CHAPTER XII.
DR. LIVINGSTONE STILL IN AFRICA.
The Great Explorer Still in Search of the Sources of the Nile -- His Letters to the English Government on His Explorations -- Correspondence with Lord Stanley, Lord Clarendon, Earl Granville, Dr. Kirk and James Gordon Bennett, Jr. -- His Own Descriptions of Central Africa and the Supposed Sources of the Nile -- The Country and People -- A Nation of Cannibals -- Beautiful Women -- Gorillas -- The Explorer’s Plans for the Future.
When Mr. Stanley bade good-bye to Dr. Livingstone in Unyanyembe, the explorer entrusted to the care of the correspondent despatches to the government, his journal, addressed to his daughter, and copies of letters of which former messengers had been robbed. The letters, old and new, to the representative of the British government at Zanzibar, Dr. Kirk, and to different members of the British cabinet, were allowed to be published. They give a full account of Dr. Livingstone’s explorations among the supposed true sources of the Nile, and abundantly establish the complete success of the “Herald” search expedition. The letters to the British authorities thus sent to the press, August 1, 1872, through the courtesy of Earl Granville, were: 1. A letter from Dr. Livingstone to Lord Stanley, under date of November 15, 1870; 2. Two letters of November 1, 1871, to Lord Clarendon; 3. A letter of November 14, 1871, to Earl Granville; 4. Letter of October 30, 1871, to Dr. Kirk, British Consul at Zanzibar; 5. Letter of December 18, 1871 to Earl Granville; 6. Letter of February 20, 1872, to Earl Granville.
The first of these despatches to his government is from “Bambarre, Manyema country, say about one hundred and fifty miles west of Ujiji, Nov. 15, 1870,” addressed to Lord Stanley, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. In this dispatch, much is contained which Dr. Livingstone orally related to Mr. Stanley, of the “Herald,” and which has already appeared in this work. The country of the Manyema, reputed cannibals, is described generally thus:
“The country is extremely beautiful, but difficult to travel over. The mountains of light gray granite stand like islands in new red sandstone, and mountain and valley are all clad in a mantle of different shades of green. The vegetation is indescribably rank. Through the grass--if grass it can be called, which is over half an inch in diameter in the stalk and from ten to twelve feet high--nothing but elephants can walk. The leaves of this megatherium grass are armed with minute spikes, which, as we worm our way along elephant walks, rub disagreeably on the side of the face where the gun is held, and the hand is made sore by fending it off the other side for hours. The rains were fairly set in by November; and in the mornings, or after a shower, these leaves were loaded with a moisture which wet us to the bone. The valleys are deeply undulating, and in each innumerable dells have to be crossed. There may be only a thread of water at the bottom, but the mud, mire or (_scottice_) ‘glaur’ is grevious; thirty or forty yards of the path on each side of the stream are worked by the feet of passengers into an adhesive compound. By placing a foot on each side of the narrow way one may waddle a little distance along, but the rank crop of grasses, gingers, and bushes cannot spare the few inches of soil required for the side of the foot, and down he comes into the slough. The path often runs along the bed of the rivulet for sixty or more yards, as if he who first cut it out went that distance seeking for a part of the forest less dense for his axe. In other cases the muale palm, from which here, as in Madagascar, grass cloth is woven and called by the same name, ‘lamba,’ has taken possession of the valley. The leaf stalks, as thick as a strong man’s arm, fall off and block up all passage save by a path made and mixed up by the feet of elephants and buffaloes; the slough therein is groan-compelling and deep.
“Some of the numerous rivers which in this region flow into Lualaba are covered with living vegetable bridges--a species of dark glossy-leaved grass, with its roots and leaves, felts itself into a mat that covers the whole stream. When stepped upon it yields twelve or fifteen inches, and that amount of water rises upon the leg. At every step the foot has to be raised high enough to place it on the unbent mass in front. This high stepping fatigues like walking on deep snow. Here and there holes appear which we could not sound with a stick six feet long; they gave the impression that anywhere one might plump through and finish the chapter. Where the water is shallow the lotus, or sacred lily, sends its roots to the bottom and spreads its broad leaves over the floating bridge so as to make believe that the mat is its own, but the grass referred to is the real felting and supporting agent, for it often performs duty as bridge where no lilies grow. The bridge is called by Manyema ‘kintefwetefwe,’ as if he who first coined it was gasping for breath after plunging over a mile of it.
