What Led to the Discovery of the Source of the NileSpeke, John Hanning
History
What Led to the Discovery of the Source of the Nile
Speke, John Hanning
Horn of Africa -- Description and travel; Nile River; Tanganyika, Lake
15th.--The caravan broke ground at 4 P.M., and, completing the
principal zigzag made to avoid wars, arrived at Senagongo. Kanoni,
followed by a host of men, women, and children, advanced to meet the
caravan, all roaringly intoxicated with joy, and lavishing greetings
of welcome, with showers of "Yambo, Yambo Sanas" ("How are you?" and,
"Very well, I hope?") which we as warmly returned: the shakings of
hands were past number, and the Beluches and Bombay could scarcely be
seen under the hot embraces and sharp kisses of admiring damsels. When
recovered from the shock of this great outburst of feelings, Kanoni
begged me to fire a few shots, to apprise his enemies, and especially
his big brother, of the honours paid him. No time was lost: I no
sooner gave the order than bang, bang went every one of the escort's
guns, and the excited crowd, immediately seeing a supposed antagonist
in the foreground, rushed madly after him. Then spears were
flourished, thrust, stabbed, and withdrawn; arrows were pointed, huge
shields protected black bodies, sticks and stones flew like hail; then
there was a slight retreat, then another advance--dancing to one side,
then to the other--jumping and prancing on the same ground, with
bodies swaying here and bodies swaying there, until at length the
whole foreground was a mass of moving objects, all springs and hops,
like an army of frogs, after the first burst of rain, advancing to a
pond: then again the guns went off, giving a fresh impulse to the
exciting exercise.
Their great principle in their warfare appears to be, that no one
should be still. At each report of the guns, fresh enemies were
discovered retreating, and the numbers of their slain were quite
surprising. These, as they dropped, were, with highly dramatic action,
severally and immediately trampled down and knelt upon, and hacked and
chopped repeatedly with knives, whilst the slayer continued showing
his savage wrath by worrying his supposed victim with all the angry
energy that dogs display when fighting. This triumphal entry over,
Kanoni led us into his boma, and treated us with sour curd. Then, at
my request, he assembled his principal men and greatest travellers to
debate upon the N'yanza. One old man, shrivelled by age, stated that
he had travelled up the western shores of the N'yanza two moons (sixty
days) consecutively, had passed beyond Karagué into a country where
coffee grows abundantly, and is called Muanyé. He described the shrub
as standing between two and three feet high, having the stem nearly
naked, but much branched above; it grows in large plantations, and
forms the principal article of food. The people do not boil and drink
it as we do, but eat the berry raw, with its husk on. The Arabs are
very fond of eating these berries raw, and have often given us some.
They bring them down from Uganda, where, for a pennyworth of beads, a
man can have his fill.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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