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
"I next produced a bottle of concentrated ammonia, which as I explained
was for snake bites, and head-aches; the Sultan immediately complained
he had a head-ache, and must have a little. Telling him to close his
eyes, I suddenly uncorked the bottle, and presented it to His Majesty's
nose. The effect was magical, for he fell back as if shot, and such
contortions as his features underwent are indescribable. His chiefs
roared with laughter, and clapped their hands, pinched each other,
snapped their fingers, and committed many other ludicrous things. I
verily believe if such a scene were presented on any stage in the world
the effect of it would be visible instantaneously on the audience; that
had they seen it as I saw it, they would have laughed themselves to
hysteria and madness. Finally the Sultan recovered himself, great tears
rolling down his cheeks, and his features quivering with laughter,
then he slowly uttered the word 'kali,'--hot, strong, quick, or ardent
medicine. He required no more, but the other chiefs pushed forward
to get one wee sniff, which they no sooner had, than all went into
paroxysms of uncontrollable laughter. The entire morning was passed in
this state visit, to the mutual satisfaction of all concerned. 'Oh,'
said the Sultan at parting, 'these white men know everything, the Arabs
are dirt compared to them!'"
That night Hamdallah, one of the guides, deserted, carrying with him his
hire (27 doti), and a gun. It was useless to follow him in the morning,
as it would have detained me many more days than I could afford; but
I mentally vowed that Mr. Hamdallah should work out those 27 doti of
cloths before I reached the coast.
Wednesday, October 4th, saw us travelling to the Gombe River, which is 4
h. 15 m. march from Manyara.
We had barely left the waving cornfields of my friend Ma-manyara before
we came in sight of a herd of noble zebra; two hours afterwards we
had entered a grand and noble expanse of park land, whose glorious
magnificence and vastness of prospect, with a far-stretching carpet of
verdure darkly flecked here and there by miniature clumps of jungle,
with spreading trees growing here and there, was certainly one of the
finest scenes to be seen in Africa. Added to which, as I surmounted one
of the numerous small knolls, I saw herds after herds of buffalo and
zebra, giraffe and antelope, which sent the blood coursing through my
veins in the excitement of the moment, as when I first landed on African
soil. We crept along the plain noiselessly to our camp on the banks of
the sluggish waters of the Gombe.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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