ARRIVAL AT FORT BODO.
Ugarrowwa’s old station once more--March to Bunda--We cross the
Ituri River--Note written by me opposite the mouth of the Lenda
River--We reach the Avatiko plantations--Mr. Bonny measures a
pigmy--History and dress of the pigmies--A conversation by
gesture--The pigmy’s wife--Monkeys and other animals in the
forest--The clearing of Andaki--Our tattered clothes--The Ihuru
River--Scarcity of food; Amani’s meals--Uledi searches for
food--Missing provisions--We reach Kilonga-Longa’s village
again--More deaths--The forest improves for travelling--Skirmish
near Andikumu--Story of the pigmies and the box of ammunition--We
pass Kakwa Hill--Defeat of a caravan--The last of the Somalis--A
heavy shower of rain--Welcome food discovery at Indemau--We bridge
the Dui River--A rough muster of the people--A stray goat at our
Ngwetza camp--Further capture of dwarfs--We send back to Ngwetza
for plantains--Loss of my boy Saburi in the forest--We wonder what
has become of the Ngwetza party--My boy Saburi turns up--Starvation
Camp--We go in search of the absentees, and meet them in the
forest--The Ihuru River--And subsequent arrival at Fort Bodo.
[Sidenote: 1888. Oct. 23. Ugarrowwa’s Station.]
The Expedition reached Ugarrowwa’s old station on the 23rd of October,
and slept within its deserted huts. In the court of the great house of
the chief of the raiders, a crop of rice had grown up, but the birds had
picked every grain. Over one hundred people found comfortable shelter in
the spacious passages; and had supplies been procurable within a
respectable distance, it would not have ill-suited us for a halt of a
week; but it was too risky altogether to consume our rations because of
the comfort of shelter. It was the centre of a great desolate area,
which we were bound by fear of famine to travel through with the utmost
speed.
[Sidenote: 1888. Oct. 24. Bunda.]
The following day we marched to Bunda. The river column received
attention from Ugarrowwa’s old subjects, and the Manyuema sprang
overboard to avoid the arrows; but the Zanzibaris from the canoe behind
leaped ashore, and by a flank attack assisted us to save the bewildered
Manyuema, who in their careless happy attitudes in the canoe had offered
such tempting targets for the natives.
The Ituri River was now in full flood, for the rains fell daily in
copious tropical showers. The streams and creeks flowing into the Ituri
from the right bank were deep, which caused the land party excessive
worry and distress. No sooner had they crossed one creek up to the
waist, than in a few moments another of equal or greater depth had to be
waded through. They were perpetually wringing their clothes, and
declaiming against the vexatious interruptions. Across the mouths of
deeper tributaries the canoes were aligned, and served as floating
bridges for the party to cross, while each man was the subject of some
jest at his bedraggled appearance. The foremost men were sure to have
some wet mud or soapy clay on the boards; the garments of others would
be dripping with water, and presently fall after fall would testify to
the exceeding slipperiness of the bridge, and would be hailed with
uproarious chaff and fun. On this day thirty-two streams were crossed by
the land party.
On the 25th, we moved up to a camp, opposite the mouth of the Lenda
River. We were making progress, but I came across the following note
written that evening. It will be seen later that such congratulations
could only have been the outcome of a feeling of temporary pleasure that
the day was not far distant when we should see the end to our harder
labours.
[Sidenote: 1888. Oct. 25. Lenda River.]
“I desire to render most hearty thanks that our laborious travels
through the forest are drawing to a close. We are about 160 miles
to-night from the grass-land; but we shall reduce this figure quickly
enough, I hope. Meantime we live in anticipation. We bear the rainy
season without a murmur, for after the rain the harvest will be ready
for us in the grass-land. We do not curse the mud and reek of this humid
land now, though we crossed thirty-two streams yesterday, and the mud
banks and flats were sorely trying to the patience. We have a number of
minor pleasures in store. It will be a great relief to be delivered from
the invasions of the red ants, and to be perfectly secure from their
assaults by day and by night. When we have finally dried the soles of
our boots and wiped the mildew of the forest off their tops, our dreams
will be undisturbed by one enemy at least. While we smart under the
bites of the ferocious small bees, and start at the sting of small ants,
and writhe under the venom of a hornet, or groan by reason of the sting
of a fiendish wasp, or flap away the ever-intrusive butterfly, or dash
aside the hurtful tiger slug, or stamp with nervous haste on the
advancing greenish centipede, we remind ourselves that these miseries
will not be for many days now. A little more patience and then merrier
times. We have had four goats since August 17th for meat. We have
subsisted mainly on roast plantains. They have served to maintain the
soul attached to the body. We are grateful even for this, though our
strength is not to be boasted of. We complacently think of the beef, and
veal, and mutton diet ahead, garnished with a variety of edibles such as
the sweet potato and beans, and millet flour for porridge with milk, and
sesamum oil for cooking. Relief also from the constant suspicion,
provoked by an animal instinct, that a savage with a sheaf of poisoned
arrows is lurking within a few feet of one will be something to be
grateful for. The ceaseless anxiety, the tension of watchfulness, to
provide food, and guard the people from the dangers that meet their
frolics, will be relaxed; and I shall be glad to be able to think better
of the world and its inhabitants than the doubtful love I entertain for
mankind in the forest.”
[Sidenote: 1888. Oct. 27.
Lenda
River.]
We found our camp at Umeni on the 26th, but there were only two small
bunches of miniature plantains discovered here, and a raging tornado
roared like a legion of demons through the forest, and shook the ancient
tree giants to their base, while the dark Ituri was so beswept that it
became pallid under the whistling, screaming fury of the squalls.
On the next day we rowed up to below Big Cataract, unloaded the goods,
left the canoes in the bushes, shouldered our loads, and marched away
after half an hour’s halt only, for five miles inland. We had left the
Ituri navigation for the last time.
We entered the Avatiko plantations after three hours’ march on the 28th,
and just while the majority of the people was perilously near
starvation. They spread over the plantations with the eagerness of
famished wolves after prey. Here we stayed two days in foraging and
preparing a supply of food.
We had not been long at Avatiko before a couple of pigmies were brought
to me. What relation the pair were to one another is not known. The man
was young, probably twenty-one. Mr. Bonny conscientiously measured him,
and I recorded the notes.
