The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death Volume I Part 3

_30th April, 1866._--Many ulcers burst forth on the camels; some seem old dhow bruises. They come back from pasture, bleeding in a way that no rubbing against a tree would account for. I am sorry to suspect foul play: the buffaloes and mules are badly used, but I cannot be always near to prevent it.

Bhang[8] is not smoked, but tobacco is: the people have no sheep or goats; only fowls, pigeons, and Muscovy ducks are seen. Honey is very cheap; a good large pot of about a gallon, with four fowls, was given for two yards of calico. Buffaloes again bitten by tsetse, and by another fly exactly like the house-fly, but having a straight hard proboscis instead of a soft one; other large flies make the blood run.

The tsetse does not disturb the buffaloes, but these others and the smaller flies do. The tsetse seem to like the camel best; from these they are gorged with blood--they do not seem to care for the mules and donkeys.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Carved Door, Zanzibar.]

FOOTNOTES:

[3] Dhow is the name given to the coasting vessel of East Africa and the Indian Ocean.

[4] The Commander of H.M.S. _Pioneer_ in 1861.

[5] Those who have read the accounts given by African travellers will remember that the bites inflicted by two or three of these small flies will visually lay the foundation of a sickness which destroys oxen, horses, and dogs in a few weeks.

[6] Dr. Livingstone was anxious to try camels and Indian buffaloes in a tsetse country to see the effect upon them.

[7] This refers to an attack made upon the boats of the _Pioneer_ when the Doctor was exploring the River Rovuma in 1861.

[8] A species of hemp.

CHAPTER II.

Effect of _Pioneer's_ former visit. The poodle Chitane. Result of tsetse bites. Death of camels and buffaloes. Disaffection of followers. Disputed right of ferry. Mazitu raids. An old friend.

Severe privations. The River Loendi. Sepoys mutiny. Dr. Roscher.

Desolation. Tattooing. Ornamental teeth. Singular custom. Death of the Na.s.sick boy, Richard. A sad reminiscence.

_1st May, 1866._--We now came along through a country comparatively free of wood, and we could move on without perpetual cutting and clearing. It is beautiful to get a good glimpse out on the surrounding scenery, though it still seems nearly all covered with great ma.s.ses of umbrageous foliage, mostly of a dark green colour, for nearly all of the individual trees possess dark glossy leaves like laurel. We pa.s.sed a gigantic specimen of the k.u.mbe, or gum-copal tree. k.u.mba means to dig. Changk.u.mbe, or things dug, is the name of the gum; the Arabs call it "sandaruse." Did the people give the name k.u.mbe to the tree after the value of the gum became known to them? The Malole, from the fine grained wood of which all the bows are made, had shed its fruit on the ground; it looks inviting to the eye--an oblong peach-looking thing, with a number of seeds inside, but it is eaten by maggots only.

When we came to Ntande's village, we found it enclosed in a strong stockade, from a fear of attack by Mabiha, who come across the river and steal their women when going to draw water: this is for the Ibo market. They offered to pull down their stockade and let us in if we would remain over-night, but we declined. Before reaching Ntande we pa.s.sed the ruins of two villages; the owners were the attacking party when we ascended the Rovuma in 1862. I have still the old sail, with four bullet-holes through it, made by the shots which they fired after we had given cloth and got a.s.surances of friends.h.i.+p. The father and son of this village were the two men seen by the second boat preparing to shoot; the fire of her crew struck the father on the chin and the son on the head. It may have been for the best that the English are thus known as people who can hit hard when unjustly attacked, as we on this occasion most certainly were: never was a murderous a.s.sault more unjustly made or less provoked. They had left their villages and gone up over the highlands away from the river to their ambush whilst their women came to look at us.

_2nd May, 1866._--Mountains again approach us, and we pa.s.s one which was noticed in our first ascent from its resemblance to a table mountain. It is 600 or 800 feet high, and called Liparu: the plateau now becomes mountainous, giving forth a perennial stream which comes down from its western base and forms a lagoon on the meadow-land that flanks the Rovuma. The trees which love these perpetual streams spread their roots all over the surface of the boggy banks, and make a firm surface, but at spots one may sink a yard deep. We had to fill up these deep ditches with branches and leaves, unload the animals, and lead them across. We spent the night on the banks of the Liparu,[9]

and then proceeded on our way.

