FROM ZANZIBAR TO UJIJI.
A.D. 1866-1869.
Dr. Livingstone goes to mouth of Rovuma--His prayer--His company--His
herd of animals--Loss of his buffaloes--Good spirits when setting
out--Difficulties at Rovuma--Bad conduct of Johanna men--Dismissal of
his Sepoys--Fresh horrors of slave-trade--Uninhabited tract--He reaches
Lake Nyassa--Letter to his son Thomas--Disappointed hopes--His double
aim, to teach natives and rouse horror of slave-trade--Tenor of
religious addresses--Wikatami remains behind--Livingstone finds no
altogether satisfactory station for commerce and missions--Question of
the watershed--Was it worth the trouble?--Overruled for good to
Africa--Opinion of Sir Bartle Frere--At Marenga's--The Johanna men leave
in a body--Circulate rumor of his murder--Sir Roderick disbelieves
it--Mr. E.D. Young sent out with Search Expedition--Finds proof against
rumor--Livingstone half-starved--Loss of his goats--Review of
1866--Reflections on Divine Providence--Letter to Thomas--His dog
drowned--Loss of his medicine-chest--He feels sentence of death passed
on him--First sight of Lake Tanganyika--Detained at
Chitimba's--Discovery of Lake Moero--Occupations during detention of
1867--Great privations and difficulties--Illness--Rebellion among his
men--Discovery of Lake Bangweolo--Its oozy
banks--Detention--Sufferings--He makes for Ujiji--Very severe illness in
beginning of 1869--Reaches Ujiji--Finds his goods have been wasted and
stolen--Most bitter disappointment--His medicines, etc., at
Unyanyembe--Letter to Sultan of Zanzibar--Letters to Dr. Moffat and
his daughter.
On the 19th of March, fortified by a firman from the Sultan to all his
people, and praying the Most High to prosper him, "by granting him
Influence in the eyes of the heathen, and blessing his intercourse with
them," Livingstone left Zanzibar in H.M.S. "Penguin" for the mouth of
the Rovuma. His company consisted of thirteen Sepoys, ten Johanna men,
nine Nassick boys, two Shupanga men, and two Waiyau. Musa, one of the
Johanna men, had been a sailor in the "Lady Nyassa"; Susi and Amoda,
the Shupanga men, had been woodcutters for the "Pioneer"; and the two
Waiyau lads, Wikatani and Chuma, had been among the slaves rescued in
1861, and had lived for some time at the mission station at Chibisa's.
Besides these, he carried with him a sort of menagerie in a dhow--six
camels, three buffaloes and a calf, two mules, and four donkeys. What
man but Dr. Livingstone would have encumbered himself with such baggage,
and for what conceivable purpose except the benefit of Africa? The tame
buffaloes of India were taken that he might try whether, like the wild
buffaloes of Africa, they would resist the bite of the tsetse-fly; the
other animals for the same purpose. There were two words of which
Livingstone might have said, as Queen Mary said of Calais, that at his
death they would be found engraven on his heart--fever and tsetse; the
one the great scourge of man, the other of beast, in South Africa. To
help to counteract two such foes to African civilization no trouble or
expense would have been judged too great. Already he had lost nine of
his buffaloes at Zanzibar. It was a sad pity that owing to the
ill-treatment of the remaining animals by his people, who turned out a
poor lot, it could never be known conclusively whether the tsetse-bite
was fatal to them or not.
In spite of all he had suffered in Africa, and though he was without the
company of a single European, he had, in setting out, something of the
exhilarating feeling of a young traveler starting on his first tour in
Switzerland, deepened by the sense of nobility which there is in every
endeavor to do good to others. "The mere animal pleasure of traveling in
a wild unexplored country is very great.... The sweat of one's brow is
no longer a curse when one works for God; it proves a tonic to the
system, and is actually a blessing." The Rovuma was found to have
changed greatly since his last visit, so that he had to land his goods
twenty-five miles to the north at Mikindany harbor, and find his way
down to the river farther up. The toil was fitted to wear out the
strongest of his men. Nothing could have been more grateful than the
Sunday rest. Through his Nassick boys, he tried to teach the Makondé--a
tribe that bore a very bad character, but failed; however, the people
were wonderfully civil, and, contrary to all previous usage, neither
inflicted fines nor made complaints, though the animals had done some
damage to their corn. He set this down as an answer to his prayers for
influence among the heathen.
