DR. LIVINGSTONE STILL IN AFRICA.
The Great Explorer Still in Search of the Sources of the Nile -- His
Letters to the English Government on His Explorations --
Correspondence with Lord Stanley, Lord Clarendon, Earl Granville, Dr.
Kirk and James Gordon Bennett, Jr. -- His Own Descriptions of Central
Africa and the Supposed Sources of the Nile -- The Country and People
-- A Nation of Cannibals -- Beautiful Women -- Gorillas -- The
Explorer’s Plans for the Future.
When Mr. Stanley bade good-bye to Dr. Livingstone in Unyanyembe, the
explorer entrusted to the care of the correspondent despatches to the
government, his journal, addressed to his daughter, and copies of
letters of which former messengers had been robbed. The letters, old and
new, to the representative of the British government at Zanzibar, Dr.
Kirk, and to different members of the British cabinet, were allowed to
be published. They give a full account of Dr. Livingstone’s explorations
among the supposed true sources of the Nile, and abundantly establish
the complete success of the “Herald” search expedition. The letters to
the British authorities thus sent to the press, August 1, 1872, through
the courtesy of Earl Granville, were: 1. A letter from Dr. Livingstone
to Lord Stanley, under date of November 15, 1870; 2. Two letters of
November 1, 1871, to Lord Clarendon; 3. A letter of November 14, 1871,
to Earl Granville; 4. Letter of October 30, 1871, to Dr. Kirk, British
Consul at Zanzibar; 5. Letter of December 18, 1871 to Earl Granville;
6. Letter of February 20, 1872, to Earl Granville.
The first of these despatches to his government is from “Bambarre,
Manyema country, say about one hundred and fifty miles west of Ujiji,
Nov. 15, 1870,” addressed to Lord Stanley, Secretary of State for
Foreign Affairs. In this dispatch, much is contained which Dr.
Livingstone orally related to Mr. Stanley, of the “Herald,” and which
has already appeared in this work. The country of the Manyema, reputed
cannibals, is described generally thus:
“The country is extremely beautiful, but difficult to travel over. The
mountains of light gray granite stand like islands in new red sandstone,
and mountain and valley are all clad in a mantle of different shades of
green. The vegetation is indescribably rank. Through the grass--if grass
it can be called, which is over half an inch in diameter in the stalk
and from ten to twelve feet high--nothing but elephants can walk. The
leaves of this megatherium grass are armed with minute spikes, which, as
we worm our way along elephant walks, rub disagreeably on the side of
the face where the gun is held, and the hand is made sore by fending it
off the other side for hours. The rains were fairly set in by November;
and in the mornings, or after a shower, these leaves were loaded with a
moisture which wet us to the bone. The valleys are deeply undulating,
and in each innumerable dells have to be crossed. There may be only a
thread of water at the bottom, but the mud, mire or (_scottice_) ‘glaur’
is grevious; thirty or forty yards of the path on each side of the
stream are worked by the feet of passengers into an adhesive
compound. By placing a foot on each side of the narrow way one may
waddle a little distance along, but the rank crop of grasses, gingers,
and bushes cannot spare the few inches of soil required for the side of
the foot, and down he comes into the slough. The path often runs along
the bed of the rivulet for sixty or more yards, as if he who first cut
it out went that distance seeking for a part of the forest less dense
for his axe. In other cases the muale palm, from which here, as in
Madagascar, grass cloth is woven and called by the same name, ‘lamba,’
has taken possession of the valley. The leaf stalks, as thick as a
strong man’s arm, fall off and block up all passage save by a path made
and mixed up by the feet of elephants and buffaloes; the slough therein
is groan-compelling and deep.
[Illustration: “I’LL SHOOT YOU, IF YOU DROP THAT BOX.”]