_3rd May, 1866._--We rested in a Makoa village, the head of which was an old woman. The Makoa or Makoane are known by a half-moon figure tattooed on their foreheads or elsewhere. Our poodle dog Chitane chased the dogs of this village with unrelenting fury, his fierce looks inspired terror among the wretched pariah dogs of a yellow and white colour, and those looks were entirely owing to its being difficult to distinguish at which end his head or tail lay. He enjoyed the chase of the yelping curs immensely, but if one of them had turned he would have bolted the other way.

A motherly-looking woman came forward and offered me some meal; this was when we were in the act of departing: others had given food to the men and no return had been made. I told her to send it on by her husband, and I would purchase it, but it would have been better to have accepted it: some give merely out of kindly feeling and with no prospect of a return.

Many of the Makoa men have their faces thickly tattooed in double, raised lines of about half an inch in length. After the incisions are made charcoal is rubbed in and the flesh pressed out, so that all the cuts are raised above the level of the surface. It gives them rather a hideous look, and a good deal of that fierceness which our kings and chiefs of old put on whilst having their portraits taken.

_4th May, 1866._--The stream, embowered in perpetual shade and overspread with the roots of water-loving, broad-leaved trees, we found to be called Nkonya. The spot of our encampment was an island formed by a branch of it parting and re-entering it again: the owner had used it for rice.

The buffaloes were bitten again by tsetse on 2nd, and also to-day, from the bites of other flies (which look much more formidable than tsetse), blood of arterial colour flows down; this symptom I never saw before, but when we slaughtered an ox which had been tsetse bitten, we observed that the blood had the arterial hue. The cow has inflammation of one eye, and a swelling on the right lumbar portion of the pelvis: the grey buffalo has been sick, but this I attribute to unmerciful loading; for his back is hurt: the camels do not seem to feel the fly, though they get weaker from the horrid running sores upon them and hard work. There are no symptoms of tsetse in mules or donkeys, but one mule has had his shoulder sprained, and he cannot stoop to eat or drink.

We saw the last of the flanking range on the north. The country in front is plain, with a few detached granitic peaks shot up. The Makoa in large numbers live at the end of the range in a place called Nyuchi. At Nyamba, a village where we spent the night of the 5th, was a doctoress and rain-maker, who presented a large basket of soroko, or, as they call it in India, "mung," and a fowl. She is tall and well made, with fine limbs and feet, and was profusely tattooed all over; even her hips and b.u.t.tocks had their elaborate markings: no shame is felt in exposing these parts.

A good deal of salt is made by lixiviation of the soil and evaporating by fire. The head woman had a tame khanga tole or tufted guinea-fowl, with bluish instead of white spots.

In pa.s.sing along westwards after leaving the end of the range, we came first of all on sandstone hardened by fire; then ma.s.ses of granite, as if in that had been contained the igneous agency of partial metamorphosis; it had also lifted up the sandstone, so as to cause a dip to the east. Then the syenite or granite seemed as if it had been melted, for it was all in striae, which striae, as they do elsewhere, run east and west. With the change in geological structure we get a different vegetation. Instead of the laurel-leaved trees of various kinds, we have African ebonies, acacias, and mimosae: the gra.s.s is shorter and more spa.r.s.e, and we can move along without wood-cutting.

We were now opposite a hill on the south called Simba, a lion, from its supposed resemblance to that animal. A large Mabiha population live there, and make raids occasionally over to this side for slaves.

_6th May, 1866._--Tsetse again. The animals look drowsy. The cow's eye is dimmed; when punctured, the skin emits a stream of scarlet blood.

The people hereabouts seem intelligent and respectful. At service a man began to talk, but when I said, "Ku soma Mlungu,"--"we wish to pray to G.o.d," he desisted. It would be interesting to know what the ideas of these men are, and to ascertain what they have gained in their communings with nature during the ages past. They do not give the idea of that boisterous wickedness and disregard of life which we read of in our own dark ages, but I have no one to translate, although I can understand much of what is said on common topics chiefly from knowing other dialects.