His vexations, however, were not long of beginning. Both the Sepoy
marines and the Nassick boys were extremely troublesome, and treated the
animals abominably. The Johanna men were thieves. The Sepoys became so
intolerable that after four months' trial he sent most of them back to
the coast. It required an effort to resist the effect of such, things,
owing to the tendency of the mind to brood over the ills of travel. The
natives were not unkindly, but food was very scarce. As they advanced,
the horrors of the slave-trade presented themselves in all their hideous
aspects. Women were found dead, tied to trees, or lying in the path shot
and stabbed, their fault having been inability to keep up with the
party, while their amiable owners, to prevent them from becoming the
property of any one else, put an end to their lives. In some instances
the captives, yet in the slave-sticks, were found not quite dead.
Brutality was sometimes seen in another form, as when some natives
laughed at a poor boy suffering from a very awkward form of hernia,
whose mother was trying to bind up the part. The slave-trade utterly
demoralized the people; the Arabs bought whoever was brought to them,
and the great extent of forest in the country favored kidnapping;
otherwise the people were honest.
Farther on they passed through an immense uninhabited tract, that had
once evidently had a vast population. Then, in the Waiyau country, west
of Mataka's, came a splendid district 3400 feet above the sea, as well
adapted for a settlement as Magomero, but it had taken them four months
to get at it, while Magomero was reached in three weeks. The abandonment
of that mission he would never cease to regret. As they neared Lake
Nyassa, slave parties became more common. On the 8th August, 1866, they
reached the lake, which seemed to Livingstone like an old familiar
friend which he never expected to see again. He thanked God, bathed
again in the delicious water, and felt quite exhilarated.
Writing to his son Thomas, 28th August, he says:
"The Sepoys were morally unfit for travel, and then we had
hard lines, all of us. Food was not to be had for love or
money. Our finest cloths only brought miserable morsels of
the common grain. I trudged it the whole way, and having no
animal food save what turtle-doves and guinea-fowls we
occasionally shot, I became like one of Pharaoh's lean kine.
The last tramp [to Nyassa] brought us to a land of plenty. It
was over a very fine country, but quite depopulated.... The
principal chief, named Mataka, lives on the watershed
overhanging this, but fifty miles or more distant from this;
his town contained a thousand houses--many of them square, in
imitation of the Arabs. Large patches of English peas in full
bearing grew in the moist hollows, or were irrigated. Cattle
showed that no tsetse existed. When we arrived, Mataka was
just sending back a number of cattle and captives to their
own homes. They had been taken by his people without his
knowledge from Nyassa. I saw them by accident: there were
fifty-four women and children, about a dozen young men and
boys, and about twenty-five or thirty head of cattle. As the
act was spontaneous, it was the more gratifying to
witness....
"I sometimes remember you with some anxiety, as not knowing
what opening may be made for you in life.... Whatever you
feel yourself best fitted for, 'commit thy way to the Lord,
trust also in Him, and He will bring it to pass.' One ought
to endeavor to devote the peculiarities of his nature to his
Redeemer's service, whatever these may be."
Resting at the lake, and working up journal, lunars, and altitudes, he
hears of the arrival of an Englishman at Mataka's, with cattle for him,
"who had two eyes behind as well as two in front--news enough for
awhile." Zoology, botany, and geology engage his attention as usual. He
tries to get across the lake, but cannot, as the slavers own all the
dhows, and will neither lend nor sell to him; he has therefore to creep
on foot round its southern end. Marks of destruction and desolation
again shock the eye--skulls and bones everywhere. At the point where the
Shiré leaves Nyassa, he could not but think of disappointed hopes--the
death of his dear wife, and of the Bishop, the increasing vigor of the
slave-trade, and the abandonment of the Universities Mission. But faith
assured him of good times coming, though he might not live to see them.
Would only he had seen through the vista of the next ten years! Bishop
Tozer done with Africa, and Bishop Steere returning to the old
neighborhood, and resuming the old work of the Universities Mission; and
his own countrymen planted his name on the promontory on which he gazed
so sorrowfully, training the poor natives in the arts of civilization,
rearing Christian households among them, and proclaiming the blessed
Gospel of the God of love!
Invariably as he goes along, Dr. Livingstone aims at two things: at
teaching some of the great truths of Christianity, and rousing
consciences on the atrocious guilt of the slave-trade. In connection
with the former he discovers that his usual way of conducting divine
service--by the reading of prayers--does not give ignorant persons any
idea of an unseen Being; kneeling and praying with the eyes shut is
better. At the foot of the lake he goes out of his way to remonstrate
with Mukaté, one of the chief marauders of the district. The tenor of
his addresses is in some degree shaped by the practices he finds so
prevalent:
"We mention our relationship to our Father, the guilt of selling any of
his children, the consequences:--_e.g._ it begets war, for as they
don't like to sell their own, they steal from other villagers, who
retaliate. Arabs and Waiyau, invited into the country by their selling,
foster feuds,--wars and depopulation ensue. We mention the Bible--future
state--prayer; advise union, that they would unite as one family to
expel enemies, who came first as slave-traders, and ended by leaving the
country a wilderness."
