The Personal Life of David Livingstone/CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XX.
MANYUEMA.
A.D. 1869-1871.
He sets out to explore Manyuema and the river Lualaba--Loss of forty-two letters--His feebleness through illness--He arrives at Bambarré--Becomes acquainted with the soko or gorilla--Reaches the Luama River--Magnificence of the country--Repulsiveness of the people--Cannot get a canoe to explore the Lualaba--Has to return to Bambarré--Letter to Thomas, and retrospect of his life--Letter to Sir Thomas Maclear and Mr. Mann--Miss Tinné--He is worse in health than ever, yet resolves to add to his programme and go round Lake Bangweolo--Letter to Agnes--Review of the past--He sets out anew in a more northerly direction--Overpowered by constant wet--Reaches Nyangwe--Long detention--Letter to his brother John--Sense of difficulties and troubles--Nobility of his spirit--He sets off with only three attendants for the Lualaba--Suspicions of the natives--Influence of Arab traders--Frightful difficulties of the way--Lamed by foot-sores--Has to return to Bambarré--Long and wearisome detention--Occupations--Meditations and reveries--Death no terror--Unparalleled position and trials--He reads his Bible from beginning to end four times--Letter to Sir Thomas Maclear--To Agnes--His delight at her sentiments about his coming home--Account of the soko--Grief to hear of death of Lady Murchison--Wretched character of men sent from Zanzibar--At last sets out with Mohamad--Difficulties--Slave-trade most horrible--Cannot get canoes for Lualaba--Long waiting--New plan--Frustrated by horrible massacre on banks of Lualaba--Frightful scene--He must return to Ujiji--New illness--Perils of journey to Ujiji--Life three times endangered in one day--Reaches Ujiji--Shereef has sold off his goods--He is almost in despair--Meets Henry M. Stanley and is relieved--His contributions to Natural Science during last journeys--Professor Owen in the _Quarterly Review_.
After resting for a few weeks at Ujiji, Dr. Livingstone set out, 12th
July, 1869, to explore the Manyuema country. Ujiji was not a place
favorable for making arrangements; it was the resort of the worst scum
of Arab traders. Even to send his letters to the coast was a difficult
undertaking, for the bearers were afraid he would expose their doings.
On one day he despatched no fewer than forty-two--enough, no doubt, to
form a large volume; none of these even arrived at Zanzibar, so that
they must have been purposely destroyed. The slave-traders of Urungu and
Itawa, where he had been, were gentlemen compared with those of Ujiji,
who resembled the Kilwa and Portuguese, and with whom trading was simply
a system of murder. Here lay the cause of Livingstone's unexampled
difficulties at this period of his life; he was dependent on men who
were not only knaves of the first magnitude, but who had a special
animosity against him, and a special motive to deceive, rob, and
obstruct him in every possible way.
After considerable deliberation he decided to go to Manyuema, in order to examine the river Lualaba, and determine the direction of its flow. This would settle the question of the watershed, and in four or five months, if he should get guides and canoes, his work would be done. On setting out from Ujiji he first crossed the lake, and then proceeded inland on foot. He was still weak from illness, and his lungs were so feeble that to walk up-hill made him pant. He became stronger, however, as he went on, refreshed doubtless by the interesting country through which he passed, and the aspect of the people, who were very different from the tribes on the coast.
On the 21st September he arrived at Bambarré, in Manyuema, the village of the Chief Moenékuss. He found the people in a state of great isolation from the rest of the world, with nothing to trust to but charms and idols,--both being bits of wood. He made the acquaintance of the soko or gorilla, not a very social animal, for it always tries to bite off the ends of its captor's fingers and toes. Neither is it particularly intellectual, for its nest shows no more contrivance than that of a cushat dove. The curiosity of the people was very great, and sometimes it took an interesting direction. "Do people die with you?" asked two intelligent young men. "Have you no charm against death? Where do people go after death?" Livingstone spoke to them of the great Father, and of their prayers to Him who hears the cry of his children; and they thought this to be natural.
He rested at Bambarré till the 1st of November, and then went westward till he reached the Luamo River, and was within ten miles of its confluence with the Lualaba. He found the country surpassingly beautiful: "Palms crown the highest heights of the mountains, and their gracefully-bent fronds wave beautifully in the wind. Climbers of cable size in great numbers are hung among the gigantic trees; many unknown wild fruits abound, some the size of a child's head, and strange birds and monkeys are everywhere. The soil is excessively rich, and the people, though isolated by old feuds that are never settled, cultivate largely."
The country was very populous, and Livingstone so excited the curiosity of the people that he could hardly get quit of the crowds. It was not so uninteresting to be stared at by the women, but he was wearied with the ugliness of the men. Palm-toddy did not inspire them with any social qualities, but made them low and disagreeable. They had no friendly feeling for him, and could not be inspired with any. They thought that he and his people were like the Arab traders, and they would not do anything for them. It was impossible to procure a canoe for navigating the Lualaba, so that there was nothing for it but to return to Bambarré, which was reached on the 19th December, 1869.
A long letter to his son Thomas (Town of Moenékuss, Manyuema Country, 24th September, 1869) gives a retrospect of this period, and indeed, in a sense, of his life:
"My dear Tom,--I begin a letter, though I have no prospect of
being able to send it off for many months to come. It is to
have something in readiness when the hurry usual in preparing
a mail does arrive. I am in the Manyuema Country, about 150
miles west of Ujiji, and at the town of Moenekoos or
Moenékuss, a principal chief among the reputed cannibals. His
name means 'Lord of the light-gray parrot with a red tail,'
which abounds here, and he points away still further west to
the country of the real cannibals. His people laugh, and say,
'Yes, we eat the flesh of men,' and should they see the
inquirer to be credulous, enter into particulars. A black
stuff smeared on the cheeks is the sign of mourning, and they
told one of my people who believes all they say that it is
animal charcoal made of the bones of the relatives they have
eaten. They showed him the skull of one recently devoured,
and he pointed it out to me in triumph. It was the skull of a
gorilla, here called 'soko,' and this they do eat. They put a
bunch of bananas in his way, and hide till he comes to take
them, and spear him. Many of the Arabs believe firmly in the
cannibal propensity of the Manyuema. Others who have lived
long among them, and are themselves three-fourths African
blood, deny it. I suspect that this idea must go into
oblivion with those of people who have no knowledge of fire,
of the Supreme Being, or of language. The country abounds in
food,--goats, sheep, fowls, buffaloes, and elephants: maize,
holcuserghum, cassaba, sweet potatoes, and other farinaceous
eatables, and with ground-nuts, palm-oil, palms, and other
fat-yielding nuts, bananas, plantains, sugar-cane in great
plenty. So there is little inducement to eat men, but I wait
for further evidence.
