CHAPTER XIX.
STANLEY’S ROUTE TO VICTORIA NYANZA.
Spends Christmas at Zingeh -- The Rainy Season Sets In -- Famine or Scarcity of Food -- Half-Rations -- Extortionate Chiefs Levy Blackmail -- Arrival at Jiweni -- Through Jungle to Kitalalo -- The Plain of Salina -- “Not a Drop of Water” -- Bellicose Natives -- Trouble with Many of his Followers -- Valuable Services Rendered him by Frank and Edward Pocock and Frederick Barker -- Frequent Quarrels -- The Trials of Stanley -- Camp at Mtiwi -- Terrible Rain Storm, and Sad Plight of Stanley and his People -- Misled by his Guide, is Lost in a Wild of Low Scrub and Brush -- Terrible Experiences -- Starvation Impending -- Sends for Relief to Suna in Urimi -- The Welcome Meal of Oatmeal -- A Singular Cooking Utensil -- Death of Edward Pocock -- The Weary March from the Warimi to Mgongo Tembe -- The Beautiful Usiha -- Reaches Victoria Nyanza February 27th, 1875 -- Enters Kagehyi -- Receives its Hospitalities -- The End of a Journey of 720 miles in 103 days.
The route of Stanley’s march from Mpwapwa took in Chunyu, Kikombo, Itumbi, Mpamira’s village, Lechumwa, Dudoma, and Zingeh, spending Christmas day at the latter place. The rainy season had set in and the condition of the explorer and his men was aught but agreeable, as appears by a letter written to a friend on Christmas day. He says, “It has been raining heavily the last two or three days, and an impetuous down-pour of sheet rain has just ceased. On the march, rain is very disagreeable; it makes the clayey path slippery, and the loads heavier by being saturated, while it half ruins the clothes. It makes us dispirited, wet and cold, added to which we are hungry--for there is a famine or scarcity of food at this season, and therefore we can only procure half-rations.”... “The natives have but little left. I myself have not had a piece of meat for ten days.”... “I weighed 180 pounds when I left Zanzibar, but under this diet I have been reduced to 134 pounds within thirty-eight days. The young Englishmen are in the same impoverished condition of body, and unless we reach some more flourishing country than Ugogo, we must soon become mere skeletons.
“Besides the terribly wet weather and the scarcity of food, we are compelled to undergo the tedious and wearisome task of haggling with extortionate chiefs over the amount of blackmail which they demand and which we must pay. We are compelled, as you may perceive, to draw heavy drafts on the virtues of prudence, patience and resignation, without which the transit of Ugogo under such conditions as above described, would be most perilous.”
The next camp westward of Zingeh was established at Jiweni, at an altitude of 3150 feet above sea-level. From here through a scrubby jungle to Kitalalo. From Kitalalo to the broad and almost level Salina, which stretches from Mizanza to the south of the track to the hills of Uyangwira, north. The greatest breadth of the plain of Salina is twenty miles, and its length may be estimated at fifty miles. The march across this plain was very fatiguing. Not a drop of water was discovered on the route, though towards the latter part of the journey a grateful rain-shower fell, which revived the caravan, but converted the plain into a quagmire.
“On approaching the Mukondoku district,” says Stanley, “we sighted the always bellicose natives advancing upon our van with uplifted spears and noisy show of war. This belligerent exhibition did not disturb our equanimity, as we were strangers and had given no cause for hostilities. After manifesting their prowess by a few harmless boasts and much frantic action, they soon subsided into a more pacific demeanor, and permitted us to proceed quietly to our camp under a towering baobab near the King’s village.”
In speaking, also, of his followers at this time, it appears that the explorer experienced considerable trouble with some of them. He pays great compliments for the invaluable services rendered him by Frank and Edward Pocock and Frederick Barker in endeavoring to harmonize the large, unruly mob, with its many eccentricities and unassimilating natures.
