How I Found Livingstone Part 16

I have two or three men still very sick, and it is almost useless to expect that they will be able to carry anything, but I am in hopes that other men may be engaged to take their places before the actual day of departure, which now seems to be drawing near rapidly.

September 16th.--We have almost finished our work--on the fifth day from this--G.o.d willing--we shall march. I engaged two more pagazis besides two guides, named Asmani and Mabruki. If vastness of the human form could terrify any one, certainly Asmani's appearance is well calculated to produce that effect. He stands considerably over six feet without shoes, and has shoulders broad enough for two ordinary men.

To-morrow I mean to give the people a farewell feast, to celebrate our departure from this forbidding and unhappy country.

September 17th.--The banquet is ended. I slaughtered two bullocks, and had a barbacue; three sheep, two goats, and fifteen chickens, 120 lbs.

of rice, twenty large loaves of bread made of Indian corn-flour, one hundred eggs, 10 lbs. of b.u.t.ter, and five gallons of sweet-milk, were the contents of which the banquet was formed. The men invited their friends and neighbours, and about one hundred women and children partook of it.

After the banquet was ended, the pombe, or native beer, was brought in in five gallon pots, and the people commenced their dance, which continues even now as I write.

September 19th.--I had a slight attack of fever to-day, which has postponed our departure. Selim and Shaw are both recovered.

About 8 P.M. Sheik bin Nasib came to me imploring me not to go away to-morrow, because I was so sick. Thani Sakhburi suggested to me that I might stay another month. In answer, I told them that white men are not accustomed to break their words. I had said I would go, and I intended to go.

Sheikh bin Nasib gave up all hope of inducing me to remain another day, and he has gone away, with a promise to write to Seyd Burghash to tell him how obstinate I am; and that I am determined to be killed. This was a parting shot.

About 10 P.M. the fever had gone. All were asleep in the tembe but myself, and an unutterable loneliness came on me as I reflected on my position, and my intentions, and felt the utter lack of sympathy with me in all around. It requires more nerve than I possess, to dispel all the dark presentiments that come upon the mind. But probably what I call presentiments are simply the impress on the mind of the warnings which these false-hearted Arabs have repeated so often. This melancholy and loneliness I feel, may probably have their origin from the same cause.

The single candle, which barely lights up the dark shade that fills the corners of my room, is but a poor incentive to cheerfulness. I feel as though I were imprisoned between stone walls. But why should I feel as if baited by these stupid, slow-witted Arabs and their warnings and croakings? I fancy a suspicion haunts my mind, as I write, that there lies some motive behind all this. I wonder if these Arabs tell me all these things to keep me here, in the hope that I might be induced another time to a.s.sist them in their war with Mirambo! If they think so, they are much mistaken, for I have taken a solemn, enduring oath, an oath to be kept while the least hope of life remains in me, not to be tempted to break the resolution I have formed, never to give up the search, until I find Livingstone alive, or find his dead body; and never to return home without the strongest possible proofs that he is alive, or that he is dead. No living man, or living men, shall stop me, only death can prevent me. But death--not even this; I shall not die, I will not die, I cannot die! And something tells me, I do not know what it is--perhaps it is the ever-living hopefulness of my own nature, perhaps it is the natural presumption born out of an abundant and glowing vitality, or the outcome of an overweening confidence in oneself--anyhow and everyhow, something tells me to-night I shall find him, and--write it larger--FIND HIM! FIND HIM! Even the words are inspiring. I feel more happy. Have I uttered a prayer? I shall sleep calmly to-night.

I have felt myself compelled to copy out of my Diary the above notes, as they explain, written as they are on the spot, the vicissitudes of my "Life at Unyanyembe." To me they appear to explain far better than any amount of descriptive writing, even of the most graphic, the nature of the life I led. There they are, unexaggerated, in their literality, precisely as I conceived them at the time they happened. They speak of fevers without number to myself and men, they relate our dangers, and little joys, our annoyances and our pleasures, as they occurred.

CHAPTER X. -- TO MRERA, UKONONGO.

Departure from Unyanyembe.--The expedition reorganized.-- Bombay.--Mr. Shaw returns sick to Unyanyembe.--A n.o.ble forest.-The fever described.--Happiness of the camp.--A park-land.--Herds of game and n.o.ble sport.--A mutiny.-- Punishment of the ringleaders. Elephants.--Arrival at Mrera

The 20th of September had arrived. This was the day I had decided to cut loose from those who tormented me with their doubts, their fears, and beliefs, and commence the march to Ujiji by a southern route. I was very weak from the fever that had attacked me the day before, and it was a most injudicious act to commence a march under such circ.u.mstances. But I had boasted to Sheikh bin Nasib that a white man never breaks his word, and my reputation as a white man would have been ruined had I stayed behind, or postponed the march, in consequence of feebleness.

I mustered the entire caravan outside the tembe, our flags and streamers were unfurled, the men had their loads resting on the walls, there was considerable shouting, and laughing, and negroidal fanfaronnade. The Arabs had collected from curiosity's sake to see us off--all except Sheikh bin Nasib, whom I had offended by my asinine opposition to his wishes. The old Sheikh took to his bed, but sent his son to bear me a last morsel of Philosophic sentimentality, which I was to treasure up as the last words of the patriarchal Sheikh, the son of Nasib, the son of Ali, the son of Sayf. Poor Sheikh! if thou hadst only known what was at the bottom of this stubbornness--this a.s.s-like determination to proceed the wrong way--what wouldst thou then have said, 0 Sheikh? But the Sheikh comforted himself with the thought that I might know what I was about better than he did, which is most likely, only neither he nor any other Arab will ever know exactly the motive that induced me to march at all westward--when the road to the east was ever so much easier.

My braves whom I had enlisted for a rapid march somewhere, out of Unyanyembe, were named as follows:--

1. John William Shaw, London, England.

2. Selim Heshmy, Arab.

3. Seedy Mbarak Mombay, Zanzibar.

4. Mabruki Spoke, ditto.

5. Ulimengo, ditto

6. Ambari, ditto.

7. Uledi, ditto.

8. Asmani, ditto.

9. Sarmean, ditto.

10. Kamna, ditto.

11. Zaidi, ditto.

12. Khamisi, ditto.

13. Chowpereh, Bagamoyo.

14. Kingaru, ditto.

15. Belali, ditto.

16. Ferous, Unyanyembe.

17. Rojab, Bagamoyo.

18. Mabruk Unyanyembe, Unyanyembe.

19. Mtamani, ditto.

20. Chanda, Maroro.

21. Sadala, Zanzibar.

22. Kombo, ditto.

23. Saburi the Great, Maroro.

24. Saburi the Little, ditto.

25. Marora, ditto.

26. Ferajji (the cook), Zanzibar.

27. Mabruk Saleem, Zanzibar.

28. Baraka, ditto.

29. Ibrahim, Maroro.

30. Mabruk Ferous, ditto.

31. Baruti, Bagamoyo.

32. Umgareza, Zanzibar.

33. Hamadi (the guide), ditto.