“Some of the numerous rivers which in this region flow into Lualaba are
covered with living vegetable bridges--a species of dark glossy-leaved
grass, with its roots and leaves, felts itself into a mat that covers
the whole stream. When stepped upon it yields twelve or fifteen inches,
and that amount of water rises upon the leg. At every step the foot has
to be raised high enough to place it on the unbent mass in front. This
high stepping fatigues like walking on deep snow. Here and there holes
appear which we could not sound with a stick six feet long; they gave
the impression that anywhere one might plump through and finish the
chapter. Where the water is shallow the lotus, or sacred lily, sends its
roots to the bottom and spreads its broad leaves over the floating
bridge so as to make believe that the mat is its own, but the grass
referred to is the real felting and supporting agent, for it often
performs duty as bridge where no lilies grow. The bridge is called by
Manyema ‘kintefwetefwe,’ as if he who first coined it was gasping for
breath after plunging over a mile of it.
“Between each district of Manyema large belts of the primeval forest
still stand. Into these the sun, though vertical, cannot penetrate,
except by sending down at midday thin pencils of rays into the gloom.
The rain water stands for months in stagnant pools made by the feet of
elephants; and the dead leaves decay on the damp soil, and make the
water of the numerous rivulets of the color of strong tea. The climbing
plants, from the size of whipcord to that of a man-of-war’s hawser, are
so numerous the ancient path is the only passage. When one of the giant
trees falls across the road it forms a wall breast high to be climbed
over, and the mass of tangled ropes brought down makes cutting a path
round it a work of time which travellers never undertake.”
At this time, Dr. Livingstone was not persuaded that the Manyema were
men-eaters. Toward the conclusion of his letter to Lord Stanley, he thus
describes them:
“I lived in what may be called the Tipperary of Manyema, and they are
certainly a bloody people among themselves. But they are very far from
being in appearance like the ugly negroes on the West Coast. Finely
formed heads are common, and generally men and women are vastly superior
to the slaves of Zanzibar and elsewhere. We must go deeper than
phrenology to account for their low moral tone. If they are cannibals
they are not ostentatiously so. The neighboring tribes all assert that
they are men-eaters, and they themselves laughingly admit the charge.
But they like to impose on the credulous, and they showed the skull of a
recent victim to horrify one of my people. I found it to be the skull of
a gorilla, or soko--the first I knew of its existence here--and this
they do eat. If I had believed a tenth of what I heard from traders, I
might never have entered the country. Their people told tales with
shocking circumstantiality, as if of eye witnesses, that could not be
committed to paper, or even spoken about beneath the breath. Indeed, one
wishes them to vanish from memory. I have not yet been able to make up
my mind whether the Manyema are cannibals or not. I have offered goods
of sufficient value to tempt any of them to call me to see a cannibal
feast in the dark forests where these orgies are said to be held, but
hitherto in vain. All the real evidence yet obtained would elicit from a
Scotch jury the verdict only of ‘not proven.’”
The second despatch, a year later, is devoted to the expression of
thanks to Lord Clarendon, on account of the expedition of search under
Mr. Young, of which an account has already been given; to an explanation
of Ali Moosa’s story of the explorer’s death, and an earnest request
that the money expended on him and his fellow-impostors might be
regained.
The third document of the series, being also a letter to Lord
Clarendon, presents an account of Dr. Livingstone’s explorations and
views on the watershed of the Nile more _in extenso_ than anywhere else
given. It is certainly one of the most interesting and valuable
contributions to modern science. The readers of this volume cannot but
feel that a large share of this interesting document may appropriately
be quoted here.
“I have ascertained that the watershed of the Nile is a broad upland
between ten degrees and twelve degrees south latitude, and from 4,000 to
5,000 feet above the level of the sea. Mountains stand on it at various
points, which, though not apparently very high, are between 6,000 and
7,000 feet of actual altitude. The watershed is over 700 miles in
length, from west to east. The springs that rise on it are almost
innumerable--that is, it would take a large part of a man’s life to
count them. A bird’s-eye view of some parts of the watershed would
resemble the frost vegetation on window panes. They all begin in an ooze
at the head of a slightly depressed valley. A few hundred yards down the
quantity of water from oozing earthen sponge forms a brisk perennial
burn or brook a few feet broad, and deep enough to require a bridge.
