How I Found Livingstone by Henry M. Stanley (read after .txt) đź“–
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third caravan, which had started out of Bagamoyo so well fitted
and supplied. The leader, who was no other than the white man
Farquhar, was sick-a-bed with swollen legs (Bright’s disease),
unable to move.
As he heard my voice, Farquhar staggered out of his tent, so
changed from my spruce mate who started from Bagamoyo, that I
hardly knew him at first. His legs were ponderous, elephantine,
since his leg-illness was of elephantiasis, or dropsy. His face
was of a deathly pallor, for he had not been out of his tent for
two weeks.
A breezy hill, overlooking the village of Kiora, was chosen by me
for my camping-ground, and as soon as the tents were pitched, the
animals attended to, and a boma made of thorn bushes, Farquhar was
carried up by four men into my tent. Upon being questioned as to
the cause of his illness, he said he did not know what had caused
it. He had no pain, he thought, anywhere. I asked, “Do you not
sometimes feel pain on the right side?”—“Yes, I think I do; but
I don’t know.”—” Nor over the left nipple sometimes—a quick
throbbing, with a shortness of breath?”—” Yes, I think I have.
I know I breathe quick sometimes.” He said his only trouble was
in the legs, which were swollen to an immense size. Though he
had a sound appetite, he yet felt weak in the legs.
From the scant information of the disease and its peculiarities,
as given by Farquhar himself, I could only make out, by studying
a little medical book I had with me, that “a swelling of the legs,
and sometimes of the body, might result from either heart, liver,
or kidney disease.” But I did not know to what to ascribe the
disease, unless it was to elephantiasis—a disease most common in
Zanzibar; nor did I know how to treat it in a man who, could not
tell me whether he felt pain in his head or in his back, in his
feet or in his chest.
It was therefore fortunate for me that I overtook him at Kiora;
though he was about to prove a sore incumbrance to me, for he was
not able to walk, and the donkey-carriage, after the rough
experience of the Makata valley, was failing. I could not possibly
leave him at Kiora, death would soon overtake him there; but how
long I could convey a man in such a state, through a country
devoid of carriage, was a question to be resolved by circumstances.
On the 11th of May, the third and fifth caravans, now united,
followed up the right bank of the Mukondokwa, through fields of
holcus, the great Mukondokwa ranges rising in higher altitude as
we proceeded west, and enfolding us in the narrow river valley round
about. We left Muniyi Usagara on our right, and soon after found
hill-spurs athwart our road, which we were obliged to ascend and
descend.
A march of eight miles from the ford of Misonghi brought us to
another ford of the Mukondokwa, where we bid a long adieu to
Burton’s road, which led up to the Goma pass and up the steep
slopes of Rubeho. Our road left the right bank and followed the
left over a country quite the reverse of the Mukondokwa Valley,
enclosed between mountain ranges. Fertile soils and spontaneous
vegetation, reeking with miasma and overpowering from their odour,
we had exchanged for a drouthy wilderness of aloetic and
cactaceous plants, where the kolquall and several thorn bushes grew
paramount.
Instead of the tree-clad heights, slopes and valleys, instead of
cultivated fields, we saw now the confines of uninhabited wilderness.
The hill-tops were bared of their bosky crowns, and revealed their
rocky natures bleached white by rain and sun. Nguru Peak, the
loftiest of the Usagara cones, stood right shoulderwards of us
as we ascended the long slope of dun-grey soil which rose beyond
the brown Mukondokwa on the left.
At the distance of two miles from the last ford, we found a neat
khambi, situated close to the river, where it first broke into a
furious rapid.
The next morning the caravan was preparing for the march, when
I was informed that the “Bana Mdogo”—little master—Shaw, had not
yet arrived with the cart, and the men in charge of it. Late the
previous night I had despatched one donkey for Shaw, who had said
he was too ill to walk, and another for the load that was on the
cart; and had retired satisfied that they would soon arrive. My
conclusion, when I learned in the morning that the people had not
yet come in, was that Shaw was not aware that for five days we
should have to march through a wilderness totally uninhabited. I
therefore despatched Chowpereh, a Mgwana soldier, with the following
note to him:—“You will, upon receipt of this order pitch the
cart into the nearest ravine, gully, or river, as well as all the
extra pack saddles; and come at once, for God’s sake, for we must
not starve here!”
One, two, three, and four hours were passed by me in the utmost
impatience, waiting, but in vain, for Shaw. Having a long march
before us, I could wait no longer, but went to meet his party
myself. About a quarter of mile from the ford I met the van of
the laggards—stout burly Chowpereh—and, O cartmakers, listen!
he carried the cart on his head—wheels, shafts, body, axle,
and all complete; he having found that carrying it was much
easier than drawing it. The sight was such a damper to my regard
for it as an experiment, that the cart was wheeled into the
depths of the tall reeds, and there left. The central figure was
Shaw himself, riding at a gait which seemed to leave it doubtful on
my mind whether he or his animal felt most sleepy. Upon
expostulating with him for keeping the caravan so long waiting when
there was a march on hand, in a most peculiar voice—which he always
assumed when disposed to be ugly-tempered—he said he had done the
best he could; but as I had seen the solemn pace at which he
rode, I felt dubious about his best endeavours; and of course
there was a little scene, but the young European mtongi of an East
African expedition must needs sup with the fellows he has chosen.
