How I Found Livingstone - Henry M. Stanley (best ereader for comics txt) 📗

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quinine should be taken until such medicines shall have prepared

the system for its reception.

 

The Doctor’s prescription for fever consists of 3 grains

of resin of jalap, and 2 grains of calomel, with tincture of

cardamoms put in just enough to prevent irritation of the

stomach—made into the form of a pill—which is to be taken as

soon as one begins to feel the excessive languor and weariness

which is the sure forerunner of the African type of fever. An

hour or two later a cup of coffee, unsugared and without milk,

ought to be taken, to cause a quicker action. The Doctor also

thinks that quinine should be taken with the pill; but my

experience—though it weighs nothing against what he has endured—

has proved to me that quinine is useless until after the medicine

has taken effect. My stomach could never bear quinine unless

subsequent to the cathartic. A well-known missionary at

Constantinople recommends travellers to take 3 grains of

tartar-emetic for the ejection of the bilious matter in the

stomach; but the reverend doctor possibly forgets that much more

of the system is disorganized than the stomach; and though in

one or two cases of a slight attack, this remedy may have proved

successful, it is altogether too violent for an enfeebled man

in Africa. I have treated myself faithfully after this method

three or four times; but I could not conscientiously recommend it.

For cases of urticaria, I could recommend taking 3 grains of

tartar-emetic; but then a stomach-pump would answer the purpose

as well.

 

On the 27th we set out for Misonghi. About half-way I saw the

head of the Expedition on the run, and the motive seemed to be

communicated quickly, man after man, to those behind, until my

donkey commenced to kick, and lash behind with his heels. In a

second, I was made aware of the cause of this excitement, by a

cloud of wild bees buzzing about my head, three or four of which

settled on my face, and stung me frightfully. We raced madly for

about half a mile, behaving in as wild a manner as the poor

bestung animals.

 

As this was an unusually long march, I doubted if the Doctor could

march it, because his feet were so sore, so I determined to send

four men back with the kitanda; but the stout old hero refused to

be carried, and walked all the way to camp after a march of

eighteen miles. He had been stung dreadfully in the head and

in the face; the bees had settled in handfuls in his hair; but,

after partaking of a cup of warm tea and some food, he was as

cheerful as if he had never travelled a mile.

 

At Mrera, Central Ukonongo, we halted a day to grind grain, and

to prepare the provision we should need during the transit of

the wilderness between Mrera and Manyara.

 

On the 31st of January, at Mwaru, Sultan Kamirambo, we met a

caravan under the leadership of a slave of Sayd bin Habib, who

came to visit us in our camp, which was hidden in a thick clump

of jungle. After he was seated, and had taken his coffee,

I asked,

 

“What is thy news, my friend, that thou bast brought from

Unyanyembe?”

 

“My news is good, master.”

 

“How goes the war?”

 

“Ah, Mirambo is where? He eats the hides even. He

is famished. Sayd bin Habib, my master, hath possession of

Kirira. The Arabs are thundering at the gates of Wilyankuru.

Sayd bin Majid, who came from Ujiji to Usagozi in twenty days,

hath taken and slain `Moto’ (Fire), the King. Simba of Kasera

hath taken up arms for the defence of his father, Mkasiwa of

Unyanyembe. The chief of Ugunda hath sent five hundred men

to the field. Ough—Mirambo is where? In a month he will

be dead of hunger.”

 

“Great and good news truly, my friend.”

 

“Yes-in the name of God.”

 

“And whither art thou bound with thy caravan?”

 

“Sayd, the son of Majid, who came from Ujiji, hath told us of

the road that the white man took, that he had arrived at Ujiji

safely, and that he was on his way back to Unyanyembe. So we

have thought that if the white man could go there, we could also.

Lo, the Arabs come by the hundred by the white man’s road, to

get the ivory from Ujiji.

 

“I am that white man.”

 

“You?”

 

« Yes.”

 

” Why it was reported that you were dead—that you fought with

the Wazavira.”

 

“Ah, my friend, these are the words of Njara, the son of Khamis.

See” (pointing to Livingstone), “this is the white man, my

father *, whom I saw at Ujiji. He is going with me to Unyanyembe

to get his cloth, after which he will return to the great waters.”

__________________

** It is a courteous custom in Africa to address elderly people as

” Baba,” (Father.)

__________________

 

“Wonderful!—thou sayest truly.”

 

“What has thou to tell me of the white man at Unyanyembe?”

 

“Which white man?”

 

“The white man I left in the house of Sayd, the son of Salim—my

house—at Kwihara.”

 

” He is dead.”

 

” Dead!”

 

“True.”

 

“You do not mean to say the white man is dead?”

 

“True—he is dead.”

 

“How long ago?”

 

“Many months now.”

 

“What did he die of?”

 

“Homa (fever).”

 

“Any more of my people dead?”

 

“I know not.”

 

” Enough.” I looked sympathetically at the Doctor, and he replied,

 

“I told you so. When you described him to me as a drunken man,

I knew he could not live. Men who have been habitual drunkards

cannot live in this country, any more than men who have become

slaves to other vices. I attribute the deaths that occurred in

my expedition on the Zambezi to much the same cause.”