“Between each district of Manyema large belts of the primeval forest still stand. Into these the sun, though vertical, cannot penetrate, except by sending down at midday thin pencils of rays into the gloom. The rain water stands for months in stagnant pools made by the feet of elephants; and the dead leaves decay on the damp soil, and make the water of the numerous rivulets of the color of strong tea. The climbing plants, from the size of whipcord to that of a man-of-war’s hawser, are so numerous the ancient path is the only passage. When one of the giant trees falls across the road it forms a wall breast high to be climbed over, and the mass of tangled ropes brought down makes cutting a path round it a work of time which travellers never undertake.”
At this time, Dr. Livingstone was not persuaded that the Manyema were men-eaters. Toward the conclusion of his letter to Lord Stanley, he thus describes them:
“I lived in what may be called the Tipperary of Manyema, and they are certainly a bloody people among themselves. But they are very far from being in appearance like the ugly negroes on the West Coast. Finely formed heads are common, and generally men and women are vastly superior to the slaves of Zanzibar and elsewhere. We must go deeper than phrenology to account for their low moral tone. If they are cannibals they are not ostentatiously so. The neighboring tribes all assert that they are men-eaters, and they themselves laughingly admit the charge. But they like to impose on the credulous, and they showed the skull of a recent victim to horrify one of my people. I found it to be the skull of a gorilla, or soko--the first I knew of its existence here--and this they do eat. If I had believed a tenth of what I heard from traders, I might never have entered the country. Their people told tales with shocking circumstantiality, as if of eye witnesses, that could not be committed to paper, or even spoken about beneath the breath. Indeed, one wishes them to vanish from memory. I have not yet been able to make up my mind whether the Manyema are cannibals or not. I have offered goods of sufficient value to tempt any of them to call me to see a cannibal feast in the dark forests where these orgies are said to be held, but hitherto in vain. All the real evidence yet obtained would elicit from a Scotch jury the verdict only of ‘not proven.’”
The second despatch, a year later, is devoted to the expression of thanks to Lord Clarendon, on account of the expedition of search under Mr. Young, of which an account has already been given; to an explanation of Ali Moosa’s story of the explorer’s death, and an earnest request that the money expended on him and his fellow-impostors might be regained.
The third document of the series, being also a letter to Lord Clarendon, presents an account of Dr. Livingstone’s explorations and views on the watershed of the Nile more _in extenso_ than anywhere else given. It is certainly one of the most interesting and valuable contributions to modern science. The readers of this volume cannot but feel that a large share of this interesting document may appropriately be quoted here.
“I have ascertained that the watershed of the Nile is a broad upland between ten degrees and twelve degrees south latitude, and from 4,000 to 5,000 feet above the level of the sea. Mountains stand on it at various points, which, though not apparently very high, are between 6,000 and 7,000 feet of actual altitude. The watershed is over 700 miles in length, from west to east. The springs that rise on it are almost innumerable--that is, it would take a large part of a man’s life to count them. A bird’s-eye view of some parts of the watershed would resemble the frost vegetation on window panes. They all begin in an ooze at the head of a slightly depressed valley. A few hundred yards down the quantity of water from oozing earthen sponge forms a brisk perennial burn or brook a few feet broad, and deep enough to require a bridge. These are the ultimate or primary sources of the great rivers that flow to the north in the great Nile valley. The primaries unite and form streams in general larger than the Isis at Oxford or Avon at Hamilton, and may be called secondary sources. They never dry, but unite again into four large lines of drainage, the head waters or mains of the river of Egypt. These four are each called by the natives Lualaba, which, if not too pedantic, may be spoken of as lacustrine rivers, extant specimens of those which, in pre-historic times, abounded in Africa, and which in the south are still called by Bechuanas ‘Melapo,’ in the north, by Arabs, ‘Wadys;’ both words meaning the same thing--river bed in which no water ever now flows. Two of the four great rivers mentioned fall into the central Lualaba, or Webb’s Lake River, and then we have but two main lines of drainage as depicted nearly by Ptolemy.
