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
There was a slight difference noticed in the demeanour and bearing of
the Waseguhha compared with the Wadoe, Wakami, and Wakwere heretofore
seen. There was none of that civility we had been until now pleased to
note: their express desire to barter was accompanied with insolent
hints that we ought to take their produce at their own prices. If
we remonstrated they became angry; retorting fiercely, impatient of
opposition, they flew into a passion, and were glib in threats. This
strange conduct, so opposite to that of the calm and gentle Wakwere,
may be excellently illustrated by comparing the manner of the hot-headed
Greek with that of the cool and collected German. Necessity compelled us
to purchase eatables of them, and, to the credit of the country and its
productions, be it said, their honey had the peculiar flavour of that of
famed Hymettus.
Following the latitudinal valley of the Ungerengeri, within two hours on
the following morning we passed close under the wall of the capital of
Useguhha--Simbamwenni. The first view of the walled town at the
western foot of the Uruguru mountains, with its fine valley abundantly
beautiful, watered by two rivers, and several pellucid streams of water
distilled by the dew and cloud-enriched heights around, was one that
we did not anticipate to meet in Eastern Africa. In Mazanderan, Persia,
such a scene would have answered our expectations, but here it was
totally unexpected. The town may contain a population of 3,000, having
about 1,000 houses; being so densely crowded, perhaps 5,000 would more
closely approximate. The houses in the town are eminently African, but
of the best type of construction. The fortifications are on an Arabic
Persic model--combining Arab neatness with Persian plan. Through a ride
of 950 miles in Persia I never met a town outside of the great cities
better fortified than Simbamwenni. In Persia the fortifications were
of mud, even those of Kasvin, Teheran, Ispahan, and Shiraz; those
of Simbamwenni are of stone, pierced with two rows of loopholes for
musketry. The area of the town is about half a square mile, its plan
being quadrangular. Well-built towers of stone guard each corner; four
gates, one facing each cardinal point, and set half way between the
several towers, permit ingress and egress for its inhabitants. The gates
are closed with solid square doors made of African teak, and carved
with the infinitesimally fine and complicated devices of the Arabs, from
which I suspect that the doors were made either at Zanzibar or on the
coast, and conveyed to Simbamwenni plank by plank; yet as there is much
communication between Bagamoyo and Simbamwenni, it is just possible that
native artisans are the authors of this ornate workmanship, as several
doors chiselled and carved in the same manner, though not quite so
elaborately, were visible in the largest houses. The palace of the
Sultan is after the style of those on the coast, with long sloping roof,
wide eaves, and veranda in front.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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