Height, 4 ft.; round head, 20¼ in.; from chin to back top of head, 24¼
in.; round chest, 25½ in.; round abdomen, 27¾ in.; round hips, 22½ in.;
round wrist, 4¼ in.; round muscle of left arm, 7½ in.; round ankle, 7
in.; round calf of leg, 7¾ in.; length of index finger, 2 in.; length of
right hand, 4 in.; length of foot, 6¼ in.; length of leg, 22 in.; length
of back, 18½ in.; arm to tip of finger, 19¾ in.
This was the first full-grown man we had seen. His colour was coppery,
the fell over the body was almost furry, being nearly half an inch in
length. His head-dress was a bonnet of a priestly form, decorated with a
bunch of parrot feathers; it was either a gift or had been stolen. A
broad strip of bark cloth covered his nakedness. His hands were very
delicate, and attracted attention by their unwashed appearance. He had
evidently been employed in peeling plantains.
[Sidenote: 1888.
Oct. 28.
Avatiko.]
Not one London editor could guess the feelings with which I regarded
this mannikin from the solitudes of the vast central African forest. To
me he was far more venerable than the Memnonium of Thebes. That little
body of his represented the oldest types of primeval man, descended from
the outcasts of the earliest ages, the Ishmaels of the primitive race,
for ever shunning the haunts of the workers, deprived of the joy and
delight of the home hearth, eternally exiled by their vice, to live the
life of human beasts in morass and fen and jungle wild. Think of it!
Twenty-six centuries ago his ancestors captured the five young
Nassamonian explorers, and made merry with them at their villages on the
banks of the Niger. Even as long as forty centuries ago they were known
as pigmies, and the famous battle between them and the storks was
rendered into song. On every map since Hekataeus’ time, 500 years B.C.,
they have been located in the region of the Mountains of the Moon. When
Mesu led the children of Jacob out of Goshen, they reigned over Darkest
Africa undisputed lords; they are there yet, while countless dynasties
of Egypt and Assyria, Persia, Greece and Rome, have flourished for
comparatively brief periods, and expired. And these little people have
roamed far and wide during the elapsed centuries. From the Niger banks,
with successive waves of larger migrants, they have come hither to pitch
their leafy huts in the unknown recesses of the forest. Their kinsmen
are known as Bushmen in Cape Colony, as Watwa in the basin of the
Lulungu, as Akka in Monbuttu, as Balia by the Mabodé, as Wambutti in the
Ihuru basin, and as Batwa under the shadows of the Lunae Montes.
[Illustration: DWARF CAPTIVE AT AVATIKO.]
As the gigantic Madis, and tall Soudanese, and tallest Zanzibaris
towered above the little man, it was delightful to observe the thoughts
within him express themselves with lightning rapidity on his face. The
wonderment that filled him, the quick shifting and chilling fears as to
his fate, the anxious doubts that possessed him, the hopes that sprang
up as he noted humour on the faces, the momentary shades of anxiety,
curiosity to know whence these human monsters had come from, what they
would do with him eventually; would they kill him, how? by roasting him
alive, or plunging him screaming into a vat-like cooking pot? Ach Gott!
I hope not, and a slight shake of the head, with a more pallid colour on
the lips and a nervous twitch showed what distress he was in. He would
do anything to deserve the favour of these big men, just as the young
Nassamonians were willing to do 2600 years ago, when his pigmy
forefathers pointed their fingers and jabbered at them in the old
Nigritian village. So we took him to sit by us, and stroked him on the
back, gave him some roast bananas to put into that distended aldermanic
abdomen of his, and the pigmy smiled his gratitude. What a cunning rogue
he was! how quick-witted! He spoke so eloquently by gesture that he was
understood by the dullest of us.
“How far is it to the next village where we can procure food?”
He placed the side of his right hand across the left wrist. (More than
two days’ march.)
“In what direction?”
He pointed east.
“How far is it to the Ihuru?”
“Oh!” He brought his right hand across his elbow joint--that is double
the distance, four days.
“Is there any food north?”
He shook his head.
“Is there any west or north-west?”
He shook his head, and made a motion with his hand as though he were
brushing a heap of sand away.
“Why?”
He made the motion with his two hands as though he were holding a gun,
and said “Doooo!”
“To be sure the Manyuema have destroyed everything.”
“Are there any ‘Doooo’ in the neighbourhood, now?”
He looked up and smiled with a gush as artful as a London coquette, as
if to say, “You know best! Oh! naughty man, why do you chaff me?”
“Will you show us the road to the village where we can get food?”
He nodded his head rapidly, patted his full-moon belly, which meant,
“Yes, for there I shall get a full meal; for here”--he smiled
disdainfully as he pressed his thumb nail on the first joint of his left
index finger--“are plantains only so big, but there they are as big as
this,” and he clasped the calf of his leg with two hands.
“Oh, Paradise!” cried the men, “bananas as big as a man’s leg!” The
pigmy had contrived to ingratiate himself into every man’s affection. My
authority was gone until the story of the monstrous bananas would be
disproved. Some of them looked as if they would embrace him, and his
face mimicked artless innocence, though he knew perfectly well that, in
their opinion, he was only a little lower than an angel.
And all this time, the coppery face of the nut-brown little maid was
eloquent with sympathy in the emotions of the male pigmy. Her eyes
flashed joy, a subtle spirit glided over her features with the
transition of lightning. There were the same tricks of by-play; the same
doubts, the same hopes, the same curiosity, the same chilling fear, was
felt by the impressionable soul as she divined what feelings moved her
kinsman. She was as plump as a thanksgiving turkey or a Christmas goose;
her breasts glistened with the sheen of old ivory, and as she stood with
clasped hands drooping below--though her body was nude--she was the very
picture of young modesty.
The pair were undoubtedly man and woman. In him was a mimicked dignity,
as of Adam; in her the womanliness of a miniature Eve. Though their
souls were secreted under abnormally thick folds of animalism, and the
finer feelings inert and torpid through disuse, they were there for all
that. And they suited the wild Eden of Avatiko well enough.
[Sidenote: 1888.
Oct. 28.
Forest.]
Burdened with fresh supplies of dried plantains, and guided by the
pigmies, we set out from the abandoned grove of Avatiko E.N.E., crossed
the clear stream of Ngoki at noon, and at 3 P.M. were encamped by the
brook Epeni. We observed numerous traces of the dwarfs in the wilds
which we had traversed, in temporary camps, in the crimson skins of the
amoma, which they had flung away after eating the acid fruit, in the
cracked shells of nuts, in broken twigs that served as guides to the
initiated in their mysteries of woodcraft, in bow-traps by the wayside,
in the game-pits sunk here and there at the crossings of game-tracks.
