Through the Dark Continent, Volume 1 quotes

While returning to England in April 1874 from the Ashantee War, the news reached me that Livingstone was dead—that his body was on its way to England!

Livingstone had then fallen! He was dead! He had died by the shores of Lake Bemba, on the threshold of the dark region he had wished to explore!

The work he had promised me to perform was only begun when death overtook him!

“Do you think you can settle all this, if we commission you?”

“While I live, there will be something done. If I survive the time required to perform all the work, all shall be done.”

The matter was for the moment suspended, because Mr. James Gordon Bennett, of the New York Herald, had prior claims on my services.

Life at Zanzibar is a busy one to the intending explorer.

Time flies rapidly, and each moment of daylight must be employed in the selection and purchase of the various kinds of cloth, beads, and wire

, in demand by the different tribes of the mainland through whose countries he purposes journeying.

Zanzibar canoes and “matepes” are arriving with wood and produce, and others of the same native form and make are squaring their mat sails, outward bound. Sunset approaches, and after sunset silence follows soon.

For as there are no wheeled carriages with the eternal rumble of their traffic in Zanzibar, with the early evening comes early peace and rest.

The intending explorer, however, bound for that dark edge of the continent which he can just see lying low along the west as he looks from Zanzibar, has thoughts at this hour which the resident cannot share.

The intending explorer, however, bound for that dark edge of the continent which he can just see lying low along the west as he looks from Zanzibar, has thoughts at this hour which the resident cannot share.

As little as his eyes can pierce and define the details in that gloomy streak on the horizon, so little can he tell whether weal or woe lies before him.

The whole is buried in mystery, over which he ponders, certain of nothing but the uncertainty of life. Yet will he learn to sketch out a comparison between what he sees at sunset and his own future.

Dark, indeed, is the gloom of the fast-coming night over the continent, but does he not see that there are still bright flushes of colour, and rosy bars, and crimson tints, amidst what otherwise would be universal blackness?

And may he not therefore say—“As those colours now brighten the darkening west, so my hopes brighten my dark future”?

Nov. 1874.—

It is a most sobering employment, the organizing of an African expedition.

You are constantly engaged, mind and body;

… of which I hoped with their trusty aid to explore carefully, various ejaculations expressive of wonder and joy, mixed with a little alarm, broke from their lips, but when I concluded, each of the group drew a long breath, and almost simultaneously they uttered admiringly,

“Ah, fellows, this is a journey worthy to be called a journey!”

“But, master,” said they, after recovering themselves, “this long journey will take years to travel—six, nine, or ten years.” “Nonsense,” I replied. “Six, nine, or ten years! What can you be thinking of?

Many wavings of kerchiefs and hats, parting signals from white hands, and last long looks at friendly white faces, final confused impressions of the grouped figures of our well-wishers, and then the evening breeze had swept us away into mid-sea beyond reach of recognition.

The parting is over! We have said our last words for years, perhaps for ever, to kindly men!

The sun sinks fast to the western horizon, and gloomy is the twilight that now deepens and darkens.

The remnant of the herd vanished, and the bull-terrier “Jack,” now unleashed, was in an instant glorying in his first strange prizes.

How the rogue plunged his teeth in their throats! with what ardour he pinned them by the nose! and soon bathing himself in blood, he appeared to be the very Dog of Murder, a miracle of rabid ferocity.

Billali, requested to run to camp to procure Wangwana to carry the meat to camp, was only too happy, knowing what brave cheers and hearty congratulations would greet him. Msenna was already busy skinning one of the animals, some 300 yards from me;

In the morning, I discovered my fatigue cap several yards outside the tent, and one of my boots sailing down south. The harmonium, a present for Mtesa, a large quantity of gunpowder, tea, rice and sugar, were destroyed. Vengeance appeared to have overtaken us.

At 10 A.M. the sun appeared, astonished no doubt at a new lake formed during his absence.

By noon the water had considerably decreased, and permitted us to march;

Frank Pocock and Fred Barker at the side of the hammock of the sick European, and a chief and four men attending to each suffering Wangwana. Hundreds of natives fully armed kept up with us on either side of our path.

Never since leaving the sea were we weaker in spirit than on this day.

