The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death Volume Ii Part 11

_11th June, 1871._--New moon last night, and I believe Dugumbe will leave Kasonga's to-day. River down three inches.

_14th June, 1871._--Ha.s.sani got nine canoes, and put sixty-three persons in three; I cannot get one. Dugumbe reported near, but detained by his divination, at which he is an expert; hence his native name is "Molembalemba"--"writer, writing."

_16th June, 1871._--The high winds and drying of soap and sugar tell that the rains are now over in this part.

_18th June, 1871._--Dugumbe arrived, but pa.s.sed to Moene Nyangwe's, and found that provisions were so scarce, and dear there, as compared with our market, that he was fain to come back to us. He has a large party and 500 guns. He is determined to go into new fields of trade, and has all his family with him, and intends to remain six or seven years, sending regularly to Ujiji for supplies of goods.

_20th June, 1871._--Two of Dugumbe's party brought presents of four large fundos of beads each. All know that my goods are unrighteously detained by Shereef and they show me kindness, which I return by some fine calico which I have. Among the first words Dugumbe said to me were, "Why your own slaves are your greatest enemies: I will buy you a canoe, but the Banian slaves' slanders have put all the Manyuema against you."

I knew that this was true, and that they were conscious of the sympathy of the Ujijian traders, who hate to have me here.

_24th June, 1871._--Ha.s.sani's canoe party in the river were foiled by narrows, after they had gone down four days. Rocks jut out on both sides, not opposite, but alternate to each other; and the vast ma.s.s of water of the great river jammed in, rushes round one promontory on to another, and a frightful whirlpool is formed in which the first canoe went and was overturned, and five lives lost. Had I been there, mine would have been the first canoe, for the traders would have made it a point of honour to give me the precedence (although actually to make a feeler of me), while they looked on in safety. The men in charge of Ha.s.sani's canoes were so frightened by this accident that they at once resolved to return, though they had arrived in the country of the ivory: they never looked to see whether the canoes could be dragged past the narrows, as anyone else would have done. No better luck could be expected after all their fraud and duplicity in getting the canoes; no harm lay in obtaining them, but why try to prevent me getting one?

_27th June, 1871._--In answer to my prayers for preservation, I was prevented going down to the narrows, formed by a d.y.k.e of mountains cutting across country, and jutting a little ajar, which makes the water in an enormous ma.s.s wheel round behind it helplessly, and if the canoes reach the rock against which the water dashes, they are almost certainly overturned. As this same d.y.k.e probably cuts across country to Lomame, my plan of going to the confluence and then up won't do, for I should have to go up rapids there. Again, I was prevented from going down Luamo, and on the north of its confluence another cataract mars navigation in the Lualaba, and my safety is thereby secured. We don't always know the dangers that we are guided past.

_28th June, 1871._--The river has fallen two feet: dark brown water, and still much wreck floating down.

Eight villages are in flames, set fire to by a slave of Syde bin Habib, called Manilla, who thus shows his blood friends of the Bagenya how well he can fight against the Mohombo, whose country the Bagenya want! The stragglers of this camp are over on the other side helping Manilla, and catching fugitives and goats. The Bagenya are fishermen by taste and profession, and sell the produce of their nets and weirs to those who cultivate the soil, at the different markets. Manilla's foray is for an alleged debt of three slaves, and ten villages are burned.

_30th June, 1871._--Ha.s.sani pretended that he was not aware of Manilla's foray, and when I denounced it to Manilla himself, he showed that he was a slave, by cringing and saying nothing except something about the debt of three slaves.

_1st July, 1871._--I made known my plan to Dugumbe, which was to go west with his men to Lomame, then by his aid buy a canoe and go up Lake Lincoln to Katanga and the fountains, examine the inhabited caves, and return here, if he would let his people bring me goods from Ujiji; he again referred to all the people being poisoned in mind against me, but was ready to do everything in his power for my success. My own people persuaded the Bagenya not to sell a canoe: Ha.s.sani knows it all, but swears that he did not join in the slander, and even points up to Heaven in attestation of innocence of all, even of Manilla's foray. Mohamadans are certainly famous as liars, and the falsehood of Mohamad has been transmitted to his followers in a measure unknown in other religions.

