How I Found Livingstone - Henry M. Stanley (best ereader for comics txt) 📗
- Author: Henry M. Stanley
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hears that this kind of man forms one of and the chief of a Mgogo
sultan’s council, one feels very much tempted to do damage to his
person. Most of the extortions practised upon the Arabs are
suggested by these crafty renegades. Sheikh Hamed found that
the Mnyamwezi was far more obdurate than the Sultan—nothing under
nine doti first-class cloths would redeem the donkeys. The
business that day remained unsettled, and the night following
was, as one may imagine, a very sleepless one to Hamed. As it
turned out, however, the loss of the donkeys, the after heavy fine,
and the sleepless night, proved to be blessings in disguise; for,
towards midnight, a robber Mgogo visited his camp, and while
attempting to steal a bale of cloth, was detected in the act
by the wide-awake and irritated Arab, and was made to vanish
instantly with a bullet whistling in close proximity to his ear.
From each of the principals of the caravans, the Mnyamwezi had
received as tribute for his drunken master fifteen doti, and from
the other six caravans six doti each, altogether fifty-one doti,
yet on the next morning when we took the road he was not a whit
disposed to deduct a single cloth from the fine imposed on Hamed,
and the unfortunate Sheikh was therefore obliged to liquidate the
claim, or leave his donkeys behind.
After travelling through the cornfields of Pembera Pereh we
emerged upon a broad flat plain, as level as the still surface of
a pond, whence the salt of the Wagogo is obtained. From Kanyenyi
on the southern road, to beyond the confines of Uhumba and Ubanarama,
this saline field extends, containing many large ponds of salt
bitter water whose low banks are covered with an effervescence
partaking of the nature of nitrate. Subsequently, two days
afterwards, having ascended the elevated ridge which separates
Ugogo from Uyanzi, I obtained a view of this immense saline plain,
embracing over a hundred square miles. I may have been deceived,
but I imagined I saw large expanses of greyish-blue water,
which causes me to believe that this salina is but a corner of a
great salt lake. The Wahumba, who are numerous, from Nyambwa to
the Uyanzi border, informed my soldiers that there was a “Maji
Kuba” away to the north.
Mizanza, our next camp after Nyambwa, is situated in a grove of
palms, about thirteen miles from the latter place. Soon after
arriving I had to bury myself under blankets, plagued with the
same intermittent fever which first attacked me during the transit
of Marenga Mkali. Feeling certain that one day’s halt, which would
enable me to take regular doses of the invaluable sulphate of
quinine, would cure me, I requested Sheikh Thani to tell Hamed to
halt on the morrow, as I should be utterly unable to continue thus
long, under repeated attacks of a virulent disease which was fast
reducing me into a mere frame of skin and bone. Hamed, in a hurry
to arrive at Unyanyembe in order to dispose of his cloth before
other caravans appeared in the market, replied at first that he
would not, that he could not, stop for the Musungu. Upon Thani’s
reporting his answer to me, I requested him to inform Hamed that,
as the Musungu did not wish to detain him, or any other caravan,
it was his express wish that Hamed would march and leave him,
as he was quite strong enough in guns to march through Ugogo
alone. Whatever cause modified the Sheikh’s resolution and his
anxiety to depart, Hamed’s horn signal for the march was not
heard that night, and on the morrow he had not gone.
Early in the morning I commenced on my quinine doses; at 6 A.M.
I took a second dose; before noon I had taken four more—
altogether, fifty measured grains-the effect of which was
manifest in the copious perspiration which drenched flannels,
linen, and blankets. After noon I arose, devoutly thankful
that the disease which had clung to me for the last fourteen
days had at last succumbed to quinine.
On this day the lofty tent, and the American flag which ever flew
from the centre pole, attracted the Sultan of Mizanza towards it,
and was the cause of a visit with which he honoured me. As he was
notorious among the Arabs for having assisted Manwa Sera in his war
against Sheikh Sny bin Amer, high eulogies upon whom have been
written by Burton, and subsequently by Speke, and as he was the
second most powerful chief in Ugogo, of course he was quite a
curiosity to me. As the tent-door was uplifted that he might
enter, the ancient gentleman was so struck with astonishment at
the lofty apex, and internal arrangements, that the greasy Barsati
cloth which formed his sole and only protection against the chills
of night and the heat of noon, in a fit of abstraction was
permitted to fall down to his feet, exposing to the Musungu’s
unhallowed gaze the sad and aged wreck of what must once have been
a towering form. His son, a youth of about fifteen, attentive to
the infirmities of his father, hastened with filial duty to remind
him of his condition, upon which, with an idiotic titter at the
incident, he resumed his scanty apparel and sat down to wonder and
gibber out his admiration at the tent and the strange things which
formed the Musungu’s personal baggage and furniture. After gazing
in stupid wonder at the table, on which was placed some crockery
and the few books I carried with me; at the slung hammock, which
he believed was suspended by some magical contrivance; at the
portmanteaus which contained my stock of clothes, he ejaculated,
“Hi-le! the Musungu is a great sultan, who has come from his
country to see Ugogo.” He then noticed me, and was again wonder-struck at my pale complexion and straight hair, and the question
now propounded was, “How on earth was I white when the sun had
burned his people’s skins into blackness?” Whereupon he was
shown my cork topee, which he tried on his woolly head, much
to his own and to our amusement. The guns were next shown to
him; the wonderful repeating rifle of the Winchester Company,
which was fired thirteen times in rapid succession to demonstrate
its remarkable murderous powers. If he was astonished before
he was a thousand times more so now, and expressed his belief
that the Wagogo could not stand before the Musungu in battle,
for wherever a Mgogo was seen such a gun would surely kill him.