It was about this time that Wikatani, one of the two Waiyau boys who had
been rescued from slavery, finding, as he believed or said, some
brothers and sisters on the western shore of the lake, left Livingstone
and remained with them. There had been an impression in some quarters,
that, according to his wont, Livingstone had made him his slave; to show
the contrary, he gave him his choice of remaining or going, and, when
the boy chose to remain, he acquiesced.
Dr. Livingstone had ere now passed over the ground where, if anywhere,
he might have hoped to find a station for a commercial and missionary
settlement, independent of the Portuguese. In this hope he was rather
disappointed. The only spot he refers to is the district west of
Mataka's, which, however, was so difficult of access. Nearer the coast a
mission might be established, and to this project his mind turned
afterward; but it would not command the Nyassa district. On the whole he
preferred the Zambesi and Shiré valley, with all their difficulties. But
the Rovuma was not hopeless, and indeed, within the last few years, the
Universities Mission has occupied the district successfully.
The geographical question of the watershed had now to be grappled with.
It is natural to ask whether this question was of sufficient importance
to engage his main energies, and justify the incalculable sacrifices
undergone by him during the remaining six years of his life. First of
all, we must remember, it was not his own scheme--it was pressed on him
by Sir Roderick Murchison and the Geographical Society; and it may
perhaps be doubted whether, had he foreseen the cost of the enterprise,
he would have deemed the object worthy of the price. But ever and anon,
he seemed to be close on what he was searching for, and certain to
secure it by just a little further effort; while as often, like the cup
of Tantalus, it was snatched from his grasp. Moreover, during a
life-time of splendid self-discipline, he had been training himself to
keep his promises, and to complete his tasks; nor could he in any way
see it his duty to break the one or leave the other unfinished. He had
undertaken to the Geographical Society to solve that problem, and he
would do it if it could be done. Wherever he went he had always some
opportunity to make known the father-hood of God and his love in Christ,
although the seed he sowed seemed seldom to take root. Then he was
gathering fresh information on the state of the country and the habits
of the people. He was especially gathering information on the accursed
slave-trade.
This question of the watershed, too, had fascinated his mind, for he had
a strong impression that the real sources of the Nile were far higher
than any previous traveler had supposed--far higher than Lake Victoria
Nyanza, and that it would be a service to religion as well as science to
discover the fountains of the stream on whose bosom, in the dawn of
Hebrew history, Moses had floated in his ark of bulrushes. A strong
impression lurked in his mind that if he should only solve that old
problem he would acquire such influence that new weight would be given
to his pleadings for Africa; just as, at the beginning of his career, he
had wished for a commanding style of composition, to be able to rouse
the attention of the world to that ill-treated continent.
He was strongly disposed to think that in the account of the sources
given to Herodotus by the Registrar of Minerva in the temple of Saïs,
that individual was not joking, as the father of history supposed. He
thought that in the watershed the two conical hills, Crophi and Mophi
might be found, and the fountains between them which it was impossible
to fathom; and that it might be seen that from that region there was a
river flowing north to Egypt, and another flowing south to a country
that might have been called Ethiopia. But whatever might be his views or
aims, it was ordained that in the wanderings of his last years he should
bring within the sympathies of the Christian world many a poor tribe
otherwise unknown; that he should witness sights, surpassing all he had
ever seen before of the inhumanity and horrors of the
slave-traffic--sights that harrowed his inmost soul; and that when his
final appeal to his countrymen on behalf of its victims came, not from,
his living voice but from his tomb, it should gather from a thousand
touching associations a thrilling power that would rouse the world, and
finally root out the accursed thing.