“Quarrels were frequent,” he says, “sometimes dangerous, between various members of the expedition, and at such critical moments only did my personal interference become imperatively necessary. What with taking solar observations and making ethnological notes, negotiating with chiefs about the tribute moneys and attending to the sick, my time was occupied from morning till night. In addition to all this strain on my own physical powers, I was myself frequently sick from fever, and wasted from lack of proper, nourishing food; and if the chief of an expedition be thus distressed, it may readily be believed that the poor fellows depending on him suffer also.”
On the 1st of January, 1875, Stanley struck north, thus leaving for the first time the path to Unyanyembe, the common highway of East Central Africa. The next halt was made at Mtiwi, the chief of which was Malewa. “The last night spent at this place was a disturbed one,” says Stanley; “the flood-gates of heaven seemed literally opened for a period. After an hour’s rainfall, six inches of water covered our camp, and a slow current ran southerly. Every member of the expedition was distressed, and even the Europeans, lodged in tents, were not exempt from the evils of the night. My tent walls enclosed a little pool, banked by boxes of stores and ammunition. Hearing cries outside, I lit a candle, and my astonishment was great to find that my bed was an island in a shallow river, which, if it increased in depth and current, would assuredly carry me off south towards the Rufiji. My walking-boots were miniature barks, floating to and fro on a turbid tide seeking a place of exit to the dark world of waters without. My guns, lashed to the centre pole, were stock deep in water. But the most comical sight was presented by Jack and Bull, perched back to back on the top of an ammunition box, butting each other rearward, and snarling and growling for that scant portion of comfort.
“In the morning I discovered my fatigue cap several yards outside the tent, and one of my boots 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, and with glad hearts we surmounted the upland of Uyanzi, and from our busy camp, on the afternoon of January 4th, gazed upon the spacious plain beneath, and the vast broad region of sterility and thorns which we had known as inhospitable Ugogo.”
On the 6th of January, Stanley reached Kashongwa, a village situated on the verge of a trackless wild, peopled by a mixture of Wasukuma, renegade Wangwana, and Wanyamwezi. Informed here that he was but a two days’ march from Urimi, and having yet two days’ rations, he resumed the march under the guidance of one of these people, along a route that was said would bring him to Urimi the day after. The experiences of Stanley and his people during the following four days can be best conceived from a perusal of his own words.
“The next day we travelled over a plain which had a gradual uplift towards the northwest, and was covered with dense, low brush. Our path was ill-defined, as only small Wagogo caravans traveled to Urimi; but the guide assured us that he knew the road. In this dense brush there was not one large tree. It formed a vast carpet of scrub and brush, tall enough to permit us to force our way among the lower branches, which were so interwoven one with another that it sickens me almost to write of this day’s experience. Though our march was but ten miles, it occupied us as many hours of labor, elbowing and thrusting our way, to the injury of our bodies and the detriment of our clothing.
“We camped at 5 P. M. near another pool, at an altitude of 4350 feet above the sea. The next day, on the afternoon of the 8th, we should have reached Urimi, and, in order to be certain of doing so, marched fourteen miles to still another pool at a height of 4550 feet above sea-level. Yet still we saw no limit to this immense brushfield, and our labors had, this day, been increased tenfold. Our guide had lost the path early in the day, and was innocently leading us in an easterly direction!
“The responsibility of leading a half-starved expedition--as ours now certainly was--through a dense brush, without knowing whither or for how many days, was great; but I was compelled to undertake it rather than to see it wander eastward, where it would be hopeless to expect provisions. The greater number of our people had consumed their rations early in the morning. I had led it northward for hours, when we came to a large tree to the top of which I requested the guide to ascend, to try if he could recognize any familiar feature in the dreary landscape. After a short examination, he declared he saw a ridge that he knew, near which, he said, was situate the village of Uveriveri. This news stimulated our exertions, and myself leading the van, we travelled briskly until 5 P. M., when we arrived at the third pool.
