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
It was broad daylight when I awoke; the sun was flaring his hot beams in
my face. Sheikh Thani came soon after to inform me that Hamed had gone
to Kiti two hours since; but he, when asked to accompany him, positively
refused, exclaiming against it as folly, and utterly unnecessary. When
my advice was asked by Thani, I voted the whole thing as sheer nonsense;
and, in turn, asked him what a terekeza was for? Was it not an afternoon
march to enable caravans to reach water and food? Thani replied than it
was. I then asked him if there was no water or food to be obtained in
Unyambogi. Thani replied that he had not taken pains to inquire, but
was told by the villagers that there was an abundance of matamia, hindi,
maweri, sheep; goats, and chickens in their village at cheap prices,
such as were not known in Ugogo.
"Well, then," said I, "if Hamed wants to be a fool, and kill his
pagazis, why should we? I have as much cause for haste as Sheikh Hamed;
but Unyanyembe is far yet, and I am not going to endanger my property by
playing the madman."
As Thani had reported, we found an abundance of provisions at the
village, and good sweet water from some pits close by. A sheep cost one
chukka; six chickens were also purchased at that price; six measures of
matama, maweri, or hindi, were procurable for the same sum; in short, we
were coming, at last, into the land of plenty.
On the 10th June we arrived at Kiti after a journey of four hours and a
half, where we found the irrepressible Hamed halted in sore trouble.
He who would be a Caesar, proved to be an irresolute Antony. He had
to sorrow over the death of a favourite slave girl, the loss of five
dish-dashes (Arab shirts), silvered-sleeve and gold-embroidered jackets,
with which he had thought to enter Unyanyembe in state, as became a
merchant of his standing, which had disappeared with three absconding
servants, besides copper trays, rice, and pilau dishes, and two bales of
cloth with runaway Wangwana pagazis. Selim, my Arab servant, asked him,
"What are you doing here, Sheikh Hamed? I thought you were well on the
road to Unyanyembe." Said he, "Could I leave Thani, my friend, behind?"
Kiti abounded in cattle and grain, and we were able to obtain food at
easy rates. The Wakimbu, emigrants from Ukimbu, near Urori, are a quiet
race, preferring the peaceful arts of agriculture to war; of tending
their flocks to conquest. At the least rumor of war they remove their
property and family, and emigrate to the distant wilderness, where they
begin to clear the land, and to hunt the elephant for his ivory. Yet we
found them to be a fine race, and well armed, and seemingly capable,
by their numbers and arms, to compete with any tribe. But here, as
elsewhere, disunion makes them weak. They are mere small colonies, each
colony ruled by its own chief; whereas, were they united, they might
make a very respectable front before an enemy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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