"Not knowing how your head has fared, I sometimes feel
greatly distressed about you, and if I could be of any use I
would leave my work unfinished to aid you. But you will have
every medical assistance that can be rendered, and I cease
not to beg the Lord who healeth his people to be gracious to
your infirmity.
"The object of my Expedition is the discovery of the sources
of the Nile. Had I known all the hardships, toil, and time
involved, I would of been of the mind of St. Mungo, of
Glasgow, of whom the song says that he let the Molendinar
Burn 'rin by,' when he could get something stronger. I would
have let the sources 'rin by' to Egypt, and never been made
'drumly' by my plashing through them. But I shall make this
country and people better known. 'This,' Professor Owen said
to me, 'is the first step; the rest will in due time follow.'
By different agencies the Great Ruler is bringing all things
into a focus. Jesus is gathering all things unto Himself, and
He is daily becoming more and more the centre of the world's
hopes and of the world's fears. War brought freedom to
4,000,000 of the most hopeless and helpless slaves. The world
never saw such fiendishness as that with which the Southern
slaveocracy clung to slavery. No power in this world or the
next would ever make them relax their iron grasp. The lie had
entered into their soul. Their cotton was King. With it they
would force England and France to make them independent,
because without it the English and French must starve.
Instead of being made a nation, they made a nation of the
North. War has elevated and purified the Yankees, and now
they have the gigantic task laid at their doors to elevate
and purify 4,000,000 of slaves. I earnestly hope that the
Northerners may not be found wanting in their portion of the
superhuman work. The day for Africa is yet to come. Possibly
the freed men may be an agency in elevating their fatherland.
"England is in the rear. This affair in Jamaica brought out
the fact of a large infusion of bogiephobia in the English.
Frightened in early years by their mothers with 'Bogie
Blackman,' they were terrified out of their wits by a riot,
and the sensation writers, who act the part of the 'dreadful
boys' who frightened aunts, yelled out that emancipation was
a mistake. 'The Jamaica negroes were as savage as when they
left Africa.' They might have put it much stronger by saying,
as the rabble that attended Tom Sayers's funeral, or that
collects at every execution at Newgate. But our golden age is
not in the past. It is in the future--in the good time coming
yet for Africa and for the world.
"The task I undertook was to examine the watershed of South
Central Africa. This was the way Sir Roderick put it, and
though he mentioned it as the wish of the Geographical
Council, I suspect it was his own idea; for two members of
the Society wrote out 'instructions' for me, and the
watershed was not mentioned. But scientific words were used
which the writers evidently did not understand.
"The examination of the watershed contained the true
scientific mode of procedure, and Sir Roderick said to me:
'You will be the discoverer of the sources of the Nile,' I
shaped my course for a path across the north end of Lake
Nyassa, but to avoid the certainty of seeing all my
attendants bolting at the first sight of, the wild tribes
there, the Nindi, I changed off to go round the south end,
and if not, cross the middle. What I feared for the north
took place in the south when the Johanna men heard of the
Mazitu, though we were 150 miles from the marauders, and I
offered to go due west till past their beat. They were
terrified, and ran away as soon as they saw my face turned
west. I got carriers from village to village, and got on
nicely with people who had never engaged in the slave-trade;
but it was slow work. I came very near to the Mazitu three
times, but obtained information in time to avoid them. Once
we were taken for Mazitu ourselves, and surrounded by a
crowd of excited savages. They produced a state of confusion
and terror, and men fled hither and thither with the fear of
death on them. Casembe would not let me go into his southern
district till he had sent men to see that the Mazitu, or, as
they are called in Lunda, the Watuta, had left. Where they
had been all the food was swept off, and we suffered cruel
hunger. We had goods to buy with, but the people had nothing
to sell, and were living on herbs and mushrooms. I had to
feel every step of the way, and generally was groping in the
dark. No one knew anything beyond his own district, and who
cared where the rivers ran? Casembe said, when I was going to
Lake Bangweolo: 'One piece of water was just like another (it
is the Bangweolo water), but as your chief desired you to
visit that one, go to it. If you see a traveling party going
north, join it. If not, come back to me and I will send you
safely along my path by Moero;' and gave me a man's load of a
fish like whitebait. I gradually gained more light on the
country, and slowly and surely saw the problem of the
fountains of the Nile developing before my eyes. The vast
volume of water draining away to the north made me conjecture
that I had been working at the sources of the Congo too. My
present trip to Manyuema proves that all goes to the river of
Egypt. In fact, the head-waters of the Nile are gathered into
two or three arms, very much as was depicted by Ptolemy in
the second century of our era. What we moderns can claim is
rediscovery of what had fallen into oblivion, like the
circumnavigation of Africa by the Phoenican admiral of one of
the Pharaohs, B.C. 600. He was not believed, because 'he had
the sun on his right hand in going round from east to west.'
Though to us this stamps his tale as genuine, Ptolemy was not
believed, because his sources were between 10 and 12 north
latitude, and collected into two or three great head
branches. In my opinion, his informant must have
visited them.