_2nd July, 1871._--The upper stratum of clouds is from the north-west, the lower from the south-east; when they mix or change places the temperature is much lowered, and fever ensues. The air evidently comes from the Atlantic, over the low swampy lands of the West Coast. Morning fogs show that the river is warmer than the air.

_4th July, 1871._--Ha.s.sani off down river in high dudgeon at the cowards who turned after reaching the ivory country. He leaves them here and goes himself, entirely on land. I gave him hints to report himself and me to Baker, should he meet any of his headmen.

_5th July, 1871._--The river has fallen three feet in all, that is one foot since 27th June.

I offer Dugumbe $2000, or 400_l._, for ten men to replace the Banian slaves, and enable me to go up the Lomame to Katanga and the underground dwellings, then return and go up by Tanganyika to Ujiji, and I added that I would give all the goods I had at Ujiji besides: he took a few days to consult with his a.s.sociates.

_6th July, 1871._--Mokandira, and other headmen, came with a present of a pig and a goat on my being about to depart west. I refused to receive them till my return, and protested against the slander of my wis.h.i.+ng to kill people, which they all knew, but did not report to me: this refusal and protest will ring all over the country.

_7th July, 1871._--I was annoyed by a woman frequently beating a slave near my house, but on my reproving her she came and apologized. I told her to speak softly to her slave, as she was now the only mother the girl had; the slave came from beyond Lomame, and was evidently a lady in her own land; she calls her son Mologwe, or chief, because his father was a headman.

Dugumbe advised my explaining my plan of procedure to the slaves, and he evidently thinks that I wish to carry it towards them with a high hand.

I did explain all the exploration I intended to do: for instance, the fountains of Herodotus--beyond Katanga--Katanga itself, and the underground dwellings, and then return. They made no remarks, for they are evidently pleased to have me knuckling down to them; when pressed on the point of proceeding, they say they will only go with Dugumbe's men to the Lomame, and then return. River fallen three inches since the 5th.

_10th July, 1871._--Manyuema children do not creep, as European children do, on their knees, but begin by putting forward one foot and using one knee. Generally a Manyuema child uses both feet and both hands, but never both knees: one Arab child did the same; he never crept, but got up on both feet, holding on till he could walk.

New moon last night of seventh Arab month.

_11th July, 1871._--I bought the different species of fish brought to market, in order to sketch eight of them, and compare them with those of the Nile lower down: most are the same as in Nya.s.sa. A very active species of Glanis, of dark olive-brown, was not sketched, but a spotted one, armed with offensive spikes in the dorsal and pectoral fins, was taken. Sesamum seed is abundant just now and cakes are made of ground-nuts, as on the West Coast. Dugumbe's horde tried to deal in the market in a domineering way. "I shall buy that," said one. "These are mine," said another; "no one must touch them but me," but the market-women taught them that they could not monopolize, but deal fairly. They are certainly clever traders, and keep each other in countenance, they stand by each other, and will not allow overreaching, and they give food astonis.h.i.+ngly cheap: once in the market they have no fear.

_12th and 13th July 1871._--The Banian slaves declared before Dugumbe that they would go to the River Lomame, but no further: he spoke long to them, but they will not consent to go further. When told that they would thereby lose all their pay, they replied, "Yes, but not our lives," and they walked off from him muttering, which is insulting to one of his rank. I then added, "I have goods at Ujiji; I don't know how many, but they are considerable, take them all, and give me men to finish my work; if not enough, I will add to them, only do not let me be forced to return now I am so near the end of my undertaking." He said he would make a plan in conjunction with his a.s.sociates, and report to me.

_14th July, 1871._--I am distressed and perplexed what to do so as not to be foiled, but all seems against me.

