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
In former days the Arab, when protected by his slave escort, armed with
guns, could travel through Useguhha, Urori, Ukonongo, Ufipa, Karagwah,
Unyoro, and Uganda, with only a stick in his hand; now, however, it is
impossible for him or any one else to do so. Every step he takes, armed
or unarmed, is fraught with danger. The Waseguhha, near the coast,
detain him, and demand the tribute, or give him the option of war;
entering Ugogo, he is subjected every day to the same oppressive demand,
or to the fearful alternative. The Wanyamwezi also show their readiness
to take the same advantage; the road to Karagwah is besieged with
difficulties; the terrible Mirambo stands in the way, defeats their
combined forces with ease, and makes raids even to the doors of their
houses in Unyanyembe; and should they succeed in passing Mirambo, a
chief--Swaruru--stands before them who demands tribute by the bale, and
against whom it is useless to contend.
These remarks have reference to the slave-trade inaugurated in Manyuema
by the Arabs. Harassed on the road between Zanzibar and Unyanyembe
by minatory natives, who with bloody hands are ready to avenge the
slightest affront, the Arabs have refrained from kidnapping between the
Tanganika and the sea; but in Manyuema, where the natives are timid,
irresolute, and divided into small weak tribes, they recover their
audacity, and exercise their kidnapping propensities unchecked.
The accounts which the Doctor brings from that new region are most
deplorable. He was an unwilling spectator of a horrible deed--a massacre
committed on the inhabitants of a populous district who had assembled
in the market-place on the banks of the Lualaba, as they had been
accustomed to do for ages. It seems that the Wamanyuema are very fond of
marketing, believing it to be the summum bonum of human enjoyment. They
find endless pleasure in chaffering with might and main for the least
mite of their currency--the last bead; and when they gain the point to
which their peculiar talents are devoted, they feel intensely happy.
The women are excessively fond of this marketing, and, as they are very
beautiful, the market place must possess considerable attractions for
the male sex. It was on such a day amidst such a scene, that Tagamoyo,
a half-caste Arab, with his armed slave escort, commenced an
indiscriminate massacre by firing volley after volley into the dense
mass of human beings. It is supposed that there were about 2,000
present, and at the first sound of the firing these poor people all made
a rush for their canoes. In the fearful hurry to avoid being shot, the
canoes were paddled away by the first fortunate few who got possession
of them; those that were not so fortunate sprang into the deep waters
of the Lualaba, and though many of them became an easy prey to the
voracious crocodiles which swarmed to the scene, the majority received
their deaths from the bullets of the merciless Tagamoyo and his
villanous band.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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