"I cared nothing for money, and contemplated spending my life
as a hard-working, poor missionary. By going into the country
beyond Kuruman we pleased the Directors, but the praises they
bestowed excited envy. Mamma and you all had hard times. The
missionaries at Kuruman, and south of it, had comfortable
houses and gardens. They could raise wheat, pumpkins, maize,
at very small expense, and their gardens yielded besides
apples, pears, apricots, peaches, quinces, oranges, grapes,
almonds, walnuts, and all vegetables, for little more than
the trouble of watering. A series or droughts compelled us to
send for nearly all our food 270 miles off. Instead of help
we had to pay the uttermost farthing for everything, and got
bitter envy besides. Many have thought that I was inflated by
the praises I had lavished upon me, but I made it a rule
never to read anything of praise. I am thankful that a kind
Providence has enabled me to do what will reflect honor on my
children, and show myself a stout-hearted servant of Him from
whom comes every gift. None of you must become mean,
craven-hearted, untruthful, or dishonest, for if you do, you
don't inherit it from me. I hope that you have selected a
profession that suits your taste. It will make you hold up
your head among men, and is your most serious duty. I shall
not live long, And it would not be well to rely on my
influence. I could help you a little while living, but have
little else but what people call a great name to bequeath
afterward. I am nearly toothless, and in my second childhood.
The green maize was in one part the only food we could get
with any taste. I ate the hard fare, and was once horrified
by finding most of my teeth loose. They never fastened again,
and generally became so loose as to cause pain. I had to
extract them, and did so by putting on a strong thread with
what sailors call a clove-hitch, tie the other end to a stump
above or below, as the tooth was upper or lower, strike the
thread with a heavy pistol or stick, and the tooth dangled at
the stump, and no pain was felt. Two upper front teeth are
thus out, and so many more, I shall need a whole set of
artificials. I may here add that the Manyuema stole the
bodies of slaves which were buried, till a threat was used.
They said the hyenas had exhumed the dead, but a slave was
cast out by Banyamwezi, and neither hyenas nor men touched it
for seven days. The threat was effectual. I think that they
are cannibals, but not ostentatiously so. The disgust
expressed by native traders has made them ashamed. Women
never partook of human flesh. Eating sokos or gorillas must
have been a step in the process of teaching them to eat men.
The sight of a soko nauseates me. He is so hideously ugly, I
can conceive no other use for him than sitting for a portrait
of Satan. I have lost many months by rains, refusal of my
attendants to go into a canoe, and irritable eating ulcers on
my feet from wading in mud instead of sailing. They are
frightfully common, and often kill slaves. I am recovering,
and hope to go down Lualaba, which I would call Webb River or
Lake; touch then another Lualaba, which I will name Young's
River or Lake; and then by the good hand of our Father above
turn homeward through Karagwe. As ivory-trading is here like
gold-digging, I felt constrained to offer a handsome sum of
money and goods to my friend Mohamad Bogharib for men. It was
better to do this than go back to Ujiji, and then come over
the whole 260 miles. I would have waited there for men from
Zanzibar, but the authority at Ujiji behaved so oddly about
my letters, I fear they never went to the coast. The
worthless slaves I have saw that I was at their mercy, for no
Manyuema will go into the next district, and they behaved as
low savages who have been made free alone can. Their
eagerness to enslave and kill their own countrymen is
distressing....
"Give my love to Oswell and Anna Mary and the Aunties. I have
received no letter from any of you since I left home. The
good Lord bless you all, and be gracious to
you.--Affectionately yours,
"DAVID LIVINGSTONE."
Another letter is addressed to Sir Thomas Maclear and Mr. Mann, September, 1869. He enters at considerable length into his reasons for the supposition that he had discovered, on the watershed, the true sources of the Nile. He refers in a generous spirit to the discoveries of other travelers, mistaken though he regarded their views on the sources, and is particularly complimentary to Miss Tinné:
"A Dutch lady whom I never saw, and of whom I know nothing
save from scraps in the newspapers, moves my sympathy more
than any other. By her wise foresight in providing a steamer,
and pushing on up the river after the severest domestic
affliction--the loss by fever of her two aunts--till after
she was assured by Speke and Grant that they had already
discovered in Victoria Nyanza the sources she sought, she
proved herself a genuine explorer, and then by trying to go
S.W. on land. Had they not, honestly enough of course, given
her their mistaken views, she must inevitably, by boat or on
land, have reached the head-waters of the Nile. I cannot
conceive of her stopping short of Bangweolo. She showed such
indomitable pluck she must be a descendant of Van Tromp, who
swept the English Channel till killed by our Blake, and whose
tomb every Englishman who goes to Holland is sure to visit.
"We great he-beasts say, 'Exploration was not becoming her
sex.' Well, considering that at least 1600 years have elapsed
since Ptolemy's informants reached this region, and kings,
emperors, and all the great men of antiquity longed in vain
to know the fountains, exploration does not seem to have
become the other sex either. She came much further up than
the two centurions sent by Nero Caesar.
"I have to go down and see where the two arms unite,--the
lost city Meroe ought to be there,--then get back to Ujiji to
get a supply of goods which I have ordered from Zanzibar,
turn bankrupt after I secure them, and let my creditors catch
me if they can, as I finish up by going round outside and
south of all the sources, so that I may be sure no one will
cut me out and say he found other sources south of mine.
This is one reason for my concluding trip; another is to
visit the underground houses in stone, and the copper mines
of Katanga which have been worked for ages (Malachite). I
have still a seriously long task before me. My letters have
been delayed inexplicably, so I don't know my affairs. If I
have a salary I don't know it, though the _Daily Telegraph_
abused me for receiving it when I had none. Of this alone I
am sure--my friends will all wish me to make a complete work
of it before I leave, and in their wish I join. And it is
better to go in now than to do it in vain afterward."
"I have still a seriously long task before me." Yet he had lately been worse in health and weaker than he had ever been; he was much poorer than he expected to be, and the difficulties had proved far beyond any he had hitherto experienced. But so far from thinking of taking things more easily than before, he actually enlarges his programme, and resolves to "finish up by going round outside and south of all the sources." His spirit seems only to rise as difficulties are multiplied.
