How I Found Livingstone Part 35

"Well, Doctor," said I to Livingstone, "the English Consul requests me to do all I can to push forward your goods to you. I am sorry that I did not get the authority sooner, for I should have attempted it; but in the absence of these instructions I have done the best I could by pus.h.i.+ng you towards the goods. The mountain has not been able to advance towards Mohammed, but Mohammed has been compelled to advance towards the mountain."

But Dr. Livingstone was too deeply engrossed in his own letters from home, which were just a year old.

I received good and bad news from New York, but the good news was subsequent, and wiped out all feelings that might have been evoked had I received the bad only. But the newspapers, nearly a hundred of them, New York, Boston, and London journals, were full of most wonderful news. The Paris Commune was in arms against the National a.s.sembly; the Tuileries, the Louvre, and the ancient city Lutetia Parisiorum had been set in flames by the blackguards of Saint-Antoine! French troops ma.s.sacring and murdering men, women, and children; rampant diabolism, and incarnate revenge were at work in the most beautiful city in the world! Fair women converted into demons, and dragged by ruffianly soldiery through the streets to universal execration and pitiless death; children of tender age pinned to the earth and bayoneted; men innocent or not, shot, cut, stabbed, slashed, destroyed--a whole city given up to the summa injuria of an infuriate, reckless, and brutal army! Oh France! Oh Frenchmen!

Such things are unknown even in the heart of barbarous Central Africa.

We spurned the newspapers with our feet; and for relief to sickened hearts gazed on the comic side of our world, as ill.u.s.trated in the innocent pages of 'Punch.' Poor 'Punch!' good-hearted, kindly-natured 'Punch!' a traveller's benison on thee! Thy jokes were as physic; thy innocent satire was provocative of hysteric mirth.

Our doors were crowded with curious natives, who looked with indescribable wonder at the enormous sheets. I heard them repeat the words, "Khabari Kisungu"--white man's news--often, and heard them discussing the nature of such a quant.i.ty of news, and expressing their belief that the "Wasungu" were "mbyah sana," and very "mkali;" by which they meant to say that the white men were very wicked, and very smart and clever though the term wicked is often employed to express high admiration.

On the fourth day from Ugunda, or the 18th of February, and the fifty-third day from Ujiji, we made our appearance with flags flying and guns firing in the valley of Kwihara, and when the Doctor and myself pa.s.sed through the portals of my old quarters I formally welcomed him to Unyanyembe and to my house.

Since the day I had left the Arabs, sick and, weary almost with my life, but, nevertheless, imbued with the high hope that my mission would succeed, 131 days had elapsed--with what vicissitudes of fortune the reader well knows--during which time I had journeyed over 1,200 miles.

The myth after which I travelled through the wilderness proved to be a fact; and never was the fact more apparent than when the Living Man walked with me arm in arm to my old room, and I said to him, "Doctor, we are at last HOME!"

CHAPTER XV. -- HOMEWARD BOUND.--LIVINGSTONE'S LAST WORDS--THE FINAL FAREWELL

Unyanyembe was now to me a terrestrial Paradise. Livingstone was no less happy; he was in comfortable quarters, which were a palace compared to his hut in Ujiji. Our store-rooms were full of the good things of this life, besides cloth, beads, wire, and the thousand and one impedimenta and paraphernalia of travel with which I had loaded over one hundred and fifty men at Bagamoyo. I had seventy-four loads of miscellaneous things, the most valuable of which were now to be turned over to Livingstone, for his march back to the sources of the Nile.

It was a great day with, us when, with hammer and chisel, I broke open the Doctor's boxes, that we might feast our famished stomachs on the luxuries which were to redeem us from the effect of the cacotrophic dourra and maize food we had been subjected to in the wilderness.

I conscientiously believed that a diet on potted ham, crackers, and jellies would make me as invincible as Talus, and that I only required a stout flail to be able to drive the mighty Wagogo into the regions of annihilation, should they dare even to wink in a manner I disapproved.

The first box opened contained three tins of biscuits, six tins of potted hams--tiny things, not much larger than thimbles, which, when opened, proved to be nothing more than a table-spoonful of minced meat plentifully seasoned with pepper: the Doctor's stores fell five hundred degrees below zero in my estimation. Next were brought out five pots of jam, one of which was opened--this was also a delusion. The stone jars weighed a pound, and in each was found a little over a tea-spoonful of jam. Verily, we began to think our hopes and expectations had been raised to too high a pitch. Three bottles of curry were next produced--but who cares for curry? Another box was opened, and out tumbled a fat dumpy Dutch cheese, hard as a brick, but sound and good; though it is bad for the liver in Unyamwezi. Then another cheese was seen, but this was all eaten up--it was hollow and a fraud. The third box contained nothing but two sugar loaves; the fourth, candles; the fifth, bottles of salt, Harvey, Worcester, and Reading sauces, essence of anchovies, pepper, and mustard. Bless me! what food were these for the revivifying of a moribund such as I was! The sixth box contained four s.h.i.+rts, two pairs of stout shoes, some stockings and shoe-strings, which delighted the Doctor so much when he tried them on that he exclaimed, "Richard is himself again!" "That man," said I, "whoever he is, is a friend, indeed." "Yes, that is my friend Waller."

