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
Towards night my twenty detectives returned with nine of the missing
men. The Wajiji had deserted in a body, and they could not be found.
Selim also returned with a strong chain, capable of imprisoning within
the collars attached to it at least ten men. Kaif-Halek also appeared
with the letter-bag which he was to convey to Livingstone under my
escort. The men were then addressed, and the slave-chain exhibited
to them. I told them that I was the first white man who had taken a
slave-chain with him on his travels; but, as they were all so frightened
of accompanying me, I was obliged to make use of it, as it was the only
means of keeping them together. The good need never fear being chained
by me--only the deserters, the thieves, who received their hire and
presents, guns and ammunition, and then ran away.
I would not put any one this time in chains; but whoever deserted after
this day, I should halt, and not continue the march till I found him,
after which he should march to Ujiji with the slave-chain round
his neck. "Do you hear?"--"Yes," was the answer. "Do you
understand?"--"Yes."
We broke up camp at 6 P.M., and took the road for Inesuka, at which
place we arrived at 8 P.M.
When we were about commencing the march the next morning, it was
discovered that two more had deserted. Baraka and Bombay were at once
despatched to Unyanyembe to bring back the two missing men--Asmani and
Kingaru--with orders not to return without them. This was the third
time that the latter had deserted, as the reader may remember. While the
pursuit was being effected we halted at the village of Inesuka, more for
the sake of Shaw than any one else.
In the evening the incorrigible deserters were brought back, and, as I
had threatened, were well flogged and chained, to secure them against
further temptation. Bombay and Baraka had a picturesque story to relate
of the capture; and, as I was in an exceedingly good humour, their
services were rewarded with a fine cloth each.
On the following morning another carrier had absconded, taking with
him his hire of fifteen new cloths and a gun but to halt anywhere
near Unyanyembe any longer was a danger that could be avoided only by
travelling without stoppages towards the southern jungle-lands. It will
be remembered I had in my train the redoubtable Abdul Kader, the tailor,
he who had started from Bagamoyo with such bright anticipations of the
wealth of ivory to be obtained in the great interior of Africa. On this
morning, daunted by the reports of the dangers ahead, Abdul Kader
craved to be discharged. He vowed he was sick, and unable to proceed any
further. As I was pretty well tired of him, I paid him off in cloth, and
permitted him to go.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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