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
About 10 A.M. appeared from the direction of Ujiji a caravan of eighty
Waguhha, a tribe which occupies a tract of country on the south-western
side of the Lake Tanganika. We asked the news, and were told a white man
had just arrived at Ujiji from Manyuema. This news startled us all.
"A white man?" we asked.
"Yes, a white man," they replied.
"How is he dressed?"
"Like the master," they answered, referring to me.
"Is he young, or old?"
"He is old. He has white hair on his face, and is sick."
"Where has he come from?"
"From a very far country away beyond Uguhha, called Manyuema."
"Indeed! and is he stopping at Ujiji now?"
"Yes, we saw him about eight days ago."
"Do you think he will stop there until we see him?"
"Sigue" (don't know).
"Was he ever at Ujiji before?"
"Yes, he went away a long time ago."
Hurrah! This is Livingstone! He must be Livingstone! He can be no other;
but still;--he may be some one else--some one from the West Coast--or
perhaps he is Baker! No; Baker has no white hair on his face. But we
must now march quick, lest he hears we are coming, and runs away.
I addressed my men, and asked them if they were willing to march to
Ujiji without a single halt, and then promised them, if they acceded to
my wishes, two doti each man. All answered in the affirmative, almost as
much rejoiced as I was myself. But I was madly rejoiced; intensely eager
to resolve the burning question, "Is it Dr. David Livingstone?" God
grant me patience, but I do wish there was a railroad, or, at least,
horses in this country.
We set out at once from the banks of the Malagarazi, accompanied by two
guides furnished us by Usenge, the old man of the ferry, who, now that
we had crossed, showed himself more amiably disposed to us. We arrived
at the village of Isinga, Sultan Katalambula, after a little over an
hour's march across a saline plain, but which as we advanced into the
interior became fertile and productive.
November 4th.--Started early with great caution, maintaining deep
silence. The guides were sent forward, one two hundred yards ahead of
the other, that we might be warned in time. The first part of the march
was through a thin jungle of dwarf trees, which got thinner and thinner
until finally it vanished altogether, and we had entered Uhha--a plain
country. Villages were visible by the score among the tall bleached
stalks of dourra and maize. Sometimes three, sometimes five, ten, or
twenty beehive-shaped huts formed a village. The Wahha were evidently
living in perfect security, for not one village amongst them all was
surrounded with the customary defence of an African village. A narrow
dry ditch formed the only boundary between Uhha and Uvinza. On entering
Uhha, all danger from Makumbi vanished.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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