_7th May, 1866._--A camel died during the night, and the grey buffalo is in convulsions this morning. The cruelty of these sepoys vitiates my experiment, and I quite expect many camels, one buffalo, and one mule to die yet; they sit down and smoke and eat, leaving the animals loaded in the sun. If I am not with them, it is a constant dawdling; they are evidently unwilling to exert themselves, they cannot carry their belts and bags, and their powers of eating and vomiting are astounding. The Makonde villages are remarkably clean, but no sooner do we pa.s.s a night in one than the fellows make it filthy. The climate does give a sharp appet.i.te, but these sepoys indulge it till relieved by vomiting and purging. First of all they breakfast, then an hour afterwards they are sitting eating the pocketfuls of corn maize they have stolen and brought for the purpose, whilst I have to go ahead, otherwise we may be misled into a zigzag course to see Ali's friends; and if I remain behind to keep the sepoys on the move, it deprives me of all the pleasure of travelling. We have not averaged four miles a day in a straight line, yet the animals have often been kept in the sun for eight hours at a stretch. When we get up at 4 A.M. we cannot get under weigh before 8 o'clock. Sepoys are a mistake.

_7th May, 1866._--We are now opposite a mountain called Nabungala, which resembles from the north-east an elephant lying down. Another camel, a very good one, died on the way: its s.h.i.+verings and convulsions are not at all like what we observed in horses and oxen killed by tsetse, but such may lie the cause, however. The only symptom pointing to the tsetse is the arterial-looking blood, but we never saw it ooze from the skin after the bite of the gad-fly as we do now.

_8th May, 1866._--We arrived at a village called Jponde, or Liponde, which lies opposite a granitic hill on the other-side of the river (where we spent a night on our boat trip), called Nakapuri; this is rather odd, for the words are not Makonde but Sichuana, and signify goat's horn, from the projections jutting out from the rest of the ma.s.s. I left the havildar, sepoys, and Na.s.sick boys here in order to make a forced march forward, where no food is to be had, and send either to the south or westwards for supplies, so that after they have rested the animals and themselves five days they may come. One mule is very ill; one buffalo drowsy and exhausted; one camel a mere skeleton from bad sores; and another has an enormous hole at the point of the pelvis, which sticks out at the side. I suspect that this was made maliciously, for he came from the field bleeding profusely; no tree would have perforated a round hole in this way. I take all the goods and leave only the sepoys' luggage, which is enough for all the animals now.

_9th May, 1866._--I went on with the Johanna men and twenty-four carriers, for it was a pleasure to get away from the sepoys and Na.s.sick boys; the two combined to overload the animals. I told them repeatedly that they would kill them, but no sooner had I adjusted the burdens and turned my back than they put on all their things. It was however such continual vexation to contend with the sneaking spirit, that I gave up annoying myself by seeing matters, though I felt certain that the animals would all be killed. We did at least eight miles pleasantly well, and slept at Moedaa village. The rocks are still syenite. We pa.s.sed a valley with the large th.o.r.n.y acacias of which canoes are often made, and a euphorbiaceous tree, with seed-vessels as large as mandarin oranges, with three seeds inside. We were now in a country which, in addition to the Mazitu invasion, was suffering from one of those inexplicable droughts to which limited and sometimes large portions of this country are subject. It had not been nearly so severe on the opposite or south side, and thither too the Mazitu had not penetrated. Rushes, which plagued us nearer the coast, are not observed now; the gra.s.s is all crisp and yellow; many of the plants are dead, and leaves are fallen off the trees as if winter had begun. The ground is covered with open forest, with here and there thick jungle on the banks of the streams. All the rivulets we have pa.s.sed are mere mountain torrents filled with sand, in which the people dig for water.