Then the other firearms were brought forth, each with its
peculiar mechanism explained, until, in, a burst of enthusiasm
at my riches and power, he said he would send me a sheep or goat,
and that he would be my brother. I thanked him for the honour,
and promised to accept whatever he was pleased to send me. At
the instigation of Sheikh Thani, who acted as interpreter, who
said that Wagogo chiefs must not depart with empty hands, I cut
off a shukka of Kaniki and presented it to him, which, after
being examined and measured, was refused upon the ground that,
the Musungu being a great sultan should not demean himself so much
as to give him only a shukka. This, after the twelve doti
received as muhongo from the caravans, I thought, was rather
sore; but as he was about to present me with a sheep or goat
another shukka would not matter much.
Shortly after he departed, and true to his promise, I received
a large, fine sheep, with a broad tail, heavy with fat; but with
the words, :“That being now his brother, I must send him three
doti of good cloth.” As the price of a sheep is but a doti and
a half, I refused the sheep and the fraternal honour, upon the
ground that the gifts were all on one side; and that, as I had
paid muhongo, and given him a doti of Kaniki as a present, I
could not, afford to part with any more cloth without an
adequate return.
During the afternoon one more of my donkeys died, and at night the
hyaenas came in great numbers to feast upon the carcase. Ulimengo,
the chasseur, and best shot of my Wangwana, stole out and succeeded
in shooting two, which turned out to be some of the largest of
their kind.. One of them measured six feet from the tip of the
nose to the extremity of the tail, and three feet around the
girth.
On the 4th. June we struck camp, and after travelling westward for
about three miles, passing several ponds of salt water, we headed
north by west, skirting the range of low hills which separates
Ugogo from Uyanzi.
After a three hours’ march, we halted for a short time at Little
Mukondoku, to settle tribute with the brother of him who rules at
Mukondoku Proper. Three doti satisfied the Sultan, whose
district contains but two villages, mostly occupied by pastoral
Wahumba and renegade Wahehe. The Wahumba live in plastered
(cow-dung) cone huts, shaped like the tartar tents of Turkestan.
The Wahumba, so far as I have seen them, are a fine and well-formed
race. The men are positively handsome, tall, with small heads,
the posterior parts of which project considerably. One will look
in vain for a thick lip or a flat nose amongst them; on the
contrary, the mouth is exceedingly well cut, delicately small;
the nose is that of the Greeks, and so universal was the peculiar
feature, that I at once named them the Greeks of Africa. Their
lower limbs have not the heaviness of the Wagogo and other tribes,
but are long and shapely, clean as those of an antelope. Their
necks are long and slender, on which their small heads are poised
most gracefully. Athletes from their youth, shepherd bred, and
intermarrying among themselves, thus keeping the race pure, any
of them would form a fit subject for the sculptor who would wish
to immortalize in marble an Antinous, a Hylas, a Daphnis, or an
Apollo. The women are as beautiful as the men are handsome.
They have clear ebon skins, not coal-black, but of an inky hue.
Their ornaments consist of spiral rings of brass pendent from the
ears, brass ring collars about the necks, and a spiral cincture
of brass wire about their loins for the purpose of retaining
their calf and goat skins, which are folded about their bodies,
and, depending from the shoulder, shade one half of the bosom,
and fall to the knees.
The Wahehe may be styled the Romans of Africa. Resuming our
march, after a halt of an hour, in foul hours more we arrived at
Mukondoku Proper. This extremity of Ugogo is most populous, The
villages which surround the central tembe, where the Sultan Swaruru
lives, amount to thirty-six. The people who flocked from these to
see the wonderful men whose faces were white, who wore the most
wonderful things on their persons, and possessed the most wonderful
weapons; guns which “bum-bummed” as fast as you could count on
your fingers, formed such a mob of howling savages, that I for an
instant thought there was something besides mere curiosity which
caused such commotion, and attracted such numbers to the roadside.
Halting, I asked what was the matter, and what they wanted, and
why they made such noise? One burly rascal, taking my words for
a declaration of hostilities, promptly drew his bow, but as
prompt as he had fixed his arrow my faithful Winchester with
thirteen shots in the magazine was ready and at the shoulder,
and but waited to see the arrow fly to pour the leaden messengers
of death into the crowd. But the crowd vanished as
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