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 council of war broke up. A great dishful of rice and curry, in
which almonds, citron, raisins, and currants were plentifully mixed, was
brought in, and it was wonderful how soon we forgot our warlike fervor
after our attention had been drawn to this royal dish. I, of course,
not being a Mohammedan, had a dish of my own, of a similar composition,
strengthened by platters containing roast chicken, and kabobs, crullers,
cakes, sweetbread, fruit, glasses of sherbet and lemonade, dishes
of gum-drops and Muscat sweetmeats, dry raisins, prunes, and nuts.
Certainly Khamis bin Abdullah proved to me that if he had a warlike soul
in him, he could also attend to the cultivated tastes acquired under the
shade of the mangoes on his father's estates in Zanzibar--the island.
After gorging ourselves on these uncommon dainties some of the chief
Arabs escorted me to other tembes of Tabora. When we went to visit
Mussoud bin Abdullah, he showed me the very ground where Burton and
Speke's house stood--now pulled down and replaced by his office--Sny
bin Amer's house was also torn down, and the fashionable tembe of
Unyanyembe, now in vogue, built over it,--finely-carved rafters--huge
carved doors, brass knockers, and lofty airy rooms--a house built for
defence and comfort.
The finest house in Unyanyembe belongs to Amram bin Mussoud, who paid
sixty frasilah of ivory--over $3,000--for it. Very fair houses can be
purchased for from twenty to thirty frasilah of ivory. Amram's house is
called the "Two Seas"--"Baherein." It is one hundred feet in length, and
twenty feet high, with walls four feet thick, neatly plastered over with
mud mortar. The great door is a marvel of carving-work for Unyanyembe
artisans. Each rafter within is also carved with fine designs. Before
the front of the house is a young plantation of pomegranate trees, which
flourish here as if they were indigenous to the soil. A shadoof, such as
may be seen on the Nile, serves to draw water to irrigate the gardens.
Towards evening we walked back to our own finely situated tembe in
Kwihara, well satisfied with what we had seen at Tabora. My men drove a
couple of oxen, and carried three sacks of native rice--a most superior
kind--the day's presents of hospitality from Khamis bin Abdullah.
In Unyanyembe I found the Livingstone caravan, which started off in a
fright from Bagamoyo upon the rumour that the English Consul was coming.
As all the caravans were now halted at Unyanyembe because of the now
approaching war, I suggested to Sayd bin Salim, that it were better that
the men of the Livingstone caravan should live with mine in my tembe,
that I might watch over the white man's goods. Sayd bin Salim agreed
with me, and the men and goods were at once brought to my tembe.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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