How I Found Livingstone Part 24

"Well, how did you come to Ukaranga?"

"By way of Ukonongo, Ukawendi, and Uhha."

"Oh--hi-le!" Then they laugh heartily at their fright, and begin to make excuses. The King is introduced to me, and he says he had only gone to the woods in order to attack us again--he meant to have come back and killed us all, if we had been Ruga-Ruga. But then we know the poor King was terribly frightened, and would never have dared to return, had we been RugaRuga--not he. We are not, however, in a mood to quarrel with him about an idiomatic phrase peculiar to him, but rather take him by the hand and shake it well, and say we are so very glad to see him. And he shares in our pleasure, and immediately three of the fattest sheep, pots of beer, flour, and honey are brought to us as a gift, and I make him happier still with two of the finest cloths I have in my bales; and thus a friendly pact is entered into between us.

While I write my Diary of this day's proceedings, I tell my servant to lay out my new flannel suit, to oil my boots, to chalk my helmet, and fold a new puggaree around it, that I may make as presentable an appearance as possible before the white man with the grey beard, and before the Arabs of Ujiji; for the clothes I have worn through jungle and forest are in tatters.

Good-night; only let one day come again, and we shall see what we shall see.

November 10th. Friday.--The 236th day from Bagamoyo on the Sea, and the 51st day from Unyanyembe. General direction to Ujiji, west-by-south. Time of march, six hours.

It is a happy, glorious morning. The air is fresh and cool.

The sky lovingly smiles on the earth and her children. The deep woods are crowned in bright vernal leaf.a.ge; the water of the Mkuti, rus.h.i.+ng under the emerald shade afforded by the bearded banks, seems to challenge us for the race to Ujiji, with its continuous brawl.

We are all outside the village cane fence, every man of us looking as spruce, as neat, and happy as when we embarked on the dhows at Zanzibar, which seems to us to have been ages ago--we have witnessed and experienced so much.

"Forward!"

"Ay Wallah, ay Wallah, bana yango!" and the lighthearted braves stride away at a rate which must soon bring us within view of Ujiji. We ascend a hill overgrown with bamboo, descend into a ravine through which dashes an impetuous little torrent, ascend another short hill, then, along a smooth footpath running across the slope of a long ridge, we push on as only eager, lighthearted men can do.

In two hours I am warned to prepare for a view of the Tanganika, for, from the top of a steep mountain the kirangozi says I can see it. I almost vent the feeling of my heart in cries. But wait, we must behold it first. And we press forward and up the hill breathlessly, lest the grand scene hasten away. We are at last on the summit. Ah! not yet can it be seen. A little further on--just yonder, oh! there it is--a silvery gleam. I merely catch sight of it between the trees, and--but here it is at last! True--THE TANGANIKA!

and there are the blue-black mountains of Ugoma and Ukaramba. An immense broad sheet, a burnished bed of silver--lucid canopy of blue above--lofty mountains are its valances, palm forests form its fringes! The Tanganika!--Hurrah! and the men respond to the exultant cry of the Anglo-Saxon with the lungs of Stentors, and the great forests and the hills seem to share in our triumph.

"Was this the place where Burton and Speke stood, Bombay, when they saw the lake first?"

"I don't remember, master; it was somewhere about here, I think."

"Poor fellows! The one was half-paralyzed, the other half-blind,"

said Sir Roderick Murchison, when he described Burton and Spoke's arrival in view of the Tanganika.

And I? Well, I am so happy that, were I quite paralyzed and blinded, I think that at this supreme moment I could take up my bed and walk, and all blindness would cease at once. Fortunately, however, I am quite well; I have not suffered a day's sickness since the day I left Unyanyembe. How much would Shaw be willing to give to be in my place now? Who is happiest--he revelling in the luxuries of Unyanyembe, or I, standing on the summit of this mountain, looking down with glad eyes and proud heart on the Tanganika?

