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
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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
A dozen fires are nightly kindled in the camp; and these, being
replenished from time to time by the men who are awakened by the cold,
are kept burning until daylight. Abundance of dry hard wood is obtained
with little trouble; and burns beautifully. After the great business of
cooking and eating is over, all sit round the camp-fires, and engage in
talking or singing. Every evening one of the Batoka plays his "sansa,"
and continues at it until far into the night; he accompanies it with an
extempore song, in which he rehearses their deeds ever since they left
their own country. At times animated political discussions spring up,
and the amount of eloquence expended on these occasions is amazing. The
whole camp is aroused, and the men shout to one another from the
different fires; whilst some, whose tongues are never heard on any other
subject, burst forth into impassioned speech.
As a specimen of our mode of marching, we rise about five, or as soon as
dawn appears, take a cup of tea and a bit of biscuit; the servants fold
up the blankets and stow them away in the bags they carry; the others tie
their fumbas and cooking-pots to each end of their carrying-sticks, which
are borne on the shoulder; the cook secures the dishes, and all are on
the path by sunrise. If a convenient spot can be found we halt for
breakfast about nine a.m. To save time, this meal is generally cooked
the night before, and has only to be warmed. We continue the march after
breakfast, rest a little in the middle of the day, and break off early in
the afternoon. We average from two to two-and-a-half miles an hour in a
straight line, or as the crow flies, and seldom have more than five or
six hours a day of actual travel. This in a hot climate is as much as a
man can accomplish without being oppressed; and we always tried to make
our progress more a pleasure than a toil. To hurry over the ground,
abuse, and look ferocious at one's native companions, merely for the
foolish vanity of boasting how quickly a distance was accomplished, is a
combination of silliness with absurdity quite odious; while kindly
consideration for the feelings of even blacks, the pleasure of observing
scenery and everything new as one moves on at an ordinary pace, and the
participation in the most delicious rest with our fellows, render
travelling delightful. Though not given to over haste, we were a little
surprised to find that we could tire our men out; and even the headman,
who carried but little more than we did, and never, as we often had to
do, hunted in the afternoon, was no better than his comrades. Our
experience tends to prove that the European constitution has a power of
endurance, even in the tropics, greater than that of the hardiest of the
meat-eating Africans.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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