“In passing over sixty miles of latitude I waded thirty-two primary sources from calf to waist deep, and requiring from twenty minutes to an hour and a quarter to cross stream and sponge. This would give about one source to every two miles. A Suaheli friend in passing along part of the Lake Bangweolo during six days counted twenty-two from thigh to waist deep. This lake is on the watershed, for the village at which I observed on its northwest shore was a few seconds into eleven degrees south. I tried to cross it in order to measure the breadth accurately. The first stage to an inhabited island was about twenty-four miles. From the highest point here the tops of the trees, evidently lifted by the mirage, could be seen on the second stage and the third stage; the mainland was said to be as far as this beyond it. But my canoe men had stolen the canoe and got a hint that the real owners were in pursuit, and got into a flurry to return home.
“The length of this lake is, at a very moderate estimate, 150 miles. It gives forth a large body of water in the Luapula; yet lakes are in no sense sources for no large river begins in a lake; but this and others serve an important purpose in the phenomena of the Nile. It is one large lake, and, unlike the Okara, which, according to Suaheli, who travelled long in our company, is three or four lakes run into one huge Victoria Nianza, gives out a large river which, on departing out of Moero, is still larger. These men had spent many years east of Okara, and could scarcely be mistaken in saying that of the three or four lakes there only one (the Okara) gives off its waters to the north. The ‘White Nile’ of Speke, less by a full half than the Shire out of Nyassa (for it is only eighty or ninety yards broad), can scarcely be named in comparison with the central or Webb’s Lualaba, of from two thousand to six thousand yards, in relation to the phenomena of the Nile. The structure and economy of the watershed answer very much the same end as the great lacustrine rivers, but I cannot at present copy a lost despatch which explained that. The mountains on the watershed are probably what Ptolemy, for reasons now unknown, called the Mountains of the Moon. From their bases I found that the springs of the Nile do unquestionably arise. This is just what Ptolemy put down, and is true geography. We must accept the fountains, and nobody but Philistines will reject the mountains, though we cannot conjecture the reason for the name.
“Before leaving the subject of the watershed, I may add that I know about six hundred miles of it, but am not yet satisfied, for unfortunately the seventh hundred is the most interesting of the whole. I have a very strong impression that in the last hundred miles the fountains of the Nile, mentioned to Herodotus by the Secretary of Minerva in the city of Sais do arise, not like all the rest, from oozing earthen sponges, but from an earthen mound, and half the water flows northward to Egypt, the other half south to Inner Ethiopia. These fountains, at no great distance off, become large rivers, though at the mound they are not more than ten miles apart. That is, one fountain rising on the northeast of the mound becomes Bartle Frere’s Lualaba, and it flows into one of the lakes proper, Kamolondo, of the central line of drainage; Webb’s Lualaba, the second fountain rising on the Northwest, becomes (Sir Paraffin) Young’s Lualaba, which passing through Lake Lincoln and becoming Loeki or Lomame, and joining the central line too, goes north to Egypt. The third fountain on the southwest, Palmerston’s, becomes the Liambia or Upper Zambesi; while the fourth, Oswell’s fountain, becomes the Kafue, and falls into Zambesi in Inner Ethiopia.
“More time has been spent in the exploration than I ever anticipated. Many a weary foot I trod ere I got a clear idea of the drainage of the great Nile valley. The most intelligent natives and traders thought that all the rivers of the upper part of that valley flowed into Tanganyika. But the barometers told me that to do so the water must flow up hill. The great rivers and the great lakes all make their waters converge into the deep trough of the valley, which is a full inch of the barometer lower than the Upper Tanganyika.