 

“Ah, Doctor, there are two of us gone. I shall be the third,

if this fever lasts much longer.”

 

“Oh no, not at all. If you would have died from fever, you would

have died at Ujiji when you had that severe attack of remittent.

Don’t think of it. Your fever now is only the result of exposure

to wet. I never travel during the wet season. This time I have

travelled because I was anxious, and I did not wish to detain you

at Ujiji.”

 

“Well, there is nothing like a good friend at one’s back in this

country to encourage him, and keep his spirits up. Poor Shaw!

I am sorry—very sorry for him. How many times have I not

endeavoured to cheer him up! But there was no life in him.

And among the last words I said to him, before parting, were,

`Remember, if you return to Unyanyembe, you die!’”

 

We also obtained news from the chief of Sayd bin Habib’s caravan

that several packets of letters and newspapers, and boxes, had

arrived for me from Zanzibar by my messengers and Arabs; that

Selim, the son of Sheikh Hashid of Zanzibar, was amongst the

latest arrivals in Unyanyembe. The Doctor also reminded me with

the utmost good-nature that, according to his accounts, he had

a stock of jellies and crackers, soups, fish, and potted ham,

besides cheese, awaiting him in Unyanyembe, and that he would

be delighted to share his good things; whereupon I was greatly

cheered, and, during the repeated attacks of fever I suffered

about this time, my imagination loved to dwell upon the luxuries

at Unyanyembe. I pictured myself devouring the hams and crackers

and jellies like a madman. I lived on my raving fancies. My poor

vexed brain rioted on such homely things as wheaten bread and

butter, hams, bacon, caviare, and I would have thought no price

too high to pay for them. Though so far away and out of the pale

of Europe and America, it was a pleasure to me, during the athumia

or despondency into which I was plunged by ever recurring fevers,

to dwell upon them. I wondered that people who had access to such

luxuries should ever get sick, and become tired of life. I thought

that if a wheaten loaf with a nice pat of fresh butter were

presented to me, I would be able, though dying, to spring up and

dance a wild fandango.

 

Though we lacked the good things of this life above named, we

possessed salted giraffe and pickled zebra tongues; we had ugali

made by Halimah herself; we had sweet potatoes, tea, coffee,

dampers, or slap jacks; but I was tired of them. My enfeebled

stomach, harrowed and irritated with medicinal compounds, with

ipecac, colocynth, tartar-emetic, quinine, and such things,

protested against the coarse food. “Oh, for a wheaten loaf!”

my soul cried in agony. “Five hundred dollars for one loaf

of bread!”

 

The Doctor, somehow or another, despite the incessant rain, the

dew, fog, and drizzle, the marching, and sore feet, ate like a

hero, and I manfully, sternly, resolved to imitate the persevering

attention he paid to the welfare of his gastric powers; but I

miserably failed.

 

Dr. Livingstone possesses all the attainments of a traveller.

His knowledge is great about everything concerning Africa—the

rocks, the trees, the fruits, and their virtues, are known to him.

He is also full of philosophic reflections upon ethnological

matter. With camp-craft, with its cunning devices, he is au fait.

His bed is luxurious as a spring mattress. Each night he has

it made under his own supervision. First, he has two straight

poles cut, three or four inches in diameter; which are laid

parallel one with another, at the distance of two feet; across

these poles are laid short sticks, saplings, three feet long, and

over them is laid a thick pile of grass; then comes a piece of

waterproof canvas and blankets—and thus a bed has been

improvised fit for a king.

 

It was at Livingstone’s instigation I purchased milch goats, by

which, since leaving Ujiji, we have had a supply of fresh milk

for our tea and coffee three times a day. Apropos of this, we

are great drinkers of these welcome stimulants; we seldom halt

drinking until we have each had six or seven cups. We have also

been able to provide ourselves with music, which, though harsh,

is better than none. I mean the musical screech of parrots from

Manyuema.

 

Half-way between Mwaru—Kamirambo’s village—and the deserted

Tongoni of Ukamba, I carved the Doctor’s initials and my own on

a large tree, with the date February 2nd. I have been twice

guilty of this in Africa once when we were famishing in Southern

Uvinza I inscribed the date, my initials, and the word “Starving,”

in large letters on the trunk of a sycamore.

 

In passing through the forest of Ukamba, we saw the bleached skull

of an unfortunate victim to the privations of travel. Referring to

it, the Doctor remarked that he could never pass through an African

forest, with its solemn stillness and serenity, without wishing to

be buried quietly under the dead leaves, where he would be sure to

rest undisturbed. In England there was no elbow-room, the graves

were often desecrated; and ever since he had buried his wife in

the woods of Shupanga he had sighed for just such a spot, where his

weary bones would receive the eternal rest they coveted.

 

The same evening, when the tent door was down, and the interior

was made cheerful by the light of a paraffin candle, the Doctor

related to me some incidents respecting the career and the death

of his eldest son, Robert. Readers of Livingstone’s first book,

`South Africa,’ without which no boy should be, will probably

recollect the