The land appeared more romantic than anything we had seen. We had wound
around wild amphitheatral basins, foliage rising in terraces one above
another, painted in different shades of green, and variegated with
masses of crimson flowers, and glistening russet, and the snowdrop
flowerets of wild mangoes, or the creamy silk floss of the bombax, and
as we looked under a layer of foliage that drooped heavily above us, we
saw the sunken basin below, an impervious mass of leafage grouped crown
to crown like heaped hills of soft satin cushions, promising luxurious
rest. Now and then troops of monkeys bounded with prodigious leaps
through the branches, others swinging by long tails a hundred feet above
our heads, and with marvellous agility hurling their tiny bodies through
the air across yawning chasms, and catching an opposite branch, resting
for an instant to take a last survey of our line before burying
themselves out of sight in the leafy depths. Ibises screamed to their
mates to hurry up to view the column of strangers, and touracos argued
with one another with all the guttural harshness of a group of Egyptian
fellahs, plantain-eaters, sunbirds, grey parrots, green parroquets, and
a few white-collared eagles either darted by or sailed across the leafy
gulf, or sat drowsily perched in the haze upon aspiring branches. There
was an odour of musk, a fragrance of flowers, perfume of lilies mixed
with the acrid scent of tusky boars in the air; there were heaps of
elephant refuse, the droppings of bush antelopes, the pungent dung of
civets, and simians along the tracks, and we were never long away from
the sound of rushing rivulets or falling cascades, sunlight streamed in
slanting silver lines and shone over the undergrowth and the thick crops
of phrynia, arum, and amoma, until their damp leaves glistened, and the
dewdrops were brilliant with light.
And the next day our march underneath the eternal shades was through
just such a land, and on the morning of the 1st of November we emerged
into the clearing of Andaki, to refresh our souls with the promised
fruit of its groves. The plantains were not very large, but they were
mature and full, and before an hour had elapsed, the wooden grates were
up, and the fruit lay in heaps of slices on the bars over the fire. The
word was passed that the first and second day of the month should be
employed in preparing as much provisions as every man could carry. We
were in N. Lat. 1° 16½′. Kilonga-Longa’s station was in 1° 6′, and Fort
Bodo in 1° 20′, so that our course was good.
[Sidenote: 1888.
Nov. 2.
Audaki.]
On the second some scouts hunting up the various tracks extending
eastward came across two women, one of whom said she knew of a great
village to the north where there was food. Another said that Andari lay
E.N.E., four days’ march, where there was such a stock of food that
Andaki was a mere handful compared with it.
Soon after leaving Andaki, and crossing a broad ridge, we came upon a
vast abandoned clearing. Probably a year had elapsed since the people
had fled, and their settlements had been consumed with fire, for the
banana plants were choked by the voracious undergrowth and wild plants,
and the elephants had trampled through and through, and sported for
months among the wasted groves, and over the crushed Musa plants,
through phrynia flourishing two fathoms deep, and where the stumps of
cut trees had sprouted and grown until their tufted tops were joined to
one another in one great thick carpet of bush. Through this we carved
our way with brandished billhooks and cutlasses; the native women had
lost the track, and were bewildered by the wildly luxuriant shrubbery,
under which we sweated in the damp hot-house heat, and ploughed our way
through the deep green sea, until after ten hours we came to a babbling
rillet, and must perforce camp from sheer exhaustion, though we had made
but five miles.
[Sidenote: 1888.
Nov. 4.
Forest.]
On the morning of the fourth we resumed the task, to slash, cut, creep
and crawl, bore through, in and out, to clamber over logs, tread
carefully over gaping rifts in the reeking compost, bend under logs, to
tunnel away with might and main, to drive through--a hungry column of
men was behind, a wilderness before us--to crash headlong through the
plants, veer to the left, and now to the right, to press on and on, to
sharpen the weapons on the stones of the brook; to take a hasty drink to
satisfy our thirst, and again to the work. Cleave away merrily, boys;
sever those creepers; cut those saplings down! No way now? then widen
that game hole in the bush clump! Come, strike with billhook and sword,
axe and cutlass! We must not die like fools in this demon world! This
way and that, through and through, until after sixteen hours we had cut
a crooked channel through the awful waste, and stood once more under the
lordly crowns of the primeval forest.
Paddy’s traditional patchy clothes was a dress suit compared to mine, as
I stood woefully regarding the rents and tatters and threads waving in
tassels from my breeches and shirt; and the men smiled, and one said we
looked like rats dragged through the teeth of traps, which I thought was
not a bad simile. But we had no time for talk; we ate a couple of roast
plantains for lunch, and continued our journey, and by 3 P.M. were
within half-an-hour of the Ihuru River.
The next day, before it was full daylight, we were filing along an
elephant track that ran parallel with the Ihuru, which was at this time
one raging series of rapids its whole length, and sounding its unceasing
uproar in our ears. Numbers of deep tributaries were waded through; but
we maintained a quick pace, owing to the broad track of the elephants,
and by the usual hour of the afternoon nine miles had been covered.
Thirteen Zanzibaris of the rear column, and one of the Danagla soldiers
of Emin Pasha, had succumbed during the last few days, and I do not know
how many Madis and Manyuema.
On the evening of the sixth, after a march of eight miles, I became
impressed with the necessity of finding food shortly, unless we were to
witness wholesale mortality. Starvation is hard to bear, but when loads
must be carried upon empty stomachs, and the marches are long, the least
break in the continuity of supply brings with it a train of diseases
which soon thins the ranks. Our Nyanza people were provident, and eked
their stores with mushrooms and wild fruit; but the feeble
manioc-poisoned men of the rear column, Madis and Manyuema, were utterly
heedless of advice and example.
A youth named Amani, who looked rather faint, was adjured to tell me the
truth about what he had eaten the last two days.
[Sidenote: 1888.
Nov. 6.
Forest.]
“I will,” he said. “My mess had a fair provision of plantain flour that
would have kept us with ease two days longer; but Sulimani, who carried
it, put it down by the roadside while he went to gather mushrooms. When
he returned the food was gone. He says the Manyuema had stolen it. Each
one of us then on reaching camp last night set out to hunt for
mushrooms, out of which we made a gruel. That is what we had to eat last
night for supper. This morning we have fasted, but we are going to hunt
up mushrooms again.”
“And what will you eat to-morrow?”