“Let me explain, but in no boastful style, the mistakes of others who have bravely striven to solve the ancient problem, and it will be seen that I have cogent reasons for following the painful, plodding investigation to its conclusion. Poor Speke’s mistake was a foregone conclusion. When he discovered the Victoria Nyansa he at once jumped to the conclusion that therein lay the sources of the river of Egypt, ‘20,000 square miles of water,’ confused by sheer immensity. Ptolemy’s small lake, Coloc, is a more correct representation of the actual size of that one of three or four lakes which alone sends its outflow to the north. Its name is Okara. Lake Kavirondo is three days distant from it, but connected by a narrow arm. Lake Naibash, or Neibash, is four days from Kavirondo. Baringo is ten days distant, and discharges by a river, the Nagardabash, to the northeast.
“These three or four lakes, which have been described by several intelligent Suaheli, who have lived for many years on their shores, were run into one huge Victoria Nyanza. But no sooner did Speke and Grant turn their faces to this lake, to prove that it contained the Nile fountains, than they turned their backs to the springs of the river of Egypt, which are between four hundred and five hundred miles south of the most southerly portion of the Victoria Lake. Every step of their heroic and really splendid achievement of following the river down took them further and further from the sources they sought. But for the devotion to the foregone conclusion the sight of the little ‘White Nile,’ as unable to account for the great river, they must have turned off to the west down into the deep trough of the great valley, and there found lacustrine rivers amply sufficient to account for the Nile and all its phenomena.
“But all that can in modern times and in common modesty be fairly claimed is the re-discovery of what had sunk into oblivion, like the circumnavigation of Africa by the Phœnician admirals of one of the Pharaohs about B. C. 600. He was not believed because he reported that in passing round Libya he had the sun on his right hand. This, to us who have gone round the Cape from east to west, stamps his tale as genuine. The predecessors of Ptolemy probably gained their information from men who visited this very region, for in the second century of our era he gave in substance what we now find to be genuine geography.
“The geographical results of four arduous trips in different directions in the Manyema country are briefly as follows:--The great river, Webb’s Lualaba, in the center of the Nile valley, makes a great bend to the west, soon after leaving Lake Moero, of at least one hundred and eighty miles; then, turning to the north for some distance, it makes another large sweep west of about one hundred and twenty miles, in the course of which about thirty miles of southing are made; it then draws round to northeast, receives the Lomani, or Loeki, a large river which flows through Lake Lincoln. After the union a large lake is formed, with many inhabited islands in it; but this has still to be explored. It is the fourth large lake in the central line of drainage, and cannot be Lake Albert; for, assuming Speke’s longitude of Ujiji to be pretty correct, and my reckoning not enormously wrong, the great central lacustrine river is about five degrees west of Upper and Lower Tanganyika.
“Beyond the fourth lake the water passes, it is said, into large reedy lakes, and is in all probability Petherick’s branch--the main stream of the Nile--in distinction from the smaller eastern arm which Speke, Grant, and Baker took to be the river of Egypt. In my attempts to penetrate further and further I had but little hope of ultimate success, for the great amount of westing led to a continued effort to suspend the judgment, lest, after all, I might be exploring the Congo instead of the Nile, and it was only after the two great western drains fell into the central main, and left but the two great lacustrine rivers of Ptolemy, that I felt pretty sure of being on the right track.
“The great bends west probably form one side of the great rivers above that geographical loop, the other side being Upper Tanganyika and the Lake River Albert. A waterfall is reported to exist between Tanganyika and Albert Nyanza, but I could not go to it; nor have I seen the connecting link between the two--the upper side of the loop--though I believe it exists.
“The Manyema are certainly cannibals, but it was long ere I could get evidence more positive than would have led a Scotch jury to give a verdict of ‘not proven.’ They eat only enemies killed in war; they seem as if instigated by revenge in their man-eating orgies, and on these occasions they do not like a stranger to see them. I offered a large reward in vain to any one who would call me to witness a cannibal feast. Some intelligent men have told me that the meat is not nice and made them dream of the dead. The women never partake, and I am glad of it, for many of them far down Lualaba are very pretty; they bathe three or four times a day and are expert divers for oysters.
