The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868Livingstone, David
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The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868
Livingstone, David
Africa, Central -- Description and travel
At Chenjewala's the people are usually much startled when I explain
that the numbers of slaves we see dead on the road have been killed
partly by those who sold them, for I tell them that if they sell
their fellows, they are like the man who holds the victim while the
Arab performs the murder.
Chenjewala blamed Machemba, a chief above him on the Rovuma, for
encouraging the slave-trade; I told him I had travelled so much among
them that I knew all the excuses they could make, each headman blamed
some one else.
"It would be better if you kept your people and cultivated more
largely," said I, "Oh, Machemba sends his men and robs our gardens
after we have cultivated," was the reply. One man said that the Arabs
who come and tempt them with fine clothes are the cause of their
selling: this was childish, so I told them they would very soon have
none to sell: their country was becoming jungle, and all their people
who did not die in the road would be making gardens for Arabs at Kilwa
and elsewhere.
_28th June, 1866._--When we got about an hour from Chenjewala's we
came to a party in the act of marauding; the owners of the gardens
made off for the other side of the river, and waved to us to go
against the people of Machemba, but we stood on a knoll with all our
goods on the ground, and waited to see how matters would turn out. Two
of the marauders came to us and said they had captured five people. I
suppose they took us for Arabs, as they addressed Musa. They then took
some green maize, and so did some of my people, believing that as all
was going, they who were really starving might as well have a share.
I went on a little way with the two marauders, and by the footprints
thought the whole party might amount to four or five with guns; the
gardens and huts were all deserted. A poor woman was sitting, cooking
green maize, and one of the men ordered her to follow him. I said to
him, "Let her alone, she is dying." "Yes," said he, "of hunger," and
went'on without her.
We passed village after village, and gardens all deserted! We were
now between two contending parties. We slept at one garden; and as we
were told by Chenjewala's people to take what we liked, and my men had
no food, we gleaned what congo beans, bean leaves, and sorghum stalks
we could,--poor fare enough, but all we could get.
_29th June, 1866._--We came onto Machemba's brother, Chimseia, who
gave us food at once. The country is now covered with deeper soil, and
many large acacia-trees grow in the rich loam: the holms too are
large, and many islands afford convenient maize grounds. One of the
Nassiek lads came up and reported his bundle, containing 240 yards of
calico, had been stolen; he went aside, leaving it on the path
(probably fell asleep), and it was gone when he came back. I cannot
impress either on them or the sepoys that it is wrong to sleep on the
march.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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