How I Found Livingstone by Henry M. Stanley (read after .txt) đź“–
- Author: Henry M. Stanley
- Performer: -
Book online «How I Found Livingstone by Henry M. Stanley (read after .txt) 📖». Author Henry M. Stanley
Having been the cause of our detention in the hungry wilderness of
Ugombo, I was not in a frame of mind to forgive him; so, to
prevent any future truant tricks on his part, I was under the
necessity of including him with the chained gangs of runaways.
Two more of our donkeys died, and to prevent any of the valuable
baggage being left behind, I was obliged to send Farquhar off on my
own riding-ass to the village of Mpwapwa, thirty miles off, under
charge of Mabruki Burton.
To save the Expedition from ruin, I was reluctantly compelled to
come to the conclusion that it were better for me, for him, and
concerned, that he be left with some kind chief of a village,
with a six months’ supply of cloth and beads, until he got well,
than that he make his own recovery impossible.
The 16th of May saw us journeying over the plain which lies
between Ugombo and Mpwapwa, skirting close, at intervals, a low
range of trap-rock, out of which had become displaced by some
violent agency several immense boulders. On its slopes grew the
kolquall to a size which I had not seen in Abyssinia. In the plain
grew baobab, and immense tamarind, and a variety of thorn.
Within five hours from Ugombo the mountain range deflected towards
the northeast, while we continued on a north-westerly course,
heading for the lofty mountain-line of the Mpwapwa. To our left
towered to the blue clouds the gigantic Rubeho. The adoption of
this new road to Unyanyembe by which we were travelling was now
explained—we were enabled to avoid the passes and stiff steeps of
Rubeho, and had nothing worse to encounter than a broad smooth
plain, which sloped gently to Ugogo.
After a march of fifteen miles we camped at a dry mtoni, called
Matamombo, celebrated for its pools of bitter. water of the colour
of ochre. Monkeys and rhinoceroses, besides kudus, steinboks, and
antelopes, were numerous in the vicinity. At this camp my little
dog “Omar” died of inflammation of the bowels, almost on the
threshold of the country—Ugogo—where his faithful watchfulness
would have been invaluable to me.
The next day’s march was also fifteen miles in length, through one
interminable jungle of thorn-bushes. Within two miles of the camp,
the road led up a small river bed, broad as an avenue, clear to the
khambi of Mpwapwa; which was situated close to a number of streams
of the purest water.
The following morning found us much fatigued after the long marches
from Ugombo, and generally disposed to take advantage of the
precious luxuries Mpwapwa offered to caravans fresh from the
fly-plagued lands of the Waseguhha and Wadoe. Sheikh Thani—clever
but innocently-speaking old Arab—was encamped under the grateful
umbrage of a huge Mtamba sycamore, and had been regaling himself
with fresh milk, luscious mutton, and rich bullock humps, ever
since his arrival here, two days before; and, as he informed me,
it did not suit his views to quit such a happy abundance so soon
for the saline nitrous water of Marenga Mkali, with its several
terekezas, and manifold disagreeables. “No!” said he to me,
emphatically, “better stop here two or three days, give your tired
animals some rest; collect all the pagazis you can, fill your inside
with fresh milk, sweet potatoes, beef, mutton, ghee, honey, beans,
matama, maweri, and nuts;—then, Inshallah! we shall go together
through Ugogo without stopping anywhere.” As the advice tallied
accurately with my own desired and keen appetite for the good
things he named, he had not long to wait for my assent to his
counsel. “Ugogo,” continued he, “is rich with milk and honey—
rich in flour, beans and almost every eatable thing; and,
Inshallah! before another week is gone we shall be in Ugogo!”
I had heard from passing caravans so many extremely favourable
reports respecting Ugogo and its productions that it appeared
to me a very Land of Promise, and I was most anxious to refresh
my jaded stomach with some of the precious esculents raised in
Ugogo; but when I heard that Mpwapwa also furnished some of
those delicate eatables, and good things, most of the morning
hours were spent in inducing the slow-witted people to part
with them; and when, finally, eggs, milk, honey, mutton, ghee,
ground matama and beans had been collected in sufficient
quantities to produce a respectable meal, my keenest attention
and best culinary talents were occupied for a couple of hours
in converting this crude supply into a breakfast which could be
accepted by and befit a stomach at once fastidious and famished,
such as mine was. The subsequent healthy digestion of it proved
my endeavours to have been eminently successful. At the
termination of this eventful day, the following remark was jotted
down in my diary: “Thank God! After fifty-seven days of living
upon matama porridge and tough goat, I have enjoyed with unctuous
satisfaction a real breakfast and dinner.”
It was in one of the many small villages which are situated upon
the slopes of the Mpwapwa that a refuge and a home for Farquhar
was found until he should be enabled by restored health to start
to join us at Unyanyembe.
Food was plentiful and of sufficient variety to suit the most
fastidious—cheap also, much cheaper than we had experienced for
many a day. Leucole, the chief of the village, with whom
arrangements for Farquhar’s protection and comfort were made, was
a little old man of mild eye and very pleasing face, and on being
informed that it was intended to leave the Musungu entirely under
his charge, suggested that some man should be left to wait on him,
and interpret his wishes to his people.
As Jako was the only one who could speak English, except Bombay
and Selim, Jako was appointed, and the chief Leucole was satisfied.