We pa.s.sed the spot where an Arab called Birkal was asked payment for leave to pa.s.s. After two and a half days' parley he fought, killed two Makonde, and mortally wounded a headman, which settled the matter; no fresh demand has been made. Ali's brother also resisted the same sort of demand, fought several times, or until three Makonde and two of his people were killed; they then made peace, and no other exactions have been made.

_11th May, 1866._--We now found a difficulty in getting our carriers along, on account of exhaustion from want of food. In going up a sand stream called Nyede, we saw that all moist spots had been planted with maize and beans, so the loss caused by the Mazitu, who swept the land like a cloud of locusts, will not be attended by much actual starvation. We met a runaway woman: she was seized by Ali, and it was plain that he expected a reward for his pains. He thought she was a slave, but a quarter of a mile off was the village she had left, and it being doubtful if she were a runaway at all, the would-be fugitive slave-capture turned out a failure.

_12th May, 1866._--About 4' E.N.E. of Matawatawa, or Nyamatolole, our former turning point.

_13th May, 1866._--We halted at a village at Matawatawa. A pleasant-looking lady, with her face profusely tattooed, came forward with a bunch of sweet reed, or _Sorghum saceliaratum_, and laid it at my feet, saying, "I met you here before," pointing to the spot on the river where we turned. I remember her coming then, and that I asked the boat to wait while she went to bring us a basket of food, and I think it was given to Chiko, and no return made. It is sheer kindliness that prompts them sometimes, though occasionally people do make presents with a view of getting a larger one in return: it is pleasant to find that it is not always so. She had a quiet, dignified manner, both in talking and walking, and I now gave her a small looking-gla.s.s, and she went and brought me her only fowl and a basket of cuc.u.mber-seeds, from which oil is made; from the amount of oily matter they contain thov are nutritious when roasted and eaten as nuts. She made an apology, saying they were hungry times at present. I gave her a cloth, and so parted with Kanangone, or, as her name may be spelled, Kananone. The carriers were very useless from hunger, and we could not buy anything for them; for the country is all dried up, and covered spa.r.s.ely with mimosas and th.o.r.n.y acacias.

_14th May, 1866._--I could not get the carriers on more than an hour and three-quarters: men tire very soon on empty stomachs. We had reached the village of Ha.s.sane, opposite to a conical hill named Chisulwe, which is on the south side of the river, and evidently of igneous origin. It is tree-covered, while the granite always shows lumps of naked rock. All about lie great patches of beautiful dolomite. It may have been formed by baking of the tufa, which in this country seems always to have been poured out with water after volcanic action. Ha.s.sane's daughter was just lifting a pot of French beans, boiled in their pods, off the fire when we entered the village, these he presented to me, and when I invited him to partake, he replied that he was at home and would get something, while I was a stranger on a journey. He, like all the other headmen, is a reputed doctor, and his wife, a stout old lady, a doctoress; he had never married any wife but this one, and he had four children, all of whom lived with their parents. We employed one of his sons to go to the south side and purchase food, sending at the same time some carriers to buy for themselves. The siroko and rice bought by Ha.s.sane's son we deposited with him for the party behind, when they should arrive. The amount of terror the Mazitu inspire cannot be realized by us. They shake their s.h.i.+elds and the people fly like stricken deer. I observed that a child would not go a few yards for necessary purposes unless grandmother stood in sight. Matumora, as the Arabs call the chief at Ngomano, gave them a warm reception, and killed several of them: this probably induced them to retire.

_15th and 16th May, 1866._--Miserably short marches from hunger, and I sympathise with the poor fellows. Those sent to buy food for themselves on the south bank were misled by a talkative fellow named Chikungu, and went off north, where we knew nothing could be had. His object was to get paid for three days, while they only loitered here.

I suppose hunger has taken the spirit out of them; but I told them that a day in which no work was done did not count: they admitted this. We pay about two feet of calico per day, and a fathom or six feet for three days' carriage.

_17th May, 1866._--With very empty stomachs they came on a few miles and proposed to cross to the south side; as this involved crossing the Luendi too, I at first objected, but in hopes that we might get food for them we consented, and were taken over in two very small canoes. I sent Ali and Musa meanwhile to the south to try and get some food. I got a little green sorghum for them and paid them off. These are the little troubles of travelling, and scarce worth mentioning. A granitic peak now appears about 15' off, to the W.S.W. It is called Chihoka.