These are the ultimate or primary sources of the great rivers that flow
to the north in the great Nile valley. The primaries unite and form
streams in general larger than the Isis at Oxford or Avon at Hamilton,
and may be called secondary sources. They never dry, but unite again
into four large lines of drainage, the head waters or mains of the river
of Egypt. These four are each called by the natives Lualaba, which, if
not too pedantic, may be spoken of as lacustrine rivers, extant
specimens of those which, in pre-historic times, abounded in Africa, and
which in the south are still called by Bechuanas ‘Melapo,’ in the north,
by Arabs, ‘Wadys;’ both words meaning the same thing--river bed in which
no water ever now flows. Two of the four great rivers mentioned fall
into the central Lualaba, or Webb’s Lake River, and then we have but two
main lines of drainage as depicted nearly by Ptolemy.
“In passing over sixty miles of latitude I waded thirty-two primary
sources from calf to waist deep, and requiring from twenty minutes to an
hour and a quarter to cross stream and sponge. This would give about one
source to every two miles. A Suaheli friend in passing along part of the
Lake Bangweolo during six days counted twenty-two from thigh to waist
deep. This lake is on the watershed, for the village at which I observed
on its northwest shore was a few seconds into eleven degrees south. I
tried to cross it in order to measure the breadth accurately. The first
stage to an inhabited island was about twenty-four miles. From the
highest point here the tops of the trees, evidently lifted by the
mirage, could be seen on the second stage and the third stage; the
mainland was said to be as far as this beyond it. But my canoe men had
stolen the canoe and got a hint that the real owners were in pursuit,
and got into a flurry to return home.
“The length of this lake is, at a very moderate estimate, 150 miles. It
gives forth a large body of water in the Luapula; yet lakes are in no
sense sources for no large river begins in a lake; but this and others
serve an important purpose in the phenomena of the Nile. It is one large
lake, and, unlike the Okara, which, according to Suaheli, who travelled
long in our company, is three or four lakes run into one huge Victoria
Nianza, gives out a large river which, on departing out of Moero, is
still larger. These men had spent many years east of Okara, and could
scarcely be mistaken in saying that of the three or four lakes there
only one (the Okara) gives off its waters to the north. The ‘White Nile’
of Speke, less by a full half than the Shire out of Nyassa (for it is
only eighty or ninety yards broad), can scarcely be named in comparison
with the central or Webb’s Lualaba, of from two thousand to six thousand
yards, in relation to the phenomena of the Nile. The structure and
economy of the watershed answer very much the same end as the great
lacustrine rivers, but I cannot at present copy a lost despatch which
explained that. The mountains on the watershed are probably what
Ptolemy, for reasons now unknown, called the Mountains of the Moon. From
their bases I found that the springs of the Nile do unquestionably
arise. This is just what Ptolemy put down, and is true geography. We
must accept the fountains, and nobody but Philistines will reject the
mountains, though we cannot conjecture the reason for the name.
“Before leaving the subject of the watershed, I may add that I know
about six hundred miles of it, but am not yet satisfied, for
unfortunately the seventh hundred is the most interesting of the whole.
I have a very strong impression that in the last hundred miles the
fountains of the Nile, mentioned to Herodotus by the Secretary of
Minerva in the city of Sais do arise, not like all the rest, from oozing
earthen sponges, but from an earthen mound, and half the water flows
northward to Egypt, the other half south to Inner Ethiopia. These
fountains, at no great distance off, become large rivers, though at the
mound they are not more than ten miles apart. That is, one fountain
rising on the northeast of the mound becomes Bartle Frere’s Lualaba, and
it flows into one of the lakes proper, Kamolondo, of the central line of
drainage; Webb’s Lualaba, the second fountain rising on the Northwest,
becomes (Sir Paraffin) Young’s Lualaba, which passing through Lake
Lincoln and becoming Loeki or Lomame, and joining the central line too,
goes north to Egypt. The third fountain on the southwest, Palmerston’s,
becomes the Liambia or Upper Zambesi; while the fourth, Oswell’s
fountain, becomes the Kafue, and falls into Zambesi in Inner Ethiopia.
“More time has been spent in the exploration than I ever anticipated.
Many a weary foot I trod ere I got a clear idea of the drainage of the
great Nile valley. The most intelligent natives and traders thought that
all the rivers of the upper part of that valley flowed into Tanganyika.
But the barometers told me that to do so the water must flow up hill.
The great rivers and the great lakes all make their waters converge into
the deep trough of the valley, which is a full inch of the barometer
lower than the Upper Tanganyika.