We arrived at Madete at 4 P.M., minus two donkeys, which had
stretched their weary limbs in death. We had crossed the
Mukondokwa about 3 P.M., and after taking its bearings and course,
I made sure that its rise took place near a group of mountains
about forty miles north by west of Nguru Peak. Our road led
W.N.W., and at this place finally diverged from the river.
On the 14th, after a march of seven miles over hills whose
sandstone and granite formation cropped visibly here and there
above the surface, whose stony and dry aspect seemed reflected
in every bush and plant, and having gained an altitude of about
eight hundred feet above the flow of the Mukondokwa, we sighted the
Lake of Ugombo—a grey sheet of water lying directly at the foot
of the hill, from whose summit we gazed at the scene. The view was
neither beautiful nor pretty, but what I should call refreshing;
it afforded a pleasant relief to the eyes fatigued from dwelling on
the bleak country around. Besides, the immediate neighbourhood of
the lake was too tame to call forth any enthusiasm; there were no
grandly swelling mountains, no smiling landscapes—nothing but a
dun-brown peak, about one thousand feet high above the surface of
the lake at its western extremity, from which the lake derived its
name, Ugombo; nothing but a low dun-brown irregular range, running
parallel with its northern shore at the distance of a mile;
nothing but a low plain stretching from its western shore far away
towards the Mpwapwa Mountains and Marenga Mkali, then apparent to
us from our coign of vantage, from which extensive scene of
dun-brownness we were glad to rest our eyes on the quiet grey
water beneath.
Descending from the summit of the range, which bounded the lake
east for about four hundred feet, we travelled along the northern
shore. The time occupied in the journey from the eastern to the
western extremity was exactly one hour and thirty minutes.
As this side represents its greatest length I conclude that the
lake is three miles long by two miles greatest breadth. The
immediate shores of the lake on all sides, for at least fifty
feet from the water’s edge, is one impassable morass nourishing
rank reeds and rushes, where the hippopotamus’ ponderous form has
crushed into watery trails the soft composition of the morass
as he passes from the lake on his nocturnal excursions; the
lesser animals; such as the “mbogo” (buffalo), the “punda-terra”
(zebra); the ” twiga” (giraffe), the boar, the kudu, the
hyrax or coney and the antelope; come here also to quench
their thirst by night. The surface of the lake swarms with an
astonishing variety of water-fowl; such as black swan, duck,
ibis sacra cranes, pelicans; and soaring above on the look-out
for their prey are fish-eagles and hawks, while the neighbourhood
is resonant with the loud chirps of the guinea-fowls calling for
their young, with the harsh cry of the toucan, the cooing of the
pigeon, and the “to-whit, to-whoo” of the owl. From the long
grass in its vicinity also issue the grating and loud cry of
the florican, woodcock, and grouse.
Being obliged to halt here two days, owing to the desertion of the
Hindi cooper Jako with one of my best carbines, I improved the
opportunity of exploring the northern and southern shores of the
lake. At the rocky foot of a low, humpy hill on the northern
side, about fifteen feet above the present surface of the water I
detected in most distinct and definite lines the agency of waves.
From its base could be traced clear to the edge of the dank morass
tiny lines of comminuted shell as plainly marked as the small
particles which lie in rows on a beech after a receding tide.
There is no doubt that the wave-marks on the sandstone might have
been traced much higher by one skilled in geology; it was only
its elementary character that was visible to me. Nor do I
entertain the least doubt, after a two days’ exploration of the
neighbourhood, especially of the low plain at the western end,
that this Lake of Ugombo is but the tail of what was once a large
body of water equal in extent to the Tanganika; and, after
ascending half way up Ugombo Peak, this opinion was confirmed when
I saw the long-depressed line of plain at its base stretching
towards the Mpwapwa Mountains thirty miles off, and thence round
to Marenga Mkali, and covering all that extensive surface of forty
miles in breadth, and an unknown length. A depth of twelve feet
more, I thought, as I gazed upon it, would give the lake a length
of thirty miles, and a breadth of ten. A depth of thirty
feet would increase its length over a hundred miles, and give it a
breadth of fifty, for such was the level nature of the plain that
stretched west of Ugombo, and north of Marenga Mkali. Besides the
water of the lake partook slightly of the bitter nature of the
Matamombo creek, distant fifteen miles, and in a still lesser
degree of that of Marenga Mkali, forty miles off.
Towards the end of the first day of our halt the Hindi cooper Jako
arrived in camp, alleging as an excuse, that feeling fatigued he
had fallen asleep in some bushes
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