He writes to his daughter Agnes at the same time: "You remark that you think you could have traveled as well as Mrs. Baker, and I think so too. Your mamma was famous for roughing it in the bush, and was never a trouble." The allusion carries him to old days--their travels to Lake 'Ngami, Mrs. Livingstone's death, the Helmores, the Bishop, Thornton. Then he speaks of recent troubles and difficulties, his attack of pneumonia, from which he had not expected to recover, his annoyances with his men, so unlike the old Makololo, the loss of his letters and boxes, with the exception of two from an unknown donor that contained the _Saturday Review_ and his old friend _Punch_ for 1868. Then he goes over African travelers and their achievements, real and supposed. He returns again to the achievements of ladies, and praises Miss Tinné and other women. "The death-knell of American slavery was rung by a woman's hand. We great he-beasts say Mrs. Stowe exaggerated. From what I have seen of slavery I say exaggeration is a simple impossibility. I go with the sailor who, on seeing slave-traders, said: 'If the devil don't catch these fellows, we might as well have no devil at all.'"
The year 1870 was begun with the prayer that in the course of it he might be able to complete his enterprise, and retire through the Basango before the end of it. In February he hears with gratitude of Mr. E.D. Young's Search Expedition up the Shiré and Nyassa. In setting out anew he takes a more northerly course, proceeding through paths blocked with very rank vegetation, and suffering from choleraic illness caused by constant wettings. In the course of a month the effects of the wet became overpowering, and on 7th February Dr. Livingstone had to go into winter quarters. He remained quiet till 26th June.
In April, 1870, from "Manyuema or Cannibal Country, say 150 miles N.W. of Ujiji," he began a letter to Sir Roderick Murchison, but changed its destination to his brother John in Canada. He notices his Immediate object--to ascertain where the Lualaba joined the eastern branch of the Nile, and contrasts the lucid reasonable problem set him by Sir Roderick with the absurd instructions he had received from some members of the Geographical Society. "I was to furnish 'a survey on successive pages of my journal,' 'latitudes every night,' 'hydrography of Central Africa,' and because they voted one-fifth or perhaps one-sixth part of my expenses, give them 'all my notes, copies if not the originals!' For mere board and no lodgings I was to work for years and hand over the results to them." Contrasted with such absurdities, Sir Roderick's proposal had quite fascinated him. He had ascertained that the watershed extended 800 miles from west to east, and had traversed it in every direction, but at a cost which had been wearing out both to mind and body. He drops a tear over the Universities Mission, but becomes merry over Bishop Tozer strutting about with his crosier at Zanzibar, and in a fine clear day getting a distant view of the continent of which he claimed to be Bishop. He denounces the vile policy of the Portuguese, and laments the indecision of some influential persons who virtually upheld it. He is tickled with the generous offer of a small salary, when he should settle somewhere, that had been made to him by the Government, while men who had risked nothing were getting handsome salaries of far greater amount; but rather than sacrifice the good of Africa, HE WOULD SPEND EVERY PENNY OF HIS PRIVATE MEANS. He seems surrounded by a whole sea of difficulties, but through all, the nobility of his spirit shines undimmed. To persevere in the line of duty is his only conceivable course. He holds as firmly as ever by the old anchor--"All will turn out right at last."
When ready, they set out on 26th June. Most of his people failed him; but nothing daunted, he set off then with only three attendants, Susi, Chuma, and Gardner, to the northwest for the Lualaba. Whenever he comes among Arab traders he finds himself suspected and hated because he is known to condemn their evil deeds.
The difficulties by the way were terrible. Fallen trees and flooded rivers made marching a perpetual struggle. For the first time, Livingstone's feet failed him. Instead of healing as hitherto, when torn by hard travel, irritating sores fastened upon them, and as he had but three attendants, he had to limp back to Bambarré, which he reached in the middle of July.
And here he remained in his hut for eighty days, till 10th October, exercising patience, harrowed by the wickedness he could not stop, extracting information from the natives, thinking about the fountains of the Nile, trying to do some good among the people, listening to accounts of soko-hunting, and last, not least, reading his Bible. He did not leave Bambarré till 16th February, 1871. From what he had seen and what he had heard he was more and more persuaded that he was among the true fountains of the Nile. His reverence for the Bible gave that river a sacred character, and to throw light on its origin seemed a kind of religious act. He admits, however, that he is not quite certain about it, though he does not see how he can be mistaken. He dreams that in his early life Moses may have been in these parts, and if he should only discover any confirmation of sacred history or sacred chronology he would not grudge all the toil and hardship, the pain and hunger, he had undergone. The very spot where the fountains are to be found becomes defined in his mind. He even drafts a despatch which he hopes to write, saying that the fountains are within a quarter of a mile of each other!
Then he bethinks him of his friends who have done noble battle with slavery, and half in fancy, half in earnest, attaches their names to the various waters. The fountain of the Liambai or Upper Zambesi he names Palmerston Fountain, in fond remembrance of that good man's long and unwearied labor for the abolition of the slave-trade. The lake formed by the Lufira is to be Lincoln Lake, in gratitude to him who gave freedom to four millions of slaves. The fountain of Lufira is associated with Sir Bartle Frere, who accomplished the grand work of abolishing slavery in Sindia, in Upper India. The central Lualaba is called the River Webb, after the warm-hearted friend under whose roof he wrote _The Zambesi and its Tributaries;_ while the western branch is named the Young River, to commemorate his early instructor in chemistry and life-long friend, James Young. "He has shed pure white light in many lowly cottages and in some rich palaces. I, too, have shed light of another kind, and am fain to believe that I have performed a small part in the grand revolution which our Maker has been for ages carrying on, by multitudes of conscious and many unconscious agents, all over the world[69]."
[Footnote 69: See _Last Journals_. vol. ii. pp 65, 66.]
He is by no means unaware that death may be in the cup. But, fortified as he was by an unalterable conviction that he was in the line of duty, the thought of death had no influence to turn him either to the right hand or to the left. For the first three years he had a strong presentiment that he would fall. But it had passed away as he came near the end, and now he prayed God that when he retired it might be to his native home.