We are descending the western slope of the mountain, with the valley of the Liuche before us. Something like an hour before noon we have gained the thick matete brake, which grows on both banks of the river; we wade through the clear stream, arrive on the other side, emerge out of the brake, and the gardens of the Wajiji are around us--a perfect marvel of vegetable wealth.

Details escape my hasty and partial observation. I am almost overpowered with my own emotions. I notice the graceful palms, neat plots, green with vegetable plants, and small villages surrounded with frail fences of the matete-cane.

We push on rapidly, lest the news of our coming might reach the people of Ujiji before we come in sight, and are ready for them.

We halt at a little brook, then ascend the long slope of a naked ridge, the very last of the myriads we have crossed. This alone prevents us from seeing the lake in all its vastness. We arrive at the summit, travel across and arrive at its western rim, and-- pause, reader--the port of Ujiji is below us, embowered in the palms, only five hundred yards from us!

At this grand moment we do not think of the hundreds of miles we have marched, or of the hundreds of hills that we have ascended and descended, or of the many forests we have traversed, or of the jungles and thickets that annoyed us, or of the fervid salt plains that blistered our feet, or of the hot suns that scorched us, nor of the dangers and difficulties, now happily surmounted!

At last the sublime hour has arrived;--our dreams, our hopes, and antic.i.p.ations are now about to be realised! Our hearts and our feelings are with our eyes, as we peer into the palms and try to make out in which hut or house lives the "white man with the grey beard" we heard about when we were at the Malagarazi.

"Unfurl the flags, and load your guns!"

"We will, master, we will, master!" respond the men eagerly.

"One, two, three,--fire!"

A volley from nearly fifty guns roars like a salute from a battery of artillery: we shall note its effect presently on the peaceful-looking village below.

"Now, kirangozi, hold the white man's flag up high, and let the Zanzibar flag bring up the rear. And you men keep close together, and keep firing until we halt in the market-place, or before the white man's house. You have said to me often that you could smell the fish of the Tanganika--I can smell the fish of the Tanganika now. There are fish, and beer, and a long rest waiting for you.

MARCH!"

Before we had gone a hundred yards our repeated volleys had the effect desired. We had awakened Ujiji to the knowledge that a caravan was coming, and the people were witnessed rus.h.i.+ng up in hundreds to meet us. The mere sight of the flags informed every one immediately that we were a caravan, but the American flag borne aloft by gigantic Asmani, whose face was one vast smile on this day, rather staggered them at first. However, many of the people who now approached us, remembered the flag. They had seen it float above the American Consulate, and from the mast-head of many a s.h.i.+p in the harbor of Zanzibar, and they were soon heard welcoming the beautiful flag with cries of "Bindera Kisungu!"--a white man's flag! "Bindera Merikani!"--the American flag!

Then we were surrounded by them: by Wajiji, Wanyamwezi, w.a.n.gwana, Warundi, Waguhha, Wamanyuema, and Arabs, and were almost deafened with the shouts of "Yambo, yambo, bana! Yambo, bana!

Yambo, bana!" To all and each of my men the welcome was given.

We were now about three hundred yards from the village of Ujiji, and the crowds are dense about me. Suddenly I hear a voice on my right say,

"Good morning, sir!"

Startled at hearing this greeting in the midst of such a crowd of black people, I turn sharply around in search of the man, and see him at my side, with the blackest of faces, but animated and joyous--a man dressed in a long white s.h.i.+rt, with a turban of American sheeting around his woolly head, and I ask:

"Who the mischief are you?"

"I am Susi, the servant of Dr. Livingstone," said be, smiling, and showing a gleaming row of teeth.

"What! Is Dr. Livingstone here?"

"Yes, sir."

"In this village?"

"Yes, sir."

"Are you sure?"

"Sure, sure, sir. Why, I leave him just now."

"Good morning, sir," said another voice.

"Hallo," said I, "is this another one?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, what is your name?"

"My name is Chumah, sir."

"What! are you Chumah, the friend of Wekotani?"

"Yes, sir."

"And is the-Doctor well?"

"Not very well, sir."

"Where has he been so long?"