“Markets are held at stated times and the women attend them in large numbers, dressed in their best. They are light colored, have straight noses, finely formed heads, small hands and feet and perfect forms; they are keen traders, and look on the market as a great institution; to haggle and joke and laugh and cheat seem the enjoyments of life. The population, especially west of the river, is prodigiously large.
“Near Lomani the Bakuss or Bakoons cultivate coffee, and drink it highly scented with vanilla. Food of all kinds is extremely abundant and cheap. The men smelt iron from the black oxide ore, and are very good smiths; they also smelt copper from the ore and make large ornaments very cheaply. They are generally fine, tall, strapping fellows, far superior to the Zanzibar slaves, and nothing of the West Coast negro, from whom our ideas of Africans are chiefly derived, appears among them; no prognathous jaws, barndoor mouth, nor lark heels are seen. Their defects arise from absolute ignorance of all the world.
“There is not a single great chief in all Manyema. No matter what name the different divisions of people bear--Manyema, Balegga, Babire, Bazire, Bokoos--there is no political cohesion; not one king or kingdom. Each head man is independent of every other. The people are industrious, and most of them cultivate the soil largely. We found them every where very honest. When detained at Bambarre we had to send our goats and fowls to the Manyema villages to prevent them being all stolen by the Zanzibar slaves.
“Manyema land is the only country in Central Africa I have seen where cotton is not cultivated, spun, and woven. The clothing is that known in Madagascar as ‘lambas’ or grass cloth, made from the leaves of the ‘Muale’ palm.”
This despatch, it will be observed, is about a year later than the one to Lord Stanley, in which the statement occurs that the fact as to whether the Manyema were man-eaters was “not proven,” though the explorer observed that they ate the gorilla, of which beast Dr. Livingstone evidently has a rather favorable opinion, as respects his disposition, and as surely holds his gross stupidity as clearly demonstrated. In the development of instinct, there appear to be several animals in Africa approaching nearer the capacity of reflection than the gorilla.
The next despatch is to Earl Granville, and is dated at Ujiji, November, 1871. It is almost wholly official, and relates in a clear and most forcible manner, the insurmountable difficulties by reason of which he had been forced to cease explorations at a time when a little longer work would most probably have been crowned with complete success. It is in this despatch that Dr. Livingstone relates the particulars of the horrid massacre at Nyanme, the fearful outlines of which have appeared in Mr. Stanley’s letter already quoted. On his return to Ujiji, Dr. Livingstone narrowly escaped death three times in a single day from the savages, who would not be persuaded that he did not belong to “the traders” guilty of the massacre.
The despatch to Dr. Kirk, Consul at Zanzibar, is of interest, as showing how the explorer had been annoyed, pained, and his plans frustrated by the inefficiency of those charged with sending him supplies from Zanzibar. In view of the dispute that has arisen upon this subject among certain representatives of public opinion in the United States and England, it may be well to show whether Dr. Livingstone himself thought he had been well or ill treated. In a postscript to this communication, he says, with evident reluctance and evident feeling:
“P. S.--November 16, 1871.--I regret the necessity of bringing the foregoing very unpleasant subject before you, but I have just received letters and information which make the matter doubly serious. Mr. Churchill informed me by a letter of September 19, 1870, that Her Majesty’s government had most kindly sent £1,000 for supplies, to be forwarded to me. Some difficulties had occurred to prevent £500 worth from starting, but in the beginning of November all were removed. But it appears that you had recourse to slaves again, and one of these slaves informs me that goods and slaves all remained at Bagamoio four months, or till near the end of February, 1871. No one looked near them during that time, but a rumor reached them that the Consul was coming, and off they started, two days before your arrival, not on their business, but on some private trip of your own. These slaves came to Unyanyembe in May last, and there they lay till war broke out and gave them, in July, a good excuse to lie there still.