Probably no human being was ever in circumstances parallel to those in which Livingstone now stood. Years had passed since he had heard from home. The sound of his mother-tongue came to him only in the broken sentences of Chuma or Susi or his other attendants, or in the echoes of his own voice as he poured it out in prayer, or in some cry of home-sickness that could not be kept in. In long pain and sickness there had been neither wife nor child nor brother to cheer him with sympathy, or lighten his dull hut with a smile. He had been baffled and tantalized beyond description in his efforts to complete the little bit of exploration which was yet necessary to finish his task. His soul was vexed for the frightful exhibitions of wickedness around him, where "man to man," instead of brothers, were worse than wolves and tigers to each other. During all his past life he had been sowing his seed weeping, but so far was he from bringing back his sheaves rejoicing, that the longer he lived the more cause there seemed for his tears. He had not yet seen of the travail of his soul. In opening Africa he had seemed to open it for brutal slave-traders, and in the only instance in which he had yet brought to it the feet of men "beautiful upon the mountains, publishing peace," disaster had befallen, and an incompetent leader had broken up the enterprise. Yet, apart from his sense of duty, there was no necessity for his remaining there. He was offering himself a freewill-offering, a living sacrifice. What could have sustained his heart and kept him firm to his purpose in such a wilderness of desolation?
"I read the whole Bible through four times whilst I was in Manyuema."
So he wrote in his Diary, not at the time, but the year after, on the 3d October, 1871[70]. The Bible gathers wonderful interest from the circumstances in which it is read. In Livingstone's circumstances it was more the Bible to him than ever. All his loneliness and sorrow, the sickness of hope deferred, the yearnings for home that could neither be repressed nor gratified, threw a new light on the Word. How clearly it was intended for such as him, and how sweetly it came home to him! How faithful, too, were its pictures of human sin and sorrow! How true its testimony against man, who will not retain God in his knowledge, but, leaving Him, becomes vain in his imaginations and hard in his heart, till the bloom of Eden is gone, and a waste, howling wilderness spreads around! How glorious the out-beaming of Divine Love, drawing near to this guilty race, winning and cherishing them with every endearing act, and at last dying on the cross to redeem them! And how bright the closing scene of Revelation--the new heaven and the new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness--yes, he can appreciate _that_ attribute--the curse gone, death abolished, and all tears wiped from the mourner's eye!
[Footnote 70: See _Last Journals_, vol. ii. p. 154.]
So the lonely man in his dull hut is riveted to the well-worn book; ever finding it a greater treasure as he goes along; and fain, when he has reached its last page, to turn back to the beginning, and gather up more of the riches which he has left upon the road.
To Sir Thomas Maclear and Mr. Mann he writes during his detention (September, 1870) on a leaf of his cheque-book, his paper being done. He gives his theory of the rivers, enlarges on the fertility of the country, bewails his difficulty in getting men, as the Manyuema never go beyond their own country, and the traders, who have only begun to come there, are too busy collecting ivory to be able to spare men. "The tusks were left in the terrible forests, where the animals were killed; the people, if treated civilly, readily go and bring the precious teeth, some half rotten, or gnawed by the teeth of a rodent called dezi. I think that mad naturalists name it Aulocaudatus Swindermanus, or some equally wise agglutination of syllables.... My chronometers are all dead; I hope my old watch was sent to Zanzibar; but I have got no letters for years, save some, three years old, at Ujiji. I have an intense and sore longing to finish and retire, and trust that the Almighty may permit me to go home."
In one of his letters to Agnes from Manyuema he quotes some words from a letter of hers that he ever after cherished as a most refreshing cordial:
"I commit myself to the Almighty Disposer of events, and if I fall, will do so doing my duty, like one of his stout-hearted servants. I am delighted to hear you say that, much as you wish me home, you would rather hear of my finishing my work to my own satisfaction than come merely to gratify you. That is a noble sentence, and I felt all along sure that all my friends would wish me to make a complete work of it, and in that wish, in spite of every difficulty, I cordially joined. I hope to present to my young countrymen an example of manly perseverance. I shall not hide from you that I am made by it very old and shaky, my cheeks fallen in, space round the eyes ditto; mouth almost toothless,--a few teeth that remain, out of their line, so that a smile is that of a he-hippopotamus,--a dreadful old fogie, and you must tell Sir Roderick that it is an utter impossibility for me to appear in public till I get new teeth, and even then the less I am seen the better."
Another letter to Agnes from Manyuema gives a curious account of the young soko or gorilla a chief had lately presented to him:
"She sits crouching eighteen inches high, and is the most
intelligent and least mischievous of all the monkeys I have
seen. She holds out her hand to be lifted and carried, and if
refused makes her face as in a bitter human weeping, and
wrings her hands quite humanly, sometimes adding a foot or
third hand to make the appeal more touching.... She knew me
at once as a friend, and when plagued by any one always
placed her back to me for safety, came and sat down on my
mat, decently made a nest of grass and leaves, and covered
herself with the mat to sleep. I cannot take her with me,
though I fear that she will die before I return, from people
plaguing her. Her fine long black hair was beautiful when
tended by her mother, who was killed. I am mobbed enough
alone; two sokos--she and I--would not have got breath.
"I have to submit to be a gazing-stock. I don't altogether
relish it, here or elsewhere, but try to get over it
good-naturedly, get into the most shady spot of the village,
and leisurely look at all my admirers. When the first crowd
begins to go away, I go into my lodgings to take what food
may be prepared, as coffee, when I have it, or roasted maize
infusion when I have none. The door is shut, all save a space
to admit light. It is made of the inner bark of a gigantic
tree, not a quarter of an inch thick, and slides in a groove
behind a post on each side of the doorway. When partially
open it is supported by only one of the posts. Eager heads
sometimes crowd the open space, and crash goes the thin door,
landing a Manyuema beauty on the floor. 'It was not I,' she
gasps out, 'it was Bessie Bell and Jeanie Gray that shoved me
in, and--' as she scrambles out of the lion's den, 'see
they're laughing'; and; fairly out, she joins in the merry
giggle too. To avoid darkness or being half-smothered, I
often eat in public, draw a line on the ground, then 'toe the
line,' and keep them out of the circle. To see me eating with
knife, fork, and spoon is wonderful. 'See!--they don't touch
their food!--what oddities, to be sure.'...
