A DEATHBLOW TO SLAVERY
Livingstone at once wrote to Kirk at Zanzibar for more stores to be
sent to Ujiji. At the same time he sent a letter to the Sultan of
Zanzibar, asking him for fifteen trustworthy bearers to carry the new
supplies. Then, as soon as could be, he collected the remnant of his
plundered things, and wrote his letters and accounts of his doings.
One or two letters reached him here, but these were nearly three
years old; and very many of his own to his friends never got even as
far as the sea-coast. At a single time he sent off a budget of
forty-two letters and scientific records, but none were heard of
again.
The reason of this was only too plain. Ujiji was like a den of
villains and thieves. All the worst of the slave-trading Arabs
gathered there on their way to and from the coast. They knew that
Livingstone was against their trade, and they hated him accordingly.
Some, like Mohammed Bogharib, had sense enough to see his greatness,
and to help him; but others, though they dared nothing to his face,
did all they could behind his back to ruin his work and thwart his
plans. Wherever they met him on his journeys, they would frighten,
bully, or bribe his bearers to make them rebel. By telling the
natives that Livingstone was really a slaver and a spy, they tried to
make them refuse him food, guides, and canoes. There can be little
doubt that they got hold of his messengers and destroyed his letters.
After a three months' rest at Ujiji, Livingstone felt well enough to
set out again. Leaving orders for the new bearers from Zanzibar to
come after him, he started with his old followers, and with the few
stores he had been able to get together. In July 1869 he crossed
Lake Tanganyika by canoe; then, striking to the north-west, he made
his way on foot to Kabambaré, in the Manyema country. Here the River
Luapula, flowing from Lakes Bangweolo and Moero, was known by the
name of the Lualaba, and Livingstone hoped to explore it. Would the
Lualaba prove to be the Nile or the Congo? That was the question he
wanted to settle.
At Kabambaré the chief was called Moenékoos, a name meaning "Lord of
the light-grey, red-tailed parrot": and he proved so friendly, that
Livingstone rested in his village for ten days. Then, starting again
in November, the explorer went westward, through Manyema, till he
reached the River Luama, at a point ten miles from its junction with
the great Lualaba.
The country through which they passed was wonderful in its beauty.
Tall palms and forest timber crowded the valleys and clothed the
hillsides to the skyline. Giant creepers, as thick as cables, were
twisted round the massive trunks, or hung from limb to limb, and tree
to tree, like the rigging of a ship. Lilies, orchids, clematis, and
marigolds opened their rich colours to the light and poured their
scent into the air; while all kinds of fruit clustered among the
leaves. Gaudy parrots and other gay-feathered birds flashed about in
the brilliant heat, while tribes of monkeys ran up the trunks,
scampered along the branches, or swung themselves on the rope-like
creepers. Sometimes a group of these would get together in a
tree-top, and there they would chatter and grin about the news of the
day, and the latest fashions of the monkey world. Sometimes they
would jabber and grimace more earnestly, as though about monkey
politics; and at times they lost their tempers and pelted each other
with nuts and husks. Now and then one of them, either from annoyance
or for sheer mischief, would take a shot at the travellers.
Villages were very frequent; and many of the natives kept goats,
sheep, and fowls, and also had gardens of maize, bananas, and
sugar-cane. Others were helpless and ignorant, even not knowing how
to light a fire by twirling a pointed stick round and round inside a
hole in a slab of wood.
The natives were not very friendly, for they believed that
Livingstone was a slaver. Some of them said they were cannibals, and
in order to frighten his bearers, showed them the skull of a "soko"
or gorilla, which they had eaten. Livingstone found, however, that
they never ate men; but often enticed a soko with a clump of bananas,
and then speared him for food.
At the Luama, nothing could induce the natives to let Livingstone
have a canoe with which to explore the Lualaba. He found out
afterwards that even his own bearers tried to set the natives against
him; for this, they thought, would force him to give up his journey
and take them home. Indeed, the ceaseless worry of these worthless
rascals did more to wear him out than all the toils of the journey.
Disappointed, but not beaten, Livingstone returned to Kabambaré, and
stayed there for many months till the rainy season was over. Then,
in June 1870, he started with only his three faithful followers,
Susi, Chuma, and Gardner, and again made the attempt to explore the
great river. But the natives, made unfriendly by the Arabs, refused
to sell them food, and they soon grew ill and exhausted. Tramping
through thorns on land, wading among sharp reeds and biting leeches
in the swamps, their feet were cut and torn, and their wounds refused
to heal. There was nothing to be done but to return to Kabambaré:
and this they did, reaching it so worn out and lamed, that they took
three months to recover.