“A whole year has thus been spent in feasting slaves on £500 sent by government to me. Like the man who was tempted to despair when he broke the photograph of his wife, I feel inclined to relinquish hope of ever getting help from Zanzibar to finish the little work I have still to do. I wanted men, not slaves, and free men are abundant at Zanzibar; but if the matter is committed to Ludha instead of an energetic Arab, with some little superintendence by your dragoman or others, I may wait twenty years and your slaves feast and fail.
D. L.
“I will just add that the second batch of slaves had, like the first, two freemen as the leaders, and one died of smallpox. The freemen in the first party of slaves were Shereef and Awathe. I enclose also a shameless overcharge in Ludha’s bill. $364 06¹⁄₂.--D. L.”
This should appear to be a complete justification of Mr. Stanley’s energetic animadversions upon the general maladministration of affairs at Zanzibar by the British Consulate there so far as they were related to Dr. Livingstone. It should be a source of honest congratulation to every American that a citizen of the United States, representing one of the most widely circulated public journals of the nation, energetically sent forward “men, not slaves,” and furnished supplies by means of which, it may reasonably be expected, the explorer may proceed with his great work and accomplish the object so dear to his admirable ambition.
Dr. Livingstone’s next dispatch is to Earl Granville, from Ujiji, December 18, 1871. It is almost wholly of an official nature, containing his theory, already herein set forth, of the watershed of the Nile, but contains a paragraph relating the arrival of the “Herald” expedition, which is well worthy of quotation:
“A vague rumor reached Ujiji in the beginning of last month that an Englishman had come to Unyanyembe with boats, horses, men, and goods in abundance. It was in vain to conjecture who this could be; and my eager inquiries were met by answers so contradictory that I began to doubt if any stranger had come at all. But one day, I cannot say which, for I was three weeks too fast in my reckoning, my man Susi came dashing up in great excitement, and gasped out, ‘An Englishman coming; see him!’ and off he ran to meet him. The American flag at the head of the caravan told me the nationality of the stranger. It was Henry M. Stanley, the travelling correspondent of the NEW YORK ‘Herald,’ sent by the son of the editor, James Gordon Bennett, Jr., at an expense of £5,000, to obtain correct information about me if living, and if dead to bring home my bones. The kindness was extreme, and made my whole frame thrill with excitement and gratitude. I had been left nearly destitute by the moral idiot Shereef selling off my goods for slaves and ivory for himself. My condition was sufficiently forlorn, for I had but a few articles of barter left of what I had taken the precaution to leave here, in case of extreme need. The strange news Mr. Stanley had to tell to one for years out of communication with the world was quite reviving. Appetite returned, and in a week I began to feel strong. Having men and goods, and information that search for an outlet of the Tanganyika was desired by Sir Roderick Murchison, we went for a month’s cruise down its northern end. This was a pleasure trip compared to the weary tramping of all the rest of my work; but an outflow we did not find.”
The opening paragraph of the dispatch from which this is taken is so finely characteristic, that it should not be omitted. Dr. Livingstone began his letter to Lord Clarendon’s successor in this beautifully courteous manner:
“MY LORD--The despatch of Lord Clarendon, dated 31st May, 1870, came to this place on the 13th ult., and its very kindly tone and sympathy afforded me a world of encouragement. Your lordship will excuse me in saying that with my gratitude there mingled sincere sorrow that the personal friend who signed it was no more.”