"Many of the Manyuema women are very pretty; their hands,
feet, limbs, and form are perfect. The men are handsome.
Compared with them the Zanzibar slaves are like London
door-knockers, which some atrocious iron-founder thought were
like lions' faces. The way in which these same Zanzibar
Mohammedans murder the men and seize the women and children
makes me sick at heart. It is not slave-trade. It is
murdering free people to make slaves. It is perfectly
indescribable. Kirk has been working hard to get this
murdersome system put a stop to. Heaven prosper his noble
efforts! He says in one of his letters to me, 'It is
monstrous injustice to compare the free people in the
interior, living under their own chiefs and laws, with what
slaves at Zanzibar afterward become by the abominable system
which robs them of their manhood. I think it is like
comparing the anthropologists with their ancestral sokos.'...
"I am grieved to hear of the departure of good Lady
Murchison. Had I known that she kindly remembered me in her
prayers, it would have been great encouragement....
"The men sent by Dr. Kirk are Mohammedans, that is,
unmitigated liars. Musa and his companions are fair specimens
of the lower class of Moslems. The two head-men remained at
Ujiji, to feast on my goods, and get pay without work. Seven
came to Bambarré, and in true Moslem style swore that they
were sent by Dr. Kirk to bring me back, not to go with me, if
the country were bad or dangerous. Forward they would not go.
I read Dr. Kirk's words to them to follow wheresoever I led.
'No, by the old liar Mohamed, they were to force me back to
Zanzibar.' After a superabundance of falsehood, it turned out
that it all meant only an advance of pay, though they had
double the Zanzibar wages. I gave it, but had to threaten on
the word of an Englishman to shoot the ringleaders before I
got them to go. They all speak of English as men who do not
lie.... I have traveled more than most people, and with all
sorts of followers. The Christians of Kuruman and Kolobeng
were out of sight the best I ever had. The Makololo, who were
very partially Christianized, were next best--honest,
truthful, and brave. Heathen Africans are much superior to
the Mohammedans, who are the most worthless one can have."
Toward the end of 1870, before the date of this letter, he had so far recovered that, though feeling the want of medicine as much as of men, he thought of setting out, in order to reach and explore the Lualaba, having made a bargain with Mohamad, for £270, to bring him to his destination. But now he heard that Syde bin Habib, Dugumbé, and others were on the way from Ujiji, perhaps bringing letters and medicines for him. He cannot move till they arrive; another weary time. "Sorely am I perplexed, and grieve and mourn."
The New Year 1871 passes while he is at Bambarré, with its prayer that he might be permitted to finish his task. At last, on 4th February, ten of the men despatched to him from the coast arrive, but only to bring a fresh disappointment. They were slaves, the property of Banians, who were British subjects! and they brought only one letter! Forty had been lost. There had been cholera at Zanzibar, and many of the porters sent by Dr. Kirk had died of it. The ten men came with a lie in their mouth; they would not help him, swearing that the Consul told them not to go forward, but to force Livingstone back. On the 10th they mutinied, and had to receive an advance of pay. It was apparent that they had been instructed by their Banian masters to baffle him in every way, so that their slave-trading should not be injured by his disclosures. Their two head-men, Shereef and Awathe, had refused to come farther than Ujiji, and were reveling in his goods there. Dr. Livingstone never ceased to lament and deplore that the men who had been sent to him were so utterly unsuitable. One of them actually formed a plot for his destruction, which was only frustrated through his being overheard by one whom Livingstone could trust. Livingstone wrote to his friends that owing to the inefficiency of the men, he lost two years of time, about a thousand pounds in money, had some 2000 miles of useless traveling, and was four several times subjected to the risk of a violent death.
At length, having arranged with the men, he sets out on 16th February over a most beautiful country, but woefully difficult to pass through. Perhaps it was hardly a less bitter disappointment to be told, on the 25th, that the Lualaba flowed west-southwest, so that after all it might be the Congo.
On the 29th March Livingstone arrived at Nyangwe, on the banks of the Lualaba. This was the farthest point westward that he reached in his last Expedition.
The slave-trade here he finds to be as horrible as in any other part of Africa. He is heart-sore for human blood He is threatened, bullied, and almost attacked. In some places, however, the rumor spreads that he makes no slaves, and he is called "the good one." His men are a ceaseless trouble, and for ever mutinying, or otherwise harassing him. And yet he perseveres in his old kind way, hoping by kindness to gain influence with them. Mohamad's people, he finds, have passed him on the west, and thus he loses a number of serviceable articles he was to get from them, and all the notes made for him of the rivers they had passed. The difficulties and discouragements are so great that he wonders whether, after all, God is smiling on his work.
His own men circulate such calumnious reports against him that he is unable to get canoes for the navigation of the Lualaba. This leads to weeks and months of weary waiting, and yet all in vain; but afterward he finds some consolation on discovering that the navigation was perilous, that a canoe had been lost from the inexperience of her crew in the rapids, so that had he been there, he should very likely have perished, as his canoe would probably have been foremost.
A change of plan was necessary. On 5th July he offered to Dugumbé £400, with all the goods he had at Ujiji besides, for men to replace the Banian slaves, and for the other means of going up the Lomamé to Katanga, then returning and going up Tanganyika to Ujiji. Dugumbé took a little time to consult his friends before replying to the offer.