Livingstone was on the point of setting out a third time for the
Lualaba, when he heard that his new bearers from Zanzibar were on
their way towards him. He waited for them a long while, in the hope
of letters, medicines, and stores, but his time and his hope were
wasted. On 4th February 1871, ten worthless slaves came up with only
one letter. Dozens of Livingstone's letters had been lost or
destroyed, and their headman, Shereef, had stayed behind at Ujiji,
spending all Livingstone's stores.
In less than a week the new bearers rebelled, and it took all
Livingstone's powers to make them go forward. But in the end
patience and extra wages persuaded them to go on, and at last
Livingstone reached Nyangwé, on the Lualaba, on 29th March 1871.
Here again the Arab slavers prevented him from getting canoes, so he
could go no farther down the stream. But he heard that the Lualaba
bore round so much to the westward, that he now thought it might
prove to be the Congo.
While Livingstone was thinking what next he should do, there happened
before his eyes a thing so utterly cruel, that it swept all else from
his mind. He was walking in the native market, on the river bank at
Nyangwé, watching the people exchanging their wares. The natives
from the other shore came over in canoes every day to join in the
marketing, and that morning about 1500 of them, mostly women, were
present.
As Livingstone was moving away to his hut, he noticed that many of
the Arabs were about with their rifles; and presently he heard shots
in the market behind him. Turning sharply round, he saw that the
Arabs were firing into the middle of the helpless crowd, who fled
shrieking to their canoes. These were all jammed together in a small
creek, and the natives struggled and fell over each other in the
effort to get them out.
Then a large party of Arabs, concealed near the creek, shot into the
huddled mass, and the slaughter became terrible. Hundreds plunged
into the river, and struck out for the other bank, while the
murderers fired at them in the water. Some of the canoes were
launched, and their crews escaped; others were overloaded and upset.
Many of the swimmers were picked up by their friends, but a large
number were overcome by the strong current and sank. In all, about
three or four hundred perished. One Arab took a canoe, and picked up
some of the survivors, but the sight of Livingstone made him ashamed,
and he gave them up to his care. Livingstone managed to save more
than thirty, and he kept them safe till he was able to return them to
their people. While the massacre was going on, the slaves from the
Arab camp carried off all that had been left by the natives in the
terror and tumult of their flight.
Livingstone at once made up his mind to return to Ujiji, and to send
a report of this wicked outrage to England. He felt sure that his
countrymen would now come to the rescue of this unhappy land, and he
was right. His report of the massacre on the Lualaba was the
deathblow to slavery in Central Africa, for it roused the whole
English people. The British Government at once set to work, and,
with the help of other nations, the slave trade was slowly but surely
ended.
The tramp to Ujiji was full of hardship and danger. Livingstone was
very ill, and in pain every step of the way, but the love of his duty
carried him on. The cowardly Arab slavers knew his intention; and,
though they dared not touch him themselves, they tried to persuade
the tribes on his path to murder him. But most of the natives had
now seen for themselves that Livingstone was not a slaver, and they
answered that he was "the good one," and they would not kill him.
Some of them, however, laid in ambush, and threw spears at him as he
passed. He had several narrow escapes, and in one day a spear grazed
his neck and another missed him by only a few inches.
At last, after trudging more than 500 miles in three months of daily
suffering and risk, he crossed Tanganyika, and reached Ujiji at the
end of October. He was worn out and at death's door, and now he
found he was beggared. Shereef had made away with all his stores,
and not an atom was left.
In this terrible need a friend came to him as suddenly as though
dropped from the clouds. One day his followers heard that a white
man was coming into Ujiji, and they rushed at once to tell their
master. Livingstone went out to meet the stranger, and found, to his
surprise, that a young journalist, H. M. Stanley, was coming to his
relief, with a large caravan of stores.
Livingstone's work against the slave trade had made him so much liked
in America, that an American, J. Gordon Bennet, had sent Stanley to
find the great explorer, whom everybody thought to be lost.
This kind and generous act from another nation than his own, touched
Livingstone very much, and he and Stanley became fast friends.
Livingstone in return told all he knew about Africa, and Stanley was
always grateful for this help when it became his turn to be a great
explorer.