A very valuable testimony was borne by Sir Bartle Frere to the real aims
of Livingstone, and the value of his work, especially in this last
journey, in a speech delivered in the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce, 10th
November, 1876:
"The object," he said, "of Dr. Livingstone's geographical and
scientific explorations was to lead his countrymen to the
great work of Christianizing and civilizing the millions of
Central Africa. You will recollect how, when first he came
back from his wonderful journey, though we were all greatly
startled by his achievements and by what he told us, people
really did not lay what he said much to heart. They were
stimulated to take up the cause of African discovery again,
and other travelers went out and did excellent service; but
the great fact which was from the very first upon
Livingstone's mind, and which he used to impress upon you,
did not make the impression he wished, and although a good
many people took more and more interest in the Civilization
of Africa and in the abolition of the slave-trade, which he
pointed out was the great obstacle to all progress, still it
did not come home to the people generally. It was not until
his third and last journey, when he was no more to return
among us, that the descriptions which he gave of the horrors
of the slave-trade in the interior really took hold upon the
mind of the people of this country, and made them determine
that what used to be considered the crotchet of a few
religious minds and humanitarian sort of persons, should be a
phase of the great work which this country had undertaken, to
free the African races, and to abolish, in the first place,
the slave-trade by sea, and then, as we hope, the slaving by
land."
In September an Arab slaver was met at Marenga's, who told Musa, one of
the Johanna men, that all the country in front was full of Mazitu, a
warlike tribe; that forty-four Arabs and their followers had been killed
by them at Kasunga, and that he only had escaped. Musa's heart was
filled with consternation. It was in vain that Marenga assured him that
there were no Mazitu in the direction in which he was going, and that
Livingstone protested to him that he would give them a wide berth. The
Johanna men wanted an excuse for going back, but in such a way that,
when they reached Zanzibar, they should get their pay. They left him in
a body, and when they got to Zanzibar, circulated a circumstantial
report that he had been murdered. In December, 1866, Musa appeared at
Zanzibar, and told how Livingstone had crossed Lake Nyassa to its
western or northwestern shore, and was pushing on west or northwest,
when, between Marenga and Maklisoora, a band of savages stopped their
way, and rushed on him and his small band of followers, now reduced to
twenty. Livingstone fired twice, and killed two; but, in the act of
reloading, three Mafite leaped upon him through the smoke, one of them
felled him with an axe-cut from behind, and the blow nearly severed his
head from his body. The Johanna men fled into the thick jungle, and
miraculously escaped. Returning to the scene of the tragedy, they found
the body of their master, and in a shallow grave dug with some stakes,
they committed his remains to the ground, Many details were given
regarding the Sepoys, and regarding the after fortunes of Musa and his
companions. Under cross-examination Musa stood firmly to his story,
which was believed both by Dr. Seward and Dr. Kirk, of Zanzibar. But
when the tidings reached England, doubt was thrown on them by some of
those best qualified to judge. Mr. Edward D. Young, who had had dealings
with Musa, and knew him to be a liar, was suspicious of the story; so
was Mr. Horace Waller. Sir Roderick Murchison, too, proclaimed himself
an unbeliever, notwithstanding all the circumstantiality and apparent
conclusiveness of the tale. The country was resounding with
lamentations, the newspapers were full of obituary notices, but the
strong-minded disbelievers were not to be moved.
Sir Roderick and his friends of the Geographical Society determined to
organize a search expedition, and Mr. E. D. Young was requested to
undertake the task. In May, 1867, all was ready for the departure of the
Expedition; and on the 25th July, Mr. E. D. Young, who was accompanied
by Mr. Faulkner, John Reid, and Patrick Buckley, cast anchor at the
mouth of the Zambesi. A steel boat named "The Search," and some smaller
boats, were speedily launched, and the party were moving up the river.
We have no space for an account of Mr. Young's most interesting journey,
not even for the detail of that wonderful achievement, the carrying of
the pieces of the "Search" past the Murchison Cataracts, and their
reconstruction at the top, without a single piece missing. The sum and
substance of Mr. Young's story was, that first, quite unexpectedly, he
came upon a man near the south end of Lake Nyassa, who had seen
Livingstone there, and who described him well, showing that he had not
crossed at the north end, as Musa had said, but, for some reason, had
come round by the south; then, the chief Marenga not only told him of
Livingstone's stay there, but also of the return of Musa, after leaving
him, without any story of his murder; also, at Mapunda, they came on
traces of the boy Wikatani, and learned his story, though they did not
see himself. The most ample proof of the falsehood of Musa's story was
thus obtained, and by the end of 1867, Mr. Young, after a most active,
gallant, and successful campaign, was approaching the shores of
England[68]. No enterprise could have brought more satisfactory results,
and all in the incredibly short period of eight months.
[Footnote 68: See _The Search for Livingstone_, by E.D. Young: London,
1868.]