“To-morrow is in the hands of God. I will live in hopes that I shall
find something.”
This youth, he was only nineteen, had carried sixty pound of cartridges
in the meantime, and would carry it again to-morrow, and the next day,
until he dropped, and measured his length with eyes upturned to the dark
cope of leaves above, to be left there to mildew and rot; for out of
nothing, nothing can be extracted to feed hungry men. He was only a
solitary instance of over 400 people.
We reached a Manyuema Camp, and Uledi recognised it as being a place
where he had halted during a forage tour to the west of the Ihuru, while
he was waiting for Messrs. Jephson and Nelson at Ipoto, and the advance
column was journeying to Ibwiri in November, 1887.
On the 7th a halt was ordered, that a column might be sent under Uledi
to search the clearing of Andari, six miles N.N.W. of the camp, but over
a hundred were so weak that they were unable to go, whereupon the messes
were ordered to bring their pots up, and three handfuls of flour were
placed in each to make gruel with, that they might have strength to
reach the plantation.
On the 8th, about 200 remained silent in camp awaiting the foragers. In
the afternoon, perceiving that it was too long a fast to wait for them
we served out more plantain flour.
[Sidenote: 1888.
Nov. 9.
Forest.]
On the 9th, the foragers had not arrived. Two men had died in camp. One
reeled from the effects of a poisonous fungus, as they came to get
another ration of flour for their gruel; their steps were more feeble;
the bones of the sternum were fearfully apparent. Three days would find
us all perished, but we were hopeful that every minute we should hear
the murmur of the returning column.
On the morning of the 10th, anxious for the European provisions which we
were carrying for the officers at Fort Bodo, I had them examined, and
discovered to my consternation that fifty-seven tins of meat, teas,
coffees, milks, were short--had been eaten by the Manyuema. If a look
had potency sufficient to blast them, they would have speedily been
reduced to ashes. “Dear me, how could the tins have vanished?” asked the
chief Sadi. Ah, how? But the provision boxes were taken from his party,
and Winchester and Maxim ammunition cases were served instead to them as
freight.
At 2 P.M. the column of foragers returned, bringing from three to six
days’ provisions, which they had gathered from an abandoned plantation.
The bearers had refreshed themselves previous to gathering. Now, in
return for my gruel, each member had to refund me one pound of flour, as
my reserve store, and one pound for the sick, who were deprived of the
power to forage, and who were rejected by the messes. So that in this
manner the sick received about eight pounds of flour, or dried
plantains, and I owned a reserve of 200 pounds for future use.
Within an hour-and-a-half on the 11th we had reached Kilonga-Longa’s
ferry. The natives, fearing a repetition of his raids to the west of the
Ihuru, had destroyed every canoe, and thus prevented me from crossing to
pay Kilonga-Longa another visit, and to settle some accounts with him.
The river was also in flood, and a gaunt and hungry wilderness stretched
all round us. There was no other way for it than to follow the Ihuru
upward until we could find means to cross to the east, or left side. Our
course was now N.E. by N.
[Sidenote: 1888.
Nov. 12.
Forest.]
On the 12th, we followed a track, along which quite a tribe of pigmies
must have passed. It was lined with amoma fruit-skins, and shells of
nuts, and the crimson rinds of phrynia berries. No wood-beans, or
fenessi, or mabungu, are to be found in this region, as on the south
bank of Ituri River. On reaching camp, I found that at the ferry, near
the native camp at which we starved four days, six people had
succumbed--a Madi, from a poisonous fungus, the Lado soldier, who was
speared above Wasp Rapids, two Soudanese of the rear-column, a Manyuema
boy in the service of Mr. Bonny, and Ibrahim, a fine young Zanzibari,
from a poisoned skewer in the foot.
During the 13th the great forest was perceptibly improved for travel.
Our elephant and game track had brought us across another track leading
easterly from Andari, and both joined presently, developing to a highway
much patronised by the pigmy tribes. This we followed for two hours. We
could tell where they had stopped to light their pipes, and to crack
nuts, and trap game, and halt to gossip. The twigs were broken three
feet from the ground, showing that they were snapped by dwarfs. Where it
was a little muddy the path showed high delicate insteps, proving their
ancient ancestry and aristocratic descent, and small feet not larger
than those of young English misses of eight years old. The path improved
as we tramped along; it grew a highway of promise. Camps of the dwarfs
were numerous. The soil was ochreous, the trees were larger, and towered
to magnificent heights.
[Sidenote: 1888.
Nov. 13.
Forest.]
[Illustration: ENTERING ANDIKUMU.]
I observed as we filed into camp that it was time to obtain a further
supply of food, and rest somewhere, the bearing of the people lacked
confidence, their forms were shrinking under the terrible task, and
perpetual daily toil and round of marching and hunger. I could have wept
at the excess of misfortunes which weighed us daily lower towards the
grave; but we had been for so long strained to bear violent
vicissitudes, and so frequently afflicted with sights of anguish and
suffering, that we were reduced to hear each day’s tale of calamity in
sorrowful silence. What losses we had already borne were beyond power
of plaint and tear to restore. The morrow’s grief awaited us, as certain
as the morrow’s sun; and to dwell upon the sorrowful past was to unfit
us for what we had yet to bear.
To make 230 loads equal to the daily lessening number of carriers was a
most aggravating task. Not one out of twenty men but made some complaint
of a severe ulcer, a headache, or threatened rupture, undefined bodily
pains, a whitlow, a thorn in the foot, rheumatism, fever, &c. The loads
remained always the same, but the carriers died.
On the 14th, the Expedition, after a six hours’ march, approached Anduta
and Andikumu. As the advance guard was pressing in over the logs and
débris of the prostrated forest, some arrows flew, and two men fell
wounded, and immediately boxes and bales were dropped, and quite a
lively skirmish with the tall-hatted natives occurred; but in
half-an-hour the main body of the caravan filed in, to find such a store
of abnormally large plantains that the ravenous men were in ecstacies.
In extent the clearing was equal to the famous one of Ibwiri. It was
situate in the bosom of hills which rose to the east, west and south.
Along one of the tracks we saw the blazings of the Manyuema on the
trees, and one of the villages was in ruins; but the size of the
clearing had baffled the ravaging horde in their attempt to destroy the
splendid plantain groves.
On examining the boxes of ammunition before stacking them for the night,
it was found that Corporal Dayn Mohammed had not brought his load in,
and we ascertained that he had laid it at the base of a big tree near
the path. Four headmen were at once ordered to return with the Soudanese
Corporal to recover the box.
