In Darkest Africa, Vol. 1; or, The Quest, Rescue, and Retreat of Emin, Governor of EquatoriaStanley, Henry M. (Henry Morton)
History
In Darkest Africa, Vol. 1; or, The Quest, Rescue, and Retreat of Emin, Governor of Equatoria
Stanley, Henry M. (Henry Morton)
Africa, Central -- Description and travel; Emin Pasha, 1840-1892
On the first day's halt at Ipoto we suffered considerable lassitude.
Nature either furnishes a stomach and no food, or else furnishes a feast
and robs us of all appetite. On the day before, and on this, we had fed
sumptuously on rice and pilaf and goat stew, but now we began to suffer
from many illnesses. The masticators had forgotten their office, and the
digestive organs disdained the dainties, and affected to be deranged.
Seriously, it was the natural result of over-eating; corn mush, grits,
parched corn, beans and meat are solids requiring gastric juice, which,
after being famished for so many days, was not in sufficient supply for
the eager demand made for it.
The Manyuema had about 300 or 400 acres under corn, five acres under
rice, and as many under beans. Sugar-cane was also grown largely. They
possessed about 100 goats--all stolen from the natives. In their
store-huts they had immense supplies of Indian corn drawn from some
village near the Ihuru, and as yet unshucked. Their banana plantations
were well stocked with fruit. Indeed the condition of every one in the
settlement was prime.
It is but right to acknowledge that we were received on the first day
with ostentatious kindness, but on the third day something of a
strangeness sprang up between us. Their cordiality probably rose from a
belief that our loads contained some desirable articles, but
unfortunately the first-class beads that would have sufficed for the
purchase of all their stock of corn were lost by the capsizing of a canoe
near Panga Falls, and the gold braided Arab burnooses were stolen below
Ugarrowwa, by deserters. Disappointed at not receiving the expected
quantity of fine cloth or fine beads, they proceeded systematically to
tempt our men to sell everything they possessed, shirts, caps, daoles,
waist cloths, knives, belts, to which, being their personal property, we
could make no objection. But the lucky owners of such articles having
been seen by others less fortunate, hugely enjoying varieties of
succulent food, were the means of inspiring the latter to envy and
finally to theft. The unthrifty and reckless men sold their ammunition,
accoutrements, bill hooks, ramrods, and finally their Remington Rifles.
Thus, after escaping the terrible dangers of starvation and such
injuries as the many savage tribes could inflict on us, we were in near
peril of becoming slaves to the Arab slaves.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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