The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death Volume Ii Part 2

_11th August, 1869._--Came to a village of Ba Rua, surrounded by hills of some 200 feet above the plain; trees spa.r.s.e.

_12th-13th August, 1869._--At villages of Mekheto. Guha people. Remain to buy and prepare food, and because many are sick.

_16th August, 1869._--West and by north through much forest reach Kalalibebe; buffalo killed.

_17th August, 1869._--To a high mountain, Golu or Gulu, and sleep at its base.

_18th August, 1869._--Cross two rills flowing into River Mgoluye. Kagoya and Moishe flow into Lob.u.mba.

_19th August, 1869._--To the River Lob.u.mba, forty-five yards Avide, thigh deep, and rapid current. Logumba and Lob.u.mba are both from Kabogo Mounts: one goes into Tanganyika, and the other, or Lob.u.mba, into and is the Luamo: prawns are found in this river. The country east of the Lob.u.mba is called Lobanda, that west of it, Kitwa.

_21st August, 1869._--Went on to the River Loungwa, which has worn for itself a rut in new red sandstone twenty feet deep, and only three or four feet wide at the lips.

_25th August, 1869._--We rest because all are tired; travelling at this season is excessively fatiguing. It is very hot at even 10 A.M., and 2 or 3 hours tires the strongest--carriers especially so: during the rains five hours would not have fatigued so much as three do now. We are now on the same level as Tanganyika. The dense ma.s.s of black smoke rising from the burning gra.s.s and reeds on the Lob.u.mba, or Rob.u.mba, obscures the sun, and very sensibly lowers the temperature of the sultriest day; it looks like the smoke in Martin's pictures. The Manyuema arrows here are very small, and made of strong gra.s.s stalks, but poisoned, the large ones, for elephants and buffaloes, are poisoned also.

_31st August, 1869._--Course N.W. among Palmyras and Hyphene Palms, and many villages swarming with people. Crossed Kibila, a hot fountain about 120, to sleep at Kolokolo River, five yards wide, and knee deep: midway we pa.s.sed the River Kanzazala. On asking the name of a mountain on our right I got three names for it--Kaloba, Chingedi, and Kihomba, a fair specimen of the superabundance of names in this country!

_1st September, 1869._--West in flat forest, then cross Kis.h.i.+la River, and go on to Kunde's villages. The Katamba is a fine rivulet. Kunde is an old man without dignity or honour: he came to beg, but offered nothing.

_2nd September, 1869._--We remained at Katamba to hunt buffaloes and rest, as I am still weak. A young elephant was killed, and I got the heart: the Arabs do not eat it, but that part is nice if well cooked.

A Lunda slave, for whom I interceded to be freed of the yoke, ran away, and as he is near the Barna, his countrymen, he will be hidden. He told his plan to our guide, and asked to accompany him back to Tanganyika, but he is eager to deliver him up for a reward: all are eager to press each other down in the mire into which they are already sunk.

_5th September, 1869._--Kunde's people refused the tusks of an elephant killed by our hunter, a.s.serting that they had killed it themselves with a hoe: they have no honour here, as some have elsewhere.

_7th September, 1869._--W. and N.W., through forest and immense fields of ca.s.sava, some three years old, with roots as thick as a stout man's leg.

_8th September, 1869._--Across five rivers and through many villages.

The country is covered with ferns and gingers, and miles and miles of ca.s.sava. On to village of Karun-gamagao.

_9th September, 1869._--Rest again to shoot meat, as elephants and buffaloes are very abundant: the Suaheli think that adultery is an obstacle to success in killing this animal: no harm can happen to him who is faithful to his wife, and has the proper charms inserted under the skin of his forearms.

_10th September, 1869._--North and north-west, over four rivers, and.

past the village of Makala, to near that of Pyana-mosinde.

_12th September, 1869._--We had wandered, and now came back to our path on hilly ground. The days are sultry and smoking. We came to some villages of Pyana-mosinde; the population prodigiously large. A sword was left at the camp, and at once picked up; though the man was traced to a village it was refused, till he accidentally cut his foot with it, and became afraid that worse would follow, elsewhere it would have been given up at once: Pyana-mosinde came out and talked very sensibly.

_13th September, 1869._--Along towards the Moloni or Mononi; cross seven rills. The people seized three slaves who lagged behind, but hearing a gun fired at guinea-fowls let them go. Route N.