The last of these despatches of the explorer was the longest, and, perhaps, the most worthy of his fame. Addressed to Earl Granville, it was a clear, full statement of the prevalence of the African slave trade and a terrible denunciation of it, together with a proposition “which,” he says, “I have very much at heart--the possibility of encouraging the native Christians of English settlements on the west coast of Africa, to remove, by voluntary emigration, to a healthy spot on this side the continent.” There are in Zanzibar a considerable number of British subjects from India, called Banians. They are, like all British subjects, prohibited from engaging in the slave trade, but shrewdly managing to throw the responsibility upon the Arabs, they are in fact responsible for the slave trade of Zanzibar and all the horrible “slaving” of East Africa. “The Manyema cannibals,” says Dr. Livingstone, in this dispatch to Earl Granville, “among whom I spent nearly two years, are innocents compared with our protected Banian fellow-subjects. By their Arab agents they compass the destruction of more human lives in one year than the Manyema do for their fleshpots in ten.” “Slaves are not bought,” he says in another place, “in the countries to which the Banian agents proceed. Indeed it is a mistake to call the system of Ujiji ‘slave trade’ at all; the captives are not traded for, but murdered for, and the gangs which are dragged coastwise are usually not slaves, but captive free people.” To eradicate this fearful wrong, the practical remedy proposed by the explorer in his letter to Earl Granville is encouragement by the British government to the voluntary emigration of native Christians from the English settlements of the West Coast to the East Coast. In reply to the argument of the unhealthfulness of this portion of Africa he says that the fevers are bad enough indeed, but that very much more of the disease prevailing is due to intemperance and gross licentiousness than fever. The whole dispatch is a demonstration of Dr. Livingstone’s earnest piety, humanity and practical sagacity. If there are some passages in it which show that his Highland blood is up, they may be attributed to a fiery hatred of injustice.
These quotations from Dr. Livingstone’s letters of this important period of his life will be appropriately concluded with his letter of thanks to the editor of the “Herald”:
“UJIJI, ON TANGANYIKA, } “EAST AFRICA, November, 1871.}
“JAMES GORDON BENNETT, Esq., Jr.:--
“MY DEAR SIR--It is in general somewhat difficult to write to one we have never seen--it feels so much like addressing an abstract idea--but the presence of your representative, Mr. H. M. Stanley, in this distant region takes away the strangeness I should otherwise have felt, and in writing to thank you for the extreme kindness that prompted you to send him, I feel quite at home.
“If I explain the forlorn condition in which he found me you will easily perceive that I have good reason to use very strong expressions of gratitude. I came to Ujiji off a tramp of between four hundred and five hundred miles, beneath a blazing vertical sun, having been baffled, worried, defeated and forced to return, when almost in sight of the end of the geographical part of my mission, by a number of half-caste Moslem slaves sent to me from Zanzibar, instead of men. The sore heart made still sorer by the woful sights I had seen of man’s inhumanity to man reached and told on the bodily frame and depressed it beyond measure. I thought that I was dying on my feet. It is not too much to say that almost every step of the weary sultry way was in pain, and I reached Ujiji a mere ‘ruckle’ of bones.
“There I found that some five hundred pounds sterling worth of goods which I had ordered from Zanzibar had unaccountably been entrusted to a drunken half-caste Moslem tailor, who, after squandering them for sixteen months on the way to Ujiji, finished up by selling off all that remained for slaves and ivory for himself. He had “divined” on the Koran and found that I was dead. He had also written to the Governor of Unyanyembe that he had sent slaves after me to Manyema, who returned and reported my decease, and begged permission to sell off the few goods that his drunken appetite had spared. He, however, knew perfectly well, from men who had seen me, that I was alive, and waiting for the goods and men; but as for morality, he is evidently an idiot, and there being no law here except that of the dagger or musket, I had to sit down in great weakness, destitute of everything save a few barter cloths and beads, which I had taken the precaution to leave here in case of extreme need. The near prospect of beggary among Ujijians made me miserable. I could not despair, because I laughed so much at a friend who, on reaching the mouth of the Zambezi, said that he was tempted to despair on breaking the photograph of his wife. We could have no success after that. Afterward the idea of despair had to me such a strong smack of the ludicrous that it was out of the question.