Meanwhile an event occurred of unprecedented horror, that showed Livingstone that he could not go to Lomamé in the company of Dugumbé. Between Dugumbé's people and another chief a frightful system of pillage, murder, and burning of villages was going on with horrible activity. One bright summer morning, 15th July, when fifteen hundred people, chiefly women, were engaged peacefully in marketing in a village on the banks of the Lualaba, and while Dr. Livingstone was sauntering about, a murderous fire was opened on the people, and a massacre ensued of such measureless atrocity that he could describe it only by saying that it gave him the impression of being in hell. The event was so superlatively horrible, and had such an overwhelming influence on Livingstone, that we copy at full length the description of it given in the _Last Journals:_
"Before I had got thirty yards out, the discharge of two guns
in the middle of the crowd told me that slaughter had begun;
crowds dashed off from the place, and threw down their wares
in confusion, and ran. At the same time that the three opened
fire on the mass of people near the upper end of the
market-place, volleys were discharged from a party down near
the creek on the panic-stricken women, who dashed at the
canoes. These, some fifty or more, were jammed in the creek,
and the men forgot their paddles in the terror that seized
all. The canoes were not to be got out, for the creek was too
small for so many; men and women, wounded by the balls,
poured into them, and leaped and scrambled into the water,
shrieking A long line of heads in the river showed that great
numbers struck out for an island a full mile off; in going
toward it they had to put the left shoulder to a current of
about two miles an hour; if they had struck away diagonally
to the opposite bank, the current would have aided them, and,
though nearly three miles off, some would have gained land;
as it was, the heads above water showed the long line of
those that would inevitably perish.
"Shot after shot continued to be fired on the helpless and
perishing. Some of the long line of heads disappeared
quietly; whilst other poor creatures threw their arms high,
as if appealing to the great Father above, and sank. One
canoe took in as many as it could hold, and all paddled with
hands and arms; three canoes, got out in haste, picked up
sinking friends, till all went down together, and
disappeared. One man in a long canoe, which could have held
forty or fifty, had clearly lost his head; he had been out in
the stream before the massacre began, and now paddled up the
river nowhere, and never looked to the drowning. By and by
all the heads disappeared; some had turned down stream toward
the bank, and escaped. Dugumbé put people into one of the
deserted vessls to save those in the water, and saved
twenty-one; but one woman refused to be taken on board, from
thinking that she was to be made a slave of; she preferred
the chance of life by swimming to the lot of a slave. The
Bagenya women are expert in the water, as they are accustomed
to dive for oysters, and those who went down stream may have
escaped, but the Arabs themselves estimated the loss of life
at between 330 and 400 souls. The shooting-party near the
canoes were so reckless, they killed two of their own people;
and a Banyamwezi follower, who got into a deserted canoe to
plunder, fell into the water, went down, then came up again,
and down to rise no more.
"After the terrible affair in the water, the party of
Tagamoio, who was the chief perpetrator, continued to fire on
the people there, and fire their villages. As I write I hear
the loud wails on the left bank over those who are there
slain, ignorant of their many friends now in the depths of
Lualaba. Oh, let Thy kingdom come! No one will ever know the
exact loss on this bright sultry summer morning; it gave me
the impression of being in Hell. All the slaves in the camp
rushed at the fugitives on land, and plundered them; women
were for hours collecting and carrying loads of what had been
thrown down in terror."
The remembrance of this awful scene was never effaced from Livingstone's heart. The accounts of it published in the newspapers at home sent a thrill of horror through the country. It was recorded at great length in a despatch to the Foreign Secretary, and indeed, it became one of the chief causes of the appointment of a Royal Commission to investigate the subject of the African slave-trade, and of the mission of Sir Bartle Frere to Africa to concert measures for bringing it to an end.
Dugumbé had not been the active perpetrator of the massacre, but, he was mixed up with the atrocities that had been committed, and Livingstone could have nothing to do with him. It was a great trial, for, as the Banian men were impracticable, there was nothing for it now but to go back to Ujiji, and try to get other men there with whom he would repeat the attempt to explore the river. For twenty-one months, counting from the period of their engagement, he had fed and clothed these men, all in vain, and now he had to trudge back forty-five days, a journey equal, with all its turnings and windings, to six hundred miles. Livingstone was ill, and after such an exciting time he would probably have had an attack of fever, but for another ailment to which he had become more especially subject. The intestinal canal had given way, and he was subject to attacks of severe internal hæmorrhage, one of which came on him now[71]. It appeared afterward that had he gone with Dugumbé, he would have been exposed to an assault in force by the Bakuss, as they made an attack on the party and routed them, killing two hundred. If Livingstone had been among them, he might have fallen in this engagement. So again, he saw how present disappointments work for good.
[Footnote 71: His friends say that for a considerable time before he had been subject to the most grievous pain from hæmorrhoids. His sufferings were often excruciating.]
The journey back to Ujiji, begun 20th July, 1871, was a very wretched one. Amid the universal desolation caused by the very wantonness of the marauders, it was impossible for Livingstone to persuade the natives that he did not belong to the same-set. Ambushes were set for him and his company in the forest. On the 8th August they came to an ambushment all prepared, but it had been abandoned for some unknown reason. By and by, on the same day, a large spear flew past Livingstone, grazing his neck; the native who flung it was but ten yards off; the hand of God alone saved his life[72]. Farther on, another spear was thrown, which missed him by a foot. On the same day a large tree, to which fire had been applied to fell it, came down within a yard of him. Thus on one day he was delivered three times from impending death. He went on through the forest, expecting every minute to be attacked, having no fear, but perfectly indifferent whether he should be killed or not. He lost all his remaining calico that day, a telescope, umbrella, and five spears. By and Thy he was prostrated with grievous illness. As soon as he could move he went onward, but he felt as if dying on his feet. And he was ill-rigged for the road, for the light French shoes to which he was reduced, and which had been cut to ease his feet till they would hardly hang together, failed to protect him from the sharp fragments of quartz with which the road was strewed. He was getting near to Ujiji, however, where abundant of goods and comforts were no doubt safely stowed away for him, and the hope of relief sustained him under all his trials.
[Footnote 72: The head of this spear is among the Livingstone relics at Newstead Abbey.]
At last, on the 23d October, reduced to a living skeleton, he reached Ujiji. What was his misery, instead of finding the abundance of goods he had expected, to learn that the wretch Shereef, to whom they had been consigned, had sold off the whole, not leaving one yard of calico out of 3000, or one string of beads out of 700 pounds! The scoundrel had divined on the Koran, found that Livingstone was dead, and would need the goods no more. Livingstone had intended, if he could not get men at Ujiji to go with him to the Lualaba, to wait there till suitable men should be sent up from the coast; but he had never thought of having to wait in beggary. If anything could have aggravated the annoyance, it was to see Shereef come, without shame, to salute him, and tell him on leaving, that he was going to pray; or to see his slaves passing from the market with all the good things his property had bought! Livingstone applied a term to him which he reserved for men--black or white--whose wickedness made them alike shameless and stupid--he was a "moral idiot."