“Meantime Barker and the two Pococks, assisted by twenty chiefs, were bringing up the rear, and we never suspected for a moment that the broad track which we trampled over grass and through brush would be unperceived by those in rear of us. The Europeans and chiefs, assisted by the reports of heavily-loaded muskets, were enabled to reach camp successfully at 7 P. M.; but the chiefs then reported that there had not arrived a party of four men and a donkey boy who was leading an ass loaded with coffee. Of these, however there was no fear, as they had detailed the chief Simba to oversee them--Simba having a reputation among his fellows for fidelity, courage, and knowledge of travel.
“The night passed, and the morning of the 9th dawned, and anxiously I asked about the absentees. They had not arrived. But as each hour in the jungle added to the distress of a still greater number of people, we moved on to the miserable village of Uveriveri. The inhabitants consisted of only two families, who could not spare us one grain! We might as well have remained in the jungle, for no sustenance could be procured here.
“In this critical position, many lives hanging on my decision, I resolved to despatch forty of the strongest men--ten chiefs and thirty of the boldest youths--to Suna in Urimi, for the villagers of Uveriveri had of course given us the desired information as to our whereabouts. The distance from Uveriveri to Suna was twenty-eight miles, as we subsequently discovered. Pinched with hunger themselves, the forty volunteers advanced with the resolution to reach Suna that night. They were instructed to purchase 800 pounds of grain, which would give a light load of twenty pounds to each man, and urged to return as quickly as possible, for the lives of their women and friends depended on their manliness.
“Manwa Sera was also despatched with a party of twenty to hunt up the missing men. Late in the afternoon they returned with the news that three of the missing men were dead. They had lost the road, and, traveling along an elephant track, had struggled on till they perished of despair, hunger, and exhaustion. Simba and the donkey boy, the ass and its load of coffee, were never seen or heard of again.
“With the sad prospect of starvation impending over us we were at various expedients to sustain life until the food purveyors should return. Early on the morning of the 10th I travelled far and searched every likely place for game; but though tracks were numerous, we failed to sight a single head. The Wangwana also roamed about the forest--for the Uveriveri ridge was covered with fine myombo trees--in search of edible roots and berries, and examined various trees to discover whether they afforded anything that could allay the grievous and bitter pangs of hunger. Some found a putrid elephant, on which they gorged themselves, and were punished with nausea and sickness. Others found a lion’s den, with two lion’s whelps, which they brought to me. Meanwhile, Frank and I examined the medical stores, and found to our great joy we had sufficient oatmeal to give every soul two cupfuls of thin gruel. A ‘Torquay dress trunk’ of sheet-iron was at once emptied of its contents and filled with twenty-five gallons of water, into which were put ten pounds of oatmeal and four one-pound tins of ‘revalenta arabica.’ How the people, middle-aged and young gathered round that trunk, and heaped fuel underneath that it might boil the quicker! How eagerly they watched it lest some calamity should happen, and clamored, when it was ready, for their share. And how inexpressibly satisfied they seemed as they tried to make the most of what they received, and with what fervor they thanked ‘God’ for his mercies!”
On the 12th of January, Stanley reached Suna, where he halted four days. Owing to the deplorable condition of his people, but through the evident restlessness of the Warimi tribe at their presence, the insufficient quantity of food that could be purchased, and the growing importunings of the Wangwana to be led away from such a churlish and suspicious people, Stanley was sorely perplexed. He had now over thirty men on the sick list, and among them Edward Pocock, one of the young Englishmen, and who subsequently died. Owing to the sickness of temper from which the Warimi suffered, it became imperative that he should keep moving, if only two or three miles a day. Accordingly, on the 17th of January, he moved from his camp, the sick being carried in hammocks. Hundreds of the natives, fully armed, kept up with the caravan, on either side of its path.