[Sidenote: 1888.
Nov. 14.
Andikumu.]
Arriving near the spot, they saw quite a tribe of pigmies, men, women
and children, gathered around two pigmy warriors, who were trying to
test the weight of the box by the grummet at each end. Our headmen,
curious to see what they would do with the box, lay hidden closely, for
the eyes of the little people are exceedingly sharp. Every member of the
tribe seemed to have some device to suggest, and the little boys hopped
about on one leg, spanking their hips in irrepressible delight at the
find, and the tiny women carrying their tinier babies at their backs
vociferated the traditional wise woman’s counsel. Then a doughty man put
a light pole, and laid it through the grummets, and all the small people
cheered shrilly with joy at the genius displayed by them in inventing a
method for heaving along the weighty case of Remington ammunition. The
Hercules and the Milo of the tribe put forth their utmost strength, and
raised the box up level with their shoulders, and staggered away into
the bush. But just then a harmless shot was fired, and the big men
rushed forward with loud shouts, and then began a chase; and one
over-fat young fellow of about seventeen was captured and brought to our
camp as a prize. We saw the little Jack Horner, too fat by many pounds;
but the story belongs to the headmen, who delivered it with infinite
humour.
Mr. Bonny was sent to the Ihuru River on the 17th, to examine an old
ferry reported to be there, but returned unsuccessful in finding a
canoe, but with the information that the river appeared to flow from
E.N.E., and was about sixty yards wide, with quiet current, and good
depth.
The afternoon of the 14th, 15th and 16th of November, were spent by the
people in making amends for their past abstinence. What with boiled,
roasted plantains and porridge, they must have consumed an immense
number. Probably each man had eaten 140 plantains during the three days.
[Sidenote: 1888.
Nov. 19.
Anduta.]
[Illustration: THE SCOUTS DISCOVER THE PYGMIES CARRYING AWAY THE CASE OF
AMMUNITION.]
Within a short time after leaving Andikumu on the 19th, we passed
through Anduta; and then the column passed by a picturesque hill called
Kakwa, over a rough country bristling with immense rock fragments and
boulders thickly covered, and surrounded with depths of ferns. Among the
rocks near our camp on this date was found a store of corn and
bananas, which no doubt belonged to the dwarfs. Had the find occurred
a few days previously, there would have been a riotous scramble for
them; but now each man was so burdened with his private stores that they
regarded it with supreme indifference. The men also so suffered from
indigestion after their revel at Andikumu that they were unfit for
travel.
A five-mile march was made on the 20th. Since striking the dwarfs’
highway, unlike the loamy soils which absorbed the perpetual rains
nearer the Ituri, the path now led through a stiff red clayey country,
which retained the rain in pools, and made it soapy and slippery.
At the noonday halt the leader of the van wandered a few hundred yards
ahead on the path and encountered a native caravan from Anditoké, N. The
natives uttered a howl of surprise at perceiving him, but seeing that he
had no weapon, quickly advanced towards him with uplifted spears. But
the howl they had raised had been heard by all at the halting-place, and
the savages were met in time to save the Zanzibari leader. A skirmish
took place, two of the natives were wounded and one was killed, and the
effects of the caravan were captured. These effects consisted of iron
rings, knobs, bracelets, and anklets, and calamus fibre leg-rings, a few
native smith’s tools, and, most singular of all, several unfired
Remington cartridges.
The first thought that was suggested was that Fort Bodo had either been
evacuated or captured, or that some patrols had been waylaid; but on
reflection we settled on the conviction that these cartridges had
belonged to some raiding parties of Manyuema, but that originally they
were our property.
The travelling powers of the men was noticeably low on the 21st; they
still suffered from their late debauch. At noon of this day we were in
N. lat. 1° 43′, which proved that, despite every effort to find a path
leading eastward we were advancing north.
[Sidenote: 1888.
Nov. 21.
Forest.]
Chama Issa, the last of the Somalis, was reported dead on this day, but
at the noon halt I was greatly gratified to see him; his case, being as
he was the last of the Somalis, excited great interest. A portion from
my own table went to him daily, and two Soudanese were detailed for
extra pay to serve, feed, and carry him. Up to the evening of this day
thirty-two out of the Banalya rear column had perished. At Banalya I had
estimated that about half of the number would not survive. While they
were being carried in the canoes there was no call for exertion, but the
march overland had been most fatal to the unfortunates.
On the 22nd, soon after the advance had reached camp, a cold and heavy
shower of rain fell, which demoralized many in the column; their failing
energies and their impoverished systems were not proof against cold.
Madis and Zanzibaris dropped their loads in the road, and rushed
helter-skelter for the camp. One Madi managed to crawl near my tent,
wherein a candle was lit, for in a rainstorm the forest, even in
daylight, is as dark as on an ordinary night in the grass-land. Hearing
him groan, I issued out with the candle, and found the naked body rigid
in the mud, unable to move. As he saw the candle flame his eyes dilated
widely, and he attempted to grasp it with his hands. He was at once
borne to a fire, and laid within a few inches of it, and with the
addition of a pint of hot broth made from the Liebig Company’s extract
of meat we restored him to his senses. On the road in front of the rear
guard two Madis died, and also one Zanzibari of the rear column stricken
instantaneously to death by the intensely cold rain.
We made a march of two hours the next day, and then despatched
forty-five choice men ahead to try and obtain meal for the salvation of
the Banalya men and the Madis, whose powers were too weak for further
effort. The scouts returned within twenty-four hours with a goat, which
was at once slaughtered to make thirty gallons of soup. When thickened
with two pounds of wheaten flour, the soup made a most welcome meal for
over sixty men. We reached Indemau by 10 A.M. on the 25th. The village
was situated in a hollow at the base of a mount, and was distant from
the Dui branch of the Ihuru six miles.
[Sidenote: 1888.
Nov. 25.
Indemau.]
At Indemau the long-enduring members of the Expedition received another
respite from total annihilation. The plantain groves were extensive and
laden with fruit, and especially with ripe mellow plantains whose
fragrance was delicious. But in the same manner that it was impossible
to teach these big children to economise their rations, so it was
impossible to teach them moderation when they found themselves in the
midst of plenty. At Andikumu an army might have been supplied with good
wholesome food, but the inordinate voracity of the famished people had
been followed by severe indigestion, and at Indemau their intemperate
appetites brought on such sickening repletion that we were engaged every
morning in listening to their complaints and administering enemata to
relieve the congested bodies.
