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
Altogether the sultanship of a district in Ugogo must be very
remunerative, besides being a delightful sinecure, so long as the Sultan
has to deal with timid Arab merchants who fear to exhibit anything
approaching to independence and self-reliance, lest they might
be mulcted in cloth. In one day from one camp the sultan received
forty-seven doti, consisting of Merikani, Kaniki, Barsati, and Dabwani,
equal to $35.25, besides seven doti of superior cloths, consisting of
Rehani, Sohari, and Daobwani Ulyah, and one fundo of Bubu, equal to
$14.00, making a total of $49.25--a most handsome revenue for a Mgogo
chief.
On the 27th May we gladly shook the dust of Mvumi from our feet, and
continued on our route--ever westward. Five of my donkeys had died the
night before, from the effects of the water of Marenga Mkali. Before
leaving the camp of Mvumi, I went to look at their carcases; but found
them to have been clean picked by the hyaenas, and the bones taken
possession of by an army of white-necked crows.
As we passed the numerous villages, and perceived the entire face of
the land to be one vast field of grain, and counted the people halted
by scores on the roadside to feast their eyes with a greedy stare on the
Musungu, I no longer wondered at the extortionate demands of the Wagogo.
For it was manifest that they had but to stretch out their hands to
possess whatever the wealth of a caravan consisted of; and I began to
think better of the people who, knowing well their strength, did not
use it--of people who were intellectual enough to comprehend that their
interest lay in permitting the caravans to pass on without attempting
any outrage.
Between Mvumi and the nest Sultan's district, that of Matamburu, I
counted no less than twenty-five villages, scattered over the clayey,
coloured plain. Despite the inhospitable nature of the plain, it was
better cultivated than any part of any other country we had seen since
leaving Bagamoyo.
When we had at last arrived at our boma of Matamburu, the same groups of
curious people, the same eager looks, the same exclamations of surprise,
the same, peals of laughter, at something they deemed ludicrous in the
Musungu's dress or manner, awaited us, as at Mvumi. The Arabs being
"Wakonongo" travellers, whom they saw every day, enjoyed a complete
immunity from the vexations which we had to endure.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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