The five other boxes contained potted meat and soups; but the twelfth, containing one dozen bottles of medicinal brandy, was gone; and a strict cross-examination of Asmani, the head man of Livingstone's caravan, elicited the fact, that not only was one case of brandy missing, but also two bales of cloth and four bags of the most valuable beads in Africa--sami-sami--which are as gold with the natives.

I was grievously disappointed after the stores had been examined; everything proved to be deceptions in my jaundiced eyes. Out of the tins of biscuits when opened, there was only one sound box; the whole of which would not make one full meal. The soups--who cared for meat soups in Africa? Are there no bullocks, and sheep, and goats in the land, from which far better soup can be made than any that was ever potted? Peas, or any other kind of vegetable soup, would have been a luxury; but chicken and game soups!--what nonsense!

I then overhauled my own stores. I found some fine old brandy and one bottle of champagne still left; though it was evident, in looking at the cloth bales, that dishonesty had been at work; and some person happened to suggest Asmani--the head man sent by Dr. Kirk in charge of Livingstone's goods--as the guilty party. Upon his treasures being examined, I found eight or ten coloured cloths, with the mark of my own agent at Zanzibar on them. As he was unable to give a clear account of how they came in his box, they were at once confiscated, and distributed among the most deserving of the Doctor's people. Some of the watchmen also accused him of having entered into my store-room, and of having abstracted two or three gorah of domestics from my bales, and of having, some days afterwards, s.n.a.t.c.hed the keys from the hands of one of my men, and broken them, lest other people might enter, and find evidences of his guilt. As Asmani was proved to be another of the "moral idiots,"

Livingstone discharged him on the spot. Had we not arrived so soon at Unyanyembe, it is probable that the entire stock sent from Zanzibar had in time disappeared.

Unyanyembe being rich in fruits, grain, and cattle, we determined to have our Christmas dinner over again in style, and, being fortunately in pretty good health, I was enabled to superintend its preparation. Never was such prodigality seen in a tembe of Unyamwezi as was seen in ours, nor were ever such delicacies provided.

There were but few Arabs in Unyanyembe when we arrived, as they were investing the stronghold of Mirambo. About a week after our return, "the little mannikin," Sheikh Sayd bin Salim--El Wali--who was the commander-in-chief of their forces, came to Kwihara from the front. But the little Sheikh was in no great hurry to greet the man he had wronged so much. As soon as we heard of his arrival we took the opportunity to send men immediately after the goods which were forwarded to the Wali's care soon after Livingstone's departure for Mikindany Bay. The first time we sent men for them the governor declared himself too sick to attend to such matters, but the second day they were surrendered, with a request that the Doctor would not be very angry at their condition, as the white ants had destroyed everything.

The stores this man had detained at Unyanyembe were in a most sorry state. The expenses were prepaid for their carriage to Ujiji, but the goods had been purposely detained at this place by Sayd bin Salim since 1867 that he might satisfy his appet.i.te for liquor, and probably fall heir to two valuable guns that were known to be with them. The white ants had not only eaten up bodily the box in which the guns were packed, but they had also eaten the gunstocks. The barrels were corroded, and the locks were quite destroyed. The brandy bottles, most singular to relate, had also fallen a prey to the voracious and irresistible destroyers the white ants--and, by some unaccountable means, they had imbibed the potent Hennessy, and replaced the corks with corn-cobs. The medicines had also vanished, and the zinc pots in which they had been snugly packed up were destroyed by corrosion. Two bottles of brandy and one small zinc case of medicines only were saved out of the otherwise utter wreck.

I also begged the Doctor to send to Sheikh Sayd, and ask him if he had received the two letters despatched by him upon his first arrival at Ujiji for Dr. Kirk and Lord Clarendon; and if he had forwarded them to the coast, as he was desired to do. The reply to the messengers was in the affirmative; and, subsequently, I obtained the same answer in the presence of the Doctor,

On the 222nd of February, the pouring rain, which had dogged us the entire distance from Ujiji, ceased, and we had now beautiful weather; and while I prepared for the homeward march, the Doctor was busy writing his letters, and entering his notes into his journal, which I was to take to his family. When not thus employed, we paid visits to the Arabs at Tabora, by whom we were both received with that bounteous hospitality for which they are celebrated.

Among the goods turned over by me to Dr. Livingstone, while a.s.sorting such cloths as I wished to retain for my homeward trip, were--

Doti. Yards.

First-cla.s.s American sheeting... 285 = 1140

" Kaniki (blue stuff)... 16 = 64

Medium " (blue stuff)... 60 = 240

" Dabwani cloth.... 41 = 64

Barsati cloths.... 28 = 112

Printed handkerchiefs.. 70 = 280

Medium Rehani cloth..... 127 = 508

" Ismahili " .... 20 = 80

" Sohari "..... 20 = 80

4 pieces fine Kungura (red check) 22 = 88

4 gorah Rehani....... 8 = 32

Total number of cloths. 697 = 2788

Besides:

Cloth, 2788 yards.

a.s.sorted beads, 16 sacks, weight = 992 lbs.

Bra.s.s wire, Nos. 5 and 6; 10 fraslilah = 350 lbs.

1 canvas tent, waterproof.

1 air-bed.

1 boat (canvas}

1 bag of tools, carpenter's.

1 rip saw.

2 barrels of tar.

12 sheets of s.h.i.+p's copper = 60 lbs.

Clothes.

1 Jocelyn breech-loader (metallic cartridge).