A path from Indemau was discovered, leading across the Dui River; there
was another leading to Indeperri, a large settlement about fifteen miles
N.E. from Fort Bodo. It had been my original purpose to steer a course
through the forest which would take us direct to the grass-land, along a
more northerly route than the line of Ipoto and Fort Bodo, after sending
a detachment to settle accounts with Kilonga-Longa; but in our endeavour
to find a ford or ferry across the Ihuru we had been compelled by the
high flood to continue parallel with the river until now. Observation
proved us to be in N. lat. 1° 47′ and E. long. 29° 7′ 45″. But the
discovery of Remington cartridges among the stores of a native caravan
in these unknown parts, and yet within a reasonable distance of Fort
Bodo, notwithstanding a rational assurance that Fort Bodo was
impregnable and the garrison were now safe with Emin Pasha on the
Nyanza, had intruded doubts in my mind which I thought would best be
resolved by deflecting our course southward, and sweeping past the old
Fort, and seeing with our own eyes what had really occurred. Mr. Bonny
was therefore sent with the chief Rashid and sixty men, to build a
bridge across the Dui River.
[Sidenote: 1888.
Dec. 1.
Dui River.]
After a halt of five days the Expedition marched from Indemau on the
1st of December for the Dui. Mr. Bonny and old Rashid, with their
assistants, were putting the finishing touches to the bridge, a work
which reflected great credit on all concerned in its construction, but
especially on Mr. Bonny. Without halting an instant the column marched
across the five branches of the Dui, over a length of rough but
substantial woodwork, which measured in the aggregate eighty yards,
without a single accident.
[Illustration: BRIDGING THE DUI RIVER.]
On the other side of the Dui we made a rough muster of the people, and
discovered that thirty-four of the rear column had died, and that out of
sixteen Zanzibaris on the sick list, fourteen were of the Yambuya party,
and they all appeared to be in such a condition that a few days only
would decide their fate. Every goat and fowl that we could procure were
distributed to these poor people in the hope of saving them. We cooked
for them; Mr. Bonny was directed to administer medicines daily; we
relieved them of every article, excepting their own rations, and yet so
wrecked were their systems by what they had endured at Yambuya and
Banalya, that a slight abrasion from plants, branches or creepers,
developed into a raging ulcer, which in three or four days would be
several inches across. Nothing but the comforts and rest obtained in a
metropolitan hospital would have arrested this rapid decline.
We made a short march to the small village of Andiuba, and from thence
we reached in three hours the large settlement of Addiguhha. On the 4th
we reached Ngwetza in four-and-a-half hours, and formed camp outside of
the plantain-grove. We had passed through ten villages of the pigmies,
but without having seen one of them. The woods were dense, and the
undergrowth flourishing. Belts of sloughy mud, disparted by small
streams, divided one village from another. It was in just such a
locality our camp was pitched on the 4th of December. Presently into the
centre of the camp a full uddered goat, with two fine kids four months
old, walked, and after a short stare of undisguised surprise at the
family, we sprang upon them and secured the undoubted gift of the gods,
and sacrificed them. Half-an-hour later we were told that one of the
Uchu natives attached to Mr. Bonny had received an arrow in his body,
and that the dwarfs had attacked and killed a Manyuema boy. A party was
sent to convey the boy’s body into the woods, where it could be buried
by his friends, but in the morning the meat had been carried away.
The criers were instructed to proceed through the camp to prepare five
days’ provisions of food. Their cries were heard ringing from end to
end, and huge loads of material for the wooden grates were brought in,
and throughout the 5th the people devoted themselves to the preparation
of flour.
[Sidenote: 1888.
Dec. 5.
Ngwetza.]
The next day, as we marched southerly, it was observed that we were
following a gradual slope to the river Ihuru. We crossed six broad and
sluggish streams, with breadths of mud coloured red by iron; banked by
dense nurseries of Raphia Palm and rattan. About 3 P.M. the
advance-guard stumbled upon several families of dwarfs, and a capture
was made of an old woman, a girl, and a boy of eighteen, besides a stock
of bananas, and some fowls. The “old” lady was as strong as a horse
apparently, and to the manner of carrying a load of bananas she appeared
to be quite accustomed.
The family of little people intimated that they knew the forest well,
but they had a strong inclination for an E.N.E. course, which would have
taken us away from Fort Bodo. They were therefore sent to the rear, and
we swung along S., and by E., sometimes S.S.E., traversed six streams on
the 7th, and a similar number on the 8th.
Soon after the headquarters’ tent had been pitched, and the undergrowth
of leafy plants had been cleared somewhat, I observed a young fellow
stagger; and going up to him I questioned him as to the cause. I was
astonished to be told that it was from weakness, and want of food. Have
you eaten all your five days’ rations already? No, he had thrown it away
because the dwarf captives had said that in one day they would reach a
famous place for plantains, the “biggest in the world.”
Upon extending my inquiries it was found that there were at least 150
people in the camp who had likewise followed his example, and discarded
superfluous food, and on that day, the 8th, they had nothing. The
headmen were called that night to a council, and after being reproached
for their reckless conduct, it was resolved that on the next day almost
every able-bodied person should return to Ngwetza which we had left on
the morning of the 6th. The distance was 19½ hours for the caravan, but
as much time was necessarily lost in cutting through the jungly
undergrowth, and even now and then in laying a course, the forage party
would be able to return to Ngwetza in eleven hours’ travel.
[Sidenote: 1888.
Dec. 9.
Starvation
Camp.]
On the morning of the 9th, about 200 people started for the plantain
groves of Ngwetza, but before departing they contributed about 200 lbs.
of plantain flour as a reserve for the sickly ones, and guards of the
camp. We were about 130 in number, men, women and pigmies, the majority
of whom were already distressed. I gave half-a-cupful of flour to each
person for the day, then despatched Mr. Bonny with ten men to find the
Ihuru River. According to my calculations, the camp was in N. lat. 1°
27′ 15″, and E. long. 29° 21′ 30″, about nine geographical miles in an
air-line north of Fort Bodo, but it was useless to show the chart to men
dreading that starvation was again imminent. All they saw was the
eternal myriads of trees with a dead black unknown environing the camp
round about, shutting out all hope, and a viewless and stern prospect of
rigid wood with a dark cope of leaves burying them out of sight of sky
and sunshine, as though they lived under a pall. But they knew that the
Ihuru was not far from Fort Bodo, and if Mr. Bonny and his men
discovered it, some little encouragement would be gained. Mr. Bonny
succeeded in finding the river, and blazed a path to it.