Meanwhile, Livingstone, little thinking of all the commotion that the
knave Musa had created, was pushing on in the direction of Lake
Tanganyika. Though it was not true that he had been murdered, it was
true that he was half-starved. The want of other food compelled him to
subsist to a large extent on African maize, the most tasteless and
unsatisfying of food. It never produced the feeling of sufficiency, and
it would set him to dream of dinners he had once eaten, though dreaming
was not his habit, except when he was ill. Against his will, the thought
of delicious feasts would come upon him, making it all the more
difficult to be cheerful, with, probably, the poorest fare on which life
could be in any way maintained, To complete his misery, his four goats
were lost, so that the one comfort of his table--a little milk along
with his maize--was taken from him when most eagerly sought and valued.
In reviewing the year 1866, he finds it less productive of results than
he had hoped for: "We now end 1866. It has not been so fruitful or
useful as I intended. Will try to do better in 1867, and be better--more
gentle and loving; and may the Almighty, to whom I commit my way, bring
my desires to pass, and prosper me! Let all the sins of '66 be blotted
out, for Jesus' sake. May He who was full of grace and truth impress his
character on mine: grace--eagerness to show favor; truth--truthfulness,
sincerity, honor--for his mercy's sake."
Habitually brave and fearless though Livingstone was, it was not without
frequent self-stimulation, and acts of faith in unseen truth, that the
peace of his mind was maintained. In the midst of his notes of progress,
such private thoughts as the following occur from time to time: "It
seems to have been a mistake to imagine that the Divine Majesty on high
was too exalted to take any notice of our mean affairs. The great minds
among men are remarkable for the attention they bestow on minutiæ. An
astronomer cannot be great unless his mind can grasp an infinity of very
small things, each of which, if unattended to, would throw his work out.
A great general attends to the smallest details of his army. The Duke of
Wellington's letters show his constant attention to minute details. And
so with the Supreme Mind, of the universe, as He is revealed to us in
his Son. 'The very hairs of your head are all numbered,' 'A sparrow
cannot fall to the ground without your Father,' 'He who dwelleth in the
light which no man can approach unto' condescends to provide for the
minutest of our wants, directing, guarding, and assisting in each hour
and moment, with an infinitely more vigilant and excellent care than our
own utmost self-love can ever attain to. With the ever-watchful, loving
eye constantly upon me, I may surely follow my bent, and go among the
heathen in front, bearing the message of peace and good-will. All
appreciate the statement that it is offensive to our common Father to
sell and kill his children. I will therefore go, and may the Almighty
help me to be faithful!"
Writing to his son Thomas, 1st February, 1867, he complains again of his
terrible hunger:
The people have nothing to sell but a little millet-porridge
and mushrooms. "Woe is me! good enough to produce fine dreams
of the roast beef of old England, but nothing else. I have
become very thin, though I was so before; but now, if you
weighed me, you might calculate very easily how much you
might get for the bones. But--we got a cow yesterday, and I
am to get milk to-morrow.... I grieve to write it, poor
poodle 'Chitane' was drowned" [15th January, in the Chimbwé];
"he had to cross a marsh a mile wide, and waist-deep.... I
went over first, and forgot to give directions about the
dog--all were too much engaged in keeping their balance to
notice that he swam among them till he died. He had more
spunk than a hundred country dogs--took charge of the whole
line of march, ran to see the first in the line, then back to
the last, and barked to haul him up; then, when he knew what
hut I occupied, would not let a country cur come in sight of
it, and never stole himself. We have not had any difficulties
with the people, made many friends, imparted a little
knowledge sometimes, and raised a protest against slavery
very widely."
The year 1867 was signalized by a great calamity, and by two important
geographical feats. The calamity was the loss of his medicine-chest. It
had been intrusted to one of his most careful people; but, without
authority, a carrier hired for the day took it and some other things to
carry for the proper bearer, then bolted, and neither carrier nor box
could be found. "I felt," says Livingstone, "as if I had now received
the sentence of death, like poor Bishop Mackenzie." With the
medicine-chest was lost the power of treating himself in fever with the
medicine that had proved so effectual. We find him not long after in a
state of insensibility, trying to raise himself from the ground, falling
back with all his weight, and knocking his head upon a box. The loss of
the medicine-box was probably the beginning of the end; his system lost
the wonderful power of recovery which it had hitherto shown; and other
ailments--in the lungs, the feet, and the bowels, that might have been
kept under in a more vigorous state of general health, began hereafter
to prevail against him.