Six months’ provisions of white beads, Merikani and Kaniki cloth,
together with two doti of handsome cloth to serve as a present to
Leucole after his recovery, were taken to Farquhar by Bombay,
together with a Starr’s carbine, 300 rounds of cartridge, a set of
cooking pots, and 3 lbs. of tea.
Abdullah bin Nasib, who was found encamped here with five hundred
pagazis, and a train of Arab and Wasawahili satellites, who
revolved around his importance, treated me in somewhat the same
manner that Hamed bin Sulayman treated Speke at Kasenge. Followed
by his satellites, he came (a tall nervous-looking man, of fifty
or thereabouts) to see me in my camp, and asked me if I wished to
purchase donkeys. As all my animals were either sick or moribund,
I replied very readily in the affirmative, upon which he
graciously said he would sell me as many as I wanted, and for
payment I could give him a draft on Zanzibar. I thought him a very
considerate and kind person, fully justifying the encomiums
lavished on him in Burton’s `Lake Regions of Central Africa,’ and
accordingly I treated him with the consideration due to so great
and good a man. The morrow came, and with it went Abdullah bin
Nasib, or “Kisesa,” as he is called by the Wanyamwezi, with all his
pagazis, his train of followers, and each and every one of his
donkeys, towards Bagamoyo, without so much as giving a “Kwaheri,”
or good-bye.
At this place there are generally to be found from ten to thirty
pagazis awaiting up-caravans. I was fortunate enough to secure
twelve good people, who, upon my arrival at Unyanyembe, without
an exception, voluntarily engaged themselves as carriers to Ujiji.
With the formidable marches of Marenga Mkali in front, I felt
thankful for this happy windfall,, which resolved the difficulties
I had been anticipating; for I had but ten donkeys left, and four
of these were so enfeebled that they were worthless as baggage
animals.
Mpwapwa—so called by the Arabs, who have managed to corrupt almost
every native word—is called “Mbambwa” by the Wasagara. It is a
mountain range rising over 6,000 feet above the sea, bounding on
the north the extensive plain which commences at Ugombo lake, and
on the east that part of the plain which is called Marenga Mkali,
which stretches away beyond the borders of Uhumba. Opposite
Mpwapwa, at the distance of thirty miles or so, rises the Anak
peak of Rubeho, with several other ambitious and tall brethren
cresting long lines of rectilinear scarps, which ascend from the
plain of Ugombo and Marenga Mkali as regularly as if they had
been chiselled out by the hands of generations of masons and
stonecutters.
Upon looking at Mpwapwa’s greenly-tinted slopes, dark with many
a densely-foliaged tree; its many rills flowing sweet and clear,
nourishing besides thick patches of gum and thorn bush, giant
sycamore and parachute-topped mimosa, and permitting my
imagination to picture sweet views behind the tall cones above,
I was tempted to brave the fatigue of an ascent to the summit.
Nor was my love for the picturesque disappointed. One sweep of the
eyes embraced hundreds of square miles of plain and mountain, from
Ugombo Peak away to distant Ugogo, and from Rubeho and Ugogo to
the dim and purple pasture lands of the wild, untamable Wahumba.
The plain of Ugombo and its neighbour of Marenga Mkali, apparently
level as a sea, was dotted here and there with “hillocks dropt in
Nature’s careless haste,” which appeared like islands amid the dun
and green expanse. Where the jungle was dense the colour was green,
alternating with dark brown; where the plain appeared denuded of
bush and brake it had a whity-brown appearance, on which the
passing clouds now and again cast their deep shadows. Altogether
this side of the picture was not inviting; it exhibited too
plainly the true wilderness in its sternest aspect; but perhaps
the knowledge that in the bosom of the vast plain before me there
was not one drop of water but was bitter as nitre, and undrinkable
as urine, prejudiced me against it, The hunter might consider it
a paradise, for in its depths were all kinds of game to attract his
keenest instincts; but to the mere traveller it had a stern outlook.
Nearer, however, to the base of the Mpwapwa the aspect of the plain
altered. At first the jungle thinned, openings in the wood
appeared, then wide and naked clearings, then extensive fields of
the hardy holcus, Indian corn, and maweri or bajri, with here and
there a square tembe or village. Still nearer ran thin lines of
fresh young grass, great trees surrounded a patch of alluvial
meadow. A broad river-bed, containing several rivulets of water,
ran through the thirsty fields, conveying the vivifying element
which in this part of Usagara was so scarce and precious. Down
to the river-bed sloped the Mpwapwa, roughened in some places by
great boulders of basalt, or by rock masses, which had parted from
a precipitous scarp, where clung the kolquall with a sure hold,
drawing nourishment where every other green thing failed; clad in
others by the hardy mimosa, which rose like a sloping bank of
green verdure almost to the summit. And, happy sight to me so
long a stranger to it, there were hundreds of cattle grazing,
imparting a pleasing animation to the solitude of the deep folds
of the mountain range.
But the fairest view was obtained by looking northward towards the
dense group of mountains which buttressed the front range, facing
towards Rubeho. It was the home of the winds, which starting here
and sweeping down the precipitous slopes and solitary peaks on the
western side, and gathering strength as they rushed through the
prairie-like Marenga Mkali, howled through Ugogo and Unyamwezi with
the force of a storm, It was also the home of the dews, where
sprang the clear springs which cheered by their
Comments (0)