A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries: And of the Discovery of Lakes Shirwa and Nyassa, 1858-1864Livingstone, David
History
A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries: And of the Discovery of Lakes Shirwa and Nyassa, 1858-1864
Livingstone, David
Africa, Central -- Description and travel; Africa, Central -- Discovery and exploration
After proceeding a short distance up the path in which they had been lost
sight of, they learned that it would take several days to go round the
mountains, and rejoin the lake; and they therefore turned down to the
bay, expecting to find the boat, but only saw it disappearing away to the
north. They pushed on as briskly as possible after it, but the mountain
flank which forms the coast proved excessively tedious and fatiguing;
travelling all day, the distance made, in a straight line, was under five
miles. As soon as day dawned, the march was resumed; and, after hearing
at the first inhabited rock that their companions had passed it the day
before, a goat was slaughtered out of the four which they had with them,
when suddenly, to the evident consternation of the men, seven Mazitu
appeared armed with spears and shields, with their heads dressed
fantastically with feathers. To hold a parley, Dr. Livingstone and
Moloka, a Makololo man who spoke Zulu, went unarmed to meet them. On Dr.
Livingstone approaching them, they ordered him to stop, and sit down in
the sun, while they sat in the shade. "No, no!" was the reply, "if you
sit in the shade, so will we." They then rattled their shields with
their clubs, a proceeding which usually inspires terror; but Moloka
remarked, "It is not the first time we have heard shields rattled." And
all sat down together. They asked for a present, to show their chief
that they had actually met strangers--something as evidence of having
seen men who were not Arabs. And they were requested in turn to take
these strangers to the boat, or to their chief. All the goods were in
the boat, and to show that no present such as they wanted was in his
pockets, Dr. Livingstone emptied them, turning out, among other things, a
note-book: thinking it was a pistol they started up, and said, "Put that
in again." The younger men then became boisterous, and demanded a goat.
That could not be spared, as they were the sole provisions. When they
insisted, they were asked how many of the party they had killed, that
they thus began to divide the spoil; this evidently made them ashamed.
The elders were more reasonable; they dreaded treachery, and were as much
afraid of Dr. Livingstone and his party as his men were of them; for on
leaving they sped away up the hills like frightened deer. One of them,
and probably the leader, was married, as seen by portions of his hair
sewn into a ring; all were observed by their teeth to be people of the
country, who had been incorporated into the Zulu tribe.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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