_15th July, 1871._--The reports of guns on the other side of the Lualaba all the morning tell of the people of Dugumbe murdering those of Kimburu and others who mixed blood with Manilla. "Manilla is a slave, and how dares he to mix blood with chiefs who ought only to make friends with free men like us"--this is their complaint. Kimburu gave Manilla three slaves, and he sacked ten villages in token of friends.h.i.+p; he proposed to give Dugumbe nine slaves in the same operation, but Dugumbe's people destroy his villages, and shoot and make his people captives to punish Manilla; to make an impression, in fact, in the country that they alone are to be dealt with--"make friends with us, and not with Manilla or anyone else"--such is what they insist upon.

About 1500 people came to market, though many villages of those that usually come from the other side were now in flames, and every now and then a number of shots were fired on the fugitives.

It was a hot, sultry day, and when I went into the market I saw Adie and Manilla, and three of the men who had lately come with Dugumbe. I was surprised to see these three with their guns, and felt inclined to reprove them, as one of my men did, for bringing weapons into the market, but I attributed it to their ignorance, and, it being very hot, I was walking away to go out of the market, when I saw one of the fellows haggling about a fowl, and seizing hold of it. Before I had got thirty yards out, the discharge of two guns in the middle of the crowd told me that slaughter had begun: crowds dashed off from the place, and threw down their wares in confusion, and ran. At the same time that the three opened fire on the ma.s.s of people near the upper end of the marketplace volleys were discharged from a party down near the creek on the panic-stricken women, who dashed at the canoes. These, some fifty or more, were jammed in the creek, and the men forgot their paddles in the terror that seized all. The canoes were not to be got out, for the creek was too small for so many; men and women, wounded by the b.a.l.l.s, poured into them, and leaped and scrambled into the water, shrieking. A long line of heads in the river showed that great numbers struck out for an island a full mile off: in going towards it they had to put the left shoulder to a current of about two miles an hour; if they had struck away diagonally to the opposite bank, the current would have aided them, and, though nearly three miles off, some would have gained land: as it was, the heads above water showed the long line of those that would inevitably perish.

Shot after shot continued to be fired on the helpless and peris.h.i.+ng.

Some of the long line of heads disappeared quietly; whilst other poor creatures threw their arms high, as if appealing to the great Father above, and sank. One canoe took in as many as it could hold, and all paddled with hands and arms: three canoes, got out in haste, picked up sinking friends, till all went down together, and disappeared. One man in a long canoe, which could have held forty or fifty, had clearly lost his head; he had been out in the stream before the ma.s.sacre began, and now paddled up the river nowhere, and never looked to the drowning.

By-and-bye all the heads disappeared; some had turned down stream towards the bank, and escaped. Dugumbe put people into one of the deserted vessels to save those in the water, and saved twenty-one, but one woman refused to be taken on board from thinking that she was to be made a slave of; she preferred the chance of life by swimming, to the lot of a slave: the Bagenya women are expert in the water, as they are accustomed to dive for oysters, and those who went down stream may have escaped, but the Arabs themselves estimated the loss of life at between 330 and 400 souls. The shooting-party near the canoes were so reckless, they killed two of their own people; and a Banyamwezi follower, who got into a deserted canoe to plunder, fell into the water, went down, then came up again, and down to rise no more.

My first impulse was to pistol the murderers, but Dugumbe protested against my getting into a blood-feud, and I was thankful afterwards that I took his advice. Two wretched Moslems a.s.serted "that the firing was done by the people of the English;" I asked one of them why he lied so, and he could utter no excuse: no other falsehood came to his aid as he stood abashed, before me, and so telling him not to tell palpable falsehoods, I left him gaping.

After the terrible affair in the water, the party of Tagamoio, who was the chief perpetrator, continued to fire on the people there and fire their villages. As I write I hear the loud wails on the left bank over those who are there slain, ignorant of their many friends now in the depths of Lualaba. Oh, let Thy kingdom come! No one will ever know the exact loss on this bright sultry summer morning, it gave me the impression of being in h.e.l.l. All the slaves in the camp rushed at the fugitives on land, and plundered them: women were for hours collecting and carrying loads of what had been thrown down in terror.