_14th September, 1869._--Up and down hills perpetually. We went down into some deep dells, filled with gigantic trees, and I measured one twenty feet in circ.u.mference, and sixty or seventy feet high to the first branches; others seemed fit to be s.h.i.+p's spars. Large lichens covered many and numerous new plants appeared on the ground.

_15th September, 1869._--Got clear of the mountains after 1-1/2 hour, and then the vast valley of Mamba opened out before us; very beautiful, and much of it cleared of trees. Met Dugumbe carrying 18,000 lbs. of ivory, purchased in this new field very cheaply, because no traders had ever gone into the country beyond Bambarre, or Moenekuss's district before.

We were now in the large bend of the Lualaba, which is here much larger than at Mpweto's, near Moero Lake. River Kesingwe.

_16th September, 1869._--To Kasangangazi's. We now came to the first palm-oil trees (_Elais Guineensis_) in our way since we left Tanganyika.

They had evidently been planted at villages. Light-grey parrots, with red tails, also became common, whose name, Kuss or Koos, gives the chief his name, Moenekuss ("Lord of the Parrot"); but the Manyuema p.r.o.nunciation is Monanjoose. Much reedy gra.s.s, fully half an inch in diameter in the stalk on our route, and over the top of the range Moloni, which we ascended: the valleys are impa.s.sable.

_17th September, 1869._--Remain to buy food at Kasanga's, and rest the carriers. The country is full of pahn-oil palms, and very beautiful. Our people are all afraid to go out of sight of the camp for necessary purposes, lest the Manyuema should kill them. Here was the barrier to traders going north, for the very people among whom we now are, murdered anyone carrying a tusk, till last year, when Moene-mokaia, or Katomba, got into friends.h.i.+p with Moenekuss, who protected his people, and always behaved in a generous sensible manner. Dilongo, now a chief here, came to visit us: his elder brother died, and he was elected; he does not wash in consequence, and is very dirty.

Two buffaloes were killed yesterday. The people have their bodies tattooed with new and full moons, stars, crocodiles, and Egyptian gardens.

_19th September, 1869._--We crossed several rivulets three yards to twelve yards, and calf deep. The mountain where we camped is called Sangomelambe.

_20th September, 1869._--Up to a broad range of high mountains of light grey granite; there are deep dells on the top filled with gigantic trees, and having running rills in them. Some trees appear with enormous roots, b.u.t.tresses in fact like mangroves in the coast swamps, six feet high at the trunk and flattened from side to side to about three inches in diameter. There are many villages dotted over the slopes which we climbed; one had been destroyed, and revealed the hard clay walls and square forms of Manyuema houses. Our path lay partly along a ridge, with a deep valley on each side: one on the left had a valley filled with primeval forests, into which elephants when wounded escape completely.

The forest was a dense ma.s.s, without a bit of ground to be seen except a patch on the S.W., the bottom of this great valley was 2000 feet below us, then ranges of mountains with villages on their bases rose as far as they could reach. On our right there was another deep but narrow gorge, and mountains much higher than on our ridge close adjacent. Our ridge looked like a glacier, and it wound from side to side, and took us to the edge of deep precipices, first on the right, then on the left, till down below we came to the villages of Chief Monandenda. The houses here are all well filled with firewood on shelves, and each has a bed on a raised platform in an inner room.

The paths are very skilfully placed on the tops of the ridges of hills, and all gullies are avoided. If the highest level were not in general made the ground for pa.s.sing through the country the distances would at least be doubled, and the fatigue greatly increased. The paths seem to have been used for ages: they are worn deep on the heights; and in hollows a little mound rises on each side, formed by the feet tossing a little soil on one side.

_21st September, 1869._--Cross five or six rivulets, and as many villages, some burned and deserted, or inhabited. Very many people come running to see the strangers. Gigantic trees all about the villages.

Arrive at Bambarre or Moenekuss.

About eighty hours of actual travelling, say at 2' per hour = say 160'

or 140'. Westing from 3rd August to 21st September. My strength increased as I persevered. From Tanganyika west bank say =

29 30' east - 140' = 2 20,'

2 20 ------- 27 10' Long.

Chief village of Moenekuss.

Observations show a little lower alt.i.tude than Tanganyika.