The two geographical feats were--his first sight of Lake Tanganyika, and
his discovery of Lake Moero. In April he reached Lake Liemba, as the
lower part of Tanganyika was called. The scenery was wonderfully
beautiful, and the air of the whole region remarkably peaceful. The
want of medicine made an illness here very severe; on recovering, he
would have gone down the lake, but was dissuaded, in consequence of his
hearing that a chief was killing all that came that way. He therefore
returns to Chitimba's, and resolves to explore Lake Moero, believing
that there the question of the watershed would be decided, At
Chitimba's, he is detained upward of three months, in consequence of the
disturbed state of the country. At last he gets the escort of some Arab
traders, who show him much kindness, but again he is prostrated by
illness, and at length he reaches Lake Moero, 8th November, 1867. He
hears of another lake, called Bembo or Bangweolo, and to hear of it is
to resolve to see it. But he is terribly wearied with two years'
traveling without having heard from home, and he thinks he must first go
to Ujiji, for letters and stores. Meanwhile, as the traders are going to
Casembe's, he accompanies them thither. Casembe he finds to be a fierce
chief, who rules his people with great tyranny, cutting off their ears,
and even their hands, for the most trivial offenses. Persons so
mutilated, seen in his village, excite a feeling of horror. This chief
was not one easily got at, but Livingstone believed that he gained an
influence with him, only he could not quite overcome his prejudice
against him. The year 1867 ended with another severe attack of illness.
"The chief interest in Lake Moero," says Livingstone, "is
that it forms one of a chain of lakes, connected by a river
some 500 miles in length. First of all, the Chambezé rises in
the country of Mambwé, N.E. of Molemba; it then flows
southwest and west, till it reaches lat. 11° S., and long.
29° E., where it forms Lake Bemba or Bangweolo; emerging
thence, it assumes the name of Luapula, and comes down here
to fall into Moero. On going out of this lake it is known by
the name of Lualaba, as it flows N.W. in Rua to form another
lake with many islands, called Urengé or Ulengé. Beyond this,
information is not positive as to whether it enters Lake
Tanganyika, or another lake beyond that.... Since coming to
Casembe's, the testimony of natives and Arabs has been so
united and consistent, that I am but ten days from Lake Bemba
or Bangweolo, that I cannot doubt its accuracy."
The detentions experienced in 1867 were long and wearisome, and
Livingstone disliked them because he was never well when doing nothing.
His light reading must have been pretty well exhausted; even _Smith's
Dictionary of the Bible_, which accompanied him in these wanderings, and
which we have no doubt he read throughout, must have got wearisome
sometimes. He occupied himself in writing letters, in the hope that
somehow or sometime he might find an opportunity of despatching them. He
took the rainfall carefully during the year, and lunars and other
observations, when the sky permitted. He had intended to make his
observations more perfect on this journey than on any previous one, but
alas for his difficulties and disappointments! A letter to Sir Thomas
Maclear and Mr. Mann, his assistant, gives a pitiful account of these:
"I came this journey with a determination to observe very carefully all
your hints as to occupations and observations, east and west, north and
south, but I have been so worried by lazy, deceitful Sepoys, and
thievish Johanna men, and indifferent instruments, that I fear the
results are very poor." He goes on to say that some of his instruments
were defective, and others went out of order, and that his time-taker,
one of his people, had no conscience, and could not be trusted. The
records of his observations, notwithstanding, indicate much care and
pains. In April, he had been very unwell, taking fits of total
insensibility, but as he had not said anything of this to his people at
home, it was to be kept a secret.
His Journal for 1867 ends with a statement of the poverty of his food,
and the weakness to which he was reduced. He had hardly anything to eat
but the coarsest grain of the country, and no tea, coffee, or sugar. An
Arab trader, Mohamad Bogharib, who arrived at Casembe's about the same
time, presented him with a meal of vermicelli, oil, and honey, and had
some coffee and sugar; Livingstone had had none since he left Nyassa.
The Journal for 1868 begins with a prayer that if he should die that
year, he might be prepared for it. The year was spent in the same
region, and was signalized by the discovery of Lake Bemba, or, as it may
more properly be called, Lake Bangweolo, Early in the year he heard
accounts of what interested him greatly--certain underground houses in
Rua, ranging along a mountain side for twenty miles. In some cases the
doorways were level with the country adjacent; in others, ladders were
used to climb up to them; inside they were said to be very large, and
not the work of men, but of God. He became eagerly desirous to visit
these mysterious dwellings.
Circumstances turning out more favorable to his going to Lake Bangweolo,
Dr. Livingstone put off his journey to Ujiji, on which his men had been
counting, and much against the advice of Mohamad, his trader friend and
companion, determined first to see the lake of which he had heard so
much. The consequence was a rebellion among his men. With the exception
of five, they refused to go with him. They had been considerably
demoralized by contact with the Arab trader and his slave-gang. Dr.