Had we been attacked, I doubt if we should have made much resistance. The famine in Ugogo, and that terribly protracted trial of strength through the jungle of Uveriveri, had utterly unmanned us;

besides, we had such a long list of sick, and Edward Pocock and three Wangwana were dangerously ill in hammocks. We were an unspeakably miserable and disheartened band; yet, urged by our destiny, we struggled on, though languidly.

Our spirits seemed dying, or resolving themselves into weights which oppressed our hearts.

Weary, harassed, and feeble creatures, we arrived at Chiwyu, four hundred miles from the sea, and camped near the crest of a hill, which was marked by aneroid as 5400 feet above the level of the ocean.

He took a long sweeping look at something, waved his hat, and came down towards us, his face beaming with joy, as he shouted out enthusiastically with the fervour of youth and high spirits,

“I have seen the Lake, Sir, and it is grand!”

Frederick Barker, riding painfully on an ass, and sighing wearily from illness and the length of the journey, lifted his head to smile his thanks to his comrade.

“Bring out bullocks, sheep, and goat’s milk, and the mellowest of your choicest bananas, and great jars of maramba, and let the white man and his boatmen eat, and taste of the hospitalities of Uganda.

Shall a white man enter the Kabaka’s presence with an empty belly?

See how sallow and pinched his cheeks are. We want to see whether we cannot show him kindness superior to what the pagans have shown him.”

“He is surely a pagan slave—worth about a goat,” remarked a fourth.

“Not he. I would not buy him for a ripe banana,” ventured a fifth.

I looked up at Saramba, and half fancied that he paled.

Parting with Colonel Linant—Magassa’s vanity and disloyalty—The sailor’s island—Jumba’s Cove—Uganga—Dumo—The Alexandra Nile—Lupassi Point—In danger at Makongo—Alone with Nature—Insect life—Dreams of a happier future—A dark secret—Murabo and the fish—Alice Island—A night never to be forgotten—The treachery of Bumbireh—Saved!—Refuge Island—Wiru—

“Go and die in the Nyanza!”

—Back in camp—Sad news.

the Wakara poison anew their deadly arrows at sight of a canoe; and each tribe, with rage and hate in its heart, remains aloof from the other.

“Verily, the dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty.”

Oh for the hour when a band of philanthropic capitalists shall vow to rescue these beautiful lands, and supply the means to enable the Gospel messengers to come and quench the murderous hate with which man beholds man in the beautiful lands around Lake Victoria!

Then ensued a scene which beggars description.

Pandemonium—all its devils armed—raged around us.

A forest of spears was levelled; thirty or forty bows were drawn taut; as many barbed arrows seemed already on the wing; thick, knotty clubs waved above our heads;

It is a consolation that, if anything, it will be short, sharp, sudden—a gasp, and then a silence—for ever and ever!” And after that I was ready for the fight and for death.

“Now, my black friends, do your worst; anything you choose; I am ready.”

A messenger from the king and the council arrives, and beckons Safeni. I said to him, “Safeni, use your wit.” “Please God, master,” he replied.

A loud cheer greeted the seizure of the oars. I became convinced now that this one little act would lead to others; for man is the same all over the world.

Set a beggar on horseback, and he will ride to the devil; give a slave an inch, and he will take an ell; if a man submit once, he must be prepared to submit again.

The “shauri” proceeded. Another messenger came, demanding five cloths and five fundo of necklaces. They were delivered.

When I placed myself under the spring-balance scales, I found I weighed only 115 lbs., just 63 lbs. less than when leaving Zanzibar. Frank Pocock weighed 162 lbs.! I saved this excessive reduction of flesh to scant fare and days of hunger, not to sickness.

Sweet were those first days of rest!

Frank was eager to hear all that had befallen us, in our 1000 miles’ sail round the lake, and the Wangwana formed circles many deep, to hear the Iliad of our woes. What hearty sympathisers these poor, black, untutored men were!

July 18.—As we left Refuge Island, on the morning of the 18th of July, the guides furnished by Kijaju, king of Komeh, propitiated the genius of the lake with beads given to him for the occasion, and adjured it by saying:—

“Be kind to the white M’kama, O Nianja, I charge thee! Give him a safe and prosperous voyage across thy wide waters.”

From Kazaradzi Island, on which we rested for the night, we beheld a most glorious sunset.

and a hundred times afterwards did I see that the savage only respects force, power, boldness, and decision; and that he is totally ignorant of the principles which govern the conduct of Christian man to man.