“Let me explain, but in no boastful style, the mistakes of others who
have bravely striven to solve the ancient problem, and it will be seen
that I have cogent reasons for following the painful, plodding
investigation to its conclusion. Poor Speke’s mistake was a foregone
conclusion. When he discovered the Victoria Nyansa he at once jumped to
the conclusion that therein lay the sources of the river of Egypt,
‘20,000 square miles of water,’ confused by sheer immensity. Ptolemy’s
small lake, Coloc, is a more correct representation of the actual size
of that one of three or four lakes which alone sends its outflow to the
north. Its name is Okara. Lake Kavirondo is three days distant from it,
but connected by a narrow arm. Lake Naibash, or Neibash, is four days
from Kavirondo. Baringo is ten days distant, and discharges by a river,
the Nagardabash, to the northeast.
“These three or four lakes, which have been described by several
intelligent Suaheli, who have lived for many years on their shores, were
run into one huge Victoria Nyanza. But no sooner did Speke and Grant
turn their faces to this lake, to prove that it contained the Nile
fountains, than they turned their backs to the springs of the river of
Egypt, which are between four hundred and five hundred miles south of
the most southerly portion of the Victoria Lake. Every step of their
heroic and really splendid achievement of following the river down took
them further and further from the sources they sought. But for the
devotion to the foregone conclusion the sight of the little ‘White
Nile,’ as unable to account for the great river, they must have turned
off to the west down into the deep trough of the great valley, and there
found lacustrine rivers amply sufficient to account for the Nile and all
its phenomena.
“But all that can in modern times and in common modesty be fairly
claimed is the re-discovery of what had sunk into oblivion, like the
circumnavigation of Africa by the Phœnician admirals of one of the
Pharaohs about B. C. 600. He was not believed because he reported that
in passing round Libya he had the sun on his right hand. This, to us who
have gone round the Cape from east to west, stamps his tale as genuine.
The predecessors of Ptolemy probably gained their information from men
who visited this very region, for in the second century of our era he
gave in substance what we now find to be genuine geography.
“The geographical results of four arduous trips in different directions
in the Manyema country are briefly as follows:--The great river, Webb’s
Lualaba, in the center of the Nile valley, makes a great bend to the
west, soon after leaving Lake Moero, of at least one hundred and eighty
miles; then, turning to the north for some distance, it makes another
large sweep west of about one hundred and twenty miles, in the course of
which about thirty miles of southing are made; it then draws round to
northeast, receives the Lomani, or Loeki, a large river which flows
through Lake Lincoln. After the union a large lake is formed, with many
inhabited islands in it; but this has still to be explored. It is the
fourth large lake in the central line of drainage, and cannot be Lake
Albert; for, assuming Speke’s longitude of Ujiji to be pretty correct,
and my reckoning not enormously wrong, the great central lacustrine
river is about five degrees west of Upper and Lower Tanganyika.
“Beyond the fourth lake the water passes, it is said, into large reedy
lakes, and is in all probability Petherick’s branch--the main stream of
the Nile--in distinction from the smaller eastern arm which Speke,
Grant, and Baker took to be the river of Egypt. In my attempts to
penetrate further and further I had but little hope of ultimate success,
for the great amount of westing led to a continued effort to suspend the
judgment, lest, after all, I might be exploring the Congo instead of the
Nile, and it was only after the two great western drains fell into the
central main, and left but the two great lacustrine rivers of Ptolemy,
that I felt pretty sure of being on the right track.
“The great bends west probably form one side of the great rivers above
that geographical loop, the other side being Upper Tanganyika and the
Lake River Albert. A waterfall is reported to exist between Tanganyika
and Albert Nyanza, but I could not go to it; nor have I seen the
connecting link between the two--the upper side of the loop--though I
believe it exists.
“The Manyema are certainly cannibals, but it was long ere I could get
evidence more positive than would have led a Scotch jury to give a
verdict of ‘not proven.’ They eat only enemies killed in war; they seem
as if instigated by revenge in their man-eating orgies, and on these
occasions they do not like a stranger to see them. I offered a large
reward in vain to any one who would call me to witness a cannibal feast.