For employment’s sake I sat down to recalculate all my observations with
exactitude, to correct certain discrepancies that our journeys over the
same ground had enabled me to detect; and buried in my Norie, and
figures and charts, my mind was fully occupied. But on the 14th my work
was done. I lived in hope the next day, with my hearing on the strain
for the sound of voices. The people looked miserable, but hopeful. A box
of European provisions was opened, a pot of butter and milk were taken
out, and a table-spoonful of each dropped into the earthenware pots that
were already filled with boiling water. In this manner a thin broth was
made which would serve to protract the agony of existence. On the sixth
day the pots were again ranged round me in a semi-circle, and in
rotation, each cook brought his vessel of hot water to receive his
butter and milk, and after being well stirred, marched off with his
group to distribute the broth according to measure. A little heartened
by the warm liquid they scattered through the woods to hunt up the red
berries of the phrynia, and pick up now and then the amomum, whose
sour-sweet pulp appeared to quiet the gnawing of the stomach. A
mushroom in the course of several hundred yards’ rambling would perhaps
fall to the lot of the seeker. But when 130 men have wandered about and
about, to and fro, searching for the edibles, the circle widens, and day
by day the people had to penetrate further and further away from the
camp. And it happened that while searching with eagerness, impelled on
and on by the eager stomach, that they were carried some miles away, and
they had paid no regard to the course they were going; and when they
wished to return to camp they knew not which way to seek it, and two
full-grown men and Saburi, a little boy of eight years, did not return.
I had a peculiar liking for the small child. His duty was to carry my
Winchester, and cartridge pouch. He was usually a dark cherub, round as
a roller, strong and sturdy, with an old man’s wisdom within his little
boy’s head, and frequently when the caravan was on its mettle, and a
fair road before it, I looked back often and often to see how little
Saburi trotted steadily after me. Being the rifle-bearer, trained to be
at my heels at any strange sound, I deprived myself of many a choice bit
to nourish Saburi with, so that his round stomach had drawn a smile from
all who looked at him. He looked like a little boy with a keg under his
frock. But, alas! in the last few days the keg had collapsed, and he,
like all the others, had penetrated into the wilderness of phrynia to
search for berries. On this day he was lost.
In the dark the muzzle-loaders of the Manyuema were employed to fire
signals. About 9 P.M. we thought we heard the little boy’s voice. The
halloo was sounded, and a reply came from the other end of the camp. One
of the great ivory horns boomed out its deep sound. Then the cry came
from the opposite side. Some of the men said that it must be Saburi’s
ghost wailing his death. The picture of the little fellow seeing the
dark night come down upon him with its thick darkness in those eerie
wilds, with fierce dwarfs prowling about, and wild boar and huge
chimpanzee, leopards and cheetahs, with troops of elephants trampling
and crashing the crisp phrynia, and great baboons beating hollow
trees--everything terrifying, in fact, round about him--depressed us
exceedingly. We gave him up for lost.
It had been an awful day. In the afternoon a boy had died. Three persons
were lost. The condition of the majority was most disheartening. Some
could not stand, but fell down in the effort. These sights began to act
on my nerves, until I began to feel not only moral sympathy, but
physical as well, as though bodily weakness was infectious.
On my bed that night the thought of the absent men troubled me; but
however distasteful was the idea that a terrible misfortune--such as
being lost in the woods, or collapsing from hunger before they reached
the groves--it became impossible not to regard the darkest view and
expect the worst, in order, if possible, to save a remnant of the
Expedition that the news might be carried to the Pasha and thence to
civilisation some day. I pictured the entire column perished here in
this camp, and the Pasha wondering month after month what had become of
us, and we corrupting and decaying in this unknown corner in the great
forest, and every blaze on the trees healed up, and every trail
obliterated within a year, and our burial-place remaining unknown until
the end of time. Indeed, it appeared to me as if we were drifting
steadily towards just such a fate. Here were about 200 men without food
going thirty-five miles to seek it. Not 150 would perhaps reach it; the
others would throw themselves, like the Madis, to the ground, to wait,
to beg from others, if perchance they returned. If an accident to the 50
bravest men happen, what then? Some are shot down by dwarfs; the larger
aborigines attack the others in a body. The men have no leader; they
scatter about, they become bewildered, lose their way, or are speared
one after another. While we are waiting, ever waiting for people who
cannot return, those with me die first by threes, sixes, tens, twenties,
and then, like a candle extinguished, we are gone. Nay, something had to
be done.
On the sixth day we made the broth as usual, a pot of butter and a pot
of milk for 130 people, and the headmen and Mr. Bonny were called to
council. On proposing a reverse to the foragers of such a nature as to
cause an utter loss of all, they appeared unable to comprehend such a
possibility, though folly after folly, madness after madness, had marked
every day of my acquaintance with them. The departure of men secretly on
raids, and never returning, the leaping of fifty men into the river
after a bush antelope, the throwing away of their rations after fifteen
months’ experiences of the forest, the reckless rush into guarded
plantations, skewering their feet, the inattention they paid to
abrasions leaving them to develope into rabid ulcers; the sale of their
rifles to men who would have enslaved them all, follies practised by
blockheads day after day, week after week; and then to say they could
not comprehend the possibility of a fearful disaster. Were not 300 men
with three officers lost in the wood for six days? Were not three
persons lost close to this camp yesterday and they have not returned?
Did I not tell these men that we should all die if they were not back on
the fourth day? Was not this the sixth day of their absence? Were there
not fifty people close to death now? and much else of the same kind?
By-and-by, the conviction stole on their minds that if by accident we
were to remain in camp inactive for three days, we should then be too
weak to seek food; and they agreed with me that it would be a wise thing
to bury the goods, and set out on our return to Ngwetza to procure food
for ourselves. But there was one difficulty. If we buried the goods, and
fifty sick men preferred to remain in the camp to following us, should
we return to the _caché_, we should find that the sick had exhumed the
goods, and wrecked everything out of pure mischief.
[Illustration: STARVATION CAMP: SERVING OUT MILK AND BUTTER FOR BROTH.]
Mr. Bonny then came to the rescue, and offered to stay with ten men in
camp, if I provided food for him and the garrison for ten days, the time
we decided we should be absent. Food to make a light gruel for so
small a number for ten days was not difficult to find. Half a cupful of
cornflour per man for thirteen men for ten days was measured, with the
addition of four milk biscuits per man each day. A few tins of butter
and condensed milk were also set apart to assist the gruel. For those
unwilling or unable to follow us to the plantains we could do nothing.