It was the old story of the traveler who fell among thieves that robbed him of all he had; but where was the good Samaritan? The Government and the Geographical Society appeared to have passed by on the other side. But the good Samaritan was not as far off as might have been thought. One morning Syed bin Majid, an Arab trader, came to him with a generous offer to sell some ivory and get goods for him; but Livingstone had the old feeling of independence, and having still a few barter goods left, which he had deposited with Mohamad bin Saleh before going to Manyuema, he declined for the present Syed's generous offer. But the kindness of Syed was not the only proof that he was not forsaken. Five days after he reached Ujiji the good Samaritan appeared from another quarter. As Livingstone had been approaching Ujiji from the southwest, another white man had been approaching it from the east. On 28th October, 1871, Henry Moreland Stanley, who had been sent to look for him by Mr. James Gordon Bennett, Jr., of the _New York Herald_ newspaper, grasped the hand of David Livingstone. An angel from heaven could hardly have been more welcome. In a moment the sky brightened. Stanley was provided with ample stores, and was delighted to supply the wants of the traveler. The sense of sympathy, the feeling of brotherhood, the blessing of fellowship, acted like a charm. Four good meals a day, instead of the spare and tasteless food of the country, made a wonderful change on the outer man; and in a few days Livingstone was himself again--hearty and happy and hopeful as before.
Before closing this chapter and entering on the last two years of Livingstone's life, which have so lively an interest of their own, it will be convenient to glance at the contributions to natural science which he continued to make to the very end. In doing this, we avail ourselves of a very tender and Christian tribute to the memory of his early friend, which Professor Owen contributed to the _Quarterly Review,_ April, 1875, after the publication of Livingstone's _Last Journals_.
Mr. Owen appears to have been convinced by Livingstone's reasoning and observations, that the Nile sources were in the Bangweolo watershed--a supposition now ascertained to have been erroneous. But what chiefly attracted and delighted the great naturalist was the many interesting notices of plants and animals scattered over the _Last Journals_. These Journals contain important contributions both to economic and physiological botany. In the former department, Livingstone makes valuable observations on plants useful in the arts, such as gum-copal, papyrus, cotton, india-rubber, and the palm-oil tree; while in the latter, his notices of "carnivorous plants," which catch insects that probably yield nourishment to the plant, of silicified wood and the like, show how carefully he watched all that throws light on the life and changes of plants. In zoölogy he was never weary of observing, especially when he found a strange-looking animal with strange habits. Spiders, ants, and bees of unknown varieties were brought to light, but the strangest of his new acquaintances were among the fishy tribes. He found fish that made long excursions on land, thanks to the wet grass through which they would wander for miles, thus proving that "a fish out of water" is not always the best symbol for a man out of his element. There were fish, too, that burrowed in the earth; but most remarkable at first sight were the fish that appeared to bring forth their young by ejecting them from their mouths. If Bruce or Du Chaillu had made such a statement, remarks Professor Owen, what ridicule would they not have encountered! But Livingstone was not the man to make a statement of what he had not ascertained, or to be content until he had found a scientific explanation of it. He found that in the branchial openings of the fish, there occur bags or pouches, on the same principle as the pouch of the opossum, where the young may be lodged for a time for protection or nourishment, and that when the creatures are discharged through the mouth into the water, it is only from a temporary cradle where they were probably enjoying repose, beyond the reach of enemies.
Perhaps the greatest of Livingstone's scientific discoveries during this journey was that "of a physical condition of the earth's surface in elevated tracts of the great continent, unknown before." The bogs or earth-sponges, that from his first acquaintance with them gave him so much trouble, and at last proved the occasion of his death, were not only remarkable in themselves, but-interesting as probably explaining the annual inundations of most of the rivers. Wherever there was a plain sloping toward a narrow opening in hills or higher ground, there were the conditions for an African sponge. The vegetation falls down and rots, and forms a rich black loam, resting often, two or three feet thick, on a bed of pure river sand. The early rains turn the vegetation into slush, and fill the, pools. The later rains, finding the pools already full, run off to the rivers, and form the inundation. The first rains occur south of the equator when the sun goes vertically over any spot, and the second or greater rains happen in his course north again. This, certainly, was the case as observed on the Zambesi and Shiré, and taking the different times for the sun's passage north of the equator, it explained the inundations of the Nile.
Such notices show that in his love of nature, and in his careful observation of all her agencies and processes, Livingstone, in his last journeys, was the same as ever. He looked reverently on all plants and animals, and on the solid earth in all its aspects and forms, as the creatures of that same God whose love in Christ it was his heart's delight to proclaim. His whole life, so varied in its outward employments, yet so simple and transparent in its one great object, was ruled by the conviction that the God of nature and the God of revelation were one. While thoroughly enjoying his work as a naturalist, Professor Owen frankly admits that it was but a secondary object of his life. "Of his primary work the record is on high, and its imperishable fruits remain on earth. The seeds of the Word of Life implanted lovingly, with pains and labor, and above-all with faith; the out-door scenes of the simple Sabbath service; the testimony of Him to whom the worship was paid, given in terms of such simplicity as were fitted to the comprehension of the dark-skinned listeners,--these seeds will not have been scattered by him in vain. Nor have they been sown in words alone, but in deeds, of which some part of the honor will redound to his successors. The teaching by forgiveness of injuries,--by trust, however unworthy the trusted,--by that confidence which imputed his own noble nature to those whom he would win,--by the practical enforcement of the fact that a man might promise and perform--might say the thing he meant,--of this teaching by good deeds, as well as by the words of truth and love, the successor who treads in the steps of LIVINGSTONE, and accomplishes the discovery he aimed at, and pointed the way to, will assuredly the benefit[73]."
[Footnote 73: _Quarterly Review_, April, 1875, pp. 498, 499.]