Some intelligent men have told me that the meat is not nice and made
them dream of the dead. The women never partake, and I am glad of it,
for many of them far down Lualaba are very pretty; they bathe three or
four times a day and are expert divers for oysters.
“Markets are held at stated times and the women attend them in large
numbers, dressed in their best. They are light colored, have straight
noses, finely formed heads, small hands and feet and perfect forms; they
are keen traders, and look on the market as a great institution; to
haggle and joke and laugh and cheat seem the enjoyments of life. The
population, especially west of the river, is prodigiously large.
“Near Lomani the Bakuss or Bakoons cultivate coffee, and drink it highly
scented with vanilla. Food of all kinds is extremely abundant and cheap.
The men smelt iron from the black oxide ore, and are very good smiths;
they also smelt copper from the ore and make large ornaments very
cheaply. They are generally fine, tall, strapping fellows, far superior
to the Zanzibar slaves, and nothing of the West Coast negro, from whom
our ideas of Africans are chiefly derived, appears among them; no
prognathous jaws, barndoor mouth, nor lark heels are seen. Their defects
arise from absolute ignorance of all the world.
“There is not a single great chief in all Manyema. No matter what name
the different divisions of people bear--Manyema, Balegga, Babire,
Bazire, Bokoos--there is no political cohesion; not one king or
kingdom. Each head man is independent of every other. The people are
industrious, and most of them cultivate the soil largely. We found them
every where very honest. When detained at Bambarre we had to send our
goats and fowls to the Manyema villages to prevent them being all stolen
by the Zanzibar slaves.
“Manyema land is the only country in Central Africa I have seen where
cotton is not cultivated, spun, and woven. The clothing is that known in
Madagascar as ‘lambas’ or grass cloth, made from the leaves of the
‘Muale’ palm.”
This despatch, it will be observed, is about a year later than the one
to Lord Stanley, in which the statement occurs that the fact as to
whether the Manyema were man-eaters was “not proven,” though the
explorer observed that they ate the gorilla, of which beast Dr.
Livingstone evidently has a rather favorable opinion, as respects his
disposition, and as surely holds his gross stupidity as clearly
demonstrated. In the development of instinct, there appear to be several
animals in Africa approaching nearer the capacity of reflection than the
gorilla.
The next despatch is to Earl Granville, and is dated at Ujiji, November,
1871. It is almost wholly official, and relates in a clear and most
forcible manner, the insurmountable difficulties by reason of which he
had been forced to cease explorations at a time when a little longer
work would most probably have been crowned with complete success. It is
in this despatch that Dr. Livingstone relates the particulars of the
horrid massacre at Nyanme, the fearful outlines of which have appeared
in Mr. Stanley’s letter already quoted. On his return to Ujiji, Dr.
Livingstone narrowly escaped death three times in a single day from the
savages, who would not be persuaded that he did not belong to “the
traders” guilty of the massacre.
The despatch to Dr. Kirk, Consul at Zanzibar, is of interest, as showing
how the explorer had been annoyed, pained, and his plans frustrated by
the inefficiency of those charged with sending him supplies from
Zanzibar. In view of the dispute that has arisen upon this subject among
certain representatives of public opinion in the United States and
England, it may be well to show whether Dr. Livingstone himself thought
he had been well or ill treated. In a postscript to this communication,
he says, with evident reluctance and evident feeling:
“P. S.--November 16, 1871.--I regret the necessity of bringing the
foregoing very unpleasant subject before you, but I have just received
letters and information which make the matter doubly serious. Mr.
Churchill informed me by a letter of September 19, 1870, that Her
Majesty’s government had most kindly sent £1,000 for supplies, to be
forwarded to me. Some difficulties had occurred to prevent £500 worth
from starting, but in the beginning of November all were removed. But it
appears that you had recourse to slaves again, and one of these slaves
informs me that goods and slaves all remained at Bagamoio four months,
or till near the end of February, 1871. No one looked near them during
that time, but a rumor reached them that the Consul was coming, and off
they started, two days before your arrival, not on their business, but
on some private trip of your own. These slaves came to Unyanyembe in May
last, and there they lay till war broke out and gave them, in July, a
good excuse to lie there still.