Livingstone took this rebellion with wonderful placidity, for in his own
mind he could not greatly blame them. It was no wonder they were tired
of the everlasting tramping, for he was sick of it himself. He reaped
the fruit of his mildness by the men coming back to him, on his return
from the lake, and offering their services. It cannot be said of him
that he was not disposed to make any allowance for human weakness. When
recording a fault, and how he dealt with it, he often adds,
"consciousness of my own defects makes me lenient." "I also have my
weaknesses."
The way to the lake was marked by fresh and lamentable tokens of the
sufferings of slaves. "_24th June_.--Six men-slaves were singing as if
they did not feel the weight and degradation of the slave-sticks. I
asked the cause of their mirth, and was told that they rejoiced at the
idea of 'coming back after death, and haunting and killing those who had
sold them,' Some of the words I had to inquire about; for instance, the
meaning of the words, 'to haunt and kill by spirit power,' then it was,
'Oh, you sent me off to Manga (sea-coast), but the yoke is off when I
die, and back I shall come to haunt and to kill you.' Then all joined in
the chorus, which was the name of each vendor. It told not of fun, but
of the bitterness and tears of such as were oppressed; and on the side
of the oppressors there was power. There be higher than they!"
His discovery of Lake Bangweolo is recorded as quietly as if it had been
a mill-pond: "On the 18th July, I walked a little way out, and saw the
shores of the lake for the first time, thankful that I had come safely
hither." The lake had several inhabited islands, which Dr. Livingstone
visited, to the great wonder of the natives, who crowded around him in
multitudes, never having seen such a curiosity as a white man before. In
the middle of the lake the canoe-men whom he had hired to carry him
across refused to proceed further, under the influence of some fear,
real or pretended, and he was obliged to submit. But the most
interesting, though not the most pleasant, thing about the lake, was the
ooze or sponge which occurred frequently on its banks. The spongy places
were slightly depressed valleys, without trees or bushes, with grass a
foot or fifteen inches high; they were usually from two to ten miles
long, and from a quarter of a mile to a mile broad. In the course of
thirty geographical miles, he crossed twenty-nine, and that, too, at the
end of the fourth month of the dry season. It was necessary for him to
strip the lower part of his person before fording them, and then the
leeches pounced on him, and in a moment had secured such a grip, that
even twisting them round the fingers failed to tear them off.
It was Dr. Livingstone's impression at this time that in discovering
Lake Bangweolo, with the sponges that fed it, he had made another
discovery--that these marshy places might be the real sources of the
three great rivers, the Nile, the Congo, and the Zambesi. A link,
however, was yet wanting to prove his theory. It had yet to be shown
that the waters that flowed from Lake Bangweolo into Lake Moero, and
thence northward by the river Lualaba, were connected with the Nile
system. Dr. Livingstone was strongly inclined to believe that this
connection existed; but toward the close of his life he had more doubts
of it, although it was left to others to establish conclusively that the
Lualaba was the Congo, and sent no branch to the Nile.
On leaving Lake Bangweolo, detention occurred again as it had occurred
before. The country was very disturbed and very miserable, and Dr.
Livingstone was in great straits and want. Yet with a grim humor he
tells how, when lying in an open shed, with all his men around him, he
dreamed of having apartments at Mivart's Hotel. It was after much delay
that he found himself at last, under the escort of a slave-party, on the
way to Ujiji. Mr. Waller has graphically described the situation. "At
last he makes a start on the 11th of December, 1868, with the Arabs, who
are bound eastward for Ujiji. It is a motley group, composed of Mohamad
and his friends, a gang of Unyamwezi hangers-on, and strings of wretched
slaves yoked together in their heavy slave-sticks. Some carry ivory,
others copper, or food for the march, while hope and fear, misery and
villainy, may be read off on the various faces that pass in line out of
this country, like a serpent dragging its accursed folds away from the
victim it has paralyzed with its fangs."
New Year's Day, 1869, found Livingstone laboring under a worse attack
of illness than any he had ever had before. For ten weeks to come his
situation was as painful as can be conceived. A continual cough, night
and day, the most distressing weakness, inability to walk, yet the
necessity of moving on, or rather of being moved on, in a kind of litter
arranged by Mohamad Bogharib,--where, with his face poorly protected
from the sun, he was jolted up and down and sideways, without medicine
or food for an invalid,--made the situation sufficiently trying. His
prayer was that he might hold out to Ujiji, where he expected to find
medicines and stores, with the rest and shelter so necessary in his
circumstances. So ill was he, that he lost count of the days of the week
and the month. "I saw myself lying dead in the way to Ujiji, and all the
letters I expected there--useless. When I think of my children, the
lines ring through my head perpetually:
"'I shall look into your faces,
And listen to what you say;
And be often very near you
When you think I'm far away.'"
