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
for the benefit of their countrymen, but the fresh labour, with
diminished rations, was too much for their strength. They were reduced
to a diet of native beans and an occasional fowl. Both became very ill
of fever, Captain Wilson so dangerously that his fellow-sufferer lost all
hopes of his recovery. His strong able-bodied cockswain did good service
in cheerfully carrying his much-loved Commander, and they managed to
return to the boat, and brought the two bereaved and sorrow-stricken
ladies back to the "Pioneer."
We learnt that the Bishop, wishing to find a shorter route down to the
Shire, had sent two men to explore the country between Magomero and the
junction of the Ruo; and in December Messrs. Proctor and Scudamore, with
a number of Manganja carriers, left Magomero for the same purpose. They
were to go close to Mount Choro, and then skirt the Elephant Marsh, with
Mount Clarendon on their left. Their guides seem to have led them away
to the east, instead of south; to the upper waters of the Ruo in the
Shirwa valley, instead of to its mouth. Entering an Anguru slave-trading
village, they soon began to suspect that the people meant mischief, and
just before sunset a woman told some of their men that if they slept
there they would all be killed. On their preparing to leave, the Anguru
followed them and shot their arrows at the retreating party. Two of the
carriers were captured, and all the goods were taken by these robbers. An
arrow-head struck deep into the stock of Proctor's gun; and the two
missionaries, barely escaping with their lives, swam a deep river at
night, and returned to Magomero famished and exhausted.
The wives of the captive carriers came to the Bishop day after day
weeping and imploring him to rescue their husbands from slavery. The men
had been caught while in his service, no one else could be entreated;
there was no public law nor any power superior to his own, to which an
appeal could be made; for in him Church and State were, in the
disorganized state of the country, virtually united. It seemed to him to
be clearly his duty to try and rescue these kidnapped members of the
Mission family. He accordingly invited the veteran Makololo to go with
him on this somewhat hazardous errand. Nothing could have been proposed
to them which they would have liked better, and they went with alacrity
to eat the sheep of the Anguru, only regretting that the enemy did not
keep cattle as well. Had the matter been left entirely in their hands,
they would have made a clean sweep of that part of the country; but the
Bishop restrained them, and went in an open manner, thus commending the
measure to all the natives, as one of justice. This deliberation,
however, gave the delinquents a chance of escape.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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