“A whole year has thus been spent in feasting slaves on £500 sent by
government to me. Like the man who was tempted to despair when he broke
the photograph of his wife, I feel inclined to relinquish hope of ever
getting help from Zanzibar to finish the little work I have still to do.
I wanted men, not slaves, and free men are abundant at Zanzibar; but if
the matter is committed to Ludha instead of an energetic Arab, with some
little superintendence by your dragoman or others, I may wait twenty
years and your slaves feast and fail.
D. L.
“I will just add that the second batch of slaves had, like the first,
two freemen as the leaders, and one died of smallpox. The freemen in the
first party of slaves were Shereef and Awathe. I enclose also a
shameless overcharge in Ludha’s bill. $364 06¹⁄₂.--D. L.”
This should appear to be a complete justification of Mr. Stanley’s
energetic animadversions upon the general maladministration of affairs
at Zanzibar by the British Consulate there so far as they were related
to Dr. Livingstone. It should be a source of honest congratulation to
every American that a citizen of the United States, representing one of
the most widely circulated public journals of the nation, energetically
sent forward “men, not slaves,” and furnished supplies by means of
which, it may reasonably be expected, the explorer may proceed with his
great work and accomplish the object so dear to his admirable ambition.
Dr. Livingstone’s next dispatch is to Earl Granville, from Ujiji,
December 18, 1871. It is almost wholly of an official nature, containing
his theory, already herein set forth, of the watershed of the Nile, but
contains a paragraph relating the arrival of the “Herald” expedition,
which is well worthy of quotation:
“A vague rumor reached Ujiji in the beginning of last month that an
Englishman had come to Unyanyembe with boats, horses, men, and goods in
abundance. It was in vain to conjecture who this could be; and my eager
inquiries were met by answers so contradictory that I began to doubt if
any stranger had come at all. But one day, I cannot say which, for I was
three weeks too fast in my reckoning, my man Susi came dashing up in
great excitement, and gasped out, ‘An Englishman coming; see him!’ and
off he ran to meet him. The American flag at the head of the caravan
told me the nationality of the stranger. It was Henry M. Stanley, the
travelling correspondent of the NEW YORK ‘Herald,’ sent by the son of
the editor, James Gordon Bennett, Jr., at an expense of £5,000, to
obtain correct information about me if living, and if dead to bring home
my bones. The kindness was extreme, and made my whole frame thrill with
excitement and gratitude. I had been left nearly destitute by the moral
idiot Shereef selling off my goods for slaves and ivory for himself. My
condition was sufficiently forlorn, for I had but a few articles of
barter left of what I had taken the precaution to leave here, in case of
extreme need. The strange news Mr. Stanley had to tell to one for years
out of communication with the world was quite reviving. Appetite
returned, and in a week I began to feel strong. Having men and goods,
and information that search for an outlet of the Tanganyika was desired
by Sir Roderick Murchison, we went for a month’s cruise down its
northern end. This was a pleasure trip compared to the weary tramping of
all the rest of my work; but an outflow we did not find.”
The opening paragraph of the dispatch from which this is taken is so
finely characteristic, that it should not be omitted. Dr. Livingstone
began his letter to Lord Clarendon’s successor in this beautifully
courteous manner:
“MY LORD--The despatch of Lord Clarendon, dated 31st May, 1870, came to
this place on the 13th ult., and its very kindly tone and sympathy
afforded me a world of encouragement. Your lordship will excuse me in
saying that with my gratitude there mingled sincere sorrow that the
personal friend who signed it was no more.”
[Illustration: THE CAMP OF AN EARLY EXPLORER.]
The last of these despatches of the explorer was the longest, and,
perhaps, the most worthy of his fame. Addressed to Earl Granville, it
was a clear, full statement of the prevalence of the African slave trade
and a terrible denunciation of it, together with a proposition “which,”
he says, “I have very much at heart--the possibility of encouraging the
native Christians of English settlements on the west coast of Africa,
to remove, by voluntary emigration, to a healthy spot on this side the
continent.” There are in Zanzibar a considerable number of British
subjects from India, called Banians. They are, like all British
subjects, prohibited from engaging in the slave trade, but shrewdly
managing to throw the responsibility upon the Arabs, they are in fact
responsible for the slave trade of Zanzibar and all the horrible
“slaving” of East Africa. “The Manyema cannibals,” says Dr. Livingstone,
in this dispatch to Earl Granville, “among whom I spent nearly two
years, are innocents compared with our protected Banian fellow-subjects.
