweet-smelling shrubs filled the air. As they approached the river, they came upon fields of Indian corn and gardens filled with vegetables, while stately trees lined the bank. On the 14th, they crossed the river and entered the Wakami territory. This day and the next the road lay through a charming country. The day following, they marched through a forest between two mountains rising on either side of them, and on the 16th reached the territory of Wosigahha. As he approached the village of Muhalleh he was greeted with the discharge of musketry. It came from the fourth caravan, which had halted here. Here also good news awaited him. An Arab chief, with a caravan bound east, was in the place, and told him that he had met Livingstone at Ujiji, and had lived in the next hut to him for two weeks. He described him as looking old, with long, gray mustache and beard, just recovered from illness, and looking very wan. He said, moreover, that he was fully recovered, and was going to visit a country called Monyima. This was cheering news, indeed, and filled Stanley's heart with joy and hope. The valley here, with its rich crops of Indian corn, was more like some parts of the fertile west than a desert country. But the character of the natives began to change. They became more insolent and brutal, and accompanied their requests with threats.

Continuing their journey along the valley of the river, they suddenly, to their astonishment, came upon a walled town containing a thousand houses. It rose before them like an apparition with its gates and towers of stone and double row of loop-holes for musketry. The fame of Stanley had preceded him, being carried by the caravans he had dispatched ahead, and a thousand or more of the inhabitants came out to see him. This fortified town was established by an adventurer famous for his kidnapping propensities. A barbaric orator, a man of powerful strength and of cunning address, he naturally acquired an ascendency over the rude tribes of the region, and built him a capital, and fortified it and became a self-appointed sultan. Growing old, he changed his name, which had been a terror to the surrounding tribes, and also the name of his capital, and just before death, bequeathed his power to his eldest daughter, and in her honor named the town _Sultana_, which name it still bears. The women and children hung on the rear of Stanley's caravan, filled with strange curiosity at sight of this first white man they had ever seen, but the scorching sun drove them back one by one, and when Stanley pitched his camp, four miles farther on, he was unattended. He determined to halt here for two days to overhaul his baggage and give the donkeys, whose backs had become sore, time to recuperate. On the second day, he was attacked with the African fever, similar to the chills and fever of the west and southwest. He at once applied the remedies used in the Western States, using powerful doses of quinine, and in three days he p.r.o.nounced himself well again.

CHAPTER IV.

WILD EXPERIENCES.