“Never since leaving the sea were we weaker in spirit than on this day,” says Stanley. “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.”... “We are 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.”
Mangura, Izanjeh, and Vinyata, were the next places which marked the route of Stanley’s expedition. At the latter place he made a halt of five days, meeting with no little hostility from the natives, some skirmishing, and suffering the loss of some of his people. On the morning of the 26th, just before daybreak, he resumed his interrupted journey. On the 27th, at dawn, he crossed the Leewumbu, and the whole of that day and the day following his route was through a forest of fine myombo, intersected by singular narrow plains, forming at that season of the year so many quagmires. On the 29th he entered Mgongo Tembe, and formed the acquaintance of the Chief Malewa. On the 1st of February, after a very necessary halt of two days at Mgongo Tembe, with an addition to his force of eight pagazis and two guides, and encouraged by favorable reports of the country in front, he entered Mangura in Usukuma, near a strange valley containing a forest of borassus palms, thence by way of Igira, through the magnificent plain of Luwamberri, and across the Itawa River on its western verge. On the 9th he crossed the Nanga ravine, and the next day arrived at the Seligwa, flowing to the Leewumbu, and, following its course for four miles, reached the hospitable village of Mombiti.
On leaving the Leewumbu--or the Monangah River, as it is also called--Stanley struck northerly across a pathless country seamed with elephant tracks, rhinoceros wallows, and gullies which contained pools of gray, muddy water, and on the morning of the 17th arrived at eastern Usiha. Usiha is the commencement of a most beautiful pastoral country, which terminates only in the Victoria Nyanza. From the summit of one of the weird gray rock-piles which characterize it, one may enjoy that unspeakable fascination of an apparently boundless horizon. “On all sides,” says Stanley, “there stretches towards it the face of a vast circle replete with peculiar features, of detached hills, great crag-masses of riven and sharply-angled rock, and out-cropping mounds, between which heaves and rolls in low, broad waves a green, grassy plain, whereon feed thousands of cattle scattered about in small herds.”
On the morning of the 27th, five days later, Stanley had reached Gambachika, in North Usmau. This place is nineteen miles from the village of Kagehyi, his point of destination on Lake Victoria.
In speaking of his last day’s march, Stanley says: “The people were as keenly alive to the importance of this day’s march, and as fully sensitive to what this final journey to Kagehyi promised their weary frames, as we Europeans. They, as well as ourselves, looked forward to many weeks of rest from our labors and to an abundance of good food.
“When the bugle sounded the signal to ‘take the road,’ the Wanyamezi and Wangwana responded to it with cheers, and loud cries of ‘Ay indeed! ay indeed! please God!’ and their good will was contagious. The natives, who had mustered strongly to witness our departure, were effected by it, and stimulated our people by declaring that the lake was not very far off--‘but two or three hours’ walk.’
“We dipped into the basins and troughs of the land, surmounted ridge after ridge, crossed watercourses and ravines, passed by cultivated fields, and through villages smelling strongly of cattle, by good-natured groups of natives, until, ascending a long, gradual slope, we heard, on a sudden, hurrahing in front, and then we too, with the lagging rear, knew that those in the van were in view of the great lake!
“Presently we also reached the brow of the hill, where we found the expedition halted, and the first quick view revealed to us a long, broad arm of water, which a dazzling sun transformed into silver, some 600 feet below us, at a distance of three miles.”
In a short time the expedition had entered the village of Kagehyi, and Prince Kaduma, chief of Kagehyi, induced by one Sungoro, an Arab resident, proffered its hospitalities to the strangers. In summing up, during the evening of his arrival at this rude village on the Nyanza, the number of statute miles travelled by him, as measured by two rated pedometers and pocket watch, Stanley ascertained it to be 720. The time occupied--from November 17, 1874, to February 27, 1875, inclusive--was 103 days, divided into seventy marching and thirty-three halting days--an average of a little over ten miles a day.