By their Arab agents they compass the destruction of more human lives in
one year than the Manyema do for their fleshpots in ten.” “Slaves are
not bought,” he says in another place, “in the countries to which the
Banian agents proceed. Indeed it is a mistake to call the system of
Ujiji ‘slave trade’ at all; the captives are not traded for, but
murdered for, and the gangs which are dragged coastwise are usually not
slaves, but captive free people.” To eradicate this fearful wrong, the
practical remedy proposed by the explorer in his letter to Earl
Granville is encouragement by the British government to the voluntary
emigration of native Christians from the English settlements of the West
Coast to the East Coast. In reply to the argument of the unhealthfulness
of this portion of Africa he says that the fevers are bad enough indeed,
but that very much more of the disease prevailing is due to intemperance
and gross licentiousness than fever. The whole dispatch is a
demonstration of Dr. Livingstone’s earnest piety, humanity and practical
sagacity. If there are some passages in it which show that his Highland
blood is up, they may be attributed to a fiery hatred of injustice.
These quotations from Dr. Livingstone’s letters of this important period
of his life will be appropriately concluded with his letter of thanks to
the editor of the “Herald”:
“UJIJI, ON TANGANYIKA, }
“EAST AFRICA, November, 1871.}
“JAMES GORDON BENNETT, Esq., Jr.:--
“MY DEAR SIR--It is in general somewhat difficult to write to one we
have never seen--it feels so much like addressing an abstract idea--but
the presence of your representative, Mr. H. M. Stanley, in this distant
region takes away the strangeness I should otherwise have felt, and in
writing to thank you for the extreme kindness that prompted you to send
him, I feel quite at home.
“If I explain the forlorn condition in which he found me you will easily
perceive that I have good reason to use very strong expressions of
gratitude. I came to Ujiji off a tramp of between four hundred and five
hundred miles, beneath a blazing vertical sun, having been baffled,
worried, defeated and forced to return, when almost in sight of the end
of the geographical part of my mission, by a number of half-caste Moslem
slaves sent to me from Zanzibar, instead of men. The sore heart made
still sorer by the woful sights I had seen of man’s inhumanity to man
reached and told on the bodily frame and depressed it beyond measure. I
thought that I was dying on my feet. It is not too much to say that
almost every step of the weary sultry way was in pain, and I reached
Ujiji a mere ‘ruckle’ of bones.
“There I found that some five hundred pounds sterling worth of goods
which I had ordered from Zanzibar had unaccountably been entrusted to a
drunken half-caste Moslem tailor, who, after squandering them for
sixteen months on the way to Ujiji, finished up by selling off all that
remained for slaves and ivory for himself. He had “divined” on the Koran
and found that I was dead. He had also written to the Governor of
Unyanyembe that he had sent slaves after me to Manyema, who returned and
reported my decease, and begged permission to sell off the few goods
that his drunken appetite had spared. He, however, knew perfectly well,
from men who had seen me, that I was alive, and waiting for the goods
and men; but as for morality, he is evidently an idiot, and there being
no law here except that of the dagger or musket, I had to sit down in
great weakness, destitute of everything save a few barter cloths and
beads, which I had taken the precaution to leave here in case of extreme
need. The near prospect of beggary among Ujijians made me miserable. I
could not despair, because I laughed so much at a friend who, on
reaching the mouth of the Zambezi, said that he was tempted to despair
on breaking the photograph of his wife. We could have no success after
that. Afterward the idea of despair had to me such a strong smack of the
ludicrous that it was out of the question.