_18th May, 1866._--At our crossing place metamorphic rocks of a chocolate colour stood on edge; and in the country round we have patches of dolomite, sometimes as white as marble. The country is all dry: gra.s.s and leaves crisp and yellow. Though so arid now, yet the great abundance of the dried stalks of a water-loving plant, a sort of herbaceous acacia, with green pea-shaped flowers, proves that at other times it is damp enough. The marks of people's feet floundering in slush, but now baked, show that the country can be sloppy.

The headman of the village where we spent the night of 17th is a martyr to rheumatism. He asked for medicine, and when I gave some he asked me to give it to him out of my own hand. He presented me with a basket of siroko and of green sorghum as a fee, of which I was very glad, for my own party were suffering, and I had to share out the little portion of flour I had reserved to myself.

_19th May, 1866._--Coming on with what carriers we could find at the crossing place, we reached the confluence without seeing it; and Matumora being about two miles up the Loendi, we sent over to him for aid. He came over this morning early,--a tall, well-made man, with a somewhat severe expression of countenance, from a number of wrinkles on his forehead. He took us over the Loendi, which is decidedly the parent stream of the Rovuma, though that as it comes from the west still retains the name Loendi from the south-west here, and is from 150 to 200 yards wide, while the Rovuma above Matawatawa is from 200 to 250, full of islands, rocks, and sandbanks. The Loendi has the same character. We can see the confluence from where we cross about 2' to the north. Both rivers are rapid, shoal, and sandy; small canoes are used on them, and the people pride themselves on their skilful management: in this the women seem in no way inferior to the men.

In looking up the Loendi we see a large granitic peak called Nkanje, some 20 miles off, and beyond it the dim outline of distant highlands, in which seams of coal are exposed. Pieces of the mineral are found in Loendi's sands.

Matumora has a good character in the country, and many flee to him from oppression. He was very polite; sitting on the right bank till all the goods were carried over, then coming in the same canoe wifn me himself, he opened a fish basket in a weir and gave me the contents, and subsequently a little green sorghum. He literally has lost all his corn, for he was obliged to flee with his people to Marumba, a rocky island in Rovuma, about six miles above Matawatawa. He says that both Loendi and Rovuma come out of Lake Nya.s.sa; a boat could not ascend, however, because many waterfalls are in their course: it is strange if all this is a myth. Matumora asked if the people through whose country I had come would preserve the peace I wished. He says he has been a.s.sailed on all sides by slave-hunters: he alone has never hunted for captives: if the people in front should attack me he would come and fight them: finally he had never seen a European before (Dr. Roscher travelled as an Arab), nor could I learn where Lik.u.mbu at Ngomano lives; it was with him that Roscher is said to have left his goods.

The Mazitu had women, children, oxen and goats with them. The whole tribe lives on plundering the other natives by means of the terror their s.h.i.+elds inspire; had they gone further down the Rovuma, no ox would have survived the tsetse.

_20th May, 1866._--I paid Ali to his entire satisfaction, and entrusted him with a despatch, "No. 2 Geographical," and then sent off four men south to buy food. Here we are among Matambwe. Two of Matumora's men act as guides. We are about 2' south and by west of the confluence Ngomano. Lat. 11 26' 23" S.; long. 37 40' 52" E.

Abraham, one of the Na.s.sick boys, came up and said he had been sent by the sepoys, who declared they would come no further. It was with the utmost difficulty they had come so far, or that the havildar had forced them on, they would not obey him--would not get up in the mornings to march; lay in the paths, and gave their pouches and muskets to the natives to carry: they make themselves utterly useless.

The black buffalo is dead; one camel ditto, and one mule left behind ill. Were I not aware of the existence of the tsetse, I should say they died from sheer bad treatment and hard work.

I sent a note to be read to the sepoys stating that I had seen their disobedience, unwillingness, and skulking, and as soon as I received the havildar's formal evidence, I would send them back. I regretted parting with the havildar only.