On the 26th February, 1869, he embarked in a canoe on Tanganyika, and on
the 14th March he reached the longed-for Ujiji, on the eastern shore of
the lake. To complete his trial, he found that the goods he expected had
been made away with in every direction. A few fragments were about all
he could find. Medicines, wine, and cheese had been left at Unyanyembe,
thirteen days distant. A war was raging on the way, so that they could
not be sent for till the communications were restored.
To obviate as far as possible the recurrence of such a disaster to a new
store of goods which he was now asking Dr. Kirk to send him, Livingstone
wrote a letter to the Sultan of Zanzibar, 20th April, 1869, in which he
frankly and cordially acknowledged the benefit he had derived from the
letter of recommendation his Highness had given him, and the great
kindness of the Arabs, especially Mohamad Bogharib, who had certainly
saved his life. Then he complains of the robbery of his goods, chiefly
by one Musa bin Salim, one of the people of the Governor of Unyanyembe,
who had bought ivory with the price, and another man who had bought a
wife. Livingstone does not expect his cloth and beads to be brought
back, or the price of the wife and ivory returned, but he says:
"I beg the assistance of your authority to prevent a fresh stock of
goods, for which I now send to Zanzibar, being plundered in the same
way. Had it been the loss of ten or twelve pieces of cloth only, I
should not have presumed to trouble your Highness about the loss; but 62
pieces or gorahs out of 80, besides beads, is like cutting a man's
throat. If one or two guards of good character could be sent by you, no
one would plunder the pagasi next time.
"I wish also to hire twelve or fifteen good freemen to act as canoe-men
or porters, or in any other capacity that may be required. I shall be
greatly obliged if you appoint one of your gentlemen who knows the
country to select that number, and give them and their headman a charge
as to their behavior. If they know that you wish them to behave well it
will have great effect. I wish to go down Tanganyika, through Luanda and
Chowambe, and pass the river Karagwe, which falls into Lake Chowambe.
Then come back to Ujiji, visit Manyuema and Rua, and then return to
Zanzibar, when I hope to see your Highness in the enjoyment of health
and happiness."
Livingstone showed only his usual foresight in taking these precautions
for the protection of his next cargo of goods. In stating so plainly his
intended route, his purpose was doubtless to prevent carelessness in
executing his orders, such as might have arisen had it been deemed
uncertain where he was going, and whether or not he meant to return
by Zanzibar.
Of letters during the latter part of this period very few seem to have
reached their destination. A short letter to Dr. Moffat, bearing date
"Near Lake Moero, March, 1868," dwells dolefully on his inability to
reach Lake Bemba in consequence of the flooded state of the country, and
then his detention through the strifes of the Arabs and the natives. The
letter, however, is more occupied with reviewing the past than narrating
the present. In writing to Dr. Moffat, he enters more minutely than he
would have done with a less intimate and sympathetic friend into the
difficulties of his lot--difficulties that had been increased by some
from whom he might have expected other things. He had once seen a map
displayed in the rooms of the Geographical Society, substantially his
own, but with another name in conspicuous letters. On the Zambesi he had
had difficulties, little suspected, of which in the meantime he would
say nothing to the public. A letter to his daughter Agnes, after he had
gone to Bangweolo, dwells also much on his past difficulties--as if he
felt that the slow progress he was making at the moment needed
explanation or apology. Amid such topics, almost involuntary touches of
the old humor occur: "I broke my teeth tearing at maize and other hard
food, and they are coming out. One front tooth is out, and I have such
an awful mouth. If you expect a kiss from me, you must take it through a
speaking-trumpet." In one respect, amid all his trials, his heart seems
to become more tender than ever--in affection for his children, and wise
and considerate advice for their guidance. In his letter to Agnes, he
adverts with some regret to a chance he lost of saying a word for his
family when Lord Palmerston sent Mr. Hayward, Q.C., to ask him what he
could do to serve him. "It never occurred to me that he meant anything
for me or my children till I was out here. I thought only of my work in
Africa, and answered accordingly." It was only the fear that his family
would be in want that occasioned this momentary regret at his
disinterested answer to Lord Palmerston.