“Well, when I had got to about the lowest verge, vague rumors of an
English visitor reached me. I thought of myself as the man who went down
from Jerusalem to Jericho; but neither priest, Levite, nor Samaritan
could possibly pass my way. Yet the good Samaritan was close at hand,
and one of my people rushed up at the top of his speed, and, in great
excitement, gasped out, ‘An Englishman coming! I see him!’ and off he
darted to meet him. An American flag, the first ever seen in these
parts, at the head of a caravan, told me the nationality of the
stranger. I am as cold and non-demonstrative as we islanders are usually
reputed to be; but your kindness made my frame thrill. It was, indeed,
overwhelming, and I said in my soul, ‘Let the richest blessings descend
from the Highest on you and yours!’
“The news Mr. Stanley had to tell was thrilling. The mighty political
changes on the Continent; the success of the Atlantic cables; the
election of General Grant, and many other topics riveted my attention
for days together, and had an immediate and beneficial effect on my
health. I had been without news from home for years save what I could
glean from a few _Saturday Reviews_ and _Punch_ of 1868. The appetite
revived, and in a week I began to feel strong again.
“Mr. Stanley brought a most kind and encouraging despatch from Lord
Clarendon, whose loss I sincerely deplore, the first I have received
from the Foreign Office since 1866, and information that the British
government had kindly sent a thousand pounds sterling to my aid. Up to
his arrival I was not aware of any pecuniary aid. I came unsalaried, but
this want is now happily repaired, and I am anxious that you and all my
friends should know that, though uncheered by letter, I have stuck to
the task which my friend Sir Roderick Murchison set me with ‘John
Bullish’ tenacity, believing that all would come right at last.
“The watershed of South Central Africa is over seven hundred miles in
length. The fountains thereon are almost innumerable--that is, it would
take a man’s lifetime to count them. From the watershed they converge
into four large rivers, and these again into two mighty streams in the
great Nile valley, which begins in ten degrees to twelve degrees south
latitude. It was long ere light dawned on the ancient problem and gave
me a clear idea of the drainage. I had to feel my way, and every step of
the way, and was, generally, groping in the dark, for who cared where
the waters ran? We drank our fill and let the rest run by.
“The Portuguese who visited Cazemba asked for slaves and ivory, and
heard of nothing else. I asked about the waters, questioned and
cross-questioned, until I was almost afraid of being set down as
afflicted with hydrocephalus.
“My last work, in which I have been greatly hindered from want of
suitable attendants, was following the central line of drainage down
through the country of the cannibals, called Manyuema, or, shortly,
Manyema. This line of drainage has four large lakes in it. The fourth I
was near when obliged to turn. It is from one to three miles broad, and
never can be reached at any point or at any time of the year. Two
western drains, the Lupira, or Bartle Frere’s River, flow into it at
Lake Kamolondo. Then the great River Lomaine flows through Lake Lincoln
into it, too, and seems to form the western arm of the Nile, on which
Petherick traded.
“Now, I knew about six hundred miles of the watershed, and unfortunately
the seventh hundred is the most interesting of the whole; for in it, if
I am not mistaken, four fountains arise from an earthen mound, and the
last of the four becomes, at no great distance off, a large river. Two
of these run north to Egypt, Lupira and Louraine, and two run south into
inner Ethiopia, as the Liambai, or upper Zambezi, and the Kafneare, but
these are but the sources of the Nile mentioned by the Secretary of
Minerva, in the city of Sais to Herodotus. I have heard of them so
often, and at great distances off, that I cannot doubt their existence,
and in spite of the sore longing for home that seizes me every time I
think of my family I wish to finish up by their rediscovery.
“Five hundred pounds sterling worth of goods have again unaccountably
been entrusted to slaves, and have been over a year on the way, instead
of four months. I must go where they lie at your expense, ere I can put
the natural completion to my work.
“And if my disclosures regarding the terrible Ujijian slavery should
lead to the suppression of the east coast slave trade, I shall regard
that as a greater matter by far than the discovery of all the Nile
sources together. Now that you have done with domestic slavery forever,
lend us your powerful aid toward this great object. This fine country is
blighted, as with a curse from above, in order that the slavery
privileges of the petty Sultan of Zanzibar may not be infringed, and the
rights of the Crown of Portugal, which are mythical, should be kept in
abeyance till some future time when Africa will become another India to
Portuguese slave traders.
“I conclude by again thanking you most cordially for your great
generosity, and am,
“Gratefully yours,
“DAVID LIVINGSTONE.”
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