How I found Livingstone : $b Travels, adventures, and discoveres in Central Africa, including an account of four months' residence with Dr. LivingstoneStanley, Henry M. (Henry Morton)
History
How I found Livingstone : $b Travels, adventures, and discoveres in Central Africa, including an account of four months' residence with Dr. Livingstone
Stanley, Henry M. (Henry Morton)
Africa, Central -- Description and travel; Livingstone, David, 1813-1873
The Wahumba, so far as I have seen them, are a fine and well-formed
race. The men are positively handsome, tall, with small heads, the
posterior parts of which project considerably. One will look in vain for
a thick lip or a flat nose amongst them; on the contrary, the mouth is
exceedingly well cut, delicately small; the nose is that of the Greeks,
and so universal was the peculiar feature, that I at once named them the
Greeks of Africa. Their lower limbs have not the heaviness of the
Wagogo and other tribes, but are long and shapely, clean as those of an
antelope. Their necks are long and slender, on which their small heads
are poised most gracefully. Athletes from their youth, shepherd bred,
and intermarrying among themselves, thus keeping the race pure, any
of them would form a fit subject for the sculptor who would wish to
immortalize in marble an Antinous, a Hylas, a Daphnis, or an Apollo.
The women are as beautiful as the men are handsome. They have clear ebon
skins, not coal-black, but of an inky hue. Their ornaments consist of
spiral rings of brass pendent from the ears, brass ring collars about
the necks, and a spiral cincture of brass wire about their loins for the
purpose of retaining their calf and goat skins, which are folded about
their bodies, and, depending from the shoulder, shade one half of the
bosom, and fall to the knees.
The Wahehe may be styled the Romans of Africa. Resuming our march, after
a halt of an hour, in foul hours more we arrived at Mukondoku Proper.
This extremity of Ugogo is most populous, The villages which surround
the central tembe, where the Sultan Swaruru lives, amount to thirty-six.
The people who flocked from these to see the wonderful men whose faces
were white, who wore the most wonderful things on their persons, and
possessed the most wonderful weapons; guns which "bum-bummed" as fast as
you could count on your fingers, formed such a mob of howling savages,
that I for an instant thought there was something besides mere curiosity
which caused such commotion, and attracted such numbers to the roadside.
Halting, I asked what was the matter, and what they wanted, and why they
made such noise? One burly rascal, taking my words for a declaration of
hostilities, promptly drew his bow, but as prompt as he had fixed his
arrow my faithful Winchester with thirteen shots in the magazine was
ready and at the shoulder, and but waited to see the arrow fly to pour
the leaden messengers of death into the crowd. But the crowd vanished as
quickly as they had come, leaving the burly Thersites, and two or three
irresolute fellows of his tribe, standing within pistol range of my
levelled rifle. Such a sudden dispersion of the mob which, but a moment
before, was overwhelming in numbers, caused me to lower my rifle, and
to indulge in a hearty laugh at the disgraceful flight of the
men-destroyers. The Arabs, who were as much alarmed at their boisterous
obtrusiveness, now came up to patch a truce, in which they succeeded to
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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