What might sustain a small garrison of thirteen men for many days would
not save the lives of fifty when they were already so far gone, that
only an abundance of digestive plantain flour could possibly save them.
On this morning little Saburi walked into camp quite unconcerned, and
fresh as from a happy outing. “Why Saburi! where have you been?” “I lost
my way while picking berries, and I wandered about, and near night I
came to a track. I saw the marks of the axes, and I said--Lo! this is
our road, and I followed it thinking I was coming to camp. But, instead
of that, I saw only a big river. It was the Ihuru! Then I found a big
hollow tree, and I went into it and slept; and then I came back along
the road, and so and so, until I walked in here. That is all.”
We mustered every soul alive in the camp on the morning of the 15th.
Sadi, the Manyuema headman, reported fourteen of his people unable to
travel; Kibbobora reported his sick brother as being the only person of
his party too sick to move; Fundi had a wife and a little boy too weak
for the journey. The Expedition was obliged to leave 26. 43 persons
verging on dissolution unless food could be procured within twenty-four
hours. Assuming a cheery tone, though my heart was well-nigh breaking, I
told them to be of good courage, that I was going to hunt up the
absentees, who no doubt were gorging themselves; most likely I should
find them on the road, in which case they would have to run all the way.
“Meantime, pray for my success. God is the only one who can help you!”
[Sidenote: 1888.
Dec. 15.
Starvation
Camp.]
We set out 1 P.M. on our return journey towards Ngwetza, thirty-five
miles distant, with sixty-five men and boys and twelve women. We
travelled until night, and then threw ourselves on the ground,
scattered about in groups, or singly, each under his own clump of bush,
silent and sad, and communing with his own thoughts. Vain was it for me
to seek for that sleep which is the “balm of hurt minds.” Too many
memories crowded about me; too many dying forms haunted me in the
darkness; my lively fancies were too distorted by dread, which painted
them with dismal colours; the stark forms lying in links along the path,
which we had seen that afternoon in our tramp, were things too solemn
for sudden oblivion. The stars could not be seen to seek comfort in
their twinkling; the poor hearts around me were too heavy to utter
naught but groans of despair; the fires were not lit, for there was no
food to cook--my grief was great. Out of the pall-black darkness came
out the eerie shapes that haunt the fever-land, that jibe and mock the
lonely man, and weave figures of flame, and draw fiery forms in the
mantle of the night; and whispers breathed through the heavy air of
graves and worms, and forgetfulness; and a demon hinted in the dazed
brain that ‘twere better to rest than to think with a sickening heart;
and the sough of the wind through the crowns of the thick-black bush
seemed to sigh and moan “Lost! lost! lost! Thy labour and grief are in
vain. Comfortless days upon days; brave lives are sobbing their last;
man after man roll down to the death, to mildew and rot, and thou wilt
be left alone!”
“Allah ho Akbar,” was the cry that rang through the gloom, from a man
with a breaking heart. The words went pealing along through the dark,
and they roused the echoes of “God is great” within me. Why should a
Moslem recall a Christian to thoughts of his God? “Ye fools, when will
ye be wise? He that planted the ear, shall He not hear? He that formed
the eye, shall He not see?” And, lo! worthier thoughts possess the mind,
the straining of the eyes through the darkness is relaxed, and the sight
is inverted to see dumb witnesses of past mercies on this or that
forgotten occasion; one memory begets another, until the stubborn heart
is melted, and our needs are laid as upon a tablet before the Great
Deliverer.
Towards morning I dozed, to spring up a few hours later as the darkness
was fading, and a ghostly light showed the still groups of my
companions.
“Up, boys, up! to the plantains! up! Please God we shall have plantains
to-day!” This was uttered to cheer the sad hearts. Within a few minutes
we had filed away from our earthy couches, and were on the track in the
cheerless light of the morning, some hobbling from sores, some limping
from ulcers, some staggering from weakness. We had commenced to feel
warmed up with the motion of the march, when, hark! I heard a murmur of
voices ahead. Little Saburi held the rifle ready, observant of the least
sign of the hand, when I saw a great pile of green fruit rising above
the broad leaves of the phrynia that obstructed a clear view, and
intuitively one divined that this must be the column of foragers
advancing to meet us, and in a second of time, the weak, the lame, and
the cripple, the limping and moaning people forgot their griefs and
their woes, and shouted the grateful chant which goes up of its own
accord towards the skies out of the full and sensitive hearts, “Thanks
be to God.” Englishman and African, Christian and Pagan, all alike
confess Him. He is not here, or there, but everywhere, and the heart of
the grateful man confesseth Him.
It needed only one view of the foremost men to have told what the
heedless, thoughtless herd had been doing. It was no time for
reproaches, however, but to light fires, sit down and roast the green
fruit, and get strength for the return, and in an hour we were swinging
away back again to Starvation Camp, where we arrived at 2.30 P.M., to be
welcomed as only dying men can welcome those who lend the right hand to
help them. And all that afternoon young and old, Zanzibari and Manyuema,
Soudanese and Madi, forgot their sorrows of the past in the pleasures of
the present, and each vowed to be more provident in the future--until
the next time.
[Sidenote: 1888.
Dec. 17.
Ihuru
River.]
On the 17th we reached the Ihuru, and the next day forded the river, and
from thence we cut our way through the forest, through bush and plants
which were the undergrowth, and early in the afternoon of the 19th we
emerged out of the trackless bush, and presently were on the outskirts
of the plantations of Fort Bodo, at which all the people admired
greatly.
On the 20th we cut a track through the deserted plantations, and after
an hour’s hard work reached our well-known road, which had been so often
patrolled by us. We soon discovered traces of recent travel, and late
foraging in piles of plantain skins near the track; but we could not
discover by whom these were made. Probably the natives had retired to
their settlements; perhaps the dwarfs were now banqueting on the fat of
the land. We approached the end of our broad western military road, and
at the turning met some Zanzibari patrols who were as much astonished as
we were ourselves at the sudden encounter. Volley after volley soon rang
through the silence of the clearing. The fort soon responded, and a
stream of frantic men, wild with joy, advanced by leaps and bounds to
meet us; and among the first was my dear friend the Doctor, who
announced, with eyes dancing with pleasure, “All is well at Fort Bodo.”