_22nd September, 1869._--Moenekuss died lately, and left his two sons to fill his place. Moenembagg is the elder of the two, and the most sensible, and the spokesman on all important occasions, but his younger brother, Moenemgoi, is the chief, the centre of authority. They showed symptoms of suspicion, and Mohamad performed the ceremony of mixing blood, which is simply making a small incision on the forearm of each person, and then mixing the bloods, and making declarations of friends.h.i.+p. Moenembagg said, "Your people must not steal, we never do,"

which is true: blood in a small quant.i.ty was then conveyed from one to the other by a fig-leaf. "No stealing of fowls or of men," said the chief: "Catch the thief and bring him to me, one who steals a person is a pig," said Mohamad. Stealing, however, began on our side, a slave purloining a fowl, so they had good reason to enjoin honesty on us! They think that we have come to kill them: we light on them as if from another world: no letters come to tell who we are, or what we want. We cannot conceive their state of isolation and helplessness, with nothing to trust to but their charms and idols--both being bits of wood. I got a large beetle hung up before an idol in the idol house of a deserted and burned village; the guardian was there, but the village destroyed.

I presented the two brothers with two table cloths, four bunches of beads, and one string of neck-beads; they were well satisfied.

A wood here when burned emits a horrid faecal smell, and one would think the camp polluted if one fire was made of it. I had a house built for me because the village huts are inconvenient, low in roof, and low doorways; the men build them, and help to cultivate the soil, but the women have to keep them well filled with firewood and supplied with water. They carry the wood, and almost everything else in large baskets, hung to the shoulders, like the Edinburgh fishwives. A man made a long loud prayer to Mulungu last night after dark for rain.

The sons of Moenekuss have but little of their father's power, but they try to behave to strangers as he did. All our people are in terror of the Manyema, or Manyuema, man-eating fame: a woman's child had crept into a quiet corner of the hut to eat a banana--she could not find him, and at once concluded that the Manyuema had kidnapped him to eat him, and with a yell she ran through the camp and screamed at the top of her shrill voice, "Oh, the Manyuema have stolen my child to make meat of him! Oh, my child eaten--oh, oh!"

_26th-28th September, 1869._--A Lunda slave-girl was sent off to be sold for a tusk, but the Manyuema don't want slaves, as we were told in Lunda, for they are generally thieves, and otherwise bad characters. It is now clouded over and preparing for rain, when sun comes overhead.

Small-pox comes every three or four years, and kills many of the people.

A soko alive was believed to be a good charm for rain; so one was caught, and the captor had the ends of two fingers and toes bitten off.

The soko or gorillah always tries to bite off these parts, and has been known to overpower a young man and leave him without the ends of fingers and toes. I saw the nest of one: it is a poor contrivance; no more architectural skill shown than in the nest of our Cushat dove.

_29th September, 1869._--I visited a hot fountain, an hour west of our camp, which has five eyes, temperature 150, slightly saline taste, and steam issues constantly. It is called Kasugwe Colambu. Earthquakes are well known, and to the Manyuema they seem to come from the east to west; pots rattle and fowls cackle on these occasions.

_2nd October, 1869._--A rhinoceros was shot, and party sent off to the River Luamo to buy ivory.

_5th October, 1869._--An elephant was killed, and the entire population went off to get meat, which was given freely at first, but after it was known how eagerly the Manyuema sought it, six or eight goats were demanded for a carcase and given.

_9th October, 1869._--The rite of circ.u.mcision is general among all the Manyuema; it is performed on the young. If a headman's son is to be operated on, it is tried on a slave first; certain times of the year are unpropitious, as during a drought for instance; but having by this experiment ascertained the proper time, they go into the forest, beat drums, and feast as elsewhere: contrary to all African custom they are not ashamed to speak about the rite, even before women.

Two very fine young men came to visit me to-day. After putting several preparatory inquiries as to where our country lay, &c., they asked whether people died with us, and where they went to after death. "Who kills them?" "Have you no charm (Buanga) against death?" It is not necessary to answer such questions save in a land never visited by strangers. Both had the "organs of intelligence" largely developed. I told them that we prayed to the Great Father, "Mulungu," and He hears us all; they thought this to be natural.

_14th October, 1869._--An elephant killed was of the small variety, and only 5 feet 8 inches high at the withers. The forefoot was in circ.u.mference 3 feet 9 inches, which doubled gives 7 feet 6 inches; this shows a deviation from the usual rule "twice round the forefoot = the height of the animal." Heart 1-1/2 foot long, tusks 6 feet 8 inches in length.

_15th October, 1869._--Fever better, and thankful. Very cold and rainy.