Forbearance is to him cowardice: mildness, patience, and an equable temper are, in his undeveloped and unreasoning mind, only evidences of effeminacy.

But the murderous Wanyaturu, when we finally turned out of our camp, learned, when it was too late, that our womanly gentleness covered power; the audacious Wakamba at Ngevi Island were only brought to their senses when they heard the startling reports of the revolver;

the ferocious Wa-Bumbireh only respected us after our successful escape; the cunning king of Iroba only became really friendly when we quietly showed our power, and his rapidly growing insolence was only cowed by the exhibition of sternness.

But the exercise of power without magnanimity is simply brutality, and has only a transient effect.

If, therefore, I could only show the king of Bumbireh and his people that the first white man they had seen was extremely gentle in his manner until aroused, but, though strong and powerful when angered, was magnanimous afterwards, I should, I felt, leave a …

His companion, “Bull,” the last of five English dogs, when he beheld his poor mate stretched out still and dead, also expressed, as clearly as canine nature would allow, his great sorrow at his lamentable fate.

Grave and deliberate from years and long travel, he walked round the body two or three times, examining it carefully, and then advanced to me with his honest eyes wide open as if to ask, “What has caused this?”

Receiving no answer, he went aside and sat down with his back to me, solemn and sad, as though he were ruminating despondingly on the evils which beset dog and man alike in this harsh and wicked world.

He listened to me so far as to send a canoe manned with only fifteen men. As they were paddling on, unthinking and undreading danger, I cried out to Mtesa, who was about twenty yards from me,

“Say farewell to Webba, for you will see little Webba no more.”

The Katekiro and two or three of his chiefs smiled as if this was most absurd. I felt precisely at this moment as I felt the first time I saw a bull-fight: a cold shiver of horror crept over me.

… to confirm him in his new faith, that he might read the Bible for him, and perform the service of a Bible reader until the good people of Europe should send a priest to baptize him and teach him the duties of the Christian religion.

“Stamlee,” said Mtesa to me, as we parted, nearly two months after the massacre of the peace party, “say to the white people, when you write to them, that I am like a man sitting in darkness, or born blind, and that all I ask is that I may be taught how to see, and I shall continue a Christian while I live.”

Then the king, recovering from his surprise, fell upon the ground and wept aloud, calling upon the name of Kintu; and the king’s mother and the peasant added their cries to his, and wept as if their hearts would break.

But no blood-hating Kintu answered to them, only the tall deep woods echoed their cries, “Kintu, Kintu-u, Kintu-u-u-u,” as if in mockery of their sorrow.

All night they kept watch, breaking out now and then into moaning and wailings for the last loss of the great father of Uganda.

Namujurilwa fell upon them with a ferocity and vigour that the numerical superiority of his enemies could not equal. For five hours the battle lasted without intermission or advantage to either side, when Namujurilwa was accidentally met by one of the princes of Ankori.

“Not dead yet, Namujurilwa?” cried the prince. “Wait a little for me,”

saying which he took a bow from one of his servants and shot an arrow which hit the border of the tough double bull-hide shield which the chief of Uddu generally carried.

After a few days’ rest Kasindula made another raid in a totally different direction with similar results, and again the Wasoga hurried up, only to find the houses all consumed, the warriors all dead, and the women and children and cattle all deported away.

“What manner of man is this,” asked the astonished Wasoga of one another, “who comes in the night, like a hyena, and vanishes with the daylight, with his maw gorged with blood?”

Consoling themselves, however, with a vow to be revenged on him at a fitting opportunity, they returned again to their own districts.

On explaining the various uses of laudanum, he remarked, to my surprise, with a sigh, “Ah! that is the medicine I wish to have. Can you not spare some for me?”

Poor Magassa! poor Pokino! poor Katekiro! He is already watching, while yet young, in the prime and vigour of manhood, for he knoweth not the hour when the Lord of the Cord may beckon to him.

It is left for some future traveller to tell us of his interview with Kasuju, the chief executioner.

The peculiar wayward, petulant, inconsistent nature would become moulded anew, or be re-born, to be presented henceforth to European travellers in an amiable, nay loveable, aspect.

Mtesa is the most interesting man in Africa, and one well worthy of our largest sympathies; and I repeat that through him only can Central Africa be Christianized and civilized.