Some escaped to me, and were protected: Dugumbe saved twenty-one, and of his own accord liberated them, they were brought to me, and remained over night near my house. One woman of the saved had a musket-ball through the thigh, another in the arm. I sent men with our flag to save some, for without a flag they might have been victims, for Tagamoio's people were shooting right and left like fiends. I counted twelve villages burning this morning. I asked the question of Dugumbe and others, "Now for what is all this murder?" All blamed Manilla as its cause, and in one sense he was the cause; but it is hardly credible that they repeat it is in order to be avenged on Manilla for making friends with headmen, he being a slave. I cannot believe it fully. The wish to make an impression in the country as to the importance and greatness of the new comers was the most potent motive; but it was terrible that the murdering of so many should be contemplated at all. It made me sick at heart. Who could accompany the people of Dugumbe and Tagamoio to Lomame and be free from blood-guiltiness?

I proposed to Dugumbe to catch the murderers, and hang them up in the marketplace, as our protest against the b.l.o.o.d.y deeds before the Manyuema. If, as he and others added, the ma.s.sacre was committed by Manilla's people, he would have consented; but it was done by Tagamoio's people, and others of this party, headed by Dugumbe. This slaughter was peculiarly atrocious, inasmuch as we have always heard that women coming to or from market have never been known to be molested: even when two districts are engaged in actual hostilities, "the women," say they, "pa.s.s among us to market unmolested," nor has one ever been known to be plundered by the men. These n.i.g.g.e.r Moslems are inferior to the Manyuema in justice and right. The people under Ha.s.sani began the superwickedness of capture and pillage of all indiscriminately. Dugumbe promised to send over men to order Tagamoio's men to cease firing and burning villages; they remained over among the ruins, feasting on goats and fowls all night, and next day (16th) continued their infamous work till twenty-seven villages were destroyed.

_16th July, 1871._--I restored upwards of thirty of the rescued to their friends: Dugumbe seemed to act in good faith, and kept none of them; it was his own free will that guided him. Women are delivered to their husbands, and about thirty-three canoes left in the creek are to be kept for the owners too.

12 A.M.--Shooting still going on on the other side, and many captives caught. At 1 P.M. Tagamoio's people began to cross over in canoes, beating their drums, firing their guns, and shouting, as if to say, "See the conquering heroes come;" they are answered by the women of Dugumba's camp lullilooing, and friends then fire off their guns in joy. I count seventeen villages in flames, and the smoke goes straight up and forms clouds at the top of the pillar, showing great heat evolved, for the houses are full of carefully-prepared firewood. Dugumbe denies having sent Tagamoio on this foray, and Tagamoio repeats that he went to punish the friends made by Manilla, who, being a slave, had no right to make war and burn villages, that could only be done by free men. Manilla confesses to me privately that he did wrong in that, and loses all his beads and many friends in consequence.

2 P.M.--An old man, called Kabobo, came for his old wife; I asked her if this were her husband, she went to him, and put her arm lovingly around him, and said "Yes." I gave her five strings of beads to buy food, all her stores being destroyed with her house; she bowed down, and put her forehead to the ground as thanks, and old Kabobo did the same: the tears stood in her eyes as she went off. Tagamoio caught 17 women, and other Arabs of his party, 27; dead by gunshot, 25. The heads of two headmen were brought over to be redeemed by their friends with slaves.

3 P.M.--Many of the headmen who have been burned out by the foray came over to me, and begged me to come back with them, and appoint new localities for them to settle in again, but I told them that I was so ashamed of the company in which I found myself, that I could scarcely look the Manyuema in the face. They had believed that I wished to kill them--what did they think now? I could not remain among b.l.o.o.d.y companions, and would flee away, I said, but they begged me hard not to leave until they were again settled.

The open murder perpetrated on hundreds of unsuspecting women fills me with unspeakable horror: I cannot think of going anywhere with the Tagamoio crew; I must either go down or up Lualaba, whichever the Banian slaves choose.

