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
"Well, then, where is Kazeh? I have never seen the man yet who could
tell me where that place is, and yet the three white men have that word
down, as the name of the place they lived at when you were with them.
You must know where it is."
"Wallahi, bana, I never heard the name; but stop, Kazeh, in Kinyamwezi,
means 'kingdom.' Perhaps they gave that name to the place they stopped
at. But then, I used to call the first house Sny bin Amer's house, and
Speke lived at Musa Mzuri's house, but both houses, as well as all the
rest, are in Tabora."
"Thank you, sheikh. I should like to go and look after my people; they
must all be wanting food."
"I shall go with you to show you your house. The tembe is in Kwihara,
only an hour's walk from Tabora."
On leaving Kwikuru we crossed a low ridge, and soon saw Kwihara
lying between two low ranges of hills, the northernmost of which was
terminated westward by the round fortress-like hill of Zimbili. There
was a cold glare of intense sunshine over the valley, probably the
effect of an universal bleakness or an autumnal ripeness of the grass,
unrelieved by any depth of colour to vary the universal sameness. The
hills were bleached, or seemed to be, under that dazzling sunshine,
and clearest atmosphere. The corn had long been cut, and there lay the
stubble, and fields,--a browny-white expanse; the houses were of mud,
and their fiat roofs were of mud, and the mud was of a browny-whiteness;
the huts were thatched, and the stockades around them of barked timber,
and these were of a browny whiteness. The cold, fierce, sickly wind from
the mountains of Usagara sent a deadly chill to our very marrows, yet
the intense sunshiny glare never changed, a black cow or two, or a tall
tree here and there, caught the eye for a moment, but they never made
one forget that the first impression of Kwihara was as of a picture
without colour, or of food without taste; and if one looked up, there
was a sky of a pale blue, spotless, and of an awful serenity.
As I approached the tembe of Sayd bin Salim, Sheikh bin Nasib and other
great Arabs joined us. Before the great door of the tembe the men had
stacked the bales, and piled the boxes, and were using their tongues
at a furious rate, relating to the chiefs and soldiers of the first,
second, and fourth caravans the many events which had befallen them, and
which seemed to them the only things worth relating. Outside of their
own limited circles they evidently cared for nothing. Then the several
chiefs of the other caravans had in turn to relate their experiences
of the road; and the noise of tongues was loud and furious. But as we
approached, all this loud-sounding gabble ceased, and my caravan chiefs
and guides rushed to me to hail me as "master," and to salute me as
their friend. One fellow, faithful Baruti, threw himself at my feet, the
others fired their guns and acted like madmen suddenly become frenzied,
and a general cry of "welcome" was heard on all sides.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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