It will be observed that I have styled Mtesa “Emperor” of Uganda, and not king, like my predecessors Speke and Grant.

… besides its cool agreeable shade, the banana-plant will supply a peasant of Uganda with bread, potatoes, dessert, wine, beer, medicine, house and fence, bed, cloth, cooking-pot, table-cloth, parcel-wrapper, thread, cord, rope, sponge, bath, shield, sun-hat, even a canoe—in fact almost everything but meat and iron.

With the banana-plant, he is happy, fat, and thriving; without it, he is a famished, discontented, woe-begone wretch, hourly expecting death.

NGOGO FISH. 10 inches long, 3 inches deep; scaleless; horn at each shoulder; two long thick filaments on upper lip, four on lower. Found in Speke Gulf, Lake Victoria.

Until daylight we journeyed along, or not far from, the Rusango, its many falls, rapids, and cascades telling of the rapid rush and furious plunge of the river towards Muta Nzigé.

Dawn found us in a singularly wild and beautifully picturesque country, the Switzerland of Africa.

Peaks, cones, mountain humps, and dome-like hills shot up in every direction, while ice-cold streams rolled between riven and dismantled rocks or escaped beneath natural bridges of rock, with furious roar.

The Waganda always had recourse to action and gesture to supplement their verbal description of his raging fits.

His eyes, they said, were “balls of fire and large as fists,” while his words were “like gunpowder.”

Nature, which had endowed Mtesa with a nervous and intense temperament, had given Rumanika the placid temper, the soft voice, the mild benignity, and pleasing character of a gentle father.

From two such fair nooks, halfway down either slope, the northern and the southern, drip in great rich drops the sources of two impetuous rivers—on the southern the Malagarazi, on the other the Lohugati.

Though nurtured in the same cradle, and issuing within 2000 yards of one another, the twin streams are strangers throughout their lives.

Through the thick ferns and foliage, the rivulets trickle each down his appointed slope, murmuring as they gather strength to run their destined course—the Lohugati to the Victoria Lake, the Malagarazi to distant Tanganika.

“BULL.” (From a photograph by the Author.)

Poor dog! Good and faithful service had he done me!

Who more rejoiced than he to hear the rifle-shot ringing through the deep woods! Who more loudly applauded success than he with his deep, mellow bark! What long forest-tracts of tawny plains and series of mountain ranges had he not traversed!

He amazed the wondering savages with his bold eyes and bearing, and by his courageous front caused them to retreat before him; and right bravely did he help us to repel the Wanyaturu from our camp in Ituru.

Farewell, thou glory of thy race! Rest from thy labours in the silent forest!

Thy feet shall no more hurry up the hill or cross mead and plain; thy form shall rustle no more through the grasses, or be plunging to explore the brake;

… exterior, whose action was so calm, without a gesture, presented to the eye nothing of the Napoleonic genius which he has for five years displayed in the heart of Unyamwezi, to the injury of Arabs and commerce, and the doubling of the price of ivory.

I said there was nothing; but I must except the eyes, which had the steady, calm gaze of a master.

“During the conversation I had with him, he said he preferred boys or young men to accompany him to war;

My father was king of Uyoweh, and I was his son. What right had Mkasiwa or the Arabs to say what I ought to do? But the war is now over—the Arabs know what I can do, and Mkasiwa knows it.

We will not fight any more, but we will see who can do the best trade, and who is the smartest man.

Any Arab or white man who would like to pass through my country is welcome. I will give him meat and drink, and a house, and no man shall hurt him.’”

“In the afternoon about fifteen men and loads were brought me, with a message from the sultan, that the attack had been a mistake of his subjects—that one man had had a hand cut off for it, and that all the property would be restored!

Age had not lessened the conceit of Myonga, increased his modesty, or moderated his cupidity.

He asserted the rights and privileges of his royalty with a presumptuous voice and a stern brow. He demanded tribute! Twenty-five cloths! A gun and five fundo of beads! The Arabs, my friends, were requested to do the same!

Age had not lessened the conceit of Myonga, increased his modesty, or moderated his cupidity. He asserted the rights and privileges of his royalty with a presumptuous voice and a stern brow.

He demanded tribute! Twenty-five cloths! A gun and five fundo of beads!

The Arabs, my friends, were requested to do the same!