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
We soon entered the territory of the dreaded Wazavira, but no enemy was
in sight. Simba, in his wars, had made clean work of the northern
part of Uzavira, and we encountered nothing worse than a view of the
desolated country, which must have been once--judging from the number
of burnt huts and debris of ruined villages--extremely populous. A young
jungle was sprouting up vigorously in their fields, and was rapidly
becoming the home of wild denizens of the forest. In one of the deserted
and ruined villages, I found quarters for the Expedition, which were
by no means uncomfortable. I shot three brace of guinea-fowl in the
neighbourhood of Misonghi, the deserted village we occupied, and
Ulimengo, one of my hunters, bagged an antelope, called the "mbawala,"
for whose meat some of the Wanyamwezi have a superstitious aversion. I
take this species of antelope, which stands about three and a half
feet high, of a reddish hide, head long, horns short, to be the "Nzoe"
antelope discovered by Speke in Uganda, and whose Latin designation
is, according to Dr. Sclater, "Tragelaphus Spekii." It has a short bushy
tail, and long hair along the spine.
A long march in a west-by-north direction, lasting six hours, through
a forest where the sable antelope was seen, and which was otherwise
prolific with game, brought us to a stream which ran by the base of
a lofty conical hill, on whose slopes flourished quite a forest of
feathery bamboo.
On the 20th, leaving our camp, which lay between the stream and the
conical hill above mentioned, and surmounting a low ridge which sloped
from the base of the hill-cone, we were greeted with another picturesque
view, of cones and scarped mountains, which heaved upward in all
directions. A march of nearly five hours through this picturesque
country brought us to the Mpokwa River, one of the tributaries of the
Rungwa, and to a village lately deserted by the Wazavira. The huts
were almost all intact, precisely as they were left by their former
inhabitants. In the gardens were yet found vegetables, which, after
living so long on meat, were most grateful to us. On the branches of
trees still rested the Lares and Penates of the Wazavira, in the shape
of large and exceedingly well-made earthen pots.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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