“Well, when I had got to about the lowest verge, vague rumors of an English visitor reached me. I thought of myself as the man who went down from Jerusalem to Jericho; but neither priest, Levite, nor Samaritan could possibly pass my way. Yet the good Samaritan was close at hand, and one of my people rushed up at the top of his speed, and, in great excitement, gasped out, ‘An Englishman coming! I see him!’ and off he darted to meet him. An American flag, the first ever seen in these parts, at the head of a caravan, told me the nationality of the stranger. I am as cold and non-demonstrative as we islanders are usually reputed to be; but your kindness made my frame thrill. It was, indeed, overwhelming, and I said in my soul, ‘Let the richest blessings descend from the Highest on you and yours!’
“The news Mr. Stanley had to tell was thrilling. The mighty political changes on the Continent; the success of the Atlantic cables; the election of General Grant, and many other topics riveted my attention for days together, and had an immediate and beneficial effect on my health. I had been without news from home for years save what I could glean from a few _Saturday Reviews_ and _Punch_ of 1868. The appetite revived, and in a week I began to feel strong again.
“Mr. Stanley brought a most kind and encouraging despatch from Lord Clarendon, whose loss I sincerely deplore, the first I have received from the Foreign Office since 1866, and information that the British government had kindly sent a thousand pounds sterling to my aid. Up to his arrival I was not aware of any pecuniary aid. I came unsalaried, but this want is now happily repaired, and I am anxious that you and all my friends should know that, though uncheered by letter, I have stuck to the task which my friend Sir Roderick Murchison set me with ‘John Bullish’ tenacity, believing that all would come right at last.
“The watershed of South Central Africa is over seven hundred miles in length. The fountains thereon are almost innumerable--that is, it would take a man’s lifetime to count them. From the watershed they converge into four large rivers, and these again into two mighty streams in the great Nile valley, which begins in ten degrees to twelve degrees south latitude. It was long ere light dawned on the ancient problem and gave me a clear idea of the drainage. I had to feel my way, and every step of the way, and was, generally, groping in the dark, for who cared where the waters ran? We drank our fill and let the rest run by.
“The Portuguese who visited Cazemba asked for slaves and ivory, and heard of nothing else. I asked about the waters, questioned and cross-questioned, until I was almost afraid of being set down as afflicted with hydrocephalus.
“My last work, in which I have been greatly hindered from want of suitable attendants, was following the central line of drainage down through the country of the cannibals, called Manyuema, or, shortly, Manyema. This line of drainage has four large lakes in it. The fourth I was near when obliged to turn. It is from one to three miles broad, and never can be reached at any point or at any time of the year. Two western drains, the Lupira, or Bartle Frere’s River, flow into it at Lake Kamolondo. Then the great River Lomaine flows through Lake Lincoln into it, too, and seems to form the western arm of the Nile, on which Petherick traded.
“Now, I knew about six hundred miles of the watershed, and unfortunately the seventh hundred is the most interesting of the whole; for in it, if I am not mistaken, four fountains arise from an earthen mound, and the last of the four becomes, at no great distance off, a large river. Two of these run north to Egypt, Lupira and Louraine, and two run south into inner Ethiopia, as the Liambai, or upper Zambezi, and the Kafneare, but these are but the sources of the Nile mentioned by the Secretary of Minerva, in the city of Sais to Herodotus. I have heard of them so often, and at great distances off, that I cannot doubt their existence, and in spite of the sore longing for home that seizes me every time I think of my family I wish to finish up by their rediscovery.
“Five hundred pounds sterling worth of goods have again unaccountably been entrusted to slaves, and have been over a year on the way, instead of four months. I must go where they lie at your expense, ere I can put the natural completion to my work.
“And if my disclosures regarding the terrible Ujijian slavery should lead to the suppression of the east coast slave trade, I shall regard that as a greater matter by far than the discovery of all the Nile sources together. Now that you have done with domestic slavery forever, lend us your powerful aid toward this great object. This fine country is blighted, as with a curse from above, in order that the slavery privileges of the petty Sultan of Zanzibar may not be infringed, and the rights of the Crown of Portugal, which are mythical, should be kept in abeyance till some future time when Africa will become another India to Portuguese slave traders.
“I conclude by again thanking you most cordially for your great generosity, and am,
“Gratefully yours,
“DAVID LIVINGSTONE.”