4 P.M.--Dugumbe saw that by killing the market people he had committed a great error, and speedily got the chiefs who had come over to me to meet him at his house, and forthwith mix blood: they were in bad case. I could not remain to see to their protection, and Dugumbe, being the best of the whole horde, I advised them to make friends, and then appeal to him as able to restrain to some extent his infamous underlings. One chief asked to have his wife and daughter restored to him first, but generally they were cowed, and the fear of death was on them. Dugumbe said to me, "I shall do my utmost to get all the captives, but he must make friends now, in order that the market may not be given up." Blood was mixed, and an essential condition was, "You must give us chitoka,"

or market. He and most others saw that in theoretically punis.h.i.+ng Manilla, they had slaughtered the very best friends that strangers had.

The Banian slaves openly declare that they will go only to Lomame, and no further. Whatever the Ujijian slavers may pretend, they all hate to have me as a witness of their cold-blooded atrocities. The Banian slaves would like to go with Tagamoio, and share in his rapine and get slaves.

I tried to go down Lualaba, then up it, and west, but with bloodhounds it is out of the question. I see nothing for it but to go back to Ujiji for other men, though it will throw me out of the chance of discovering the fourth great Lake in the Lualaba line of drainage, and other things of great value.

At last I said that I would start for Ujiji, in three days, on foot. I wished to speak to Tagamoio about the captive relations of the chiefs, but he always ran away when he saw me coming.

_17th July, 1871._--All the rest of Dugumbe's party offered me a share of every kind of goods they had, and pressed me not to be ashamed to tell them what I needed. I declined everything save a little gunpowder, but they all made presents of beads, and I was glad to return equivalents in cloth. It is a sore affliction, at least forty-five days in a straight line--equal to 300 miles, or by the turnings and windings 600 English miles, and all after feeding and clothing the Banian slaves for twenty-one months! But it is for the best though; if I do not trust to the riffraff of Ujiji, I must wait for other men at least ten months there. With help from above I shall yet go through Rua, see the underground excavations first, then on to Katanga, and the four ancient fountains eight days beyond, and after that Lake Lincoln.

_18th July, 1871._--The murderous a.s.sault on the market people felt to me like Gehenna, without the fire and brimstone; but the heat was oppressive, and the firearms pouring their iron bullets on the fugitives, was not an inapt representative of burning in the bottomless pit.

The terrible scenes of man's inhumanity to man brought on severe headache, which might have been serious had it not been relieved by a copious discharge of blood; I was laid up all yesterday afternoon, with the depression the bloodshed made,--it filled me with unspeakable horror. "Don't go away," say the Manyuema chiefs to me; but I cannot stay here in agony.

_19th July, 1871._--Dugumbe sent me a fine goat, a maneh of gunpowder, a maneh of fine blue beads, and 230 cowries, to buy provisions in the way.

I proposed to leave a doti Merikano and one of Kanike to buy specimens of workmans.h.i.+p. He sent me two very fine large Manyuema swords, and two equally fine spears, and said that I must not leave anything; he would buy others with his own goods, and divide them equally with me: he is very friendly.

River fallen 4-1/2 feet since the 5th ult.

A few market people appear to-day, formerly they came in crowds: a very few from the west bank bring salt to buy back the baskets from the camp slaves, which they threw away in panic, others carried a little food for sale, about 200 in all, chiefly those who have not lost relatives: one very beautiful woman had a gunshot wound in her upper arm tied round with leaves. Seven canoes came instead of fifty; but they have great tenacity and hopefulness, an old established custom has great charms for them, and the market will again be attended if no fresh outrage is committed. No canoes now come into the creek of death, but land above, at Ntambwe's village: this creek, at the bottom of the long gentle slope on which the market was held, probably led to its selection.

A young Manyuema man worked for one of Dugumbe's people preparing a s.p.a.ce to build on; when tired, he refused to commence to dig a pit, and was struck on the loins with an axe, and soon died: he was drawn out of the way, and his relations came, wailed over him, and buried him: they are too much awed to complain to Dugumbe!!